Unbounded Universe Above.

[Albireo]

The flood of ages combating below, The depth of the unbounded universe Above, and all around Necessity’s unchanging harmony. The Daemon of the World by P.B. Shelley Spring 16, 512 AV The Ethaefal was walking on peaks and between skyglass as if it was the most natural thing, everything she had ever known. With grey and lavender hair swaying in the mountain breeze and white horns rising above the crowd, she looked like she belonged. Her body perhaps did, but the insides were dead, knocked out, asleep... whatever others wanted to call it was fine. There were no words in her mind. And at the sight of blues and purples and blacks in fabric on the next peak, she blinked away invisible tears and lowered her head. Domed roofs guided her, called to her and she followed as if pulled by a rope made of stars. As soon as cobalt eyes laid sight upon the dark building blending into the evening sky, she knew without ever being told its name. “Welcome at the Temple of the Moon,” a robed passer-by whispered to her at the threshold. Drinking in the sight of purity, the change of shadows and the game they played with His light on the floor, plummeting into a pond like a mirror – no words. No words. Faced with His presence, she was reduced to nothing while also feeling everything she had lost once. Two years, how long could you stretch two years in memory?

[Albireo]

Slow steps guided her towards the pond with its glass surface, made her kneel down and stare beyond invisible borders into the depths. His face wasn’t etched into the bottom, but what did she expect? A sigh brought her up again. Pacing around with the restlessness she so abhorred, she cast heavy eyes on the structures as light and distant as the night sky, His residence. The words were following, albeit too slowly, and stringing silent prayer through the room. My Lord, I touch the earth before your form and bathe in your silvery light every night ... A pale hand came to rest on stone as cold as death. But wasn’t She His ally also? Please, accept my gratitude for guiding me back to this place that I called home before even realizing that it was. I have no doubt that it was Your doing. So I’m among other worshippers and under Your gaze again ... Through a craned neck cobalt found its reflection in a disc full of stars cut into the ceiling. No pale eye, not yet. I hope and pray that You see me here! That you notice who I was and listen to the passion still trembling through my veins. I’m still as faithful as always. Having seen and touched the inner architecture in twilight and moonshine, she knelt beside the pond. This time a gentle gaze floated just above the water. However, time has raised questions. The more of it passes, the louder they scream inside my head! Please, understand, my Lord. Fragile limbs slowly sink to a floor of grey light. In the embrace of the cold and dead she was searching for the sign. The temple lay in silence while the streets beyond vibrated with light and movement.

[Albireo]

Yet discord wormed its way in the ecstatic melody. It sprung up in places all over the city, across all peaks and in various minds. There were fires, a hundred and a thousand fires glowing in the night, challenging the stars above. The lady would be displeased. My Lord, neither peace nor harmony are here. I don’t understand, am blind to the core of my problem. A sigh, a wisp of air across the mirror-like surface. I have lost sight of the light and I can’t find my way through complete darkness. Please. I beg You. Words stuck in a dry throat. A body that didn’t belong rose from the water. Eyes colored by the night sky bored into the shadows cast by fragile columns and the outer walls. It was instinct, not mortal ears, and it whispered secrets: Subdued breath where her eyes didn’t see. “What are you doing?” her voice asked. Sudden movement several feet away. “Your prayers will never reach His ear.” Wrapped in bright moonlight and midnight garment, the priest stepped out and approached the pond. Where she was Night, he was Day; where she stumbled, he stood straight and paced with care. “Why?” The eternal question lingering in the corners. It seemed to laugh at her, come after her, haunt her like a ghost carrying a message in the wrong language. Vani or Symenos it should be. The mere thought sent ripples through her body. Wrapping thin arms around a form like paper moon, she faced the priest. Why? Was he offering a serious answer, that gleam in his eyes under a dark hood?

