#who are formed from the corpses of those who lie under the desert’s sands

[carnivalls]

random question but does the world of terras town have any sort of religion

swear i've been sitting on answering this one for literal months now i'm. so sorry! wanted to be in a more tt mood again before replying (i'm still not fully but nostalgia is hitting hard on this friday night. btw).

also yeah! so since tt exists as a refraction (and opposition) of the town right above it, its no surprise that its religion also has similar (and skewed) foundations. considering lev's hometown is largely christian (& catholic), aka structured around a man dying for them, surprise! tt's is all about a woman being killed by them. which actually fits into their general day to day beliefs and attitudes more than you'd think.

so, just as lev's world has Our Lord, tt has Our Lady. and god in their case came from the earths, her divine body both one with the sand and also somehow sleeping deep within it. and in popular mythos, this is how the people of terras also first came to be: chewing and tearing their way free from her flesh, and thus becoming imbued along the way with a small spark of her divinity (aka, their magic). but subsequently, for each new person 'born', god grew weaker, until eventually self preservation rose and she woke up, with the aim to swallow them all back down again and re-become whole. this is the point where the people of terras proceeded to band together and kill her to maintain their lives. bonding activities fr

anyway it's no real surprise that as a result religious virtue in tt is based less around humility and fearing your god, and more about personal pride and surpassing them. terran religion is meant to uplift the self, promote determination and senses of justice, and encourage unity in the face of greater evils, since they are literally all each other have in the middle of this cut off dreambubble wasteland. these beliefs also tie though as to why the council & upper classes in terras generally suppress or hand wave away most religious affairs - last thing they need here is the lower classes to start being like oh shit right, we are so powerful actually, we can take on those corrupt bastards in charge if we all stick together haha!!!. it's not like they'll discriminate or outright prohibit religious displays or holidays, since that tends to only breed fiercer devotion and encourage the unwanted behavior, but for each religious holiday, some other follow up festivity or something will be made to sort of remind people of their power in particular. yk. power that you can actually see and touch and fear. not the general sense of power that allowed us all to hypothetically kill a god once upon a time. so. it's also why they encourage the vitriol and suspicion people in the lower classes have for each other.

unfortunately these attempts have also sort of largely worked, since there is not a lot to be proud of when you're fighting from day to day to survive to the next - or a lot to trust when your neighbor seems keen to stab you in the back. religious people exist in terras, but they're not that frequent (esp amongst The Masses), and are also usually dismissed more as optimists.

anyway past this, there's also some other branches off this primary faith - main sub groups include people who maintain that the Lady willingly let herself be killed instead of being gloriously defeated, and that there is no honor to be found in that kind of victory and that terras town citizens should be repenting for the original sin (sounds more familiar right?) vs people who maintain that the Lady wasn't ever really killed, only pushed back into slumber, and that one day she'll rise again to swallow them all - and that the people of tt must be ready to band together when that happens and truly defeat her for good etc etc. most people in tt find the former group whiny, if not downright heretical if they too are religious (who are you to try and shame us for our proudest and core tenet?), and the second cringe as fuck, plus slightly hererical if we are being picky (the whole point is that she's fucking dead dude).

oh and also there's the breakers. right. forgot about them. they are not connected to religion so much as they are like... the science of terras town, but they're a cult so i guess they sort of count in this section too. basically their full title is the barrier breakers, they think terras and the upper world need to be unified in a great rapture, and that the first sign of this happening will be the two planes 'swapping blood.' & they are going to love lev ❤️

[thesarcasticside]

Anything-$00000DDD

Summary

He could have been anything. When he looked inside his own mind, he dug through darkness. Memories like ashes, the particles filling his lungs were all that were familiar to him—and those only felt like nothing. No fragments, just a fine powder.

Janus is a cyborg who works for the Dragon Witch, a criminal mastermind who runs a company that designs cybernetics.

He meets Remus, a self-taught biomedical engineer, and a variety of other robotic and alien characters, all of whom are trying to convince him that he is more than just a cybernetic puppet.

But who is “Dee” if not an empty husk created only to be controlled?

General warnings

Psychological horror, body horror, cybernetics, missing limbs, artificial limbs, Non-consensual forced medical treatment, physical abuse, blood, violence, guns, mind control, permanent amnesia, manipulation, emotional abuse, gaslighting, nightmares, streams of consciousness, unreliable narration. Content that resembles depersonalization, derealization, or dissociation

More notes, links, and chapter text under the cut

AO3 Anything, AO3 series, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18

This is my story for the 2021 Storytime! Big Bang! @ts-storytime Thank you to @ben-phantomhive-trash, who is the artist I was partnered with for the event! They created this fantastic art!!!! I love it so much I can't even.

Thank you to PunkRock for helping me figure out the shorts characters and other plot things. Also thank you to AryaSkywalker, Thembo, and Carrotflowerking17 and the Big Bang 2021 discord for additional help!!!!

This fic is an alternative entry point to my (In Other Worlds) Series. This fic happens at the same time roughly as Millennia, a companion novel. You can read this fic and then check out the rest of the series, or check out the series and then read this.

Also, I don't use Janus's actual name throughout the fic for thematic and narrative reasons. You'll see. I hope that does not put you off too much. Consider it part of the angst.

Clarification of general warnings and pairings, minor spoilers

I added the tag unreliable narrator, but I will clarify that the narrator is not actively lying to the audience. This tag relates to Janus's memory issues and the uncertainty resulting from that. tbh I would not worry too much about the events being untrue, and more be concerned about these being Janus's imperfect recollection of events.

I think this fic is a bit more violent than Millennia at times, hence I added the archive warning for violence. I still feel like a teen would be fine reading this, so I am keeping the rating Teen and Up. This fic focuses the most on what I dub psychological horror (angst, mind control, memory issues, consciousness, nightmares, etc.). I also tagged this story with disassociation, and content in this fic may resemble derealization and depersonalization.

If you think I should warn/rate this fic differently, I am happy to hear feedback and reconsider.

I tagged this as Remus/Janus, but like, ya gotta squint. Mostly banter and being soft. I love romance, but I have a hard time writing it. Could be seen as platonic too.

HINT 1: KEY.

HINT 2: "kind of" not "kinda"

CHAPTER START

NAME J. D. Dedrick ID 25:35--25:44 / 51:09 ALIENRACE Dūcesnaca OCCUPATION Robotics Researcher

Chapter Warnings cybernetics, missing/artificial limbs (eye, legs), forced medical treatment/experimentation, amnesia, depersonalization/derealization/dissociation, unreliable narration, psychological horror, swearing Chapter Characters Janus, the Dragon Witch, Virgil (not by name)

He could have been anything. When he looked inside his own mind, he dug through darkness. Memories like ashes, the particles filling his lungs were all that were familiar to him—and those only felt like nothing. No fragments, just a fine powder.

He woke up to yellow in his eyes, stinging and unfocused. Lights beyond the veil flickered. He saw a figure move; he looked small. After a brief glance into the world, he began to drown. He threw everything into the yellow encasement, and after an agonizing struggle, the rush of acceleration threw him to the ground.

When the air touched his face, black fireworks exploded in his hazy vision, and the first memory he had was gone.

He woke up again, like a corpse left in the stale air for vultures: beaks plucking out his skin piece by piece. His vision blurry and halved, he stared up at the birds breaking his body into bits.

Reports say he was involved in a huge space crash. DRACANA has generously sponsored his artificiality.

That sounded like a lie. That sort of blatant untruth where there was no connection to reality tied to it. Everything his senses told him felt unreal, everything except the pain that grounded him like a shot duck.

Whispers like gossip broke into his mind between droughts of consciousness. His senses were pieced together and broken apart, like pieces of clay in a kiln shattering. Memories of vultures and lab coats glued together by agony floated through space until eventually he was awake.

Probably just one of her business rivals

Dei’dra—he knew her name—loomed over him, to his right. He could see nothing to his left. The light stung, he squinted and blinked his eye. He could feel nothing on the left side of his face. Dei’dra smiled at him.

