The Multiverse Inn

[Arayaz]

As all of this unfolds, her eyes dart back and forth between the seemingly angered people speaking. She says nothing until the room seems to settle.

Yes, I suppose so. Seems like everybody, even people from separate alternate realities, is welcome here. Where have you been traveling from?

"I'm from far away. Probably further than any of you all are. Or ... not further away, per se, but a much longer journey to get here." She slips something from her hand into her bag. "What about you?"

[Egerius]

"Please don't snap my dad in half," Sherman says to Cynewulf.

“I wasn't going to”, Cynewulf sighs. He closes his eyes and sniffs in the air. A single tear escapes from the corner of his eye.
Argenzu ruffles the wolf-man's hair-like head fur. “He was reminded of his own father. He was enraged when Cynewulf moved to Rodentèrra permanently. I wasn't there, but it got bloody.”
“You don't want me to cry a river again, do you”, Cynewulf asked. Argenzu shook his head.
“Wait”, they both have a sudden realisation: “That's not pee, is it?!”

She raises her hands into the air, palms towards her and fingers splayed, holds them there for several seconds, then lowers them. She sits in a stool situated against a wall and looks around warily. “Is this a place where I might rest? I am weary after a long journey here.”

“Hello there. Just to be clear: I am not a rat. I've been called that before.”
Argenzu turns toward the human, but he's more interested in what the Yinrih has to say.

Seems like everybody, even people from separate alternate realities, is welcome here. Where have you been traveling from?

“A person is wise, people are stupid”, Cynewulf mumbles under his breath, just now accessing the desktop of his laptop.
“Well, you heard it: We're both from Rodentèrra – by birth or by choice”, he addressed Maria in a louder volume.

---

Spoiler:

here I am!

Rocking like a hurricane!

[TBPO]

Jellyfish-16352 Ceth is silent for a while, then says: "Sorry, but I need to quit; I belong to Ńtygałáttich Psíslfys and I have to go to a mission. Goodbye!" Ceth exits the Inn.

[lurker]

“A person is wise, people are stupid”

"Ah!" Doug barks, "That's from Men in Black!"

[Flavia]

Spoiler:

Cynewulf, still shirtless, walks up to Doug, crouches down and bends only a step in front of him, to make him uncomfortable on purpose: “Your adult adopted son”, he points at Sherman, “is of more temperance than you. Is this how a father acts as a role model?”
He is shaking, and speaks as if he confronted his own father.
Then he sees the eyes – they have no pupils. He jumps back.
Argenzu jumps off his stool and runs towards the wolf-man: “What's the matter?”
“His eyes! Like the void!” Cynewulf yelps.
Argenzu takes a hesitant, closer look. Yup, vanta-black visual receptors.
He drags Cynewulf off the ground and they go back to their seats.

"Please don't snap my dad in half," Sherman says to Cynewulf.

"I guess I need to explain how seniority works, at least on Hearthside," Sherman continues. "Since yinrih age so much slower than humans, seniority is reckoned based on how long you've lived relative to your total expected lifespan. If they treated us like yinrih of the same age, we'd just barely be out of adolescence on our deathbed. This works out fine in most cases, but it can get confusing in the case of humans like me who were raised by yinrih. Doug is my father, and I honor him as such," he says looking down at Shimmering Water, "But I am also his elder."

Maria looks relieved. Well, y'all must be wiser than the ancient humans, to use such things safely. They turn towards Doug and Sherman. You said something about 'atavists'? Are they people who consider technology dangerous?

Sherman opens his mouth to respond, but Doug cuts him off. "It's OK, son, I promise I'll be charitable." Doug turns to Maria. "We Wayfarers believe that sapience is a divine gift granted to us by the Uncreated Light. It is with this Fire of Understanding that we are able to meditate on the mysteries of Creation and plumb its inner workings. Human's call this 'science', a boring name if you ask me.

