[video]

[candothat]

[There is a rather impressive—and impressively accurate—cross-section of the U.S.S. Enterprise, made wholly of Lego, directly in front of the device’s camera lens. This charming view is quickly replaced by Chekov as he picks the device up and sets it on a (remarkably tidy, for those few who have had the misfortune of experiencing Pavel in his natural habitat) desk, adjusting it for a moment before addressing the network.

He looks quite grim.]

One thing I will miss about that curse, I think, will be the horses.

The dirt, the guns and bullets—I am happy without those. Projectile weapons are clumsy and messy and not so kind as a simple phaser blast. But the horses! I was on a horse, once, in the City, and I did little more than fall off of it. Riding one without falling off was good. Better, maybe, than piloting a personal shuttlecraft, although I would not tell Sulu so.

I like machines, but I like animals better. Yes, ships have their personalities and attitudes and you need to learn what your ship is like before you can be very good at knowing what she needs, but they are not so affectionate as animals. I would be happy if I had a good horse—just like the one that I had when the curse was here—instead of a good ship. [After saying this out loud, he amends:] Only, of course, if I could take that horse to space in a ship. I miss space already and I have been gone from it for only 115 days. Being a cowboy—as much as I would like the horse, I would miss space too much.

[He’s not addressing the network anymore. In fact, he’s not addressing anyone. This doesn’t seem to bother him.] Maybe if I were to find a captain who would let me have a horse onboard… I think that that would be ideal, although there are rules regarding nonhuman lifeforms that would be hard to get around…

[And back to the network on a wholly different subject.]

I was thinking of things that science typically takes for granted today and wondering if they apply in the City. The law of conservation of mass… how would that work, here, in a place where new settings can appear overnight and new animals can show for a day and then be gone again? Settings, I understand; maybe the deities can alter what is already present to make their curse landscapes. Animals, though, cannot appear in a dimension and then—

[He pauses, train of thought apparently switching directions.]

There is the uncertainty principle. I usually think of it only as it relates to quantum physics… very small things. Not an entire horse, or entire people. Perhaps the City is a large experiment—Schrodinger’s paradox, that is what Mr. Laszlow mentioned not so long ago. It is not the same, of course, because all of this—all of what we are perceiving—is macroscopic, and it is very difficult to bring quantum theory to bear on such a scale.

Anyway, I do not feel like a collapsed wave function. That surely counts for something.

Also, I would like to have the horse that I had during the curse. I liked her, and I think that she liked me.


[ooc: Look, don't ask me. I was trying to do other stuff and he felt like posting about horses.]

Comments

[hexuality]

I'd imagine it's to keep the harpies out and the rest of us in. I don't know what else—

[She pauses, thoughtful.]

When the barrier was breaking down and the harpies were attacking... a bit after that, the City seemed to—I don't know—travel. We could step into other worlds, none of them our own, I don't think. Well, definitely not mine, at any rate. I'm sure someone here found a home there. But maybe that's what splits this place from everything else.

[She hums.]

It's magic, Pavel. Bigger, stranger magic than the kind I know and use. But it's definitely magic.

[candothat]

Travel? No one has told me about this!

[Notes! He must make notes!]

That is an interesting idea, that the barrier may be the limit of this universe. [With a bit less enthusiasm:] How do you know it is magic?

[He doesn't want it to be magic. If the City operates on actual magic, it's beyond his understanding; that won't do at all.]

[hexuality]

Maybe this is a smaller world than any of the others out there. Must be, right, so it can fit between them all?

[She considers his question.]

I mean, I don't know it's magic for certain. But that's always been the answer in my world and to me, knowing what I know? Things like the curses are a lot like spells—more powerful than the sort I've heard of, definitely more unrestrained, but... I don't know, magic makes sense to me. Maybe you'll think it's something else and someone else ill do the same.

[candothat]

No, no no no. Universes do not take up space, not in that way. Spatially--theoretically--all universes can exist simultaneously in the same space, but I will not bore you with that. But it would make sense, if the barriers contained this universe. I like that.

[He nods slowly.]

I understand, I think. Your frame of reference is different from mine, and we will find different answers to questions about the City. Perhaps physics and magic are the same force and it is simply thought of differently in your world and mine.

[hexuality]

Maybe. The two can exist together, though, at least in my world. How would the curses be explained, then, if not by magic?

[candothat]

The single universe that I am from is a strange place. This one is even stranger, and so it may require a stranger explanation. Maybe it is magic, but maybe it is something else.

[hexuality]

Maybe it's technology and magic. The ticking must come from somewhere, right, like a clock?

[candothat]

Yes, the clock underground! Technology that operates magically, do you think?

[hexuality]

I wouldn't put it past them. If the deities didn't speak in riddles so often, I'd ask them myself.

[candothat]

If I were to ask anything of any of them, I would talk to Laszlow. He is the most sensible of them.

Although none of them will tell if they do not want us to know.

[hexuality]

Laszlow. You know him?

Oops, no 'w'. My bad!

[candothat]

No, but I have spoken twice with him--once regarding a trade, and again, briefly, about decoherence as it relates to superposed states. I thought that he was very fair about the trade.

<333

[hexuality]

You've done a trade?

[candothat]

Yes, but it was for a good reason.

[hexuality]

Trades tend to be.

I've never made one.

[candothat]

If you do not want everyone you know to berate you for making stupid decisions, consider not making one.

[hexuality]

That's why I never tell anyone if I've done something they'll think is stupid. You said it was for a good reason? That's all you need.

[candothat]

Thank you! Ginny, you are the most reasonable of people.

[hexuality]

You're the first person to say as much.

[candothat]

Then I will remember to say it often.

[hexuality]

You haven't got to do that.