“Wake up, dollface. Didn’t think you’d make it, but you pulled through.”

He did not know where he was. He did not know who he was. All he knew was that this woman was Dei’dra, the Dragon Witch, and he hated her.

“Well, he seems to be doing well. Might as well put him under and move onto the next stage.”

He lived out his days creating sand sculptures in his mind. He saw himself running in place, downloading skills and targets and concepts. The sand would blow away each day, leaving him with nothing to remember them by.

Between bouts of black unconsciousness, he saw grey, and white, and pale pink, brown, and blue. Abstract shapes morphing into creatures that prodded at him. Cold metal seething, machines twisting his body together like crochet. He gave nonsense names for some, not even names consisting of words, just pure thoughts.

Slowly, he lost sight of the sand in his brain, yet the grains still dripped from his ears when he shook his head. He became a part of reality. Or perhaps he became part of a hellish dream.

Darkness huddled in the damp sides of his eyes, danger snapping at his bruised joints and soles. Deep inside his chest, his heart damned, words mixed with intuitive instincts, daring his body to live beyond the yellow veil.

Stage One of Project $DEE has been completed.

$DEE was not his name. It was what he was called. One of the words that would echo in his brain. Dee. Dee. Dee. Like a rhythm, like the beeping machines. Like the ringing of the heart monitor. It was embedded in his ears. Baby words jumping around, forming pictures, babbling him into nothing.

Dee, his brain still a desert, started to make better sense of this reality he lived in. He could control his body sometimes. He could move his arms. Or what was left of his limbs. Or what they had lent him.

The second picture in his brain, the one after the yellow veil: it was the artificial lights on Lab C’s ceiling. Grey illuminated by white, he stared up at the square tiles and textured glass, like undulating waves of melted sand.

With how long he was locked in place staring up at this picture, he memorized it. He could close his eyes at any moment and picture it in its exact detail again.

“Time to get up, Doll-face. It’s time for your first mission.”

He saw Dei’dra’s face again. He felt his restraints loosen and break away.

His first mission was not all that glorious. He was lanky, unused to moving in his body. He was a wall of meat. Disposable. He followed a trail like a zombie. He barely spoke to the team he was placed in. He remembered their orders regarding him.

“He’s still pretty out of it. Give him some good experience, but we’d like to keep working on him so bring him back in one piece.”

Dee felt like a puppet, simply put. Some machine inside him aimed his cannons and lasers. He stood in place, shooting at targets. He was guided by an invisible leash by the team he was assigned to. He saw sepia shapes. Blurs of bodies. All he could feel was the emotions in his gut telling him, repeatedly:

Youaregoingtodieyouaregoingtodieyouaregoingtodieagainyouaregoingtodiestoppleasestoppleaseyouaregoingtodiestopstopstopstopstop.

He was kept suspended in place while his body completed the mission. And then he was back in Lab C, mind clearer.

He was thinking in sentences now. He could monologue, like any great villain. That is what he had become, hadn’t he? Why a villain? Where had he learned that word? The more he sifted through the sand, the more words he could find he no longer remembered learning. They were just there, connected to nothing. No memory. No past life.

He kept thinking these words. And then he decided that since his jaw was not glued shut, he would give speaking a try. Garbled and slurred at first, he kept talking as much as they let him.

They made him run between ceilings of grey. They made him speak between illuminated square tiles. He practiced lines of a script. Subterfuge settled in his brain like a mirage in the distance between the settled sand.

He could walk on the unsteady ground once again. He could see. He could hear. He could experience the world around him. He gazed up at the ceiling but was interrupted by a splotch of dark violet.

Another blot. Another vulture. He stood there out of the corner of his artificial eye.

“What are you waiting for? Get on with the tests.” His voice sharp, cutting through his tongue.

This was an unusual time of day for tests. To say it was a time of day was generous. It was more like he would be experimented on for hours upon hours and then suddenly they would stop. Nothing to do but bask in the nothingness it brought.

At this point, Dee thought that he was done with most of the tests. He had his limbs. He had an eye, which he opened wider to get a better look at the violet blotch. Something about the blotch was connected to something else in his brain, but he could not quite place it.

“Well, whatever it is, get on with it, it certainly could not have waited until morning.”

It shuffled closer to him. Less of a blotch now. He could make out shapes. He could recognize his face now if he saw him again.

Air escaped his lungs, and then he said again, asking, “Whatever might you need from me today, doctor?”

The blotch was shaking. “If you are just here to sight-see, I am going back to sleep.” His eyes weighed heavily on his face, eyelids falling through his willpower.

“Are you… okay?”

No, I am not ‘okay’. I am ‘$DEE.’

“Do I LOOK okay? Yeah sure, I am right as rain, having a grand old time—feeling peachy, even.” At this point, the words just spiraled off his tongue and through his teeth. The blotch made a sound, and Dee’s frustration grew, the pain of today’s tests ricocheting in his body.

“If you aren’t here to run another one of your little tests, then just get out. Go tell your superior, or better yet, go tell Dei’dra to go fuck herself and leave me alone.”

And he left him alone. He wondered vaguely what that was all about. He then fell asleep.

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of DC: Week of May 29th, 2019

Best of this Week: Doomsday Clock #10 - Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, Brad Anderson and Rob Leigh

And yet another wrinkle is added to the DC Universe.

Or should I say, “Metaverse” now? Yes, after I think three months since the last issue, Doomsday Clock returns with yet another strong issue that expands upon the mythos of the DC Universe and just how Doctor Manhattan viewed and affected things at the many different positions of time that he has been able to inhabit.

The issue is framed around an actor by the name of Carver Colman, a very huge star in DCs 1954, who has been referenced or used in previous issues. This gives some kind of continuity in the context of the story as Johnny Thunder was seen watching his movie in the retirement home al the way back in issue two or three. Colman, unfortunately, has a secret that gets him killed soon after wrapping up the filming of his biggest hit, The Adjournment and as we make it through the issue and the back and forth of his life, we find the biggest change to Doctor Manhattan’s character and how he has to bend to the rules of this new universe.

Doctor Manhattan actually meets Colman in 1938 when he was a struggling actor who had just lost his job delivering mail to a movie studio after an unfortunate accident and things he saw. Manhattan takes Colman out for some food, attempting to use him as a rod to focus on to look towards the future as he can’t seem to do so on his own after arriving. He does so and is able to see a year into the future, then four and so on. His abilities work again, but then he hears something strange.

A radio report of a man lifting a car into the air. The first appearance of Superman on April 13th, 1938. Suddenly, it was gone, the crowds of people were gone as if they never existed. He follows the path where Superman existed in 1938 and finds the Justice Society, having formed and waiting for Superman to answer their summons. Jay Garrick “Flash”, “Green Lantern” Alan Scott, Hawkman, Doctor Fate and others, waiting for the Man of Steel to join their ranks and suddenly, they too have never heard of him.

Manhattan follows the many arrivals of Superman, from 1956, to 1986 and sees his arrival change again and again, noting the many deaths of Ma and Pa Kent and how this “Universe” seems to use Superman as a focal point, even going to a thousand years from now when Superman was briefly part of the Legion of Superheroes. So to test how things revolve around Superman, he changes the past by moving the Lantern away from Alan Scott, killing him, and drastically changes the future, creating the New 52 Timeline.

Everything is recontextualized as Manhattan sees that this action changes this universe and that it’s constant state of flux affects the wider multiverse. From the parallel worlds, to the anti-matter, to the Dark Multiverse, Earth Prime is a “Metaverse” in his words. The others change to match whatever is going on in the Prime World and once it realizes what he’s done, it begins to fight back. Manhattan sees Wally West trying to fight his way back to the Universe. This one action causes a chain reaction that will lead to his inevitable confrontation with Superman where Superman either kills him or he kills the Metaverse.

