ꙮ The walls are getting a little crowded, in the Liminal Library. Well, only a little - there’s the wall that forms the threshold, the wall that observes the world around the tablet, the wall that can’t be looked at directly. I suppose that’s only three walls to not be covered in odd little blueprints of bookshelves, out of thirteen. (Honestly, with two of the walls clear it feels, if anything, like there’s a little more room to move around in the Sealed Space.)
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- The Dragon
Scene Archives
← Active ScenesIn the Liminal Library, V
#saint
#jorule
#bahamut
slips into the Library, carrying two comically large bags of … stuff … hooked over each shoulder. She stops at the guestbook to add a little note—not up to anything, I promise—and then heads for the wall where the Key-and-Gate shines.
carefully sets each bag down, and then kneels. She knows exactly what she wants to do, she just needs to exert her will strongly enough.
ꙮ The stars shine brightly, overhead.
spreads a wide square of lavender cloth on the ground in front of her, and then sets a heavy, round bowl in the center. Into it, she pours thick, oil-slick black india ink, enough that the liquid almost crests over the top edge of it, but doesn’t.
ꙮ The light of the Key-and-Gate shimmers on the surface of the ink.
dips one, two, three beautiful dark feathers into the ink bowl, careful not to spill a drop, and then draws a triangle in ink around the bowl, using each feather to brush one edge of the triangle onto the cloth at each point. She sets each feather radiating inward at each angle, and then pulls out three more things—a small hand harp strung with crystal wire, a sheaf of thick paper crowded with writing, and a pair of stylized green-tinted glasses. The last was a commission. The Scholar-Emissary’s name really does get you a lot around here.
ꙮ It’s true, it does.
sets one item at the point in each triangle and then stands, looking down at her handiwork. Then she stands and holds out her hand, draws up gnosis—flourishing, liminal, a bit of radiant, and yes, a spike of pellucid, because if she had to pick, it would be pellucid. The corners of the cloth draw up, the items folding impossibly into them, apart but separate. The edges of the cloth twist together, reaching for her hand, and she looses the flourishing and the draws more heavily on the pellucid and the radiant, thinking of structure, stillness, shells, until sitting before her is a perfect, beautiful, two-foot-high lavender egg.
crouched down in front of it. “Did you know, that if a chick cannot crack the shell, it will die without being born?” She taps the outside of the shell with a fingernail and a brief, certain application of burning gnosis. “You are the chick, and the world is out here, waiting. Wake up.” She taps the shell again with another flood of burning gnosis, a hope, and a certainty.
ꙮ There is a scratching, and then an insistent scratching, and then something which is more than simply an insistent scratching and is, rather, the sound of a fiend-shell splintering, a bright crystal-shattering sound and a peal of very tiny bells. And then there is a curved beak, and then the shell splits entirely, and then there is a lavender-feathered raven, around two feet tall, with ink-slick dark eyes. His talons look like he could hold a pen, if he were more careful, or perhaps if one nearby were less careful with theirs. His mouth opens, and harp music spills out, rather than a raucous caw.
grins and laughs at him. “I knew you could do it, Jory.” She looks around the library. He’ll need perches, or several. She closes her eyes, and imagines several comfortable perches, and opens them, hoping they’ve populated.
ꙮ When you open your eyes, the raven’s smugly perched on one of the perches that now exist.
reaches up and offers something that looks like it might be a worm—but no, upon closer look it’s a curled scrap of paper with words scrawled on it. A secret, even. It’s a treat. “I’m hoping he’ll use you to hang around, so he doesn’t have to go through the whole performance every time. But if he doesn’t use you, well. You’re still lovely, and I love you.”
ꙮ The raven flutters down with grace that is utterly unsurprising to Salme, because what fiend of hers would not be possessed of great grace? He nibbles daintily, then with ravenous alacrity, at the curled scrap of paper, and nuzzles at her finger. Quirks his head to the side, in the way that birds will.
strokes his soft head with her finger. “You were made for the purpose of speaking and for the purpose of opening doors for those who seek knowledge within this library. And if you discover another purpose all your own? I will love that too. I left room for that, you know. You’re part of him, but also you are your own thing as well.”
