ꙮ The conversation around the firepit and stewpot’s ebbed and flowed. People get up, walk around, when someone else is telling some part of the story so far that they weren’t involved in; eventually after a while Tasna suggested that everyone take a break and wander around, partially because she had some suspicions people wished to speak privately. The three of them seem to have their own private spaces, within the caves, as well as a larger shared space and the structures and firepit they’ve built outside. Duškomira’s retreated to hers, for the time being - it’s large, echoing, resonant, if you hummed or sang here it’d reverberate off the walls, build on itself. The cavern is open to the sky - there’s a cleft in the rock where you can see the sky, and the moons pass directly overhead, and in the centre of the cavern, right under the cleft, is a surprisingly deep pool of crystal-clear water, in which you could see each moon reflected as it makes its way across the sky.
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does not see a door upon which to knock, so she simply waits near the entrance before saying, “May I have … hm, probably more than a moment of your time, Duškomira?”
is lurking in one corner of the room by a desk with a dizzying array of pouches and phials and boxes of powders, but she looks up when she hears Salme, and waves her over, immediately. “Of course, of course.” There’s a lingering but pleasant scent in the air, like even with the airflow and cleft in the roof it’s a place where incense is burned regularly, and as Salme gets closer, this entire corner of the cave is a workstation for her, and she was in the middle of rolling a thin stick in powder covering a surface of her desk.
blinks curiously. “What are you doing?” she blurts before she can think to be polite or have some decorum.
beams like she was hoping for the question, asked precisely that way. “Making incense. The flowers in the garden downstairs, some things I can pick up when my travels take me to Queenstown… sometimes Tasna or Xilai brings me something nice to work with.”
: “Your shop in the Bazaar smelled lovely. Did you make that incense yourself as well?”
nods, and preens, just a little bit. “I did. I’m glad you liked it. That one’s just the flowers here, so it’s always familiar. My signature blend, I suppose.” She runs her fingertips along a shelf, and pulls out a long, thin, paper-wrapped bundle and hands it over to her. “If you’d like some to take with you?”
gently takes it with both hands. “I’d like that very much, though I don’t have much space to store things in this outfit. Would you mind terribly if I left it in your hands until our conversation is done?”
: “Oh, of course, silly me.” She sets it down on the corner of the desk with a smile, and turns more fully to face her and meet her gaze, expectantly.
hesitates for a moment, then begins: “I’ve been told that I have a tendency to interrogate people, and I’m not sure … precisely what’s rude or not, to you but. I have a fair amount of questions, and I was sort of hoping you might humor me a bit.”
: “My dear, I’ve been living with Tasna for decades. I can handle anything you can throw at me, I promise.”
laughs a little, and untenses and with a flick of her wrist presents the “Traveler’s Guide to Known Reality” to her, page open to Valaïs, then says, “Do you remember Valaïs?”
mutters under her breath. “‘Do not remember’, my foot. I’ll say up front that there’s much I don’t recall. Something happened to me when I came here and it tore away… not everything, certainly. But many, many things.” She reads over the rest of the article. Raises a single eyebrow, and hands it back over to Salme. “Well, that’s certainly written from a perspective.”
nods. “One that doesn’t seem particularly … hm. Aurelius was the one who taught me how to look at the Rite-tones, and see the stories written there. You’re one of the ‘undead’, right?” She says it without any judgment whatsoever.
leans back in her chair, smiles out of a corner of her mouth. “I died, once, yes. I got better.” The smile twists, -slightly-. “Wish I recalled more of what that meant. But I know– Tasna has a theory, based on what Xilai and I experienced. That we kept the one thing that mattered to us the most, when we stepped through. And I think that comports with what happened to the six of you, in a way, although it seems like much and more’s returned to all of you? But. Mmm. I remember who I was, and who I became.”
