//------------------------------// // 149 - Our Story // Story: Songs of the Spheres // by GMBlackjack //------------------------------// O’Neill was ‘outside’ in Nanoha’s garden, engaging in the manliest of all cooking activities: grilling. At least that’s what he told himself, though he knew full well there were battle-chefs in other universes. For the normal person, grilling was the man’s expression of flavor. Or maybe he was just grilling because he liked to do it, he didn’t know. His life was so laid-back these days he didn’t really mind all that much that he didn’t. Just another curious little aspect of existence that found its way into his mind and - crap he was burning the hot dogs. He whisked them off the grill with Crimson Sushi, grateful his Stand was temperature resistant. He ran to a small picnic table where his wife, Nanoha O’Neill, sat alongside their guest, Flutterfree. The pegasus and the mage examined the smoking meat products with curious expressions. “Where’d your mind go this time?” Nanoha asked, a smile forming on her face. “The masculinity of grilling, believe it or not,” O’Neill said, sitting down. Flutterfree stifled a chuckle. O’Neill rolled his eyes. “I would offer to go make more, but I just happen to know of a certain spell…” He glanced at Nanoha. As Nanoha focused a magic spell in her fingertips, Flutterfree turned to O’Neill with a cocky smile. “So, how many times has this happened?” “…Some…” Nanoha smirked as she transformed the hot dogs into a perfectly-cooked state. “Oh, enough that I have this spell on speed-dial.” Flutterfree’s grin widened. “Cooking problem?” “Hey, I’m an excellent chef!” O’Neill said. “I just get lost in thought some of the time. Most of the time.” “He is better at the culinary arts than I am,” Nanoha added. Flutterfree pointed at the perfect hot dogs with her wing. “I’m pretty sure that’s just me cheating. I could make just about any food perfect without even cooking, but where’s the fun in that? It’s useful for eating on the run, not much else.” “Food is magic, magic is friendship, friendship is food,” O’Neill said, drawing a triangle in the air. “Can you eat friendship…?” Flutterfree wondered. “Some of the Blood Skaians could,” O’Neill answered. “It was… something, to say the least.” “Oh, now you’ve got to describe it!” The meal conversation continued – for Nanoha and O’Neill, it was lunch, but for Flutterfree it was dinner. They talked, laughed, and just spent time enjoying each others’ company. Such things were commonplace among their collective social network. The City just seemed eager to give them time to bond with each other in any way possible. Flutterfree had rarely been on a mission that lasted more than one day since she started working again, and virtually everyone else she knew had a relaxed schedule that could be moved around or already had holes cut into it for friends. Flutterfree hadn’t fully believed Renee when she’d told them this would be a time of healing at first. She did now. “So, O’Neill, how’s that movie reviewing business going?” Flutterfree asked. O’Neill’s smile faltered. “Ah… that…” He leaned forward and set his jaw. “Most of the time it’s great. Go watch a movie, talk about it, get feedback. But with the recent boom of ‘historical’ films I’m expected to go watch them and tell everyone how accurate they were. This didn’t used to be a problem – Shutterstock’s stuff was mostly good – but now everyone wants in on the business. It’s gotten so saturated that Shutterstock’s stopped making those kinds of movies, leaving only the table scraps worthy of the dogs.” He put a hand to the bridge of his nose. “They mess with the story, add plots that didn’t exist, get things wrong, spread misinformation, and throw in cliché cheesy lines that were even more ridiculous than the things actually said!” “…Wow.” Flutterfree blinked. “I haven’t been to the theater much so… I didn’t know about this.” “You think they’d be able to make good movies out of stories that already exist,” O’Neill said, feeling a need to point at his Songs of the Spheres books, but they unfortunately weren’t in the garden, leaving him without an aid to his rant. “But they don’t! They make sub-standard unimaginative cash-grab movies meant to flash into existence and then fizzle out like a disease-ridden cherry bomb!” Flutterfree raised an incredulous eyebrow at his interesting simile. “I know, it doesn’t work, but the point’s the same. They don’t know how to do it and I end up seeing a lot of really low-tier movies because that’s what’s expected of me. It’s pretty disappointing to see something you like being run through the mud.” “Could you fix it?” Flutterfree asked. O’Neill shook his head. “I don’t make movies.” “Could you?” Flutterfree asked. “I know you’re retired, but maybe you could make one movie just to show people how it’s done?” Nanoha blinked. “That is an idea. You’re well known as a critic, you could probably get people on board easily. Friends, people in the movie industry…” “Crazy,” O’Neill said, waving a hand dismissively. “I don’t know the first thing about movie production… Except I watched Shutterstock that one time… And I read a lot about them for my reviews… And I have access to easy interviews…” He lowered his hand, blinking. “…It might actually be possible. Huh.” Flutterfree pulled out her phone. “I could call Eve, see if she could give us some help.” “Do that,” O’Neill said, standing up. “We’ll need a scriptwriter above all else, someone who can write well and understand the magnitude of the story we’re trying to tell… We’ll need a studio, and lots of people…” “It’d take a lot of planning,” Nanoha said. “If we want to actually tell our story, we have to involve everyone we can to get the best picture – including the material from the books and from our minds. Everything.” O’Neill rubbed his hands together. “Yes… Yes this will be excellent. We can tell our story for ourselves. It’ll be better for everyone and everything involved. Ha-ha! Let’s start grabbing people!” ~~~ “I am not writing your movie script,” I said the moment they arrived at my library. “…Why not?” O’Neill asked. Nanoha and Flutterfree were still with him. They had been joined by Corona and Eve on the way here through a series of phone calls and over-excited conversations. “Lots of reasons. Most of all, I just really don’t want to. I know there’s no chance the story ends up being Prophet-realized, which is good, but I’d frankly rather work on my original works than retelling a story that already has a million adaptations out there.” “But they all suck!” Corona said, waving her hands. “I haven’t seen a good one released in two years!” “We’ve only been in the New World for a little over four, Corona,” I reminded her. “That is really not much time.” Eve blinked. “...Sure we can’t convince you?” “Absolutely sure,” I said, ruffling my wings. “I’ve got other things I’m working on, and while I could write your movie script, my heart just wouldn’t be in it. That story’s passed. Honestly, it’s time to let it go.” “It’s not like you to hold such a strong opinion like this,” Flutterfree observed. “Good eye,” I said. “It’ll make more sense at the end of the chapter.” “…Should