ꙮ Midday, within the City’s walls. Salme and the Awoken have taken a hippalectria from the sietch to the City. They are still on the hippalectria, past the city’s gates, to the confusion and consternation of those Kin posted at the gates, but surely the Yazhn of Yazhn’s visitors have reasons for the things that they do, and so the hippalectria stampeded its way down the City’s broad thoroughfares, cavorted at least once straight through a fountain in a public square, and is now, at speed, bearing on the Red Column in the Rohsu barracks, which are, mercifully, completely empty at the moment.
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#awoken
#saint
rides behind Salme, crouching in the saddle. His brown cloak whips in the wind, the sun glinting off of his dark goggles. “I’m ready! Buck forward when in range!”
keeps her focus on the reins and maintaining a steady, but very swift, speed. Her Awoken Prince has a goal, and light, she’s going to help him achieve it. When Algol’s column comes within range, she spurs the hippalectria into one last burst of speed.
ꙮ It utters a triumphant and birdlike cheer, the onomatopœia for which I shan’t reproduce, and surges forward.
waits… waits… right whin the hippalectria is bouncing its back half up in the gallop, he launches himself forward with a mighty leap– spinning into a quadruple twist, and unfolds into a whirling tornado kick, blazing with burning gnosis! He’s on a collision course with the Red Column!!
overshoots the column, letting the hippalectria burn off some of its momentum, before looping around to watch how this plays out.
ꙮ Awoken, please invoke your Burning gnosis, DC unspecified.
- The Awoken Prince invoked their 🔴burning gnosis [d6] -> 4.
ꙮ The Awoken dramatically flies off the back of the hippalectria, does an acrobatic fucking twist in the air, and connects with the Red Column resoundingly in a burst of invoked flame!!
ꙮ And in the moment of connection with the Red Column, utterly without any methexis needed, he hears, or rather, understands:
aahahahahahaha. i knew i liked you. i knew you wanted to be flying.
ꙮ And then he ends up - not quite unceremoniously-on-his-ass in front of the Red Column, but the landing wasn’t the dignified or dramatic part of the entire procedure.
was trying to stick the landing, but it’s more like a ‘wobble around and try not to fall but end up going in a large circle’ landing, and in the end he comes to a stop and spins down into a cross-legged sit.
ꙮ It works.
: “Yeah. Yeah!”
slaps one of his knees. “That’s what I’m here about!”
: “Hello again, by the way!”
brings the now sedately-walking hipplectria back around and dismounts. “Hello again as well.”
ꙮ Both of you feel a nudge - it’s not entirely unlike the first moment of methexis - and a compulsion, easily ignored, to place your hands on the blue-green glass.
is a sucker for suggestion sometimes- he double palms the blue-green glass.
does as well. And if there is a want there, she matches it, reaching out with her own methexis to link the three of them.
ꙮ And with the methexis, the Awoken feels - the sudden, absurd preponderance of uncountable extra limbs, the feeling of perpetually floating in a vast and empty place which was, once, a person you knew–
hello again
takes a few heartbeats to orient himself from drowning in the tumult of sudden appendages in zero gravity- and once he balances, he intentionally tries to induce vertigo, trying to find the edges of the empty place.
ꙮ Vertigo is so easy to find, here – if anything, it’s harder not to. Occasionally, lightning strikes from – somewhere, everywhere, from the heart of you, from the outside reaches, ‘where’ is not a word that carries meaning in this moment for you - and reminds you, exhilaratingly, that you are, in fact, alive.
laughs, and speaks to hear what his voice sounds like from here. “I forgot to give my name last time. I’m The Awoken Prince!”
hello, The Awoken Prince! we are Algol.
ꙮ You look at yourself. All of your selves look at all of your selves, through greenish glass.
laughs again! “You seem right in my head, or maybe even deeper?” Does this work?
touches her shoulder against her prince’s shoulder and thus Algol’s shoulder touches Algol’s shoulder. We’re all in each other’s head right now. Heads.
you need not degrade yourself by moving molecules around with the meat of which you are composed, if you do not wish it. i can understand you perfectly well like this.
goes sniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniff in the crook of Salme’s neck, and thus, Algol’s neck… how does that sound.
nods. This will be a great exercise in extremely fast communication!
