ꙮ The quiet shade, the black stone stark. In the desert caves, it’s always dark. After the hippalectria ride from the City, which wasn’t even a race to the sietch as much as a race to get out of the Sun’s light, it’s a welcome relief to descend once again; you got the path to the Heart from Chaya, although both of you feel like you could probably remember it without trying very hard.
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#saint
#wolf
, as closely attuned as he is to music and song, could probably find his way there with his eyes closed…were he to be reckless, and navigate by his sense of that rhythm alone. Instead, he sheathes himself in shadow before they even begin the descent, and that throbbing, endless pulse is only his guide when memory fails.
remembers. How could she not? The steps turning inward, the pulse of it, the inevitability. She travels as wind and darkness towards the only place the path could possibly go. “I am not sure,” she sighs, “that I will be able to stand before it without being caught in it. I may need your help, heart-brother, in order to find my way.”
ꙮ Cold wind curls against cold wind; you do not walk down the steep stone stairs so much as ricochet off of one another. Do your feet even touch the ground, in the dark, where there’s no one to see, when it’s just the two of you? Do you bother? Does it matter?
doesn’t bother, but she has always loved being other than herself. The path may define the shape of her, but within the stone—infinite possibility, swirls, eddies.
: “Trust your strength,” Wolf says. His feet hit the ground, but the sound of his boots echoes oddly, and his shadow does not always face the direction it should. “Defy it, selfishly, if you must. And if it catches you, I will be there.”
ꙮ The curved spiral in towards the Heart’s resting place, then. It goes by faster when you’re only tenuously and tenebrously on foot. It’s easier this time, although you’d be hard pressed to say why, at least on the spiral’s first turns; you feel the pull, the tug, the catch. But you are wind; you are the pull and the tug, and you cannot be caught on any thing, and anyways, you’ve felt this before, and walked away, and so– the inner turns. Louder, but not overwhelming. And then a sharp bend, and you know what waits.
’s body, which is barely a body, does not get caught in the pulse of the heart. Her mind, though, her mind wants to reach for it, the spiraling, the cycles, the moment repeating, repeating, repeating, just as her moment repeats, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and—no. She is alive, and her moment is a destiny set aside for a future as yet uncertain. She catches Wolf’s hand in hers, or perhaps the hand of Wolf’s shadow, and steps around the sharp bend.
reaches for her, as she reaches for him–invites her to spill over his shoulders, through his fingers. He is solid, anchored, dark–selfishly, unrelentingly, he denies that siren song. That is your pain, not mine. Your death, not mine. I do not want it. And so he anchors, icily, as Salme blows.
ꙮ The Heart fills the cavern. Sheets of rough crystal, flaky like mica, grow haphazardly across the ceiling, and so here if nowhere else can you feel the Sun’s light without its rage. But instead, the pull. From the core of the Heart as you watch comes an arterial bloom of rainbowed light, from something in the depths of it, you think, perhaps, maybe, that throws itself against the Heart’s frozen chambers and resonates alive in the waking world. Pulse after pulse of the stasis-field embracing Mu. Somewhere, in the shelter, in the City, far from here, there is still an etrog on the counter, and it has not rotted. Light pulses through the crystal heart. ⁂
- You hear — and your Star hears — a song, echoing from the stillness: Eternity
ꙮ For one beat, you are somewhere else. White stone beneath an immense weight. Green beyond it: leaves layered upon leaves, wet branches, a river catching sunlight. So much moves beneath that sky. So much is alive. Light shimmers off grey glass. ⁂
ꙮ Below you, the human looks at you, gratitude in their eyes, welling with their tears. They would be Unmade, if not for you. ⁂
ꙮ Above you, a shape interrupts the light. Wings as black as night, with pinpricks of starlight dusting the patagia. Talons, sharp as subtle obsidian knives. They fall towards you. You feel each point enter. The talons close upon something deeper than flesh, and draws it apart. ⁂
ꙮ There is a sound you have heard before—the world opening where no opening ought to be. Here it continues. Through the stone beneath you. Through the green beyond it. Through distances that had, until this instant, joined one place to another. ⁂
ꙮ The pain is immense. So is the love. It reaches toward the river, the leaves, the innumerable lives beyond the stone. There is no time to count them. There is no time to say anything to them. The talons tighten. Light pours through the wound. For an instant it catches the bent head above you, the claw buried to the wrist, the edges of vast wings. Then the wings come apart in the brightness, and the brightness remains. ⁂
ꙮ You know that light. You have crossed a desert beneath it. ⁂
: “Enough.” Wolf’s voice is a whipcrack, the shatter of ice. “That moment is not mine. Not ours. It is gone. It is past.” And against it, he throws the weight of his life, his memory–green trees, a woman in white, silent Sanctuary, fire and shadow.
swirls and eddies and acknowledges the pattern, repeating—this moment is hers, in a way, as the past echoes through her vastness, through every memory in the Mask—an end, and a beginning, over and over again. But she is more than her moment, more than this moment. She can hold it in her vastness. There is room for it to be felt, seen, counted, kept, but only as one moment among many. “What else were you?” She asks.
