In Nothing We Trust

[Interia_Discordius]

Threas, Novlar 12, 1440
--

Horrid was a King of Dogs. Not a king as you and I might see one, wearing a crown and sitting upon a throne, but a king nonetheless.

Of rulers, it could not be said that he was a wise king, nor an especially brave one. It could be said that he was much like any or all dogs. He enjoyed sleeping lazily amongst dandelions on a hot evening. He favoured those that offered him scraps no more really than those who gave him the sole of their boot. He would wag his tail and dance about the Krandor woods snapping his jaws at butterflies. He had fleas. Most that knew him had fleas also, at one point or another. This was his youth and the sunshine days, and they blurred from one into the next. His majesty was never enough majestic, but he was not crowned as such just yet.

And it was one autumn morning that the dog enjoyed a rabbit chase through the deep woods. His bounding heartbeat and gasping sprint closed him to the terrified creature so near that Horrid's bite seized him a lucky charm.

Misfortune was taken with fortune. Such is the way of all canine.

His ears raised as his head lifted. He had heard the encroaching steps before the rabbit's paw rolled from the tongue to the crunching leaves. The dog yelped and startled as something bit his ear. His snout bared teeth as he winced backward. Then two somethings bit the tree beside him - and he yipped. He turned to see the tall creatures which he did not understand. Horrid knew they were the biters, but they were so far away...and it is near impossible for a dog to understand that something from further away than his snout can hurt him.

Another arrow struck the beast's flank, and he stumbled to run. Wounded as he was and unwise, though not entirely brave... he was fleet. His paws carried him straight into a stinger's shadow, and he buried his teeth deep into the soft part below the mouth where the blood is. Among dogs, the phrase 'Bit off' is more appropriate than 'bit', but dogs tend to exaggerate.

Horrid was brought down. He panted in the woods, breathing heavily and rasping. He was riven with shafts. He tumbled down a leafy embankment and lay near a whispering stream. His pursuers dashed away suddenly at the thunderous Hoot of an owl.

Horrid wondered if he could eat the stinging arrow that protruded from his snout, for he was famished and tired. He whimpered as he lapped his bloody fur. It was not until she kissed him that he understood death and the life it risks. He comprehended dying.

Horrid beheld before him the dew glisten morning, the rays between the trees. She was all things that are beautiful in nature. Flowers and bees tuned the green air around her, and honeysuckles assailed his nostrils.

No longer would anything be the same, for he knew now that it was as if he had been asleep, and just awoken a child.

The dog was before his mother. He fulfilled one thing that all other of his species could not claim: He became aware - aware of his capability to learn....


~ Llane S. Anetheron
      Of a story far from finished.

[Interia_Discordius]

Satari, Novlar 14, 1440
--

There was, she found, something fundamentally wrong with that tree. It was bleeding, but it was not hurt, and she had a feeling that if you could press it hard enough, it might even bear fruit.

Layers... What did she know of layers? What did others know of it, in fact? This was not a tree. This was anathema, born and bred, a spawn of the stone giant's womb in which they traversed day to night.

So what layers?

Many years ago, she discovered memory. T'was a fickle thing, equal parts solid and fluid at the same time, flowing through the caverns of the mind in places quite obscure. Perhaps, at the time, she was looking for perfect memory - She could not recall. It was no riddle, she felt. She was being perfectly clear. To understand the most simple of words, there was a need to dream. She had held entire discussions with others, even strangers in the square, that sometimes, she felt they hadn't even acknowledged being a part of.

They were deign to those burnt by a passion. Of course, she knew that a generous axe was no different than velvet, suggesting everything and promising nothing.

So it went.

~ Llane S. Anetheron
Of a promise far from kept.

[Interia_Discordius]

Tunar, Mar 10, 1441
--

In the grass
Droplet of moonlight
A firefly shines
--Mayumi Yoshino

She watched the firefly ascend into the air, its bottom flickering with twilight warmth. Around it, there was the Darkness, and just as Light had pressed it back, the shadows engulfed it again.

Not defeated, however, the fire of the fly came back to life, and for that single moment, it burned as bright as the sun...

And then it was gone.

The smooth transition fascinated Llane. It was a simple slip from one to the next, the single flicker that altered the world from visible to invisible. Like the firefly, everything was all there, but when night fell...

It all lay in the manipulation of light... of manipulating what really registered in the mind, what was really seen, and what was actually there.

Turning away from where the firefly had last lit its candle, Llane looked toward her own campfire. Its tongues lapped at the air, the smell of burning wood strong. She had worked up the pathetic excuse of a bonfire to help her see, and yet having gazed into it now, she realized it blinded her. Where there was a brief outline of trees, she could only see a large, purple splotch in her vision.

Uncorking her canteen, she dumped its contents upon the wood, listening to the sizzle which awakened some primal contentment within her. The darkness seeped in around her, and welcoming it, she closed her eyes.

