Chapter 23: Return

Melia woke up feeling surprisingly well-rested. She looked around the room in confusion for a moment before remembering that she wasn't in Dunban's house anymore - this was her own bedroom in her own house. She didn't have to squeeze her schedule around other people getting up, or wait for the bathroom, or anything like that; she could just do what she wanted, when she wanted. It was such a massive relief that she strongly considered just going back to sleep for another few hours. But no, she had things to do.

The first thing to do was take a long, hot shower. The handheld shower head made it so much easier to give herself a complete go-over than to deal with a fixed one hanging way over her head, and there was no more niggling fear of someone else suddenly bursting into the room. It felt like so much more stress had been washed away than she knew she had - it almost felt like life was back to normal.

Next, it was breakfast time. The kitchen was fully-stocked, but she decided to keep it simple: jam on toast with orange juice. She wandered the house while eating, taking in the unfamiliar feeling of having so much completely private space. It was tempting to go outside and eat on the porch or under a tree, but she looked out the windows and saw thick clouds approaching, and she wasn't yet sure how the rain and prevailing winds combined to determine safe dry spots.

Then, it was time to fully unpack. She spread her wardrobe out through the closet, stocked the bathroom with the necessaries, and sprinkled other trinkets across the bedroom. After some consideration, she left the Heir's Coffer unopened, and placed it and the two otherwise-empty suitcases in the closet. She made a mental note to sort through the box of imperial secrets and keepsakes later, and maybe do something with the items that were no longer needed.

It still felt rather surreal, and she had to constantly remind herself that this was her house and not someone else's. It was a lot easier to believe while in the bedroom and bathroom, places where she could see her pre-existing possessions, so presumably if she started to decorate the ground floor to her own taste, it would feel more natural.

This however begs the question, what exactly would I decorate with? Paintings are the first thing that come to mind, but I cannot imagine much is being produced these days. I would expect it to take a few more months for life to settle down enough for the arts to move once more, likely longer for anything that requires High Entia technologies for which there may not necessarily be many surviving examples. Though I wonder...what is the Homs state of technology in regards to musical recordings? Records or cassettes, I would guess. A record player and a few albums would liven the place up.

Melia started making a list of decor ideas. Music (with player), paintings, books, wall clock, rugs. After lunch, she'd go out to the colonies and have a look around - more with intent to browse than to actually buy stuff, though spending money was certainly not off the table.

For now though, she resolved to stay in just to get used to the place. She sat for a few minutes in every chair. She opened and closed every window. She took some time in the basement trying to generate ideas for rooms - a couple half-formed concepts came to mind, and would need further refinement. She discovered the attic trapdoor in the ceiling of the bedroom closet. She read the owner's manuals for the washer and dryer. She spent some time with her mind tuned into the ether deposit below, curiously wandering about its unusual energies.

Lunch came quickly. She leveraged more of the kitchen to create a complex grilled cheese sandwich, stuffed with many of the same toppings she'd had on the hamburger yesterday, with some plain Armu milk. It was much more satisfying to have so many toppings on the flat sandwich, compared to the hamburger where the tallness of the bun and meat made it seem too full. It occurred to her that Shulk was probably feeling a bit out in the cold, with regards to how she'd been at least partially contributing to a large amount of his meals for the past several weeks. Oh well, he needed to be weaned eventually.

With lunch finished, it was time to go out. It felt decidedly unnatural to lock the front door herself, and for a moment she wondered where to put the key. She had her travel pouch out of habit, but decided to select a pocket instead, and proceeded to activate and travel through the transporter to Colony 9.

Melia didn't get very far towards the Commercial District before hearing multiple instances of an interesting rumour amongst the people.

"...those mapmaking Nopon discovered..."

"...someone crashed something big..."

"...found a ship out there..."

Rumours do not become this widespread without some degree of truth. I shall investigate. This should not take long.

Melia changed course to the local Ponspector outpost, a simple wooden stall at the fringe of the Commercial District. It was manned by two Nopon: a purple one whose nametag read "Beebee", and an orange one labelled "Emem".

"Greetings," she began. "I am here for some information."

Beebee nodded. "Yes yes. What is being looked for?"

