The Plane

thing... though, metaphorically, you could speak of the birth of tools... in a way. It wasn't entirely convincing, but it still sounded pretty good.

Only, birth was not like death. Was there a way to fix this? Rather than birth and death... beginning and ending? But that didn't wok for all of nothing comes before me. No, the answer probably was life, she just had to find what the two parts were... somehow, make them equal instead of

“I got it.”

“What is it? Life?”

“No, it's a letter again. It's v. It's a part of everything. It's made of two mirrored stripes. Every letter in the word nothing comes before it. And if you were trapped inside something which is shaped like the letter, you could never get out.”

V? It made sense, except... would it really be a letter a second time? Maybe it was coincidence? Maybe the answer was in fact life?

“I'm... not sure. I thought it was life; made of birth and death.”

“But life is not really made of birth and death, it's only framed by it. And they aren't really a part of everything. And...  they're not equal.”

“I know but... I just... I mean, a letter as the solution to two riddles?”

“Yeah, but everything fits.”

“Let me see again... two identical parts... not quite.”

“But it says 'each just like the other', and they would appear to