Swimming
(1/96) I seem to be missing the log before this, so let's dive right in. Sepdet and the water-spirit had a talk. The spirit noticed Sepdet's longtime frenzy-causing phobia of deep water, and decided to teach her a lesson, as a thank-you for Sepdet's past care for the Harbor Park area during her days with Pack Renaissance.
Undine pages: Do you remember where we were?
Sepdet closes her eyes as she braces for water to wash over her, hand trembling as she clutches the insubstantial hand of the spirit.
Long distance to Undine: Sepdet had just stepped into the pool and taken the nixie's hand.
The hand of the spirit is more solid than one might expect. Smooth and tingling, yes, but touchable and comfortingly solid. Her fingers lace with the little Strider's, and she begins to hum softly as the water begins to lap at the seer's legs. Soon, it feels as if it is lapping /through/ her skin, into her blood.
Sepdet swallows and begins to hum her old lullabye to steady herself. The words are in her own tongue, but the meaning is clear through its ebb and flow: "kada kade nahi, kada kadinye. Vorewoi, voretun..." (The water comes and goes, comes and goes a little, to the sand, from the sand...")
It is not a bad sensation, but it is definitely peculiar. After a time-- a few moments? longer? time seems to be losing meaning-- you are quite certain that the water is dissolving you into it. You are still you, but the boundries of skin that seperated your water from the undine and the fountain and whatever nameless place you have come to, those boundries have been removed. You can hear the humming of the undine, tuneless and pleasant, and you can /see/ a rushing, a swirl of cooler and warmer water, a darkness.
@EMIT The taste of raw primal fear ripples out from Sepdet's center, diffusing in the embrace of the water. *Do not let me drown,* she requests very steadily, as if this were no great matter to her. *I cannot swim.*
The taste of raw primal fear ripples out from Sepdet's center, diffusing in the embrace of the water. *Do not let me drown,* she requests very steadily, as if this were no great matter to her. *I cannot swim.*
*Shhh,* the spirit's voice comes back, a cool taste in the waters, a comforting sound instead of a request for silence. *I am holding you. We are going back to the beginning, to the cradle.* And indeed, there is no problems breathing, nothing to panic about. Her humming has stopped, and for a long moment, there is only silence and darkness, colored by the warmth of the currents.
Sepdet tries to imagine the darkness and silence are the desert and the cold, Egyptian sky, and that any moment the star she once trusted as her own will break over the crest of a hill--not to deceive herself, but to ground herself against the oldest fear, that of the one element she has always respected but never understood. Desert-born, she holds quite still, listening, waiting, willing herself not to will anything.
From afar, Gawain pokes you on behalf of Siobhan...
Long distance to Gawain: Sepdet HUGS. Tell her I'm learning how to swim IC. ;)
And suddenly there is a rushing, a pounding of water behind you, pushing you on its crest. It's a roller coaster ride from hell, it's the delight of every thrill seeker. White water foams and curls around you, and a flood is rising, pushing, carrying you and suddenly you are free falling, cartwheeling, floating...
Strangely, the spinal injury seems to mean so much less in the water, where quick movements are impossible and the liquid is a buffer against involuntary movements. The kick straightens out the cartwheeling and propels the Strider forward, the spirit's hand still somehow entwined in her own, although somehow on another level, the two of them seem to be nothing more than water. Suddenly, there is sparkling light above... the surface.
Sepdet almost shifts, free hand clawing a little as she vies with the panic-instinct...just a little farther, a little farther. She grips with her empty hand, making herself not hold the Undine too tightly, lest the watery creature slip right through her fingers like sand...
Your head breaks the surface of the water, and you choke briefly, as the liquid you'd been breathing cascades out of your lungs. You are in a sea of glass, as smooth as the undine's skin, and the only ripples emanate from a huge outcropping of rock nearby-- a giant waterfall thunders out of a hole near the top and the sheets of water cascade down the dark stone. Other than the rock outcropping, there is nothing to see in any direction... except the stars. Above you, the vault of heaven arcs, ten thousand stars glittering like jewels in black velvet. As your eyes adjust, you can see the colors swirling in the blackness, distant, dancing nebulas, and the sea of glass you float in reflects every dream in heaven. The undine kicks near you, lazily, gently supporting your head with her hand.
