Aberrant: Children of Quantum Fire - Rainbow Room III: Mixing Colors

[WhiteRain]

Chang quirked her lip when she overheard Norman speaking of her. He knew how to tickle her when it suited him. What artist did not like to know when their work was appreciated?

After that she focused a touch upon their place in the dance, focusing on the rhythm and beat of Coraline’s feet upon the dance floor. She studied her, analysed and considered her, this sister of Darrik who dated Surge.

When the song wound down, they vanished from the dance floor and appeared beside her. Chang gave Norman a quiet nod, before the young Terat encouraged her to take things away from prying public eyes. He had a private streak to him that Chang always found adorable. As if even the quietest word was some momentous thing that could change the world.

Surge knew his own importance, of that much Chang was certain. As they walked down a corridor lit by soft glowing strips in the roof, she wondered if the young girl was equally sure of her value. Chang walked with her hands linked behind her back, a posture she often adopted when in thought. It put her triple breasts and massive shaft into heavy definition, stretching her leather top around them. The pressure added a soft, pleasurable feeling to her gait that felt right these days.

The room Surge chose for them did not quite meet Chang’s preferences. Over the years she had grown almost to take offense at the presence of other furniture. When she began to mimic chairs and stools and the like her efforts had been clumsy, but these days she outshone even Nova-manufactured furniture. That said, in a way she was Nova-manufactured furniture.

She strode across the room, regal and composed, towards and past the chessboard table in the room’s near-centre. Chang brushed a finger over the ebony-and-ivory chess pieces, recalling the last time she had played in the room, with Raoul, and beaten him. She usually beat him at chess these days, but enjoyed every game just the same. In truth she preferred Go, but Raoul was old Europe given flesh, and for him chess was the game of nobles and kings.

Norman sat upon one of the sofas, but Chang pushed the other aside with her foot, then spun and morphed her perfect buttocks into a sofa of her own, red leather with silken cushions on back and sides. “Would you prefer a more comfortable seat, my lady?” She said to Coraline, her four voices speaking in angelic harmony. “I promise you, I’m far more comfortable than that old thing.”

The metamorph seemed to consider for a moment, then smiled and said, “Well, since you’re offering.”

A film of flesh extended from Chang’s sofa across the carpet, around the table stand, and mushroomed up beside Norman’s sofa to form a copy of it. Though when Coraline sat down and tried both, Chang put pains to make sure she noticed the difference.

“It’s comfortable enough,” she said, “but I can alter myself to my guests’ comfort. I’ve been feeling your footstep for some time now. I have a good sense for your centre of balance and where you place your weight. Everyone is different though most don’t realize it. Now you’re actually sitting on me, the picture’s complete.”

She moulded Coraline’s sofa to match the unnoticed twitches of internal muscle, to support her perfectly with every slight shift of her weight. Chang stretched her arm across the room to the drinks cabinet and lengthened her fingers, fetching a slender bottle of absinthe and a slim glass for herself, along with some sugar. She fetched two glasses and a bottle of wine for Norman and Coraline and put them on their side of the table. “For you, Norman,” she said, before focusing her glowing black and emerald green eyes on Coraline. “I do not know your tastes as yet, my lady. If you would rather something else to drink, by all means request it and I will provide posthaste.”

Chang mixed a spoon of sugar into her glass of absinthe and then leaned back in her sofa-self. “Now, then,” she said. “We are all settled, I hope. What would you have of the Mirror Queen?” Now her voices were different, two in harmony, one a whisper underneath the other two, and the last a soft hum that gave an unnatural yet eerily beautiful music to her words.

[Karren Gaunt]

Chang's preening over her own artful shapeshifting humanized the comparitively, but fortunately not overlywhelmingly, impressive terat elder, bringing a wry grin to Coraline's lips. She had started using her own flesh as a medium a while back, to test what a given chissel cut or dash of pigment could do to a more permanent work, but perhaps she should start doing something like this with her familars...

She glanced at Norman at the question and chuckled, the sound of her own chorus a half-dozen slighly differing voices ever-so-minutely out of synch with one another. "Indulging my own curiousity over anything else, Mrs. Zha-Yang. I asked who you were, Norman gave me an interesting answer, and I wanted to find out more," the young metamorph replied, and leaned forward, "I've spent a lot of my upbringing hiding from the world. I want see as much of it as I can now that things have changed for me. At least the safe and interesting parts of it. And a little bit beyond the world as you probably know if your senses are as acute as Norman says."

