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Chapter Text

Chapter 1

Durch Artefakte singen wir erneut ein Ständchen

There was a burden in her heart as Elster crawled into the red tunnel that yawned open, in the wall of the Atrium.

The burden of confusion, grief and that the sense of herself was in flux. The burden of regret, born from wishing to help those she found on her journey and some part of her had wished she could aid… but an unshakable focus and obsession forced her ever forward. It was not helped that outside of one whom her Replika heart yearned, Elster never found it easy to express her feelings openly, even if she felt those emotions stronger than the sea’s undertow… even if she wasn’t sure what such an undertow was actually like firsthand. Because she had to find someone. Someone important. Someone who was home, not merely waited for her at what amounted to home… but was home itself. Home almost like how her dreams of Vineta felt like home, even if only in spirit.

Her.

Ariane Yeong.

The one who made any place, even a blighted, cold tomb trudging the cosmos; feel like a home worth returning.

But this was but one burden of memory. One of many.

There was the burden of grief… at what happened to Isa, back in the Bookstore. The Gestalt twin looking for her sister… and not able to find that sister. The Land Survey/Ship Technician Replika could remember the memory now as she stepped into the tunnel-like passage on hands and knees, clear and painful, saw how deep the sorrow was etched into Isa’s eyes and face.

The memory was a fresh and deep wound as she crawled, taking her time.

Hope was a foreign thing for the two women in that moment, even though Elster tried to reach for its fleeting light. When she realized the emotional weight on Isa Itou’s shoulders, Elster tried to reach out to her and the bloodied bandages that clad Isa’s hands and arms. To comfort and ease the sorrow on the girl’s face… just like how she remembered the times on the Penrose when she tried to give comfort to Ariane when she so dearly needed it. For reasons beyond Elster’s understanding; there was something about Isa that made her want to bridge the divide and to try and clear that unseen wall that kept her feelings contained.

But she remembered as her hand reached for Isa, and Isa’s hand reached for hers, that same hand of Gestalt flesh, bone and sinew, stretching out to Elster: it turned to flayed flesh, blood and horrifically… rust… and ink. Isa’s hopelessness turned to confused horror, which was then consumed with anguish and despair. And the regularly taciturn expression Elster wore… she felt it slip off in terror and heartache as she saw Isa’s horrified, fearful and despairing tears in those broken eyes, Elster’s lip quivering and her glowing red irises the shape of pinpricks in her emotional torment. She could remember the feeling at the pit of her biosynthetic stomach and the shudder of her reactor that was grafted to it. And her biosynthetic heart felt like holes were punched into it as Isa’s form slowly shifted into a vaguely human shaped mass before being reduced to a mortifying slurry, until only a burned outline remained upon the floor. Elster’s desperate hand tried to reach for what was left, desperation and sorrow becoming remorse.

Since then, Elster felt like a calloused hand, born of bereavement, had her biosynthetic heart in a permanent death grip. Even as she fought to put down monstrous horrors; that grief remained stuck to her. It felt the same as the memories of the days after her and Ariane’s 3000^th cycle anniversary. Where the light, love and joy began to slip from the two lovers despite all attempts to hold them tightly in defiance; Hopelessness of their plight filling the cracks as the two women loved each other harder in the face of futility. For the Eusan Nation that they were bound to serve commanded that they die for its own self interest.

A betrayal of all the nation’s vaunted virtues, if such virtues even existed to begin with.

But such painful memories were not the only burdens as she crawled through the constrained, circular passage.

Memories of the past, both of her own and not her own; that grappled with each other to form some desperate whole. For a time, she wasn’t sure which parts were her and which parts were of some other iteration of her, some other LSTR Unit who was her… yet… not her; a her of some other potential life outside the path she traveled in what was existence. Upon that lonely arrow that was the Penrose-512. The number designation that would become her name. And yet another part… that came from the progenitress who was her Gestalt Template.

The one who, while her life wasn’t Elster’s; was the singular point that would inform aspects of Elster’s own sense of self; conscious and subconscious. The point from which spawned context for Elster’s sense of being.

Lilith Itou.

The Gestalt who, as echoes of Elster’s template memories revealed, was driven by love and duty… but a love and duty that exceeded any nationalism in the name of the Eusan Nation, its government and ideals. For it was a love and duty to a beloved. And though the woman Elster loved was different than Alina Seo, the cherished soul that Lilith Itou loved; both Elster and her Gestalt Template loved their beloveds all the same: deep, devoted, passionate, dutifully, without reservation. Unconditionally. That was something Elster felt they both shared. No threat or force would keep them from that soul whom their hearts beat for. Not even a heart laden with pain and the deepest of emotional torment.

During her travels through the horrors in S-23 Sierpinski and the depths of the mines under the dreary Aeon facility upon Leng, followed after by that realm of rust and flesh and nightmare beneath that Elster had come to deem “Nowhere” and in what seemed to be Rotfront… of a form: she could intermittently recall glimpses of Lilith’s Life, even felt she was retracing her Templates footsteps, at least as far as the memories of Lilith that flashed in Elster’s mind as she trod a path that her Gestalt Template never trod. And how during a battle upon fated Vineta; Lilith even gave her right eye in that battle.

For Alina Seo.

For love.

That was how deep the dutiful soldier’s love ran. And somewhere, buried deep in Elster’s Titanium bones; Elster felt she would do the same. For Ariane. Her love for Ariane… and the desire to see her again; was the only thing keeping the weary and battle worn Replika woman going. The last bit of grounding to push forward.

But now, right now, as she wriggled out of that enigmatic tunnel of flesh and red light which promptly closed behind her, leaving a stained marking upon the well to her back and standing in what she now realized was Ariane’s room in Rotfront, where the dresser, the Radio, the Books of radio instruction manuals and old Imperial Serials that were very much illegal to own as deemed by the state… and yet what Ariane so fondly read, the photos of paintings the most wonderful Gestalt in existence had painted so beautifully with skill, talent and passion… the dusty bed that Ariane slept upon. All of it…

Even the ancient black tome on the table that seemed to call to her before… 

Elster knew now their importance.

What she was looking for.

Yes, she was looking for Ariane, or at least, she remembered who she was well and truly looking for. But for some reason; she also realized that she wasn’t just looking for Ariane; the woman she loved. In this endless march in the dark, against horrors, heartache and the complete dissolution of her sense of self, a place where only fear, terror, misery and madness resided and tragic, frightful monstrosities made of unfortunate souls denied life and death in equal measure and confronted with, using whatever weapon and ammo Elster could find and use with measured frugality... she was also looking for something alongside Ariane.

Hope.

Somehow, someway, in some form. She wasn’t fully sure how long she was looking, though it almost felt deep in her soul as if it were an untold eternity… and her gut started to feel like she was becoming… familiar with some things in her quest even if she couldn’t quite grasp how or why. There were things that were… confusing, and impossible… and the note on the blackboard in the nightmare version of S-23 Sierpinski, the facility twisted by corruption and nightmare, clade in darkness, flesh, butterfly’s and foreboding red light, of all the things that she mulled over: the message in the classroom designated Class 4B seemed to circle back in her mind as if carried on the tides… rising and falling in a cycle.

“You have been here before.”

That writing on the school blackboard in Class 4B in what seemed like the corrupted nightmare of S-23 Sierpinski; invaded by pulsing flesh. Writing that she otherwise would have merely touched lightly on before ignoring it to find Ariane. But since she began her confusing, harrowing journey she was nibbled on by the feeling of some sort of… need. A need for her to be attentive. For her to ruminate on the clues and knowledge she found. The puzzles and cyphers she had to solve, she started to see some meaning to them, if obscure and esoteric; with so many layers that it felt like stacks of scouting reports laying atop each other. 

She couldn’t quite shake that they were important somehow, and that they might help her not only find Ariane but also help her make sense of things... try to make sense of things at least. And most of all: they might all point to some solution to the impossible plight she and Ariane were stuck in.

Her hand reached slowly into one of her LSTR class standard issue GTB-2 Large Tactical Pouches, the second pouch on her right side, just behind the pouch containing her Type-75 'Protektor' Pistol, the first handheld companion of hers to fight against the horrors, and her fingers coiled around three familiar feeling metal objects, long and thin. And she from that pouch, pulled out three mysterious keys.

Once they cleared the pouch, she carefully regarded these keys in her hand as her eyes took them in as a set, each one she remembered appearing someplace of some obscure importance, found one by one, in due time, after finding the REM-64 Module to listen to radio frequencies. That REM-64 found in what Elster came to realize was Ariane’s old Childhood home of Rotfront Interplanetar Station 06, to where she inexplicably found herself, after having freed the peculiar object from a butterfly box and taken that heavy, hexagonal, enigmatic plate of polished black stone emblazoned with the star symbol of Heimat, and seemingly filled with something soft and wet inside, the first she found in a set of six. And the only one she found inexplicably in Sierpinski, unlike its siblings found in the realm known as Nowhere.

These three keys which Elster held in her hand: each one, revealed itself when Elster began to piece together an understanding, trying to find reason in the radio signals in three specific locations, only her SSTV subroutine unique to herself and her sisters of the LSTR Class 5^th Generation Replika provided any clue to even begin to look. Each key held a message of some kind, itself buried in a message nested in a cypher like a nesting doll. Each one felt…. Important. 

An importance belied by the rough, heavy, ancient-looking keys covered in rust… so very like the Rusted Key Elster found in the realm of rusted steel and pulsing flesh and biting monofilament wires. But unlike the Rusted Key, these three keys glistened with an almost golden power at the Key’s bow: its head that Elster held. Resonating like a forgotten tune, with parts that were shaped and infused with symbols. Symbols carried meaning, and Elster felt, somehow; she was for the first time growing to understand that meaning… though she still felt mystified at where that meaning would lead her, in the long term.

In the short term; her eyes listed from the three keys in her grasp to the dusty leather cot to her right, which she turned to face. And her eyes held themselves on the object upon that bed, the one that Ariane no doubt slept upon untold numbers of times, though from the layer of dust; she had not slept upon that bed a very long time. If at all.

Elster’s gaze briefly jumped to the wall above the object upon the bed to notice a series of numbers etched onto the wall, as well as small drawings of eyes around them. It was a curious thing, but she would regard it with better attention after she dealt with the task at hand, and her eyes returned to the object on the bed beneath the numbers upon the wall.

The object that held Elster’s attention on that bed: was a safe. It looked like a Mond&Töchter High-Security Wall Safe with a key-code key-pad, similar to identical looking safes Elster found in S-23 Sierpinski. She remembered that the three safes had on each of them a manufacturer’s marking on their doors: three stars encircled by an eclipsed planet and in turn surrounded by a ring, a tree also resting inside a ring, and a sword contained in a hexagon shape respectively. But the safe resting on the bed; held a marking of a ritual icon… one that reminded her of the red ritual icon on that ancient tome she first found and interacted with now and then; the King in Yellow. 

But where that book’s ritualistic icon was fashioned in an intimidating and powerful red; the outline upon the safe was in contrast a warm and soothing white outline and seemed mysteriously ritualistic. She noted that the venerable tome was resting temptingly on the desk, adjacent the radio Ariane used to transmit on, but though some strange force lightly tugged on her being in service to that venerable tome; it no longer was a knuckle white grip anymore. The keys instead beckoned her. And the keys in turn beckoned the awaiting safe. The safe itself was further secured by heavy chains that wrapped completely around the safe; secured by three locks.

The very same keys Elster held in her grasp.

As Elster kneeled before the safe resting on Ariane’s bed, she directed one of the three keys to the uppermost lock that was secured upside-down, locking the chains in place. The name of the key and its message echoing in her mind: the Key of Eternity. Found in the Sierpinski Storch dorm, summoned from a painting, where an old god devoured his child in a fit of madness.

Ą̷̬͈͋̋̍̽̀̓̓̈̉͌ŗ̴̛̞̯̯̪̖̣̱͔͖̫͍͚͇͙̋̒͑͗̈́́̏͛̂̂͘̕ĕ̵̢̢͍̫̝̠̜̹̐̑͐͑̇͆̋͝ ̴̣̱̹̦̅̅̈́̍̄̂̾̀̆̿̇͘̕͘̚y̴̧̡͕̘̎̈́͠ơ̷̪̮̗̺̿̋u̶̱̺̠͉̫̰̱͗͆̒̑͝͝ ̵̨̛̣͉̪̿́́̑͆̇̀̑̏́͛̕͘͜s̶̪͎̩̤͕̝̰̗̭͔̃͂̒̏͊́͋͋͐̄̈̕̕͝t̸͎̱̰̦͙̹̺͙͍̃̃̃̑̂̆́ͅȋ̴̘͇͓͎͚͉̟̯̘̀́̂͒͊̔͂̒̋̑l̵̪̥̠̪̣̜̼̱̘̳̩͋̀́̇͐l̶̢̡̪̻̖̯̳͕̩̭͓̭̈́͐̌͆̆̔ ̸̨̛̘͚͍̹̼͆̈́̊̈̄͊͊̇̀̿̎̚̕ļ̸̳̠͙͔͒̄̚o̴̧̧̠͈̖͍̦̳̳̝͂̀ó̸̡̡͈̳̞͍̳͓̖̳̪͓̟̆͋̎̎̀̐̚ḱ̶̨̊̎͒͆̾̆̍̑̈́͛̓͝i̶̲͍̐̈̌͐͂̈͂͆̔͑̈́̃̚̚͝n̶̮̥͒̚ǵ̶͈̠͉͔̠͙͉̝̱͈̙̟̽̓̅̾̋̍͐͛̇͒̚͠ ̶̧̟̫̱̖̫̀̏́̈́̓̓̀̍́̆̈́̕͘͘f̴̨̨̭̤͍̞͙͎̝̲̜̞͔͑́̈́̆̋̿̈́͆̈́̊͜͝ô̶̠͂̆͂́r̷̢̯̫͎̫̥͕̣̖̬̤̍͆̔̄̿ ̸̱́̐͌͑͊͊͂â̷̡̧̡̢͎͔̹̙͇̯̅́̿̎̔̒̓̈́̀̈́̚͝ņ̴̧̛̤̩̱̎̌̀̃͜͝ͅs̵̢̹̲̗̥̱̘͚̞̈́̋̍̐̆͗̒̔̌́̐̈́̿̀w̶̤̠̟̻̯̩̩̖̟͉͇̣̟͖̖̎̏̓̀̋͛̿͋̏͊͂͘͝͠͝e̶͍̩̦̟̰̤̖̪̫̾͆̀ͅr̶̛͕̭̺̰̻̥͓̤͕̩͖͇̣̥̋̿̆̄̋̈́̎̊͒̽͘s̷̢̙̰͇̻̆̔͑̑͋̎͑͆ ̴͇̩͚͍͂̾̈́̆͊̈͛̊͘͝w̶̝͙͇͍̳̝̣͖̾̓͒͐͋̉̒̅̌̓̓̔̈̕͝h̸̤̀̿͐͋̏͊͘̚e̴͈̱͇̭̫͚̯͛̓͑̆͌̓̀̂̒̕̕͜͠ř̴̲̯͖̻͕͒͆̅̅̍́͛̅̍̒̾̓̀͐e̵̢̡̙̲̜̟͕͎̱̐̀̾̽̒̃̈́͒̿̑͐ ̷͔̠̈̀͐̈̂̽t̷̡̢̡̲̻̘̘̫̘̳͉͚̠̝̝̋͑̌͋͑̂͊h̸͙͈̱͓͚̜̤̜͕͖̉͌̈̎̿͗͋͝ë̸̬͉͉̮́͛̋͂̃̐͑̄̕ͅr̸̡̫͎͕̗͎̱̘͓͎̱̼̺̓͌͐̇̋͝ͅẹ̸̻̖̖̲̪͓͙̺͕̹͈̞͉̋͑͛ ̵̨͓̣̺͖̉̾̃̿͐́͘͠͝a̸̧̖͚̯̭̤̬̮͔̻͉̣̋͗͂͑̈̈́͒̚͝r̵͕̺̜̭͖̬̣̻̳̟̭̍̐̕̚ͅe̵̤̻͊̊͂͘ ̵̰̪͇̫̺̫̤͖̜͖̣̹̃͗̑͂̇̒̈́̓̃̐̅̊o̴̯̩͕̫̦̪̯̠̼͉̳̓̀͛͐͆̒́̒̐͂͆̄̚̚n̵̡̧͕̞̗͕͉̱̲̤̜̲̫̏͐̓̾̕͘͘̚͠ḷ̸̢̙̺̻̘̂͊͛̍̋͛͘͘͝y̶͎̋̿̽̓̈̂͌̄͂͑̑̈́̓͛̏ ̴̨̛̪̫͔͍̟̜̦̙̗̙̻͂̿͛̑́̊̆̇͐̽͘͘̚͘ͅq̷̛̲̽̃̄̉̄͑̍̚u̷̢̧̨̘͈̦͎̪̖̤͕̞̙̟͛̋͌̓̈́̀̎̈́͐́̒ͅe̷͖̘̍͆̉̐̏̓̆͌̃̒s̵͔̪͚͔͚̽̈̓́̅̈́̋̃͑̌̇̕͘͜ṯ̴̨̧̨͎̻̻̖̮̩̣͓̫̘́͗̊͆͒͆̓̚î̶̡̺̝̜̲̂̂ͅͅŏ̵̜̔͒̎ņ̷̡̝̼̺̱̳͈͎̪̝̔̃̋̿̌̃̐̆̎̕͠ͅs̴͎͚̗̺͖̈́̂͝ͅͅ?̴̡̞͇͋͠ ̸̗̦̱̺̟͓̳̯̳͛͌̌́͊ͅŢ̶̧͖̹̲̠͌̐̀̅͝͝ͅh̸̡̘̖̯͓͙͙͍͉͕̙̦͓̾͒̈́͝ͅḙ̶̤͍̤̜̭̹̬̰͙͓̘̀́̓͑͐̆̔̍͑͘͝͝ṛ̶͎͈̰̤̘̑̋̌͗̍̄̈͛̆͊̚͘ę̸̡̩̠̩̠͈̘̱͉͈̒̀̽͘ͅ'̵̨̡̭̼̳͙̣̘̘̖̲̄̇͗̾̏̕͠ş̴͓̖͖̜̣͎͍͖͎̯͉̪̉̿̐̋͌̉̈́̾̿̕̕ ̷̬̬̣̘̝̞̤̂͒͂̍̈́͒͂̏́͛̊̚̕͜ͅn̷̻͎̤̰̍̽͆̆̇͛̅̅̔͊̑̊͗̚͠ơ̶͇̼̦̝̲̯͆͂̕t̷̨̨͔̝͍̝̰͙͖̉͗̀̐̀̎̌h̸͍̒̀͂̆͊̓̂̂͝͠į̵̧̧̨̮͚̮͎̮̖̲̳͍̓̓͂̆̽̑̐̔͜͜n̴͇͕͚̺͚̤͔̩̏̾͒͝ǵ̵̢̧͙̯̞̝̟̦̓͐̊̾ ̷̮̳̑̐̿̅̌́b̵̳͇̩͔̝̲͚̃͆͛́͜͝ͅu̸̝̹̩̱̱̦̮̣͉̘͌̅̽̀̎̐̀̓̏͘̚̕̕͝ṯ̵͚͙͖̲͚͉͚̬͈͖̱̼̄́́̍̈́͌ ̷̛͈̦̍͐̓̐͋̓͑͛̍́̊͘̕͘͜h̷̥́̊̓̃̚͠ĕ̷̛͕͑̉̈́̋̀̈́̆̒͘̕ͅả̶̢́͂́̽̏͋̈͂̌͠͠ŕ̷̢̧̘͖͖̰̺͚̫͇͓̩͙́͒͂̏́̇̑̍̏͒̌̇͐̚t̵̡̢̰͙̱̹̩̩̻̘͕̓͗̃̽͘b̴̢͖̣̻͍̬̟̠͔̯̻̮͓̋̏̚͝r̴̛̻̦̯̤͆̅ę̵̜͚͚̱̔̒͊̎͛̽̅̚͝͝ͅa̴͌̓͑̎̌ͅͅk̶̛̳̻̲̯̳̺͍̖͈̣̺͛̈́̈̅̊̀̔̆̐̚͘͜͝ͅ ̸̰͗̓̓̏̏͑͒̇̕͠ͅà̴̢͍̟̘̯̳̩̜̮̿ͅͅt̴̡̛̙̙̱̫̳̺͓͉̱͖͉͌̉͋͌͑̈́͊̆̐̕̕͜ ̸̡̝͚͓͇̅̓̓͗̉͗̏̕t̶͖͙̜͎͖̮̘͙̬̤͉̍͊̈̆͝ĥ̴̨̢̨̛͈͚̟̘̟̦̯͉͈͓̈̈̆̓̍̐̋̋̕̕̚͜͝ę̸͚͎̣͎̩̬̮̋ ̶͔͕̲̪͍̤̠̹̎̿̈́́͂̇̀e̴͇̜͕͉̐̐́̍̈́́̐͐́̓̈́̚͝͝͠n̶̥̘̘̹͉͓̈́̿̓̈́͌̾͒d̷͖̦̟̞͈̞̐̂͋͑͐͊͌͝.̵̗͕̙̈̐͗̈́̾̇̄̌̎̽͑̈́͝͝ͅ

The words from an unknown speaker echoed in Elsters mind, regal but somber, as the key’s teeth, the bit, shaped into the number of “512”, entered the waiting lock. A carbon fiber-reinforced polyethylene shell thumb and finger grasped the bow of the key, fashioned into icons of Heimat and Buyan. The symbols and their meaning combined into this key, alongside the number 512, the same number that amounted Elster’s full Replika name: raised yet more questions in her already cluttered mind of musings than it did answers.

But it didn’t matter.

Not with this threshold that now stands before her. Once the rusted metal key was eased inside the lock, she turned the key. Despite the rust that coated the key, the lock clicked open, and in a blink the lock and the key ceased their existence in reality. Vanished in an instant as if a dreamer awoke from her slumber; making the dream disappear from memory. Elster blinked, puzzled for a moment, but it was a fleeting confusion as she decided to continue.

The lock to the right was next. And as if intuitively, she then eased into position the next key: the Key of Sacrifice. Upon it were a symbol of Rotfront, Buyan and the Eusan Empire depicted in the keys head, the wards and bit fashioned into an almost tapered, sharpened, triangular shape so much like a knife, for reasons even she wasn’t quite able to discern. And like before; a voice echoed in her mind once more.

