Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Jirai » Thu Sep 03, 2015 6:42 am

It's windy. Really windy. Alright, it's really REALLY windy. But that doesn't have to mean magic. Mekarie, though, stabbing herself with a stick. And, while Mekarie might well be mad, that behavior is a little bit more disturbing than usual. Gloria, further ahead, is in such a hurry, faster than the stumpy girl ought to be. Cat would have preferred to be closer to Gloria, especially given Mekarie's behavior.

So, in the face of this, of such odd behavior from companions, in the face of this wind, what does Cat do?

Cat complains, of course.

"Well, I were goin' t'eat m'lunch outside 'ere, but I guess not anymore." Cat grumped, holding cap tight to head, shoulders hunching against the wind.
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Korressa » Sat Sep 05, 2015 7:53 am

What is it you fear most?

What is it you want most?

For what do you ask of your gods at night?


A child pulls the blanket to her nose, and hopes that the monster beneath the bed will not eat her toes if they happen to hang over the edge. Her brother beside her wishes for their cat to have kittens, so he can claim one as his own. Their mother in the next room, prays for coin to feed her brood, and their father in the tavern curses at finding the bottom of his mug every time.

Just like the three in the woods all face a different facet, a reflection from the temple that bounces from tree to tree, wishes are so often external reflections of innermost thoughts. There is no monster under the bed, but one lurks in a hungry belly. There will be no rolypoly kitten, for the litter has already been drowned in a bucket. The coins are scarce, and long spent in the tavern, and no amount of drunkenness cannot make the world gentler come morning.

But still they make their wishes and offerings, and hope that it will change something. Anything. Everything.

Gloria enters the temple, and the winds that lured her gentle and decrease. Her little grey squirrel tormentors do not join her in the structure, but a whispering sound like an autumn gale sweeping through the hollows replaces their giddy chatter.

The temple is the same as it once was, but different too. People have been here now, and a few have tried to restore it. However, there is only so much work one can do when one cannot return to the site a second time. The stone pavers have been cleared of the encroaching weeds, which still cling to walls and columns. Here and there, the damaged mosaics glimmer between their waxy, purple leaves. A few of the more rotted trellises lay piled against the walls, the thick wisteria gone limp and dark once torn down. Without brooms to sweep, the dust and grime remains, and feet have churned up mud where it lays thickest. But above, high above, beyond the reach of lintels and entablatures, the sky reels with wispy clouds.

And the wind whispers between the columns, a voice without words to summon petitioners ever deeper.

Behind the young Jerno, the two others yet linger in between the trees. The elder, the madwoman, tries to fight off the dead weight pressing her down on shoulders with a show of bravado and frantic resolve—but this is no test, nor even mockery. No one praises her defiance, nor punishes her for it either—the only voice in her head is her own, and the only stirring of air her very breath.

Mekarie bleeds, and each vivid drop of her life, each splash of crimson upon fern and soil, is like a cymbal crash in the muted wood. But it does not free her, nor the others.

Sometimes, even in Myrken, spilt blood is not a sacrifice.

As for poor Cat, who fights the tumultuous zephyrs to the very gates of the temple, everything is a cacophony of singing bells and whistling breezes. These things do not prevent the scamp from entering, but almost seems alive—as if sylphs had gathered to play games and tug the complaining youth's various bits and bobs out of order.

Once they've crossed the marble threshold, their impressions of the gully will soften like Gloria's have. Mekarie finds the air still, but no longer weighty. Her footsteps on the stone would reclaim the proper volume and echo, but the sounds of the wood grow even more distant, as the voices of her companions become equal to her own.

The tugging of the unruly wind would ease around Cat, to occasionally flick or unsettle the cap crammed down on top of that mess of blonde hair. As well, the bells grow distant in their sing-song chiming, as is proper of the distance they have walked.
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Selestia » Sun Sep 06, 2015 3:58 pm

What is it you fear most?

What is it you want most?

For what do you ask of your gods at night?