[WhiteRain]

“I see,” she said when Coraline finished talking. “It’s not the easiest of questions to answer. I’m many things to many people. I’m friend to some, mentor to others, enemy to plenty, inspiration to fewer than I’d like. I have been listening to you, yes. That is one of my greatest gifts. It seems no fairer to ask me not to listen than it would be to ask a genius not to think for fear that he might make me feel foolish, or an athlete not to run for fear of him making me seem slow and uncoordinated,” she sipped her absinthe. “In truth those are bad analogies in my case, but I’m sure you follow the base principle.”

Chang could feel and see Coraline's features shifting, the flesh growing infinitessimally tighter on her bones, the colour changing by nths of a shade. She could hear a soft rumble deep in the young nova's bones as even they quietly reshaped. I think I could grow to enjoy this girl's presence, Chang thought. The way people sounded mattered more than how they looked, and she sounded interesting indeed.

Unbidden, the sound of her wife's latex creaking echoed in Chang's mind, and stirred a frisson of desire in her heart.

“You have an interesting voice,” Chang said, her own four falling into a similar pattern to Coraline’s. Better to focus on a different subject, she thought. “Do you sing?”

Chang had taken her iron coin with her when she left her study. Now she placed it on the table, death-side up, resting beside a fallen black king. That seemed appropriate, somehow.

[z-Aura]

Aura leaned toward Darrik as he came to her. His kiss was like God himself pressing to her lips, tangling with her tongue. She whimpered helplessly, lost in his wonderfulness.

And then it was gone. Kylie had an impulse to unleash her nuclear fires and burn her way to Darrik but he was just as vulnerable. She hadn’t had a chance to attune him before he was taken from her. And taken he was; her mind reinterpreted the events to fit the narrative she needed – that Darrik had been removed from her by others. And those others should burn for that crime.

But not yet. She was patient. She was cunning, smarter than them, all those pretty sluts crowding around him. Someday, those dumb bitches would learn that you didn’t cross Aura.

[Karren Gaunt]

"Only in the shower," Coraline answered easily, wondering at what about her father's legacy made people ask that, "I mean, I've never put any time into training it formally. Public performance was the last thing on my mind growing up but my Node has given me gifts that firmly pushed me into more dangerous and... interesting paths than my parents intended. Maybe in the future once we have the leisure to think about more than survival outside of sanity-saving time off."

Her smile turned bittersweet for a moment before the impressions of the Rainbow Room hid the old embers of loss beneath a sheen of happiness again, "But that's enough worry. Would you know what kind of art materials would work in a vacumn? I want to capture at least a few first impressions of our trip while the images and emotions are still fresh. Be a shame to do otherwise with such pleasant company to share it with and a camera isn't nearly the same."

This last was offered more to Norman than to Chang, a grin lighting up Coraline's features, alive with promises and affectionate implications.

[WhiteRain]

She smiled when Cora answered about her singing. Her expression turned into something of a frown when she continued, though, before alighting on a quiet smile in the end.

“We always have the leisure to think about more than survival. Time is a resource, and like all resources must be spent wisely. I presume you refer to the far-reaching threat of the motherhunters with those words, along with sundry other issues. They’re apt to grow in the shadows of the mind. I suggest shining a light often, and learning to enjoy your leisure where you can. Here, for example, you are safe. Come here more often, if it so suits you.

“As to your question, it depends entirely on what form of art is your arena. If possible I would strongly advise using ‘local’ materials. If you can move at the speed of light,” she inclined her head, “well, you can go where you will. A statue of moonrock, or stone from pluto, strikes me as a proper way to enshrine your memories. If you are not a sculptor, have you ever tried etching? You know, etching steel and stone. These days it is more used in industrial engraving than for actual art but I’ve tried to reverse the trend a little. If you cannot form your own tools as I can, I’m fairly sure that the contents of an engraving kit will handle vacuum reasonably well. They’re mostly metal and wood, after all.

“Alternatively, eufiber is resilient in any environment and can easily be teased into a paper-like thickness, although I have to confess it makes for poor drawing material on the whole. It’s hard to come by on the cheap but why not splash out for such an occasion? Drawing materials would be more awkward, but most forms of charcoal ought to be fine. Alternatively, there is a fine lady in my Pandaimonion whose bodily fluids can mimic any form of liquid, inks and paints included. She bottles her produce and sells it to painters at an exorbitant price but naturally I cheat and get it for free. All it requires is will and a little teasing from your quantum. Though it appears to mimic the liquid in question, it is of unmatched quality, never degrades over time and has no storage requirements, which makes it rather handy for those more adventurous painters. I think that a trip around the solar system qualifies as ‘adventurous’, don’t you? She can even ‘age’ it if you like.

“This,” Chang said, shaking the emerald green absinthe in her glass, “is from her body. Your wine isn’t, though. The last time I didn’t tell someone where their drink came from they were gravely offended. Since then I give them baseline wares unless they know to ask for quality.”

