Aberrant: Children of Quantum Fire - [interlude: Sisterhood] Maia and Cora [FIN]

[Maia]

Separated from everyone else, and the link, Maia felt more alone than she had in some time. She wasn't, not really, but it felt that way at times. It was a little after sunset, and Maia waited near the precipice of a sheer cliff overlooking the world beyond the time bubble, and waited. Cora would be along soon, and Maia planned to have a talk with her younger sister.

She sighed. Cora's attitude had deteriorated lately, in Maia's opinion, largely due to her Terat Boyfriend, if Maia's suspicions were correct. Perhaps it was unfair of her, but she wanted to clear the air. She didn't like keeping her suspicions quiet, and knew this had to be done.

She sat there nude, and waiting, knowing one thing, She was going to clear the air this evening, Doing at least that much was something she knew would help her own training.

[Karren Gaunt]

There was a flit and a flicker of quantum flight out of the corner of Maia's gaze, and her ever-changing sibling touched down gracefully, dressed in a cotton training gi as default throughout this hermitage. Coraline smiled the grateful smile of someone who finally had an excuse to avoid an odious task for a little while, the identification and alphabetation of the gemstones having proven even more frustrating than she feared.

"Maia," she offered warmly, settling into the usual midair lotus position she effected when she truly relaxed, blue on black gaze open and welcoming, "You sounded serious when you said we should talk. What's up?"

[Maia]

Straight to the point. "I wanted to talk to you about your attitude regarding baselines Cora, and all the other factions."

"That you left the link, in some way I admit it does bother me, because it makes it hard to contact you if there's a need, or if you need us." She shook her head. "I understand abit though, so I'm not gonna harp on you about that. Mostly this is about how you speak about Baselines. I know you're aware Justin was a baseline when I met him, that Uncle,and Serenity were both baselines at one point. I'm sure it worries them, and it does worry me."

She looked at Cora. "I'm not mad Cora, I just want to hear your side of things, and give you my own impression. It's presumptuous of me I know, but you're my younger sister Cora, and I want to help you if I can, and feel an obligation to voice my concern when I see you potentially doing something that might prove harmful later."

Maia's genuine honesty rang through her words, she wasn't condescending, not intentionally, and she really wanted to understand her sister. Ever since her first introduction, Maia'd promised to keep Cora safe, and while she needed it far less now, Maia believed in keeping her word.

[Karren Gaunt]

"Do you remember what I was like until Uncle started pushing us out into world, Maia? Speaking of Slaves and Masters and the certainty that if we stepped out into the grid of the baseline's world we'd all be dead in three month's time? Angry and afraid and ignorant of a world my parents protected me from and I had no interest in learning about? We were white, and the world was black and everytime one of you went out there I fretted and fear inside that 'this time would be the time they got you'."

She frowned and shook her head, staring up at the sky, "I was so ignorant. I still am, really, at least compared to most of the others. And wrong in so many of my assumptions. So much I want to know and do before I'm going to feel ready to stand on my own two feet."

Coraline looked back at Maia, expression serious, "But you wanted to know what I think about Baselines and why. Everything I've seen... Baselines are fickle and reactionary and so easy to turn to doing things they'd object to if they knew what they were really doing. Innocent in every meaning of the word, deadly innocent in the way I was when I eviserated those first three baseline mother hunters I killed and didn't think I could until I cut them. We can be fickle too, I know, but regardless of whether we're born or erupt, Novas are more often... themselves."

"I trust us to stick to patterns, to not turn on a whim from ally to eniemy and back again. That last part makes what Uncle's teaching us so hard in the real world, Maia. Shades of grey when I keep looking for black and white in a world where our apothesis took a fear for the safety of the family into a fear for the safety of our generation and the world we live on. I'm trying to get it straight in my head and this isolation isn't helping. Not yet anyway."

She sighed in digust, thoughts in turmoil that rippled down her skin, "Node, did that make any sense at all coming out of my mouth?"

[Maia]

"It did, yes,"

She reached out and squeezed her sister's shoulder. "It did."

