Work Text:
The day Dr. Veritas Ratio died was unremarkable.
On the planet he had finally retreated to in his retirement, quietly living out the last of his days, it had been one of those rare sunny days in a month marked by an uncommon downpour for the season, and one of the rare days that the prior professor had not been otherwise engaged in some invention or seminar or unprompted lecture at the local colleges. On such a day, the occasion of his death had instead been reported by the three cake cat critters that had been cultivated so many decades prior by #81 of the Genius Society, Ruan Mei, the three of which had long mastered the use of the Synesthesia Beacon (and long since nagged a certain genius scholar to input their language into the Beacon's database to begin with).
For the first month, his passing was marked with funerary arrangements, the execution of his final will and the customary rituals of grief and mourning that poured from every corner of the universe from the planets he had saved in his lifetime, the rare friends that still lived to grieve for him, the students that had gone on to live full lives with his teachings, and the distant family that had known him before his passing. There was a small funeral for the people who had been closer to him - purposefully arranged so far ahead of time that the staff for the service who had taken the order could only recall that the man who had arranged it had been playing with a dice, adorned with a gold and green spade. There had been much larger, much public funerals too - arranged by the Intelligentsia Guild in conjunction with the IPC, attended by all manner of grateful government officials, university professors, scientific researchers, and even #76 of the Genius Society, Screwllum.
The sting of it all carried through the second, third, fourth months - but by the fifth, the world had well and truly moved on, for the planets continued to spin, and the stars continued to burn, and scientific advancement had not paused with the death of one man.
It is in the sixth month, when the cake cat critters from Ratio's home had been relocated - now seen trailing after Screwllum's footsteps and conducting their own dubiously legal experiments under Screwllum's watchful eye (and newly installed fire extinguisher attachment, located in his arm) - that the biographers begin to take an active interest in the scholar's life once more.
There had been countless documentaries and biographies written about Ratio's life, but it is from the beginning of his tenure at the University of Veritas Prime that all personal information about him starts to slowly trickle out, replaced only by the most sterile of factoids on him - the date of his admission to the Intelligentsia Guild, the day he attended the Charmony Festival, the day he retired. The number of personal anecdotes of him during the prime years of his career, and any detail whatsoever on his retirement years, are both missing from the record.
And as Pathstriders of the Erudition, it is their duty, especially as members of the Guild, to accurately and comprehensively record the life of one of their most famous Mundanites for posterity.
And thus begins the transformation of one man from one of the most prolific researchers of his lifetime to one of the most prolific, controversial and heavily debated research areas of his (after)lifetime.
-
First begins the easy areas of his life to re-record. Ratio's early years are already extensively documented - enough so that even Vincent, perhaps the greenest member of the entire Candelagraphos, could record it in his sleep.
Mathematics prodigy in middle school, taught by Professor Rond, recommended for tertiary study at a young age - all impressive achievements, but Vincent is not here to repeat the same facts every toddler learns about Dr. Ratio - no, he is here to be groundbreaking. Dare he even say it, he is here to Trailblaze a new biography about Dr. Ratio, and in doing so, perhaps gain a higher status within the Candelagraphos of the Guild as a whole.
So perhaps it is not Vincent's role to be the researcher here - there are many historians in the galaxy after all that specialize in the personal lives of celebrities within the last two Amber Eras, and many of whom specialize specifically in Ratio, as a whole, but who said that Vincent couldn't write his own book?
Beyond his already selfish motive of career progression is his personal interest in Dr. Ratio. Who has not wondered about the man hidden beneath that plaster headpiece, who shows up in photographs with the same stern expression but is reputed, universe-wide, to be so unfathomably kind?
It was, after all, Dr. Ratio who had only brushed past Vincent's comparatively insignificant life once, but who had, in his own harshly honest way, been the one to encourage Vincent into the Candelagraphos and into history in the first place, back when he had been pursuing, almost half-heartedly, his parents' dream of a child renowned for his talent in the hard sciences.
If not only for himself, Vincent wishes to record Dr. Ratio's life so accurately, so fervently, that his copy will remain for centuries, even Amber Eras to come. So that the world will remember this man who had been cutting and sharp and so damnably kind anyway in, at the very least, a positive light. Many historical figures fall victim to being disparaged after the fact, and rightfully so, but the last thing Vincent wants is for that to happen to the professor with the greatest influence in his life.