I be worried?” I shook my head. “No. Not for me, anyway. I’ll just warn you that this little endeavor of yours isn’t going to be as simple as you think it’s going to be.” I smiled and waved at them. “Good luck!” I closed the door. Eve blinked. “…Do we know any other authors?” “GM,” Nanoha suggested. “I don’t think he’d appreciate being bothered.” “I can actually try Shutterstock,” O’Neill realized. “He might listen to me if we offer him access to all of us…” “Sweetening the deal, I like it,” Corona said, rubbing her hands together. “We’re gonna show them what really happened whether they like it or not!” “I doubt this will stop them from putting graffiti on your workshop,” Nanoha pointed out. Corona blinked. “…Am I getting a little too gung-ho about this?” O’Neill shrugged. “You have only known about this for half an hour.” “Might want to invest in some chillaxitives,” Flutterfree suggested with an innocent smile. “Funny,” Corona deadpanned, locking her arms behind her back. “I’ll try to calm down. I’m just… it feels like this is an opportunity to tell the story from my point of view.” “Technically around half of the scenes in Doom are your scenes,” Eve pointed out. “True… but there’s always stuff the book leaves out. We could work with that.” Nanoha spread out her hands. “…I’m ready to take us to Shutterstock. Everyone good?” Everyone nodded. In an instant, they were at Shutterstock’s lavish house made completely out of white marble, as far as anyone could tell from looking at it anyway. O’Neill knocked on the door. Shutterstock, movie director, opened the door with a bored expression. “…Are you finally here to complain about the modern state of movies?” “Been expecting this visit?” O’Neill asked. Shutterstock nodded. “I watch your reviews closely. I can sense when someone’s getting fed up. I’m going to save you the embarrassment of asking: no, I will not direct or write your movie, no matter how much you give me that will scratch my itch for historic adventures.” “…Today must be the shut down day,” Flutterfree said. Shutterstock continued. “However, if you do insist on making it, if you give me access to all the information and interviews you have, you can use my studios. It’ll save you the trouble of building things up from scratch.” “That’s something, at least,” Corona said. “Thanks.” Shutterstock looked at her like he wasn’t quite sure what to make of her presence. “It is what I feel I can do while staying true to myself. Come back when you actually have a plan.” He closed the door. “Is it just me or are people being a little rude today?” Eve asked. “Blame the Tower,” O’Neill suggested. Flutterfree put a hoof to her chin. “I might have an idea… Rev’s written several books in her time.” Nanoha blinked. “She has?” Flutterfree nodded. “Lots of them are philosophy, theology, and apologetics, but she also does nonfiction.” “I don’t know, a new writer seems chancy…” O’Neill said. “Maybe. But if she won’t do it, she might be able to find someone else. She’s good at that sort of thing.” Flutterfree pulled out her phone and dialed. “I might have a few patients…” Eve mused. “Not sure I’d trust any of them to write our story though.” “Hey, Rev?” Flutterfree said, phone to her ear. “How’s it going? Oh, that’s wonderful! Yes, that’s always good. Yeah, I am calling for a reason. We’re thinking about making a movie about our story – one that we all help make so it can be done right and honestly. Twilence and Shutterstock have turned down the writer positions, and I was wondering if you might… No? Oh, okay…” The group sagged in defeat. “Hmm?” Flutterfree said, ears perking up. “You say you might have an idea though? …Trixie!?” “…I need to hear the other half of this conversation,” O’Neill said, blinking. Flutterfree ignored him. “I mean… Are you sure? Really? She can? Huh. Can’t say I expected that… Yeah, I’ll call her. Right now actually. Goodbye!” She hung up and turned to the group. “Please tell me it isn’t Trixie,” Corona said. “Well… no,” Flutterfree said. “But Trixie has someone mysterious writing the stories to her games. They’ve been really good and well thought out, according to Rev.” Corona nodded in agreement. “They… are pretty interesting.” “Rev thinks we could probably ask Trixie for a meeting with this… person. I think it’s worth checking out.” O’Neill shrugged. “I don’t see why not.” ~~~ “So then Trixie tells her ‘I know a guy’ and apparently she spills the beans to the first pony to ask!” Trixie complained as she led O’Neill’s group through the City’s underground. They were sometimes called the catacombs, but the metallic underbelly of the City was generally really clean and well inhabited, just not as open as the surface. “It seems like she was supposed to tell us,” Flutterfree pointed out. “I wouldn’t be mad at her.” “Trixie knows! Is it impossible to keep secrets in this day and age!?” Eve nodded. “Yes. Yes it is. Have you read Rage? Take a look at that miserable purple pony pile of mistakes and secrets all aired out for everyone to see.” “Fine, whatever, Trixie’s just looking forward to the day when secrets can stay secrets. Trixie is tired of thinking she’s always being watched.” “You are always being watched,” Corona said. “If not by an audience, then the Tower.” “Trixie is trying to stay in denial!” She adjusted her glasses as if this were a profound statement everyone should take notes on. Flutterfree rolled her eyes. “Denial is not a healthy state.” “It’s not even a state at all!” Pinkie said, appearing from nowhere. “It’s a river, silly!” Only Trixie was surprised by her sudden presence. “WAHAAHAGH. Why do you do that!?” “Because it’s fun!” Pinkie said, giving Trixie a consolation cupcake. “Do you know what we’re doing here?” Eve asked Pinkie. “Yep! Off to see the mysterious writer for Trixie’s games! I can’t wait to figure out who it is! …Nobody else cares all that much, but I do!” “I didn’t even know she had a secret writer until today,” O’Neill commented. “Times are changing, General!” Pinkie put a clown nose on him. “Just go with the flow and limbo!” Nanoha realized she was holding Raising Heart like a limbo rod. She shook her head and returned the device to its necklace form. Trixie grunted. “Well, we’re here.” She stood still and faced a completely blank wall. “Trixie bets you’re wondering why there doesn’t appear to be anything here? We-” Flutterfree activated Lolo and revealed a part of the wall that wasn’t tangible. “…You take the fun out of everything.” “I thought that was me?” Pinkie asked. “You put so much ‘fun’ into things they die in an agonizing explosion.” Pinkie cocked her head. “Huh… Sure, I guess that works. Sorta.” She shrugged and bounced through the intangible area of the wall, followed by all the others. They soon arrived in a greenish cathedral-like room covered in mixed spirograph and vine-like designs. “…Is the writer a Lolo worshipper?” Flutterfree asked. Trixie laughed. “No. She just likes the aesthetic here.” It is more than that, a soft, feminine voice said, entering their minds. It is a legacy of what my people once were. A Flower descended from the ceiling. She was a small member of her people, barely larger than an average human, but her grace