"I guess so." Dumuzi had only been to the place once, t b h, and it was because his sister had badgered him to go. Looking at it was confusing. He had never been back since. "Looks like one's their paintings from the turn of the century, right?"
Richtersveld quirked a brow at him. "Do you mean the 2000s or the 1900s--?"
"Yeah, that one!" Right. They were born in the last century. He knew that. Probably. Time was wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, right? "Like from the guy who cut his ear off? Van Gogh?"
His sister squinted. She squinted at his wonder harder. She guessed she could see where he was coming from, considering the way objects seemed suspended in space and swirling around each other, but she didn't quite think that was who he was looking for. Everything looked more ... absurdist, almost. Things were at strange angles and the colours were bold and popped in some places in ways she wasn't used to seeing on Pluto. It looked off-set, almost, like it was trying to blend several things at once in front of her.
"Don't think you mean Van Gogh."
"Huh." Dumuzi squinted as he walked forward, trying to follow the path given to him on the ground. Trying, of course, was the operative word. He could move around most things pretty easily, came with the damn territory after all, but he had never been able to run on air. Sadly. That would be fun. And handy. Maybe he could have a shortcut to his next track meet and stun everyone before it even started! "Well, whoever the ********. Why does that chair have its armrests at such a wide angle? How is that useful?"
Richtersveld's brows knit. "Probably wasn't meant to be--" Was this originally a small cafe? What was this, an observation area?
"What's another one of them, people?" Maybe he wouldn't follow the path as shown. Dumuzi instead opted to walk underneath it, stopping in one place to stare in fascination as it seemed the path turned in on itself at an awkward right angle. "Monet, right? That sounds right."
"Monet's stuff felt a lot more, well," how did Richtersveld even describe this place? "Real?"
Hm. "Not that ******** either, then." Dumuzi shrugged, continuing on his way. The glowing path had resettled itself onto the ground, but he wasn't exactly sure where any of this was taking him. He also wasn't sure what he was looking at in general. Who did this remind him of?
"Picasso, maybe?"
Her eyes lit up. "Yes! I think that's a good comparator." Maybe? It certainly covered how oddly angular and colourful some of these things were. And surreal. What was she even looking at?
"Or like, who was the guy who made the melty clock?"
"Dali?"
"Yes! That one." Dumuzi seemed fairly confident about this. He shot her a grin that was evidently distracting enough he forgot where he was going and walked right into a similarly melty object that was housing a very irritated code. Dumuzi jumped, righted himself, and muttered, "********--", quickly followed with, "Ah, the for...for--"
"Fortune."
"Fortune! Of being tall." He plucked the Code right out without a further thought. "You go sit around, Sis, I think I got this. You said what? I had to concen--... focus on it or something?" He turned it around in his hands. How was he holding this? The Code piece felt weirdly solid for being just a piece of light. How did that s**t work?
Richtersveld sighed. "Yeah. Just hope you don't get hit with what I did."
"What-?" His sister provided no answers as she went to go observe the parts of his wonder that were just suspended in the air with nothing holding them, and he shrugged, focusing his attention where it needed to be.
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Being a wonder of the planet of time came with its own oddities. To stand out in a place with few people, it needed to stand out, and Dumuzi had done that in spades. The reason why the mishmash of fashion and styles and peoples were so prevalent on Pluto. It felt like a diversion of time and space.
This place, itself?
It was a diversion of time. The fluxes seemed to pop out in and easily, here, and it was part of what made it something of a hidden tourist attraction. Not many intentionally came to Pluto, but enough did to make it an interesting spot of study.
Dumuzi, himself, observed as something seemed to change before his eyes, becoming older and new again as he tracked it. With interest, he wrote down a few notes about the object, and a few notes about what was around it when the fluctuation occurred, too.
It was an interesting life, guarding over something so decidedly bizarre.
He leaned into it, though, dressed to the nines in colours just as wild as the setting was erratic.
It was fun to confuse people.
--------
"You see anything?" asked Richtersveld, as she came back with a small flower that had fallen to the ground from a scrub bush. It was cute. She didn't want to leave it--
"Uh," Dumuzi rubbed his neck, "Yeah. Kinda seems like this place is frozen now. Like it's been put in something to preserve it, because that's not what it looked like. Before, I mean."
"Why's that?"
"Like your place, I guess? Used to be more with the time thing. But now it's just ... this."
"The real-life Salvador Dali?" Richtersveld chuckled. "A place that looked like Picasso figured out how to make his cubist, surrealist dreaming a reality?"
"Yeah," Dumuzi snorted, "that." Because his sister always had a way of putting his own thoughts better than he could. But, whatever the ******** that was and also whatever the ******** why it had to choose to do this versus just not doing anything at all.
He supposed if he wanted to restore this place, he'd have to figure out how to get some more things down to the ground. Dumuzi didn't need to do that before he resonated with the Code or whatever, right?
... Well. It did look a bit less chaotic there.
Maybe that was a start with everything else.
