A familiar sight. A clean yet simultaneously lived-in and comfortable lounge. A countertop polished to a mirror shine, and behind it, a large and burly ram-man casually cleaning a tall glass with so custom-made tool holding a washcloth. An extraordinary scene, yet at the sa ti, nothing out of the ordinary.
"[They art the cautious sort, and hideth their tracks with effort of the most ticulous kind. Their work fills with pride and frustration in equal asure.]"
"[This, my eyes can perceive when gazing upon your countenance, general,]" I answered in Faunish, and his lips bent into an amused smirk. "[Can your n-at-arms not stalk the trail of these cohorts of the foolish master of subterfuge with a manner of truth?]"
"[Not yet, Blackcloak, but it shall be done in due ti.]"
I let out a shallow sigh and took a sip from my drink. I wasn't sitting, because I was planning to move soon, as I had a eting planned with Mike and Moose in the evening. I wasn't in the mood for it, after the impromptu duel, and especially after the whole kerfuffle with the class rep, but I made a promise, and I was going to keep it.
But speaking of the class rep, she was currently sitting with my girlfriends at the other end of the counter, and they were engaged in a heated discussion about the Simulacrum and all of its foibles. I tapped out to get so ti to think, while Judy was holding the fort. In truth, she was mostly there to diate, as the discussion soon devolved into a heated argunt between Ammy and Elly, their unbridled optimist and unexpected nihilism clashing like a pair of angry buffalos on an intellectual prairie.
"But if we ca into existence on the first of last September," Ammy argued, her arms crossed and the light glinting off her glasses giving her a fierce atmosphere, "then that ans your childhood mories were all inserted into your head at that ti, and none of them actually happened."
"It doesn't matter," the princess fought back, also folding her arms and her brows down in a glare. "Everyone rembers it the sa, so whether it really happened or not is a aningless question. The important thing is that we rember the events, and they inform who we are."
"And I'm saying you can't be sure your mories are reliable either."
"For the record," Judy butted in, sounding especially exasperated. "We have no docunted evidence of people's mories being retroactively tampered with by the Narrative."
Even though I wasn't part of the conversation, I reflexively nodded along. Or rather, I approved of the qualifier tagged at the end, because by retconning my mug, I have technically done that, but it wasn't the Narrative that did it, so it technically didn't count.
"I grant you that, but how can you know that your mories of your mories being altered aren't altered themselves?"
"Argh! We're going in circles!" the princess exclaid in frustration and threw her hands into the air, and they soon launched into another argunt.
In the anti, I finished up my drink and placed the empty glass onto the counter with a long sigh. Honestly, I needed this whole situation with the class rep about as bad as an ingrown toenail, but it ca about because of my forgetfulness, so I had to deal with it. And just when I finally started striking issues off my priority list. Maybe that was why Brang's report annoyed so much as well.
Long story short, Tajana's Faun retinue was caught following Snowy around at a distance on more than one occasion, but Brang and our Fauns had a hard ti tracking them down, ironically because of our own security asures around the school. While Roland and Arnwald practically read my mind and made sure the Praetorian Guards would only operate within the school and Angie's neighbourhood, with the rest of the precinct remaining under Ordo Draconis and Kage responsibility, it still imposed serious restrictions on our Fauns.
If they learned we had a squad of them, and it got back to the Elysium, it would just serve as more ammunition for the Directorate against . Hell, even if we ignored the political angle, if the Celestials ran into any of them, they would not only be unable to tell them apart from other Fauns, but they most likely wouldn't care either and attack them on principle. While the Kage ninjas were decent trackers, they weren't able to take down multiple Fauns unless they seriously outnumbered them, and our biggest assets in the hunt (read: Mountain Girl and Ichiko) were currently bogged down in so silly interpersonal malarkey involving Naoren I didn't want to touch, lest it would end up added to my priority list as well.
As such, Tajana's Fauns remained a thorn in our side, and I really wanted to cross them off my list already. The fact they shifted their focus to Snowy also bothered , but lately, she was glued to Penny twenty-four-seven (at least whenever she wasn't out interrogating Percival) and between the two of them, I doubted they posed any danger at all.
Ack! And I just reminded myself of that old bastard again!
While I fud, trying to think of a way to quickly resolve at least so of my annoyances, I was approached by Judy, and she unceremoniously rested her forehead against my chest.
"I owe you an apology, Chief."
"For what?"
While Brang took the empty glass I placed on the counter, my dear assistant let out a long sigh.
"Back when we first started, I secretly thought your aversion to disseminating information about the nature of the universe and the existence of the Narrative was overly cautious and silly. I stand proven wrong."
