Tea, Magic, and Something Older (25/5) - Zola
May 27, 2022 15:08:56 GMT
Toothy, Velania Kalugina, and 3 more like this
Post by Zola Rhomdaen on May 27, 2022 15:08:56 GMT
Content warning: (brief) sexual themes
The Anuhlin Shambles seem to be in, well, shambles. Zola’s mothers, particularly Lillian, had more or less dragged her all the way out here as they’ve decided she’d been moping in her room for too long and that the fresh air would do her some good.
The Shambles needs cleansing and its inhabitants need help, so her mothers said. The influence of the necromancer lingers in the area — the spell of lethargy she’d casted on the people still has its hooks in them and her corrupting, dark magic had been seeping into nature, causing suffering for the local spirits. The hags are planning to hold a big ritual led by Beulah in the heart of the town tonight.
Thus Zola spent most of the day drawing long, unbreaking, intercrossing chalk lines on the cobblestone streets and upon the ancient stones of the buildings of this large, old settlement built on the ruins of a castle. There are some people from the Mountain Palace here to aid, but it’s still taxing work for her part.
And yet, it doesn’t help take her mind off Phlegethos. Nothing can. She has an obligation to help the Shambles — for she would never turn her back on her neighbours — but she’d be lying if she wouldn’t rather be alone in her room in Haspar Knoll, working on the song she’s been writing.
Once the massive chalk circles are complete, Lillian pulls her aside and takes her to the edge of town, near where Cor’Vandor is peacefully grazing outside a low wooden fence. A few moments later, four people apparate in front of them dripping wet, as if they had walked into a river or something. She recognises the faces almost immediately: Florian, Toothy, Cyclone, and Amble.
Dawnlanders again. Zola forces a smile on her face and gives a cheery wave. “Hi guys!”
“Welcome, welcome, dearies! So glad you could make it,” greets Lillian.
“So, do you know about what’s happened here?” the drow asks.
“Yeah…” Florian says as he glances around, finding his bearings. “We were here on the expedition with…what’s his face?”
“Jaezred,” Toothy says.
“It is lovely to see you again, Florian,” Lillian says. “But, well… The people of the Shambles are still in a very bad way, mm-hmm. Whatever she did here seems to be taking its time to leave and is still causing all sorts of trouble. The people, they need some help. Some are still sick, others have gotten hurt, there’s some clean up to be done and repairs to be made, not to mention some supplies we still need. Some of the local spirits have been thrown out of sorts as well around the town where her twisted mark has spread. So much to do!”
“Oh, we’re totally happy to help, Tante Lillian,” Florian replies, “but also, like…I came here ‘cause I wanted to vibe with beings that are, like, older than gods. So where I come from, we believe that everything’s gotta balance. Like, in nature, you don’t just gotta have Silvanus, you also need Malar…”
“You need Selûne, and you need Shar,” Zola adds quietly. “For balance.”
“Right, exactly. Balance. And I kept thinking, like, maybe all the gods could be, like, aspects of the same being, y’know? But I ran outta mushrooms before I could reach a conclusion.”
Zola looks down at the ground and lets out a very soft, cynical scoff. That would certainly explain a lot about those two, she thinks.
“Ah, that’s why you always take care to have enough mushrooms on hand, young man,” Lillian says. “Well anyhow, dearies, do go into town and be helpful. There were some strapping young fellows who went down into the vaults to haul stones and fix things. The people are worried about a possible collapse.”
Predictably, the words “strapping young fellows” are all that’s needed to seize the Dawnlanders’ interest. Florian, Toothy, and Amble all in turn voice their desire to help enthusiastically.
“Well, we shouldn’t split the party so I guess we are all going to help the strapping young men…” Cyclone says half-jokingly.
“I think I’ve had enough strapping young men for now,” says Zola quietly.
“Busy week, then?” asks Toothy.
“You could say that…”
In her mind’s eye, she sees too vividly Adhyël’s lifeless corpse lying under the obsidian platform, An’Akhrim staring intently at Velania from across the Azellah, and Ophanim with Castor plunged through his chest.