But the voice was different and yet familiar… sounding like her own: but it was not hers…

O̴̮͇͛́̚n̷̮͐̒̀ ̷͔͚͔̘͐͗̓t̸̞͉̲̉̀̒͜h̷͉̦̄̃è̴͖̥͚̐ ̸̢̦̄͒̄h̶͚͌̽ő̶̹̯̺̓r̸̞̜̓͘ì̶͈͉̠̃̀z̷͓͇̯̬̆̓͊̉o̵̻̬̽̾n̷͓̩̞̓,̸̛̼͇̱͊͛̌ ̶̹̭̣̎̀͌̓I̸̗̓́̅ͅ ̵̪̟̂̋͝s̵̙̘̣͉͆̽͠͠a̶̧̗̎̐͒͐ẅ̷̺̖̫́͂ ̸͔̳͂á̸̮͇ ̶̩̳͉͐́s̴͈͉̪̒̑̀t̵͙̓͠a̶̡̛͖̲͒͝ṟ̵͓͎̗͛ ̷̡̟̫̼̈͛̿̕f̴̪̜̤̟͐͛́̈́a̶̛̼̫͙͘l̶͕͋͌̅͜ḻ̸̡̉͛͑͜ ̶̢̀i̷̟̤̤̣̐̊̚n̴̨̘̑t̸̡̳̹́̍̓͝o̶̜̫͚͆̇̆͝ ̶̳͓̒͑͋͆t̷̛̗̼̗̓̔̔h̴̛̼͑̂̌͜ẻ̷̫̩͚͉͒ ̷̟̽s̶̩͙̝̆͗͆ě̸̙͇̫͑a̸͓̯̼̎͂̍,̷̬͇̽̕ͅ ̸̤̚ă̶̲̱̰͜ņ̵̜̜͗̓͜d̵̺͑ ̶̟̰̋̉̐t̵̝̰̒̎͝h̴͎̤̤͛̏e̴̟͖̘̯͘ ̵̨̻̩͓́s̶̤͇̥̈́̇̽͌ǒ̷͈͔̻̒̂u̷̝͕̜͘n̷͚̘͌̄̈͜d̶̪̐ ̸̯̔̊ö̶̡̰͈̳́͛́̌f̶̫̍̎ ̴̞̙̿̔̈͋t̸̼͔̣̽h̸̝̱͛̔u̸͚͒́n̶̲̮̑d̶͇̞̱̲͗͑̈́e̴̞̲͚̽̂r̷̨̥̉̓͘,̸̲͛ ̷͉̺̦̇͜͝l̷̡̲̻̈́į̷̳̥̱͛̌̂k̵̢̹͔̥̑͝ĕ̵͇͋̈́ ̴͇̓̂̕͝t̶͕̀ṙ̷̻u̵͍̗̞̲̇m̴̢̟̾͂͗͝p̶̫̣̻̪͛̑e̴̲͘t̵̖̯̀͌͠ṡ̵̨̥̪̐̄ ̶͓͛̎̎ȍ̸̧͆̋f̸͚̒͘ͅ ̸͙͓̝͗̚ạ̶̟̽̍n̷͕͙͗̈́g̶̥͖̭͘ě̴̖͛͘̚l̵̺̦̟͗s̶̜͚̟̤̋͌̊,̶̦̉̎ ̷̙̮̩̲͋̉̂̓f̸͉̲̒̃͌͝l̸͚̇ë̷̬̠͍́̐͋̄w̸̪͝ ̸̧̢̬̠͗̐́o̸̟̘̒̈͜v̸̬̻̏͋e̸̻͚̟͌̈́͊̒r̷͚̉͛̈́ ̸̧̞̍͗͝ͅẗ̸̨̗̬̬h̴̻́̍ė̵̢ ̵̛͚̋̈́̓w̸̨̳͙̍̀͂͑ã̸̫͔̐̕ţ̴̞̅e̴͎̺̅͌͋̄r̸̠̬̎̆͊.̸̮̓ ̸̢̉A̸̤̲̩̝̅ ̶͉͆̔͝m̷̛̟̈́̇̕i̴͚̝͎̣̾̍͘x̸̦͍̆ ̶̨̮̼́̕o̵̗̍̉̀̋f̵̡͉̃́ ̴͇̜͖̮͗͒̇ḧ̵͙̈́ä̸̩͓͙́̅͌ḯ̷̤̰̝̜l̷̡̨͙̖̿͑,̸̹̈́ ̸̜̫̼̋f̵̤͒̇͜i̷̟̖̫̓̚r̴̜̆͒̀͠e̵̞͐ ̸͎͔̦̈́ȃ̵̲̊n̵̥̙̰͐̆ḏ̷͂̄́͠ ̴̱̒̔̃b̸̰̭͔̰͂̅͋̾l̸͕͍͉̩̽̓̕o̶̺̲̓͜ͅo̶̢͎̜̔̕ͅd̵̞́̏ ̵̖̠̳̀̈́̈́͒ḩ̸̡̦̜̾͝i̶̛͉̻̓̍ͅţ̵̢̜̰͆ ̷̰̣̎̓͝m̸̛̟̠͕̚͝ÿ̴̪̣̗ ̵̧̺̻̊̍w̵̤̝̹̲̕e̶̡̞͈̚͘t̶̫͖̒̽̌͝ ̷̗͋f̸̭͓͓̌̇ȃ̷̘̥͕̖͠c̶͉̳̫̔̊e̶̝̰̬͜͝,̶̝͕͈͖̎̓͑ ̴͈̠̦̈̓̈̉a̸̡̧͈̖̐ǹ̶̞̘̰̟̓̚͝ḑ̷͍̦̙̅͒͝ ̵̻̫̀̚a̴̦̰͐ ̵̤̦͖̽̔ͅt̵͖̖̜͓̉̓̓̔h̵͚̻͔̑̂͋̿i̵͕̒͐r̷̟̲͝ḏ̸̣̞̟̎̓͒ ̷̳̈͌̒̚o̵̼̻̱͒͝͝f̸̨̟̪̣͑̈́͘ ̸͖̳̌̈́̌ă̴̟̣̭̠̿̈́l̷̢̮̲̈́͒̈́̃ľ̶̖͇́͠ ̸̛̪̦̱̟̈́̏̐ç̷̧̛̲̿r̵̩̱͉̹̒͐ȇ̸̻͇̱̠̒͛̓ā̵̭͈̮͓̈́̉͝t̴̨̘̍u̷͓͖̗̪̐̆r̸̡̠͕̺̾e̸̻̓́s̸̭̝̜̖̄̎ ̸̭̣̲̅t̵̯̹̞̲̒͌͑ḧ̵̨̤̗̍̚͝ạ̷̲̗̈́t̴̝̱̓͆̋͠ ̸̼͛̿̔̅l̴̪̗̠̭̾ì̷̡̼̈͘͝v̷̡̖̤̫̽̊̄ȩ̸̛̯̔̏ͅḑ̸̽̇̉̒ ̶̭́̄i̶̧̱̚n̶͙̭͇̉́̂̍ ̸̛̜t̵̮̳͙͍̓̽͊h̷̳̜̾͐̕͜e̴̠͍̫͐ ̸̖̦̓̈̉s̶̡̧̭̽̓̕ē̷̞̳̙̥̿̌a̶̗̽̈́ ̷͓̹̀̉̐̈́d̶̤̞͇̒͊i̶̼̬̮͐͒ȩ̸̓d̸̤̲̟̈́̏͑͝.̶͙̐

As she inserted the key and the familiar voice subsided, Elster took a moment to close her eyes, and drew a calming breath. It was a voice very much like her own… but she knew that it was not her voice that she heard speaking in her mind, deep yet feminine and flourished with a Vinetan accent not too different from the accented, if lighter tone voice Isa had. In truth, the voice tied to the Key of Sacrifice; it belonged to the one responsible for giving Elster her voice.

It was as if the specter of Lilith Itou spoke to Elster again. Both of them were women of great sacrifice, Elster knew that much. And that alone mattered enough to Elster, in spite of everything.

The pang of a memory momentarily surfaced; the image of Vineta and the trail of a white light, so much like a star; that dislodged itself from the heavens and fell to the seas below… and then wrought a mushroom cloud of death. The seas churned and broiled and awe-inspiring horror and terror copulated in the wake of the enemies strike upon the Eusan Nations garrisons; both born of and illuminating knowledge into the unknowable and horrific. A machination forged from the very song of the stars that made existence. A last desperate gambit of the Eusan Empire; just as powerful and callous as the Eusan Nation itself. Elster opened her eyes, and for some reason or another, she shifted her gaze to the national flag hanging on the wall… and she only had a single thought at seeing it.

It's meaningless.

For a nation that would exploit, force and render meaningless the sacrifice of those it commanded and held in its grasp, the pain and suffering it caused, the people it hurt and killed all for power and a dominion of control: Elster no longer saw anything of worth in the flag and the false promises that were rotting on the vine under that hanging cloth. Only Ariane, Isa and the people who were harmed by the owners, the rotten government of that putrid flag, came to mean anything to Elster. 

Even Falke was as much a victim of the Eusan Nation as Elster and Ariane were; and FKLR were made to be the Eusan Nations Wunderwaffe, to uphold its will. Embody its spirit. Personify its values. Elster had come to realize this was an existence imposed upon Replika by the nation regardless of Replika class; herself included.

Elster’s gaze shifted back to the safe and the locks upon it, not sparing a further thought to that hateful flag of callous betrayal and turned the key. Her emotions were still in check evenly and her focus sharpened. The lock clicked open and was deftly discarded as it too, with the key: spontaneously winked out of existence. That was two locks removed.

There was now a third and final key, to the final remaining lock. The Key of Love. And it was at this key that Elster lingered. It was the first key that Elster found. In a cage with a badly corrupted Eule corpse in the S-23 Sierpinski Isolation room, a room bathed in unnatural blood red light, the first such room she came across flooded with such light, patrolled by a corrupted Star unit; revealed in the dead Eule’s grasp at the sound on an enigmatic radio station. The keys head had the symbol of Leng nestled inside the symbol of Kitezh, which was in turn nestled inside the symbol of Buyan, the bit of the key a simple tapered, triangular bit and a key ward in its center.

As she held the last key in front of her eyes, she heard the words that spoke to her when she first grasped this key upon finding it speak to her again now. Warm, loving, full of mirth and awe. A familiar voice from the one she loved.

The familiar voice she yearned to hear again. And again. And again.

Forever.

Ariane’s voice.

And once she heard her beloved Gestalt’s voice speak in her mind with jovial cheer, the emotional and mental weight on Elster’s chassis and mind began to grow lighter.

“Cycle 888: I've tried to teach Elster how to dance. It's so cute how clumsy she can be when it comes to these things.”

An embarrassed chuckle escaped Elster’s throat; remembering how she was stiff as steel when Ariane tried to teach her to dance on that day that felt like three blissful eternities. She had no sense of rhythm then, and a few times she stumbled. Once she accidently tripped, if briefly, over her own feet and barely cleared her peg feet over Ariane’s toes to her panic and regret, but Ariane was patient and forgiving. The white-haired Gestalt even seemed so far as warmly amused. 

After the initial yelp from Elster and the gasp as Ariane tried to steady the staggering LSTR unit, the Gestalt Pilot Officer couldn’t help but giggle at Elster becoming flustered and quickly pulling the peg foot back stiffly in front of Ariane’s toes like a raw recruit snapping to attention in drill formation, then fretting that she might have caused Ariane terrible injury and vexation. Thankfully, an already deeply careful Elster trod lightly and her response to correct mid-step was instant, combined with Ariane’s steady hands aiding her regaining uneasy foothold; no actual damage occurred and Ariane warmly insisted that they could still dance.

While Elster was always careful in her movements around Ariane, she became more careful still after that for some time. At the very least; she never had a repeat of that moment again, to her own relief. Even if she still moved stiffly and inelegantly for some time in her lessons. But all that practice began to eventually bear fruit; Elster began to better visualize her movements as a means to help herself learn the task of dancing, like each step was a step in a blueprint or instruction manual to bring parts into a whole, and with ever growing confidence besides… and in time more ethereal sources were drawn emotionally; coaxed forth from seeing Ariane’s own painting and those paintings stirring something in Elster’s biomechanical heart. That hard-to-place spark of inspiration then gave Elster’s movements more passion and weight beyond a mere series of steps in sequence. To the point where Elster’s movements eventually began to flow like the tides of the oceans of Vineta.

It became the art of dance.

And yet despite the trials and stumbles, she thought back fondly of those moments, the time where Ariane wanted to talk and spend time with Elster for the first time, even if the Kosmo-Pioneer Specialist was initially uncertain how to navigate that shift of interaction… but she grew to not mind it. Learning a bit about Ariane and her time growing up, the people in the Gestalt girl’s life that gave her small sparks of joy and happiness, seeing her paint vistas that sparked Elster’s ever growing curiosity, hearing the stories that Ariane often was reading in her free time with such enthusiasm, the questions about the Replika herself (at times at least and broached by Ariane with gentle tact and considerable curiosity), the movies she and Ariane watched together to pass the time and the music they listened and danced together to.

Remembering the music made Elster wish she could play that piano she found in the Piano room of S-23 Sierpinski, to play something for Ariane. A labor and gift for her beloved.

But Ariane’s voice spoke again, and with it came their own memories and emotions, now sounding in loving awe, almost as if in shocked realization. The cherished moment where a closer and burdening friendship soon blossomed into love:

“Cycle 1024: Before I met Elster, I never believed I would find someone I could fall in love with like that.”

Elster felt the warm smile grow upon her face. Hearing Ariane’s words on Cycle 1024 of this hallowed key: she felt her weary and wounded heart being freed from the hopeless grip that held it like a vice. Hearing Ariane’s voice saying this; it made Elster feel honored and humble, knowing that she was someone that deeply and profoundly important to the woman whom she felt as deeply for. She hoped she would still be worthy of that love here and now. 

Elster remembered every moment on the Penrose in that time of loving bliss, both the joyful highs and even the heartbreaking lows... for even the tears and the ache that bore them, much to Elster’s chagrin; were now nevertheless important; even if they were like a cursed ring, dripped in poison from a witch’s chalice. Despite that; all those memories were important and held their own meaning. Every touch, every embrace, every kiss… and every romantic and carnal desire that she and Ariane shared and expressed for each other in devotion born of love...

Elster’s hand tightened slightly around the Key of Love and held it close to her heart; her eyes closed as she lost herself in every one of those cherished memories. Part of her wanted to stay in those memories a while longer and dance to the songs unsung. But her practical sensibilities at last nudged her, the past can be revisited later. The smile on her face eased but never left, but her eyes focused intently on the final lock. Something inside her urged her forward. A feeling took hold in her: that maybe there could be a future for this love yet? For them yet.

Her hand guided the Key of Love with anticipation to the lock that awaited it, hilting itself deeply inside the opening of that final lock. With a turn of the key, that lock came unbound. And once that lock was unlatched, the lock, the key and even the chains that encased the safe blinked out of existence in an instant. As that happened, a sound rang out that she remembered; the wail of a note… from a tune… from a familiar broadcast [1]. One that started from the radio encryption broadcasts… one that Elster and Ariane danced to…

And yet… to Elster’s bafflement, was strangely the same as the televisions that she came across on her travels through horror… the ones with the strange red light glowing from their screens. Ones where something tenderly flayed her mind and lovingly embraced her soul when she interacted with it; a beautiful horror for the Replika of synthetic flesh and steel, where love and pain became difficult to distinguish. And yet she felt as though she was giving of herself, mind, soul and memory to something powerful and desired.

Now… now the safe was unbound; no longer restrained by stifling metal links and locks that seemed imposed from without. She didn’t know why but she knew that this was an important first step. But that was, of course, only the first step.

For now, she had to take the second step. And the next threshold she needed to clear; stared at her expectantly. The safe code keypad, key numbers 1 through 9, with “0” beneath the “8”, and “E” to that “0’s” left and an arrow on the right. To the left of the keypad was a red and green light respectively positioned vertically and the turn-lock mechanism to the left of those lights. Both lights were off. Much like the safes she came across in her travels, the Star Safe, the Tree Safe and the Sword Safe; those needed a code to enter. 

These codes were found written in some fashion on some form of paper document and transmitted through radio signals. Of the three; two were encoded as cyphers. Of the three: one safe code was a cypher that went as far to use letters representing a number… which she then needed to associate with a number found on an obscure radio station using her REM-64 in the form of a transmitted morse code.

There was some method and meaning to these facts of the safes, the codes and their cyphers. A radio message conveyed through symbols and abstractions made physically tangible and echoed in Elster’s ears, rapping gently, steadily upon her mind. Elster had long pondered what the connections were, but back in Rotfront; puzzles began to come together to form a more cohesive shape, to an extent. 

Elster’s memories recalled the computer in the Blockwart Office, and after finding the diskettes she needed, used that Computer to adjust Rot-C-West and Rot-C-OST receiver dishes to align with Broadcast Tower 043. Such actions were to try to find the right signal to send through radio waves... in order to unlock a well-crafted wooden box with a magpie on it containing the Star Tarot and the key to the Yeong Photo Studio. Though the POLYTONE Signal, with it’s 8 note rising scale and the BELLS Signal with its obscure tones hiding numbers were present as signal broadcasts to select, holding their own musical and informational meanings and importance, even if hinted through a seeming allusion; it was the MAGPIE Signal nestled between them as an option: that was the obvious choice to broadcast over the radio waves.

The song of a magpie cried out to earn eternity with its mate.

And as Elster came to realize, that song was sung in three notes.

Her gaze shifted for a moment to the radio on the desk in front of her. Ariane's old radio transmitter. It's still transmitting… her eyes shifted back after confirming what she needed. This was good: she could proceed to do what she had to do.

Elster’s eyes now fixated on the number keys of the keypad, and as her small smile slipped off her face to her more neutral expression, she knew that the code to this safe was found in the Three Note Oddity. That song of a magpie held the final key.

> Initializing Replika Inventory management protocols

> Open subsystem screen interface

> Selecting REM-64 Longwave Radio Receiver functions

> Activating REM-64 Longwave Radio Receiver Module: Radio receiver On

The Radio Receiver Module came to life, the radio station frequency buzzing in her ear and Elster scanned through different channel frequencies. The eponymous magpie signal could be found on frequency 125.000KHZ or 210.000KHZ to transmit its song and message. From her last use of using her Radio Module, frequency 210.000KHZ was the closest in her channel selection; so that was the one she changed stations to. Once she landed upon 210.000KHZ she was promptly greeted with the three tone note.

 Low.

 Medium.

 High.

 Low.

 Medium.

 High.

Low.

Medium.

High.

Low.

Medium.

High.

A repeated tone of simple but potent music through radio waves; holding esoteric meaning in its pattern that nestled itself in the folds of Elster’s mind, ringing to her soul. Three tones in sequence four times. She returned her gaze to the safe, eyes locked squarely on the keypad, her hand now hovering over the numbered buttons, ready to enter the code once she received it in the signal.

With the three initial tones concluded, a woman's voice spoke with the professional air of a radio station operator, broadcasting crisp and professional... but delivered with a steady cadence that was almost haunting.

“Achtung… Achtung… 39486…39486…” the numbers were repeated before continuing to the next sequence… and as they repeated, she imputed the numbers of that sequence onto the keypad without repetition. Radio transmissions like this repeated the number to ensure clear broadcast of those numbers and their message over radio waves… but the number itself only needed to be imputed the singular time. 

“…60170……60170…” The numbers once more repeated, and again Elster pressed the keys with her finger. The next sequence of five numbers were spoken by the woman's voice “…24326……24326…” the numbers repeated and Elster entered them on the keypad. “…01064…01064…” And once more; the numbers echoed on the radio waves, promptly followed by Elster’s finger pressing the keys.

This was a 20-digit code embedded in a radio signal to unlock this particular safe, very much distinct from the codes, distinct from the six-digit codes of the other three safes before this one. Far more lengthy, and pregnant with importance than the other signals and digit codes before it. 

39486-60170-24326-01064; that was the code to this enigmatic safe.

She pressed the arrow on the “return” key, its arrow directing itself leftwards. Upon depressing the return key, a cheerful beep of affirmation from the safe joined the lower green light lighting up; the 20-digit code correctly inputted and confirmed.

Elster’s hand shifted to the dial latch and turned it clockwise. The green light switched off and the door yawned open from the left side, some of the light seeped from the lamp above her head and into the safe interior, if only a bit. It is the object found inside that mystified Elster with wonder.

A flowering plant of White Lilies, with three bright petals, the first and tallest stemmed flower partially closed. The second flower was shorter, a bit more open but turned to face the right side of the safe interior. And the last flower fully open and facing more in Elster’s direction, shorter than the rest. The stems and leaves are bright and healthy with a radiant green. The plant rested in a small white pot with an abstract blue plus symbol of sorts upon it, filled with a bit of soil for nutrients.

How it could survive inside this enclosed safe with neither light, water or sufficient oxygen was impossible; a defiance of all logic.

But somehow despite that, it didn’t matter…

It was so beautiful…

And it was familiar; for it was a plant Elster remembered Ariane brought upon the Penrose, and kept often in the mess hall, ever dutifully and fondly tended to. She remembered seeing another such flowering plant in Rotfront Interplanetary Station 06, and then again in the Butterfly room on Rotfront. Looking at this beautiful botanical made Elster feel in the very depths of her being that this ever more seemed to tie to Ariane.

She even remembered Ariane speak once about how lilies held symbolic meanings. And now before her was White Lilies: Lilium candidum, “the Madonna lily” with symbolic meaning relating to purity and rebirth, commitment, rejuvenation of the soul, a symbol of beauty and purity in women and intimate love, sex, or emotional connections between sapphic lovers.

Such a humble yet beautiful flower held in it deep symbolic meaning meshed in layers.

Elster’s head peered up from the Lily flower to the space on the wall above the lily safe. Her attention back on the series of numbers etched onto the wall and the small scratched drawings of eyes around them. They, to her dawning realization, were a series of numbers compiled into a Eusan Nation coded cypher. Elster now came to realize, given the placement of the numbers above this safe containing the Lily inside of Ariane’s own room: that Ariane herself must have written this code upon the wall of her room, carved it as if the wall was a stone tablet. Elster remembered the textbooks on radio operation Ariane had, information on radio operation and transmission protocol; such texts having belonged to Ariane’s mother and containing a plethora of information. 

As Elster’s gaze beheld the numbers roughly etched and barely legible onto the wall above the safe, and as her mind proceeded through a logical calculus of shifting information and the recall of knowledge, tying the numbers of the A1Z26 cipher, the Eusan Nation’s standard radio coding using the Eusan Standard alphabet to represent a letter nested into a number as coded message for encrypted broadcast: she was able to at last see the message hidden in plain sight.

“KOENNTEN WIR DOCH NUR EWIG SO LEBEN WIE JETZ”[2]

The moment those decoded words entered her mind: it consumed every facet of her consciousness. This was Ariane’s one wish, her deepest desire. And it was one that Elster shared, as deeply as Ariane held it herself. Her eyes returned to the White Lily, now transfixed, and the questions that listed in her mind now snapped into place with understanding. 