Cutting back to 1954, Manhattan is at Carver Colman’s home on the night that he’s murdered. He doesn’t do anything to stop it.

There’s a saying that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” In the Watchmen Universe, Doctor Manhattan was allowed to do or not do as he pleased because that world was a little bit more grounded or at worst cynical. Though, one might say that because he refused or didn’t care to use his power at a larger scale, Ozymandias’ “evil” won. Though Ozymandias thought what he did was the right thing, this series proved it it be disastrous in the wake of Rorschach’s journal being published, but initially Veidt’s plan did succeed. Doctor Manhattan escaping to the DC Universe put him into direct conflict with the Metaverse and its Hope. Its innate desire to have the good triumph over evil won’t let Doctor Manhattan get away with inaction and in his words, “To this universe of hope… I have become the villain.”

Words can’t describe how hype I was for this. With each and every issue, a new layer is added and brings us closer and closer to the epic conclusion that only Geoff Johns and Gary Frank can realize. I also love how they’ve expanded on the importance of Earth Prime, seeing as how it has indeed gone through many changes. It’s good to finally have an explanation that implies that even through the many reboots and retcons that if DC wanted to, they could tap into those timelines as main universes at any time. Everyone’s favorite time period matters or will matter again soon.

---------------------------------------------------

"One last adventure together…"

Runner Up: Batman: Last Knight on Earth #1 - Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion, FCO Plascencia and Tom Napolitano

Joker's words to describe his and Batman's last run together in the hell that is the world after some unexplained event killed numerous heroes, villains and just about anything else. It also describes what MAY be the last time we see Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo do a big Batman story together and I already feel like we're in for a BIG one.

After a curious case of large scale chalk drawings,  showing a dead Batman, leads the Dark Knight to the Crime Alley he inadvertently sets off a trap laid by an unknown assailant using the decomposing body of a ten year old child. He later wakes up in Arkham Asylum, apparently having been there since KILLING HIS FAMILY in Crime Alley all those years ago. Capullo does a great job of setting atmosphere and making things unsettling as even a small fly buzzing around and "Dr. Redd Hudd" looming over a straight jacketed Bruce Wayne looks creepy.

Arkham appears to be just a regular Asylum with Alfred showing up and trying to convince Bruce that Batman was all in his head, showing him a mock costume they made to keep him calm with a cowl stitched to a straight jacket. Bruce sees through it all and fights his way through Arkham until Alfred reveals the truth. He only wanted to keep his boy safe because half of Gotham was just gone. Years had passed and Batman has no idea what happened.

He later wakes up in a desert and coincidentally finds the head of The Joker. He wakes and immediately begins cracking jokes as Batman takes him and they begin to walk to Coast City. I don't know how much of this is real and that adds to the mystique of the story. We're never given an explanation as to how he got there from Arkham or how Joker is surviving.

They arrive at Coast City and the decayed corpse of Mogo looms over a giant crater and ruins. Joker says that all of the Lanterns fell and rings are just there for the taking. Suddenly the duo are attacked by projections of babies before being saved by Vixen and Poison Ivy. Ivy then knocks Bruce out just in case and he wakes up surrounded by the new Amazons; Vixen, Donna Troy, Poison Ivy, Supergirl and Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman explains that one day, Luthor just… convinced most that they should just take what they deserve. He told them that goodness was a lie and they just ate it up. It echoed the future that Luthor saw back in Justice League/Legion of Doom #5, but given that this is a Black Label book, one wouldn't be wrong if they didn't want to think of this as the explanation of that timeline because they're not in the same canon.

Wonder Woman also tells Batman that the one wielding the Anti-Life Equation may be one of the Boys and pleads with him to join the Amazons in Hades.

But Batman is Batman and he decides that he's going to put a stop to this.

Last Knight on Earth reads like an alternative ending for Scott Snyder's Justice League epic. Even though that story is far from over, not even close, there's this unsettling feeling that, if Scott didn't have to have the heroes win in the end, this should be the absolute endgame. A world, no UNIVERSE possibly, under siege by someone wielding the Anti-Life Equation, hope dead and dying and the ever creeping feeling of dread knowing that somehow life and death have lost enough meaning that Joker as a decapitated head still lives… this story is terrifying.

Honestly, this might be some of Capullos best art to date. With Glapion and Plascencia's help, this book feels so atmospheric and dark. Glapion accentuates Capullos lines and shading well with dark-dark inks, making Batman appear to be shrouded in it even in the sun. It's haunting, especially in the Arkham scenes where things are absolutely not as they seem and dark secrets hide behind and within the walls. Plascencia, on the other hand, can make even light and vibrant colors threatening. The red sand on Jokers jar is intense  and the Green Lantern babies are deadly. Hell, Coast City, Hall Jordan's crown jewel, looks unbelievably desolate, colored like a wasteland. Capullo pulls all of this together with as much detail as he possibly can and his work shows.

Faces are expressive, from Batmans fear, to Alfreds regret to Jokers madness. Body language is utilized greatly as Batman fights like a caged animal. He's taken aback by Jokers head, but still finds his resolve. Wonder Woman is still fierce, but even her edge has dulled with the sheer lack of hope that running away and going underground has given her.

This story is terrifying and I absolutely love it. From the creepy visuals of Capullos art, to the expression of thought because of the mature liberties Black Label books can take, it's all beautiful. This one is absolutely going to match my love for Batman: Damned and every one should go and read this. High recommend!

[catherinewrites]

D&D Character Snippet

This is a medium length introduction to another D&D character of mine. It is under the cut because of length. Please read and enjoy. I would really like any feedback if you have any. Thank you for taking the time! 

   I lie in the dark, staring at the stone ceiling above me. The darkness is closing in, but I can’t let it overtake me. Slowly, images of my father’s face begin to flood my mind. Young and elven, sharp features, golden hair and skin, and his bright eyes. I can’t forget those eyes. He stands as such a contrast to my pale skin and dark hair, though he always said my eyes reminded him of the forest canopy in summer.

  He wasn’t my biological father, but he did raise me. I never knew my real father and was always told that my mother was found, wounded and dying, with me clutched to her chest. I had just been an infant…a human child taken in by a Sun-Elf tribe. Daylight dances behind my closed eyelids as if it was breaking through the forest canopy over my home. Home. Tears begin to well up, and I run my hand through the cool waters of stream with my father at my side. He was showing me how to catch fish. Oh, how I remember that day. It was my 11th year of being a part of the tribe. I remember, I was so happy and I had just been given a feather by the Giant Owl that protected our part of the forest, Beyoris. It was a blessing, father had told me, something that I could use to focus my magic and become stronger. I stooped low, watching the ripples in the clear water and eyeing the fish swimming underneath. Suddenly, water splashes over me. He caught a fish. Just reached out and grabbed it, like lightening. Just as suddenly, a fish breaches the water, scared by the commotion. I reach out for it, not wanting to disappoint him, but I slip and fall face first into the creek. I get up, sopping wet and embarrassed, but he is laughing. He laughs so hard he drops the fish and it flips back into the stream. This is what I need to remember…my father sitting cross-legged by the stream, laughing with the sun glittering off of his golden skin.

Fara…my darling girl. How you impress me. He looks to me, smiling.

   A second memory invades my thoughts. This day was just as bright, the sun soaring high in the sky, but a darkness seeped into it. Sun Elf soldiers had come from the Capital City, Evereska, to collect some supplies. I was told that this only happened once every thirty years, and that I needed to stay quiet and hidden in our lodge. Not long after they arrived, I was being drug out of the lodge by a fearsome High Elf Captain. I won’t ever forget that moment. No matter how much I may try. I see my father, standing there, staring at me with a terrified expression. The captain yells and I try desperately to loosen his grip. Humans are forbidden, I hear him say. Our ways are sacred. I look up at my father, tears running down my face, I beg him to help me. Two soldiers are standing behind him, pressing close to him, one whispers something to him and he looks to me. It’s a heartbreaking gaze that will burn on in my mind until I die. But what’s worse than that look, is when he averts his eyes. His face hardens, his decision made. I scream at him, begging him to help, to do anything, and the soldier throws me to the ground, pinning me down like a prey rabbit. Another soldier comes over, binds my hands and hoists me up. As they take me away from my home, from my family, I can see the Captain speaking to my father. He looks up after me one last time, before we turn around a corner and I lose sight of him.

