Trance of Ternion

[Tolleson]

Zinniah. Even Genny had memories of the child, though they weren’t her own. Curious though that he thinks of his daughter, even so slightly, and she’ll find it in her mind too. Fine threads of memory tugging gently back and forth like bell pulls.

Amused as he may be, she hadn’t held him here or forced him to stay. In fact, he had been her first choice, not because she cared more for Lamai, in many ways the opposite was true. Zilliah knew her mind better, he had been there before and then too, at the moment it all had changed. Somewhere the faint imprint of a memory played, Glenn's voice recommending Lamai, and her words, her choice to seek Zilliah.

Perhaps she did fear loving him, loving anyone. She feared many things. But chief among them was herself.

Rather than deflect the comment or simply refute it outright she looks to Elliot; the two of them are chaos in two very different ways. But she was grounding, she was reason. A counterbalance to their chaos. She has been purpose, care, patience, kindness, and the sinking hope that yet clung despite overwhelming fear. Regardless of the changing landscape that had become her, she is still these things. Wasn’t she?

The red of her hair bled to green, her eyes changed to clouds and her body fell away to the verdant landscape of the dream. The black, stallions clouds roared through the sky growing larger and more deformed as they neared, a great cacophony of thunder as their furious lightning split the sky. Surely this is where her troubles lay.

Despite her submission the green grass of her once hair began to turn, slowly it would change like fall colors upon lush summer leaves. At first it was speckled golden yellow, and orange, then deeper and deeper to an entire field of true, bloody red. But it did not stop. Like leaves in fall mottled with dew and brown spots, patches of silver grew. Until all that was once the land of her body became a flat and perfect mirror of the boy, the fae, and the approaching dark clouds.

[Jirai]

Golden yellow faded to orange, reddened and browned and frosted over, and at each change strands of color peeled off and wove together, twisting and undulating into a length of stunning fabric whose patterns slid and twisted with each move of the wearer. Skirts billowed in the stormy wind, but above them, the veil that hid her face was utterly still and the gentle chiming of tiny bells underscored the crash of thunder.

Genny is purpose and care, patience and kindness. She always has been.

So was Rhaena, once.

[Pantha]

The fae takes the boy's lead but somewhere above them, above all of them, the eye is watching. The third eye on his brow seems to grow as it widens and frantically twitches in the socket to watch the dark beasts circle. The void, lavender sockets still stare blindly towards Elliot as he molds his Genny and whips the stallions into a fury.

Horses, it had to be horses. Elliot would find a commonality shared between the landscape Genny and the fae who stands upon her – neither are fond of horses. Behind him, his wings begin to spread and grow, blood-gold pumping into them like a newly hatched cicada or mayfly as they unfurl instead of appearing in a flash of light as is the case in waking hours. He is kneeling, on hand placed between his feet to touch the ground with his palm to feel the tremble of earth under heavy hoof and sooth it … her?

There is a frown on his face when he looks up from the dusty earth to Brown. It is not only her fears he must face, but his own. The thread of constant worry is plucked at even more at the sight of horses and as his thoughts still linger on his child, the black begins to bleed away into white on the stallion intended for him. It is the same color Clayton had chosen for the horses given to both Zilliah and his child. What had become of those fine gifts? How disappointed Clayton had been in his inability to bond with him...How disappointed his child has been, how all of them have been with him!

He looks up only once, the pupil of his third eye narrowing spitefully before he is stirred into action. His wings beat once, twice as the blood had filled the wilted veins rigid and strong. All ten flex only once more before he takes to the air after his stallion.

[Glenn]

Elliot Brown should fear. He should fear even more so than the other two. Here he was, his body stolen away. Did he really exist? Was he a soul or a mind? Was he just an afterimage, a whimsy, a dream? This had to do with Galacia Tarin, the dreamwitch who haunted the youth of every child in Myrken Wood, a bogeyman to drift alongside the Baie and now, the Fiend. Was he just a weapon of hers, a tool, a discarded trinket? Had Rhaena Olwak killed who he was? Was he just a death knell too stubborn to stop moaning and shaking?