The note she found in the post from Sun, the Imperial Spy, and the documents and books she found that spoke at length about Bioresonance; bits of information she wasn’t even much aware of or thought about before save their very baselines, then slowly ruminated on and suspected…now seemingly confirmed upon reading Sun’s note and dwelling upon it: Ariane was Bioresonant, and given the state of the very fabric of reality; one of staggering power than any known in existence. A Falke and the Grand Empress herself; would be eclipsed by the sheer scale of Ariane’s power. All this, the parts that amounted to Elster's journey: was all a result of Ariane?

This seemed to be the likely reality to Elster, though she also realized that even with this being strongly the case: it was clear to her Ariane had neither the awareness of her power nor the control and conscious skill of it. There was little doubt in Elster’s mind that Ariane was likely only exercising this power unwittingly and subconsciously, perhaps by instinct or blithe lack of awareness. 

Ariane was never found out by the Nation for being Bioresonant, and Ariane herself never seemed to hide such a part of herself in any way that Elster, in her very recent musings, could be typified of an unregistered Bioresonant in hiding. 

Granted, she had no actual knowledge first or even second hand, nor had any resource of knowledge as a reference to come to this conclusion with any measure of assured confidence; only educated estimations and logical reasoning going off the little evidence as she saw it. But it was a sensible line of thought going off that.

All this did mean however; that this Lily: was somehow the hope that Elster needed. To save Ariane and to reclaim the lives that were stolen from them. Every bit of information pointed to this realization as a final truth. After so much endless doom, despair and nightmares… Was this both their salvation?

She wanted to believe that was the truth.

It must be.

She will confirm it for herself.

Elster’s hands steadily reached out and grasped for the pot containing the Lily. She took it in her grasp and lifted it from the confines of the safe with the ritual tesseract upon it. As she held the Lily’s close to the chest of her white armor, she heard the enigmatic blood red door, with an ethereal red light shining through the holes where a lock and doorknob would be, and heard it unlock.

Instinct took over as she turned to the door and rose, seeing the door creak open for her, slowly she was gauging what lay beyond the threshold, but for a moment her vision was filled with the red light... After a pause she moved steadily to the brilliant red that still greeted her at the threshold. It was when she stepped through the door and into the bright red abyss; did she hear a voice speak to her:

 ̴̹̋“̸̛̲̦̈́͗̇U̵͈̫̘͎̒͌̔̇Ṉ̷̢̬͖̈́̑̈́Ḋ̶̮̀ ̵͕̤̣̱̈́̈́̉I̴̹̺̲͠N̷̘͗̀̋̚ ̷͉̹͇͠J̸̞̻͇̀̇E̷̪͚̼̠͘N̵̼͛͜E̶̛͎͖N̵̖̱͓̅̒ ̶͕̋͑͘T̶̢͒̃Á̵̡̢̺̩̆̐̀G̶̡͔͉͂̂̒͜Ĕ̷͙̯̇̓́N̷̝̮͍̋͋́̐ ̷͍̂W̷͓̬͓̝̾Ẽ̶̘̦̎͝R̶̮̪̀͑ͅD̸̘̂̂̉E̵̞̒̈́͜N̸̢̝̟̜̔ ̵̙̳̼̻̀͐D̷̺͙̒̀̈́̂Ï̶͖̞̲̭͋̅͑Ę̵̹̬́̔̿͝ͅ ̵̡͎͔͍́M̵̡͠͠Ë̶̢͍̱̟́N̴̳̟̺̹͑S̷̲̓̌́C̶̲̼̓͊̑͝H̴̬̩̚E̷̩͔͐̍N̷̡̟̅ ̷̟̮̘̪̈̐̕D̵͈̦̽̂͋͝E̷͈̙̕͝N̵͚̰̂̀ ̸̛̗̌̊Ṱ̴̛̛O̸̢͖̤͊D̵̠̫̏̉͠͠ ̸̼̦̠͎͒S̶̻̘̭̫̉̈́̍͝Ú̵̘̆C̸̩͙̺̺͐̈́͋̽Ḥ̵̛̗͙̂̾̐Ȩ̸̧͉͊N̵̟̙̮͛ͅ ̸̭̪̖͉̏̍̈́̈U̸̢̐̊͘Ņ̶̺̄̓D̵̩́ ̸͚͈̞͉̑N̵̮̈I̷̜̼̿C̷̫̽H̶̼͇̒̒̇͜͠T̵͕̤̊͘ ̶̛̟͌F̷̻̕I̴̝̟̝̳̕̚N̵͚͕̻͇̂̒Ḑ̷̛̺͙Ẹ̵͂̌͝N̶̡̗̜̻̄”̷̯̉ [ [3]

Once past the threshold she found herself in some strange realm, greeted with what seemed to be six gravestones, words etched upon them. The floor was of pulsing flesh, and it gave softly under her as her Replika-peg feet marched ever forward. The space itself was dark, saturated with black shadows and a red haze. The place she was now; she felt like this was unlike any location she had visited before. 

Was she the first to behold such a place? Such thoughts were fleeting, as she felt some sense of intuition guide her towards one of the six gravestones, parts of her that were split and muddled even now, began to draw towards each other, caught in their mutual gravity of emotion and thought.

Elster noticed that at the foot of four of these six graves; lay… LSTR units? LSTR class sisters? Or… were they… her? Or… aspects of her? As she trudged to the unoccupied gravestone in front of her, she could make out four of the Elsters that were laying in a seemingly peaceful, deathly sleep.

The closest grave to her left was an LSTR that looked much like the condition Elster was in after her initial, failed attempt to enter back on board the Penrose. An Elster whose body was covered in Oxidant, chest cavity bashed open to reveal a blue skeletal ribcage of titanium and an equally exposed titanium spinal column and biosynthetic organs, left leg also damaged and revealing a blue tibia and fibula titanium bones at the knee, while the right leg was damaged in similar fashion. 

The right arm was missing just above the elbow, ripped off from trying to open the Penrose Emergency Escape hatch. Her left arm was mostly intact, if missing some detailing. Her hair was tousled and a trail of oxidant ran down from a cut in the Injured Elster’s head from the right side of her concussed and fractured skull, above her brow. 

This amounted to an Elster who critically injured herself trying to return to her love while lost in the complete desolation of her very being. 

She lay supine, with her remaining left arm’s left hand resting just above her navel.

The furthest grave to the left was Elster as she appeared on the Penrose, laying at the gravestones foot. No armor was found worn on her to cover her blood-orange/red chest plate, and other red colors that adorned her biceps of her arms and thighs of her legs were typical of a baseline, standard pattern LSTR class Replika, as was expected. A common configuration of Penrose LSTR’s. Unlike the last, badly damaged Elster: both of her arms were intact.

She lay supine, with both hands resting just above her navel.

The closest grave to the right then took Elster’s attention, and she found an Elster wearing an AVA Suit, located at the gravestones foot. The orange-red Replika AVA Suit bore the markings and colors of the Eusan Nation, bearing its striking, if typical colors.

Curiously her AVA suit was absent its helmet; leaving the head of the AVA Elster exposed, her face almost as if sleeping. Elster couldn’t be sure if this Elster was her or… some other version of her? Was she Elster-512 herself… somehow? Was she Elster-S2301 who for some time was brought to serve at S-23 Sierpinski? Was she… both?

She lay supine, with both hands resting just above her navel.

The furthest grave to the right rested an LSTR with a very familiar white-and-blue heavy combat configuration.. This LSTR unit bore similarities to Elster; her forearms clad in bullet-resistant armor plating of the Magpie Replika’s iconic white-and-blue heavy combat configuration. Her biceps and thighs clad in a Teal Blue band much like that of Elster, and shared her blood dripped wound over her brow like Elster had. This LSTR was similar to Elster. 

Similar: but not identical.

This LSTR unit did not have Elster’s bullet-resistant armor plate body armor with gorget that Elster had. The LSTR’s chest was absent her Red armor chestplate, a dark gray chest exposed and uncovered by any article or armor.This LSTR seemed almost familiar, like… this was the LSTR unit that Elster found resting dead beside Ariane’s flesh filled cryopod. The one Elster salvaged the arms and armor from. And yet, this LSTR still had both her arms. And for reasons beyond Elster’s understanding, she senses an… essence, in this grave resting LSTR.

It was an almost puzzling echo. Was she looking for Alina… or Ariane? Elster recalled fleetingly how she began her journey looking for Alina Seo, so lost in memory and lack of memory at once she wasn’t sure which she herself was looking for. Only knew she was looking for someone whom she loved. For a while it was a question that surfaced and sank in Elster’s thoughts in the lower levels of S-23 Sierpinski. What part of an LSTR unit ended, and which part of Lilith began? But perhaps it didn’t matter; for if this was the LSTR who in her death gifted Elster her armor, and lay lovingly at Ariane’s cryopod; then that was all that mattered.

She lay supine, with both hands resting just above her navel.

Now as Elster stood before the head of the unoccupied grave, a brief curiosity filled her as she looked to the Grave Stone opposite the one she now stood before. She expected to see yet another LSTR unit, a 5th Magpie nested in her grave.

Yet she couldn’t see one.

Still holding the potted Lily, she tilted her head and upper body to her right to see around both the grave before her and the grave across from her gravestone to catch a glimpse of the 5th grave's pallored occupant. 

Then, she saw, in the grave: she recognized the legs that were longer than any Elster unit, red bands around her biceps and gold bands around her thighs and below her knees…she recognized them, and she recalled memories of having seen a tall, bedridden Replika with long raven black hair. She remembered seeing Bioresonant tetrahedron stars upon forehead and a laurel wreath wrapped regally around the sleeping figure's head like a crown…

It was Falke.

Commander of S-23 Sierpinski. FLKR-S2301. A woman who was in as much confusion of her sense of self as Elster once was. A woman as trapped in horror and nightmare as Elster was, muddled with memories of Elster and Ariane’s life, love and tragedy, as Elster could tell from the haunted woman's personal diary writings. And a woman who… who came to love Ariane like Elster had…

She lay supine, with both hands resting just above her navel.

Elster straightened, she was curiously unbothered by Falke’s presence. Perhaps here, among these graves of LSTR’s at rest: Falke was equally as worthy to be laid peacefully here. For all that has happened to both of them: even Falke, the God of the Eusan Nation: was worthy to rest here among them as an honorary Elster. 

Worthy of love.

Deserving of it.

Deserving of peace, freedom and hope.

That final reward to vindicate all they had gone through. Elster took one step closer to the grave, and raised the potted Lily to her gravestone. She gently laid it to rest atop the head of the grave. She took a step back. Took in the beauty of the pure white petals. A memorial for memories past and present. An offering for a ritual. A ritual not of blood: but of love.

Not six spilled drops of blood, but three icons of love.

As she gazed upon the Lily, she at last felt it in her heart and upon her face. The hope she longed desperately to find. The hope for happiness and salvation from the doomed machinations of cruel fate. Dare she hold that hope. Dare she reach for that happiness. 

Yes.

She would.

>TRAUMA ERKANNT

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>Kardiovaskuläre Biokomponentenarrhythmie Erkannt

>Bevorstehender Biokomponentenausfall Erkannt: Suchen Sie umgehend Hilfe bei der Reparatur!!

The sudden feeling of the universe's song coursed through her and flooded her very being. It affected her body and mind, filling the folds of her cloned biosynthetic brain, fondling her organs and caressing her heart. Parts of her mind, memories and psyche that were still cracks yet to be filled; were suddenly flush with the flow of what seemed to be her missing pieces of being. The Corrupted Kolibri’s Bioresonance attacks from past encounters were like needles and daggers upon her mind and the fell signal ringing in her ears painfully, vision filled with obscured static and an image of a forlorn island of death, one she half remembered brushed upon Ariane’s canvas.

But this… wasn’t like a Bioresonant assault on her like from the Kolibri turned nightmare, despite her OS screaming alarms into her mind and vision, desperate to make sense of what was happening to her body and being unable to grasp what it beheld.

But Elster, deep in her soul, knew the truth. For the touch of this Bioresonance, even as it overwhelmed her very being, and feeling as if death had its hands upon her; they were not hands of hate, nor fear, nor cruel malice.

It was a warm and loving embrace. Tender and kind. Gentle and longing.

Ethereal music filled reality with its tune, and sang of soft hope and melancholy that filled her ears. 

Elster’s knees gave way and she reached her hand to her gravestone. Breathing long, slow, deep breaths as her chest struggled to draw in life giving oxygen. Even as she felt herself slipping into death, it was… different, than the first time she had died. Back in Ariane’s quarters upon the penrose. How cold, painful and agonizing her first death was. 

And alone.

So very, mournfully alone, filled with only regret, remorse, self loathing and longing for a future that could never be. An eternity longed for, which the universe pitilessly denied. Almost with cruel glee. Or was it just apathetic disinterest?

And this death felt nothing like the deaths she dodged and cheated with firm determination and desperation in equal measure. As if the fear of dying on her journey would keep her from the women she loved and force an endless, hellish nightmare upon them. A failing on Elster’s part she would be doomed to repeat. Somehow, in a way she could never quite place understanding but felt a truth in the very molecules of her titanium bones. 

For those brushes with death, were of desperate survival against nightmares and indecipherable machination. The fickle whims of fate that would lay her low and visit pain upon her body and mind; stretching thin her soul and testing her resolve as she sought to keep her and Ariane’s most sacred Promise.

Stress, even fear tugged at Elster’s mind and heart below the surface even as she pushed through them, navigating the obstacles and eliminating threats that stood before her. Her love, her devotion and her desire to see Ariane were the only grounding forces that gave her the fuel to press onward; to duck, to weave, to tread in silence and to fight with the Staccato of gunfire.

But this impending death she was feeling upon her… it filled her with a new burst of hope, even if she was unsure why. A hope that wasn’t desperate and uncertain. It was an assuring and affirming hope.

That she and Ariane will be able to see freedom from the endless nightmare, the end to their tragic horror. 

They will finally be able to wake up from their hellish plight.

This was Elster’s sacrifice, born of love.

And she embraced it.

As OS alarm warnings blared until they flooded her vision, her arm grew heavy and her left hand dropped just in front of her, hanging weakly like a pendulum. Her right shoulder sagged, sapped of strength, and her body pitched to the right, falling upon the fleshy floor. 

She lay in a fetal position, arms resting on the ground in front of her, right hand in front of her face and left hand above her knee, facing the graves to the left.

A small, relieved smile crossed her face and her eyes closed peacefully as her OS would inevitably bluescreen-

FATAL ERROR

A FATAL EXCEPTION HAS OCCURR̷͉̩̲̳͊Ẽ̴̝͝Ď̷̢͖͓̖̌ ̶͉̠̄A̶͎̓́̏T̷̻̣͈̣́͗ ̸̪̙̱̒͊̽͝0̸̹̍̕0̷͎̉̓2̴̨̡̂3̵̪͈̞̄̚͜:̷͉͒́̓͂5̵̖̍͗͛1̷̨̠̩̀2̵̛̳̹̇́0̵̨̫͖̾̊0̸͙̮͋͠0̵͈̘͂̿0̶̟̭̌̀͘͘6̸̩̘͍̰̈́4̶͖͍͊̀6̷̡̱̙͆͂͜͝5̸̢̒̔̄2̷̧̞͛

I̸̺̥͒̃͑͝Ǹ̶͉́ ̶̥́̽̐̐L̶̦̖͇̔̀͘͜S̸̠̦̏̒̆T̸͚͓͒R̸̛̺͔̟̠̀͆-̷̩̪͓͇͛͐́̚S̴̨̄̽͝Ÿ̶̝͚͓̽̚S̸̗̞̟͍̐-̴̣̮̼̏̈́͒͘8̴̹̺̟͋̈͊͘2̵͎̳̐̓͊̚Á̶̜̝4̶̤̟̘̆͝B̷̮̠̠̕7̴̧͇̏͠Ḍ̴̀̂8̸̞̯̝̈́́̃.̷̙͍̮͘͜ ̵̺̬̟̾͌̒T̴̨͎̓̊͐̚Ḩ̵͙͕̋Į̴̫̃͊̚S̶̩̤̥̰͓͇̄ ̷̨̳͇̬̫̩̣͍̾͋̎̈̒̀̔͜M̷͙̱̳͕̳̣͒̂A̸̡̛̺̰̺͕͎͐̄̈́̃Y̷̡̪̻͖̿͛̆̄̊̈͝ ̸͉̩͈̯̫̫͍̼͐̏̅̅̿ͅB̷̟̪͖̍̒́̌̂̊͐̚Ę̶̪̯̗͔̩̈́̀̈́̈́ ̷̨̨̼͚̬̻̟̲͋̒̊͝C̶̡̧̞̹̰̆̽̎͐̍̓̑̂͘A̸̡͑̏̏̕͠Ù̷̞̠͕͖̬͂̾̉̈́͜S̵̲̥̒E̶̛̙͉̮͕̹͊̽͐̏̈͠D̵̹̆͗ ̴̢̮̩͎̦̟͓̃͂̑͜B̵͖̼͔̙̘͌̇Ỳ̶͍̉͘͝ ̸͎͍͎͂͊̾͌̔͑́͑̓A̴̩̰͈̜̐̐̃̌̄̀͝ ̸̛̫͙̎̇͒̇̇̀̐͂H̴͍͇͓̖͗A̸̧̜̲̲̪̎͋̅̐̆̐R̸̭͖̠̫͓̜͙̃͠D̵̘̗̫̣͙̱̉́͑̂̃͂̾͊͛D̵̡͚̣̖̮̺̾͝Ŕ̶̢̡̢̰̂̓̿͊̌ͅÌ̶͈̠̬̰͚͊̇͊͠V̶̲̰͕̳̫͌̑͋́͊͋Ę̷̛̣̪͔̗̪́̓͑͗̕ ̴̨̰̯̗̞̖͈̞̿̈́̿ͅF̵̱̬͇̥̭͓͂̐̌́̎̕͠Ą̶̮̱̅̎̐̌͂̆́I̴̡͉̥̟͎͒̀́̇̀͋L̷̖̞̺͉̲̘̽̆̄͐̇̋͝Ù̸̧̧̠̦͇͖̩͚̪R̴̢̙͖̩͕̫͙͕̓̿̈̇̊͒E̴̡̥̩̍.̸̛̘̙̭̜̖̝͔̓̈́ͅ ̴̱̯̠̮̒̓̒̚

I̴̡̨̡̗̞̝̯̹̮̟̞̯͚̊͒́͐̌F̵̩̆̅̽̄̓̋̀͐͆̾͘͝ ̶̛̤͇̖͕̩͎͈͇͖̫͎̲͂͆̆̄̐͂͗͂͠͝͝͠͝T̵͇͈͖̘͔͉͇̰̘̤̣̭̭̏̂̀͆̆́̊̓͂͌͜͝͝H̵̝̼͒̀̎̐̕̕͠I̷̖̲̜̘̜͉̖̞̬̯̩͐̌͗̈̿̅̌̅̿͜ͅS̸̥̤͕̏̔̀ ̴͈̬̗̣̬̖̐͂͐̏̄̍̚P̸̨̪̜̰̖̩̄͆̇̽̈̒̈́͝ͅȐ̵̮̙͔̪̓̌̿͐͒͌̄͊̀̂̀̕O̴̥̮̺͎̳͔̮̓͐͊̒̏͜B̵̢̥̳̺̳̦͓̟͉͈̩̦̳͂̅̊͆́́̓͂̓͊̂L̶̡̻̘̩͓̯̣͖̳̱̙̓̇̃́̆́̎̃́̕͘Ḙ̵̞͎͚̮̦̑͗̑̆̎̋͛̈̏͆̓M̷̧̧̡̥̯̺͙̠̗̗̠͂͐̏̂̈́̉̃̀́̃͘̚͜ ̴̼̙͌͌̋͋̍̈́͛̓̊̃͐̓̒P̶̨̨̨̨̢̛͎̭̤͖̠̩̗̔̋E̸̹͐R̷̛͖̖͉̻̰̺͓̱͍̹̬̆̌́́͑̕S̸̺̰̯͉̝̞͔̝͈̈̇I̶̧͚͓̙̻̯̜͂̎͑́͒́͑̚͘Ṣ̵̢͈̻̺̟̙̲̫̯͐̉̈́̏̋͛͜T̷̨̬̯̤͇͉̙̯̥̲͒̌́́͑͊̚̚͝͝͝S̵̨̰͔̫̖̝̣̯͈̿̉̽͊͂̓̊̾̑̄͜,̷̨̫̤́̌̂͑̓̽ ̷̨̤̩̱̣̘͇͈͚͎̞̺̓̾͆̾̇̓̀͂̓͝ͅC̸̡̡̩͔̻̙̣̗̽͛̄̏̾͒͌̃̑͛̎ͅO̸̖̫͇͍̥̪̅̚N̵̼͎̦͇̞͖̍̀̾̏̊͌̆́̌͛̕T̶̮͍͋̑̈́͐̃͐͐̇͑̀̋̍͒̽͛̇̑̇͋̚͘̕͝͠A̴̘̋̏͗̒͛̎͐́̋̐̔̓̕C̷̨̧̖̳̗̥̫̪͎͔͉̮̀̒̇̊̈͒̊̊͒́ͅT̸̹̤͚̣̜̩̘̙̗͉̲͍̹͖̼̔̂͒͑̋̋̚͝͠ͅ ̸̢̨̱̩̘̞͚͙̪͈̝͈̘͉̩͕̯͍̯̣͖̘͂͜͜A̵̬̖̤̫͓̤͕̭͖̙̟͉̙͙̹̰͕̞̥̙̮̯̖͑͋͛̽̅̈́̾̓́̈́͗̊̅̃̑̈͊̑͘̕̚͘͘͜ͅ ̶̧̧̜̞͚͙̟̗̳̠̭̟̞͍̙̟͔͔̗̟̼̯̓̿̎̍͋̿͆̃͌̾͛̉̌͒̀̚̚R̵̢̫͖͖͍̭̰̦̙̲̺̠͈̱̤͎͙̩̄̑͋̍̃̋͋͒̋̈́̓͗̂́͗͗͘͘͜ͅĘ̸̡̢̮̳̤̗̮͈̭̠̩̍̅̀P̵̡̝̹͖͎̙̻̟̥̙͖̼̖̫̭̼̗̺͍͖̻̗͆̈̿̄̀̈́̆̂̔̋̐̇͊̆̅́̒̂̕̚L̴̡̡̨̳͍̹̤̳̪̼͈͙͕̞͙̣͖͖̭̱̮̻̲̉̃͋̋͝Ǐ̸̛̳̪̰̞̪͓̖͎̠̮̻̟̪̹̱̠̰̳͈̗̣͉̀́̇̈̒̇̔̇̆̌̿̒͂̓̈́̋̕͝͠͝ͅK̶̛͕̮̅̅̐́̏̏̍̒̀́͂̅͛̀̾̓̕͝Ḁ̴̛͚͓̠͈̗̝̺̼̺͉͓̬́̒̆̏͒̽͋́̃̈́͌̇̑̋̌̓́̌̑͒̕͘͜͠ ̴̧̡̬͚̞̗̭̱̟̳̻̜͎͕͇̩̊̊̆̌̓̽̂̅̿͌̍̿̾̓̃̿̀̈́̈́̂̇͆̕͝T̴̨͓̫̜̟̠̝̘̠̗̀͆̄̈́̈́̈́̍͗͐̉͠͝ͅĔ̶̘͕̣̰̼̣̙̗̠̇͂̓̽Ç̷̦̻̦̎͐H̸̤͇̯̬̩͕̻̮̫̹̻͚̲̤͙͎̪̠̟͔̳̞̊̎̓̈́͊̌̃̄̎͒͌͋̂͊̂̚͘͜͝͝ͅN̸̖̭͎̣̰̲̺̖͍̙̙͖̞̲̉I̴̙̦͚̹̜̓̿̓̀̆̀͑̐̂͗͊̄̈̔̈́̑Ç̴̨̛̖̯̘̠̮̲̗̘̫̥̜̈́͊̈́́̒̄̔̄͑̾͊͋̍̒͋́̓͠͝Ȧ̷͙̫͕̰̟̪̤͎̦̜͖̦̋̓́̅̈́͛́̈̇͊͛̾̒͂̿L̸̨̡̯̻̖͍̻̼̦̠̫͕͐̂͒͐͗̅̂́́̀̍̌́͛̿͆͘̚ ̷̢̢̨̣̺̠̠̫̺̥̣̱͔̳͈͔̝̖͓͓̭̣̳͖̩͛͊̔̀͛S̴̹̹̺̪̹͉̬̆̎̌̋̾͒̐̉͝͝E̷̢̡̼͕̬̙͎̭̞͖͎̟͎̭̗͚̗̬͖͓̟͓͈̫͈̒̐̈́̍̈́͆̽̅̏̃̕͝Ṝ̴̝͙̫̜͔̖̟͚͚̼̥̣̕V̷̛̘͙̭̹̠͓͇̞̱͔̗̘̲̺̰̥͇͛͒̏̀̀́͝Į̵̛̱̳̫̓̂̀̏̄̋̑̀̑͘͝͝͝͝C̵̖̺̳̈́̌̋͌̀̋̎̚Ȩ̴̧̢̪̹͚̗̙͙͎̟̘͖͍̼̯̭̬͋̀̑̃͌̍̇̊̔́̒̒̊̐̊͗͠.̵̢̨̛̛̱͙͖̗͓̗̱͍̘͓̖̝̞͍̯̇͊̾̀̋͂̌̇̀̌̽̾͊̋̅̿̈́̚͘̕͜͝ͅ

