queenofheartsrp | First Light [Action; accidental video; video]

[A bright, blinding light fills the gardens, emanating from the new arrivals' clearing. It is strong enough to hurt one's eyes, but it has no other ill effects. After the initial flash, the Vine starts recording, so the mirrors, too, fill up with the light as it shines and then fades.

When it has grown dim enough, a figure is revealed, lying on the ground, dressed in the familiar white shift of a newcomer. She stirs at once, leaping up. Her eyes are wide, her face distorted with alarm and confusion as she cries out.]

Wassily--!

[She is about to say something else, but the light flares again, and the Vine takes this as a sign to stop recording.

A few minutes pass, and the woman reappears, facing the mirror, dressed plainly in black. The light from before is no longer in evidence, and she can be seen clearly. She is perhaps in her early thirties, with long blond hair. She is much calmer, and smiling, though she still shows signs of strain. She seems to have become aware of her surroundings and the situation, and her concern now is for those she is addressing as she speaks in a quiet voice.]

Hello--all of you. My name is Epsilon. Are there many of you here? Are you all right?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Alice's expression is not reassuring, and her words are even less so.] That could certainly go very wrong.

Is there anything I can do to help, Alice? It's not the same, but I take care of my children at home. [Her face falters again, but again, only briefly.]

I don't know for myself, but I believe there are children here... although if they are actually children and not three times my age, I can't say for sure.

[The idea of people who look like children but aren't isn't unfamiliar to her, but she suspects that Alice isn't speaking about robots.]

This place is certainly surprising. I'm not sure what to make of it. It's so beautiful here, but children shouldn't be taken away from their homes. No one should.

[Unless they were taken from situations like her own.] Unless--was anything out of the ordinary happening to you when you were brought here?

Agreed.

[But Alice paused when that last question came up, she had to think for a time on it.] Well... I don't believe so. I think at the time, all that was happening is ordinary for here.

I mean, was anything happening to you back home, before you appeared here? Or was it an ordinary day there?

... Ordinary for where I used to be. There are those here who would consider it made of madness.

[So it's not that people have been brought here to save them from harm.] I asked because I was taken from a particular, extraordinary moment, and I wondered if it was the same for others, but I suppose not.

I'm curious, what do you mean by "made of madness"?

I was asleep.

Do you consider the idea that a ghost could steal spring to be normal or odd?

Then our situations weren't at all similar.

I'd have to say that that's odd to me. In my world, something like that would be very unlikely to happen.

So you can understand why I said that?

I can. To me, your world sounds like a fairy tale. I tell my children stories like that, but I'm sure it must be quite different in reality.

I think any world might have things that those from other worlds could consider madness. On my world, human make devices with no purpose except to destroy. They lay waste to nations, allowing nothing but hatred to guide them. This strikes me as mad, and I live there.

I would think of that as depressing, myself.

... Are you not human?

Depressing. Yes, it's that, too.

I'm a robot. Do you have them in your world? I seem to be surprising most people here.

Robots? Not in the sense like you are... I've really only heard about them from this shrine maiden. Though from what she was saying, it was more that they stood far above us and you could ride them.

There are robots much larger than I am, but people don't ride robots in my world. I've never heard of that kind of robot before.

In my world, most robots are humanlike, like me. Although many of them look much more like machines than I do.

I'm only guessing, but the reason you look alike so much is so you can interact better?

You're right, it's largely because humans find it much easier to relate to and with us when we look like this, although we've grown so similar that it's begun to cause difficulties between us, too.

First Light [Action; accidental video; video]

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