All valid questions, and were he to stop to think about them even for a moment, it could crush whatever he remained to be. Thankfully, along with that stubbornness came a wonderful level of denial. He didn't want to care, so he didn't care and since he didn't care, he could ride on, eyes full of the same lightning as the black ethereal mare. For most, this repression at the heart of him would taint the work he tried to do here, but there was such a purity to Elliot Brown, such self-created obliviousness. He was a blade without tarnish, a shield that all things would bounce off of. He was a focus to channel Zilliah's power through, the emotional filter that could let the fae find purpose and direction. All he had to do was hang on for the ride.

So they began to ride through all that was Genny, through hearth and home, through youth and history, onward towards Myrken and towards the unique darkness that plagued her every moment. Such strange knights, these, for an even stranger princess, but fitting perhaps. Imperfect heroes for an imperfect quest.

[Tolleson]

Thunder rolled, summoned by Elliot and allowed by Genny and perhaps the Fae too. But the bells… No.

They were something different, their sweet tinkling song was not choice. It was compulsory, embedded far below the careful barrier she had built. Elliot had asked for her willingness, he sought out the root of her troubles, he meant to find her heart. And so she lay bare, her defense as dissolved as the projection of her body. Zilliah’s hand upon the ground that had become her, he might feel the thin but powerful membrane slip away – it was protection for her, protection for them and a sign of her trust. His gesture was kind, but there is not much that can settle the unease of opening the passages of her mind. Surely they could enter now, the passage as clear as a wide road on a bright day, the door open, freely, but how would they find their way?

They rode. They flew. They shot like an arrow through her, tearing past blood and death, Niall, Rhaena, her mother, her father, retrospective moments of guilt and self-pity, isolation, anger, fears and tears, some perhaps distractingly similar to the boy’s plight. There was Orvere, the beach, the battle, the difficult road to Myrken and the many terrifying nights since. Some memories carried more weight, they moved slower and had tendrils like hands that reached out. They grasped for remembering, they fought to hold the attentions of her mind, or in this case, of those that traveled through it. These are perils as they pass by. But even these are fleeting wisps whipping by with incredible speed. There were moments of brightness that reached out, mismatched in time with strange combinations of people and places, half remembered things, embellished stories, and the same several faces and voices of exact pinpoints, like magnets around major events. And then there are some memories of her. Not from her, but of her; impossible perspectives through the eyes of others and conflicting vantage points with muddled emotions. These are the heaviest, the slowest to pass, the most dense for all the information and memory they carried, the weight of the load inflicts it’s own sort of gravity. The heaviest yet appears before the riders, a nearly still image from the perspective of the crowd, of Genny upon the stage, defending a weak and weary Glenn. The outrage of several dozen minds, the mental and vocal scolding a muted cacophony, a drone of ambient noise.

“I forgive you,” Genny’s voice whispered loud enough to overcome them, the sound of the little bell no longer small. It was loud and bright, it was the lightning itself. But after striking the blinding light did not dissipate.

‘You're just a scared little farm-girl, Agnieszka. I forgive you.’



And then... do you remember yourself? You are Genny.



You are sitting on a comfortable couch, in a bright parlor. Your eyes are closed but you can still smell the tea on the table before you, feel the fabric under your fingers as your hands rest on your thighs. You feel the soft touch of a woman’s hand as it grazes your ear and you feel a gentle tug, you know she is braiding your hair.

Tiny bells chime so cheerfully, they are light and sweet, tangible to the tongue like sweet, little cakes and hot chocolate. You taste the sugar on your lips from the cake as she slips into you. Her gentleness is a lover’s kiss, and with ease she shared with you, her memories flick though your mind. But these are not still images or meaningless frames, you feel her heart and her happiness in the memories, you see the light as if you were there, you feel the fabric, smell the air. You love her. You love Glenn. It is not just a simple passing of words from one mind to another; in the sand of your mind she has left footprints. The passage through which she came is hers alone, and along it are the rooms filled with the memories she has shared. She is a part of you, a piece living within you; her life is now a part of yours.

And she is not the only one.

[Jirai]

Focus.

The touch of a hand, the taste of tea.

You will learn.

The scent of flowers, the gentle chime of bells.

Teach me.

‘You're just a scared little farm-girl, Agnieszka. I forgive you.’

"You learned so well, didn't you?"

The tea was suddenly bitter, the scent of flowers but an attempt to overlay the pervasive, sickeningly sweet stench of rot.

