Karen Smith pages to Joseph and Sepdet: I'm in #3155, which should be jump_ok. Seppy, if you could tell me what your state of mind when you went to sleep was, I can start whenever you're ready. :)
@tel #3155
Random location(#3155RFJ)
Grey extends, sky and ground, to the horizon in all directions, untouched by the faint light that seems to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at once. Faint though it is, the horizon is easily visible, undulating hills fading from dusty-grey into the fainter grey of the sky. But the center, here where you are, appears to be a large, slightly curved bowl, the sides formed by the distant hills. On one, the greyness is darker, almost green.
Joseph has arrived.
Sepdet goes to sleep tired and cold and trying not to notice the walls of her prison, as she always does these days. She huddles with her brother like a jackal with its littermates. As so often, his gentle words are the only thing that gives the weary young Strider a faint smile as she drifts off to restless sleep.
Sleep is, at first, restless but undisturbed. Occasional flashes of images, too quickly gone to be resolved even by the mental eye, accompany the brief rest before the landscape becomes, of a sudden, grey, a bowl of grey dust beneath a grey sky. Joseph stands beside the Strider, with the appearance of having waited there for some time.
Sepdet raises her head slowly and looks around, having trouble focussing on the emptiness. She crosses her arms in front of herself and hugs her shoulders, eyes squinted although the light isn't so bright. ~The walls opened out,~ she mutters. ~Still gray.~ She hasn't seen her friend beside her yet.
Joseph answers, his tone the familiar terse whisper that conveys to his friend his restlessness, "Greyer all the time."
A wind stirs briefly, kicking up some of the dust, no higher than knee-level. The wind is bitingly cold, the chill of the farthest north warm in comparison.
Sepdet's chin comes up. ~Sen-n ka'i?~ She looks around, startled, and then huddles back against his leg. ~Walking in my dreams again, as you promised? Where are we? A death-desert? I can't see so much, where I am sleeping now.~ Her eyes seek out the small patch of green hungrily in the dust and cold.
Joseph huddles close to her, protectively, as the wind kicks up. A simple nod he gives her in answer to the first question. To the rest he says, "I dont know where we are."
Another wind swirls around the pair, from the opposite direction as the first. This one is hot, dry like the first, a taste of deserts baked by the sun in it. Like the first, dust rises a little before the wind fades away.
Sepdet sniffs the air, confused. ~That is the breath of my home.~ She gets to her feet carefully, slipping a hand into her friend's and scanning the horizon. ~The world here is all one open road. Strange to feel lost.~ She looks again towards the darker ridgeline in the grey distance.
Joseph squints against the oppressive wind. His hand slips easily into the Strider's, holding it surely. His eyes scan as well, and he veers the two in a certain direction where the dark edge tapers green.
The two winds come again, each from their own direction. Swirling around the pair but this time not touching them, the only evidence of the confrontation is the dust circling counterclockwise around the pair, and the sudden rushing sound of air as it circles. Once again, the winds settle, after leaving a small mound of dust to one side, scooped out of a hole across the pair from the dust. Errant breezes play behind the two, circling around each other in a tiny circle as water seeps up into the newly made hole.
Sepdet watches the dust-eddy with wide eyes: it is something she has not seen since childhood, when she danced on the high desert with her pack. She moves towards the disturbed ground uncertainly, sneezing as she sniffs for danger.
Joseph lets a faint smile toy with his features for a moment as he watches the 'little wind dance', a sight he too was familiar with as a child of the badlands. He remains standing as Sepdet investigates.
Unseen Presence pages: Which disturbed ground are you moving towards? There's currently four pieces of interesting terrain, the dust pile, the wind circle, the water, and the green patch. :)
You paged Unseen Presence with 'The hole beyond the little pile of dust, with the water seeping up into it.'.
From afar, to Joseph and Sepdet, Unseen Presence makes a diamond with you two in the middle. Wind circle on one point, water hole (small, only about two palms'-width wide) on one, opposite the wind the green patch in the distance, and the dust that got left from the hole all the way opposite it. :)
Water continues, slowly, to fill the hole. When the water is precisely even with the dusty ground around it, it appears to stop, as no overflow at all occurs. The winds continue to circle around each other, sometimes bringing a swirl of dust up to define each of the breezes, sometimes only visible by the continuing disturbance on the ground from the motion of the air.
Sepdet looks down unflinching at the reflection, seeking grey sky and avoiding the sight of her own face. She kneels, peering down into the tiny natural water-bowl.