ꙮ There is just - there is so much of it. And it does not - perhaps it could not - bank its fire. And, as well, there is something about it that makes the boundaries between itself and you seem incredibly porous. This degree of tangledness takes effort, when it’s you and another human in methexis, even the two of you together.
can’t stop giggling, mentally whirling about in all the pathways, like three sponges being somehow cospatial by taking up all the room in each of their cracks and crannies. I just about forgot why I came back here, now!
reminds him that he was … not upset, but upset about something. About flying, maybe?
… oh, right!
Algol, buddy, you know me somehow more than I know myself at times! I feel foolish for taking so long to realize it but- how’d you make that called shot about how I’d rather be soaring the skies?
you’re singing it so loudly i’m surprised anyone around you can hear a conversation. – It says, with amused, teasing delight. – can you not hear yourself?
with every word, you wish to soar.
hmms… yeah that seems accurate! Or at least I want it to be! Are you just that good at reading people? Like really- you got two noses for sussin’ this kind of thing out?
i have a billion noses and two billion eyes and two billion ears and a billion mouths. i face in every direction it is possible to imagine!
also, you’re remarkably unsubtle.
laughs, and her joy spreads through all of them.
asks, am I the same way?
i did not think so, at first. i am still unsure. but. you, too, wish to soar, i think.
was mostly wondering if she was easy to read, but can’t deny the desire to soar. At least, when she is with her bluejay she does. With him, beside him, as him—two paired souls, twined together.
is curious what Algol thinks of the others, but wants to make sure her Awoken prince has answered his question.
is more than excited to take Salme to the skies, to space, to soar.
but, I am not sure I can ‘hear’ myself? I just ‘am’ myself, and that works out for me!
we are that which we are, indeed.
is, however, curious that you can hear it so well. What else can you hear? Or is my propensity for flight just that overpowering?
i see flashes of azure too bright to countenance. i hear fragments of an unfamiliar melody. i feel your will to overcome all boundaries.
considers this, and peers inward toward Algol. What does he perceive? He knows of the empty space, and the millions of limbs, and that… hm. ‘once, a person you knew?’ He rolls this over in his mind.
ah. yes. – And then you see it, like Salme saw it, suddenly, and easier this time, a shadow play of black glyphs against searing light. A Yazhn of Yazhn, once, long and long ago, wearing a glyph-entity like a coat, and jumping bodily into the maw of an Elemental, and an explosion that left a red stone pillar and a green glass starburst behind.
hmmmmmmmmmm. What an interesting form! This was clearly not done out of a flight of fancy, but deliberation.
he had such want, in his heart. it coincided with mine.
how did he know that the shade-part and the elemental-part of you would add up to Algol?
glances to Salme, and she is so brilliant, and so many.
that brave, mad soul. he wore my shadow, and called out into the desert with my voice and all the longing in his heart.
and your elemental-part answered?
me thinks. And thinks. And thinks.
Do you remember the stars?
could i forget them? ⁂
ꙮ And then, briefly - because the memory is too big to hold in your head at one time, only one corner of it, and then another, and then another, facet by facet - you remember soaring through the stars, you remember the black velvet of the space between them, you remember knowing that even the darkest inch of space is full of light, too far-away and dim to see but nevertheless, there.
nods. You could. My ‘awoken’ mind sure did, until I saw them, and then it was like they were always there.
is revealing the reason why he’s asking so many questions in and around himself, aside from being self-centered. I don’t remember much about myself!
ꙮ And also, you remember - hearing your own voice, hearing the other part of yourself, calling out across the sands to a thing which had forgotten all of itself, all of itself but which could not forget that sound, or ignore its longing.
it’s a strange feeling, isn’t it?
wondering if what you are now is a choice you once made. wondering why you might have made that choice. not knowing.
wondering if it’s a choice that I didn’t make. Is it one you made?
i wish i knew. that’s the joke.
does not have a response to that, but does flood the link with some kind of emotion—sympathy, anger, a promise to do violence if it was not a choice that was made.
thinks of one of the Dust-Drinkers in the desert. Of the Rite-tone [Unbound Fury] and the words “I AM THE COST OF SAYING NO.” Does that mean anything to you, Algol?
ꙮ Matched, almost instantly, with boisterous, elaborate, creative white-hot wrath from the part of Algol which shines, and, a moment thereafter, with a quiet, methodical calm. That this is that which Is, now. And then:
the cost to whom? paid in what coin? no to what question? would that i remembered.