Ë̵̡̧̨̨̢̡̧̞͕̺̱͙̲͈̭̤̣̙̣͔̜͕̺̩͚͎͔̬̪̙̠̬̻̪̫͈͕̪̲̯̹͚̪̳̞̮̯͚͍͍͚̰́̒̿̄̆͜͜ͅR̶̨̧̨̨̛͖̳̪̝̞͚̥͉̺̱̬̯̹̣̟͇͍͖͓̀́̏̏̽̊̆͗͛̀͊̂͊́͑͋̈́̈̓̒̒̓̏͋̈́̍̏̈́̒̐̇̎̎̂̉̏͋́͒̚̕͘̕͠͠͝͝͝͝ͅŖ̶̨̛͖̱͙͇̫̜̦̞̺̬͙͍͚̬̬͕̩̺̹̗̻̫͚̳̫̜͙̘̋̏͊̈̐̍̋̿̐̓̏͌̀͒̏͋͋̉́̊̓̈́̐̊̎͆̓̐͌̄̋̊͊̎̆̋͛̚̕͠͝Ơ̴̧̡̛̲̫̤̭̥̭̣͎̖̥̬̙̳͍̙͓̫͍̥̹̘̱̠̹̰͍͙͓͓̲̱̤͉̙̜̺̼̰̣̻͍̻̺̔̆̈͐͐̇͑͐̽̎̂̽̽͊̏̀̌̉̔͆̂̈́̇̎̐̆̐̑̚͜ͅŖ̸̢̢̛̛̛̭͔̫͙͙̤̻̯̬̹̻͈̌̉̅̋͌̀̿͆͊͛̏͌̔͑̒̉͋̓̽̂̀̅̓͐͆̀͂̈́̐̉͐̂̋̑́͌̄͋̎̈́̅̑̿̎͘̕̕̚͜͝͝͠ ̷̹͔͇͚̟̍̀̽̓́́̌̇̆̆̐̾̿̅̌͗̂̊͋̂́̈̾͘̚̕͠͝ͅC̷̨̡̻̟̘͓͉̗̠̭̱̟̰̲̹̹͚̼̟̘͇̼̯̙̘̖̰̟͕̉́̓̓̾̾̒̎͗̾͗̿͋̎̔̒̏͌̈̀̾̇͆̀̃̈̋͗̌̚͘͜͠͠Ǫ̷̧̙̣͕̲͍͉̦̼͍̭͈̫̱̞̹̳̺̟̹̞̹̩͍̥̗͕̙̱̦͈̱̰̞̞̹̮͎̳̬̰͔̘̖̰̠̬̤̣͕̭̻͙͚͉̖̠̓͊͐́̓́̀͆̾̿̑̉̓̓́̔͌̅̂̎̽̂̒͊̑͂̈́̾̍̾͐̋̈́̋́́͑̈́̂̎̏̃́̀́͆̔̚͜͝͝͝ͅD̵̡̨̧̧̦̩̞͉̲̥͙͔̳̬̱͕̰͇̗̜̼͙̟͉͔̜̹͍̟̻̬̘̩̩͓̪͖̞̫͙̫͕̣͓̳̤̂̐̽̆̇́͆́̋̊̀̄̒͆͌͊͐̿̎̎̋͐͑͂̌̈̕̚͜͠͠ͅĘ̶̵̧̡̧̧̡̨̨̨̢̢̨̛̭͉̠̥͈͉̻̥̟̭̳̻̘̭̖͇͇̱͖̤͔̼̣̟̳̤͙͎̞̩̱̼͇͙͎̺̤̬̪̮̖͚͉̪̳͔̗̮͕̖͚͔͕̱̝͔̖̭̞̝̝̹̗̠̯̮͇̩͉̬̘̥̜̗̹̠̩̙̟̝͎̹̻͍͙̬̤̘̝̤̲̭̤̺̘̜̺̹͍̳̬̘̪̣̐̿̑̆͐͐̊̍̊̔̈́̇̎͆̅̒̂̾̓̅̆͆̍́͗̄̓̾̇̀̒̊͂̋̂̔́́̒̇̇͂̉͋̔́͊̓͊̆̓̃̈́̈̌̉̇̾́͌͊̀̀̈́́̎́̀͒̄̿̈́̎̊͒͛͛͊͌̈́̆̄̆̌͛́́́̂̒̆̓́͑̾͘̚̚̚̕̚̕͜͜͜͝͠͝͝͝͝͝͝ͅͅͅͅ ̴̢̢̡̛̛̰̮͖̗̪̘̘̘̩̩͚̠̻̗̖̪͇̞̬͔̩̻͓̞̩͓̭̘̝̙̼͈̮̈́̃́̇̈͗́̓̈̓̀̏̂̀̉͂̔͋͂̒͆̂̔̋̉̑͂̀͂͂͒͑́͋́̓̃͋̋͑̀̚̕̚͜͜͜͝͠*̷̢̢̧̧̢̢̘̼̥̯͈̺̼̪̘͔̲̬͕̯̪̼̹̭̻̮̭̟̦̫͚̭̙̮͓͉̫̼̱̫͖̟̲̗͔̫̦͚̦̟͔͙̯̩̺̤̣̟̰̻̜̞̹̗̻͇̫̙͑͌͜͝ͅ*̸̧̧̢̳̠̥̻̺͍̻̯̟̠̰̳̱̖̰͖̭̫́͛͛̽̓͗͑̄̋͒͌͂̔̽͂͒̈͑̐́̆̂̔̅̓̄́̐͌̓̈̉̈́̆͌̈́͂͘͜͠ͅ*̷̞̘͍͔̞̘̞͔̤̭̗̲̞͓̩̙̱̞͂̈́̎̓̋̀̏͒̍̑̈́͊͆̏̈́̌̐̉̋͂̈́̍͋̊̑̈́̽͌̂̽͒͊̇͊͂̊̊͐͗̕̕̕͜͠͝S̷̨̛̛̯̻̺̲̯̐́͗̾͆̒̽͊͑̇̚T̵̨̡̬̰̩̠̫̭̻̮̭͓̫͉͈̪͇̙͈̣̮̹̥͓͇̞̫͖̞͖̮̲̣̠̙͔͎̪̱̱̬͈̰̮̩͙̲̰͇̫̋̋̊͘͜͜͜͠ͅO̵̢̢̧̨̨̝̠̱̝̙̩̖̦̟͍͙̟̩̲̟̭̳̝̦̘̜͇̩̣̤̠̩̤̗͕̩̺̫̻͎̫̘̭͓̦̗̝̺̯̰̓́͜͜ͅP̷̨̢̧̡̢̧̧̧̛̻̘̮͓̥͚̲̰̯̜͔̗̪̳̪̣͇͉̩͓̠̹̺̲͈̻̣̠̰͎͙̳̼̬̝͓̖͎̰̟͖̮̖̬̻͔̩̭̣̩͓͖̪̟̝̬̩͈̣̣̺̘̪͖̰͈̗̫̹̈̆͑̒̆̊̽͊̿̆̀̄̂̊͐͊̑̍̐̆̋̃̒̅́̿̽̾̅͑̋̓̅̄̿͌̈́̀͂̈́̓̓̊̃̋̐͗̕̕͜͜͝͝͝:̸̢̧̧̘͓̲͕̤̯̗͖͉̳̠̻̰͕̱̥̹̱̬̻̠͙̰̮̩̤͙̩̔͒͐̃̍̀̀͊͛́͒̍̆̚̕̚͜͝͝ͅ3̸̛̹̝͈͉̗̐̇͛͛̔̋̌̽̓͛̓̄̃́̉̓̔̕̕͝͠͠X̶̛̛̠̗͈̠̂̈́̿̂̽̌̈́̿̓̅̀̌̈́͆͋̔͆͐̔̿͛́̒͆̂̅͑͐̉̇̈́̓̉̔͌͛́͐̐́͑̋̂̊̃̓̈́̓͛̂̿̑̈́̄̑͗̕̕̚̚̚͘̚̚͝͠͝͠͝0̸̡̛̛̻̰̖̟̤̹͈̬̝̬͈̅̈́̊̾̉̓̽̆͒́́̊̎͗́͐̀́͂̉̾̆̋̂̀͗̏͛̐̃̍͒̾͋͑̇̅͐̾̆̀̈̍̆͋̂̇̓͆̎̊̒̏̈́̕͘̚̚̕͘͜͝͠͝͠D̴͈̭̯̘͍̗̣̱̺̲͓͌͝1̶̧̢̢̨̛̺͎̳̗͕̙̫̱̬̦̱̺͎̭̘͉͔͎̰̺͉̟̪͍͍̞̝̟̐̈́́̂̄̈̎͑̔̅̀͌̑̄̋͐̄̈́̿̀͌̇̏͒̾̈́̅̀͛͂̄̋̀̾̕͘͜͜͝͝͝3̷̧̡̧̨̡̛̬̮̗̻͍̩͍͕̤̥͓̠͎͖͈̱̬̱̰̖͓̹͉͔̬͚̫̖͙̺̗̠͙̝̺̩̞̫͎̻̞̜̱͖͎̝̙̗͎̬̳̦̭͖̲̤̣̘͚̜̼̗̭͙̰̾̾̂́̿͋̆̐̌́̿̃͌̔̆̄̀̾́̚͜͜͠D̵̨̢̨̨̧̢̫̠̹̜̞̮̼̟̥̜̣͇̳͙͙͓̙͓̹̗̜̝̱̠̞̲͈̙̩̠̱͈͕̗͔͈͎̺̫̟͇̳͎͈̼̪͍͖̱̥̺̯̹̟̤̫̣͚͈̹̣̭̮̈́́̒̀͂͌̈́͌́͆̑̆̅̄͐̓͆͗͒̃͛̎́̊̊̀̊́̏̅͐̈́̓̈́̓̏̍̆̈́̽͑̒̽̅̅̐̌̽̌͘̚̕̕̕̚͜͜͜͜͠͝͠͝ͅÇ̷̨̺̘̫̥͎̠̝͓̖͚̬͌̑͆̔̃͌̄͗͌́̎̆̎̊̊̂̄͋̏̃̈́́͐̇̅̆͐͂̚̕̕͘͜ͅ5̷̨̣̤͍̰̪̤͓̯͖͉̙̟͍̲̲̼͔̼̳̱̦͔͖͔̪̯͙̜̮̭̬̑̓̏̍͐̑̃͌́̍͛͗̐̽̂̅͒͛̏̈̀͛̍̌͗͛͑̔̌̍̇̒̄͆̀͆͂̓̚̕͜͠2̸̛̛̝̩̩̠͚͍͎̺͓͈̯̪̝̣̦̙̱͍̩̣̱̳͕͕̯̩̰̲͙̠̩̻̯̈̓̀͐̐̀͐̇̈̅̅͐͐̔̒̂͋͒̈́͗̒͐̆̈́̆͂̇̓͐̏̎̂̂̂̎̏̉͌͌̏̄̎́̾͐͐́̎͛͆͒͗̍͌̈͒͋́̽͋͒̾̉̏̒̎̓̕̚̕͜͝͝͠ͅ ̷̨̡̧̨̡̧̜̲̰͔̩̜̮̦̱̥̱̗͇̰̤̮͕̥̜̳͎̗̺̙͙̰̪̘̳̱̟͇͈͇̬̬̜͎͔͙͑̂̐́̍̀̀͘͜ͅ[̸̨̡̧̧̡̨̨̛̛̬͎͍̳̱̩̻̤̩̰̜̹͓͕̝͖̘̯̺̰͚̖̤̠͉̫̘̣͔̟̘͔̦̠̮͍̝̤̲̖̰̤͓̘̭̙̰̦̪̙̼̗̣̯͕͈̰̟̝̝̳̯̙͉̬̝̙̮̼̱̻͈͕̹̜̻͖̬̪̰̤̯̞̱̜͎͉̫̼̹͙̻̮̩̱͍̥̟̼̔̇͋̔̆̄̋̓͆̄̈̄̆̀̍̈́̾̓̔̊̓͛͐̌̃͐͆͗̃͐̄̓̈̒̈́͂̆͑̎͛̏̒̏́̅̽̓͌̆̆͂̔̄̉̈́̏́͑̃͒̓͒̍̍̓́͆̽̉̋̉̾̊̆̅̐̑̏̈́͒́̈́̒̔̈́͛͒̆̑̋̋̅̀̈́̀͂̏́́̾̄̆̔̈́̕͘͘͘̕̚̚̕̚̕̕͜͝͠͝͝͝L̷̨̡̢̨̧̢̧̛̛̛̩̩̝̼̲͖̦̩̦̫͔̭̳̰̱͙͙̪̻̭̜̙͚͈̱͕̭͔̜̘̠̗͇͇̹̘͓͖̜͕̬̼̣̤͈̳͚͍̫͕̻̝̳̣͈̳̫̤̜͚̲͚͙͎̲̭͉̹̰͇̯̣̱͕͕̼̝̖͍̳͔̼̠̻̫̦͉͉̮͎̲̱̦̩̣̳͈̞͙̩̠̻̳͆͌͑͂͌̒̂̎̊̓̅͂̅͑̋̔̋̉̿͑̏͆̍͌̉̌̏͊̉͆͒̆̾͐͋͊́̎̿̈̉̇͑͛̀̒͂͒͑̏͌̈́̔͑̎̎͐́́̓̽̌̈́͂͂͒͊̍̐̎̈́̃̊̾̏̔͊͒̈̽̀̐̈́̓͋͘͘̚͘͜͜͜͜͠͠͠ͅͅṢ̴̢̧̧̡̧̢̢̯͖̜͈̗̣͔̠̬̣̙̹̝̫͍͙̯̫̲̟͉͙̱̱͈̭̫̘̭̠̙̫͖͈̙̗̼̯̭̻͍̩͉͖̠̦̬̟̪̠̤̮͚̝̟͎̖͕̠͕̫̖͓̦͇̙̪̝̝͈̣͙̪͓̪̤̤͂̐͒͆̃͛͌̓̌̈́̌̈̍̐̔̿͋͐̎́̐̂͐͋̓̅͌̊̽͜͝͠ͅͅͅͅT̵̢̨̛̜̭̮͎̯̖̮̮͓͔̫̰̞̜̲͔̮̜̹̈́͛̌̈́̓̎̈̃͑͑̋͛̓͒͑̎͑̒͆̌̓͊̑̎͗̍̀͆́͛̆̇̒̇̉̍̔͆͑̇͑̊̎͗̆̇̿̃̊͗̇̕͘͘̚̚͘͜͜͝͝͝͠R̸̨̧̡̢̛̛̛̬̫̥̭̼̳̘͇̥̫͎͎̥͉̘̦̤̳̬͍̠̘̳̻̜̖̩̻̟̦̲̫̩̹͈̥͉͖͇̰̥̙͈̪̺̠̥͉͔͚̞̫̮̜̙̫̪͉͕̬̩̞͖͈͓̝͈̫̯͒͐̂̌̈́̈́̇̈̌̓̿̓̎̓̇̈́͊͗̐̅̿̑̈́̒̉͌͋̏̎̓͆́̇͌͗̈́͋̉̏̏͋̅̂͋̚͘͘̕͜͝͝͝͝͝͠ͅͅͅͅ-̵̟͙̦̏̃̈́̅̊͊̌͐̽̌̈̊̚̚͠5̵̡̨̧̡̨̧͔̗̗̟̭͖̞̻͕̺̲̭̠͍̪̖͕͚̳͔̦̣͍̱̹͇͇̙͎͔̭͍̤͇͍̯̩̗̮̻̣̝͉̼̥͙̺͉͎̝̪̟̻̭̰̱̖̺͙̣̗̳̱͈̩͈̥̞͓̙̰̝̭͓͉̦͔̣̰̱̙͍̯̞̮̫͚̲̭̰͈̤͍̭̠͖̺̠̹̪̞̬̮̩̯̼̝̱͚̹̠͑̅̃̒̄̉̈̕̕͜͜͜͝1̸̢̢̧̨̢̢̢̥̖̜̥̝̱̬̱̠̖͔͍͕̻̼̟̟͎̗̗͍̱̬̜̳̙̫̯̠̘̪̲̠̫̲͖̹̞̟̠̞͇͇̬̮͙͔̬̼͓̫̬̓̊̃̎̈́̆́̒͆̔͝2̶̨̡̡̡̨̧̡̛̱̠͈͙͙̫̹̠͔̝̦͉̫͍̣͔͇̖̭̖͎̦̜̖̭͕͓̲͍̥̖̥̲͔̦̖̦̩͓̻̲̣̯͉̻̬̙̦̻̼̟̩̙̦̘͕̖̠̖͍͈̮̓̾̂̐́̈̌͂̂̈́̈̀͗̊͆̀͌̂͌͆͂̉̽̋̏͊̄̆̿̌̎͌̏͂̀̓̌̒̈́̐̀̈́̈́͛͑̋͗̃́͂͌͋̄̋̋̇̅̉̕͘̚̕̚̕̕͘̚͜͝͝ͅ]̴̢̧̡̛̛̛̘̠̺͙̱̻͇̟̱͓͚̙̱̤͉͖͔̳̱̯̯̘̓̆̓̏͂́̑͆͂̉̄̐̒͊̉͑͒͒̔͋̍́͂̄͒͂͐̈̿̒͑͌͋̀̾̂̿́͒͌̾͐̾̐̾̅͋͗̈̅͂̓̔̚̚͘͘͘͠͠ͅ

...but despite feeling her life slip away… there… was… no bluescreen she could see…

Even as her body was assuredly dying: this was not death.

It was not failure. 

This… was not the Ende…

For she heard Ariane’s voice speak with soft, mirthful delight in her mind, as if her beloved stood beside her:

“You’re Awake.”

Elster felt her soul rise from her now still body… and as she drifted from her mortal vessel of biosynth-flesh and steel, now free from it’s shackles, she could better see the interred Elsters at the graves, accompanied by the eternally sleeping Commander Falke, who became an honorary member of their sorority in the mausoleum of flesh and stone.

In the center of the gravestones, she saw a stone sarcophagus coated in flesh that pulsated and seemed to breathe. But that mattered less than what was found inside, in the center of the sarcophagus swathed in flesh: a Mysterious Artifact…?

How did I not notice it? Came Elster’s light, passing thought.

It was the shape of a Tesseract that glowed with a shimmering and ethereal light. The object glistened with a strong green, accented with teals, hints of blue and magenta with a slight smatter of golden yellow. And it gave off a bright, yet gentle white light. As impossibly beautiful as the White Lily’s were; this Mysterious Artifact; managed to exceed the Lily’s beauty. 

The power of existence radiated from its humble yet divine form. Looked at a certain way, Elster almost thought it looked a little like a wedding ring? One roughly hewn but made with love. Like the Ring Elster made for Ariane so many cycles ago on the Penrose; sometime before their 3000th cycle.

And as her spirit was now aloft and gazing upon the scene below her; she noticed that the graves and the Replika bodies seemed to form the outline of a… ritual pattern. The White Lily was Elster’s offering to this seeming ritual.

And it was an offering made to… this Artifact…

Ariane?

Ariane’s Bioresonant power?

…both…

It was both… both separate and in unity… both one and the same…

One of Ariane’s books spoke of how rituals were made with offerings to gods for boons. Some rituals would even be used to ascend mortals to becoming gods. Many tales apparently told of such things, both their wonders and horrors in equal measure.

It stood to reason, then; that Elster made an offering to her god. A humble goddess who wanted only for her an existence with her beloved at her side. But it seemed Ariane was a yet to be goddess, a god yet to ascend… until now.

