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Under the Banner of Heaven [24 Consimbs 4385; Heaven]
Mirrored from Sythyry.
Grinwipey: “So what is it, we’ve got names, you’re gonna sacrifice us to some diffywobble volcano flower god? Or simply flick our flooters off your world like we’re so many flibby, flibby flapjacks?”
Green Elfimel: “I don’t mean that! I just mean that no names in Heaven!
Pink Elfimel: “No — names are forbidden to Elfimel, only. Thefefy has a name, you know!”
Green Elfimel: “Of course she has a name! Nobody could ever mistake Thefefy for anyone else!”
Phaniet: “If you prefer, we will not use names when we speak to you. How are individuals distinguished from one another?”
Green Elfimel: “Not, not, no, never!”
Phaniet: “So, individuals are not differentiated by, say, the color of their fur?”
Green Elfimel: [rather prissily] “If we are together, it is clear: you are you, and I am I. If we are apart, there is no need for you to talk of me, or me of you, and wickedness and disharmony could arise from such a thing. So names are not needful, nor are they good or sacred! They are forbidden in Heaven!”
Pink Elfimel: “Besides, how could you do that, tell people by the color of their fur?”
Phaniet: “I do not know how you see things. To my eyes, you are one color — I would call it ‘pink’ — and she is another — ‘green’.”
Red Elfimel: “That is how we see ourselves too! You are various browns and greys, and you are wrapped in beautiful petals of cloth. Which are called clothing in other worlds! See, we are not such provincials as you may think us!”
Green Elfimel: “There is no need for clothing in Heaven either!”
Pink Elfimel: “The air is always a mild and comfortable, and there is no damp or sultry weather to offend us and make our fur droop, such as there is on your world.”
Green Elfimel: “And of course clothing could be used to tell us apart — like a visual sort of name — and we don’t want that! It is forbidden, in heaven!”
Red Elfimel: “And we do like to look at one another, and touch one another, and clothing simply would get in the way of that!”
Green Elfimel: “So, no clothing! But what does it matter, what color we are?”
Phaniet: “Well — not that you would do this, but in my world, we might call one of you Red, and one Green.”
All the Elfimel giggled.
Red Elfimel: “How long do you think I will stay red? Already my fur is turning purple.”
And that was so. The red one was turning purple, the pink one had brilliant cerulean spots bubbling up from under her fur, the green one was gaining yellow lozenges, and so on. In a few moments, we had lost track of who was who — which is, I think, how things are done in Heaven.
Grinwipey: “Well, sugar my boogers, little girl. I’m turning me purple too.” And he did, by ordinary Khtsoyis color-changing means.
Phaniet: “So how do you know who is who?”
Purple Elfimel: “We don’t!”
Yellow Elfimel: “This is Heaven! Our blessing, one of many many, it is that we are new to each other every day, every time we meet. Inhabitants of other worlds may be condemned to endure their poor histories with each other, but in Heaven, not so! An awkward word, a careless intrusion upon lovers trysting, an accidental treading upon another’s tail — all are erased, gone, vanished forever! We are perpetually free of any grudges against us, such as may plague people on your worlds!”
Grinwipey: “That’s just perfunking great. So like, if you scrog someone, or put a shiver in their flivver, nobody knows it’s you and nobody can catch you?”
Purple Elfimel: “What?”
Phaniet: “What if someone hurts someone else very badly on purpose, or kills them, or steals something, or does something else horrible and unforgiveable?”
Purple Elfimel: [prissily] “We don’t do horrible and unforgiveable things in Heaven!”
Green Elfimel: “And we kill each other a lot in the Lights and Daggers phase. Why would we wish to resent each other for a long time because of that? We do not need hates, in Heaven!”
Grinwipey: “Ooh, groshing murder games. What a deerwiped smurg of a Heaven you got here, elfies!”
Phaniet: “You recover from death?”
Orange and Tan Elfimel: “We are reincarnated.”
Brown and Silver Elfimel: “When I die, one of my friends will proceed to the phallic graveyard, and take me into herself, and bear me as her child.”
Red Elfimel (but not the one who was red early on, I’m pretty sure): “It’s cozy and very nice.”
Phaniet: “We’re going to have to learn more about Heaven, and about the life cycle of the Elfimel, before we say anything too offensive. For your ways are so very, very different from our ways.”
Sparkly Red Elfimel: “We will tell you and show you! Come and play with us, feast with us, enjoy with us, learn with us!”
Red Elfimel (who had not spoken before): “We do not have visitors very often.”
Orange and Tan Elfimel: “The last one was 23,180 cycles ago!”
Phaniet: “How long is a cycle?”
Orange and Tan Elfimel: “Once ’round the nine chambers of Heaven!”
Red Elfimel: “We have had only eight sets of visitors who did not try to kill us immediately, in the 186,282 cycles that we have gone around Heaven. So we are unfamiliar with the ways of foreigners!”
Sparkly Red Elfimel: “Not so unfamiliar! We know all about names, and clothes, and weather, and all sorts of bad things that plague the residents of other world!”
Orange and Tan Elfimel: “We will learn from you too! Come and eat — you must be famished! “
Este: “Rightie-O.” He ate a pren. (This is his job, because Rassimel are very hard to poison.) “Oh, but that’s delicious.”
Phaniet: “Any interesting mental effects?”
Grinwipey: “Or turning into a twinkly big-boob big-ear elfy girl?”
Este: “Not that I can tell.”
Sparkly Red Elfimel: “Oho, but did you sample the flesh of the Thick Petal chamber already? This is not that! This is just simple fruit.”
Phaniet: “For you! We must be a bit cautious.”
Orange and Tan Green Elfimel: “You must meet us all! For we all live in this chamber at the moment, and we are all quite friendly and delightful!”
Phaniet: “We shall!”
The natives seem friendly, at least. Though I am going to have to work out some system of nomenclature.
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... yes, I'm thinking this wonder does not work out as well in practice as it does in the carefully-explained theory. It must be a pain trying to find those two Elfimel that really like the same game you do. >:)
They probably won't like you coming up with names for them! I wonder how the forbidden things are enforced?
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It might be wiser to simply regard them as interchangeable, amiable, and volatile.
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[This Heaven is not modelled on the Heaven of any person or religion that I am aware of. I wouldn't want to live there myself. -bb]
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Mircannis presumably has a different sort of afterlife or interlife for the spirits of the dead on the World Tree. This is a different sort of heaven: a paradise for the living.
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I'd ask about this. Just because they reincarnate doesn't mean you will if they suddenly get all stabby.
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1. No names.
2. No permanent markings.
3. Phallic graveyard
4. Take the deceased into you.
5. Grow them back.
Oh, and also the "feast with us" bit. Yeah, that makes the fur on the back of my neck stand up. Now bearing in mind that I am a monster, I'd translate this to...
"We have no idea who we kill, so we eat the dead without concern or regret, then have a wonderful orgy afterwards and give birth to our friends."
Or more to the point, they've stated that they are "reincarnated", NOT resurrected. Very significant difference between the two things, so be careful of your logic, Sythyry.
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I can't imaging Reincarnation is all that weird to Sythyry. It's a core truth of his world. It's just a very shorter trip around here... and there is a question of what kinds of souls these things have.
Step 3 still equals *mind kablewie!*
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I guess there might be a Library of Interesting Things or something. Or Thefefy could have recently told them everything.
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I hope that Thefefy isn't the jealous type.
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Oh well I'm sure there will be doom in heaven, I just have to be patient.
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Does Phaniet realized she pointed at colors that might look the same to a color-blind person?
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