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SILVER: Tales from the Fringes of Reality. Episode 17 – Together.

GUILLERMO: Mom, really I can–

ALEXANDRIA: You know exactly why I want to have this conversation as a family, Memo. We’re all taking part or I’m blocking your entry.

GUILLERMO: Don’t you think that’s a little invasive? Maybe Whim doesn’t want to talk to us all at once–

(door opening)

(sigh, resigned) Or maybe they do. Hey, kiddo. You ready to be part of the war council? (hit) Ouch, mom! What was that for?

ALEXANDRIA: I know you’re stressed, darling, but please take this seriously. Whim, we’re gathering in the anomaly station for a discussion. Would you care to join us? Wonderful, we best head over. 

(walking)

I’m sure you’ve heard bits and pieces of everything that’s going on given how much time we all spend checking in on you, but I thought… we thought it would be best to have a bigger discussion. 

GUILLERMO: (muttered) I still think I should’ve talked to them on their own…

ALEXANDRIA: (sighing) Guillermo, I know you want to protect them. And to make sure they’re comfortable and ready but darling, we can’t shelter them forever. I know first hand what happens if people are too sheltered from the truth and Whim deserves better than that.

GUILLERMO: I know…

(door)

Are we all ready?

ALASDAIR: I believe ren wanted to take the lead on this meeting?

SPARROW: If your mother will allow it.

ALEXANDRIA: By all means, my love, lead on.

SPARROW: I know things have been… Tense to say the least. Finding Whim was a huge win, but with their finding we’re still missing Silver and that’s taken its toll on all of us. Whether it’s through guilt or through longing, we’ve all been a bit scattered lately and it’s important that we can all come together, as a family, and talk through what we know. No theory is too small or too silly, everything should be shared so we can weigh all of our options as a group. Now that Whim is feeling better and up to moving around, we can use their help in trying to locate Silver and Minerva; there are seven of us and only one Minerva, if we can divide our focus correctly, we should be able to get Silver back. Now, who would like to start?

MARIGOLD: I’ll start. I’m going to rip Minerva to shreds with my bare hands and will stab anyone who tries to stop me.

ALEXANDRIA: Mari–

MARIGOLD: She cannot be left functioning, mom. I don’t care what anyone says or what Silver thinks, this is bigger than him now. Getting him back is my first priority, has been since the moment he disappeared, but once I find Minerva I am going to make her regret being brought to life.

GUILLERMO: …She has a point, mom. Everything Minerva has done has stretched far beyond Silver. The people she’s moved to keep us from finding Silver, the tears she’s created between reality, the magic she’s been wielding–

ALASDAIR: Which should be an impossibility given her lack of body–

MARIGOLD: She needs to die. I don’t care that she can’t truly die, she needs to be stopped and I will stop her myself if no one else will help me.

OPAL: Containment clearly isn’t enough. She’s been contained this entire time and look at all the harm she’s caused. Even if we can capture her and put her back in a box, what then? We wait until she inevitably escapes and causes more havoc or worse? Alasdair and I created her to be good. We cannot allow her to continue to exist if all she’s doing is harm.

ALEXANDRIA: …Row?

SPARROW: It would be a serious risk to leave her in any operational form. She’s already doing higher level magic than she should be capable of, causing these rifts and shattering heartlines. Should she figure out how to create life or cause people to fade… 

ALEXANDRIA: (sighing) I think you’re right, Mari. And magic knows I want to make her pay for what she’s done, but now’s not the time for that. Not unless you think you can locate her before you can locate Silver.

OPAL: I’ve sent another probe into the in between, just in case. I know the last few scans have come back empty, but unless she’s found her way into reality…

Stars above, she’s gone into reality.

GUILLERMO: There’s no way, we would’ve noticed–

OPAL: Unless she’s managed to cloak herself. You said it before, Memo, she hasn’t been moving as many people. And while she did move one Spellerman’s Egg, that’s just one creature out of place. It doesn’t make up for the amount of energy she must’ve had stored now that she’s not moving fifty plus people between realities regularly. If she’s in reality proper…

ALASDAIR: She would have better access to magic than in the void. If anyone would know how to detect magic even in low magic level realities, it would be her.

GUILLERMO: Fuck me.

MARIGOLD: What if she’s trying to move Silver into the reality she’s hiding in? It would explain why she keeps jumping Silver around, she’s not just trying to make it harder for us to find her–

SPARROW: She’s trying to bring Silver back into her containment. Has there been any pattern to the recent movements of Silver? Anything that might make it seem like Minerva knows what she’s doing?

GUILLERMO: No. I don’t think she has any idea where Silver is being sent, just that they’re being moved. She has to find them, the same as us. And just like us–

ALASDAIR: She has an easier time finding him when he starts to remember us. There’s been enough done to Silver’s memories that Minerva is able to pick up on the changes, just like we are, but unlike us she can’t grab Silver; the only thing she can do is move him again and hope that it’s where she is.

ALEXANDRIA: Why wouldn’t Minerva be able to grab her? Is this a contingency or…

OPAL: Maybe Minerva doesn’t know what reality she’s in. I mean, it’s not like they’re numbered on the inside or anything like that. And her data reader was broken, Silver mentioned that in the few messages she was able to get out to us while we were trying to find her. So if Minerva can’t read the stories and can’t tell where she is–

GUILLERMO: Then she only has the spikes in Silver’s magic to work off of. She can find and move Silver, but can’t access any of their stories or where they’re being moved to. It’s just a shot in the dark.

SPARROW: Perhaps we need to focus less on the files we receive about Silver. They’re good to give us clues as to where she is, however if Minerva is that much faster than us just looking for the magic spikes, then maybe the file is the wrong thing to work with.