E̸͈̯͍͠Ṣ̵͕̬̈̃͆̍ ̷͍͉͊͋Ḭ̸͚͙̈́̓̌͠S̵̬̲̀T̸͈̫̙̿̏͘ ̴̢̛͑͌V̵̙͍͍̓͊́͝Ö̸̘̞͖́L̶̟̐̆̿̂L̸̫͋͆́̍Ẻ̵̼̇̓N̴̫̳̈́̂̈́̎͜D̴̠̳̲̟̂Ē̸̳͔̣̏͜Ţ̸͑ ̸͕̟̂̀D̸̡̡͍̗̀Â̵̳̙̘͌̃ͅS̷̡̛̬ ̷̹̪͓͙͌̃̃G̶̰̟̗̯̿̓E̴̻̜͆́H̴͖̆̔͐̈E̶̛̱͔͕̱͐͗͂İ̵̢̝͜Ṁ̶͎̬̹̼N̶̛̮͍͉̓͝Ĩ̶̘̞͖̅̌S̵͇͇̞͓̄̚ ̴̻̲͐͆D̶̼͍̼͑̕I̴̥͐̀̒E̷̳͍̣̐͊̆̄S̸̡̓͂Ę̸̌S̸̨͖̲̿ ̸͕̖̂̐̈́G̷̮͆Ò̸̰̞͓̼̈́͝͠T̵̪̥̗̳̄́̓T̴͚̜̟̘̏Ę̶̤̠̅Ś̷̼̉͝,̸̩̮̮̊ ̸̳͝W̴̼̜͕̯̃̾́͘I̴̢̲̮̍͑E̸̟͋̔͒̄ ̶̻̦̲͘S̵͔̏Ï̴̛̺̘̖Ề̵̞̯̭̪͝ ̸̻͙̪̲̈́͝È̷̯̩͂̑͠S̶̰͛̎ ̶͇̪́͝V̸̯̭̳̤̌̑Ë̷̯͈́̈͌̏R̶̙͙̕K̵͕̲̅́ͅŲ̸̦̠͍̂Ǹ̷͚́͠ͅḌ̸̪̭͓̒Ì̸̭̹̖͝G̸̥̏ͅT̸̨͙͙͋͝ ̷̙͐͝H̷̢̭͔̤͊̓͘A̶̛̬̣̥͂͊Ţ̷̩̮̿͗ ̸̡͚͎̈́Ï̸̧̞͕̊́͠Ḩ̵̬̮͙̓̀R̵̺͑͗̒E̵̢̥̗͌̀̏N̸͔͇͇͉̂̉̈́̽ ̴͕̙͝Ḵ̵̎̊̃N̵̙͂̅̐͆Ė̷̪̱̟C̷͙̻̝̾Ḣ̴̗̰͙͐̓͋T̸̢̲̙̊̽̋͘E̴͎̊͐̋̅ͅN̵̠͇̯̖̊̊́,̴͙̯̦̌͌͆ ̷̜͉̿D̷̫̖̲͎̈́́È̶̠̬͉̘̇͌͠N̸̰̭̎̉̐ ̶͎̞̩̅͛͗͒P̶̢̰͕͒͒R̸̠̭̣͑̈͒͌O̷̮͑͋͠Ṗ̴̻̜̤̋H̷̰̹̙̬̅̀͊͠E̷͓̙̩̓̋͘͘T̴͓͘E̸̦̰͘N̶̨̳̾̒͝ [4]

And so the desperate ritual of love and sacrifice: brought with it an eternal hope, to a pair of souls set upon by tragic happenstance and the machinations of uncaring nation-states and their craven regimes. Two souls of many bound and trod upon by a system who saw Gestalt and Replika both as mere cogs and fodder to use, expend and cast aside in its tyrannical desires, in belligerence with a rival Nation of the solar system that were tyrants of another kind. And where both state entities brought and created their own horrors and suffering among the stars, filled souls with pain, dulled the beating of fresh hearts and brought death fecklessly without care, till dull resignation garnished with fearful paranoia was all that remained in those they held in bondage.

The promise of light and hope in the majesty of the cosmos to humanity: were stolen from both members of the species and its myriad of forms: both those born of the wombs of flesh and those born from Replika-Werke Fabrikation Sektor’s assemblies of steel.

For humanity was to such nations: a profusion of meat to dump into the grinder of war, industry, economy and statecraft in its coldest form. And humanity was also reduced into the metal cogs that kept the grinder spooling.

But the tale of One Gestalt and One Replika; their story would be saved from the multitude of tragic stories of their peers, now truly liberated children of the universe. And for all they endured; they would achieve their humble desire. And the song that rang from them; resonated through the cosmos.

For as the weary but steadfast exploration-scout vessel Penrose-512 was resting at once upon a cold, snowy planet somewhere among black obelisks, the sands of a remote beach before a rolling sea, and upon the desert sands of the Red Wastes with its bow buried under the sands; the Penrose-512 nestled in the red granules and which was bathed in a blood red sky: was watched attentively by an all seeing Red Eye aloft in the blood colored vista, colossal in size and enigmatic in nature.

And even now; it continued watching the ship and sands below; for there was still more to the chapter yet to be written.

It felt like untold cycles since she was interred inside the Cryogenic Capsule, wracked with exhaustion, sickness and pain in equal measure. Her hair and teeth falling out, labored breathing, blurred vision, and every part of her body hurting from her fingers to her toes, her back, her eyes…

Everything was just constant, perpetual and excruciating pain and suffering, the source found in a body ravaged by the deathly spector of radiation emitted from a hemorrhaging Thermonuclear Power Plant; an EVA-AKW. And the feeling of hopelessness and anguish only added to the burden. 

There were times she could sleep, but there were times where she couldn’t. Sometimes she had moments where she couldn’t tell whether she was asleep or awake. And in those moments she struggled to find out which it was… if she was able to even make sense of it. The fog of pain, confusion and angst were the constants of her reality…even in her dreams and memories such tribulations intruded upon her.

So it bewildered her, in her sleeping state, that in but an instant: the pain began to ebb like the tides all together. She blinked herself awake as she rested inside the cryofluid of her Cryopod. She slowly and carefully shifted her body to stretch out a knot that rested in her spinal column of her lower back, and while she felt stiff: little pain greeted her. She moved her right hand to the edge of the Cryopod, and she found she was able to move it with more ease than she expected, without much save but a dull throb and lethargy, despite how necrotic black her hand and arm looked up to her elbow; to the point that black veins were extending past those elbows.

She eased herself up, a little tired from lack of sleep, almost feeling like what felt like thousands of years of such absence of rest. But still; her all encompassing, constant, intensely debilitating pain: it was inexplicably gone. Even the dull stiffness and malaise was steadily receding from her body with surprising vigor. With her mouth closed, she slowly drew her tongue against her teeth, expecting to find most, if not all her teeth missing and her gums painfully tender. To her deepinging shock and confusion: all her teeth were intact and her gums completely free of pain.

I… remember… losing a few of my teeth. Why do I… have them all again?

Thoughts of her missing teeth now restored turned to a momentary thought of her hair, and she slowly drew up her blackened left hand to her bangs and ran her fingers through the snow white strands and follicles on her head. 

No… patches missing? But… how? She lightly tugged one of her hair strands with some hesitation, and the piece of hair did not come off her scalp with ease: they remained firmly rooted in her scalp. She brought her hands back in front of her, slowly turning arm, hand and finger with rapt attention, inspecting her own blackened limbs and some of the bandages that covered her arms and right hand. A bit of blue substance could be seen through the bandages on the back of her right hand, but that detail was of only fleeting interest. 

As she looked upon her digits, they looked so necrotic-black, some part of her worried that her fingers may eventually fall off. But she flexed her fingers, wiggled them, slowly touched each finger to her thumb, further surprised that she could actually feel them at all, much less without endless stabbing pain that would have radiated all throughout.

And they didn’t break off from the rest of her hand.

In fact; they were amazingly as mobile as they were before Ariane had fallen sick.

After a moment's hesitation, carefully inspecting her upper tactile extremities, she found just enough courage in her and snapped her fingers on her right hand. The sound rang so crisply. And her middle finger and thumb still remained intact. If her limbs were still actually necrotic; she amazingly wasn’t anywhere close to losing any part of herself. 

She slowly started to poke the bandage on her right cheek with her right hand to gauge her injuries and radiation wounds. And at her finger making contact with a soft poke; she found no pain, intense stab or otherwise, save a mild, tender puffiness.

Her left hand slowly went to the left side of her face in turn to feel her other bandaged injuries, and in turn also found those bandages covering wounds that no longer existed save a similar puffy sensation, as if they were old wounds finally in the process of mending.

Am I still dreaming? Was the thought that came to her mind. “Am I still asleep?” she asked quietly to herself. “Or…am I awake?” Her ability to think before was badly handicapped from her sickness and pain, trying to make sense of her sense of self and surroundings was a struggle even at the best of times, enough that a haze often clouded her mind and muddled her senses. But now with her maladies abating, the fog that clouded her mind was lifting, and thus her mind felt less compromised to even try and make sense of things. But given the surreal unreality of her current state in conflict of what she remembered of her deteriorating condition made attempts to discern whether she was still dreaming or not a challenge.

She looked for a moment at her legs and feet and found a similar feeling as her hands and arms. She hesitantly wiggled her toes and found each toe twitch and wriggle, though her legs did feel a partial numbness.

She remembered a memory of how she felt so terribly sick and her physical condition so deteriorated that one day, she tried to pick herself up out of bed and felt so much weaker than normal. It was a clear but painful memory. Elster awaited at the bedside dutifully and even asked if she could assist her, but Ariane gently but firmly refused. Elster respected her agency and so complied and waited for Ariane to stand. 

When Ariane tried… she found her legs more or less unresponsive. Initial confusion gave way to annoyance as she attempted again to try and stand under her own power, annoyance grew to frustration as the intervals between standing attempts shortened. But that frustration very quickly shifted into fear and desperation as she in panic tried ever quicker to stand… and yet never being able to. The ever creeping realization she wasn’t able to walk; she needed desperately to not believe the implication of what her failure to stand ment. Eventually all that was left was unfathomable sorrow as Ariane began to weep an ocean of tears as her last desperate, futile attempts to stand devolved into anemic bouncing until her body finally sagged and she collapsed against the side of her bed for support. 

The entire time: Elster looked on with ever increasingly profound grief in her eyes that were deeper than the deepest trench on Vineta, for the women she so loved. It was only when a tearful Ariane, mournfully resigned and wordlessly sobbing, reached her hands up to Elster to finally accept her aid; the cruel reality of what her life moving forward would entail and what that would demand of her beloved Magpie crushed her heart. 

It was only than did Elster dutifully take Ariane in her arms and tenderly carried Ariane bridal-style to the Mess Hall for breakfast, her straight faced, taciturn expression betrayed by the threatening tears that formed at the corners of her eyes and the emotionally ravaged tremor at the corner of her mouth. From that point onward, Elster had to carry her cherished Gestalt around the ship… and the only dances they both could share was Elster tenderly cradling her aloft and slowly swaying side to side, rocking Ariane soothingly for comfort.

Ariane’s guilt and shame at being unable to properly dance with Elster consumed her, even though Elster tried to put on a brave face and spoke nothing but soothing words of love and comfort to her. Even though Ariane could sense that, even as genuine and truthful Elster said those tender words; they painted over Elster’s own sadness and helplessness at what became of the ailing Gestalt. Elster was performing the role of Ariane’s rock; her anchor point to lean on.... even as Elster was as emotionally ravaged as Ariane was under the surface. Ariane could see it in Elster’s eyes… and somehow she could also sense it…in a way beyond a mere gut feeling and yet could never quite explain…

Ariane blinked the painful memory away and some part of her feared whether she would still remain a weak invalid unable to even stand under her own power.

But there still remained profound uncertainty that made her second guess herself.

There were times she felt like she could stand and move about like she could before. Even if she were able to do so while in constant and ceaseless pain, as if each footfall was like hot knives that stabbed themselves into her limbs as the nerves in the rest of her body screamed in total pain across every part of her form. But were those also dreams? Was this a dream too?

She decided to try and make better sense of her surroundings and slowly began to pull herself out of the cryopod. With her drowsy mind starting to clear, it was then she noticed; the cryopod was inexplicably open. Looking around the Cryobay she also noticed that the IV stand to her left, its IV bags were completely empty. To her right the diagnostic systems for the Cryogenic Capsule were making strange noises and display readouts were erratic. And the Cryobay itself seemed to shimmer with a strange white light that was trimmed with a ghostly-ice blue. She couldn’t help but be mystified by that light… and yet she felt the embers of her artistic sensibilities kindle at the inspiring colors of such beauty. 

It felt like ages for her to feel the artist's spark of creativity… having only the confines of what amounted to being a liquid filled coffin like a fairytale princess held under the spell of deathly sleep; waiting for her brave prince to gallantly plant true love's kiss upon her lips. 

As confusing as things were today, her heart was fluttering with surprising cheer. Most of her days in the Cryopod were nothing but nightmares full of sorrow, exhaustion and pain; so a day where she may be having a peaceful dream was a much needed welcome. She eased herself up, using the Cryopods lip to ease herself up and over the side. Once she sat upon the brim, she slowly raised herself to her feet. Stepping out of the Cryopod, she wanted to make something artistically creative, and the very first thing that came to her mind, the subject that filled her life with joy, happiness and love, was of Elster. 

Ellie. 

Her Elchen.

A smile crossed her face and she began to take a careful step. She stumbled a moment, her legs feeling a bit weak and almost as if they were asleep; a discomforting, numb tingle felt all the way from her feet to her thighs. She regained her footing however and slowly walked her way to the Cryobay door. The fact she could walk at all was nothing short of a miracle, recalling having been rendered infirm and utterly unable to stand on her own. Any movement could only be done slow, anemic, weak and wracked with her nerves screaming in protest of the slightest movements. Even in nightmares where she was able to walk but only in the most nightmarishly agonizing of pain, the same ravaging pain that filled her waking existence and followed her into her sleep.

Compared to that; she welcomed the numb tingles that rendered her legs as inelegant and graceless as a newborn calf taking its first steps. This felt much like a dream in comparison. And yet she also felt much more alert and awake than she had in any of her dreams before… It felt so very strange.

The Gestalt Pilot Officer approached the door of the Cryobay and it opened as she stood before its threshold, bidding her passage to the Stern Hallway. Usually a code input and confirmation button pressed was needed to permit access between sections of the ship when under specific protocols of security and safety… one of which was to be applied to the ship the last time Ariane recalled Elster placed her in the Cryopod for the longest sleep she would need to take. And yet now the door seemed to open without so much as any input at all.

Did the ship become damaged? Or… did some of its systems and mechanics start malfunctioning? A few of her thoughts filled her mind, mulling over the ship's condition, but they flowed out again as she crossed the door threshold. She felt like any further focus on the matter would be too much a distraction from the sudden desire to actually draw something before the burst of the creative spark of inspiration that suddenly hit her slipped out of her fingers.

The creator's spark can be fickle. Inconsistent. And inspiration can strike as fleetingly as lightning. A wise artist knew well the importance of trying to capture that lightning in a bottle before the spark disappeared after it was struck. The lid had to be closed quickly and tightly before the lightning could escape.

And when it came to anything pertaining to Elster in particular, Ariane refused to be negligent as an artist.

As the door closed behind her she took in the condition of the Stern Hall, and found that she was greeted with a flickering light above her head that was almost a sickly yellow. Stagnant air and the tang of metal filled her nostrils, accompanied with a strange smell of some strange cocktail of iron and sweet plastic. Though the light of the hall was dim, Ariane could still make out the crate to her right, with a series of blood stained pages still resting upon it. Pages that to Ariane seemed familiar, and she felt drawn to them as she moved her way forward. She took the bloodstained pages in her hand and slowly read through them… and then remembered her own words that she penned to them.

Cycle 5309, Cycle 5434, and Cycle 5555

Even if some words written on the pages were either weakly and uneasily scrawled or… unnaturally strange, in a way Ariane couldn’t quite describe. And yet she remembered each word she wrote even if it wasn’t fully legible upon the pages.

My Cycle notes? She silently mused to herself in surprise. How did these get here? I don’t remember if I placed them here… but I guess I did at some point. She set the notes back gently on the crate, finding it to have been covered with what seemed to be a shocking amount of blood and what appeared to be Oxidant that seemed mixed together.

Her eyes followed the stain on the front facing side of the crate to the floor, and upon the floor was a blackened stain that was disturbingly mostly Oxidant: with an entire trail of blood-alternative that trailed its way messily from the door that would lead to the Upper Gallery, leading away from the large, dried oxidant pool that lay before the Upper Gallery Door.

It was right then, that fear gripped her heart. So much Oxidant could only mean: that something terrible had happened to Elster. The echo of a nightmare eased its way from the deep recesses of Ariane’s mind. The nightmare that she sensed in cryo: of hearing Elster’s voice in her mind, mournfully lamenting her impending death, apologizing to Ariane for failing her, and weakly declaring her love to her. All while death itself sought to claim the LSTR Replika Elster-512. And how Ariane, in her dreaming state, wept and desperately tried to reach for Elster, begging and pleading with the stars themselves that she not die.

To save her beloved Elster from death.

But… It was just a bad dream, right?

“It can’t be…,” Fear and the impending sorrow gripped tightly at the Gestalt Pilot Officer's heart.

And yet something inside her, despite the brief hope against hope for the worst possibility to just be a bad dream to wake up from, the large dried puddle of Oxidant that covered most of the floor before the door to the Upper Gallery, made holding hope such a dismissal, childishly petulant notion to even hold to.

Tears threatened to form in Ariane’s eyes as she followed the trail of what was in essence Replika blood with her eyes, hoping against hope even as some part of her couldn’t shake that the worst had come to pass. The Oxidant trail ended just before the door to Personnel. And Ariane couldn’t help but feel that was where she might find Elster.

“She can’t be dead. Please no, don’t let her be dead!”

She approached the door and imputed the simple access code to gain entry to her quarters, punching in the numbers she had long since drilled into her mind. A set of 6 Sixes, the key containing that number having been long worn from many regular button presses. She was about to hit the enter key but stopped short of actually pressing it. Her index finger held over the return key as fear and desperate bargaining overtook her.

“Elster.” She blinked and drew a wavering breath laced with sorrow she tried to deny. “Please.”

She feared to open the door and find her love laying dead inside. She couldn’t bear the very idea of living a life without her Elster. Her beloved. Life would not be worth living without Elster-512 at her side.

Ariane took one final, steadying breath as her eyes began to mist from her impending tears, threatening to butt out her kindling fire of hopeful creativity that began to feel ever more distant. Her index finger came down at last; she had to see and confirm the truth herself. No mysteries nor any wondering without actually knowing. 

The doors clunked open metallically and Ariane stepped with purpose into her Personal Gestalt Pilot Officers quarters. Once inside, she was met with trash bags that accumulated at the far side of her room, and yet another singular trash bag sitting to the left of the door; filling the room with the faint smell of rotten food particulates that festooned themselves to MRE packaging and Ration Bar wrappers. So many garbage bags accumulated on the far side of her room that they barricaded her walk-in bathroom/shower. Her television was able to peek out above those trash bags. Before their last goodnight to each other; both she and Elster grew so weak that they couldn’t even find the strength to properly dispose of such refuse. 

This would have been bad enough news for Ariane, who already had a constitution that made it difficult to manage more than very carefully measured physical activity up to an almost average threshold within her physical limits. For a Generation 5 Kosmo-Pioneer Specialist Replika with a carbon fiber-reinforced Polyethylene Shell and Titanium Skeleton Frame, and thus having a level of greater levels of strength that surpassed the limits of the average Gestalt, to be unable to move simple bags of trash; this painted an outright bleak picture.

Adjacent to the TV was the table that was covered in wires and other assorted objects, and next to the Television the aforementioned pile of trash bags buried the treadmill. Ariane saw the stains that coated parts of the floor. As she entered further into her personal quarters, she saw that her records were scattered about the front of her Gestalt Officers bed. Most at the head of her bed, one record partially in its sleeve upon the small table which usually held her Portable Record Player. At the foot of her bed, was a single record laying by itself in front of a stack of Ariane’s books, that rested upon the floor and up on top the temperature control unit for the room.

Her eyes finally focused squarely on the bed itself, moving ever closer to it so that she could better see the sliding privacy shutters of her bed were partially closed; with only a foot long gap opening between the doors. It was upon that bed resting between the doors; rested a large, dry puddle of Oxidant that seemed to have projected outward from a source standing before the bed. Upon the floor next to her books at the foot of the bed: lay a large Oxidant stain covering the wall below the foot of the bed and upon the floor in a dried pool beneath that.

Her hand lightly traced the dried stain that lay on her bed, bright red and sticky and hinting aromas of iron and sweet plastic, confirming for certain that the substance was indeed the life blood of a Replika.There was so much Oxidant that it almost threatened to undo Ariane in an instant with the dire implication at such liquid loss that amounted to a Replika’s blood medium equivalent. Loathe as Ariane would have admitted: she feared deep down that this amount of Oxidant loss: would have been fatal even to a Combat Rated Replika like Elster. And to see the women she loved, a being of Biocomponents, steel and lab grown synthetic flesh, that beautiful confluence of her physical form that houses the radiant heart, mind and soul inside, laying dead here in the place where so many loving memories of music, dance and loving desire were born: would have broken Ariane then and there.

…and yet despite that expectation: LSTR unit Elster-512 of the Penrose-512: was nowhere to be found, not even with the unequivocally dire evidence that she would be found dead, possibly laying in the massive puddle of oxidant on the floor, long cold and bereft of life.

The impending grief and sorrow at the prospect of her greatest fear, that one of them would never wake up again: fell away promptly and leaving only utter confusion in its wake. Ariane blinked away the misty moisture from her eyes and wondered where the love of her life could possibly be? Nothing was making sense, and she struggled to try to rationalize what could have happened and where Elster was. 

Given the massive dried pools of oxidant and yet a complete absence of the potential corpse of her beloved Magpie; it only left a slim possibility that Elster, in a last ditch effort, tried to make her way to Maintenance to enter her Calibration Pod to perform Replika Stabilization and possible self repairs. Perhaps long term internment in that Calibration Pod the same as Ariane had been in the cryopod.

It was an impossibly generous musing even to Ariane. And yet, even that impossibility gave her some hope. The sudden feeling that Elster was still alive and well, somehow and beyond all possibility; felt increasingly true to Ariane… though she couldn’t quite place why that was the case.

But she had to be sure… whether dream, nightmare or waking reality: Ariane had to know.

Her thoughts ran a marathon as she tried to reason to herself where Elster could be. She had to search the ship, top to bottom, if she could. She wheeled to the door of her room and lurched towards it, the sleepy numbness of her legs making her footing very uneasy. She wobbled to the door controls with her footfalls and opened the door, passing through it back into the Stern Hall. Her eyes scanned the floor and walls once more she scanned her immediate surroundings. Her sight passed over the doors to the Reactor, an irradiated hell that spent its long, modest existence ravaging Ariane’s body with radiation sickness and cancers of untold multitudes, and she couldn’t bear to bring herself to gaze upon the source that would doom and inflict unnatural suffering upon her and Elster in their last few cycles. 

