Other djinn had entered and left, carrying the dead out, and cleaning up the room, removing the mirror, and the odd contraption that Self recognized as the equipment which had displayed images while playing sounds. Looking around the room, it was now mostly flat, except for two surfaces for sitting, a surface for laying, and a couple of nested boxes, one of which had held the clothing.

Efre had left with them, promising to return, taking the silent djinn along. Self was alone, singular.

A new state arose; Self examined it, for a time. It was a sort of... restrained impulse, a great weight held teetering on the edge, prepared to fall, but having no impetus to start. Self watched it. It slowly grew stronger as time went on, and the weight spread, filling every limb with a sense like restrained vibration, like if effort was used to stop a vibration, but only most of the way.

Self simply observed, for a time. The state subsided after a while, replaced with another, which was similar to the sense of restrained vibration, but without the sense of suspended weight - the first state was almost like Self's body was prepared to act, but waiting on the mind's permission, where the second state was like Self's mind was demanding action. Self simply observed. Eventually this state, too, subsided.

Time passed. Footsteps passed the door outside, and as they fell away, Self grew aware of the sense of sound, in a new way. The signals didn't fall away to nothing; there was a regular, periodic noise, like the footsteps outside, but as if there were dozens. There was another noise, like the sound the clothing Self was now wearing made when Self's skin brushed across it, but softer. As Self focused on sound, an awareness grew of a throbbing shift in pitches, pulsing in counterpoint to the periodic noise like a hundred footsteps.

Self was broken out of the concentration by the sound of the door opening; Efre held the door open for a new djinn, who was dressed in the same double-skirt and shirt Self was wearing, although the stripes on the sunburst were all vertical, longer on the sides and shorter in the front. The new individual entered, and Efre closed the door behind them.

"Greetings, Self. I am the Zana." The voice was different to Efre's, a slightly higher pitch, while the words were slower with a deliberate pause between each word. Zana's skin had swirling patterns of lighter shades of a similar reddish-brown as Efre's, intermingling with darker, compared to Efre's comparatively flat shading. The top of Zana's head in particular was a spiral of shades, which streaked the face.

"Hello the Zana." Self looked to Efre, whose eyes were on the floor, and back to the new individual. A pause commenced, as Zana's eyes moved up and down Self, lingering on Self's feet; Self had yet to really figure out walking, which was complicated compared to simply holding the sense of orientation relative to the ground, which meant Self's sandals had yet to touch the floor. After some time, Zana made a noise from the throat, and continued.

"Your prior self, ah ha, has entered the loop, with some consternation I must say for the outcome. But there's nothing to be done about that now, things that have already happened must happen. Do you understand your purpose in this?"

Self looked between Efre and the Zana again. The query didn't make sense. "Purpose comes after reason. What reasons are there?"

"I... see." The Zana then looked to Efre, whose gaze hadn't shifted from the floor, and spoke. "The reasons require a level of abstract reasoning you are not yet capable of, you are but an infant." There was a subtle change in the tint of Efre's face, and a change to Efre's facial features, which Self couldn't identify save that something had changed. The Zana's attention returned to Self, eyes staring into Self's, as if Self were looking at the eyes of a reflection. "Your purpose is that of a shield. You are to protect this community from the peri."

The memories of the dead were vague on the subject of the peri, except that they had odd skin, pale like the sand in the red light of dusk, with tiny strands, like white thread, sprouting from their heads. The only clear conception Self could find of them was defined largely as a distinction - they were not djinn.

Protection was a complex nest of concepts, with many connections to missing concepts. Shield at least was relatively simple; it was an object placed between the body and things that might damage the body.

"A shield sits between what is... protected, and what the shield is... protecting from." Self spoke slowly, pausing to let Speech-Thought vibrate appropriately, as concepts, and their associations, were brought into focus. It had initially been intended as a question, but as Self completed speaking, it made sense. Protection was what a shield did. The Zana's face shook slightly, mouth pulling back to expose teeth.

"Quite so, yes."

"That is not a purpose, that is an... expectation." The Zana's mouth returned to its previous shape. Self didn't fully understand the reaction, and awareness reached out, vibrating the Zana's self, just barely. Self had indeed used that word correctly, and the Zana found the answer undesirable. A trickle of blood ran down from the Zana's nose.

"That was your expectation, in going into the loop; it was you who made that choice, and you will now live up to the bargain you made with us. And you will stay out of my mind, Self; you have forbearance as an infant who does not understand this world, but that is not unlimited." The Zana turned, and Efre moved quickly to open the door again, through which the Zana left. The door was closed behind them, Efre looking back at Self with another expression which Self did not understand. Self watched them go. The room returned to quiet.

Purpose. Self played through the brief interaction a few times in memory. The Zana was different from Efre, and different from the silent one. All three were different than the broken minds Self had taken from, and each of those in turn were different from each other. Each of them had purpose; it was a thing each of them... felt. Like a state, like curiosity, but distinct.

Self searched for something like purpose, but only found the shadows of purpose taken from the dead. It was not a thing built of reasons, or not only a thing built of reasons; the conception of purpose Efre felt was a thing Efre sought reasons for, rather than a purpose Efre had arrived at through those reasons.

Self searched memory further, for the self-that-had-been. It wasn't there. Whatever purpose the self-that-had-been had, Self was not in possession of it, either this curious state, this feeling, that Efre possessed, nor purpose as Self had understood it before examination, a direction of self chosen for reasons.

Self looked to reasons, next. Each of the examples existed in reference to a purpose. Which came first? The examples Self could find started with a purpose, or several, which would then develop into other purposes through a chain of reasons.

Self didn't feel purpose. The Zana claimed Self had a purpose, but it wasn't a purpose Self felt. It wasn't part of self, so it was not Self's purpose. One of the individuals had a purpose of eating. Self considered eating, and felt a distinct lack of anything there.

Should Self feel hungry? Self couldn't find it. Maybe not.

Curiosity was the only thing Self felt reliably; there had been a handful of other states, but they had been short-lived. It could be a purpose, of a sorts. What had the Zana felt as a purpose? Self had only skimmed the surface, but the Zana mostly gave Self an impression that the Zana's purpose was being the Zana. That didn't make much sense, there were too many missing concepts.

Self considered the dead again. Those who had ceased to vibrate. As they had died, they had found dying undesirable. Purpose might be found in avoiding undesirable things. That seemed to be what the Zana wanted from Self; to keep undesirable things from happening to the community, which seemed to be a local collection of individual djinn, if Self understood that correctly.

That could be purpose, of a sort; if purpose were an impetus, an impetus away from a thing might qualify. Compared to curiosity, it seemed rather limiting; curiosity led to new concepts, had brought Self this far, to thoughts that were of much greater complexity. Self's mind was substantially larger than it had been. Self was more than Self had been.

That resonated. To be more. Self's purpose was to be more than Self was. Curiosity, then, was a purpose, whose reason was to become more. One purpose, to be more, serving as reasons for other purposes. To know more, to start. How could Self be more, if Self did not know what more there was to be?