A mountain peak, snow capping it with green beneath, is briefly reflected in the water pool, a bare glimpse of it before only the uncaring grey sky is visible once more.
Joseph seems to follow the little eddies of air, and turns a circle, eyes going from the tiny mound of dust to the pool, and then the wind. As he comes back around to face Sepdet, his eyes glitter. "The four. But where is fire?"
Sepdet blinks up from the little patch of water and looks around searchingly. ~Don't know. There was a mountain in the glass, there--~ she points at the water. ~With even snow on it. This isn't the Wheel. But it has memories of it.~ She shivers again. ~You've kept the fire burning, my friend? You haven't let it go out, while I've been gone?~
Joseph shakes his head slowly as an wisp of hot wind tickles the back of his neck. "The fire burns. We tend it for our Keeper." There's a tenderness in his eyes.
Sepdet smiles a little. ~I shouldn't doubt. I have Burns-bright and you to watch over it. But it is hard to know what's happening out there, when I am down locked in these walls.~ She looks around at the wide-open emptiness belying her words.
From afar, Joseph is reminded of a very powerful episode of Beauty and the Beast by your @doing, and even by your IC situation.
Long distance to Joseph: Sepdet oooos. I'd love to see. One where Catherine was stuck down in the tunnels, alone, at some point?
Joseph pages: The one I was reminded of is part of a series that ended the second season. Vincent is at the mirror pool, and father comes. they are afraid that a reporter is about to expose Vincent's existance. So Vincent is the one hiding. Its his relationship with Catherine thats endangered them all., and he's brooding over not being able to do anything. Father comments that 'this' (meaning his relationship with Catherine) has been a wonderful dream, but this (the tunnels, underground) is his home. Vincent says. 'No father, ..this is my tomb.'
You paged Joseph with 'Aiiie. And it feels like a tomb to Sepdet, because the last time she was held underground this long was a tomb, when the Dancers bound her and made her sleep in the coffin of a dead man.'.
Sepdet rises to her feet and advances more cautiously towards the gusting wind, holding her fingers curled in the air before her like a child reaching to catch falling leaves. She halts with each step, uncertain as a deer in an open meadow.
As Sepdet reaches the winds, fingers extending almost into the tight-circling breezes, both suddenly rise in power and strength, engulfing the pair of Garou. Dust heated by the one wind and chilled to ice-cold by the other is driven against Garou skin, winds shrieking loudly. In the cold gibbers threats, warnings. In the heated breeze is a seductive whisper beneath the shrieking, a tempting invitation, offering power to destroy the cold even as it drives now-glowing dust against the ears that it caresses.
Sepdet flinches back, snarling at the air, scolding it in spirit's tongue. *Stop that, both of you, stop quarrelling. I've faced ice and fire. Behave, be balanced in some measure, or you'll wreck everything.*
Joseph writhes against the wind, twisting, and trying to protect his body from the stings. A soft growl is his only answer to the whispers.
The winds both cease for a single moment, a holding of the world's breath that is released in a redoubling of the fury of the winds. There are sounds, the wailing of tortured voices, behind the winds. *Free us! Free us! Free us!* And then, a clap of thunder sounds, harsh, powerful, commanding; the winds vanish, abruptly, not even their playful circle remaining.
Sepdet dances back, giving Joseph an unhappy glance. ~Did you hear that?~ She shudders and circles around. ~Even the winds are caged. But they're dangerous. I didn't like what either of them had to say, threats or bribes.~
Joseph wipes his face with an uneasy hand as he draws a breath. Nodding to Sepdet, his eyes scan the surroundings again as if searching for the place the wind escaped to.
Between one glance and another, the pool of water is reduced a little in size, the mound of dust crumbled, smoothed a little, less of a marring of the curve of the bowl formed by this place between the hills.
Sepdet moves around the circle as if still going through the motions of Keeping the Wheel, and drops to her knees in the dust before the dry ashy echo of the earth mound she misses. She reaches to bury her hands in the dirt.
The dust, disturbed by the hands touching it, runs between Sepdet's fingers, smoothing even more into the featureless, bland bowl around.
From afar, to Joseph and Sepdet, Unseen Presence realizes slowly that only the pool of water is still untouched by Sepdet, and also the only thing still unmarred from the original things standing. Ooof.
Sepdet closes her eyes, whispering something. ~Sands slip past my eyes, like stars on Nut's dark breast....~
Sepdet says, ~Do I see? Do I see? Which is the color of dawn, and which of dusk?~
Sepdet says, ~Sands slip through my fingers, like old names and faces I cannot know...~
Sepdet says, ~Do I know, do I know? When is night over, when the den is your only sky?~
Joseph's eyes glitter darkly as he takes in Sepdet's speech, but he offers no answer.