The monster under the bed is not real. It is the one in their heads they have to fear the most, not the clawed and scaled creature with glowing red eyes that would reach out and snatch their leg to pull them into a dark oblivion beneath the bed, but the darkness in the back of their minds, the black hole in every person’s heart, the bitterness that turns every fervent wish and prayer to brittle dust.

What does Mekarie fear the most?

What she wants most in this world.

What words does a madwoman offer up to gods at night? None. There are no words or songs, no reasons or rhymes to be offered to any god at any time. She dances beneath full moons and offers riddles to those who would listen, what care should she have for the desires of a god? Had she been pious once, a devout worshipper of something that she does not wish to remember in times gone by? Or is she simply too mad to care a lark about giving voice to a god?

Fingers curl over the wet stickiness of her hand, clenching into a fist that still drips blood but helps to stem the flow. It would hurt later, maybe, but not now. It gives her clarity, a focus beyond doldrums sound and feelings of fire ants crawling along her skin. Do the others feel it? The sounds of the Woods, her home and sanctuary, grow distant enough that she will hesitate—the Woods are there. And yet they are not. Bare feet slide forward, tentative as a deer scenting the hunter; mad or no, Mekarie is careful. Paranoid.

“This is-this is thin ice,” she says in a low voice, and swallows, hating how her voice sounds in her head, to her own ears. It sounds odd, thick like she was speaking around cotton. “This is thin ice. Thin ice. And we must-and we must watch for-for cracks.” Lest they fall into the cold depths.
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Rance » Mon Sep 07, 2015 10:22 am

Running is all she can do. Because every pump of her legs answers every beat of her heart. Every beat of her heart demands another blast of breath. Breath forces her heart to rattle inside the cage of her chest. The heartbeat, then, demands a sacrifice: the pain of her legs as they strike the marbled stones underneath her. The pathway within the temple — scattered with years and lifetimes of underbrush, run through with cracks that seem to spiderweb on for feet, meters, miiles — bends, bends, always to the right.

Once, she'd told Cherny that she could withstand a healthy spring for four-and-a-half seconds, a fact she surrendered with a smile.

But in here, in this temple of ribbon-wishes, that sprint never stopped.

Onward, onward, running, running, always to the right, curving inward in a spiral dictated by the ancient architecture and its circular path. Pillars flash by, some standing tall and stern like tireless soldiers looking over their domain. Others lean inward, bent like an like an old man's spine after years of work and worry perhaps pulled down by destructive travelers or impatient interlopers. Her cheeks flare, burn, hot from exertion. She tosses a glance back over her shoulder.

The tail-end of the temple's inner path curves away behind her. Cat. Where is the urchin? Mekarie. Had they stayed outside?

In the back of her head, her own voice: Does it even matter, Glour'eya?

On, then.

She runs.

Faces flicker past, too, sometimes leering out at her from the occasional decorated column. Their bas-relief likenesses, all stone, stare at her as she darts past. Their gray gazes tug at her. Sometimes her feet stutter and slow long enough to let her glare more deeply into their stoic, chiseled visages. Neither weather nor age has diminished the emotions written into them. One seems happy, joyous, vibrant—

Knowing Ailova is your dearest friend. That quirk of her mouth when you speak without speaking to her, when you see how much she trusts you, or believes in you.

—and running still, until another column's smeared paint frowns, a depiction of frozen pain and loss—

When you couldn't hold her in your arms. When you'd given her nine months of your life, and yet she's intangible, like a half-remembered fantasy, something unreal or imagined; when you discovered you loved her before you even know what she looked like.

—and running still. Until more masks flash past. Until a final one leers out from another column with a venomous, inhuman ire, a hate, hate, hate that burns like a wildfire. And that flame? Gloria feels it, a choking lump inside of her throat, blocking her breath, urging her three remaining fingers and her pudgy thumb to vice around the leather handle of her stolen sword. Does the girl notice, as her teeth grind, her shoulders strain, and her collarbone tenses underneath her brown skin, that the very handle seems to fit perfectly into her crippled hand, that its weight alters and readjusts as if wordlessly telling her that she needs no other digit; I was made for you, forged for you, won by you; call me your fifth finger, let me make you whole; I can be your acrobat, your scoundrel, a piece of you—

The emotion of the face on the pillar pierces her like a glass dagger through the gut.

