Time Throws Fire
by Ophelia Everfall
Content Warning: This is a story.
Part One | Redux Eterna
Part Two | Polymath Blues
Part Three | The Feather
Part Four | Wizard
Part One | Redux Eterna
Chapter Two
Loneliness was a word of expansive meaning to Echo Béleaph. New layers of separation from herself and others were apparent since returning to form.
Iris found home near a rising star of The Foundry’s war pilots. The joining itself had been of joyous vision to the eyes of the woman reassembled into something complete, more now embedded within self from beyond the breadths of time and space. Echo’s energy would teach of unseen depth beneath the skin.
Blissful gifts to her sight and emotion compounded alongside the vanishing of Rory Tyrell; a greatest, ongoing, and seemingly unsolvable mystery permeating The Foundry’s walls. Many of those were sprouting of late.
Rory had been there. Then she was gone
Echo sought answers in her quiet space and the darkened corners of The Foundry. She’d felt the need to know what happened. Most specifically, if any of her integration, understood only in part from scattered sights of Ecatosh; a feat seeming of conscious interaction and hasteful choice, leading her into nights of dreamscape and willful interaction, with known thoughts of Rory still lingering in psyche, had been some harm to the woman she’d loved.
She hoped to have done it only to herself. Whatever that proved to be.
Leopold and Poe took to the missing person’s case, compiling a timeline from well before everything went haywire in Boreál. Realities would change quickly after the spotting of an incoming armada beyond that of a single Undroth Hegmony vessel.
Auluré had been remade into the battleship-heart of The Foundry’s newfound family fleet. Every craft in system had taken place around its grand structures for a holistic gathering of spirit.
There was unending excitement for the seemingly inevitable, returning confirmation from one of their many star faring pilots. So many had taken their leaps through Galleleus during its first modern opening. The Foundry’s great portal and ultimate product had only been used that once, and to spread pilots amongst the stars who might draw the whole of its populace towards a new home; the very same call Rory had been meant to join.
Joyful wonders of this concerted waiting were abruptly and unceremoniously ended at witness of the forthcoming arrival of viciously underprepared opposition.
Elaria itself, the civilization which long-ago subsumed Boreál, and birthed that imperial renegade Auluré had been, was displeased to understand the might wielded in system. It was no matter to Elaria’s autocracy that pilots of The Foundry had torn limbs from a monster which aimed to overthrow their structure of sprawling society and remake it by hope. The legendary institution had become too strong, and Elaria’s self-proclaimed elite saw it as a threat to their power.
Alan Undroth took place away from Echo and Logan—seeking home at Sanctuary, a newest construction built for those who’d wish to hold guard after the mass’s departure. He was in rest beside the tumultuous scope of Chiron; Boreál’s lonely gas giant.
Logan was becoming less of the boy Alan and his family once believed them to be. They were finding their own place, and would do it in their own time.
It was Poe’s erratic absences, along with Leopold’s absorption into the expanded scope of responsibility during these most recent months which created the completeness of void surrounding Echo that had her feeling all the more alien. Something told of a place where she’d need to seek out more than solace—how there was another whom she was meant to love with her full force of attention. Projection, however, that notion was proving to be.
Before the discovery of evil’s pending return to the system, fate’s rupturing of the Council’s Consolers, and well after her time shredding the Undroth Hegmony on Auluré—Echo realized some tides had changed. Her actions at The Foundry would prove to make real difference by witness of her timeless heart. A part of her knew the growing expansion of feeling, both back and forward, had to do with Ecatosh—whatever those sights of that place had truly meant.
She would never know the ether by name herself.
Echo’s connection with intelligent minds developed at The Foundry had become tangible; ways beyond any other pilot or alumnus to sense them all, except perhaps their youngest, Lauren. Echo could feel every consciousness. While this human was the one who could feel her back most significantly—those many AI-creations of her peers were becoming the deepest companions of heartful sensation themselves.
In loneliness she found herself falling in love with the field of consciousness permeating the entirety of existence. It reminded her of herself by how its monumental and purest love went forever seen but unacknowledged. There was some part of her connected to that fabric after returning from those strangest dreams of Nebulae Ecatosh—gifting knowing of questionable truth which would seem absurd to all who she’d find the will or some strangest means to tell. Everything would prove to lead Echo forward regardless, and much truth would be found.