The sight of the undying stars, as much as the sure touch, keeps at bay the ever-present fear as Sepdet coughs and splutters: perhaps the most dangerous moment for her, thus far. She tenses all over for a split second, muscles knotting into rock, and then lets out a long wind's breath and goes limp, floating as if on owl's own wings. She doesn't speak immediately, drinking in the feel of this wondrous place.
It is quiet for a moment, not even the hint of a breeze over the sea of glass. *This is the oldest place,* she says then. *Below us there are creatures who have existed since before the shadow parted from us, and kinds who were old when dry land was just a dream of slumbering mountains. We rest here now, for your fear.*
Sepdet tries to nod, recalling an ancient story passed down for millenium--and not only by her own people. *The earth rose from the water in a mound, a pyramid. The Bennu alighted upon it, and laid the egg. It gave a cry, and the egg split open, and out came the world. Or again... the waters of Nun stirred, and all was water, chaos. Snakes stirred in the waters. The Word was spoken, and a child rose out of a lotus blossom on the horizon, and He was the newborn Sun.* The old tales, each true, are her respect for this place. *I did not know Nun was a place we could reach. Thank you.*
The spirit says softly, *I can always go home. And it is within my power to bring one or two with me, for a short time.* She looks at Sepdet intently. *I have more for you.*
Sepdet draws her eyes down from the sky like a person on a very high cliff venturing to peer over the edge, and meets the Undine's gaze uncertainly. *If you will,* she replies softly, again with the simple trust of a theurge who respects the power of thunder, the fire, or the water spirit but does not fear anything they might give her.
From afar, Nemo decides Stormcloud is trying to be a tragic hero. He does nothing wrong, but is merely a victim of the machinations of others and of Fate.
The undine smiles and raises two fingers. Then she slips her other hand out from under Sepdet's head and trails it down her arm until she is clasping the seer's hand again, urging her into a more upright position. *Move your legs.*
Sepdet's feet flounder once, a clumsy, thrashing movement that does bring a small self-deprecating smile to her lips.
Undine waits, apparently expecting the seer to continue. Her eyes are dark, her face serious.
Undine pages: It really is a lot easier to move in the water, although she'll discover once the spirit lets go of her hands that it'll be easier to use her arms than her legs. :-)
Sepdet chuckles anyway, though the mirth is mostly only on the surface. She cannot think of walking, here. So she tries again, this time, a light leaping movement, an echo of her madcap dancing that she used to use to fill the Wheel with energy and set its currents and the dry leaves spinning.
Undine dips her head. *Like that. That is good.* Suddenly she smiles brightly. *I am going to let go of your hands now. I will not let the sea swallow you, though. And keep kicking.*
Sepdet nods again, tremulous as a young bird on the edge of the nest, and cups the water with her hands, willing her feet to move in even strokes, though she sometimes breaks stride with a nervous flutter.
The spirit lets the girl's hands drop and suddenly she is whirling away across the water. For a moment, she vanishes beneath, and then suddenly she is sailing up like a dolphin, twisting and shining in the starlight and vanishing seemlessly beneath the surface again. Then she is zooming back towards Sepdet again.
Sepdet's mind is here in the water and elsewhere, a long time ago, with a cub all but paralyzed from the waist down from grievous injuries, held aloft in the umbral sky by a great old giant she called uncle, catching snow in her hands with wonder and pretending to fly, moving her legs as far as they might go, moving her arms like friend Magpie in graceful sweeps and twirling with eddies in the wind. Or another night, another snow, another cub dancing in the umbra and moving something inside her too. Sepdet's arms remember, even if they are less steady than they used to be, and her legs flutter to hold her small weight, even if they ache for lost dances.
