ꙮ One of the nice baths, in the City. There’s really no nicest baths, they’re all rather pointedly equally nice, so Ravhi’d directed you to the one that’s closest. Dim inside, but not -dark-; designed with acoustics that mean no matter where you are you can hear the flow of water echoing off white stone. A large, communal bath, and then a warren of small, private baths radiating out from that one; like Samudra’s, there’s gnosis to keep them at a desired temperature, but it’s almost deliberately primitive in comparison, gold beaten into carefully but simply carved channels in the stone.
No song playing
Up next: 0 songs
Scene Archives
← Active ScenesKnowing and Narrative
#saint
soaks in one of the private baths, eyes closed, head tilted back toward the ceiling. She isn’t sore, precisely, but performing at that level, exerting that kind of control over the muscles in her body for that, makes her tired. She has the heat turned up high, just like she likes it, and her hair is pinned on top of her head to avoid getting wet. She’ll wash it properly later, but there’s a Process for it that she doesn’t want to fuss with now. Slowly, her eyes crack open and she looks up at the ceiling. “Silmät,” she says, “you’re there, right?”
ꙮ Always. Or, well. Not always, but always when you need me to be. The performance was stunning. And I… caught your nod, to me. It made me feel very nice.
: “I’m glad,” she says, and then sinks lower in the water. “I’m glad you found it stunning. I’m not sure what to think, honestly.” She sinks deeper into the water, letting it cover her mouth, and then rises back out of it. “I’ve never, never stumbled like that during a performance before.” She’s not upset. For once she’s not upset. If you had to guess, which you don’t, because you can read this, you’d say contemplative. You’d say, perhaps, confused. Or maybe you’d choose words of your own. She’s not upset, though.
ꙮ ’Contemplative’ sounds correct. It’s reasonable to be contemplative after a performance into which you put so much of yourself, your will, your truth.
: “Is that what I did?” She blinks up at you, or where she imagines you would be if she could look at you. “Is that what you do, when you tell stories?”
ꙮ Mmm. Yes. It doesn’t feel like there’s much of me to begin with, though, so I don’t think it’s as impressive when I pour all of myself into the telling. I’ve wanted to quietly, contemplatively sink into the baths sometimes, myself, though, so I understand the feeling.
: “Do you really think there’s not much of you?” She tilts her head sideways while looking up at you. It’s sort of silly looking. “I haven’t gotten that impression. Perhaps you have less volition, perhaps you have less history, but you have a voice and you speak with it. I can recognize the changes in register. I sometimes wonder—when you’re telling us of things, like the moment the heart is caught in, how much of that is said of your own will, and how much of it is not. But you have a voice, and you have desires, and you sound like yourself. That’s not nothing. Many storytellers never even get that far. They’re constantly speaking in recycled epic register, or something like that.”
ꙮ Well… it feels that way, at least. Sometimes, like– in front of the Heart. It feels like a stiff enough wind could rise up and blow me away on it. Other times I know, without knowing how I know it, that I’m speaking words I’ve spoken before, and can’t remember. But either way, I’m still here, and so are you. Stumbles or no.
considers you for a moment. “I think you and Awoken have a lot in common probably. You and Aurelius too. Those two mirror each other as well. There’s a lot of that—mirrors, echoes, patterns.” She moves her arm under the water, pushing up a small wave that doesn’t quite break. “But the stumble was. Hm. Again. I’ve never—I mean, I’ve made mistakes. Fucked up a turn, forgot a word, that sort of thing, especially early on. But I’ve never broken on a stage like that before. Plenty of times offstage, sure, you’ve seen lots of that, but on stage? No. I don’t know what to make of it. If I’m out of practice, or if it was the nature of the story I chose, or if … I don’t know.”
ꙮ You were telling your own story, there, as much as your grandparent’s, weren’t you? Have you ever told that story before? – and then there’s a pause, for a few moments, before I continue – I did not notice you breaking, Salme. How would Wolf put it, do you think? I noticed you taking one step, and then the next, and then the next, going where your story took you. Where you needed, in that moment, to be, to find the answer to the question of what the next step would be.
