Show pageBacklinksBack to top This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong. =====O Enlightened One===== Can the innocent lamb, with so little a sense of the world's dangers, still taste the tang of threat as it is led to the slaughterhouse? ---- //[...] her golden wool glimmering, resplendent with her life. And those watching could not refuse, for when they turned, they saw [...]// ---- Too kind a thought, you tell yourself, rolling a doughy lentil mix into shapes. They'll need a while to cook atop the fire, to acquire the satisfying, crumbly texture of muffins; you can use the time in between to check up on the jerky, which took days longer to prepare. You'd rolled the meat strips as flat as possible and stowed them under a tarpaulin sheet, the least permeable material you could find. You never know when it'll rain again. The skies have been unpredictable. The land, too. Best be prepared. Too kind a thought, to compare yourself to a lamb. There's a difference between being led astray, and walking there of your own accord. You pick soft smashed lentils from out under your fingernails. You've not had time to cut them recently, so you've usually resorted to biting them down, which lends itself far too well to the habit of picking at your skin. You wonder, later, if the gaunt woman reflected in the surface of the swollen river looks as different to others as you feel. You have been feeling different to usual for a very long time. ---- //[...] a field of corpses hidden in shadow, away from Her light. [...]// ---- You make sure to put all your affairs in order. You divide the squirrel jerky and lentil cakes into portions, some for yourself and the others coming with, leaving the rest for the Bastion. Leaving //most// for the Bastion. You correct your amounts more than once. You keep intuitively wanting to give your party more than you need. They're all going back, you remind yourself, you hope. You're the only one you need to consider the alternative for. You also make sure to give Strangeness your cookbook. Her usual placid demeanour is spoiled by the uncertainty in her hands. She takes it, though, into both upturned palms, like an object of prayer. You notice because you can't bring yourself to look into her eyes. When you cannot procrastinate any longer, you pick up a traveller's satchel for the first time in a long time, and you walk. Those joining you in cleaning the river of bodies -- I, Devin, Colby, and The Saint -- follow suit, the sporadic conversations between them muted. Blood rushes, thick as floodwater, in your ears, drowning them out. ----- //[...] She raised her arms and pointed forward into the horizon, a path to sanctuary. [...]// ----- For the first time in perhaps ever, you feel what it must feel like to be followed instead of following. ----- It would be helpful if you had a distraction. But the task of clearing the bodies is monotonous, except for the surge in your stomach that accompanies every particularly gruesome feature of the bodies you uncover. The Saint works with the silent, thudding efficiency of a machine, face hidden as always behind armour. Colby, Devin, and I exchange occasional words, muffled by the masks of hazmat suits that cover their faces. There's no reason to be unsettled, and yet your heart thuds with the fear of a prey animal chased. You move slowly, methodically, settling into a rythymic movement, with the hopes that it will slow your racing mind. Your hands shake so much you feel useless. You withdraw, instead, deciding a moment's fresh air might be best, still refusing to think, focusing your mind on //not// thinking as you stumble your way up the riverbank. The sky, its sun waning, is decorated with premature stars. The sounds of the others working grow faint, wind whistling in your ears to replace them. Your throat is dry. ---- //[...] The stone was wet, itself impenetrable, a barrier to the world outside. And yet, it glistened, soft to the touch with a layer of grime, like the surface of some abhorrent fungus [...]// ---- Fear in your throat like hot bile. Goosebumps erupt across your arms, and you feel as cold as though you were naked and exposed to the skies. ---- //[...] and, with a suddenness as though unexpected, and yet with a certainty that you have known it is coming all along, the skies open and from the slit She pours forth [...]// ---- Your breathing is inaudible to you. Your face is flushed hot despite the wind. You ball sweaty hands into fists. ---- //[...] you know with an unmatched certainty that you have condemned yourself to a lifetime of suffering and beyond it a death even worse [...]// ---- ... ---- //[...] chokes on his own vomit, and saliva hangs from his lips as he keels over, dying [...]// ---- ... ---- //[...] have done well, she says, and you do not feel it, and you feel empty. And that night you do not see Her and you know that you are cast out forever. [...]// ---- //It is so hard to know what to do when there is nobody to instruct you.// Your eyes fly open. Your vision is bleary; you rub fists into your eyes, too hard. Your lips have cracked open from wind-rush. How long have you been standing here? You descend on unsteady legs and return slowly, slowly, to the river-banks. //A just God would apply God's rules equally across all of God's creatures. That is, provided that intrinsic to God was some ability to think, to reason, to respond. That power you invoke. That indescribable thing which speaks to you. Whose voice does it borrow? Whose words?// Colby and The Saint have left, leaving I and Devin. Devin is doling out empty glass bottles. You take two in your numb fingers, and your hands are surprisingly still. It feels as though an unspeakable weight has been lifted from you; one attached for so long that its release causes your body to ache and pain as though unused to freedom. The water underfoot runs surprisingly clear, and you catch your reflection. You are unrecognisable. You pause. Devin slips and falls flat on his side. The sound of breaking glass. You tear your eyes away from yourself and help I to steady him, then count the remaining bottles. "It's fine," a voice emerges from your mouth. "We have enough bottles left for now, and waterskins back at camp." Your voice cracks strangely. You gulp on a dry throat. A tension unlike anything you've ever felt. Not too tight, nor is it localised -- a tingling feeling, spreading from the space between your eyes almost backward into your skull, across your forehead, down your cheeks, your neck, chest, into your arms and fingertips. A pulsating energy. A plea emerges from the depths of your mind. No. For a change, it is not a plea. A question. You turn skyward and ask the world. You turn groundward and ask the rucksack full of bottles. "Let me see." It isn't till you've starting searching bottles, setting them aside in twos, that you realise what the question is. They glint beautifully, in unison, reflecting the light. All but one, its insides coated not with the clear droplets of drinkable water, but with the remnants of contaminated water, not dissimilar from what you've been cleaning from the river. Devin's face reflects nothing but panic. I's, a burning, intense, murderous rage. Faith has answered you. It cannot be helped if you do not like the answers. {[]}{{tag>writeup5 gm_tara complete}} turnsheet_bureau/5/salithra.txt Last modified: 2026/03/23 23:51by gm_ben