tilts her head. “Yes we lost—everything, really, except some seed of our identities. We’ve recovered different things at different rates, I probably more than most, because my role has always been remembering. But even then,” her mouth twists slightly, “much was lost. Things I’m not sure I’ll ever get everything back, not fully.” She shrugs. “Would you be willing to tell me? Who you were, and who you became?”
frowns in sympathy, and nods. “I -was-, once, Jaromir, of Fort Valaïs. Loyal, trustworthy Jaromir, who did not question the world into which he was born. And then he died, as people do.” She looks wry. “And when I woke up, well. I’d learned to question what I hadn’t questioned, and I had a new name. One which quickly became Duškomira. It means ‘peace of the soul’.”
considers this for a moment, and then nods. “It’s a lovely name. Do you feel that it suits you?” Though it seems that it does, that it must, from everything she seems to be.
exhales a happy laugh. “Well, I’m not sure how much peace I’ve ever granted Tasna and Xilai, but they’ve put up with me this long.”
laughs. “Well, it doesn’t specify whose soul you’re granting peace.” She lets their laughter hang, and then shifts from foot to foot before speaking her next bit. “It … maybe be obvious, or perhaps it isn’t, why I asked but. Well. There are two reasons, really. I’m curious. So much of who I am is about collecting people’s stories, organizing them, remembering them. I’ve been trying to decipher whose voice speaks through each Rite-tone, and I might ask for your aid in that, if you’re willing to render it.” She pauses, “the second reason is far more selfish, I think. Awa doesn’t mind his lack of past or lack of memories, but I, perhaps selfishly, wish to know everything I can know about him and where he came from. I didn’t know if you might have any perspective to offer on that.”
nods, and nods again. “Certainly, I’d be willing to help. Although some of that process was– it was strange. We had less conscious control over what ended up in the tones than you might imagine, and a number of them we didn’t touch at all, or changed after we touched them. At least some of what ended up echoing there was a surprise to all of us, but, I’m sure I can dig up some of our old notes.” And she leans forward, a bit. “As for the Awoken, of course you want to know more about your loved ones’ stories. And, well. I feel like I’d remember if I’d ever met him, but I can say that he looks familiar. Like I must have known his distant clan-kin, or something like that, and I’ve been trying to place why. Something about his eyes, the shape of his face. It’s hard to say. I’m sorry I haven’t any more than that for you, my dear.”
nods again. “I wouldn’t expect you’d have known him, though we have encountered several people who look strikingly like him. Though, actually, do you remember if Valaïs had any concept of royalty?”
: “Hm.” She frowns. “Not that I can think of. The Shadow’s the closest thing I can think of, and I suspect they’d laugh in your face if you called them a monarch.” She smiles, fondly. “As for the Fort, I don’t… remember enough about my life there to tell you, other than that it wasn’t particularly joyful. There was a… hierarchy, certainly, but. Mm.” She tilts her head. “May I ask what prompted that question?”
laughs a little. “There’s an Alethic rite called [Libra] that, when cast, will tell you the truth about someone in … perhaps not the voice of the universe, but a voice of the universe. His referred to him as ‘The Awoken Prince’ and said that ‘as is his tradition, any name he may have had in the past evaporated in light’. It also told us that he remembers only a song, and ‘the indelible fact that he was truly loved.’” She recites the lines easily, like she knows them by heart. Which she, of course, does. “I’ve often wondered if he was one of the ‘undead’ of Valaïs, and what that truly means. I’ve often wondered about the song and the light.” She looks around the cavern, with its opening to the sky and the moonlight shining through. “It seems you might not have had such a different experience, if this is what you chose for your private space.”
looks faintly amused. “A sobriquet, then. Which a voice of the universe chose to recognise. How kind of it. Anyways, if… if that was his tradition? Then, yes, he very well could be as I am.” A peaceful smile, as she looks out at the cavern lake. “One of the reasons we picked this spot, honestly. One of several. I saw this cave and I fell in love, though. Something about it, when the moonlight hits, felt… good to me.” A light, happy shrug.
