Since today is an overturning of the old, I thought I ought to try and record all intriguing discoveries I've made and will make.
My first day above and already I'm met with a panoply of colours, tastes and smells. It was almost overwhelming to be away from the grey and familiar. Loukas was there with me though and the contrast kept me steady. There's too much to write of so I shall only record the remarkable.
Firstly there were a few Pra'Raji coloured like steel and flames. They were bitter. Acidic? Red dreams. Red hues. It was very different from the Ferric. Did they really believe they were gods? They wouldn't stop to talk so I can't say.
I also met a bandit that wants to be King Orentes IV. He was very orange and he smelled woody. After I listened to him he agreed not to kill me which was a relief. He thought I was lying when I told him my name. I'm not sure how to feel about that. Perhaps we will meet again and I can learn more of him? He was very intriguing and seemed to have much potential.
Lastly I met an ashfolk called Zaheera. I've rarely seen ashfolk before. But above they are most common. She is bright yellow and smells of honey and lemons. She records history and dreams of meeting heroes. I don't think she was very clear on what heroes actually are, saying they are those that do what's necessary. Unless they are deep in mizzar clouds, most do what is necessary all the time, don't they? Perhaps she can tell me of the heroes she does discover and I can see for myself.
That's all for now. Hopefully there is much more to discover.
Above I continue to discover new interesting sights. I have been travelling with an ex-Balladeer called Gramr. He is exactly the sort of brave and bold hero I have always wanted to meet with scarlet silver and an undercurrent of yellow. By all accounts he was most foully dishonoured by the reigning Balladeer whose name I forget but he continues sustained on a drink the Sisterhood provides him. He has a dulcet smell. I look forward to discovering more.
Otherwise there is a Prince of Qadira who along with his small entourage is staying above. He is dark red and there is a caustic aroma that follows. There were no elves in his party which was unusual and welcome. There are so many elves up here now and I do not know how to act around them. No one else seems affected but they are very alien and I think I do not like being near them. Hopefully they will all leave and go somewhere else.
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Across the sands through strange vaunted halls, I supped and drank. A mix of colours all at once. Shifting tastes. Bitter. Sweet. Fragrant. Foul. And so easy to take. So proper. It makes for an intriguing prospect.
I spoke with a Sister of the Sibylline Sisterhood named Selsi. I cannot recall having seen a person more yellow than her, though there are subtleties and tinges I cannot quite makeout beneath the surface. She smells of over-ripe apples and strong spice. She asked me about the colour behind my eyes. I was not expecting such a question, and could not help but asking one of my own in reply. Does she see the same as me? What colour am I?
It would seem Leo and I are destined to forever be chasing after one another's shadow. I am told he lives still and that he is if not content, at least breathing and himself - which is far more than many can claim since the fall.
Still these shadows we leave each other have consequences. He's already entangled us both in a game of intrigue I only partially understand. I am however quite certain he's being played for a dupe, the bonds of the past are not so sure a thing as he seems to believe.
By none's leave, the Lion. How utterly hollow.
I had not thought that I would ever meet others who might see the same as me. The price was high, but it was a price for an echo. Not for me. There is rich colour here and I have only seen the thinnest layer.
Still, there are questions. To walk beyond oneself into another place forever risks leaving mirrors. To turn and see shades of your own reflection. And so I can't help but wonder - if one visited my ground, would they leave their own ghost? Would I thereafter be forever changed? And would that be so bad a thing?
Colour exists only where there is light and I see that light all the more clearly in the mirror of his eyes. The white contrasts the thick red and I stare and I cannot look away. How would such beauty even taste?
All becomes clear. I must nurture the garden. Prune away the weeds, shape the growing vine. And from its bounty, a feast.
Time and water.
A wolf has entered the garden. His smell offends.
Wolves.
I tried. Am trying. I fast. I chant. I keep to Her guidance.
I take of myself rather than my sister. And still I fail.
You are what you eat he says. I want to be pure. Yet I have eaten foul and fair and I do not change.
I'm sorry Loukas.
Three paths.
The Man with the Moonlit Eyes made his sacrifice and escaped through the Door. Luck and another's spark. Aeons in a decade. No tether. Freedom. His path is unknown but known and all the more tempting for it. But does he know the limits he has placed upon himself? He beholds a single tree and can see naught but its bough. He does not know that behind lurks a vast forest.
The Beast makes a sacrifice of all and escapes nothing. He becomes a slave to need and is bound so tightly to the world despite not being of it. He is so low and so high. But I know a taste he does not and cannot, a distant spark in the gloaming. A richness beyond words. He is forever denied such splendour.
The hunger grows and my days and my nights are spent wrapped in circle. I turn. I eat and am eaten and all else seems so very unreal. Murder plots against me. Political schemes and machinations. All are so very ephemeral. All so empty. I blink and they change or are gone entire. Is this what it is to be pure? A growing distance from shell.
I am not Him. I am not the Beast. So what is happening to me?
