Gate of Memoirs/Heart-to-Heart

Kranus doesn't seem that all amused with the fast-talking Giselle.
Portrait 	Dialogue
Music: "Ghost"	Music: "Ghost"
 	
*The portal yawns before Giselle, undulating in bands of anomalous color before something shifts from within.
*In the space of a heartbeat, everything speeds toward that all-consuming darkness.
Portrait	Dialogue
 	
*—A missing piece of time from forgotten ages.
*"The deafening absence of that...silence, grows by the day."
*"But it's not exactly unpleasant."
*The woman sets the writing implement down with a sharp clack.
*Its black ichor could use a little more time to dry, but spending time with the things called "thoughts" gets taxing at times.
*Regardless, it—she was learning at a prodigious rate. Far quicker than she had expected.
*Here, in one of these myriad worlds that teemed with activity, was uncharted territory.
*Like a newborn creature she groped her way blindly along its nuances,
*and the pulse of life was as bewildering as it was mesmerising.
*So unlike the dust of the Queen's vast realm.
*And now that she was her own being,
 	
*Giselle—as she learned her name syllable by syllable—had set forth her own goal.
*She would come to know the ones they called "Summoners."
*The ones that, like her, possessed not only the power to travel between dimensions...
Portrait	Dialogue
 	
*...but could observe and even influence them.
Portrait 	Dialogue
Music: "Overcome"	Music: "Overcome"
 	
**THUD*
*The cold bite of steel greeted Giselle as she peeled herself off the floor.
 	
*Giselle: It worked...
*Giselle: Ouch, I could do without this sort of crash landing.
 	
*Giselle dusts herself off and winces from the palpable thrum in the charged air.
*An ominous thrum pulsed through the atmosphere, almost like a certain steel world now condemned to oblivion.
 	
*Giselle: This is...
 	
*A familiar hooded figure materializes in the shadowed corpse of a fallen building, and regards Giselle with an unseen indifference.
*Kranus: A memory.
 	
*Giselle: Not just that. This is *your* memory.
 	
*Kranus's simulated voice was even, bereft of that insidious alien warbling.
 	
*Kranus: A mortal shell not of one's own making.
*Kranus: A reason and purpose decided by another.
*Kranus: How different are we, really?
 	
*Giselle: You're oddly philosophical for a Sliver.
*Giselle: Then again, I'd have expected no less from the Mad Tinkerer.
 	
*Kranus only watches quietly—and unsettlingly.
 	
*Giselle: I'm surprised you'd deign to meet with me, actually.
*Giselle: I thought only would interest—
 	
*Kranus: Do not be mistaken.
*Kranus: I have no desire for contact.
*Kranus: Especially not with someone like you.
 	
*Giselle: I'm not *her*, in case you're not aware.
*Giselle: If anything, I'm closer to *you*. I've been here longer than you have, mind.
*Giselle: You've only just figured out your purpose, so to speak.
*Giselle: But that's not what I'm here for.
Portrait	Dialogue
 	
*The steel beneath Giselle's feet begins to shred, then disintegrate, at the whim of Kranus.
 	
*Giselle: ?!
 	
*Kranus: No... I think not.
*Kranus: I was motivated by curiosity, at first.
*Kranus: That someone like you should find a place at the side of one of us.
*Kranus: And now the Summoner has conveniently disappeared.
 	
*Giselle: Since when was one of YOU?
*Giselle: Ugh, you're all the same. You AND the Queen.
 	
*Once again silent, the only indication of Kranus's wishes are the churning edges of this shattered memory.
 	
*Giselle: Fine then!
*Giselle: If that's what you prefer.