Gravity's Pull

Again, silence for a few moments before she answered as the tiny woman puzzled out how the words connected. She was picking up a few words she hadn't gotten before, likely because her eyes might have crossed from exhaustion, or perhaps she did and they simply didn't stick.

She could only half remember what she'd intended to recide for her host, besides that, but communication was happening, and it would get easier the more she did it.

"Thank, Host Ríváné." She nodded. Being clean before talking sounded wonderful, and having an idea how long she would be staying? Even better.

"Please show way."
 
It was best not to talk about what happened after Ríváné led Jade into the appropriate facilities, but the end result spoke for itself: Despite herself and her promise to not make fun of her guest, Ríváné was grinning at how little her guest understood of the world around her. Honestly, who had heard of a shower that used clean water? That was a complete waste of supplies and as Jade had discovered, there were much more efficient ways of getting clean. The less said about those, the better for the sanity of Ríváné's guest. Or at least that was how the songweaver felt after she had showed the bathroom to Jade.

Regardless, now that both of them were clean it was time for the more important part. As much as Ríváné had enjoyed secretly laughing at Jade, she had to put on a straight face as she sat down on a chair which literally folded out of the side of the room at her whim.
"I am listening, Jade. If you want to practice, I will help you," said Ríváné as she showed Jade a small, familiar tube of metal. It was time they got started.
 
When they emerged, Jade was red-faced with shame at feeling so useless. The bathroom was a formidable foe.

She sat on the bed, since she had no idea where the appearing chairs might appear, then took a deep breath. "Want to practice introductions. Pointing to self like a primative does not suit."

For a being who was the multiverse, she felt more and more like an ape in this setting. She grew up around technology that seemed to have stumbled to a stop at smart phones and machines that could create clothes in five seconds. She grew up with a warm shower in the morning—cold if she didn't want to feel certain urges. She couldn't even speak the language.

A person with the job to protect and watch over the multiverse shouldn't feel like some farm kid in the city for the first time.

She took a slow breath and recited what she could remember of the introduction she came up with. "Am Jade Mortimer-Senate. Job is watching over the multiverse. Was born in 2012 C.E. Earth, and am 44 years old. Am half human, half..." She trailed off, then scrolled the dictionary again. "bird person alien." They didn't have a word for Avior, but she wasn't surprised at that. Their existence seemed limited in knowledge because they had neither magic, nor technology. They were under-developed. She thought a few more moments and consulted the dictionary again. "Am... luck."

That covered everything. They didn't have a word for demi, and explaining was too much of an issue.

She just hoped she didn't sound like a complete twit.
 
Very good start! Jade seemed to want to begin with introductions, which suited Ríváné's ideas just fine. Leaning a little forward in an almost universal gesture of listening to what her guest was saying. Name, good. Job... What in the deepest reaches of a black hole? The songweaver did not even register the rest of the words as she went over those combinations of words in her head which did not seem to match up with reality. Yes, speculation about the multi-verse was a common topic in Civitatem Lucis, but it often involved agreeing that there was no way to prove that such a thing existed. Yet now, there was a 44-year old woman claiming to be a guardian of the multi-verse?

For the umpteenth time today, Ríváné started to regret her assignment as it sent her for yet another one of those loops that she hated. However, at least this time, she could tell Jade her problems with what Jade said.
"Your grammar needs work," started Ríváné before she moved onto the more important topic. "But watching over the multi-verse is impossible. There is no proof of the multi-verse, Jade. It is often spoken of by 'World'," and here, Ríváné used one of those strange words which seemed to describe an entire way of thinking within this reality, "but not proven. Please explain what you mean by 'Job is watching over the multi-verse'."

Had Jade misinterpreted a word from the dictionary? Ríváné doubted it. But she could not believe that someone like this would be chosen into a police force, never mind something that was responsible for the well-being of multiple universes! And that was not even getting at the issues with the problem of finding proof of the existence of other realities.
 
Jade stared, then sighed. "Watch over multiple universes. Close eyes, and see them." She closed her eyes. "Some move slow. Some move fast. All come from singular point farther back than can see." She opened her eyes. "Needs proof?" She tilted her head. Surely she could get the energy up for a few portals, right? As long as they didn't go into the void of space.

Though... maybe talking about her job was too much. Had she been trying to show off? To somehow show she wasn't a bumbling neanderthal?

Good job, Jade. Host Ríváné surely thought Jade was insane now.

She let her head hang, then continued.

"Keep peace. Prevent apocalypses." Would that help or hurt? Too late now. She just had to wait to see.
 