"I have heard a rumour that a crashed ship has been discovered recently. Would you know anything about that?"

"Very yes." Beebee picked up the document on the top of the stack in his outbox. "Ponspector unit Pie-Slice report crashed Bird People ship this morning."

A High Entia ship? "I would like to see for myself."

"Okey-dokey." Beebee flipped to a specific page and turned to his partner. "Emem, make copy of this map for customer."

Emem hopped to it. It took him about four minutes to make a decent copy of the map.

"Here we is," he squeaked.

"Thank you." Melia took the map and looked it over. It looked like it would take over an hour and a half to walk there, maybe two hours depending on the exact terrain, first in the direction of Colony 6 but then inland a decent distance.

"That be 2G," said Beebee.

"Of course, thank you." She paid quickly and stepped away from the stall. Her plans for the afternoon had been erased - investigating this crashed ship was far more important.

She immediately returned home to load herself up with Quick Step gems, to cut down on the long walk ahead.

It was stranger than Melia expected. Sitting in effectively the middle of nowhere, crashed nose-first into the ground, was a High Entia cargo ship. And it wasn't one of the small ones - it was a couple hundred metres long.

Unsurprisingly, a couple dozen people were already milling about, having arrived in a couple colony transport ships that Melia had noticed pass in the distance on her walk. Most of them were High Entia, excitedly discussing what they hoped to find inside - luxury items, mostly. Also present was a unit of eight Ponspectors, who seemed to be playing security guards and not letting anyone get too close. Melia guessed that most of the crowd had arrived pretty recently, and the Nopon were trying to figure out exactly how to handle it.

Once the onlookers realised that Melia had arrived, they hushed up and stepped away from the ship. She rolled her eyes at the special treatment but chose not to rebuke anyone for it.

"Ah, Her Majesty is here." One of the Ponspectors spoke up. "Demidemi reporting for Ponspector unit Pie-Slice."

"There's no need to be so formal," Melia replied. "Tell me all you know."

"Yes yes." Demidemi checked his notes. "What is known, is not much. Pie-Slice discover Bird People ship last evening, not long before sun set. Under Ponspector code, if ship obviously abandoned, try to get in and investigate. But Pie-Slice no have much expertise in Bird People ships, and we not figure out how to get in before it too dark to try. That all."

"I see." Melia looked over the ship. As it had nosedived into the ground, the cockpit was fully buried, while its engines were tilted high into the air.

Ortithorn-class, top-of-the-line, registration number 11348. No visible signs of battle damage or engine failure. The displaced soil is still clear of grass and weeds, so it cannot be more than a couple months old. Autopilot would have attempted to land flat rather than in a nosedive, but any number of things could have gone wrong with that - miscalculations, internal systems damage, or simply being turned off. All doors being closed indicates that no survivors made it out, assuming the ship was even occupied. The only available personnel doors are the rear emergency exits, which are understandably not designed for external opening, especially as Ortithorns are designed to be airtight and watertight. The freight doors are available but should not be opened until we have ascertained that nothing from inside will collapse on us.

I suppose everyone is waiting for my guidance on the matter.

"It will be difficult for us to gain access to the ship safely," she said. "We will require a means of stimulating the exit doors' opening mechanism from outside, and some means of getting up there. We may need the services of a skilled Nopon or a trained full-winged High Entia. If anyone here knows ship design, please step forw-"

There was a loud click and hiss, and one of the ship's exit doors opened. A silent confusion spread through the crowd as a person appeared from inside and stepped to the edge of the doorway.

Melia suppressed a groan. It's Alvis. Of course it's somehow Alvis. Clearly he set this up as some test of worthiness or such thing.

Alvis stepped out of the door and began to fall unnaturally slowly, landing with no sound or noticeable impact.

"Greetings to you all," he said in his typical quiet voice. "I have been waiting for you to discover this ship. For those who do not know, my name is Alvis."

One of the members of the crowd recognised the name "Alvis" and began a tirade of profanity about how he'd ruined the world and killed the Bionis. A scuffle broke out as what looked to be his buddies restrained him from approaching.

Melia ignored the riffraff. "I was under the impression that you had vanished, seer."

