Video| In all my dreams, it's never quite as it seems

[ushahin]

[When the video opens up, Ushahin is lying once again inside his bathtub. It's about five o' clock in the morning, so at least he's only waking up the resident of Hadriel up at the crack of dawn instead of the middle of the night this time. He's considerate that way.]

Does anyone else hear it? The music? It's so lovely.

[There is, of course, no music. What he's hearing is the tune he's caught from passing through someone's mind while they sleep. It's had quite the effect on him.]

Music makes everything quiet inside.

[He starts humming to himself, tapping his fingers to keep rhythm. If that tune sounds somewhat familiar, well, it might have been your mind he was tapping into.]

Comments

[skelebro]

I'm guessing you're not familiar with the "treat others as you wanna be treated" ideology.

[Not that Sans has adhered to it much. Not beyond the obvious, in that he'd prefer it if people left him the hell alone and he could also leave them the hell alone and things would be better off for everyone.]

[ushahin]

That's a lovely thought, but in reality, people are selfish and cruel. They rarely treat others with anything resembling kindness.

[The madness that taints his mind was caused by people's cruelties. It's been a thousand years and still Ushahin can't let go of the hatred he feels for either the race of Men or Ellylon.]

[skelebro]

I dunno. Some humans, sure, but sometimes they'll surprise ya.

[Not that he can afford to think the best of humans at this point in time. Or the best of anyone. But he's got no problem admitting his own hypocrisy, as long as he only admits it to himself.]

[ushahin]

[Ushahin laughs, a short bark that holds little real humor.]

It's been more than a thousand years since any of them have done that. They are set in their ways and patterns.

[skelebro]

And you're the only one who gets to pass judgment on them. Is that it?

[ushahin]

Don't put words into my mouth, Sans. I said nothing of the sort.

[skelebro]

You're not exactly an open book.

[Sans just happens to be adept at reading into subtleties, not that he's one to admit it.]

So enlighten me. What's got you so bent outta shape over basic manners? A "please" and "thank you" ain't much to ask.

[ushahin]

So you're saying if I ask politely, you'll let me into your head?

[Alright, that was his attempt at a joke. He's trying!]

What you ask of me, staying out, isn't something I'm capable of.

[He's bad at explaining how his powers and mind are shaped together.]

[skelebro]

[Engaging in a battle of wits over semantics doesn't sound like a great time, so Sans opts instead to focus on the more pertinent comment.]

Wait. Hang on. Are you saying that you're actually incapable of controlling it?

[ushahin]

Not exactly. The reality I see and the one in my mind, they blur together. I'm not always sure which one I'm seeing.

[How could he explain it fully? Madness was the only way of being able to use powers that a half-human was never meant to be wielding. It had shattered his mind and he was left trying to pick up the splintered pieces.]

The music, is it coming from this reality or the one inside someone's mind?

[skelebro]

I'd say it's from someone's mind.

[As far as Sans can tell, there's no music. And checking other people's responses, he can glean the same.]

You can't turn it off, can you?

[ushahin]

[Ushahin looks away from the video feed, off to the side. He stays that way for a long minute without answering. When he finally looks back at the video, for once looking Sans in the eye, he sounds tired and sad.]

....No. I can't.

[skelebro]

[This changes things.

This really, really changes things. Sans meets Ushahin's eyes steadily, his smile as placid and ever-present as ever. He hadn't considered that. Wow. Seems like a real no-brainer, and here he was riding off the assumption that he had some measure of control over it. Which he does but...not a perfect measure. Not by any means.]

You're tellin' me you've never known how it feels to just be in your own mind, without anyone else's bumpin' up against yours?

[His tone might be hard to pin down. There's sympathy there, a shred of remorse, mingled with shock, disbelief.

This really, really changes things.]

[ushahin]

[Ushahin is dying to go inside Sans' head and see what it is he's feeling right now. He goes outward, just a light touch, enough to gauge his emotions. What he finds is...confusing. He's not sure what he did to elicit this response in his neighbor. He's also not sure that this is a good thing.]

Not since I was a child. Before this happened.

[He taps his left eye socket, the one eye that has a pupil that doesn't react to light. It has been an extremely long time since Ushahin was alone in his own head.]

[skelebro]

[What an oddly specific coincidence. The left eye. Why the left eye. Sans sits in silence for a long moment, his expression unreadable, his thoughts a dark, incomprehensible swirl.]

That's rough.

[The words, when they come, are even and measured. He wavers on the edge of something, caught in two different directions.