: “‘Peace of the soul’,” she murmurs, watching her. “As for as you are … you said the guide certainly had a perspective. I have no desire to uncritically accept that perspective, and truly, I’ve seen no difference between him and any one who hasn’t died before, but … is there anything that is different, that you would be comfortable sharing? Assuming that you remember, which is, of course, a rather large assumption.”
looks thoughtful. “Well. My form is of my choosing, utterly and completely. His would be, as well.” And she gives Salme the briefest little ‘how lucky for you’ look. “But that doesn’t make us much different from Tasna’s people, from what she’s told me of her home, I wouldn’t say. And, it’s not like he’s walking around with four arms like some people I’ve met here.”
laughs in agreement. It is lucky for her, if that is the case. “Well. That does bring me to another question. You called Zaya a Hero with a capital H, and I don’t disagree, but it did seem a weighted assessment. I was curious … why?”
looks amused. “Because she is a Hero of the Beast, and her Queen isn’t, and I like poking the hornet’s nest because it turns out that having died once doesn’t do wonders for one’s sense of self-preservation? It’s– ach. let me actually answer your bloody question. Tasna and I spent a decade or two in the far Reach, where they respect the Queen’s rule, but have certain… distinct traditions. And the Queen took a word that had been theirs, and made it ‘Hero’, once, long ago and for her own reasons, and claimed it as her title, and it’s never sat well with me. Even if I’m sure she feels like her reasons were good.”
: “A Hero, though. A Hero is a person who dreams. And I don’t think the Queen ever has, but Saranzaya’s told me of hers, and besides, I’ve seen the way she handles the bazaar. The lady deserves a title befitting her station, don’t you think?”
: “Absolutely,” she replies automatically. “I love Jae, and I respect her immensely, but I would never … Zaya is one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met. I had an entire meltdown about it at first, actually.” She pauses, thinking, and then says, “Do you remember what the Reach traditions were? And was it always the word ‘Hero’ or was it a different one? And … by ‘dreams’ do you mean the kind of dreams Wolf has as well?”
: “She is -quite- an impressive woman, I can’t fault you for that. As for your questions, unfortunately, I don’t know what the word -was-, nobody does, any more. Just that it used to be something different, something she heard as ‘hero’, and demanded as her tribute.” She shrugs, expansively. “Opened up a number of good trade routes at the same time, or so they said. Seemed a small price to pay. But. Mmm.” She looks up. “He dreams of another place, yes? Has he spoken with her yet?”
nods. “He has. He’s shown me as well. If out in the Reach they dream as well, Wolf will want to know that. It seems a constant on many worlds.”
: “Apparently, it’s rare as hens’ teeth. Always… stories, about how it used to be more common, long ago. I wonder, sometimes, if the Queen took more than just a name, but I suppose it’s impossible to say.”
: “Hmm. I might be able to get her to tell me. Maybe,” though she says it more to herself than to Duškomira. “I thought it was simply a comment on … I play a hero, on Almachadta, because people like stories about heroes, yes? But the actual heroes are the yeresh like Wolf, the ones who do the day-to-day work to keep the world running smoothly. And I suppose you also mean that too.”
: “I. So. The Rite-tones. You should have access to the library now via the tomestones Aurelius gave you, but if you look at Plane Travelers & Rite Stories you can see my speculations—if it’s easier, I can start a thread on the linkpearl for discussion. I wasn’t entirely sure how you talked. I thought many of the tenebrous Rite-tones might be you as well, but the one I was most curious about was [Dark Prophecy].”
: “Well, I wouldn’t count yourself out in -that- regard, either, my dear. But, yes.” She smiles, and leans back in her chair, and then squints, and reaches out in front of her, towards… something, and then laughs. “Ah, no. No, that one was like that when we found it. Rather upsetting to stumble across. And one of the ones that resisted change, the one time we tried.”