"Hear, hear," I jested, only to stop when she reached out with her right hand, without looking up, and pinched my cheek.
"Take responsibility."
"I will, I will, but I told you I have other arrangents for today. Please take care of her for , just for today?"
Sighing, she let go of my face and finally looked in the eye.
"I understand that everyone responds differently to learning about the underlying nature of the world, but her reaction is…"
Her words trailed off as we glanced back at Ammy and the princess, still locked in an argunt.
"I'm telling you, it's not like that! I don't like Leo because 'destiny says so'!"
"But how can you be sure?"
"Because I was supposed to like Josh! That's what this Narrative thing wanted, but I don't like him that way anymore!"
"A-ha! So you admit that your feelings for Josh were because you were pre-programd by destiny."
"That's not the point!"
Judy and I let out a sigh, pretty much in unison.
"It's draining," my lovely assistant concluded her previous thought, and I couldn't not agree with her. "She seems to be hell-bent on interpreting everything in the worst way possible. It feels like a mixture of philosophical skepticism and nihilism rolled into one."
"It probably has sothing to do with the shock and her unique circumstances. Be patient with her."
Just as I said that…
"… but destiny set up those archetypes, didn't it?" Ammy argued with a hand on her glasses. "Think about it. If Leo is this 'idiot friend' he wrote about, then all of his actions make a lot of sense."
"..." I could feel my face slowly harden, and I whispered. "Dormouse, hold back. I've run out of patience and got a strong urge to bonk her over the head."
"No, Chief. Bad Chief," Judy chided with a hand on my chest. "Violence is bad."
"Then what about Judy?" the princess continued the argunt in the back, and the class rep let out a derisive scoff, causing my lovely assistant to stiffen up and turn a pair of narrowed eyes at her.
"She's a placeholder, right? That ans she just developed in a way to fit into destiny's plan."
"… Chief, hold back. I'm going to slap her if you don't."
"Easy there. Violence is bad," I echoed her with a hand on the top of her head and tousled her hair. "That said, I really need to set down so ground rules here," I added in a low, almost growly voice, and was ready to walk over when I recalled sothing and turned my head to the left.
"[Yes?]" Brang responded the mont our eyes t.
"[Yours truly feels the paramount magnitude to instruct your mind to cease etching any of our words into stones of rembrance.]"
The old Faun swivelled his ears and gave a solemn nod.
"[Aye. Thy faithful retainer, I shalt implent the utmost of confidentiality. What enters one of mine own ears shalt leaveth the other, without as much as leaving a trace behind.]"
"[Hearing your words fill the void of my chest with warm waters of respite.]"
I'll be honest, I didn't even understand my last response. It was probably so kind of Faunish idiom, as Brang seed to have no problem deciphering it, and flashed an appreciative smile.
In any case, I resolved myself to not delay the inevitable any longer, and we took the couple of short yet long steps necessary to enter into Elly's and the class rep's little bubble.
"No, the whole point is that—" the princess was about to deny yet another one of Ammy's insistent insinuations, but fell silent when I stopped by their side.
"Are you back? Good. I have many questions about the nature of—"
"Hush," I interjected, trying to sound soft but ending up rather unyielding even to my ears. "Before anything else, we need to discuss your attitude. We can't get anywhere until we do sothing about that."
"My attitude?" Ammy responded and pushed his glasses up the bridge of her nose. "That's unexpected. After keeping all of this a secret for so long, I thought you would've developed a thicker skin about the obvious implications of your hypotheses."
"No. These implications are far from obvious." My words were followed by a soft 'Yeah, you tell her!' from the princess, but when I signalled her to keep low, she did so with a pout. "I'm not holding anything against you, because learning all of this at once clearly shocked you—"
"I'm not shocked. I'm quite calm," she interjected, but I ignored her.
"— even if you do your best to hide it. As much as I appreciate your new perspective on the Simulacrum, your negative spiral isn't helping anyone."
"I'm only saying what I honestly think."
"I understand that, and I'm telling you that you need to change the way you think, or you're only going to get lost in doubting everything and everyone."
"But it's the only rational thing to do."
Seeing her stonewall made Judy poke my side, wordlessly telling to take a different approach. Well, I did have sothing in mind, though it was more of a last resort that could either work fine, or blow up in my face big ti. Still, I figured it might serve as shock therapy, so I gestured for the princess to hand my notebook, lying at the very end of the counter. While she was reaching out, I focused my attention back on Ammy, and laid the groundwork with a tired groan.
"So, in your opinion, doubting everything is rational."
"Yes," she nodded, her expression determined and maybe even a little pleased, as if she managed to get through to .
