The Enigma Variations

Alvis is there in the beginning. Here, in the beginning, he does not think about the end. He sets the motives into motion, he provides placement for the sequences, he folds in the cryptic hints of what was and what will be - but not, as I said, what will be what was. The inspirations do not fall in from on high, from any place above the grounding of the heart. Blessed will be those who find this knowledge, who gain the understanding of their uncut roles in this world. Alvis, Monado, gives the downbeat, the blessing. Now, we may begin.

Who will recycle the remnants of Ziggy, when he dies? No one will, of course. For Ziggurat 8 will never die. He is free, then, to live his life in all variety of inverted, subverted, boundless ways. He is free to experience the entire gamut of human emotion that should, in all technicality, not be available to him, that was not available to Jan Sauer. He is not Jan Sauer, but he has not forgotten that man. No human should be able to know this much. No human should have to. Eventually, he hopes, he will find eternal, nonrecurrent resolution.

Obrona is catlike, and Obrona is also like a moth. Obrona flies, and yes, Obrona is flighty. She giggles, she cackles, she pounces and swipes, she cavorts with her Driver - beloved Driver, one she'd never leave - about the opponents they're about to so viciously take down...she does all this, but behind it all she has an abundance, overabundance, of control. All in pattern, all according to scripted plan, she controls the ether, bends it forcibly to her will, strikes exactly as she sees fit. A cat's claws shred without discretion, but a skewer is infinitely precise, is it not?

Miqol's laugh is bright, flickered with every possible spark of the Machina's gray- and orange-shaded rainbow. Their race needs no fathers, only has a mother in Lady Meyneth, but he is their patriarch all the same. Hardly ever does he let his timbre become hollow with sorrow. It is a choice, just exactly a choice, what each of their voices should sound like, what modules they should plug into the children's pods. So it is also a choice, then, when he regards Egil's debatable corruption as something beyond hope, but not quite beyond a joke. His laugh is wholly affected.

In all wildness, there is still regularity. Nothing human is truly unguided, truly erratic. Now, Wulfric is not human, but his tender-heartedness is still enough to mimic, even to approximate to infinity, the care and understanding, the culpability and the honesty, of one. His compassion, truly, is a sight to behold. In appearance, he may be a hellbound hellhound, demonic and physically stronger than practically any who cross his path, but his most principal strength comes from within, and it is in mastering the combination of these two opposing impulses that he will find the rhythmic backbone to his brutality.

Elly, Elly, Elly. Always torn between above and below, weak and strong, blunt and forgiving, Solarian and Lamb. Such division in her life, yet her destiny is to approach singularity and merge with a hybrid god - somehow still showing duality in its representation. But over it all, her goals are her own. Aren't they? Kindness and love, communion with all other people no matter their background, no matter the circumstances of their identity. And she will achieve them. She will rise above, drive below, hatred that seeks to change her and shift blame upon those who do not deserve it.

Haze is childlike. She always has been, and like as not she always will be. But, for a time, she was even childish. A Blade who is first awakened from common resonance into individual rarity has their own character to carve out. It is not a small responsibility; it is not for a newborn to shoulder well. The expectation is maturity, comportment, perfection from a timeless creature. Don't they know that only practice makes perfect? By the time of the final battle, she is ready. Every meticulous exercise has paid off. She has grown up. She will protect them all.

Zeke von Genbu is a man who courts the concept of a grand entrance. He loves preamble, boisterous blusterous brouhaha, a rumbling of thunder and a crackling of lightning to announce his arrival. Regardless of what his insufferable father will either dryly demand of him or righteously refuse to entertain, Zeke knows that he has the grandest heritage of all - the hero of history, the great Addam Origo, is his ancestor! But eventually, the truth will out; it always does. Eh? Addam's not...? No matter. He'll keep on striding (and stumbling) just the same. Expect nothing less from the Zekenator!

Somehow, there is tragedy in everything that Melia does. Born even halfway into a race, and of that its governing body, that is doomed to evolve into mindless monsters by progression of natural pathology, she is chased by both afterimages and preimages. If she were a house, she might be filled with petite little ghosts. You would look at these ghosts, and you would smile, for Melia is prim and proper and never turns so much as a plié out wrong. In this way, she keeps up the appearance. In this roundabout and then again straightforward way, she is strong.

Sharla's pursuits are not noble. They are not storied, they are not beautiful, most of the time they're hardly even presentable. The fabric of her life, and all those around her, is woven of bandages and washed in draughts of pestle-ground ether stirred into cough syrup by slow, careful water. But as she watches the light that is not a sun rise from behind the crook of the Bionis's knee, she thinks, in this I do in the cover of night, when all should be asleep...there is honor. There is glory. I am a healer. I keep people alive.

L'cirufe does not speak the language of sorrow. Why should we, when there is so much to rejoice in, so many new companions to meet and so many crafts to craft? The Nopon speak a language of trade and profit, the Ma-non a dialect of technology and development, the Prone a cadence of hostility and hatred, the Orpheans an overtone of intuition and community. L absorbs all of these, and their reflections in the humans. Still, there are others. There are always others. And in truth, they are all bound by suffering. Is that all that keeps this planet together?

Jr. is not impervious to the storms of life. As Rubedo, his survival is not guaranteed, is not mandated, like that of Albedo. Though he has control over the growth rate of his cells, he cannot regenerate them. Are they, then, truly under his control? Precious things are all too easily lost. Those cruel and weak of mind and heart waste them away every day. So Jr. learns as much as he can. Mathematics, sciences, how to care for antique guns and stray kittens. He will not waltz through the storms, no, but he will make it. He will endure.

Elma came to Earth alone. The world to which she arrived was bustling, populous, entirely ignorant of the calamity against which she arrived to forewarn. If any were prepared for the prospect of this new desertion's solitude, they didn't show it. Above all, humans have camaraderie like no other race. They are not communal, joined at the hearts by natural circumstances, but instead throw their lot in by deepest, grittiest, most enthusiastic dint. No other corps would have served as well. When Elma leaves Earth, somehow she knows, despite one particular new loneliness, that she will never again be alone.

Bart is a man of the sea. Of course he is. A man of the sand, a man of the sea, one who protects all who trust in him. He couldn't call himself a prince if he wasn't - and then, he doesn't always call himself a prince. Still, it's only the eyepatch that makes him a pirate. At times, he turns inwards, to sense within himself, is this path really right? Have I gone down it rashly? But whenever he looks inward, he is also looking outward. Move slow, young Master Fatima. Find your grace on and in the sea.

Zanza replays the records of all millennia gone by, and they ring disastrous cacophony. Unfortunately, all he hears are his own sorrows, his anti-enlightened madnesses and machinations, the cries this horrid existence has tortured out of him as he the warrior creator bent the powers he was rightfully granted to his own all-encompassing whims. He does not hear the pain of those uncountable his subjects, only the pettiest of their discolorations upon his pristine icon. When he dies, he still does not hear. But at last, they are free to speak - and they do not speak of him ever again.