"Anyway," Doug returns form his digression, "The Atavists, on the other hand, think that sapience is a curse and want to go back to being irrational animals like our tree dweller cousins. To answer your question, it depends on which faction of the Atavists we're talking about. There are two major ones, which are divided based on their theological outlook. The Atheists, who believe that sapience is an undesirable evolutionary accident, aren't too problematic. They keep to themselves mostly, but sometimes get in trouble for trying to lobotomize their pups along with themselves.

"It's the Misotheists that are dangerous. They believe (Empyrean forbid!) that The Light is evil and that it cursed them with sapience. Some of them also believe that The Light can only exist as long as there are people worshiping it, so they try to 'kill' it by killing its worshipers. Utter nonsense if you ask me. Could a character in a book kill its author?"

"Anyway, I guess that leads me to my little outburst earlier, sorry about that, again. But my childermoot, that's what we call our parents since we normally have more than two, was originally from Sweetwater. That's the planet next to Hearthside. Atavists are everywhere on Sweetwater, and my parents were targeted by a group of Misotheists. They got away, obviously, and moved to Hearthside where they hatched me and the rest of my litter. Anything that sounds like Atavism just sets me off. I'm not excusing my behavior, just explaining it.

"I'd be happy to engage in some friendly push and pull*. Why do you dislike technology?"

*A philosophical or theological debate

I see. I'm not like those 'atavists' – we believe that sapience is a gift from the Stars Above, as we were taught by Saint Paul, Prophet of the Stars. The reason we dislike technology is simple: there has been an unexplained Incident, about four thousand years ago in our timeline, where most if not all of the humans' devices stopped functioning. Inhabitants of the orbital colonies died instantly, those on the surface learned how to live like us Abaniscena. We lost all contact with the remaining human colonies. As technology seems very important in your world too, I have to hope the Incident doesn't happen there. The Terran date would be around 10000 A.D., if that calendar is even known among your folk.

As all of this unfolds, her eyes dart back and forth between the seemingly angered people speaking. She says nothing until the room seems to settle.

Yes, I suppose so. Seems like everybody, even people from separate alternate realities, is welcome here. Where have you been traveling from?

"I'm from far away. Probably further than any of you all are. Or ... not further away, per se, but a much longer journey to get here." She slips something from her hand into her bag. "What about you?"

I was travelling from Astiom to Aurora via the aetherway – but instead of arriving at my destination, I was ejected here, for some reason.

[TBPO]

The door opens and something appears directly in front of it. At first it's just a presence, but then a dark figure with grey dark hooded robe materializes. You couldn't see its face, even though the light was shining directly on it.
"I am one of The Ones Who Lurk... I feel it's one of the Material Dimensions... Infected With Matter, is this place free from Titans?"Mysterious incomer asks.

[Egerius]

"Ah!" Doug barks, "That's from Men in Black!"

⁶
Argenzu turns his laptop around and shows Doug and Sherman (and perhaps, Maria and the others)a scene from a different movie: “This is what the androids spoke and taught us for the first millennia after gaining sapience.”

After the clip played, he continues: “We speak somewhat more conservative, yet related varieties of what could have been spoken on Earth. All the progress, and the knowledge that bretheren of the same fate were just mere hours by spacecraft away, all that is indeed a gift.”
Argenzu ponders for a second.
“But your, uh, Atavist faction members aren't quite as wrong as it may seem. They aren't right, though.”
“Even our non-sentient ancestors could become depressed, or deeply scarred mentally”, Cynewulf interjects. He studied Cynoid history before becoming a security guard of the Interspecies Museum in Buonavalle: “If they – well – succeed, they might want to go back to sentience and not know how. I's a gift, but also a burden; there must be help when it aches, just like a muscle sore. Crippling generations is, however, the wrongest way to deal with it.”
Cynewulf gets up and puts on his letterman jacket. Argenzu can be seen to just peek at him for a second, before looking back at his laptop.

[lurker]

"Ah!" Doug barks, "That's from Men in Black!"

