//------------------------------// // Chapter 41: Connection // Story: The Trinity of Moons: Mending Shards // by Cloud Ring //------------------------------// ⊛⊛⊛ Gentle avoided touching Cursory Streak's web not because she was not asked to — the situation strongly reminded her about unconscious patients' cases in her tutoring — but because of a bad feeling. Touching a channeling Herald was always like playing with fire, even if it was necessary at times. In Cursory's case, ‘playing with fire’ was not a figure of speech. Cursory’s web glowed with dangerous heat at Gentle's first directed intent to reach for it, even before any actual touch. The petal of her inner flame blocked her line of contact, expanded and all but hissed ‘You are unallowed here’. Gentle had seen a resistance like this before, a long time ago — long for her relatively short life, not including the unending dream of the Red, now mostly forgotten thanks to the 'Guiding Starfall-TX' that she got from Pink — and under very different circumstances. For example, a bulb of a new tulip hybrid found by her dad simply refused to grow with its neighbors, and after a few futile attempts her mom advised Gentle Touch not to rush, "Everything has its time under the sky, gecko." Then there were cases of working with pregnant mares, when the souls of the unborn were often interfering with Gentle the same way; too distant to see them well, still close enough to deny the touch. That was nothing more than a minor bump on the road, as Gentle Touch was more than just her talent or magic. She was good at listening and Cursory wanted to talk about her experience, especially with Gentle. After hearing the pegasus out, still remaining next to her — not only as bodies, since in a cramped spaceship they could not keep distance anyway, but in spirits too — she and Solid exchanged glances and tried to reach for their Moons. They both heard almost no response, as if they were deep underground. The Moon was there, and that was it. Storm watched them with a condescending smile. Cursory, her head still drooped, once again said that she is hearing White Moon’s call, too powerful to keep resisting it; that she does not know what triggered the call; and that she will not leave them while she has a voice in it, at least until they complete their search. “Also, we need to recon about upper sky ponies, too,” Cursory added. Gentle clearly saw that the call that Cursory still struggled against was coming from inside rather than outside. It was Cursory’s own fire demanding to be free. Gentle was at a loss about how to say this without being rude, imprecise, harmful. Faraway Storm’s heavenly city appeared around them with neither warning nor any added gravity — white walls blocked the starry void visible through the porthole. Six locals — counting only those who had floated in the air before the window — helped them out. The decontamination that Storm had mentioned was likely deemed unnecessary, postponed or performed without them even knowing about it. The team, following the invitation, reached the adjacent hall through a round door that slid to the side. Signal had to be rescued, hugged and kept close — in zero-gravity, her body believed that it was, indeed, constantly falling, and she was totally unable to move on her own. Even hanging in place was beyond the abilities of a cat. A secretary wrote down their names. Gentle swam aside, looked around, half-heartedly checking on the secretary. He was talking to Storm, expressing the overseers’ displeasure at the uninvited and unexpected guests — ones who were more than a grade above simply moonlit, too! ‘You could as well bring in a few unbounds, why wouldn't you?’ Storm was taking this in stride, reminding about her being a field operator and thus being able to pick invitees at her own discretion. He suggested that she is compromised and should be demnesied. He thought he was speaking quietly enough.  Strictly speaking, Gentle Touch did not hear the sound and was not sure about the exact wording; she didn’t even look at them, as her eyes were closed for now, and her head was turned to them only by coincidence. It was totally impolite to eavesdrop. More than that, until now Gentle Touch never had been able to see conversations through webs — trembles of separate thoughts were too fine for her to see.  The giant yellowish-white sphere was full of books, cameras, screens and projections hanging in the air, thick and thin wires stretched from door to door outlining rope walkways of sorts. The screens were mostly off, but Gentle had the feeling that she was being watched from all sides and with many eyes; that she is small, defenseless, and that she is not welcome here at all. Smells of ozone and ash tickled her nose, though she did not see open flame, compressors were rustling forced ventilation, ambient light slowly shifted along the spectrum similar to how Blue Moon always does it, except these colors were shifting around the yellow. Signal nuzzled her. The cat, tightly clasped by her front legs, did not even try to get out of the embrace, but turned her head towards Solid, so Gentle swam — or flew — up to the unicorn. Gentle Touch was uncomfortable here too, she wanted solid ground under her hooves, but the climbways actually turned out to be reliable paths, elastic and stable — at least for zero-g. Solid, with her dense green and purple web, was unreadable.  Gentle decided to simply ask, "How are you?" “Me? I'm calm,” Solid answered in a beat. She did not turn her head towards Gentle. Not that it was needed. “So… it’s nice, I assume?” Gentle suggested hesitantly. It was very unusual to look and not see. Solid looked literally encrypted, deliberately hidden. Unusual, but nice. Solid’s face was itself a work of art — too bad she was hiding it now. “Yes. My connection with the Moon is weak. I am a bad Herald. You're not the best one either. I believe that is why we are not affected by the influence from which Cursory Streak suffers. I am bad at being Herald — my past self was so much better, and I remember that, and it’s painful — and I am constantly required to be a Herald anyway. Here I don't need my alignment anymore. Neither internally nor externally.” She abruptly stopped her speech. Gentle Touch thought that was all, and looked around before turning to Solid Line to say something warm, encouraging or accepting. In that beat, without even a subtle change of pose, Solid Line appeared much closer to her, touching Gentle’s fur by her tail, still hunched and looking away.  The unicorn whispered dryly, “I am discarded. I am not called for. I am sad and I am free. Much more free than you could even imagine.” With an effort, Gentle Touch managed to neither ask for a distance nor shift away herself. She is Black-aligned, after all...  “Please don't go? You are welcome to me,” Solid added. Gentle was not going to leave, but, surprised, she asked not what she was intending to ask before, “What’s with your mission against the Red then? How do you deal with it from here? And your Moon and Cursory and I need you, as one of the souls…” “You don’t need me as myself!” Solid Line never raised the tone but her tempo went faster, “My past self didn't need me too. Just me to get the job done. To take revenge. To untangle the Red after it killed my mother. Past-Solid’s mother, as I don’t even remember her much. I believe that I do not want revenge anymore. I am a tool for it, sure, but I am not interested. I know I can do that, sure. I have already solved this problem, and it will work. Why should I run the program if I already know it will work? Think about it. Or feel it. And don't go,” Solid spoke even faster now — and not only did she not look Gentle in the eye but turned her back on Gentle; Solid’s words were utterly contradicting her body language. Gentle whispered, “I'm listening to you.” “I need something else now. I need no revenge, even as I am made as a tool for one. I need myself,” Solid Line said, either in response to these words, or into the air. “Me too, gecko,” a third voice intervened from the side, hanging over Gentle’s ear. Natural, smooth, lively voice, and only a barely noticeable, shortest pause after the click consonants gave out the speaker. And, of course, the tone itself was caring, a little condescending. In Gentle's life, only two ponies spoke to her like that. Also, Sharp Cut, but that barely counted. Gentle turned sharply around and swam to the side, having lost the cable nearby. The steel-silver unicorn looked at her with deep black eyes — black to absolute emptiness, without glares and reflections, without colourful irises, without a trace of life in them. This time she was steel in a more literal sense.  “Is there a place at your table that still remains, Gentle Touch? You will make a pie soon, and now I, and my creatures, want a piece of it. But be warned, your tricks no longer work on me,” Acute Dispassion said. Gentle closed her eyes, looked — and did not see anypony at Dispassion’s supposed place. It seems to be a rhetorical question...