"Thanks much, Jorem." 

She looks over at Hailey. "For once I don't have an immediate next objective. There's 'quest and get stronger', naturally, but it's been two days of questing already and I could use something more calm. Inn's not going anywhere, and the bounties we've had so far paid well; but if I'm to settle in here I want a longer-term plan."

"No reason we can't take a break from questing for the rest of our stay in this inn and make a longer-term plan then, figure out what we actually want to be doing next."

"I mean, we can still do some quests. More money is always nice. I just want to... have a plan. There's like five different things I want to talk about and I'm stuck trying to decide which one we should go for first."

Hailey nods. "Well, let's head up and get a start on talking before we come down for supper."

She turns to Jorem. "Thanks again."

"Yeah, thanks!" Hyacinth smiles at Jorem and gives a little wave.

And she takes Sin's hand and leads the way upstairs, then opens the door and flops onto the bed.

Hyacinth also bedflops. 

She lies there for a few minutes, then de-equips her boots and sits cross-legged at the head of the bed. 

"Okay," she says. "Items on the agenda. One, uh, Pagutum and the mysterious vision. Two, do we want to fight bandits and other non-shardbearer sentients in this world or not? Three, what about the guided ritual meditation. Four, what about figuring out a proper house. Five, um, a thing that's about sex that I want to say. Six. Other methods of having fun and broadening our knowledge. Um, in-game books and stuff. Do we want to travel? Do we want to join a shardbearers' guild? That kind of thing. Seven... Another thing about sex, or maybe just an expansion of what I already know. Eight... I'd still like to take creative writing courses, is there a way to do that from in VR. Nine... contact my lone irl friend and inform him that if he wants to see me I'll be in VR until further notice."

She pauses for a long moment.

"I feel like there should be a ten..."

"Ten, they call us 'Blessed' rather than 'shardbearers'," Hailey teases, sticking her tongue out at Hyacinth.

"Okay, a Blessed guild."

She hums softly. 

"... Ten, we should probably discuss what the heck was up with that 'us' earlier..."

"Hmm?"

"I mean..." 

Hyacinth sighs. "I was just kind of thinking that..."

She looks down at her feet. "I was always an altoholic in Realms of Dragons. They'd let you have like five characters and I used all my slots. I've been a troll — species — and a zombie and an elf and so on and so on pretty much all at the same time. It feels a little uncomfortable to only have one body in CORA."

"Oh. Right, that 'us'. That... makes me wonder, honestly. That's the kind of slip we make when trying to singlet-mask, and coupled with you missing getting to change it up... it sounds a little bit like something might be going on there."

"Yeah, I'm wondering too. It's just..." 

She sighs and shakes her head. "None of the bodies I had before were me. They were — faces I put on, bit parts. There was always a sense of artifice. This body's not like that. It feels natural. Right. So I'm confused."

Hyacinth folds her hands in her lap. "How did you find out there was... another person in your head? Or maybe I should be asking... where did you come from? I hope that's not too invasive."

She hums thoughtfully. "So we described the whole 'fictive' thing, what with all of us moving into Sable's head as a result of stories she was writing, but we didn't explain what the experience of it was like. It varies a whole lot for every system, but for us, it feels like having a thought or reaction in your head that feels like it belongs to someone else, or alternatively like the person happening right then isn't the same person that was happening five minutes ago."

"I... huh. I've... experienced that. Before. Sometimes when I'm — bright and smiling and – willing to play around, willing to tease — it feels a lot like I'm a whole different person. It's like.... there's two states I can move between, sort of mechanics-focused and shy and — the kind of person who can dart out and ask things. And... Sometimes I can even ask that part of me questions, say, "I want some courage" or "what should I say here" and it feels like it's able to answer that in the way I can't."

She ducks her head. "I... thought that was just normal."

Hailey cocks an eyebrow at Hyacinth. "Normal for Planet of the Plural People, maybe," she teases.

"I feel like... if there's another person in here, she's me too. We're — two faces of the same person? I'm not sure that's actually true. But —"

She rubs the back of her head. "People talk about being a different person at work from at home. I... have always been a different person around my family. Online I was safer, I could have relationships that weren't based on... my family facilitating. And it's there I learned how to be an extrovert. But my family... they don't even really try to understand me. So it's safer to be small. If I look like the kind of person who can't be asked anything of they let me be."

She nods and squeezes Sin's hand. "Yeah. Families can be like that, sometimes. As for what you're describing there, that sounds like what's called 'median plurality', which is where the system members see themselves as all different facets of one person, different perspectives."

"Do you have any way for me to be certain one way or the other?"

"What worked for us was trying to talk to each other, so you could try that," she replies with a shrug. "Try to direct a thought at them like if you were asking for advice on how to say something, but instead ask 'hey tell me about yourself?' instead."

"Okay, I'll try that..." 

<Hey, other me, could you tell me about yourself...?>

A distant sense of calm drifts back towards her, not words as such, but clearly a response to her question. 

"Ohmygod I felt her. There — there's someone else in my head —" 

Hyacinth hyperventilates for a moment before she manages to catch her breathing. 

Someone else in her head feels very, very smug.

But a moment later that breaks, replaced by apparently-genuine concern.