⁶
Argenzu turns his laptop around and shows Doug and Sherman (and perhaps, Maria and the others)a scene from a different movie: “This is what the androids spoke and taught us for the first millennia after gaining sapience.”

After the clip played, he continues: “We speak somewhat more conservative, yet related varieties of what could have been spoken on Earth. All the progress, and the knowledge that bretheren of the same fate were just mere hours by spacecraft away, all that is indeed a gift.”
Argenzu ponders for a second.
“But your, uh, Atavist faction members aren't quite as wrong as it may seem. They aren't right, though.”
“Even our non-sentient ancestors could become depressed, or deeply scarred mentally”, Cynewulf interjects. He studied Cynoid history before becoming a security guard of the Interspecies Museum in Buonavalle: “If they – well – succeed, they might want to go back to sentience and not know how. I's a gift, but also a burden; there must be help when it aches, just like a muscle sore. Crippling generations is, however, the wrongest way to deal with it.”
Cynewulf gets up and puts on his letterman jacket. Argenzu can be seen to just peek at him for a second, before looking back at his laptop.

"Cynoid?" Doug queries. "Interesting, we sometimes call ourselves cynoids when synthesizing English. Of course it's more fitting in your case. We just converged on this body plan, but you're actually related to Terran canids.

"I'm amazed that they were able to get you to utter human speech sounds." Doug pauses and chuckles to himself. "I TRIED speaking English back in my Terraboo days but, well," he lifts up his upper lip, exposing his pointed carnivorous teeth and proportionally larger and less nimble tongue, then traces the outline of his muzzle. "We both seem to have very similar-looking facial structure," he says to Cynewulf. "You should show me how you manage that some time. If we could actually SPEAK human language rather than synthesizing it, Terran governments would be more open to allowing fostering orders like mine to adopt human pups.

"But regarding the Atavists, it's not just about feeling depressed. Even tree dwellers feel sad, but they can't feel existential dread at their tiny place in the cosmos, But mostly, well, you know how evolution works, species are naturally inclined to be selfish and violent, at least to some degree. As sophonts, we strive to mitigate these base instincts, or at least channel them to more noble ends, even if, here below at least, we'll never live up to the ideal of perfect charity. But the Atavists don't see it that way. To them, the problem isn't that we're selfish and violent, it's that as sophonts, we alone are capable of conceiving of the ideal of not being selfish and violent. Rather than getting rid of those base instincts, they seek to get rid of the ideal."

[Kesshin]

The stranger watches, mildly interested.

(Regarding all previously mentioned tech and systems)
"Huh. That's interesting technology... Where I'm from, we aren't allowed to create new... technological pieces... so to invent things we have to attach old things together."

[Egerius]

“10,000 AD”, Argenzu thinks, “Maybe the computer systems had their dates corrupted, or there was an overflow of some sort? But by the 2020s, even home computer systems had 64-bit integers, to display years well into the millions – there was the Y2K panic just before the year 2000... Unless in your universe some sort of electromagnetic pulse destroyed the electronics, or there was a bug in some code, I don't see how that is possible.
What about purely mechanical typewriters, mechanical TV, and the simplest of motorcars, like the Ford T, or the Benz Velo?”
Cynewulf shakes his head: “It's all gone – rusted, decayed, no longer there.”
Argenzu sighs: “Right.”

Spoiler:

"Cynoid?" Doug queries. "Interesting, we sometimes call ourselves cynoids when synthesizing English. Of course it's more fitting in your case. We just converged on this body plan, but you're actually related to Terran canids.

"I'm amazed that they were able to get you to utter human speech sounds." Doug pauses and chuckles to himself. "I TRIED speaking English back in my Terraboo days but, well," he lifts up his upper lip, exposing his pointed carnivorous teeth and proportionally larger and less nimble tongue, then traces the outline of his muzzle. "We both seem to have very similar-looking facial structure," he says to Cynewulf. "You should show me how you manage that some time. If we could actually SPEAK human language rather than synthesizing it, Terran governments would be more open to allowing fostering orders like mine to adopt human pups.