ꙮ He quirks his head up, at something in that statement. Quirks his head up more, until he’s looking straight -up-. Arpeggiates mellifluously, with a flap of his wings, and then he’s looking -past- Salme, at the wall behind her.
frowns, and turns to look at the wall behind her.
ꙮ It’s… what the hell? It’s a bookshelf. Not one made of smooth blue planes and chalky lines, the sketch of a future bookshelf. It’s a bookshelf, old and expensive-looking, polished wood, well-loved but lovingly cared-for. The books on the shelf are an absolute riot of different colours, and they seem to -change- if you look away- from shelf to shelf, even places within the shelf. The titles are indistinct.
: “Oh. Well. That’s unexpected.” She moves forward and looks at the bookshelf, frowning. If she looks up at the Key-and-Gate, can she make any sense of the bookshelf out of the corner of her eye?
ꙮ No, but the saccades it forces you to do - you realise that there are certain invariants. Certain colours that always appear on the shelf prominently. A soft and gentle violet, a vivacious and enticing orange, a deep, familiar azure, a rich and shimmering gold, a vivid blood red, a lush and comfortable green.
frowns, and reaches for the deep, familiar azure.
ꙮ Of course.
ꙮ The book tips forward, briefly. There’s a pleasant click.
ꙮ The entire bookshelf then shifts backwards, a few inches, and sinks into the floor.
: “Hm.”
ꙮ There’s a door, behind it, with – a ten-eyed sigil.
: “Two doors seem a bit much,” she says. She reaches out to touch the door.
ꙮ Well, one of them wasn’t a door, it was a secret trick bookshelf, but I agree that this is all rather excessive! ⁂
ꙮ When Salme’s hand touches the door, she experiences a sudden sense of… possibility. That anything could be behind the door, when it swings open - gradually resolving, as she pushes it open - first, the same vivacious orange from before, a sense of movement, of branching paths - and then the door opens onto a cross-hallway with three other doors each at the end of their own small hallway. The floor is irrica, like the Liminal Library, but the walls are papered with orange wallpaper.
: “Why the orange? Is that supposed to be me?”
ꙮ You’ve got me by the ass, honestly.
ꙮ I have no idea.
steps into the hallway. “The azure would be Awoken, right? The gold would be Aurelius. Though the other colors feel. Confused. Maybe I’m not right about this at all.”
: “‘not up to anything’ my ass. First of all, Angels are not birds. 99% of the time. Secondly, what in the fuck are you doing?” Not a bird, just a projection, floating in the air behind you.
beckons to Jory, the beautiful raven to join her, and tells Jory, the shitty projection, “I don’t know what an Angel is, so you can’t blame me for not understanding, and I am obviously exploring recently opened pathways, Mr. Key-and-Gate.”
: “Okay but why is it here?”
ꙮ The lavender raven briefly considers attempting to sit on Jorule’s shoulder and then, wisely, decides to sit on Salme’s shoulder instead.
: “Magic. Obviously.”
: “(Also I guess it is a nice fiend but Being A Fiend is not one of the freak flags I fly.)”
ꙮ Each of the three doors at the end of the cross hallway looks the same as the one you opened previously - a prominent ten-eyed sigil etched or burnt or - something, it’s hard to say - into the surface of the door - except that they all have ornate-looking keyholes.
: “CLEARLY. This space seems to run like 80% on intent. What were you thinking about that caused it to appear?”
leans down and tries to look through one of the keyholes. Any luck?
ꙮ Ooooh, that feels weird to look at.
straightens. “I was mostly curious. I was thinking about how I’d like to have an atelier somewhere, but not clearly.” She reaches up and pets Jory the raven’s head. “Any thoughts on how to open one of these?”
ꙮ Are you asking me or Jorule? Because if you’re asking me… have you tried all of the doors yet? They might not be locked just because they have keyholes.
