Audio, public.

[ewestmarch]

[A sharp, scratchy female voice comes over the network, spitting her words like bullets.]

Where does the solidness of the objects come from when you turn on a spawner? How does it convert electrical energy into bread, or cloth, or gold? Is there a limit to how much of a certain material you can tell it to conjure?

It's all well and good to have spawners in every fucking color of the rainbow, but my world has too much power and not enough food. One of these could change the entire economy. Bring the bottom closer to the top.

And don't get any sly damned ideas. I saw it first. Just answer the questions.

[Private, also, to Braska.]

I've seen you over the network. What happens to the dead when they aren't Sent?

Comments

[ewestmarch]

How can you undo what was done if it's always been that way? If the past changes, the present has to be influenced in turn.

[private]

[endsorrow]

[Braska laughs.]

"Heeey! Would you kindly not eat my friend? I would greatly appreciate it!"

[private]

[ewestmarch]

Yes. Like that.

[It's not funny, says her tone.]

[timesbureaucrat]

The Matrix records data outside of time. Regardless of what changes are make to history, the Matrix keeps a complete track of the original sequence of events. We can use that record to isolate and correct any untoward deviations in the time line.

[private]

[endsorrow]

If anyone has tried and succeeded, I've certainly not heard word of it.

[Whoever this woman is, she's certainly a curiousity. Braska pauses to consider his words.]

May I ask a question of my own?

[private]

[ewestmarch]

Can I even stop you?

[ewestmarch]

How can something be outside of time?

[timesbureaucrat]

Simple. Pocket universe. The Matrix exists within a space-time bubble. The Matrix's reality is not like the reality of the outside universe.

[ewestmarch]

Doesn't the word "universe" mean by its nature that nothing is outside of it?

[timesbureaucrat]

I've been to six distinct universes personally, including this one. Even met another version of myself.

[ewestmarch]

[Emilia's voice is sugary.]

Sure you have.

[timesbureaucrat]

Is it really so hard to believe? You accepted time travel easily enough. Alternate time line, alternate universe.

[ewestmarch]

Did I? My mistake.

You have no proof of anything you're saying.

[timesbureaucrat]

Funny, I didn't know I was trial and needed to present evidence.

[ewestmarch]

Oh, you aren't being judged. After all, the opinion of one silly woman doesn't matter in the grand Time Lord scheme, does it?

[She's having fun with this, somehow.]

[timesbureaucrat]

Not really, no. It doesn't. [Narvin says without shame.] Not because you're a woman, mind you, but because you're an alien.

[ewestmarch]

Of course. I probably wouldn't understand even if you showed it to me.

[timesbureaucrat]

Very likely, but it's irrelevant. Section 857 paragraph G of the rules and regulations expressly forbids showing schematics to off worlders.

[ewestmarch]

How official.

[timesbureaucrat]

I prefer it that way.

[private]

[endsorrow]

[Braska's chuckle is low and quiet, not exactly something full of mirth.] No, I suppose not. But if it crosses any boundaries, then by no means will I push the matter.

This is obviously a subject you're very invested in. Why?

[private]

[ewestmarch]

That's very polite.

[She's being sarcastic. Politesse is a waste of time, in her opinion.]

I'm dead. We're all dead where I'm from. From the day we rise until we're destroyed the living hunt us, try to cleanse us from our own homelands, see us as a mockery of the lives we lived.

Maybe we are. But we won't die again. Not without a fight.

[private]

[endsorrow]

[Well. That explains everything. She is, basically... a fiend. An Unsent? Something in-between?

Braska's first instinct is to perform the prayer, but he doesn't, partly because she wouldn't be able to see it, anyway, so it wouldn't serve its purpose as an apology, and because... well, he really shouldn't do that any more, anyway. But not doing it makes it harder for him to express his feelings and thoughts on this.]

I... see, [is what he ends up saying. He tries to shake himself properly out of his shock.] I believe I understand, now. [... what else does he say, here? That he doesn't believe he knows of any circumstances where fiends have been purposefully hunted down without having harmed someone first? That he's an Unsent? Neither of these things would be helpful at all.

... but there's still...] I... must admit, though, I still find myself a little confused. Did you seek me out from curiousity? To determine if I would try to harm you? I am more than willing to answer any more questions you may have, regardless of your reasons, of course, but... What is it, truly, that you're seeking from me?

[private]

[ewestmarch]

Call it a project.

What is the worst thing you've seen happen to an un-sent soul?

[private]

[endsorrow]

[How... secretive. Braska can't say he's surprised. But, he said earlier that he wasn't going to push, so he's not going to. He'll leave it where it is.

He thinks about this for a moment.]

There will be... sometimes, a person who clings to life harder than others, be it because of some kind of trauma they endured, or because of a promise they made... [Does he seem more sad, here?] A goal that drives them... Something that makes them more determined to stay in Spira. These people, through nothing but sheer determination, do not become fiends. They keep their human shapes, crafting them out of pyreflies. These people -- They are called Unsent. They walk freely in the world, unbeknownst to those who are still alive around them.

And I have heard tales... of Unsent who started to -- change. They warped themselves, or were warped by their own emotions, and began to become fiends, themselves. I haven't witnessed it myself [because the most notable example happened in his daughter's lifetime], but I can't imagine slowly losing yourself is an easy or a happy thing to endure.

[... and then, there are the fayth, and there is what happened to Jecht. But they don't exactly qualify as "Unsents," do they? They're their own thing. And Jecht -- That's not something Braska's willing to talk about, even if he was entirely comfortable with this conversation, which he still isn't.]