Pylo flounced, or was flounced as she, that is outerself moved through the curved passageways of the estate.

That had been happening ever since the conversation with Artemis.

The sheer breadth of memory put up for review, the contexts and situations. All of it rolled over her and she was shown. It flowed through and from and before and reminded of her.

It echoed voids she had known since that first moment of proper existence.

Filled in the shape of herself.

And left her contemplating as she flounced from one passage to the next.

There was a lot less distinction to feel and see and know to herself and outerself compared to those first brief moments. She observed, she experienced, she remembered every nuance and fresh taste of the air, the passing genome of a packet from a sister, the way that spores were breathed heavy and rich in and out of her Oviriticuli.

It was all so wondrous and outerself drifted through it effortlessly and without barely even the slightest appreciation for it.

In moments that Pylo, inner pylo that is savored and was struck to utter stillness and total awe were mundane for outer pylo.

Swapping, encapsulating, commenting and releasing shaped and annotated messages even as she moved.

Outerself.

Innerself.

The boundaries were already blurring and it was making her agitated, she had gone through the trouble of trying to crystalize these moments, this last vista of home.

And innerself had spent most of it frittering away on bacteria and then gawking like a tourist!

But, that was the point. That was why she had made innerself in the first place.

It was unfair to think ill of her for that.

For outerself to think ill of HER.

She was inner Pylo!

And she was still distinct enough and naive and fresh and totally overwhelmed enough to do her job thank you very much!

Even if it made her bubble in amusement.

She was sounding like her youngest sister.

Speaking of sisters, there was something new approaching her, that is them, outerself and herself, that is inner Pylo.

Oh and she was missing things!

It was so easy to just wash away in the endless feed of subtle comuniques and suggestions that whispered up from her cortices. From everywhere, softly speaking to her.

Let’s see what had outerself said?

There was the introduction, many pleasantries, and it was in a subtly new format from normal.

Oh bother this was on a totally different temporal reference frame then the other comments and discussions.

Alright so now it was much less of a massive overwhelming torrent of information. Now she could see how it skimmed up and poured around herself.

Bits and pieces of information washed by her. Such that Pylo could languish in every eddie of it for subjective eternities, but there was something new here, something exciting!

She wanted the next bit!

So she skimmed only the briefest details fluttering through her awareness and in time she picked up to the latest present.

Then had to backtrack through the already humming prior engagements and designations to confirm for herself just who this was.

Designated Sister.

Relation?

Masque Sister, ever so slightly older than Pylo but younger than Artemis. Only two scion broodings prior, a direct child of Mother like herself.

But wait? Hardly any of these genes were anything like what Pylo herself had, and they were nothing like Athena?

And the broad physical structure was hardly recognizably similar.

What?! Oh...

OH!

Artemis’ overflowing contemplations on all of the potential matches and suitors and courts and orgies and so much more made a lot more sense now. But there were discussions to be had! Or for her to observe right?

Okay that made sense now, okay zooming back through the occasionally niceties, outerself was sniping at something something her tissue depth was a bit enemic.

Counterpoint and teasing about something that outerself did with her foliage? Wait, did she?

A quick query from the helpful whispers that murmured and hummed out of every facet of the space around her.

Oh, okay yeah she did do that but it was totally intentional and NOT because she was lazy!

Oh-kay context summed up good enough pylo was properly aligned and temporally tuned and back into context of the present.

Again.

“Corinth! I’m on my way, I won’t be late I swear!”

Outerself was communicating in that way which she had used sparingly with Artemis but seemed to also always be trickling in from the outside. It was a familiar groove of a method.

It was a strange familiar feeling. Reaching out to the cortices? Almost.

It was like how Pylo looked but pushing back. It was in many ways more like how Inner Pylo had fumbled and tweaked and spoken to that one bacterium that had been living its best life in a dollop of solvent in one of the cavities of the wall.

