411. Creating life, 9

(Rose)

Nightmare didn’t have tea, but she found some mint leaves. I drank mint infusion, in this ferric garden.

We sat on a stump, in front of the landscape.

I have so many questions now. I...

N - So you all died.

R - Ah... Yes. You looked inside my head as I slept? Well, yes...

N - You should have given me your child back then.

R - Ouch... You’re merciless... Retrospectively, I guess yes. But it’s not a choice we could have made back then... So what have you done with our blood?

N - Some of the plants below, and some of the roots through these pots that float.

R - No animal?

N - Not with your blood. I tried making mammals. It wasn’t food.

R - I guess birds are more your thing.

N - Yeah. I like birds.

I chuckle as I hear her say that with an earnest voice.

R - Does this passion comes from before you became a god?

N - I don’t remember what I was before and I don’t care. Just like you.

Hm...

R - So which birds here are your children?

N - They’re not my children they’re my creations, my toys. This one there.

I don’t comment the semantic and look. She makes a small gesture, and a greyish magpie comes on my lap quietly.

R - I don’t see anything peculiar about it?

N - No. But I made it entirely.

I examine the bird, that lets itself being touched and manipulated like a very well behaved pet. It’s a normal bird from a species that would be related to the corvus kind I think. The bird is really kind, putting up with my touch.

R - Do you control its mind or has it free will?

N - I release control when I’m happy with what I created. So it’s free. What I create and destroy wasn’t.

R - Hm...

It’s always difficult when philosophy reaches this level of impact on life. But I feel comfortable here, so I don’t want to think about it long enough to find something I wouldn’t like.

The bird leaves after a while.

R - How did you make these islands fly? It’s far beyond the potential of the anti-gravitational powers I’m used to.

N - You didn’t try to go below?

R - No... There’s a trick?

N - There are plants that create heavier air flow below. It feels like water down there. The air pressure below the pots is very high.

R - That’s it?

N - No, but that’s one part you can notice if you go below. There’s a central plant on each island that consumes the heavy air below and all around to reduce the weight. The flower producing them below, they grow well in the shade and heavy air. They’re extracting the energy from the surrounding.

R - T.I... I’ll teach you what I know of T.I... So a few plants working together can do that.

N - Yes. The altitude varies with the season. The better they are, the higher it will rise.

R - It’ a nice environment you’ve built.

N - I didn’t make them. I like this ecosystem though. Birds too.

R - I really love what you’ve done.

She doesn’t reply.

~

N - The ones you came with...

R - Yes. I’ll tell them it’s okay to come if you would like to meet them?

N - I want their blood.

R - That would be for them to decide if they give you some, not me. Do you agree?

N - ... No. They pay first or they don’t come in. I don’t want more humans around.

R - Okay. I’ll tell them. They are good people. They don’t eat much meat also, so I think the birds would be safe.

N - I’m worried about myself, not them. I don’t want humans around.

R - What about me?

N - You... are a friend. It’s alright if you visit from time to time.

I try to hug her where she stands, but she’s not solid and my arms go through the mist.

R - Well, I’m glad you like me!

~

R - Two questions I wanted to ask you mainly brought me back. The first one is about Priest. The second about the source.

N - Priest?

I explain to her what is the demon I call Priest, as Licht did.

N - He’s simply in the nasty zone of the spectrum.

R - What do you mean?

Nightmare explains to me what she sees as the spectrum of human-likeliness, for beings-like-her.

On this axis of value, the lowest ones would be diseases and mindless rampaging monsters. The higher the value, the more the comportment can mimic or replicate human interaction.

Then real intelligence happen, the boundary is unclear, then comes friendliness toward humans.

At the far end of that dimension would have been Blume.

She’s one of a kind.

Against that axis, the other dimension to simplify the spectrum of personalities, would be relative hazard toward humans. Overall falling as you progress on the other one as well. They’re generally aligned, except for the extremes.

Heading toward zero, when beasts lose intelligence, they become less dangerous.

And on the other end, it means there is a zone of maximum hostility that requires also real intelligence and motivation.

N - On the spread of the world population, there had to be a few like that. I don’t think it mattered who you are and what you’ve done. It’s a flagship cause, not the real motivation and will behind.

R - Anything else you can tell me about it?

N - No. He may be a god like me, he still is a warmongering moron. I don’t dignify his existence.

I smile.

R - Any other big calls lately? From him or others ?

N - Not really. But again, we don’t chat with each other. It’s more like sometimes our thoughts strongly expressed travel around. I can tell there was something chaotic and very colourful happening very far from here in the East, but I have no idea of what it was. Europe and Mediterranean lands are overall quiet lately, aside for that Priest of yours.

I guess that’s all I’ll learn about it today.

~

R - Can you tell me about the source?

N - It’s in the north, somewhere in the snow.

R - I saw pictures showing the world’s change coming from the south. So do you know the link between the two?

N - It’s the same one. It erupted in the south, and then slowly drifted over the new ocean, until it sunk somewhere in the north.

That’s a part of the legend of the new world I’m hearing for the first time.

R - The source of it all, drifted away, until it stopped in the north?

N - Yes. Like a drifting ship. It took a few years for it to go there where it sunk.

R - Nobody went after it?

N - Many did. Humans and gods.

R - ...

As that flying ship of some sort went its slow away across the entire continent of Africa, many people and new born daiûas went after it.

N - Nothing has changed, so I guess they all died trying, or found nothing but ruins. Either way, nobody cares anymore. They followed its trail as it went across the sky because they were curious I guess, or ambitious.

The source of the world changing cataclysm is a drifting flying ship that has now landed or been washed ashore somewhere.

And unless there’s just nothing interesting to see there’s no one left curious enough to investigate?

R - ... Wow.

~