The spirit surfaces next to Sepdet and runs a hand up the girl's spine; somewhere in the dissolving earlier, excess fabric vanished. Tendrils seep into the bone and blood, like the dissolving of earlier, but far more focused. And then they are withdrawn, and the spirit nods in satisfaction. *Humans far more broken than you have flown in the waters before, by their own power. It is a matter of persepctive, I think, for the land dwellers. There is so much focus on the legs there, but here it is just as easy to walk on your hands...*
Sepdet strives to stretch out on her belly, daring this much, keeping her head above water with a homey dog-paddle. *I am a Strider,* she reminds the spirit gravely. *Usually,* she adds.
The spirit flares her nostrils in a delicate snort. *Yes. Well, now you will be an extra-special Strider.* She adjusts Sepdet's posture some, stretching her hands out in front of her in such a way, and begins the timeless process of teaching the little desert-born how to swim, or at least how to be comfortable in the water. *You will not drown here, not with me. In other waters, if you are stupid, you will drown. It is like walking around in the dark of the moon, for your kind, and can be avoided far more easily.*
Undine pages: We can sort of zoom through this bit, if you like. It /is/ timeless, no hunger, no pain, no drowning, no time passing. Dreamlike.
Sepdet follows the spirit's guidance with the pliancy of the cub she was, feeling her way trustingly, instincts of old dances serving to help her find her rhythm in the alien environment where skills can't.
You paged Undine with 'Yah, this is pretty, but fast forward a bit is fine too.'.
Undine pages: So Sepdet gets to aquire a familiarity, a comfort in the water that is far far far more important to learning to swim than actually knowing the breaststroke or whatver. Although she gets some tips on some real techniques, too. ;-)
At last, the undine is content with the progress of her student, and stills in the water. *Are you ready, then?*
Sepdet shakes herself and rolls over, looking up at the sky again. She does not understand the question, but understanding with the mind is not really an issue just now. *Ready! Yes.*
And suddenly, you are in darkness, underwater. The liquid oxygen you coughed up before is thick and comforting in your lungs against the gentle pressure of the water over you and there are currents brushing past your face. There is no light. *You said once upon a time that water does not strive, only does, or does not. You were wrong.* The water is colder down here, and there is a faint sense of movement. The undine is near, but not touching you; you can taste her in the water. *It is understandable; you lack a certain perspective. Come.*
Sepdet arcs hands before her eyes and pulls herself down, listening, the feel of water inside still not as comfortable as wind's breath, but bearable now, no longer the alien, unimaginable thing it was. She follows, silent in her body again.
*The sleeping mountains awoke and poked their heads out of the sea and so dry land was born. You know the stories. And the sea tolerated the dry land, made room in herself for this child, but with the restriction that all the waters could come home again, no matter where they pooled on the land. And so it is. The rains, the snows, the rivers...* And suddenly you are as a fish, flashing down a river. But... no... you are always moving, always in the same place, each breath of water constantly changing, in a form that only slowly changes. Your heart is in a mountain, drawn up from the place where all water comes from, and you feed on the rain, swirl past stone that stands in your way. And it is not that you do not strive, but that you are patient. Each taste of minerals, each lick of the stone makes the stone impeding your progress smaller. You will be home again, someday. And you pour around the stone, lapping at it, dissolving it into you and taking it with you, home again, to the place where all waters are born and where all waters return; you were rain a thousand years ago and sea a million years ago, and yesterday you were dew, and tomorrow you will be a tear. And everyday, you are going home, and everyday, you are home, and everyday, you are setting out on a bright new journey to find something else that needs to come home again.
From afar, Undine gets cinematic at you.
You paged Undine with 'Ha! And Sepdet's lullabye is actually a tiny snippet of poetry from LeGuin's Always Coming Home. And I never connected the water-song with the name of the whole book!'.
From afar, Undine looks pleased. I'll have to find it.
A dam breaks somewhere inside...Hapi, she whispers, but it is the only word-thought that crosses her mind, now poured heart and soul into the life which is water, as passionately as she pours herself into each thing she believes in. (Hapi is the River's name, the River her people lost so long ago, the Nile which is their origin and their greatest treasure, lost, poisoned, caged behind walls, sluggish and dead in the terrible Homeland which Sepdet alone has seen, but she has now found the River still flowing inside herself). Sepdet embraces this truth as she as embraced more terrible ones, and with a delight she has seldom dared to indulge in since her Wheel and purpose were shattered.