“I think you'd need a different, more flexible tongue and a more human-like trachea”, Cynewulf cautioned: “Also, I wouldn't be surprised if you needed some of your DNA rearranged, which would take months and be somewhat uncomfortable.
The biggest problem would be to get your genome sequenced and the necessary changes done – which might reduce your lifespan. And there's the cost: We have the technology, but it's an expensive endeavour, not to mention the speech therapy.
I could understand if your adopted son wanted to go halfway, much like us, if he wanted to extend his lifespan.”

Spoiler:

"But regarding the Atavists, it's not just about feeling depressed. Even tree dwellers feel sad, but they can't feel existential dread at their tiny place in the cosmos, But mostly, well, you know how evolution works, species are naturally inclined to be selfish and violent, at least to some degree. As sophonts, we strive to mitigate these base instincts, or at least channel them to more noble ends, even if, here below at least, we'll never live up to the ideal of perfect charity. But the Atavists don't see it that way. To them, the problem isn't that we're selfish and violent, it's that as sophonts, we alone are capable of conceiving of the ideal of not being selfish and violent. Rather than getting rid of those base instincts, they seek to get rid of the ideal."

“Perfection is an ideal,” Argenzu mutters, “especially in regard to oneself, nigh unachievable.”
“Your Atavists have reasoned themselves into a position they won't come out of if they don't want to. They shat into their own food. I probably would lose an argument.”

[lurker]

“I think you'd need a different, more flexible tongue and a more human-like trachea”, Cynewulf cautioned: “Also, I wouldn't be surprised if you needed some of your DNA rearranged, which would take months and be somewhat uncomfortable.
The biggest problem would be to get your genome sequenced and the necessary changes done – which might reduce your lifespan. And there's the cost: We have the technology, but it's an expensive endeavour, not to mention the speech therapy.
I could understand if your adopted son wanted to go halfway, much like us, if he wanted to extend his lifespan.”

"I'm not a biologist, but I'm not sure we are based on DNA like our friends are," says Doug looking at his son. "Take that with a grain of salt, though. We can eat the same food and drink the same water, and we breathe oxygen, so maybe I'm wrong." He looks up at Cynewulf, imagining his days as a Terraboo trying to walk on his hind feet. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous of bipeds sometimes, but can you do THIS?" He leaps up and grabs a rafter, and starts brachiating across the ceiling. He flips over and hangs by his long prehensile tail. He pulls a packet of cooling bark from the wallet around his foreleg and begins tossing it between his dexterous rear paws. "There's a reason humans call us MONKEY foxes, after all."

The door opens and something appears directly in front of it. At first it's just a presence, but then a dark figure with grey dark hooded robe materializes. You couldn't see its face, even though the light was shining directly on it.
"I am one of The Ones Who Lurk... I feel it's one of the Material Dimensions... Infected With Matter, is this place free from Titans?"Mysterious incomer asks.

Doug notices the newcomer. Feeling whimsical and trying to make up for his earlier rude outburst, he brachiates over, this time using his rear paws. He stops, hangs by his tail again, and extends a paw to initiate a human handshake. The bare skin of his palm is grayish black, contrasting with his sandy fur. He has the three large palmar pads common to male yinrih, and the tips of all six digits are similarly padded. His claws are iron-red, like the teeth of a rodent. The long slashes scraped into the floor from his earlier outburst and pock marks dug into the rafters from his brachiating bare witness to the claws' sharpness.

"Howdy!" Doug yips. "Name's Shimmering Water, but you can call me Doug if that's too much trouble. I can't say I've seen any titans around here, unless you mean our vertically gifted werewolf friend." he points his muzzle at Cynewulf.

[Visions1]

Ah! sorry, I didn't notice you, I was talking with people over here—I'll have a cup of wine, if they have that here.

"With pleasure."

