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

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

Postby Jirai » Fri Aug 21, 2015 3:35 pm

Cat has a blade. Cat always has a blade, said the withering look the urchin shot at Mekarie for that question. Cat was in no small part one of Solena's creations. Cat always has several blades.

Gloria trips and trudges along the pathway. Behind her, along with Mekarie, Cat bounces with unsurpressed energy, occasionally pointing out to her companion some flower or mushroom that had caught the youth's attention. "Be careful" is clearly not a warning that has been taken to heart. Lots of other people went to this place - that became quite clear in a very short time - and they didn't get eaten, so how bad could it be?

"There are so many," says Gloria, and the youth is speeding up to join the once-seamstress, batting at a random ribbon like the animal whose name the young rogue had claimed. "S'pretty." Cat announced with a grin. "I don' got no ribbons t'add, though."
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Selestia » Fri Aug 21, 2015 6:27 pm

Hands ran up her covered arms, like a fevered person who was feeling the chills as her eyes flit over the ribbons and their letters and charms that tinkled against one another. The Woods did not bother her—they are her home, a place of tranquility where she has been left alone with her thoughts, her words, to do as she saw fit until things happen. Shepherds and temples and fires and wolves and—

“So…So many,” she agrees, because it is true, the gamut of colors of the satin ribbons, shaded from the sunlight by the fleshy canopy of trees in the older woods keeping the colors bright and unfaded. The madwoman watches the seamstress read one, two, several, but does not touch a single one herself. Her head cants to the side, like she was trying to drain water from her ear, or simply to dump words from her head, fingers sliding up to run around the nape of her neck, pinching, massaging. Consoling.

“Prayers are loud. Even-even on paper.” A shake of that head at Little Cat playing with the ribbons, not a scolding, but more of an apology. She does not have a pretty ribbon to give the urchin to add to the collection, even as a silvery charm catches her eye, the little light from above glinting upon it, flicking over her face in the minuscule breeze.

“Dragons lay treasure-treasure at their-at their doorstep as well,” she says, her voice somewhat small. Is Mekarie afraid? Not likely; nothing much seemed to scare the madwoman, save for iron cages and being on the wrong side of their doors. Another shake of the madwoman’s head, and she returns to rubbing her hands up and down her arms, a reassuring gesture as she watches the two and their fascination with the prayers and ribbons.

“Have there-have there been that many from-from the town to-to come see?” She cannot be everywhere at once, and tends to avoid the town unless it is absolutely necessary, so the question is put to seamstress and urchin out of curiosity as well as necessity.
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Korressa » Fri Aug 21, 2015 6:48 pm

With the addition of all the ribbons, the forest has become a cathedral enmeshing nature and manmade objects together. The bright tails of the satin ribbons form the stained glass, the branches and twigs their leading, the tree trunks great, sweeping buttresses, and the canopy of leaves a grand domed roof. The bells and chimes and the birdsong scattered through the woods are the chorus, welcoming visitors to pause amidst the prayers and hopes of the petitioners who came first.

The temple and its path are beautiful oddities in Myrken—in a place so rife with violence and pain, where things strange and new mean more of the same, the townsfolk should have torn the temple down stone by stone. They should fear it the way the jabbering madwoman does. Things in the woods are never good.

Are they?

Before the edge of the gully, the wishes and ribbons cluster even more densely. Those who had come once have later returned with further pleas. A few of the slips of paper contain more desperate words:

Let me see the Lady once more if my other wish shall be true.

At the embankment—but ah, the embankment where the children had tumbled is not the same. No longer is the drop sharp and sudden, but instead, boots and sandals and wooden clogs and bare feet all have eroded the soil to a gentle incline. Beyond the entry to the gully, the offered ribbons are not so thickly tied, but the path is unmistakable.
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Rance » Sat Aug 22, 2015 3:44 am

S'pretty.

