Cantor Crash

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"Like, who names these things, anyway? 'Grand Cantor' - it should be Gross Cantor. Lame Gerrid. Mid Lophid. Say, why are there no piscinoids that start with M?"

"That's so," Melia said softly, sort of circumspect, ignoring what fishy nomenclature should have to do with her and Mirabilis. "There just aren't that many piscinoids," she offered distractedly. "And you would remember the Marine Lophid if you didn't hate them so much."

"Well," said Seren. "Goes to show."

"But then," Melia sighed, "there are many things you do that confuse me. How can you spend so much time in Cauldros?" Particularly, around the very Cantors and Gerrids for which Seren had just professed their undying, unimpressed disdain.

Seren, meanwhile, just shrugged. "I dunno, it's cool! Every time I'm there I feel like I've never been there before."

"So you're not paying attention?" Mimi wondered - herself canny enough to dip in and out of the banter whenever there was an opportunity to needle.

And needle with prescience and precision she had. "I pay attention! I'm careful!" Not clumsy, just bad depth perception. Not afraid of heights, just dizzy. Sure, Seren, sure. They sighed, relented. "I guess I would rather be in Sylvalum, yeah."

"We'd all rather be in Sylvalum," Melia pointed out drily.

Ah, sweet recovery: "But there are Cantors in Sylvalum toooo!" Seren sing-songed in return.

The principal advantage Sylvalum had over Noctilum, besides its unparalleled beauty, was the lack of water and waterfalls; the general accessibility of bridges and cliffs, once you'd got up on them. It was actually pretty difficult to fall down from the Delusians, unless a Sylooth had you thrown.

Now it was Mimi's turn to sigh. She found Seren's teasing itself a little bit circumspect, but it was light-hearted, good-natured, et cetera. Not that big of a deal.

"I know you hate Aeviters, but come on, isn't it cute the way the Liceors gather around them in a little ring? Or the Dazzling surrounded by the Divine, huh, huh?"

"Cultlike," was all Melia had to offer, for that. Uncannily so, she meant, in a way that implied a childish lack of knowledge on the part of the avians, who were decidedly silly but who were still ostensibly noble, in some territorial sense. And she certainly didn't like how the Aeviters pretended so innocent, lying in wait.

"C'mooon - how about, like, a Troubador Saltat? Wouldn't that be awesome? That way the dancing ones would have some music to dance to!" A traveling troupe styling avian ballet...yeah!

All of this idle, impractical conversation served to make distraction from their real purpose, which was forging a path up from Lake Ciel toward the approach of Badr Basin, on the hunt for a Beaporge. Mimi was content to sit and wait for the others on the shore of the lake, sketching Germivore flora and noble Cervus, but eventually they would have to get a move on, and when they did, she'd dig her heels in.

Only if necessary, though, and as Seren pirouetted toward the limestone-like wall with Melia striding along behind, she was happy to see that it wouldn't be. In fact, she'd be even happier to be able to stay behind and sketch the silly scene unfolding before her, if she didn't want that Beaporge so much.

As they drifted away from the lake, Melia pushed up her glasses and gazed around her at the towering, telethalassic scenery. Even if it wasn't a winterscape, just walking through Sylvalum was beautifully soothing and full of so many glorious shades of white that she could almost feel a pleasant nip in the air.

But then, out of the corner of her eye, Melia saw Mimi tense, expression sharpening and lips pursing. "Seren, listen," she whispered, wincing at the harshness of the sound as the constant whistled past her bottom teeth.

Though they could be frivolous, it was never at the worst of times, and Seren drew themself into a crouched, pre-sprint stance as bidden. Without the crunch of soles upon snow sand, it was much easier to hear what Mimi had heard: one pop, then another, and another.

The popping, clicking sounds cascaded together, frequenter and frequenter, until it was the only thing they could hear, and a desperate nod from Mimi had them all running to converge upon a radius point as far away from the grotesque proto-simians as possible.

But the noise only got more and more and more insistent.

"This can't be happening!" yelped Mimi - and it was the last thing Seren remembered hearing, feeling, or seeing before a wave of pitch-inky black washed over their entire field of vision. Then, an unplug somewhere in their spine, followed by an audible click separate to the ugly ping-pong of Cantor cantoring.

When Seren next opened their eyes, it was cracking five o'clock morning, and the Cantors, in their contorted statues of camouflage, were gone.

"Did you..."

"Did we..."

"Am I..."

"Are we..."

Melia was flexing her fingers as if expecting that they'd no longer respond to her commands for motion, and Mimi was craning her head from side to side, feeling out her balance from the tips of her ears to the balls of her feet.

"That was creepy," Mimi said at last. "I've never encountered an indigen that could completely shut off a mim. Sending me to sleep, or controlling me, yes, but..."

But Melia frowned. "No, I don't think that was an indigen. I think that was..."

"...another something about this planet?" Mimi finished. "Could be. Seren, what say you?"

Both girls turned to give Seren their attention, but the whimsical Interceptor was squinting lazily upward, waiting to see if that was a cloud of spores descending (even if at the wrong time of day) or just a cloud. When they noticed eyes on them (and this took some time), they came back to earth, paused to look now down at the ground, and then shrugged.

"Nothing?" Melia frowned. "Okay..."

"I mean, stars wink out all the time, right?"

"Well, yes, but..." Mimi was reluctant to give in to consternation. "Okay. As long as you're alright. Everything in order?" Apparently, they could still see and hear and think, though this last was debatable.

Seren just grinned. "As it'll ever be! C'mon, I see a Falsaxum up there trying to get all territorial with a petrified tree. We can plotz 'em!"

"Um, no? We need to get back and report this. I have to check out your gear, too, to make sure there's nothing amiss with your resistances. Mimi too - I'm sure you want to discuss this with Yelv?"

Mimi nodded, sheepish but with orange-tinted blush only faint. "Yeah, that's a good idea. I just want to get home and turn off my ears for a while. Seren, you can stay, but..."

"No, they can't," Melia interjected - and she was sufficiently taller than the both of them that the directive really stuck. "There's enough weirdness in Sylvalum already." Her expression softened minutely as she added, "Ah, I sound like Sharon. I know you want to stay, but it's not safe, nor is it responsible. Let's go."

(For what Melia didn't say, in all of that, was that falling unconscious near Cantors terrified her, and so she'd just been put off surveying for a while.)

"And there are no small fish, only small people..." Seren intoned gravely, though obediently climbing into their Skell alongside the others and turning back for home.