was evident as she gently floated through the air. Her petals were simple and white while her stalks were a dark black. Lolo’s visual design and purpose is related to us, as we are related to the Tower. The spirograph is the head of a Flower, and the vines are the connections of ka. In a similar manner, our heads are reminiscent of the interweaving nature of universes surrounding the Dark Tower. Or, it was – now we are symbols without a place, lacking a purpose. “Say hello to Moly,” Trixie said, holding out a hoof. “She writes good game plots.” It is the new purpose I have found myself within this New World, following the loss of… the Flowers. I already know why you are here – to ask me to write your movie. And I will accept this task, and I will not even demand payment, though you will insist upon it. She paused a moment. I do this to forge a new image for the Flowers. To forget what we once were, the mistake we defined our whole existence on. Eve looked at her with sad eyes. “I… I’ve been wondering about that. You were neutral throughout the entire war, and then near the end you acted, then… then you all seemed to change.” “What happened to you?” Pinkie asked. Moly thought about this for a moment. We, as a culture, pushed towards one goal – the erasure of glitches in ka. Things that should not be, that which took unfair advantage of ka, the destruction of a good Narrative. We were the enemy of Mary Sues, Bad Slash, Horrendous Crossovers, and a number of other things. We kept the multiverse of a higher quality, and we were certain that was the way things were meant to be. The Dark Tower was but a machine, a machine that made mistakes and needed help to clean up the mess. We were the help. We made ourselves the immune system of the Multiverse. People have called it a religion. Maybe it was, but it was a religion where our ‘god’ was dependent on us. Without us, the multiverse would consume itself. …Or that’s what we thought. We always dismissed the idea that the glitches were intentional, always thought they couldn’t be part of the true Story, the true will of the Tower. But as the War for Existence carried on, we started to notice things. A few of the ‘glitches’ had been deeply incorporated into the story. Monika should never have existed in the form she does now, but she became integral to so much of the plot. There were many Mary Sues fighting in wars against each other, turning the tides. And we slowly got a nagging doubt in our minds. The Tower was letting existence decide if ka was to continue or to end. And if the Tower was able to factor the glitches into account in that decision where it could not allow itself to have doubts… It was not the first piece of evidence that the glitches might be intentional. But it was the one that finally made us doubt. So we decided to take action – to create a being that would be able to tell us what the Dark Tower thought. There was hesitation at first, belief that this was blasphemy, but we were eventually able to prove to ourselves that this was what ka ‘wanted’. So we created the Emissary, and… that was the end for us. With the collapse, the things we knew she stood for, and… She had to stop herself. She proved that the glitches in the Dark Tower were not glitches. They were intentional. We had not been providing any boon to the thing we had served our whole lives, we were just filling a role it had set out. The Dark Tower did not need us for anything. And this… is what drove most of us to do the things we did. The destruction, the attacks, the cults, the… All the abhorrent things. We wanted the Tower to notice us, to take us back, to elevate us to where we once were. This did not happen. We completely collapsed and ruined our good name among the people of the City. Her petals rustled in the breeze. That is what happened to us. Eve frowned. “…I’m so sorry.” “…You’re hired,” O’Neill added. Thank you. It would be my honor to set things right for the few of my people who will accept a truly new way of life. ~~~ “Okay, so, before we can actually begin any sort of production, we need to collect all the information we can,” Nanoha addressed the meeting. The group had already grown significantly since the day before: the rest of Pinkie’s Party had come, as well as Thrackerzod, Burgerbelle, Rev, and Roxy. Naturally, Moly was there as well, levitating dozens of physical paper sheets in front of her, studying them. “What’s the plan?” Roxy asked. Nanoha laid the eleven books of Songs of the Spheres on the table. “These books are our primary source material, along with the memories we have in our heads. We need to reconcile the two together to see what we can really say about what happened. Everyone’s read these, right?” Everyone nodded – but Burgerbelle raised her hand. “Yes?” Burgerbelle smiled innocently. “There is no way any of us have all two million words memorized.” “We’ll have time,” Eve said. “There isn’t actually a deadline yet – we can avoid hiring actors and doing any actual set design or other similar things until we actually have a good idea of the story we’re going to tell.” “We do have a general idea of what’s in the books, though,” Rev said. “But the book is very episodic. We want to tell it as one story, right?” “We can’t make over a hundred episodes without burning out,” O’Neill agreed. “Right. So we have a long movie – maybe more than one long movie – but it won’t be a full-blown adaptation of these books. We will have to shrink it down a bit.” Rev pulled the books in and examined them. “Cut them down to the most important events, and find characters to focus on.” “Careful, this is why everyone else screws up.” Rev nodded. “I’m aware. In the interests of making things manageable, condensing often removes important details. …Though that’s no excuse for adding things.” A balance would be choosing a few characters and events to focus on heavily while relegating everything else to a hyper-realistic background, Moly suggested. “Referential!” Burgerbelle said, bouncing a green soccer ball on her head. “Kind of like the books themselves. There’s more references than soup at the soup store!” “I need a bingo card for you,” Pinkie observed. “Thanks!” Pinkie giggled. “It could work, but we’d need to decide who to focus on, who’s going to carry the story,” Nanoha said. “While clearly Merodi Universalis is the protagonist civilization…” “…to the surprise of absolutely nobody…” Vriska inserted. “…the character we focus on is… problematic.” Nanoha folded her hands together. “There is not a clear protagonist. Corona and Eve are important figures, but the day-to-day adventures regularly focused on Pinkie’s or Allure’s group more.” “Eve, first character we see, important to the very end,” Corona said. “Corona,” Eve countered with a sly smile. “She’s the one the audience needs to see as sympathetic. My stance is easy to understand, hers isn’t.” “Deuteragonists,” Rev suggested. “Have them both be the focus.” “Eh… Problem,” Roxy said, tilting her hand side to side. “I’ve read the books and the histories. Their stories didn’t intersect all that much – they went on largely different paths until the war started. They were often both important to a given event, but… you