Alvis put on a "perhaps" expression. "I come and go at the whims of the world."

Typical. "I assume you were planning on explaining what all this was about."

"Of course."

Alvis extended a hand towards the ship, which suddenly began to magically reverse out of the hole in the ground, slowly coming to a level rest. As it did so, the churned ground it had crashed into began to roll back to where it came from, and there was quickly no indication a crash had ever happened. The crowd gasped.

"I could not save Alcamoth as I did the other settlements," he said. "It was too large, too complex, and too full of danger to safely and satisfactorily place within this rebooted universe. Instead, I left it where it lay to the whims of time. But this does not mean I could save nothing worthwhile. Within this ship, you will find a wealth of your people's knowledge. I have no doubt you will use it wisely."

Melia had a guess that he had placed an amount of books in the ship. Given its size, probably a lot. This was good. "Thank you, Alvis. How do you suggest we proceed?"

Alvis made a small smile. "That, I leave to you. It would only be fitting for you to take control of your people's dissemination of knowledge."

I don't know what I expected. "Very well. I shall have a preliminary look at what there is." She turned to the crowd. "I shall spend some time assessing the situation, hopefully no more than ten minutes. I ask that no one follow for the time being."

The crowd murmured their assent.

With the ship having moved backwards, the front door next to the cockpit was now the nearest one. Alvis opened it with a wave as he and Melia stepped inside. A hall led through the ship cross-wise to the exit door on the opposite flank, with the cockpit entrance to one side and the cargo entrance on the other.

Melia slid open the cargo door to see what was inside.

...ooooohhhhhhhh, yes.

The entire cargo hold was filled with books. She could barely take a step inside, the "hallways" between the solid blocks of pure book were so thin. It would take weeks if not months to unload it all, and probably longer to move and house them elsewhere. There had to be millions of them.

Melia had to rip herself out of the hold to avoid going too deep and getting lost. She then went into the cockpit. Most of the place was powered down, but one screen in front of the pilot seat was active.

Let's see here, ship status...ten percent fuel remaining. That should be enough to relocate the ship to a more convenient location, perhaps next to Colony 6 where the most High Entia are. Oh, there's a cargo status panel as well...my word, it lists everything! A complete directory of every book in the hold...and it's not only books, there's recordings of television series, films, albums, sporting events, newsreels, this is practically an archive of all we need to ensure our culture is fully preserved! Keyword search, genre search, wait does that say "retrieve item"?

Melia pressed the button and dashed back into the hold. Warning lights and sirens blared as a series of dronautic arms and projected forcefields dug into the massive chunks of book. After about two minutes, they started replacing the stacks as one arm placed the extracted copy of Lifestream (by Hiro Saka the 7th) into a yellow square painted on the floor just next to the access door. She moved it to a red square on the other side of the door, and within seconds the system had picked it up and begun to replace it where it came from. It was essentially a pre-built automated library.

She returned to the cockpit to find that Alvis had vanished, the cad, but in his place he had left a couple dozen additional books scatted around. With some time spent referencing the cargo system, she determined that these were all duplicates of things already in storage.

Clearly Alvis intends for me to keep these extra copies for myself. I shall do just that.

Melia summoned three earths and began stacking the books on top of them. She had trouble reaching the top to get the last few on, but she successfully got them in a single stack. To try and stop them from tilting unpredictably, she intentionally tipped them in one direction and held her staff up against them as backing. It took no physical effort to cart the assembly outside, but it was somewhat mentally taxing to carry the pile.

She stepped back outside to see the crowd waiting for her guidance had not budged. She gathered her thoughts.

"I have assessed the contents of this ship," she announced. "There are a great many books within, in addition to recordings of various other media. There is more than enough to open a library for not only the High Entia, but all races of our settlements."

The crowd murmured in excitement. Someone was hurriedly writing down what she'd said. Melia gave them a moment before continuing.

"I have selected some known duplicate copies for my own personal use. I declare that all other contents of the ship, including the ship itself, are now property of the newly-incorporated..." She paused for a moment to pick which family member to use. "Clara Apiar Public Library. I shall establish a non-profit organisation for oversight and send a call for prospective librarians within the next few days. Until such time a dedicated building can be constructed, the ship itself can act as the library, and will remain as bulk storage for the foreseeable future. For the moment, I call on the Ponspectors to ensure the security of the ship and its contents."

