Silence hung between us as Rhea kept looking outside, while Anathasia absentmindedly stirred her coffee. None of us said another word, the hum of the fans above mixing with the occasional ringing of the bell hanging over the door.
After a moment-
"It is," Rhea murmured. "Control was never what I yearned for..."
A small pause.
"Meaning was."
-
Once the three of us finished, we stepped out onto the sidewalk just outside the café.
For a second, the two of them just stood there, staring at nothing in particular before Anathasia finally spoke.
"Say, wanna come over?" she glanced at Rhea. "We're already pretty close anyway."
Rhea, on the other hand, only looked her way briefly before giving a small nod. She adjusted her sleeve, checking the time.
"I suppose. The daycare I'm working at is closed for today, after all."
She paused, the edge of her lips curving up slightly.
"Mhm," she turned to us with a gentle expression. "That should be fine."
She stopped short again, her gaze dropping as if something crossed her mind.
"And..."
"And?" Anathasia tilted her head.
"Regarding your second daughter," Rhea said, lifting her gaze to meet ours. "She may need... closer guidance."
A slight pause.
"Given that she possesses the same Authority you and I have used across every era."
Anathasia stiffened almost immediately, her expression hardening.
I narrowed my eyes slightly, raising a brow
"And by that, you mean..."
"Authorship?"
Silence.
Rhea didn't say anything else.
But the small nod she gave was more than enough.
-
With that, the three of us started walking back quietly. And somehow... I still ended up carrying most of the shopping bags from earlier.
As we passed by the crossroads leading to NGSU, Rhea spoke up again.
"It isn't necessarily dangerous."
Anathasia and I glanced at her.
"She's quite gentle... and she does care about the people around her. To a degree."
She let out a quiet breath, and just like that, a juice box appeared in her hand.
She poked the straw through it and took a sip, falling silent again.
"...Really?" Anathasia said flatly, her expression flattening even more.
Rhea kept sipping as we turned the corner toward our street. After finishing, she walked over to a roadside recycling bin, tossed it in, then turned back to us.
"As I was saying-"
Anathasia and I just stared at her, occasionally exchanging looks as she continued.
"-Your daughter, Francesca. She possesses authorship... but she's unaware of it."
The same book from earlier materialized in her hand again.
"That's...?" I muttered, my gaze dropping to the cover.
A long-haired man and a white-haired girl faced each other.
It looked... way too familiar.
"It's the recording medium for everything that's happened so far," Rhea said calmly.
A small pause.
"Both the events you've seen..."
"...and the ones you haven't."
Anathasia's brows knitted together as she shot a glance at the book, then turned away, looking ahead a second later.
"Why do you even have that thing..."
"It's not the same one you used to trim out events in the past," Rhea cut in smoothly, flipping through the pages.
"So worry not. It's not viable for narrative curation or manipulation."
Anathasia whipped back to her, then deflated a second later, turning away as her shoulders slumped.
"Why-"
"And yes, Kyle," Rhea continued, wetting her fingertip before flipping the page again.
"Your wife here specifically removed Marianne from the equation in the past."
My eyes widened for a second, but she just continued.
"By editing the original medium back then, thus eliminating Marianne's threat. But also garnering Arianne's attention."
I glanced at Anathasia walking beside me, now completely silent while avoiding my gaze.
Which was... rare, for her.
A sigh slipped from my lips as I reached out and ruffled her hair.
"...So this idiot here really did something," I said, glancing back at Rhea walking a step behind us. "Huh?"
"In a sense, yes. But it also resulted in some... rather precarious consequences. Which is likely why she hasn't used Authorship again since."
Anathasia whipped toward me instantly.
"She wanted to kidnap you-!"
My hand dropped to her face before she could continue, my expression still flat.
"Yes, yes. I already connected the dots twenty years ago. So stop whining, alright?"
She grabbed my wrist, still grumbling as she tried to pry my hand off her face.
"Why are you so strong-! That's not-!"
As we kept walking, with Rhea still flipping through the book, Anathasia eventually calmed down, her grip loosening.
"I get it... could you stop crushing my face now?" she muttered.
Still raising an eyebrow, I reluctantly let go.
She shot me a glare like she was about to pounce.
"...Bastard."
"You were about to spiral again."
"I wasn't!" she huffed, tugging lightly on a loose strand of my hair.
I casually grabbed her shoulders and pushed her forward as she kept complaining, while Rhea walked behind us, still reading the book.
-
By the time we got home, I slumped onto the couch, the shopping bags dropping beside me.
Anathasia crossed her arms, letting out a scoff as she looked me over. Even after I'd already sunk into the couch.
Rhea was still reading the book in the background for some reason...
"You bought too much..." I groaned, reaching up to rub my arm.
"It's necessary," she replied with a shrug, gathering her hair and tying it into a high ponytail.
"To keep warm, y'know?"
"Girl, it's summer," I shot back flatly.
Her hands froze mid-motion, still biting onto the hair tie.
Then she looked away.
"...Right, I'll go make lunch then~"
"...Of course you're running away..."
I let out a soft sigh and rolled over, burying my face against a pillow at the edge of the couch.
For a moment, everything went quiet...
...aside from the faint sizzling from the kitchen.
Then-
"It is... truly quite hard to imagine," Rhea suddenly spoke.
I lifted my head slightly, glancing at her. She was now sitting on the other couch.
"Imagine what...?"
She didn't answer right away. Her gaze drifted toward the bags before she finally placed the book down on the small table between us.
"Anathasia Veridielle Augthoria," she said quietly. "The Supreme Being herself... choosing to stay small..."
A brief pause.
"...But I think I'm finally starting to understand her."
Another pause.
"Again."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Again?"
She nodded, leaning back against the couch, her hands resting flat on her lap.
"When you and Anathasia were still in the previous era..."
Her gaze shifted slightly.
"You were both still purely human."
Hearing that, I froze, then sat up quickly, narrowing my gaze at her.
"You remember what we were like... during the Previous Era?"
Rhea just hummed.
Another book appeared in her hand.
This time, the cover was blue-
And the title-
She Who Walks The Fine Line Between Reality And Fiction.
-was printed across it.
"This is the recording medium of the Previous Era."
As she opened it, the pages began flipping on their own, stopping a moment later as she pressed a finger onto one.
"The opposite, yet still part of the same totality."
Her eyes stayed on the page as she read.
"Or simply put... she split herself into a smaller, fragmented version."
"A being that started as a God... then realized it was written, and yearned to escape its container."
"Anathasia...? Or rather, are you talking about who she was back then?"
She glanced up at me briefly, then turned back to the page, flipping it again.
"Not quite," Rhea replied. "I'm talking about The Constant."
A small pause.
"Anathasia is that fragmented human part of The Constant."
Her voice remained calm.
"Or the one who was once known as-"
"Remiel."
I stared at the book in her hand, watching her finger flip through another page.
"Remiel...?"
She inclined her head, then closed the book and set it beside the first one on the table.
Her eyes lifted to meet mine. The amethyst, crystal-like look in them felt similar to something I couldn't quite place.
"The very first thing or entity that I wrote into existence."
She paused briefly, her hands resting flat on her lap again.
"And the very same entity that would later plunge the world I had created into... something language itself cannot describe twice."
"Twice?" My expression hardened. "There's more than one Great Collapse event...?"
The house fell silent as the question left my lips, the earlier sizzling from the kitchen fading away as well.
Then-
Anathasia walked back into the living room, untying her hair as she did.
Rhea and I both glanced at her.
"The first one is nothing compared to the actual Great Collapse," she said smoothly, her hair cascading down her back.
"What's that supposed to mean?"