Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Re: Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Postby Guppy » Wed Nov 20, 2013 4:04 pm

Niall's wary stare was noted by the creature, her worth was measured and noted, but her attention did not remain on the sorceress for long. Not long at all.

It was not foolish enough not to notice the vague threat behind the entity's hollow voice. The distaste bubbled around her, echoing within her mind. The anger suffused her being like thick fog on a chilled morning. Though, how was she to rebel against this force? This unknown voice with no perceivable weakness? Niall planned to destroy it and the cursed labyrinth that housed it, but that destruction would not bring Giuseppe back to the creature. So, it settled on being sullen.

It told her to release Niall's frame and the creature faltered. "To be completely honest, I am not at all certain what would happen if I did leave. I might just return to the whelp," she retorted, simply. "Besides," she mused, a faint tug upon the bond she shared with Niall, "what is to stop you from killing her without me to stop you? I can't abandon her to your slimy hands."
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Re: Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Postby Rance » Thu Nov 21, 2013 5:14 pm

To Niall:

YOUR SPEAR HAS HESITATED TO STRIKE. DO YOU DOUBT YOUR OWN DESIRE TO DESTROY, WHETHER IT BE MY [our] WALLS OR MY [our] BEASTS? I [we] DICTATE NOTHING; YOU ARE AN AGENT OF YOUR OWN ACTIONS, INGENUE.

The tiger's whiskers flicked. The pinked dough of its nose softened. Its ears shifted as if lofted on the faintest waves. Its muscles had hardened into stone, and though its breath billowed from jowls and nostrils as if they were the chimneys of some black-soot mill, it did nothing but watch and stare.

SHALL YOU CREATE A QUARREL TO JUSTIFY [support, strengthen] YOUR NOBLE INTENT? SHALL YOU, LIKE OTHERS, BRING BATTLE TO MY SANCTUARY?


To It:

HERE YOU ARE BOUND BY MY [our] LAWS AND MY [our] LAWS ALONE. A CIRCLE OF GREAT AND UNBROKEN INFLUENCE SURROUNDS US. YOU WILL RETURN TO NOTHING UNLESS I [we] DEEM IT, FOR YOU HAVE, BY CHOICE, INTRUDED AND LEFT YOUR APTITUDES AT THE THRESHHOLD. BUT DEATH?

DEATH IS NOT MY [our] EXPERTISE. I [we] AM [are] A MARSHALL OF SCALES AND BALANCES. LITTLE MORE. WHAT DEATHS [destructions, eliminations] WERE PERFORMED HERE CAME AT THE HANDS OF FELLOW PRISONERS, INTERLOPER. I [we] CARE NOTHING FOR DEATH.

YOU ENDANGER HER MORE THAN I [we] EVER CAN.
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Re: Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Postby Guppy » Sat Dec 07, 2013 10:14 am

There was a hesitation and it was palpable. The voice seemed to be getting through to her, backing her into a corner. The question was - how important was this to the creature? Was Giuseppe more important than Niall's possible fate? More important than leaving her current host, magic coursing through her veins? It had taken such a long time to get to this point. Niall had hidden her magic away until just recently. This partnership had just come into bloom, soon to yield bountiful fruit. Potential, untapped power beyond her dreams. But, the voice held the dark one's story and would not yield it to her unless she gave in. Unless she allowed the sorceress to be whole again. There was a possibility that Giuseppe's fate was sealed and it would be a shame to lose her hold on the girl. Though, there were other plans, other paths along this road she traveled. Berdini remained, awaiting her parasitic hold, eager to hear her thoughts echo in his mind.

It was that thought that decided her. There was a brief, affectionate caress against Niall's mind before the creature was slipping away. A large, dark cloud of entropic energy seeped from her limbs and it was likely that she felt whole for the first time in weeks. No foreign entity made her sluggish and her thoughts were her own. It was, perhaps, a little quiet. A little lonely.

The gaseous entity began to come together, coalescing into a simple, womanly human shape. Fine, you win. It was more a pulse of meaning than true words as the creature chose her form. Niall knew that it was not a phantom of her once and true form. Niall knew exactly what the creature was, even if no one else did.
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Re: Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Postby Jirai » Sat Dec 07, 2013 10:50 am

Her eyes were narrowed, mouth opening to respond - until everything changed.