"I was afraid too, I still am at times." It was a shocking admission, Maia was practically indestructible at peak condition. "But I refuse to let fear rule me, or my actions. I counsel caution mostly because if we all proceed full pace, the world won't handle or accept it, and the backlash will undo all the good we could ever do."

"Baselines have a phenomenal weakness compared to us. To so many, they are nothing but objects, a liability, or chattel. But they're so much more. Yes they're fickle, they've had to be. As a race, humanity has yet to rise beyond its baser instincts, but there are so many who try hard to do so, and to uplift others in the process."

"I'm an optimist here, but I believe they have many redeeming qualities. I have been out among them, dealing with the good and bad, But I still believe in them. It may be the height of hypocrisy for me since I chose to raise Justin up and accelerate his development as a nova, but I did that not because of any need on his part to be worthy of my affections, but because I wished him to be safe from everyone who'd pursue him to come after me, after us."

"The world is seldom black and white Cora, very seldom."

She nodded. "There are some things though, that you can count on."

[Karren Gaunt]

"There are," Coraline emphatically agreed with a nod to her sister, to her foster family both absent and present, "And those few truly good things I have found I will work and fight to protect from the truly bad, however little of each I have found amidst all the grey of the world, however hard I have to look in the still and flow."

"Doesn't mean I'm going to be stupid doing it once the rest of you stick in the muds decide we can *do something*," she added with a touch of wry good humor.

[Maia]

"I council caution, though some of my advice should just be chalked up to being common sense. I mean come on, turning jupiter into a new sun while cool and amazing, would be really dumb. You just think Proteus is after us, we do something on that scale, they'd hunt openly, and damn near everyone would support them."

She nodded. "We need to act, but carefully, and where it will cause the greatest positive effect. "I'm not keen on killing everyone in proteus off. We already found one agent that we saved, in Mindwave. There could be others. We can't just wipe them from the earth and let God sort them out. That sort of attitude will make many enemies for us."

She sighed. "Still, inaction grates on me as well. I wish there was more to be done, that wouldn't have profoundly dire consequences later."

[Karren Gaunt]

"We're post apothesis 2nd Generation Novas, Maia. Anything we do will have profoundly dire consequences later," Coraline countered somewhat heatedly, "The only thing you've done in the public eye was was go shopping and model clothes, and someone very nearly killed you for *that*. So we're well past whether or not we cause dire consequences and on to who do those dire consequences happen to. Because waiting too much longer is only going to allow the ones behind all this grey-on-grey evil to carry out whatever the hell they want. And we definitely don't have the time we thought we had. Not if Uncle is forcing our training like this in defiance of everything else he's taught us."

[Maia]

"Unlike most of you, my parents never really hid me away. They paid for that Cora. The world knew I existed, so my occassional public outings were largely thought of as the the reclusive heiress on a spending spree. Which alot of times they were."

"i know something is up, and I trust in Uncle's judgement. He's never led us astray, and all this time he's watched over us, while still letting us make our own choices. And when I speak of dire consequence, I mean to everyone living upon the earth. Not just novas. You can move fast enough to rip away the atmosphere, Every step I take can create a volcano, or a Trench the order of the Marianas. Those are two Devastating abilities, and they only scratch the tip of the iceberg Cora. All of our siblings can do things like that. We aren't unique in our ability to change the world. What I'd have liked is that we show our unity of purpose and agree on a single path. Of course that was more a dream, not something that could really happen."

There was a touch of sadness in her voice.

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline chuckled sympathetically, taking the oppurtunity to return the gesture by squeezing Maia's arm, "It always was, no matter what we try to acheive in our family meetings. We're a family and not a millitary unit. Give us a crisis and we'll defend each other to the death and beyond. A simple debate? Well, when it happens with whoever it happens with, I'm leaving all of you out of planning anything in my wedding."

Her smile died down somewhat, preoccupied with something other than what she was talking about as she withdrew her arm, "But yeah, it's serious. We'll have to plan something *really* good when we get out to upset Proteus's plan for Africa. It's our first, best chance to show them the mistake of making sure any of us they missed killing to protect their status quo would really want to upset that status quo."

[Maia]

"Oh come on, that's part of what being sisters is about. I have to do my best to make sure you look yours for something like that." Maia laughed. "Seriously, you shouldn't be thinking of marriage yet. You're a little young, even taking into account novahood."

