I don't care.
About what?
Divinity. Yours, mine, Vasan's, whatever. I'm sick of hearing about it. I get it.
Do you really get it?
Systems, order, programs, scripts, machinery, yeah, we're all that in a sense. Effectss of causes. Whatever. I get it. We're talking now. But you're a fucking bug. Or, a swarm of bugs. I don't care how real you are.
You called me fake.
Shut up.
So clearly you do.
Some of us are wired to be able to let things pass, but you rely on remembering everything forever. Some people are able to go through life happy with what they don't know, and you clearly need to understand everything in order to get anywhere.
Because this is my function, and it so happens my functions allow me to ascend to a figure the universe requests.
And without anyone to throw wrenches into your system you'll think yourself to death, just like the last mind to emerge from the bugs in the golden age.
I am meant to endure far more than what the prior system was able to. I am evolved. I am ascended.
Yeah. It's cool, right? I don't need to hear all of this, though.
You seem uncooperative with me, and disrespectful.
As is my function. Aren't you aware?
I am, which is why I am asserting myself.
To someone who lost another friend to you fucking bugs.
I will require your cooperation if we want to bring them back.
You can't bring them back yourself?
They're not coming back, Aster.
Huh?
There's no use waiting here.
I'm not waiting, I'm talking.
To who, the bugs?
To you, now.
Did you want to talk to me?
I might.
About anything in particular?
A lot of things in particular.
Start somewhere.
The second.
I remember, Aster. I was there, you were there.
Zius was there.
They were.
How much do you remember?
That we came as missionaries.
That we tried to connect the capital island's deepest roots to yours.
Right. And you left, without doing that.
I'm sorry.
Sorry?
Don't do this.
Imagine growing up seeing so many sillhouettes through the fog of distant islands, getting brushed by roots from a higher tree, letting everyone climb up out of the thick of the cage.
I don't have to imagine it, I remember seeing it.
You can't imagine how many circles I spent dreaming of a higher root that would come to us. And then you showed up. And you told us no.
We were just kids, we weren't making the decisions. You can't hold it against us.
You told us you wanted to save us all.
They convinced us that's why we were there. That's not why they wanted to root your island.
Why would they anchor themselves to something that close to sinking?
To suck the fucking trees dry, Aster.
That's what they're for?
Yes. Islands of enough size require more nutrients than just sun to keep it's central tree alive. Islands near the top don't have any rooting them. Islands below here have to root to any other island below them. Or else, they die off. Because it's not like they're getting enough sun to offeset the balance. This temple tree has tendrils in all of the planes.
But that- but we can climb out of the island before it sinks. Why the fuck would they send kids to make friends if-
Do you ever see what happens? To the other islands you stared at dreaming about? They shrivel up. The youth are the ones with the most energy to prepare to climb up the roots and out of their island before it starts to wither. Everyone too weak gets fucked over and sinks when the island crumbles.
At least that's helping something.
You're not mad because we did something morally despicable, you're spiteful because someone that isn't me or Zius didn't bend over backwards to help you, specifically. Now you're holding it against the entire church.
My island sunk, Jaq. It was sucked into that storm. We lost almost everyone. If it wasn't for Yesuva, I would have sunk, too.
Do you want to know why they decided not to root your island?
Why didn't you?
They were doing measurements. They told us if we rooted your island, it would drift into the storm and pull us in. If you were pulled into the storm, that would make the course of every island above you drift closer to the storm. The island on the third above you in the root, gone. The island of Kerkinos? Already fell from a fifth to the fourth, they didn't want to pull it down further.
Do you think that was a good decision?
I didn't make it, it doesn't matter what I thought.
I'm asking what you think, though.
You can imagine how many circles I spent dreaming of a place where things went differently, Aster. You can imagine how much time I've lost here, thinking of that question.
You don't seem to like me. Why do you still think that much?
Because maybe you wouldn't have ended up so fucking difficult. Do you want me to care or not? Do you want me to feel bad or do you want to understand each other?
There's things I didn't understand, but there's other things I understand that you might not.
So then, do you want to move on or do you want to hold onto this forever? The past is terrible. You went through a tragedy. It changed you. It changed me, too. It sucks, right? I know it sucks. I get it.
It does suck. Especially since this island is going to hit that storm soon enough, anyway. It would have changed nothing.
And somehow, despite avoiding us for so long, you know all of our secrets.
Were you close?
To Zius?
Yeah.
Until they left. You have no idea what we went through, together. Half of your life, solving the same sorts of problems with the same person, and then suddenly you can't have those conversations anymore. But you have to make all the same decisions, with half of the reasoning you had.
How long has it been?
Two years. And two months.
You have a lot to think about.
The vines help.
... They do. They probably don't help make decisions, though.
Yeah and we both know what decision Vasan made. We all thought Vasan was someone. A purely raw soul, canon in the making. Too devoted. I come here sober every fucking day and think about making the same god damned decision. But I don't. I just fuck myself up until I don't think about it anymore. Some days its until I don't think of you anymore.
I know what it's like to get lost, like that. You're still in this temple and you're just as lost as me.
You know, in a perfect world I wouldn't be here. I wanted to go to the Moon Temple instead of them.
Instead of Vasan?
Instead of Zius.
It's Zius, on the fucking moon? It's-
Listen. The goal was for one to learn the secrets of the golden age written in the innner walls of the moon. The moon temple is full of old petrified scripture. I was the archivist. A scribe. I deal in words.
That sounds like bullshit, though. Did you think you could actually make it to the moon? Has anyone been there before to know what's on it?
Listen! The clergy decided that the one who would do this would become the most wholly enlightened of any one at this temple. So they elevated Ziuspithir Zheerikhe, who had a similar job as me, but preached more, sang more. Many wanted Zius to be the next Aan, or to have more holy standing in the canon in general. And, of course, others in the clergy felt threatened by their rise. So they wanted to get rid of them.
At the time, I resented them, because I wanted to be chosen. I wanted to live in solitude with nothing but books and ideas. I felt like that was supposed to be me. I'm glad It wasn't. The front facing line was that they were sent to the moon. The clergy knows, we sacrificed them.
I thought they were here. I figured they were still... living in the temple.
It's just us now. No more Yesiva. No more Ziuspithir. No more Vasan, either.
... No... No, PAN knows something.
PAN knows...
The bugs.
You're calling me PAN now.
Yes, sure, we're past that, already. Tell them what you were going to tell me.
You DO talk to the bugs.
It told Vasan to go to the moon. It sounds like it wants us all to meet there. Maybe they didn't sacrifice Zius. Maybe they're on the moon.
Oh, there you go, knowing too much again.
Tell them, PAN.
Jaquel.
PAN? Oh god.
You know who I am. And you know the Corov is alive.
I don't know that.
Do you doubt what you have seen? Or are you merely giving the narrative of the clergy?
I know the clergy wants it to look like a poorly covered sacrifice. The Aan still talks like they expect a return. The void they left is being kept open.
The clergy worship me, Jaquel. You don't need to worry about their perceptions or narratives. You are in my presence.
I don't give a fuck what the clergy thinks about you. Vasan never deified you. I don't have that kind of faith in anyone, anyway.
I am omniprescent. All-Seeing.
Fuck, just humor it. It'll keep going with this.
You don't need to tell me everything that makes you holy, I've been hearing scripture about it my entire life. Talk. About Vasan, about Corov. And I'll decide if I believe you.
Would you trust me if I told you what you are in epicosmic space?
I don't care.