Calos hears Sicul for the first time when he steps off the transmat pad. The voice, which has neither sound nor defining characteristics, offers a nevertheless warm "Welcome to Olyesti," and he assumes it's the hive, or even an overly friendly part of the Matrix. Then the voice continues, "Hello, listeners. To start things off, I've been asked to read this brief notice..." and Calos doesn't know what to think.
He'd known Olyesti was... eccentric. That was why he was here, after all. The scientific opportunities, he'd been assured, were simply endless, and he wouldn't even have to go off-world like most people in his speciality! But he wouldn't have thought that Olyesti's eccentricity went so far as to have someone conferencing updates anyone could easily access via the Matrix.
He realises he should probably inform his supervisors he's arrived safely to his research post. He accesses the Matrix—and is promptly rebuffed.
According to Sicul, Outsider Josi, down by the matter transference pads, says that the Great Old Ones have revealed themselves to her. Calos is also by the matter transference pads, due to having arrived a few short spans ago and promptly having an identity crisis after discovering not only could he not access the Matrix, he couldn't reach a single member of the hive. Not his Cousins, not his supervisors, not the small Patrex with the Lungbarrow-esque hair who was sitting on a bench a few metres away from him.
He won't be able to set up the laboratory until the rest of his team of scientists comes, and that shouldn't be for several more spans, so it's only logical he go and talk to Outsider Josi. Get some science done.
He starts out in the direction of Arcadi Gallifreya, and walks for a span into an empty expanse of sand until it occurs to him he has no idea where Outsider Josi is (the fact that it occurs to him at the same time he sees a weathered sign written in Cerulean script saying "Sand Wastes! Do Not Enter!" is unrelated). He heads back the way he came. He can't say the fact he can't sense the mind of that Patrex doesn't freak him out, but that's no reason to pretend she doesn't exist, not when he can clearly see her. He repeats this to himself as he steels himself to speak to her.
"der'Rasilona," he says. He has no idea what caste she is (do Patrexes even have castes?), so he offers a short, formal, Time Lord greeting: "May you accomplish everything the Matrix requires of you today."
The Patrex snorts, not looking up from the tablet she's holding. "Dunno if I'd call betaing his slashfic a requirement."
Calos doesn't know what most of those Patrex-dialect words mean, and without a Matrix uplink there's no way for him to find out. He laughs weakly as though he does, and wonders why she used a technician's pronouns for the Matrix.
"Oh," says the Patrex offhandedly. "I'm Maurén, by the way. der'Raz."
"Calos," Calos offers.
"You Arcalian?" Maurén asks.
Calos looks down at his brown-and-green robes. "Yes," he says.
"You here to study?"
"Yes," he repeats.
"What're you studying?"
"Science," says Calos. "I'm an Arcalian."
Maurén makes a noncommittal sound. "Why are you here, then?" It's a broader question than 'why are you at the transmat centre?'
"Olyesti is arguably the most scientifically interesting city on Gallifrey. I would be remiss not to be here!"
Maurén makes another noncommittal sound, and goes back to working on her tablet. After a short span, Calos realises she's done talking to him. "Er," he says. "Could you point me in the direction of Outsider Josi?"
She points in the opposite direction of Arcadi Galifreya, and as he walks, Sicul summarises his conversation with Maurén.
"der'Rasilona, Calos," Outsider Josi greets him. "You're just as handsome as Sicul described you!"
"Sicul?" says Calos.
"Siculfacet'palfjuracmas," Outsider Josi explains, as if he were a particularly stupid Loomling. "He's the Matrix. Are you here to study the Great Old Ones? They're very scientifically interesting," she adds. "Won't you come in?"
"What do you mean, he's the Matrix?" Calos says as he follows Outsider Josi into a small building which is non-sentient but still clearly a House. She points him toward a table—"Sit down, honey, I'm sure you've been walking an awful lot"—and putters around in an area which seems to be dedicated solely to the preparation of food, which is a concept Calos is only familiar with from his xenosociology textbooks. He goes to sit down and only manages to catch himself at the last minute, realising the chairs are just as sentient as the rest of the House is and won't come to meet him.
"Well he's not the Matrix, of course, but he's as close as we have to it here. Now I'm afraid the Great Old Ones took all of my salt, but these should still be good enough, I hope..." says Outsider Josi worriedly, placing a tray of oddly colourless lumps on the table. "Go on, try one!" she says.
"What are they?" Calos asks, abandoning his line of inquiry for now.
"Invisible plantbread muffins," Outsider Josi says. "Johnadacet'guxyimas—you know, the Cerulean?—grows a crop of invisible plant. Madevinia aridosa, I think he calls it. I never could remember all of those fancy Cerulean words. A plant is a plant, in my reckoning."
"Oh," says Calos blankly. They eat plants here? Calos didn't think even the Ceruleans did that.