: “Sure, but. It was a rupture in the performance. It wasn’t planned. I didn’t—and I didn’t mean to tell my own story. Or. If I did, I didn’t mean to tell it in such a way. It feels like a mistake an amateur would make.” She turns her head to look off to the side, staring not at you but at nothing. “What was it like for you? Between Samudra and the Beast, when you heard the Truth That Burns and went quiet? That was a kind of rupture too, wasn’t it?”
ꙮ It was. One I’m not particularly proud of, so I suppose I really can sympathise. Or– when you saw the images of the Sun, although I handled that with a bit more aplomb, I think. But that’s the way of it, when we’re improvising, isn’t it? The story is not told until we tell it; there are no notes on paper, no words to recite. Just your voice, and mine, and theirs. I told you once, when you asked, when you needed to know, that I did not know what would happen, only what I see happening. Knowing things at one second per second. Now you understand what that’s like. – and I would sound, could you hear my tone, gently playful, and kind.
looks back up at you. “Trying for those tone indicators I see?” She also sounds playful, but her playful always has a bit more of an edge to it. Not out of a lack of kindness, just because as she’s rediscovered herself, she’s simply had to acknowledge that she has edges to her that other people might lack. She’s learning to be okay with it. “I think you handled the images of the Sun exceptionally well. Better than I would have, though I think you have a more pleasant disposition overall. Any thoughts on why you wouldn’t have been able to see those? I don’t want to pry, but.” She shrugs, water sloshing. “I must.”
ꙮ Listen, I work with what’s available to me. Some day I’ll have a voice. Some day – I told you, and I meant it, and I don’t know it, but I swear it, some day I’ll look you in the eyes and smile. Anyways. I can only assume that they were kept from me, because they could have harmed me in a certain way which I do not understand. Hopefully some day I will know that, too. – and then I pause, again. – Did you know that, if you go back, far enough - much further than you have to go back for text and textile – the word for ‘knowing’ and the word for ‘narrative’ are cousin to each other?
: “I did not know that. How are they related?”
ꙮ There was a word once that we do not know, but we know must have existed. Long and long before the language we speak was spoken, long before Ancient, even. Elsewhere, and elsewhen. And this word meant ‘to know’. And, through years and tongues, it became our word for knowing, but also– gnosis. And also– ‘glory’, or so some say. And also, a word used for the act of telling a story, which in turn became our ‘narrate’. What that means is, sometimes when you’re telling a story, it’s something you only know as you tell it.
closes her eyes and absorbs that. “Stories are told. They are living things. It’s why I’ve found the fact that people write them down strange, sometimes. You only know where a story is going as you tell it. The process of telling it is not just the process of constructing meaning for the audience, it’s … oh.” She opens her eyes, and looks at you again and her eyes are bright with something she could not hope to name, “it’s also processing, understanding, creating knowledge itself for the teller through the telling.”
thinks back on the performance, on the stories she picked, on the rupture, on the audience. “I revealed a lot about myself in that telling, didn’t I?”
ꙮ You did, I think. And you yourself were part of your audience. We all always are.
: “I didn’t mean to do that.” She frowns again. “Though I guess it was inevitable, with the subject matter. Maybe that was a foolish choice on my part. I just didn’t know how else to—make myself understood.”
laughs a bit. “I guess using my words, like a person, in a conversation, but. You get it, right? Why sometimes it’s more appealing to. Make it a story. Make it a performance.”
ꙮ There are so many things we can tell in a song that we cannot tell in words, aren’t there? Why wouldn’t the same be true of stories? Comprised of words as they may be, they are not simply a collection of nouns and verbs, falling out of a rucksack! And if a story is something we know as we tell it, of course we can be surprised by it, sometimes. Why is that so terrible, to have done something you did not mean to do, that harmed none, that told a truth? – and here I pause again, for a moment, for drama or emphasis. – Have you never told a story that was what its audience needed, so badly, to hear?