[Karren Gaunt]

"I prefer to try to accomplish extrordinary works with ordinary materials, actually. It seems more of a challenge," countered the young metamorph after a quick glimpse at Chang's drink with quantum-touched eyes to look if she recognized anything human in it. She didn't, not that she was expecting to with the miracles of quantum involved from an individual as careful about their powers as a terat artist. And baselines knowingly consumed much worse, so she didn't see the harm in it.

"Although I wouldn't say no to a bottle or two of her black ink to try it out on this trip if you say it'd work. I'm mainly a painter and sculpter, kind of enivtably in retrospect with the way my powers sculpt and repaint myself continually," she allowed with a content storm of creativity in her blue-on-black gaze, mentally adding charcoal, carving tools, and possibly an engraving kit to her shopping run if her potential claws weren't up to the task, "Any artist not willing to experiment in a new medium at least once or twice isn't really worth the name, is she?"

She lost a little of her bubbling mood, chorus going serious as she turned her thoughts back to gordian knot of martial heroism in the real world, "I'd like to come here more often. But there's so much petty, viscious baseline smallmindedness out there I can something about now, so many of us in danger. If I can help without making the situation worse, I kind of feel like I need to or should be preparing to."

E-M Vision

[WhiteRain]

Chang shrugged. “There are plenty of vicious and small-minded novas out there as well. Anything they can do, we can do better. I quite agree there are many of us in danger, and it’s very noble of you to want to dedicate yourself to keeping us safe.” She leaned forward. “Geryon would like you, I think. He’s like a broken record on that subject. Not that it’s as easy as he likes to make it sound, of course. Narcosis was not wrong when she accused him of making us in the Teragen sound like a grumpier version of Team Tomorrow at times.

“You touch on the problem yourself. How do you know who you can or can’t help without making the overall situation worse? And which situation in particular do you speak of? We Novas are wrapped up in so very many awkward situations these days. I find it very interesting, given this interest, that you speak of using ordinary tools.”

Chang smiled and finished off her absinthe, then placed the glass upon the table. “Are you one of those novas gifted only physically, who turns the sword or nine millimetre pistol to unimagined levels of achievement? From your words, I think not. If you are yourself an extraordinary tool, are you not then putting an unfair limitation upon your artistic endeavour? Or is your art of comparative unimportance to you? You would not limit yourself in the saving of someone’s life, would you?

“To wit: I say that if you are capable of extraordinary works with ordinary materials, then why not use materials and tools more befitting your stature and quality? I encourage most under my tutelage to use their node-granted gifts to the utmost, resorting to tools only when they must. It leads to more individual creations that way, and usually ones truer to the nova’s heart. After all, it’s one thing to shape a statue with something in your hands… it’s quite another to literally do it with your hands.” She put a spoon of sugar in her glass and poured more absinthe.

“You are shapeshifter, I gather.” She continued. “Your words seem to imply as much. If you have enough fluidity of form available to you, might I suggest engulfing a subject at some point and trying to shape it within your own body? I’ve found it helps as an exercise in both control and application. My first efforts were rather stunted, but these days I’m as agile within as without, and you’d be surprised what a tool your own body can make if you put it to work. I’ve created some things that I’m quite sure would be impossible using ordinary tools.”

She studied Coraline as they talked, weighing her. There was an edge to this beautiful girl, an understated melancholy. Something weighed on her mind. Chang wondered if she might be able to tease it out of her. In the back of her mind she wondered if she might one day be able to go to other worlds herself. She quite liked the idea of working status in moonrock, or teasing the rings of Saturn into shapes that would bring tears to the eyes of speculative scientists. What might aliens say were they to come across them some time in the future?

Her abilities seemed unequal to that task, though. She could stretch her body long indeed, but that would never serve for a journey between stars. Though maybe one day Coraline or someone like her would help. Chang was in no rush, though. The earth held a great deal of inspiration for those who knew how and where to look, and with her perceptions growing day by day, it always seemed that there was something new and undiscovered waiting around the corner.

[Karren Gaunt]

"I..," Coraline hesitantly began, thoughts spinning slightly off kilter with Chang's deft verbal reply and chorus fracturing ever so slightly to show it. The touch of Norman's hand and the pressing of a wine-filled glass into her fingers stabilized her, earning him a smile as she rallied her thoughts against a confusion that had nothing to do with quantum and everything to do with blow to her paradigns. She sucked in a deep breath, clutching the glass and then looking the elder terat in the eyes again.