She angles her head to the side. "Never thought that'd be the assessment coming from your mouth," the seamstress teases, her lips twitching into a small smile. Pretty. Since when was Cat liable to call something pretty? For as reckless as she can often be, Gloria Wynsee is not needlessly destructive: she spends a few moments fumbling with the ribbon-wishes, trying to affix them back to branches and limbs. A prayer ought not go unheard, after all. But how long had these been waving here, exposed to the elements, forgotten as mere decoration?

Closer, closer still, she wanders, until the earth below feels less like dirt and more like the hard-packed soil of a city street. As the path bends down like an unfurled tongue, she uses the tip of her sword — was it ever so light for Aleksei River, so easy to turn and twist? — to fold up another slip of parchment.

Let me see the Lady once more if my other wish shall be true.

She springs back from the tree like it's bitten her.

"Read it," the girl says to Cat, her gray eyes snapping wide. Obscuring the hot surge of fear in her voice is impossible. "That one. Read it."

Lady...? No. Rhaena was dead. She was dead.

Gloria scans the canopy of trees, then throws her stare down further into the gully. The black hairs on her arms stand at attention, each like a tiny soldier, and her remaining fingers squeeze and loosen, squeeze and loosen along the leather-bound handle in her grip. She doesn't realize she's whispering a hoarse mantra under her breath until she's felt them form the words five times, ten times. More. "My mind is my own," Gloria chants. "My mind is my own, my mind is my own..."

Then, to Mekarie:

"If this is some cruel joke of yours?"

She doesn't need to say the rest.
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Jirai » Sat Aug 22, 2015 3:18 pm

Cat shot Gloria a withering look, but it was all in good fun. "Pretty. Sparkly." Cat stuck a tongue out at the older woman. The youth was getting older, after all. "Yeah, ev'ryone from th' town been comin' 'ere." It had only taken Cat this long because of the urchin's justifiable fear of the forest. Not that Cat would ever, ever admit to that, no matter how many things the youth called "pretty."

Cat bounced over to read the little parchment that had so bothered Gloria (and yes, the urchin could read). It took a few moments, to be sure, but the note wasn't all that long, nor the words all that complicated. Cat is quick, Cat is clever. It doesn't take long for the young rogue to figure out just what has so bothered Gloria.

"S'lots o' ladies. Don' mean nothin'. She be dead, noways, an' can' come back no matter 'ow many bits o paper be stuck t' trees."
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Selestia » Sat Aug 22, 2015 6:43 pm

Mekarie knows of Rhaena. She has been accused of being like Rhaena. Witch. Mind-meddler. The seamstress herself had put those words to the air once, nearly severing and sundering relations with others in the process. Swaining. The madwoman had been accused of swaining people, though if it was a true accusation or simply a power play, the world may never know. It is behind them. Suppose to be behind them.

Apparently, it is not that far behind them.

Her attention has come back onto the seamstress when she has Little Cat read the prayer, and shuffles close enough that with a slight squint, she can read it over the urchin’s shoulder. Lady. Lady, Lady, Lady…her head shook wildly in denial. Someone had accused her of being a Lady recently, just days after the sellsword declared her a witch. It was so very wrong, but Mekarie knows what a Lady means.

Witch.

Mind-meddler.

A very, very dangerous situation to be in.

“Do I-do I do cruel things?” Her hand is near trembling as she points at the parchment, as if she were afraid of the very words upon it, like it would burst into flames if they stared at it too hard. “I have-I have heard of-of a Lady. If she is-if she is dead, that is the-the best place for her. Dead and-and gone.” A pause, then, “And that-and that is not my-my writing.” Another pause, as if she was to consider something more, and then, “That is-that is someone with-with dangerous words. They need to-they need to be hunted.”

Mekarie turns away, looking at the worn path, the temple of nature and man combined in some sort of anathema that makes her shudder. It feels wrong. It all feels wrong to her, like ants crawling on her skin, and she rubs her hands over her arms once again before glancing back at Gloria, her expression a frown, though it is not directed at the seamstress, or at the urchin, an expression more for concentration than anything.

