A Close Encounter [PRIVATE | Rawk]

“Hm, I can see how you might make that case. But, I'm not sure it's quite the same. Where do we draw the boundaries between what's truly an outsider and what belongs here? Thousands of years ago the borders might have been based on a single bonfire, a handful of tents or a cave. Now they're national lines, dividing lands controlled by people who aren't even from this world... I think it's just a matter of perspective. Assimilation, subjugation, conquest, all these things can be forgotten about when it's a part of 'your own kind.' But it's so very different with the people seen as outsiders, isn't it?

“It's been a long time since humans realized they would have to share the world, but it seems like there's still a good amount of unrest about that. I think maybe those dimensional boundaries are where mankind has drawn their line, where they begin their in-group, and I'm not sure any amount of time here could really take that from them.”

Despite the rather long-winded nature of Valentine's response to Chifuyu's first question, he seemed just as affable as before, and looked as though the whole thing had been an answer he hadn't needed much time to consider. Indeed, he hadn't. He was part of the Collective, after all. The idea of so many subtle divisions among one kind was patently absurd in his eyes.

“You asked what I have to keep you here, and I guess strictly, nothing. I'm not forcing you to stay, after all. But you seem like the sort who likes knowledge, Chifuyu, and I have the feeling you'll be interested in this.”

Turning to face the river, a small, vaguely cylindrical bit of the water rose out, carried seemingly by nothing at all directly to Valentine's hand, where it sat surrounded by nothing at all, yet behaving as if it were in an everyday glass. It took a bit longer for the foreigner to actually drink of this water, for it still truly astounded him that the most precious thing in the world was so abundant in this place. When he did drink, however, he allowed himself a brief moment of genuine relaxation, before interning the memories of his journey into the water.

It was no small amount of information, certainly. Visions of his departure from Mars, carefully removing any view of his people or of the Elders to ensure their privacy, the every sensation and moment of his arrival upon the blue planet, a stranger in a strange land, as it were. Valentine found such a term amusing, but continued his work upon the water. Memories of decades upon Earth spent purely in research of its customs, its people, all of its languages and subtleties for the purposes of becoming like one of its natives. And, of course, the faintest glimpse at the nature of the Collective. Not nearly enough for her to truly understand it, or to know any of the other minds within it. But the sense of its scale, of the myriad beings connected to Valentine, this was placed within.

All of this took scarcely more time than any other sip of water, however. Valentine was, after all, no youngling. Such psychic phenomena were par for the course for any mature child of Mars, let alone one so old and so high in the Collective hierarchy as he. When he was finished, he held the water out to Chifuyu, still within its invisible container formed solely of Valentine's will. Though it hardly looked any different from before, this water now held everything Valentine had hoped to convey, ready to be directly shown to Chifuyu the moment she drank of it in turn.

“If you wouldn't mind? It'll make this a little easier.”