"Blasphemous!?" he growls. "Atavist heretic!"

Sherman bounds forward and grabs his father by the tail, then drags him back to the mass router room. Doug gives vent to a trilling hiss and digs his iron-red claws into the wood floor in a vain attempt at resistance, leaving long scratch marks behind, both writing claws leaving streaks of blue-black musk alongside the marks on the floor.

Cynewulf throws off his letterman jacket and quickly walks around the table to spread his arms, in order to protect Argenzu, who is almost hiding behind his laptop. The wolf-man is 6.5 feet tall, and he's confident that he'd stand a chance in a fight. The two-tone auburn and beige fur on his chest and belly only lightly hints at the musculature beneath his skin, but he aspires to be as well built as the werewolves in the Terran movie “Van Helsing”.
Cynewulf's face contorts to a snarly expression, and he almost lets out a low growl, but he smells something. It's the smell just after rainfall on a summer day, which he loved as a child.
Eventually, Argenzu peeks out his nose from behind his laptop, as he too recognises the smell.

Dzojwĕsoun starts excitedly rhythmically swinging his fist up and down with a big smile on his face.
"YOU GET HIM SON!!! THIS'LL BE THE BEST BRAWL ALL MONTH!!"

The stranger watches, mildly interested.

"Aaah, there goes the brawl. I thank you, my cheiftess, though it's too bad no fighting ended up happening. Aj, and may I ask what would my cheiftess want to drink?"

---

Cynewulf, still shirtless

Spoiler:

((Well if I didn't think you were part of a certain fandom before lol...))

[Egerius]

Spoiler:

"I'm not a biologist, but I'm not sure we are based on DNA like our friends are," says Doug looking at his son. "Take that with a grain of salt, though. We can eat the same food and drink the same water, and we breathe oxygen, so maybe I'm wrong." He looks up at Cynewulf, imagining his days as a Terraboo trying to walk on his hind feet. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous of bipeds sometimes, but can you do THIS?" He leaps up and grabs a rafter, and starts brachiating across the ceiling. He flips over and hangs by his long prehensile tail. He pulls a packet of cooling bark from the wallet around his foreleg and begins tossing it between his dexterous rear paws. "There's a reason humans call us MONKEY foxes, after all."

Argenzu and Cynewulf first have the most confused expression on their faces (Cynewulf even tilts his head slightly).
Then it's an amused expression, until Doug jumps into the air.
“Camera! Camera!”, the wolf-man instructs the rodent. He whips out his phone, which looks like a chunkier version of the Bang & Olufsen Serene flip phone. He manages to get most of the monkey fox shenanigans on camera.
They were both in awe.

Argenzu never was athletic and doesn't possess the dexterity, Cynewulf keeps things functional and somewhat aesthetic, though he plans to put a few more points into intimidation.
But that? That was just something else. Their tails only helped with balance and betraying a poker face.

Spoiler:

Doug notices the newcomer. Feeling whimsical and trying to make up for his earlier rude outburst, he brachiates over, this time using his rear paws. He stops, hangs by his tail again, and extends a paw to initiate a human handshake. The bare skin of his palm is grayish black, contrasting with his sandy fur. He has the three large palmar pads common to male yinrih, and the tips of all six digits are similarly padded. His claws are iron-red, like the teeth of a rodent. The long slashes scraped into the floor from his earlier outburst and pock marks dug into the rafters from his brachiating bare witness to the claws' sharpness.

Cynewulf sighs, looking at his left, paw-like hand: He had to cut his claws short and file them blunt for his job.
Argenzu, on the other hand, observes the sand-furred Yinrih's interaction with whatever presence the inn has been graced now.
The rodent holds up one thumb and smiles: That is how a proper introduction should look like.

"Howdy!" Doug yips. "Name's Shimmering Water, but you can call me Doug if that's too much trouble. I can't say I've seen any titans around here, unless you mean our vertically gifted werewolf friend." he points his muzzle at Cynewulf.

