Completed Fearing it, It Came

[Philomena]

Winter 40th, 512 AV
Outside of Wright Manor, Zeltiva
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With pestilence always comes a measure of dissolution. Zeltiva was a city rich in the tradition of order and reason, and the sense of stoicism that a sailor's long exposure to danger can bring, so chaos did not take its streets, but even so, there was something unravelled now, about it. Every day, every morning, long trains streamed up the hills to the cemetery, keens of the mourners falling down the hills like ghastly cocks' crows. There was a tension in the streets, a certain energetic distance maintained with strangers, a certain quick scanning of eyes across the faces of acquaintances, to check for sores, for pallor, for undue perspiration, for any of the tiny signs that whispered 'death, death, death'. And it was worse even, in some ways, this nervous search for the face of oncoming death, for death did not wear a single garment, in the manner of a true plague. No, death had come in motley, this year, the onset of disease, the complex of symptoms, the termination and incubations of fevers random, inconsistent, like some sort of awful lottery - one need not only wonder if one would die, but how. Would you be struck down by sores on the hand and face? Would you be deliriously fevered? Would your throat swell and your eyes burn?

Minnie Lefting was terrified, as so many of the city were. She had gone to the speech at the fountain that day, had heard the words that flew around the whole city now. And she had not even thought of it, of the cut on her palm. It had not been significant, after all. She had nicked her palm open cooking - she was a horrible cook, and blades were always a mystery, so this was no uncommon ocurrence after all. She had bound it up with clean muslin, and left after breakfast.

And it had been fine, until the speech. She had been enraptured the entire time. Maria's words were part of this, but in a sense, she'd felt the import of them in her bones for some time, now, and her mind was too terrified to focus on them. She had been more affected at the faces of the University Regents that stood at Maria's side. These faces, she knew, they were her superiors, after all. She had seen them, their calm and unperturbable faces. And she knew the tiny signs, now, watching them on the stand, the signs of fear.

And then, afterwards, her hand began to itch, she hardly noticed. IT was only when she went to change the bandage later in the day that she truly realized the implications - the flesh around the scratch was swollen, red, and hot to the touch.

She panicked - in retrospect, she could confess this to herself now. She'd scrubbed the flesh raw with her rough lye soap, had doused it in the violet tincture she kept against miasmic vapor, and even considered trying to lance the skin, before her mind caught up with her sufficiently to inform her that this was stupid, as she hadn't a shred of medical training beyond orphan wisdom ("If you get a big slash, dunny go wading it in the cesspools, or the worms come.")

She'd put a note on her office door, and disappeared for the rest of the day, walking, walking, walking. If her feet kept moving, she felt, if only she kept moving.

It worked, somewhat, she was calmer now, clam enough to sit, to take stock, to stare at her hand like a sick, cruel familiar, and to examine her terror instead of simply feeling it. The terror did not decrease - it was, after all, not entirely illogical terror. She knew what this was, what an infection of the skin meant. Her mentor in her doctoral days, the great Hannah Watchtower, had died of it, in fact, and she had been witness. AS she stared at her own hand, she saw in her mind's eye the swollen black-purple mass of flesh on Hannah's calf, the overpowering smell of rot, of death. And she supressed the urge to scrub at it again.

Her feet had not led her idly. They had brought her to a place she could think about herself, about what to do with herself. This had always been difficult for her. She was human, and had the natural self interest perhaps inherent in mortality, but she had long since learned to be frustrated with the fruits of self examination, being not terribly fond of what she found herself to be. The world was a place to think of the world of other, of the past, of stories and histories.

But here now she stood at the foot of a high barred fence, in front of an immaculately kept garden, in which it was almost certain she would never step - the Gardens of the Wright Manor. Since the earliest days of childhood, ths had been the place she felt, perhaps, safest. There was something about its great stone walls and clipped topiary or in this season, the pale tracery of the nude trees. This was the place where she told herself fairy tales, and as with all true fairy tales, they were all about herself.

Once there was a regents daughter who had been lost

Once there was a great monster who could look into the sky and see the whole history of the world

Once there was a hideous cave creature, waiting to be slain.

And the manor was the palace, and the gardens were enchanted, and the servants were angels, and the great Paladin of the Good Gods was Kenabelle Wright.

She was grown out of fairy tales, now, but the place held its glamor, for it was... A touched thing. It was the place where, if Kenabelles ghost roamed the earth, perhaps sometimes it would come (though even there she confessed there were so many other places). It was a house the murmured the reality of great deeds and good souls.

And so she came, sometimes, and stared at it, and changed the framework, but still stared up and tried to tell stories of herself.

"Once..." She sighed humidly to herself, staring at the shadows of the rising moon across the garden, "Once there was a meaningless old woman, who very much wanted to live."

[Philomena]

It was a cold night, the bonesnapper flying up the bay like an angry hawk to swoop down on whatever spare flesh it could lay its claws in. Minnie curled up inside her coat, huddling into the wall, watching the fences of Wright Manor. In the dim half-light, the gardeners jogged through the snow of the manor gardens, with a canvas tarpaulin, staking it over something - they were usually inactive in the winter, that Minnie could see, until it grew closer to the pruning season. They must have had some raw bit of earth they thought needed protection from the bone snapper. They moved with the jerking movements of people ready to go back inside at the earliest opportunity, smashing the stakes through the grommets with long, fierce strokes, then jogged back up to the house.