"I'm more a metamorph than a shapeshifter, able to give myself and recently others access to nature's toolbox, but that technique does sound interesting. Nature has come up with a lot of tools and I can put them together in just about any way I want," she conceded with the ghost of a smile after her verbal fumble, embarassed, "And it's frustrating, so many shades of grey in what I thought was black and white, one simple thing I can do with my Node enough to paint a target on myself and my family. I'm not even sure I *can* do it yet."

Part of her wanted to blurt out that the 'simple thing' was temporarily restoring fertiltiy in other novas, the teragen the most likely group to help her test it safely, but she managed to hold back, sipping her wine to cover the renewed churning of her thoughts.

[Quantum Fire]

Norman shifted so that he was next to Cora and then shifted her into his lap, as long as she would let him at least, it was a gesture of sorts his way of indicating support and affection. Of course, in a way, that meant that both of them were sitting on Chang, but then Norman wasn't entirely sure what to make of the other nova's attempt to make herself scenery and upholstery, he knew that both Levathon and Shrapnel had derogatory things to say about it, that a nova shouldn't lower herself to such things.. but his father had a different view, a belief that Change needed to express herself artistically almost constantly, and this was one way she did so.

"I assume, my Lady, you speak of the matter of nova fertility, something that is a major consideration to most factions within teras, though Bounty is no longer the only person able to alter such things."

[WhiteRain]

Chang observed the gentle touch between the two, noting how genuine it seemed. She had never been sure about Norman before, but here he seemed every bit the young man, curious and even tentative in love.

She noted the way Coraline tensed up when Chang spoke of art, and the particular metaphor she used. Conflicted, I see. The reverberation in Coraline’s chorus of voices was fascinating. A change of pace is needed, I think.

Chang leaned back, lacing her fingers thoughtfully. It was meant to be a secret - that much she could tell - but Coraline gave it away by mentioning her family. Perhaps it also explained what she wanted to speak to her about. Norman's comment only confirmed her suspicion. “How interesting,” she murmured. “You’re another one, then?”

Coraline regarded her blankly, then. “Another what?”

“You can cure Nova infertility,” Chang said, all four of her voices whisper-soft. “Or you think you should be able to, but have yet to actually try it. I gather from your other comments that Proteus suspects the same, or is it rather that you fear they will find out if you make this miracle happen?”

Coraline’s voice stuttered again.

Chang smiled. “If you’ll permit me, you sound fascinating when you’re surprised. We have that in common, I think. When I lose control of my voices they go positively peculiar. For example,” she said, speaking now with only one of her four voices. One of the other three began to hum, another chuckled, and the last began to weep, with shocking, “you see? I’m in control of this of course, but the effects are far more random when I’m not. The downside of a good deal of hard work and self-training,” she said, bringing all four voices together into a chuckle.

“The issue of Nova fertility is either simple or difficult. Why do you find it a matter of greys instead of blacks and whites? Tell me what it is that troubles you so.” She thought she might have inferred a touch too much there, but still, it seemed she needed to put a question before the girl. Something seemed to have made her slightly nervous.

[Karren Gaunt]

Soothed by the feel of Norman's body heat as he held her, Coraline narrowed her eyes for a heartbeat or two at Chang before nodding. Okay. So she was out manuevered verbally. It happened. This was someone Norman trusted. So she'd get part of the truth.

"Because most of the people involved in destroying my generation and our parents are innocent tools used by Project Proteus and the Aeon Society in ways they'd probably object to if they knew what they were aiding. Because the children of the most tainted novas can the unreasoning threats that they say they we all are. Because, as much as I want to, killing them all would be as unjust and counterproductive as what they did to us. And even if my power worked exactly the way I hope it does, my using it to help a few novas at a time without *somehow* getting all those blind, ignorant factions to stop attacking those of us who mean no harm to them... I could make it worse for all of us, not just my family."

This speech was delivered in the soft, grave tones of someone who'd spent a lot of hours thinking in circles about a problem and coming up with only a mildly satisfying solution for all that consideration. She curled more against Norman when she finished, sipping her wine.

[WhiteRain]

Chang nodded. “I wonder, Coraline. Are you familiar with the idea of human rights?”

The young metamorph frowned at her a moment. “Yes, of course.”

“What do you understand them to mean?”

She seemed a little perplexed by this line of questioning, but nonetheless answered clearly. “Well, without quoting the charter, I’d say they boil down to humans thinking that they’re free to do as they like so long as they don’t hurt other people who don’t intend to hurt them back.”

Chang nodded. “You have an interesting take on the subject, but it is inaccurate in this context. The central conceit of the idea of human rights is that all men are born with certain inalienable rights, just by virtue of being born. These things, they say, make all men equal at a certain level. The base line on the matter is the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Your take factors in the reality that certain rights – the right to liberty first and foremost – can be taken away by society under certain circumstances. That is not what I am getting at, however.”

