Ah, yes, she did figure that was confusing. Many had never heard of Civir to begin with, and likely weren't certain how to make sense of the dimension also coming in wolf form. She knew that, logically, after thinking about it, but it had taken a moment or two of thought.

Kasaya didn't answer, at first, thinking and continuing along the ice. There was a marker, that denoted where Suryan was, but she had to find it. As Civir often move , the marker did, too.

"Many thousands of years ago," she started, as she looked for the marker, "Civir was a proper dimension, and had lifeforms that populated it. It was a very young dimension, then, and all dimensions, as things live and die on them, gain memories of their lives and experiences. They collect together into a receptacle called a varisaron. This stores these memories, and when a soul returns to the creator, their memories go with them, but it is this transference of energy that allows reishi to pass from one to another. All reishi in the universe is borrowed, Sandalio, and someday it is returned. That is the way of things."

She paused on the ice, and then looked up at him. "Civir has always housed the dreamer. But those creatures that lived on it once thought to use the dreamer as a weapon of war. Civir gathered its collected energies and knowledge, and gave itself sentience, to protect its creator. Life on Civir died out, Civir buried and hid the dreamer from the universe it created, and even now, it guards it fiercely. But, there is only so much a barely sentient dimension can do. Civir created shinigami, to do the rest."

Softly, Kasaya tapped the ice with one foot. Instantly, a dark mass of blue burst across the ice, glimmers of silver in the inky darkness. And just so, the chimes sang. "Turn around." Suryan's glass pieces tinkled about behind him. 

Sandalio listened to Kasaya speak, following her closely. He didn't want to get lost on the ice, and also did want to hear what she had to share with him. It did, after all, seem important. Confusing, maybe, but important. Maybe he did need to know these things, since he was now technically in charge of assisting in protecting the balance of souls.

The story was interesting, it was far far more than he'd ever heard before. He'd known that - that all reishi returned to the universe eventually. It was what happened when Shinigami died, essentially. All things really, in their own way. Energy could not be created, only transformed.

Created Shinigami to do the rest. Their other task. Protecting the Soul King. ... Apparently so that no one could ever attempt to harness its power as a weapon again. It was kind of a horrifying thought to realize that that had been the intent of someone lifetimes ago.

"I can't say that I blame it. That's... I can't even..." Sandalio shook his head. He wasn't what one might consider to be religious, honestly. But that seemed like a terrible idea, trying to use the creator of the universe to power some kind of weapon. But it also sounded like something humanity - or some race that was similar enough to humanity - might do. Shinigami, humans, and hollows seemed to share that, but they were all derived of the same souls.

Life here had died out, so likely they weren't the same. But clearly they were similar enough it would seem. ... That was sad, in a way. Sad that as much as Sandalio rejected the idea, he knew there were people who would do the exact same thing.

His attention turned to the blue moving across the ice, but he didn't turn away from Kasaya immediately. The chimes though, those were... nice. Strange, but nice. At Kasaya's instruction, Sandalio turned around to face the draconic figure seemingly formed of thousands of pieces of glass.

The sight took his breath away when combined with the sound of the chimes that just almost sounded like a combination of many different voices in a wordless chorus. "Wow... I..." He didn't really know what to say. Maybe that was okay after all.

Yes, well, people were stupid. Brilliant, but so stupid. Kasaya couldn't tell you why, or how, they'd gotten that way, nor how to fix it. Maybe it was just part of the human condition, something she'd never fully be able to be rid of, but she supposed that didn't matter. Humans, and species derived thereof, would always be that way, it seemed. And maybe there'd never be a day they could live alongside the dreamer.

She smiled, slightly, as he turned around. Her hair shimmered and turned blue, the ends seeming to gain little glimmers of silver in the strands, her eyes turning silver. One of the dreamer's consciousnesses couldn't be near the dreamer without their colouration changing, and it was normal. But her time here was becoming shorter. It was almost time for her to move on, as always everyone did someday.

