Purple eyes. She's always been struck by his eyes, you know? Purple, but in the way a nebula is purple. Deep, like you could fall inside them and never hit bottom. Those eyes look like he's just told the best joke, and is caught in the split second between punchline and laughter. A whole-- Just like that? A whole universe, in a typewriter? The implications are explosive! The seats do the decisions? It makes sense--you can't solve structural problems with personal addresses, but-- So if you replaced the gods-- Could you even replace the gods? Would it do anything? How would-- She could find out. Right? If Vesper can rewrite reality to-- Fuck, that just caught up with her. That's-- Is there a single well-adjusted person on-- Well, no, no, and if the Generous Knight was right, that's objectively correct-- She could-- The experimental possibilities. To rewrite time. To rewrite the gods! To rewrite herself, the Skies, the what-ifs-- She can. What would she even ask? What if I-- Dionysus's stare is like a drill, a pressure, a weight on her. Why does he even want her to-- Does he have a-- No, of course no, Dionysus never plans, so why does he-- She's hovering, she realizes. She--Gods help her, she [i]does[/i] want to touch it. To have your fingers on the levers of the universe. She could spend days--no, no, [i]years[/i] toying with this. Figuring out what happens if she does [i]this[/i] or if she does [i]that[/i], like a perfect oracle. … Is it real? It can't be real. It's an artifact, a gift, a, a, An icy chill runs down her neck. What does it mean to be real? When there are--no, not swords, the sword is different, but, you know. Crystals. Guns. Whatever they are, of Hades, summoning alternative selves, alternative versions. Is this the same thing? If she-- She stares at the levers, fingers frozen in the act of reaching out. If she changes the universe, it's a blink of an eye for her. An instant rejiggering of time and space, all in a handy jug of a universe where nothing bad spills out. She could find out what things would be like for herself if she. Well, you know, if she hadn't made any number of decisions. If she hadn't been a knight. What things would be like in a world where she had never needed to become a knight, because she'd been more normal. If she'd ignored the push of prophecy. If she hadn't saved the Pix. She doesn't regret those choices, but at the same time, they hang over her, a never-ending stream of what-ifs. You can't live your life that way. But also, if you-- If you fall down the well of seeing everything else, you can't live today, either. … Is it real [i]for them?[/i] If she moves a lever, makes a decision, what happens to the people on the inside? Well, the same thing that happens to people when she makes a decision on the outside. Except on the outside, there aren't do-overs. There are real relationships that suffer, real people that suffer, and you can't take it back. You can't try and retry until you-- It's real enough. It's real enough that her hand is already shrinking away from the levers of power by the time the snarl reminds her that there are more than three people in the room right now. And to her credit, she doesn't flinch! She was already decided! What was it that Demeter did? "I'm also curious how it works." Eloquent as always, Dyssia, your teachers would be proud.