(rotates), some part of you did. But it’d probably take a miracle, yeah?
something stupid like that.
wonders, and experiences as Algol does, the Sun’s hammering radiance.
bad news, i’m led to understand, if you’re made of meat. too far away to slaughter and save everyone the trouble. what a pain in the ass.
laughs, when perhaps she shouldn’t
It’s a corpse, you know. It’s a corpse and the heart is still alive. It refuses to die but is in a constant state of dying. Each second upon second it dies again.
refuses?
that’s a play on words, you know.
closes her eyes and doesn’t remember the heart. How so?
rocks his head back and forth. I’m considering the gigantic crystal to be the heart.
it can mean ‘says no’, or it can mean ‘breaks, and then is knit back together again, over and over and over’.
oh I know. I just. Gave that memory to Algol before and it was—not pleasant. I was trying not to trap us in that moment this time.
nods. It’d be interesting if that second bit was to be the actual mechanism. I don’t know if I have an immediate explanation about it, however (I don’t~).
… ‘refuse’ is also a type of garbage. Something to be discarded. If you want to play with words.
fuck, this is why i like you.
you get it.
I chose ‘refuse’ as to give it will. I do not think it to be something that is happening as an unconsious, self-perpetuating tragedy.
looks up and to the side. But it’d be really interesting if it were.
I don’t know. I intend to find out. Its will—or lack thereof—is one of the two questions I plan to get an answer to. Determination, then, and fear.
you COULD break EVERYTHING, you know. if you WANTED. you could DO it. listen to the SYMPHONY of shattered glass and then CARTWHEEL OFF to who knows where – And then the shadow-glyphs flare up, in irritation. – or, you could. not ‘fix what’s broken’. but make a new vessel out of the fragments, fused with molten gold.
anyways, what’s next?
we can do anything we want. That’s why it’s important to know what we’re doing before we act. You understand that, certainly. How could you not? It’s the not-knowing that harms the most.
darkly laughs under the unbowed sun.
And yet, that’s the privilege of a Pure Heart.
must be nice, huh?
We really are quite fortunate. Even moreso than the narrator. Everyone perceiving everyone here? Narrator, Algol?
ah, that’s just for you, i’m afraid.
It’s okay. There’s things they can’t perceive, too. Which is really strange.
To get the best ending… I suspect we’ll find the full answer at our next destination. But while we’re here, it wouldn’t hurt to experiment a bit more. With the heart, the corpse, and space itself.
always nice to experiment. but you two know that already, don’t you? – A billion eyebrows might, or might not, be wiggling.
laughs! You’re really, really perceptive!
doesn’t think that one was that hard to intuit.
go get ‘em.
is curious though. Algol said we were true, that the ‘coördinates of the world warp and weave around you. you are more-than-real.’ I had thought they meant we were Pure Hearts, but now I’m not sure. Is it that? Or is it something else?
yeah, i think we were on the same page. i could have– if i were me, if i were all of me. i could wrap around you like a coat. and we wouldn’t be able to tell where i started, and you stopped, as long as you needed me. that’s what we were. that’s what we were for, once. – They laugh, softly, sadly. – but you’re on your own, now. least you’ve got each other.
is fascinated by that. A gestaltbeast. A modifying mantle. I strive to fully witness, once day!
do you know what you’re missing? I think—I think you don’t, but I have to ask, in case I might find it. Though it would, again, probably take a miracle.
ah, no. i’m not me any more. we’re we. – It laughs. – and we’re fucking incredible, aren’t we? found a way to still fulfill our purpose, after everything.
yeah, yeah! I guess, who you were was and is important, but who you both are today, is, well… and he looks at a billion Salmes with a wink.
hehehehe. you get it.
however we got here, here’s where we are. let’s be glorious.
glory. You’ve used that word a couple times. What does it mean to you?
does spend a moment to wink back a billion winks at both Awoken and Algol.
ah, hm. it’s the other half, isn’t it? glory reaching out one hand, and the will-to-transgress-ones-limitations holding out the other.
when you dance. when you sing. when you love. when you tell the story of who you are.
at least… that’s what it means to me.
It’s beautiful.