Minnie sighed against the cold, shivering. It was no good, this waiting. There was no story to be told, not tonight. She began to wonder if there was a story at all. Perhaps she just wasn't in a story, perhaps, a part of her mind murmured softly, there was no story. She was just another beast on the earth, destined to mill about in search of food, pleasure, shelter, and then to die, perhaps.

The thought was mashed quickly down by a combination of religious devotion to Qalaya, and an urgent terror in her heart - there was no other reason, in her mind, if there was no story, then nothing she did mattered, nothing she did made any good. That was unacceptable. Perhaps this was simple intellectual cowardice, but it was potent nonetheless.

The tarpaulin was well staked, but the wind was fierce. Minnie put a hand to her hat against the same gust that, with a deep tearing that Minnie could hear from outside the fence, snapped a small corner of the taurpalin free of its grommet, a ragged mess now. With that up, she knew - any Zeltivan knew - the tarpaulin would be gone in thirty minutes in a wind like this.

The lights of the house were out, but two lamps flew from window to window, now, opening them inward, and reaching out strong peasant arms, to draw shut the heavy shutters of the windows, and latch them in place. Then, the lamp would travel on to the next. It was like watching an animal rear into a defensive position, in extreme slow motion.

She closed her eyes a moment. The street was almost empty now, and she could feel the edges of a cold she would get, but it didn't matter. It wasn't the dying after all, and that, she realized, was why she couldn't tell the story before. It was that the story must conclude. A story without an ending was the greatest tragedy, it was why she shuddered at the thought of being a Nuit - because endings must have their chance to come. She reopened her eyes. The street had only one man on it, outside pulling in an awning with jerking long armed movements.

Minnie spoke again, but the wind ate her words. She spoke louder, then almost shouting herself into the wind, "Gods you can't have me yet! You can't... not... not.. not until I can write the end..."

//Nothing, nothing...// the wind moaned back, //Nothing nothing... nothing matters.//

"The Sailors of the Circumnavigation! It is only three quarters done!"

The wind hissed an angry laugh, //Words, words, nothing, nothing... nothing, nothing... nothing matters//

"The... the opera... the opera! My opera, it must be finished one day..."

A burst of the sea flew into the wind, and salt and seawater flew down the street. The man with the awning clumsily balled it in his arms,and fought his door shut behind him. The sea put hiss of mockery in the wind, //Nothing, nothing... you are nothing... you will be gone... and nothing, nothing//

Minnie stared into the wind, pulling her glasses from her face. Her field of vision changed from the smear of running-water to the dull blur of her partial blindness. This gave the wind, almost a form, the rolling waves of wind and water, the bits of fleeing trash on the streets, a yelping dog fleeing past her, these made a blur of fuzzy movement to her eyes. The salt stung her cheeks, her mackintosh shuddered around her like a frightened bird.

"Wrenmae!" she choked out, "You may take what I have made, you may call it nothing, but Wrenmae has not sailed into the sky, just yet. You cannot let that go, not yet! Not until the end!"

The wind howled, and pelted her, and she stood in a moment of existential desperation, her wet braids whirling, to lash angrily at her cold cheeks. Her hand burned with a great intensity.

//Go to your goddess, Minnie Lefting.// she heard inside her brain. She was past the moment's sanities for now, and could not say if it was her own good sense or something outside of herself, //Go to your goddess, now, this storm is not yours. Go home, and write, little scribe, until your storm comes.//

Minnie stared into the wind one more moment, her hand clamped firmly on her hat. She realized how mad she felt, she realized how her ears strained to hear a voice in the wind. The tarpaulin was half free now, to her left, and flailed in the wind like a frightened mother. Minnie turned and scurried up the hill towards home.

[Arcane]

Rewards and Treasure! Experience Points +1 Medicine +3 Philosophy Lores The Second Zeltivan Epidemic of Winter 512 AV Maria's Warning of Hardship and Call for Unity The Devastation of the Plague Infected with the Prospect of Certain Death Trying to Come to Terms with One's Mortality Miscellaneous Infected!: Blood Poisoning along with the divine-accelerated Zeltivan plague epidemic. Medical aid may arrest infectious development, but without a 3rd Marked Healer death is inevitable. Comments So sad. The imagery here is beautiful and melancholy. So beautiful but so depressing. I feel so sad now It makes me want to do something, really I want to. Maybe as a PC, but not as an ST if I must keep my neutrality and impartiality. All I can say is that you have me fully emotionally invested into your PC, I'll be watching her as she grows. Also, I hate to say this, but death is the only outcome for Phil. Doctors or Herbalists with Expert Medicine/Herbalism may attempt to slow down the infection, and Surgeons with Master Medicine may try to remove the affected tissue and reduce the rate of contagion, but these methods will only prolong the inevitable death. Only a 3rd marked Healer can save Minnie, and only if the infection is still in its early stages. If it has spread throughout the body then only a Champion or Rak'keli herself may save her. Also, do note that the vast majority of the Zeltivan population are in a similar state to Minnie, and because 3rd marked Healers are limited (and that they can only heal a limited amount of people per day before their 'healing quota' runs out), you can only imagine the desperation and demand for such healers. I'm telling you this so that you have additional material to play with and to hopefully create more engaging tales with. PM me if you have further questions, I'll be happy to answer them.