Her face darkened. "Agreed. I won't let them mess with my family, not anymore."

She looked at Cora, "What's really bothering you though?"

It was uncanny, Maia's ability to tell when Cora had something on her mind. "You know you can tell me Cora."

[Karren Gaunt]

Maia received a looong calculating look from Coraline before the young metamorph exhaled, voices dropping to a whisper. "I'm worried about Uncle, for Uncle. Even in the worst case scenario, a war breaking out between baselines and humans by the end of the year that scatters us all to the stars, there's nothing that would keep him from teaching us this when we have more experience under our belts. That he seems to feel we don't have that time..," she looked away, biting her lip, "Something's going to happen to him or he thinks it will. Something we could maybe prevent or help fix out there, protect him the way he's protected us. I don't want to lose another parent, Maia, and if I do after staying in here for three whole months when I could have done something..."

[Maia]

"I know. At least here Cora, he's safe."

She shook her head. "If he's sick, I know Butch can help him. I could try to look perhaps, or we could ask Warren, but I'm worried too. I have faith in that he'll tell us when he's ready. Until then, we train, and learn what he's teaching."

She nodded. "He's here too. nothing can happen so long as he remains so. Have faith in him Cora, he knows what he's doing."

[Karren Gaunt]

"That's the problem. I trust his judgement and good intentions, always have, always will, but... He said I'm 'invisible to the future'. If I'm his blindspot, if he can only see what I get involved in in blurs, then It's even harder for me to sit by and measure pieces of rock in my hand for hue and density and 'internal crystal lattice' just to prove Uncle's point that baselines and novas are all human with same core issues and possibly learn an outlook to help me overcome taint I've never pushed into getting," Coraline bounced back, "My parents taught me better than that after what happened to my Mom."

She shook her head, "It feels selfish in a way, Maia."

[Maia]

"He trusts in you Cora. He wouldn't teach you if he didn't. He sees value in what he has you do, what all of us are doing. I have managed to accumulate taint, not much, and we both know how. Even if he can't see you clearly, he knows you wouldn't endanger the family. Piss some of us off, certainly, but that's normal. It's not about taint control solely, it's also about control, focus. What we're doing here will help us in the long run."

[Karren Gaunt]

"Heh. I've had a lot of that already, Maia. That's what exactly T'ai Chi Ch'uan is about, if not to the degree that this is pushing us," Coraline chuckled, rubbing her head ruefully, "Stillness and flow, ying and yang, soft actions to cancel hard ones and vice versa. A simplicity in living and doing paired with a need to protect the weak and spare defeated foes. It's all so very troublesome when I take that into the baseline word."

She smiled, "Wouldn't trade it for anything, though. Because it shows that Uncle trusted me. I just hope I can last in here long enough to get some benefit I can apply to others out there. I don't know why you're hopping on statue heads, but this current course of study... I swore that what the braintrust was for: you think and I do."

[Maia]

Maia nodded. "I asked for help with control Cora. You know how it is. I believe it is helping."

[Karren Gaunt]

"So how is it having Justin here but not be able to touch him? I don't think I could manage the same with Norman in here. Node, I miss him. That week was... There really aren't good enough words for how he made me feel and how I made him feel."

She hugged herself and blushed with a big besotted grin on her face, falling back onto the ground and looking at the stars, pure undiluted joy and wanting as Venus passing overhead made her laugh with treasured memories.

[Maia]

"I can touch him, just not in the way you mean."

She smiled "I think it's harder for him than me, as he has to see me like this all the time. I hope he doesn't get bored with the view."

She shook her head. "Honestly Cora, you two've already done "That" I thought we taught you better on that score." Her tone was less than half serious. "Just be safe. We don't need anyone else finding out they're going to be a parent. I'm sure you'd do great at it, but wait a few years."

She sighed. "That last part sounds like a young woman in love. So I'd wager you understand how i feel about Justin, even before he was a nova."