: “Does everyone on Valaïs know the world will end? Or was that as much of a surprise for you as it is for most people?”
blinks, and then blushes a bit. “That … might be a bit unkind. I can be callous about it. I’ve lived with it for so long.”
waves away the concern with a frown. “It’s not an easy question to answer. I suspect it wouldn’t be an easy question to answer even if I had access to all of my recollections, my dear. I certainly remember a tendency to live in the moment, to… I remember. I remember -Jaromir- thinking… you could tell these people the world would end tomorrow, and they wouldn’t care, and they’d go back to dancing. I remember it frustrating that poor boy quite a bit.” A fond smile, for whom she once was. “Which tells me, I suppose, that it wasn’t something they thought of, no, let alone were certain about. I’m simply not sure who wrote that, or what they meant by it when they did, I’m afraid.”
nods again and absorbs that. “Jaromir sounds like he had a fairly hard time of it. It does sound like he cared very much. It seems like it carried over in your second life. You’re—kind. I was intimidated, you know, when we met in the shop. A bit scared, like if I pushed to hard the magic of it would burst like a bubble.” She touches the necklace she got from Duškomira. “How did you get those gems, by the way? The ones from other worlds?”
smiles, again. “Ach, he was doing his best with what he had. Mostly a devastating crush on his guard-captain and a sense of the weight of all Valaïs on his shoulders.” She laughs, gently. “In your defense, I was putting on quite the mysterious act at the time. It’s a role to play, I think you understand, but it’s certainly– it’s nice to be able to just talk to you, face to face.” She glances at the jewelry, and smiles. “From other worlds, are they?” She gives it a closer look. “I’d always wondered. I had my suspicions.” ⁂
: “There’s a bazaar in Valaïs, too. It’s a lot less… well-kept than the one here. Even before Saranzaya took over. But I remember loving it, remember… loving the feeling of, you could turn a corner, and find anything. See anything. Buy anything, buy something you’d never been able to imagine before. And so I always loved the bazaar here, too. And when you spend enough time knowing its ins and outs and mysterious corners, you recognise when there’s a stall you’ve not seen before. When your footsteps are leading you towards it without so much as a by-your-leave. When a collection catches my eye… well. Tasna’s got enough Lucre for me to indulge my tendencies every now and then. So, infuriatingly for both of us, I can’t say anything more than that I never saw that vendor before or since.”
: “Don’t suppose the vendor was a fox metahuman with multiple tails who looked like he was either coming or going from an opium den, hm?”
raises her eyebrows. “I’d -certainly- recall that. No, they were the most utterly nondescript motherfucker I could possibly imagine.” She laughs, mildly exasperated. “And Saranzaya didn’t have any records of them having rented the space, which means they were…” Her voice lowers, doomfully. “A Criminal. I asked. Mostly because I wanted to know if they had any more stock, but, hm, it sounds like that sort of stock would have been inherently limited, hmm?”
: “Yes. The original owner reached out to me—someone from a different world, not in the way we’re from different planes, but a completely different reality, and told me part of this piece belonged to him, once upon a time. Though it’s been reworked since.” She traces the iron ring at the center of the compass rose. “You said a … Criminal? With a capital C?”
: “Well, only inasmuch as they were in the bazaar without official registration. Just between us, I don’t think Saranzaya cares too much as long as someone doesn’t start any trouble. And it doesn’t sound like they were hawking stolen goods, either, so I suppose my conscience can rest clean.” She chuckles, slightly. “I was rather curious about who they were, though. Strange, all of that. Even more curious now.”
laughs. “Sort of how all this goes, right? You find one answer and below it are a million more.”
thinks for a moment, and then says, “I know we mentioned … well, many things, but I have some skill at sharing memories. If you like markets I was wondering if you’d like to see a memory of the market of Almachadta? It’s not nearly as impressive as the one at Queenstown, but. You’ve given me a lot of answers. I’d like to give something back.”
: “Oh, that would be marvelous, my dear. How does it -work-, exactly?”