The demon left, leaving Niall alone in her body as she had not been in months. The shock was enough to set the girl wavering on her feet, the waiting magic dissipating in her surprise. Not that it was an unpleasant surprise, not at all. Just a complete shock and it would be several moments before the tattooed young woman steadied herself, dark eyes flickering from the striped beasts to the false phantasm - and wasn't that choice of form interesting? - of the demon and back.

Niall knew exactly what the demon was. The voice, on the other hand, was a different matter. Her stance still wary, battle-ready, her gaze split between the tigers and that which had earlier been in her head, Niall continued speaking in her own tongue.

"What are you?"
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Re: Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Postby Rance » Sat Dec 07, 2013 10:52 am

IT

VICTORY IS FOR CHILDREN AND FOOLS.

As It's vaporous form came together into legs, knees, torso, and skull, a wisp of light awakened in the distance, well beyond the circle of silence and tension where the spearwielder and the tigers stood poised in front of one another. The mote hovered and danced in the air like the tail of a lightning bug forgotten by the summer, lost too amid the hedges and the mirrors.

Then, like a glowing arrow, the fragment of light shot toward It, trajectory intentionally misdirected; the light launched in an arc over her shoulder and lanced off into the distance behind. Radiance ebbed, highlighting a mirror not so far away. The light-seed's reflection in the mirror promised a collision. When the droplet of sickly green struck the silvery glass, a thousand minute cracks sprawled like a spider's webbing through the surface--

--and instead of bursting, exploding, or spraying out, the mirror crumbled into a pool of mercury on the hard Golben earth, revealing a simple, wooden door in the same shape as the mirror, as if the hinges had been driven into an invisible wall.

COME WITH ME [us] INTO ANOTHER TIME. THE INGENUE WILL HAVE HER OWN VISIONS TO SEE.

Beyond the door, a muffled voice echoed through the gray planks, called forth from an unseen grave.

"Closure, yes? Isn't that what we all want here? An end to a story gone wrong. What strange authors, we. What strange authors, we."

Giuseppe.

NIALL

I [we] AM [are] NOT WHAT YOU WOULD EXPECT. LOOK INTO YOUR VEINS AND SEE WHAT I [we] HAVE ACCOMPLISHED ONLY WITH WORDS, WHERE OTHER CREATURES [beings, beasts] MIGHT HAVE MORE READILY ACTED WITH DESTRUCTIVE POWER.

Her freedom given. Her body returned to her.

At another glance, the tigers before her stood as still as death, never moved, never breathed -- their skin had faded into a colorless blur of marbled stone, their eyes unseeing. A different door behind a fallen mirror, awaiting her hand.

YOU OWE ME [us] YOUR ATTENTION. DEPART YOUR PARASITE AND LET US SPEAK PRIVATELY.
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Re: Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Postby Guppy » Sun Dec 08, 2013 7:08 am

And winners. The creature quipped slyly, in response to the disembodied voice.

Niall's giddy relief at the loss was delayed by the curious feeling the demon's abandonment. The low whine of readied magics, like iron against one's molars, vanished in an instant as the woman swayed on her feet. The creature's phantasmal frame writhed and gathered itself until a woman, ever sleek of frame, appeared solid. The woman held a beauty almost otherworldly, but nothing so fantastic as the elvenfolk that frequented these lands. Her waist was slim, muscles lithe, and she appeared in the attire she most loved - laced bodice, snug leather pants, and high boots. There were more gems and golden trinkets scattered about her frame than most queens could boast. Ebon, flowing locks that looked impossibly soft, braided in intricate patterns and hanging down her back. A glance over her shoulder towards the staggered Niall revealed that the demon's eyes were not human, but slitted as a serpent's. A smattering of scales cast across her temples. Full lips quirked in a smile, narrow snake-tongue darting between them in impish gesture.

Her slitted gaze was caught and held by the light in the darkness. A sickly light that darted towards her and over a shoulder. An unperturbed gaze followed it towards the mirror and from there, it shifted into a plain door. Eyes narrowed as that, more familiar, voice called through the door.

Giuseppe.

She spared another brief glance for Niall. "We will meet again, Niall. Stay vigilant," she warned, before her boots turned towards the door and she sought to cross that threshold without a gaze spared backwards.

