[You are stone bathed in ocean. You are a long-dormant volcano, and the coral has grown up around you, and the ocean has surged up around you, and the jungle has grown to cover you. You are home to birds and fish and spiders, pigs and people and little darting lizards. You are aware of them all; of every leaf on every tree, of every beating heart.

Slowly, the vivid awareness becomes more distant, and you become aware of the contours of your own body. You are floating in a space that is no space. Perhaps you are in dark water, or deep in the hill, or among the stars... it makes no difference. You know if you concentrate, you could still send yourself to any part of the island that exists all around you, holding the space that holds you, and know its secrets; know the thoughts of its people, know every hill and valley. And you would be welcome.]

...okay I don't think I can actually think of anything to do here so just talk about the symbolism. I KNOW YOU WANT TO.

There's not even really a lot to talk about though! I ripped the "Mau's soul covers the whole nation" thing directly from canon -- if I do ever run a heart for Mau again, one of the conceits is going to be that the whole heart is True Heart: the landscape itself. There will be one or two weird limbo areas that are the tiny things that Mau still hides even from himself, but the rest of it is all just... very integrated... and aware.

Everyone who goes in will get to see the parts that Mau would be okay with them seeing. FAIRLY OBVIOUSLY BY NOW I SHOULD THINK, Mau is okay with Josh knowing anything and everything about him. He's not even offering it with an awareness of vulnerability anymore. He's not even letting him in. Josh has earned the rights to this a million times over. He's already there.

WOULD HE EVEN BE SURPRISED? LIKE AT ALL?

NOT...REALLY...I MEAN. Bros. His heart contextualizes things differently and structures itself differently but Mau would have a similar level of access -- his aura (I don't think the fact that Joshheart would give everyone auras is a spoiler) would be the second strongest period, next to Ven's, and give him access to anywhere he wanted. So yes basically bros.

If Mau could bring an unlock back to the Nation would he? What would he pick?

HE WOULD and I am not totally sure, but the sparkbud bush from Beauty's realm comes to mind! RENEWABLE RESOURCE MATCHES -- pretty sweet all around. The rice stream is also a strong possibility.

Since Josh can actually do this, is there anything in Aather he'd want to copy into a Shadowrealm?

He's pretty much always going to include really high waterfalls at this point! Because. Yes. Jumping off high things is awesome. Multifruit trees might also be a thing he adds.

...and he's probably going to make one that's just for Aather people to meet up and hang out in, and that one will have a) more leygates than Xilbaba and b) the best parts of all the realms. Probably that one will also have a replica of his and Ven's rooms somewhere private and high up. He's kind of idly considering this every so often.

So what courses is Mau prioritizing for aather lecture series?

For the lecture series, he wants to start out with just getting people who are interested in GIVING lectures and find out what they want to talk about! He's hoping to get people who want to talk about their worlds, because he sort of wants to start CATEGORIZING worlds somehow so that there's some basis of comparison when people are sent into dead ones. He also wants to get a few veterans up to talk about Aather's story so far! He has vague ideas for a comparative magics series later on.

How are things going with Josh and Ven and Edmund, from Josh's perspective?