Chapter: 577 – Full Authority

Tala, Terry, Rane, and Lyn all stared at the almost entirely empty spot where Gretel’s meat pie stand had stood the last time they’d been through this city. The place where the boisterous woman had stood every time they’d come through the city since Tala’s very first visit.

No…

-No…-

Terry let out a long, low trill of confusion and despondency.

Lyn was covering her mouth, eyes wide as they flicked back and forth between Tala and the non-existent cart.

Rane was frowning as he read the small plaque on the ground where her cart had been. It must have been the dozenth time he’d read it, but this time he chose to read aloud, as if hoping he was making a mistake and reading it aloud would correct the problem. “This spot will be held vacant for one year in honor of Gretel Haberdash, purveyor of meat pies without equal, and friendship without reservation. Her delicacies will be missed, her joy moreso.”

He turned to his wife, clearly already aware of her distress.

“Tala… There are other places we can go. Should we…?”

Tala spoke softly, not really addressing anyone in particular. “She’s… she’s gone too?”

-Everyone is so fleeting…- Alat’s voice was dangerously close to a monotone.

Why… why is everyone dying? Tala felt her emotions rising, almost in specific contrast to Alat’s leveling out.

-All they are is dust in the wind.- The alternate interface felt like she was pulling back, placing a purely analytical lens between her and the world.

Tala raged against that, demanding that Alat engage with her. What did she gain by all her labor? A little plaque? A year’s remembrance before someone else hawks food where she once stood? A year before memory of her fades into nonexistence?

-What do people gain from all their labors? No one can take anything with them…- Alat had a bit more emotion in the question, so Tala chose to engage with it.

It’s true… I knew it before, but I didn’t really know it.

Alat perked up a bit more at the continued back and forth. -It seems that cognitive and inferred knowledge has become experiential knowledge.-

Tala grunted internally at that, feeling herself slip toward a mental monotone now that Alat was pulled a bit from the brink. Generations come and generations go, but I will remain forever.

Rane pulled her into a hug, obviously sensing her wildly fluctuating emotions through their bond. “Come on, let’s go to the sanctum.”

Lyn nodded in agreement, stepping forward to help guide Tala away.

Once they were at least slightly screened from casual eyes, the four of them shifted stoneward, guided into the sanctum by Rane’s will.

He must have been communicating with Mistress Petra, because the woman arrived moments later with a tray of tea, coffee, and treats. “I’ll have dinner whipped up for you all in short order.”

Tala started to raise a vague objection, but the woman cut across her immediately.

“Never you mind. Take the time to just be. I’ll have you fed in short order.”

Lyn regarded Tala and Rane. “Should I stay or should I go?”

Rane hesitated a moment, then said, “Stay. Let’s see if we can draw her back and distract her with conversation.”

Tala huffed. “I’m not lost.”

He shook his head. “I know you are here, my love. I know you are you, but you are mentally and emotionally adrift. You didn’t need the shock of Gretel’s passing.”

Tala waved vaguely. “What does it matter? I just lost my sister, what difference does the death of…”—she hesitated, trying to keep her emotions in check—“the death of…”—she swallowed—“a wonderful meat pie lady have to do with it?”

She then put her head down, resting on her arms on the table. She hadn’t even remembered sitting down. She didn’t descend into sobs or wails. She didn’t shudder or shake. That wasn’t really how she worked. “I’m… I’m just done with all this.” She grimaced against the tabletop. “What’s the point?”

She didn’t have anything further worth saying. Instead, she simply sank into the sensation, the feeling that there wasn’t any point to anything. Meaningless.

-Meaningless?-

Everything is meaningless…

-Ahh… yeah… it sort of seems that way at the moment.-

Tala didn’t even have the gumption to muster irritation at Alat. The alternate interface was supposed to help with things like this. True, she was no longer seemingly sinking into her own mire, but she still wasn’t helping Tala.

Lyn and Rane tried to talk with her about things both big and small. She responded, and engaged in the conversation, but her heart wasn’t really in it. She barely lifted her head except to occasionally give a longer—if still pointless—answer.

Food came, and it was as delicious as always. Tala ate and would say that she enjoyed it, but the taste didn’t really impact her more than at a surface level. She could have just been eating rocks for all it comforted her.

I could eat rocks, couldn’t I?

-I mean, I bet our teeth would be fine, and our mouth and throat would resist the cutting… but why?-

Just a passing thought.

-Sure… I’m glad the food was good at least.-

Yeah.

At Rane and Lyn’s insistence, after lunch, they all went to join the Talons in training, and Tala engaged with them but remained mostly quiet. She kept from being rude or dismissive, but didn’t put forth any effort beyond that bare minimum.

Afterward, Lyn went back to her work, and Tala and Rane returned to the sanctum to spar.

Tala fought well from a technical standpoint, but she didn’t try anything new. She wasn’t creative in her fighting or in her responses to Rane’s own improvisations, and so she did worse than usual.

After getting clean, they walked through the more natural parts of their home, being together in the beauty of it, but it just didn’t feel right.

The place was beautiful, but it lacked… something. She probably could have figured out what it was, but honestly, she just didn’t really care at the moment.

Rane drew her toward some of her experiments. She altered her artificial lung slightly based on her most recent experiences, even feeling like she enjoyed the dialogue with Rane as she worked through some points of interest. In the end, she perfected a place where there had been added resonance and stress after multiple uses in quick succession.

She’d never put the tool under such conditions, and so she’d learned much as a result.

They talked briefly about Flow’s new form, but while it was interesting, Tala couldn’t muster the mental energy to really delve into such a new topic.

At Rane’s suggestion, she added a half-dozen tungsten and iron balls and siege orbs to her void-donut for gravity shots. She even added a couple of flanged spikes to eventually test if such would be good to add to her arsenal, but the actual testing would have to wait as she didn’t really feel like creating random destruction.

That seemed to concern Rane for some reason, going by his actions, and he turned their efforts in a more creative direction, hoping that would yield some results.

They went and took a couple of hours to check on and investigate Io.

It was possible that Rane did have some right understanding of things, because that investigation at least gave Alat some distraction, pulling the alternate interface out of her own growing, brooding silence.

Tala, however, was not really diverted. So, she gave Alat full permission and authority over Io and left the alternate interface to it. She’d never really done that before, but she really didn’t want to have to be a go-between, and so fully vesting all of her sway over the research cave to Alat just made sense, even if she’d never done it before. Hopefully, the other her would be helped by the work and not have to bother physical Tala in doing so.

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Another meal didn’t help, and Terry had gone off on his own after Tala sparred with him. Unfortunately neither that, nor holding and petting him seemed to make a difference.

He would be back, and he would try again, but he wasn’t one to be tied to Tala’s hip, and he seemed to feel giving her space was the better call for him at the moment. It was also possible that he needed the space for himself.

If that was the case, Tala hoped that he got what he needed out of it.

Rane’s final gambit was a play that he’d found for them to attend, and while it worked for a bit—providing a good, momentary distraction—as they returned home, the sense of the ephemeral nature of everything around them slowly began to creep back in.

In that way, the play exacerbated her feelings, as all the interest in the play had only mattered while the play continued… and then it had ended.

Tala wasn’t pleased by this, but then that was somewhat the point. She was fundamentally displeased with the idea of those she knew dying, and now she was being forced to confront that reality again and again.

Everything ended. Everything stopped. Only she continued and would continue.

Well… she and those like her… Like Rane, her husband…