Chapter Text
For most of the night, Five Pebbles refused to close his eyes. He spent many hours just glued to the floor, sitting cross legged next to the box of gifts and reading all the pearls under the light of a small lamp. He also did his best to ignore his vessel’s cries for sleep, irritated by the sudden inefficiency he was cursed with.
He refused to sleep.
He refused to allow his vessel to create any more terrible spontaneous simulations.
He refused.
Even as his eyes started to sting and exhaustion made reading harder than it had any right to be, he persisted, refusing to let this vessel have any control over him.
One by one, he checked the contents of each pearl he got before categorizing them all into a few separate piles on the floor, so that he could find what he wanted easily in the future.
One pile for prayers, one pile for poems, another one for music, and last one for random things without any proper category, as there weren't enough pearls to make more categories. Or, at least, not enough pearls that were not prayers.
The pile of prayers was the biggest, at this point.
He knew they believed him to be a god, but why throw their prayers at him?
It wasn’t like he could answer them.
He also ended up with three separate music pearls, but the other two were not any better than the golden one, so he left the golden one spinning next to him through the whole night. It seemed like the golden one was simply the best of them all - not that it was a difficult task to achieve in any way.
Second music pearl he ever found was a blue one.
As he played it, it sounded very slow and deep, which was almost close to what he would enjoy, but… Too slow.
It felt like it got stretched out significantly too long, to a point where it became irritating and not actually enjoyable.
Probably meditation music, as it had the feeling of something people would listen to while trying to empty their minds. It made sense too, that meditation music would be somewhat popular with how religious the ancients were.
Or, well, he had no idea what religion did those particular ancients follow, since they no longer searched for ascension, but they still followed something.
If Five Pebbles looked at it from the lens of meditation music, it could actually be… Good?
Not something he liked, though. He never felt any desire to meditate, after all.
Maybe Moon would enjoy it…?
No.
Don’t think about her.
There was no reason to think about her.
The last music pearl he got was gray, and it was pure grating noise. It felt like someone just poked holes into the pearl randomly, not caring what noise each hole makes, and then just… Left it like that.
Absolute, disgusting, irritating noise that painfully drilled through his mind and left him with a mild headache immediately after he tried playing it.
It felt like a feral animal thrashing around in his audio input systems!
How could anyone listen to this!
Why would they even give it to him!
Golden pearl was… The lesser evil, in this case.
There was also this one pearl he dug out of the pile, entirely red, with a pretty detailed drawing of Seven Red Suns that instantly made him mad. Just one look was enough to make him chuck it across the room, watching it smack into the wall with a loud clunk, causing the paint to crack from the impact where it hit.
What kind of an insult was it, to give him an image of a different iterator?! Of one that they so clearly preferred over him?! It felt like an insult. It felt like a terrible insult.
He ignored the fact he got one of himself, too, too lost in his seething anger over the disrespect they showed him with the red one.
Even if they already created it when they expected Suns to be brought through… Why give it to him?
To drill in home how much they wanted Suns instead of him?
To make sure he was entirely, wholly aware that they never wanted him?!
Insulting. Disrespectful. Horrible.
How dare they.
It…
It hurt.
As much as his whole body still shook with silent anger, there was also… Sad bitterness swirling in his chest as he stared at the slightly cracked red pearl across the room.
A part of him… Just wanted to be important.
He WAS important.
He was always trying so hard.
…Why couldn’t they see it?
At least… At least he got more poems in his search, to focus on. A lot of poems.
Categorizing those felt nice, and he refused to look in the corner where the red pearl landed for the next few hours. Refused to acknowledge it.
It made him feel bad.
It was better to ignore it, maybe dispose of it when he had some spare time.
…Or he could simply stomp on it until it turned into red dust.
Maybe that would make him feel better.
He also got… A lot of random cloth and ornaments, but he left them in the box, not as interested as he was in the pearls. There was only one piece of cloth that he actually paid any mind to, and it was a loose, thin cyan scarf.
The color was nice, really light and shiny, similar to the color of his overseers. He wrapped it around his neck, running his fingers through the fabric with a satisfied huff.
He… Liked the color cyan.
Not blue, it was too close to the color of rot, but… This particular shade of cyan.
Cyan was nice.
Why did people keep giving him orange things?
After a few hours of rummaging through the gifts and fighting back his exhaustion, Five Pebbles finally looked up at the curtains as light slowly started to pour from behind them.
