*God*. Yeah, we might want to see if we can talk to some of the Hecatite dreamers, then. Especially from their main planet. See if anything hinky is going on in their waking world.

Because I really *can* believe that whatever we're being sent to deal with now, it's probably the flip side of what we might have been sent to deal with if we chose Space.

Theologically, it's usually just another World, remade, but I think we're all hoping that if that happens, it'll be the last one.

With a scientist... the thing is with a scientist, the amount of universe we can know and perceive just yet is so much smaller than the actual amount of universe that's out there and a scientist would know that. So if a scientist asked me I'd say, "I don't know--but let's find out."

As to the priest--well, you're a priest, aren't you, Joscelin? Beyond the world lies the gods... and the One God who is still my god as much as his son, Yeshua, and his grandson, Elua. Though actually, my favorite ways of conceiving of the divine aren't from Catholic doctrine at all, but Judaic. If they have their equivalents in your world, they might be Yeshuite. I don't know. One of them is of course 'Shekinah'--which is the divine female, the dwelling-place of the holy spirit, and thus entirely appropriate for me to call my patron after she offered--and the other being 'Ein Sof,' and 'Ein Sof Ohr' which mean 'without end' and 'endless light' respectively.

There's just-- something very profound to me about the idea that beyond the world is the divine and the divine is just-- there and all-encompassing and I guess when I think of endless light I always visualize it as a ring but that's completely because of all the Madeline L'Engle I read as a girl.

To the poet...

[Her mental voice takes on a recitative quality:]

Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

I mean, legit. I still don't really trust 'em, but I'll freely admit that is leftover damage from being Charoite.

No, no, sorry. I think we got our wires crossed. I meant I distrust the people in charge of Hecate. I trust the Arcana to be no more and no less than what they are--and the fact that I even trust them that much has won me no friends.

And lost me them too, [she says bitterly.] I'm surprised no one's specifically guarding the Skittle headstones against me--I'm a cultist who only cares about power, haven't you heard?

I--


... shit, Bern. I never knew you felt like that about me. Holy crap.

I mean, uh, the people who most need to hear that aren't going to believe it because they don't know colored truth, but.

Thanks?

Yeah, uh. Well. I'm around? You want to set a place to meet?