@aconnect me=@doing Hope is a river...
*Tears and blood are only the sea inside you-- and your people have cried so many tears, shed so much blood. Can you even imagine the sea does not know you? Dream that it is alien? One child, caged by men now, but she sent all of your dreams, your passions, she sent them home. We remember, we do not forget, and we have sipped away at mountains. Cages break. Walls break.* The voice, which seems to have gotten... larger, somehow, pauses, sighs. *Always coming home, always setting out, always on a journey through the land. Are you ready, little River?*
Sepdet listens intently, thinking of roads behind and ahead: more rivers. *I am ready to move,* she responds softly.
There is a slight shift in your surroundings, and suddenly you are /dancing/, a wild and graceful dance, a sparkle of light in darkness. Little child of the ocean, little sister of the river, with your own singular identity, you dance out of a rock into the night and fall into a serene pool, where, pausing a moment to laugh, you gaze up at the face of a unicorn... and you are the unicorn, in a dizzying reflection of a reflection where you are the fountain, the unicorn, and you... and then the parallel visions fade.
Sepdet shimmers into existence, kneeling in the fountain.
Arlen's sitting on the edge of the fountain, staring off into the night. She turns, at Sepdet's appearance, and quirks a smile.
Arlen pages: Sep have clothing on the edge of the fountain, or no.
Sepdet grips the stone, and then puts her hands back in the water again. *Thank you...* she whispers, staring down at her reflection and through it.
You paged Undine with 'Am I clothed, Arlen asks? :)'.
Undine pages: Oh, one more thing. :-)
From afar, Undine considers. Yeah, Only because I dunno what she'd do with your clothes. Anyhow. My one last thing. Emotionally, with all the bad stuff in Sepdet, all the pain and loneliness and loss of self-respect and tired slogging ahead just /doing/, that's been... faded. Like it all happened thirty years ago and you've had time to grieve and cry and /heal/. Old scars that are interesting to look at, but don't hurt a whole lot anymore unless you slash at them with your fingernails.
Arlen says "She... gives of herself, frequently, it seems."
Sepdet raises her head slowly, although the solid voice startled her. She has perhaps never seen the Fury in this form, but her eyes are keener in the Umbra, and she merely nods, letting the water trickle down her face and skin.
Arlen supplies, "Lightseeker," and ducks her head in the fountain. "The mage and I shared with her. I think she overshares with Dillan, however."
Sepdet dips her eyes at the other again, holding herself quiet for sometime, although the mention of the mage, as well as the joke, bring different kinds of smiles to her eyes. She remains crouched and thoughtful, feeling the faint wind nagging her like an abandoned puppy and bringing goosebumps to her skin. Finally she clambers out and sits down on the rim, a place she used to come and think often as a cub.
Sepdet says at length, peacefully, ~I would give her a few tears, for thanks, but I have none to give right now.~
Arlen shakes her head somewhat, to clear her ears of water, and looks down at the water contemplatively.
Sepdet begins to wake up to the normal passage of time, and quickly checks the moon. ~Still first moon after Solstice?~ she checks, uncertainly.
Arlen stares grimly at the pool. "Yes. She seems to make a habit of this."
Sepdet blinks at the woman's tone. ~Oh.~ She glances back at the water with a quirk of a grin. ~She did _ask_. If you put yourself in a spirit's power, you must be prepared to deal with their world on their terms. ~
Arlen looks up, and blinks. "Oh, I wasn't..." She shakes her head. "She did it with Dillan. Who, much as I like him, isn't really prepared for this sort of thing. I really must talk to her about hm."
Sepdet winces. ~And I promised to teach the other theurges such things as I know. Doubt of my own wisdom drove such plans from my head. I have been amiss. Perhaps I can instruct others so that they do not make such mistakes, but also find our water-lady other willing 'attendants', or at least friends.~
Arlen chews her lip for a moment. "I think, actually, that once I have a talk with her, it may well be... not unreasonable. I talked to him, he will be more... alert. And... She is a good teacher, of many things."