"You know it as the Soul King, yes," she said, confirming that. He wasn't stupid. It'd crossed his mind in there somewhere. "But this is the Dreamer. Zero operates in a different part of Civir, one blocked off from the rest of it. The wolf works hard to keep them as separate as possible. The dreamer they see is a reflection. This is the real one, it neither is, or isn't, is neither male nor female, and speaks no single language, as it is a mix of many different experiences, as seen through many different eyes."

It made communication... interesting. "Often, the Dreamer dreams itself into what it dreams, that it may live and die alongside its creations. I am one of these incarnations. We most often are not aware of what we are, and go through life, and the afterlife, as anyone else does, but sometimes great wrongs can trigger our awakening and remembering what we are. I awoke a long time ago, to avert great disaster. There are many more of us, even all in the same place. My time here is coming to an end. Someday, soon, I will go on to the next journey, as always I should, and the next strongest incarnation of the dreamer will awaken, someone you know well, but does not quite remember you. You need to find them. They are in the world of sand, leading the Espada. If they awaken there, it may not end well." Yes, Kassander was powerful, and he would be even more so when he awakened, but there'd be a period in which he wouldn't even be conscious, and his existence there might attract damned near every Hollow in Hueco Mundo.

They'd never had occasion for that to happen, before, that an incarnation of the Dreamer awoke in the world of sand. Kasaya didn't really want to know, first-hand, what would happen if it did.

"Hm. I see." Sandalio listened to Kasaya's explanation without looking away from the glass dragon. He supposed that he couldn't blame Civir for separating the dreamer from Zero division - and that did explain why they hadn't seen any of Zero while they were walking. It was strange though - why did they send Shinigami here specifically to protect it if they didn't actually get any closer to the Dreamer or whatever than anything else could?

The Sotaicho considered that for a moment. The Dreamer put itself into its dream to live and die with its creations. He supposed it made sense in the sense of allowing it to understand how the life it created worked. That probably helped in guiding it to some extent. But...

But if they didn't often know what they were, and the event that woke Kasaya was a long... long time ago, why was the next one going to wake up when she passed on? That seemed to indicate there was some other impending crisis that this new Dreamer's incarnation was waking up to respond to? He didn't really figure that Kasaya was going to answer that if he asked, because somehow he suspected that bent some kind of rule about the future.

But uh... it did not bode well for them, if that was true. Then again, they'd survived crisis' before, and Sandalio was relatively confident that if they stuck together the Goteijusantai could do it again. It wouldn't be easy but things that were worth doing rarely were.

"I know who you speak of," Sandalio began quietly. Which, of course he did, like she'd said, he knew them rather well, even if Kassandros didn't remember him. "However, I'm not sure it will be as simple as you lay it out to be. He is, after all, leading the Espada." And while some Arrancar had come to join the Goteijusantai many others had not.

He could extend the offer again, and more directly, but it wasn't as if he could make the blond come with him. ... And trying would likely ruin any chance at actually befriending him that Sandalio had - which wasn't a chance that he wanted to take. They were no longer at war with the Espada and he wanted to keep it that way, dammit.

Somehow, it wasn't surprising that that was his response. But then, Sandalio was a pessimist, whether he owned it or not. She was sure, by now, he'd figured that part out. Things were probably not so great in his head, this long after the literal light of his life had died and gone away, and perhaps the worst part was they'd never reunited on the other side. And now, Kassandros didn't remember him, not really.

But he was a hurt, unto himself, and Kassander seemed to have purposely forgotten those.

"Well, leading the Espada, that's somewhat of a stretch," she said, sounding a touch amused. The song the chimes sang, it sounded amused, too. "It's more like, he goes, and they follow, and he has no idea why, but isn't that typical of him?" Quite, actually. Kassandros was a leader, even if only because he was a very bright light, sometimes too bright to look at too long; but that was also what made him attractive. Yes, he couldn't help leading, because sometimes others couldn't help following, and Kassandros did what was right, even if he was the only one that did.