: “It’s … it requires your consent. I’ll use flourishing gnosis to connect us. You can share your memories with me if you so desire, and your emotions might echo a bit through the link, but generally it’s based off what one chooses to share. There is, perhaps, a version of methexis where one might force a memory or thought from someone else, but it’s not one I care to indulge in.” She offers her hand. “I always find it easiest with a bit of physical touch.”
: “I cannot say how much I appreciate your priorities, Salme.” She rootches forward in the chair a little, holds out her hand to take Salme’s, half-closes her eyes. “Very well, then.”
reaches out with roots and threads, gently inviting Duškomira into the home-that-is-herself.
ꙮ She leans forward, and a connection is made - and it’s incredibly easy, and clear, to make the connection; her mind is inherently receptive to the process in a way you’ve not, to your knowledge, experienced otherwise. Describe what you share?
is thirteen years old and the Centrelight shines down on her bare arms like a blanket of light and she is in the Courtyard and is so excited. Everything is here in the markets—stalls selling silk and wool and cotton, fabrics dyed fantastic colors, elegant irrica stonework, dried flowers and live flowers and delicious fruits and blackberries, raspberries, fat rolling melons, and parchment and paper and inks. It is a riot of color, brighter than anything on the Beast, and Spoken Wood amble past while a Lightdrinker grown into the stall itself vends crystal jewelry that pulse with a rainbow of colors. Salme is so very small, and there is anger and hurt simmering under the surface, and below that grief, yes, but in this single moment, seeing the markets spread out before her, she feels transcendentally happy and alive, like anything might be possible.
has a lifetime - a long lifetime - of memories of the Bazaar that spill out in an echo of Salme’s memory - impressions stacked upon impressions, the weight of decades’ worth of trips back to Queenstown, of looking for little tchotchkes for Tasna, of looking for interesting seeds and seedlings for Xilai, of jewelry to buy and sell – and, running under all of that like a swiftly coursing river, an incredibly intense sense of nostalgia, of homesickness, like experiencing a dish that’d been your favourite, and which you haven’t tasted since you were young, after a life in a place far-away, and beloved, but still never home, and when the methexis breaks, Duškomira has been weeping out of joy.
: “I was going to ask, you know,” she says softly, “If you missed it. I didn’t think I’d miss Almachadta as much as I do. And I’m happy, so stupidly happy sometimes, on this journey. I love the Beast a lot. But sometimes I wish I could wake up in the morning with the Centrelight pouring through my window and Aury and Awa beside me and know I’d be able to go outside and eat sunwarmed blackberries off the bush.”
exhales, softly, and she hasn’t quite let go of Salme’s hand. “So beautiful. So lovely. I’d very much like to taste those blackberries some day. But… and… the…” She shakes her head. “I remember so little of home. But I remember… sharing of myself like that, Salme. Oh, I remember it.” She looks– dumbfounded, overwhelmed, still mostly with joy but with questions bubbling in around the sides.
tilts her head and blinks. “Oh.” And then she squeezes Duškomira’s hand. “Anytime you like, I can do that. If it helps. If you’d like to. Wolf also has the skill.” She tilts her head. “One time, with Awa, he reached out and … touched the song in me. It was … I don’t think it was the same, but I wonder if, on Valaïs, this isn’t such a lost art.”
: “But anything I can share in terms of memory or what I’ve learned, they’re yours.”
leans back in her chair, again, and lets go of Salme’s hand finally. “Thank you, for that. Oh, that was very lovely indeed. I think– I think if time permits I’d like to make a blend of incense for you. What you showed me was an inspiration. Oh, you must have such wondrous gardens, I’d love to see the look on Xilai’s face to see them.”
: “I had actually been meaning to ask about the garden outside—who managed it. I’d like to learn more about it. And I would love an incense blend.”
: “That’s Xilai’s gift to both of us. And secretly our way of tricking him into a gift to himself.” She smiles, conspiratorially.
