[video]

[unetrustworthy]

[Midii appeared on screen looking...slightly less put together than usual.  Her hair, which looked like it had once been in a ponytail, was sticking up all over the place, and there were a mixture of leaves and flower petals sticking out at odd ends.  There was also a large streak of blue...something...covering most of her cheek.  It looked smudged, like she'd tried to wipe it off and failed miserably.]

[Besides that, her arms were folded, and she was notably glaring at the camera--ie: no one in particular.]

Either the local kids in the park are mad at us again...or else somebody told them about all those tricks people kept playing the other day.

Speaking of: did anybody put all that furniture back yet, or should I start looking for a more right-side up place to live?

[Harmless as it had all been, it seemed Midii was less than amused by the Hotel's April 1st celebration.]

Comments

[ten_zero]

Yes! I believe the official title is 'greeter' or perhaps 'receptionist.' I'm not entirely sure which is more appropriate.

I've never done anything quite like it before. Most of this work is accomplished by Cephalons where I am from, but I can see why you would get people to do that job if the technology doesn't exist.

[unetrustworthy]

[...Midii didn't know what a Cephalon was, but based on the technology comment, she was guessing it was a...robot of some kind.]

There isn't much technology here at all, actually.

A few of the other people here from different worlds are androids and artificial intelligences, but otherwise, the only main source would be the consoles. And even they're pretty limited, compared to what I'm used to back home.

[Which...considering said technology include fighting mobile suits for war...was probably a good thing.]

[ten_zero]

A few? That's interesting. I only knew there was an animated skeleton around, I thought that was the extend of the strange inhabitants.

[ Not that robots were necessarily strange where she's from, but she also doesn't have a particularly normal concept for 'human' either. ]

[unetrustworthy]

[Wow. She must be new.]

Not even close.

[ten_zero]

I'm trying to meet everyone, but the foreigners are rather dispersed!

And there's a deceptive number of them.

[ Plus she lacks mobility. ]

[unetrustworthy]

That's because they all keep coming and going. Even I have a hard time keeping track.

I'll bet the only person who even knows how many of us are really here is the girl who run the Welcome Center.

[It was set up long after Midii's arrival, but her assumption was that most, if not all, people stopped there at some point after arriving for the first time. Maybe even the second.]

[ten_zero]

Zatanna, right?

I've spent a little more time with Bakura. They're teaching me Kedanese.

[unetrustworthy]

I think that's her name, yeah. As best as anyone knows, she's been here longer than almost anyone who isn't kedan.

[At the mention of Bakura, however, her eyes narrow ever so slightly. Not as much as they once might have, but enough for it to be noticeable.]

It's a useful language to learn. Though you need to be careful about dialects--a couple of them used to trip me up too when I started studying it.

[ten_zero]

[ Bisi catches the subtle gesture, but she's not quite socialized enough to understand what it means. She decides to dismiss it. ]

I'll make sure to be careful, thank you!

It's so strange that spoken language seems to be translated, but written language continued to require learning, isn't it?

[unetrustworthy]

Where I come from, it was pretty strange for spoken languages to be the ones getting translated. Especially in real-time, like this. And in person, not just over consoles.

[Written translations on the other hand...there were computer programs for that. As long as both languages were known.]

[ten_zero]

Whatever it is, it defies my understanding. Given some of the minds that exist among the foreigners here, if it hasn't been figured out yet, I doubt I could contribute much to the case.

Still, I find it interesting.

I suppose applying myself to purely academic endeavors is a bit of a change too. Even while researching in the Dojo, the vast majority of time was spent on military applications.

[unetrustworthy]

[Well. That stopped her pretty cold.]

...you were in the military?

How old are you? [Because she looked roughly Midii's age.]

[ten_zero]

[ Jeez, everyone was so obsessed with age here.

...honestly, Bisi totally understood why, it had just been so long since anyone had cared that she was a child when all of this began. ]

Well... [ Deep breath. ] I think I was eleven or twelve, when they recovered the Zariman. It's kind of a blur, that far back. If I had to guess I was... thirteen, when I was first put into cryostasis?

