Re: The Relentless Slaughter [Round 2: S'kkoi]
12-09-2011, 08:26 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by whoosh!.
The light of Anansi began to fade, but at first Ke didn't quite realise what was happening. When a phantom sea began to appear before her eyes, however, it became quite clear: she was the one who was leaving, not the spider-god.
“No!”
The word escaped her before she could claw it back. So childish. A tendrils of shame began to creep up, but panic quickly set in. Childish or not, she couldn't bear to go. Not yet.
“I don't want to leave you,” she said, or perhaps screamed, or even whispered, as she darted closer to Anansi. One world waned as another grew in its place, and amongst the senses caught atwixt these two realities Ke could hardly see, or hear, or understand this united disintegration and convalescence. She clung to her single desire, and rushed closer.
It was because of this singularity of mind that she was able to detect a slowing of pace in her blind frenzy. She thought she was merely confused at first, as she had been when this all began, but soon her beloved Anansi was coming no closer. Slowly, regretfully, he extended a leg and pushed her away with the tip. She choked on her shock, floundering, but he began to speak, and did so in sombre tones that cut clearly through both sea and Pandaemonium. .
“You can't escape with me, dear Ke. That isn't how this game works.”
“Why not? Why can't it be that easy, just this once? Why not for a god?”
He sighed, a fractured and breaking sound like poorly recorded audio of the incoming tide. Without saying another word, Anansi reached out and, still fading, swept her closer to him. Compared to him, Ke was no bigger than his largest eye, and it was to one of these that he held her up to. More than a speck in his presence, but far less than an equal.
“Nyame awaits, child,” he whispered.
And then there was only the gloom of the vast sea.
Ke immediately swirled in a spiral, gazing all around the vista of this ocean, but he was gone. No golden light fell reassuringly upon her. Only the comparative sparks of the minor gods threading in and out of Dorin gave any hint that it existed. Somewhere. (But not here, not any more.)
Without Anansi, she tried to organise her thoughts and plan the next step. She tried to push aside the loneliness and fear, the bitterness of loss and the length of the years that separated her from all who loved her, but she failed. Long-forgotten memories reared up, washing over like the waves of a sudden sea that threatened to crush the remembrancer. The happenings of long ago ascended, remembered. Occurrences so ancient they almost seemed to have happened to some other Ke.
But even then, these were precious memories. Dizzying, intoxicating memories.
Memories of Nyame and Anansi.
Allow her mind to drift, she passed through days, years and fleeting moments in a single breath, until she found the day she Fell.
Nyame – beautiful, heartbroken Nyame – had sent her from the reaches of the Sky to the lands of mortals, mortals who trailed through the dirt of an imperfect world. But from this ugliness, this dullness, beauty of incomparable degrees sprang forth in the form of their most wonderful stories. Like yarns they had been split and woven and shared, but Nyame wanted them all for herself.
With this purpose Ke Fell and took her place in a living shell amongst those who lived also.
But she was not sent unprepared, not by any means. Nyame had granted Ke many gifts, and she still found uses for many of them: the use of flight so that she could always touch the sky, an incorruptible memory so that she would never lose that which she took... However, there was one she had buried and forgotten as well as she could, the day that she lost faith in Nyame.
Ke considered its use an affront to the humans she had grown fond of. It was a powerful, terrible gift: the ability to neatly slice away the ideas and memories a mind hoarded. In short, the power to remove all traces of the stories she stole away. For what use is a thief is she leaves behind her spoils?
Within Ke, the dormant sparks of a forgotten gift began to rekindle, and a dangerous idea began to grow.
At the very same moment, however, Ke became acutely aware that Dorin must have been watching her think or, at the very least, remain very still for a very long time for little reason at all. Oddly conscious of this, she allowed herself a slow backwards somersault through the thick water, and thought furiously as she did so.
'There are... how many of them, at this time? Six? Six unpredictable, messy situations. But if they could be united, they could be controlled. Maybe even used to defeat the Tormentor, if my own plan drifts astray. Yes. And forcibly removing an idea is hardly the cleanest or only way to influence a mind...'
She said none of this in ways that could be heard. No contestant and no overseer could be allowed to know what she had remembered. Not yet. Not when she had such an element of surprise, should the knowledge be used aptly.
”Dorin.” Ke somersaulted arcing over the girl until her eyes met the gleaming blackness of her own.
“Yes?” A little guarded, a little terse. Or tense. Not surprising. The Dorin that had fulfilled one half of the Lovers had been a very different Dorin to the one that glowed here now, and not only because of the adjustments that had been made to have her suit a more aquatic environment. It wasn't hard to guess why. Ke was all too aware of the bright godlings that still crawled on and in her skin.
“Do you think you can survive this game of the Tormentor's? Do you think you could kill us all?”
As if waiting for her cue, a soundless cry shuddered through the sea, through their bones and their souls. Ke turned to the ruins, blurred by the water between the two of them.