"And since anything and everything could be changed and manipulated by 'destiny', as you like to insist—"
"Only because 'the narrative' is a nonsensical term, wholly inadequate to describe a force of this power and magnitude," she tried to correct , and while I listened to her as I accepted the notebook from Elly, I ignored the words in favour of pressing on with my argunt.
"Would you agree then that our current existence is aningless, since it could be changed at any mont, without our knowledge or consent?"
"It's… not an irrational conclusion to draw from—"
This ti, it was my turn to cut her short.
"Is that how you want to live the rest of your life?"
"What do you even an by that? Is there even a choice? I can't un-know this!"
While I was fishing for a slightly more generic response, she gave the perfect segue, and I couldn't waste it. The mont she finished speaking, I slamd the notebook against the countertop, startling everyone around , including the Faun in the back.
"I can give you that choice." With so theatrical flair, I raised the notebook by its corner and held it up in front of her. "This is the source of all of your troubles, isn't it? The half-baked knowledge of these old observations of mine. What if I tell you I can erase them?"
"Chief, that's…"
"Hush," I whispered. "I'm doing a thing here." Then, I looked Ammy in the eye again. "I have the power, you know? I can erase this notebook from ti, so it never even existed."
"Wait, hold on!" Ammy exclaid, suddenly flustered. "W-What do you an you can…? I an, can you really…?"
"Of course," I told her with a calm smile. "I would need to be able to do at least that much to fight 'destiny', wouldn't I?"
"T-That makes sense, but—"
"I can retroactively erase this notebook. It wouldn't affect us too much, I think. The butterfly effect is a bitch, but just because I didn't write my thoughts down, it wouldn't change past events significantly. As for you though…" I purposefully paused and shook the notebook a little. "The current you, the one aware of the Simulacrum and all of its annoying quirks, would cease to exist. It's not that big of a deal though, is it? I an, our existence is aningless, so whether you remain you or get erased and replaced by a class rep blissfully unaware of all of these troubling existential concerns should make no difference."
"That wasn't what I ant when I said that."
"It doesn't sound so different in principle," I shrugged and held out the notes again. "So? What will it be? I have to say, retconning this whole awkward conversation out of existence would be the most convenient for , but since it concerns your current existence, I figured I would ask you first. Of course, since everything's aningless, I know your answer is a foregone conclusion, so please hurry it up. I have places to be."
"Wait! You can't just drop sothing like this on—"
"Tick-tock, class rep." Saying so, I poised my free hand to snap my fingers. "Tick-tock."
"I said wait!" she yelled out and looked at Judy. "Can he really do that?"
"Yes," my dear assistant answered morosely, looking rather displeased by my act. "He shouldn't even have let you know about it though."
"Desperate tis, desperate asures," I answered with a devil-may-care smirk, then belatedly added, "Also, tick-tock."
"You know, I'm not sure this is a good idea," Elly chid in, looking more baffled by this developnt than anything else.
"Don't worry, princess. Once I'm done retconning this, you won't even rember any of it, so it's not like it matters. Or anything else, really. Right, class rep."
"Leo, listen. This is—"
"Oh, ti's up! Bye!"
Not wanting to drag this out any longer, I raised my free hand and snapped my fingers. It was unexpectedly loud, but not as loud as Ammy's startled yelp as she imdiately covered her head with her hands, as if afraid that the ceiling would fall on her head. Her voice drew a bit of attention from the other Fauns exercising at the other end of the main hall, but when Brang shook his head, they soon returned to whatever they were doing.
With a sigh, I placed the notebook back onto the counter and only then did the class rep peek up at .
"Did… did anything happen?"
"No, of course not," Judy answered in an extra-deadpan voice.
"Was this… a prank?" Alia muttered with her brows all scrunched up, but before she could say any more, I reached out and put a finger on her forehead. "W-What are you doing?"
Ignoring the question, I gently pushed her face up until our eyes t again.
"No, it wasn't a prank. I was making a point."
"That was still an," the princess grumbled, and after pulling my finger back, I wagged it towards her.
"Hush, love. I'm still doing a thing." A beat later, I turned back to Alia and tried to look and sound as serious as humanly possible. "Listen, class rep. As I said, I understand your point, and how you ended up thinking the way you did. However, getting lost in contemplating the aning of our existence is, in and of itself, a aningless thing. You exist right now, and you have aning; to yourself, and those around you. That's all that matters until proven otherwise."
"But… if destiny really exists…"
"Then it's a lousy bastard really bad at its job, and you shouldn't give it more thought than you would give to a teorite falling on our city all of a sudden."
"Chief."
"I'm not jinxing it," I retorted to Judy. "I refuse to live in a universe where I can't even use stupid hyperboles in fear of them coming true due to cosmic fiat, and that's final."