ꙮ This, too, fits within the Mask, doesn’t it? Smaller, that way. Less overbearing. A sorrow, among many. The Moment does not resist this categorisation. ⁂
ꙮ Something, something, about that memory. ⁂
ꙮ The heartbeat catches on it. ⁂
: “…over and over. You beat and beat. But…” Wolf looks up at the Heart, and his eyes are wolf-green and wolf-gold, twining together unsettlingly. “…so does mine. Not in stasis. But moving ever forwards.” He rumbles deep in his throat, chin lifting–shadow lashing around him, leaving trails of faint, fading frost. “I remember the smell of blood and loam…”
ꙮ The beat matches. The song rises in your heart. It is not, quite, enough; not alone, not by itself. ⁂
knows the beat of a heart that moves ever-forward, unceasing. She has no voice for song, but she knows his. “You remember the wordless bacchanal…” she says, sighing more than singing the next line.
ꙮ [Liminal, Take Half]
But what if, not his song alone, but yours and his as one?
looks back at Salme–his shadow gathering around his shoulders like a cloak, like wings of blades. His smile is thin, and icy, and yet. “Sister. Lady of Flame. Burn bright.”
: “They already are. They always have been,” and then she is both wind and sparks on the breeze. “a sparrow falls, wings spread wide, answered / by sudden susurrus in inky black,” and her voice is the low tone of the wind through stone, like a bassy flute, like a darkly-tuned string first bowed. They have always been both, haven’t they? Fire and flourishing, ember-light, twined together since before. Once they too looked below from this gray glass, didn’t they? “a song rhizome-rhyme-rilling, a hand outreached, / now never alone and still-unsung.” Never alone. That echoes too. Never alone.
’s voice is strong, clear, baritone–rasped with an edge of ash, rooted in his chest like earth. “The symphony that never ends, but now…silence.”
ꙮ The heart skips a beat. A single beat. Not much, in the grand scheme of things. But has that ever happened before? And then, you sing, and there was a word for this, once. Like wind and counterwind, melody and counterpoint.
- You hear — and your Star hears — a song, echoing from the stillness: Determination
ꙮ With each others’ voice, with one another’s song, for a moment there is more than the Moment.
ꙮ Fire and shadow, and shadow and fire, the one casting the other, the other accentuating the one.
ꙮ Two souls in syzygy.
ꙮ Light pulses through the crystal heart.
ꙮ The human looks up, love in their eyes. One half of their face is patched together with molten gold where it’s begun to crack and break apart. He did– he has done– he has been doing– he will do– everything he could. And yet. And yet. In this moment it is yours to know their will, and the look they give you is one of profound and utter gratitude. You remember that, too. You hold that in your Heart, too precious, yours alone.
ꙮ Light pulses through the crystal heart.
ꙮ …it does not overwhelm you, any more. It simply is. 🙧
stands there for a moment–shadow-wings flared out, blade-tips brushing the edge of stone walls…and then they fade, though his shadow is still strange, and the look on his face is wonder and delight. “Salme. Did you hear that? Did you hear that?”
laughs, still wind and flame, still not quite touching the ground, but there, and human, and brightly-lit. “Of course I did. How could I not? Your song and mine, hand in hand.” Her fingers brush his shoulder. “Plied together into one thread, and stronger having be done. Isn’t that what we’ve always been to each other?”
smiles at Salme, and leans into the touch, then looks back up at the Heart. “What a strange image. That man, with the broken face…”
: “Was that the Phthora? Or was that …” she reaches out toward the heart, one hand still touching Wolf, the other reaching toward the crystal. It is a question. It is an invitation.
- Salme used their techné Methexis (Salme has recreated the Ancient technique by which they can link their mind and experiences with that of another person and can do so effortlessly with a willing participant.)