know what I’m saying.” Rev pondered. “True… Trying to keep up a parallelism over a shorter timeframe would be difficult…” “What about me?” Pinkie said. “Me and my team did a lot through most of it! Can we work?” Nanoha furrowed her brow. “Maybe… You did have a role at the climax… A lot of mixed characters involved…” “But she wasn’t as important near the end,” Corona said. “No offense Pinkie, but you were just… there. “ “We could still focus on her,” Flutterfree retorted. “There’s a story there.” “But is it the story?” Roxy asked. “Is she really the story?” “We can’t tell the whole story. Just look at chapter 115,” Rev pointed out. “What about Allure?” Burgerbelle asked. “We can’t forget her!” “She wasn’t here for the end…” “What if the climax of the war was the end?” “That’s a downer end to a movie,” O’Neill said. “Which is why Pinkie should be our focus,” Nanoha said. “No, Corona,” Eve said. “Her story has yet to really be told outside this book that everyone treats like the plague.” “You’re the hero of the Merodi!” Corona countered. “You deserve this!” “Not really?” “I can trade up my protagonist spot if you want,” Pinkie suggested. “I don’t mind letting others have it.” “That’s not the point,” Rev said. “The point i-” “OH FOR THE LOVE OF MY BEARD!” Discord shouted, appearing in a flash of light above them. “You all sound like nagging birds that can’t make up their mind about which branch is the most comfortable! Let me fix this!” He snapped his fingers, dropping Eve, Corona, Pinkie, and Thrackerzod into a boxing ring. Discord tapped Thrackerzod’s horn to make it shiny and silver. “There, now the four of you can resolve this the old-fashioned way! With boxing gloves!” Thrackerzod stared at her silvery horn. For a moment, she looked like she would be able to handle it. Then she broke down on the floor of the boxing ring, ramming her hoof into the ground in anger, dark tears falling from her eyes. Discord’s grin vanished. He snapped his fingers, returning the room to normal. There was a dark, somber air over the room now. “…We should take a break,” Nanoha said. “We don’t need to make monumental decisions right now. We can just figure out what kind of things we want to show. …Later. Let’s leave the protagonist debate for another time.” Nobody argued. ~~~ Corona, Pinkie, and Eve sat in a reading room Eve had in her house. All three of them were looking through different books of Songs of the Spheres. “…You know, I’m noticing something weird,” Eve said, putting down Life. “I… I read a lot of things about what my other self has done, and I find myself disagreeing with the way some of my thoughts are portrayed. The book is so matter-of-fact and blunt sometimes. I know I wasn’t that angry, or didn’t really have that thought… Not to mention sometimes I see parts of the narration where I’m not sure if they’re my thoughts or GM’s or the Tower’s or Twilence’s.” She placed the book down. “I see things that I did, but I’m not sure they’re depicted right.” “That might be your fault, not the book’s,” Corona said, putting down Blood. “Take a look at Topeka, for instance. That entire story is all devoted to me and my running around a dream world. There are times where I see myself in it, and then there’s moments where I’m doing things I don’t remember. I mean, apparently I re-create Sparkler in my dreams now. I didn’t remember that at all, but Raging Sights was able to confirm that I do have her in my dreams regularly.” She furrowed her brow. “These books are more reliable than our memories.” “But… I’m sure I didn’t!” Pinkie poked her head into the conversation. “I can tell you that there was a disaster in your childhood and you’ll make a false memory about it, easy. Also, Eve, you were the one who told me witness testimony wasn’t reliable because memories aren’t anywhere near as accurate as we claim they are.” Eve blinked. “Is… is it possible we’re getting upset at the movies for no good reason? Maybe they are following the books well, and it’s our memories of the events that are off.” She held up a book and flipped to a section in Void where she was confronting Corona. “I remember this event very well… But when I read it, it doesn’t feel like me in there. Elsewhere it does, but otherwise…” “We’ve got two possibilities,” Corona said. “The books are imperfect, which is pretty likely considering how many GMs there were, or our memories are imperfect, which is also pretty likely given how brains and psychology works.” “And the answer’s different for every sentence we read!” Pinkie said with a giggle. “Isn’t that interesting?” “It’s kind of terrifying, honestly. Can’t even trust ourselves. We change too much over time, anyway.” Pinkie shrugged. “Eh, I’ve got other things I worry about. Like, what does it mean if you’re an actor playing an Aware character? You wave at the camera, but if you’re not Aware it isn’t real, but if you’re me you usually can see the people watching on some level. Is there a difference if the movie exists in the same reality or not? Can there be a difference? Am I a double meta-character!?” Corona put a hand to the bridge of her nose. “…Twilence wasn’t kidding, this is going to be really, really complicated.” “No, really,” Eve deadpanned. “We can’t even agree with each other, much less the book. It’s hard enough to read about things you’re ashamed of, it’s worse to feel accused of thinking things you’re sure you’re didn’t. But then you can’t be sure.” She slammed her head into the book. “Uuuuuugh…” Pinkie patted her on the back. “There there… It’ll be fine. We’ll get this!” “You sure about that?” “Nope! But it’s not like this is some end-of-the-world scenario or anything.” Pinkie smiled brightly. “Just keep plugging away at it – we’ll get some inspiration eventually.” “You know, I got called an angel and worshipped a lot, but it’s not mentioned very often in the books,” Corona said. Eve and Pinkie stared at her. “What? It’s just something I realized!” “It came out of nowhere,” Eve said, blinking. “My mind went deep, deep into left field for some reason.” Corona shrugged. ~~~ Nanoha got the brilliant idea that maybe the powerful story of romance could be used to help sort out some of the confusion in what they were trying to do. The story wouldn’t work centered around that, clearly not, but perhaps it could form a framework. So she started interviewing everyone about their relationship with the topic. This was widely considered a silly and ill-conceived plan, but she did it anyway. “So, tell me about your love life,” Nanoha said. Eve raised an eyebrow. “I have had virtually no romantic attraction to any being aside from that one time I was a human and got filled with intense hormone imbalance. Even then, technically that wasn’t me, so you can write it down as completely nonexistent.” “No suitors?” “Of course I had suitors. I ignored all of them. Flutterfree provided me with all the support I needed and my other friends made up the rest. Perhaps you should consider looking at close friendships instead?” There was no gold there, so Corona was next. “I mean, I dated several guys as both a human, a unicorn, and as what I am now. …I never did give this form a name, huh? Weird, when