“…yeah,” she finishes.
The shift in the mood of the gathering is nearly palpable as all eyes turn to Zola, with varying levels of concern visible in each staring gaze. Florian takes Lillian aside to speak in hushed whispers that she is certain are about her.
She turns around and goes to lean forward against a low, half-ruined stone wall, looking up at the moon and stars and ignoring the rest.
“Yeah, anyway, in my tribe, we’re pretty open about liking them strapping young men,” the druid speaks up again after a moment.
“The heart wants what the heart wants,” Lillian says with a chuckle.
“The heart wants what the heart wants. It binds us in chains we cannot hope to understand.”
Zola has a sudden, sharp, shuddering intake of breath. Her shoulder muscles twitch and an elbow accidentally knocks a loose stone brick into the grass below. Her inner song has frayed briefly into a wild, panicked cacophony of noise.
She could’ve sworn that for a second, she almost felt Ophanim’s hands laying on her shoulders, his lips lightly brushing against her ear as he whispered into it, his low voice filling like smoke inside her head.
Almost.
Cor’Vandor has paused his grazing to look up at her. She senses a quizzical concern emanating from the mystical stag.
I’m fine, she assures him.
Her right hand has gone to rest on Pollux’s hilt, her thumb rubbing up and down on its ivory grip.
As her inner song gradually regains its tempo and harmony, she gazes up at the sky again. The full moon above her head has gained a thin purple line surrounding it, but when she blinks, it is gone.
The party has split up to find areas they could help in, and Zola walks down the cobblestone streets alone. The town is a ghostly sort of empty with many of its residents still trying to shake off the drowsiness or regaining energy after days of barely eating.
Following a line of chalk she drew earlier, she rounds the corner and spots a dwarven man with a neat blond beard tucked into his apron, struggling to drag a wooden box wrapped in chains, almost the same size as himself, behind him.
“Excuse me, sir,” she calls out in Sylvan as she approaches him. “Do you need help with that?”
The man stops and looks up at her. “Ye sayin’ I can’t carry this meself?”
“No, I’m just offering some help.”
“Well,” he says, pausing. “Alright then.”
Zola walks over to the other end of the box, grabs onto the chains, and tries to hoist it up with oomph. It doesn’t budge.
The dwarf peers back at her. “Ye sure ye can help?”
“Yeah, sorry. I’ve just been slacking off on my workout routine,” she sighs, straightening her back and rolling her shoulders. She glances down at the chained-up box, looking as though it’s sealing some dark, mysterious, dangerous creature within it. “What’s… What’s in the box?”
“A dress,” he says plainly.
“A dress?” she echoes with a disbelieving giggle. “Why is it so heavy? What’s it made of?”
“Chain mail.”
“A chain mail dress…? Can I see it?”
The dwarven man pauses again, staring at her face with a blank expression. “Do I know ye from somewhere? Ye local?”
“No. I’m from Haspar Knoll.”
“Ah. Yer with Lillian an’ the others.”
“Yeah, I’m the daughter.”
“Huh,” he grunts out. “Ye look different.”
“Yeah… I’m adopted.” She gestures at her purplish-grey skin and white hair. “I’m drow. I’m not a hag.”
“Huh. Right then.”
The dwarf unbinds the chains from the wooden box and lifts the lid open. Inside, there is indeed a big, ball gown-style dress made entirely of small metal rings linked together in a mesh pattern. Zola’s mouth drops open and her amber eyes glitter with dazzlement. “Wow. This is incredible!” she gasps. “I wonder if he would like it…”
“D’ye wanna put it on?” the dwarf asks suddenly. “Might be easier to get it to the square that way.”
“You might be right. Are you a fashion designer, by any chance?”
“No.”
“Great! I’ll wear it.”
The two of them return to the man’s shop so Zola can change out of her armour and into a sleeveless white dress, and then slip the big, ball gown hauberk over it. It’s the weightiest thing she’s ever worn and she wonders how she’s supposed to move in it.
Oh well, it can’t be more difficult than literally walking through a layer of Hell, can it?
