I had the earworm since the day after the Ocean’s myth. A particular selection from a particular movie soundtrack. It’s a frustrating track, with a wonderful buildup that seizes the emotions and takes them into the stratosphere. Then drops you without even a kiss goodbye.
It was two days of near constant looping in my head before I made the connection between the track and the mountain terrace. I was amused. I’ll have to tell No Man he started a trend. An annoying as fuck trend.
Okay, fine. I’ll swing by the terrace on my way to the lair. I really wanted to see what my smithing test was. I was hoping it would be jewelry of some sort. I don’t wear much, but I enjoy the focus required to create it.
When I arrived, I was perilously close to the edge of the terrace. If I took a step back, I would have fallen off the cliff. K* was waiting for me, and gripped my arm immediately to prevent me from doing just that. Indeed, I had already begun the involuntary movement as the presence that dominated the terrace slammed into me on my arrival.
The clearing of the terrace is flat, circular, and is usually devoid of rocks and plants. The few alpine trees are clustered on the southwest edge. Low shrubs and stunted pines follow along the western edge to the north of the terrace. From the northeast to the south of the terrace is a sheer cliff drop. I arrived on the eastern compass point.
Inside the formal circle of the clearing is a dust filled vortex swirling viciously in a widdershin direction. It filled the circle completely and reached into the cloudless sky past the point of my very human vision. The visual presentation, while impressive, is not what startled me. It was the very solid presence in the vortex that threatened to crush me. I felt like I had been thrown into a granite pillar at speed.
“K*… That’s not [my Lord of Air].” In trying to speak, I could only manage a whisper. It was then I realized just how loud the revolving pillar was. As it moved, my apophenia heard the screams of women and tigers, the squeal of brakes, the shrieking of metal forcibly ripped, and the creaking of cemetery gates. I felt voiceless before it. I felt insignificant before it. I felt mortal before it. Only K*’s grip on me kept me from falling dead before it.
Ke answered both vocally and mentally. “No, that’s not. That is why I summoned you. He has requested your presence here. Get your footing, Weaver. You have a call to answer.” Ke kept kir solid grip on my arm while I forced myself to acclimate to the presence in the pillar. I swallowed my fear many times, and dealt with doubts I thought long settled. I confronted what wouldn’t settle my usual way. I asked questions.
“Angel or sylph?” “Yes.” Fuck.
“Let me guess, of a rank that has been improperly labeled for millennia.” “Yes.”
“I don’t worship.” “He doesn’t want human worship.” Wait, that’s the second time ke used a gendered pronoun…
“‘He’ or ‘Ke’? The lord has a gender?” “Some choose to, and he does.” We discuss further on gender and the conscious decision by K*’s kind to have it or not. The pillar rotated patiently while I used the discussion to acclimate myself completely. Feeling confident, I let go of K*’s arm first. Ke didn’t drop kir grip until a few minutes later. It was then I knew ke considered me stable enough to face the presence in the pillar.
The pillar filled the entirety of the circle. There was no place to stand and make a formal introduction. Very well then, I shall begin where I stood. I called my cloak to appear and noted my scars appeared as well. I made no attempt to hide them again. I took a formal stance and spoke with practiced projection despite knowing the sound would be swallowed up.
“I am Weaver. Weaver the Storyteller, Weaver Far-Traveled, Weaver Blackwing. You have called for me. I stand before you. By what name do you call me?”
The pillar started slowing its rotation. The dust, instead of settling, began to coalesce into the core of the rotation. Behind me, I noted K* had taken on kir glorious form as if donning a uniform. Ke whispered in my mind that no matter what happens, ke was here for me and will help when I need kir.
That did shit for settling my nerves.
The dust suddenly collapsed in on itself, solidifying into a giant statue of a naked male humanoid figure. My head was barely higher than the top of the bare foot. The skin was the color of dark mud. I felt no heat from the construct. I surmised it was created for the sole purpose of giving me something to relate to for communication purposes.
