Stephanie's Heart: The Archive

[reading_rainstorm]

In your dreams you are in a thick and foggy forest. It could be mistaken for the woods around Tributary if you don’t know your plants. You are on a trail leading into a clearing, in the center of which is a simple, concrete structure with a single door. A chaos star has been spray painted on it with a stencil.

You approach the structure. Looking over your shoulder you see a large shape lurking in the fog, obscured by the foliage. Two shining Feline eyes peer at you from the brush. You feel your heart rate spike as you turn the knob and find an old fashioned elevator tucked neatly inside with an accordion grate standing between you and the ornate, gilded interior. It creaks open as the presence behind you steps into the clearing. It is a sphinx, an eight foot tall lioness with the face of a woman and the large brown wings of an eagle on her back . The feminine face and olive skin tone of a Greek woman from antiquity smiles as she readies herself to to pounce, the wings on her back stretching and give a few readying flaps.You back into the elevator and close the gate with shaking hands as the sphinx leaps at the elevator. Her claws twisting and shearing the metal of the grate slowly, but she is too late. The elevator springs to life and you descend.

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A small light above flickers on as it illuminates your view outside the exposed elevator as you sink into the concrete structure. You descend for a few moments before an opening in the concrete gives you the view of an observation deck on a hill, looking down on the sprawling suburbs and campus of a college town. The elevator continues downward. The concrete gives way to old, dusty marble as you continue sinking. You see a vast maze stretch far and away that gets nearer and nearer. This has to be it, right? Your destination? No. You plunge further down, past the walls of the maze and the marble is replaced again by well polished wood. Beautiful stained mahogany rises past you as your descent finally starts to slow. You are greeted by another grate that creaks open for you. Entreating you to enter.

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[turntoash]

Hm. Not a single book Metis had heard of. Not that that was a surprise, though even if her memories HAD been back, she still wouldn't have recognized them. Similarly, she had no idea what her zodiac signs were, though that didn't stop her from slipping one of the luck charms in her pocket.

Anything else here that she had missed?

[reading_rainstorm]

That's all the store has "in store" ahahah.

[turntoash]

Heh. That was a good one.

On to the dorm room, then. As with the last two, Metis took a look at it before the velvet rope dropped.

[reading_rainstorm]

This one is harder to look at than the others, focusing on it puts a pit in your stomach. The first figure is dusty and poorly maintained; he is an anxious looking man with dark hair and glasses staying off to the side, observing with a grimace you have seen on Stephanie's face before. The other figure seems to have been defaced, chunks chopped out of it in places. It holds Stephanie's journal above a fire that looks a lot more real than it did a moment ago. His gaze seems to meet yours with a smug satisfaction. He stands rigid and upright, dressed in well pressed dress shirt and slacks with a stole over his shoulders. The stole has a symbol of eyes with crosses for pupils at its ends. The room is lit with buzzing fluorescent lights, a row of child sized bunks stretch to the end of the room. The bunk behind the men is in disarray, the cot has been removed from its frame and lays on the floor In a heap. You realize suddenly that just outside where you could see is the model of a child, watching in horror. They clutch the hem of their shirt tightly, tearing at it, as tears well up on their face.

[turntoash]

Metis looked over the scene for a moment, pursing her lips. It wasn't a fun diorama, but she couldn't quite piece it together yet. She had hypotheses, sure... nothing for it.

She stepped over the velvet rope. Her first target of observation: the child. What more was there to see there?

[reading_rainstorm]

It is pretty clear that this child is Stephanie. Long before she was "Stephanie." The nose, the brow, the ears. It's her...but they are far from being Her yet. The voice of the child fills your mind.

"May 2007: Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I’m so stupid. I should have known they would find my books. Especially after that tattle tale Caleb saw me reading in class. Now they are all gone along with my journals. Even the one mom made special for me. Dad didn’t even try to stop Father Renvo. It’s clear he doesn’t love me anymore. He’s too obsessed with his new wife. I can’t believe he’s forgotten mom so quickly.
Father Renvo went easy on me, though. A week of no breakfast, and I have to pray for forgiveness for holding blasphemy in my heart in front of class tomorrow. I need to not cry this time or the teacher is going to hit me again. I hope god is not confused by the prayers they make me do and the ones I do myself."

[turntoash]

Metis clicked her tongue. The details may have been unfamiliar, but the emotion at the heart of the scene pulled at vague memories that were yet still locked away. She pushed the feelings down. Not the time.

A spark in her mind, though. What if...?

Metis made to pull the journal free of Father Renvo's hand, to give it back to the child.

[reading_rainstorm]

Being near Father Renvo fills you with a roiling rage that burns in the back of your skull. His grip on the journal tight, but you are able to pry it from his grasp. It's a hand bound leather journal with an owl embossed on its cover. Placing it in the hands of the child puts out the fire in the barrel and causes a chunk of wood to fall from Renvo's form. A card slips from its place in the journal and falls to the floor. It is The Emperor.