Suddenly, a wave of curiosity took over as he realized that maybe he could look outside.
…It… Seemed so easy. Simple.
To just look behind the curtains.
Could he…?
He let the golden music pearl gently float down and join the rest of the pearls on the floor, then got up, using his bedside table to help drag himself up. His bones cracked as he moved, all sore and stiff from sitting on the floor for many hours, but he forced himself to stretch them out a bit with a grimace.
He hated how weak this stupid body was.
Sitting for a few hours hurt.
Standing or walking hurt.
Not sleeping hurt.
Sleeping hurt.
Trying to eat food hurt.
Why was this vessel so damn weak?!
Nonetheless, he shuffled a bit before he was standing in front of the curtains, weirdly unsure and hesitant all of sudden.
Honestly… He forgot that looking outside was even a possibility.
He knew that the windows helped him see what time it was, but he never looked at what was behind them, because why would he?
Back in his chamber, he didn’t even have windows.
The only ways to look outside was through overseers, and even then, all images were low quality and tinted due to the low amount of storage space inside them. It was what all iterators were used to, however, and they didn’t question it.
Many dreamed about a day that they could all look outside, but they were forever stuck in their cans with nothing but tinted images and their own imagination.
Deep inside, all iterators knew that they could never leave, never even see the outside world, no matter how hard they dreamed. Not unless their can collapsed in a perfect way to let them see the sky and didn’t bury them in rubble on the way, or something.
But right now…?
Five Pebbles had the ability to look outside.
Or, at least, he hoped he did.
He could… He could simply move the curtains, couldn’t he?
With a deep breath, his hands gripped the curtains, and he pushed them slightly to the side, allowing a few strands of natural light to enter his room for the first time since he arrived.
Instantly, his whole body froze, wide eyes glued to the glass, mind going blank.
Outside, he could see the city, so similar to the city that lived on top of his can and yet… So different.
Full of life.
Despite it being extremely early in the morning, he could still see lights in some windows, flashy banners active and alive, and there were people walking around on the streets.
They weren’t ancients, of course, but from how high up he was, they almost looked so, and for just a second, he could pretend.
But that wasn’t the main reason that caused all breath to catch in his throat.
Instead, it was the sky.
Void below, it was beautiful.
He pressed his hands against the glass, eyes wide as he watched the golden and pink clouds float lazily against the vast blue sky, so deep in its simplicity. Massive mountains of colorful fog took up most of the horizon, swirling and molding together, as grand as an iterator at their peak.
It was early enough in the morning for sunlight to paint the world in pink and gold and red, colors melting together with harmony, and it looked nothing like the overseer images he sometimes sifted through.
No, it felt more alive.
With birds flying in the morning sun, dark figures against the vast sky dancing in the golden light, so deep and rich in colors no overseer image could ever attempt to recreate, the world breathed.
And Five Pebbles breathed with it.
How…
How could they keep this from him?
It felt cruel, now, to keep him locked in that damned box, if the outside looked like this.
He could stay here forever, just in that moment.
He…
He had no idea how long he spent pressed against the glass, watching as pink turned to gold turned to blue, clouds reforming into new shapes on the horizon, continuing their fascinating dance, just out of reach.
Slowly, more and more people left their apartments, going about their day, all while Five Pebbles stood there and simply… Observed.
For once in his life, mind blank.
Five Pebbles watched with fascination from his position on the highest floor of the building as the city came to life underneath him, not once moving his eyes from the outside.
He needed to imprint every single element of this picture deep into his mind, burn it so deep that nothing could ever take it away, just so that he could cherish it forever.
It wasn’t like he had the full picture, however, as a big chunk of it was covered by a slab of concrete, at least if he tried to look down directly. Clouds were fine, most of the city was fine, but he couldn’t look fully down.
It looked like he had a balcony, which instantly made him wonder… Did he have any access to it?
The glass door in the middle of the wall made him believe so.
Five Pebbles dragged the curtains open fully, natural light filling the dark room in such a way that made all the pearls on his floor sparkle, and he reached over for the doorknob of the glass door.
The door opened.
He stepped outside.
Instantly, he got hit by a wave of cold, air filled with moisture hitting his face and tingling his throat as he breathed in, and yet… He liked it.
It was weirdly soothing.
Enjoyable.