Now Ríváné was confused and started tapping her head in frustration as she tried to figure it out until something occured to her. She had been treating Jade as if she was human. But what if the strange woman was not completely human? Granted, not even the most advanced genetic modifications in this place could do such a thing, but then again, before the discovery of the rahn'fehr linked gates, the continued existence of Civitatem Lucis had been in jeopardy. And though the existence of multiple universes were hypothetical, there were no indications of them not existing. In other words, if Ríváné thought about it some more, it did not sound all that impossible.

"I made a mistake," admitted the officer after several minutes of thinking. "There might be a multi-verse. But it is hard to believe that someone is chosen to watch over it," she said, choosing her words carefully. "'World' has been trying to prove multiple universes for a long time. But no one observed or encountered another universe. So your words are almost impossible." The songweaver was clearly skeptical of this whole thing, but at the same time, she at least gave Jade some leeway with what she said. "Do you have equations for multiple universes? Or do you have numbers for them?"

Right, that was probably a much friendlier way to respond than claiming that everything Jade was telling was false. But it was rather difficult to remain calm in the face of claims that Ríváné found so ridiculous.
 
Her host did want proof, but asked for numbers and equations. Well, seeing was believing, wasn't it? She lifted one of her hands and closed her eyes, then drummed each finger from pinky to index against her thumb. What appeared was little more than a discolored speck in the air. Jade frowned. Her brows furrowed, and she again drummed her fingers. The speck grew to roughly the size of a fingertip, and another drum brought it up to fist-size.

Jade half-opened her eyes and stared at the stubborn portal, eyebrows raised. She sighed heavily, then drummed her fingers again as she stared at it, and it grew to the size of her head.

It was a good size now. Jade could feel herself wobbling. She looked toward Ríváné. "Come to this side. Look."

Through the portal, seen from a distance, a flat world was visible. All around it, stars and other floating lands were visible, and below it, nothing but dark, starry void. "There are... Many universes. Not all with same..." She consulted the dictionary for a term that might mean 'laws of physics', and used it. "Some are impossible." She indicated the vision through the portal. "Could send Host Ríváné, but too tired."

As the tiny woman spoke, her shoulders slowly slumped. She kept her gaze on Ríváné, however."Not all is..." She looked for a word to mean science, but settled on the word Ríváné seemed to use for the study of that sort of thing. "World?"
 
Ríváné watched her guest do something which she had absolutely no idea about, but seemed like Jade trying to access the holographic projectors in the room. At least on first glance. On second glance, the songweaver had no idea about what was happening. Maybe it was required for Jade in order to present her proof of the multi-verse's existence? If that was so, then there was no reason trying to stop the absolutely tiny woman. Ríváné, like your average officer in the army, was quite invested in the many debates which went on between the Four Philosophies of Civitatem Lucis. If there was a possible way to resolve the contention on one of the issues, she was eager to listen. Except that the result did not come in a format that Ríváné desired.

No, instead of pulling out an equation or the result of a physical experiment, Jade proceeded to open portals that looke at voids of stars that did not seem like they belonged. And while that was completely out of the ordinary, there was no way that a building's sensor suite or indee the senses of Ríváné were finely-honed enough to tell that what was being shown to them did indeed hail from a universe completely alien to this one. As such, even though the songweaver spent several moments closely studying the portals with her own eyes, in the end, she had to dismissively shake her head before she turned back to Jade.

"These things feel strange, but they are not proof," she summarised after she heard the explanation. "At least not to my eyes. But you should forget about the proof for now, because you still do not speak óníc well. If you have to show something like this instead of the equation or the numbers which prove it, you will have to show it to Two-Stars-Weeks-Away." Despite the completely ordinary-sounding nouns at the end, the way Ríváné pronounced them definitely sounde as if she was talking about a person of interest. Rather, if Jade payed enough attention to the soldier's body-language, she might be able to tell even despite the different gesture standards that Ríváné was talking about a respected, important person.

"Do you have any questions, Jade?" asked Ríváné to see if there was anything else that Jade explicitly wanted to know. Funnily enough, it seemed that Ríváné had grown closer to Jade despite her admittedly terrible attitude at the beginning of their conversation. Of course, the officer still had quite a few things she kept for herself, but at least now she no longer saw the mission as just babysitting. This was much more than that.
 
Utterly dismissed. For sure now, Ríváné thought she was nothing more than an idiot. Jade's shoulders sagged, and her heart sank. "Fuck..." she said in English and mimicked the head taps that her host did so often, only to pause as she felt the sweat there.