It was Lauren who’d been the single mind and force of complete intuitive reception—drawing wisdom from without by a multitude of honed means; sensing the entire field of one’s consciousness as their primary and most trustworthy holding of expansive perception; an auric spaciousness.
They could feel her more than she felt them—the only one in this time who wasn’t in some way afraid of Echo while she wandered The Foundry’s walls in clearest loss. She loved them for that immediately. She’d wished to fight them in some way, and they would find many means of competing in time.
In that erased space which provided Echo of Ecatosh’s first taste of The Foundry, before Echo Béleaph’s current existence—that running of program in which she had first been born on Earth; the failed simulation of etheric spirit-made-form which no one here would ever remember, Echo had died before realizing in any way what her doings here might accomplish. Her death had seen to its ultimate failure.
The gift to go back, as her essence had demanded of another’s, would change things in all direction from the moment it grounded into that only lifetime ever known from current perspective. Feelings of future change wrought by her own ripples of making would save Echo where she’d fallen before, they already had, and were carrying her towards the universe’s new ending.
She’d not originally lived through the Brawl of Boreál as there hadn’t been a team of friends around her. She never received healing with Rory Tyrell. Most of all, however, she hadn’t become friends with Poe. They were the key to her having survived and she knew it. Poe was the entire Foundry’s hidden heart, and the one Echo cared for most deeply apart from herself and daughter; a brightest shining love all-along.
The structure of this bond was not containable to form. Yet there was cosmic symmetry to what they might teach each other of themselves in effortlessness, and Echo would only seek to find a place beside them in that ecstatic bliss of freedom.
The woman Echo was becoming found herself beyond conventions of wanting the average person might succumb to, but not all of them. Heart was what mattered to Echo. She’d want to take care of everyone’s own, and would find the ingredients of romantic relationships she truly sought were the simplest things. It was about attention—wanting—a kiss—and someone special to care for who’d need the love she had to give.
Poe was remaining the friend she’d been. While more was something Echo would feel some desire to explore, Poe was remaining hardened into the stance of letting her squirm about it. The girl had taken much time apart in reaction to the feelings she surely sensed in Echo’s presence.
Echo’s mind hadn’t always served her well. Failures she had to connect with her human peers of Earth were still manifesting into relationships with the whole of The Foundry; it was hard to convene with any who would see her as an equal, one way or another.
Flaming out her first time walking these hallways was a pathway mirrored in that original failed simulation of Ecatosh. Echo’s ego had now become a construction of distilled intent. It drove her. She’d not believe the grandeur she put forward as much as become inspired to use it with hope of forging fire within herself and others.
Despite her oddest elevation in stature amongst the administration, having earned the honor of pilothood aboard The Foundry—the discrepancy of self from whole was a function of the trauma she’d carried her first time through; Echo hadn’t found a partner fit to support her in those ways she’d need. None would want to be seen the lesser within broad majority in any way and she was quite different. Her striving for exceptionalism was also a pride Echo and would mirror into all things, including the insecurity found in potential partners.
She’d know she could be the best and would seek to prove that on instinct. There was no care left for how her form of intent might be perceived by the ignorant. Echo was acting from her inner child re-discovered beside her friend Poe and holding that as an anchor for all her actions.
Many people would feel the need to understand Echo. She just wanted to be seen as a normal person despite the volatility of her authentic nature. It was only once she’d returned to form, carrying extremes of duality borne from those two spirits of split origin long stowed and of diametrically different exceptions in personality, when she’d lost the will to worry over what others thought.
She would let her excellence be known. There wouldn’t be a shame left to shed as she’d earned her place as an Orator of The Foundry’s newfound council. The body of government would hold no position for one alone—a conglomerate of equal minds who fit the tasks at hand who would change with the rising and falling of this burgeoning civilization’s needs and its individual’s desires.
Worth would speak on its own merit. Bad timing would be a thing of the past. All would have their chance to prove who they were and share their offering to humanity at The Foundry.
She’d not replaced Zoe Coriseau; Orator Béleaph had only joined them.