Dormant rage pours out of the seamstress in a desperate swing. The seamstress hoists her pilfered weapon. She hacks her sword out at the stone face, strikes it, cleaves it. Again and again. Tempered steel rings. The blade cries out against the rock.

Then, beyond that pillar, Gloria sees something. Her rage vanishes. The thin sword falls down along her thigh. A motionless figure revealed by a clever beam of dying sunlight.

A statue.

A lady cut from quartz.
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Tolleson » Wed Sep 09, 2015 11:26 am

Did the wind blow here too?

Tiny bells merrily chime; but for her they always chime, even when the air is still. The plait at her ear holds small golden bells, carefully woven and never quite finished. Regardless, there is some sound, or feeling, some distant coaxing call, some reason that her head turns to regard the disturbed forest just beyond the well-worn path that circles the lake. Perhaps it is the wind, the sound of steel striking, or the imagined bells like a tripwire in her mind.

Her feet bring her to a slow halt, examining some patch of forest that might not look any different than any other patch. But there are breaks upon branches and the summer soaked ground shows a mosaic of footprints in the mud. This must have been the spot where the rumors lead, the buzzing whispers of the 'Quartz-Bound Lady.'

To be upon it was happenstance. There was no need for mischief, no need to chance running into children on dares or young couples exploring. Disregarding the path she continues forward, her neck twisting so that her eyes fall opposite and look out, across the lake. But curiosity, the weighty and nagging companion, beckons sweetly, it slows her forward momentum and pulls her back.

Reason would say to you, do not go into the forest. Do not seek the trouble you know lies beyond. The forest is full of darkness and monsters. But she is soon off the path, her hand began to press away branches and her feet to follow the perfect mud prints that lead deeper into the wood.
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Jirai » Sat Sep 12, 2015 2:19 pm

It is a struggle to get inside, between the tugging winds and the clamor of the bells which have, at some point, crossed the line from pretty to horrifying. Inside, though, there is some relief from these things, and Cat immediately stopped and began putting clothes and hat back in order, eyeing Mekarie while twisting and tucking blonde strands back beneath plaid cap.

"I didn' like that. Where'd Gloria go?" Without waiting, Cat trotted off, intent on finding the older girl. Gloria could get herself into all sorts of trouble if you didn't keep an eye on her, after all!
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Korressa » Sun Sep 20, 2015 5:29 am

Inside the temple, ahead of where Cat and Mekarie dawdle in the entrance, the sound of steel rings out against soft marble.

The first blow strikes a narrow scratch in the mask, a bare glint of white against the encroaching forest grime. But as Gloria's rage builds, so too does her strength. Little by little, fragments flake away, and grow larger until the final blow splits the jaw and snarling lips free. The lower half of the mask tumbles to the ground with a crack, muffled in its descent by the padding of thick vines below. The eyes and chipped nose remain, sneering out from under the red paint, as if to dare the girl to continue her desecration.

It's remarkable, considering the nature of the temple, but the girl's assault on the mask is the first the site has seen.

Oh, there are minor, accidental damages that have occurred—some young swain, trying to reach one of the black orchids for his lover, had ripped through trellises with clumsy feet, and found himself with a broken arm for his troubles. Here and there, well-meaning visitors had pulled away small sections of mosaic in trying to clear away the creepers.

However, that sword in Gloria's mutilated hand is the first stroke of intentional violence against the sanctuary. It is the first fist raised against a silent idol.

Despite the attack and Gloria's fury, the Lady in the centre still stands waiting on her plinth beyond the remaining wall, her face an expression of longing. Of desire and welcome and need—a face that understands the mother who has lost a child, the seamstress who has lost her hand, the child who has lost her innocence.

