I Like Long Walks On The Beach

[iamnotpolaris]

The beach is a nice, convenient, out-of-earshot place to calibrate the coordinates for this universe.

Comments

[iamnotpolaris]

"Like Manna from heaven. Uh, religious reference."

[not_only]

"Well, that explains why I didn't understand it."

[iamnotpolaris]

"It refers to a time period when our people were wandering in the desert and God was directing them to food sources so they could not die."

[not_only]

"Convenient thing to have happen when you're wandering in the desert."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Uh huh. It was a complicated time in history."

[not_only]

"Hmm?"

[iamnotpolaris]

"Well, the reason they were wandering through the desert was that they had just escaped from slavery in a country called Egypt, and this was also the point at which our religious laws and customs were being codified, and also they kept getting into wars with almost every other group they encountered."

[not_only]

"That sounds... not very much like any religion I'm used to. But I guess that makes sense since you're from another world and all."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Yeah. I guess it's not very much like most of the other religions in my world, come to think of it. Most of the really popular ones had a founder who proceeded to try to convert everyone possible. Mine sort of doubles as an ethnic group."

[not_only]

"Yeah... oh, I feel like an idiot now, you probably don't have anything like the Enemy in your world," he realizes.

[iamnotpolaris]

"...What's the Enemy?"

[not_only]

"Um, so part of the reason I know even less about religion than I might otherwise is because a while ago a strange army showed up from outside the planet and started trying to conquer it, and they nearly wiped out the Ceirene completely and started in on the Aluvai before we managed to pull together an alliance, and, well, a lot of people decided that if their gods really existed they sure weren't helping."

[iamnotpolaris]

"That. Would be a better reason to find your world again than kids getting eaten by wild animals."

[not_only]

"I don't even really think about it much. Things have gotten a lot better since the alliance, and I didn't live anywhere near the edge. But, um, yeah."

[iamnotpolaris]

"I mean, I'm sure there are terrible things about my world that I don't think about much that an outsider who had a chance of fixing it would want to."

[not_only]

"Hard to find out what they are, though, if you don't think about them."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Yeah."

[not_only]

Nod.

[iamnotpolaris]

"I mean, if I try to come up with things that could be improved about my world it's not that hard. Like, diseases."

[not_only]

"Diseases generally aren't good."

[iamnotpolaris]

"But, you know, I don't really think about things like Ebola in my day-to-day life."

[not_only]

"Yeah."

[iamnotpolaris]

"It would be nice if we ran into some more useful magic before we got home."

[not_only]

"Useful magic is generally pretty nice, yes."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Considering the fact that he apparently completely reworked the island's biome it wouldn't surprise me if Tialle's Demon could do something about disease, come to think of it."