As she straps her belt with The Twins attached to it around her waist, the dwarf, Gringar, shows up with a hammer and a pair of tongs in hand.
“Um…”
“Oh, these aren’t for ye. It’s for the ritual. Like the dress.”
“Right…” she says, gathering up clumps of chain mail in her hands so she can take a hefty step forward. The sound of metal rustles and clinks with every little move she makes. “What part of the ritual does this comprise of again?”
“The part where we offer somethin’ that represents ourselves.” He holds up the tools. “Am a smith. An’ I made that dress.”
“Oh, I see! Did you make this for someone?”
He looks at her in that blank-eyed manner again. “No. Why? Can’t a man enjoy his dresses?”
“Yes, of course!” That’ll teach me for making assumptions. “It’s lovely. Shall we get going, then?”
Gringar ambles back out into the streets with Zola trailing behind him, weighed down like with an anchor, dragging heavy, rattling chain mail across stone and dirt. It’s a long way to go to the town square, and every step requires not a small amount of exertion. Despite the cool night air, she soon finds herself sweating quite a bit. She feels like a wretched soul in Hell, damned to walk in chains for eternity as punishment for her wickedness in life.
At the same time, her mind wanders to faraway places, wondering whether Ophanim would have dressed her in his couture like this and have her strut up and down a runway. She wonders if he would have looked at her with the same adoration and hunger in his eyes as he did when she wore his marks. She wonders if his hands would have travelled the curvature of her body and if his lips would have kissed hers sweetly.
She would have loved to be his muse.
And yet, if she has the chance to do it all over again, she would not have chosen anything differently.
Her emotions are starting to weigh heavier on her than the hauberk dress. Tears threaten to well up at her eyes, and she considers stopping to sit down until she notices the people behind them.
A procession of common folk have joined her and Gringar’s walk up towards the square, spilling out of their houses and shops, each person carrying something in their hands — their chosen offerings for the ritual taking place soon. Some of the still-lethargic Anuhlinites seem to be…shambling…rather than walking, but they are, at least, moving. Slowly but surely, the crowd swells in number as more come out to join them, becoming a great, diverse gathering of people.
And all eyes seem to be on Zola. Some looking on in curiosity, some in amusement, and some in awe and amazement.
It is at this moment that she hears Ophanim’s voice whisper in her mind again.
“You’re stunning.”
Yeah, you know what? I am pretty stunning.
With renewed vigour and a grin on her face, she hoists up more of the gown and picks up the pace a little.
“You know, I trekked through the fourth layer of Hell recently for about five hours, and this is actually harder!” she huffs to Gringar. “But I look fabulous.”
He turns his head towards her, waiting a beat before replying, “Yeah, ye do look fabulous.” Another pause. “Why were ye in Hell?”
“Long story.”
“Fair ‘nuff.”
The Anuhlin town square is located in what used to be the keep of the castle, or at least what remains of it. There is not much left of its once-towering walls and the roof is entirely gone, creating a large, open air courtyard that on most days serves as a rustic marketplace.
Tonight, however, the market stalls have been put away to make space for the bonfire the hags have built, right in the centre of the chalk-drawn magic circle that spans and surrounds the entire town.
Around the bonfire, there are 6 rune circles connected to the wider circle. Beulah says she needs 6 volunteers for the blood sacrifice, and so the five of them go to stand in the circles with a blonde elf-woman, a local tailor, taking the last spot. Zola has taken off the chain mail ball gown, thanking Gringar for letting her wear his fabulous creation, and swapped The Twins for her lute.
As the bonfire blazes to life in the light of the sacred moon, Beulah starts off the ritual by singing a wordless hymn. She procures her signature tool, the thin bone needle, and jabs her palm several times with it, causing droplets of blood to surface on her red skin. She turns to face the pyre and casts her blood into it, which transforms the fire from orange to blue, before turning to the six standing around her.
Still chanting the lyric-less song, she approaches the volunteers one by one to slice the bone needle across their palms, and the volunteers in turn walk up to the pyre to cast their blood into it, the fire pulsating with power as they do.