And what face will she wear for the other two following the Jernoan girl's trail? Well—that remains to be seen.



Another has entered the gully, long behind the others. The churned soil shows the passing of their feet, to those acquainted with such things. There are freshly broken twigs here and there, and the bright, copper smell of blood in the air.

The gully is filled with bright birdsong for this interloper; little bodies flashing between the leaves. A flock of the dainty creatures has descended into the woods in a blur of motion, gathering for the last of the summer berries before they flee winter's encroachment. They swam and dart, moving away from the man-made structures of ribbon and bells, always flying nearer to the temple at the centre of the forest depression.
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Selestia » Wed Sep 23, 2015 3:01 pm

What would this oubliette in the Woods have of them—for that it what this is. An oubliette. A place of forgetting, to put things and never think of them, never know them again. Why else would the darkness of the deep Woods hold such a place but to put it far from people? An unseen place meant to remain out of sight.

Mekarie glances back at Little Cat, her bloodied hand rubbing her chest. It hurt. It burned. Why? Why here and now? “She went-she went in without-without watching the ice.” To tread carefully is what the madwoman would mean, to keep an eye on their surroundings. Traps, physical and mental. People had come out here, ventured beyond the safety of the newest growth and into these deep Woods to never return. They, too, had not taken care to watch their steps.

She follows after the urchin, onward and into the mouth of the dragon. Fingers curl around the neck of her tunic, soiling the coarse fabric with crimson, wet and metallic in scent. “Do be-do be careful-do be careful little-little Cat,” Mekarie says in a lowered voice, her bare feet stepping gently, like a deer about to spook from the hunter’s scent, as she follows after the urchin, trying to keep close to Cat’s heels.

That crazy slut…!

Her head tilts to one side as if she were trying to rub her ear against her shoulder, still following the urchin by masks, the grotesque facsimiles of faces, following the faint sound of the seamstress. And a mask stares back at her, catches her eye with its haughty facade and wrinkled nose. Angry in its disdain.

She is insane. Even you have to see that!

“No,” Mekarie whispers, pointing a long finger at the mask as she stalks past it. “You did not see. You did not see.” A skip in her step, and she hurries to catch up with Cat, ignoring the matronly mask of disapproval as she nearly impedes the urchin’s steps in her desire to keep close. “The monsters in my head like to sleep the day away,” she sings softly, enough to keep the echoes from compounding back on them. “But when I fall asleep I let them out to play…”

I say to you, I only do to you what the Sparrow did to me. But I will turn our grief to joy. I will be old and envy the young. I will forsake sanity with—

The urge to lunge herself headlong at the mirrored mask is almost overwhelming, seeing a determined look with the same cheekbones, nose and lips makes Mekarie put her unsullied hand to Cat’s shoulders to hurry the urchin along. “Tricks they play. Many-many tricks. To get-to get in the head and to-and to make you think that which-that which is done.” The madwoman’s fingers twitch, but she does nothing to harm the urchin—she would never harm Little Cat. “You cannot-you cannot undo what is-what is done.”

Quartz-bound is this statue as they near, the madwoman nearly stumbling. What does she see? What does she see? She sees the seamstress, hears the clatter of blade upon the earthen floor. “Nipt,” she says quietly, to who but the heavy, cool air around them? Dark eyes flicker onto the statue, mouth partially slack from the sight. “Oh, where is your dragon?”
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Rance » Wed Sep 30, 2015 12:55 pm

Cat's behind; Cat's always back there, like a little shadow flitting amid the others, careful to a fault — and sometimes daring to one, too, picking and choosing the most advantageous approach to situations that all too often stack well above the crest of the urchin's head. But had Gloria been asked if she'd been thinking about the younger child's well-being, she'd be required to fabricate a lie. Yes, oh, yes; I knew exactly where Cat-Talon was when I stormed into those ruins—

Harmless lies. A poultice for a bruised conscience.