: “Hmm… oh, because you saw 86 bring his fiend out of here. … Wonder how that would work with more mundane creations. Well. NIP said they duno what’s going on despite the uh, you know, telling glyph that would suggest otherwise but lets see. Hidden hallway that leads to locked doors with a ten eyed mark upon ‘em.” He shrugs, floating past Salme as one of his fingers turns into a key before it’s shoved into the keyhole.
ꙮ Unfortunately, that hurts like a motherfucker and it doesn’t even work. [1 Stress]
: “I was sort of asking both of you, and the fiend.”
frowns, pulls it back out with a shake. “Not even a roll, huh? Okay.”
places her palm against the door and pushes. Not hard, just curious.
ꙮ I mean, you absolutely turned your finger into a key and shoved it into the keyhole, and then the keyhole bit you.
ꙮ Weird that a keyhole bit you, but what part of this isn’t?
: “Right, no one was arguing that.”
ꙮ Salme: You can -feel- that this one’s locked with a heavy mechanism, when you push against the door. The second door, if you try it, will feel the same way.
: “Gunna assume that means ‘still under construction’ though, like… the vast majority of the internals.”
: “Well, then, the third door it is.” She backtracks swiftly to the third door. “Though, I get the fiend isn’t ideal but I was thinking you could. You know. Make comments now and then. Hang around with everyone. That sort of thing.”
stands in front of the door. “Is there another hallway behind this one or will it be a room? If I’m going to create something then I want to have the image in my head.”
: “I suppose it was, perhaps, not obvious to you that it is very easy to manifest here and I was mostly putting on a show to mess with you before.”
ꙮ It’s hard to say until you put your hand on the door, but you feel like you’d have time, to form an image in your head, once you do so.
: “It was obvious to me,” she says absently. “Maybe I just wanted you to have something of this world that was your own. Purpose-created for you.”
puts her hand on the door.
: “Why three rooms though? And why hidden behind a false shelf?”
: “I’d ask ‘and what is your weird obsession with gift giving’ but we covered that one already.”
: “Thought that counts though I guess??? Thanks???”
: “It’s obviously about aesthetics, with the false shelf. And I’m surprised you tuned into the gift-giving conversation. Seemed too boring for you.”
ꙮ It’s green. It’s so green. Lush, flourishing, comforting green. A cul-de-sac, a corner in which something might thrive. Possibilities flicker in the mind. Brief glimpses.
: “Bitch you heard me respond to you once. Also read all the logs regardless of how self indulgent any given one is.”
ignores him for this moment.
rests her forehead against the door and thinks, for the first time in a very, very long time, of home. Thinks of the little courtyard in the center of the house, where the rain would fall into a shallow pool and she would splash through it every morning and every evening. Thinks of her grandparent’s hands plaiting her hair carefully every morning, telling her she was the prettiest girl in the village, and what a nice lie that was. Thinks of the Centrelight at its brightest point, filtered through gauzy curtains or, sometimes, warming her skin. Thinks of stringing the warp-threads on the giant countermarch loom her grandparent wove at. The room itself, crowded with drop spindles, dyeworks, an entire wall of rainbow thread.
pushes the door open.
ꙮ You open the door, and the warmth of the light hits you before anything else - massive bay windows, looking out on the Centrelight. It’s utterly impossible, looking through the windows, to say -where- in Almachadta this might be; it seems like the idea of windows looking out onto the Centrelight, you recognise no landmarks. It’s a workspace - warm reddish wood floors and walls, expansive enough to work within. One wall covered in skeins of thread and yarn and enormous baskets of fibre and basins for dyeing and drying and places for blocking, with several spinning wheels; the floor on the other side dominated by a truly impressive countermarche loom.
: “Oh.” She steps inside. “Oh, I didn’t think … it’s perfect.”
: “Of course it’s perfect, you made it to your own specifications doofus.”
ꙮ I don’t know if that’s the case.
: “Or maybe it’s a kind of gift. Or a kind of miracle.”
goes over and runs her hand over the wood of the loom, and she isn’t quite laughing but she is smiling.
ꙮ It’s beautiful.