"Even if the head forgets," she went on, a bit more seriously, "I find the heart often never does. Besides, he's only one leader of one Espada. Not the one that the Gotei was at war with, either. I don't think it'll go as badly as you seem to believe, but you'll be you, I know." That did tend to be his modus operandi. Prepare for, and expect, the worst. In the most depressing manner possible.

Somehow that wasn't surprising actually. Kassandros always did seem to end up in positions like that, without really knowing how he got there in the first place. People seemed to be drawn to Kass and the other ended up leading by just existing it seemed. He inspired people, and he was kind as long as nothing was done to call down his wrath.

At least, he'd always been kind to Sandalio and to the other slaves that he saw the other interact with.

"So it is." He couldn't argue with that, though it was strange to have a stranger know that. Then again if she was... the incarnation of the creator of the universe then that sort of...changed things. Of course she knew. She probably knew everything, including all sorts of things that he would have rathered no one knew.

But wasn't that how it always was?

Sandalio mused on that a bit, considering the idea that the heart might remember what the mind didn't. It made sense, really, that it was possible. People tended to remember how others made them feel maybe more than they remembered the way they looked or sounded. Emotions, they were the key to many things about humans and humankind.

Shinigami and Arrancar seemed to be no different in that apsect.

A frown. "There was... more than one Espada?" That he hadn't known. It was something of a strange realization, actually. Yet at the same time, it seemed to explain a few things about what had happened in the aftermath of the war.

"Hey, hey." He frowned slightly. "There's nothing wrong with being prepared for the reality that things may not go well." That was his story and he was sticking to it. After all, it meant that when things went well it was a pleasant surprise. And if they didn't go well, then he wasn't caught off guard by what happened.

"Yes," Kasaya answered, quiet. "Still is more than one, and last I heard, they are still at war with each other. The Gotei might've landed a truce with them, but they haven't reached a truce with one another just yet." But that was part of her concern. Under most circumstances, Kassandros was a very difficult individual to defeat. Certainly, he wasn't the teenager that lost his life to Crassus, and some part of that teenager had been what made him become stronger than that.

But there were things he did not remember that he needed to, as well. Of course, knowing him, awakening would not quite go as planned.

"I didn't say there was," she said, sounding a touch bemused again. "But it is very much your modus operandi to be depressing. Kassandros always was your optimism, though. Just as you are his caution and grounding. I can't tell you exactly what lies ahead. The only thing to know for sure about the future is that it is always changing, but I can tell you, Kassandros is the strongest of us. Well, I suppose he's really more of a glass cannon. That he will awaken next is not a good thing, as it means Suryan feels threatened enough to skip the pleasantries. But I'm hoping that he remembers enough not to do something stupid if you're around, and I hope that being around you after keeps him steady. You've seen the darkness in him. You know how easily he could become the bad guy. I just hope you continue being enough for him not to."

Sure, Suryan could utterly obliterate anything in its way. But that wasn't the right response, either, and Kasaya knew it, some part of Kassandros did too, but the temptation... sometimes it was a little stronger for him, than for the rest of them. Each shard of Suryan was the same, and yet oh so very different, and Kassandros had always been the more forceful of them.

Well that was lovely. He hadn't really considered the fact that Hueco Mundo could still be at war with itself. And that was... unfortunate, really. Unfortunate that that meant that those Arrancar that had chosen to remain in their proverbial homeland still didn't really have peace, even with what he had thought of as the worst of the war over.

That was the issue of perspective though, now wasn't it? Easy to forget what someone else was still dealing with, just because they weren't dealing with it directly anymore.

"Hey I resemble that remark." Sandalio grumbled in there, somewhere around the mention of it being his mo to be depressing. It... kind of was, he had to admit, sometimes. "Though I prefer the term realistic." He just didn't like to blindly assume everything was going to be okay, because all too often that was far from the case. And if he was prepared for an absolute worst case scenario then he was often pleasantly surprised when things turned out to be more within the realm of moderation, even if they weren't perfectly okay.

