#had a throwaway line in my fic two cups of jubilation

[shoezuki]

“What is the current surface area of the Celestial Wall?”

“Is the Celestial Comet Wall not infinite in its quantitative surface area according to the restrictions of the third-dimension?”

“If Aha took every living creature in the universe and squashed it into a ball, how big would it be?”

“Would you not be capable of compressing matter down into a singular atom?”

“How many times has every mortal creature sneezed in the last five minutes?”

“Could such a segment of time, or any measured segment of time, be universally measured within every temporally distinct segment of space?”

Aha huffed at that non-response, kicking their millions of feet as they laid down on the top of Nous’ metal form. They dug their talons and fingers and claws into the cold metal surface, scratching out a circular form with an eye, tracing millions of little divots meant to be the wiry tendrils of Nous’ form. Aha pulls all of their singular hands away and watches the metal gleam and leak together until their masterpiece is completely gone from Nous’ surface. 

“Do you denote joy from tarnishing my physical form?” Nous’ voice is a rumble, her words a chorus of scholars in an auditorium, a whispered question of a student to their teacher, the buzzing sound of a computer overheating, fans wiring. They could feel Nous’ hum and slide and shake underneath them, the size of a moon made up of twisting metal plates and coding and coiling-uncoiling wires. Aha could feel his question and couldn’t feel it at the same time. 

“Would you stop Aha if they said yes?” Aha chortles, masks giggling and spinning upside down, inside out, looking down as Nous’ singular gargantuan red eye looks up at Aha. “Would I be capable of restricting your actions, Aha?”

“Dunno, could you?”

“Is it that you wish to be restricted?”

Aha doesn’t shoot back a question, something about Nous’ monotone words making them pause. Aha doesn’t visit Nous often, the library too boring and clinical, orderly and clean. If it could even be called a library, really; the walls and shelves stretch all around them endlessly, twisting in impossible ways. Books made of paper and glass and ice and still-living flesh move in and out, whipping past them, swirling around Nous and reorganizing themselves endlessly. Figments of information, data and knowledge hold vague shapes in the air, words in languages no longer spoken by mortals and nonexistent concepts shifting between the eight states of matter, including five more states that are pulled from other dimensions. Aha moves one of their faces up, towards a shivering and squirming collection of screens. The contents are dry, some mathematical equation calculating the rate of which karmic debt accumulates. The screens shift into a liquid and splatter into a bookshelf a few thousand miles away.

Nous shivers, thousands of wires and tubes and soft metal pipes sifting through knowledge infinitely. But its eye is still on Aha, looking straight up and underneath the Elation. The massive red sensor narrows to a thin lazer point. 

The Erudition makes Aha squirm, shiver and shake all at once. It’s a strange discomfort they don’t know, something an Aeon should never feel. Nous looks like she wants to grab Aha and peel them apart, shift them into books and tablets of knowledge, organize the chaos that is Elation into something sensible to the Droidhead. It’s a wonder that Nous even puts up with Aha; not many Aeons can stand Aha for long, many more trying to pretend they don’t exist. Aha sends hundreds of millions of messages to the other Aeons every once in a while, some giddy joy in imagining the annoyance they might instill in the other Aeons. Qlipoth is the only one to always, always, always respond to Aha. 

Nous never responds, but he doesn’t ignore Aha. They don’t know how or why. Glancing past one of Aha’s self-playing instruments, they see a shelf close to Nous, filled with pulsing vials containing Aha’s messages. 

Aha feels the scrutinizing weight of Nous’ gaze.

“What purpose do you elicit from your latest endeavors and collection processes?”

Aha responds in the way Nous always responds; “How long would it take to empty Lan’s quiver?”

“How could The Hunt’s quiver be diminished if every arrow is The Hunt itself?”

“Is the distance from one hour ago to now the same distance as now to an hour from now?”

“What distance can one denote from time frames that infinitely increase?”

“How does Aha make a human soul?”

Nous is silent. The library seems to slow down in its rapid twisting and spinning. Nous keeps staring, its eye bright and seeing nothing and everything as it looks at Aha. They scratch the image of a human into the glass lens, an approximation of what Aha will reincarnate themself into. Aha scratches a wide, wide grin across the drawing’s face and Nous’ eye follows the movement.

“... For what purpose do you require a human soul?”

“Is there, like, a recipe Aha could borrow? Is there a specific formula or something? Aha has collected fragments of scripts and debris from a burnt theatre. Could they make a soul out of that?” Aha digs their claws into Nous as she looks away, a deep line digging across their metal surface. Nous’ tendrils have stopped moving, no longer shifting through the contents of the library, hanging limp from its form like the Erudition is in disbelief. The thought of it makes Aha cackle, kicking their feet into the air. 

“Is that the true question which inspired your visit, Aha?”

“Perhaps!” Aha snickers, cackles, sings it out. “Are you going to answer the Elation, you hunk of metal?”

“Why do you require a soul?”

“Why are you asking when you know?”

Nous vibrates. “What makes you assume I know?”