Then Beulah reaches Zola, the first and final volunteer, and the serious expression on her face softens around the edges. Zola smiles back, presenting her palm and joining her mother in the singing. The needle brushes against her skin like a feather, and when she casts her blood into the fire, it is transfigured into a multicoloured flame, a prismatic rainbow of ever-shifting colours reaching up to touch the full moon.
The Anuhlinites standing behind them have also joined in the singing. An aura of ancient power and magic is slowly building up along the glowing chalk lines, spreading across the ruins and the land, undulating like ocean waves.
Now comes the time for the ceremony of offerings.
From the tailor’s highly detailed turtle embroidery, a giant spectral turtle swims out into the air, wading around the courtyard followed by hundreds of other tiny spectral turtles behind it.
Cyclone was previously conflicted about what she could offer that represents who she is and had settled on using gold and silver make-up to accentuate the markings on her face. The paint peels off her skin to create a sparkling mist that ebbs in the night sky, with phantom-like images occasionally appearing in it.
Amble casts minor illusion to project the image of a family of badgers. The illusory critters animates seemingly into life and dance whimsically around the bonfire.
Toothy had created an impressionist sort of painting with his frog friend and he tosses it into the fire. A swirl of bright colours rises from the rainbow flame and snakes around the square in an eclectic fashion, vesting prismatic lights everywhere.
Florian uses his staff of flowers to create a majestic stag with many-pronged horns made entirely of green leaves and pink flowers, which walks around the courtyard and leaves a trail of scented petals in its wake.
Finally, Zola takes up her lute and begins picking at the strings.
She plays the song whose first notes came into her head when she still fantasised about running away with the enemy, the same one she’s been writing for the past several days but hasn’t yet finished. She sings of dancing, fighting, making love with someone under the moon and the stars in a dream, of how she knows the dream will end when the day comes, and of how she dreads that moment, wishing in vain that her slumber would last into eternity.
Gradually, the tone of Beulah’s chanting changes to adopt the tone of Zola’s song, its tempo becoming the rhythm to which everything moves. This shift in sound and resonance ripples out into the crowd and soon Zola finds that her voice and the music of her lute are carrying far, farther than she’d ever dreamed of.
She looks back at the chorus of hundreds around her, suddenly growing into thousands, tens of thousands, tens of millions, and more far into the distant future — folk of every race, every gender, every age, people she never knew and never will know — their myriad voices becoming one as they sing the tale of her and Ophanim’s love.
She whirls back around and she sees Ophanim standing there in front of her, wearing that unbuttoned black dress shirt of his, though no one else seems to have noticed. He flashes a daring grin at her as he speaks.
“Everything dies, Zola. That’s a fact. But we can be remembered in the art we made together.”
Memories and old sensations phase through her in an instant: his fingers entwining with her own as he thrusted deep inside her, sending waves of pleasure throughout her body; her comrades-in-arms gazing at her with gratitude when she hummed this very same melody during a moment of respite in Hell; Castor and Pollux clashing amidst moonlight and starlight; the two of them sharing a smile through crossed swords as they danced on the edge of death and immortality.
The past, the present, and the future are melding into one entity before her eyes, whole and great and beautiful — just like they have.
I know, my love, I know.
Zola carries on singing and she sings like never before, her impassioned voice growing louder and louder and gaining more and more strength past the point where her writing left off, the notes and the words simply writing themselves into existence henceforth. And together with the crowd, she sings the song into completion.
Gringar brings his hammer down on the chain mail dress, the sound of the impact echoing out into the night. The mail ripples and glows before the metal rings separate themselves, floating up to join the swirling procession, and then rejoining to form a single, long chain link that encircles the entire courtyard.
Beulah raises her arms high up in the air, one hand clutching a straw doll wearing a blue dress, and cries out:
“Foul enchantress! The spirits, old and new, reject your twisted influence and will suffer your stain no more!”
As the words leave her mouth, she slashes across the doll’s body with her needle.
As if on command, dark clouds gather above the bonfire, rumbling with thunder, and rain begins pouring over the Anuhlin Shambles, washing away the last of the corruption.