She shouldn't have wasted her time with portals.

She should have realized Ríváné would dismiss it, but how could she have known for sure that the most obvious evidence was entirely dismissed? If she could make the portal larger...

No, they would be trapped when she lost consciousness. Ríváné was too kind a host overall to just... trap in some place where her only contact home would be a cell phone that likely would not function to call this too-advanced universe.

She looked at her damp fingertips, then pulled a tissue from one of her pockets and wiped her hand before tossing the tissue into another pocket. She spoke in Onic again, her voice calm and quiet again. "One question for the now, Host Ríváné. Explain 'Two-Stars-Weeks-Away', please?" To her, it sounded like Ríváné surely meant... several hundred billion kilometers. She didn't want to do the math right now. Half-lidded eyes watched the woman, eyebrows raised as though the tiny woman was trying to use the might of her eyebrow muscles to keep her eyelids from closing entirely.
 
Was that supposed to have convinced Ríváné? The songweaver got the impression that Jade had thought that her opening those strange windows would have been enough evidence for the existence of multiple universes, but was dejected when they were not taken as such. Certainly, the portals had felt as if something different was shown inside them, however, that was not infallible evidence that there was more than one universe in space. If it was enough evidence, then World would have had won the battle for the recognition of the theory a long time ago. The question of multiple realities existing at once was far too important to be solved by a complete stranger who could open windows of time-space to various places. The gates in orbit of this planet did the same, yet they were not proof of many existences.

Then came a question which Ríváné should have honestly expected. Of course, Jade would not be familiar with the naming convention of humanity's accidental creations along with their representatives given that she was from a long time ago where such things did not exist.
"Two-Stars-Weeks-Away is the name of this planet's 'kárm'," exlpained Ríváné after she had taken a brief pause to collect her thoughts before realising that the word may not have been included in the dictionary she had given to Jade. 'Ruler' was not a word often used amongst the citizens of Civitatem Lucis, so it probably got left off the list. "It is a very important position in the government," she quickly added. "A kárm does not command the planet, but it is a very important person who gives advice. If you appear before the kárm, you might even prove that more than one universe exists!"

Though there was actually very little chance that Jade's mere existence proved the theorem which the World philosophy had been pushing for the last few decades, it was not negligible and a soundmason would instinctively know if she was speaking the truth. Members of Civitatem Lucis or not, those artificial creations could retain more knowledge than any human being, then apply it to any situation... So if there was anyone who confirmed Jade's claim, it would be them. Or a very clever team of humans, but that would be down the line.
 
Inside her own mind, she heard a world spirit snickering at her.

She ignored it and listened to her host. It seemed like, in order for Ríváné to believe anything about Jade, it had to be mathematically proven, because simply seeing something did nothing for the woman. "Want to meet Two-Stars-Weeks-Away, then." She muttered as she shook her head.

Stupid stubborn scientific minds. "When convenient." She couldn't very well make demands, not until she was well-rested. Getting worn out from just showing off small portals meant she needed a lot more rest. Learning a new language wasn't helping her mental exhaustion, either. "Sorry. Tired and grumpy. One week with no sleep before arrival. Too much work to do and lots of interruptions. Lots of yelling from charges." She flopped unceremoniously onto her back on the bed.

Her back hurt, but her already-closing eyes wanted this.

She forced herself upright again as the pain in her back grew. She'd already slept so long...

Everything felt frustrating. Her host believed nothing she said, she was sure of it now. She flipped her jacket's collar up, as though trying to hide as she closed her eyes against the growing heat behind her lids.
 
Jade's exhaustion was starting to be evident and when Ríváné heard that the small woman had not slept for a week, her eyes widened in surprise. No wonder that Jade looked as if she was going to fall asleep at any moment. She had slept for quite a long time, yes, but a week without sleep was not normal for a baseline, unmodified human. Granted, Jade was not human, but until Ríváné saw that she had different needs, she would assume that Jade was very much like a human. It seemed to fit the picture so far.

"You can rest if you want to," said Ríváné with a mote of understanding in her voice. She may not have liked her guest's sleepiness, but she did not want her to push herself and possibly injure herself before she could meet the Ruler. That would reflect horribly on the songweaver. "We can meet Two-Stars-Weeks-Away when you are rested. I do not want to hurt you, Jade." Sure, Ríváné had arranged to meet Two-Stars-Weeks-Away earlier, but the Ruler could wait until her guest was rested and capable of holding a decent conversation. If Jade herself stated that she was tired and grumpy because of the lack of sleep, then it was no state to engage Two-Stars-Weeks-Away in. Or any government figure of importance.

