But there is no life on Earth.

[waterfell]

Near the north pole of planet Mercury, there are signs of life, all enclosed in a thin, transparent dome that still allows a clear view of the heavens. Inside, the air is clean and breathable, and even stirs itself in artificial breezes.

The entire city is a mass of blue crystal, luminous with the glow of thousands of solar trees both within and without, their blue cels attached to silvery branches and trunks. It makes a striking contrast, and the structures provide the city's energy, veritable solar power farms, bustling and thriving like the city itself. . Everywhere, the roads lead inward towards a palace, attention drawn to it by its height, taller than any nearby building.

The lush sound of splashing water comes from a clear, ornamental pool in the entryway. Tropical fish swim contentedly there, glimmers of golden koi amid and around the stems of water lilies. There is greenery, too, and flowers provide a seasoning of color. Overhead, the ceiling is dizzyingly high, adding to the sense of open space.

Seated at the edge of the pool, dressed in an elegant gown and with the sigil of her planet showing proudly on her forehead, is the Princess Mercury, now queen of her reborn kingdom. She plays a simple, longing melody on the harp she holds in her lap.

Comments

[isomorphology]

"I'm in the future." Quorra says to herself. More of a confirmation than anything. The future in a dream. How is that even possible?

[waterfell]

"That's right," Mercury confirms the guess, though the only explanation she has for its possibility is: the dream.

"This is not the time we met in last time. We're nearing the thirtieth century."

[isomorphology]

She still doesn't understand the dreaming concept in full detail. "30th..."

[waterfell]

Mercury fills in the rather mind-boggling blank. "Approximately a thousand years from your time."

[isomorphology]

Quorra just shakes her head. Users don't live that long. Would ISOs? Years and cycles are different from each other.

"You lived that entire time?"

[waterfell]

Very good, Quorra. Though she was born to one, and lived as one for much of her childhood, she is not human.

"I lived all those centuries." The emptiness of the vast palace seems to shout that not everyone did.

[isomorphology]

"...How?"

[waterfell]

"There's nothing unusual in it for me." She doesn't know how to explain it better than that. Her body is different, perhaps no longer purely from that immortal race of the moon kingdom, but nonetheless possessing a great lifespan far beyond what mortals of her world dream of - or Quorra's world.

[isomorphology]

Her nose bunches up. She's not satisfied with that answer at all. Is she just long lived? Do Users become that way? Flynn lasted cycles, but those aren't the same as years.

[waterfell]

It's alright. Quorra shouldn't be satisfied. She shouldn't be satisfied until she has a full explanation and understands how it works.

Mercury certainly wouldn't be. But of course, her answer had also been the truth in its simplest form.

"I'm not like the humans I live among."

[isomorphology]

"Then, what are you?" It's not like she's human either.

[waterfell]

"A separate race, more advanced than humans, that lived throughout this solar system tens of thousands of years ago."

She does not say 'from the moon', she does not disparage herself by making that place and its castle the focus.

"We watched them as they evolved and developed."

[isomorphology]

"Oh." Her voice goes soft. Ami's different then. Like she is... but she's not an ISO.

"And then you integrated with them. Why?"

[waterfell]

"That time ended." It was an overly simple way to say the excuse for her hatred she'd carried for years now.

"And so, when it ended, I was reborn." Just as she would be again some day, if she died again - at least, if nothing interfered in that cycle, as Galaxia would shortly attempt to do. "I was reborn, on Earth, to my mother."

[isomorphology]

"...Recycled." She stares. "You were recycled. How?"

Data doesn't work that way. When you are derezzed, that is it. There is no coming back. It's why the ISOs are all gone. Unable to come back.

[waterfell]

They aren't senshi. For her, it's simply part of her existence. "More precisely," Mercury corrects Quorra, "Immortality."

It's the sort of thing Mercury might be expected to boast of, or point to as another sign of superiority. But by now... It's meant losing a lot of people. And while her life may be long, that is not a guarantee of happiness.

[isomorphology]

"But, if you died, how is that immortality?" Quorra blinks, feeling horrid for asking all these probably seemingly stupid questions.

[waterfell]

They were valid questions. In ancient times, Quorra probably would have been lectured by a priest that it was simply a mystery to accept.

In front of the senshi of knowledge, she gets the best answer Ami herself understands. "That was only one lifetime. Biological immortality is not the same as invulnerability."

"And, even that death is not my end. I will live on in this form, until my next one."

[isomorphology]

Biological immortality. So, their spirits went on forever? Quorra doesn't know much about 'spirits.' Only the vagueness that Flynn told her and what she read in the books. Gods, spirits. It all worked together and she never quite got her head around it. Flynn was the "god" of the Grid. The Creator. Maybe it's the same kind of thing.

"How long does that last?"

[waterfell]

"Forever." Or, until the sailor crystal is somehow destroyed. She isn't naive enough to believe that could never happen - she's heard the stories of other worlds - but she also won't be offering the method to kill her to someone she barely knows.

[isomorphology]

"...Forever? Why? What if you didn't want to anymore?"

[waterfell]

Of all the simple words ever spoken by anyone, those are the ones to make her understand something, after this many years and this long. Because if she were ever to truly despair, to that point, there would only be one answer, one possibility, one way out.

It's the choice the princess made in worlds other than hers: take her own life, and pray for a happier reincarnation. She cannot, of course, say these words to Quorra. It smacks too much of defeat. But she remembers them.

"I'd find a way to accomplish what I do want," is all she says. The truth is, she is as bound to this cycle as humans are bound to mortality.

[isomorphology]

"And what's that?" Quorra can't imagine someone wanting to live for so long and enjoying it.

[waterfell]

"What I have," she answers stalwartly. This is the life she was born to, the sweet immortality humans craved so much. "I'll continue to make this kingdom prosper."

"This is my life this time."