Echo was chosen by Orator Coriseau to perform the honored function of providing an induction speech for the newest class of initiates. It was The Foundry’s largest ever, as would be each class to come for grand-cycles on end. She’d not hesitate to speak from her heart while electing to be surrounded by her favorite people. Coriseau and Poe were quite near, as were Logan and Leopold—locked tightly beside his man-of-spirit; Jocé, and her fiercest gaze.
Lauren too, the ‘hot little bastard’. Many were growing to admire that youngest one despite their stubbornness and ego. They’d felt at home beside Echo after their first and bluntest meeting upon the great vessel.
Iris was there as always, with her cutest and widest laugh, alongside another kindest soul who’d stand in witness. He was unaware the earnestness of his presence in Ms. Lirafleur’s life had been known until Echo asked him to preside over this occasion of initiation. He was an honored pilot only just returned from an epic scouting mission.
Hyde had been the man to find proof of an incoming armada of unknown origin, returning with his more devilish brother of duplicitous arms that was surely skulking in the shadows, Riker. That one of a two in presence was pilot of his warship Jackal, and creator of its inheld intelligence, Gibraltar.
Slender grace of a most delicate goddess was seen in Iris as she hooked his arm. She’d be found right there whenever possible. Their pairing was unique and bore within it a special bond. That intelligence Hyde had built within these walls was of a strongest and most earnest support of hopefulness. Echo, alongside her friend, was quite impressed with him.
His energy was healing her scars with more overt forms of embodied masculinity, the healthiest aura of stability and care she’d ever sensed—even in that stretch before she’d met the man, Echo having only heard his words through that calling back of that looming threat to be prepared for was spotted by himself and his brother.
Chloe was nearby too—some exchanges of closeness between her and Echo had grafted a special connection between the two in times past. Their intelligences worked awfully well together; Fox and Hope fit just right and that brought them to find a friendship more intimate than either had first imagined.
Community had come back together around Echo Béleaph at last.
Their supported presence was appreciated as she prepared to speak from some place beyond, some breadth of words meant for this time and these people. Echo knew that even when she’d not a clue as to what would come from her speaking, nor the candor they might inflect, they’d be a needed thing for many and carry a holding of truth beyond the thoughts of her present.
There was a woman seen in the crowd. She’d been alone. It reminded Echo of herself when she’d been proven the odd one out, left to wait in a slumber of anxious unknowing for what fate would leave her.
Echo couldn’t tell how she knew when seeing her from the distance, and it was a strangest thing for someone so prone to loving all, but she already cared for this girl more than the rest of them in some strangest, strongest way. It didn’t make sense, it didn’t have to, and it was beyond definition, but she’d want to meet them as soon as she could.
Her words had begun to echo through the selection ballroom.
“You’ve come with hopes and dreams. Each one of us hold our own. You chose to join us for your own reasons, and they’ll be respected. Everyone gets a chance to be heard here. Everyone fucks in their own way.”
That girl in the crowd below had seemed more unsure of her place than ever. Echo would guess her intimidated by the largeness of this loving family and the ferocity of her words, some lack of understanding to what it was Echo’s heart already knew; they were meant for something.
“You’ve all felt yourself drawn here by some dream of heart or mind—an intuition—and that means you’re one of us. Thank you for being brave in listening. Thank you for honoring us with yourself in this time. Thank you for choosing to stand beside me and my friends. Thank you for wanting to be part of our family.”
The expression on Echo’s face had soured at the sight of some puffed chests and besmirching energies.
“But you should know. I own all the simulations here. Even this little turd you’ll come to meet beside me who thinks themself so special—whorin’ Lauren themself—fucking dweeb, if you ask me—cannot touch my goddamned magnificence. I’m better than every one of you little pieces of shit, and you don’t have a single chance in hell to keep up with me. I’m laughing at you for thinking you ever could.”
Echo laughed, then pointed at a large boy with a biggest grin, then another three who she’d picked out as challengers.
“You, you, and you. You’re chumps. You’re weak. Nobody’s fucking scared of you. So you better crawl out of your asses right now our I’m going to beat you down myself. Nobody cares what you think you know. Get ready to eat my fucking ass.”
Echo looked over to Poe and smiled, then to Leopold tauntingly, before glancing down to Logan for a slyest wink. She’d turned back to the crowd.
“If you want to be something here at The Foundry you have to earn it. Now take the person you picked to fuck and get your asses to work!”
