Episode 67 - Silences

## Silences

A black background with a thin white squiggly border. Within the border a pealing billboard reads "MOTEL THUNDERBIRD MARFA TEXAS" with a Raven depicted in red flying by its top right. Bellow this image, but still within the boarder the words "67.SILENCES" is written in white

### Author

William A. Wellman

Danielle makes her goodbyes, Jonah confronts his monsters, and Olivier is visited by an enemy. The theme of tonight’s episode is Silences.

***Content Warnings:** Abuse Mention (Hector), Animal death (Heidi as usual), Violence, Death + Injury, Blood, Birds, Body horror, Electrocution*

## Intro - Unknowable Colors

Nikignik describes to the Dreamers someone who had never been called by their correct name, and they question fi they should once again attempt to correct those who beckon them. Despite this they looked for them. They would hope the silence speaks for itself, but it does not. The calls echo throughout their head, deep in their fractal lair, and a scintillating light is born in their heart. And they claw their way through the prismatic walls of space, a child of unknowable colours, telling those who called them "here I am, you called, and I have arrived, is this not what you wanted?", and those who called them realise too late that they had no idea who it was they were calling, never pictured such exquisite destruction. Flames in a thousand shades scatter their dwellings to the wind.

Nikignik sits in a Dreaming pod, describing it as "an impossibly small place" possessing nearly no room to move. With him was a girl (see Danielle O'Hara) who dreamt with her eyes open, looking out not at the interior of Box Andromeda, but rather The Prime Dream.

## Story 1 - Unheard Goodbyes

Danielle O'Hara sits within the Prime Dream procrastinating on saying goodby to her family (see Episode 63 - Signals) sitting in a green field of her own creation within the prime dream. She wonders if she had done the right thing in helping Nikignik in Episode 38 - A Little Static, all too aware that because she had listened to them life was now approaching her rapidly, thinking about of Riot and her friends would be able to pull of their rescue mission (see Episode 50 - Radios). When she stops procrastinating, she visits her brothers first, finding them in a treehouse the size of an apartment building within which they had spent their mutual childhoods, finding them quickly as they played cowboy, and freezing time within the Prime dream so that she could say goodbye to them without them ever knowing of her presence or plan, ware that this was the safest option, in case the Botulus Corporation came knocking, their ignorance to her being their best defence. Next, she goes to her parents' house, a reimagining in beige of their house in the real world, fining her father in his study working on a book which only contains the word "Chapter 1", and her mother on the lawn playing with a dog. She wishes them goodbye, hoping to see them again.

And the last person she says goodbye to, her Grandma Laura, who she finds standing on a board walk that stretched off across a horizon of birds, blue lakes and tall grass. Time remains frozen as she approaches her, asking not expecting a response if Granma Laura was watching the birds, but realises that Laura's eyes were following her as she crossed the walkway, causing her to freeze, as she'd thought people moving when she'd frozen time to be impossible. She resumes time, watching her grandmother, who simply looks at her and smiles, commenting that Danielle didn't visit her often, asking if she was going off somewhere. Danielle tells her that she wasn't supposed to witness any of what she'd done, but Laura asks her if she [Danielle] was going to disappear, telling her that her sister (see Amaryllis) had when she was Danielle's age, that she supposed disappearing ran in the family, as well as the dreams (see Danielle O'Hara). Danielle asks her if she could tell her about this, as she wasn't actually in a hurry, just waiting on a friend (see Riot Maidstone)

### Interlude 1 - Eternal Journeys

Nikignik tells the Dreamers of a destroyed America, all of its great engines of industry gone quiet, and their rusting corpses dot this silent expanse. There were no more freight trains rolling across the deserts, no traffic to raise a chorus in concrete. Wind, and the free songs of the summer wildlife, and beneath all the growing roots of black trees and obsidian groves are the new sounds of America, a silence bearing the whispers of a new age. Unfortunately, Botulus Corporation Advertising methods survived to pollute the world with their sound, their drones and carriers sail overhead like insects, a flicker of electric life. Their calls to action and marketing messages echo across the lower landscape of America still, hoping to reach any who still live and wander.

