Show & Tell

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

Thrax placed the Heart back into the reliquary even more reverently than before, profoundly reminded of its invaluable importance. Upon closing the lid, he shrugged and said, "I've seen for myself just how much universe there is, yet there is more I haven't seen than I could ever hope to imagine. Never underestimate the wondrous and terrible variety of what's out there."

[Mooncalf]

"It's good you have it." she says with a sage nod.

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"Agreed," he answered with a nod as he moved to put the reliquary in the safe. "Although, sometimes I wonder if I was really the best choice they had. I'm not the most devout or the strongest or the best in a fight. I am the best musician of all the initiates but that can't have anything to do with it."

[Mooncalf]

"I don't know. Maybe you're most how they want it to be. It's a two-way mirror."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

He gave her a funny look. Sometimes she was profoundly perceptive but, other times, she didn't make a lick of sense. "The most how who wants it to be? Definitely not the Elders; I'm a bit too irreverent for their taste."

But, then, the Storm didn't care whether people held it sacred, let alone if they did so 'correctly'. The Storm merely passed through, leaving change in its wake with no regard for that which fought against that change. Thrax, too, was a thing of chaos, albeit different in that he cared. It was his greatest strength and, perhaps, that was why he was chosen as much as his powers.

[Mooncalf]

Mooncalf just shrugs again. "The Elders? I dunno!" she says cheerfully. "Two storms dancing, one consumes in a becoming of the other. Lightning strikes across infinity to find the ground and leaves a frozen mark. It remembers the shape of it and branches linger. They cannot be unmade but twist on winds unspoken." she goes on in the same cheerful tone. "By itself it cannot care."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"Exactly! Stagnation is the opposite of the Storm. Rigid things break more easily and I'm as flexible as they come," he answered proudly, realizing that he was likely chosen for that reason. In the last moments of the Order, they had realized the error of dogma that had left them blind to what was coming.

[Mooncalf]

Mooncalf tilts her head as she looks at Thrax. "What's an opposite?"

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"You know, something that's the reverse of something else: up and down, in and out, life and death, black and white. Not always literally the furthest thing from something, though."

[Mooncalf]

Mooncalf blinks at Thrax. "That makes no sense. Nothing's only one thing. How's that work?"

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"I'll admit it isn't a perfect system and there are always exceptions. It's more a general vibe than anything," he answered with a shrug. "We can't see it all like you can so we need separate boxes for things."

[Mooncalf]

"Oh! Oh it's like one of those imaginary things." she nods. "Like good and evil and right or wrong."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"You do realize you're technically talking to a member of the clergy," he responded with a smirk.

His expression sobered; the forces of evil had taken over his world, after all. "My religion doesn't really have a deity or any kind of hell but it does have a concept of good and evil. The butchers who went after us very much qualify as the latter from my perspective."

[Mooncalf]

"Yeah, like that."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"Being largely relative doesn't mean good and evil don't exist. As you said, nothing is just one thing; in this case good and evil can be both real and imaginary. Granted, examples of pure good and pure evil are nearly impossible to find," he answered, putting on his philosophy hat. "People are varying degrees of both."

"I'm no exception."

[Mooncalf]

"Everything is... compromise. I think I get it. Your good and evil mixes with everyone else's. That's how you make things from nothing!" she claps once at her own realization. "There's yours and theirs and everything in between until it gives it a shape we can hear. That's brilliant!"

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"Like music!" he exclaimed with a grin. "Many instruments and voices coming together to bring something from the mind into reality. The song of civilization, as it were."

[Mooncalf]

Mooncalf's eyes widen, her mouth hanging open as if Thrax just revealed the secret of the universe to her.

"Like music..." she whispers.

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"Hah! Now you know what it's like talking to you!" he laughed. "You've blown my mind at least three times today. Consider this payback."

[Mooncalf]

"Like that one time the music poured down. Were they trying to talk to us?" she mumbles to herself.

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

Thrax raised one brow. "Is this a Mooncalfism or did that actually happen?"

[Mooncalf]

"Everything I say actually happened!" she gasps at the idea of her name being conflated with lieing. "People just don't understand what I mean all the time. Which is fine! I don't understand what people mean half the time either."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"I didn't mean to call you a liar. It's just hard to tell how literal you're being, oh, ninety percent of the time," he clarified. "Or are you only ever literal and I just can't follow?

[Mooncalf]

"Well yeah. Having to put things into vibrating air made with goopy membranes looses so much meaning already!"

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

He nodded. "Just like my auto-translator misses so much of the nuance of my native tongue. Well, maybe not just like it; it's still organic speech, just with a technological filter. But I get what you mean."

[Mooncalf]

"I accidentally tried 'talking' to Insur--Haley? Through her thought-boundary-breaking. It mostly just hurt her."

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"Yeah, I wouldn't want to connect directly to your cosmic weirdness. I value my sanity too much. No offense!"

[Mooncalf]

Mooncalf nods. "So I've noticed. That's why you need the Storm and Mutations and Story and Song. Or... maybe those are what happens naturally where our worlds touch." she says. While she's still not making perfect sense all the time, she certainly seems to be able to express herself more clearly since touching the Heart.

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"It's eerie how much of my faith you're touching on intuitively. The Order teaches that story and song, religious and secular alike, are ways to communicate with the sacred. That's why they are as much wandering minstrels as champions of justice. I've... drifted away from the latter but I've never strayed from spreading the joy of the tale. I feel like I wouldn't be me if I did."

[Mooncalf]

"I don't know anything about gods and sacreds, but then I didn't know anything about here either. It sounds nice though!"

[Thraxion Ord'Rakar]

"It is nice. It makes us feel like we're part of something greater than us, that our lives matter in this great, indifferent universe," he answered with a gentle smile. "But I'm not here to convert anyone. Besides, you're already in touch with something more than I could ever truly hope to comprehend."