Zola lifts her head to look up at the sky with a smile, the raindrops rolling down her cheeks mixing with her tears.
(Continued in Called Onward By Desire.)
The Anuhlin Shambles seem to be in, well, shambles. Zola’s mothers, particularly Lillian, had more or less dragged her all the way out here as they’ve decided she’d been moping in her room for too long and that the fresh air would do her some good.
The Shambles needs cleansing and its inhabitants need help, so her mothers said. The influence of the necromancer lingers in the area — the spell of lethargy she’d casted on the people still has its hooks in them and her corrupting, dark magic had been seeping into nature, causing suffering for the local spirits. The hags are planning to hold a big ritual led by Beulah in the heart of the town tonight.
Thus Zola spent most of the day drawing long, unbreaking, intercrossing chalk lines on the cobblestone streets and upon the ancient stones of the buildings of this large, old settlement built on the ruins of a castle. There are some people from the Mountain Palace here to aid, but it’s still taxing work for her part.
And yet, it doesn’t help take her mind off Phlegethos. Nothing can. She has an obligation to help the Shambles — for she would never turn her back on her neighbours — but she’d be lying if she wouldn’t rather be alone in her room in Haspar Knoll, working on the song she’s been writing.
Once the massive chalk circles are complete, Lillian pulls her aside and takes her to the edge of town, near where Cor’Vandor is peacefully grazing outside a low wooden fence. A few moments later, four people apparate in front of them dripping wet, as if they had walked into a river or something. She recognises the faces almost immediately: Florian, Toothy, Cyclone, and Amble.
Dawnlanders again. Zola forces a smile on her face and gives a cheery wave. “Hi guys!”
“Welcome, welcome, dearies! So glad you could make it,” greets Lillian.
“So, do you know about what’s happened here?” the drow asks.
“Yeah…” Florian says as he glances around, finding his bearings. “We were here on the expedition with…what’s his face?”
“Jaezred,” Toothy says.
“It is lovely to see you again, Florian,” Lillian says. “But, well… The people of the Shambles are still in a very bad way, mm-hmm. Whatever she did here seems to be taking its time to leave and is still causing all sorts of trouble. The people, they need some help. Some are still sick, others have gotten hurt, there’s some clean up to be done and repairs to be made, not to mention some supplies we still need. Some of the local spirits have been thrown out of sorts as well around the town where her twisted mark has spread. So much to do!”
“Oh, we’re totally happy to help, Tante Lillian,” Florian replies, “but also, like…I came here ‘cause I wanted to vibe with beings that are, like, older than gods. So where I come from, we believe that everything’s gotta balance. Like, in nature, you don’t just gotta have Silvanus, you also need Malar…”
“You need Selûne, and you need Shar,” Zola adds quietly. “For balance.”
“Right, exactly. Balance. And I kept thinking, like, maybe all the gods could be, like, aspects of the same being, y’know? But I ran outta mushrooms before I could reach a conclusion.”
Zola looks down at the ground and lets out a very soft, cynical scoff. That would certainly explain a lot about those two, she thinks.
“Ah, that’s why you always take care to have enough mushrooms on hand, young man,” Lillian says. “Well anyhow, dearies, do go into town and be helpful. There were some strapping young fellows who went down into the vaults to haul stones and fix things. The people are worried about a possible collapse.”
Predictably, the words “strapping young fellows” are all that’s needed to seize the Dawnlanders’ interest. Florian, Toothy, and Amble all in turn voice their desire to help enthusiastically.
“Well, we shouldn’t split the party so I guess we are all going to help the strapping young men…” Cyclone says half-jokingly.
“I think I’ve had enough strapping young men for now,” says Zola quietly.
“Busy week, then?” asks Toothy.
“You could say that…”
In her mind’s eye, she sees too vividly Adhyël’s lifeless corpse lying under the obsidian platform, An’Akhrim staring intently at Velania from across the Azellah, and Ophanim with Castor plunged through his chest.
“…yeah,” she finishes.
The shift in the mood of the gathering is nearly palpable as all eyes turn to Zola, with varying levels of concern visible in each staring gaze. Florian takes Lillian aside to speak in hushed whispers that she is certain are about her.
