Mostly, anyway. She still had to refer to her notes a lot, as well as other language study books she had happened across as she worked to organize various empty rooms that she now had access to thanks to the power fully coming back.
Eventually, though, she came around. She started coming back to this room, started making progress towards getting it properly cleaned up, and now Ekstrom could finally, finally, say that she was done!
Just with this room, sure, but looking at it now and comparing it to the photo that she snapped from when she first got started—done in the name of documenting before and after photos, which she was collecting in an ever-thickening album of shots she'd taken in and around her Wonder—it was hard to believe how bad of a state it was in just twelve months prior.
There were still plenty of other rooms (and she was pretty sure that she'd never finish restoring them all in her lifetime), but the most important ones to her were now perfectly presentable to guests: her quarters, the three Grids, and the elevator.
"One room at a time," said the Knight as she pulled up her coveralls and started packing up. Having finished at last, she felt she earned herself a little break. Besides that, the end of the year—and therefore the end of the school semester—was fast approaching, and she had to start shifting her focus primarily to her schoolwork to ensure that she finished her project and finally graduate.
Her thoughts had gone off to sorting out a new schedule for herself as she went about packing her tools and things, though she paused, and a smile flickered across her face when she saw Boo materialize with the usual little popping sound, like the sound of a bubble bursting, and begin to make her way over.
"Hey," Ekstrom greeted her, her expression soft as the little floating dumbo octopus nuzzled into her cheek in her usual greeting. Boo's eyes crinkled slightly, giving her a bright and smiling expression as she moved back and happily twirled in front of Ekstrom, making cute little water droplet-like noises as she did. It was a new development that Ekstrom had squealed in delight over when she first heard it. As if taking that as some kind of approval, Boo now went about her business making the noise as often as she possibly could. It brought a smile to Ekstrom's face without fail, and now was no exception.
"Little cutie," she said, reaching over to tickle Boo on what was likely her cheek with the tip of an index finger. "You're a little late, though. I just started packing up. Lulu's waiting for dinner back home and I have some work I'd like to get started on." Boo twirled on, clearly not minding this bit of news at all.
So she carried on a somewhat one-sided conversation for a little while as she packed—Boo had always been a good listener. She let herself be open with her little companion where she knew she might struggle with others. Obviously it was a little bit easier to share more private thoughts and insecurities with a being that never judged and had loved you unconditionally for as long as you've known it, but all the same Ekstrom had found her presence to be warm and comforting and altogether perfectly pleasant.
When she eventually finished she turned to the central pillar, her ice blue eyes settling on the dimly lit glass enclosure just above eye level, at the Code Piece that rested quietly within. There was another being that she had come to grow rather fond of, in a way.
Unlike Boo, who was almost like a small, furry companion that she could nuzzle into and find warmth in her presence, the Code Piece felt something more like a towering tree with a canopy that stretched far and wide, completely covering her, and well beyond her, in its shadow. Whatever winds might blow to shift and cause holes to appear in that covering, the Code Piece shielded her as best it could. It was a different sort of warmth, she thought, but it was still warmth in its own way.
The Knight let out a slow breath as she approached, lifting a hand to rest gently against the glass and smiling softly.
Over the months that she'd worked to restore the Grids, after she made her peace with how she got where she was in the first place, she found the light coming from this pillar had become one of the most reassuring. Her perspective on the Code was...quite a bit different than most. There were many, she knew, that didn't see the Code under even remotely the same light. Plenty disagreed with its methods, and criticized its decisions.
They were probably all right, to some degree.
Certainly, if push came to shove, she could never honestly say that she was okay with what it'd done to her memories in the name of ensuring her success as the chosen Knight of this Wonder. Thankfully for her, it was easy enough to forgive the means considering how things turned out. She was sure there were others who weren't so lucky.