She would learn where that line was between night and day, dark and light, black and white... She would learn it, call it hers, and someday walk it. Like the firefly, she would as well be a part of the silence... a mere flicker away from being seen.

~ Llane S. Anetheron
Of a sight far from dreamed.

[Interia_Discordius]

Mulnari, Mar 23, 1441
--

Each foot was placed carefully after the next, one in front of the other. She mimicked the movements of the stray cats she had watched in the streets of Arnax, crouching low and flowing through the underbrush.

The deer tore another blade of grass from the ground, grinding it into the back of its jaws. Its brown coat glittered dully in the morning sun, and its thin, frail legs denoted the doe's young years. Unaware, it bent its head back down to feed.

She continued nearing, her hand outstretching as slow as a tree spreading its branches. Closer still, she crept, her gloved fingers only a few feet away.

A twig snapped beneath her foot, and she swiveled her head down to look at the offending stick. There was a rustle, and when her gaze was dragged up, she saw the little white of the deer's back end flitting away.

Her hand dropped back to her side, and she heaved a sigh.

Failure. To the hells with those deer.

~ Llane S. Anetheron
Of a hunt far from successful.

[Interia_Discordius]

Satari, Mar 27, 1441
--

The bottle was brought to her lips, the liquid fire within burning a path down her throat and into her stomach. The taste was foul, and though she felt herself grimace, the relaxation that flooded her senses was immediate.

Morrowfield sat beside her before the newly made fire, this one much stronger than the pitiful ones she had made. They spoke little - rather, she spoke little, and he filled the silence with his half drunken chatter, his voice loud but somehow pleasant to listen to in place of the silence. She nodded along to what he said, adding her occasional opinion in opportune moments, though with the random subjects and even more random observations he made, she eventually found it pointless to say anything at all.

Turning her gaze from the darkness beyond, she studied the mercenary she called her traveling partner. The shadows cast by the flames danced on his features, which were relaxed and good-natured as always, and the smile on his face seemed to speak of some secret jape only he knew of. Morrowfield was a playful man, a good man, though average in every meaning of the word. He sat as casual as his manners, one leg drawn up and the other stretched out, a bottle in his left hand and the right set upon the ground.

Realizing her staring and the fact he had since met her gaze, she returned his words with a faint curve of her lips upward. He was average, yes, but since they had met, she could swear she had found no better for a companion. What that said of the land they were in, she didn't know, but...

He continued to look at her expectantly, and she had a feeling she had missed a question or some cue to reply to. Having a whimsical mind, it was common of her... much to her dismay. Was it a blight or a muse? Judging by his expression, t'was neither.

She went to ask, but he was leaning in then, the bottle in his hand settling upon the ground. Her hands fluttered to his chest and shoulder, herself assuming the worst that he had finally passed out, but those pale blue eyes so similar to her own were clear and open. They hesitated like that, two statues set before a warm glow of a bonfire, and then she made a move to back away first.

He caught one of her hands in its withdrawal.

"Did'cha know that you look pretty good in this light?" he asked her astonished expression, and before she could reply to such nonsense, he was embracing her with his lips upon her own.

~ Llane S. Anetheron
Of a life far from exalted.

[Interia_Discordius]

--

She wasn't going to think about it...

...
...
...

For the love of the gods, she wasn't going to think about it.

The memory was within her reach. It was a tangible darkness that loomed before her, so real and so close that she felt she could simply outstretch her fingers and create ripples on the surface of that dream.

She told herself that, for the love of the gods, she wasn't going to think about it, but she had no love for the gods, and that thrice-cursed thought still lingered in her mind.

How dare Morrowfield ...

Biting her lower lip, she took two strong steps and leaped into the air, the ground rushing up to meet her. The branches of the tree she had been in whipped past her, and just as she was about to collide heavily with the underbrush, she was tucking herself into a clean tumble down.

She uncurled, springing back to her feet after a safe landing.

How dare Morrowfield try to get so close to her! She had been fine being alone until then. She had been completely independent and free of his and everyone's pitiful needs and flaws and sympathy up until then.

Plucking a few leaves from her form, she discarded them violently to the side, uncertain of the anger in herself and even more of the true reasons why. She swore she would never wonder of the night he had kissed her, but in promise of being true to herself, she had to understand the burning rage.

Exhaling, Llane forced herself to consider that her qualms were not with Morrowfield... She thought she had no scars from Arnax- Rather, she never had nightmares, never missed her parents, never cried from the harsh life she had lived or for the life she had lost... She had lived to win and dared to fail, and in that, she was not scarred. In that, she had no regrets.

- But perhaps, she contemplated as she turned her gaze up to the azure blues of the sky... Perhaps the mark Arnax left upon her soul was that she would never allow anyone to ever get close enough to risk hurting her. Perhaps she was angry with Morrowfield because he had breached some defense she had kept up all this time to avoid risk of losing someone she cared about.

