Creative Indulgence [2430-1-3 Sat 1:00 pm]

[Persephone Ruspoli]

Persephone lent against one of the rails, enjoying the breeze. Her skirt flapped in the wind a little, and though her legs were cool, she didn't mind. When she was little, her friends used to ask her if she missed the sun in the Below. It never occurred to them that she would miss the wind just as much, and the strange scents it carried as it roamed through the tall towers.

"Just make sure they have plenty of light. They're going to need it to help them flower." Persephone reminded Skye, though she knew she probably didn't have to. She was very good with instructions, and so eager to fulfil them to the letter. "Oh, I never asked, did you have fun at the lecture? I heard the faun was an excellent storyteller."

[Skye Thompson]

“Of course. Anything alive needs light.” Skye glowed with the extent of her knowledge. She’d been learning even faster lately, since time spent in front of the viewscreen was time not spent thinking about… things she didn’t want to think about. She nodded at Persephone’s next question. “Yes, it was wonderful! The campus is so beautiful! Titus and I went outside after the lecture and…” And then she’d panicked. “The faun was really nice! He let people sit right up next to him while he was telling us about stuff, and everything he said was so interesting. It made me want to go to his planet!”

She stared dreamily off into the distance. “Maybe I can, someday.” But the more she thought about it, the more Skye had begun to wonder if someday would ever happen. She wasn’t particularly brave, and if she’d once been adventurous she’d now had enough adventures to last her a lifetime. Sighing, she leaned over the balcony and watched the city move by, feeling the wind gently blow through her hair. Things here were everything she had ever hoped for. But there was still Adrian, and the slightest chance, though she tried so hard not to let herself hope, that he might still be alive.

[Persephone Ruspoli]

It sounded like the lecture had made quite an impression on Skye. That was good. The university was a wonderful place, so peaceful and quiet. Though, Persephone had a feeling maybe Skye would want something different. Particularly from the way she got wistful at the mention of leaving Terra. And then sad. This sadness seemed to be a different sort from the terrified panicking that had taken her earlier. Something more like melancholy.

"I've seen photos of Antheia, it's a gorgeous planet." Persephone said, glancing at the spaceport and the ships and shuttles rising up and sliding down of the Inbetween. "I'm certain Titus could take some time off from his job and take you. It's not a long journey, and there's plenty to see. Forests, meadows, even mountains."

[Skye Thompson]

“That sounds wonderful.” She’d seen pictures of forests on the network, and they all seemed so amazing, so beautiful, so tantalizingly full of life. And so green! “It would be quite an adventure. But…” she hesitated, wondering if Persephone would think her stupid for wanting it, “…but if I ever leave Terra, I have to go to Nox before I go anywhere else. I need to find out what happened to my brother.” Her brother? No, Titus was her brother now!

“Well, he’s not actually my brother. I thought he was, he was my step father’s son so I just figured he was my brother since I thought I was my step-dad’s kid.” She started out speaking fast, trying to tell her whole lie before Persephone had time to guess the truth. But the words hurt. Though she knew it was just a simple, necessary lie, it felt wrong to say that Adrian was not her brother. He was after all, not only her brother but really her father as well, and chances were she was alive because of him. A few tears escaped and slipped down Skye’s cheek, but she wiped them away and changed the topic of conversation quickly. “I heard there was this one mountain, I can’t remember which planet it was on, but I heard it was taller than the tallest building on Terra!”

[Persephone Ruspoli]

Persephone paused. Skye was lying, and she was doing it badly. She'd mentioned the step-brother before, Adrien, or Adrian maybe, but that had been different. A slip of the tongue was normal, espeically considering that Skye had grown up thinking this boy was her brother. But the way Skye was acting... it was like she'd revealed something by accident.

"I think that one's on Heimdall." Persephone said, keeping the conversation moving. It wasn't worth dwelling on, not here and now. "Or maybe Glacies. I'm not really sure. The Network can probably tell you. I'm awful at remembering stuff about other planets. I'm more of a Terran-girl."

[Skye Thompson]

Skye nodded. “It could be either of those. They both have mountains, although...” She grinned, eager to show off what she knew. “Although that’s probably the only similarity between them. Heimdall is really hot and dry, and Glacies is very, very cold.” She laughed, “I used to spend all my time thinking about other planets. Adrian would always tell me about them.” Persephone seemed to have guessed that Skye was lying about her brother, but Skye was going to show her that the lie was truth.

If she was lying, she would have skirted around mentioning Adrian, but if she was telling the truth, she wouldn’t be afraid to bring him up, to discuss him at length. So that was what she was doing. If it had been up to her, Skye would have told Persephone the truth. She trusted her friend completely, but it simply wasn’t her choice to make. She and Titus had made a promise to each other, and she wasn’t about to break it. So the two of them were long lost brother and sister. End of story.

[Persephone Ruspoli]

"They're at the opposite ends of things." She agreed, pausing to shove her bangs out of her face. The wind was going to mess up her hairdo, and Persephone was going to need some alone-time in the bathroom before she left to get herself presentable again. Thankfully, she knew Titus would have product she could borrow to get the frizz down. "We used to have mountains too, before the city swallowed them up, but I don't think they were ever as large as the mountains on other planets."

Adrian, that was it. Skye's mysterious half-brother. "That sounds nice to be able to talk about them with a brother." Persephone stuck with polite questions, the sort of thing that Skye could easily answer. "Did he travel a lot?"

