In ten million years, she had never once tried to undo it. 

Falling, falling...

It would had been impossible to reverse, of course. But she had never even tried. She needed the power. Needed to control the Grimm, to harness them, to wield them in pursuit of victory. Nothing else mattered. 

Really? Who was controlling whom?

The pit yawned before her, the void unfilled. 

Falling, falling, falling.

She had needed its strength. Its certainty. If she lost it - lost the surety of the Darkness, the ruthless drive to succeed - if her conviction faltered, even for a moment - the things she had done - what she had suffered - endured - inflicted - 

She sinks to the ground, insensate, shaking, head in hands. What is this? I haven't - not since - I don't understand - 

For the first time in ten million years, Salem cries. 

This... is probably a sign that their plan worked... it still doesn't feel good to see a confident person break. She's probably the wrong person to be here but someone Salem has never met wouldn't be better. She fluidly takes a seat on the ground with crossed legs, she doesn't otherwise approach though. And she waits, nothing is urgent.

The uncontrollable sobbing lasts for a long, long time. 

Eventually, Salem falls asleep. 

Siobhán nods to herself, with a flex of control she dulls Salem's senses and reformats the room so Salem is tucked into a bed. She dims the lights then adds a nightstand beside the bed with a glass of water, a pen and a note:

Salem,

I hope you slept well, if you want food or would like me to return you can write a message on the back of this note.

The switch beside the bed controls the lights.

Take as much time as you need,

Siobhán

Salem wakes groggy and utterly confused. Something must have destroyed her body, something faster than she could react to - one of the old Dust bombs? No, she had protections against those in her fortress. Someone else? 

She sits up (what?), eyes puffy and sore, throat parched (what? what?) in a, something, a bed, she has them for visitors but never bothered to - 

It comes back to her in a sudden flash, the memory of everything landing with an impossible weight. She shrieks aloud, gripping the sheets - bed! sheets! - in white-knuckled terror. 

Starlight. Silver eyes. Death. Failure. Rebirth. Siobhán. Ozpin. Void. Falling. 

Shattering, like glass, on emptiness. 

Some time later, she notices the note. 

Her first thought is, That's ridiculous. I don't even need to eat. 

Right on cue, her stomach growls. She looks down in utter bewilderment. 

...right. Grimm. Not...anymore. 

First things first. She picks up the glass of water from the nightstand. Her hands are shaking. Liquid sloshes onto the stand, the note, the bed. She flinches. She takes a deep, shuddering breath. She can handle a gods-blasted cup of water, it's only been a geological eon since her last one, thank you very not...

She manages a few hasty gulps, chokes, coughs, slows down. Sips what's left. Did water always taste like this? She's not sure. She hadn't bothered with it since...Ozma...the children...

After a while, she looks down again. She must have dropped the glass. She stares at its shards on the floor. They remind her of one of her more painful attempts, long ago, in a body not so different from this one. Before the war, before she'd lost everything. No - after, really. 

It hadn't worked. Nothing ever did. When the gods decided to punish, they were very, very thorough. 

She remembers the cold fury, the righteous rage at their unfairness. The coldness is gone now, but the fury remains, somehow comforting in its familiar embrace. But it is a double-edged comfort, the comfort of blankets on a cold winter morning, with the hearth extinguished and the knowledge that soon, very soon, one will have to get up and face the bitter chill alone and exposed. 

What have I done?

Perhaps she would dwell on it forever, sitting there alone and powerless, if she could; letting fury war with guilt until all their pent-up munitions had been spent, further wrecking her broken mind. It certainly seems like she might, at first. In the end, it is hunger that calls ceasefire. Even that might not have been enough. She wonders, idly, if she ought just wait for starvation to set in, see what happens - but that had never worked either. 

She could try to salvage some scrap of dignity, but she just doesn't have the energy. She manages to scrawl I'm hungry on the back of the recently-dried and crinkly note, sets it aside, and waits. 

About half a minute later there's a knock on the door.

Now this presents something of a problem. Her magic is gone, she can't just wave the doors open dramatically anymore. She'd open it herself, but Salem barely trusts herself to stand, right now. After all, she apparently hasn't eaten in a few million years. How can she get the door open when she's still too wobbly to - 

Oh. Right. 