“Your mind is your own,” she says with a sharp nod, and makes for the worn trail.
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Rance » Sun Aug 23, 2015 3:20 am

...do I do cruel things?

"You know very well what I believe about the things you do. The things you've done."

She spins, considering Cat's suggestion, trying to tear her eyes away from the multitude of ribbons and wishes webbing the forest around them.

S'lots o' ladies. Don' mean nothin'. She be dead, noways, an' can' come back no matter 'ow many bits o paper be stuck t' trees.

Simple. It's simple, Cat's explanation. And perfectly logical. But a morsel of Gloria's mind refuses to digest that succint assessment. She's witnessed the subversion of death before; she's aided, if clumsily, in the diversion of it. Death is not always absolute, she wants to say. Death is not always the final journey. Stubborn minds and more stubborn miracles give beating hearts reason to keep tenaciously pumping, pumping.

But no. This is not the same Lady. She latches herself to Cat's explanation.

Mekarie turns to continue treading along the path. Gloria drags her gaze away from the wishes, then stalks along in the path behind the madwoman. This is a better option, she realizes: instead of letting her eyes wander along the distractions of the forest bed, she sets her glare at the meeting of Mekarie's shoulderblades, at that soft and vulnerable curve where the nape of the neck transitions into the spine. Keep someone — something — you've ceased to trust in front of you. And if it proves itself a threat, an obstacle—

This, she realizes, is what Myrken Wood has made her.

"Cat," Gloria says. "Does this lead to — to the temple you spoke about? If we keep following the path, will we come across it, in time?"
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Jirai » Sun Aug 23, 2015 2:52 pm

"'course it do." Cat reassured the seamstress without hesitation, despite the fact that Cat had certainly never been there. Cat was not one to let small details like that be a bother. Nor details like little notes about a Lady. What the youth had said earlier was only the truth. There were many ladies. Still. The young rogue certainly didn't let Gloria and Mekarie get too far ahead, now.

"Bet we be real close! I brung some food, we c'n share it, 'ave a pic-a-nic!"
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Korressa » Tue Aug 25, 2015 4:55 am

Beyond the entry to the gully, as the hill slowly dips downward into the deep end of the valley, the signs of human passage are not so packed in. Here, someone as lost their handkerchief, and another has placed it in the V-shaped crook of a tree branch. There, some picnicker has left behind a brown bottle that once contained ale.

And always the ribbons. The ribbons are more sparsely wrapped and strung, and the wishes less frequent, but they wave cheerfully above the path that Kaia first blazed, that other, larger feet have now widened.

As they enter the forest foyer of the temple beyond, they each would receive singular impressions and feel unque sensations.



For Mekarie, leading the way, the air becomes thick and still, and the sounds of the forest far away and muted as if hearing through damp plugs of cotton. But it is not the dense humidity of a brewing storm she would feel—it is the stillness of a ship stranded at sea, long trapped in the doldrums without a wind. The trees around her do not stir, and no birds or small creatures dart by. The air does not push or press back—there is no resistance, but neither is there a lifting breeze ...



... as there is for Gloria. The air presses softly at her back, pulls softly from the front, and urges her onward. Squirrels chatter in the branches above her head, well out of reach of her clumsy blade. They race through the wood ahead of the trio where only she would see. Their bushy tails bounce and flash, and they vanish to circle tree trunks or dive trough thick leafy growth. And they race ever on, bounding eagerly. The moment she raises voice or hand to point them out, gone will they be, like little grey ghosts. Follow us, they'd cry, had they human speech. But their voices are just noisy squeaks, not at all musical ...