It was concerning to think that the future they were going to be facing would be even more frought with issues, but it wasn't surprising unfortunately. Suryan felt threatened, that was why it was Kassandros. That... well. It did play into what Sandalio knew of the other - he didn't play around if what was his was threatened.

But what was the threat? Sandalio supposed time would tell.

"I'll do my best." Of course he would, because he was Sandalio and this was Kassandros. ... But, he could make no promises. They were not exactly the same people they had been all that time ago. Even if he sometimes still felt like he worse the chains of his slavery for all to see. It wasn't true and it hadn't been in a very long time. Sandalio wasn't so niave as to believe nothing had changed.

"So, I guess I have a trip to Heuco Mundo to arrange when we get back." It wouldn't be hard but he still didn't know what he was going to say, and maybe he should figure that out first. So, it might not be immediate but... soon, probably. He didn't dare leave it too long.

Oh, so he said. She was quite aware he resembled that remark; such was why the remark had been made. If it made him feel better to call it realistic, though it was pessimism, she supposed there was no harm in that. On the other hand, not facing one's problems tended to simply make them worse. Kasaya simply smiled, perhaps a little exasperatedly, and a bit sadly. "Calling a cow a horse doesn't make it a horse, Sandalio," she said. And yet she also knew, in the same breath, nothing would really make that any better, aside from reuniting the darkness with the light.

Suryan always was awfully good at spinning these protective cocoons around itself. And just this once, maybe one of those protective cocoons had become capable of operating on its own. It was an odd concept, but if any of Suryan's incarnations could do it, it'd be the life-giver.

"I know," she said. "You always do, in everything." Not just things related to Kassandros, but he seemed to try a little harder when the task at hand was related to him. Because that was how things turned out, and how it'd be for some time yet. She wondered how many incarnations they'd find and love each other again. Once, she'd thought she'd always love him... and yet here she was and she did, but not the same way. It was almost weird. Even weirder was remembering it, that time when she did love him.

Perhaps she should stop thinking about it. Thinking about it too hard often lead to mixing up timelines and universes.

"I suppose you do," she agreed. "I wouldn't worry so much. I think it'll go better than you expect. You worry too much, you're going to give yourself hypertension or something." If he had not already... she was starting to wonder if he had, being honest about it.

Sandalio merely gave Kasaya a look and let that go. Maybe it didn't change what she saw it as, but her opinion didn't change his outlook, either. This was the way he'd carried himself for a long time, and it got him by. That was the important part, that he was still standing despite everything that desparately had tried to pull him down over the years.

Sandalio considered that a complement, actually. He worked his ass off to be considered reliable despite his occasional laziness. It was good that she had noticed. But then, she knew him extremely well, unsettlingly well. Even... even if she was apparently the Soul King. It was an odd thought to think that maybe they were important enough to the Soul King to be known individually.

Probably it was just because they were interacting, and soon enough she would forget everything about him, probably even his name. Sandalio wasn't much to most people. Then again, being part of the Gotei she'd probably remember that much at least.

"I'm not sure shinigami get hypertension." He certainly wasn't going to ask Shigeru-taicho because honestly maybe he didn't want to know the answer to that ultimately. "I appreciate the vote of confidence though." That was not sarcasm. She seemed to believe in him more than he believed in himself and that was... a strange thought, but it was a nice feeling all the same.

Somewhere in the back of his head he could feel Cielo rolling her eyes at him. He'd try to stop worrying but he'd never been good at that. Sandalio worried, he was good at hiding it sometimes, under a careless facade, but he did worry about lots of people and lots of things, all the time.

Worrying about and preparing for the worst and kept him going through some pretty terrible things, but maybe she was right, and preparing for worst case with Kassi wasn't very fair to either of them.