ꙮ The Obsidian Road, near the Ziggurat. Luĉja has freshly and carefully de-sooted themself.
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Having finally gotten rid of the surprising results of their latest experiment, Luĉja is just outside the Ziggurat, staring at a piece of stone, chisel in hand.
ꙮ It could be anything! The chisel just has to ask the right question.
steps out of the Ziggurat, looking a bit at a loss. Though once she notices Luĉja, some focus seems to come back. “Hey Luĉja. What’re you up to?”
: “Greetings, Friend-Salme. I am up to very little. Still pondering the results of my experiments with Archie and Caion. Liminal gnosis is strange.”
laughs a bit. “Well. That’s true. Anything in particular about liminal gnosis?”
: “When applied to radiant or tenebrous gnosis, it forms obsidian. Which, could have been predicted. When attempting to join the irrica triad of gnosis with the remaining three, it naturally formed a pair of snakes, much like your gift to the Scorpion Queen. Irrica and grey-glass, like in the Heart’s Moment.”
: “Additionally, obsidian has explosive and multiplicative tendencies when irrican-gnosis is forced into it. Archie believes this could potentially explain the harm of Mu’s sun.”
blinks. Tilts her head, and blinks again. “The grey-glass is called amphilyke, if that’s useful to know. The fact that it formed the snakes is … interesting, but not surprising. How did you find out about the explosive properties?” she asks.
: “Amphilyke.” They nod. “It seemed only natural to consider what would happen if we added an irrican gnosis to a non-irrican compound. Thankfully, Caion and Archie had prepared wards.”
raises an eyebrow. She knows them well-enough to recognize when they’ve newly polished the metal that makes up their body. “Something still exploded on you, didn’t it?”
nods, and you can see the fire dance in their eyes. “Forcing burning gnosis into obsidian multiplies the burning gnosis, in the form of a sooty explosion.”
laughs brightly. “Oh. I’m sure that would have been hysterical to see. Though I’m glad you didn’t come to harm.” She tilts her head at them, this time in the other direction. “Would you be interested in some more experimentation? You had been curious if you might qualify as an entelechy as well, right? It will probably be a less explosive experiment.”
: “That does seem like an avenue worth pursuing. I would very much like to experiment. Explosions are permissible, if controlled.” They put away their chisels, and rise to their feet.
, for once, does not immediately find the tablet to hand. “Hm. Where is it …”
ꙮ Probably somewhere in the ziggurat, right?
: “Unless Ember or the Cat or the Dog or any number of creatures have absconded with it, yes.” Though to be honest, the Cat, in her magnificence, is the only one she could imagine doing so. “Want to help me look for the tablet in the Ziggurat, Luĉja?”
nods, “The Cat seems unlikely to take the tablet. She appears to enjoy observing us, not interfering with us.”
: “Another one that likes to watch.”
walks into the Ziggurat, peeking into each room, presuming the door is open.
ꙮ The Awoken’s door is open! The Awoken is alabaster and gold, one hand delicately curled around the irrica tablet, his lip curled up in an insouciant and golden smile, his garb rippling in a breeze as he touched the tablet and became a statue that, you are absolutely certain, was not natural, was invoked just on the off chance someone came looking for the tablet, and found it in use.
: “The Prince certainly knows how to make an entrance.”
snorts. “Even when we’re the one coming upon him. I wonder what he’s up to.”
ꙮ Something incredibly dashing, no doubt.
stops and considers him for a moment, considers just how handsome he looks, before shaking her head. “Well, we can still do what we set out to do.”
: “Shall we?” She reaches out her hand and touches the tablet.
ꙮ That now-familiar feeling of being pulled across some invisible threshold.
places a finger to the tablet and follows.
ꙮ The Awoken Prince isn’t in the main room, at any rate.
looks up at the Sun and enjoys the lack of rust.
: “Now you’re calling him that, silmät?” She doesn’t sound … angry, not really, but fondly exasperated? She looks at Luĉja. “When this happened for me I … well, I was certain about the constellation, but when it looked I simply … looked back?”
: “You just looked upward?”
: “Under the right constellation. And. Hm.” She hesitates, and then says, “I was upset. I wanted or needed—or maybe both—but I wanted or needed to not be alone. I think, maybe, asking might be enough?”
: “We can only try. The Soldier-and-Brother or the Fiend Engine?”
: “Fascinating. It couldn’t hurt to ask.” Luĉja turns their head upward, searching the sky for the stars that feel like home. Two groups of stars, almost distant enough to be their own constellation. Almost. The distance between success and sticking to it. Between Fiend and Friend. (“Hello?”) they think.
ꙮ The stars of the Stranger and Brother shimmer behind glass. Maybe if you could move enough from side to side, move the distance of a world or a system of worlds, maybe there’d be enough parallax that they would drift apart. Maybe there’s some perspective from which they are scattered across the night sky like jewels strewn across velvet. In this moment, they all seem terribly close. 🙧
: “I hear no words from The Soldier nor The Brother. Perhaps the Fiend-Engine?”
ꙮ The stars do call to you. Not in words. Not yet, at any rate.
turns to face The Fiend Engine. The stars always seemed to lead them back to a Deepforge entrance when they were far from home. The Deepforge was ever creating Fiends. (“Hello?”)
ꙮ Your voice echoes. Hello, hello, hello. (It feels, for a moment, it sounds, a little, like Her voice, in the echo. Hello. Hello.) But it is just an echo, and these stars do not seem to draw so near.
shakes their head. “I have not the knack for it, it seems.”
: “No. I think.” She gestures over to the Soldier-and-Brother, walks beneath. “Try to get closer, and look up. They may look back. They may not. But try.”
moves to where Salme indicates, and throws their thoughts outward once more. The distance between can be one step or one lifetime. It does not matter. The Soldier continues to fight. The Brother continues to love. Luĉja continues to try.