[turntoash]

This must have been one of the cards... Metis picked it up and examined it before slipping it into a pocket. Did this mean there was something like this in each of the dioramas?

Metis darted over to the diorama with the kiss - though not before kicking Father Renvo out of service to the anger swirling in her head - and snuffed the flame on the candle out.

[reading_rainstorm]

The model of Renvo breaks apart at the arms, seeming to sneer up at you as you leave.

Blowing the candle out in the office makes the globes of light disappear, filling the room with darkness. The energy in the room fades to a nervous ripple. Less charged with excitement and heat in the moment, to something more...intimate. Is the Stephanie model somehow blushing harder now?

[turntoash]

Hmmm... maybe they didn't all have a card. Worth noting that this one still had a reaction, and an interesting one at that. Metis pondered her options before making a decision. She'd come back here later if necessary. For now, though, she elected to examine the final diorama - the map.

[reading_rainstorm]

In the case is a large and impeccably detailed diorama of Tributary. All of its locations and cottages are lovingly carved from wood. Its many inhabitants are represented by wooden miniatures in the places they often can be found or by the houses in which they reside. There are two buttons on the diorama one of a sun with a needle and thread and one with a moon and a sword.

[turntoash]

Metis took a moment to appreciate the craftsmanship, then pressed the button for Sun House.

[reading_rainstorm]

The figures all spin around in place and the light changes, illuminating thin threads of different colors connecting all the figures to each other. You can see that the Metis figure has a lot of grey strings going from it, but the one connecting her and the Stephanie figure is a sunny yellow.

[turntoash]

Aw, that's nice. Metis smiled. What about the moon button?

[reading_rainstorm]

Pressing the moon button makes figures all shake for a moment...but nothing happens. There is a sound of grinding machinery below the display.

[turntoash]

Metis knelt down, trying to get a look at what might have been blocking the mechanism. She didn't know if that was something she'd ever been good at, but no harm in trying.

[reading_rainstorm]

Below the diorama is a little sliding door that reveals the inner workings of the thing. Gears and spools of thread that connect irrationally. In a little box filled with soft fabric you can see some figures have been placed, people who have stayed at Tributary but are no longer there, tucked safely away.

The source of the problem seems to be a thread caught up in the gears attached to a figure. One Metis might not recognize. A woman that looks like a rabbit with antlers and wings, she is posing with an oversized sword. She is wrapped tightly in a rosegold thread that keeps her dangling from some gears that has a card stuck between them.

[turntoash]

Yep, no idea who that was supposed to be. Metis carefully attempted to unwind the thread from the gears, placing the figure back in the box and freeing the card.

[reading_rainstorm]

There is a feeling of relieved tension. An exhale as you place the figure in the box. The place it belongs. The card is The Lovers.

[turntoash]

Cool. Metis is sharp enough to make that connection - she slips that card in her pocket alongside the Emperor and the good luck charm and files that relationship away in her mental organizer. Finally, she stands and presses the moon button again.

[reading_rainstorm]

The diorama springs to life, all but a handful of figures go to their respective homes as the light over the diorama changes again to a silvery light shining down on the clearing. The cottages Stephanie has been in open up to show their residents inside, with tiny warm lights illuminating their interiors.

A set of figures gather in the clearing, and a few of the figures that Metis saw in the box, including the rabbit girl are brought up for the clearing. A soft song plays from a speaker as the Stephanie figure spins and moves about the clearing, as if performing a dance. Stephanie's voice, though one deeper and raspier than the one you know fills your head.

"Day 4 Cont. Is this too much to hope for? Not only actually doing magic myself but...making My body my own? Or...more my own. I can't dismiss the work my forgotten self has made to make this body livable even if she also made it uncomfortable in stranger ways than garden variety dysphoria. It is hard to believe I have been here for under a week and the people here are already doing so much for me. I hope in due time I am able to repay the favor. I'm being shown wonders beyond belief as though they are common occurrences, I must endeavor to give as much as myself to this community as they have given to me."

[turntoash]

Metis watched the scene. She knew what it was showing, of course - the ritual that Stephanie had told her about. It still stung, just below the surface, but Metis let the feeling drift away.

It was beautiful, in a way.

When it finished, Metis wiped her eyes and returned to Ava. "I got a couple cards out of the dioramas for you. Mind if I take a look further down this hall?"

[reading_rainstorm]

"You can hold onto those. I'm sorry but I can't let you past here. That stuff is under construction. Hopefully with those cards you got she can actually get to work finishing what's there."

Looking through the darkness you can just barely make out the outlines of some figures. Two of them standing over a workbench of some sort. You can tell from the silhouette one is Stephanie, but younger the second...could that be Ava? The Ava sitting before you snaps at you to get your attention.

"Hey! No peeking."

[turntoash]

"No worries, I'll see myself out." Metis put her hand to her chin as she left the hall, running lines of thought around in her head. If necessary, she'd come back here later and see if she could lure Ava out so she could sneak in. The amount she'd learned about Stephanie thus far certainly answered some questions.

For now, though - she decided to stay on the second floor. On to the Remembered Rooms.