Jade, however, seemed to be fighting her body's needs. Perhaps she was too prideful to let herself fall asleep or maybe she wanted to find out more about Civitatem Lucis.
"We have lots of time," Ríváné decided to add. "This planet is peaceful and there is no need to hurry." Or rather, it was peaceful until Jade arrived. With her here, the songweaver did not know what lied in store for them.
 
"Back hurts from too much laying down." She sighed. "Cannot lay on front because..." She trailed off and indicated her breasts. She looked down toward the bed, though. It looked... unrealistically comfortable, but even looking made her back hurt. It was... an annoying predicament. "Is... exercise equipment?" Moving some might help her back pain, and prepare her body for some rest. "Might help back pain, to move." She lifted, then rolled her shoulders forward, as though to indicate what she meant by exercise and movement, then stopped as a loud crack reached her ears, and she fell into the bed. "Nevermind. Think... that did it."

(( Short post is short. I didn't think it needed any additional length to get the point across. :x ))
 
Ríváné was about to requisition some exercise equipment for her guest when a rather powerful, gut-wrenching pop reached her ears, causing the songweaver to shiver uncontrollably. No wonder her guest was feeling uncomfortable with her back! The pop which practically shook the entire room sounded painful enough for her to feel an empathic lance of pinching agony in her back for a moment. That had to have been unpleasant, so she expressed her sympathy by moving her hand to her heart, then bowing slightly bowing her head towards Jade. Really, the small woman had deserved much more than sympathy.

"I have painkillers if you need them," said Ríváné as she raised her head again and let her hands fall beside herself. "And medicine to help humans sleep." Here, the word 'human' was especially emphasized in Ríváné's speech as a way to let Jade know that she should state if her physiology is significantly different from that of an ordinary human. "You look tired and in need of rest. Two-Stars-Weeks-Away can wait unless you have something that you have to tell them right away, and I would like if you learned a little more óníc before meeting with them." Even with a fairly good understanding of the tongue, meeting a Ruler for the first time was quite an experience that left a mark lasting a lifetime.

Even worse than that, Ríváné was not sure how she could prepare her guest for the phenomenon. Meeting a being like that when one did not know anything about that... How could she even warn Jade by using words that had English equivelents? The language simply lacked the terminology necessary to convey the warning!
 
Jade looked up at mention of pain killers, sleep aids, and humans. Right. "Am half human, and a 'demi'. Human medicine functions at one-fourth potency and duration." 'Demi' was pronounced in her native tongue, since, if her mother didn't appear in the dictionary, demis wouldn't either. Her mother was the first that made herself known to the world, after all. She didn't have the brain power to think that maybe she should explain what a 'demi' was. "It would help in achieving sleep, however. Thank you."

Even if the effects would be short, it would be nice to go into a drug-induced sleep, and the quiet of the room she'd been given had already proven very conducive to proper rest.

Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the edge of the bed, but she quickly released them as she pushed away some mental image.
 
So she was not completely human after all. Ríváné had thought that she had hear something similar from Jade before and the fact that Jade could open... things in space without having to use any technology was further proof that the small woman was not genetically pure. Of course, the songweaver had absolutely no idea as to what a 'demi' was, but if human medicine worked reasonably well on them according to what were presumably their experiments, she had no qualms about requesitioning some pills for Jade. The whole process just took a few seconds to complete as the central computer processed Ríváné's request for prescriptionless pills before two different-coloured pallets appeared in Ríváné's hand.

"The white one helps with relaxation," she said as she stood up from her seat, then she offered the two little things to her guest. "The green one helps with sleep. They are human doses, so I hope that you do not feel any side-effects. But just to be sure, will you let me monitor your life signs, Jade? I do not want to harm you by accident." Really, this was more of an unecessary precaution than anything else, however, if Jade started showing abnormal vitals during her rest, then Ríváné would be able to alert the Ruler, who would then be able to help Jade. Whether Ríváné's offer was refused or not, though, the songweaver planned on leaving her guest alone while she practiced her craft.
 
"Thank you, Host Ríváné. Please go ahead and monitor. Do not object, and would feel safer with vitals monitored when using foreign medication." Had any of her other health care providers been here, they would have snagged the pills for inspection and checked them for anything that might cause problems. She... did not care so much, not when some science-driven woman was offering to check her vitals. "Body's recovery against injury and foreign materials is four times the speed of a human's. It may be helpful to know. May encounter unusual signals, as well, depending on what scanning."