“I think we should find out.”
The light of Anansi began to fade, but at first Ke didn't quite realise what was happening. When a phantom sea began to appear before her eyes, however, it became quite clear: she was the one who was leaving, not the spider-god.
“No!”
The word escaped her before she could claw it back. So childish. A tendrils of shame began to creep up, but panic quickly set in. Childish or not, she couldn't bear to go. Not yet.
“I don't want to leave you,” she said, or perhaps screamed, or even whispered, as she darted closer to Anansi. One world waned as another grew in its place, and amongst the senses caught atwixt these two realities Ke could hardly see, or hear, or understand this united disintegration and convalescence. She clung to her single desire, and rushed closer.
It was because of this singularity of mind that she was able to detect a slowing of pace in her blind frenzy. She thought she was merely confused at first, as she had been when this all began, but soon her beloved Anansi was coming no closer. Slowly, regretfully, he extended a leg and pushed her away with the tip. She choked on her shock, floundering, but he began to speak, and did so in sombre tones that cut clearly through both sea and Pandaemonium. .
“You can't escape with me, dear Ke. That isn't how this game works.”
“Why not? Why can't it be that easy, just this once? Why not for a god?”
He sighed, a fractured and breaking sound like poorly recorded audio of the incoming tide. Without saying another word, Anansi reached out and, still fading, swept her closer to him. Compared to him, Ke was no bigger than his largest eye, and it was to one of these that he held her up to. More than a speck in his presence, but far less than an equal.
“Nyame awaits, child,” he whispered.
And then there was only the gloom of the vast sea.
Ke immediately swirled in a spiral, gazing all around the vista of this ocean, but he was gone. No golden light fell reassuringly upon her. Only the comparative sparks of the minor gods threading in and out of Dorin gave any hint that it existed. Somewhere. (But not here, not any more.)
Without Anansi, she tried to organise her thoughts and plan the next step. She tried to push aside the loneliness and fear, the bitterness of loss and the length of the years that separated her from all who loved her, but she failed. Long-forgotten memories reared up, washing over like the waves of a sudden sea that threatened to crush the remembrancer. The happenings of long ago ascended, remembered. Occurrences so ancient they almost seemed to have happened to some other Ke.
But even then, these were precious memories. Dizzying, intoxicating memories.
Memories of Nyame and Anansi.
Allow her mind to drift, she passed through days, years and fleeting moments in a single breath, until she found the day she Fell.
Nyame – beautiful, heartbroken Nyame – had sent her from the reaches of the Sky to the lands of mortals, mortals who trailed through the dirt of an imperfect world. But from this ugliness, this dullness, beauty of incomparable degrees sprang forth in the form of their most wonderful stories. Like yarns they had been split and woven and shared, but Nyame wanted them all for herself.
With this purpose Ke Fell and took her place in a living shell amongst those who lived also.
But she was not sent unprepared, not by any means. Nyame had granted Ke many gifts, and she still found uses for many of them: the use of flight so that she could always touch the sky, an incorruptible memory so that she would never lose that which she took... However, there was one she had buried and forgotten as well as she could, the day that she lost faith in Nyame.
Ke considered its use an affront to the humans she had grown fond of. It was a powerful, terrible gift: the ability to neatly slice away the ideas and memories a mind hoarded. In short, the power to remove all traces of the stories she stole away. For what use is a thief is she leaves behind her spoils?
Within Ke, the dormant sparks of a forgotten gift began to rekindle, and a dangerous idea began to grow.
At the very same moment, however, Ke became acutely aware that Dorin must have been watching her think or, at the very least, remain very still for a very long time for little reason at all. Oddly conscious of this, she allowed herself a slow backwards somersault through the thick water, and thought furiously as she did so.
'There are... how many of them, at this time? Six? Six unpredictable, messy situations. But if they could be united, they could be controlled. Maybe even used to defeat the Tormentor, if my own plan drifts astray. Yes. And forcibly removing an idea is hardly the cleanest or only way to influence a mind...'
She said none of this in ways that could be heard. No contestant and no overseer could be allowed to know what she had remembered. Not yet. Not when she had such an element of surprise, should the knowledge be used aptly.
”Dorin.” Ke somersaulted arcing over the girl until her eyes met the gleaming blackness of her own.
“Yes?” A little guarded, a little terse. Or tense. Not surprising. The Dorin that had fulfilled one half of the Lovers had been a very different Dorin to the one that glowed here now, and not only because of the adjustments that had been made to have her suit a more aquatic environment. It wasn't hard to guess why. Ke was all too aware of the bright godlings that still crawled on and in her skin.
“Do you think you can survive this game of the Tormentor's? Do you think you could kill us all?”
As if waiting for her cue, a soundless cry shuddered through the sea, through their bones and their souls. Ke turned to the ruins, blurred by the water between the two of them.
“I think we should find out.”