She wrenched her head away from those baleful doors and their fell source of radioactive taint and then set her gaze over at the doors that would lead to the Upper Gallery. She advanced upon those doors and attempted to open them. Despite the input of the button controls, the control panel was not functional. She even tried to open the doors manually, but they seemed to have been jammed tight despite her best efforts. The door leading directly to the Upper Gallery had suffered a malfunction of some form or another.

That only left the only other option to choose from, and Ariane shuddered at the very thought. She slowly turned to the doors that led to the poisoned, bleeding heart of the Penrose; the Reactor doors. She took slow, reluctant steps towards those doors and took three steadying breaths. Once at the Reactor Door Controls, she inputted the keypad door code and opened the door. Though she loathed entering this particular location of the ship after it began to poison both her body and Elster’s body: she would face the trail before her if it meant she could find her dearest Ellie.

She stepped through the threshold and her bare feet splashed into what amounted to an inch deep pond of coolant that coated the Reactor floor. The pipes of the Reactor coolant system had cracks and breaks and corrosion, and there were signs of the hard work Elster put in trying to patch, repair and jury rig every point of failure in the parts of the Reactor and its coolant system into at least workable order, even if in the most minimal tolerances and standards. The walls and pipes seemed to be coated with flecks of moisture, as if the pipes at some point had burst and were belching steam and moisture for quite some time. She looked over the Reactor room, fearfully wondering if Elster perished desperately trying to fix and repair the heart of the ship in what was, ultimately, an inevitably doomed venture. But doomed though it may have been; it was clear from all Ariane could see, both before her last sleep in cryo and as she stood before the heart of the ship: that Elster performed admirably, above and beyond all possibility to try and give them both just a little bit more time to find some possible hope and a bit more time together.

Elster was not found here, in the Reactor room though, not even lying face down in the sickly green coolant with tools in her hand. If Elster wasn’t in Ariane’s room, filled with a strange blue light that tinged the green of the coolant, with only a single blood red warning light blinking to give the room any warm colors to stab at the cool colors, she feared to find her here. The fact Elster was absent from the Reactor, brought its own mix of relief and uncertainty. No corpse of Elster meant a slightly better chance of finding Elster alive and well…. But if she wasn’t here; where was she?

She walked through the coolant that flooded the floor, trying to make her way to the door as she heard the synthetic liquid slosh in her wake and soak her feet, thoughts that the Reactor may in fact be killing her growing all the more pronounced in her mind. She didn’t know what was happening and how her body could feel so much more full of vitality and so little pain; it was to her either a dream or a miracle. But being near the reactor she feared that if it somehow was a miracle, as much as she was wary to even try to entertain the notion even with the side of her desperate to be the hopeful optimist; she feared the reactor would steal that miracle away.

She cast a glance at the Reactor, the coolant pipes and the Reactor Instrument Console on the far side of the room, to the consoles left was the door to the Medical Bay. The placement of the Medical bay to this irradiated center of genetics destroying poison confounded Ariane as much as it offended her. And the later though the cycles this became more apparent, the more Ariane expressed her disquieted thoughts out loud. She tried to force herself away from the irradiated ruin that was the Reactor Room and to put this damned place of the ship out of her mind.

No doubt this stupid thing is still leaking radioactive coolant and ionizing radiation as it always does. Probably no more of what little lining this thing first had to begin with. The console's Geiger counter is likely going crazy as… it….. Huh?

Ariane blinked and halted as her eyes caught the Reactor Status Monitoring Terminal that Elster used to run diagnosis and measure the functional readings of the Reactor. It was still, beyond all probability; still operational, if barely, the readout displays faint but still legible. She also noticed that there was a lack of the familiar sound of a geiger counter picking up radiation, a sound that would have been an ominous clicking. Which made so little sense that it bewildered her. Elster was a very good repair woman if she needed to be, and her work to try and patch up the Reactor and coolant system was nothing short of a herculean feat that would make heroes of the ancient myths envious, with only the eventual lack of remaining parts at having used them all; being the only thing that defeated her Magpie.

But without the sound of the Geiger counter clicking at intervals that would have been as dizzying as they were horrific at heralding the amount of radiation leaking freely from the reactor: it left Ariane with more questions. The Geiger counter wasn’t even so much as making a slow, soft, occasional click. It was as silent as a tomb. She didn’t know what this meant, whether the Geiger counter had some kind of failure or if the reactor finally became radiation free… but both options raised questions and seemed deeply dubious as far as how plausible they were.

Just before the console and resting on a series of pipes closer to the floor but a few inches away from the coolant: Ariane saw another set of papers. They, like the set she noticed before, were stained with blood. She grasped those pages for a moment and in inspecting them she recognized them to be another set of her Cycle Notes that were somehow left here.

Cycle 1294, Cycle 1840 and Cycle 2503, older cycles of her time on the Penrose. And she recognized each of her words as they spoke of her dream and of an esoteric book that fascinated her, the Twins, her dreary feelings of the monotony on the ship and wishing to feel the majesty of a planet upon her skin and face… the loss of her hair, the weakness, the sickness and her slowly diminishing constitution. Feeling as though she were dying.

…how did my cycle notes get here of all places? I thought I put them away in my room?

She felt a frown form on her lips, still taking a moment to make some sense of things… but eventually she decided to think on it later, setting these older cycle notes back where she originally found them. More pressing issues were at hand: and they began and ended with Elster. She turned her attention back to the door to Medical and proceeded through the threshold.

She was greeted by a pale yellow light that melded with faint white, sterile medical lights of the Medical Bay. The floors were coated with blood, spilled ink and empty IV Bags that were once plasma and IV solutions. To her immediate right she could see all her art, finished and unfinished: resting against the wall, sitting upon her easels or scattered upon the floor nearest the other paintings, a few medical tanks for oxygen and other medical gasses jumbled beside the lonely works of art. There was never enough time for her to paint all the things she wished to make; ideas and creative inspirations she was unable to share and bring to life. 

Ahead of her, the Medical Bed was so stained of blood, that Ariane remembered was very much her own that it coated the bed from the inclined headrest to just before the very foot of the bed. At the foot of that bed was the encrypted Penrose Phase III transmission printout… documents that Ariane did her best to ignore.

She turned to the rest of the Medical Bay, spotting an oxygen tank laying on its side by the door on the farside of the room… and on the Medical Drawers to her left, she found another one of her blood stained Cycle Notes inexplicably laying atop the leftmost drawer unit. It was her notes that she wrote back at Cycle 648. She remembered the contents as her eyes traced them… but her gaze did not linger on for more regretful reasons when she looked back to that moment.

But bringing herself back to the here and now, after searching the Medical Bay: she still found no sign of Elster. So the next room of the ship was next to search. She approached the door even as her legs still tingled with that weird discomfort. The doors of the Medbay bid her passage into the Upper Gallery, permitting her to cross the threshold. 

The corners of the Upper Gallery seem to Ariane like they were nestled in shadow, and only at the center of the room was a… strange yellow light, almost like a putrid mustard in color, that revealed a large stack of garbage bags that rested up to the wall leading to the Stern Hall. Beneath Ariane’s coolant soaked feet was a blackened stain of unknown origin, and a dried stain of oxidant rested just before the piles of garbage bags. But the stairs at the center of the Upper Gallery that led to the ships Lower Gallery; it’s condition was what shocked Ariane, and she staggered towards the stairs that would have led below to the lower deck of the Penrose-512; and was greeted with a massive amount of red sand that filled the lower deck, with only the uppermost rung of the ships Gallery access ladder being remotely visible.

Her knees buckled at the Gallery access opening and she kneeled before this access hole of the ship. A jerky hand thrust towards the red mass of granules before her and she grasped at as full a handful of the sand as she was able in her blackened fingers. She pulled the fist of sand up to her gaze, loose granules oozing through her fingers like water. The sand felt dry and flowed easily through her fist, it felt as though it had never drank the soothing kiss of water at all… and it had the most unnatural red coloring. It almost seemed to be colored like blood.

She further loosened her fingers and let the sand empty from her palm onto the metal floor. Her eyes remained fixed at the hole. The entire lower deck was filled with this unnatural blood red sand. Her eyes listed from the hole to a set of pages next to the access hole. Yet another set of her cycle notes that spoke of a photo of a soldier, frustrations with Rotfront and hope for a future of freedom, back when her time on the ship was fresh. But those papers became inconsequential in the face of what lay below the ship's upper deck.

Every ship's room below in the lower deck was buried in sand, Maintenance included. The room that contained Elster’s Calibration pod. Her mind was reeling and began to quickly take hold of what was in front of her. On one hand; this much sand could only mean that the Penrose somehow managed to land upon a planet or some other celestial body. They had made landfall. But with so much sand that filled the lower compartments of the Scout Vessel; it meant that upon making landfall: the ship's lower hull was breached, reentry being a much too hard an impact for the ship for its lower decks, and the hull plating was breached to allow the elements and earth of wherever they landed to flood their ships belly. Or worse, the lower decks may have even been destroyed, crumpled like a tin can under the weight of the ship's momentum as it drove itself into the unrelenting ground. It was to Ariane’s horror that if that was to any degree the case, if the ship landed fast and hard on some planetary surface, Maintenance and Elster’s Calibration Pod would have been the first to be either buried or outright destroyed.

And if Elster was still… inside her Calibration Pod during that hard landing…

Ariane’s face was stretched in horror and desperation, breathing becoming quickened as she desperately began trying to dig the sand with her hands desperate to get to the Maintenance bay LSTR Unit Calibration Pod. 

No. Please no! Elster. Elster! Elster!!! Dig. I have to dig. Dig! Dig! Don’t be dead, please don’t be dead!

The sand she scooped handfuls of were cast to the sides behind her as she desperately tried to unbury the lower deck. But the lower deck was buried impossibly deep, and she was making little headway. Hundreds and thousands of tons of sand that filled the ship's lower deck; and all Ariane had was her bare hands. And where would she put all this sand once she got what little of it out of the hull? Even as she was digging out a hole the loose granules flooded the cavity she made. Ariane wasn’t running on logic now; only pure, raw emotion. 

She may as well have been an ant trying to dig out a desert.

She cursed the sand and she begged and pleaded with tears reforming in her eyes that Elster wasn’t crushed to death or buried alive. She desperately rebuked the idea that the lower deck was Elster’s grave. Her mind spiraled and reeled in maddening terror, grief and desperation. She wanted to wish and dream that the sand would just disappear, even as her hands were moving like a blur to cast sand aside as she clawed them from the hole.

I just want this sand to go away. Make it disappear. Get out of our ship. Get out of our ship. Get out of our ship! Get Out Of Our Ship! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!

She was on the knife's edge of madness from her terror filled grief. A mantra of manic bargaining filled her mind as she beseeched reality to obey her and allow her what she desperately wished. Even if deep down she knew she was asking the impossible. And yet she still demanded it.

Her eyes became unfocused and her mind seemed to strain and stretch like she was in a trance as she tossed aside more handfuls of sand, grabbed ever more handfuls and tossed them aside. Strangely, she thought she heard a faint musical tone in her ears… oddly familiar…

Low.

Medium.

High.

Where did she hear that familiar tone before?

Her hand went to grab another handful of the blood red sand that seemed to mock her with its existence… only to find she had grabbed nothing but air.

Ariane froze, and then she blinked, her frantic mind halting its maddened thoughts and her senses slowly grounding themselves back. She turned her empty hand over to look at her palm; and could indeed find that she had no sand in her hand. She looked down to the lower deck and so much of the sand was… suddenly just gone. Vanished. She slowly looked behind herself and found the two dozen handfuls of sand she grasped and cast aside before; were still there.

She gazed in shock down to the lower deck floor plating from the access hatch and wondered what just happened. Gone? H-how? She shook her head at the nonsensical event and tried to focus back again. She didn’t know what was happening but all she knew was that she could now get to the Maintenance bay of the ship. She hastily clambered down the ladder, her upper body having to pull most of the weight since her legs were still tingly and uneasy. Her legs felt quite weak once they reached the floor and she sank to her knees, her hands still clutching the ladder for support. Undeterred, she forced herself to stand and turned to face the door leading to Maintenance. 

She made a staggering advance to the doors and they opened at her approach. A pang of logic in her thoughts briefly wondered why the doors merely opened like that without her input as she stepped in a small pile of sand… and small piles of snow? Somehow? Where did the snow come from??

It didn’t matter though, she could see the calibration pod and once it was at arms length her hands stretched forward to receive the place Elster spent most of her sleep in. She had to be here.

“Elster!” Ariane cried out her lover's name. Her throat felt dry and sounded like her normally warm, light voice was obstructed with gravel. Making her way around the Calibration Pod, her hands reached for the metallic rectangle shape, trying to reach for the small control panel on the right side of the door. But when she did so; she found that the door was open… and any sand or snow from before in the Lower Gallery was completely free and empty of either blood red granules or piles of snowflakes.

It was also completely absent of Elster’s presence, whether alive or dead.

Ariane’s tear filled eyes shifted from one side of the Calibration Pod to the other from top to bottom. She only noticed a small, singular object laying at the floor of the Calibration Pod, she bent down, slowly reached for and grasped the small object in her hand and looked carefully at it.

It was the matching wedding ring that Elster made. One that paired with Ariane’s own which Elster also poured her love into making.

Ariane didn’t know what to make of Elster’s wedding ring being here without Elster. She wondered, hopefully, if Elster was worried about losing it and thus left it in her calibration pod for safe keeping? But then, where was Elster? Her eyes were transfixed on that ring, and she felt such tenderness of emotion in her heart that she held that ring close to her heart, trying to fill that ring with as much of her love as possible… in hopes it could beckon Elster back to her. Ariane then gingerly laid the Ring back in Elster’s Calibration Pod as more confusion and uncertain anxiety built in her heart and mind.

Standing back to her feet, she trudged her way cautiously out of Maintenance and passed through the Lower Gallery to Cargo Access 1, which was filled only with a blend of blood red sand and snow and one of Elster’s tool boxes. She also stepped into and continued through Cargo Access 2, passing between four stacked crates on her left and a singular crate to her right. The desk fan on the right-most crate was silent and still, no power to provide it movement. Behind the right crate was another one of Elter’s tool boxes. Even as she tried to jostle the cargo hold doors of both access models; she couldn’t enter them due to the doors all being jammed in some fashion or another.

She passed the final door again of her in Cargo Access 2 and entered the Stern Observatory, and found the two chairs and table that sat before her; coated in dust after spending so long without seeing use. The observation window was seemingly obscured by what might have been sand but Ariane couldn’t be sure. As it was; Elster was still nowhere to be found.

Ariane was trying her best to mentally and emotionally hold herself together. Even despite things making less and less sense the more she traversed the ship, she was holding desperately to her sense of sanity and hope. But each passing moment not finding Elster was weighing heavy on her… and her sense of reality and logic were being repeatedly confronted by everything around her.

She didn’t linger in the Stern Observatory for long. She turned back the way she came and wandered back across the lower deck to the Lower Gallery and back up the ladder. Once she reached the Upper Gallery she turned to the Mess Hall, and approached the door like every door before; she passed through the threshold. 

Once inside her gaze traveled across the room, taking in the Scout Vehicle Status Monitor, her own Gestalt Pioneers Sensor Suite and communications console, the mess table. She thought her Lily was here but it was mysteriously missing from its perch on the sensor suite terminal that Ariane often worked at. A baffling point of confusion, but this was fleeting compared to the fact that the messroom still didn’t contain Elster any more than the other rooms aboard the ship.

She staggered over to the Scout Vehicle Status Monitor. Part of her dreaded finding the console saying that Elster was dead, but now she was desperate to know one way or the other. As painful as the thought of Elster’s life being brought to an end would be, she hated not knowing one way or the other. Her eyes dropped to the monitor screen to seek the truth, whatever that truth may be.

PENROSE-512

SCOUT VEHICLE STATUS MONITOR

STATUS: CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE DETECTED

LOCATION: UNKNOWN PLANETARY SURFACE 

- - - REPORT - - - 

CREW STATUS:

A.YEONG, GESTALT PILOT - ACTIVE (MESS HALL)

LSTR-512, REPLIKA UNIT - NO SIGNAL

HARD LANDING ON SURFACE HAS DAMAGED CRITICAL SYSTEMS !

/ / / / / / / / / / / WARNING / / / / / / / / / / /

SURFACE TEMPERATURE UNKNOWN 

CRITICAL FLUCTUATIONS OF TEMPERATURE DETECTED

TEMPERATURE INSTABILITY DETECTED

CANNOT ASCERTAIN ACCURATE SURFACE TEMPERATURE READING 

ALERT TO POSSIBLE SENSOR MALFUNCTION 

WEAR PROTECTIVE CLOTHING DURING A.V.A. UNTIL TEMPERATURE STATUS ASSESSED

IF SENSOR DAMAGE FOUND: CONSULT LSTR SHIP TECHNICIAN FOR REPAIRS 

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

The weight of uncertainty and threat of sorrow were slowly losing their once iron tight grasp. Reading the information displayed on the monitor gave a little hope to Ariane, because she remembered how the user manual for the SVSM had specific terms to indicate the crew status of the Penrose ships. Death was never referred to directly in the user manuals she and Elster read, the word and its construct buried deep under impersonal and sterilizing euphemism to render the actions to work around it with efficient detachment to the job at hand. 

Something framed as Inconsequential. 

Shrouded in rhetoric so the cold, dreary and numbing job and the inhuman demands it made were rendered more palpable to those charged to ply their trade, to bear witness to it. Rather than “death” be invoked plainly to a Penrose crew member, either Gestalt or Replika; other terms were used.

A Gestalt Penrose Pilot who’s mortal coil was wound out: was deemed “Expired” on the Scout Vehicle Status Monitor. Death was something barely acknowledged, only done so for the sake of bureaucracy and record keeping, and massaged to the point of cold impartiality. Something to only acknowledge lightly and passingly with barely a seconds worth of pause before moving to the next passing soul to tally upon some official government record documents for record storage and archival. Nothing more.

But even that was more human dignity afforded to a life that ended than what the Penrose LSTR would receive.

For a Penrose LSTR Replika Unit who’s operational cycle permanently concluded: was acknowledged only as “Fatal Error” on the Scout Vehicle Status Monitor. 

The more and longer that Ariane had grown close to and came to love Elster-512: the more she grew to despise the word that tried to paint over the life that was her Ellie.”Fatal Error”. It sounded more like some kind of computer or other electronic device that had malfunctioned and was rendered totally inoperable. Made it sound like it was referring to broken equipment. Not a person. Not a human life. Not a thinking and feeling being with emotions, hopes, dreams, fears, desires and creative inspirations. Not a radiant soul. Not a beautiful individual who could love and was loved.

It offended Ariane on a primordial level of her being.

There were those who spoke of how Replika were comrades of the nation, and that their humanity as persons equal to Gestalts was beyond dispute, and that those like the Eusan Empire who rebuked a Replika’s humanity and saw only an unthinking and unfeeling machine; were inhuman monsters and slave makers. 

This was emphatically affirmed to be a fundamental truth in every patriotic citizen of the Eusan Nation.

Perhaps that was once a truth spoken earnestly, some time long before Ariane was born. But had that been the case; it was a truth that was betrayed by the system that was the Eusan Nation, what it had now become. Replika were consigned to both the cogs, arms, eyes, ears and truncheons of the Eusan Nation’s body of function as a nation, the enforcement of the social order… and yet in a way, even if it did not let slip the mask and admit outright; reduced Replika to the property of the state that was the Eusan Nation. For that is how the system of the Eusan Nation had come to treat Replika and how some number of Gestalts had come to view them… even if at first they did not wish to.

And Replika were to internalize this reality upon themselves as the Eusan Nation demanded of all in the struggle against the Imperial yoke. A humanity at once acknowledged but shoved aside all the same for the sake of a component to the machine that commanded and held over them an enforced duty. The thankless grind of service, whatever form that service took.

It was curious that the Eusan Nation had not taken to outright calling Replika “Machine Servants” or some other term to denote them as a slave class or a mere tool and object to use, exploit and expend, like the Eusan Empire did… despite the paradoxical hypocrisy of still treating them as such. Even if parts of the Empire so captured Ariane’s fascination: the love of high art, music, stories, culture of creativity and the things that seemed almost like the light and wanderlust that seemed not only devoid of the Eusan Nation, but outright contemptuously rebuked… but for a member and system of the Imperial paradigm to merely view and treat her beloved Elster as little more than a replaceable thing who’s beautiful personhood was denied completely: Ariane couldn’t bring herself to tolerate that. And the Eusan Nation did a barely distinct version of the same, just with more cowardice in admitting the truth of their treatment.

Little and begrudging credit, at least the Eusian Empire proclaimed their abhorrent dehumanizing view of Replika without the need of wearing any craven mask.

“Expired”

“Fatal Error”

These were but masks placed upon words. Cloaks to shroud meaning and deny truth. It was like hoarding knowledge and trying to rob words of their power and meaning. At the moment, Ariane was so disgusted with it that she was tempted to deride them as outright lies, even if part of her recognized this as her emotionally strained heart spurring her desperate mind into lashing out.

And they were terms used to paint over death for those who the Eusan Nation deemed to be pedestrian and equally, easily replaced cogs of its state apparatus.

Only soldiers on raging battlefronts, warship crews plunging deep into Imperial Space and the personnel that kept their front line friends and comrades able to fight through support and logistics directly or adjacently in the war effort in such a manner: would be bestowed with being declared “KIA - “Killed in Action”. A term that while still an artifact of language made for efficiency: was one that still bore itself a more respected and hallowed weight: one that in a small way; acknowledged and paid homage to the respect of the life that was violently and tragically cut short, even if only for a humble six seconds of pause to a hero and martyr of the Revolution.

Ariane also remembered “Decomissioned” was but another euphemism… one that made her shudder with the import of its actual meaning and what the term sought to paint over… given its foreboding use…

And it was a term that at this time: she refused to linger on for her own mental health.

The more Ariane thought of it, the Nation had its weird, even hypocritical ways of respecting its heroes, if it remembered to do so, or remembered to even care to do so. A lot of it Ariane didn’t really like. And the words they used referencing life and death were words that she grew to tire of, if only because they often tried to cynically massage reality or outright deny it.

But there was one word spoken from the Scout Vehicle Status Monitor that was to her, surprisingly, but refreshingly; speaking to her with blunt, factual truth. Though that truth brought with it mysterious enigma.

Not “Active” of course, no: that was yet another clinical, systematic, technological term like it was speaking of a device's functionality: an object in motion or an electronic functioning as it should. To paint over the fact that Ariane was alive, with words that reduced her to but a thing.