The figure faced due south. I was standing due east. Time to take flight and face the figure. Calling the cloak into wings, I suddenly felt uneasy. I realized the lord was disapproving of the presentation the wings gave me. I needed to fly to reach the face of the figure, and I am unable to levitate at the terrace without the wings present in some fashion.
A moment of thought and I exploded the feathers off of me. My head became feathered in lieu of afro but otherwise I still looked human. The feathers, now individually separated, floated behind me in an abstract representation of wings without actually being wings. The unease lifted and was replaced by contentment. The lord had approved of the adjustment.
I took to “flight” by only having the thought to do so. Behind and slightly below me, K* took up the position of Guardian Escort. The ascent was mostly vertical, with a subtle clockwise twist as I ascended from due east to due south of the dark hued figure. It did not breathe and was completely motionless. Still no heat came from it, and I considered that it would be just a large statue for me to be comfortable looking at. K*’s glory is intense, but I can look on kir with just a mild discomfort. [My Lord of Air]’s glory blinds me, and I still can’t process kir faces no matter what appearance ke takes. This lord is of several magnitudes greater in scope and power than [my Lord of Air]. If he were to display his glory, I would fall dead at his feet, I’m sure.
It took a little over a minute to rise to the immobile face of the figure. It felt like months had passed. As I rose, I looked over every visible inch of him, yes even there. He looked almost a perfect human male. (Intact, if you were curious.) Only two things kept me from twitching from Uncanny Valley syndrome. The complete lack of hair and his six arms. The lack of hair was to be expected since this is a statue. But the representation of hair was lacking even from the genitalia. This stood out to me as a marker, but of what, I do not know.
Two arms were still by his side, as if he were standing at full attention. The hands were relaxed and empty. Two arms were extended fully from his sides, the palms facing fully upward and the fingers extended. The final two arms were completely raised over his head, the hands bent backwards as if he was holding up the immensity of the sky in a triumphal display. Arriving at the face, there was a lack of eyebrows as well as no representation of hair on his head. I guess the lack of hair is the signature of his appearance.
The eyes and lips were closed. His nose is longer than I am tall. I felt like an insignificant mosquito before him. I hoped I wasn’t as irritating. I had already announced myself, so I was waiting for his answer. When he spoke, the statue did not move. Instead, his voice projected directly into my mind.
“Weaver Mythkeeper.” It was barely a whisper of ‘sound’, but the intensity almost knocked me from the sky. I wavered, noting K* was prepared to catch me if I fell, but I adjusted to the deep bass voice and remained before his face. “You have been to the Ocean, and dreamed the Ocean’s dream. You carry in you the echoes of that dream. Tell me, Weaver Mythkeeper, tell me the Ocean’s dreams of the Sky.”
The request was straightforward, but my core chilled into nervous frost. I was suddenly very aware of the significance of the mountain terrace, and of the formal function of my Lord of Air. I knew from the Ocean’s dream that it longs to be reunited with the Sky, but at the same time, the conflict between them is still ongoing. (Not written, and won’t be. For now.) If K* had asked the myth of me, I would tell kir the unabridged edition without batting an eye. But this high ranking lord, of such power that a twitch would destroy me, is asking what I thought would be commonly known among the Other Worlds. There is power in this myth and I am suddenly afraid to tell it.
I felt he was examining me the same way the djinn traveling merchant examined me when I revealed my ignorance of something important. I did not know the value of what I have, and now that I am realizing it, it is too late to keep it hidden.
The price of my name: Ask a story of Weaver, Weaver must tell that story.
“Your Lordship, the only dreams I can put into words is how the Ocean became separated from the Sky. All else escapes the limits of my language. Shall I tell that myth?” I don’t know how I kept a firm voice. I was very afraid.
“Yes.”