Giuseppe awaited and she would not disappoint.
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Re: Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Postby Jirai » Sun Dec 08, 2013 12:31 pm

On occasion, Niall made wildly irrational decisions, ones that she would later look back upon in horror or with pleasure, depending on their outcome. Agreeing to Gloria's asinine idea involving the demon currently sporting a rather human - though scaled - form was one of those moments.

Opening the door was another.
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Re: Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Postby Rance » Mon Dec 09, 2013 1:02 am

IT

The door vanished behind her, and this was a different world altogether.

Golben. But not as she knew it. Hedges were dying in their final summer blooms, ushering in the throes of autumn. Warmth was a weight in the air, moist and heavy, the last desperate vestiges of a hot sun-season. The sky above was as blue as polished turquoise. This could have been any hedge-garden, a royal strolling grounds for those of long gowns and waistcoats, but the weeds had grown overlong in the shadows of the thickets. The earth was ungroomed, patches of occasionall yellow grass sprouting like sickly hands from the flattened earth below her feet.

HIS LIFE [existence, being] CONTINUED FOR FOURTEEN MINUTES, SIXTEEN SECONDS, AND TWENTY-THREE FRACTIONS PAST THIS VERY MOMENT. YOU STAND IN HISTORY, INTERLOPER, BUT I [we] STAND EVERYWHERE.

In the air in front of It, humming from a distant vibration, was a golden line of thread. Down the hedges, it was tied to the occasional branch, offering it tension. Up the hedges, it shook, carrying echoes of motion from its distant weaver down its length. It disappeared around a nearby corner.

YOU PERCEIVE TIME FROM A POINT OF ORIGIN TO ONE OF TERMINATION. YOUR LIFE [existence, being] IS PORTIONED INTO SMALLER AND SMALLER UNITS OF THIS VERY SAME CONCEPT. I HAVE BENT THIS SEQUENCE OF EVENTS FOR YOU BACK UPON ITSELF THAT YOU MAY OBSERVE [witness, spectate].

Conversation chimed in the distance.

"My decisions," the seamstress said, "are not always the most informed. And my character--" her voice higher, thrown like a stone, "--is to be defined by me, and me alone. I am not your Junior Inquisitor anymore, Giuseppe. I've said to you my last good morning. Here, whether we were governors, advisers, or stupid children with -- with too many toys to break no longer matters."


The goading whisper in It's conscience continued to speak.

AND THIS BEGS THE QUESTION [inquiry]: THOUGH YOU PERCEIVE YOURSELF HERE, IN THE SAME PLACE WHERE HIS DEATH OCCURRED, WERE YOU THERE AT ALL? CAN YOU HAVE ANY EFFECT UPON IT?

MAY FATES BE REWRITTEN IF HISTORY ITSELF IS NEWLY EMBROIDERED ON THE FABRIC OF TIME?

NIALL

The door vanished behind her, and this was a different world altogether.

A chamber as dark as a fading dream, though some errant specter of light illuminated her surroundings and was refracted through a thousand faces of blown glass. Around Niall, perched on bending shelves like ready soldiers, were bottles, flasks, and decanters of all different colors -- verdant green, smoky brown, desolate blue, some magnifying the visions behind them in distorted, bulging shapes. It was not a large room, nor was it impressive in scope. Dust danced in the air, each stranger like an aimless insect. On long tables occupied by countless bottles, some as short as hands and others as long as spears, there were candles that had half-melted into lazy puddles, wax dripping like over-extended fingers off the splintered edges of long-rotten wood.

At a central table -- its one leg propped up by books of inconsequential title -- sat hunched a figure, the bulge in its spine as bulbous as some of the bottles displayed. The head was nearly bald, smoothed by age into a round, monkish sphere.

"Most people only see the containers for the drinks within them," rattled a quiet voice, the head never turning to Niall. "But our eyes dictate our tastes before our tongue ever can. Our eyes are drawn first by the symmetry, by the glasswork, by even the design of the stopper chosen to keep air separate from liquid.