So before the ink has even dried on the papers documenting Ratio's early years, Vincent has already begun compiling a list of still surviving individuals who had known the good professor, and a separate list of currently deceased individuals who were well known for being close to him.
And of course, as a previous student of Ratio's, Vincent would be remiss to not place Aventurine of Stratagems at the top of the list, circled in red - no matter what those historians in the galaxy said about them merely being colleagues. Perhaps it is just ignorance, Vincent muses as he prepares for what he hopes will be the breakthrough of his career, perhaps they just never saw them together.
But Vincent has, and Vincent did, and so Vincent will record it so some memory of them together survives long when everyone who knew Ratio has returned to the Nihility with him.
They deserve to be together, Vincent thinks, even if just on a piece of paper.
-
Covering the years of Ratio's career is rather straightforward too.
As a man with three professions - 3! And here Vincent is, unable to even handle the one - "overtime" seems to be Dr. Ratio's middle name, and so there are piles upon piles of work records and emails (not that Vincent is so unscrupulous to shift through those) and anecdotes and research notes and papers that Vincent painstakingly takes the time to shift through.
The most important thing he learns is that Dr. Ratio hadn't been kidding when he called him unsuited for scientific study.
Seriously! Vincent was certain he'd actually taken several of Ratio's classes on these topics (and passed mind you, Vincent Lede is no slouch!) but the man's research notes made his head spin with numbers he didn't understand and letters that were definitely not where letters usually were and all sorts of complex terminology that Vincent is sure went extinct 3 Amber Eras ago.
The second most important thing he learns is that, beyond the giant, conspicuously empty, gaping wide Aventurine-sized hole in all of Dr. Ratio's biographies, every other biographer has also come and covered Ratio's career years already.
And proceeded to write several biographies on the matter.
All of which, still, refer to Aventurine as Dr. Ratio's "colleague" and the one that he has the "most amicable business partnership with".
The first one - the first one, fine. It's nothing that Vincent hasn't seen before - just more of the same drivel of Ratio being the most impressive, handsome, incredible man in the entire universe with the world's most meticulous gym routine and complete with pictures of the man in a bathtub - he gets it, okay, he has eyes. The second one, Vincent did get a little bothered by the phrasing about Aventurine - especially as the man in question has always been kind to Vincent, and really didn't deserve such slander. The third, fourth, fifth ones, even? Fine, okay, fine! "Colleagues", "coworkers", "acquaintances", everything was- everything was fine! Fine, Vincent tells you, absolutely peachy! He'd just gather the research, publish his biography about Ratio and correct the facts - with the facts being that his professor was clearly, madly, obviously in love and Aventurine was equally infatuated too, stop this blatant erasure of something anyone with half a braincell could figure out, and then those historians who kept calling them 'coworkers' would be forced to shut up and listen to reason.
Then the seventh one came out, calling the two of them "reluctant enemies forced to work together" and framing Aventurine in such foul language and Vincent had just. Had had enough.
So what if he got a tad bit too drunk and had posted a 23 long thread on Dovechirp lambasting every turn of phrase that had implied that the two men had barely found each other cordial - with those heart-eyes they were making in lecture? - and ranting in verbose and flowery language on the stupidity and ignorance of historians that kept purposefully omitting the countless anecdotes from people who had watched these two men for over six decades - for the love of Nous! When Dr. Ratio had retired, Aventurine had moved in with him and they had lived the rest of their lives in the same house with their three (3) (THREE) cake cats/children. So what if he had done it to such fervor and extent that maybe even Dr. Ratio would be proud of him? So what? So what if he had then proceeded to drag the books disparaging Aventurine in such stereotypical, cliche, completely wrong and disrespectful terms into the mud and rake them over the coals for good measure because Aeons damn it, what did Aventurine do to these historians for them to so clearly and overtly snub him in a biography about a man that, even if Ratio hadn't loved, had very clearly respected him?
Truly, not even a single biography had ever referred to Aventurine as even a "friend"! Forget "lovers", "friend" was apparently too good of a relationship for them to have had!
Vincent had typed up the entire thread in a righteous fury driven purely by the spiraling ball of fire (and liquor) blazing in his chest, pressed the 'Enter' button on the final Chirp, and then had stewed in the dead silence of his house at night, feeling the burn of air rushing into his lungs as if he had just conquered a marathon.
Then he had passed out.
And had woken up to an absolute Dovechirp storm.
