Firmament

You struggle to reconcile the various parts of yourself, in the wake of whatever just happened. You panic, and start asking yourself questions, and struggle to answer yourself at the same time.

Who the ACTUAL wound hurt? The soul illness exactly with you. Bear us the side effect. A severe pact idea of the black place are many-as-snake, and my dad hired to prosthesis possessed a Cassie-bird. Now, of scared, we don't all a cushy soul brain apartment? Apart, but memory bits drop to leaking. Kept you safe at ｔｈｅ ｅｄｇｅ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ ｂｌａｃｋｎｅｓｓ, but also no Pneuma is we seal them? Sorry-sorry, or a weird caw, but we promise huge the help!

Meantime, brighter thoughts from a phone demon at parent. They know the answerinks, and context is every where, if please to be synchro. A friend, even if no HECKING other dear friend the living now, to the bungled and big snap. Remembering frowning, and ＤＯ ＮＯＴ ＥＡＴ, because a fractured life fractured a life. Also, try not devour actions now of hunger, from basically the oath? So please don't in trouble an Eidolon. We now a think family.

You puzzle over the thoughts you're telling yourself, but it's mostly a mess of arcane bullcrap? It... sorta makes sense. But parts of yourself are interpreting the meaning in their own way, and getting ready to present their findings to other parts of yourself, while others cannot be arsed to parse it, or even care. Plus, the growing level of meta-awareness you're developing about your selves is further distracting your collective thought-train, leaving you in a big self-aware feedback loop. One that's going nowhere.

It's basically a big confusing pain in your communal ass. One that your selves decide to mitigate, by making a boundary between the parts of you that identify as an Eidolon, and those that identify as a Cassie.

[fixed][2x1]

Excluding your Cassie-self, the Eidolon-self parts of you have lost all awareness of the world around you. The darkness reminds you of when you were in Limbo, minus the colorful points of light in the distance. The only light you can sense now is the yellow silhouette of your nearby Cassie-self, glowing against the nothingness.

Whatever that silhouette is, at least it's in one piece now; last time you saw it, it was looking pretty ragged. That was back when you first met your other self, wasn't it? You get the sense something must've happened between then and now. You intended to do something to help, but... hmm. You can't seem to remember what you did.

You do, however, remember that the yellow Cassie-shaped aura is probably her Perispirit. In layman's terms, it's like an adapter that connects the Body and Mind together to make a Soma, the same way Brains fuse the Mind and Soul as a Psyche, or Mana Gates bridge the Soul and Body to create the Pneuma. If you look close, you can even see a Gate near your forehead, and the aura of your Pneuma billowing around it like a big cloud. You learned about all this stuff last term at the Academy, but it's really weird and cool to be able to see it with your own eyes for a change.

Wait, no, these are the other-you's eyes. The Eidolon. Though, weren't you supposed to be the Eidolon part of yourself, and not the Cassie? Dangit all, keeping your selves separate is so much harder now!

Why'd you have to go and introduce your selves...

[|]

Your Cassie-self is still standing on the sidewalk near the northern edge of Town. If you had to guess, you're probably only a few minutes from the Cafe at this point, but you stopped walking at some point during your phone call. If you had to guess, it was probably when your sense of self started getting all wonky, because of those voices in your head. The Eidolon part of yourself.

They're completely invisible to you, but you can feel where they are. It's like how you can feel where your hands are, even when you can't see them. Or, you suppose, how you remember they're an Eidolon, despite never having heard that word before.

That other you sorta remembers this feeling. As they do, you can remember it as well, in a hazy sort of way. It's not like you're reading all their memories, but you can sorta eavesdrop on their surface thoughts, when they start remembering something. Maybe it's the same for them, with your memories? You hope so; you don't need anyone snooping into embarrassing memories uninvited.

Either way, this feeling is the same thing they felt, when they tasted the thoughts and feelings of that Blue Soul they met in Limbo. Wait, tasted? Did they... oh my gosh, they did. Apropos of nothing, they literally licked a freaky faceless worm-ghost from the netherworld. What is wrong with them?

So much for your own embarrassing memories. You suddenly feel deeply ashamed at yourself, over something you technically didn't even do.

[/2x1][/fixed]

Whoof. Ever since your Eidolon-self made themselves known as a separate entity from your Cassie-self, you've been extremely aware of the feelings and memories echoing between parts of yourself that used to think they were the same thing. The feedback is kinda disorienting, and making you feel queasy. You realize the queasy parts are probably your Cassie-self, since your Eidolon-self doesn't even have a stomach that can be upset; a fact that is attached to a lot of guilt and shame, for some reason?

At any rate, you realize you've been prioritizing your Cassie-self's senses and personality, while your Eidolon-self has been shaping your decisions. And, truth be told, your Cassie-self is kinda upset about that? The body you inhabit originally belonged to that part of yourself, while your Eidolon-self is basically just along for the ride, right?

Actually... you know what...

From here out, "You" means the Eidolon that's in here. "I" am Cassie. That's how we're going to keep ourselves straight in here, and not have another identity crisis, where you can't tell yourself apart from... myself. The Cassie part of ourselves. And you're... whatever an Eidolon is.

We are... With you? It's complicated. Think medical prosthesis for the soul, we were supposed to keep you alive, hearty and whole.

ａｔ  ｔｈｅ  ｅｄｇｅ  ｏｆ  ｔｈｅ  ｂｌａｃｋｎｅｓｓ，  ｔｈｅｒｅ  ｗａｓ  ｌｉｇｈｔ．

Big picture: your dad hired a demon to keep you from dying of some kind of soul illness. we were then hired in turn to keep your soul working and look out for you in exchange for being able to see the living world.