Sepdet gets up suddenly, and walks back to her friend. ~Let's get away from here. I want to go to the mountains. It's green over there.~ She doesn't look back at the water.
Joseph follows Spedet past the little representation of a Wheel and heads towards the dark visage of green without a hesitation.
Sepdet flickers and shifts thoughtlessly down to jackal's guise, kicking up the dust and running just at the edge of the speed her friend could reach. Perhaps he could not keep level with her, in the real world, but this is dream.
+shift lupus
Sepdet contorts and blurs as she is transformed.
You shift into Lupus form.
The run seems to take hours, and yet is done almost immediately. Far, far behind, in the center of the grey bowl, the tiny pool of water is slowly covered over by dust, erasing any signs of the primitive symbols of the Wheel.
l
Random location(#3155RFJ)
Large trees reach upwards, hiding the grey sky, dark black in near darkness. The light here is a sickly green, coming from the lichen tucked into folds and breaks in the bark of the great trees. The branches only start some fifty feet into the air, and thus the birds and flying squirrels float between the trunks without interruption. Something about the birds is slightly twisted, but in the darkness, mere shadows as they are, it is impossible to define what. Old needles line the forest floor, and small dead leaves from the struggling bushes and plants scattered among the huge trunks of the trees.
Contents:
Joseph
Unseen Presence
Sepdet scampers in among the shadows gratefully, but soon stops, pressing back against her friend and whining. Her eyes show whites as she sniffs the smells and takes in the feel of this forest not her own. It's sick! Soulcatcher, it's sick!
Sepdet whimpers in betrayal, cringing at a threat more felt than seen. She looks around at the rustling, uneasy forest in dismay.
Joseph at first does not see what Sepdet sees. He looks at her with confusion as his run comes to a stop, eyes scanning the trees and life around him. Slowly, the expression on his face changes.
Joseph reaches forward to touch one of the trees, connect his rhythm with its own as he has done countless times in his life.
From the surrounding darkness, from the air above, come quiet rustlings, half-sinister in the silence. Far in the distance, the tiny shriek of a mouse caught in an owl's talons sounds, even as, suddenly, a snake rises out of the dimness, in front of a patch of glowing lichen. It hisses, head darting forward as though to attack, and vanishes before the strike is finished.
Sepdet twitches and shudders, ears flickering wildly as she presses close to her friend's heels. Then pride breaks behind her eyes, and she draws herself up stoutly, yipping a soft challenge to the dry gray sky between the trees' rattling web of branches. *Hope is here, and he-who-rescues-souls! Wake up, forest! Wake up, sky! This is no time for death and dust! Gaia is alive still, and you have only to live, to know it!*
*Hope,* comes the single word in a second shriek of a mouse. Lower, a rustling of the leaves of the trees now, *Sepdetsepdetsepdet freefreefree.* In tandem with this, the green light suddenly reflects of dozens of pairs of eyes, some small, some very large, in a circle around the two Garou.
Joseph blinks, flinching as he turns at each of the eerie eyes circling them.
Sepdet's tail lashes, unsure yet if this is good or bad. Her ears and nose continue to scan the waking forest as she sniffs the air, quivering with strained excitement. *Is that all, my friends? Did you merely need someone to remind you? Why was the forest sick? Is it free, now?*
Sepdet makes a furtive dart towards a pair of eyes that seem friendliest, trying to see what lies behind them in the shadows.
The circle bows outwards, the creatures withdrawing as Sepdet approaches. From behind her, one voice, harsh with broken pain, hisses, *Free. Death is the only hope. Die with us, Hope. Die with us, rescuer of souls. Death is the only truth. Die with us. Be free.*
Joseph is more skeptical than Sepdet, and stands his ground, wary of the eyes beforre him. At the speech, he whirls, eyes blazing with defiance.
Sepdet blinks and pulls back, ears tilting in dismay. No, not yet... I can't. My dead friends must wait for me. I die for the Wheel, and not for you, not even for you, forest.
Restlessly, all of the eyes bob downwards, or rise upwards, just a little. The harsh, pained voice goes on. *Freefreefree. Death is freedom. The dead wait for none. The dead are free.*
Sepdet shakes her head violently. *You still have green leaves. You still have your lives. As long as one spark of green is left, you can renew. Listen to me! Even in the dust, the seeds are growing. And you have a whole forest here! Live, my friends!*
*Rescuer-of-souls. Die with us. Free us. Free yourself. The dead pass into the freedom of Gaia. There you will find souls to rescue. Death is the only truth. Come to us.*
Sepdet's hackles raise and she drops back into place at her friend's side, glaring daggers at the eyes that plead.