... like the chiming of bells that ring out around Cat. For the breeze that pushes and pulls at the girl in front of the youth, is less directed in its buffeting of the little sharp-tongued urchin. If Mekarie feels the dull weight of equitorial sea air, and Gloria the whispering demands of autumn's arrival, it is Cat who is caught in the capricious winds of spring. It tugs on the child's cap and plays havoc with the tails of a tattered jacket, and the chiming bells hung in the woods above ring even more clearly here in the gully.
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Selestia » Thu Aug 27, 2015 6:47 am

The calm before the storm, the stillness before the attack. So very silent, that stillness and muffled sound like cotton in her ears. There is a spot between her shoulder blades, beneath the thin tunic and beneath the snarls of hair that itches, itches with the hard stare given by the seamstress, itches with the sudden shift in the very air around her. Her long fingers gather up her arms as if she were cold again, curling against the rough fabric she wore.

“I knew a man who liked to stand halfway on the stair,” she sings very softly to herself, more to simply hear sound inside her ears than to hear her own words. There are always words in her head, so that was not the problem—the utter silence, the deafening, uncomfortable silence that made her itch. “He is not up and he is not down so is he really there.”

Part of her wishes to turn around, to ask for assurance from her eyes that the seamstress and urchin are there. Can she hear them, or is that steady beat her heart in her ears?
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Rance » Thu Aug 27, 2015 4:05 pm

A flicker of gray in the trees. The movement of a tiny, agile body.

The rustle of leaves. Black, oil-drop eyes staring at her, surveying from above.

Follow us.

She knows, by simple logic, that rodents cannot speak the Standard tongue, but the cruel trickery at work is more subtle than that: it dulls the region of her senses that makes her aware of such logic. The speechless summons — inaudible squeaks and titters — trigger some curious and primitive particle in her mind. The path leads to an answer, because Cat says so; they must be careful, because Mekarie says so. But too, she must follow, obey, because the squirrels tell her so, and the winds tug gently at her blouse-collar, push eagerly at her spine, follow us, follow us, follow—

"My mind is my own," the seamstress tells herself.

Her mind's her own. So the choice, she believes, is too.

Black boots begin to crunch and pummel at the path and the underbrush.

She starts forward, her chin angled down like a stubborn battering-ram, her dull eyes seeking out her quiet callers. Her sword — the blade she'd stolen from Aleksei River — hangs at her side. Without consideration for her compatriots, she bounds. Then, with thick legs and broad arms pumping, runs, her black hair a waxy banner behind her.

"I'm coming," she tells the impatient fauna and their incessant commands.
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Jirai » Sun Aug 30, 2015 6:30 am

Mekarie sings to herself. Gloria speaks of her mind, and then suddenly the older girl is running. Well, that was odd, but Gloria was always a little odd, right?

Cat grabbed at the plaid cap before the wind could tear it entirely free of the urchin's head and pulled it down lower. A few blonde strands had escaped and drifted down the youth's neck and along one cheek, twisting and dancing in the breeze that grabbed at Cat's jacket.

"Th' bells soun' pretty, huh?" The youth commented, speeding up to a trot to catch up to the others.

"'ey, Gloria, where y'goin' so fast?"
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Korressa » Sun Aug 30, 2015 7:26 am

Each of the three has their own impressions of the gully—separate from the reality of the world at large. Or, perhaps, it is an illusion that has long hidden the temple in its gully, and this depression in the forest is the truth? They find themselves viewing the others through the lens of their own perspective, a veil of their own wearing. A strange thing happens when impressions overlap, if only briefly. Like watercolours spilling across a damp piece of canvas, the edges momentarily blur together.

Gloria defies the stagnant air to race past Mekarie, and the girl's feet hammer louder than a mere heartbeat in the silence that has clamped its hands over the madwoman's ears. For a brief moment, the Jerno girl is herself a zephyr, and the air trembles in her wake as she charges down the trail with mantras on her tongue. Then, it is gone, and silence again stoppers up Mekarie's ears. The air becomes lead on her shoulders once more.

And Gloria, an unstoppable avalanche of heavy limbs racing down the hill, leaves the others defying and fighting the wind on which she practically flies. In passing Mekarie, she might stumble on a sudden, dense stillness. Or perhaps she will continue headlong, cutting through it like a plummeting hawk on a rabbit's tail. Cat's shout, chasing the after dark, flapping hair and frantic, pumping limbs, briefly tinkles with bells at the others' backs.