ꙮ Oh, it would be so easy to fall in. It would be so easy to fall in that it would be impossible not to. And– there is one thing. There is one thing it would remember. There is one manner in which this entity would exercise what volition remains to it, and that is to refuse her offer, with profound gentleness. And yet, in that same moment, two things. ⁂
ꙮ First, a certain knowledge that the Phthora led to that sad circumstance, yes. A single, fragile human person, after everything. After everything that happened. Just one. You don’t even remember their name. ⁂
ꙮ Second, an image, impossibly brief, of a beautiful young man with piercing azure eyes and lightly tanned skin, smiling over his shoulder, mid-turn, holding a wooden flute in his hand. The most precious thing the Heart recalls, that which it holds the closest, and will not let go. This it shares with you. 🙧
reaches out his hand and gently lays it on Salme’s shoulder, frowning in thought. “May I see?” It’s an invitation to connect and share in turn.
- The Wolf-Priest used their techné Methexis (Wolf has recreated the Ancient technique by which they can link their mind and experiences with that of another person and can do so effortlessly with a willing participant.)
passes on the images, passes them on to Wolf as easily, more easily, than breathing and does not—does not—does she recognize the man? Does he look at all like the man that lives in her heart with its every beat? And does she recognize the gentle refusal? She has been refused once, just as gently, wind that fearing to sink a ships as a storm, wind that—does she recognize that? Are these familiarities, or simply echoes?
ꙮ Wolf: Diana looked at you once with that very same smile.
radiates a sort of wondrous confusion through the link–and as he knows that, Salme knows that, sees a flicker of that same face and that same smile, worn on a different face.
ꙮ Salme: He could be, you think, the Awoken’s brother. The resemblance is uncanny. (As for the gentle refusal… that resemblance, too, is uncanny.)
in return lays bare her confusion. Her bluejay, the Omniclast’s gentle care, wonder and confusion, hers weighted more heavily towards confusion.
ꙮ The crystalline heart, meanwhile, it beats, and it beats, and it does not cease. Rainbow plumes fountaining from some centre-point, through vessels and chambers and atria, refracting and shifting until finally they become part of the world.
shakes his head, and lets the link fade. “Answers and more questions.” He sounds somewhere between amused and resigned. “I should expect nothing less.”
: “There was one more thing. When we first came in. Something inside the inner chambers, maybe. That might be alive. That might. Hm. One more thing.” She draws liminal gnosis into herself, as much as she can, imagines herself refracting on the crystal atria of the heart, imagines her multitudes of eyes on every chamber, even the most intimate. Looking inside, to see if what was suggested is perhaps actually there.
shivers for a moment, then shakes his head, and looks at the Heart. “It does not hate…”
: “I felt love from it too. And warmth,” she says.
ꙮ Salme, Liminal, DC 15.
- Salme invoked their 🌌liminal gnosis [d10] -> 7.
ꙮ Wolf, Liminal, DC 15-7.
- The Wolf-Priest invoked their 🌌liminal gnosis [d8] -> 1.
- Salme has gained 1 Arete, and now has 3.
- The Wolf-Priest has gained 1 Arete, and now has 7.
shakes his head–too distracted, too many things in too short of a sequence. “Rrgh. My apologies.”
ꙮ …well, it’s probably coming from somewhere, isn’t it? Nothing in this world comes from nothing.
drops the liminal assumption turns and looks at him. “It isn’t your fault. It was an attempt at something improbable. I simply had to try.”
: “Yes, I just wish I was more help.“ He laughs a little. “It’ll have to be just one more mystery among many, I suppose.”
: “Wolf,” she says, gently. “We walked into a room where an eldritch god-creature is constantly reliving the moment of its own undoing and, through the power of our songs twined together, stilled its writhing and received … some sort of answers. And I could never have hoped to do it without you as tether and singer.”
: “Neither of us could have done such a thing alone. If my … wild attempt failed, then it failed and,” she lets out a slightly irritable snort, “I don’t like it because of course I want to know, but. That would have just been an additional benefit.”
looks rather chagrined, and rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Well, when you put it that way…”
: “Yes. Which I am doing. Because I’m not the only one who holds themselves to exacting standards.” She looks at the heart again. “What do you make of it? The love, the warmth?”
furrows his brow in thought. “I don’t know. It reminds me of the other sun. Which makes a certain sort of sense.” His smile is very wry. “What it means? I haven’t the faintest.”
ꙮ ’Antistroph’. The word for this, once. The counter-turn, the answered question. Two souls who shine all the more brightly for one another’s presence.
blinks up at the ceiling. “How do you know that?”
ꙮ I don’t know. I just know that it’s true.
: “Silmät is good with Nouns, for some reason.” She puts a special emphasis on ‘Nouns’, so they both can hear she really means the capital letter. “I like it. ‘Antistroph.’ ‘Brother’ has often felt inadequate.” She falls silence for a beat, and then asks, “Wolf. Is Diana still alive?”
frowns, and shakes his head. “To tell the truth, I don’t know. My memories around her are still tattered and…I have not sought the memory of her fate.” He rubs the back of his neck again. “When we first learned the Truth That Burns, I was terrified that I might ‘remember’ her fate…and thus cause it.” Wolf sighs. “Our roads diverged, I remember that much. She sent me on my way with a wave and a smile. What happened next, I do not know.”
