ꙮ It is quiet in the Strange Paths. Not silent as the Sanctuary, but quiet in a way that Almachadta never was. There are things to hear, in that quiet, things that would be not drowned out by but subsumed within Almachadta’s beating worldsong. Some things which have become joyously familiar: the pluck and dance of strings, a dancing piccolo and the faint suggestion of a distant chorus, a tangled sound that is slowly forming a unity. The sharp but not-unpleasant, polyphonic buzzing intricacy of an instrument Wolf cannot name but has come to recognise, playing around a missing melody-line. A soft, musical, ever-beating metallic drum. He has dreamed of these before; he can hear them all quite clearly, here. It is not, however, all that there is. 🙧
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- Aurelius
- The Awoken
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← Active ScenesWolf, Dreaming
stirs, quietly, in his bedroll. He does not wake, the exhaustion of revelations and world-paths keeping his body firmly in slumber. But. There is a part of him, always, that listens. It listens, waking or sleeping, and it listens now, casting itself off into the liminal space ‘twixt worlds to listen more deeply still. It checks, briefly, on those five–well, five and a half–quiet tones, and then, content with their rhythm and melody, lets them fall out of his awareness. It turns Beyond.
ꙮ Far in the distance a familiar symphony Wolf has always known. It is at his back, at the moment, like wind or warm Centrelight. It will always be with him; now he might find it again, even in the silence. ⁂
ꙮ Somehow, closer - a bright insistence, a fipple-flute, metal or even glass, incredibly -patient- for its brightness, and something -deep- behind it, a depth whose name he knows but which he has yet to experience, and something is singing there, and what they are singing is an invitation. A slow, pulsing, methodical beat, keeping time, and an intricacy of intricacies spinning songs in the spaces between, sometimes baroque and sometimes raucous and oddly like home. Also, more distantly: a martial cadence, a blare of brass. The entire Light-lost brass section, maybe, trying to make up for lost time, or trying to drown out something else - something quiet, and too far away yet to hear. 🙧
examines the close bright deepness intently–(rotating) it, as the Lightdrinkers might say. He could dip into it, drink more fully of that intricate complexity…but he feels, somehow, that it might be premature. If his guess is right, he’ll hear that song soon enough–on the morrow, perhaps. He drifts on. ⁂
The brass? Well, it’s certainly compelling, a driving beat, but yet…it’s hardly restful. He has no desire to spend his sleep dreaming of the sound of marching boots. No, not yet. Not now. ⁂
He drifts on, farther, deeper–one bit of himself always still tuned to those five-and-change tones, a lodestone to keep him pointed correctly. He drifts on…and listens still, listens for what lays beyond the sounds of metal, depth, and glass. 🙧
ꙮ There is something there which holds its breath, as he passes by. Distant sounds of joys snatched where they can be found, clinking glasses, melismatic reeds, the sounds of a marketplace breathing with its canvas lungs. All hushed, obscured, in shadow and vague at best. All the overture and accoutrements of a song yet unheard. 🙧
hangs there in the hush for a moment, (rotating). For a moment, he debates sending out his own tone against the muffled stillness, just to see what would happen. Would it, too, come out muted? Or would it sound like a clarion call against the oppressive air? ⁂
Yet, at the last second, something cautions him against the impulse. Best not, perhaps, to meddle with what he did not yet understand just for the sake of seeing what happened. (He thinks, perhaps, of a certain twittering flute–which, now that he thinks of it, sounds much like the skirling reeds of this shadowed place.) No. Not yet. He allows himself to be drawn on–and is drawn on, though he doesn’t know why. 🙧
ꙮ Less an oppressive air, more one of awareness and caution. Perhaps there are other ware-eared wyrd wanderers, winding through the Strange Paths. Something likes to keep its secrets. ⁂
ꙮ Somewhere, an instrument wails. A reedy woodwind that sounds very much like a person’s voice. So -much- like a person’s voice that you could draw closer and closer -to- it without realising that it is, in point of fact, a person’s voice, and then it’s unmistakable as such. The voice of someone who sings; the voice of someone who knows how to use it, to inspire, to comfort, to meld it into harmonies. But right now, in this moment: alone, echoing, lost in its own resonances. 🙧
recognizes the voice as such, and in that moment, understands why he was drawn on–the instant the voice is known as such, it’s like a rope tied around his chest, pulling him gently but steadily onward. Oh, that voice! The echoes are both deep and weirding, the voice wrapped round and round in reverberation of itself–something in him twists in sympathy. Here in dream, the contours of liminal navigation are instinctual; he grabs the “rope” and pulls, bringing himself closer.