It was “NO SIGNAL”, rather, that held Ariane’s attention. Because it was not a term in the SVSM nor the lexicon born of revolutionary nationalist rhetoric that denoted, though cold euphemism: death.

“NO SIGNAL” presented the truth as it was.

“NO SIGNAL” spoke plain and full throated. 

“NO SIGNAL” wore no mask.

“NO SIGNAL” was a report that the signal of either Gestalt Pilot or LSTR Unit was merely not found. Not detected. Not in range to be picked up by the Monitor’s signal detecting instruments and then determine their status. Not alive, nor dead. Merely not present that so the ship could detect them, or at least they are some place where the ship could not find nor easily able to pierce through and see them. Or simply they were out of range to be detected.

It meant that even if Elster was not dead: she was Nowhere to be found aboard the ship, nor anywhere in its immediate vicinity. Either that; or the very sensors of the Scout Vehicle Status Monitor were so damaged that it couldn’t determine whether Elster was alive or dead. At this moment then, until she fully searched the ship to confirm, Elster was still a Schrödinger's cat in terms of whether she was alive or dead. Still, this reading on the monitor's display still managed to provide her a small spark of hope.

And she latched tightly onto it and tried to fan the tiny embers of that hope so it may grow into a roaring fire.

Ariane turned around and advanced back out the door she came from, she crossed her way from the Upper Gally and made her way to the front of the ship, stepping into the forward hall. Penrose Briefings from 1500 cycles lay at the side of the hall, but Ariane pointedly refused to so much as acknowledge their existence. The first thing her eyes were fixed on was the Penrose Storage room, a place where she also spent some time painting when the muse struck her. She approached the doors and attempted to open them using the door controls. The Storage doors did try to open, but only came partially ajar and then halted with a deep metallic “thunk”. Only opening a few inches to peek through, not enough to get her head or body through the gap. She grunted and tried to use the console again to close and open the doors, only to be met with more labored clunking noises. This repeated two more times before she tried to grasp one of the doors and pull, trying to unstick the door. But alas, she didn’t make any headway. She lacked the strength and she was still not fully awake in mind or body.

Giving up trying to open the doors, she opted to try and look inside and to try and see if Elster was somehow inside one way or another. “Elster? Elster! Are you there?” She shifted not only her eyes but her entire head left to right in order to look as much to each side of the room as she could through the six inch gap in the jammed door. She could see storage containers, one of her easel paintings and a table lamp devoid of any light; but no Elster to be found.

Desperation began to set in and she wheeled around behind her. “Elster, where are you?!” She hastened her way to the Airlock, trying to find where Elster could possibly be. Did she try going to the airlock then? Was she trying to find where we landed? Is she stuck there? Ariane was desperately trying to find reason, find a way to explain Elster’s absence up to this point. The Scout Vehicle Status Monitor’s status was still a desperate hope she latched onto, but only just.

She nearly burst through her way into the airlock, eyes taking in the space that would serve as the access to enter and exit the ship. Immediately the wall across from her greeted her with the words: “ACHTUNG DEKOMPRESSIONSGEFAHR”[5], the Icon of the Penrose Triangle, below that impossible icon the words “Operation Penrose”, below that “Penrose 512” and on either side “GEFAHR”[6] The lift and the airlock control keys were laying impassively. Her eyes were quick to shift to the left and right walls of the Airlock access… and she was momentarily given pause at AVA-Suit storage case A (Coded Blue) and AVA-Suit Storage case B (Coded Red); were both… Empty?

“Both the AVA-Suit’s are gone?” Ariane wondered out loud to herself.

Elster’s Red AVA suit being absent from its storage case was perhaps not too surprising now. If she had yet to find Ellie now either alive or dead on the ship: she had to have disembarked the craft, possibly someplace the ship couldn’t pick her up or was just outside the range of the sensors. Unless those sensors were damaged somehow, which was also possible. This didn’t explain why Elster didn’t come to wake up Ariane and let them know they landed somewhere and that she had to leave the ship maybe to scout their surroundings… Although it was as Ariane's mind held onto that thought, she reasoned that maybe Elster took it upon herself to check outside the ship and not disturb Ariane, either to permit her rest or maybe to ensure it was safe for her to leave shortly after confirming things? Elster having to pick up a lot of the slack with such self motivated dutifulness after Ariane’s health took a very bad turn for those last couple cycles awake might have been responsible for that choice on Elster’s part. It may not have been a thought that made sense of all the horrifically large amounts of Oxidant across parts of the ship; as it was, Ariane was desperately trying to make sense of the nonsensical.

But Ariane’s AVA-Suit being missing, its cyan radiance nowhere to be found: it was a mind bending puzzle that didn’t make sense to the Gestalt in any remote degree at all. Ever more: Ariane was searching for answers and found only more questions. Her eyes now lingered on AVA-Suit Storage case A and she slowly approached to inspect the storage area. Her AVA Suit should have been here; there was no reason for it to be missing like this. Surely she would have put it back in its proper place after walking out into the snowy blizzard-

Her thoughts screeched to a halt as she caught herself in that line of thought. A memory of a dream where she walked out into the snow in chronic agony but still wearing her Cyan Blue AVA suit… searching. Searching for something. Searching for someone.

“What…” Ariane’s voice was low as she murmured aloud her bewilderment.

But that was a dream, wasn’t it? But… why did it also feel like she was awake as she was dreaming? If she was dreaming her AVA Suit should have been where it was. And yet it was nowhere to be found. She left the ship wearing her AVA suit, yet she found herself waking up back in her cryopod…

…was she losing her mind?

Had she already lost it?

Now growing frightened and just wanting to find Elster, the only possibility being that she did leave the Penrose, somehow: Ariane decided that she should follow promptly, regardless of what lay beyond the hatch. She thought she had her Airlock Access Key on her but for some reason she couldn’t recall where she placed it. Maybe an access override could be possible? Than again with Elster no longer present on the ship: it stood to reason that she likely used it to access the Airlock controls. Granted it would be difficult to climb up the airlock shaft and get to the emergency exit release levers, which were already large and heavy to turn without the strong arm of the ship’s Elster Unit. And Ariane had long held the sneaking suspicion that it would take considerable elbow grease for Elster to make those levers budge even factoring her impressive combat Replika rated strength. Not helped by the fact that given the width of the airlock and the fact use of the lift was required to access the airlock normally, there was nothing on the walls to climb and unless the accesskey was found; she might need to find something to stand on to reach the airlock, which was its own hazard.

But Ariane didn’t care anymore. She just. Wanted. Ellie. If her beloved Replika crewmember did disembark the ship, then she darn well was going to follow. She will find her one way or another. It felt tiring to be the one waiting while Elster was doing all the work. Ariane’s eyes looked down to the floor to try and see if maybe Elster left the key behind, hands reaching and grabbing the sides of the access control panel as she bumped into it. She searched hastily and after a few moments searching the corners of the furthest most part of the airlock compartment; she did see the access keycard in the shadow of the Access Controls. She scooped it up shortly after her eyes made contact with it, and took in the small plastic card.

It was covered in blood, no doubt Ariane’s own blood that she must have gotten on it somehow, and it had been broken in two… yet the break had been done in a strangely unnatural, jagged way. How did the Keycard get broken like this?! This… this isn’t normal. She did notice that the broken key was carefully put back together again using clear, see-through adhesive tape. A simple and ad hoc fix, but a very steady handed and very well precise fix. No doubt Elster fixed it. Wherever she is: I’ll find her. If this broken and repaired keycard could allow Elster the ability to be granted access to the Airlock access and leave the ship: then it would likely provide her much the same.

She heard the three notes from before ring faintly in her ears. Or was it in her mind?

Low.

Medium.

High.

Ariane craned her neck up to the airlock door as she was midway through swiping the keycard through the keycard reader on the console. She gasped with a start as her eyes gazed through the window in the airlock door. The keycard slipped from her loosening grip and it clattered to the metal floor, now completely out of mind.

She beheld the sight of a blood-red alien sky, which she finally registered that it was bathing the Airlock with a blood red light. Desolate silence was all she heard from beyond that hatch.

She blinked… heard the three notes again, then held her breath, taking a slow step back at what her eyes now saw before them. 

A pale sky stretches beyond the hatch, the faint gusts of a blizzard and the howl of raging wind blowing flakes of snow across the window that somehow still permitted white light to shine through like a beacon.

She blinked again, the three rising notes faintly rang… and she withdrew another fearful step.

A black night time sky greeted her, stars twinkling above like diamonds above in their cosmic majesty. The distant sound of lapping waves could be heard quite a distance beyond, as if rolling upon a sandy beach. Only the stars above provided any light to fill the Airlock.

She closed both eyes tightly, and opened them,the three faint notes proclaiming their tone once more, and her mouth sagged in shock as the alien sky, red as blood: returned to her sight. She was transfixed on the sight of the alien sky; no world she knew could possibly have a sky so unnaturally red as this. Either she was still asleep and dreaming… or she was succumbing to madness.

Eyes still transfixed on the window of the hatch door and the alien sky beyond it, slack-jawed and mind unable to comprehend what she was seeing, she slowly raised her hand and lightly smacked her cheek three times in a steady, deliberate rhythm. She felt the light sting of her cheek that caused her mending, puffy face wounds to throb in protest at the attempt to either wake herself up or snap herself to her senses. She blinked again and opened her eyes to once again look upon that same alien sky that seemed to be colored in blood.

If she truly was awake; she no longer could trust her senses and her own sense of reality… or what was beyond the confines of the ship from what mystery lay beyond. She felt so small and weak and she felt so ashamed of her own fear… but whatever lay beyond, she couldn’t yet bear to face in her waking state. She turned away from the Airlock and made her way back out, leaving the access keycard where it lay. The unreal feeling was too waking to her to trust braving the outside world beyond the Scout Vessel. How Elster was able to find the courage to step out into whatever strange, unknown and alien vista beyond the confines of their ship impressed and shamed Ariane. Elster was always so strong and courageous, even in the worst of times.

She no longer felt safe walking outside the ship just yet, meandering her way into the Forward Hall. As much as she wanted to head out and find Elster, she didn’t trust her senses, nor her sense of reality yet. Not with that mind bending experience that just happened to her. She felt like her mind was stretching and twisting. She did slowly approach the flight deck; maybe to see if she might better see outside at least? Maybe see if Elster left any tracks she could follow later? Presuming Elster left moving in a direction she could see from the flight deck.

Once inside the flightdeck, she staggered between the flight chairs and rested upon them to gather her strength, her legs feeling weak like mush from the blow to mind and senses that happened in that dreamlike shift of reality to different places in such an impossible manner. Dust particles drifted through the air at her passage like tiny insects dancing around her.

She could see once more that alien blood-red sky above, and below she saw blood red sand that stretched on like a desolate desert, the ship resting deep in the sand. Dunes and flatlands of red sand stretched on for a seeming eternity and she saw mysterious monoliths that were an unnatural black that seemed to grow like trees out of the ground or rested at various angles. It almost seemed hard to tell where the sand ended and the sky began.

It was so surreal to see that she slowly blinked.

And as she blinked: the odd three notes whispered to her.

Low.

Medium.

High.

Once her eyes opened she could see the ship crash landed in an icy landscape, the monoliths standing like poles out of the snow, all the more an ominous contrast to the pure white drifts that had surrounded the ship. All while a biting blizzard buffeted the ship's hull and snowflakes caught themselves on the window of the flight deck cockpit.

The shaken Gestalt held her gaze warilly before slowly closing her eyes again, the three notes joining her as her vision winked into blackness as her eyelids closed, then opened. She was greeted by the sight of a length of sandy beach that stretched out far until it graced the touch of a vast, primordial ocean. It almost seemed so much like what the Itou twins Erika and Isa told her about Vineta. She could see the night sky was filled with a blanket of stars without so much as a cloud in the skies to hide the twinkling lights from view.

Ariane blinked once again, the notes faintly chiming out a third time, and once more she was greeted by blood red sand and blood red sky.

I’m going crazy, surely. I'm… I must be getting cabin fever being cooped up here with nothing to do after so long.

Her hand reached for her head as she felt a dizziness set in, her mind overtaxed with confusion, stress and profound anxiety. Taking a moment to try and steady herself, taking a shaky breath: she took in the ship instruments.

Her eyes drifted to the right side of the flight deck, to her flight station. The starboard controls panel. I… think there is probably an electrical failure. And the screen is all cracked too. She then shifted her gaze to the center of the flight deck. Central control panel. Judging from the readout, there is no chance it’ll ever fly again.

Her mouth shifted at this information, the implication that the ship may not be flight capable anymore was a serious issue if she and Elster could not find a way to find food or get out of… wherever they were right now.

Her gaze shifted down. The Ship's lower central control panel. She tried to manipulate a few buttons, switches, dials and knobs with her blackened hands, but none of the controls had any input or influence. She groaned lightly in disappointment. It’s a lost cause too, darn.

She then shifted her gaze to the port controls panel on the left side of the flight deck. Elster’s station. The port screen wasn’t cracked, but it was not showing any display. I guess the critical system failure was due to the hard landing. Ariane silently surmised her situation. The ship's condition was very dire, and she did her best to not think about it in the present moment. One disaster at a time. She silently chided herself.

Her eyes stole a glance to the landing and docking assist monitor, which was assuredly of no use to her. But in doing so; she noticed something deeply important that was missing on the LDAM controls. “Wait: the photograph. It’s-”

Gone.

Ariane looked around the flight deck to see if the photo might have come loose and fallen off the LDAM control console, but it was nowhere to be found. Missing much like how Elster was missing. Ariane began to have a thought take root in her mind, now knowing that the photo was missing like Elster was.

“She’s alive!” Ariane gasped. If the photo was missing, then Elster had to have been alive to take it. She must have taken it to keep herself stabilized while she scouts outside! That HAS to be it! Her once sagged and drained body began to find new strength, and she found she was able to stand strong and tall.

She didn’t know how, after Elster lost all that Oxidant, or how it was possible Elster was able to find the courage and fortitude or even just the strength to brave the unknown that rested beyond the skin of the ship's hull.

So many questions leapt at Ariane and she couldn’t make sense of them to come to any answers that followed any sensible notion of logic.

But it didn’t matter.

She was alive.

Elster was alive!

Through an impossible miracle: Elster was still alive.

Even if she didn’t know where Elster was out there: the fact she was alive somewhere out there brought the largest feeling of awe and joy that Ariane can feel upon her face. For the first time in a long time, for the first time she woke up and now was able to actually stand under her own power: Ariane felt genuine happiness.

There was a doubt that returned though that began to try and mute the joy. And the doubt began to sap her energy and will like poison. Wait, IF she is still alive, then where is she? The sensors still couldn’t detect her. Is she alright? Is she hurt or sick at all? Did she become trapped somewhere? What if something bad happened to her after surviving the crash?! What if-

Ariane shook her head and pulled herself from the flight deck and into the forward hall! “N-no! You’re spiraling! Don’t worry about what ifs.” She spoke her thoughts to herself out loud to try and put ease to her growing fears after having just barely touched her long missed feelings of joy. “I need…I need to find an outlet. Keep myself positive. Elster has to be alive. No matter how bad the odds look: she has to be still alive and on her way back to me.”

She crossed through the Upper Gallery and the Stern Hall before finally turning into her personal quarters. She tried to take a few calming breaths, as she came to stand back in her room. Somehow, some way, Elster was, despite all odds, alive. She had to be. The question of how was a mystery and nothing made sense. Maybe Ariane really was still dreaming… or maybe she truly has begun to lose her mind… but Elster still had to be alive. Which meant that Ariane would eventually see Elster again. She had to believe that. She refused to believe otherwise. That was the logic that Ariane had eventually come to, standing in the inner sanctum of her artist's spirit upon the now resting scout ship.

And with that flint-spark of hope, returned the desire to create an artistic work born from the creative flames.

Drawing forth a calming breath, she bent down and rummaged around the nearby piles of books sitting upon the floor and withdrew a sketchpad from the pile, resting between the sections of the well read pieces of literature of both fiction and non-fiction (mostly the former though; for Ariane appreciated an engaging, engrossing tale to lose herself in). She then took in her free hand a number of colored pencils and took a seat in front of her bed on the floor, sitting right next to the dried oxidant to her left and trying to focus. 

The black, blue and gray colored pencils in her hand awaited the strokes of their artist and Ariane, knowing she wanted to draw Elster, was struck with the image that came to her from what felt like a dream to her when she was back in the cryopod before awakening. Her knees were raised up and she used her legs like a drawing table. With one hand holding her sketchpad steady, the other began to sketch lines with care and vigor; curved and with graceful movement of Ariane’s hands that were at once controlled yet free.

Lines that curved, dipped, curved again and then gilded straight before they began to connect and juked into jagged or pointed forms in parts; eventually began to form the general outline of a bird. Each pencil stroke to form that bird's shape is careful, meticulous but assured with confidant ease. It's a bird she remembered reading in books, and was one that the Eusan Nation depicted to represent the LSTR line of Replika, much like how each Replika was represented by a symbolic icon of a Bird that such Replika class bore the name of. 

Ariane had an understanding of the importance of symbols and their meaning, for she often read many novels and academic texts on philosophy that plumbed such subjects in dizzying detail and thought, read books that held symbolic themes in their pages, and painted things that she imbued meaning in much like the artists she read whom came before her. Symbols carried meaning in their icons and what they were intended to represent. But such symbols weren’t always so singular in their meaning nor did they remain consistent and unchanging in that meaning. A magpie bird could represent a mere corvid species of bird, a creature of nature that was beautiful in its own right, a sibling to the crow and the raven, but to the artist, philosopher and myth-maker: even this mere bird could hold symbolic meanings that fit some deeper, esoteric themes. A magpie was said to represent thievery, deception, intelligence, adaptability, resourcefulness, luck, wealth, death, and hope.

Intelligence, adaptability and resourcefulness were the most apparent aspects of a Magpie that reminded Ariane of her Elster. As she was about to connect the lines together to form the outline of a magpie, she halted her hand as she remembered what seemed to feel was a dream; the sight of Elster holding a Lily, as a sign of pure love for Ariane… a Lily that sprouted forth a loving hope for the two of them. A gift to the Gestalt given freely and without reservation or condition. The dream touched something in Ariane and it was then she knew she had to add a Lily in the beak of her drawn magpie. To capture that dream through symbolism.

She began with the outline, forming petals, filaments, anther and then a stem. She then gave that rough outline depth and detail, adding blues, grays. Once the flora was given form, she took a moment to regard the eventual completed Lily flower. The magpie’s body was facing to the right, but the head of the magpie was looking back behind it. Ariane briefly smiled and nodded to herself in satisfaction, she began to color in the magpie’s form with plumage of blacks, blues and a white breast, her left hand coloring in with black and the right hand with blue. 

It was a little used skill on Ariane’s part, being able to create her works with a drawing implement in both hands, but one that had its occasional uses. Every stroke of her colored pencils was a careful and deliberate masterstroke, and what few rough lines were studiously smoothed over. She still preferred using one hand in order to paint and draw with more care and precision in her creative expression, but at times there was an appeal to the occasional free form strokes through the reckless abandon of two hands in motion during the hallowed act of artistic creation. Ariane’s skills developed over the many years of being able to minimize the margins that needed correcting. This continued for some time until at last: the humble corvid presenting its offering was complete, with only the slightest touch up of the outline to smooth out the bird in a way that was fully presentable to Ariane’s artistic sensibilities 

With the final stroke, her right leg lowered and straightened, and she held up the drawing closer to her face to take in her creation, both hands holding the colored black and blue pencils between her fingers. She took in her finished work; and felt a warmth in her heart at seeing the image she brought to life upon her page.To bring the thoughts and emotions in her mind into form on the page. To make dreams reality. To express the fire of her soul and give it form. It was why she wanted, more than anything, to be an artist. And despite a world that saw little care for her creations, seeing this new drawing manifest upon the page; felt like an affirming vindication of all she had to endure.

I wish I could show this to Elster. I wonder what she would think if she could see it? Her thumbs stroked the pages at their sides as she traced her vision across the colored image. I wish Mom, uncle, auntie and the twins could see it too. Even despite being bullied for being a non-conformist and moody artist and a vibrant aesthete that the Eusan Nation’s patriots had little care for, and some of her peers even cruelly destroying some of her works, perhaps it spoke to the artists spirit to embrace the desire to share with others her own creations, even if it were a desire often denied?

Every person who ever meant something to Ariane and cherished her, and gave her joy in an otherwise unhappy existence; she wanted to share her works with them. And yet, alas, as her smile began to falter; she lamented how out of reach they all were.

It was then as she gazed at her drawing in her sketchpad of the magpie holding a Lily, wishing she could share this creative light with those who made a difficult and dreary life worth living: that she heard the door to her room slide and metallically clunk open. She lowered her sketch pad and her eyes rose up to the door in surprise.

Her eyes beheld the figure that stood in the doorway, arm retracting from the door controls and turning their head from the door controls to her. Before her she was graced by an LSTR unit bathed in a faint blue light from the Cryobay, somehow, but she didn’t have the blood-orange chestplate and red banded biceps and thighs of her Ellie. It was an Elster unit whose head had a trail of oxidant trailing from the figure's forehead from an injury, and she was clad in a white LSTR Unit Heavy Scout Armor that graced her chest, shoulders and forearms, legs slightly armored on their knees and their outer shell reinforced, and whose legs and biceps bore a teal blue much like that of the magpie she just drew. 

Elster had never worn any Heavy Scout Armor during their time on the Penrose, and as far as Ariane remembered in their inventory manifest; her Elchen was never provided the required parts of Heavy Scout Armor Configuration in her stock of LSTR Replika spare parts and equipment upon the Penrose. Elster-512 cladding herself into such a configuration; would have been impossible.

And yet, as this Elster unit gazed upon Ariane, she could see in the Replika’s eyes a look of recognition. And the longer they held their gaze on each other, the Elster unit's expression hitched into one of longing and relief and a seeming tempest of emotions that appeared to swell from deep inside the Replika woman’s soul.

And by seeing her expression, Ariane then could sense something about this Replika woman… and she almost recognized her soul. She gasped, half recognizing the figure before her, but hesitantly unsure if she was in fact still dreaming due to how surreal and nonsensical the situation was, wondering how her Ellie could possibly wear such armor and bear such colors despite it being impossible for her to do so due to the lack of such parts and equipment to exist in the Penrose-512’s hold. She carefully set her sketch pad aside and slowly stood to her feet.

The LSTR Unit’s expression seemed to also hold a hint of awe on her features at seeing the Gestalt Pilot Officer stand. That slight hint then settled into a familiar, stoic expression on her Replika face, but her eyes betrayed the full depth of her true emotions without reservation. From the Replika woman’s lips came the deep feminine voice of the Kosmo-Pioneer Specialist before her.

