Again she slept, and he was left to his own thoughts. It was getting very disconcerting to be trapped in a black and sightless world. He couldn't guage any of the typical measurements and values he would naturally have, second nature to the god of Numbers. It was astonishingly limiting, and yet this small child had done quite well for herself, all things considered, in spite of the handicap. While that was puzzling all unto itself, he had other matters to dwell on.

The meeting with the goddess Calico had prodded loose a memory that had astonishingly remained dormant. He had a sister, a twin sister. They were two sides of a coin, she and he. He ruminated on this. They had faded at nearly the same time, together even at that end. He recalled that they weren't always in each other's presence, but still so very close. An awareness of her had always lingered in the back of his mind, imparting vague impressions to him of how she felt. Apparently he had always taken that sense for granted, accepting it as a normal part of their relationship. He had barely even noticed it, until he had lost it completely.

He shuddered his mental self at the memory. Total and complete aloneness... a feeling of emptiness he had never before experienced. It had been dark, silent, and confining. But worst of all was the loneliness. No more faint dusty presence in the distance that was Cosine. No more knowing when she needed him, or when she was confronted by a particularly complex problem. There had been nothing. Nothing at all. And that had kept him from falling into a deep and memoryless sleep. The dead silence had mocked him, allowing him only to doze fitfully, his internal clock marking the time spent trapped within the stone. It was amazing he wasn't more like Calico when he had merged into his host's mind.

But now what? Cosine. Long lost half of himself. He knew she must be out there somewhere. So involved he had been in coaxing Rairne to accept him, he hadn't become aware of it, but that distant echo of dust and tomes was again brushing the depths of his mind. She was out there, somewhere. And if he could sense her, that meant surely that she had found a host as well. He spared a moment for wry speculation at whether her host was also disabled somehow. Perhaps deaf, or missing a hand? But that was ultimately inconsequential. So long as she had a host, they could find each other again.

It might not be something he could manage to convince Rairne to do right away, though. Children could be quite unabashedly self-centered, and he'd given her plenty of reason to be, even if she had already shown that she did indeed care about his perspective in this whole messy affair. Even so, his calculations tended to indicate that in order to gain favorable odds that she'd allow him to go in search of Cosine, he ought to withdraw for a time, and leave her room for herself and her own needs for a time.

Just knowing his twin was in possession of a host and wandering the worlds again comforted him. He savored the sense of her that he had regained and settled back to wait. Soon enough he'd get the chance. And somewhere through here, he knew he would have to make time and effort to present himself to Harmodius, no matter whether he wore his aspect of Creation or Destruction. Either way, it mattered only vaguely to the diety of Numbers. So long as he could find his niche, all would be well. Numbers were ultimately impartial.