“Before there was a place, before there was a time, before there were ideas and the names of ideas, there was the Dream. And the Dream rippled and from the ripples came the Dreamer.”
There is a calm that comes over me when I start telling stories. I stop being me, and I become the story I tell. I have no thought to what is around me, where I am, what my situation is, even if I am naked or wounded. There is only the story and the telling of the story. In my mind’s eye, I am reliving the story I am telling. I am each character. I am the force of movement. Weaver doesn’t exist. There is only the story, and that is all that matters. I only return to myself when the telling of the story ends, or if I am interrupted.
“You are holding back.”
I blink in sudden shock of self-awareness. I was at the risk of segueing into the Ocean’s dream by just the telling of it. I wrinkle my face as I try to understand what the lord was taking offense to.
“I am speaking all that I can, your Lordship. Even those words I have withheld from human eyes.”
“I can feel the story in your mind, and it is not what you are speaking.” Behind me, I felt K* suddenly tense in anticipation.
I swallowed my sudden terror and spoke the truth of the situation. “Forgive me, your Lordship, but that is the limitation of my language. There are subtle nuances that I have no words for. I can only describe them in analogies and similes. You are far greater than my usual audiences. Such wordplay is all I have.”
“Then I will not listen to your words. Start over from the beginning.” Huh? The contradiction confused me until I realized he was able to see my mind’s eye as I spoke the myth. Okay, now I get it. As I relive the myth in the telling, he is going to snoop directly on my experience. Invasive as fuck, but not like I could stop him. Besides, he called me by name. I am bound to the price of it.
“Before there was a place, before there was a time, before there were ideas and the names of ideas, there was the Dream.” Feeling the lull of the story fall over me again, I looked up into the face of the dark hued statue.
Just in time to watch the eyes open.
Light brighter than the sun flooded over me, searing my eyes and my mind. The sliver of glory pierced into the depths of me even as I continued telling the myth. But it was not my body that was speaking. My immobilized body was skewered on the two spears of light that came from the eyes of the statue and focused in my chest. My flesh twitched in random movements even as my mind continued the telling of the story. I could feel the lord following my mind, following me into the Ocean’s dream.
I stopped breathing.
Darkness stopped the telling.
I fell.
~~ ~~ ~~
Screaming. A woman is screaming. She is in a full panic. I want to help her, but I can’t see. I can’t move. I don’t know where she is. I only hear her screaming and she is fading.
“Weaver. I have you.”
Who is Weaver? Who has me? Who am I?
“I have to fill your lungs, forgive me.”
The screaming had already ceased. The pain begins. It hooks me and pulls me into bright awareness. I scream with freshly filled lungs, but the air is caught and forced back into me. It hurts even more and I arch my back in pain. I feel the woman’s panic. It is my own.
I shout K*’s full and formal name. I am blinded by overwhelming light. I have no sense of gravity. I feel a strong hand grip mine. “I am here, my friend. Relax if you can, hold me tightly if you can’t. I said I would be here for you. Here I am.”
I am taken in a strong embrace. I feel feathers surround me. My eyes are wide open but all I see is light. I hear something like words on the wind above me. The light dims. I see K*’s half white, half black face. I’m crying.
We are on the ground of the terrace. K* is holding me with two arms and six wings. I am shuddering from fear. Kir wings are shielding my face from something bright around us. I forget what had happened, and I try to move the wings to see. “No. Not yet. Wait until his eyes are closed.”
Eyes? Oh… those eyes… the eyes with the light and the glory and the sight that pierced through my body into my mind and the bright and…
I’m shuddering, swallowing hard trying not to panic again. I hear whimpering and realize with shame that it is me. I don’t tell K* that the glory of the lord triggered a flashback to other times. Times I didn’t want to remember. Times that I wished the world would open up and swallow me straight to hell because no demon could ever hurt me the way those angels did. The way they forced themselves into my mind, into my thoughts, into the depths so that no matter where I tried to hide they would drag me away from the sheltering shadows, back into the light, back into the searing…
glory…
illumined…
by their unfathomable…
holy and pure…
hate
of
me
…
~whimpering~
“I have you, Weaver. You are safe here.” Safe? I wanted to scream at kir about what kir ‘brethren’ did… But… I can’t. I can’t speak. I can only cry and shake and whimper and fall to mental pieces in kir lap while the one that called me here to just tell him a goddamn story waits patiently for the storyteller to get her shit back together.