ꙮ You feel a certain warmth – familiar to you. Not Hers, no, not the warmth of the Deepforge. Something older, and more remote, than that.
The starlight that watched me, that powered me to save the scientists in Samudra. That watched me bind my Cousin, unwilling for him to be made a price for my continuation. The light that will watch them fight against whatever threatens Emberlight. The worlds. Their mission. “Hello again.”
takes one of Luĉja’s hands into both her own and reaches not up, towards stars that are not her own, but down, to root, to tie, to knot, to assist Luĉja in this in whatever way she might.
ꙮ Salme’s hand, rooting you to what is, and the light of the stars, in reach– in reach. You feel, almost, like you could reach up and grasp it. One thing is missing, a thing which is not and could be yours in the first place, and yet – you feel – ⁂
- You hear — and your Star hears — a song, echoing from the stillness: His Tenebrous Reach
ꙮ –and you hear a Song from somewhere, somewhere close– within the Annex, certainly, but you’d hear it no matter where you were, you think, your heart would hear it, and with the very first note of the Song, one of Luĉja’s eyes flares up a shimmering and brilliant white, and skews inches to the side and in a different direction– to Salme, it’s like there’s a sudden after-image of Luĉja in starlight, at an angle and displaced, distant and unaligned no matter how they move.
says, “HELLO THERE, LITTLE ONES.”
: “Hello, Soldier and Brother. You likely know that I am Luĉja, watched by you. This is Salme, a friend of mine. She has taught me a word. Am I an…Entelechy?”
looks towards Salme, with Luĉja’s eye, which means that they turn away from her, in turn, themself. Speaks, with Luĉja’s mouth, once they have asked their question. “IF YOU WERE ENTELECHEIA, WOULD YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF MERELY THAT, AND THAT ALONE? WOULD IT DIMINISH YOU?”
: “Are you only The Soldier? I am already two things at least. I am greater for it.”
squeezes Luĉja’s hand, smiling at them.
sounds pleased at that answer. “NOTHING THAT LIVES IS ONLY ONE THING. NOTHING THAT LIVES ONLY WANTS ONE THING. YOU WERE SPARKED OF MY LIGHT, YES.”
: “Why do Stars spark us?”
: “BECAUSE AN INEXORABLE WILL CALLED THEM TO DO SO.”
: “Whose will?” She can’t help but ask.
points to itself, which is to say, it points at Luĉja’s body. “THE MOTHER OF MONSTERS CALLS TO ME. OVER AND OVER AGAIN, SHE CALLS TO ME. HOW COULD I REFUSE HER?”
: “Did my Mother eat the missing Stars?”
blinks the eye it’s currently occupying. “EVEN HER JAWS ARE NOT THAT WIDE.”
: “Is there anyone whose jaws might be?”
shakes Luĉja’s head, for them. “NOT ANY LONGER. WE ARE SAFE, FOR THE TIME BEING.”
: “Can you tell us who it was before?” She squeezes Luĉja’s hand again, signaling that they tell her to shut up. But she can’t help the asking.
says, mournfully, “I CANNOT. THEY HAVE BEEN EATEN. THEY ARE GONE.”
: “I meant the devourer, not what was devoured. Whose jaws were once that wide?”
repeats, mournfully, “THEY HAVE BEEN EATEN. THEY ARE GONE.”
: “Fascinating.”
: “I know that my only path is forward. But advice would not be unwelcome on my path. There have been many of me, many times. I would endeavor to make me the last of me, that this cycle breaks.”
is silent for several moments, and then: “A VESSEL WHICH HAS BEEN BROKEN CAN BE MENDED. A VESSEL WHICH HAS BEEN EMPTIED CAN BE FILLED ANEW.”
nods. “I am glad to know that Her Majesty does not have the monopoly on Hope that she claims.”
ꙮ You have the distinct sense that your time with the Soldier and Brother is growing short, the bright starlight beginning to fade.
: “Thank you for creating. For watching. Me and all my kin.”
: “Did you call the angels?”
shakes Luĉja’s head, for them. “IT WAS NOT MY SORROW THAT SUNG TO YOU. NOR AM I CERTAIN WHOSE IT WAS. ONLY THAT IT WAS PLAINTIVE SORROW. PERHAPS I ALONE HEARD AND KNEW IT AS SUCH. BUT I DID.”
: “Did you ever meet or know the builder of this world? Do you know who sung you to life?”
is quiet for a moment. Thinking, pondering. Working around the edges of something. And then: “I HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED. THERE WAS NO TIME BEFORE ME.”
turns Luĉja’s head towards Salme then, briefly, and looks at her with its remaining shimmering starlight. “LISTEN, SMALL ONE, BRIGHT-SHINER, MASK-WATCHED. LISTEN FOR THAT WHICH WAS LEFT UNWRITTEN.” And then it is gone, and it’s just Luĉja standing in front of her.
blinks at Luĉja. “How did that … feel?” Is grateful, at least, that Luĉja’s mouth-plate did not seem to move the way the Mask’s did.
: “Strange. As if I was here and Elsewhere, but seeing both. As if one of my eyes was positioned impossibly far away from the other.”
closes their eyes. “This was strange. The stars made me. Who knows how many times. What power, I wonder, led us together, if not theirs?”
: “Do you think the stars made you? Or did they just give you the spark of life, in the same way my—ah—parents made me?” She says ‘parents’ with a bit of a grimace. “As for who led us together … I don’t know. ‘Listen for that which was left unwritten.’ I don’t know what that means either.”
shakes their head, eyes still closed. “That we must keep looking for the truth. That we might break the cycles, without breaking the worlds.”
: “As ever. As always.”