## Story 2 - Herald of Storms

Jonah Duckworth speaks to Hector Mendoza with mild alarm about what he'd [Hector] told Bern Keene in Episode 65 - Miles, Hector tells him that if Jonah wanted to stay at the Scoutpost (see Episode 57 - Edges) but thing were falling apart (see Episode 59 - Friends), so if they wanted thing to work out they were going to have to make it happen. That the Fort Freedom people were supposed to have arrived by then (see Episode 61 - Protectors), but Jonah suggests that they were running late because of the storm that was passing over them, or they had run into Froglins along the way. Hector tells Jonah that they couldn't rely on Fort Freedom, and that he couldn't stand Mrs. Wicker, Jonah agrees that he would have liked it if Buck Silver had stayed, saying that he got the feeling that he didn't much like it at Fort Freedom. He asks if Hector thought that trying to move The Froglin Queen and Lolgmololg was going to fix things instead of making them worse, and Hector tells him that he did, that he wished they were in a situation where you stop thinking about the problem and it goes away, but they weren't, they couldn't wait it out and play the pacifist, because one of these nights they weren't going to be walking away. Jonah tells him that this plan was dangerous, that it would be putting them directly in harm's way, and that last time he's seen Lolgmololg he'd died (see Episode 6 - Frogs), and he didn't want to do that again, getting killed wasn't easy for him. Hector reassures him that he didn't like seeing him get hurt either, that if he didn't want to help then he didn't have to, it was just that with Jonah's fishing experience (see Jonah Duckworth) the task at hand would be easier. Jonah tells him that he would help him, but asks if he had a plan, which Hector more of less does not.

Jonah then asks how much he would have to change before Hector stopped loving him (see Jonah Duckworth), that every time he came back, he was a little different, he had to be, because his body —the one that got killed— was still lying there, and it was him, so what was he now? He wished he could be one way or the other, alive or dead. Hector tells him that Jonah was still around, so he wasn't complaining, if it kept them together, he was happy. Jonah points out that Hector was lying, but Hector tells him that he really didn't mind, he just knew that it had been bothering Jonah as late and he didn't know if that was good or bad. Jonah tells him that of course he was worried, worried about what was happening to him, worried about what might happen if he went too far, He's about to ask Hector to do something (probably kill him) it he ever stopped being Jonah, but Hector cuts him off, telling him that it wasn't going to come to that. The warning bells of the Scoutpost ring, and they get up to leave and help with whatever the situation was, Hector turning to Jonah and telling him that when they were done with this, they were going to take a week to rest, and then after that spend the rest of their lives together, if Jonah wanted to.

### Marketing - Advertising Ethics

Lady Ethel Mallory interrupts Nikignik's broadcast with her marketing segment, telling the listeners that it had been a privilege for her to participate in early tests for the Prime Dream user experience, prior to public release, that she could not express how amazing her first experience in shared dream was, but beyond that she'd seen opportunity, a chance at lasting happiness for everyone who closes their eyes to join Botco's happy dreaming family. It had been important her that there were no gaps in the user experience, no bord moments, if they wanted to be they simply were, when one adventure ends another has already begun. Whether the listener stayed in their own dreamscape, or participate in Botco's constructed environments, there was always something to do for a lifetime of content. After all, that was Botco's hope.

### Story 2, Continued - Herald of Storms

Jonah follows Hector outside to the sound of the alarm bells and a Froglin attack. Jonah is pulled away from Hector by Zelda Duckworth, who asks him what was happening, and he tells her that he didn't know but she should stay inside, she quips back but returns to the indoors, and Jonah goes to re-join Hector at the Scoutpost walls, when in a flash of lightning in the night, he is able to see that it wasn't just the Froglins, but also a Wondering Night-Gaunt in the near distance. He gets closer, climbing up to the walkway above the Lurch Lake gate, and seeing the chains that it had hung from its antlers, with the either whole or partial corpses of Scouts lost to the Hallowoods. The Night-Gaunt arrives at the gate in a matter of moments, and begins attempting to tear down the wall, getting shot at by an archer, to little effect. Bern loses her footing and falls 30ft off the walkway, and the Night-Gaunt begin to reach out to Hector and his Dogs, intending to make them it's first meal of the night. Jonah runs forward faster than he thought he would have been physically capable off, pulling Hector out of harm's way.