Finally. A glimmer on the horizon. Tranquility
The world settles into a crystal clarity. There is a sense of rightness that I have not felt since before the fall. I came back through a fire born of hatred and I was cleansed.
He bid me join him. I wanted to. But then I would be him. And I am not a beast. And I will not eat with one. I will not lower myself. I tend to the Garden. To tend the Garden is to be separate. To join is to forget. And I am not a beast.
The spiral does not bind me. I am not its slave. It is a tool. Only a tool.
I will wrap and bind them in circle and they will serve and the Garden will bloom.
Petty troubles. Atop the cliff, there is another zenith to reach.
I will be pure.
First fire, then a feast, now water. He whispered. I held his chain and he begged for me to let go and join him. To give in. I wanted so much to rend her flesh. Eat her heart and slurp. I thought I would die. My blood ripped from me. I could not breathe. All about was water. All encompassing. Smothering. Water.
And still I did not let him draw me into spiral. I am a woman. I am not a beast. Thrice denied. Three. Three times. Fountain. Forge. Lamp. Each denial I grow closer to Her Light. Each trial. Is this what I must always bear? Dying. Again. Again. Again. How many times? How many deaths until I am remade?
Three by three. Each denial. Aversion despite want. Controlled while free. Suffering from love.
Each prepare, while hiding their own snares. But passing through brings one closer to new peril and purpose.
I will not become him. He will accept the collar I have wrapped around his neck and he will attend. I will turn all I have seen; all I have done and have had done unto me; into shining raiment. And a spear. A white spear.
I failed. They did not trust me. Would not trust me. And I could not tell them why.
Now we are all in danger.
I keep thinking back to yesterday and the encounter. I know I should have acted differently but in the moment with all the sights assailing me I could not so easily divide my focus.
And the vision I saw within its head plagues me still. The woman; The snake; The giant. Atop her cliff, the coin clasped in her fingers.
Who is she?
Why was she there at all?
Was she another like me?
Did she lead it to me?
Who is she?
I escaped the circle, if it was a circle. But I could not break the egg.
I keep rebuilding the pieces, while each day they come to tear them apart again. I've seen what I could be. What I was. And what failure means. There is so much beauty and it clouds me. He whispers and it is so very tempting still.
I am not a beast.
The charge I've taken weighs heavily on me. Visions linger overlong and this pernicious regret begins to suffocate.
I see him on his ship. Surrounded by coiling rope and swirling gull. And I weep for how far he has to fall.
I see the girl in the darkness left with the rats that were not rats. And I despair at the necessities that would soon bring her to spiral.
A savage anticipation lingers in the air and I know I will face him again soon.
I say I am not a beast and he says he is not a weapon. Desperation drives me to make truth of one and deny the other.
There must be purpose. There is something to be made from these endless trials. There can be redemption in Her Light for at least one of us.
I'm so sorry, Gemarian.
Despite all my work with grasping Her Canon, sometimes I am gripped by old terror. Spiders may needle my flesh and I do not squirm. I may be drowned. Stabbed. Burned alive. And my vessel will persist long after the screams and pain subsides.
In my fallen state I have caused and seen a thousand personalised small horrors and only tasted their sweetness. If my heart quickened it was only in anticipation.
So why did I feel the black wolf's teeth upon my throat when she approached? I could barely speak, barely move except away from her. That is for a fearful dead girl; it is for the worldly; it should not be for me. The past must not grip me with rage, fear or any other passion. It should not spite the future nor my toil. I should not freeze nor let her poison eat at me.
I would not be on this path if not for her ilk. I am wretched but I will not be forever, where before I could only be swept away by my House's whim and doomed to the falling of the world.
Should I be grateful? Should I feel nothing?
There is a twinge of vengeful satisfaction and perhaps it is wrong. The unrepentant deny themselves grace and fall to spiral snares.
Next time I will look at her and smile.
A new muse has come to me and I am ever brought along to far off places. I'm not entirely sure it is through her action or my own that I walked into my own ground again to see the wide open maw cast in black red and purple.
There is light there still at least and I will nurture its small flickering flame if I am to have any hope of reaching Her. This hard won clarity wrested from the serpent's jaw is not to be cast away. To think that I may have to give it up to break an army fills me with dread and want.
A small consolation to the knowing of my wretchedness - there is a Door leading from me to the Forest. I have not yet fallen. As Sister Selsi has said, to climb the mountain the slope becomes ever more perilous until the peak is reached.
I celebrated in the Forest and marked my passage with circle. Nine circles weaving a circle of their own, and nine points along each, eight without and one within. Such was my joy I did not realise I was found.
The shackles and bindings start to chafe. A thousand cruel monsters lurking in the dark thirsting for our deaths and I have to contain myself because it might offend a dwarf. I have to bear the strikes of the orc where I could set them all down were they all not crowding me. I could let him loose. Let myself free and drink them all down in their kaleidoscopic plenty until I choke...