It is. It can also be—
thinks of violence, thinks of death, thinks of certainty of purpose and the ability to carry it out. Thinks of all the ugly things she’s ever seen, and the uncomfortable fact that she can find a strange beauty in those as well.
doesn’t think she’s strange or broken for that. Not in this company.
reaches out with all their hands.
that’s why you have two hands. wouldn’t cut one off for the sake of it, would you?
or, putting it another way– gravity is a law that can be broken. but you’ll always, eventually, come down, and perch on a branch to sing.
is, in that moment, both a woman and whatever else she is but also a sparrow, singing a little sparrow song, unremarkable, common, but hers. She smiles.
then, says, I do have a question I forgot to ask last time. I’ll pay for an answer however you like (though as she thinks that thought, the Awoken knows that ‘payment’ means something brutal, a memory of violence from the Mask. So he knows that if he does stick around to see that, that’s what he’ll be seeing).
go for it.
tilts the link towards herself, and they see—lengths of thread, 216, some shorter and some longer but relative to each other measuring something she cannot count, and then numbers—intervals of years—and laid out in a neat hand that resembles the neat handwriting of every Zvahr that has ever been, and the certainty, not visualized but understood, that the threads match up with the written intervals. The intervals between the Rites of Renewal here match up with the destruction of my world match up with the memories of the destruction of another world. You have seen the Rites happen. I was told the Elementals become more aggressive leading up to it. Do you know why? Do you know what happens?
sun gets brighter. pisses ‘em off. assed if i know why.
sends an image of a woman, seven feet tall, with four arms and clawed feet wearing aviators and grinning. There’s frustration there alongside fondness. A way Algol has just reminder her of someone dear.
what do you mean gets brighter? Can you show us the difference? Leading up to it, and after?
well, she’s hot. – And then. – i’ll try. ⁂
ꙮ And then– it’s not sight. It’s not anything like sight, really. More like… sound, or– not sound, but the beats you feel in your gut when a string’s tuned wrong and you pluck it. The light of the sun, refracting through green-blue glass. And then, suddenly, it gets sharper, louder. Brighter.
what happens next?
thats fuckin it? it just. gets brighter. it dims, over time. dimmer and dimmer. and then, suddenly, bright again. can’t tell just from looking at it. but i know.
rocks his head back and forth. Curious. Curious.
ain’t it, though?
been here this whole time, and i couldn’t tell you what it means.
you don’t feel anything but the change in the light? And then she realizes that she might be being rude, and so she says, not that this isn’t very valuable.
ꙮ There is a rolling, roiling sense of… amusement, deep as the ocean. 🙧
chuckles lightly. See you soon, sweet sparrow. And good to meet ya’ again, Algol. We’re working out mysteries as we go, got a lot of irons in the fire.
disengages from the methexis, removing his hands from the crystal. He isn’t particularly interested if the payment is going to be something grotesque for grotesque’s sake.
, left alone, asks, what would you like me to give you?
…actually, i owed you that one. we’re square now. but if you and that boy ever get the chance to soar, tell me you’ll take it.
We’ll take it. We could never do anything but.
good.
I don’t know when I’ll be back to visit. But if I do get to come back, I’ll visit again.
knock ‘em dead out there.
pulls away, and her hand finds the Awoken’s almost immediately. “They didn’t ask for anything. Said they owed it to me.”
smiles and gives her hand a squeeze. “I wasn’t about to ask, if I wanted to know I would have stayed!” He giggles.
nods, and looks at him. “You’re thinking about who you are and who you might’ve been a lot, aren’t you?”
reaches up with her free hand like she wants to run her fingers through his hair, but it’s under his cloak, so she settles for resting her hand on his shoulder, a little lamely.
: “Mmm…” He leans into her hand. “I am and I’m not. Like, I do actively think about it, and then also, I don’t! I move and it all happens at once, and another page turns.”
: “Hmm. Yes, that does sound like you.” She presses her forehead to his. “What do you want to do right now? How do you feel after that?”
: “Even under cover, this still takes a lot out of you. Let’s have some lemonade and something small to nibble on!” He takes the lead, still holding her hand.
follows him, happily. “I’d like that. I have one more thing to do here and then I’d like to head back to the sietch. Though we can certainly take a break first.”
: “Good! We’ve earned it!”
laughs, and shifts her hand so they’re walking arm in arm, pressed up against each other. “Lead on, Sinitöyhtönärhi.”