"E-enter," she rasps, folding her still-shaking hands over the sheets in what she hopes is a dignified posture. Even if the door's locked, it's not like that would stop a Starlight envoy. 

What enters is not Siobhán, the door swings gently open and a metallic dining cart, with a calico cat sitting on it, wheels its way in. There's also a spread of pastries, fruit and granola and pitchers of juice and water. Then the cat talks. "Hello, would you like breakfast in bed? Oh, you dropped a glass, would you like me to clean that up?"

The talking cat shouldn't faze her. It really shouldn't. She's had two-headed snakes, floating tentacle orbs, and flying skull gorillas at her beck and call for millennia. 

She gapes at it. 

Eventually, "...y-yes. Both." 

The cat nods then stares intently at the mess on the floor. The glass shards pull themselves together and the now intact glass follows the cat's gaze to land on the trolley. Then the trolley rolls forward and the top lifts up on a previously concealed mechanism and swings out to be positioned over her lap. "There you go, all set. Do you need anything else?"

"This...place. Siobhán said it was a virtual world. Is that why I can't use my magic?" She worked with Starlight long enough to know about their instanced virtual worlds, but everything still feels so real. 

"Most magic doesn't work in virtual worlds. I could ask for specifics about yours if you want."

That...wasn't actually a yes, but it implied so. Would the talking cat deceive her? Does she really have any clue, at this point? 

"Can I...leave?" Do I want to? 

Why isn't she sure? 

The cat tilts its head. "I'm not sure what you mean, you haven't gone through orientation so things might be confusing but you're free to wander the dream if you'd like. Some areas won't be open to you with the flags you're marked with of course. If you mean exiting the dream you would need to apply to have the dream bound flag removed."

...so it's a prison, then. Hardly surprising. It would be difficult to influence the tide of events in Remnant from within Starlight's servers, but perhaps it would not be impossible. Whispers in the correct ears, the right secrets dispensed at the right time. The picture comes to her as easily as breathing; a familiar web of fears, deceptions, and half-truths, sowed ever so subtly, culminating in...what? 

She's shaking again. 

Breathe. 

"Orientation? Flags?"

"People new to the dream need to learn how things work and decide how they want to relate to the underlying systems. That's what orientation is for. Flags are information people can see about you if they look for it. You can control some of the flags but others are set by various authorities. The specific ones I was referring to are the warnings about your past behavior and the linked dream bound flag that was applied as a result."

"And who...what...exactly...are you?" This comes out a bit more incredulous than Salem intends. 

"I'm not a person just a sophisticated piece of automation intended to provide a friendly interface."

Did they think she would be more comfortable interacting with a false-life creature than a person, given her history with the Grimm? For that matter, was she? Or was it so they wouldn't have to interact with her? Could she blame them, if so? 

Flags. Past behavior. 

That's one way of putting it. 

Well, at least she knows how to interact with an automaton. "Take me through orientation," Salem states, sounding more certain than she feels. Her stomach rumbles; the food smells too good. "...after I eat," she appends. 

"Oh, I'm not designed for that, that's important enough for a person to do. Siobhán Ionbhá will be handling that, I can call her for you when you're done. I could also file a request to have someone else assigned if you don't like her."

Having only one contact to the outside world is potentially disadvantageous to her objectives - her personal comfort must be subordinate to the mission of saving Remnant from itself - she should request another - 

"...Siobhán is acceptable." 

Now: food. She hasn't eaten in forever, but that doesn't mean she's forgotten how. She hopes. 

Breakfast is unfairly delicious. 

When she's done inhaling it, she says, "I'm ready for orientation." 

The cat clears away the dishes and the cart carries them and the dishes away. 

It only takes about a minute and a half after that for Siobhán to arrive.

"Good morning, I hope you slept well." She's smiling.

"I believe I did," Salem says. The truth of the words surprises her. She had stopped sleeping long, long ago; it was a needless indulgence. Or was it the dreams...?

Focus.

"You're here to tell me about this virtual world?" 

"I'm glad and yes, I am. Would you prefer I give you the standard explanations or would you like to ask questions and have me bring up anything that didn't get covered afterwards?"