[Karren Gaunt]

"We've already established that my feelings for 'my' young man are somewhere on par with your feelings 'your' young man, Maia," Coraline answered, looking up at her naked sibling amusedly, "And I won't be finding out I'm a parent until I'm good and ready. Anyone looking at me the right way will just find another sterile nova. Although I can change that in a heartbeat, and in fact use Norman's DNA to impregnate myself *right now*. Although I think I'll need a new sample in not too much longer if I had so little sense as to want that responsibility on top of everything else."

"And, yes. It was glorious, doubly so with a telepathic link in place."

She chuckled one final time before letting the moment be the moment without any words from her getting between her and the world she could see but not touch.

[Maia]

"Oh, so you'll link with your beau but not your siblings?"

She chuckled. It hadn't surprised her too much. "No sneaking out to collect a sample, or reaching out to bring him here. I don't know that Uncle would want him here."

[Karren Gaunt]

"I know the terms of our imprisonment and shall not break them for something so lightly as my own pleasure, Maia," the young metamorph commented softly, sounding more than a little sad at the reminder of their present situation, "And I said I wanted to stand on my own two feet for a while, not forever. See how all those Novas and baselines without a family that loves them a thought away survive. The link with Norman was mostly practical, a way to speak between atmospheres. Not that the perks were unapreciated."

[Maia]

Maia nodded. "Not saying you made the wrong choice, just poking a little fun."

She laid back. "I bet Alex and Warren are looking for planets to colonize..."

[Karren Gaunt]

"I'm not going. I've seen plenty of moons and worlds this past week, all of them with some virtue to be found as a home where we can be free of the actions of Aeon, all of them close enough that we can keep an eye on our home while Eruptions die down. Seeing the Earth rise over an alien horizon? Pushed home how much I don't want to be run off from it entirely. It's beautiful," Coraline mused in reply.

[Maia]

"Warren showed me once." He took me to the moon so I could see the first landing site. We watched the Earth rise, and admit it stirred feelings of home unlike any I've felt. I don't want to leave myself."

[Karren Gaunt]

"Get down here," Coraline suddenly instructed, patting the grass next to her, "You may be my big sister and the second best looking nova on the planet, but that doesn't mean I want to look up at you all the time with perfectly nice grass for us lie on."

She chuckled softly, "I'm going to have to show you and Justin Venus when we get out of here. It's gorgeous and exciting in a completely hostile to conventional human life way. What's the term..? A Double Date?"

[Maia]

Maia smiled as her feet touched the ground and her wings disappeared. She laid next to Cora and smiled. "Yes That sounds like fun.. We can let the boys meet." She chuckled. "Honestly Cora, did you have to go out and get a boyfriend that makes any two of us look weak?"

She smiled. "Still i can't wait to see Venus. Just don't expect us to follow the example you and Norman have already set..."

[Karren Gaunt]

"It's a date then. Don't bring anything you wouldn't mind leaving in orbit while diving into an acidic thunderstorm."

Coraline had her doubts Maia would be so saguine after a year of looking but not touching under the conditions Uncle Shen was forcing for this training no matter how 'enlightening' it all was, but she decided to hold her tongue and let herself be proven right later. "He's a second generation nova like any other, Maia, hard to defeat unless tackled correctly but still beatable. He's a good man, gentle. Dealt with a very... tempremental childhood friend of his with more grace than I could muster last time we visited the Rainbow Room. I was lucky to meet him."

She sighed again, smiling wistfully at the memories.

[Maia]

The first time I met him he was somewhat evasive. Butch, he, and I didn't get along that well."

She shrugged. "That was pre-apothesis."

[Karren Gaunt]

"Pre your Apothesis, maybe, and he's proven himself a dozen times over since far as I'm concerned, sensiably evassive as he may have been to your perhaps... over direct questions," Coraline teasingly commented, looking at Maia out of the corner of her eye and adding seriously, "Do you think Pip will be okay when we get out of here? She worries me."

[Maia]

"I did not want to leave her." She sighed. "I can be pretty direct... I figure someone in this family should be." She nodded. "I thought her idea had some good points, but at the same time, implementation was off. In the end it would have caused no end of trouble, and hardship for novas."