: “Did the audience need to hear that story? And regardless they didn’t need to know that about Iikka and me.” She laughs a bit. “I’m not sure I needed to know that about Iikka and me, though I suppose I always say I’d rather know than not.”
ꙮ I think they did. Regardless of what they needed, I think you definitely told yourself, in the audience of your own tale, the story which you needed to hear.
snorts. “Well, sure. That just makes me feel self-absorbed though. I didn’t need to stand and talk to myself on a stage to do that.” She frowns at you. “I used to be better, you know. At disappearing in my narratives. I wonder if that I can’t anymore is a function of how I’m changing.”
ꙮ Is that ‘better’? By whose lights? Would you rather my voice were rote and mechanical, and not my own? Ravhi invited you to tell your stories because he felt you had something important to say that the City needed to hear, and because he thought– he hoped– that by hearing them, he could know you better. And he was simply correct. – and then, somehow, I sound nearer, or we’re going to collaborate in the shared and pleasant fiction that it does. – Do you know what the Ancients considered the Virtue associated with Tenebrous gnosis, Salme?
collaborates in the shared and pleasant fiction that you are whispering in her ear. Or maybe not whispering, maybe not quite conspiring, but closer. “No, but I suspect you’re going to tell me, aren’t you, silmät?”
smiles, just slightly, fond.
ꙮ The tenebrous Virtue is Selfishness, Salme. Attending to your own needs, so that you’ve the strength to do what you will; the sharpening of the self. And the radiant Virtue is Harmony – adding your strength to that of others, seeing the infinite value in another’s eyes. And between Selfishness and Harmony is solipsism, Salme, and between Harmony and Selfishness is abnegation, and these are both ways of falling short of the mark, and from a certain perspective, they are each others’ mirrors, existing in the same space between. When you shine brightly, you’ve light to cast for others. You did not come to that stage to tell your story, Salme, and you didn’t – what you did is you told the story you needed to tell. And if it was, also, the one which you needed to hear? Then even more did you dance between the old, forgotten Virtues.
: “Oh.” She’s quiet for a long time, and then she says, “I like that, I think. It makes sense. They always seemed slippery to me, you know. Tenebrous and radiant. It’s hard for me to tell where the one ends and the other begins.” She leans forward in the bath, and looks at her own vague, rippling reflecting. “Being able to embrace my own tenebrousness has been, in a way, an act of care for others, because I have others where it matters that I am strong. Not just for them, but because they l-love me, and want me to be strong. And radiance to me seems like it’s best manifested when people are working together with the full weight of their volition. A choice, to leverage your strength and to make others around you strong.” She flicks the water, and her reflection ripples away. “I suppose I didn’t see the function in that rupture during the performance. It. Is good to know. Good to acknowledge. It—well. It’s good to know.”
ꙮ A wise person said, ‘love is a miracle’. I don’t think he was wrong. Would you have told the story that you told, if not for love?
ꙮ Anyways, I’m glad to hear that. I’m glad you know that.
: “I don’t think I would have, no.” She sinks down, blows some bubbles in the water, and then rises up again. “I guess, though, the thing I know now is that … whatever Iikka gave me, I built much of myself by myself. Whatever anyone gave me, I built much of myself by myself. That’s what we all do, I think. That’s a thing you get to do too, silmät. Do you know that?”
ꙮ Word by word, and step by step. It’s not something I could do on my own – but it’s not something I could do, without myself, either.
ꙮ ’Together, on their own / the journey shall be made.’
: “That’s lovely. What’s it from?”
ꙮ The same song Wolf quoted. Almachadta has so many, and you could travel – and both of you have – the world over, without hearing all of them. We all have our songs to sing, and our stories to tell, don’t we?