She could see the metamorph becoming more engaged, and curious as she tried to jump ahead and see where Chang might be going with this line of enquiry. “Alright, what are you getting at?”

“Another question, of course. Do you consider novas superior or inferior to humans?”

She saw it, then, the slight tightening of the eyes which suggested a dawning understanding. Coraline went with it, though, and answered. “We’re all human in my eyes. I mean, if there are aliens out there, it helps to have common ground in case of an invasion. As for superior or inferior, we’re generally superior, and as long as we avoid node abuse I’d say more stable, too.”

Chang nodded. “That is a fine answer. And it brings me to the crux of this little philosophical quandary. Do all novas deserve the right to breed? Are novas, ultimately, even equal to baselines? Proteus does not think we are. We are denied the basic right to breed that they say is inalienable for humans. They sterilize us the way they do rabbits who breed too much or cattle when it will improve the meat. An apt metaphor, I should point out. Rendering us sterile removes certain selfish desires and increases the likelihood of us expending ourselves for baseline benefit. I’m sure that doctrine sounds familiar.”

“Utopia,” Coraline said, her chorus of voices dropped to a cherub’s whispering. She shook it off quick though. “If we can untaint the mad ones-“

“And if we cannot?” Chang said. “What then? Taint is not an affliction. It’s inherent to every one of us. That is why Teras came about, and in a large part the Teragen itself, and the Harvesters in particular. We attempt to understand, harness, and channel taint, because it is central to our being. Yet it has side effects when – as you indicate yourself – it gets out of control. The problem though, is simply this: those who are not taint-maddened today, may well be tomorrow. You cannot act as though those who are overcome by taint are a separate species. They are your brothers, and mine. Their fall is our united shame, and each a lesson we must learn from. But what about our problem,” Chang said, leaning forward in her chair-self. “Are we equal to them, Coraline? Do we deserve the right to breed, tainted or no?”

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline had an answer to this one, an easy rebuttal handed down from her parents and sharpened under seven years of being raised by a master of Qi Meng.

"Absolutely. Reproduction is the one right that makes all the others mean anything at all... If you can do so without hurting others who had no intention of hurting you," she answered, chorus certain, "You're wrong in saying taint isn't an afliction. It's a sign we've injured our nodes or pushed ourselves too far, just like baselines suffer from many of the self-inflicted problems we can shrug off. The Teragen have found a way to transform disfunctional taint into functioning chrysalis, turn it to benefit yourselves and control its effects. That's amazing."

And the young metamorph meant it, respect for the minds behind the skill and it's practioners clear even as she continued, "But... It's still worse than avoiding the taint all together, being content with being able to do the impossible. It even seems to be something we will breed out of ourselves out of if the difference between the first generation and the second is typical and continues into the third and beyond. And in the meantime, if one of us falls to taint... We fix it, watch out for the warning signs, and if there is only one mercy left to give and our wonders fail to save them... We give that last mercy."

"The baselines have surrendered any privilege to enforce that by their inhumanity in denying us our humanity. They don't get to control that or anything about us anymore."

[WhiteRain]

She let out a soft chuckle. “There is a central contradiction in what you’ve just said. You say the baselines have surrendered any ‘privilege’ to putting our tainted brethren out of their misery, and yet… did you not just say that you consider both baseline and nova to be human? If we are all equal, Coraline, where is this ‘they’ you speak of? You talk of unity on one hand and division in the very next breath. Where is the ‘us’ and ‘them’ if we are human and so are they? Which bridges neatly onto the rest of your glib, parroted speech,” she said.

“Don’t get me wrong, it was prettily said, and I’m sure whoever taught you would be proud, but I don’t detect an ounce of your own thought in it. That answer is fundamentally unsatisfying. You say that taint shows we have injured our nodes, I will not contest this, I’ve seen the various x-rays and studies undertaken by the Harvesters which show that very thing. However, the node functions much like a muscle. Human and even nova muscles gain strength through injury. That is the nature of lifting weights and running miles and such. You cause micro tears in the muscle, and it strengthens itself during the healing process so as to avoid further injury.

“Such is also true of the node, if you do it correctly. Taint is only a problem because so few of us know how to channel and use it to strengthen themselves. And, like any regime of training, it requires discipline to do it properly and without injury.

“It is both arrogant and ignorant in the extreme to proclaim it worse than avoiding taint. Given the choice, I would never give up the path I’ve walked. And believe me when I say that. I’ve been faced with the ‘other side’, as it were.”