The slight sting of cold air pressing against his skin was quickly washed away by the feeling of warm sunlight encompassing him whole, as he carefully stepped towards the edge of the balcony. Five Pebbles quickly leaned over the cold, slightly damp metal railing as he looked further down, a confusing swarm of emotions swirling in his chest as he simply breathed in the world around him.
How… How could they take this away from him?
How cruel could they be?
To keep him blind and restricted for so long?
….Why would they even want to escape a life this beautiful?
They had it all, and yet they tried to throw it away, all while not giving the iterators even a piece of what they had.
He had nothing holding him to life, back then, when he was stuck in a box with just one goal, with the only people who cared about its completion long gone.
If he had this, however? Maybe things would’ve been different.
Maybe if he was allowed to leave his can, he wouldn’t…
He…
…
It…
As much as it hurt him to realize, at that moment, he made a decision to not interfere with the Ancients' plan to bring other iterators through, just so they could experience this.
Or, at the very least, he decided to not interfere with them trying to bring Moon through.
She…
If he interfered, if he stopped them, she would be stuck in her broken down chamber with mere seven neurons to her name - unless another one of those stupid slug-like creatures brought her more - slowly degrading until the end of time. Washed away by the rain with every cycle, struggling to stay conscious against the harsh world.
Left at the mercy of trespassing creatures, hoping that they wouldn’t kill her on their way for a quick snack.
She would never see the sun, the clouds.
She would never get a chance to live.
She would…
She would never see this.
And that…
That felt awfully close to killing her a second time.
He still didn’t want to talk to her, but he simply knew that he couldn’t take this second chance away from her simply because of his own feelings.
He already did that once.
Look at where it got him…
Five Pebbles sighed, slumping more over the railing, eyes still staring at the city, and he was content to just stay there. Stay in the sun, breathing in the crisp wet air as small droplets of moisture glistened around him, listening to the birds singing their cheerful songs and the howling wind as it tugged at his clothes.
He was… Content.
For the first time in a while, it felt like all anger and fight seeped out of him, leaving him… Hollow.
Sad, yet… Hopeful.
Eventually, his serene moment got broken by knocking on the door to his bedroom, and as much as it pained him, he had to leave his spot outside to check who decided to bother him this time.
When he entered his bedroom, the change of temperatures made him shiver. Huh. He didn’t even notice how cold he got.
The person on the other end of the door seemed to wait for an answer before coming in, so he had to drag himself over to it and open it, exhaustion still weighing down his bones.
It was his human assistant on the other end.
“Good morning, Pebbles!” They waved at him, a small smile on their face. It was too early for such enthusiasm and he simply squinted tiredly in response.
“I came by to see how you’re settling in, is everything going well? Did you remember to do all the maintenance stuff?” Susan asked, as chatty as ever, and Five Pebbles squinted harder with a half-hearted glare.
He did not have the energy to deal with them.
And they seemed to notice his mood pretty quickly.
“...Have you slept? You don’t look like you did.”
Five Pebbles huffed and moved to the side, allowing them to enter the room before slamming the door shut, then he crossed his arms on his chest with a glare.
“I refuse. It is not an enjoyable process and I would rather not subject myself to such things.”
Susan only looked… Concerned, at that.
“You know that humans need to sleep, though? Is it just difficult to fall asleep or is it nightmares? I’m sure I can find something to help…” They murmured, putting their hand on their chin for a second, and Five Pebbles looked down around their neck only to see the camera missing.
“...No supervision this time?” He asked to attempt to change the topic, and the human seemed to brighten up.
“Yup! You didn’t seem to like it last time, and they seem to trust me more now… Or, well, they believe that you would be able to snap my neck if I tried to hurt you or something, but that’s just a feeling I got from how they spoke…” The assistant waved their hand around, as if dismissing the idea, even if Five Pebbles was entirely convinced that this was exactly what the ancients believed.
“Either way, I think you should sleep more, but I was instructed to bring you in for some ability training after breakfast, so unfortunately you might not get the chance to do that anytime soon.. Hm…” They walked over to the door to the kitchen and waved him in, and he followed with a huff.
He didn’t enjoy the fact that the “ability training” was meant to take up his morning unannounced.
He asked the ancient to see the vessels today, so that change of plans was.. Inconvenient.
“Time to introduce you to the wonders of coffee, since you clearly look like you need it!” The assistant threw him A Look and he glared back.
What was THAT supposed to mean!?
