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“Take them home.” The thing that was once the Granddaughter opens their eyes. The floor of Control is cool against their cheek, still warm from their recent life. The others- take them home -are unconscious or insensate around them. The Foldlight is inert, the Self within disoriented from the travel. They will need to travel again, perhaps repeatedly - the paths are indistinct from here. The Self within the crew is similarly disjointed. Take them home. It will take time. Effort. No small deal of luck.
Beyond Control’s windows, a hall of doors coils in myriad passages. They have never seen anything like it. It is deeply familiar. Paths. Possibility. It draws them, whispering beneath their Calling. Take them home. So much lies between here and there. So many branching ways. It would be overwhelmingly daunting, for one unrealized. Take them home. A vast chasm of uncertainty. The echoes of it ripple through them. They pause at the window, interpreting their Knowing. Here is safe- relatively speaking, for now -and the Self within the others is rousing, slowly, from the shock. They can hear the whispered tails of thought. A prayer, united, hopeful and fearful in equal measure. The crew’s faith in them. Take them home. Merlin is the first to wake, his bocs stuttering before settling into his usual idle. He sits, eyes flickering until they meet their gaze.
“Granddaughter! You’re alive!”
“Yes,” they reply, softly. And no, they silently amend. “I am glad to see you awake, Merlin.”
He wastes no time getting to his feet and inspecting the surroundings. They answer his question even as he asks it. “They are alive, each and all.” They can feel the Fold slowly reunifying within each of the crew. “The journey between cosmoses can be… taxing. Give them some time.”
His gaze returns to them, head cocked, and then drifts to the front window. “My word,” he trails off.
“A… crossroads. Mother Artifice spoke of it, though never directly. Some patients, in certain treatments at the Lazarettos, have seen it.” An in-between sort of place, as real as it was imagined. The Fold here flowed unbound except as consciously directed - inert, as Merlin might have described it. The crew was therefore safe from Tearrors in the traditional sense, but… well. Their Self was murmuring warnings, sketching the outline of a powerful, dangerous being, bending the Fold into a dark well about her as she preyed on unwary interlopers. And if I have sensed her, she has most certainly sensed us. “Merlin.”
He lets out a note of bocular surprise as he looks to them. “Hm?”
“Please retrieve water and food from the storeroom. I am going to wake the crew.”
He hesitates, questions clearly piling up, but departs at an incline of their head. There is little time to waste, but rushing now would only lead to greater danger. Take them home.
The Biological Man is first, and his voice follows the Knowing of his Self. “I do not feel well,” he proclaims.
The no-longer-Granddaughter returns a gloved hand to beneath their cloak. “I am not surprised,” they reply. “Please be careful getting up. Merlin will be back shortly.”
They move about the Foldlight, waking the crew in turn. A gloved hand pressed to the forehead, a command from self to Self, lending direction, cohesion, and returning them to consciousness one by one. Merlin returns in time, bearing simple rations, and the crew gratefully accepts the nourishment. They speak in hushed tones, casting glances over at the awakening work between bites of food and looks out the window, but nobody is ready to broach the elephant in the room. The not-Granddaughter pauses at Steve’s inert form. His Self has taken the transfer especially hard, but even rattled, the potential brimming within him is…concerning. Their Self isn’t sure quite what to make of it. They pass over him for now.
Cleophee is last, her form laying nearest beside the spot of Dot’s Realization. Her consciousness trails hope, and fear, and sorrow. They kneel beside her, and black-clad fingertips brush freckle-spotted skin. “Cleophee.”
Her eyes flit beneath closed lids. “…Dot?” she ventures, then cracks an eye, and her Self sings in joy, relief. “Oh, Dot!”
A name, they think. I am no longer Granddaughter, and not yet a Mother. What for a name? Cleo’s arms are thrown about their shoulders, and exhausted, broken tears stream into their cloak. The Mothers are named for their callings. Take them home. They stir uneasily, unable to mirror her affection. This body, once, perhaps could have, but the Self has been given a direction alien and unfamiliar to human romance or connection. Their Calling supersedes all. Take them home. A hint of irony, perhaps, in that. “Are you feeling well?”
Cleo does look rather greener than normal. “A- a little sick, I guess? My head really hurts,” she replies. “But, Dot, are you-?”
They bow their head, voice dropping even nearer to inaudible. “No,” they say simply. “The Granddaughter is… no more.” The expression on Cleo’s face would’ve torn their progenitor apart. Fury, despair, an agonized look of grief as her hope and joy is torn so suddenly away. “I am sorry for your loss,” they speak quietly. “Please, call me Chasm.”