: “We may need to find out. She seems … why would she be familiar to the heart? I think Valaïs might give us a sense of why someone who looks very much like Awoken was loved so dearly by it, but her familiarity is …” she shakes her head. “Answers and more questions, as you said.”
: “Aye. We’re starting to see too many strange echoes to ignore them as flukes. The connection between you and I. The connection between Ravhi and I. And now these flashes of people who are-yet-are-not alike to those we love. It means something. I just wish I knew what.”
nods, and is quiet for a moment, before she adds, “Have you seen a dog? Something large, black, and shaggy with bright eyes? There was … one greeted me once, in the cavern of the amphilyke pillars. It was there for a moment, then gone.”
is starting to turn towards the path back up when Salme says that–then his head snaps around. “What did you say? You saw a dog?” He frowns. “But…shaggy, you said?”
blinks. “I didn’t expect the ‘shaggy’ part to be—but yes. Enormous, black, with pointy ears and very bright eyes. It greeted me like it knew me, and then it was gone.” She frowns a bit. “I’m not. Used. To seeing such things. My early interactions with the metaphysical world have been limited to the Mask, more or less. I told Aury, but he didn’t know what to make of it, and I … it seemed like a Wolf-question.”
draws his brows in further. “I…too, have seen a dog that was not…normal. In…” His eyebrows are nearly a singular thing at this point. “…in the Garden. Beneath the Tree. Black as night, pointed ears, bright eyes, but short-coated. It rose and barked as if it knew me, and then…vanished.”
frowns a bit more. “What the fuck?”
: “Sorry. That’s not helpful. Just. Would you want to see the cavern? I don’t know that anything will happen, but it is on the way.”
looks back at the Heart, frowning deeply. “It’s not the only strange animal apparition I’ve seen. When I last visited Ember, before we came to Mu–there was a huge black cat. It, ah…demanded pets. And a hummingbird. Neither were quite real.” He looks back to Salme. “Yes, please.”
nods, and starts her ascent. “I haven’t seen … any animals, really, but when I was last in this cave, when my liminal gnosis ascended … someone noticed. I don’t know who, or what. But. I think there might be more—players? People? Creatures? Something.”
: “We’re waking something up,” Wolf says, quietly. “Things are coming together. I just don’t know why.“
ꙮ The ascent is shorter than the descent was, and then there’s some degree of labyrinthine wandering through the caves– you pass by a huge underground lake, with glowing crystals deep underwater– and then up a bit of a steep and awkward passage, but it’s no real trouble for the two of them working together. And then they’re there: a cavern full of soft grey crystals, intensely inwardly faceted. Wolf: They seem immediately familiar to you, although the crystal of which the Tree is formed does look much different in formations like this.
: “This is where I saw my dog,” she says, because there’s nothing else she could say to encompass the beauty of the place.
exhales softly as he sees the view, just staring wordlessly for a long moment. “Goddess bright. What a place. And surely the same stuff as the Tree…but how?” He just shakes his head, silently.
: “I don’t know.” She’s taken on tenebrous gnosis again, more for the sheer joy of it than anything else. “I don’t know how so much amphilyke was made to stretch so high. I just know it was.”
ꙮ And then, and you both see this at once, curled up against one of the crystal columns stretching floor-to-ceiling:
ꙮ A truly enormous shaggy black dog with bright, playful eyes uncurls itself from against the amphilyke. It’s got… little pieces of grass in its fur, you think; one of its ears is bent. You are confident that it has recently done Crimes.
barks, once, at the both of you, with utter – and amused – joy.
ꙮ And then it is gone.
: “What the fuck.” She sounds amused and baffled at the same time.
rocks back on his heels, eyes wide with shock. “What in all the little gods?!”
: “Well, at least it’s not just me.” She gusts around the cavern, looking for any sign of the dog, nearly certain there will be none.
ꙮ Yup. No dog. This is now a Dogless Area.
is just blinking at where the dog–no, the Dog–was. “That…was the same dog. It was not, yet it was. What?“
laughs and her laugh sounds a bit, just a shade, like the sound of breath through Wolf’s flute. “Absolutely no clue. It seemed. Friendly? Mischievous, but—hm. I’m glad you saw it as well.”
ꙮ At the very least you’re in good company.
exhales. “Broken faces, echoes of loved ones, and one very good boy. Gods only knows what we learned, but we learned a lot of it.”