ꙮ You pass -through- several layers of something, your perspective rotating around a point. As you do you reflect upon the timbre of the voice. You know, I think, the very specific sound that a rope makes before it snaps; the sound a branch makes, right before it breaks. Something that has been in that tension, for quite some time. Your world tilts; you observe. ⁂
ꙮ There is a man, alone in a great white hall. He is kneeling in supplication, soft white cape pooled around his body, fastened around his shoulders, head-wrap and scarves undone and on the floor beside him. He came in from outside; he was in a hurry; he needed to be -here-. He is beastlike but not in any way Wolf recognises; horns - not like the Architect’s helmet, part of him, part of his body, tawny gold scales. He is kneeling between two crystal statues that look vaguely like him; there are a handful of what appear to be large rubies in his sharp-clawed hands. ⁂
ꙮ He is weeping and promising something to them. His voice is surprisingly light and soft. He is not a man who would ever permit any living person to see him, like this. And yet. 🙧
aches to see the sight. Oh! He can see how proud and straight the other’s spine should be, the way his scales should shimmer and shine in sunlight. No voice should bear such strain for so long, no soul should bear such strain. No voice so strong should waver in such desperate supplication. ⁂
His yeresh soul cries out in sympathy. And in that moment, unbidden, unthinking of either haste or logic, he sings, sings out with all his strength, to penetrate those wrapping, deafening echoes. ⁂
: “Oh brave soul / oh weary soul / oh listen, listen, listen / hear me, hear me, hear me…” Yet, even as he sings, he knows it will not be enough; for he is far away despite the nearness of his listening-soul, and he is but a single voice to cross the distance. ⁂
gathers his strength, his breath which is not breath, and this time he sings with all the strength of the Wolf-who-sings, the World-singer, letting the greensong might of Almachadta fuel his voice. “Oh golden kin / oh strong branch breaking / hear me and have hope / hear me and take heart…” ⁂
But he knows as he sings out that it will not be enough. The gulf is vast and far, and the worlds are not connected, and the song must reach through muffling dark, and brassy march, and deeping depths to reach them. It would take something sharper. Something clearer. A knife to cut. A fire to burn. A clarity unequalled. ⁂
For a moment, there is silence. And in silence, a knowing.⁂
ꙮ The figure tilts his head, ever so slightly, to one side. Takes a slow breath, listens.
He is the Wolf-Priest. He is the One Who Holds the Fire. He is the knife that cuts, and the branch that bears, and the fire that burns but does not blacken. There is a sacred flame guttering, far and farther away, and he will not suffer it to fail while aught in him may strengthen it. ⁂
He takes a breath. ⁂
Listen to me. ⁂
Hope comes, on wings of many colors. ⁂
Hold fast. Cast out fear. Cast out despair. ⁂
You are known. You are seen. ⁂
Guard well your Fire. ⁂
I am coming. 🙧
looks up, eyes red-rimmed. Claws close around the crystals he carries, as a gesture of faith rather than fear. He has not known bafflement in a very long time. “Who in the World-?” ⁂
ꙮ And then, in the dream, because this is still a dream, there is a sound like slow rumbling, and then fast rumbling, and the walls of the hall grow bright and hot. ⁂
feels the pressure and the heat growing, and knows that his time here grows short, and–with all the strength he has left: “Yazhn Ravi! You are not alone!”
ꙮ The Sun consumes the Great Hall, and Yazhn Ravhi, and Wolf, and the red crystals, and the crystal statues, and everything else, with a hot, howling, pained scream. When Wolf startles awake, it’s with a loud, deep breath. 🙧
blinks for a moment, until the dimness above him resolves from formless void-shadow into the oiled canvas of a tent inside the Ziggurat. He slows his breathing until it steadies, brow furrowed, thinking of a golden figure bowed in prayer. ⁂
Then, one by one, he listens. ⁂
He listens to the sound of plucked strings, somehow beginning to harmonize with a fluttering little flute and a strange, tangle-voiced chorus. ⁂
He listens to the steady sound of metal drums, somehow gentle yet unyielding. ⁂
He listens to a delightful intricacy, complex and complete yet…lonely. ⁂
And, cradled in all these things–a disparate fiveness, a slowly-weaving oneness–he falls back to quiet, dreamless sleep. 🙧