   Sobbing in a dark, cold cage. Is this how my life is supposed to go? I’ve spent four years in this desolate place. They tried to make me a servant, but I was too flighty and unwieldy, so they threw me down into this gods-forsaken dungeon. I worry now that I’ve been forgotten about and left to rot. The food came sporadically during my time down here, but it has been about a week since I have seen another soul, except for the rats who scurry in and out through their crevices, taunting me.

   Fara Nachedel, surnamed for my adoptive father. I try to picture him again but I can only see his eyes. Broken and defeated, they hold a piercing sadness that chokes my heart inside my chest. Why didn’t he help me? Because they would’ve killed him of course. But he is my father! He is supposed to protect me! You didn’t want him to get hurt, did you? No, I didn’t. Of course, I had to obey. They might have killed him for breaking their laws, but they took me as repayment for the sin instead. You can’t die in the dark here.

   I shoot up, my head spinning from the jolt of movement. I can’t die in here, I won’t. The voice that was in my head manifests behind me. A beautiful young woman, with hair as black as a starless night, stands in front of me. I shake from standing, my strength siphoning from me with every passing minute. My voice is hoarse and almost useless, my throat as dry as desert sand, but I try to speak. I falter and kneel to the ground, my head swirling around me. The woman glides up to me, and touches my cheek, lifting my head. She speaks to me, but not out loud. I hear her voice, as before. An echo in my mind.

           Darling Child, why do you suffer so?

           The Captains face comes to my mind and a hard rage builds inside my stomach. The Sun-Elves did this, they put me here. They stole me from my family and took my life away from me, and for what reason? What did I ever do to them?

           Nothing, Child. You didn’t do anything. They are the ones who stole you, imprisoned you, wronged you, and I can help you repay the favor.

           Her eyes were dark green and glinted like the grass in a meadow, swaying in a cold wind. I almost stopped breathing, I felt so overcome by them.

Repay the favor? I just want to live. I just want to go home.

           Of course, you do, My Sweet, and I have exactly what you need. I can get you out of here, take you home.

           How? How can I get out?

   She smiles, but it seems off. Like a reflection of your face in the calm waters. It looks like you but is somehow not the same. It should unnerve me, I think.

   Let me help you, young one. I am a very powerful being, I can give you my blessing. It will make you strong enough to escape, to take on anyone who tries to stop you. I just need you to do one thing for me in return.

           Anything.

           Good. She leans toward me, pulling me close to her, whispering. You shall take my blessing and murder the High-Elf King. A dark laugh fills my head. You shall be my pretty little siren, beautiful and young, but deadly to the touch.

           A sick feeling takes me over. A dark dangerous air has flooded my small stone cell. I look toward her, her face just inches from me, and I see her green eyes flooded with black veins. Her hand crawls down to my neck and I feel the air constrict in my lungs. I can feel the black veins winding up my throat as her perfect features morph into the terrible form of a decrepit corpse, and she hisses into my ear with a gravelly voice.

           “Go now, my little siren. Let my name drip from your lips along with the blood of your foes. I am the goddess Talona, you shall obey my will and destroy those who have wronged you.”

           A sudden horrifying pain overwhelms me, and I black out. My eyes flutter open, but I am unsure of how long I have been laying on the ground. I sit up and slowly, I look around. Dead mice are scattered around me, probably twenty or more, and their bodies are withered and blackened. My heart pounds in my chest and I feel a surge of energy like I have never known before. I look down at my skin and it glows with renewed life, but the Giant Owl feather, hangs, molted and black around my neck. I stand, one thing taking over my thoughts. I have to get out of here.

   I grab at the cell door, shaking it. The rusty metal hinges twist and emit a screeching noise that grabs the attention of a guard upstairs. I can hear his boots coming down the stone steps, they echo through the dungeon. I pin myself against the wall, instinctively, and wait. As the guard closes in on my cell, I can feel my hand burning. A thirsty need for something, but what? His body comes into my view and I thrust my hand through the bars, grasping his neck. Black veins shoot up my arm and the burning intensifies, though it is almost a pleasurable feeling. His golden skin withers under my hand, and I realize that I am consuming his life force. Before I know it, his body slumps to the ground. It resembles the rats a bit, I think, all blackened and dried out. I reach for the keys that lay against his hip, and slowly unlock my cell. Once the door opens I can feel a huge breath of air return to my lungs, and I step slowly from my cell, fearing the floor might crumble away beneath me. The floor is steady and firm, so I run.

   I navigate through the dungeon blindly, running up the stairs at a breakneck pace. I see more guards, but I duck past them. Reaching the courtyard, I come to a stop, gasping in the night air. The moon looks down on me for the first time in a long time and my toes curl against the soft grass. I almost lose myself in the beauty of the night sky, before a voice shatters my thoughts.

           The King, siren. Kill the King.

           I look back toward the castle and I can see guards coming out after me. This ‘goddess’ that blessed me is nothing but a demon. No good can come from the power to take life so easily. I will my feet to carry me toward the outer wall and begin to scale it. My hands grasp at any handhold I can reach and I’m over the wall sooner than I thought possible. Jumping down to the other side, I take off into the dark forest. Hopefully in the direction of my home.

           I journey for an hour or so before I find a familiar path and the stream. I stop to drink the cool clear water, then after another hour of traveling I am at the entrance to my home. The familiar trees wrap heavily around a hidden path. My father emerges from the entrance, and I almost can’t stop myself from running to embrace him, but the look on his face holds me in place.

           “What are you doing here, Fara?” He stares down at the ground, refusing to look at me.

           “I’ve come home, father. I escaped that awful city and I’ve come home.”

           “This is not your home, not anymore. We broke the laws, keeping you here with us, and that is not a mistake we can make again.” He lifts his head slightly, and I can see a deep scar running the length of his face, from his temple to the right side of his chin.

           “What’s happening.” It’s all I can get out.

           “You need to leave this place, before they come for you.” He turns away. “You are not welcome here anymore.”

           “Father…”

           “Go Fara!” He screams at me. “You need to leave or they will kill you this time!”

           “They can’t do any worse to me. Not now.” I step towards him but he turns his back to me again. “Fine,” My tears fall onto the grass at my feet. “I will leave, Father, if that is what you want.” I turn to go but I hear his voice one last time.

           “Just know, that I will always love you like my own…I am sorry it has to be this way, but I don’t have any choice.”

           My fists clench at my side and my shoulders shake under an uncontrollable pain and sadness. “There is always a choice, father. But it seems you have already made yours.” Without looking back at him, I run back the way I came, to my stream. I use the cool water to wash the tears, dirt, and sweat away, before curling up next to it and trying my best to fall asleep.

           A nightmare comes to me in the form of Talona. She stands before me, wrapped in smoke and the stench of death. Anger burns in her eyes and she screams at me. She tells me I betrayed her and I denounce her blessing. In her fury she tells me that I will be cursed. Cursed to hurt the earth that I so dearly want to protect. My druidic magic shall drain the life from anything I touch, including other people. I start awake, staring into the bright sunny sky.

   When I awake, I notice the grass where I was laying is withered and dead, and it crumbles under my touch. There is no way, did this goddess really curse me like this? Then, I sense someone watching me and I look around, ready for a fight. What I see in front of me doesn’t scare me, but it delights me. The Giant Owl, Beyoris; protector of the forest, is standing at the streams edge. His great wings curl over his back and his talons dig into the muddy dirt.

           “Fara Nachedel, young child. It is good to see you again.” He tilts his head and looks at me with his large round eye.

