ablativeholopleather | IC Contact/Inbox/HMD

[Right to the point. He's glad for it, it means he doesn't get to beat around the bush in existential horror.

A beat as he takes a bite, rolling the thought around a bit.]

It's nothing?

[Would that conflict with the conventions of his own Afterlife]

[she nods.]

It's as if someone's just snipped out a piece of time, between when you die and when you wake up. I don't know what that means for your afterlife specifically, but I have a few guesses.

Either way, it's as though my death never happened in the first place, except for who remembers it.

[Well, so much for getting to avoid some of the existential horror...]

Can't say I dig that, personally.

[To her discerning ears, there is a note of distinct discomfort.]

When I die usually I still know what happened to me, I don't lose time or whatever. This like...nullifies that.

Everyone I've spoken with, their experience is the same. The death occurs, and then they wake up at six the following morning. In that time between, whatever killed them is fixed, and their bodies end back up in bed.

[she's very, very calm about this. almost too calm.]

Do you mean to say you're conscious the whole time you're dead?

[She is about as calm talking about having experienced it multiple times as he would have, had it been him trying to explain to her without this context his own experience with it.]

Yeah. Usually, I end up back at the Afterlife hub. We reconstitute any lost Flesh, increase what we've already got using the Meat of the fallen, make ourselves hardier and more capable of surviving longer, build a sand castle, have a bath, and go right back to what we were doing before something turned us into paste. This whole thing, with the nothing filling that time, that feels wrong. I remember talking with others about their own deaths, some people have a dark void and that kinda sucks too. I don't know what's worse actually.

[she eats her ice cream while contemplating what he's talking about, accepting that aspects of it are just going to be complete unknowns. using meat to reinforce the self? weird, but Wayne's world is not her own. maybe it's all things that make more sense once you experience it yourself. Helena nodes a little when he mentions the void, and considers -

no. not now. that's not something you hand to someone who's just trying to figure out how things go.]

Probably the worst would be if that void just kept going. Or waking up where you came from, and wondering if everything that happened here was merely some fantastic dream. Your version sounds the nicest, but...where I come from, you're not supposed to come back. So I suppose I'm seeing it all in a very different light.

[Wayne is slow about eating while she talks, contemplating the idea of the void, and then of simply not coming back at all. The latter is actually a little easier for him to grasp, maybe even a little comforting.]

After a certain point we don't go into the Afterlife hub, we just...return to the earth and our substance ends up recombining into the next generation's larvae. I heard humans have children to make that happen for them but it's a way more direct line of progression. You produce your young while we kind of become them, after a while.

...So at some point, from wherever you've gone back to earth, there's going to be a little Wayne. That's a rather straightforward way about it.

[and functionally, she thinks, a kind of immortality. much in the same way some people think about bloodlines, but more exact. it would eliminate people fussing over needing to have heirs and such, which is always a problem in these historical fiction books she's reading where no one seems to figure out who's going to be doing what after they die.

of course, things like children are probably more on the mind when you haven't been in a resurrection loop for the past however long and then moved to a pocket dimension. right now, the most she can muster up is that children definitely exist.]

It is you, but it isn't you, but it still is, depending on the perspective. No, I might be overthinking this.

It's always going to be a Wayne, even if it's not strictly me. I don't think it'll be exactly me because like, our experiences make us into individuals, but it's conservation of matter in like the most basic form, right? I die now, my matter becomes a couple of new larvae that will be new people in a few cycles. I die after I metamorphose, I get to go on and become even more. Lots of available matter in an Old Wayne.

[Which he can't really accurately describe for her when size is likely harder to parse when you don't have a visual representation in the first place.]

[her eyes widen at the word metamorphose, and even though she's taking a bite of ice cream, the fact that she thinks this is utterly cool is written across her face.]

What'll it be like, when you're Old Wayne?

[will they still know each other, then?]

[There are mixed reviews when he mentions Old Wayne, but at least by and large they've been mostly positive or simply fascinated. He's got another spoonful in his mouth as he tries to decide how to describe it.]

I'll be way bigger. More eyes, more hands, more powerful gestures. Not as much capability of movement though. When you get that large you become kind of cumbersome. But then that's why Old Waynes settle into advisory or guardianship positions.

I talked a little about it with Pratt, what might happen if I were to reach that age before I left this place... If I stay here for too long, will I still physically mature far enough to need to go to ground, or if I'll just adhere to a corner and become a very small Old Wayne because of the complete lack of material besides what my own body provides? The logistics are not in my favor.

If that time approaches, then you'll have me and your other friends around to help you figure out a solution. There's magic on this ship that gives people wings and makes them transform into other things entirely and creating whole new places. I think we could sort something out that would help you become more of you.

[it's a complete unknown, but that's what lets her be optimistic about it. if this ship can do things like help Ava control her power, return the dead that were in another realm altogether, create something from seemingly nothing...then the idea of Wayne somehow becoming Old Wayne working out isn't the most farfetched thing.]

But that all implies we won't figure out a new place to live before that day dawns. Call it silly, but I'm not so resigned to that yet. Regardless, wherever you metamorphose, we'll have to figure out how to celebrate it.

I've been trying to kind of work out the math between what's normal for my world versus yours in the royal sense. How long is it going to be before I get to that point, you know? Klaus posits that perhaps it won't be until you are all old humans. Then if it does, I can protect you since you get very small and fragile.

[He may already have this idea of gathering all of them into what would essentially be a retirement home, when it comes right down to it. Gotta protect your friends when they can't necessarily protect themselves after all.]

That's plenty of time for us to solve the material problem. We'll have it all figured out far before it even has to truly dawn on you, and then we'll be ready to welcome you into your new form.

[a pause, as she eats a strawberry slice.]

If I get smaller when I get older, I'm going to be terribly displeased...

[He can't help but chuckle at that. She is very much on the smaller end of the spectrum of people he's met so far.]

One day you might even be so small that you'd fit right in in New Muldul.

How small is that?!

[no. she asks every day to be taller. she can't do this.]

Oh, only about hip height.

[She's already only about three apples high and now he's imagining that being knocked down to two!]

Absolutely not! I refuse to shrink!

[she says this as a declaration, and then eats a spoon of ice cream so fast it makes her pause - ugh. cold headache...]

[He fakes a thoughtful sort of hum, tapping his spoon against his chin briefly.]

Yeah you're probably better off, we might lose you somewhere and that'd suck.

If you lose me, I'm going to find you, and then I'm going to...

[she pauses.]

I don't have a very good punishment in mind for that.

So we'll do our best not to lose you.

[A good compromise, he feels. He takes a larger bite of his own ice cream at that, and just the same as she had, he ends up with that spike of pain right up behind his eyes. It is the certifiable worst.]

I'll tell Security you lost me. No, wait, that sounds childish...

[there's no good answer to this! meanwhile she's oblivious to Wayne's current set of problems.]

[Lucky for him that she can't see the way that he pauses and frowns at that. So now he feels bad and has a mild headache.]

I feel like that'd just make it like me even less, to be honest...

...Why do you think it doesn't like you?

[how does everyone not like Wayne, is more the question in her mind.]

It was kind of uh. Really offended when I called it the same way I do basically everyone. And it didn't like listening to me trying to stay optimistic about the situation when I only just got here. It only tolerated me when I checked in when it got sick.

[Though, he'd ended up staying there quietly hanging out for a while watching its tv show until it had dozed off to make sure it was okay and it was generally polite when that happened, so...progress?]

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