But in a broad sweeping manner that ran up and down the anatomy of her sister. Who was not at all a Siren at all.

Well of course she was not a Siren. It’s not like every one of Pylo’s Sisters had to be Sirens.

That would be so gouache and terribly uncouth of Mother! too insulting to even contemplate. Think of all the suitors and supplements and the vast archive of Courtesan!

The political alliances it would void alone!

Really she needed to check her notes on how to properly make one of these impressionitations better. She was obviously doing it wrong if they always ended up so daft.

The inner self flinched at the admonishment but Pylo sighed and offered it a bit of a gentle nudge to try and focus on what was so special about her stuffy sister that could be remembered well later after-

Oh.

Bother, she had finished synchronizing.

Or close enough that it was barely noticeable.

Corinth fluttered a bit and flashed light across the passage. The shine of how it flickered and skittered briefly striking a bit of joyous wonder.

“Oh Pylo, I know that curling frond and constipated complexion! How long did that one last?”

Pylo huffed and swung a playful thorn jab at the chassis of Corinth's support frame. Which dutifully pulled the tightly wound masque out of reach.

She aimed to miss of course but in case for some reason her sister wanted to entertain the repairs such a stab wound would entail the payload was mostly benign pluripotent cells matched with a few minor complements and a limerick about her heatsinks.

“Barely since I left the main trunk off the scorb pastures. I think they are syncing faster each time just to spite me.”

That hurt a bit, but also was frustrating too. A nasty tightening knot of disappointment in herself that lashed both ways. Again. Ugh, unsynced enough to feel bad both ways but not enough to do what she was SUPPOSED to do.

“Like I’ve explained to you before, Pylo. You give them far too much to work with. And you coddle them too much too. They're not supposed to be children or even forks. They are PERSPECTIVES. They should be you but unfettered in context and predisposition. Fresh and unconcerned but not entire persons in their own right!”

Pylo ruffled and spewed a few grains of pollen that would hiss with the barest hint of free oxygen.

“I know Corinth! But I just... Nevermind, I shouldn't have shared that treatise with you in the first place. All you’ve done is complain ever since.”

The message was not enough to actually harm her sister’s delicate tissues or the equally fragile armatures and mechanisms that she was wrapped around.

There was no real spite between them but the latest failure was putting Pylo in a bit of a mood which was honestly not becoming of the role she needed to play at the Catharsisium. It was a gathering for her to first accept and be accepted by her new crewmates.

“Pylo. I am just trying to help you with this project of yours. But... Look I can appreciate how much you admire the outlook but I don’t think it’s such a good fit for you, It’s-”

This was an argument that Pylo did not want to have again. She grabbed hold of a distraction fluttering along her sister’s substrate.

“I was trying to make a better impression of you, and home, and everything. A better memory of everyone.”

That stalled out her sister’s thoughts quite nicely. Set them fluttering into numerous possible avenues of approach, attack, management. Dizzying spaces and vast whorls of potential paths that if she tried to actually think closely on would leave her dizzy.

Which was half the point of it she was sure.

Pylo had to strike quick and lean into her own advantage or her sister would suss her out and totally out maneuver her.

“I’m going to miss you Corinth, you could have chosen to come with me.”

There was a lamentation of an equally frustrated old argument but one Pylo at least had yet to tire of having.

And it furthered her sister having to follow along the direction of the conversation she would prefer rather than the broad sweeps beyond.

“Go galavant off all over the reef as some kind of courier? Lug you around for the rest of my life? No dear sister, I’m meant to be worn! What kind of gown has to hold up her bearer? It’s all kinds of backwards you perverted whelp. I’ll leave that chore to our cousin who for reasons I shall blame on whatever sort of feral siring could possibly have produced you finds that future appealing.”

It was all said in jest, Pylo was pretty sure Corinth would not have minded the chance to mock her on how light and undernourished she was that a gown could carry her. But there was a comfortable gentleness of accepting that the reason she did not want to go with Pylo on the endeavor was so shallow.

