[ As soon as it rears up, her anger recedes to be replaced with a tiny thrill of nostalgia. ]
(Beautiful, but out to kill us.)
[ She has an inkling, that if he's asking to get her version to corroborate Kaji's story, then her take on the story would directly contradict his. He would say that it's humans who have been trying to destroy the world all along, humans who had no rightful place on Earth. ]
(It's similar to this, but with bigger cities made of concrete and steel. Really tall towers, crowded streets, but with nature parts too. You know, mountains, lakes, deserts like this. We have a lot of sunken cities under the sea, a lot of ruins we haven't gotten round to fixing, but we make do. Is that what you're asking? Do you want me to show you?
[ 'Out to kill us' is a pretty big qualifier, girl. The rest of the description sidelines his skepticism somewhat — he used to love the idea of ruins and sunken cities. That'd been before he'd seen them firsthand, but it's somehow easier to romanticize all of it when it's as abstract as someone else's world.
It isn't completely what he'd been asking for. He could be more direct, ask after Kaji's strange comments about time, about that circle. But what she's put in front of him is interesting all the same, and the pause is much shorter this time while he considers. ]
(Go on.)
[ He's getting too used to the idea of people shoving their thoughts and memories on him without much complaint. It helps that she asked first, at least. ]
[ The problem with human perception is of course its subjectivity. The world where she left off was in the bowels of MAGI, the lightless room chilled to the temperature preferred by the supercomputers, amber text on black, the lingering scent of coffee. From there she traces her way back through dark passageways, elevators going up and up, and up some more, escalators stretching miles it seems, until the view opens: a glass pyramid amid pine trees inside a massive cavern, sunlight reflected on threads tangled overhead.
Up and up again, so she breaks the surface to a city perched above the cavern, a lifeless city, militaristic, robotic. The signs are everywhere: green tanks lining the streets, concrete towers without windows, the sunken buildings she mentioned just to one side, warnings shouting HIGH VOLTAGE, and nobody in the streets. It is this sight that wavers and trembles, the knowledge that it is only a memory makes her hesitate, never mind that the entire exercise is one of remembering. She shows him this and the truth: a lake made of overlapping perfect circles. Upon closer look, the periphery of a destroyed city upon the lake bank, and upon closer inspection, the realization that the circles were carved out by explosions.
The air is warm and humid, and it smells like the sea. The sky is blue. The trees are green. The cicadas shriek in a deafening crescendo. It comes right back. ]
[ It's all foreign, though perhaps less foreign than it might've been before he'd woken up with a view of the station. Some of the images call up echoes, pale imitations of her modern constructs: stone towers, sprawling castle grounds.
The dead streets are met with quick understanding. Not for the tanks and the signs, of course, but the feeling behind it's easy to place. Mat's distracted by the image even after it starts to crumble, though the image of the lake and its devastation lingers, too — not like anything he's seen, no. Similar to things he's felt in dreams, and coated in the same hollow weight that always came with the aftermath of a battle.
The memories of actual life feel tacked on at the end of all of it. Persistent and inevitable, but still an afterthought. Her question doesn't catch him off-guard, but there's a deliberate pause as he sifts through his own memories. Rationalizes that if she's asking, then it's fair game.
The pause after that is his failure to put it into words. So he gives up, dredging up the images Kaji had shared the first time they'd met: a dark room, tall pillars, red glyphs. It's echoed by memories that are closer to home, a round room with tall pillars, yellow lights in place of red, that visceral scent of fur and blood that's always there with them. Mat's hold on his own thoughts is tenuous, at best, but he only puts a mild effort into holding them back. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
( Beautiful, but out to kill us. )
[ She has an inkling, that if he's asking to get her version to corroborate Kaji's story, then her take on the story would directly contradict his. He would say that it's humans who have been trying to destroy the world all along, humans who had no rightful place on Earth. ]
( It's similar to this, but with bigger cities made of concrete and steel. Really tall towers, crowded streets, but with nature parts too. You know, mountains, lakes, deserts like this. We have a lot of sunken cities under the sea, a lot of ruins we haven't gotten round to fixing, but we make do. Is that what you're asking? Do you want me to show you?
no subject
[ 'Out to kill us' is a pretty big qualifier, girl. The rest of the description sidelines his skepticism somewhat — he used to love the idea of ruins and sunken cities. That'd been before he'd seen them firsthand, but it's somehow easier to romanticize all of it when it's as abstract as someone else's world.
It isn't completely what he'd been asking for. He could be more direct, ask after Kaji's strange comments about time, about that circle. But what she's put in front of him is interesting all the same, and the pause is much shorter this time while he considers. ]
( Go on. )
[ He's getting too used to the idea of people shoving their thoughts and memories on him without much complaint. It helps that she asked first, at least. ]
no subject
Up and up again, so she breaks the surface to a city perched above the cavern, a lifeless city, militaristic, robotic. The signs are everywhere: green tanks lining the streets, concrete towers without windows, the sunken buildings she mentioned just to one side, warnings shouting HIGH VOLTAGE, and nobody in the streets. It is this sight that wavers and trembles, the knowledge that it is only a memory makes her hesitate, never mind that the entire exercise is one of remembering. She shows him this and the truth: a lake made of overlapping perfect circles. Upon closer look, the periphery of a destroyed city upon the lake bank, and upon closer inspection, the realization that the circles were carved out by explosions.
The air is warm and humid, and it smells like the sea. The sky is blue. The trees are green. The cicadas shriek in a deafening crescendo. It comes right back. ]
( What did he show you? )
no subject
The dead streets are met with quick understanding. Not for the tanks and the signs, of course, but the feeling behind it's easy to place. Mat's distracted by the image even after it starts to crumble, though the image of the lake and its devastation lingers, too — not like anything he's seen, no. Similar to things he's felt in dreams, and coated in the same hollow weight that always came with the aftermath of a battle.
The memories of actual life feel tacked on at the end of all of it. Persistent and inevitable, but still an afterthought. Her question doesn't catch him off-guard, but there's a deliberate pause as he sifts through his own memories. Rationalizes that if she's asking, then it's fair game.
The pause after that is his failure to put it into words. So he gives up, dredging up the images Kaji had shared the first time they'd met: a dark room, tall pillars, red glyphs. It's echoed by memories that are closer to home, a round room with tall pillars, yellow lights in place of red, that visceral scent of fur and blood that's always there with them. Mat's hold on his own thoughts is tenuous, at best, but he only puts a mild effort into holding them back. ]
( He didn't show me any bloody lakes. )