Restraint is so very hard at times.
Travel through dark halls amidst ancient servants turned into horror is not something I am unfamiliar with; whether in the Waking World or in Dream, it is Known. However to see it manifest through the eyes of victim is a new experience entire. The unbreakable squeeze as one's ribcage cracks, the cloying all surrounding blackness as the predator on the edge of sight readies to strike his helpless prey. The blind companion whispering comforting words, unheeding of the danger crawling closer behind.
I screamed. I cried for help, though ruination did not come. And now I savour it- a new circle. Failing and strength to chisel and shape. Fearful woman. Feared woman. I eat away my imperfections.
...
Would that he was not gone, I want to speak to him again of this waking terror. To castigate him. To mirror him. To command him. To deny him. To rise as he falls and break free. There is a new loneliness that has settled in my heart since. I grieve again for a fallen twisted man and poor other Zoe, denied lesson and fallen as he to bestial ruin.
But he is gone now and I am left without my whipping boy. My lesson. I can tolerate all slight in waking, but when I am denied in the greater realm? The stirrings of wrath eat at me and I wonder if I can let them have their way without jeopardising my purity further. She is already so fearful of my every move that even existing near her may be enough satisfaction.
Perhaps I will punish her with kindness. Let her think I mean to eat away at her little toes and she will do it all herself.
The Crown shone bright and illustrious with its otherworldly promise. A world made anew. The ash and waste would move at my word and all would be set right. Its people would thrive again in the Garden and all my wants would be met. I could feast and they would grow happy and live. Were all its promises madness? Or could it have done the same for me as the King's?
When I left the waking world the Crown was returned to me. My rat retainers stood a line in shining columns before my throne. My City was remade anew with all its former splendour. From my plinth, I waved my scepter and fallow fields turned golden with ripe harvest. Loukas stood at my side, and Leo the other.
Lines snaked through the streets and down into the Gutters, all to pay their respects. One by one they came and at the lead, was Him. He came to me and bowed low, his muzzle touching the floor.
"Hail Calipha! Hail Queen of Rats! Orentes! Ephia! Yllaris!
The city thrummed with their hum, at one with the purpose. A million beady eyes.
It comes to me now in the waking world. This sudden knowing. Without warning, without struggle, it is there as if it has always been. From my glimpses in dream, now a whispering. Riddle and Truth. How can there be light where light does not dare to tread?
Light comes from a source. And the only true light left in the world is Her. No False Crown. No Golden Temptation. Within the trees She is there. Waiting.
They entered my dungeon and despoiled what was mine to claim. The tracks they left were clear and I found the Mouse scurrying in her little hole. The flash of teeth was all it took for her to give up the Owl.
I am denied my right by their flouncing trespass. So I will take back from them my pound of flesh.
I never expected his words to be so sweet and luring. The same as me. The same want. He could see it. He knew it. I knew it. Kneeling and broken things by my feet and the effortless will to take. Eat. Eat. Eat! Nibble. Gnaw. Bite! A mirror to my own heart that I could not rend in kind. Safe from me but knowing. Ary. Ary. Arymathras.
And as much as I wanted. I knew folly when I heard it. To act on want is to deny the promise of so much more. While my example is taken from me, I still have his memory. Joyous feasts have their costs.
Now as my heart cools, I will leave the Owl to hunt alone. I have the due I'd take.
The Mouse? Perhaps the Owl will eat her for me. Or perhaps...
The line between dream and waking continues to blur. Last night I was a shadow spun upon the Mouse's wall. She whimpered. She scurried. Through crack and crevice we chased. Loop after loop. Then down. Deep amidst thirst and sorrow. Where she was blind, I could see clear. No light. No torch. Only me.
When I woke my eyes had changed.
...
The knowledge I have been long denied is urging me to imprudent action. There are no intermediaries I can think of that I can trust, not with so many yearning for destruction. Yet to walk that spiral way would be to invite doom. A weapon lost, what better replacement? Still...
Mistakes and missteps. A gamble taken. Will it be death or enlightenment?
If I was not who I am now I would take their refusal as an invitation. You would have been so amused Gemarian, were there more within you than hunger.
And if you lived.
A rare pleasure to walk so free and openly. They fell easily and we shared such a liberating joy in the Knowing. The fast was broken and yet I still had control. There was no voice howling at my ear urging wanton excess. No spirals at all! At that moment I was closer to purity than I had ever been and it all came so easily. A small push and a circle and the Gate opened wide in the onrush and through came passion.
See what I do with myself, Gemarian? Your doom will never be mine. In Her Light, I am remade.
I have been dreaming of late of Ibtihal and the fall. The long siege. Living anew the deaths of my parents. The curses born by my brothers. The breaking of our servants. The destruction of those who were once my people. Before spiral descent and rebirth.
A shifting step through the gate was enough to live it all again. Her distant words on the wind carrying meaning anew.
A Dream. A Mother. And a White Spear.
What else have I forgotten?