you think about it. Anyway, none of them ever stuck around for very long. There were some fun nights, there were some not-so-fun nights, and eventually I just stopped trying all that hard. Now, if Eve wasn’t completely devoid of any drive… Well, you fill in the blank there.” “You were interested?” Corona shrugged. “Occasionally? Never got to the point of Lady Rarity’s crush on me though. We ended that quickly, so again, doesn't really help you.” She paused. “…I don’t know if Lady Rarity survived the Dusting or not…” Moving down the list, Nanoha started working with Pinkie’s Party. “I had a fling,” Pinkie said. “Okay, I had a few, but there was only one that actually mattered. And guess what? The Tower was nice enough to keep it private! Shocker!” “…I miss Hastur,” Vriska said with a sigh. “You… You probably can’t make a big story out of that, but I do want… I don’t know. Just remember that he existed, okay?” “I’m a virgin,” Flutterfree said with an awkward smile. “Never really got into anything. I was lucky enough to always avoid the tentacle monsters. By the time I was really confident enough to genuinely start exploring, well, life had taken an adventurous turn and I found that was enough. The church too. Sorry to disappoint you.” “I was married to the best woman in existence,” Jotaro said. “I had to learn to love and appreciate her when Eve first came to me. And now… she’s gone.” That was all he had to say. Pidge blinked. “I don’t even know why I’m here. I mean, sure, I’ve liked a few guys and, er, have crushes and stuff here and there, but I came in really late so it doesn’t really matter what my experiences were. So, uh, I’ll talk about Nova instead. She… well, read the books. She had troubles with romance, something terrible. She was basically the only one of the old team that really ‘fell’ for people while out adventuring, and… yeah. …You probably want to focus more on Renee and Daniel for a feel-good sort of thing. Of course that ends in tragedy…” Nanoha was slightly annoyed that Renee and Daniel were the best relationship so far – and it was one that ended in some pretty hefty tragedy. She could work with that, yes, but would it really be able to represent the story? “I had nothing,” Thrackerzod said. “Squeaky had a family she kept out of everything she did. And go read about the whole 69 chapter again, get it into your head what Allure thought of romance. She loved Minna, and that was it, end of story. I’m leaving now.” “Do you really need me to answer?” O’Neill asked with a coy smile. “Ah… no,” Nanoha admitted, blushing. “Just called you in so the others wouldn’t complain.” She was starting to think she really was grasping at straws. Romance simply didn’t seem to drive the plot. Why would it? It didn’t have to. Her own story hadn’t cared too much for it. It had just seemed like such an important thing… It’s a powerful story, Moly told her, after she had gone through many, many interviews. Romance comes not only from an internal biological drive, but a higher drive for companionship and deep interaction. It was one of the most easily ‘corruptible’ things in the multiverse. Starbeat is, believe it or not, an expert on the subject. You should talk to her. So Nanoha did. “I like how it’s portrayed,” Starbeat said, pointing at Space. “It’s shown to really exist in a few cases – Renee and Daniel most prominently – but a lot of the time it’s treated as an oversaturation. Which… it is. One of the many things we screwed up with ka is romance in general. Walk around a 2000s Earth, you’ll see the ‘ideal’ plastered on every billboard and magazine imaginable. Romance, romance, romance, pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, sex, sex, sex. A lot of people think the unintended consequences of time travel or grimdark are the worst curses ka has laid on us… But I think the cheap, fantasy-filled way it treats romance is the real tragedy. The majority of flings are trivial, rushed, and treat biologically driven lust as the cusp of romantic meaning. I… It may seem odd that I, the person who’s experienced the most tar in a romantic sense, feel this way. Maybe it’s just because I’ve hit rock bottom in terms of romance that I can say I know what I’m missing.” “…Starbeat, are you…?” “Don’t second-guess your relationship with O’Neill, Nanoha. I don’t know if it’s ka-forced in a natural or unnatural feel-good way. Keep close and hold onto it – and when the Tower falls, if you keep it, you’ll know it was really real.” She paused for a moment. “I wonder how many shallow ‘happily ever afters’ are going to be shattered by the Tower’s fall. On one hoof, it won’t be an imitation anymore. It will allow people to realize that life never really ends and that there’s always room to grow and develop relationships... On the other, it can be said that an imitation is better than nothing.” Nanoha’s frown deepened. “I’m sorry.” Starbeat wiped a tear from her eye. “Yeah…” She glanced at Space. “…I was an idiot. I saw him and I let it happen.” “We’ve all been idiots.” “I really hope you’re not.” Nanoha smiled and pulled Starbeat into a hug. That was the last interview Nanoha performed on romance. ~~~ “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but remind me of the history,” O’Neill said as he paced back and forth in front of a giant chalkboard covered in sticky notes, colored lines, and photographs. Flutterfree furrowed her brow. “Which part? Whole multiverse? The books? Just the war?” “It would be… good, I think, if we could condense it to just the events that led up to the war and the war itself. So… work backwards?” An Aradia they had brought on to consult chuckled. “Going backwards? Count me in!” O’Neill started to pace around the room. “So if we take Corona’s message as the start of the war, what led up to that?” “Immediately before it was her studies of the Dark Tower,” Aradia said. “…Actually, you could just ask her.” Corona was walking by with a half-eaten piece of toast in her mouth and a very complicated looking device of wires and sparks in her hand. “Mmm?” “Trying to trace things back to make it organized,” O’Neill said, wiping clear an area of the whiteboard that was nothing more than ‘how ka works: the bad flow chart’. “Come in, have a seat.” Corona used her magic to levitate the toast out of her mouth and seal the device in one of the strongest seals she knew. “Sure!” She sat down, putting another protective spell on the device just for good measure. “…Do you need to deal with that?” Flutterfree asked. “What? No, it won’t explode now, and even if it does we’re all safe.” She added another layer of shield. “…Uh-huh.” O’Neill wrote the Message on the board. “Right, so, Corona, what major event led directly to the Message?” “My conversation with my friends. …Most of whom I don’t know the final fate of. Lady Rarity… Sugarcoat… Nae… Ash… No idea.” O’Neill scribbled a few things. “And before that…” “My research at the Tower,” Corona said, summoning Void to her. She flipped through a few pages. “And that was brought on, in a direct sense, by Nettle’s attempts to take the Tower for herself with the first side of the Choice.” “And now we have a branch,” Aradia said. “We could follow