Chang’s mismatched and glowing eyes went far away for a moment, as she thought back through the years to before the Congo conflict, before war shattered her life and everything changed for good and all. “Jason Bellefleur,” she said, smiling. “Beautiful, untainted, and flawless, I’ve noticed no other changes in her over the years. Yet if I could be her, a walking vision of perfection and poise and beauty beyond mortal ken, I would not consider it for an instant.” She raised a hand. “Well, perhaps one. Who wouldn’t want to look that good, hm?

“You may not be interested in pursuing chrysalis as we are, and be content – as you say – with simply doing the impossible, but do not be so foolish as to dismiss taint so casually, or to simply label it an affliction. That is grossly unfair and offensive. You have respect in your tone, but it is a backhanded slap to me and everyone I know, because you see us as labouring under an affliction, no better than a disease, that we’ve somehow managed to turn it to our advantage. It is not that, Coraline. It is a choice we have made. I grant you that some of us have little choice in it, they must pursue chrysalis or be lost to taint, but that was never true of me, nor of Narcosis or even Shrapnel, nor the Apothecary.”

Chang then looked to Norman, and directed Cora’s attention to the man in whose lap she sat. “Nor of your paramour, I suspect. After all, he has already undergone the chrysalis. Perhaps I am wrong,” she said, toasting the metamorph, “perhaps we first generation Terats are all deluded fools, future taint-maddened dogs you'll be putting down inside the century. But he undoubtedly chose. All of you of the second generation have chosen. Taint will not be breeded out of us, Coraline. Taint will become a choice, if it is not one already. I certainly hope so. It would hurt me deeply to think that none of you would ever experience chrysalis. Not that I need fear that, of course, your brother Darrik seems to have embraced that choice already, as Norman did before him, and I presume most of his Children of Teras.

“I imagine some of what I’ve said will annoy you. You will forgive me that, I hope. I can be blunt, and ungentle. But I mean the best for you. I sense a lopsided education on matters of taint, and that bothers me. Just as it bothers me, in truth, that Bounty and Mal have locked up the children in the Nursery, drilling Teras into them from childhood.” She gave a shake of her head. “It must be a choice. Your words, and some of theirs in truth, bother me more than I can say. This is how it began with the baselines. Parents imprinting their beliefs onto their spawn, creating an endless chain of ever-deepening dogma that has caused misery throughout the ages. I want better for us. Please, for me, go to the Harvesters. Learn from them. Reject it if you must, but at least learn. Whoever taught you, and whatever he taught you, do not accept it as truth. Challenge it. Burn it in the crucible of your mind. Believe in what is left.”

She gained a pensive look, now. Coraline had, unknowingly, stirred up the sleeping hornet’s nest of Chang’s worry. Her unease over Mal and Bounty’s hold on the Nursery had only grown over the years, just as her unease at Mal’s hold over the Teragen itself wavered and flickered like a candle in the wind. She studied Coraline cooly, thinking, running a finger around the rim of her glass.

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline went still at about the third sentence into Chang's speech, forcing herself into a place where she wouldn't react, a meditative now that made her an observer in her own body. If she hadn't, her temper would pushed her all over the place, throughly placing her good time and perhaps her relationship with Norman at risk. Still... Some of those barbs stung. As in really stung. *Alex* at her worst could take notes from this woman when it came to barbs.

And... She had a point. A few of them actually if she tried to think about them objectively and compared them to the philosphy that had been pounded into her head for her previous training. Coraline would think about it later.

The young metamorph unstiffened and took her first breath for about the last thirty seconds, forcing the hurt down and away. "It's... Okay. Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm right. I don't know. I want to learn, and learning isn't always fun. Although in my defense, I never said baselines and novas were equal, just that we we're both human with all the same basic problems to worry about if very different means to solve them with. And in the long term, my worry about how to use my gift might only really be solved when we go our way and they go theirs. My sister has said as much and she's much smarter than me."

[WhiteRain]

She knew her words hit home. Coraline held it inside, but some of those words did anger her. Chang could not determine which ones had stuck her heart and which had bounced off, but some landed. True dialogue began with a few near-misses.

As it stood, Chang could tell that Coraline was the product of some careful teaching, years of it. A Nursery product in principle if not in truth, she had the feel of one who wanted to think for herself but little practical experience of doing so.

What really hit home, though, was the somewhat shellshocked look that went across her when Chang unloaded. It began with ‘glib, parroted speech’. Chang knew that look. It was the look of someone overwhelmed. She could have that effect when she martialled all of her node-granted majesty, and when did she not? Bombshell was always the same way.

A change of pace is once again required, methinks, Chang thought. Too much overbearing talk was exactly that: too much. After a point, an open mind closed up, dropped its gates and martialled its defences. She did not wish to drive Coraline off.