Trailing behind the two women, Cat would be left with no such mingling of their impressions. The wind continues to taunt and tease the scruffy imp of a child, as if it might catch in that ratty jacket and lift the youth clear into the air like a kite.

Their experiences with the wind and sounds and flora and fauna continue straight up to the very entry of the temple. Gloria would find no resistance, no gate, should she simply charge straight into the place ahead of the others.
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Selestia » Sun Aug 30, 2015 3:04 pm

Doldrums. “We stuck,” she gasps softly, sucking in air through her teeth as the seamstress goes barreling on by, eyes opening wide to watch her go, but the madwoman keeps her hands over her ears tightly so that the vibrations from her own throat are heard in her head. “We stuck, nor breath nor motion.” Slowly, her fingers curl, pulling her hair with the tips as she cuffs her hands about her ears, keeping the palms pressed flat to her head.

“Not a sound,” she mutters softly to herself, her voice strained. “Nor breath nor motion.” The madwoman was starting to shake, almost a tremble even as she stumbles down the path, all but aimlessly following after the seamstress. Do not speak. Do not move. Hide in a corner in the darkest dark and they will not see you. Dark rooms. Moonless nights. The doldrums of soundless sound, of the thunder of blood rushing into her head and hoping that she was the only one who could hear how loudly her heart was beating. And they could hear her for all that hiding and silence, for that had to be able to hear her in order to find her. To find her, to grab her. To hurt her. To—

Mekarie rips her hands down from her head with a small sound, lashing outward at the nearest tree, looking for a broken limb to hit with her open left palm. To stab, to cut, to bleed. To cause herself pain. To pull her back from nightmares that would find her in an iron cage again. The pain was only there because she watches it happen, watches blood well up from the gash through her palm, flexing her fingers to feel the sear, and as the blood rises, the memories fall back and away, leaving her with the soundless sound of the doldrums and a crimson focus to keep her from thinking on it again.

“I’m not-I’m not yours to test,” she growls through clenched teeth, flicking her hand to spatter hot droplets upon the earth before stalking after the seamstress. “So stop trying.”
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Re: Quartz-Bound (Part of a Larger Plot | Now Open)

Postby Rance » Tue Sep 01, 2015 4:01 am

Are they behind her? Does she care?

She sweeps her head to the side, then glances over her shoulder. They are figures suffused like smeared shadows, an urchin and a madwoman distorted behind an invisible looking-glass. Branches sweep and sway in the warm, summer breezes. They're behind her, somewhere, a world apart. But the stink of blood springs into the air, coppery and so, so close — Mekarie strikes down an offending tree; Cat, trotting, complimenting the bells, tries to keep her pace. But here, skirting down through the paths, Gloria is a force of unlikely speed and momentum. Follow us, the suggestion had come. Follow us, and it had sunk its teeth into her brain. Follow us, reaching out with unseen fingers to tug upon her blouse and put the wind at her spine.

Blurred marble greets her. She scarcely has time to admire its vision, its elaborate sweeps and divots and swirling hues. No, she darts right amid the gates, into a wholly different world than any she'd expected to find. Vines consume the temple, camouflage its majority in a protective, verdant embrace. Some stones peek out like timid eyes from the leaves. Orchids, lightless black, form patterns in the cracks and creases. Purple flowers abound, a violet beauty best suited for the garments of royalty. Pillars seem to reach toward the sky, and the trees around them cede to the demands of the encroaching marble. Leaning back. Giving way.

Nameless!

Here, she's forgotten about the weights of worry that entangle her mind.

Here, she spins, trying to take in the beauty of the skeletal architecutre, of the circular patterns of pillar set not far beyond—

"Who are you," Gloria breathlessly asks no one at all. "Who are you?

"Don't I get a ribbon-wish, too?"
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