Corona, Nettle, or the Choice prophecy itself.” O’Neill drew three lines. “Okay…” “The Choice itself leads directly back to the early days of the Tower and the Tower’s Testament,” Aradia added, thinking for a bit. “I’m not sure where it came from, but it didn’t exist in the days of Roland. So… Big question mark there.” “Might it have come from the Prognosticus?” Flutterfree asked. “Testament is older than that. Pre-Downstreamer.” “That’s a dead end,” O’Neill said, drawing a square there. “Nettle… Trace her back… To the Beyond?” “Don’t forget her attempt on the Spline,” Corona said. “That was… a fun day for Jotaro.” “Okay, so, Spline, Beyond, both ancient constructs that the show won’t be concerned with. But Nettle herself came from the Downstreamers as they fell trying to create infinity… stopped by the Spline.” O’Neill paused. “I’d never realized that before.” “It is pretty complicated,” Corona admitted. “Not too bad, though. That ties itself up nicely – actually, wait, we have to tie it in to Flagg, he brought the Downstreamers to their knees. Which, by relation, ties us all the way back to Roland’s legend…” She waved her hands. “We can gloss over that. Nettle can be seen as the higher-entity messing with things in the movie, perhaps a sympathetic villain type? But she only really fills that some of the time…” “We’re just trying to make sense of this whole line of events,” Flutterfree said. “No need to think of character archetypes because… That went really well last time.” Corona shook her head. “Sure. What’s next?” “You,” O’Neill said, drawing a circle around Corona’s name. “What prepared you for the collapse?” Corona looked at her hands and forced herself to focus. “There… were several steps. I’d been very dissatisfied with the way the world was… The Shaping Mechanism was in my control, and I was taught how to shape universes and dance around with trillions of lives, but at that point I was basically already ready. It…” She put a hand to the bridge of her nose. “I’d cite Topeka as my turning point, but I could also cite my war on death, or just being the Rogue of Doom.” O’Neill drew out four lines – Shaping Mechanism, Topeka, war on death, Rogue of Doom. “…Geez…” “Yeah, geez is right,” Flutterfree said. “The Shaping Mechanism requires you understand the entire war with Skarn, and the Rogue of Doom aspect is… well, let’s just say that while I was living that Green Sun thing I felt like I was being fed too much information. And at that point I was pretty good at taking information in on the fly.” “Don’t I know it,” O’Neill said. “And Topeka… To our history, it’s very unimportant. For you it’s very important. But Topeka has virtually nothing to do with any of the rest of us… It was just you.” Corona nodded. “Flagg was there, to some extent.” She put a hand to her forehead. “This is all a bit much for a movie… Even a trilogy. You’d have to do it just on me and… I really don’t want that. …It’s also more than a little hard to think back to all those times. People died. People I knew well. People you knew well.” She leaned back in her chair and let out a sigh. Something exploded inside her triple-magic shield, but nobody cared. O’Neill drew a bunch of lines to a single point and wrote ‘it’s complicated’. ~~~ Nanoha decided there was a better interview she could perform. There was one very important viewpoint to the story of their story she couldn’t get directly. That of the lost protagonist. “What did Allure mean to you?” she asked. Burgerbelle furrowed her brow. “You know, back when I first entered the League – and was still a Flat – I don’t think my higher intelligence was that… ‘developed’ let’s say.” She went to one side of the room, stooping like a monkey, then slowly walked to the other end straightening until she stood upright. “I was literally just a meme at the start. There wasn’t even the cute, childish anything back then, it was just ‘burger’ and ‘burger’ and ‘more burger’. By the time I really had the ability to think much outside of that, I was… Well, I was already very comfortable with the whole League. I don’t remember what it was like to be taken under Allure and the others’ care, because as far as most of me is concerned that’s how it’s always been.” She shrugged. “What did she mean to you then?” “She was… Well, nobody said she was the leader, but she was. She wasn’t the smartest, wasn’t the strongest, and wasn’t the friendliest of all Sweeties… But there was something about her that fit the ‘middle’. You know what I mean?” Burgerbelle twirled a finger in the air, seemingly with no goal in mind. “She was… She was the big sister to everyone in the entire League. The Rarity for those who had none. That doesn’t make sense, but hey, I was a Flat, deal with it.” A pair of sunglasses dropped from the ceiling onto her head. “Allure…” Servitude folded her hands. “Allure was the person who made me realize there were different kinds of purity than what I had been raised to believe.” She flapped her angelic wings. “She kept a strange childlike innocence about her for most of the time I knew her. It… it was heartbreaking to see her lose it in the end. Part of me thinks she was lucky she didn’t make it to the New World. She had already been broken.” Minna put her hands to her mouth and closed her eyes tight. “You don’t have to answer,” Nanoha reminded her. “I want to,” Minna said. “I really, really want to. I want to give the best mother a girl could ask for something… profound. I want to say the best, most awe-inspiring speech of all time. But every time I think about doing that all I want to do is…” She took a breath and wiped a tear from her face. “She was a good mother. A mother who was willing to put up with a kid who didn’t know why she knew so much. A kid who was creepy, quiet, observational, and secretly a weapon. And then… she just let me go. I wanted to go fight, and she let me. And…” Minna grabbed Nanoha’s hands. “She was the purest person I knew for so long. I… I was the main reason she…” Minna broke down, unable to take it anymore. Nanoha sent her home to her husband. “She joined us a few times,” Pinkie said, tapping her hooves on the counter. “Say what you will about Pidge, Allure was the actual sixth ranger. She was there with us in the Collection… on Xanadu… I know she wasn’t one of mine, but sometimes I thought she was. Part of the family. Everyone on the team brought something, and her little adorable form brought a strange innocence to it. Not naïveté, it was… more robust than that. She refused to accept things for what they were. I may look like a positive bundle of excitement, but when I get the bad feelings I get everyone out of there as fast as possible. She would have given them the benefit of the doubt.” Eve sipped her drink. “…I didn’t know her as well as I would have liked. I knew she was like me… One of the ‘great’ heroes. It was something Twilence had confided in me. I don’t know… did that make me avoid her? I don’t think so. It was almost as if her story was separate from ours… In a ‘league’ all its own, if you will. I’m not sure what that represents, if anything.” An elderly orange pegasus closed her eyes. “Allure…” “Take your time, Scootaloo,” Nanoha said. “You