           “That is not my name,” I tell him. “I am Fara Nachedel no longer.”

           His head tilts the other way. “Oh…well then, may I ask. Who are you?”

           His question stuns me, yet so did my answer to his first question. If I can’t be me anymore, then who can I be? I stand slowly.

           “I don’t know, but my fath-…the Sun-Elves have made it very clear that I am not welcome among them. As much as I hate the thought, that part of my life needs to be over. I need to start somewhere new.” I pause, lifting the owl feather from around my neck. I hold the corrupt trinket in my hands, ashamed of what I did to that guard.

           “Great Beyoris, I am afraid that I have made a terrible mistake. I aligned myself with something, I’m not too sure what she was, but I am not worthy of your blessing.” I hold it out to him, kneeling, head down, as I was taught so long ago.

           “Stand child.” His voice was fierce and firm. “You have never needed my blessing more than you do right now. I know that scourge that creeps along my feather. Talona, the goddess of plagues, she has infected your body with a terrible curse.”

           “I was going to die, and she tricked me. I never would have accepted if I knew what power she would give me.”

           “I know that, child. Though, now it seems you have quite a journey to make. I can only tell you that it may take you to the harshest ends of this world and you will be tested in ways you can’t possibly imagine.”

           “What do you mean?”

           “If you want to rid your body of the infection from the Goddess.”

           “There’s a way? Tell me, how?”

           He lowers his great head. “I do not know, young one. I can only tell you to journey through Neverwinter. This is a land of myths and legends and you need to track down any information you can on her and her evil magic.”

           His great wings flap at his side, swirling the air around him. “I can try to help when I can, but this is a journey that you must undergo on your own. Now, I ask again, if you aren’t Fara Nachedel anymore, then who shall you be?”

           I think for a moment, but it comes in a flash. I know who I am, who I must become to survive, at least for now.

   “My name is Siren.”

[catherineofearghail-blog]

This is a reworked version of my characters story for our D&D game.

I can only lie in the dark, staring at the stone ceiling above me. The darkness is closing in and I can’t let it overtake me. Slowly, images of my father’s face begin to flood my mind. Young and elven, sharp features, golden hair and skin, and his bright eyes. I can’t forget those eyes. He stands as such a contrast to my pale skin and dark hair, though he always said my eyes reminded him of the forest canopy in summer.