“I'm Cynewulf – but I am not a werewolf!”
“I'm Argenzu – but I am not a rat!”
They introduce each other.

That name reverberated inside Argenzu's skull: Shimmering Water... Maybe it was just a coincidence, or he had misremembered...

Dzojwĕsoun starts excitedly rhythmically swinging his fist up and down with a big smile on his face.
"YOU GET HIM SON!!! THIS'LL BE THE BEST BRAWL ALL MONTH!!"

Cynewulf looks at Dzojwĕsoun and shakes his head, slightly exposing his shiny canines.

---

Spoiler:

((Well if I didn't think you were part of a certain fandom before lol...))

((Thou shalt not draw conclusions without proof. There's Fight Club, there are tropes. Rodentèrra is the 80s/90s Disney cartoon of conworlding.))

Edit: Pic in link for reference.
This is Cynewulf's brick phone, by the way (with transparent rear shell).

[Visions1]

Spoiler:

((Well if I didn't think you were part of a certain fandom before lol...))

Spoiler:

((Thou shalt not draw conclusions without proof. There's Fight Club, there are tropes. Rodentèrra is the 80s/90s Disney cartoon of conworlding.)

((I'm sorry about what I said. I shouldn't have been so brash.

Wait, you're going for Disney cartoons? Oh nice!))

[Kesshin]

"Aaah, there goes the brawl. I thank you, my cheiftess, though it's too bad no fighting ended up happening. Aj, and may I ask what would my cheiftess want to drink?"

The stranger looks confused.
"Chieftess? What's that?"

[Visions1]

"You. You are my cheiftess. You rule things. You are a god."

[Kesshin]

"You. You are my cheiftess. You rule things. You are a god."

The stranger smiles a strangely prideful smile.
"Yes, someone finally understands... However, my conscience tells me to explain to you."
The stranger folds their arms. Their hands have six fingers.
"In a literal sense, I am not a deity, since they require T-Ko to continue existing, and I do not. However my people commonly strive to reach a kind of... god-ness by doing amazing works. I am not deserving of this title yet, as I am still a "junior". at least I think that's the word I haven't done much just yet except master my aura."

The stranger seems to unfurl bright white shards in the shape of wings behind them.

"Like this."

[lurker]

Sherman adopts a goofy grin as his adoptive father capers about. “You know,” he says wistfully to anyone who may be listening, “the monks would put on shows like this all the time. Sometimes they’d sell tickets to raise funds for the order. Other times they were private shows for incoming adoptees, to give them a happy memory where they may have only known suffering before. They took me in as an infant, and it’s one of my earliest memories, just sitting with a few other kids watching these tree dogs leap back and forth. Doug’s not even that great at this acrobat stuff, he’ll tell you himself, that is compared to some of the others. They’d set it all up like a Terran circus, with trapezes and flaming hoops, the works. Of course walking a tightrope is trivial when you have thumbs on your feet."

He sighs. “That was a lifetime ago for me. For him it was yesterday.”

[Visions1]

He holds up his hands, with a smile.
"And you are not a god?? Amazing!"
Then he remembers something. "Right, my chief tess. The drinks. I'm going to get them now. Any last requests? And anyone else?"

((Sorry to heckle you, Arayaz and TBPO))

[Egerius]

Argenzu and Cynewulf quietly listen. They both could imagine a scene like this play out at home – without monkey foxes or humans, of course. Both had been to a circus as children.

He sighs. “That was a lifetime ago for me. For him it was yesterday.”

Cynewulf was whispering something under his breath. His eyes were welling up again.
“This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us...”, he sang just loudly enough to be audible.
“Who Wants to Live Forever... I sang that with the student exchange group a few years ago”, Argenzu muttered. Tears were rolling down both their cheeks.
“You live through that mayfly scenario every time, Doug – how do you not let it shake you up every time?”
Cynewulf was blowing his nose twice while asking that question.
Both he and the rodent were in tears and couldn't focus on anybody else.