She turns around and goes to lean forward against a low, half-ruined stone wall, looking up at the moon and stars and ignoring the rest.
“Yeah, anyway, in my tribe, we’re pretty open about liking them strapping young men,” the druid speaks up again after a moment.
“The heart wants what the heart wants,” Lillian says with a chuckle.
“The heart wants what the heart wants. It binds us in chains we cannot hope to understand.”
Zola has a sudden, sharp, shuddering intake of breath. Her shoulder muscles twitch and an elbow accidentally knocks a loose stone brick into the grass below. Her inner song has frayed briefly into a wild, panicked cacophony of noise.
She could’ve sworn that for a second, she almost felt Ophanim’s hands laying on her shoulders, his lips lightly brushing against her ear as he whispered into it, his low voice filling like smoke inside her head.
Almost.
Cor’Vandor has paused his grazing to look up at her. She senses a quizzical concern emanating from the mystical stag.
I’m fine, she assures him.
Her right hand has gone to rest on Pollux’s hilt, her thumb rubbing up and down on its ivory grip.
As her inner song gradually regains its tempo and harmony, she gazes up at the sky again. The full moon above her head has gained a thin purple line surrounding it, but when she blinks, it is gone.
The party has split up to find areas they could help in, and Zola walks down the cobblestone streets alone. The town is a ghostly sort of empty with many of its residents still trying to shake off the drowsiness or regaining energy after days of barely eating.
Following a line of chalk she drew earlier, she rounds the corner and spots a dwarven man with a neat blond beard tucked into his apron, struggling to drag a wooden box wrapped in chains, almost the same size as himself, behind him.
“Excuse me, sir,” she calls out in Sylvan as she approaches him. “Do you need help with that?”
The man stops and looks up at her. “Ye sayin’ I can’t carry this meself?”
“No, I’m just offering some help.”
“Well,” he says, pausing. “Alright then.”
Zola walks over to the other end of the box, grabs onto the chains, and tries to hoist it up with oomph. It doesn’t budge.
The dwarf peers back at her. “Ye sure ye can help?”
“Yeah, sorry. I’ve just been slacking off on my workout routine,” she sighs, straightening her back and rolling her shoulders. She glances down at the chained-up box, looking as though it’s sealing some dark, mysterious, dangerous creature within it. “What’s… What’s in the box?”
“A dress,” he says plainly.
“A dress?” she echoes with a disbelieving giggle. “Why is it so heavy? What’s it made of?”
“Chain mail.”
“A chain mail dress…? Can I see it?”
The dwarven man pauses again, staring at her face with a blank expression. “Do I know ye from somewhere? Ye local?”
“No. I’m from Haspar Knoll.”
“Ah. Yer with Lillian an’ the others.”
“Yeah, I’m the daughter.”
“Huh,” he grunts out. “Ye look different.”
“Yeah… I’m adopted.” She gestures at her purplish-grey skin and white hair. “I’m drow. I’m not a hag.”
“Huh. Right then.”
The dwarf unbinds the chains from the wooden box and lifts the lid open. Inside, there is indeed a big, ball gown-style dress made entirely of small metal rings linked together in a mesh pattern. Zola’s mouth drops open and her amber eyes glitter with dazzlement. “Wow. This is incredible!” she gasps. “I wonder if he would like it…”
“D’ye wanna put it on?” the dwarf asks suddenly. “Might be easier to get it to the square that way.”
“You might be right. Are you a fashion designer, by any chance?”
“No.”
“Great! I’ll wear it.”
The two of them return to the man’s shop so Zola can change out of her armour and into a sleeveless white dress, and then slip the big, ball gown hauberk over it. It’s the weightiest thing she’s ever worn and she wonders how she’s supposed to move in it.
Oh well, it can’t be more difficult than literally walking through a layer of Hell, can it?
As she straps her belt with The Twins attached to it around her waist, the dwarf, Gringar, shows up with a hammer and a pair of tongs in hand.