[Albireo]

“You stumble and tremble as if you were conversing with Him in person, but even a fool can see it’s a farce. What are you doing here, pulling off a show like that?” A blow designed to hit the face. She gasped, air escaping and avoiding, drawing swirls all around her, never touching. What remained was a cold void inside. “Show...,” she repeated numbly. A puppet whose strings were cut by polished cruelty. And who are you anyway? “Yes, you come in here as if your horns raised you up to His silver eye, as if He saw only you, but there are others who have served Him longer and more earnestly!” His babbling washed over her, thousands of shards cutting into her skin. Or ghost of skin. Shelter of reality, lost in the storm. “Why are you telling me all this?” her lips pronounced slowly, words slurred by otherworldly accent. Heaven between syllables and the void swallowing it all. Always oblivion. And they were coming with their knives for the umpteenth time, never the last though. “Why?” Unconscious echo of Ethaefal thoughts. “Obviously someone has to tell you!” His arms were fidgeting under hems of rough fabric. Too long, still a child. Yet older than two, for sure. “You hurl your anger and frustration at me because I’m here now.” Head cocked and lavender grey hair moving like spidersilk. “So what?” Child, stumbling in dreamless sleep and never missing an opportunity to hit the wrong notes. Child getting lost between home and the playground. Facing the mirror pond, she listened to the well of thoughts, ideas, different voices in her head. Hope to drown the priest’s went unanswered. That moment? Meant nothing. The shattered remains not worth a second glance. Where to turn to if one has used up all retreats of the past? What irony! As if she had nothing to flee from anymore. Possibilities of tripping, shattering fragile bone, leaving shards all over a city of skyglass still stared into bare features. Not her face staring into the pond, not any face working on the hole in her back. Weak position, wrong. “What I meant to say is that you’re disturbing us. If you wish to pace, there’s Surya Plaza, the Basilika.” The disc above tiny heads grew lighter. Waiting for quicksilver took time, but she held all of it in ancient hands. Gifted by the entire pantheon, cursed all the same. Sticky substance was boiling under the surface. “Thank you.” Yet neither movement nor noise disturbed peace and growing moonlight.

[Albireo]

Then steps echoed from columns and walls, reaching up to the hole through which stars were falling into still water. He eliminated beauty by polluting the image. Took all breath from her in less than a chime. The words were sucked from bloodless lips and faint washed over transparent skin. It had lost its glow, hurled into bitterness and denial. Not that it’d surprise anyone... “Thank you,” all the words left. Clinging to the phrase, she went backwards and exited the temple like enemy territory. Never turn your back to the desert because its eyes are always open and wide awake. Cool night hit her skin with sudden force. A craned neck revealed bursts of stars, connections here and there forming familiar shapes. A breath taken and the numbness seeped through soles and subsided in rocky ground. Albireo, double star. The safest place in the mortal realm, wasn’t it? Built on the strongest foundation only topped by heavenly fabric. Even that ultimately failed though. Bringing her hands to her face, she observed the shaking for a while. Against distant lights it was a whiff of nothing. No matter how long she stared, it held no meaning, no force to reach up to the stars. What are you doing here, pulling off a show like that? Maybe it had been wrong all the time; maybe she lacked the courage, the determination, the honesty and manners to speak up. It all happened in her head, didn’t it? Dainty steps carried the Fallen towards Surya Plaza, center of light and noise. Countless voices took her in, not her own, telling stories of ancient times and the present. Sometimes glimpses of the future even, in a half-empty tea cup or the whining of a child being sent home without any sweets. Heaven, the stars, the night. Mist between the peaks, under creaking bridges. How her heart beat a hole into her chest when the woods were swaying under her feet! They taught foreigners to go with the flow, these Lhavitians. Their philosophy embedded in all those nights of partying, drinking and dancing. And the stories, oh, the stories! Some inn swallowed the pale voice in her head without her even noticing, put a mug full of bitter gold in front of her and offered to listen. To anything, everything. And so the pale voice rose above others. “I have seen golden hills and flickering images in the air, I have felt grains and dust and dryness getting into every corner and every fold. Even water seems to be a gift of illusion in these lands.” The noise died and gave way to another tale in the making. Curiosity absorbed respect for glassy horns and moonlight glow – slowly, but surely. Learning, learning. Not she, still gratitude for that. “And I have seen the craziest people living in caves too deep under the sand to even measure. Do you wish to hear about their pretty little curses and lies? Some make and break the world down there, you know. One of them was of finer blood and greater heart than the rest of the pack though and my story shall tell about his fall from grace.” AND SLOWLY, SLOWLY THE WORDS DIE.

[Whimsy]

.
.

Experience Award

.

Albireo

Exp
+3 Philosophy
+1 Storytelling

Lores
Faithful to Leth
Leth: Questions of Faith

Comments
You write so gently and so beautifully. I'm loving seeing Albireo develop. PM me if you have any questions.