ꙮ It’s Salme’s room. She’s stayed at this inn before, but probably not in this same room, but, even so, every room she’s ever stayed at here has felt like hers while she was there. It’s that kind of place.
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- Aurelius
- The Awoken
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#saint
did not go to the baths. She didn’t want to–well, she didn’t go to the baths. She went back out, bought the hunting horn, the ash, the biggest mirror she could find, and a hammer with a very satisfying heft. She also bought a richly-dyed green cotton, more embroidery floss in shades of azure, of gold, of red, of deep brown, of brass and silver. But first, the Parrot.
ꙮ The baths will be there. Someone could have snatched up the Courtyard’s most comically-large freestanding mirror while she was bathing, and that would have been terrible.
She hefts the mirror onto the bed carefully, then the hunting horn. The ash from a signal fire–one of the brightest ones, used to communicate between towns–and. She swings the hammer experimentally. It does have a really nice heft. She wouldn’t ever use it on anyone, but she does imagine it crunching into a kneecap.
No one’s kneecap in particular. Just a kneecap.
Seriously.
ꙮ It’s remarkably satisfying, isn’t it?
it is so satisfying. Sometimes she feels … conflicted, about the Rite, and its existence. How much easier it would be to simply have this–hammer to a kneecap, or a knife in the back. It at least would have made her life easier.
but this isn’t really about that.
ꙮ Sometimes the easy answer is the wrong answer. But, yes. This isn’t about that.
sits down, cross-legged, and clears her mind. Despite the buzzing of anger at the edges of her consciousness, it’s fairly easy. She still cares about them all, even if–well, Badri was certainly wrong about that, and she certainly shouldn’t have told those two in particular. Not first, anyway. She also certainly shouldn’t have shown them. She honestly doesn’t know what she was thinking. Her fingers touch the irrica bracelet they bought her, and she slips it off and tucks it away. Stop thinking about that. Start thinking about them as a unit, of six.
says, “Sword-Saint story-teller, separate but parts of the great spirals, the great cycles of Almachadta, you’ve never wanted to tell your own story, but now–this needs to be remembered. This is outside of what you were, it is more than the mask. I want to tell their stories–Wolf at the heart of the world, root-tangled, song-keeper. Unua from a land of steel and empty space, burning-and-flourishing, keeping-and-protecting. Archie-Archivist secret-keeper of his own, sleek-furred and swift. The Awoken who touches the impossible, bluejay fluttering through this world and others. Aurelius-who-was-Annarr, fiendcrafter, puzzle-within-a-puzzle, who knows and, I suspect, also does not know. I want to tell their stories. And mine. Salme Sword-Saint, daughter of Badri, keeper of memories, stories, the hope like a strong vine you use to pull yourself up and the one who thinks herself too clever by half. Six stories, but also one.” She keeps that intent in her mind, raises the hammer.
brings it down hard, with her whole body.
ꙮ Give me an invocation of gnosis corresponding to the spirit with which you are performing the invocation, DC 3/10 choose late.
- Salme, The Sword-Saint invoked their 🔵pellucid gnosis [d4] -> 4! It ✨explodes!
- Salme, The Sword-Saint invoked their 🔵pellucid gnosis [d4] -> 1.
“Fuck it,” frustrated.
- Salme, The Sword-Saint spent 3 Arete and now has 0 remaining.
- Salme, The Sword-Saint‘s 🔵pellucid gnosis has ascended unto the 6ᵗʰ rank.
ꙮ Ascension!
- Salme, The Sword-Saint invoked their 🔵pellucid gnosis [d6] -> 5.
.
:3
ꙮ A ripple of gnosis. You can -see- it spread out from both you and from where the hammer strikes. The ripples build on each other and in the crests of the peaks and the depths of the valleys something echoes interwoven in the between-space; the gnosis knits and holds a circle open, and there is a thing which exists which did not exist, before, and you’re quick enough to see all of it happen. Blue light spiderwebs across the mirror where the hammer made an impact and the mirror melts like wax and each droplet is, itself, a mirror and the hunting horn drinks each mirror-droplet and the hunting horn changes, stretches like it’s waking up from a nap, flaps its wings, which it has, now. A mirror-bird, bright-plumed of metal shards and beautiful. It is not a Parrot. It is something more than that, made for more than just one message. Made for the Sword-Saint’s story. ⁂
ꙮ It is a quetzal. Perhaps Aury will be lucky enough to meet it and wonder at its making. It listens. 🙧
laughs with delight, offering her hand. “Oh hello. It’s wonderful to meet you.”
ꙮ The quetzal sings response, and it’s beautiful. There’s an echo of your own voice in it, and something else it’s hard to place. Not the harmonics of a harp string. Brighter than that. Metal.
: “oh yes, you are perfect.” She admires it for one more moment, before setting it to perch on her nightstand. “I have things to do, but we’ll talk much before long.”
ꙮ Chirp!