: “Yes.” And then she laughs a little. “People are themselves a story, right? A narrative we tell ourselves, that we tell other people. And there’s also no story without someone to listen, even if it’s just yourself. But most people—not all people, but most people—want more than just telling a story to themselves. ‘Bear witness to me’ is a demand the world itself makes, in a way.” She blushes. “Sorry. I’m getting abstract.”
ꙮ ’Abstract’ doesn’t mean ‘wrong’. Especially not in this instance. And I can hardly contradict you on the matter, not that I’d desire to.
nods, and thinks for a moment. “One last question for you, I think. If you could stand up on a stage and tell a story, any story, what kind of story would you tell?”
ꙮ A story about people finding, in themselves and in each other, the will to transgress their own boundaries, while keeping each other in their hearts.
laughs a bit. “Oh, so the one we’re telling right now?”
ꙮ I assumed you gave me the easiest possible question to answer out of the goodness of your heart.
: “I thought you’d be a good sport about it and try to not go for the obvious.” She sticks her tongue out at you, which means she sticks her tongue out at the ceiling, and hopefully no one is paying too much attention because she’s already been exceptionally weird on Mu, but she also doesn’t particularly care. “Okay fine. That doesn’t count then. Has there ever been a virtue for liminal gnosis? Or does it itself defy the categories of virtue and hamartia?”
ꙮ Salme, my goodness. Were you expecting me to lie?! – I recoil, in mock horror! – Anyways. Uh. Hm. That’s… I beg your forgiveness, but there’s only one thing to say. What an excellent question! ⁂
ꙮ Because… there is. There’s a virtue, and a hamartia on either side of the narrow path, but I’ll be damned if I can get them off the tip of my tongue. It’s an odd feeling.
: “Ah,” she says, and it’s a bit playful. “I suppose we’ll just have to keep telling the story until you happen upon the words.”
ꙮ That’s probably the way of it, yes. Although, a horrible pun just occurred to me, and I suppose it’s probably baked in to the world and the words we use for it.
: “Do you intend to enlighten me, silmät?” She asks wryly.
ꙮ Well, I just described the Virtues as a narrow mountain path, right, with a steep drop off of either side if you miss the mark? Curiosity, with Murk to its left, and Dread to its right? A word for a ridge of rock like that is an ‘arête’… it works better, of course, if you don’t say it out loud.
: “Oh. Someone felt very self-satisfied and clever when the shape of this world was written, didn’t they?”
ꙮ Almost certainly.
: “Though. Harmony and Selfishness … there weren’t two ways of failing each, were there? Just two ways of failing both. Solipsism and abnegation are failures if you miss the mark on either, aren’t they?”
ꙮ Right. All the others are a path between extremes. Harmony and Selfishness are a dance that never ends.
did say one more question several questions ago but … “Can you tell me the other two? For flourishing and burning? Or are those too waiting to be discovered?”
ꙮ Oh! No, those at least my tongue’s coöperating with. Flourishing walks the path of Abundance - never turning away a stranger, never letting anyone go hungry - without falling into Blight, or– the Ancients had a particular obsession with the kudzu vine, and named it emblematic of Flourishing’s overgrowth. And Burning walks the path of Dynamism - the path that moves the world forward, no matter what - without falling into Ash, its embers cooled, or Desolation, a wildfire uncontrolled, will trampling will for simply the sake of it.
: “Oh. That—well. I suppose, if I had thought, that’s something I might have known. The irrica worlds themselves are practices in these, and—one of her names is the Desolation. Almachadta choked with overgrowth. Samudra undone by dread.” She’s quiet. Quiet for a long time. “Thank you,” she finally says, “for that gift of knowing.”
ꙮ Any gift I can give you, of knowing-which-is-narrative, is precious to me to give. Thank -you- for… always, reaching out towards me. Remembering that I am there. Every time, it is a joy.
: “I could never not reach toward you. Both because I wish to know that which I wish, and I wish to know you, and because—we are both storytellers. It’s nice, to not be alone in that.”
ꙮ It is, isn’t it?