une - voice - day

[mortestmamere]

[Oh dearest Promenade, a new guest has entered your city walls and my is she ever so eager to speak at to you, and greet you as a friend! She is already fascinated by you, all of you, and here is dreamy voice chattering,]Oh fair city, you make my heart buzz and my soul patter. So many secrets hidden away in your glass frames and mortar pedestals.

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[no_hometown]

As this is a dream city, I don't believe we can truly die here. Or so it seems.

So far I have seen no graves, but there are many mysteries.

[mortestmamere]

No graves? There must be graves somewhere, they've just disguised themselves to fit in. The old ways must be kept somewhere... Where are all the dead mothers and absent fathers? Locked in closets maybe, stuffed in attics with their wasted bones...

[no_hometown]

If this is a dream, then we are not flesh and blood here, are we? If we truly die, our consciousnesses must return to our worlds, where our bodies are, or simply wink out, removed from this place by death and oblivion.

That said, you do have a point. Someone must have dreamed a graveyard here.

[mortestmamere]

What does it matter if it is a dream? My flesh still feels, as does yours, I would assume. We are always dreaming, besides, there is no reality, only the places where our visions meet and the weak-willed concede to mediocrity.

[no_hometown]

I had not intended to enter into an ontological debate, merely to answer your question.

Most people agree to recognize a certain set of basic parameters defining "reality" so that we might interact with some semblance of order and meaning.

This is a dream, of sorts. It is a reality, yes, but one with different rules. That end of biological functions known as death does not occur, as our original physical selves are not here. In addition, if you believe there is no true reality, then it makes no sense for you to regard death as a constant.

[mortestmamere]

All questions invite the debate of ontology, isn't that what I just said.

[Her tone is a bit stuffy and arrogant, but she is smiling.]

There are many forms of death, all of them to be followed and revered for what they expose beneath the banal surface of what we think we know.

[no_hometown]

[Sephiroth sounds equally stuffy and arrogant.]

They do for those who will them to. Usually I find such people enjoy hearing themselves talk about ontology. [He smiles as well.]

If that is so, then why do you believe there should be a graveyard and "wasted bones" and the like? Perhaps death takes an entirely different form here and it is not one we can so easily perceive.

[mortestmamere]

[Her smile blossoms.]

Who doesn't enjoy the chance to give their ideas form and feeling in the air?

[She loves you already.]

Graveyards and bones likewise have many forms, they symbols for a greater idea. Graveyards hold the past, silenced secrets, waiting spirits. Bones are structures and foundations, remnants too, perhaps they'll represent our hidden secrets as well. It's not good to be too literal.

[no_hometown]

Some enjoy it more than others. And listen to others' ideas less. [Sephiroth is being more lighthearted and teasing than critical, but it can be hard to tell with his dry delivery. He enjoys challenging people.]

I understand the symbolism. It is the same in my culture, but your immediate insistence that this place must fit your vision and ideas in some way may be--limited and banal, as I believe you'd put it.

I stated that I'd seen no literal graves and no literal death, nothing more. [Mr. Empiricist has little to say about the rest of it.]

[mortestmamere]

[Christine doesn't listen to anyone ever, and that is patently obvious.]

I know the ways of people. There are always tenets of their lives which they allow to die, or wish would die, but they are always keeping shrines in one way or another, whether it is in their hearts and minds, or buried in the grass, I do not care. I just wish to know more about them, to enlighten my limited and banal self. They are reservoirs of shame and sorrow and joy, love and pride, and so much more.

[She relates all of this with cheerful enthusiasm, glad to have an audience for her babbling.]

Thank you for the information, my friendly shade.

[no_hometown]

[In that, she reminds him of someone a little.]

If that is what you seek, why even ask? In a city of dreams, you need not take a single step to reach your goal. Every inch should be constructed of what you desire. [He thinks the "city of dreams" is a far-fetched notion, but he does believe what his senses tell him. What else can he do? Everything's been madness lately; somehow he's managed to accept this, too.]

No need to thank me. [He nods.] I am Sephiroth.

[mortestmamere]

I have only just arrived! One must learn a medium, mustn't they? And it is my understanding that my desires are not the only ones which shape this place, there are other minds to touch.

[And she wants to touch them. She most certainly learned that from her mother.]

Perhaps there is no need, but that is the manner of gifts, my gratitude is yours to do with as you wish. My name is Christine Morreaux. Tell me about your hair, Sephiroth. You are too young for gray and it is too beautiful for the connection besides.

[no_hometown]

I don't mean that your desires shape this world, but that dreams are made up of those things which you seek, so you are already among them.

Then I accept your gratitude gladly. [Her question is simple enough.] My hair has always been this color. I cannot explain it, and I do not know another with similar coloration.

[mortestmamere]

This place hardly expresses my desires, beautiful as it may be. I will find my pleasure in it, but I know my dreams.

[She is silent for a long time before she seems to suddenly remember she had been talking to someone.]

It's a beautiful color... the kind of curtain ghosts and faeries should hide themselves away behind, all gossamer and quicksilver.

[no_hometown]

Yet those symbols you crave are what dreams are made of. The subconscious. Others' hidden things and "buried shrines". [He shrugs. They aren't things that interest him so much.] That is what you professed to seek, and here you are.

[And he doesn't quite know what to say to her words concerning his hair, so he's just going to remain straight faced.] Thank you.

[mortestmamere]

[But Sephiroth! She wants them the way she wants them!]

Here I am, I should have to dig through the detritus of this place to find it.