“Um…”
“Oh, these aren’t for ye. It’s for the ritual. Like the dress.”
“Right…” she says, gathering up clumps of chain mail in her hands so she can take a hefty step forward. The sound of metal rustles and clinks with every little move she makes. “What part of the ritual does this comprise of again?”
“The part where we offer somethin’ that represents ourselves.” He holds up the tools. “Am a smith. An’ I made that dress.”
“Oh, I see! Did you make this for someone?”
He looks at her in that blank-eyed manner again. “No. Why? Can’t a man enjoy his dresses?”
“Yes, of course!” That’ll teach me for making assumptions. “It’s lovely. Shall we get going, then?”
Gringar ambles back out into the streets with Zola trailing behind him, weighed down like with an anchor, dragging heavy, rattling chain mail across stone and dirt. It’s a long way to go to the town square, and every step requires not a small amount of exertion. Despite the cool night air, she soon finds herself sweating quite a bit. She feels like a wretched soul in Hell, damned to walk in chains for eternity as punishment for her wickedness in life.
At the same time, her mind wanders to faraway places, wondering whether Ophanim would have dressed her in his couture like this and have her strut up and down a runway. She wonders if he would have looked at her with the same adoration and hunger in his eyes as he did when she wore his marks. She wonders if his hands would have travelled the curvature of her body and if his lips would have kissed hers sweetly.
She would have loved to be his muse.
And yet, if she has the chance to do it all over again, she would not have chosen anything differently.
Her emotions are starting to weigh heavier on her than the hauberk dress. Tears threaten to well up at her eyes, and she considers stopping to sit down until she notices the people behind them.
A procession of common folk have joined her and Gringar’s walk up towards the square, spilling out of their houses and shops, each person carrying something in their hands — their chosen offerings for the ritual taking place soon. Some of the still-lethargic Anuhlinites seem to be…shambling…rather than walking, but they are, at least, moving. Slowly but surely, the crowd swells in number as more come out to join them, becoming a great, diverse gathering of people.
And all eyes seem to be on Zola. Some looking on in curiosity, some in amusement, and some in awe and amazement.
It is at this moment that she hears Ophanim’s voice whisper in her mind again.
“You’re stunning.”
Yeah, you know what? I am pretty stunning.
With renewed vigour and a grin on her face, she hoists up more of the gown and picks up the pace a little.
“You know, I trekked through the fourth layer of Hell recently for about five hours, and this is actually harder!” she huffs to Gringar. “But I look fabulous.”
He turns his head towards her, waiting a beat before replying, “Yeah, ye do look fabulous.” Another pause. “Why were ye in Hell?”
“Long story.”
“Fair ‘nuff.”
The Anuhlin town square is located in what used to be the keep of the castle, or at least what remains of it. There is not much left of its once-towering walls and the roof is entirely gone, creating a large, open air courtyard that on most days serves as a rustic marketplace.
Tonight, however, the market stalls have been put away to make space for the bonfire the hags have built, right in the centre of the chalk-drawn magic circle that spans and surrounds the entire town.
Around the bonfire, there are 6 rune circles connected to the wider circle. Beulah says she needs 6 volunteers for the blood sacrifice, and so the five of them go to stand in the circles with a blonde elf-woman, a local tailor, taking the last spot. Zola has taken off the chain mail ball gown, thanking Gringar for letting her wear his fabulous creation, and swapped The Twins for her lute.
As the bonfire blazes to life in the light of the sacred moon, Beulah starts off the ritual by singing a wordless hymn. She procures her signature tool, the thin bone needle, and jabs her palm several times with it, causing droplets of blood to surface on her red skin. She turns to face the pyre and casts her blood into it, which transforms the fire from orange to blue, before turning to the six standing around her.
Still chanting the lyric-less song, she approaches the volunteers one by one to slice the bone needle across their palms, and the volunteers in turn walk up to the pyre to cast their blood into it, the fire pulsating with power as they do.
Then Beulah reaches Zola, the first and final volunteer, and the serious expression on her face softens around the edges. Zola smiles back, presenting her palm and joining her mother in the singing. The needle brushes against her skin like a feather, and when she casts her blood into the fire, it is transfigured into a multicoloured flame, a prismatic rainbow of ever-shifting colours reaching up to touch the full moon.