But because of the Second Dream I've been conscious for a long time. Decades, maybe centuries, since then, although my body hasn't really changed at all.

And then there was the time that I was just completely asleep. Chronologically I'm probably pretty close to a thousand? It's a little complicated.

[unetrustworthy]

[In Midii's case, though...there was a far more personal reason for asking.]

I...wasn't much younger than you.

I mean--I wasn't a soldier. I didn't fight. But I did know kids who did. Some of them were even younger--six or seven when they were recruited. But I...did spend time out on the battlefield.

[Some of what the other girl said didn't match. Talks of Zariman and cryostasis and Second Dream and...no mention of mobile suits of any kind. Which meant there was every chance, mentions of military and possible war aside, they were still from different worlds.]

I guess I...shouldn't be surprised. That it happens in other places too.

[ten_zero]

[ Bisi has to put the pieces together a little bit. Obviously Midii wasn't a Tenno (she dared to hope for a second). That Midii had been exposed to war was little surprise; there were no safe havens in her universe. Bisi was sad that Midii had been so close to the fighting, but it was the rule, not the exception.

Still, it seems their experiences are on the rarer side on the Turtle's back. Bisi experienced a moment of happiness with someone that had a glimpse of her world; and was immediately guilty for it. She shouldn't be happy that someone else had experienced something so terrible. ]

There was an invasion - an army of synthetic creatures, the Sentients, were returning from Tau, changed. They adapted to all of the Orokin's technology, and as a last resort they turned to us.

With our Warframes we could use primitive weaponry to great effect against the sentients. And when the war was done... [ Bisi's expression was hard to read; there was a great mix of different emotions. ] we turned them on the Orokin.

[unetrustworthy]

[She...only understood half the words that came out of Bisi's mouth. But nodded all the same.]

The Earth had been at war with the Space Colonies since before I was born. Many of us never knew any other life.

It also hadn't ended before I came here. Maybe it would. Maybe it won't. I don't know.

[ten_zero]

Then it'll still be going when you return.

[ The same was true for Bisi. ]

The Orokin are long gone, but the solar system is still at war. The inhuman grineer and the greedy corpus carve the system apart in never ending war, while the Sentients still loom on the periphery, biding their time.

The Lotus thinks we can heal the system, but... sometimes I wonder.

[unetrustworthy]

I don't plan on returning.

[I won't go back is what she would have said, except she knew better. That implied she had total control over whether she came or went. She didn't. In fact, judging from her own past experiences...it was nothing short of a miracle she'd lasted in Keelai as long as she had.]

War is...multiversal, I suppose.

We weren't even immune from it here.

[ten_zero]

Right.

[ Malicant. ]

You were here, during that?

[ She perks up a bit. ]

Did you know Eva?

[unetrustworthy]

Not personally, no. But I knew of her. And I knew people who seemed to know her.

[Most of them were gone now, too.]

[ten_zero]

How did the foreigners enter the Dreaming?

[unetrustworthy]

The first time, there was a portal. One for the Dreaming Realm, and one for the Death Realm. I went through both.

For the final battle, however...[A hand rose to her head, as if a small headache was slowly forming.] ...some of the details are kind of a blur, because we were trapped in that realm for nearly a near after the battle. But I know we woke up at Milyn's clinic--you know, she was the local healer.

[The one who may or may not be dead, as far as the general public knew.]

She kept watch over us while we slept.

[ten_zero]

[ Bisi nods. ]

I guess that portal isn't around anymore?

[unetrustworthy]

Why would you want to know?

[You weren't considering going exploring around Dreaming, were you?]

[ten_zero]

[ She was totally planning to go exploring around the Dreaming. ]

Several other foreigners have been trying to awaken Tu Vishan, and I think that the only way to do that involves finding him in the Dreaming.

...I think the only reason no one has considered it is probably because of the recent struggle to leave, but it seems obvious to me.