K* dropped kir wings allowing a fresh breeze to blow over me. I tighten my grip on kir arm but say nothing. I am ashamed for panicking. Ashamed for falling. I’m supposed to be able to face anything, dammit. Some fear-devourer I am. Ke starts chuckling.
“You’re thinking too loud again.” I scrunch my face at kir. “One day… One day you must tell me all that they did to you. I now understand your… reservations… towards me, and why you cried so hard on seeing [your Lord of Air]’s glory.” Ke pulled me into a seated position. “You are human, my friend. Yes, you’ve broken through many restraints that humans bear, but you are still human. He touched you in a way you did not expect, a way that you were harmed before. Your reaction is justifiable. He takes no offense.”
“HE takes no offense?” I pulled away from K* in fierce anger. Or tried to, but ke kept a firm grip on my arm. “Well, that’s just fine and dandy that HE TAKES NO FUCKING OFFENSE! I’d like to know just how the hell am I supposed to tell a story to someone that just fucking mind-raped me!”
“He is not human, Weaver. What torments you, will not torment him. And you will tell him ‘a story’, because he has called you here to do just that. He acknowledges you are a weaker creature than he is.” Kir voice dropped an octave and became inhumanely devoid of inflection. “He is granting you time to recover yourself. And he is waiting.”
My anger gave me the focus I needed to mentally move myself away from the memories. Ke was right. I had a story to tell, and I was oathbound to tell it. I could not hold him to human morals, because he is not human. I shook from anger and shame, but I could not refute K*’s words.
When I sighed in resignation, ke finally released my arm. “I don’t know if I can tell it, [K*]. Not the way he wants to hear it. If he triggers another panic reaction, I may just bail. Or worse. I dunno. I can’t predict what I’ll do.” K* nodded in sympathy and kissed me on the forehead.
“Just do the best you can, Weaver Storyteller. I think… I know… you are stronger than you have been led to believe.” Ke stood and helped me to my feet. Ke made a great show of patting the dust off of me and cleaning my tears from my face. I didn’t ignore my discomfort. I acknowledged it. I recognized each and every uncomfortable reaction I was having, then filed it away for full exploration later. Denying the emotions would only make them stronger and more intrusive. I’ll have a good cry about this later. Right now, the show must go on.
I shook my feathers back around me in the exploded abstract presentation of earlier. I looked back at K* and saw ke had returned to kir glorious form. Smiling as if nothing had happened, I nodded. He returned the nod, and we rose together to once more meet with the mighty lord.
The positioning of the statue had not changed. The eyes were once again closed. A newly arrived observer would not have known anything had happened here.
A deep breath to steady my nerves, then Weaver Storyteller once more took the stage. “Forgive me, your Lordship. You have found one of my weaknesses.” I formally bowed in mid-air, hovering before his unmoving face. “But a story you have requested of me, and a story I shall tell. Now that I know your touch, your Lordship, I shall be able to bear it again… should you demand that of me.”
There was no response from the statue. I caught myself biting my lip in worry. K* remained behind me, just close enough to reflect my body heat back to myself. I settled in for a wait. I may be a player on the stage, but I was not directing this show.
I don’t know how long we waited. Hovering there did not tire me out, as I was there by thought. K* doesn’t tire, ever. And statues have the patience of bedrock. I spent the time by dealing with my frayed nerves and going over the story I had been asked to tell. With each pass, I was less afraid of being enraptured by the lord’s glory. With each pass, I found a way to express a detail of the story I was unable to phrase before. When he finally “spoke”, I had no fear, and I was bursting to tell the story anew.