[Tolleson]

You had been traveling, trotting through a space, on a road, through Myrken Wood perhaps. The scenery passing by by while distant mountains hardly move at all. But where the trees should be, instead, are moving images, people, and sounds, a muddled string of amorphous memories. They plead for attention, grasp like beggars at a prince’s carriage. But still you move, faster and faster still, galloping until you must be an arrow let free, nearly to Thessilane or already there; if this were a real road.

Suddenly you stop. No, you crash.

There is a bright and searing flash, the lightening that strikes is a brilliance of pure white and the thunder that follows is so loud that the only evidence you have of hearing it is that your ears are left ringing. Perhaps the violence of the collision is enough to break you, to render you unconscious, even here. Perhaps this has happened to the fae and leaves you alone. But rather than the wreckage of horse and man, of the road and whatever obstacle had arisen; if you are present, you find yourself un-bruised, comfortable in fact, your breath is calm and your mind at peace.

Do you remember how you got here? Do you remember that you are someone else?

You are fine, after all.

You are drinking tea in Rhaena’s parlor.

You are Genny.

The light remains bright, but now it streams through glass windows and from between posh curtains. There are noises, but it is soft and delicate, the tinkling of bells and china as tea is set down. These moments are slow, as if you wish you savor them, as if they are molasses, clinging and thick. There are sweet memories that flick through your mind, the gentle bells that chime, and the delicate scent of flowers.

“I have?” You hear yourself say.

The sickeningly sweet smell that touches your nose seems somehow wrong, and when you blink you see haphazard memories, the flash of black, Giuseppe’s smirk, a pool of blood on the floor, the depths of the Golben and bloodied hands – not yours, but rather the mis-shapen hands of Gloria as if they are your own.

And then you open your eyes to find you are content, the darkness fading, you are happy here in the parlor.

[Glenn]

When fighting monsters, you must make sure you do not become them.

That was not a problem for Elliot Brown as it was for others. He was unique, always himself, always askew and obtuse. He was thick, one might say, but in a very specific way. Before all of this began he was shielded from the world and now he was even more so, sifted away from reality, a dream boy truly in name and form. He rode on with his trustworthy companion, well, his companion at least, neither trustworthy nor steadfast, but who had had his fill of all of this.

Genny was as human as anyone in Myrken, on the other hand, and she was broken and she was scared. At the nexus of fear and power was the most vicious of circles, for her fear, her Belief, gave her nightmare power, and the nightmare, canny and clever, worthy of so thoroughly human a person's fear, was able to use that fear, that mandate, that definition of something TO be feared, in order to grow strong, to wield Genny's power like shears, to gain control once and for all, and to that end to eliminate the most dangerous threat first.

Snip. The line is cut. Where Elliot brown was riding his night mare next to Zilliah, he was now alone. Hibernation would come at the perfect time for the fae this year, however long this dream lasted, restful and still.

Elliot frowned, but for a moment, for he was barely capable of such a thing anymore. He put his head down and he rode on. There was a parlor that he would reach sooner than not, after all.

[Tolleson]

Did Genny fight monsters? The innocuous vision of Rhaena was not threatening or terrifying, she didn’t reach into this mind with malice or ill intent. This was before all that. And Genny, perhaps she was the monster. But even so, she wasn’t here – the parlor was recalled from her own eyes. A looping island of memory, immaculately recalled even if details were askew and somehow slightly changed from the reality of the moment. There were muddled half remembered things like whether the curtains had been drawn, but other details were precise, the weight and smoothness of the teacup in her hands, the heat upon her lips.

Zilliah was lost then. Not by the impact of the unseen barrier that divided this precise moment from others, but by Elliot.

The invisible string that tethered him had already been stretched and in the cut, it snapped. It recoiled. The loss of his stabilizing presence manifested immediately. Zilliah had been an anchor, a beacon, a grounding force, but now, perhaps the path was not as straight. If there was ground it somehow shifted. As if one were standing upon an enormous table and a leg had been kicked out beneath it. The world tilted and shifted, black and bottomless water rushed in to fill the gap as if to keep the plain afloat.

The memory shifted too. It grew darker and the sweet became sickening, bitter, metallic.

You’ve learned so well

“I suppose I have…” Doubt surged, but the knowing of this, the sick feeling of Rhaena being right was stronger. She had become like her, for all the pride and devastation that such a thing entailed.