know, sometimes I hate the multiverse,” Scootaloo said, sighing. “It tore the three of us apart before we even knew what was happening. Sweetie - Allure - had her league, Apple Bloom had her potions and her family and I…” Scootaloo glanced at her flank. “I stayed the Crusader. There’s days where I feel like they abandoned me, and there are days where I look out and can see how much good they were doing… without me.” She ruffled her feathers nervously. “I can’t tell you what she was like, not really. I never liked hanging around the League of Sweetie Belles, and after Rainbow… Some days I’d just like to go back to when we were fillies and all we cared about in the world was each other.” “She’s the reason I’m alive.” Thrackerzod said. “…Care to elaborate?” Nanoha asked. “No,” Thrackerzod said, teleporting away. Nanoha sat back in her chair and let out a sigh, trying to ease some of her stress. It hadn’t been easy to hear all those things. Despite being an immortal for time immemorial, she looked physically older to those who saw her after the interviews. ~~~ Flutterfree took a deep breath, calmed her nerves, and walked into Corona’s workshop, the place where most of the planning had started taking place since there was plenty of room. Already she was hit by a sense of things being tense. People were running back and forth, trying to figure out what the heck to do with a piece of information they found in the books that conflicted with someone’s memory. Some people were hiding behind large boxes, crying after they had been forced to relive a particularly traumatizing or sorrowful memory. Flutterfree sighed, walking past all of this to the center of the workshop, where the main table was. O’Neill, Nanoha, Corona, and Eve were currently pointing at each other and talking loudly about every detail. They weren’t angry, but they were definitely talking loudly, trying to get their point heard over all the others. This was apparently an argument about the events of Topeka, again, and if they could be relayed accurately through Corona’s memories or the book. The quasi-vampiric pegasus didn’t listen to the argument – all she actually did was pick up a piece of paper that had been sitting on the table between them. It was a list of names with short descriptions scribbled afterward. It was a list of people who had died. Allure – the lost hero, important, must portray focally and accurately. Rohan – major piece to the set, a Prophet, arrogant but good heart. Renee – the Emissary, beyond important, needs to be very meta-aware. Daniel – husband of Renee. Tragedy. Olivia – anti-hero hacker. Giorno – Overhead of Intelligence, good for consistency in story. The Doctor – complex character. Divided opinions. Rainbow Dash - sacrificial wake-up-call death John – Retconner, very lore important, not personality important. Sparky – lost long ago. Maybe not important enough to mention? The Sage – ancient history. General Sunset – hard for people to remember. Lieshy – ascended the Tower, spoke in double Davepetasprite.. Flutterfree couldn’t read it anymore. She started crying – and the sight of this made all four powerful voices stop talking and look to her in concern. “Flutterfree…?” Eve asked. “This isn’t going to work,” Flutterfree managed, placing the paper back on the table. “This isn’t going to work, Eve…” Eve matched her expression. An unspoken conversation took place – and in the end, Eve reluctantly nodded. Flutterfree took a deep breath, wiped her tears from her face – and then spread her wings as far wide as she could. The purple power of her Rage billowed off of her in a purple miasma, grabbing the attention of everyone in the entire workshop. They all stopped what they were doing – working, arguing, crying – and turned to listen to what she had to say. “This isn’t working,” she said. Her voice was tranquil, but firm. The truth of her statement found its way into the minds of everyone present, breaking down their internal personal biases. They knew she was right – and they could see it through her. “This is supposed to be a time of healing, a time for us to move on and prepare for a new life. Before we started this project, we were fine. We were happy, able to live our lives with minimal, if any, personal suffering. We were alive and working toward a brighter future. “But then we had this idea. …I had this idea. This idea to fix the representations of the past we’ve been given in spades ever since the City formed. I thought maybe we could resolve everything for the people around us. But I forgot something very, very important. I forgot about us. “Look at us. We’re not doing better than we were last week, we’re doing worse. We’re having numerous sequential emotional breakdowns, every last one of us. Where there were once smiles, there are now tears and arguing and stress about how impossible this project is. “We’re not looking to the future with this movie. We’re looking to the past – a past we’re supposed to be moving on from. We’re entering… entering a relapse. We’re allowing a disease to get back to us. Almost all of us have trauma we don’t want to admit we have. We want to think we’re strong, that we can work past this.” Flutterfree held up the sheet of paper. “I can’t do this. In order to make this work… we have to treat those lost like nothing more than characters. We have to work with them like tools. It’s… we can’t do this to ourselves. We just can’t. This is not how we were meant to live our lives, everyone. This is not how we are supposed to remember our past. “I’m leaving. Technically, you all still have a choice if you want to keep working on this or not. But now you know what it’s doing to you. I… I’m sorry for coming up with this idea and putting you all through this ordeal. We don’t need to go through all this just to make sure we’re remembered correctly. …I say let them mess a few details up and make substandard movies. Some of them are probably being as creative as they can. We don’t need to put ourselves through hell just to make people appreciate us better.” She turned off the Rage and folded her wings. She wiped some tears from her eyes and took a breath. Before she could start leaving, though, Eve pulled her into a hug. “That was amazing.” “I cheated,” Flutterfree said. “You told them the truth.” Flutterfree nodded slowly. “…I did. I just… None of us are strong enough.” O’Neill looked at the chalkboard he had been working on up until that moment. He broke it in half with Crimson Sushi. “I’ll go tell Shutterstock we won’t be needing his studios.” “I’ll get back to actual work,” Corona said, teleporting a mechanical arm to her. “I’ve been putting it off something fierce.” “The flowers miss me…” Nanoha realized. “I’ve been neglecting my patients… and myself,” Eve admitted. A series of similar realizations came out from everyone elses’ mouths. There were a handful who wanted to keep working despite what Flutterfree had told them, but they were smart enough to realize they were losing the support that made their effort special. The project to make an accurate Songs of the Spheres movie burned out. It had simply been too much for them to handle. They could face a war that tore reality apart, but