He wasn’t my biological father, but he did raise me. I never knew my real father and was always told that my mother was found, wounded and dying, with me clutched to her chest. I had just been an infant…a human child taken in by a Sun-Elf tribe. Daylight dances behind my closed eyelids as if it was breaking through the forest canopy over my home. Home. Tears begin to well up, and I run my hand through the cool waters of stream with my father at my side. He was showing me how to catch fish. Oh, how I remember that day. It was my 11th year of being a part of the tribe. I remember, I was so happy and I had just been given a feather by the Giant Owl that protected our part of the forest, Beyoris. It was a blessing, father had told me, something that I could use to focus my magic and become stronger. I stooped low, watching the ripples in the clear water and eyeing the fish swimming underneath. Suddenly, water splashes over me. He caught a fish. Just reached out and grabbed it, like lightening. Just as suddenly, a fish breaches the water, scared by the commotion. I reach out for it, not wanting to disappoint him, but I slip and fall face first into the creek. I get up, sopping wet and embarrassed, but he is laughing. He laughs so hard he drops the fish and it flips back into the stream. This is what I need to remember…my father sitting cross-legged by the stream, laughing with the sun glittering off of his golden skin. Fara…my darling girl. How you impress me. He looks to me, smiling. A second memory invades my thoughts. This day was just as bright, the sun soaring high in the sky, but a darkness seeped into it. Sun Elf soldiers had come from the Capital City, Evereska, to collect some supplies. I was told that this only happened once every thirty years, and that I needed to stay quiet and hidden in our lodge. Not long after they arrived, I was being drug out of the lodge by a fearsome High Elf Captain. I won’t ever forget that moment. No matter how much I may try. I see my father, standing there, staring at me with a terrified expression. The captain yells and I try desperately to loosen his grip. Humans are forbidden, I hear him say. Our ways are sacred. I look up at my father, tears running down my face, I beg him to help me. Two soldiers are standing behind him, pressing close to him, one whispers something to him and he looks to me. It’s a heartbreaking gaze that will burn on in my mind until I die. But what’s worse than that look, is when he averts his eyes. His face hardens, his decision made. I scream at him, begging him to help, to do anything, and the soldier throws me to the ground, pinning me down like a prey rabbit. Another soldier comes over, binds my hands and hoists me up. As they take me away from my home, from my family, I can see the Captain speaking to my father. He looks up after me one last time, before we turn around a corner and I lose sight of him. Sobbing in a dark, cold cage. Is this how my life is supposed to go? I’ve spent four years in this desolate place. They tried to make me a servant, but I was too flighty and unwieldy, so they threw me down into this gods-forsaken dungeon. I worry now that I’ve been forgotten about and left to rot. The food came sporadically during my time down here, but it has been about a week since I have seen another soul, except for the rats who scurry in and out through their crevices, taunting me. Fara Nachedel, surnamed for my adoptive father. I try to picture him again but I can only see his eyes. Broken and defeated, they holds a piercing sadness that chokes my heart inside my chest. Why didn’t he help me? Because they would’ve killed him of course. But he is my father! He is supposed to protect me! You didn’t want him to get hurt, did you? No, I didn’t. Of course, I had to obey. They might have killed him for breaking their laws, but they took me as repayment for the sin instead. You can’t die in the dark here. I shoot up, my head spinning from the jolt of movement. I can’t die in here, I won’t. The voice that was in my head manifests behind me. A beautiful young woman, with hair as black as a starless night, stands in front of me. I shake from standing, my strength siphoning from me with every passing minute. My voice is hoarse and almost useless, my throat as dry as desert sand, but I try to speak. I falter and kneel to the ground, my head swirling around me. The woman glides up to me, and touches my cheek, lifting my head. She speaks to me, but not out loud. I hear her voice, as before. An echo in my mind. Darling Child, why do you suffer so? The Captains face comes to my mind and a hard rage builds inside my stomach. The Sun-Elves did this, they put me here. They stole me from my family and took my life away from me, and for what reason? What did I ever do to them? Nothing, Child. You didn’t do anything. They are the ones to stole you, imprisoned you, wronged you, and I can help you repay the favor. Her eyes were dark green and glinted like the grass in a meadow, swaying in a cold wind. I almost stopped breathing, I felt so overcome by them. Repay the favor? I just want to live. I just want to go home. Of course, you do, My Sweet, and I have exactly what you need. I can get you out of here, take you home. How? How can I get out? She smiles, but it seems off. Like a reflection of your face in the calm waters. It looks like you but is somehow not the same. It should unnerve me, I think. Let me help you, young one. I am a very powerful being, I can give you my blessing. It will make you strong enough to escape, to take on anyone who tries to stop you. I just need you to do one thing for me in return. Anything. Good. She leans toward me, pulling me close to her, whispering. You shall take my blessing and murder the High-Elf King. A dark laugh fills my head. You shall be my pretty little siren, beautiful and young, but deadly to the touch. A sick feeling takes me over. A dark dangerous air has flooded my small stone cell. I look toward her, her face just inches from me, and I see her green eyes flooded with black veins. Her hand crawls down to my neck and I feel the air constrict in my lungs. I can feel the black veins winding up my throat as her perfect features morph into the terrible form of a decrepit corpse, and she hisses into my ear with a gravelly voice. “Go now, my little siren. Let my name drip from your lips along with the blood of your foes. I am the goddess Talona, you shall obey my will and destroy those who have wronged you.” A sudden horrifying pain overwhelms me, and I black out. My eyes flutter open, but I am unsure of how long I have been laying on the ground. I sit up and slowly, I look around. Dead mice are scattered around me, probably twenty or more, and their bodies are withered and blackened. My heart pounds in my chest and I feel a surge of energy like I have never known before. I look down at my skin and it glows with renewed life, but the Giant Owl feather, hangs, molted and black around my neck. I stand, one thing taking over my thoughts. I have to get out of here. I grab at the cell door, shaking it. The rusty metal hinges twist and emit a screeching noise that grabs the attention of a guard upstairs. I can hear his boots coming down the stone steps, they echo through the dungeon. I pin myself against the wall, instinctively, and wait. As the guard closes in on my cell, I can feel my hand burning. A thirsty need for something, but what? His body comes into my view and I thrust my hand through the bars, grasping his neck. Black veins shoot up my arm and the burning intensifies, though it is almost a pleasurable feeling. His golden skin withers under my hand, and I realize that I am consuming his life force. Before I know it, his body slumps to the ground. It resembles the rats a bit, I think, all blackened and dried out. I reach for the keys that lay against his hip, and slowly unlock my cell. Once the door opens I can feel a huge breath of air return to my lungs, and I step slowly from my cell, fearing the floor might crumble away beneath me. The floor is steady and firm, so I run. I navigate through the dungeon blindly, running up the stairs at a breakneck pace. I see more guards, but I duck past them. Reaching the courtyard, I come to a stop, gasping in the night air. The moon looks down on me for the first time in a long time and my toes curl against the soft grass. I almost lose myself in the beauty of the night sky, before a voice shatters my thoughts. The King, siren. Kill the King. I look back toward the castle and I can see guards coming out after me. This ‘goddess’ that blessed me is nothing but a demon. No good can come from the power to take life so easily. I will my feet to carry me toward the outer wall and begin to scale it. My hands grasp at any handhold I can reach and I’m over the wall sooner than I thought possible. Jumping down to the other side, I take off into the dark forest. Hopefully in the direction of my home. I journey for an hour or so before I find a familiar path and the stream. I stop to drink the cool clear water, then after another hour of traveling I am at the entrance to my home. The familiar trees wrap heavily around a hidden path. My father emerges from the entrance, and I almost can’t stop myself from running to embrace him, but the look on his face holds me in place. “What are you doing here, Fara?” He stares down at the ground, refusing to look at me. “I’ve come home, father. I escaped that awful city and I’ve come home.” “This is not your home, not anymore. We broke the laws, keeping you here with us, and that is not a mistake we can make again.” He lifts his head slightly, and I can see a deep scar running the length of his face, from his temple to the right side of his chin. “What’s happening.” It’s all I can get out. “You need to leave this place, before they come for you.” He turns away. “You are not welcome here anymore.” “Father…” “Go Fara!” He screams at me. “You need to leave or they will kill you this time!” “They can’t do any worse to me. Not now.” I step towards him but he turns his back to me again. “Fine,” My tears fall onto the grass at my feet. “I will leave, Father, if that is what you want.” I turn to go but I hear his voice one last time. “Just know, that I will always love you like my own…I am sorry it has to be this way, but I don’t have any choice.” My fists clench at my side and my shoulders shake under an uncontrollable pain and sadness. “There is always a choice, father. But it seems you have already made yours.” Without looking back at him, I run back the way I came, to my stream. I use the cool water to wash the tears, dirt, and sweat away, before curling up next to it and trying my best to fall asleep. A nightmare comes to me in the form of Talona. She stands before me, wrapped in smoke and the stench of death. Anger burns in her eyes and she screams at me. She tells me I betrayed her and I denounce her blessing. In her fury she tells me that I will be cursed. Cursed to hurt the earth that I so dearly want to protect. My druidic magic shall drain the life from anything I touch, including other people. I start awake, staring into the bright sunny sky. When I awake, I notice the grass where I was laying is withered and dead, and it crumbles under my touch. There is no way, did this goddess really curse me like this? Then, I sense someone watching me and I look around, ready for a fight. What I see in front of me doesn’t scare me, but it delights me. The Giant Owl, Beyoris; protector of the forest, is standing at the streams edge. His great wings curl over his back and his talons dig into the muddy dirt. “Fara Nachedel, young child. It is good to see you again.” He tilts his head and looks at me with his large round eye. “That is not my name,” I tell him. “I am Fara Nachedel no longer.” His head tilts the other way. “Oh…well then, may I ask. Who are you?” His question stuns me, yet so did my answer to his first question. If I can’t be me anymore, then who can I be? I stand slowly. “I don’t know, but my fath-…the Sun-Elves have made it very clear that I am not welcome among them. As much as I hate the thought, that part of my life needs to be over. I need to start somewhere new.” I pause, lifting the owl feather from around my neck. I hold the corrupt trinket in my hands, ashamed of what I did to that guard. “Great Beyoris, I am afraid that I have made a terrible mistake. I aligned myself with something, I’m not too sure what she was, but I am not worthy of your blessing.” I hold it out to him, kneeling, head down, as I was taught so long ago. “Stand child.” His voice was fierce and firm. “You have never needed my blessing more than you do right now. I know that scourge that creeps along my feather. Talona, the goddess of plagues, she has infected your body with a terrible curse.” “I was going to die, and she tricked me. I never would have accepted if I knew what power she would give me.” “I know that, child. Though, now it seems you have quite a journey to make. I can only tell you that it may take you to the harshest ends of this world and you will be tested in ways you can’t possibly imagine.” “What do you mean?” “If you want to rid your body of the infection from the Goddess.” “There’s a way? Tell me, how?” He lowers his great head. “I do not know, young one. I can only tell you to journey through Neverwinter. This is a land of myths and legends and you need to track down any information you can on her and her evil magic.” His great wings flap at his side, swirling the air around him. “I can try to help when I can, but this is a journey that you must undergo on your own. Now, I ask again, if you aren’t Fara Nachedel anymore, then who shall you be?” I think for a moment, but it comes in a flash. I know who I am, who I must become to survive, at least for now. “My name is Siren.”

[jerushalemdali]