"Have you ever blown glass into a bottle before?"
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Re: Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Postby Guppy » Mon Dec 09, 2013 3:02 am

The beauty with serpent eyes, serpent scales scattered like decoration across her skin, stepped through that threshold of the unknown. The glance she gave the door was almost annoyed as she passed through to the hedge row beyond. The creature gazed upon the silence of this place, the brilliance of sky above. Time had slipped backwards and late summer was the season, again. The time when they had ventured into the depths of Golben. She recalled the letter she had received from Giuseppe, his version of a farewell. She recalled how empty she felt in that moment, the fires of fury licking at her soul for lack of anything else. A heel came down on a tuft of yellow grass to grind it into submission.

A brow lofted as she took note of the golden, shining thread pulled taut and humming with vibration. The voices came, that most-hated voice speaking to the dark one, from ahead. Her boots moved, one foot in front of the other, hips rolling with the sleek agility of the tigers she'd left behind. Her fingers attempted to catch hold gently of the thread - forefinger and thumb, following it forward. When she reached the corner, taunted by the words of the unseen entity, she would grin and seek to wrap her fist around the thread quite suddenly.

And pull with great force.

Well, they would see if she could bring about change. Very quickly.
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Re: Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Postby Jirai » Mon Dec 09, 2013 11:08 am

Niall considered her new surroundings with a careful, detached gaze, dark eyes flickering over bottle after bottle before settling on the figure hunched at the table. She had no idea what this - the room, the bottles - had to do with anything. Arms folded across her chest, she considered the figure for a moment longer before answering with a shake of her head.

"No. Never."

For that matter, she had no idea what blowing glass entailed.
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Re: Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Postby Rance » Tue Dec 10, 2013 5:38 am

IT

When she pulled, she might have felt the golden thread, smeared as it was by a seamstress' black sweat; It might have sensed the tension in the line, linked as it was to various branches of the hedges down the intersecting path. But when she tugged, pulled with all her might, her digits passed right through, leaving little more than the whisper of a wind dancing across the embroidery thread.

ACTION ITSELF IS NOT THE ONLY CRITERION [precept, requirement] FOR CHANGE. THIS THREAD IS HERE AND IS MEANT TO REMAIN HERE.


Just around the corner, now, more voices -- It was so near to them, enough that perhaps she could make out the familiarity of Giuseppe's smooth accent, Gloria Wynsee's raspy voice, and that of another man challenging the Southerner's words.

"Suffering as virtue. One's value weighed by how much one has lost. That's a very Myrken Wood way of seeing things, sir. You've gone native, hm?"


Cinnabar Calomel's sentence had scarcely ended before Golben continued.

TUG THAT THREAD ALL YOU DESIRE [wish, want]. WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO DO [accomplish, achieve] HERE, INTERLOPER? HOW DO YOU PROPOSE YOU MAY CHANGE WHAT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED? GO TO THEM. WITNESS HIS DEATH.

WHY CARE YOU FOR ONE SIMPLE LIFE LOST IN THE EQUITABLE PERFORMANCE OF JUSTICE?


NIALL

"Then come, girl. Come learn.

"Breath is essential for life," the huddled figure explained, his voice a wet collaboration of tongue and jowls. "When our lungs cease to function, when our throat is constricted, we come to an end. Likewise, we wait for the first sign of breath from a newborn. We wait for it to breathe, sometimes strike it to encourage it to suck in its first gasp of air."

He turned his cheek to look over her. There was only one source of true light in the cellar: in front of him, a small cast-iron pot hovered over a closely-contained fire, and in it was a glowing, super-heated mass of radiant, burning fluid, not unlike molten lead. His shoulders pulsed and his elbows knocked against his ribs as he stirred it with a great steel dowel, hollow through its center, yet able to withstand the liquified--

"Glass," he explained, finally turning to look at her. "We breathe into glass. We shape it with breath. We bring it to life."

Finally, he looked up from his work. But where his eyes should have been, there were two perfectly round holes, each plugged by a crumbling cork like those used in the thousands of decanters shelved around them.

"Grab that stool," he informed, jutting his chin over toward a footstool in the corner. "And then I'll show you how to create something beautiful."
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Re: Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Postby Guppy » Tue Dec 10, 2013 12:35 pm

The golden thread was caught, rolled gently between her fingers. Subtlety certainly not her forte, she reached out to take hold of the thin filament to tug it away from the young woman around the corner. Only, that did not happen. Her fingers passed through the solid object as if they were mere wisps of smoke. Eyes narrowed and lips thinned with exasperation. She sneered at the voice that echoed around her, hands gathering into fists at her side. She stalked forward, taking note of the multiple voices ahead of her.

