December 22nd, 2013: I’m appearing as a strange blend of physical Keri and otherworld Weaver. I’m very much me no matter which appearance I have. My appearance is intentional and uncontrollable. I have been summoned before an assembly, and I can only control my answers to their questions.
Their presence is vast and overwhelming. The more I try to process what I am seeing and sensing, the more there is to grasp. It becomes too much and I feel my sanity shivering. They see the effect an unfiltered view has on me and adjust their presentation accordingly. Even the memory of the encounter is overwhelming and all I was able to post to my tumblog was this:
Not Pern dragons. Not Tolkien dragons. Not Pokemon, not Disney, not safe-for-American-audiences dragons. Not Rift dragons. Not Warcraft dragons. Not we-ganked-this-tradition-to-make-a-game dragons. Not steampunk dragons. Not fairytale dragons. Not Oriental, Occidental, it-was-this-big-and-I’m-not-drunk-yet dragons.
Dragons.
We-are-greater-than-any-dragon-you-can-conceive-but-your-mind-is-incapable-of-understanding-our-immenseness-so-we’ll-roll-with-the-symbol-that-keeps-you-intact dragons.
All they let me bring back with me is the understanding the “conversation” is not over.
I have a strange desire to buy some folks a bottle of very strong whiskey and bribe them to pick my brain. Because I know more than I think I know. I just need the right questions to be the key to unlocking what I don’t know that I know.
Later I thought more on the “conversation” and added:
I guess I should call them Undragons? They are like No Man. No Man is not a man, not a human, not mortal, not anything that can be pinned down to a physical frame of reference. But he appears as a man (in a perfectly black, perfectly tailored three piece suit) because that is the symbol that I can grok and use to communicate with him.
The appearance of No Man is an illusion, however. No matter what I see “him” as, it is only the reflection of the shadow of the layers of masks between me and its reality.
These… dragons… are not dragons. They are not anything this physical frame of reference calls dragons. But they are using that image because it’s one I can grok.
I just have to remember not to mistake the symbol for what it represents.
No matter how primal a dragon they strike my senses, they are not dragons.
Don’t mistake the symbol for what it represents. Right? Privately, two others gave their opinion that these were indeed dragons, just not the type of dragons I have been about. It’s like tasting only artificial banana flavor my entire life and then being given a real banana to eat. The real thing won’t taste “real” to me because all I’ve known is the counterfeit.
December 23rd, 2013: The Undragons have called me back to stand before their assembly. I know they are actively preventing me from remembering more about what occurred here the day before. I have brought with me the Black Axe and Esse’s War Shield. I have a brief but strong memory of being adorned for battle. Standing in leathers with my wings manifesting as a heavy feather cloak. There is a helm on my head but it is not familiar nor solid. The Black Axe and the War Shield are very much tactile in this other realm. I grip them tightly in reassurance as one of the Undragons turns to look at me. It speaks, and my awareness is lost. When I return to myself, I am back in the physical world. I have the understanding that the Undragons are not done with me. There will be a third meeting.
December 24th, 2013: The Undragons call and I am compelled to answer. I rose to meet them. They didn’t pull me to them, but left the way open now that I demonstrated my wings were more than just visual distractions. I noted I had to pass through clouds as if entering a heavenly realm, but when I arrived there the sky was black. Each undragon was a source of light, and each one shone with a different hue.
I arrived fully winged, with the Black Axe and the War Shield, as requested. I knelt in formal greeting.
~gap in memory~
I’m falling, half aware, half conscious, fully inflamed. The Black Axe has not been fed and is complaining about it. I note the weapon is developing an awareness and resolve to ask Esse about it later. I know something happened that made my presence before the undragons untenable, but I also know that I am not at fault nor at guilt for the circumstance. My ejection, and my flightpath, is completely out of my control.
There will be another meeting. They have declared it.
They know I am struggling to remember despite them.
They are not allowing me to remember everything.
My last thought before darkness embraces me: I wonder if I look like a falling angel to anyone watching. Wouldn’t that be funny. Blackwinged and armed with a trail of uncontrolled fire.
I wonder if that has happened before.