“Weaver Mythkeeper.” His ‘voice’ was even more quiet than before. I had to be utterly still to hear it. “I would hear a story from you. Will you tell it?”
I almost cried. “Yes, your Lordship. I shall tell it. What story would you wish me to tell?”
“Tell me how the Ocean was separated from the Sky.”
I smiled in relief. I took a deep breath and began anew. I knew he would pierce me with his glory again, but I was ready for it this time. I would not panic. I made the conscious decision to yield to him and began speaking. “Before there was a place, before there was a time, before there were ideas and the names of ideas, there was the Dream.”
Six eyes opened on the statue’s face. The two eyes he had before, and four suddenly appearing in his forehead. Six eyes opened and I was overwhelmed by his glory.
~~ ~~ ~~
Screaming. I recognized my voice but I felt completely removed from anything that could be labeled as me. I was not in pain. This was my body’s reaction to… something…
Expletives. I recognized Snake’s naga voice and felt something encircle my body in a tight spiral grip. Two hands held my head. My eyes were open but I could not see. My arms were rigid with my fists held so tight my knuckles were threatening to dislocate.
The screaming subsided, but I still felt outside of myself. I still could not see. My arms fell limp. The spiral grip that kept me from bruising myself during the seizure now threatened to crush my body. It relented at once.
“Keri. Come back here. All of you.” I felt tapping on my forehead. “I know it will hurt, but you need to be here. This isn’t the time to let your pieces scatter again.” A cold skin pressed against my face. “If I have to chase your parts down, Weaver, you are going to regret it. I will not be gentle.”
The soft threat was teasing and genuine. I smiled. The act of smiling reminded me of the rest of my body. I wrinkled my face in sudden pain. “Ouch.” I could sense I was in the lair, but I was still blind. In both eyes, even.
“Ouch?” Scaled hands rubbed my face gently.
“Yea. I hurt, but I don’t know why. Also, I’m blind?”
“Yea, that will take a day to heal. I hope your dead eye isn’t seared further.” He rubbed a finger gently against the mentioned eye. “Oh, it’s a scale.” He checked my ‘good’ left eye. “Both of them have scales on them. They’ll drop off in time.”
He pulled against my face, and I felt him lift a layer of charred skin. “So. You want to tell me where you have been to suffer flashburns? Not playing around with nuclear isotopes, I hope.”
My skin is burnt? And I have scales on my eyes? “All I remember is someone wanting a story from me and calling me.” I lied like fuck. I now remembered the entire thing, but I was uncomfortable talking about it right then.
“What story?” A cold and damp cloth is laid over my face. It feels very good and smells of flowers.
“It seems to be in great demand all over the place. Why the Ocean is separated from the Sky.” I could feel him pause in mid-movement.
“Weaver. You are burnt over the front of your body in a sudden searing, like you were exposed to a flash of high energy. Your eyes have scales. And you were called to tell a creation myth.”
I interrupted him before he could follow through with the logic. “I was at the mountain terrace, Snake. He’s a high-ranking lord, and he called me by name. I could not refuse him. Words weren’t carrying the story, so he tapped directly into me. And I’d rather not talk about it right now.”
Snake said nothing as he changed the dressing on my face. He tended to my hands and arms, and removed the charred remnants of my clothes. I was healing fast. It itched everywhere.
Twenty feet of serpentine muscle and four very strong arms held me gently. I could feel him subtly pulling me into deeper sleep. “Is this going to be a problem?”
“I have to face it sooner or later, Snake. As long as I am free to defend myself against the thugs, I’ll be okay.”
“I don’t mean them. I mean the price of your name.”
My turn to remain silent for too long. Just before I surrendered to his pulling, I answered. “I have always been Weaver.”