Perhaps...

A scoff escaped her lips as the word reverberated through her mind. What a joke! She was never a complex woman, and her irritation stemmed simply from the fact Morrowfield had guessed her attraction before she even recognized it herself.

That was all it was- An attraction. She had no intention of going further with it.

That was all it was.

~ Llane S. Anetheron
Of a meaning far from complicated.

[Interia_Discordius]

---

She found she was no good with dates. When morn turned to dusk and twilight reigned, the ticks of the day and the names of them seemed to escape her. Come dawn, the only reasonable logic she held was that another day had passed, but otherwise, the rest was seemingly nonsense. Why did they even use days, weeks, months, and years? In reality, it was repetition, the same sun rising and the same sun setting.

At least that seemed her experience now.

~

The leaves in the forest filtered the sunlight, leaving only the thin shafts that managed to pierce through. Under normal circumstances where Llane could admire the beauty, she would do just that. Unfortunately, she was not in a typical situation, and worse still was that those same, lovely rays were shining directly into her eyes.

Her arms were held out to the sides, her legs set apart on the branch she balanced upon. The warm day was silent save for the woodsy noises of bird and bug, and there was no breeze to speak of up in the canopy where she had her perch. There, she waited, blinded eyes scanning the heavens in vain for a telltale loose leaf.

She wasn't sure when exactly it was that she had decided to hate the passing of days. It was somewhere between when her sweat had started to mold her dark clothes to her form and when the salty, stinging monstrosity had started to fall into her eyes. She had a hunch that when she finally managed to grab her prize, she would come down from the treetops with bloodshot rims.

Her poor, pitiful eyes.

Her right leg trembled. It had felt like eternity since she had scaled the Silkwood trees to that location, and in the back of her mind was a nagging warning that she was pushing herself too far this time.

Still...

The hours dragged on, as dull and as painful as the previous, but stubborn as a mule, Llane refused to move. Her toes had long since grown numb, her ankles having followed soon after to dead weights. Her quakes were more frequent, and the only mercy she was given was the sun falling out of her face as it sunk past the horizon.

- And just when she was ready to slump to defeat, she heard it.

Bleached blue eyes snapped upwards again, and when she caught sight of the culprit of the noise, her heart sang in triumph.

The leaf swayed in the absent wind, swinging back and forth like a pendulum as its hold upon the twig weakened. She saw her hand reach towards it out of its own accord; she could not sense it any longer, every part of her was stiff and blunted as her feet.

The corpse of the leaf seemed to slide into her fingers, pulled down by gravity. Her legs threatened to snap beneath her, but she could only see that single, godly, curled creature in her hand. Still days and sleepless nights were carried upon her shoulders for this one reward.

This is how the clerics of gods must feel when they're rewarded for their prayers, she heard herself think. This is the slaving, the crying, the constant doubts...

This is how it's like to be one of the virtuous when they step within the arms of their gods...

And then she was falling, the millions of leaves still connected to their branches spiraling above her as she went down.

[Interia_Discordius]

--

This much she was certain of: it didn't happen immediately. She finished and that was that, until a moment came, maybe it was a month, maybe a year, maybe even several years later. Maybe she was sick of feeling troubled or deeply in love or quietly uncertain or maybe even content for the first time in her life. It didn't matter. Out of the blue, beyond any cause she could trace, she suddenly realized that things were not as she perceived them to be at all. She detected slow and subtle shifts going on all around her, more importantly in her. Worse, she realized that it had always been shifting, like a shimmer of sorts, a vast shimmer, only dark like a room. She didn't understand why or how. She had forgotten what had granted her this awareness in the first place.

Old shelters - drinking, observing, listening - protected her no longer. She tried scribbling in a journal, on a bit of parchment, even in the margins of scrolls she had found. That's when she discovered that she no longer trusted the very walls she had taken for granted. Even the hallways she had walked a hundred times felt longer, much longer, and the shadows, any shadow at all, seemed suddenly deeper, much, much deeper.

She tried then to find a sky so full of stars that it could blind her again... Only no sky could blind her now. Even with all that iridescent magic up there, her eye no longer lingered on the light, it no longer traced the constellations. She cared only about the darkness, and she watched it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying in vain to believe that she were some indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel, as if by just looking she could actually keep it all at bay. It had gotten so bad that she was afraid to look away, afraid to sleep.

Then no matter where she was, in a crowded inn or on some desolate street or even in the comforts of her own home, she watched herself dismantle every assurance she had ever lived by. She stood aside as a great complexity intruded, tearing apart, piece by piece, all of her carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious. And then for better or worse, she turned, unable to resist, though try to resist she did, fighting with everything she had not to face the thing she most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature she truly was, the creature they all were, buried in the nameless black of a name.

And then the nightmares began.