livingmyths | 035: Bored

There's no reason to apologize for feeling lonely, especially when you're unwell.

I think I owe you a story, don't I?

[ooc: omg sorry i fail with him. want some actionspam to make up for it? :3]

Silk!

Oh yes, I'd love a story!

[ooc: No worries and yes, action spam would be lovely!]

[Silk had thought about bringing soup, but it had occurred to him that Rain might not eat meat. So instead he'd brought a thermos of tea with honey.]

"Silk! Hello!"

[She was sitting up in her bed, looking tired and drawn, but happy to see him.]

Hello, Rain! Are you feeling any better at all? I brought tea...

[He unscrews the top of the thermos and offers it to her, taking a seat near her.]

It should still be warm; it will help your cough, I hope.

Oh thank you!

[She took the tea and sipped from it.]

Oh, this is good. And I am feeling much better. I was very sick before. Now I'm just still very tired and weak.

I'm glad to hear that; it sounds like all you need is rest, now.

[He smiled, absently rubbing at his cheek with a forefinger.]

I've been trying to think of what story I ought to tell you; stories of Phaea would be appropriate for healing, but you like to hear about the Outsider and I must admit I like to speak about him. Have I told you, though, what my whorl is like?

[She shook her head, resting back further against the pillows.]

I don't think so. And you can tell me stories of whatever you want!

[He leaned back a bit, a faint smile still on his face.]

This is a story about the Outsider... in a manner of speaking. This whorl we are in now-- the City-- and Earth, from which so many of our Citizens have come, I am told is round. Like a ball. I couldn't imagine it at first, but I have gotten used to the idea, though I still don't entirely understand how we don't fall off the surface.

[He knitted his fingers together on his lap.]

My whorl is a cylinder; the sun stretches from Mainframe in the east to the end of the whorl in the west. It does not move as the sun does, here; it is a straight band, not a traveling point, and beyond it we can see the skylands, the cities on the other side of the whorl.

[She sipped at the tea, curled up tightly, eyes never leaving him as she listened intently.]

[His gaze was a bit distant, as though he were looking at those distant cities even now.]

People do not often travel far, in my whorl. Traders, of course; but not most. Trivigaunte, Palustria, Urbs-- they're no more than names to me really, and scattered rumors with varying degrees of truth. If not for the fact that there are no skylands I might have suspected myself in a foreign city in my own whorl.

[He seemed to shake himself from that reverie.]

Which is really what this story is about-- the sky. There are stars at night, in your whorl, as there are here, aren't there?

[She watched him, caught up in his story, enjoying the emotions on his face as much as the words.]

Oh yes! I love them! I never feel safe at night unless I can see them.

[She pointed up at the transparent roof.]

See! That's why they made me the special roof!

[He smiled at that, following her gesture.]

So I saw, and I think it's a wise choice-- I often wish I had a better view from my window. When I first came here-- no. That isn't the way to tell this story.

[He traced circles on one clean-shaven cheek, pausing for a moment.]

I was going to say that I first thought about the stars when I arrived here, but that isn't right. I saw them first in a vision-- when I was enlightened by the Outsider, which I've spoken of before. He showed me so many things-- but one of the things he showed me was the night sky, the sky full of stars, though I did not understand it until much later. They were only lights-- like jewels on velvet, and I understood somehow that they were deep, deep beneath the ground, underneath our feet.

[He smiled again; it sounded so absurd to say it now, sitting beneath a sky which reached out into infinity.]

Ohhhh!

[Her eyes were shining as bright as the stars he spoke of.]

Stars beneath your feet? Oh that would be wonderful!

[He laughed, looking slightly embarrassed.]

It took me some time to understand, I must confess. Some days after that I saw them-- I really saw them, with my eyes; not only with my spirit. I was underground, in the tunnels below Limna--

[A frown flickered across his face, swiftly suppressed so as not to worry Rain; that was a part of the story he'd rather not recall.]

In time I came to a place where bios sleep, hundreds of them, in glass tubes. One of them had been woken, and she led me even deeper, though I didn't realize it at the time. We walked into a room, and when we left it we were somewhere else. It must have been an elevator, I know now-- I'd never seen one, other than then, until I came to the City. And I found what I believed to be an underground shrine dedicated to Pas. I descended, and found an entrance to what Mamelta-- that was her name, I should have said; the sleeping woman-- what she called the belly of the Whorl.

Silk?

[She looked a bit concerned.]

This is a real story? Because sometimes I get confused and I just want to make sure.

[He smiled reassuringly.]

I should have said. Yes, this is a true story; a story of what happened in my whorl before I came here, the things I saw.

Okay.

[She settled back, reassured.]

I'm sorry I interrupted. Please go on.

No, it's quite all right-- I believe it's always wise to ask questions when you have them, when you have the chance.

There was no shrine to Pas below the ground; there was a room with a monitor, and many strange things-- and a ladder, further down, into a room like a great glass bubble. A bubble suspended on a plain of shiprock, pitted, extending in all directions as far as I could see. And below it-- or, perhaps I should say, above it-- was the sky as you see it here, as black as Tartaros' shadow, dotted with the sparks and flames of stars.

[He paused and took a deep breath, remembering how he had felt at that moment-- ready to die if the Outsider commanded it.]

[She held her breath, imagining it and waiting to see what happened next.]

I climbed back to the room where Mamelta waited, but before we left I wanted to see, again-- wanted to look one more time at that dark expanse. I thought that perhaps those sparks, those jewels, were the lights of skylands infinitely distant; I've come to know now that they are suns and whorls of their own, so in a sense perhaps I was not wrong. I climbed down again, and fastened a belt around myself, afraid of falling though I suspect that crystalline wall would have withstood my weight. And, when I looked up, looked out across the rock...

[He was silent again for a long moment, still tracing circles on his cheek.]

It was as though the Outsider had grasped the whorl in a hand so vast I can't begin to comprehend it, and had turned it. A brilliant crescent of light was pouring over the plain behind me, so bright it hurt to look at. The belly of the whorl was white, streaked with sable.

Oh! Oh, Silk! I can almost see it when you speak!

[She was sitting up even straighter, eyes a little distant.]

I wish I could have seen it myself!

[He laughs a little at that, pleased at her enthusiasm.]

It's a sight I won't forget for as long as I live... but I must confess, faced with that eternity, that immensity... I fled up into the other room as quickly as I could. It was so alien, so enormous, that I was terrified and amazed at once.

[She nodded thoughtfully.]

Yes. I can see where it would be scary. Something so huge and amazing and different.

[She grinned at him suddenly.]

I still wish I could see it!

In a way, you can.

[He raises his hand, palm upwards, towards the translucent ceiling; there's something reverential in the gesture and in his expression.]

Not my whorl, of course... but here it must get much darker at night, than in the City proper. The stars here are brilliant.

Re: [Actionspam ftw~]

livingmyths.livejournal.com - 2008-11-12 13:19 (UTC) - Expand

035: Bored

[Voice]

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[And a bit later there's an augur at your house, yay!]

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