The Ponspectors saluted. The rest of the crowd started to applaud.

Melia spent some time talking to a few of the onlookers as everyone began to disperse, mostly about their hopes and desires for the new library. Luckily, one of them was Kantz of Colony 9's Defence Force, who had enough authority to ensure that what she'd decided would be heard and honoured by the necessary people. Once she was done conversing, she noticed that all of the colony transport ships had already left with the crowd, which was a shame. Oh well, she was fine walking back on her own - it would be a nice, peaceful couple of hours to plan the library and anticipate her own new books. She could in theory shorten the journey by going straight there rather than via Colony 9, but from the map she had, she couldn't trust that the terrain in that direction was walkable.

She was twenty minutes into the long walk back when the wind shifted, and she could smell rain.

Oh no.

She had forgotten how dim the weather outlook had been. Normally, if she did not have an umbrella handy, she would simply raise a wind elemental over her head to blow the rain away from her. But she just barely had the stack of books under control with her staff and all three earths holding them up - using only two earths would leave it too prone to tipping over onto the about-to-be muddy ground, especially as she tried to keep it upright as she clambered over the not-perfectly-flat terrain ahead. But if she did nothing, the books were going to be rained on.

What other options do I have? I see no cover nearby, and trees are not necessarily protection against heavy rain. I could return to the cargo ship for shelter, but there's no telling how long this rain will last, and I don't wish to be stuck there for any significant duration.

...I do have the remote for my ship in my travel pouch. I don't expect it to work, trapped in the Bionis' interior without sky to navigate, but I've never tried...perhaps it is worth an attempt.

Melia retrieved the remote from her pouch and held the summon button for three seconds. The first raindrops started to fall.

Even if it does respond, it will take several minutes to reach here. I will keep moving, and try to come up with an alternate plan.

She continued to walk, pressing the button again every now and then so her ship wouldn't arrive too far behind her. The rain wasn't coming down very hard yet, but the clouds upwind were darker than the ones overhead.

About ten minutes later, the rain began to intensify. Melia decided to bite the bullet and convert one of the earths into a wind, shielding her and the books from the rain. She immediately found it more difficult to simply keep the books off the ground, and had to slow down a lot. It would now take quite a bit longer to get back home.

And then it got worse. The skies truly opened up and the wind drastically intensified. Without thinking much about the consequences, Melia replaced another of the earths with a wind simply to keep the sideways rain away from the books, forcing her to put the stack down on the ground with only one earth keeping them off the grass. Unless she wanted to let the books get wet, she couldn't move another step until things improved.

She stood idle for several minutes. Even if she'd brought an umbrella, it wouldn't have helped, with how strong the wind was. With only one elemental supporting them, she had to hold the books on one side with her staff and the other side with her own body. There was no sign of it letting up.

Then she sensed a high-pitched whine in the distance.

Is that it?!

It was indeed. The Illustrious Alighting soared down from the stormy sky to land just beside her, looking as pristine as ever. She noticed it had not come from the direction of the collapsed Bionis - it must have been located somewhere else, somehow.

But that could be investigated later. For now, she gleefully moved her books onto the deck, protected from the storm by its safety field. Once they were all aboard, she stepped on herself, and the wind and rain no longer troubled her.

She then directed her attention to the other items that the ship was carrying when it arrived. First she noticed the bass guitar in the pilot seat, a reward for accidentally being the top donator for a charity rock concert so many years ago. A wave of nostalgia washed over her - she'd last seen it in her room when moving things out the last time they were in Alcamoth, and had decided to leave it as it would be too awkward to carry compared to the more important items. Now it was back, and she considered messing about with it again.

Next she saw the black bracelet on a passenger seat, an interface to Alcamoth's ventilation systems that enabled some of her adolescent adventures and saved her life a couple times. It had no practical use outside a healthy Alcamoth, but she was still going to keep it. Maybe it might have some use in building New Alcamoth. On the next seat was the ship's owner's manual, which would be invaluable.

