[b]Bella and Redana![/b]

You walk down the street. Leashed behind you is a suitcase full of sharks. They gaze out in every direction, freed from their prisons to watch with stitched eyes as the glittering digital glory of the ancient world played out in every direction. It rolls smoothly across the floors, flimsy little wheels of hard plastic carrying their precious cargo.

Here and there are set out small clusters of chairs in the street; red, plush and cramped, looking like they have been torn out of solid foundations. They sit in clusters of a dozen or so, all facing towards one of the infinite moving screens. When you sit down on the chair and allow the audio to focus on you then you find yourself watching a movie. Ancient movies, movies from before the invention of film. Movies from a time when all the actors were too fragile to fight living creatures and so they had to fight digital ghosts in weightless, frictionless battle in front of emerald screens. They are stories about men who wear machines and mortals who are equal to the gods. People of this era had strange stylistic tastes.

And there is animation. It is strangely modern, familiar - the old style of hundreds of hand-drawn frames arranged in rapid motion is as alive today as it was back then. Some of the shows on display even compare favorably to modern content. Some of the shows of ancient Japan are timeless enough to stand through the separation of history, in the same way that painters of this ancient era could still marvel at Renaissance masterpieces. 

There exists open stalls of the strange, weightless ancient food; warm white cornbursts of nothing and salt, orange liquid of nothing and chemicals. Help yourselves as you walk through this museum of ancient art.

[b]Alexa![/b]

"Hmm," said Ceberus. There was another long silence, the intimacy of a broken toy. Thought without motion; statues of girl and hound.

Finally, those eyes blinked back on. "Can I go with you?" she asked. "Across the Rift. I've been thinking about it for a while and... forgetting might be better."

[b]Dolce![/b]

"Of course I'm going," said Jil, standing up in a sweep and taking off her skull-bead hanfu. She looks at it like she's contemplating eating it as well. "I was born in a coffin and grew up in a mausoleum. This is my chance to [i]live[/i], to truly be [i]alive[/i]. For me... that's everything, that's a chance to spit on the order of the cosmos itself. Frankly, I [i]hope [/i]I don't remember anything - I'd [i]pay [/i]the ferryman for a chance to wash all of this away." 

She gives in, and takes a very small, experimental bite of her hat. Just a corner.

"Anyway, you want to get smashed? I'm sure there's a bar we can raid around here somewhere," she said, drawing her sword. Evidently she means that in the literal sense of violent robbery.