trying to relive those moments over and over again… It was a step too far. Flutterfree walked to the door of the workshop first. Like she had before she entered, she took some careful breaths. Then she opened the door. I stood there and dropped a book larger than my head at her hooves. “Here.” Flutterfree blinked, looking down at the black-cover book entitled Memories. “What’s this?” “It’s that thing I was working on.” I trotted into the workshop, Flutterfree coming back in with me. “…You’ve all learned or are in the process of learning the lesson of the day. Don’t forget what Flutterfree said about reliving the past over and over. This is a time of healing, not dwelling on past tragedy. That said…” I gestured at the book. “I am fully connected to the Tower again and can see anything I want now. I used this power to go back and write… a bunch of memories. Memories about you, yes, but also about people who have been lost, people we don’t remember, and things that had no effect on the story whatsoever.” I smiled warmly. “It’s… a bit of a gift. All I ask is that you not publish anything inside, and just pass it among yourselves. Keep it from entering story circulation, so you can keep the contents private. So there will be no movies about the tales contained within, no fans, not even an audience. The only audience in this book… is you all.” I winked at them. “Consider this a compromise from what you were trying to do.” Flutterfree picked the book up under her wing and smiled. “It’ll do, Twilence. Thank you.” “You’re welcome. I’m sorry I couldn’t give it to you earlier. There’s so much in there to talk about…” I looked ‘beyond’ and smirked at you. “Things you will never, ever see or hear about. Because they are in our story. Not yours.” ~~~ “…and that’s the best story in it,” Flutterfree concluded, once again sitting at O’Neill and Nanoha’s garden table, this time eating hot dogs O’Neill had cooked well. “Good choice,” Nanoha said. “…It feels a little strange, reading stories that no one else will get to. It’s like… a secret record.” O’Neill nodded, trying to say something that was muffled by the hot dog in his mouth. Flutterfree rolled her eyes. “O’Neill…” “No no no! that’s actually progress!” Nanoha said. “He’s learning to be a loud eater!” “…Wh- oh, right, in your culture that’s encouraged.” Flutterfree chuckled nervously. “I hope you don’t mind, but I completely forgot.” “Don’t mind at all.” “I mean, it’s just one of the most common culture archetypes in the multiverse,” O’Neill said, trailing a finger in the air. “Not like an exploration team should know the ins and outs of all those.” Flutterfree chuckled. “And you should know how to cook hot dogs every time in your common culture archetype. But, well, whoops!” She shrugged with her wings. “Sometimes I forget how vicious you can be.” Flutterfree put on the most innocent face imaginable. “I have no idea what you mean.” “Aww, what a perfect little angel!” Nanoha giggled. “Quite the loaded phrase around these parts,” O’Neill cautioned. “…I have twelve different versions of Angel Bunny at my home,” Flutterfree revealed. “They range from actually perfect to demonic. I love them all.” “Oh, you do?” Nanoha blinked. “…We don’t have a pet.” “Crimson Sushi’s a pet! It’s great!” O’Neill summoned the Stand and scratched its fishy chin. “And I can’t see it unless I actually try, and if you’re using its power I doubt it’d be very pleasant to see anyway with the room rearranged like a slide puzzle.” It was at this point Nanoha realized the walls had all swapped orientations. She put a hand on her hip and rolled her eyes. “Oh, you…” “Oh, me?” O’Neill said, swapping locations with Flutterfree. Flutterfree summoned Lolo to quickly put an end to the illusory madness. “I had about three more layers of mindscrew going!” O’Neill complained. “I call foul.” “The ball wasn’t even in play, can’t foul,” Flutterfree said, once again with an overly innocent smile on her face. “…You’re good.” “Yes. I am. Want to play poker?” “Only if Jotaro plays as well.” “He’ll make sure he gets first and I get second.” “I bet otherwise.” “Uh, yeah, that’s the point of poker.” There were a trio of joyous laughs around the table, without a hint of the sorrows from their last little project. ~~~ Months later, there was a knock at my library door. I already knew who it was but I pretended to be surprised anyway. “Who is it?” “You know.” “I know, but do you know what I’m going to say next?” “Come in?” I opened the door to see Shutterstock standing there. “Come on in, so close.” He tried to shrug, but this motion was near impossible with the absolutely gigantic box he had in his hand. It was so heavy it had a levitator spell on it, and still he was barely able to carry it. He stumbled until he found a suitable empty table without books – one I had specifically cleared about two minutes ago – and set the box down upon it with a thud. “Care to tell me what it is?” “You already know, again,” Shutterstock said, opening the box as he did so. He pulled out a copy of Breath that looked a little thicker than the normal edition. The cover had an additional credit on it. Commentary arranged by Shutterstock and addenda by Moly. “This will do nicely.” “Thank you,” he said, dusting himself off. “I take it you will start distributing this?” I nodded. “Yes. That said, mind explaining what this is for the people at home? I’m sure some of them are very confused.” “…And where are they?” “Just look at the Eye of Rhyme and that should be close enough.” Shutterstock nodded, clearing his throat. “Ahem. Hello… readers of the past, present, future. I am Shutterstock and I-” I facehooved. “You don’t need to have so much bravado. Less speech, more like a movie scene.” He nodded. Instead of talking, he dramatically laid the Breath book down on the table, pointing to one of the first pages. “The man of light fled across existence, and the enchantress followed.” It was the same as every other edition of Breath, except at the bottom there was a little footnote. “My story began like this again and again. It was impossible to see it all at once. It was always me and Walter, chasing each other in the Tower’s loop for eternity. I know my legend went on to inspire many… but seeing my beginning here fills me not with appreciation, but with dread.” – Roland Deschain, the gunslinger. “I took all the information they gave me access to,” Shutterstock said, smiling softly. “All the interviews, all the diagrams, all the notes… and I annotated the books with them.” He flipped through a few more pages, pointing at a few key quotes and then flipping past them faster than you could possibly read them. (Trust me.) He flipped to the back of the book, where there was a large discussion about the Breath aspect itself, talking about its relations to freedom, spirit, wind, and innocence. A fitting beginning to the story - and a good legacy for Moly’s writing. “They can’t make their movie. It’s impossible,” Shutterstock said. “But to anyone who cares… Their words are now placed in the books themselves. Ready to help make sense of the words once written by a young man who wanted nothing more than an interesting story.” He closed the book.