And finally, she looked at the enormous sack of cash in the back, retrieved from Alcamoth's treasury. She'd left it in Dunban's house in the old world, but it wasn't there in the new one, so she assumed it had been stolen. (Really though, what bold fool would dare rob the hero of the Homs, no less while the colony was being ravaged by Telethia?) Seeing it returned to her was a massive relief, mostly because now she knew it was in no one else's hands.

She didn't see the ship's return beacon anywhere. It had also been left at Dunban's house, and was also missing in the new world. She was going to have to investigate that sooner rather than later, so the first thing she did was to press the remote's return button and turn the craft's speed up to maximum.

The ship turned and sped southwest. At top speed, it only took a few minutes to return to where it came from: a tiny, vaguely heart-shaped island in a large lake. The island was about half the size as the clearing around her house and was mostly grass, with a beach on the west side and several deciduous trees on the south side. The return beacon was right in the middle, and the ship settled down beside it.

So, Alvis placed my ship on this distant heart-shaped island, rather than letting it remain inaccessible inside the fallen Bionis' heart. He must intend for me to keep using it. But for now, I will let it be. I do not wish its continued presence to be known by anyone just yet. I will keep this remote island as its home base. It will be safe here; its stealth parking will protect it from onlookers and the elements, and it cannot be commanded by anyone else regardless.

It felt just like old times as Melia sped back home within minutes, unloaded her things onto her porch, and sent the vessel back to its secret island home. Living alone in the middle of nowhere, now combined with the fastest ship ever built - it felt like a perfect match.

With difficulty, owing to its weight, she first placed the bag of money in the corner of her closet and used her suitcases to obscure it as much as possible. Next came the guitar, propped up in a corner of her room pending a better idea on where to put it. The bracelet was placed in a bathroom drawer, out of sight and out of mind. And then the best part: the books, spread liberally across the shelves. Suddenly the room felt so much more like her own.

I suppose now's as good a time as any to start looking through the coffer.

Melia took the Heir's Coffer from the closet, went to the office, sat at the desk, and unfolded the part of her father's will that listed the items within. It was long enough as to be daunting; she didn't expect to get through the whole thing in one sitting. In fact, she wouldn't be surprised if she became engrossed in the first thing she took out and forgot about all else. But hopefully she'd have a look at a few things today.

She opened the lid carefully. To her surprise, rather than a single chamber within, she found a grid of several smaller compartments. This was good, it would be easier to organise than she expected.

The first compartment held possibly the most immediately useful item: the Visitor's Gem, the world's only known rank VII Truth Cloak gem. Its original purpose was to allow the emperor to disguise as a Homs for finding potential Homs consorts from the lower colonies. But as such a high rank Truth Cloak gem, it could change the user's features and proportions enough to render them unrecognisable. And when used by someone as strong in ether as she was, she could probably make herself look like specific people or even a Machina. In fact, she might be able to get back her anonymity with it, if used judiciously.

She put on the gem and stood in front of the bathroom mirror, and it worked even better than she expected. Not only could she make herself appear like Sharla, Shulk, Linada, or even Dunga, she could make her voice change to match. And with some effort, she even got her reflection to vanish entirely.

No wonder this gem type was so strictly controlled by the government. Hmm. I wonder how alert we must be for ne'er-do-wells abusing them in this new world without such oversight being yet present. At least they are fairly rare to harvest from nature, and require high ether affinity for the more confounding effects.

Melia put the gem back in the coffer. For now, she wouldn't use it. But maybe in the future, if she ever felt like she needed to shed her identity for a while, she could rekindle the old flame of anonymity.

In the next compartment was something far more pedestrian, but no less important: a data chip filled with all the writings of the Tomb. They were stored as photographs, so she would have to transcribe them by hand if she ever decided to start decoding them. She wondered how many of them were related to the Bionis' awakening and Telethia event, and thus no longer relevant - probably a lot, but she couldn't know until she began.

Then, in compartments three and four, was a pair of items that held no use at all anymore, but still captured her full attention: the Sun's Tear and Moon's Tear.