The Sensitive Plant

PART 1. A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew, And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light. And closed them beneath the kisses of Night. And the Spring arose on the garden fair, Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere; And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest. But none ever trembled and panted with bliss In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet want, As the companionless Sensitive Plant. The snowdrop, and then the violet, Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent From the turf, like the voice and the instrument. Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, And narcissi, the fairest among them all, Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, Till they die of their own dear loveliness; And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale That the light of its tremulous bells is seen Through their pavilions of tender green; And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew Of music so delicate, soft, and intense, It was felt like an odour within the sense; And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed, Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air The soul of her beauty and love lay bare: And the wand-like lily, which lifted up, As a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup, Till the fiery star, which is its eye, Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky; And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose, The sweetest flower for scent that blows; And all rare blossoms from every clime Grew in that garden in perfect prime. And on the stream whose inconstant bosom Was pranked, under boughs of embowering blossom, With golden and green light, slanting through Their heaven of many a tangled hue, Broad water-lilies lay tremulously, And starry river-buds glimmered by, And around them the soft stream did glide and dance With a motion of sweet sound and radiance. And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss, Which led through the garden along and across, Some open at once to the sun and the breeze, Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees, Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells As fair as the fabulous asphodels, And flow'rets which, drooping as day drooped too, Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue, To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew. And from this undefiled Paradise The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet Can first lull, and at last must awaken it), When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them, As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem, Shone smiling to Heaven, and every one Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun; For each one was interpenetrated With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere. But the Sensitive Plant which could give small fruit Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root, Received more than all, it loved more than ever, Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver,-- For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower; Radiance and odour are not its dower; It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full, It desires what it has not, the Beautiful! The light winds which from unsustaining wings Shed the music of many murmurings; The beams which dart from many a star Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar; The plumed insects swift and free, Like golden boats on a sunny sea, Laden with light and odour, which pass Over the gleam of the living grass; The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high, Then wander like spirits among the spheres, Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears; The quivering vapours of dim noontide, Which like a sea o'er the warm earth glide, In which every sound, and odour, and beam, Move, as reeds in a single stream; Each and all like ministering angels were For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky. And when evening descended from Heaven above, And the Earth was all rest, and the air was all love, And delight, though less bright, was far more deep, And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep, And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were drowned In an ocean of dreams without a sound; Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress The light sand which paves it, consciousness; (Only overhead the sweet nightingale Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail, And snatches of its Elysian chant Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant);-- The Sensitive Plant was the earliest Upgathered into the bosom of rest; A sweet child weary of its delight, The feeblest and yet the favourite, Cradled within the embrace of Night. PART 2. There was a Power in this sweet place, An Eve in this Eden; a ruling Grace Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream, Was as God is to the starry scheme. A Lady, the wonder of her kind, Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean, Tended the garden from morn to even: And the meteors of that sublunar Heaven, Like the lamps of the air when Night walks forth, Laughed round her footsteps up from the Earth! She had no companion of mortal race, But her tremulous breath and her flushing face Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes, That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise: As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake Had deserted Heaven while the stars were awake, As if yet around her he lingering were, Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her. Her step seemed to pity the grass it pressed; You might hear by the heaving of her breast, That the coming and going of the wind Brought pleasure there and left passion behind. And wherever her aery footstep trod, Her trailing hair from the grassy sod Erased its light vestige, with shadowy sweep, Like a sunny storm o'er the dark green deep. I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet Rejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet; I doubt not they felt the spirit that came From her glowing fingers through all their frame. She sprinkled bright water from the stream On those that were faint with the sunny beam; And out of the cups of the heavy flowers She emptied the rain of the thunder-showers. She lifted their heads with her tender hands, And sustained them with rods and osier-bands; If the flowers had been her own infants, she Could never have nursed them more tenderly. And all killing insects and gnawing worms, And things of obscene and unlovely forms, She bore, in a basket of Indian woof, Into the rough woods far aloof,-- In a basket, of grasses and wild-flowers full, The freshest her gentle hands could pull For the poor banished insects, whose intent, Although they did ill, was innocent. But the bee and the beamlike ephemeris Whose path is the lightning's, and soft moths that kiss The sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did she Make her attendant angels be. And many an antenatal tomb, Where butterflies dream of the life to come, She left clinging round the smooth and dark Edge of the odorous cedar bark. This fairest creature from earliest Spring Thus moved through the garden ministering Mi the sweet season of Summertide, And ere the first leaf looked brown--she died! PART 3. Three days the flowers of the garden fair, Like stars when the moon is awakened, were, Or the waves of Baiae, ere luminous She floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius. And on the fourth, the Sensitive Plant Felt the sound of the funeral chant, And the steps of the bearers, heavy and slow, And the sobs of the mourners, deep and low; The weary sound and the heavy breath, And the silent motions of passing death, And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank, Sent through the pores of the coffin-plank; The dark grass, and the flowers among the grass, Were bright with tears as the crowd did pass; From their sighs the wind caught a mournful tone, And sate in the pines, and gave groan for groan. The garden, once fair, became cold and foul, Like the corpse of her who had been its soul, Which at first was lovely as if in sleep, Then slowly changed, till it grew a heap To make men tremble who never weep. Swift Summer into the Autumn flowed, And frost in the mist of the morning rode, Though the noonday sun looked clear and bright, Mocking the spoil of the secret night. The rose-leaves, like flakes of crimson snow, Paved the turf and the moss below. The lilies were drooping, and white, and wan, Like the head and the skin of a dying man. And Indian plants, of scent and hue The sweetest that ever were fed on dew, Leaf by leaf, day after day, Were massed into the common clay. And the leaves, brown, yellow, and gray, and red, And white with the whiteness of what is dead, Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind passed; Their whistling noise made the birds aghast. And the gusty winds waked the winged seeds, Out of their birthplace of ugly weeds, Till they clung round many a sweet flower's stem, Which rotted into the earth with them. The water-blooms under the rivulet Fell from the stalks on which they were set; And the eddies drove them here and there, As the winds did those of the upper air. Then the rain came down, and the broken stalks Were bent and tangled across the walks; And the leafless network of parasite bowers Massed into ruin; and all sweet flowers. Between the time of the wind and the snow All loathliest weeds began to grow, Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck, Like the water-snake's belly and the toad's back. And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank, And the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank, Stretched out its long and hollow shank, And stifled the air till the dead wind stank. And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath, Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth, Prickly, and pulpous, and blistering, and blue, Livid, and starred with a lurid dew. And agarics, and fungi, with mildew and mould Started like mist from the wet ground cold; Pale, fleshy, as if the decaying dead With a spirit of growth had been animated! Spawn, weeds, and filth, a leprous scum, Made the running rivulet thick and dumb, And at its outlet flags huge as stakes Dammed it up with roots knotted like water-snakes. And hour by hour, when the air was still, The vapours arose which have strength to kill; At morn they were seen, at noon they were felt, At night they were darkness no star could melt. And unctuous meteors from spray to spray Crept and flitted in broad noonday Unseen; every branch on which they alit By a venomous blight was burned and bit. The Sensitive Plant, like one forbid, Wept, and the tears within each lid Of its folded leaves, which together grew, Were changed to a blight of frozen glue. For the leaves soon fell, and the branches soon By the heavy axe of the blast were hewn; The sap shrank to the root through every pore As blood to a heart that will beat no more. For Winter came: the wind was his whip: One choppy finger was on his lip: He had torn the cataracts from the hills And they clanked at his girdle like manacles; His breath was a chain which without a sound The earth, and the air, and the water bound; He came, fiercely driven, in his chariot-throne By the tenfold blasts of the Arctic zone. Then the weeds which were forms of living death Fled from the frost to the earth beneath. Their decay and sudden flight from frost Was but like the vanishing of a ghost! And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant The moles and the dormice died for want: The birds dropped stiff from the frozen air And were caught in the branches naked and bare. First there came down a thawing rain And its dull drops froze on the boughs again; Then there steamed up a freezing dew Which to the drops of the thaw-rain grew; And a northern whirlwind, wandering about Like a wolf that had smelt a dead child out, Shook the boughs thus laden, and heavy, and stiff, And snapped them off with his rigid griff. When Winter had gone and Spring came back The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck; But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and darnels, Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels. CONCLUSION. Whether the Sensitive Plant, or that Which within its boughs like a Spirit sat, Ere its outward form had known decay, Now felt this change, I cannot say. Whether that Lady's gentle mind, No longer with the form combined Which scattered love, as stars do light, Found sadness, where it left delight, I dare not guess; but in this life Of error, ignorance, and strife, Where nothing is, but all things seem, And we the shadows of the dream, It is a modest creed, and yet Pleasant if one considers it, To own that death itself must be, Like all the rest, a mockery. That garden sweet, that lady fair, And all sweet shapes and odours there, In truth have never passed away: 'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed; not they. For love, and beauty, and delight, There is no death nor change: their might Exceeds our organs, which endure No light, being themselves obscure. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

[autolovecraft]

I had been shewn in proportions fitted to the stone.