: “Oh. Is he like that too? Because Aurelius is impossible when it comes to trying to get him a gift.”
sounds exasperated, but she’s also smiling like an idiot as she says it.
laughs, softly, and nods. “He’s. If I remembered who I had been, everyone I’d been, Xilai remembered an oath of service he swore. It took us decades of stubborn persistence to get him to admit the possibility of Having Nice Things.” She’s rolling her eyes, but, similarly, with deep affection.
: “But if he were making a garden for us, well, that was alright, then. And if we caught him humming and smiling every time he was working on it…”
nods. “I’m still … learning. How to,” she blushes. “It’s new. Having partners. And Aurelius is a challenge for me, because he doesn’t seem to want things, and I want to give him things so badly, but … maybe I can learn by watching you three.”
smiles, gently. “Give yourself time, my dear. It’s new, and everyone is different, and wants different things, and– Take Tasna, for instance. More than anything else in the world I think she likes having someone to talk to, who’ll listen, whom she can ask questions of, and who’ll ask questions in return. And it– it baffled me, it did. I had no idea how much that meant to her, even when she explained the Virtue of Counsel to me for the fifteenth time like that was an explanation. One day, it finally clicked for me that it was. And then I was still confused, of course.”
looks at her, a little like she’s … rapidly recontextualizing information. “Are you not like that?”
gives Salme an amused look. “Not by nature, no. And Khejvard…” She smiles fondly. “He’d play the General’s Game with her for hours, but only if they stared daggers at each other the entire time in utter silence. Drove her mad, that did.”
laughs brightly. “See. I can’t shut up. I can’t shut up so badly that I’m constantly on my tomestone talking with weirdos from other realities.” She hesitates then, takes a deep breath. “I suppose that’s as good a way as any to ask your advice. A few decades ago, the Sword-Saint before my mentor, Ciet, tried to go through the gate in Almachadta. They had apparently been in contact with you all. Tasna’s name came up the most.” She frowns. “I was going to ask her about it. I want to understand what happened with them, what was going on with that weird gate, but. Will I dredge up something painful if I do that?”
: “Ahhhh. It’s good of you to ask. It’s… in a way, it’s painful for all of us. Tasna had… she thought that she could corner an understanding on the worlds and fix the Beast’s problems, and her own home’s, if only she had all of us here. Did everything she could to ease Ciet’s journey, and– well. We know now the entirety of what went wrong, yes? And that knowledge wasn’t any more painful than the conversation would be. It’s an old wound, at this point. A friend we never had the chance to make, a chance to help the world that never panned out. These days, I think she thinks she probably was jumping at mirages anyways, but. No, I think she’d value the chance to have the conversation. Especially since all of you have already been able to do what we couldn’t quite manage.”
nods thoughtfully. “Okay. Thank you. I do appreciate it. I’m—not above being a bitch if I feel I really need to be, but I do try to avoid it.” She gives Duškomira a wan smile. “And I suppose, in some way, it did help. Wolf and I wouldn’t have ever been sent into the Tangle if Tsem and Ciet hadn’t spoken with you all.”
: “It’s strange how things work out, isn’t it? And you couldn’t ever have guessed it in advance. Had to live through it, hour by the hour, until we find ourselves here.”
laughs a little. “Yeah.” She looks up again at the moons. “I think that’s all I have to interrogate you about now. I … appreciate it, immensely. If you think of anything you remember about Valaïs that it might be helpful for us to know before going there I’d appreciate, but for now …” she gently picks up the incense Duškomira had offered earlier, “I think I’m going to take a quiet moment to gather my thoughts and update the library. Thank you again, Duškomira, Night-Blessed.”
chuckles a bit at Salme’s word choice. “It was a pleasure, Salme. I hope you enjoy that gift, I’m going to start working on that blend for you while the memory’s fresh in my mind…” And she turns back to her workspace to jot down some notes.