-
Practically overnight, Vincent's thread had been shared and reChirped thousands upon thousands of times, with each reply pinging off more notifications on his phone than he'd ever had in his entire life. It had clogged up his phone screen so heavily he was almost afraid to see what the general reaction had been like (and whether the heat on him would cost him his job at the Guild).
When Vincent finally had the courage to open it - after a few hangover pills, some water, and enough breakfast to make him feel like he was alive again - it had been to furious debates over Dr. Ratio and Aventurine's relationship, where hundreds of people from all across the universe were arguing over whether they were just "coworkers" or "friends" and even a few brave souls he recognized from his classes before he transferred courses advocating that they had been "more than friends".
(Also a few "omg they were roommates!" but those had been drowned out by people typing back essays in response saying that Dr. Ratio had lived alone after retiring, as seen by his 78th grocery receipt on the 8th of some random month in the last two years. Vincent had furrowed his brow at that one. Now that's just ignoring facts. And perhaps ignoring the Doctor's personal privacy on top of it.)
Even professional historians had put in their two cents, ranging anywhere from the most extreme end of "they only saw each other once during the Charmony Festival!" to the other extreme end of "they were actually secretly married! Here is the certificate!" (although that one may have been a History Fictionologist... really can't be too careful about this sort of stuff).
At the end of it all, Vincent would only conclude three things. One: that he had to gather the evidence on Ratio's retirement years as fast as possible. Two: that he wasn't delusional and that some people who had also seen the two of them together agreed with him that they were, at the very bare minimum least, friends. And three: that Dr. Ratio would've hated to see such ignorance in the world, even if it was about his own personal relationships.
Resolve in mind, there was still one burning question of Vincent's remaining: how could he possibly gather any evidence at all about Ratio's retirement, which had taken place with the least media coverage? (Sure, Vincent is glad that the Doctor managed to spend his days quietly at the end, perhaps exactly as he wished, but it did make his current job incredibly difficult.)
-
Dr. Ratio retired four times - by the counts of his colleagues, who had watched the illustrious figure retire, then come out of retirement to teach "for one more semester, and then I'll truly leave the education of the masses into your more excusably incompetent hands" or to "simply finish a particular train of thought" by inventing a whole new creation that had saved even more planets from their respective crises, or to "wrangle one of the IPC's most ridiculous idiots - honestly does that damned gambler ever learn self-preservation? Who does he think he is, dragging me out of retirement for this scheme of his? I am too old to entertain this bout of idiocy any further-" before finally and permanently retiring for good. In an interview with one of his still surviving coworkers, the staff of the Intelligentsia Guild, IPC and University of Veritas Prime had been anxiously peering at their emails in case Ratio had miraculously decided to un-retire once more for the first year after that final retirement, before it had well and truly set in that Dr. Ratio was well and truly done with his career. Now, according to the only interview done with him by a major news outlet, such as Interastral Peace Entertainment in the two years post his fourth retirement, he spent his days pursuing his hobbies, teaching casually at local colleges (which may have been as close to a retirement as the Dr. "Workaholic" Ratio got) and, most cryptically, "wrangling gambling-addicted idiots".
With the report of his death from the cake cat critters he had raised for the better part of several decades, it is obvious that these cats form part of the 'idiots' Ratio mentioned in that final major interview, and from Vincent's personal knowledge of the man - courtesy of the Dr. Ratio Fan Club (Insane Version) - it is also obvious that it was Aventurine who was included under this retirement hobby of his. After all, Aventurine had been a notorious gambler - and after all, in his retirement, the only photo of him that had surfaced had been one of Dr. Ratio and a blond man whose face had been partially obscured, flipping a coin between his fingers as they stood backlit by the setting sun, surrounded by a full blooming field of flowers.
Vincent had paused upon rediscovering that image. For one, it was definite proof that Aventurine and Dr. Ratio kept up their relationship even after they ceased having a business partnership - after all, Aventurine of Stratagems had retired from the IPC a mere two days after Ratio had announced his final retirement, and after all, both of them had subsequently disappeared from the public eye at around the same time, and after all, Aventurine had once shown Vincent the photos he had of those 3 cake cat critters, identical to the ones that Vincent had seen in recent photos of Screwllum accompanied by his 3 dutiful research assistants (or research terrors, as Vincent had heard. Oh well, surely the Genius Society can handle it).