She pulled her jacket off and looked for a place to rest it. Laying on all of her things wasn't very... comfortable, and she wanted to avoid getting it too sweaty, because... there was a lot to take out, if it needed washed.
 
Good! Though Ríváné did not know a lot about Jade's physiology, it certainly put the songweaver at ease given that she could now establish a baseline for her guest and had a vague idea about what to expect based on the small woman's words. However, as Ríváné tapped her own shoulder in acknowledgement of Jade's request and was about to head back to her part of this apartment, she sensed that something was amiss, so she turned around to see Jade completely lost about something. What could it be? She seemed like she wanted to place something somewhere, but clothes... Right, clothes. The small woman did not have access to the technology Ríváné had grown up with and was not used to it at all!

Smiling, the songweaver connected herself to the local AI again, then the walls changed again, moulding their shape to Ríváné's will. A coatstand along with several shelves folded out of the room's walls, giving Jade more than enough space to put her clothing away as the songweaver deposited the two pills on a convenient surface that she just created, having forgotten about that little detail. She was not used to taking care of a guest.

"Sleep well, Jade," said Ríváné with a smile on her face after she thought that she had taken care of everything.
 
"Thank, Host Ríváné." Jade smiled at her as she hung the coat, and removed her shoes, then her jeans. Her shirt, she kept, along with the red, lacy undergarments. They weren't too dirty, and Ríváné mentioned getting more clothing later.

If a drink was not provided, she reached into her backpack for a small plastic water bottle that hadn't left a bulge in the pocket and used that for the pills before she laid down and pulled the covers over herself.

She woke a full day later. She felt... refreshed. She wasn't fully rested, but she could feel how her brain felt significantly less sluggish. She tapped each finger against her thumb, and a portal appeared roughly the size of an apple. She repeated the motion, and it fell away, this time without exhausting her. She wasn't planning to leave, though—only thought it prudent to test herself, to see how rested she had become.

She stood and pulled on her jacket as she wandered the room, curious finally about how all of the furnishings came and went. She ran her fingers along spots that seemed likely to produce furnishings, and occasionally tapped at them.

Her mother, were she present, would enjoy this room immensely.

Her father would use it to find interesting new sex positions. The thought brought a sharp exhale of silent laughter before she cut it off and looked around to see if her host had wandered in while she was preoccupied with the walls.
 
There was no sign of any seams on the wall, save for the fact that some parts of it were clearly hollow if Jade decided to knock her fingers on the walls, but it was more than sturdy enough to withstand her pressing against it or to support the inside of her room. Clearly, there was some other mechanism at play here, because as much as they seemed to fold out of the walls, there were no signs of any mechanisms that would serve that purpose. Just hollows in the wall that resounded with the movements of Jade's fingers, as if that provided an explanation for the suddenly-appearing furniture, especially given that the empty space near her bed sounded especially large if she checked there. This universe seemed to be filled with mysteries.

Even more so given that her host seemed to be absent right now. Clearly, Jade had caught Ríváné at a time when the songweaver was not paying attention to the small woman's vitals, or perhaps, Ríváné had thought that the signs of waking up were merely an anomaly that did not need to be corrected. Either was, there was no sign of Jade's host, but on second thought, there was something that would definitely catch the woman's attention: some form of barely-audible singing that came through the thick walls of this place. Upon closer listening, Jade could make out completely alien words which flowed according to their own rules. Filled with long vowels, strange emphasises and sounds that seemed to stretch on for eternity, the language being used was definitely not óníc, nor like anything that Jade had ever heard in her life.

If she wanted to investigate, the door would automatically open for Jade, letting her out and immediately, a voice of elemental power which clearly belonged to Ríváné would wash over her. Though it would consciously register to Jade that her host was not even speaking all that loudly, the songweaver's words clearly filled the entire room with so much presence that it was impossible not to hear it, as if distance did not even matter. Even stranger, Ríváné was nowhere in sight and a voice as loud as Jade was hearing was clearly not capable of bridging distances like this. Yet, it was still clear and audible. It was crystal clear, not to mention that it had a distinct, haunting beauty to it that seemed to reach Jade's very core.

It seemed to resonate with the small woman. It conveyed things with words that Jade had no way of understanding, yet there would be a distinct feeling within her that these were commands given to something, probably a machine. Their language may have been incomprehensible, but the feeling of overwhelming authority along with their sheer power was there, making the voice feel thousands of times stronger than it had any right to be. What was it? It was clearly not natural, even though it was not threatening or malicious, it was a phenomenon that seemed impossible for all intents and purposes. And yet, the logic of this universe allowed it.
 
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