“Ariane.” The voice that spoke to Ariane from the figure of biosynthetic flesh and steel was filled with love, awe and desperate relief as she took a slow half-step forward, then halted as she took Ariane in.

This LSTR unit spoke Ariane’s name, and Ariane recognized the look in the LSTR’s eyes, and saw the light from her soul from behind those eyes. The subtle way the Replika woman carried herself in just that one half-step that Ariane felt the most familiar of all, even in spite of the Heavy Scout armor, the armored white forearms and shoulders, the lighter ivory black legs with knee cap reinforcement, the teal blue bands, the trailing Oxidant from her forehead…despite it all: it was still…

Ariane took a hesitant half step forward with her left foot. “E-Elster.” As she spoke she took a half step with her right, her left hand easing up slightly and with a limp wrist. Ariane felt lightheaded and she felt as if she were still living a dream, despite the growing feeling she may in fact be fully awake. But so many things were making so little sense, and so much of that uncertainty made her question her own senses. Even if she still wished to believe what she saw standing before; because who she was seeing was who her one deepest desire in existence was.

She and Elster stood still for a moment, eyes held on each other in wonder that was weighed by other emotions of confusion and uncertainty of all sorts. They both in unison took a small step towards each other, closer to each other… but it was a hesitant step. For as they took a closer step, and stepped into a slight beam of blue light, Ariane still noticed how much Oxidant had trailed from Elster’s right side of her forehead, and she could sense a weariness and desperation from her beloved at drawing closer, feeling as though Elster had gone through so much strife to see her again. Elster's eyes shifted to Ariane’s bandaged wounds, arms and legs with a hint of worry that rolled forth and back away like the tide, as if afraid that Ariane might be so hurt and weak that she might break at the slightest touch.

And Ariane in turn, felt worry of her own: that the women she loved, standing before her in such an impossible fashion, as if she were a fabled knight in a romantic fairy tale story of yore, made Ariane afraid that the knightly magpie before her was just a desperate, feverish specter, born of an ailing and suffering mind becoming unwound, that would disappear were she to try and reach out and touch her carbon fiber-reinforced Polyethylene Shell with blackened hands.

To fade away like a mirage in the sun blasted desert…

Time seemed to slow for a moment as the two women held fast where they stood. Ariane then saw Elster take a steadying breath, a small flex of carbon fiber fingers squeezing into lightly balled fists, arms and shoulders squared. Ariane saw just beneath the stoic expression a ray of determined courage take hold in Elster’s face. It was then that Ariane could see that it was truly her Ellie standing before her. And her beloved Elster’s courage swelled in her own heart beating in her breast as well. Both women continued their slow advance towards each other; two bodies caught in each other’s gravity they never wished to escape from, cautious step after cautious step. Ariane held her hands low, but they still reached for Elster’s own hands.

Elster in turn tenderly reached back for Ariane’s blackened, longing hands. As they grew close enough to each other, their hands reached far enough to feel their fingers touch, and as they reached and grasped each other's tender digits, a loving memory of a past embrace became manifest in reality, to play again like a Chromono XIP Video Cassette. Elster clad in blood-orange red chest and red bands upon her biceps and thighs, and Ariane with her short hair, wearing her Eusan Nation Penrose Scout Officers uniform. Elster’s left hand and Ariane's right hand reached and held each other's hip, while Ariane’s left hand enveloped Elster’s right. Their bodies pressed close to each other to seek the sensation of each other's being. Ariane’s hand traced across the back of Elster’s hand caressing it with loving, sensual desire. 

An echo of Elster’s voice from those loving times filled the fabric of reality between them. “I wish this moment could last forever.” It was a longing desire and hope held in the depths of Elster’s heart and soul.

Ariane’s hand continued to dance with grace around Elster’s hand. Then, once she at last took Elsters hand without further adieu, she eased her middle finger between Elsters own middle finger and ring finger; as if their very digits were lovers in the act of coitus. 

And as it did so, so too came an echo of Ariane’s voice in response. Gentle and loving. “Yeah… me too…,” came the reply, of a desperately hopeful desire that was just as deeply shared..

Ariane’s hand began to tenderly push and rise, fingers nestling and tightening their grasp in Elster’s hand and Elster’s fingers returning a loving grasp in kind. Their hands began to travel up with tender, loving ease, and as they did, the two lovers' bodies drew forward, ever closer to each other, until at last a loving kiss captured the lips of each lover in a mutual dance.

They at last drank deep of each other in that loving kiss of devotion and passion: the dreamy memory of the women they once were faded like a ghost; leaving the forms of what they were now. Changed forever by their experiences and lives in mind and in body, heart and soul, but still retaining the love they held for each other. Unbroken and defiant against cruel fate itself.

Their traveling hands held themselves entwined high like victorious revolutionaries as they savored the taste of each other deeply through their lips.The flavor of Gestalt and Replika was one that Ariane and Elster would know and yearn for each waking moment. And they both missed it. When Ariane’s pain was so great that the only loving kisses of affection Elster gave: were consigned to Ariane’s forehead, where it would do little or any pain. But now; that terrible agony now banished: Ariane savored the taste of Elster’s biosynthetic lips, a tang that meshed the organic with inorganic, but it was one that she quickly and happily grew to love. And to Elster, Ariane’s lips were so soft, gentle, tender… it felt like tasting heaven itself.

Once at last the lovers' kiss came to an end, Elster’s right hand and Ariane’s left hand parted. It was then that Elster’s hand lovingly embraced Ariane’s head as she hugged Ariane’s shorter form with every possible fiber of her desperate love, and Ariane too, embraced Elster in a mirrored fashion. Their faces buried themselves in each other's shoulders together. A shaky breath through gritted teeth escaped Elster’s mouth, eyes closed, as if praying to the universe that this dream was truly reality to remain eternal.

It was an embrace that affirmed that they were both real, that they were both alive, and that after so long absent each other; they at last would stay united together, never to be parted.

How long had it been since they had seen each other? How long since they last embraced each other as lovers. How long did they tell each other the sacred words of love?

At last, the two lovers pulled back from each other, but continued to hold each other's hands. Elster looked into Ariane’s eyes and spoke softly: “I missed you,” she said.

Ariane smiled warmly up at Elster, even when a tear of joy began to fill the corner of her eye. “I missed you too.” A giggle bubbled forward from Ariane’s throat. “I remember we said each other's lines during our 3000th anniversary.” Ariane blinked as she recalled the memories again of that day that started out so happy. “Almost feels like yesterday.” She felt her voice ache a bit as she spoke, joy mixing with melancholy.

“Mmm.” Elster nodded in agreement, a small, subtle smile on her lips. “It does.”

Ariane’s eyes focused on the Oxidant leaking wound on Elster’s right brow and forehead, reaching her hand to gently caress Elster’s wound with her thumb, the subtle wince in Elster’s eye showed that the wound stung a little. “Oh! Is that bad, my love? Do you need medical care?” she asked with fretting worry.

Elster shook her head once, small and slow. A rare, embarrassed smile on her face formed. “Looks worse than it is,” she replied.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m okay. I promise.” Even with the small smile on Elster’s face, there was a solemn and serious look in Elster’s eyes. A promise to Elster was something that carried a great weight; and it carried the greatest weight when made to Ariane.

Ariane sighed warmly, marveling at her beloved’s steadfast insistence. “We should get you washed up at least. How long have you had your Oxidant on your brow?” She lightly teased in mock admonishment.

Elster gave a light chuckle. “Later, dear.” The wound and the trail of Oxidant was a trifling concern to Elster at this moment. Only Ariane mattered to her.

But Ariane saw Elster's thoughtful and uncertain expression overtake her and it sparked inquisitiveness and nervousness all at once in the heart of the Gestalt. “What’s wrong?” Ariane's right hand caressed Elster’s cheek, trying to put Elster at ease.

Elster's eyes closed and she reached with her left hand to hold tenderly the comforting hand Ariane offered. Ariane’s touch seemed to bring a little ease to Elster’s mind, and her expression returned to that stoic look Ariane was all too familiar with. Elster then took Ariane’s comforting hand and brought both Gestalt’s hands in front of the two of them, holding them tenderly. Ariane could notice the deep, thoughtful expression that filled the face of the woman she loved, looking as if she had so much to say but unsure where to begin and how to say it.

At last Elster’s mouth opened. “There’s just… so much I want to tell you. I had to make a very… difficult journey. I’m…” the corner of Elster’s mouth shifted, and her head glanced down at her peg feet. “I’m still trying to make sense of all of it… but I learned a lot of things and experienced so much to return to you.” She looked back to Ariane and rocked slightly forward. “I want to tell you everything. All of it.” She said emphatically.

Ariane’s smile glowed brightly at Elster. “Of course. I would be happy to hear everything.”

“Not… all of it will be good.” Elster cautioned. “Some of the things I saw were bad… and painful. In more ways than one.”

Ariane’s smile shrunk a little bit at that, hearing that something ill fated crossed Elster’s path to return to her. Her thumb rubbed Elster’s own to provide comfort, and her smile, while smaller, still remained. “All the more for me to hear everything you went through. If anything bad is weighing on you; I want to help you carry it.” A tender smile returned to Elster’s face and she seemed almost on the verge of shedding tears of joy, but ever her brave magpie, Elster kept herself composed. Ariane’s voice lowered a little bit as she spoke in turn. “To be honest I… had so many strange dreams when I was asleep, some of them I think may have been nightmares… I wasn’t even sure if I was sleeping at times. Started thinking I might be losing my mind after so long. I would like to have the chance to tell you some of the things I saw when I was asleep.”

Elster nodded promptly. “Of course I would. And I’ll listen for as long as you need.”

The large smile that Ariane had that could light up the dark reaches of space itself; returned in full force at Elster’s devoted words. “You were always so kind to me, Elster.”

Elster chuckled in response. “And yet, you put me to shame, Ariane, when it comes to kindness.” The blush that luminated Ariane’s cheeks made Elster’s eyes sparkle with delight. It was a side of Elster that Ariane had long missed seeing. Elster then looked Ariane in the eye with a questioning look. “Before we share stories, I wanted to ask if…we could dance together again?”

Ariane felt her heart overflow with joy and that feeling surged like a torrent across her face. “I would love to!” She leaned closer to Elster and pressed up against her armored chestplate. “To dance with you again; it always felt like an impossible dream.”

“I know that feeling.” Elster’s expression held a tender smile as she held Ariane’s hands with love. “I’m glad that our dream was made reality.” A look at Ariane’s feet made Elster look a bit worried. “Do you feel like you're able to dance? We can dance another time if you're not able to. Don’t want to force you past your limits.”

Ariane shook her head with a smile. “My legs tingle a bit. I think they may have fallen asleep back when I was in cryo. But I’m okay to dance, I promise.” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “We could take it slower until I feel better. Might help get my blood flowing again anyways.” Her smile faltered a bit as a realization struck her. “I think we might not have any music right now, don’t know if my record player is still even working… and the records haven’t been stored properly… they might have been warped laying sideways like that.” remorse was etching its way into Ariane’s voice.

Elster took the side of Ariane’s waist above her hip in the grasp of her right hand while her left held Ariane’s right for their dance. Both their feet took up position and Elster wore an encouraging look on her face. “Maybe… try to imagine we are dancing to our favorite opening song? Maybe that could help?”

Ariane raised an eyebrow in curiosity at Elster’s suggestion. But she could tell that Elster was trying her best to make Ariane feel better. It was then she decided to not let heavy thoughts weigh on her mind right now. For this moment in time, she will allow herself only joy and light in the arms of the woman she loved. She welcomes the smile forming on her lips as she nodded to Elster. She began to think of the song that spoke to their love.

And so with slow and careful steps, the lovers began their dance together, hand in hand. It was noticeably slower than their usual waltzes and serenades; but that was fine. There was no rush, and they had all the time in existence. They danced like planets in orbit with each other, eyes gazing upon each other in loving bliss. A dream made material. And as they dance, Ariane thought she could hear the song of Schubert's "Serenade" D957 No.4, which played in her mind from her loving, blissful memories, also play in her ears at once. She was too happy to even take time to question it.

They danced and danced together as seconds turned to minutes, minutes turned to hours, and ever onward they continued their dance. They danced in the interior of the ship that had been their home as it rested…

Upon the cold, blizzard-swept surface of Leng.

Upon a remote beach 120 yards from the lapping seas of Vineta

Upon the blood red sands of the Red Wastes as the Red Eye silently watched their dance under three cosmic skies.

All while a song of the stars sung a dream into reality.

“̶͓̲̪͇̰̦͕̞̀̋̿̽̀́͌͋̌̚D̷̡͖̫͖̣̲͓͓̱͗̍͠ő̸̯̏́̒̏͑̈́̊ ̴̟̲̾̅̐̑͊̃̽͝ẙ̶̧͕̙̇̌̎́̉̔̏̅̀͑̇ŏ̸̡̩̝͖̟̝̣͚̪͗͒̆͠ū̷̬̗̯͔͇̥͕͇̰͍̰́ ̴̖̥͍̜̊̋́̐̊͊́̓̇̓̚͝r̶͓͔̘̄̇̓̔̋͗̎̕͝ę̵͇͕̬̙͉̞̗̣̪̈́̌̏͜͝ṁ̵͉͇̫̿̔͊̈́͗ͅe̷̪͌̈́͑́̓̂̔͊̒ͅm̵̯̩̰͖͎̥̬͓͑̃͑̏́̌̓̇̆̕b̸̟͔̦͍̯̬̝͈͔̮͙̟͓̊̋̀͌̈́͝ę̶͙̩͍̳̗͔͚̰̈́͊̊̄̀̐̚͜͝r̶̬̰̝̠̺̻̈̇̑͗̊͋̄̐̏̈́̌̈́͝ ̴͉̏̚ö̸̧̯̣̟͉͉̝̮̩̈́̅͘u̴͍͑͌̍́͝͝r̶̢̨̡̡̼̲͓̯̺̠̭̰̻̆̈́͂̋͋͐͑̀̋͘ ̸͉͙͎̩͚̝̦͚̞͌̈́͐̊́͝P̵̧̧͉͕̞̘̥͍͈͚̼̐͜r̸̠̳͌̂͘͘ő̵͕̙̏̈͘͝m̸̢̙̼͍͓̳͓̣̱̻̖̄͂̍̐̓̑̔̈́̕͘͘i̶̧̫͉͍̮̞͖͙̋͆ś̴̠̀́́͛̓͐̀̑̅̕͝͝e̸̢̧̯̩͕̼͓͎̜̩͆̈́͆̃̈́̋̿͗̀̈́?̴͚̠̀͌́̅̽̎́̍̕”̵̟̜̮̯̮͛̓̎̒͋̀̉̑͜͝͝

There was once a time such a question was asked solemnly and desperately from Ariane to Elster. And several times it was asked again like a signal to Elster through the cosmos.

But now, as they swayed in time to a serenade that sung of the singer who exhorts her lover to make her happy, that question of a sacred promise carried a new meaning. Imploring “Come, let joy be ours.”

As she smiled and danced, Ariane asked it without realizing she did so not with her throat: but with her soul.

Elster smiled, having heard Ariane’s soul ask her that question she heard all through her travels, now made with the new context of their present and growing hope. Though they shared many promises together, some of greater weight than others, half made in hopeful mirth, half still made in mournful despair; Elster remembered most of all the promise to, one way or another, stay with Ariane at her side… and to dance again one way or another, whatever way fate may have brought to them.

“I remembered my promise, Ariane.” Elster tilted her head as she waltzed slowly and skillfully with Ariane as they gently swayed, a hint of regret crossed her face. “I… am sorry it took me so long.”

Ariane looked Elster in the eyes with a look of such impossible kindness.“It’s okay… it was worth the wait, to dance with you again.” To say that it was a tone of forgiveness in Ariane’s voice would have been absurd; for in Ariane’s mind; there was nothing to forgive. For her loving LSTR unit always dutifully supported her and endured much for her. Ellie was here in front of her. And they were actually dancing together. Her hand traced the Heavy Scout Armor Elster wore with a proud look on her face. “You look so much like a brave, white knight. So very handsome.” Corny though it may have been, such words were earnest and lovingly sincere. 

Elster smiled as Ariane leaned in to hug Elster as they danced, lost in each other's movement, loving arms and the song of their most treasured Serenade that filled the room despite the record player still sitting silent. “And you're more beautiful than the fairest princess,” she replied just as honestly.

When their love first blossomed and came to be the light of their existence; the humble Scout Vessel Penrose-512; was a home like heaven. Now, the dim and mess-cluttered interior of the Penrose-512 that rested in three places at once, was as the ruined city of Carcosa: a heaven brought to rubble and filled with the remnants of what it once was.

Despite the dilapidated state of the Penrose that amounted to its ruin and filled with clutter and artifacts of their lives in the cold walls of steel that traversed the void sea of space: there was no despair found on board in this dutiful and ultimately ill fated ship. And the souls aboard the ship were not among the long departed, but the still living who cheated death and defied cruel fate. And the walls echoed with their love that was never extinguished, for no nation, no government, no radiation, no grave; could destroy the love born of the two hearts that beat in the chests of the two women who served as the Scout Ship’s crew.

Ariane Yeong.

And Elster-512.

This was their triumph. Their victory. Their hard fought and just reward. And this dance was theirs to indulge as they wished. And though there are wounds on their hearts, minds and souls, born from their trials and endured suffering together, together in love they would remain, and begin to move forward to mend those unseen wounds.

There was only one other thing that could have made this beautiful moment all the sweeter.

And that one thing would become so when Elster stole a very fleeting glance at the date and time module of her OS, a minor nibble on her mind that today was important for more reasons than one.

As their dancing continued, a look of realization crossed Elster and she spoke once more before they fully lost themselves in their lover's dance, Elster’s glance to her readouts bringing attention to one final detail of importance. “Oh… I almost forgot.” Ariane hummed in curiosity and Elster explained as she looked to her lover. “Going off the calendar of Vineta, the date is 12.12.” 

Ariane blinked. “It is?!” she murmured softly in surprise. She was asleep for so long and her condition until now was so compromised that she wasn’t even able to keep track of the time easily… and she wasn’t aware that today was the day that it was.

“There was so much I wanted to do for you, and I want to give you as many gifts as I can for this day.” Elster smiled the warmest smile she has smiled in a long time. “Happy Birthday Ariane. This dance with you: I hope it will be the first birthday gift of many I give to you.”

It was then that Ariane’s surprise deferred to tears of overwhelming joy and a tearful smile. “Ellie.” Ariane kissed Elster once more, deeply and with gratitude. Elster returned that kiss filled with love.

“I love you Ariane, my beloved wife.”

“I love you too, Elchen. My darling magpie.”

With yet another kiss, the lovers' serenade continued on.

The nation and fate itself had stolen the light from their lives all those cycles ago. Stolen the joy and hope and the future they both hoped to share with each other. The Nation and fate even tried to steal both of their very lives.

What miraculous fortune then, that through dauntless, intense, even terrible trials and mind splitting horrors… it was through love, hard work and determination; that they had reclaimed that stolen light.

This would be Elster-512’s and Ariane Yeong’s triumphant victory born of miracle, in spite of an otherwise doomed fate. In time; they will achieve greater victories in the face of horror, darkness and pain. For this was a tale; of love's defiant stand against horror, guided by the light of hope.

Sie verstehen die Sehnsucht des Herzens, sie kennen den Schmerz der Liebe; mit ihren silbrigen Tönen berühren sie jedes zarte Herz.[7]

[1]: Spruchnummer 1: A radio numbers station broadcast designated from the G20 – Spruch German Numbers Station Profile’s 1 – Schubert Serenade Spruchnummer Music Pieces. This is another iteration of Schuberts Serenade, a version of Elster’s and Ariane’s lovers dance song that was played on the Eusan Nation’s Radio Broadcast station on their 3000th cycle anniversary, besides Shuberts Serenade D957 No.4 that was played on Ariane’s portable record player.

[2]: Ariane’s German/EusanNation cypher code: “KOENNTEN WIR DOCH NUR EWIG SO LEBEN WIE JETZ”: translated means; “IF ONLY WE COULD LIVE LIKE WE DO NOW FOREVER”.

[3]: UND IN JENEN TAGEN WERDEN DIE MENSCHEN DEN TOD SUCHEN UND NICHT FINDEN: translated means; “AND IN THOSE DAYS PEOPLE WILL SEEK DEATH AND WILL NOT FIND IT”. This is a partial quote from Revelations 9:6 in the bible. The original biblical quote is making reference originally to a horrific hell from which unbelievers could never escape and prevented from heaven. However, the partal quote placed in the framework of the Artifact ending becomes recontextualized in its new backdrop and thus becomes much more... hopeful for Ariane and even Elster. Where once Ariane in her nightmarish state of suffering and at some time seeking death: will not find it;  because in the Artifact ending; Ariane and Elster manage to work together to free Ariane from her suffering and that of Elster's in the loops and save Ariane and Elster's lives. And the fact that the second part of Revelations 9:6 is completely omitted "...they will long to die, but death will flee from them." Gives a more hopeful implication that because of the Artifact ending's machinations and implications: will not seek death any more and that her waking life; will no longer be a nightmare of suffering.

[4]: ES IST VOLLENDET DAS GEHEIMNIS DIESES GOTTES, WIE SIE ES VERKUNDIGT HAT IHREN KNECHTEN, DEN PROPHETEN: translated reads; "The mystery of this god is complete, as she announced it to her servants, the prophets". Another partial biblical quote, this time taken from Revelation 10:7. This verse speaks of God restraining evil (via 2 Thessalonians 2:7), or waiting (via 2 Peter 3:9). Through this original full quote and its biblical context, it is prophesied that at some point in the end times, God will entirely remove His restraints. Events from that point forward will progress at their "natural" pace, without being slowed or curbed by God. The verse tells of God's mystery will be fulfilled in the days of the sounding of the seventh trumpet. It's a sort of fire and brimstone day of reckoning for sinners and unbelievers supposedly. However in Signalis and the Artifact ending, the text instead reads: "The mystery of this god is complete, as she announced it to her servants, the prophets". This is another case of the partial quotes new backdrop recontextualizing the quotes meaning, with Ariane, having waited for so long untold cycles, her restraints as a bioreasonant Goddess, thanks to the Ritual of the Artifact ending and both her and Elster's hard work, now carry with them hope.

[5]: ACHTUNG DEKOMPRESSIONSGEFAHR: Translated means: WARNING DECOMPRESSION HAZARD.

[6]: GEFAHR: Translated means: DANGER

[7]: Sie verstehen die Sehnsucht des Herzens, sie kennen den Schmerz der Liebe; mit ihren silbrigen Tönen berühren sie jedes zarte Herz: when translated means: They understand the longing of the heart, they know the pain of love; with their silvery tones they touch every tender heart.