Those same critters had told Vincent in no uncertain terms that yes, two decades ago, Aventurine had taken them all and moved them into Ratio's house on that distant planet showered in golden light - the planet that rarely rained but was kept ecologically favorable by an artificial climate. They recounted all manner of things to him, once he had explained that he wanted to record Aventurine and Ratio's relationship accurately. They told him about the pancakes Ratio made that they had loved only to find out he couldn't cook and actually used the Synthesizer for them (the betrayal!), about the early days when Aventurine had uncertainly fumbled around with them (the effort!), about the quiet days when both Aventurine and Ratio had been away (the silence), about the days Aventurine came back home with patched up injuries (worry), about the days when Aventurine had told them 20 years ago about a "final gamble" that would "let him play with them all the time" (joy, confusion, anxiety), about the days that some scary pink-haired lady had come by and patted Aventurine on the shoulder and spoke about how great he was at gambling and to "savor it" (what was 'it'?). They told him about the days that Aventurine moved them all to that planet and that house with the giant backyard and those flowers that they loved to swat their paws at, they told him about the days they would play in the backyard and be accompanied by Aventurine almost always, about the days that Aventurine would no longer leave, about the days that they could see Ratio all the time instead of just every three months, about the time that Aventurine had said "see, Doc? Retirement's not so boring with a friend~ right?" and Ratio had shoved him off, saying "your amazement at the concept of genuine friendship after the better part of 35 years astounds me". They had told him about Aventurine's response: "Oh my, professor, it seems as though you're right! We aren't friends." About how he paused. "We're roommates!". And then they had told him about how Ratio had exiled Aventurine to the couch for that comment for the night.
When Vincent had inquired about the sleeping arrangement, the critters had helpfully explained, "No matter how many times they replaced the bed in the guest bedroom, it always broke. So they started sleeping together in the same room - one on either side of the same bed, because "it's hardly as if we've never shared a bed before in more trying circumstances" on their missions. So Dr. Ratio would always exile Aventurine when he was mad, but he'd never go through with it, and Aventurine would always steal the blankets from Ratio when Aventurine was mad but he'd always give them back."
And at the end of that explanation, Vincent had dutifully nodded and continued listening to the cat cakes' stories about their lives before Screwllum, unknowing of whether Dr. Ratio and Aventurine were merely painfully and stupidly oblivious or whether they were very good at hiding it from their own... pets? Children?
The more stories the cat cakes tell, the more and more Vincent doubts the two of them ever officially went past the... "friendship" stage. However, the evidence for them both wanting to be more than friends is quite compelling.
The cat cakes talk and talk and talk for so long that Vincent feels their aching sense of loss, feels as if he almost could imagine being in that house, surrounded by golden light and two people who clearly loved them very much, two people who used to share a bed (platonically) and cook together (platonically) and live with their lives so in sync they retired almost simultaneously (platonically) and share a joint bank account (platonically) and knew each other's coffee and dinner orders by heart (platonically) and had melded into the same routine and the same days for so long and had staved off the characteristic retirement loneliness and boredom by spending time together (platonically). By the end of it all, Vincent wonders if the word 'platonic' needs a new definition in the dictionary. After all, if this is what passes for platonic nowadays, Vincent and his friends may as well be outright strangers!
By the end of it all, when the cat cakes have talked themselves empty, when they realized that they no longer had any more stories to tell, and never would, and when they had started sobbing over that revelation until Screwllum had made them those Synthesizer pancakes once more to comfort them, only for them to sob harder - by the end of it all, Vincent is conflicted. On one hand, a part of his heart tugs at him, whispering to him all the lost opportunities and regrets and potential that had died with Dr. Veritas Ratio that day - no. That had died with Aventurine of Stratagems - the knowledge that they perhaps had never really told each other just how much they meant to each other. Part of him aches at the knowledge that when Aventurine died, that possibility had died with him; aches at the knowledge that the cat cakes, with Ratio's death, are now left in a world bereft of all that made it familiar, that those days of dappled sunlight for them were now forever out of reach. Part of him, for all the comfort it gives, is still glad that even though those two, perhaps stubborn, perhaps oblivious, perhaps stupid, even without knowing fully how much they were anchors in each other's life, still got to spend those last twenty years together, living out the last of their days quietly, peacefully and in each other's company.