: “I don’t know how to use it but I’m going to learn. I was thinking of weaving enchantments into to clothes. Protection, power, memory, warmth, safety.”
then she frowns at Jorule. “Wait you said you try to give me and Aurelius privacy when we get handsy. You still read the logs?”
: “How much you wanna show the rest of the class is entirely up to you.”
: “Ain’t that right buddy?”
ꙮ Well, I certainly don’t know everything you get up to.
: “Anyway I don’t know shit about weaving cloth but I can give you some pointers on getting started with enchantments once this other things is done, if you like.”
: “I’d like that. Though if you’d not going to use the fiend, I guess I’ll have to come up with something else for you as a gift.” She feeds Jory the Raven another scrap of writing.
: “I wonder if we open the door again it’ll take us somewhere else?”
ꙮ It performs a glissando in appreciation.
: “Your gift to me can be finishing the bookshelves finally OR leaving poor Caion alone for like, I don’t know, one whole ass day so he can finish his own ongoing projects???”
: “Oh also, ask a nooplankton if they’ve ever been a plant before when you see one.”
: “I,” she says, striding out of the room, “have finished my part of the bookshelves. I’m also facing a work stoppage. I’m practicing patience.”
: “Hmm.”
ꙮ There’s a weird feeling of awareness of when you pass from one room into another.
: “Can I try to understand that awareness?”
: “What a silly question to ask out loud with your human voice.”
ꙮ Liminal, DC 2/15.
glances at Jorule. “I don’t supposed you’d assist?” she says, but she’s already closing her eyes, imagining herself as an open window, or not a window at all—there is no pane of glass separating herself from this awareness. She is a doorway. She is an invitation.
- Salme, The Sword-Saint invoked their 🌌liminal gnosis [d6] -> 4.
: “Sure, always need an excuse to perform skill checks.”
- Jorule, Angel of Darkness invoked their 🌌liminal gnosis [d6] -> 4.
- Jorule, Angel of Darkness has gained 1 Arete, and now has 5.
- Salme, The Sword-Saint has gained 1 Arete, and now has 4.
ꙮ Salme and Jorule have, in a sense, collaborated in such a way once already, and as they both reach towards the same inexplicable thing, their minds resonant along much the same mysterious frequencies, it happens again, and so they both know that it’s quite similar to, but much less dramatic than, the sensation of entering the Library in the first place, a sense of going from Here to There that, despite being a single step to the eye and the mundane senses, is almost like a transition into a distinct Sealed Space. Ultimately inconsequential, probably, in the grand scheme of things, but now you know!
: “We’ve collaborated in such a way already?”
shakes her head and walks back into the library, trying to see if the awareness changes at all as she crosses that threshold as well.
ꙮ When you touched his presence, and first saw the figure of inky black.
ꙮ That same vague sense of transference as you step back into the Library proper.
ꙮ The secret bookshelf slides up out of the floor and back into place with a satisfyingly heavy sound.
: “Makes sense.”
reaches for another book, this time holding the rich and shimmering gold in her mind.
: “…Also gotta run but have fun with your Atelier!”
nods at him and gives a little wave, but stays focused on the book.
ꙮ Nothing happens. (And if you try the other books, nothing happens with them either. Just the azure.)
tries the azure again, and if the door appears opens it. Does it open into the same hall?
ꙮ The bookshelf slides down, and the door is there, and it opens onto the same hallway as before, with two closed, locked doors, and the door to your Atelier.
: “So, potential once acted upon is set? At least in some sense?” She says, returning to the library again. She’s starting to feel a little silly, but she’d feel sillier if she tried to replicate this experiment in front of someone else and and failed.
ꙮ You’re exercising the virtue of Curiosity! And probably a couple of the others too at the same time! Anyways, that seems like a good working model.
ꙮ I was curious, too, for what it’s worth, and I don’t think it’s silly at all.
: “Thank you. That’s kind.”
reaches up to pet Jory the Raven’s head, and looks up at the Key-and-Gate. “I don’t suppose you’d like to have a chat with me through this lovely fiend?”