The Anuhlinites standing behind them have also joined in the singing. An aura of ancient power and magic is slowly building up along the glowing chalk lines, spreading across the ruins and the land, undulating like ocean waves.
Now comes the time for the ceremony of offerings.
From the tailor’s highly detailed turtle embroidery, a giant spectral turtle swims out into the air, wading around the courtyard followed by hundreds of other tiny spectral turtles behind it.
Cyclone was previously conflicted about what she could offer that represents who she is and had settled on using gold and silver make-up to accentuate the markings on her face. The paint peels off her skin to create a sparkling mist that ebbs in the night sky, with phantom-like images occasionally appearing in it.
Amble casts minor illusion to project the image of a family of badgers. The illusory critters animates seemingly into life and dance whimsically around the bonfire.
Toothy had created an impressionist sort of painting with his frog friend and he tosses it into the fire. A swirl of bright colours rises from the rainbow flame and snakes around the square in an eclectic fashion, vesting prismatic lights everywhere.
Florian uses his staff of flowers to create a majestic stag with many-pronged horns made entirely of green leaves and pink flowers, which walks around the courtyard and leaves a trail of scented petals in its wake.
Finally, Zola takes up her lute and begins picking at the strings.
She plays the song whose first notes came into her head when she still fantasised about running away with the enemy, the same one she’s been writing for the past several days but hasn’t yet finished. She sings of dancing, fighting, making love with someone under the moon and the stars in a dream, of how she knows the dream will end when the day comes, and of how she dreads that moment, wishing in vain that her slumber would last into eternity.
Gradually, the tone of Beulah’s chanting changes to adopt the tone of Zola’s song, its tempo becoming the rhythm to which everything moves. This shift in sound and resonance ripples out into the crowd and soon Zola finds that her voice and the music of her lute are carrying far, farther than she’d ever dreamed of.
She looks back at the chorus of hundreds around her, suddenly growing into thousands, tens of thousands, tens of millions, and more far into the distant future — folk of every race, every gender, every age, people she never knew and never will know — their myriad voices becoming one as they sing the tale of her and Ophanim’s love.
She whirls back around and she sees Ophanim standing there in front of her, wearing that unbuttoned black dress shirt of his, though no one else seems to have noticed. He flashes a daring grin at her as he speaks.
“Everything dies, Zola. That’s a fact. But we can be remembered in the art we made together.”
Memories and old sensations phase through her in an instant: his fingers entwining with her own as he thrusted deep inside her, sending waves of pleasure throughout her body; her comrades-in-arms gazing at her with gratitude when she hummed this very same melody during a moment of respite in Hell; Castor and Pollux clashing amidst moonlight and starlight; the two of them sharing a smile through crossed swords as they danced on the edge of death and immortality.
The past, the present, and the future are melding into one entity before her eyes, whole and great and beautiful — just like they have.
I know, my love, I know.
Zola carries on singing and she sings like never before, her impassioned voice growing louder and louder and gaining more and more strength past the point where her writing left off, the notes and the words simply writing themselves into existence henceforth. And together with the crowd, she sings the song into completion.
Gringar brings his hammer down on the chain mail dress, the sound of the impact echoing out into the night. The mail ripples and glows before the metal rings separate themselves, floating up to join the swirling procession, and then rejoining to form a single, long chain link that encircles the entire courtyard.
Beulah raises her arms high up in the air, one hand clutching a straw doll wearing a blue dress, and cries out:
“Foul enchantress! The spirits, old and new, reject your twisted influence and will suffer your stain no more!”
As the words leave her mouth, she slashes across the doll’s body with her needle.
As if on command, dark clouds gather above the bonfire, rumbling with thunder, and rain begins pouring over the Anuhlin Shambles, washing away the last of the corruption.
Zola lifts her head to look up at the sky with a smile, the raindrops rolling down her cheeks mixing with her tears.
(Continued in Called Onward By Desire.)