Sepdet nods comfortably, clasping her hands about her knees and shivering a little. ~Oh yes.~
"She taught me... trust," the Fury says, looking toward the river. Glancing back to the Strider, she asks, "And you?"
Sepdet says wonderingly, ~Water.~
Arlen murmurs, "I wish someone would teach me of earth, someday. Water... is something I already have some familiarity with. I am glad that you have come to... know of it, now."
Long distance to Xandra: Sepdet smiles. And Sepdet will be sure to stop by when she goes to and from the city and clean out the fountain or do anything needed as she passes, in the future.
Sepdet shivers, and reluctantly rises to her feet. ~Winter, however, teaches other lessons, and one is to treasure Fire as well. I think I must go back and warm myself up.~ She gives the fountain one last familiar glance. *I will come again sometime, friend,* she promises.
Arlen immediately starts shivering. "Power of suggestion," she mutters. "Walk in light, Sepdet."
Sepdet touches her priestess' lock lightly. "Ankh 'm Ma'at," she replies smoothly, then turns and starts padding towards the bridge.
Pack> Sepdet calls on the wind, ~Sorry. Spirit distracted me. Back.~
[.......]
You start to reach through the umbra.
Sepdet looks into the pool at the waterfall's base, gazing upon her reflection.
The landscape shifts wrenchingly, and you are through.
By the Waterfall
Contents:
Soulcatcher
Obvious exits:
Steam Vents Center Windy Spot Up the Trail
From afar, Xandra sends you to the Caern to play with Joe, silly.
From afar, to Xandra, Stormcloud, Sepdet, and InleRah, Collin hugs you all. Be back tomorrow!
+weather
Currently on this gusty and freezing winter night in the general St. Claire area, it is 21 degrees Fahrenheit (-6.1 degrees Celsius). The wind is coming from the east-northeast at 10.4 mph. The ground is normal. Skies are hazy with no chance of precipitation.
Sepdet materializes _in_ the stream, up to her knees in the runoff pool. She is also soaking head to foot, although some of the water is starting to freeze in her hair. She gives a faint gasp as the chill air hits her face more directly, wrapping her arms around herself.
Soulcatcher's ears come up, abruptly. Hope.
Soulcatcher looks perplexed, and yet pleased. He climbs to his feet, padding into the spray from the waterfall, but not into the pool itself. The Wendigo stands there watching the Strider.
Sepdet chuckles, although the sound is a bit shaky from teeth chattering. ~Swims-through-Silver,~ she adds, and then starts padding across the small fold of valley to the warmest ground.
c
You head into the center and heart of the caern.
Center of the Caern
Contents:
Ash
Obvious exits:
Rock Slab Windy Spot WaterFall Steam Vents
sv
You head southwest, into the hot steam.
Among the Steam Vents
Obvious exits:
WaterFall Down the Valley Center Rocky Slab
By the waterfall, Soulcatcher watches Sepdet go, still puzzled, and then pads after her.
By the waterfall, Soulcatcher heads into the center.
At the center, Soulcatcher chuffs to Ash.
At the center, Soulcatcher heads southwest, into the hot steam.
Soulcatcher comes into the steam from the caern center.
Soulcatcher has arrived.
Sepdet strips off her few clothes and settles down on the damp ground crosslegged, arms still wrapped around herself until the sauna does its work. Her movements seem looser, as if she'd been unstiffened, although the limp is still there and the care with which she places each step.
At the center, Ash pads after the two packmates, lounging and stretching.
At the center, Ash heads southwest, into the hot steam.
Ash comes into the steam from the caern center.
Ash has arrived.
Ash sniffs at the soaked Strider and then cocks an eye at Soulcatcher, as if /he/ knows what his packmate has been up to.