[Glenn]

"My horse," spoken like a true Myrken farm boy, and that's what Elliot was before squiredom and thievery and now dreamstuff. He had been a farmboy and that had driven everything else. He had grown up in Myrken Wood and had seen such loss before his tenth birthday, even, and he appreciated how much an animal could be worth, both in the sentimental way, a shining shard of life that you could share more easily than with another human, but also in actual worth. It could take months' toil to afford such a creature. The former drew him towards the stories and the false glory of the knighthood. The latter dropped him onto the scaled rooftops of being a thief. He appreciated value more than most. He could almost be forgiven for lamenting the loss of the night mare more than that of the fickle fae.

He was on his feet now, though, and the path was blurred. "You think this will slow me down?" Water was there now. It had swept away the horse made of dark cloud matter, had absorbed the moisture in it and overtaken it completely. Elliot Brown wasn't one to be defeated though. He squeezed water back out, back up, as rain that went up and not down and he danced between the drops like only a boy out of a story could. as he did, he was able to walk on the water; one thing was tied to the next. This bravado took effort though. In a dream, confidence was power, but this power had a cost. He moved on but more slowly and more weary by far.

[Tolleson]

My horse.

Elliot didn’t have a mind here, not a physical thing at least. But somewhere in that Dreamstuff was substance, was something more than imagined clouds and intangible memory. Actually, in this place it is substance, it is everything. Elliot’s power, his bravado, even with the toll it took, it is impressive. Not that there had been many minds she had touched before, Ariane to some extent, and Gloria. But the seamstress had crumbled. And Genny was left the scarring memories of Giuseppe’s blood upon her hands to prove it.

Elliot was traversing the space beyond the mindscape she had actively created, or that Zilliah had helped her create. Deep within her, his loss would resonate. It should come as no surprise that she seems saddened by it in some measure, if even momentarily.

She smiled though, perhaps more because in loss they were similar, or at least more alike. Their spirit, if there were even such a thing, harmonizing as some small bond grew.

How do you know she smiled? Perhaps you can feel it. Perhaps it is like you are inside of her cheeks and feel the warmth, the swell of the muscle and fat, the pull of lips. But here, in this non-tangible imagined physical space, the path gets easier, the water less thick, the smell less rot, and the darkness fading. The bells still chime, but they are sweet and bright. For a time, the path seems to fold, it is shorter, it is welcoming, the resistance dispelled like the water or the rain clouds used up.

'You’re a keen and clever dancer, Elliot'

The words were not words, but thoughts. Well within her mind it might be a whisper or an echo or a disembodied voice that sounded as if to come from all around him.

“Would you dance with me?”

Genny formed before him then, her lips moving and speaking the words as if this were the real world. Her dress was white and embroidered, a tidy bow in back with long tails over which a cascade of red curls fell, half her hair braided into a crown with flowers tucked neatly in. Behind her what remained of the water shifted into decorated columns and a lavish room full of Myrken’s finest, full of warmth and a veritable feast. It was Descant’s Ball. Lamai in crimson with James at her side, Christoph, Sarcyn, Dulcie, even Zilliah, Bromn, Dhrin, the tailor Suede and dear, young Winifred – she had been her date to the party. They were all still, frozen in some memory where they were still smiling in greeting or pretending to in polite conspiracy.

[Glenn]

The mind could be stretched only so far without being broken. Rhaena Olwak broke the mind of Elliot Brown. She took what was there and planted a seed and the roots that grew tore and cracked and ground to dust what had been there before. This afterimage powered by sheer stubborn will and the most foul dreamwitch magic that thought and acted and felt as Elliot Brown once would could be broken too. He was resilient in ways that his former self had not been, of course; it's harder to destroy an idea than a person. It would have been so very hard, and if Genny, driven on by the frilliest and tightest of reins, had tried to stretch him into a formal setting, tea parties and doilies and a stuffed collar, the entire facade would collapse.

Instead, though, she drew him into something familiar, fueled by her memories tweaked ever so, a wholly Myrken ball. He had not been there, instead pilfering as he was want to do. A ball was a wonderful time to have his way with the city after all. Now, though, he was, dressed in the sort of expensive clothes that a young upstart bravo might wear, hardly proper, showy enough for something he could blend into the shadows with. He was older than he had been and she was younger than she was now and they were a striking match, white dress and dark suit.

