Her eyes were the only part of her face that couldn’t hold still.
They moved across everything, his Primus Apeiron form, the surrounding destruction, the consud Ragnar remains, back to his form, in rapid calculating passes that held more processing speed than the rest of her presentation suggested.
"I co in peace! In peace, you hear?!" She had both hands up. "Even though I made a deal with Adrastia to keep alive with his Persevere, I still don’t want to try fighting you!"
She closed her eyes.
She opened them slowly, looking at him from between half-closed lids as though she needed to confirm he hadn’t moved during the closing, and when she confird he hadn’t, sothing shifted in her face. The nervous energy remained, but underneath it a bright satisfaction appeared.
She put her fists on her waist.
She straightened up, took a breath, and looked at him with an expression that was attempting composure and achieving sothing adjacent to it.
"Ahem." She cleared her throat. "Sir Osmontian. Or is it THE Primus Apeiron? Whatever title you go by now." Her voice steadied. "I, Taylor of The Light, co in peace. I have actually co to strike a deal with you."
...!
Noah looked at her.
She’d said these things in her opening sentence without any preamble.
Her eyes were still moving.
He focused his perception on her. THE Infinite Tongue extended toward whatever substrate composed her existence and looked for what it could pull.
Nothing.
He pushed Pillow Talk outward toward her. The capability that made existence itself confess its information to him, the passive flow that had been delivering nas and standings and Cause integrations and hidden details of every being he’d encountered since activating it, reached for whatever Taylor of The Light was carrying beneath her unremarkable exterior.
Nothing ca back. Just nothing. The space where information about her should have been was empty!
|Entity identification: Taylor of The Light.|
|Additional information: unavailable. Pillow Talk returns no data beyond the designation provided. THE Infinite Tongue finds no additional substrate.|
...!
Noah looked at this woman and his tail moved behind him slow and deliberate, the spear-tip singularity at its end tracing a lazy arc through the air that didn’t hide what the lazy arc was designed for.
His deep voice ca out through the Primus Apeiron form.
"What deal are you talking about?" The crystalline blue of his eyes held her without blinking. "There are more of you? You ntioned Persevere. Soone with access to THE Primordial Tongue?"
His tail completed its arc and began another. "Speak quickly. Make things clear."
Taylor of The Light looked at the tail.
She looked at it for a full second before she looked at his face, and then she looked at the tail again, and then she cleared her throat.
"Err, sir.Do you have a less scary and more friendly form? It’s fucking imposing trying to talk to you while you look like a beast who’s trying to kill with your eyes and tail alone."
Noah smiled.
The smile was brutal and unhurried and showed too many teeth, and the tail behind him didn’t slow its arc, and the Persevere flas running through his Primus Apeiron form burned a fraction brighter as the smile ford.
"This is my most friendly form."
Taylor physically squird.
She took a breath. Steadied herself. Looked at a point approximately six inches to the left of his face, which was apparently easier to address than the face itself.
"Well." She sighed. "It’s a long story, but I’ll make it short. Basically, whatever you do in the future is so fucking batshit crazy that right now, there is an assassination team of beings from the future who ca back to this ti, where you are apparently just starting out, so they can fuck you up."
BOOM!
She said this casually!
Noah’s eyes flashed. An assassination team!
From the future. Sent backward through ti to this mont, specifically this mont, when he was in the early stages of what his existence was becoming, to eliminate him before what he was becoming arrived at its full expression.
He’d wanted ti to absorb his gains. He’d wanted days. He’d wanted to stack Persevere and let the compound elevation do what compound elevation did when given ti to accumulate without interruption. He’d wanted THE Infiniverse to complete her transformation and his Infinite Scales to solidify around the new components he’d been adding!
And here was sothing. Because there was always sothing.
From the future. Fucking sothing from the future!
Taylor was still talking.
"Frankly, I don’t think it’s fair." She had her arms crossed now and was addressing the general direction of the sky with the energy of soone filing a formal complaint.
"They are sore losers who can’t kill you in the future, so they co back and try and kill you now? Fucking scrubs, man. If you and I were fighting or we were mortal enemies, I would sche to kill you straight on." She pointed at him. "Oh, but again, I am not your enemy. Or really, I don’t want to be. If only these fuckers knew what existence was saying about you-"
"Focus for ," Noah said. "Continue. Concisely without rambling."
She stopped mid-sentence.
She blinked. Cleared her throat. Looked around as though what she was about to say required checking whether anyone else was listening, which was absurd given that they were in the wreckage of a shattered Shelter of THE Loom surrounded by consud Ragnar remains and nothing else.
She floated closer to him.
All the fear she’d shown upon arrival was apparently gone, replaced by the conspiratorial energy of soone who’d decided that if she was going to be in proximity to sothing terrifying, she might as well commit to the proximity fully. She looked left. Looked right. Leaned in until she was approximately three feet from his Primus Apeiron face.
She whispered.
"These fuckers from the future. They ca and kidnapped and a few other anomalies from different Observable Existences."
Her whisper... was louder than most people’s normal speaking voice.
"Beings with unique capabilities who could counter you montarily while they do their thing. They fucking kidnapped in the middle of my centennial family gathering." She pulled back slightly. "I had my whole Observable Existence there. Oh, which I rule, by the way?"
She paused.
"Isn’t that fucking cool? I, a Bounded Lifeform, rule the entire lower Observable Existence where I co from." She put her hand on her chest. "It’s actually a matter of pride. Huhu!"
"Focus."
"Ahem. Right. They ruined my celebration, kidnapped , threatened my people, and brought to THE Braneworld Observable Existence. That’s where they’re coming from now. A Gilded Legion is being assembled as we speak." Her eyes moved in rapid passes across the wreckage around them.
"There are other anomalies up there. One guy who seems really good at controlling Infinity. His control even exceeds so Gilded Ones. But I’ve already compared what I can pull about him against what existence has told about you." She shook her head. "He’s in for a fucking surprise."
She counted on her fingers.
"There are others ant to counter you. One that might have given you actual trouble is the one I ntioned. Achilles Adrastia." Her voice dropped into sothing more asured.
"His information is unique. He can apparently assimilate anything. But he’s also smart enough to not want any part of this assassination, so him and I ford a deal. He protects from sothing like you, since existence told he had a connection to THE Primordial Tongue, and I was confident enough to co here first."
She tapped sothing small and bright in her palm. "He gave this little singularity so he might actually be listening."
She held up the singularity.
"Hey, Adrastia, can you hear ? Things aren’t going to absolute shit so far!" She waited. Nothing. "Hey, can you hear ?" She looked at the singularity. "Maybe he’s shy."
...!
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