One enemy, one friend (or at least an ally), one unknown.

She came around the corner, pausing a moment to take in the man who held her affections. She held breath that she did not need captive in her lungs. A moment's time for her eyes to hold what might very well be the last vision of him she would see, before moving forward.

Again, there was tension in her spine as she stalked forward with the purpose of a woman approaching combat. She made way towards the man she'd come all this way for, seeking to whisper into his ear. Without touching him. "You are a fool for coming here. What use do you have for heroics and martyrdom?," she demanded, she hissed. He might not have been able to hear her, but she needed to say it.
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Re: Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Postby Jirai » Wed Dec 11, 2013 10:26 am

Niall's curiosity is a passive thing, one that has her listening and watching quietly. Watching the glasses on the shelves, the fire and the glowing fluid within, the creature - no man, not with eyes like that - that spoke to her.

Equally passive - and uncharacteristic - is her acceptance of... his? its? directions. A stool pulled over as instructed. It is a passivity that is belied by the intense interest sparked in her eyes by those last words.

Creation.
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Re: Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Postby Rance » Thu Dec 12, 2013 9:41 am

IT

When she turned the corner, she would have seen them all--

Giuseppe, the Southerner, in his garments of crisp white, leading with ever-present composure, weaving his way at the apex of a triangle comprised of two other figures: one, Gloria Wynsee, the seamstress, who traced behind them that shining thread from between her gritty fingertips; the other, Cinnabar Calomel, with his presence of poise and purpose, lending his company more to the younger girl than to the white-clad figure leading them.

Only Gloria and Cinnabar wore equipment of any worth. The girl was weighed down like a mule, a woven coverlet-roll crossing from one shoulder to the opposite hip, a skillet knocking against her knee, and -- dangling from her needlework satchel -- a dagger with a mirrorglass edge. Cinnabar bore a traveling pack stuffed full with his various necessities, the sign of a prepared excursionist. Like compatriots, the two shared a waterskin.

It tried to speak to him, but the words never became more than a whisper against the heat. She was an intangible object here, scarcely a notion or a memory.

HE CAME HERE, Golben answered, BECAUSE BALANCE MUST BE STRUCK. HE CAME TO KILL SHE WHO CREATED [designed, fabricated] A SECOND LIFE FOR HIM. A STORYTELLER. A WEAVER [creator, architect] OF TALES.

HE DID NOT SUCCEED.

A pause.

WILL YOU?


NIALL

As Niall pulled the stool over to him, the hunkered glassblower shifted his pocked wrists around the dowel, mixing more of the slag as it simmered, scoring the edges of the cast-iron container for any little remnants of sand that had not yet reduced in the flames to brilliant liquid.

"Together, we're going to make something. It may seem simple to you, but the need," he said, "is great.

"Balance must be struck," the bottlemaker crooned, unhanding his tools enough to begin sifting through his pockets with a great many curious grasps, as if each time he was just missing closing on what it was he desired. Eyeless, the corks shifted as the muscles behind them twitched and gazed about, an analogue for eyes that no longer existed. Then, when his fingers closed upon something, his dry-lipped smile crawled across his face, a cheerful eel slithering from one dimple to another.

"If I were to offer you the opportunity to construct a prison, would you," he asked. "To your precepts, to your standards and expectations. A very specific prison, one given life by your thoughts and fingers and breath.

"No bars, no hedges, no pits or weapons. Just a cork," he said, examining her, all her height and structure, all her stoicism, all her azure.

"Would you?"
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Re: Catch a tiger by the tail: Into Golben

Postby Jirai » Fri Dec 13, 2013 10:56 am

Balance must be struck.

That was true, one of the truths that ruled Niall's world. Balance between what was the question. She watched, dark eyes capturing every last detail of the scene. She watched as he watched - without eyes - her in turn. As he asked his question.

And for that question, there was a sharp, negating shake of her head.

"A prison. No. Why would I construct such a thing?"
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