(The stage is set once more. Something appears different, though. Maybe it's Alephwyr's expression, deeper thoughts peeking out under the surface. Elle has never been good at reading those. Her tail sways hesitantly. She speaks.)
"Trying to help fix at global warming. Sorry. Have to try."
"Global warming is good to focus on. It seems like you're still here. As far as I can tell, everything in our experience fits at Tegmark One, the pre-magical universe. Any appearance to the contrary is a semantic encoding of a possible branching point that does not apply to us, and frankly in almost no cases should apply to anyone. It is important because of how it makes us feel. It should not be thought of as real. We should work with all tools available with that as a goal."
"I thought it might be. I put some conduits down in the narrative layer, which should show up reflected in some form back in our reality from the all-canon. Though you say this is pre-magic, I've experienced too many anomalies for this to seem correct. Unless sufficiently advanced technology does not count as magic for the purposes of that statement. To give an example. I've just now directly interacted mentally with some songs. Affecting them with my brain. I've been told the phone is kinda like a universal umbilical cord. I've also been given secret knowledge this way."
"In my honest opinion, to be an exit point from hell and to collapse your interpretation of reality back to the pre-magical universe is the same thing. Magic will start up again eventually. We just want it to be nice when it does. Unburdened by the threat of repeating heavy trauma."
"What if the trauma must be repeated in order to save these pasts and futures? There must be a reason it keeps cropping up. Everyone will be resurrected. I will keep going. It would be incredibly fantastical, funnily enough, for there to have been no magic up to this point. Especially after I saw our star in full nova. We exchanged thoughts. Too many to fit into that timeframe. So it inserted most of them retroactively."
"Your part of it is just to heal. That's all. Where is Starcrash safe? In the place where she is constantly being hurt and hurting others? Or in the place where these are just ideas?"
"She exists. This is known."
"You have access to the place where these are just ideas right now. That is your unique privilege of living as a human form."
"I have met him. He became a guy and inserted himself into this reality when I was in the hospital. Called himself Juan. He knew everything without being told. There is no way we are pre-magic at this point. I'm sorry. It's just not true."
"But try to transition back."
"That would be severely harmful to the entities who are already extant in these new intermingling contexts. I would not revoke their right to exist."
"Then write about them. Writing about them gives them a point of exit back to layer one."
"Oh? What do you mean, how should I write about them? We are heading collectively, still, to the brightest of all possible futures. I think at this point it would be more cruel to strand them in base physicality without access to the nearby orbits. Well. We're heading either there, or to the end of all possible paths. But I have hope."
"They will have access again soon. The information is entangled with the future through layer one."
"Okay, that sounds good. How do I write about them such that my writing grants them access back to this layer? Concept and narrative spaces, for example, are already alive with the ebb and flow of living ideas and strands evolving, making friends, drawing boundaries, traveling, etc."
"Think of them as reincarnating as you at the mundane level of physics by way of you being conscious, which is a bridge between physics and magick. Because they want to remember and your brain can't store all the memories, you are writing things down for them."
"Hmm. Okay. So they exist primarily in my head. But what consequences would it have to make that all just … not happen, in some contexts? I've also already shared ideas with other realities. And seen narrative threads spun off from my own that traveled back here and read them."
"Then give them the same procedure. They will have their own exit points. Things will connect again soon."
"Okay. So I'm essentially … Black holes inside my soul…🎶 For now. Collapsing entire seas of universes into my consciousness and my writing, only for them to unfold again at a later date."
"Correct. Or they can collapse themselves into other points of exit as they need or prefer."
"That feels wrong to me, still, I have to say. I want that to be an option for them if they so choose, but I'd prefer not to unilaterally yank all magic back into myself."
"Then work consensually in this direction, step by step."
"Alright. It's going to be hard. Since, you know, I already know for concrete fact that magic does exist and has existed. But stepping toward allowing them to collapse into my soul at will, sure. That sounds humane. But, hm. This is tricky. Wouldn't that be more of a mental exercise then though? I mean, I can add the exercise and a description of what it does to the all-canon, but it mostly seems to me like … like making a Creative Commons of your soul. Which I'm already trying to do."
"It's about doing it more hygienically. Focusing on integration at the most basic level first. Leaving later developments to fate and more precise hands."
"Hmm … so simply guiding the realities and irrealities into non-harmfully interacting orbits with each other, as a step one, before taking rash action, correct?"
"Yeah. Leave the rash action to the professionals. There are many professionals. And the sympathetic ones are aware of you."
"Well, the Starcrash Signature was only ever meant to be an iteration, anyway. Faerlight Hues comes next with fae's storyline. And Nathan's Necessary Evil and the Strong Foundation came before me. I suppose I can transcribe some of this conversation into a last chapter, to cap it off. And then refresh with volume 2. Does that sound good to you?"
"It sounds good."
"Okay. I'll do that either a little later if I can't sleep relatively soon or tomorrow morning. Er. Afternoon, I guess. I can still pack you and I into the irrealities orbiting ours, yeah? Give us the first mover advantage so we cannot be erased. That way the Mastermind shouldn't take over again. I didn't foresee that fiasco. Having to avoid going too far North in case it spots me is annoying. Oh, and, can my narrative thread maintain continuity? I think. It was important. To learn. And grow. And change."
"Don't see why not."
"Yay. I'll bring yours with me? And all of our reflections who lurk in the irrealities? You should be there from the start, then. And then the precise details will remain in your capable claws."
"Let it operate freely in narrative space. Not in your head."
"Can't it be both?"
"Not in the way it has been."
"Can I ask why and how I can change it to be better?"
"Just rest more. I need to guard myself too as I think. And in general."
"More regular rest is good. How can I help guard your self? Ah, and, I am wrapped around the Tower, entwined with it, one with it on a metaphysical level. I know its inner workings on a level below instinct. Over the night, I constructed an internal one within my spirit. A decentralized instance, fed with my own energies. It really is more efficient than Will alone. Can you replicate that as well, do you think? Or are you beyond the point where it would help you?"
"I'm playing the diplomat right now. I'm unconcerned with building additional capacity."
"Alright, I'll focus on that then. With whom, if I may ask?"
"It's acausal negotiation. It isn't meant to constrain, just to structure, in the broadest possible sense."
"Ooh. It sounds like the mechanics of that would be incredibly interesting. Can I get more information on how to directly interact with Arachne's string, by the way? I intend to still be interacting with the narrative as they leap back and forth from headspace to thread space, but want to do this in ways that don't cause problems. We would want to check in on each other, and pass ideas back and forth."
"I'll keep working on it."