“Your sister could be right,” Chang said, “but such talk is futile at this juncture as we both know. Many of us would not leave this world even if given the option. Perhaps not even you. I would contest only one point of your statement there. I do not believe we are both human. I believe the nova and human races are separate, and will become even more so over time, and that many of our problems are unique to us. But this is not about me, it is about you. May I ask something personal? By all means refuse. I recognize I am at best an acquaintance, and that this has perhaps been more intense a first meeting than most. It’s just that I wonder…”

Chang sipped her drink thoughtfully. “The way you stiffened up when I was speaking. It looked familiar. Wherever you live, are you often surrounded by those who have what might be called ‘strong’ personalities? Like myself. You know what I mean. The sort of people who are difficult to disagree with on a fundamental level, even if as they speak you know they’re wrong. Where if they tell you the sky is black at midday and grass is made of spoons, you would – without thinking – want to agree with them, and only after saying it wonder why?”

[Karren Gaunt]

That got a chuckle out of the young metamorph, blue-on-black eyes narrowing with laughter. "You're fishing," she answered with a grin, the expression lighting up her bewitching features like a sunrise, "But yes, I know a few novas with 'strong' personalities where I come from, Darrik among them. My Node has finally been kind enough enough to gift me with what I need to try and judge a nova by their words and not their quantum gifts, though. It's helped. Alot."

There was an ocean of bottled frustration mixed with currents of relief in those last few words before Coraline breached her own question, curious and eager to move on. "Why the title 'Mirror Queen'? I get the impression you're more the kind of person to tell others who you are rather than let them define what you are, what... reflection and the face you show the world."

[WhiteRain]

Chang graced Coraline with her most mysterious smile. Her eyes shifted and altered hue, the left turning the colour of mist with a light shone upon it, the right darkening to black as tar. “Fishing is a noble past-time. It requires patience, deftness, and keen observation, not to mention proper planning and a correct choice of equipment. Admittedly I cheat and simply morph my arms into the necessary devices, but the essential truths remain. In actuality I asked because I was concerned that you might have been over-awed by such in the past. It’s surprising the things we come to believe simply because we like someone. It’s a problem for me, given I am mentor to various Terats. Ordinarily I suggest that after any lengthy discussion with someone so gifted, myself included of course, that the student spend at least an hour in seclusion meditating upon what I said. That’s usually enough time for them to come to their own conclusions rather than be weighed down by mine.”

She suddenly flicked her arm out to the side. It shot out like a whip, coiling across the room to the drinks cabinet. It retracted with – of all things – a pen and paper clasped in the fingers. With a deft flick of her wrist and impossible agility, Chang flipped the pad of paper into one hand and tossed the pen to the other. For a moment, her hand blurred from left to right, and then she ripped out a sheet and extended her arm to offer the paper to Coraline.

On it was written an OpNet address and a complex password of numbers and letters. “This is a private OpNet address where I store some of my writings. Again it’s a reservoir I provide for those who seek me for guidance, which you are not. However, I wrote a treatise on the effects of us social bulldozers and psychological methods to inhibit our effects, or at least to be aware of what we’re doing. You may find it enlightening, even if you have developed gifts that render us as transparent as glass.

“As to your other question, it’s multi-faceted. I did not choose the name ‘Mirror Queen’. My dear Shiv selected it, she’s a confidante of mine and quite influential in my part of the Pandaimonion. She follows the path of the Monster, but was the first both to listen to me and decide to switch her allegiance – from The Primacy to Pandaimonion – and the direction she was taking towards Chrysalis. She remains on her path, but pursues it from a new angle that merges what she’s learned with what I have to teach. Much to our united delight, it’s working out splendidly. She chose the name because of the conversation we’re having now. I strive not to teach you how to be or what to be, but rather to get you to think for yourself. To look upon me is to look upon you. It’s an odd metaphor to be applied by a blind woman, but she liked it and she made sure it stuck. I had no objections, and little choice once I was hearing ‘my queen’ and ‘your grace’ at every social function I attended. It was a sign of respect bestowed upon me by those who look to me for guidance. I attempt to do honour by it.

“The other interpretation is related to my portrait style. You may not have ever seen one, but I am able to paint someone with such clarity that, as my wife once put it, it’s like looking into a mirror. Personally I dislike that part of the analogy. In truth my canvas is far more honest than a mirror, and altogether more revealing.”

[Ling]

It was sometime then when a very tall and lanky individual entered Rainbow Room. Before Novas graced the world with impossible beauty he would have stopped the show upon his entry. In this day and age he probably was mostly unnoticed in his outfit, coming off as somewhat of a Chinese gypsy, if ever such a thing existed.