Ignoring our tiny squabble, the class rep's eyes finally ca into focus, and she weakly readjusted her glasses.
"I understand the point you're trying to make, but… how can you be certain about that?"
"Screw certainty. I say so, therefore that's how it is."
"That's not how this works."
"Then make it work," I told her with a shrug. "You just have to trust . Do you trust ?"
Ammy remained silent for a long ti, and at long last, her expression turned resolute.
"Yes. Against my better judgent, but I do."
"Great. Then trust when I tell you that you have your worth, and so does everyone else. Human, homunculus, placeholder… None of those things have anything to do with that. The Simulacrum has exactly as much aning as we give it, and the Narrative is nothing more than a pesky annoyance you work around, not an insurmountable force you cower before. If you ever feel uncertain about any of these things, rember what I just told you, and rember that it's right, because I said it."
"I… wish I had just a fraction of your confidence."
"This isn't about confidence," I told her with a reassuring smile. "It's more of a self-suggestion. We don't have ti for self-doubt when there's so much to do. Ah, speaking of which…" I turned on my heel and pointed at the reception room. "I really should be on my way. I don't want to keep those two waiting, so I leave the rest to you."
"Chief. You can't just drop a bombshell like that and expect us to pick up the pieces," Judy complained, though she didn't seem to have her heart in it.
"Sorry, but I really am late. Please pick up my slack, and I'll make it up for you later."
"Deal!" Elly agreed at once, much to my other girlfriend's trepidation.
"Fine. But I'm expecting more than just a massage this ti," Judy griped, but then followed it up by rising to her tiptoes and giving a peck on the cheek.
Mixed ssages aside, I returned the gesture to the top of her head before turning to the class rep again.
"Do you have a ssage for Mike?"
She blinked, and the mont she heard the guy's na, so colour returned to her cheeks.
"Nothing. We'll talk on the phone in the evening, as usual, so…"
"But not about any of this, right?" She shook her head. "Good. Rember, this is a secret for a reason."
"Yes." I was ready to leave, but then she called after again. "Leo?"
"Hm?"
"Can you really erase things from the past?"
"More like retcon, but it's a distinction without much difference," I told her with a light shrug.
"And if I reacted differently… would you have done it?"
"Nah. Way too dangerous and unpredictable." After a pause, I flashed a smile and added, "Also, I was pretty sure you would co to your senses if I just prodded you a little. You're smarter than to fall down the nihilism rabbit hole for good."
"I see, but… now what?"
"Now, you can start having a conversation on the topic without sounding like an emo teen."
"Emo?" the princess echoed , and Judy ca to the rescue.
"A musical subculture that doesn't actually exist," she explained. "The Chief insists it does, but we have yet to find any evidence."
"I tell you, it's a thing. They probably just haven't shown up in force on the internet yet, because we skipped around too much technologically and culturally," I argued back, and it caused Ammy to straighten her back and tweak her glasses again.
"Actually, Leo often talks about these things very authoritatively. Where is he getting all of his information?"
"If you an things like that 'emo' thing, we don't know either," the princess comnted on the side with a thoughtful tilt in her head. "As for the Simulacrum, he told those things to himself."
"… Co again?"
Sighing, Judy turned around to join the conversation, and to my relief, it seed to proceed in a much less nihilistic and hyper-skeptical direction. That was good, and since I was seriously getting late, I quickly bid my goodbyes and headed for the teleport closet.
Once inside, I closed the door behind , targeted Mike and Moose, and in a few monts, I reappeared in an empty apartnt room in the center of Locri, the second biggest town on Critias. It wasn't the first ti I visited this place, so I casually walked to the door leading to the balcony, and then unceremoniously Phased down to the balcony one floor under it before knocking on the window.
"Ah! A mont!" True to his words, the door opened only a second later and a sandy-blonde mug welcod in. "Lor— I an, Leonard! We were getting worried!"
"Sorry, I got sidetracked," I told him as I walked into the room, and sent a nod to the heavy-set guy in the doorway leading into the living room. However, I didn't address him, but instead turned to face Mike again. "Listen."
"Yes?" he blurted out, so startled by my calling out to him again that he failed to close the door properly and had to try again. "I-I an, I'm listening!"
"Just FYI: If your girlfriend suddenly starts talking about the aning of life, our place in the universe, or destiny? Do not be alard."
The guy blinked at uncomprehendingly, but after a few seconds, during which I swear I could totally see the internet browser loading icon on his forehead, he limply nodded.
"As you command. I… won't be alard."
"… Good enough," I concluded and took a deep breath as I turned to Moose again. "All right. Let's get down to business."
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