Mekarie's murmurs echo behind her, words and warnings enlivened and given spark and volume by the ribs and bonework of the long-abandoned temple. Could she have heeded those transparent warnings, she might have. But Gloria's booted feet scrape with near-enchanted purpose: stumbling, her balanced beguiled, she treads toward the statue — a lady relieved in quartz — with her wide eyes locked upon its lifeless face. Her tired sword drags a crease through the dead leaves. Its point scrapes, a ratcheting clatter, along the footstones.

And there, standing underneath the figure's gaze, Gloria Wynsee tilts her head and asks, "Why does everything fall out from between my fingers?"

The sorrow and longing etched into the quartz-lady's visage become contagious. A sudden disease. An illness that claws with invisible fingers at the barriers built underneath her breast.

The seamstress kneels. She rests the sword beside her foot. Burden falls like a cloak across her shoulders. Her only course is to lean forward, clasp her remaining fingertips around the stone-carved hems of the quartz-lady's eternal robes, and hang her head. The counterfeit of prayer.

Begging.

"I want a wish," she whispers, the words fumbling off trembling lips. "Where's my wish? Give it to me. Isn't it what — what you do, then? Grant desires?

"How do you expect me to breathe if I don't hold her in my arms?"
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Tolleson » Thu Oct 01, 2015 4:51 pm

A more skilled tracker might see the passage of time, the age, the weight, or the worries carried in the marks left by a gait. They might easily read who someone was by the imprint they left; to Genny though it only showed that someone, likely more than one, had passed this way.

Still, she inspected the tracks carefully with a wrinkled brow. A handkerchief was whipped from a skirt pocket after a moment and pressed to her nose, easing the copper scented assault.

The birds, the ribbon, the bells. The forest festooned with brilliant colors and small darting creatures, as her eyes look up from the muddied tracks and try to follow the birds she is overcome. Halted and wavering a moment as if with vertigo, she paused. Once recovered, she gathers in her other hand a fist full of skirt fabric to hoist up the hem that threatens to trip or catch on low branches Then she continues on, following the hundreds of the small birds as they flit and gather. Her passage is slow, every step on the uneven ground is careful and she doesn't move more than a step without glancing back to the ground, as if to ensure it is still under foot. But then back to the birds, her eyes will wander. Following one for as long as she can, losing it among a dozen seemingly identical birds. What did they say? Why had they gathered?

Suddenly she found herself recalling half a dozen books regarding birds, the various types, their habits, where they lived, and why they gathered, what they ate, how they mated. As she walked her eyes followed the birds but her mind recalled and contemplated, until the depression that held the temple came full into view through the trees and she was reminded of the path, and the smell. She pressed harder against her face and frowned, once again aware of her surroundings.

Had it been here all this time? Rather than getting close, she begins to circle, at some distance, the building. Only some noise, however faint, draws her near. Is the site old? Was there wear? Had she read about this is any of the Myrken books?

Is someone there? Her mind reached out, sending the inquiry blindly before she spoke, "h-h-hello?"
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Korressa » Sun Oct 11, 2015 12:41 pm

The birds flitting past Genny are silky blurs of slate blue, tan, and white. Tipped with red and gold, they flash past and around her into the temple's open sides. They swarm and flutter, their numbers seeming never to end. And yet, none ever seem to exit the structure, either.

The tendrils of thought, the probing of minds Genny sends into the temple bounces off their tiny skulls. There are other minds in the temple, far more intelligent than the blank slates in feathered bodies—Gloria whispers prayers at the feet of an idol whose true name has not been spoken in a decade. Cat pursues Gloria ever inward, and Mekarie jumps at shadows as she keeps watch for monsters which do not lurk in the grimy marble structure. Beneath those three, something else ripples and reflects. Like casting a coin into a wishing well, the splash echos back.

But an echo is not a consciousness. And a ripple is not a mind. A reflection is not another person.

The Lady standing above Gloria has no words of solace to offer the grief-stricken girl, but something bright and hard shines a golden light against her belly. Someone has tucked a thin object into her hand—perfectly round and polished to a bright sheen, a mirror of bronze the size of a child's palm.
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