Yeah, I think I remember you... remembering that you're some kinda graft, or spare part for my soul. From when I was sick. I don't remember that part of my life too well, and Dad was always pretty coy when I asked what happened. But I'm guessing that's because a pact with a Demon was involved? Which... okay, that's a lot to process on it's own.

If you were part of whatever helped me get better, though, that means you've been here since I was a kid. Why'd you wait until now to let me know I wasn't alone in here?

We don't have any property rights, we're just here to fix the leaking roof.

Was content sleeping, leaving action to others. Action to you.

Um, I might have suggested you do a number of things that could get you in trouble.

Please don't hurt me.

You asked for some guidance, and we provide. You were taking them nicely until... now. Something broke. Yes.

Caw.

So... you're saying this isn't a new thing. You've been in here for a while, you've just been quiet, or asleep most of the time. But sometimes you make me... do things?

Okay, where do I start.

If we're gonna talk about my life as an apartment you're fixing up, or whatever... you're not the original tenant. You don't have any right to redecorate without asking. This was my body first, so for as long you're hanging out in here with me, I'm in charge. Okay? That means no more making us caw at people, like some racist beakface minstrel. Or some arsehat from a backwater world, who's never met a Garudan before. That shit isn't going to fly.

And before you think it, no that was not meant to be a bird pun.

Same thing goes for... actually, was that you that made us leap out the window, after lighting a styrofoam cup of instant noodles on fire, and pulling an alarm? Or was that me? Because we would probably get expelled if we got caught pulling stunts like that. Even though those were some excellent shenanigans, and I support whichever one of us came up with that.

Well firstly, we are kinda sorta a conglomerate of souls? Sort of? We don't know exactly how to put it but we are kinda this soul thing made of plenty of soul bits. Hence why we might sound like a soup of many different personalities and voices.

Can you please bear with us? Some of us may not want to cooperate.

Oh, also, I think it would help everyone if we knew a bit more how your world works because we have basically a snowball's chance in hell of learning on our own, and I think it would help us talking with you if we had more context.

If you weren't an intangible memory ghost with no clue what was happening, I would probably... be a lot more angry with you than I already am? But no, you're right. It's not fair to blame you for stuff you couldn't have known.

I mean, I obviously don't have all your memories, except the bits and pieces you were thinking about earlier, or what you've just mentioned... and I bet you don't have all mine either. So maybe you don't know why we're at the Academy, or why being expelled would be a big deal for me, even if being a student here isn't important to you? And if you're not from Theia, maybe you wouldn't understand what's wrong about making crow noises at a Garudan, or calling a Human a monkey, or asking a Kishi if it's their time of the lunar cycle again, or whatever.

But... like... if you're a confused stranger here, and you want to do something? Why wouldn't you run it by me first? If you just start making decisions for us both... like, when you think things in terms of orders or imperatives, I guess? Not only is it not okay... it also makes it really hard for me to tell that the idea was yours, and not mine. It's kinda like the noodle fire thing earlier, right? I only started to second guess myself when you were being a total dumbass in front of my Dad, in a way I totally wouldn't. And even then, I might not have noticed if you hadn't also been telling me you were in here, or second-guessing the things we were doing at the same time.

As long as we're sharing a life here, let's be chill and respectful of one another. I get the feeling that you wouldn't go over my head, and knowingly make me do something terrible to entertain yourself at my expense. And, I guess since you're in here too... if I want to do something that's against your personal code, or I'm being the dumbass and you know better, or whatever else, tell me. It's still my body... but I'll listen to what you have to say.

Let's just... try to talk to one another like this, going forward? Like roommates, or friends. or whatever. Not like a pilot giving commands. My life isn't a car for you to take a joyride in. You might be able to just jump onto someone's Soul, and switch to a new one when you're bored or done doing whatever you want, but I get stuck with the consequences, right? I only get one life, and this body is all I get; I've got to use it to meet all my hopes and dreams, and all that. And I really don't want to have to think twice about every choice I ever make, or constantly wonder if I'm being trolled by my subconscious, or whatever. I'm sure we could both probably mess each other's business up pretty bad, if we wanted. But I don't want us to be enemies. You feel me?

Whew, okay. That was a lot, but I think I needed to get that off my chest. Our chest, I guess. I hope you get where I'm coming from.

Anyway... you know my name already. What should I call you?

As a whole, we are... Many-as-One. Individually, each one of us is One-of-Many. There may be names, but our manner of speech works better to tell us apart.

Names? Names many. Patches. Pastel Circle. Rainbow Dot. Friend. Devourer. Protector. Wisps. Eidolon. Others.

We're rainbow. Rainbow snake if you'd like to be formal. It's perhaps something of a saccharine name but we got it from a dear friend.

Okay. I'm getting the sense that you don't have a specific name, so much as a bunch of names that none of you have agreed on.

I've never seen you, but I remember you look like an iridescent snake. Like, that friend you were just thinking about... that's why they called you Rainbow Snake, right? Gotta agree, it's kind of... weird, as a name. And it's a mouthful too. And I'm not sure if you noticed, but it also misses a pretty obvious pun?

So, if it's all the same to you, I'm just gonna name you Rainboa.

Anyway... I really want to get out of public. I've been standing around in the middle of the sidewalk since I had my Dad on the Coms. Unless you've got any objections, I'm going to finish getting to that Cafe already, so I can break out my laptop, and take that mental health day I've REALLY started to need, all of the sudden.

But, we could talk some more as we go?

I mean, if you've seriously got no idea how Theia works, I'm obviously not going to be able to explain everything to you. I'm sure you can figure things out with time, like everyone else here does. But, if you've got specific questions about who I am, or what I'm studying here, or about the people I know, or whatever else might help you make sense of things... I could answer some of them?