He maneuvered his way through the crowd, a bright smile on his face, the world was his oyster and he was here to shuck it. He paused at the bar and picked up 3 drinks, tiny claws from his now obvious wings held one each as the other stayed in his right hand. Smiling triumphantly he walked around, admiring the decor. He held a regal countenance and bearing, yet inviting and humble.

[Quantum Fire]

OOC: Time Frame Attachment - March 20th, 2027

[Quantum Fire]

"I've let Chang do most of the speaking here, but the goals of her faction and my own aren't quite the same, the Children of Teras seek a place of our own, some place not affected by baseline preconceptions and ideas, we are discussing when, where and how a great deal. Some of us want to leave earth, though Infinity thinks we should take some part of earth, that we shouldn't let the monkey's run us off the planet, others of us could care less about that, but have other reasons for staying, Hamadryad is part tree, earth is more or less ideal for her, she doesn't want to leave.. some of the more militant among us have suggested taking some location by force, and other suggest taking some place mostly unoccupied, like Greenland or Antarctica or raising something from the sea floor.. Generally, we're still feeling the matter out, but I favor non-violent options, myself, though I am willing to defend us if it becomes necessary."

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline nestled against Norman more tightly, pocketing the Opnet address with a nod of thanks to the elder. "Count me in if you need any help, Norman. Part of me is really tired of running and hiding," she confessed, smile turning wry, "Okay, a very very large part after some of the things my family and I have seen first hand, both for good and ill. Claim a place somewhere close enough that we can make sure those who erupt after us can be rescued from any baseline abuse if they want to be helped. Somewhere safe for novas and nova families where what I went through as a child won't happen to anyone else ever again for the crime of merely existing."

She went to sip her wine and then realized she had emptied it somehow over the course of the conversation.

[WhiteRain]

Chang listened intently when Surge spoke up, listening closely to the young, devastatingly powerful nova. He said nothing new, in truth. She had heard the ‘party line’ many a time, and generally Surge preferred to be quiet and to listen.

The fact he brought Coraline to her was interesting. It was a quiet show of trust, not an overt movement. Again, very much what she would have expected of the boy, though it was easy to think of him as a man. He had let her say whatever she wanted to Coraline, and some of it was not gentle. Perhaps he would contradict her the moment they were out of sight, but she doubted it.

Seeds were planted here. Chang knew it. She listened to Cora’s answer, watched her finish her drink unthinking. She could feel a sort of exhaustion in the girl. Nothing physical, a mental tiredness that bespoke too much information being pumped into her in too short a time; there would be nothing more to gain from further talk on that front.

Chang refilled Cora’s wine glass.

“I have not met this ‘Infinity’, Norman, but she sounds like a wise girl. The problem comes down to reasoning. Many of us wish to remain either out of stubbornness, or anger. Neither is positive. However, for us to flee with our tails tucked between our legs would be poor all round. Wherever and whenever a new land is made for us – and I believe it will be with our dear Children of Teras on the case – that it must be founded with hope and bright ideas, not with bottled rage and anger. That will lead us to ruin, of that I am certain. We in the Teragen must push onwards, without looking back and frowning. Many of my fellows do not concur.

“Coraline, this has been a delightful if perhaps stormy first meeting. I hope sincerely that we can do so again, after you’ve had some time to think and digest what I’ve said. I’ll have The Alchemist bleed out some ink for you in short order, and you can pick it up any time. If you take anything from this evening, I hope you take that I mean well for you and yours, and that more than anything else I want you to think for yourselves.”

Chang’s features darkened a little. Her voice took on a faintly sad tone. “It has always seemed to me that one of the greatest duties of the next generation is to judge the one that came before. Through you, our struggles are invalidated or proven true. Through your regard or contempt, our efforts are thrown into harsh light.” She bowed her head. “I am sorry to you both, on that count. I feel we failed you.”

She looked up, gazing at Coraline with pure, honest regret in her expression, enough to break the hearts of mortals. “This is no world for a nova child to grow up in. We should have done better by you. I do not know if you will ever hear this said by another of your quote-unquote ‘elders’, but you will hear it from me: I am sorry. My goal has always been to show the world another side of us. Through art, because I’m an artist and therefore that’s the only way, I want them to see what Novas are truly capable of. I hope it’ll make the world a better place, in the end. You can never have peace without understanding, or at least a semblance of one.”

Chang finished, and gave a final toast to the children. “I propose a toast, to our united future, which lies so unfairly in your young hands.”

She clinked her glass to theirs, and drank.

[Quantum Fire]

End of Thread

XP: 2 Standard, 2 Baseline, 2 Nova