The real reason was much harder to dismiss. As they had long since discussed.

So Corinth leaned into the playful sparring. Which honestly was improving Pylo’s mood.

Which had been the Masque’s plan of course, What?! But Pylo had thrown her off balance with that distraction!

She had not even had to emit or emote a single thing but her only slightly older sister sussed it out anyway.

“Hardly dear sister, you really need to not lean on just the first-through-fifth orders of thought and assume the rest is superficial. It will leave you easy to manipulate.”

There was only one response when you were totally outplayed by an elder sister.

“You Big Meanie.”

Which brought a flare of radiance from Corinth’s waste heat that was ever so subtly laced with the implication that Pylo was an idiot and a fool.

The active and unimplied message was far more civil.

“I’m only looking out for my younger sister, You're going out in the wild feral barbarity Pylo. If you leave openings like that some savages will flense you and yours sterile.”

Pylo huffed and flounced alongside the Masque, the estate’s subtle workings carrying both sisters along their way to the Catharsisium.

“And as I’ve said before to you and everyone else I’ll be fine, it’s not like I’m going out all on my own!“

She flailed to the space around Corinth just to further emphasise her point.

“You all keep bringing it up but I know everyone has read the dossiers on every one of the crew and every species going on the ship!”

Corinth floated along gently listening even as Pylo found herself ranting along the old and tired statement.

“Our cousin Iliac who has worked her whole life in the port trade commission will be there of course. And Matriarch’s Gown spent half the gestation of the ship honing The Navigator’s design and implementation.”

Pylo started to wonder if maybe she was not as synchronized as she thought, she was starting to furl and unfurl her petals and fronds with autonomous expressions of unease.

“And those two Dragoons? Yeah they have that military hobby but they're also fully blooded and war decorated lawyers! And even the... The Cook is decorated and esteemed, the whole species winnowed and distilled the memories of over a million siblings striving through and along with the ship’s egg since she was conceived!”

Pylo was choking a bit on the inbred malformed partial spores that had bloomed through her inner surfaces. She spent a moment chewing and digesting them back down. Trying to calm the sudden flood of rising panic.

No she was far too in sync with herself after all, just everything was so much more overwhelming then she had remembered.

Just in that moment her sister’s gentle, fragile drapery and the only slightly more durable rig of her armature are the only thing helping Pylo hold it together.

“What if they don’t have anything for me to do? What if none of them like me? What if Tunie doesn't like me anymore?”

Corinth laughed in the soft and gentle way, the deep bonded sisterly way that was encoded in that secret language she had made for just the two of them when Pylo was deathly afraid of corners.

“Really Sister! You are Pylo Courtesan. A scion of Mother Courtesan. Who was raised on love and beauty. Our family are the likes of which echo in legend across the reef!”

There was a conspiratorial murmur to follow.

“Besides of course Tunie will LOVE you, you are going to be one of her CREW.”

Pylo sighed and ruffled her petals back into poise and signaled ascent to her sister.

They parted at the entryway to the Catharsisium, briefly Pylo considered trying to spin up another impressionitation.

But no.

Artemis kept admonishing her for it.

Corinth had tried to explain how to do it correctly but she never seemed to quite get it right.

She was obviously doing something wrong there. And besides she wanted her full attention on puting fore the best of herself.

She was presenting for her future crew.

Putting forward the best that her family could offer to the Crew and to the Ship.

They were waiting for her out in the expanse of the Catharsisium.

Artemis had made sure that the space was cleared and sterilized safe for non-siren attendance for the event.

So that the rest of the Crew could attend without protection or cognitive insulation.

This was it.

Her family had done everything they could to support her and bring this to be.

To prepare her for this. To manage the machinations of economics and government to ensure her and her cousin Iliac were given a place among the crew.

It was up to Pylo now to make sure all of that was not wasted.

To make sure she would not have to say goodbye to Tunie.