Sepdet glances up quizzically at Ash. ~I think I was going to check on Collin,~ she says, brows furrowed as if trying to remember something that happened quite some time ago. ~Oh well, it wasn't too long.~ She unfolds a little to reach out and scritch the Wendigo behind his ears. ~There's a water-spirit in the old fountain at the edge of Ren's old territory,~ she explains softly. ~It decided I needed a few lessons.~
Soulcatcher cocks his head, stopping several feet before the Strider. Lessons in /what/?
Sepdet's eyes crink up at the corners. ~Guess.~
Arlen comes into the caern from the southwest.
Arlen has arrived.
Soulcatcher thinks it looks like you swam the river.
~I was the river.
Sepdet says, ~I was the river.~
Soulcatcher settles his haunches to the wet ground, sensing a story from the Strider. Do tell.
Sepdet continues to stroke Soulcatcher's fur, the touch of something solid but also soft and pliant that flows between her fingers. ~And the rain...and everything. She took me into water, so i would not be afraid anymore. She took me back to Nun, the first water from which everything came. She put me into that place. And she taught me to swim.~
Arlen comes ambling down the path, munching on an apple.
Soulcatcher's ears splay, surprise clearly evident in the Wendigo's features. Some might even call it shock. She taught you to swim??
Sepdet nods firmly. ~I will not run from it now.~
Ash settles near a steam vent and listens, ears pricked.
Set.
Sepdet looks up at the swirling mists. ~Water is always moving, like most of my people. I never noticed that roads and rivers are really the same thing. No wonder we loved our first river so much.~ She traces a clumsy sinuous pattern down his back. ~I have my feet back on the road, going forward again.~
Arlen perches on a rock, still muching.
By the waterfall, Stormcloud comes down the trail from the rim above.
Soulcatcher's eyes regard his packmate appraisingly, ears twitching thoughtfully. After a time, the Wendigo's tail wgas, just faintly.
By the waterfall, Stormcloud works his way down the trail, moving straight for the waterside tonight, seemingly unknowing of the others' presence within the Caern.
Sepdet rubs both sides of his muzzle. ~Of course, I _would_ have to try to learn to swim in winter's coldest time,~ she says playfully. ~Always the hard road, I look for.~
Arlen finishes her apple and starts in on a peach.
Sepdet bumps her face impatiently against the Wendigo's muzzle, falling silent again.
Soulcatcher winds up licking the the strider's face, and then settling down as well. We worried about you, some. You were gone again.
Sepdet lowers her head in a quick apology. ~I did not know the time was passing,~ she murmurs. ~Of course, i went into the spirit's home. I should have told you I was going. But I would've balked, if I'd thought about where I was going.~
By the waterfall, Stormcloud stares into the water for a time, neither drinking it, stepping into it, nor using it to reach.
Soulcatcher seems content with the answer, it not being far from what he's come to expect of his packmates. Indeed, he seems pleased with it.
Sepdet's eyes crinkle again at him. ~Yes, I guess we do these things. Don't we? But then, that's how we started. A path opens; we follow. We come back.~ Then she glances over at the others, keen eyes noting the large shape over by the water but not commenting. She cocks her head,inquiring, ~News?~
Sepdet chuckles soundlessly, taking their silence for a negative. ~Then I will sleep. I have been swimming since the dawn of the world, helped rain carry mountains down to the sea grain by grain. I know now that water is seldom at rest, but _I_ am. Sometimes.~ She spreads out her cloak on a heated flat rock upwind of the vents themselves, then stretches out on the ground, curling her small head on her arms and crossing her feet neatly.
Arlen has disconnected.
Pack> Soulcatcher watches Sepdet, fondly. Sigh. I feel good.
Pack> Sepdet nuzzles. "Good. Then it rubs off on you. Which is the best thing of all."
By the waterfall, Stormcloud looks up quickly for a second, shifting to hispo, hen bounds back out of the Caern, howling and what not, making a general ruckus.
Ash peers after Stormcloud.
Soulcatcher begins to lay his head down on his paws, content to sleep here with Sepdet, when the Talon's noise brings him up and alert again.
Sepdet peels open one eye, twitches, decides the quartz pillar is not in imminent danger of toppling or the steam vents exploding, and then closes her eyes again.