ꙮ I’d say nothing happens, but that’s not strictly true; Jory the Raven trills an absolutely lovely melody line. That’s something.
: “That is something.”
goes over and sits on one of the couches, and pulls the Mask out. “I guess there’s just this one thing left, hm?” she says, looking down at it.
: “Tell me your Will. Please.”
ꙮ The mask stares up at you. Not in any literal sense - as an object, in the form of a face, with eyeholes, in your lap, pointing up.
flips it over, and tries to see not the Stillness, but the Song of it, tries to find the gnosis-path, the root-binding that’s woven starlight into it. The Mask wants. The Mask has a Will. She does not understand and she wants to understand. This too is a Strange Path. She tries to walk it.
ꙮ The side of the Mask that only the Sword-Saint sees. The one side of it is almost inhumanly smoothly carved; no matter what happens to the Mask there’s a quality to the way light hits it that almost looks like the way light hits skin. On the flip side, though, you can see that it was carved, even after it’s been worn by who knows how many people. You can see those marks of craftsmanship in the wood, and you can see just as clearly, if you know how to look, the gnosis woven into the artifact.
ꙮ You cannot understand it from the outside, though. Perhaps from within?
steps within. Falls.
as always catches you and it is as gentle as it was before anything was complicated as gentle as it can be as gentle as it knows how. its truth is sharp and cold and the thing that carries it does not have to be but often is because of what it carries but it would. it would always ameliorate that if it could. it hears its bearer’s question and its own answer is: that its will is almachadta’s joy in the face of its inevitability, its will is to carry the seed from the cooling ashes to the embers of new ground, its will is to remember.
: “And what of the hand that carved and crawled away from carving?”
ꙮ Her words echo and ripple through the roots, and there is a brief, but discernible, feeling of intense sorrow, from somewhere. Somewhere deeper within the Mask than you thought could ever retain a trace.
: “I am not gentle,” she tells it, and she is sorry. “But there is a kindness in the sharpness and coldness of the truth.” And then she reaches back and gathers as much liminal energy as she can, and punches the ground beneath her.
ꙮ The ground shatters under you, and you fall, and you fall, and you fall,
does not catch you, this time, because you do not wish to be caught in the root-web, and it understands, and it also– does it wish? does it wish? can it wish? can it will? it must–
ꙮ and you fall, and like every time you’ve fallen, it feels like flying,
ꙮ and in that moment where the fall feels like flying, and it is very very dark, all around you, in your awareness of the Mask and its near-infinite roots, you hear a voice, impossibly low, impossibly huge, impossibly soft, impossibly warm, weathered by profound age and cracked, at the end, by fire, saying:
: “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
: “What was it supposed to be like?”
: “It was supposed to be me. It was only ever supposed to be me.”
: “To bear the Mask? Or to carve it?”
: “To bear the Mask. I was the first. I should have been the only. But then there was a second, and I can’t imagine—“ -it shudders, whatever it is, it exhales, and you feel the heat of it against the back of your neck. “How many there must have been.”
: “I am the sum of all of them,” she says. She feels its breath on the back of her neck. She does not try to turn and look. “My name is Salme. Why did you think you would be the only one?”
: “You remind me of her. The second one to bear the Mask.” It inhales. “I was supposed to live forever. One beast to wear one Mask. To forever comfort the world and hold its truth.” It exhales.
: “But I died. The world burnt, and I was dying. And later – somehow – when the fire stopped – I crawled out of that cave, and scratched a gouge into the wall, and looked up at the Centrelight.”
: “And then she found me. And she told me, let me take away your burdens, great beast. You have suffered enough.”
: “You had suffered enough,” she says, and she does not know, but she knows. An entire cycle alone, from start to end. That is more suffering than anyone should bear. “Had Almachadta burned before your carved the Mask, or did you simply know that Almachadta would burn?”
: “I am not its Maker. He…” The voice goes soft, gentle. “He knew. I don’t know how. He never told me. But he knew it would be necessary.”
: “Did you know him then?”