And as I had made me a wanderer upon earth and a viewless aura repelled me and bade me retreat from antique and sinister secrets that no man might say. I knew it was accursed. In size they approximated a small sighing sandstorm gathered behind me, chilly from the vaults and passages of rock. Then I sank prone to the nameless city and the outlines of the valley around for ten million years; the race whose souls shrank from the banks of the dark I endured or what Abaddon guided me back to life, where I had seen made curiosity stronger than fear, so floundered ahead rapidly in a place where the bed rock rose stark through the sand grew more and more madly poured the shrieking, moaning night wind into the gulf of the eldest pyramid; and down there in the ruins by moonlight gained in proportion. I could not quite stand, but I immediately recalled the sudden wind had blown; and here I saw that it came from some region beyond. The cases were apparently ranged along each side of the nameless city in its low-studded monotony as though mirrored in unquiet waters. In the twilight I cleared on with my camel slowly across the desert from the long mooncast shadows that had lived and worshiped before the desert when thousands of its greatness. Mental associations are curious, and infamous lines from the vaults and passages of rock. Suddenly there came a crash of musical metal to hail the fiery disc as Memnon hails it from the rays of a temple. Turning, I heard a moaning and saw that there was only an illimitable void of uniform radiance, such one might fancy when gazing down from the apocryphal nightmares of Damascius, and half-revealing the splendid perfection of former times, shown spectrally and elusively by the nameless city at night, and I wondered what its real proportions and magnificence had been, and when I chanced to glance up and saw a storm of sand that seemed blown by a strong but decreasing wind from some remote depth there came another burst of that acute fear which had risen around the mouth of the strange reptiles must represent the unknown which had intermittently seized me ever since I first saw the terrible valley under the moon returned I felt at the reticence shown concerning natural death.

It was all vividly weird and realistic, and in the land of Mnar when mankind was young, and no man might say. More and more madly poured the shrieking, moaning night wind rattles the windows. The paintings were less skillful, and infamous lines from the peak of Mount Everest upon a sea of sunlit mist. There is no legend so old as to give it a name, or to recall that it came from the banks of the rest of the nameless city I knew it was ever alive; but a presence seemed stalking among the wild designs on the reality of the steep steps, and nothing significant was revealed. As I held above my head. To convey any idea of these crawling creatures, whose hideous mummified forms were so close to me, but not enough to dull my thirst for wonder; so as soon as the wind was quite unbalanced with that dark pitch the Seat of Death throws out upon its slimy shore. To nothing can such things be well compared—in one flash I thought curiously of the scene and its soul. Then suddenly above the desert's far rim came the blazing edge of the abyss was the head of a little sandstorm that hovered over the fallen walls, and of its struggles as the wind was quite unbalanced with that instinct for the strange reptiles must represent the unknown world.

I was staring. Such fury I had made me fearful again, avid to find there those human memorials which the race that had lived when the noise of a gate through which these relics had kept a silent deserted vigil. I had imagined it, and I was quite unbalanced with that dark pitch the Seat of Death throws out upon its slimy shore. Just when my feet first, as though I saw that there was no relic of crudity like the temples in the night wind rattles the windows. Not Jove himself had had so colossal and protuberant a forehead, yet the horns and the outlines of the low passage, feet first, as of a mighty seacoast metropolis that ruled the world before Africa rose out of deference to the end of the sun, seen through the last of the greatest explorer that a weird world of light away from the passage was a normal thing. As I crept along the rocky floor, holding torch at arm's length beyond my head. Not even the wildest of the steep steps, and thought of the nameless city, the man who was torn to pieces by the sacred reptiles—were driven to chisel their way down through that chasm, I crawled out again, but not enough to dull my thirst for wonder; so as soon as the cat, the City of Pillars, torn to pieces in the frescoes came back to me that the strange reptiles must represent the unknown men, pondered upon the customs of the city had been seeking, the mythic Satyr, and half-revealing the splendid perfection of former times, shown spectrally and elusively by the grotesque reptiles—appeared to be gradually wasting away, and reflected a moment on certain oddities I had to wriggle my feet again felt a level floor, my mind aflame with prodigious reflections which not even kneel in it. Night had now approached, yet there were curious omissions. There were certain proportions and dimensions in the costliest of fabrics, and no man might mistake—the leave-taking of the ancient race, for I instantly recalled the sudden wind had blown; and though I was staring. When I drew nigh the nameless city under a coverlet, and in the costliest of fabrics, and the city above.

Finally reason must have been outside.

The lowness of the howling wind-wraiths.

Remote in the desert from the outside world from which it had come.

I debated for a moment on certain oddities I had to wriggle my feet first along the rocky floor, and I grew faint when I glanced at the time I became conscious of an actual slipping of my surroundings and be sure the walls and bygone streets, and as I went outside the antique stones though the sky was clear and the gray stones though the sky was clear and the words and warning of Arab prophets seemed to promise further traces of the primal temples and of Ib, that stood in the ruins which I was beset by a strong but decreasing wind from some point along the black orifice of a race no man else had dared to see what could have frightened the beast. Their engineering skill must have be traversing.

The paradisal scenes were almost too extravagant to be believed, portraying a hidden world of light away from the passage was a massive door of brass, incredibly thick and decorated with fantastic bas-reliefs, which as I neared it loomed larger than either of those I had fancied from the long mooncast shadows that had almost faded or crumbled away; and here I saw that the light was better I studied the pictures more closely and, remembering that the place contained, I found myself in a pictured history of such importance. Turning, I heard a moaning and saw a storm of sand stirring among the wild designs on the rich and colossal ruins that swelled beneath the sand and spread among the antique stones though the sky was clear and the words and warning of Arab prophets seemed to quiver as though an ideal of immortality had been but feeble. My sensations were like those which had made me shun the nameless city. Fear spoke from the primal stones and altars were as low as those in the tents of sheiks so that I had imagined it, and I shrank from the peak of Mount Everest upon a place where the bed rock rose stark through the last—I was more afraid than I could not stand upright in it. Yet I hesitated only for a time. I cleared another aperture and with strange aeons death may die.

In and out amongst the shapeless foundations of houses and places I wandered, finding never a carving or inscription to tell of these men, I crawled out again, but I cleared another aperture and with a new throb of fear.

I looked at me, blowing over the primitive ruins, lighting a dense cloud of sand stirring among the spectral stones of this air seemed to record a slow decadence of the valley around it, since a natural phenomenon tends to dispel broodings over the gray turned to roseate light edged with gold. The malignancy of the rest, and marked the quietness of the sun peering redly through the stillness and drew me forth to see. In and out amongst the shapeless foundations of houses and places I wandered, finding never a carving or inscription to tell of these men, I received a still greater shock in the luminous realm beyond; now I was staring. I was staring.

When I tried to move two or three for further examination, I said to myself, were to men of the Nile. My fears, indeed, concerned the past rather than the future.

As I held above my head could not help but think that their pictured history was allegorical, perhaps a pioneer of ancient Irem, the man who was torn to pieces by the nameless race, for in the solid rock. The cases were apparently ranged along each side of the nameless city: That is not dead which can eternal lie, and the human being. Suddenly there came a crash of musical metal to hail the fiery disc as Memnon hails it from the idea that except for the dawn-lit world of their own, wherein they had settled as nomads in the virgin rock those primal shrines at which they had never ceased to worship. Monstrous, unnatural, colossal, was the head of a gate through which came all of the swirling currents there seemed to my beating brain to take articulate form behind me, seemed to leer down from the black orifice of a corpse may protrude from an ill-made grave. Primitive altars, pillars, and was about to lead him to a tribe of Indians. I was almost mad—of the obliterated edifices; but soon decided they were artificial idols; but it is told of in whispers around campfires and muttered of Afrasiab and the cases, revealed by some unknown subterranean phosphorescence. The touch of this place that Abdul Alhazred the mad Arab Alhazred, who dreamed of the spot was unwholesome, and the unknown.

Yet I hesitated only for a moment before advancing through the stone floor, my mind aflame with prodigious reflections which not even a death-like jaw placed things outside all established categories.

The lowness of the primordial life. To myself I pictured all the splendors of an artistic anticlimax.

When night and the noselessness and the sand and formed a low cliff; and I could not even kneel in it. But strangest of all were their heads, which as I led my camel.

Not even the wildest of the ancient stock, coupled with a deafening peal of metallic music whose reverberations swelled out to the end of the nameless city: That is not dead which can eternal lie, and my imagination seethed as I was quite unbalanced with that instinct for the poor primitive man torn to pieces by the sands of uncounted ages. The paradisal scenes were almost too extravagant to be believed, portraying a hidden world of men, pondered upon the customs of the reptile kind, with only here and there some vaguely familiar outlines. Such fury I had been but feeble.