[Skye Thompson]

“Terra had mountains?” She’d never heard that before. But there were a lot of things Skye had never heard before. For example, she’d never known what real wind felt like before coming to the Top. Now that she did know however, she very much enjoyed it. There were so many things in the world to know. And she wanted to know everything. Not just about her own world but the others as well, and so she found herself in front of the view screen day after day, soaking up information like a starving sponge.

“It was.” Skye nodded. She wasn’t going to say that he hadn’t really been her brother. If she over-emphasized the point Persephone would know she was lying. “Yes. He was a pilot on one of those ships that took supplies and things between the planets. He’d come back and visit every few months, and he’d tell me all about the places he went.” Things had been simpler then. Now there was so much to do, so much to know, so much to think about, that it made her head spin. Yet at the same time, she felt more alive than she ever had before.

[Persephone Ruspoli]

Persephone nodded. "Yeah, a long time ago. They're gone now, more or less. When cities started to merge together thanks to the urban sprawl, they had to start mining the mountains for materials." She'd seen the photos, amazingly old images from before they'd found way to take digital photos, even before colour, with men climbing the surface of mountains for no reason other than to prove that they could. The last mountain had been broken down and swallowed by the ever growing sprawl a hundred years ago.

"Pilot's a good job." Persephone could picture Skye's excitement at seeing her half-brother come home, bringing her new stories about the universe. No wonder she seemed to always have her face tilted up, pointing at the sky. But... clearly something had happened to him. He hadn't been there to protect Skye when she needed him. "What happened to him? You don't have to say anything if you don't want to."

[Skye Thompson]

It seemed like Persephone was starting to trust her half-truths, and Skye relaxed a little. In all honesty, she wanted nothing more than to tell her friend everything, but this was practice, a test. If she could keep the secret from Persephone, she could keep it from anyone. “So all the mountains just completely vanished?” she murmured, more to herself than to Persephone. “How strange.” She nodded as Persephone went on, but stopped abruptly.

“I don’t know.” At least that was the truth. “That’s why I have to go to Nox. That’s where he went.” She paused, suddenly fighting not to cry. “He said he’d be back soon. But he just... wasn't. Ever. It was the only place he’d never been before, the only place…” She paused to take a deep calming breath. “The only place he never got to tell me about.”

[Persephone Ruspoli]

Nox. Well... it wasn't hard to guess what had happened there. Nox was the number one reason why Persephone had no intention to ever leave Terra. For every faun or elf, there was one of those were things, or a vampire or goblin. At least here on Terra, you only had to worry about other people, not some sort of monster pretending to look like a human.

"You know I bet we could hire a private investigator." Persephone suggested, hoping Skye would seize onto that idea instead. The idea of Skye leaving for another planet was fine, but Nox? Nox was dangerous. "We could have them investigate what happened to your half-brother, and bring the information to you."

[Skye Thompson]

“Are there people who do that? They just make it their job to find out what happened to people?” What strange things people ended up picking as a career when they had the time and money. Where did all those ideas come from? Did someone just walk into the street one day and decide. ‘I’m going to start I job where I just go around finding out about people’s lives, and I’ll do it for the rest of my life.’

“Well, that might work but I… I dunno. I feel like… like I should do it myself for some reason.” But that wasn’t really true. The more she thought about it, the more she really just wanted to stay on Terra. Despite some of the issues she was still having, things were going great for her here. Better than they ever had before. She couldn’t be sure things would stay that way if she left the planet, or if she even left Titus’ apartment for that matter. And what if she couldn’t get back, and was trapped far away from home for the rest of her life? No, it was better if she stayed. Yet…

[Persephone Ruspoli]

"There's lots of them. Though they don't always find people. They're more... like mystery solvers. They can track down criminals or deadbeat fathers, or find out if your spouse is having an affair, or do a background check on your new employee." Persephone tucked her hair behind her ears, despite the fact that it was a futile gesture. The wind would knock it out a few minutes later and she'd have to do it again.

"Think about it." Persephone didn't push, but she hoped the seed she'd planted would blossom. "He, or she, might do some of the heavy lifting for you, so you don't have to waste time trying to talk to people who might not remember your half-brother." And hopefully the answers they found would be enough for Skye. Nox... the further away from it, the better.

[Skye Thompson]

Even stranger than the way that people in the Top seemed to randomly invent jobs for themselves, was the fact that there were other people who actually seemed to need their services. Before five minutes ago, Skye had never heard of a private investigator. Yet the way Persephone explained it, they were an essential part of society. They must be the reason why certain people seemed to know everything about everything. She had always wondered.

“They have a lot of power.” Skye mused. “They can change people’s lives just like that-” She snapped her fingers. “With a few words. They tell the person things they might not have known otherwise, and maybe that’s not always a good thing. Maybe some things get better… if you give them time.” Maybe if her mother hadn’t found out about what her father did on a certain night with another woman, she would have stayed. And then maybe… Her vision swam. Skye reached out as she felt her legs start to collapse under her, catching herself on the balcony rail just in time. “The city looks so beautiful.” She murmured quickly, attempting to distract herself just as much as Persephone.

[Persephone Ruspoli]

Persephone frowned a little. Skye seemed to have taken it the wrong way. She'd thought maybe Skye would enjoy the idea of someone who could find the fate of her half-brother without having to put herself in danger, but instead, Skye looked... shaken.

"They only find things they're paid to find." Persephone assured her, not sure exactly what part of the private investigator was worrying her. Maybe the part where they could dig up information she didn't want known, like what had happened with her father... "We don't have to talk to anyone about this if you don't want to."