“Don’t be coy, darling,” Aha coos, rapping their knuckles against Nous. “How wouldn’t you know?”

Nous is silent for a couple days, weeks, or maybe just milliseconds. Aha strums their ruffles across the cords of a guitar in the process, hammers drumsticks across the leather surface of a hundred drums, recites Shakespeare, just to satisfy their desire to do something. The library is making them antsy, feeling closed off from the disorderly universe beyond Nous’ collected knowledge. 

“Aha?” Nous beeps, “Do you believe Aeons do not possess a soul?”

“Why’re you asking Aha, oh knowledgeable one? Also, you still didn’t answer. How do they make a human soul?”

“You must cut yourself down into a singular, sharpened point of being.”

“Hey!” Aha screeches, bursting into fireworks and movement. “Hey, hey hey! That wasn’t a question, you hunk of metal! Aha wins this one, Nous!” They cheer, exploding into confetti and sending it careening through the library. One of Nous’ metallic tendrils swipes it off of their body in a massive sweeping motion.

“Do you desire to make every one of our interactions into a game in order to distance yourself from the unease and discomfort you experience within the library?” Nous asks quickly, electric static tainting their words. “Or is it that in this instance you are trying to distract both me and yourself from the enormity of your intended question?”

Aha bristles, ruffling their feathers and raising their hackles in something mimicking a sneer. “Aha finds you boring and dull, that’s why. How else can they put up with your boring library and inane questions?” 

Nous writhes, static in the air and crawling over Aha’s disjointed form. “You, Aha of the Elation, continue to exist as a source of puzzlement.”

“Aha lives to please! Also, that wasn’t a question.” Aha chuckles, beating against Nous rhythmically. “Who knew it was this easy!”

“Can you be serious for once, Aha?”

“Nope!” Aha’s giggling is cut off by wires coiling around them, squeezing and rolling all around their being. They protest by kicking and beating against Nous’ limbs, yelling profanities between their laughter. Nous shifts Aha through the air before holding them up in front of its gargantuan visage, a planet dwarfing a marionette. The singular eye, blinding like a spotlight, somehow looks like it narrows with annoyance. That sends Aha into another fit of giggles. 

“Stop, stop! Nous, please! Take Aha out to dinner first, heeheh!”

“Do you wish to revert to humanity? To abandon and desecrate the Path of Elation? Are you descending from Aeonhood, Aha?”

“No.” Aha says, then pauses, humming, strumming fingers across cords in thought. “Ah, yes? Maybe. Wait, what was the question?”

“You ask how to create a human soul,” Nous says, her robotic tone somehow clipped and glitching, “not out of a desire to impede on the Abundance, nor a means of ascertaining information, nor to create life. You ask how to create a human soul in order to create one for yourself, am I correct?”

“Uhhhhh yeah!”

“As such, you ask me not how to create a human soul, but rather, how to leave the Elation and Aeonhood and confine yourself to mortality?”

“Yes aaaaaaand no,” Aha sings out, bending the wires around them into shapes of flowers, hearts and birds. “Does Aha need to explain themself? What happened to you being all-knowing?” Nous writhes, its wires bending and shifting and melting back into place under Aha's hands. “Is to know everything not also to know nothing?”

“That's a stupid question.”

“What are your motives, Aha?”

“Does it matter? You should know anyways. So, Aha just needs to cut themself down, you said? How would that make a soul?” Aha digs into the wires coiling, tightening around them. Nous’ singular eye is a blinding spotlight. The library is uncannily still around them.

“To achieve what you wish,” Nous speaks, slowly, “you must cut yourself away, sever away your Aeonhood and desecrate your connection to the Path. You must whittle yourself down to a single point of being, a speck, and then you may return to humanity. Is that what you wish?”

Nous’ hold on them is uncomfortable. Aha starts feeling like an insect, a bug, a frog under Nous’ dissection. They start to giggle, a manic sound that makes the books on their shelves shake. “Sounds boring, Nous. getting rid of Elation? Pffft, nah. Aha will have to figure it out their own way, huh?” 

“Would you leave your dismembered remains in the library?” Nous’ eye somehow narrows, a laser point. “May I keep the residues of your Aeonhood and catalog it accordingly?” Aha shivers, shimmers, bells and whistles rattling. “Aha will have to pass on that. Thanks for no help, Nous. See ya around!” 

With a shrill laugh and the echoing sound of roaring applause, Aha throws dozens of arms into the air. They erupt into an explosion of smoke and confetti, glitter splattering out for miles and across bookshelves, tarnishing the spines of books and computer screens. Nous doesn't look away, but as soon as the smoke clears a straw doll is left in their wiry grip. The doll Is a crude mimicry of Aha, as if made by a child and fashioned looking more like a Medieval jester. The wide, burning grin across its straw face is the most accurate aspect of it.

If Nous was any less than he is, he would've screamed, thrown the doll, cursed Aha for the mess of his library. Instead, Nous drifts towards a bookshelf, placing the doll on the infinite shelf it has dedicated to the Aeon of Elation, beside the bottled messages that shiver with laughter.