[Karren Gaunt]

"Novas *and* baselines, Maia. That's what we're here to learn I gather, the essential oneness of our two branches of the human tree that so many Novas seem to forget at times," Coraline mused before intoning darkly, "The others had better have given Pip as much love and care and understanding as she'll take, or else I'll have words with them. They let her run off to Alpha Centarui or wherever..."

[Maia]

"She's much more sensitive to others Cora. I think you refusing the link, and both you and Darrik expressing interest in joining the Teragen, that hurt her. Just as bad, Warren admitting to being a killer like Darrik, the man she loved admitting this, that was something of a shock."

She sighed. "I spoke with her. I do not enjoy killing, but I will. I excel at it. I will do virtually anything to protect the members of this family. She knows that."

"She loves us all Cora, she's just having a hard time with the choices we're having to make."

[Karren Gaunt]

"Wait. Where did I say I was interested in joining Terragen again?" Coraline propped herself up on one elbow, genuinely puzzled by the accusation and hurt by the implication she was part of the problem driving her sister off in a way she had no intention of doing so.

[Maia]

"That's the impression you've given her, and in some of our talks, me, Cora. You're antipathy for baselines bothers her. Yes our lives are hard, and have been horrible in many regards. Still, most baselines don't support what's happened to us. Largely they don't know at all."

She shrugged. "I don't like the Teragen, I've made that clear. Despite the fact I can never know what it is to be baseline, I attach value and importance to many baseline values, and some of the simple mundane things in life. That doesn't seem to be particularly acceptable. Despite my dislike, I'd never do anything to take away the happiness of a family member. Perhaps in time, I could come to know more about the novas who walk that set of paths. Norman makes you happy, and to me that's what matters. Maybe one day I could talk to him, and he could help me understand things from the Teragen point of view, or at least see them in a different, potentially better light than I do."

She nodded. "I Think though, it would be best if it was a direct discussion. While subtlety isn't lost on me, I prefer the direct approach."

She reached over to Cora. "That wasn't meant as an accusation Cora, don't think of it that way. If I read your intentions wrong, I apologize. I didn't want to say anything to influence your decisions because you've been there for me, and let you make your own choices."

She nodded. "You can always count on me Cora. For me, nothing comes between family."

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline nodded and accepted the hand, mullified, "Family first, last, and always, Maia. If Norman and his Terat friends ever become violent problems, I'll be the first to stand between them and you."

She sighed, falling back down, "I'm working through... issues with the fact that almost the entire world is too stupid or self-absorbed to stop what's happening to us at the desire of so few. My problem. Although if it's hurting Pip and making you think I want to hurt my node... Then it becomes an urgent problem. Sorry."

[Maia]

"Cora, no need to apologize. If you think it's right then do what you like."

"Though isn't the purpose of this training to learn to avoid straining our nodes?"

"I would imagine that they won't be a problem for the family, really just Epiphany. We can help her deal with it though. I think honestly the ruthlessness we've displayed so far bothers her more. The way the discussion became a penis-waving contest over who could screw up the world the easiest, that has bothered her more than anything."

"Understand, her suggestion her idea is so counter to the Epiphany we've known. I know she's wrestled with it just to even mention that capability. It's a limit for her as well, the majority of the world's ignorance, and how they'd react to enlightenment.I admit I feel powerless at times to do anything that won't have the opposite effect. My powers are not subtle in the slightest."

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline chuckled and looked up at the stars, quiet sympathetic affection in her chorus of voices, "You'll work something out during this year. Qi Meng is about control, too, if it follows anything like T'ai Chi Ch'uan."

[Maia]

Maia nodded. "I know. I have faith in Uncle's teachings, and in him."

He looked at her. "I know why i'm here. What about you? Why are you training so hard?"

[Karren Gaunt]

"Because Uncle trusted me enough to offer me the oppurtunity after I accidentally got Pip so badly hurt in the Danger Room that one time. Because I promised that I would until I couldn't. And because I know myself enough to know I need at least a little time out getting used to what I can do before throwing myself into a world I'm no longer terrified of," Coraline answered, blue-on-black eyes meeting Maia's, "Don't know if that'll get me through a year, especially with this doom hanging over Uncle now that we're strong enough to protect him, but I'll try."