They grew old together. They lived together, cooking, taking care of the critters, going on walks and crashing local college lectures, arguing and bickering and laughing. They spent their lives together, and then they both died peacefully in their sleep. It is something that- it is a piece of knowledge that Vincent cherishes knowing. From the cat cakes' stories, it sounds like they were both happy. Is that not the most important thing of all? They were happy together, and that's what makes it ache all the more, knowing that, for even a small bit of time, they had not been together in the end.
-
Aventurine of Stratagems had died on a rainy day, following an uncharacteristic drizzle for the season. By all accounts, he had died peacefully, comfortably - the kindest death that could've come to him, out of every option out there, for a man who had spent the better half of his life staking it all on life-threatening wagers. That first month, too, had been marked by funerary arrangements, executions of wills, whirlwinds of legality and mourning and grieving - much smaller, less pronounced than the mourning of Dr. Veritas Ratio.
It had taken all of 2 weeks - a characteristic efficiency both expected and unexpected of Ratio - to finalize it all. Once it had all died down, it had been quiet regarding Ratio and the cake cats. After all, upon his retirement from the IPC, Aventurine of Stratagems had ceased to be a relevant person of interest in the universe. Worlds had kept turning, business still moved at breakneck speeds, and the IPC news cycle had found something new to talk about by the end of the very same day. Twenty years spent out of the game, and Aventurine was not even a footnote in history - perhaps only a word, left in the IPC's records for the Amber Era.
That had been it. Vincent could not find any more records on Aventurine, or Ratio, covering that time span, and he was hardly going to ask the cats to recount such a difficult time, and so.
And so, Aventurine of Stratagems died on the 1st. His funeral had been held on the 14th, precisely two weeks later, in the midst of a torrential downpour, attended by all manner of mysterious attendees with names that had never been released to the public. Dr. Veritas Ratio once more returned to obscurity.
And then two weeks later, Dr. Veritas Ratio died on the 28th, the first sunny day in 27 days, not even a month afterwards.
Timeline complete.
-
At the end of it all, though incomplete, Vincent begins to write regardless, attempting to keep the more... personal details out of the biography. After all, even Vincent knowing them felt like an invasion of privacy, no matter how eagerly the cats had shared the stories - perhaps just happy to talk about their parents once more - and so he can hardly fathom that the two men in question would be very happy knowing that everything about their lives was released to the public after their deaths.
Sure, Vincent could be comprehensive, but... But the glimpses he's gotten into their life together already paint a rather telling picture, and at the end of the day, it is still their lives, really. The stories still exist in the words and memories of those immortal trio of cake cat critters, in the memory banks of Screwllum - Vincent does not have to expose everything to public scrutiny. Just... Just enough to provide enough evidence that history will remember Ratio and Aventurine and that they were not just coworkers - that they were happy together, that the lives of these people, one who would be forgotten otherwise and another who rests as a footnote to the deeds of the Genius Society, would be remembered, for even just a fleeting eternity.
Of course, the most surefire way to remember them would be to gain a Memokeeper's attention, to store them forever within the Remembrance's embrace, but that dream is merely a fantastical-
And as soon as Vincent speaks those words aloud, do two Light Cones - Garden of Recollection technology that is way above Vincent's paygrade to look at, let alone touch! - gently drop onto his desk like a pair of cards.
"Hello? Are you a Memokeeper?" Vincent asks to the empty air, receiving nothing in return.
So then he turns his attention to the two Light Cones, eyes widening at the note attached to it:
These two memories may be of interest to you. When you are done, return them to me by leaving them on the table and leaving the room. Yours truly, a Friend.
-
The first Light Cone, a slice of light so thin that Vincent could cut his finger on it, depicts a dark room, camera pointed downwards towards a blond man that is unmistakably Aventurine, clad in black pajamas and drowning in a swarm of blankets and a trio of cat cakes. There is an arm, dressed in blue pajamas, right at the side of the Light Cone, and in this context, it's not hard to guess who it is.
The memory stored in the Light Cone, when Vincent reads it, goes as follows:
"Ratio," Aventurine hums, patting affectionately at the head of a cat cake, "have you ever thought about when you're going to die?"
Ratio makes a sound drowsily, as if he'd just been about to fall asleep. "Your talent for picking conversational topics at this hour would earn you admission into the Genius Society." He raises himself up on one arm, forcing his eyes open. "What brought this on?"
Aventurine fiddles with a thread on the blanket as he speaks. "Nothing in particular. I was just, thinking, y'know?" Then with an injected pep into his voice, "Like you're always telling me to. Plan for the future and all that."