Susan quickly put some water into a kettle and turned it on, before rummaging through all the cabinets, all while Five Pebbles watched from the doorway, mildly confused.
A part of him wanted to demand to know what they were doing, but he stopped himself, instead making a conscious decision to sit down on one of the chairs and simply watch.
“So… Have you tried any new food? Do I need to tell the aliens to bring you something new?” they asked as they busied themselves with rummaging through his fridge now.
As much as he was still annoyed, he was also exhausted, so he decided to humor them despite himself. Besides, in the end, they seemed mildly better company than the ancients he met so far, even if their presence felt insulting at first.
But maybe he was just tired.
“...I made pasta once” he admitted, leaning over the table and resting his face on his hand.
“Cooking! Progress!” The assistant seemed way too cheerful over it, ugh. “I take it as you haven't had breakfast yet, then?”
“No.”
“Alright, I’m feeling like making a salad today, don’t you think?”
“...Fine.”
The rest of the morning passed by… Quite nicely, actually.
Well, it wasn’t terrible, at least.
Five Pebbles almost dozed off multiple times, though, and he had to mentally slap himself every time as he attempted to drag himself out of that state. Void below, was it annoying.
His assistant in the meantime busied themselves making a salad out of various different vegetables picked from colorful bowls in the kitchen that Five Pebbles never found any reason to touch.
All of that while he was still watching, trying hard not to fall asleep.
They most likely decided to use all the plant based food so that they wouldn’t go bad or something, who knew.
They once made a comment about how they wanted to teach him how to make a salad himself, but that he looked too tired to even hold a knife without hurting himself, and he took that as an insult.
He was fine.
Perfectly fine.
Eventually they slid a cup full of… Weird dark brown liquid over to him, and it had steam rising from it to signify how hot it was. He sloshed it around for a bit and took a sip, anyway, despite the heat.
It was absolutely awful, the taste absolutely burning through all of his taste buds, but they said it would give him energy.
Food didn’t need to taste good.
It was all a chore anyway.
So he chugged down the nasty liquid, internally cringing at the bitterness, hoping that it would do what the human told him it was supposed to.
Afterwards, the salad was almost enjoyable in comparison, but he still hated the fact he had to chew through it.
Having a jaw felt weird.
He didn’t like having a jaw.
It was inconvenient.
The liquid did help him though, as suddenly staying awake was no longer difficult.
Why couldn’t he just use that to refuel his energy, then?
Why would he ever choose to sleep, waste so much time, and have to deal with those absolutely awful spontaneous simulations, if he could simply chug down a cup of this gross bitter liquid and instantly feel better?
Susan seemed to disagree with his ideas, saying that he needed sleep anyway, but he simply huffed in response.
He was fine.
It was fine.
Five Pebbles was supposed to go test his new ability after breakfast, so he was glad that coffee existed, as it saved him from consequences of his awful life choices.
He went to the bathroom to make himself… At least mildly more presentable, then put on the shell - which thankfully he had the mind to plug into the charging station sometime in the evening. He also placed the orange robe over himself once again, ready to go on with the day.
His shell pinged him with a warning about low energy levels of the internal vessel, but he instantly dismissed it.
He was really good at dismissing all warnings at this point.
He wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not.
Pretty soon, he was being led through the building once again, and he forced his shell to map out all places he remembered walking through for future reference.
It could be useful.
Just in case.
He also found himself asking about random doors on the way, hoping to get more information to complete his map, but the human seemed to hold very little information, so that proved to be futile.
The room that he was meant to “train” in was significantly bigger than other ones he passed through, with a lot of random items everywhere. The same ancient that was overly enthusiastic about getting to talk about Five Pebbles’ vessel’s abilities back at the meeting was sitting in a corner when they entered, writing something on paper, and it was enough to make Five Pebbles squint at them.
Paper.
What a waste.
Distasteful.
They immediately bounced up when they noticed them enter, very excited to test Five Pebbles’ limits - both the ones of the vessel but also his patience, clearly.
It was… Annoying.
For the next few hours, he was the subject of many tests, mostly to see the strength of his new ability as well as what it worked on.
There were few things he learned from that, however, which he filed for future reference in his mind:
First - he could pick up and move with his mind up to ten small objects at once, and the number was expected to rise with every passing day for the next week.
Second - the biggest item he was able to pick up at the current moment was the size of a person. It was a person, in fact, and the human assistant agreed to be a test subject for a moment, allowing him to float them in the air for a bit.
