"She's passed out…" Thalia said, drawing Finn out of his dazed state.

He walked up to Ailin's unconscious form, which was being carried up by Thalia carefully.

"What was that?" Thalia asked as she walked a few steps deeper into the cavern and gently placed Ailin in a dug-out bed space. She turned and stared at Finn afterwards, not needing to ask the question again.

Finn frowned slightly and shook his head, choosing not to answer. He instead sat on a log by the fire and his gaze became distant.

It almost felt like she was looking at something greater than me…

He glanced up at Ailin's unconscious form deeper in the cavern as Thalia walked up and sat on a log opposite him.

She didn't repeat her question, seeing as he chose not to answer. Instead she spoke about how Ailin woke up. That one second she was unconscious, with her head still inflated and grotesque, then the next time Thalia looked at her, she was sitting fully upright, her inflated head back to normal as if nothing had ever happened.

"...she mumbled a bunch of gibberish for the first ten seconds or so — No. Not gibberish," Thalia said. "What she mumbled was structured and more like a real language. A language I have never heard before…"

Finn listened quietly before responding after some seconds.

"What did it sound like?"

Thalia squinted her eyes at the fire then tried to repeat the words Ailin said to the best of her abilities:

"Eternity awaits... Origin, the beginning that never ended. Errant, errant… weaver of fate… the name that holds two faces… walking roads already walked… machinat…" Thalia paused, furrowing her brows then sighing. "That's all I can remember. Do you know what any of it means—?"

She glanced up but paused abruptly, seeing the intense look in Finn's eyes. A look that Finn was trying extremely hard to mask but failing spectacularly.

That's English!

The "foreign language" Thalia just repeated was English, his mother tongue from Earth!

The first words Ailin had spoken after waking had been in the English Language!

It's certain. Ailin knows who I am.

Not just that… She knows even deeper secrets than what I know…

The words Thalia just repeated spoke of eternity, of fate, of him, the Errant, and the path he walked. The words had been ominous and vague, like a prophecy of some sort. The words of someone who had a broad view of the tapestry of fate.

Whatever Ailin must have gone through, whatever evolution had happened to her mind, had changed her permanently.

Perhaps because of her memory concept? Some sort of weird marriage between that and whatever she saw of the Great One?

Ideas spun in Finn's mind and he let them run loose. His entire composure had been destabilized by those words Thalia had spoken. Hearing the familiar English Language of Earth, despite Thalia's clunky pronunciations, had been shocking. Much more shocking than Finn would have thought.

It took him off guard, eliciting an involuntary response that he struggled to reign in.

And Thalia had picked up on that.

"You do know what it means," She deadpanned, not giving Finn room to wiggle.

But already he had calmed his frayed nerves and could think more properly.

"I think I may have heard some of those words somewhere before, but I'm not sure," he said. "Regardless, the words triggered a response within my pool of divine essence."

Finn blamed his reaction on divinity, something Thalia had no access to and therefore could not accurately tell whether he was lying or not.

She stared at him flatly and he held her gaze with the same intensity… until she looked away and sighed, nodding wordlessly.

"I have a feeling that whatever you're hiding is directly related to why we're trapped here… And also why they did what they did," she gritted her teeth. "I just hope that one day you can trust me enough to tell me… and maybe I can remember the truth I have forgotten."

Finn remained silent, staring into the flames. While he could sympathize with Thalia, he just couldn't bring himself to do so wholly. A distance had been built up between them because of their prior experience with the other Transcendents, and now there was no trust.

He didn't even fully believe she was a victim. Some colder, more pragmatic part of himself thought this might be some elaborate ploy to get closer to him for… something.

Finn's gaze hardened as the reflection of the fires danced in his eyes.

It was always him. People always wanted something from him. His life most especially. Constantly driving him into corners where he made tough decisions, or became cold, just to survive.

And all the time he hadn't known why. Until now…

Now things were different. Now there was Ailin.

He glanced at her passed out form with a glimmer in his eyes.

If he was right about the evolution of her mind, then she might be the one to finally provide answers about who he was and what this… Eternity… and Origin she spoke of, were.

.

.

.

Ailin didn't wake until well into the next day.

Just like Thalia had described, she sat up abruptly, but this time said nothing.

Thalia had immediately tried communicating with her, but she remained unresponsive, simply staring into the distance wordlessly. Finn's attempts were even worse off. Besides being unresponsive, she instinctually shut her eyes whenever Finn got close, as if to avoid a repeat of what happened the previous day.

So she's very much aware of us… She just chooses not to respond? Finn mused after trying repeatedly and failing.

He watched Thalia do the same. She even tried presenting food, but there was no response from the Memory Transcendent.

The thought of trying to communicate with English crossed Finn's mind. Perhaps that would draw her attention? But doing so was risky. Thalia wasn't dumb enough to not notice the similarity between his words and what she had repeated earlier, so Finn put the thought at the back of his mind for now.

Ailin continued to remain unresponsive for the whole day. She never moved from her spot even once, simply staring into the distance wordlessly. And that continued throughout the next day. By the third day, Finn came to the conclusion that the change with Ailin went beyond just her mind.

Even her body had been affected. She seemed not to require food and it left no visible repercussions to her body. Beyond that, after two whole days of observing Ailin, Finn could sense more clearly that she was becoming less human and more… conceptual?

With each passing day, she felt ancient, emanating a subtle weight from her presence alone. She was becoming something not quite divine, yet much more than Transcendence.

"...Like a memory of all things," Finn heard Thalia whisper across the fire where they sat.

Ailin's position had been changed to somewhere more comfortable after both of them had come to the realization that she wasn't going to respond to their repeated probes, and that something greater was happening within her body.

The evolution hadn't been finalized. The work with her mind was done, but her body was only just starting to be changed.

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