But Ushahin can probably glean what he's debating if he's in his head right now anyway, right? No point in hiding it. He casts about in his own skull, wondering if he can detect when someone's there who shouldn't be, but nothing feels any different than usual. Still the shadow of a man who doesn't exist in his head. Still just numbers ticking up and down and some that are still and silent.]

I'm gettin' a funny feeling...

[Sans shuts his eyesockets.

When they open, his left eyesocket sparks with an unearthly blue-amber light. His right eyesocket is dark, empty, dead. Hollow.]

...that there's some real weird cross-universal circumstances here.

[ushahin]

[Though he's in Sans' head, he can't see any one specific thought. They're flitting around, too fast for him to catch sight of. It's a dark place, Sans' head, darker than he thought it would be.

Then his eye lights up. Now that's something interesting. It makes Ushahin sit up a little straighter in the tub.]

In my experience, there are no such things as coincidences. There's threads that connect everything in my world. Mayhaps they extend to other worlds and form connections there?

[skelebro]

You read my mind.

[He means it in the purely joking sense. After all, that was his thought exactly. In Sans's experience, coincidences are pretty few and far between. He's not a huge believer in coincidence and randomized events. No event is ever truly random - pseudorandom, perhaps, but everything is influenced by something else, spun together in an impossibly intricate web. They live in a causal universe. No effect exists without a cause.

So what are the odds here, huh? He's guessing one in a very, very small number.

But keeping that eye ignited is like driving a white-hot spike into his skull. He blinks, and the lights in the dark of his eyesockets are back to normal.]

Not that I'm a big subscriber to the concept of fate, but with the exception of stuff on the quantum level - randomness is by and large kind of a mathematical myth.

[ushahin]

[That actually gets a quiet chuckle out of Ushahin. Hey, look at that! One of Sans' puns actually amused him. Mark this day down as a historic one.

He can feel the pain when it flickers through Sans' mind and it just reaffirms what he's thinking. Pain is what drives his powers and most of it is settled in his left eye, unable to abide even the smallest bit of light. No wonder he chooses to send out videos in the middle of the night.]

There is a saying that the dragons have. All things must be as they are. They don't necessarily mean fate, although that is part of the great plan. What affects one person shall affect all the rest.

[skelebro]

We got a saying like that back home, too. Well, it was some human philosopher or 'nother that said it. Whole thing about the wings of a butterfly can disturb the whole universe. Nothin' ever happens in a vacuum.

[Everything has a source, and every source has a consequence, a ripple. That's not to say retrocausality ain't a thing, but it's a tricky thing, and his skull always starts to ache when he thinks about it. There's the shadow of a man looming behind that thought, with holes in his hands, but since he never happened, Sans dismisses it quite easily.

Externally quite easily. He can banish him to the posterior of his mind all he wants, but he knows it's not that simple. Still. Hardly the important thing.]

[ushahin]

[Ushahin withdraws from Sans' mind, having seen enough. The thoughts he can grasp are all full of thoughts of what-ifs, causes, and effects. If he is to ever gain a measure of the skeleton's trust, he will need to learn to stay out on his own. There's a chance that might never happen.]

That is very wise. You're smarter than you appear.

[There's a brain inside of those lazy, pun-filled bones, which is more than Ushahin had first assumed. Just because he can read minds doesn't mean he knows everything.]

[skelebro]

Hey, I wasn't the one who said it.

[Technically true. Ushahin's assessment hits a little too close to home but the guy is psychic. And if he genuinely can't turn it off, well that - that complicates things. To what extent, Sans isn't wholly sure.

He'll have to wait and see. But that's no problem. That's what he's best at.]

Like I said, 's just a human theory. An unproven one, but I guess this'd prove that it kinda holds some water, huh?

[ushahin]

It makes me wonder if the way these gods are selecting us isn't quite so random as it appears.

[If the strings are all attracting them to this one place for a reason, it stands to reason someone would be on the other end tugging them.]

[skelebro]

I'd say so. Like I said, truly random events aren't exactly common.

[And they mostly only happen on the purely microscopic level. But Sans ends up here, isolated and alone, and no one from his world accompanies except the kid who heralded his doom, and the doom of the entire known universe.]

But look at me, makin' a conclusion without any hard evidence. Two poitns of data make a line, not a pattern.

[ushahin]

I shall keep my mind open and see what other connections can be formed from the people around here.

[Ushahin now has something else to keep himself occupied. It's good for him to do something besides simply tearing through the minds around him at his leisure because he's bored.]

[skelebro]

[Oh boy. So now that's an invitation to roam through people's minds willy nilly. Sans lifts the ridge over one eyesocket skeptically, the skeletal equivalent of an arched brow.]

Or, y'know, you could just ask. That works too.