He ignored how weirdly enthusiastic they were about being suspended in the air.
They were just weird.
Third - he struggled with being as precise as he wanted to be with the telekinesis, as it worked differently than what he used before, even if the effect was similar. He hoped to get better in the future, though.
It couldn’t be that hard.
Fourth - coffee did not help as much as he hoped it would. He was still tired, and over the course of the “training” the exhaustion only became more apparent.
Maybe he needed more of it. Maybe one cup wasn’t enough.
Maybe he needed two next time.
It wasn’t entirely all bad, though.
Five Pebbles definitely did get more comfortable with his power over that time, and even figured out how to float himself in the air.
It didn’t come to him as easy as floating in his chamber - back then he had an umbilical arm attached to his back to hold him in the air, after all - but it worked.
The idea of floating above everyone else made him weirdly happy.
No longer was he below them.
Now, he could rise above everyone who ever annoyed him.
…Maybe he could even go outside now.
With his new ability to float, he could simply jump over the railing of the balcony and float gently to the ground, and no one could stop him.
It gave him so many ideas…
Once the first ancient was done with testing his vessel’s abilities, they called in a completely different one to run him through a different set of tests.
It was especially annoying considering he wanted to ask them about seeing other iterators’ vessels, only to have his plans crushed once again.
This ancient worked closer with the shell itself and all the technical aspects of it, so they knew more about how all the different mechanical elements within it worked, which proved to be useful.
To Five Pebbles, the following tests felt a lot like mechanical maintenance, which brought an… Odd sense of comfort, in a way.
He never liked dealing with maintenance of his mechanical parts, but it was familiar.
They tested his ability to scan things, control over possible holograms - he had multiple projectors in his back, hands, and face areas - and all possible warning sensors that came with the shell.
He also learned that apparently there was a mechanism to boost his jumping ability with a wave of energy coming from the soles of his feet, and that was definitely useful information.
Other than that, there was a bunch of maintenance stuff on the shell itself, which Five Pebbles just tiredly sat through, his mind partly shut down thanks to the mix of exhaustion and the fact he was not even supposed to do anything other than let them pull at his wires.
It was a strange sensation, that's for sure.
While the shell was off, it was like a separate piece of metal, not connected to him in any way, no matter what was being done to it.
While it was on, however?
He could feel every single poke at each wire, every button pressed, and every touch brushing over the surface of the metal, as if it had the ability to feel.
It was what he was used to, too, of course, but he didn’t expect a gross fleshy human body to have the ability to comprehend such complex machinery, yet alone connect to it.
Five Pebbles was… Incredibly exhausted, both physically and mentally at the end of it, but that didn’t stop his determination to see the other vessels.
When the ancients were finally done with poking at him and his vessel from every side, irritating him with endless questions and requests, he was able to finally voice his opinion.
“Let me see other iterators.” He demanded once the maintenance person stepped back, glaring at them. They were the one who kept poking at him for the past few hours, and he could see how they instantly went from relaxed to incredibly uncomfortable at his words.
“I am unsure if you have the authorization level required to enter that area…” They spoke, apologetic, but Five Pebbles was not having it.
“I am your iterator.”
“Yes but-”
“Do you want to have bad relations with your iterator? I. Wish. To. See. The. Vessels.” He glared at them, shell buzzing as holographic sparkles flew. “I deserve to see my peers.”
The ancient shrunk just a little bit before taking a few steps back.
“I am one of them, and I wish to see them. Now.”
“Yes, right, let me just-” they pulled out some sort of a device that Five Pebbles remembered his assistant called a phone, and focused hard on whatever was happening on the screen, constantly pressing at it with frantic fingers.
Five Pebbles was getting impatient with them, tapping his foot against the floor as he waited, but at the end of the day he didn’t really have much power in this situation.
He couldn’t force them to take him there, but… He possibly could find a way over on his own, if they still refused.
His insistence and constant prodding seemed to work, though, as he could see the ancient deflate a bit in the background before putting their phone away.
“You have been granted visitor authorization for one hour” they spoke up, clearly not happy with that decision as they shook their head, triangle golden mask glinting in the artificial light.
Five Pebbles, however, was surprised that this worked.
He didn’t actually expect it to work.
His assistant has been dismissed a while ago, which meant he was all alone with ancients for a while, and he wondered for a second where they went before shrugging it off.