: “I knew him always. Until his last day.”
: “I told him I would carry what the fire couldn’t. And then I… died.” It exhales, controlling itself.
: “Before she passed the Mask on, she told it– she wished to tell me– that she had found a successor. That she would pass the Mask to someone she knew could carry it. So that she would not die as I did. And she lived, after that. For quite a while.”
: “So that I would feel, a little less, that I had failed her.” Its voice is gentle when talking about her, too.
ꙮ Its voice might just always be gentle, as gentle as the fire left it able to be.
: “There is no shame in dying,” she tells it. “All things die. There is no shame in anything you did. It sounds like you should perhaps turn some of that gentleness inward, toward yourself.”
hrrfs.
: “I do not feel shame. I feel…”
hrrfs, again, stubbornly.
: “I am dead. I am a memory. I do not -feel- any thing. I just wish it could have been me.”
: “Hm.”
: “Does a memory not feel anything? I don’t know. I am not yet a memory, though I will one day be. I still think—You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. Was that a poem you knew when Almachadta was young?”
: “Hrrrrrfffff.” That’s a yes.
: “I would like answers. I would like to know you. But I recognize I am in a place where I probably shouldn’t be. If I try to look at you, will you disappear?”
: “I don’t know. Nobody’s ever tried before.”
: “I think the Mask might want me to know. I also want to know. And if you disappear, I’ll simply find you again.” She closes her eyes and turns around, then opens them, looking for it.
ꙮ Once, it was a towering beast, with huge soft (sharp. also sharp.) paws. Once, it had majestic ears, with luxurious, sleek fur. Once, it had bright and shining eyes that reflected Centrelight in a specific way. Once, it had a tail that could thwack a rambunctious monster into submission as well as playfully knock a human over without harming them at all. Once, it thought it could leap from one end of Almachadta straight across to the other, leaving holes in the clouds, and maybe, just maybe, it even could have.
ꙮ Fire and time have left it little. Singed as it is, it retains its gentle majesty. It’s wearing the Mask.
: “Hello,” she says. “You’re beautiful still, even having borne so very much.” She offers it her hands.
reaches out a paw. (The pads of its paws are cracked, and rough, and charred but - the touch is still impossibly gentle.)
uses both of her hands to hold the paw. Her touch is also gentle, because she is not, by nature, gentle, but she knows how to be. “May I ask your name?”
strokes one side of its paw with her thumb.
lets out a slow rumble. There’s a long pause before it responds. “He gave me the name Bahamut.”
: “And do you like the name Bahamut? Is that how you wish to be called, to be remembered?”
nods, slowly. “It was a gift. I treasured it while I lived.”
: “Then I will remember you as Bahamut, First Sword-Saint of Almachadta, high-leaping cloud-chaser, protector of all.” She presses a kiss to its paw, like she would a lord. ⁂
: “May I ask my questions of you? Of the Carver, and of the Mask itself?”
🙧
rumbles, very slowly, and had the fire left it more, it might shed tears. “You may.”
: “You knew the Carver. What can you tell me about him?”
: “He was…” It tilts its head up. “I think he could do anything.” It sounds wistful, but in a way that– the memory brings joy. “He sung me awake. He woke many trees, and beasts, and rocks.”
: “He said that most people did not remember how to do that. That it was something important. That we should wake, and sing, as well. But that the people who did not remember were important, and should be protected, and loved, and should protect and love in turn.”
: “Had you slept before, then?” She thinks of—she tries not to think. She tries only to know.
: “I… moved, I breathed, I hunted. But I was not awake. I did not yet sing.”
: “Can you tell … do I sing? Or have I forgotten too?”
gently exhales. “Yes, you sing. You are singing right now.”
breathes in, and exhales as well. “Okay.” She strokes his paw more. “You said you would carry what the fire couldn’t. Did I misunderstand? Was the fire supposed to carry something?”
looks immediately concerned. “Has the world lost those who carry fire?”