ALEXANDRIA: Or we divide and conquer. If some people are working with the files, trying to determine any patterns that might have arisen in the random shots Minerva is taking, while the others are looking for those magic spikes, we may be able to get to Silver faster than Minerva can.

SPARROW: You really think there would be any pattern in the random movements.

GUILLERMO: There could be…

ALASDAIR: Every file always seems to begin in the forest. While this is not the most uncommon feature in reality, it is a bit strange that all of Minerva’s jumps would lead to Silver falling into the woods. 

MARIGOLD: Unless Minerva is hiding in the woods and that’s the only thing she can control to cast Silver towards.

OPAL: Wooded areas along the plane of magic… That’s the thread. It doesn’t narrow it down a lot, but it’s something to start with, right? Whim, what do you think?

(tapping)

‘It’s easier to hide in the forest than in the desert’, that’s true. (tapping) ‘Minerva is more likely to wait in one place. Wouldn’t want to waste the energy if it was already tripping us up.’ 

GUILLERMO: If we were to crash from the void into reality–

ALEXANDRIA: Memo–

GUILLERMO: No, wait, mom, hear me out. If we made a jump from the void to reality, a few of them, we can see what kinds of locations we land in. See if there is any overlap, anything that would help us find Minerva.

SPARROW: Or Silver.

MARIGOLD: You can’t seriously be considering do that–

GUILLERMO: It’s worth a shot, isn’t it? That’s my kid out there, Mari. Lost and lonely and running. What’s a little pain if it means I can find a pattern, right?

SPARROW: Guillermo and I will make the jumps from the void into reality.

ALEXANDRIA: Sparrow, my love, don’t you think–

SPARROW: Our son is right, Dria. It’s the best solution we have right now. He and I will make the jumps while you and Alasdair monitor for magic spikes and Opal and Marigold continue reading the files.

OPAL: What about Whim?

SPARROW: (hums thoughtfully) Well, the four of you will need to circle between who is doing what. We can’t have your brains becoming fatigued from the same task over and over again. Whim, you would likely be better suited for the files, just given your connection to Silver outside of magic–

MARIGOLD: If we’re circling jobs, then we’re circling all jobs. The two of you can’t just take all the pain for yourself.

GUILLERMO: Mari, think about it–

MARIGOLD: No, Memo, you think about it. Why should you and ren have to take all the hits? We’re a family. We’re doing all of this together or not at all.

ALEXANDRIA: She’s right. All of us, together. That’s the way we solve this. That’s the way we get Silver back.

ALASDAIR: Plus, we don’t know what repeated jumps would take out of you. We all need to bear that burden so we can keep our search going. 

(pause)

Not you, though, Whim. I’m sorry to say, but I think a fall from the in between to reality would kill you.

GUILLERMO: Unfortunately they’re right, kid. We’re pure magic, you’re too connected to reality to make that jump. But that doesn’t mean what you’re doing isn’t important, it just means we don’t have to worry about you dying on us. I don’t think Silver would ever forgive us.

OPAL: And none of us would ever forgive ourselves. We just got you back, Whim. We’re not endangering you. Not ever again.

MARIGOLD: We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: you’re one of us Whimsy. Family. Absolutely no take-backs on that, you’re stuck with us. And we’re going to get Silver back, for you and for us. 

And then you’re going to help me tear Minerva to shreds, okay Whimsy?

ALEXANDRIA: Mari…

MARIGOLD: What? We have more of a plan now, haven’t we earned a little bloodlust?

OPAL + ALASDAIR: She doesn’t have blood.

MARIGOLD: Pedantics.

SPARROW: …How are you feeling about this, Memo? You have the most to lose in this situation, I don’t want you to think we’re trying to ignore how you’re feeling.

GUILLERMO: It was my idea, ren.

SPARROW: You know what I mean.

GUILLERMO: It’s been hard, knowing that she’s gone and that I can’t find her. I know Luce wouldn’t blame me, but… Whatever it takes, I’m getting her back.

ALEXANDRIA: There’s no fault in this equation, Memo. All of you hold so much guilt in your hearts, a trait that you unfortunately picked up from me. But there is no one at fault here, nothing that could’ve been done to prevent this. Even if we hadn’t created Minerva, there is no guarantee that whatever else we chose to do to help Silver grow up with any semblance of a childhood would’ve ended up any better. What’s done is done, and that’s no one’s fault. That’s just the progression of life, of time. We make mistakes, we learn, we fix them. Together.

GUILLERMO, ALASDAIR, MARIGOLD, OPAL: Together.

SPARROW: We knew Lucinda very briefly, but she would never have blamed you for what came to pass. Any of you. When I collected her magic and brought her to rest, all she could say was how grateful she was to know you, Guillermo, and to know that Silver would be in good hands with us. Even now, with her magic swirling on the plane, I can feel no malice in her and I know none of you feel any malice either. We did what we thought was best, tried to give Silver a childhood with a companion who she could trust, who we all trusted. Our trust being betrayed does not make us fools, it makes us human. 

ALEXANDRIA: Humanity isn’t limited to reality, and it isn’t taken away by being born of magic. Minerva’s humanity made her fearful, made her lash out in anger. This is why I’m so hesitant to let her be destroyed; what does it say of our humanity if I allow that? But you’re right, Mari. It’s the only way to ensure that all of reality stays safe. We need to get Silver back first but…

But after that, we put an end to Minerva. Permanently.

SPARROW: This has been… An intense conversation for us all. Come, we should eat and calm down some. Spend some time as a family focusing on something other than what was lost.

(walking)

That means you too, Whim. Unless you’d prefer the alone time.

(pause) 

I’m glad you’re willing to join us. Come on, let’s find the others.