“Please, follow me. I must ask you not to touch anything, however, or the authorization will be withdrawn.”
Five Pebbles huffed angrily in response, but nodded nonetheless.
He wasn’t stupid.
He would only touch things if no one was around to see it.
Once again he was being led through the building, mapping out the area so he could come back there when no one was around, deeply pleased with the fact that he still had some sort of power over the ancients. Even if they wanted another iterator in the beginning, they still didn’t want to anger him while he was the only one around, which meant he had something to hold over their heads.
Especially considering his powers.
He wondered how much destruction could he cause, if he truly wanted to.
He had abilities that the ancients did not possess, after all.
It was… An interesting thought,
He quickly noticed that to get where the vessels were being held, they had to go deeper underground.
The room where he woke up was apparently not the space where they actively worked on the vessels, as he would remember those winding paths and elevators that clearly went to floors signed by negative numbers, the light quickly changing from softer yellow to harsher white.
He also noticed that the ancient used some sort of card to be allowed to even use the elevator in the first place, which was going to be… An issue.
He could figure out a different way to get there.
He just had to think for a bit.
There had to be some other way in.
Or steal the card. That could also work.
He had telekinesis, maybe he could just… Slide it out of their pocket…?
Eventually, they got to a big metal door, which once again needed a card to access. The card reader beeped with a flash of green and the door hissed, then slowly slid upwards with a quiet metal-scraping-against-metal noise until their path was clear.
As they stepped into the incredibly dim room, Five Pebbles suddenly froze, blank eyes staring in front of himself as he saw a set of tubes, not unlike the one he woke up in.
Each with a different puppet.
Just… Just as he expected.
Or should expect, probably.
It seemed like the shells were created on top of the vessels, or maybe the vessels were created in the shells, because they were not in any way separated, and a part of him was glad that he didn’t have to see the fleshy human bodies that other iterators were going to be trapped in.
Instead, what he saw was quite familiar to him, as every shell was an extremely close replication of the puppet of every iterator he knew.
It still felt… Wrong.
There were wires and smaller tubes attached all over each vessel, running over the metal and plugged to some machinery in the background, monitoring vitals of the bodies.
Five Pebbles took a few steps closer to the tube which very clearly held the vessel for Moon, and it looked incredibly close to her puppet, and yet… Shinier.
Newer.
Not stained by water, bitten by rust, with no cracking paint after hundreds of cycles of constant drowning.
How she was supposed to look.
Before he killed her.
…
It felt… Weird.
Five Pebbles risked a glance at all the other iterators vessels, a wave of unease feeling him as his eyes slid over the metal shells.
He didn’t see any of them in so long…
It felt wrong.
His gaze lingered on the vessel for No Significant Harassment for just a little bit longer than other ones, and he refused to look in the direction of Seven Red Suns.
He looked back at the vessel for Moon.
“...What is the chosen date for the attempt to bring her through?”
The ancient stood next to him, as tense as a string.
“We should finish the work on your chamber within the next few hours, and the collective does not want to continue work on Looks To The Moon’s chamber without confirmation that our transfer attempt will work. The date for the first attempt is set for tomorrow in the evening.”
Tomorrow…?
That…
That was too soon.
As Pebbles stared at the dark eyes of Moon’s vessel, he could feel another wave of anxiety and unease hit him all at once.
…He…
He was afraid.
Back in the old world…
[LIVE BROADCAST] - PRIVATE
Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment
NSH: The messenger made it!
NSH: I’m not sure how much of Moon’s structure still works, and with her broadcast lines degraded, I calculated that it might take around twenty cycles or so for any of my messages to go through, but this is closer than I have been to talking to her in hundreds of cycles!
SRS: Are your overseers in her can?
NSH: Yes, but I cannot send any messages to them from such a distance. They are read only.
NSH: I could attempt to alter one, however, for a longer distance.
NSH: I should be able to.
NSH: Let me try…~
SRS: Good luck with your work, then.
NSH: Thankies~
NSH: I will be attempting to send her a file with all crucial information regarding everything that has happened since she collapsed, and Five Pebbles’ unfortunate ascension soon.
NSH: I know it is still a sore subject to you, but do you have anything you would like to add?
SRS: No.
SRS: I don’t think I do.
SRS: I didn’t know her as well as you do.
NSH: You knew Five Pebbles.
SRS: And what did that cause?
SRS: I have nothing to say.
NSH: If you say so…