In any case, it wasn't her job to change anyone's mind about the Code. Maybe it was because she was who she was that she was able to see the Code and consider it so fondly. There'd been plenty of hours spent updating it on the status of not just the other parts of the Wonder—she wondered if it even needed her to do this, but she did it all the same—but also of her own life. She told it about work and school, and explained how and why she got into the career track that she did. She wondered out loud why she was chosen, considering she wasn't naturally gifted with technology outside of this place.
It was as though she thought that sharing more about herself—letting it see that she was more than just her duties here, more than just the Ekstrom Knight—would help the Code to understand her better. Help it to maybe trust her enough not to hide important things like what it hid from her until that first meeting several months ago, when it told her about her memories and her ancestor.
In all that time since, it hadn't spoken to her again. She didn't expect it to.
As long as it heard her, she didn't mind that part at all.
"I'll still visit this room often," she said quietly, tapping the glass with one of her fingers. "Don't worry."
Her tone was almost playful, as though she was teasing an old friend about how they would still see each other often even though they were moving to opposite ends of the world.
Ekstrom spent a few more minutes settled under the warmth coming from the myriad of lights flickering all across the central pillar, and with one last press of her hand against the glass she started to walk forward when those very lights dimmed to almost nothing.
Worry flashed across her eyes and she glanced around the room, wondering if something might have somehow dislodged while she'd been working and maybe it had finally slipped too far out of the proper alignment. The thought of there being someone or something else in the room caused the hair on the back of her neck to prickle slightly. Turning and taking a careful step back, she slowly swept her gaze across the room.
Nothing. No one.
She looked back at the central pillar then and sighed. "Sleep mode?" she asked, sounding almost amused as she again started to turn and move away when she caught it.
Still a dim light, but slightly brighter than the rest of the pillar. It caught her eye because unlike the other lights, which were all either lines or dot-terminals of lines, this one was rectangular in shape. She moved toward it, brows furrowed in the way they always did when something piqued her curiosity and she was still formulating what the right questions were to ask.
What is it? Why hadn't she seen it before?
On closer inspection, she saw some kind of script that she couldn't understand.
What does it say? Is it meant for me? Or was it meant for someone that came before me?
It looked vaguely Mercurian, and she wondered if maybe it was in origin. If that were true, though, it eventually had taken on a different form and developed into a distinctly different language altogether. Calling her journal out from subspace, she carefully copied down the text of the inscription and sketched it out as a whole.
It looked...familiar.
"A lot of these things do now, though," she said, smiling, as she dismissed her journal and reached out to trace the lines of the symbol. On her touch, the inscription and the box that wrapped around it began to pulse, and she suddenly knew why.
Without a second thought she pressed her palm to it and, like every other time she'd done so at a similar looking panel, data lines soon formed within the lines of the box. They moved slowly at first, but gradually gained speed as they gathered beneath her palm. Before she knew it those lines had crept over her fingers, then her hand, moving steadily up higher, enveloping her in that same, now particularly steadying warmth that was unmistakably her Wonder's and filling her with a sense of security that she knew she would struggle to describe when she wrote about this later. The lines began to move faster, soon covering her entire body for several seconds before coming to a full stop, and then changing directions so they all began to pool at the center of her chest.
Before long a small orb of light had formed, and as she took a deep breath it slowly sank inside of her.
Enhancement Acquired
Forgotten Spell
Forgotten Spell
She let out her breath as soon as it was gone.
A quiet water droplet sound brought her fully back, and she glanced over at Boo who had apparently been stunned into silence just a few feet in front of her, to her left.
"I'm fine," she said, wondering if the sound she made was meant to be one of concern. "Really."
Boo seemed to take her word for it, and she began gently bobbing about, waiting for her to catch up so they could start the trek back to her quarters where the rest of her things were.
Ekstrom took a second to turn back to the central pillar again, though, to the glass and the Code Piece within. The lights were still dim, and she felt she must have guessed right about it going into a sort of sleep mode. She reached up, resting her hand on the glass once more, a slight smile on her face.
"Thank you," she said, then gave it a gentle pat before finally turning to leave, Boo happily floating by her side.
1966 (gdocs)
Backdated to 11/8/25.
Backdated to 11/8/25.