He laughed. "I am," for why would he deny it. He had danced between the raindrops, and now as he touched her hand and his clothes began to lighten slowly, attempting to match her own, he danced right into a very comfortable trap. "And I will, but Genny," he spoke, daring, his eyes meeting hers. It was a trap, but for who? Could it be one for both of them in kind? "You'll have to dance as if the fire was in your heart not your hair. Promise me." Words that could only come from a rogue who believed his own delusions, even as he fell so deeply into this new one not of his making.

[Tolleson]

He touched her hand and her smile grew, the water was gone and the pain forgotten. He touched her hand and her fingers gently wrapped around his. His clothes lightened and they began to dance. But hers, in kind, began to darken. Ever so slightly the black crept in, it moved like heavy ink through water, as she twirled long tendrils spun and diluted. As they danced it drifted to the embroidery on her hem and sat, the stain slowly growing larger from the bottom up.

Handsome and dancing with such grace, together they are a sight that would never be, in a moment long past. Vibrant, and more alive than in the waking world, her eyes met his and she listened.

As they moved the room came to life, people slowly came up to speed, dancing and drinking, sharing long-old gossip as the memory played out. Lamai was beautiful, her many ‘friends,’ quibbling while a more serious tension grew from the scarred madman at the fringe.

Dance as if the fire was in your heart, not your hair

There is a glance away, the words striking something, perhaps reminding her and threatening to break the spell. There is a brief falter in their dance, not even a second of interruption, just the smallest pinch from a near misstep. Perhaps this was something else entirely, perhaps it was not a trap at all.

“I promise.”

Her hand squeezed his gently and she pressed closer as if the tune had changed to a more sultry foreign dance. Still she seemed to know all the steps.

[Glenn]

Something had been removed from him. There was only one Elliot Gahald to be squeezed out of Elliot Brown. There was only so much noble goodness in one's past to be mined and minted. There were only so many roads that could be walked down by the pure of heart before mud began to be tracked in their path. His clothes lightened, hers darkened, but no matter the intentions of others with a vested interest in this dream, conscious or subconscious forces, there was not another knight within him to be drawn out. In Myrken, it would be akin to squeezing blood from a stone; with mysticism and mayhem it could be done once, but twice? Hardly so. What else was in there then? Such things could be learned in the light of the moon shining down upon one magical dance.

They were an impossible sight, the one older, the one younger, one Myrken-born and one Myrken-forged, a sight that defied history and reality. That was a testament to this place, so full of people, raw potential, such suffering that built up such stories and such energy just waiting to be unleashed. It was why the Storyteller had preyed upon them and how Olwak had been able to craft such new stories of her own.

This was within their dance now. She knew the steps, he did not, but he was quick, adaptive. He was so willful and stubborn, but all of that ingenuity and all of his deftness and agility was lost in the dance between them. She led with practiced skill, though where it came from was a mystery, and he had to react in a moment's notice, endlessly reacting, never able to make a move of his own. It was as if they were fencing, and he had to show his mettle through endless parries. Were he to miss a step, victory would be hers. Were he to change their dance, it would be his. In the end, though, neither seemed to win.

Instead, both lost themselves in the ritual and the intimacy.

[Tolleson]

Now he was the very image of Elliot Gahald, if not the spirit. He wore white, the perfect disguise for this place. And her clothes were a gradient from white to black, stained from a touch that flowed in two directions. But nothing squeezed out, nothing stolen.

They danced, Genny with apparent ease, a perfect wish of someone she might never be or a puppet controlled by someone far more skilled, and Elliot a worthy adversary. Continuing their duel with unmatched flare, the room was theirs. Heads began to turn and stare, people who had not been there filled out the crowds and left them space. Together they commanded the floor. Together they re-wrote the memory.

Seamlessly her face drew in close until her cheek pressed against his, warm and soft and real as anything. “Elliot,” her voice a whisper, as if all the spectators and ghosts around them might hear.

“Don’t let go.”

A moment later there was a sudden shriek, the music stopped, the dancing stopped and the crowd began to surge in an outward wave, fleeing. Across the room the Genny of the memory, a pale comparison to the woman Elliot held, struggled to rise to her feet after the mob had knocked her down. She stared their way in horror.

Semi-translucent and shimmering, silver tendrils of light reached out to them, coming from the writhing madman a mere pace behind. It pierced the Genny he held, the tendril impaling her stomach from the back. The gray, inky fabric surrounding the wound, bleached upon touch. Then one, tentacle like extremity, curled slowly around her arm and crept closer to their clasped hands, closer to Elliot.