He watches Hector face shift from hock to thanks to horror as Jonah gets plucked up by the Night-Gaunt in his place, and is about to be eaten by it when he uses his abilities, seeming to slow time, and telling it to stop, that he wasn't going to die that day, telling the Night-gaunt "*This is not where you belong, little deer*", it shrieks at him, but he tells it to 'get along', seeing a moment of what might have been fear or understanding in the Night-Gaunt, before it sets him down on what remained of the wreck of the Lurch Lake Gate, and walking back into the tress. The Froglins also retreat, Jonah momentarily locking eyes with one that he remembered from Episode 6 - Frogs (see Grug), before the world returns to normal, sound flooding into Jonah's senses again, and he passes out, also falling off the Gate.

### Interlude 2 - Bad Dream

Nikignik tells the Dreamers that he had known silence, which they might find surprising as he was typically in all places at once, but nevertheless, there was silence in the Orchard, only the stellar wind moving in groves of stars, but not every quiet was the same, for that had been full of joy and possibility. It had been silent when Marolmar had died, and he'd been half a universe away, unable to reach him in time to help, only watch. There had been silence when his heart was stilled beneath the arctic ice, although it was not an organ in the way the Dreamers might have them—it was a creation, a gift, a cherished token of all that he was. And there was silence now, the Council of Heavens will not speak of Marolmar's death at all, pretending it never happened, like there was not someone missing.

## Story 3 - El Cosmico

Olivier Song arrives at the El Cosmico hotel and campground with the rest of the RV Gang and Mothmobile, picking the location to rest for the night amongst broken pastel caravans, Riot Maidstone picking through the skeletons of the vehicles to try and find anything that she might be able to fix the RV with after the events of Episode 65 - Miles. He asks Ray about it, and he tells him that they were in a campsite of sorts, that it used to be home for outcasts and beatniks from across the country. Olivier comments that Ray would be more convenient if he was a campervan, which Ray get offended by. Diggory Graves points out a nearby town, Ray calling it a "*bit of a cross between an art exhibit and a town*", Olivier asks why someone might put art so far out into the desert, and he tells him that it was like any roadside attraction, a reward for the trip. Olivier announces that he might go and explore for a bit, Moth Scarberry tells him that dinner was going to be in half an hour, after moth had been put on meal duty again, and Olivier steps into the sky and flies off.

After a small bit, Olivier spots The Omen approaching in the near distance, and Olivier, not wanting to deal with whatever it was there to tell him, hits them with a bolt of lightning, also accidentally hitting a billboard that advertised one '"Hotel Thunderbird". The Omen falls out of the sky, and Olivier approaches it, asking it what it wanted. It tells him that they'd only come to talk, gradually pulling itself back together, Olivier asks if The Director had sent them to look for him, but it simply tells her that no she hadn't, that The Omen had sought him for its own accord. Olivier assumes that this means that the Omen had come to gloat about Olivier getting kicked out of Downing Hill Public Library (see Episode 15 - Cards), telling them that if it made them happy, Olivier's life had been hell since he'd left. But The Omen tells him that this did not make it happy, that it'd thought the library would be better with Olivier gone, but it hadn't been. Downing Hill was actually worse in his absence (see Episode 57 - Edges), and it had begun to wonder if it was better outside. Olivier asks if The Omen was thinking about leaving the library, and when he doesn't get a response, he tells it that Downing hill had been his home, that no matter what, he'd had someone there to tell him what to do, and whether he was doing it right. but it wasn't like that outside, no one told you what to do, that if it left Downing Hill it wasn't going to be easy, but it could be whatever it wanted to be. The Omen tells him that he didn't know what it wanted to be, that it had been summoned for Downing hill, yet the Director did not smile on it. Olivier tells them that even if she did, it wouldn't be forever. The Omen leaves again

## Outro - Silences

Nikignik waxes poetics about silences, saying that people appreciated all too little the moments of peace they were given. He tells the dreamers that their silences might last for an hour, and his a couple of thousand years, but nevertheless in the stillness there was a voice of significance, their own. Thier thoughts and feelings, the uncomfortable truth of who they are sits within them and was loud in the quiet. Silences was coming, and he didn't know if all the noise in the universe would be enough to keep it at bay, only time would tell, and if the little broadcasts of dream that Nikignik sent pout were not enough to end the silence their echoes will at least remember the Dreamer's stories.