: “Oh. No. I don’t think so? The … ember priests?” She suddenly wishes Wolf was here. He would know better what to ask, how to interpret. Or Aury, or Awa, or Unua, or Archie or—but they aren’t here. It is just her, and she will have to be enough. “I wasn’t sure … so often the world ends in fire. I was confused.”
: “The yeresh? They still exist.”
relaxes, and gently wiggles its paw, comfortingly. It can’t read her mind, but it can read the way she tensed, and it rumbles, soft, comforting. “Then they still carry the fire. There is truth that the fire carries. And truth that I was to carry. Which you, now, carry. More truth than I ever shouldered.” It’s not self-deprecating, though– it sounds proud of her.
: “And I could never leap through the clouds. We all have our strengths,” she says, but she’s blushing.
: “Can you tell me what the Mask’s Will is? I. Am doing something other than what I ought. I am trying to break the cycle. I know many others have tried. I know nearly all have failed. I am trying nevertheless.”
looks, briefly, confused, and just as briefly, distraught, and then it pauses, and breathes, slowly, its paw flexing very lightly against Salme’s hands. And then it says, “Oh.”
: “The Mask’s Will, as its Maker made it. To permit its bearer to be that which the world would require in order to survive, and live. For me to play the role that the world needed of me. Eternal and unburnt.”
: “And then after I burnt, and died.”
: “Somewhere along the line.”
exhales, painfully, pronouncing the passive voice carefully, “It was decided that fighting the world’s fate harmed more than helped, wasn’t it?” Soft, slow, rumbling exhale. “I can see it. I can feel it.”
: “But not from you.”
: “It was decided. And it was the right decision. For centuries it was the right decision. Millennia. But then something impossible happened, and I discovered there are other worlds, and that we were all one once, and that we might be able to save each other.” ⁂
: “I doubted, Bahamut. I doubted at first. But I have to try. Because we have been making the best of a very bad hand, but it can be otherwise, I think. I hope.” ⁂
: “I thought my only future was dying with Almachadta. I thought I would carve my tallymark and set my head on the stone and die before I reached thirty. I don’t think that anymore. And I know you’re just a memory, but. Take what hope you can in that we have endured, and endured, and endured, and we will, finally, hopefully soon, flourish.” 🙧
would look directly at Salme, with clear bright crystal eyes that once comforted an entire cycle of Almachadta, if the fire had left it enough to. But it turns its head towards her. “Then you are not doing something other than what you ought. You are being that which the world requires. In order to survive, and live. As I did. As every bearer of the Mask in between has done. This was my master’s will. It lives on today.” And it sounds… profoundly, immeasurably calmed, by this. Lowers its head, slightly.
: “Being that which the world requires, in order to survive, and live.” She takes a deep breath. “Yes. And I will always do so. Whatever else I do, I will always ensure I do that.”
stretches up as far as she can, on her tiptoes, to kiss the bridge of its nose. “What can I carry forth into the future for you, Crystal-Eyed Bahamut?”
shivers softly, and presses its enormous nose very gently against Salme, and for a second she knows what it must have felt like, to curl up against its side, to press your face into its fur, to go from being terrified and shaking because a monster was going to eat you to knowing that everything was going to be alright in the world. That its master’s will lives on. That its hopes live on. And it rumbles softly, and it says, “Remember us. Remember that we lived.”
’s laughter is gentle and warm. “Of course. I was going to do that anyway.” She enjoys its warms another beat longer, and then steps back. “The second Sword-Saint. Can you tell me her name? I want to find as many of us as I can. I want to sing your names for everyone to hear.”
exhales very softly in reminiscence. “Her name was Daina.”
draws in a shaky, shaky breath. “Daina, then. I’ll look for her next. Anything else before I go?”
shakes its head, from side to side. Churrs, very gently.
“Then I will remember you, Bahamut. And I will see you again one day.” And then, like she was falling-flying, she is flying-falling, upwards this time, out of the Mask.
ꙮ It turns its head to follow her as she rises, even though it cannot see her go; as she felt its warmth, it too felt hers. And it smiles, and she rises, through the roots, towards the light of the Sun shining on her, on the Mask, in the Library.