Joseph gives a growl as they call to him, his hackles rising. To Sepdet, he snarls, ~Despair.~ and instinctively a taloned hand swipes forward as he shifts. Using the speech, he yells, *I will not!*
Sepdet whuffs without ire, without pity. *When death comes, it is an end. It is not freedom. It is a soul that can no longer dance the joys and hurts and fruits of this world. Look at yourselves. You are dying, already. And do you feel free? Look at me. Look at Soulcatcher. I am more alive now than I was a moment ago, and both of us are free. Dare to live, as we do.*
Behind the harsh voice, a new pair of eyes opens, hovering crinos-height above the others, lined with green lichen which illuminates nothing but glows in an eye-twisting pattern across a Garou's body. *Live as you do? Are _you_ free? Hope is caged.* The voice from this one is disdainful, contemptuous, a part of the wind that springs up as the eyes open and the pattern begins to glow. *Pandora's box has closed on you, Hope. And he-who-rescues-souls has caged himself with you. Die, and you shall be free of your cage. Will our cousins cease their hunt for you before then?*
+shift crinos
Sepdet contorts and blurs as she is transformed.
You shift into Crinos form.
Joseph contorts and blurs as he is transformed.
Joseph pauses, his form losing its continuity and twisting into Crinos form.
Harsh, mocking laughter drifts through the wind. *Hope has died, and despair doubled is left. Shall we dance, cousin?*
Soulcatcher snarls up inot the face of the Wyrm, ~As long as I defy you, I have no cage!~
Sepdet's expression falters at the question, and she takes refuge in a stronger stance, clawed hands going to her fists at her sides. *Is death at the Wyrm's hands freedom? No, little ones--* she ignores the size of the sneering presence-- *No. Freedom is living in the hope of it, dreaming stars in the sky though your own is gray dead stone, dreaming the forest around you which you cannot see, smell, touch. Freedom is having friends such as this one who will harry the Dancers at their own game, and knowing that there is still a chance you will be going back into life, your own forest.*
Along with the wind the dark Crinos flashes through the clearing surrounded by the glowing eyes, barely seen save in a dark form surrounded by the glowing sigil on his skin. Two claw slashes decorate each of the pair before it vanishes into the darkness once more, turning back to give another mocking laugh, a snarl behind it. *Then you _do_ think our cousins will leave you. That yon Soul-Rescuer is not caged with you by his own friendship.*
Sepdet dodges back too late, and whips the air in an empty counter slash. Bracing against rage and fear, she brushes Joseph's hand lightly with two claws, a strange caress silently warning him to stay back, stay safe.
Soulcatcher's howl of rage follows the wind as he's pushed back a step. He stand shis ground as the Strider makes her intent for him known, offering nothing further than a frustrated hiss.
There is a pause in the rushing wind, in the rustling of leaves; when they resume, the voice is almost thoughtful despite the mocking. *So you continue your defiance.*
Sepdet lifts her chin. *Taunts and threats, sweet forest. This is the freedom the enemy gives you, who is sapping your strength with despair and decay and neglect. All of you together are strong enough to drive it out! Drive out the sickness! Listen to us, and snatch hope's egg from Phoenix's fire.*
Sepdet turns her back pointedly and deliberately on the mocking presence.
Across from the glowing Garou form, but also in darkness, is yet another pair of eyes. Only inches higher than Sepdet's human form, these are gold, not the green of the others; above them, a cool, soothing blue light illuminates nothing again, a tiny point that lights some three feet of air. The laugh from this one is warm, though no more familiar than the dark mocker, mature female to mature male. ~Hope through defiance, defiance through hope. Fear and freedom are what you make of them, Sepdet.~ Lichen falls off a tree to the Garou's right, darkening already, the sickly light vanishing. With the lowering of the green light, a small lightening of the dimness can be seen at the tops of the trees above. The smaller of the two figures moves with the same speed as the earlier attacker, past without even a glimpse at the two, to tackle the larger, still-glowing Garou. Both vanish along with the circle of eyes. A bare instant later, and the trees themselves vanish into the darkness of true sleep, a faint scent of a rose accompanying them.
Sepdet grasps at the dream's shreds a moment longer, the forest and a friend's hand. Then she turns over and nestles more tightly against her brother's shoulder, whispering into his ear. ~Stands defiant.~