Day 30 - Anniversary

"Am I only a concept to you?"

"Well, you'd need to be, right?"

Those same sheepish conclusions. He'd truly never changed.

But Shulk continued: "The strongest expression of a person, to me, is the space they hold in our minds. Someone who's accomplished, for instance. If no one knows about it, it's like they don't exist. If Dunban had been at Sword Valley by himself, we'd never know what truly happened."

Only the arbiter of the world would. An unnecessary side detail, caveat...what you will.

"So part of that concept," A continued, because what better marker for understanding was there than the ability to liaise with each other's half-formed thoughts? and thus, "is a person's appearance. Continually stored and restored as a component of recognition in one's mind."

"Continually..." Shulk stroked his chin, in a vestige of Rex. "I like the sound of that."

"He's corrupted you," A dashed out, all scorn. But that was, after all, the point. Even here, where time refused to flow, together they marked recurrence and reperception. Neither of them were all for affection, in this arrangement, but perhaps for the comfort of others, they reserved overmuch "wordless" speculation to special occasions.

"Not too much! I certainly don't think of you as a Blade."

A sniffed. "And I'm not one. Not in the strict sense."

"Well," Shulk gestured. "What is a strict sense, to you?"

Only a concept. Only a concept! And could one love a concept, a whitespread rainbow, manifestation of rain's aftermath, only extant just then but also extant in all light, no less real for being untouchable and composed principally, if not entirely, of memories?

"You're funny, Shulk," A pronounced, with a certain degree of trepidation.

"Oh-oh. Now I know I'm in trouble."

"Mastering the Monado, is it?"

Cruel, perennial taunt.