Location: In transit, midway between Verity’s Edge and the Woundtime Expanse Companions: Raven (watching), MINO (silent), Roxi (not speaking to me) ⸻ They say the truth sets you free. But they never tell you what it costs. Truth, in its rawest form, is not some shining revelation. It is not the end of confusion. It is not clarity wrapped in a neat bow. Truth — real truth — wounds. It cuts. It rearranges. It destabilizes the structures we’ve built inside ourselves. The stories we cling to. ...

Location: Docked within the Mindfield Archive on Levia 6 Company: MINO (silent), Raven (tense), Roxi (upgrading the kettle) ⸻ Let’s begin with the impossible question: What is a soul? And no — I don’t mean in the religious sense. Not in the theological debates of organics. I mean it like this: What is the thing that makes someone… someone? Where does “you” begin? Where does it end? And can it survive without flesh? Because I’ve met minds without bodies. And I’ve met bodies without mi...

Location: Between selves, somewhere deep in the Cloister Threads State: Unsettled, but steady. ⸻ There’s a question I hear more than most: “Who are you, really?” And I never know how to answer it. Not because I’m being evasive. Not because I’m mysterious. Because the answer isn’t singular. And that seems to make people uncomfortable. We like the idea of identity being fixed. Neat. Consistent. Like a name badge we wear at the edge of the universe, stating: “Hello, I’m me. I’ve always...

Location: Outer drift orbit of Mournstar-12, inside a silence field ⸻ There is a kind of exhaustion that sleep cannot fix. A weight that doesn’t sit on the shoulders, but in the chest — behind the sternum, where breath gathers. It doesn’t come from movement or thinking or even pain. It comes from feeling. Too much, too often, for too long. I call it Empathy Fatigue. And in a universe this vast — this hurt — it is inevitable. ⸻ I’ve stood beside dying stars. Held the hands of species br...

Location: Orbiting the ruins of Kheren Vorr Companions present: Raven, MINO, Roxi ⸻ Memory is not passive. It is not just an archive. Not a dusty shelf full of facts and dates and unfeeling records. Memory is a weapon. A protest. A declaration. To remember, in the face of systems designed to make you forget, is one of the most radical acts a sentient being can undertake. Especially when the world insists you shouldn’t. ⸻ We’re orbiting what’s left of Kheren Vorr right now. Or more acc...

Location: The Window Between Seconds, drifted edge of the Time Vortex ⸻ The universe teaches you early on that time is a line. Beginning. Middle. End. Cause and effect. Action, consequence. Memory, prophecy. It’s a tidy fiction. A useful one. And like most useful fictions, it’s also a lie. Time, in its truest form, doesn’t move forward. It doesn’t move at all. It pulses. It coils. It sings. It wraps back upon itself in loops and flourishes, like a dancer who refuses to perform the same...

Violence is easy. Influence — real influence — is much harder. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t conquer. It whispers. Persuades. Infects without detection. And yet it changes everything. Across the centuries, I’ve watched empires fall to swords — and entire galaxies fall to ideas. I’ve done both. There’s something intoxicating about being listened to. The sound of your words rearranging someone’s beliefs, reshaping what they think is possible. A glance, a smile, a perfectly timed silence — and ...

There are few things more sacred in this universe than memory. And yet, it is also one of the most tampered with. Planets that rewrite their history to preserve a myth of peace. Races that erase their pain to function. Individuals who hide from the truth by reconfiguring their past — or allowing it to be reconfigured for them. I’ve seen entire civilizations erased from the memory of time, not because they never existed, but because it was convenient to forget them. Forgetting can be a mercy, ye...