The Tears of Joy, the will read, are ancient treasures of forgotten origin. It is said that they were once used to measure the feelings of one person for another, and vice versa, for the purpose of searching for true companionship. In modern times, they are more often hidden out of sight in shame for marriages of convenience or lust. Perhaps one day they will truly shine once more.

Melia placed the two objects on the desk and extracted them from their individually-packed wooden boxes. Two perfect spheres of rock, each perched on pyramid-shaped stands, one of ebony and the other of ivory, the bases engraved with illegible ancient text. She wondered whether they were inactive because their current owners were dead, or because they never had any true feelings for each other when they were alive.

I have no real need to do this. I am already certain of the outcome. But I would still like to see it for myself.

In one of their compartments sat a badly yellowed but well-preserved slip of paper. She carefully unfolded it and read the simple instructions of attuning the treasures to a new owner.

She placed one hand on each sphere, closed her eyes, and spoke in Hightongue.

"I, Melia Antiqua, by virtue of being empress, claim ownership of the Tears of Joy."

She felt a warmth fill the Moon's Tear. One attunement was complete - now for the other.

"My heart beats for the young man named Shulk, and I trust his does for me. Show me the depths of our feelings for one another."

The Sun's Tear grew warm. A soft hissing noise emitted from both spheres for a few seconds.

Melia opened her eyes. Both spheres had transformed into glass balls filled with a constantly shifting mass of bright, multicoloured light. They seemed equal in brightness and complexity.

She smiled. It is about what I expected.

Now, what shall I do with them? To simply pack them away again is a disservice to their beauty, but it would be rather difficult to go to sleep under their light were I to simply leave them out in the bedroom. I suppose I can find a place in another room to display them. Or perhaps...I can give the Moon's Tear to Shulk. "Here, this demonstrates my feelings for you." Hmmmm...when is his birthday again? August, yes? Not long from now...All right, that is the plan. Give Shulk the Moon's Tear as a birthday present, and then begin displaying the Sun's Tear on my mantelpiece. Not before, to avoid spoiling the surprise to any visitors. Until then, I can pack them back away for a short time.

Perhaps one more today. I don't wish to exhaust all the wonders at once.

She opened compartment number five. Within was a simple-looking dagger, with a plain brown handle in a black leather sheath. But removed from the coffer, she felt a dark, almost angry energy emanating from the hidden blade.

The will read: This dagger has no name. It was taken from an assassin of the Kingdom of Il, in the days of unstable peace before the formation of Alcamoth. Its blade is enchanted to cause great pain, but it can only draw the blood of Antiqua; against all others it is harmless. It has been repurposed as a tool of ritualistic suicide, primarily for matters of honour.

Melia drew the blade and shuddered. It was caked in layers of dried blood; it had been used many times and never cleaned. She knew the history of her family - there was no way it had only been used for suicide. It was a murder weapon, only used by family members against each other. How deplorable.

I am not sure what to make of this. Obviously, I cannot allow it to fall into anyone else's hands, as I am the only one it can hurt...or is it? Is it truly enchanted by blood, or merely by name? The description does not make it blatantly clear which...by blood would have been an easier enchantment to cast, but it would require an amount of the blood in question in the first place, so by name would seem more likely for a prospective assassin's weapon. If so, then it would also hurt Tyrea. And I would not be surprised if she were willing to turn it against herself in an attempt to lay waste her regrets. I think the opportunity to use a royal treasure for its intended purpose would resonate with her. So then the question is, would I allow her to do it? She has done terrible things, but I have only witnessed her failures, and she has almost certainly led far worse a life than I. She deserves a second chance.

Melia replaced the blade, now deep in thought. She'd caught a glimpse of Tyrea once or twice so far in the new world, but had chosen to keep her distance, deciding that it wasn't her place to make the first move of reconciliation. Part of her wanted to offer Tyrea the dagger as a gift, saying "I trust you enough to have this weapon that can only kill me". But she did not know if Tyrea was willing to try and end herself with it, nor whether this attempt would succeed, and she didn't want to have that on her conscience. For now, it would remain hidden.

She put all the ancient objects away and returned to the kitchen. It was time to start thinking about dinner. And after that, she would pick out one of her new books and begin to read.