The words landed with the force of revelation wrapped in conversation.
His voice was calm, friendly even, having tone of someone discussing weather while standing in a hurricane!
Yet beneath that friendliness was something else…something that felt like snakes crawling over exposed nerves, like reality itself developing an itch it couldn't scratch.
Noah stared at this being with cold assessment.
The casual confirmation of having taken Sigrid's Everything of Disorder that she had given away to an Inevitability in the Doorway to the Loom was unique enough.
Noah's response came with tyrannical certainty, his words carrying directly to Schrodinger's ears despite the distance, despite the barriers, despite the impossibility.
"What notes could you possibly exchange? You are simply someone with a delusion of attaining a distinction of 'THE' from leftovers, are you not?"
HUUM!
The words buzzed in Schrodinger's ears with the particular resonance of truth cutting through paradox.
For a moment, the beggar-paradox's eyes widened with something that looked almost like delight.
Then, in a display that drew attention from across the amphitheater, he began to laugh.
A belly laugh!
The laughter wasn't quiet or contained. It rang out across the gathered powers of existence with the kind of abandon that suggested someone had just heard the best joke in several eons.
Duke Diviticus turned toward him with an expression of bewildered concern. Other Dukes of Paradox shifted uncomfortably, unused to seeing Schrodinger display such... obvious emotion.
Even Goliath, that massive serpent of paradox whose very presence redefined local space, turned to look at Schrodinger with what might have been calm interest…
With a smile that suggested he'd just discovered something delightful, Schrödinger looked toward Noah and spoke with genuine enthusiasm: "Wow, how did you know that, friend? I thought I had put adequate thought on you... and it seems I was wrong and need to do more!"
His smile widened, becoming something that existed on multiple levels of reality simultaneously. "I look forward to... the future even more. Hopefully soon, you and I can sit down over tea and discuss existence. Let me know."
The words carried layers of meaning that would take eons to fully unpack.
The admission of having "put thought" on Noah suggested observation, analysis, perhaps even manipulation.
The acknowledgment of being wrong was either genuine surprise or a paradox playing at surprise!
And the invitation to discuss existence over tea was…well, something.
Then, in a move that drew even more attention than his laughter, Schrödinger walked toward a throne, one of the elaborate seats reserved for Dukes of Paradox, and didn't sit on it.
Instead, with deliberate precision, he sat on the ground in front of the throne.
Like a haggard beggar.
The image was striking in its contradictions.
He was a being that Duke-level existences watched with wary respect, sitting on the floor like someone who couldn't afford furniture.
Yet somehow, in that simple act of sitting on the ground, he looked grander and more regal than any of the Dukes that had occupied thrones!
His positioning said more about his nature than any title could!
He sat there calmly, his eyes scanning across the Concordat Amphitheater.
Noah observed this display with eyes that processed information on multiple levels simultaneously.
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