Outsider Josi seems to sense his trepidation. "Don't worry," she says, "these are completely safe. I take them to the Cousin Teacher Association meetings every week and hardly anyone dies at those!"
Thirty-eight people died at one of the next month's CTA meetings, but that had more to do with the vortisaur attack than Outsider Josi's invisible plantbread muffins, and only three people didn't regenerate, so it could definitely have been worse.
Over the past several months, Calos has been trying to integrate himself into Olyesti's peculiar culture. He keeps his Prydonian-coloured poncho on his person at all times, and eats at Big Rico's once a week. Even more, usually, since the disabled timeship who is Big Rico and houses Big Rico's is right outside the lab. He participated in Dot Day and the lottery, and on Crime Day, he contacted his supervisors with a handmade Matrix terminal. He offers prayers to THE ARCALIANSTONE SPIRE, and acts on the visions it gives him.
He kind of wishes he hadn't acted on the vision of himself with short hair. It had been a terrible look on him, and Sicul, who turned out to be very sweet if also very obsessed with him, almost cried when he saw it. Then he drove the barber into the Sand Wastes and insanity. The Matrix, it turns out, can be weaponised.
Here's the thing: Calos never intended for them to actually entangle romantically. It's probably a breach of protocol. Just because he isn't off-planet doesn't mean the same rules don't apply, and Sicul is a Dromeian to boot. Calos had heard the Patrexes say Dromeians had fringe views before, but he'd always assumed that was to do with something that only the Dromeians and Patrexes cared about, like Dromeians were into litfic where Patrexes did sf/f/h. (Calos isn't sure what those mean, precisely; he picked them up from one of Maurén's rants about betaing—that was peer reviewing, as far as Calos could tell—for Sicul.)
But it turns out to go much further than that. Sicul doesn't believe in Paziði and Arcadi Galifreya. Neither does anyone else in Olyesti, but they're just taking Sicul at his word. Sicul is connected to the Matrix and he honestly thinks the moons are a shared hallucination, Rasilon was President until seven spans ago, and that members of the Merchant caste live inside of pigdeer. Calos is embarrassed by sheer association with the Technician.
The fact that he is embarrassed seems to lend credence to the theory that they are, in fact, romantically entangled. Or at least getting there. They met for plant-based drinks just a few days ago so that Calos could get important data to both the Celestis and the Arcalian Council for Temporal Research, only it turned into talking about their plans for Ahtumas really quickly and Calos very nearly brushed against Sicul's rainbow-robed arm (Sicul is what the Academy students in the Capitol call an 'isjedobalyu').
He is also embarrassed by his own impropriety. Sicul may make no attempt to disguise his infatuation with Calos, but he has never once imposed upon Calos. And now here Calos had practically assaulted the Technician, who had been so polite about the whole thing he hadn't so much as mentioned it, even though Calos knows he was aware of what was happening.
Calos wishes he could find a nice hole out in the Sand Wastes to die in. Time Lords weren't supposed to do things like this. Arcalians weren't supposed to do things like this. He needs to do more science. Maybe that will help him get over his newfound romantic inclinations. Yes.
Then Calos dies. It all goes a bit downhill from there. Apparently there was a small village of Pyðians (unrelated to the Faceless Pyðian Who is Secretly a Member of Your House) out in the Sand Wastes that Lord Rasilon's extermination efforts didn't get ahold of, and they marched on Olyesti under the orders of their leader, Huntokar. Calos, being one of the few Time Lords in residence, feels like he ought to try and resolve the matter peacefully. The Pyðians do not agree.
Once he regenerates (which everyone refers to as 'recovers from a bout of throat pigspiders', though he has no idea why), he figures, Ahtu's grave, why not? What's the worst that could happen if he had a real, proper romantic entanglement with Siculfacet'palfjuracDromemas?
Well, the mind probe, probably, but that seems small and inconsequential in comparison to being able to hold hands with Sicul, so once he stops coughing up his own ashes, he goes to the Matrix Uplink Station, and asks Maurén to let him see Sicul.
She narrows her eyes at him, and says "You better not traumatise him worse than you already did, Arcalian."
"I won't, I promise."
"Good. His h/c fics suck."
As Calos steps through the threshold, Sicul meets his eyes. He's been crying, and Calos knows it's because of him.
Sicul smiles. Calos smiles back.
"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning and the sea is burning and the rivers are burning. They exist because of your mistakes, but they are not your world, and are therefore irrelevant. Good night, Olyesti," says Sicul, both projecting and speaking out loud. "Good night."
"Do you have to do science on the trees?" Sicul asks desperately. "What if they're poisonous? They could very well be poisonous!"
"You touch plants all the time, Sicul," says Calos. "You even eat them! This isn't any more dangerous than that."
"Yes it is! Johnadacet'guxyimas—you know, the Cerulean?—has trustworthy plants. Who knows where these even came from?"
Calos sighs.