"When I say "plan for the future", I mean for you to plan your meals for tomorrow, or to start a new hobby, not about something as morose as death."
"But it'll happen eventually, won't it?" Aventurine says. "Don't you want to be prepared?"
Ratio sighs. "Preparation is one thing, but unless you've suddenly developed a talent in divination that's simply slipped your mind to tell me, nobody can predict when they die." He pats the head of a nearby cat cake, who purrs contently. "In my perspective, you should focus more on doing as much as you can while you are still alive, so that when your time does come, you will die without regrets."
Aventurine chuckles mirthlessly. "As expected, my dear Doctor. You're getting predictable."
Ratio grumbles, "I'm getting old, is what I am, and you're the idiot who's been watching it happen for the last fifteen years. If you still didn't have some sense of what I'd say, you're an even bigger fool than I took you for."
Aventurine sighs, but this time, his smile is more genuine. "Over fifty years of knowing each other, and you're still calling me an idiot. Some things never change."
"If you have nothing better to say, I will be partaking in the recommended eight hours of sleep before the snacks want breakfast again." Ratio says, turning around and curling deeper into the blanket.
"What," Aventurine says, "So you can feed them Synthesizer pancakes again?"
The silence is notable.
Aventurine turns around too, wrapping his own blanket around himself.
A pause.
"When it does happen, though, I think I'd like to die first." Ratio shifts again, about to turn back around before Aventurine continues. "Just once, it'd be nice for someone to outlive me."
The Light Cone ends there. By the end of it, Vincent has the haunted look of a man who has bore witness to something he very much should not have seen, really should never have known. What was that Memokeeper thinking? These vulnerabilities... they should've stayed buried with the two of them.
And then, there's the other Light Cone - as innocuous looking as its neighbor, complete with a simple photo of Veritas Ratio, old, alone, seated on a park bench with the three cat cakes only half-heartedly swiping at the surrounding butterflies that had hovered low enough for them to reach - all 3, stacked one on top of another. Just the first, regrettable look at the wording has Vincent instantly placing it as sometime in the murky period between Aventurine's death and Ratio's own:
Ratio sits silently on a bench, absentmindedly watching over the three snacks as they play, albeit with much less vigor than days prior. In the same sense, he can relate to their lack of energy; Aventurine is... gone, after all, and such a drastic life change for the three of them, who have known him nearly all their lives, is expected to impact their moods significantly.
Ratio, too... is touched by a sense of melancholy.
"You damned fool..." He whispers to the wind. "I suppose you got what you wanted in the end, just like you always do."
Ratio clenches his fists where they're resting on his legs.
"Life is... less, without you."
Usually, he would never dare say this out loud, but without anyone to talk to anymore, now that Aventurine was gone, he felt as if something inside him would burst if he never said the words at all.
"I find myself turning around, expecting you to be there, as illogical of an expectation as that is. And when you're not, I feel as if... I've put my feet in the wrong place, and now I'm directionless on where to go next. Logically, everything has stayed the same, but I keep trying to find if something has changed. Food tastes less, now. The cold is somehow, illogically, less cold. It merely feels as if everything has stayed exactly the same as before, but that someone has removed the light."
Ratio bows his head. "I hope that... wherever you are, whatever lies beyond life, that you are... content, wherever you have finally landed."
Without another word, Vincent lies the two Light Cones to rest on the desk, and exits the room.
-
When Vincent finally finishes writing that biography, he hesitates on what to place as the final paragraph. As much as he initially hoped for this to be, finally, the step he was looking for in his career, it feels wrong, after all that time spent ruminating on the closeness and the intricate details of someone's life, to slap his own personal self-advert onto the back. Sure, Vincent is shameless, but even he has lines in the sand to draw morally.
It takes him 3 days and another trip of watching Screwllum wrangle the 3 cat cakes as they once again start more experimental fires - truly, you'd think Dr. Ratio would've drilled fire safety into their heads, but at least there's someone around to put them all out in his absence - that he realizes that it should end as it began, with a focus on Ratio and Aventurine, rather than anything else.
So, in the final lines of the biography that Vincent hopes will survive at least for a little while, to immortalize Aventurine and Ratio together into history, he writes his own farewell to the two of them, who had varying levels of impact on his own life:
And to Aventurine and Dr. Ratio, I hope that if there is an afterlife in the Nihility after all, that they are there together, walking into that eternal darkness hand-in-hand, as they did in life.