24 Vhalar 718
“This is… the- what was it you said before?” It was different than he remembered. Where before there had been vague… somethings, he now saw neatly arranged stone portals carved from a single slab. Some were granite, others marble, and a few were a smooth, glass-like obsidian. There didn’t seem to be much sense in the order of their appearance, only that, though their materials differed, they all were carved into the exact same rectangular shape, propped up between invisible walls. In the center of their otherwise featureless surfaces, in the exact same place and made of the exact same material, was a small, circular midnight black pearl, about the size of his thumb.
The doors - for he knew they were doors now - stood tall and silent. Not a one beckoned to him, yet he felt the unflinching pull of his own curiosity urging him forward nonetheless.
“Crossroads, land of too-many-doors, the hallway to everywhere and nowhere, the veil, the world of a million cunts. Call it what you need. I call it a resounding argument for population control.”
“There are certainly quite a few of them, it seems.” Though accurate in fact, the statement still seemed to carry the hollow ring of understatement. As far as he could see - and without any real landscape aside from the twisting, curling pathways that wove through the veritable forest of stone, he could see quite far -, there was no end to the portals. “And you… pass through them? Explore the worlds beyond?” His eyes, bright as ever, seemed to almost twinkle with unadulterated interest as they slowly left the odd, smooth black glass of his own door that possessed - as far as he saw it - the only white pearl in the sea of black.
“Define ‘worlds beyond’.” Zipper’s tone was something he recognized in Graciana all too often; the barely veiled anticipation that came with crushing all expectations. Yet, unlike in such instances with the Madame wherein he knew what reply would most satisfy her in shattering his assumptions and carefully reconstructing the pieces back into simple, uncluttered fact, Mathias had no idea what it was Fiona wanted him to say.
So, instead of attempting to say what he imagined she was waiting for, he tried with the closet thing to accurate recount he could. “Dreamscapes, you called them? The Dreamscapes of other people, I imagine.” Calm and steady, his voice held no rush or urgency as he carried on conversation without looking at the young woman beside him, gaze lingering on door after door, each one identical in shape and pearl but entirely different in stone and pattern and texture.
“Windows into depravity.” she corrected him.
He let out the smallest sigh of “ah” to offer he was listening.
“The fantasies too ugly to show anyone.” Though he raised a brow at that, she, too, didn’t seem all that interested in making sure he was hearing and kept her eyes ahead, moving around between the doors and expecting him to keep up with her brisk pace; she was looking for something herself. “The dreams they’re too small to follow. The mistakes they pretend they never made. To see a dream is to see disappointment and self-indulgence. There is nothing more dull and less inspired than peering into a stranger’s dreamscape.”
“Hm.” An acknowledging sound, Mathias found his attention drawn back to the short-haired - and shorter tempered - woman. “So… you are saying that humanity, as it is perceived in the waking world, is much the same here? A waste of air and space?” He didn’t sound surprised, though Mathias rarely ever did. “Little more than… meat?”
“I would appreciate it,” she said, inspecting the sides of one of the doors they had walked past. “If you stop sounding so hungry every time you say ‘meat’”
His brow quirked in a playful arc as his small smile played into his voice - all quite deliberate. “Are you worried I may try to… eat you, Fiona?”
“I’m worried I might clog you up so hard, your mother’s digestive tract implodes. I’m a bit harder to swallow than your usual long pork.” He chuckled then, and for all the world it sounded genuine, but there was nothing in his eyes but that same bright, empty light. “Does your cripple god demand meat of all his subjects?”
Again, he chuckled, though this time softer, gentler. “You foreigners never fail to entertain.” A nicety - etiquette all of it. “Meat-” he paused, still keeping time with her footsteps, their gait about the same given their shared, diminutive heights, “Of all kinds,” he grinned, “Is quite expensive. The Wounded God calls only for blood - though it is understood that blood should come from those who understand what it is to lose it in the first place.” He didn’t bother to adjust his words to suit the palate of heathen - after all, he didn’t really have the capacity for it. The Wounded God was all he knew - speaking of the rituals and expectations was as sensible as straightforward as calling the sky blue or the oceans wet.
“That sounds fantastic.” Credit where credit was due, she managed to make the words sound completely sincere. She had moved on to the next door - apparently whatever was on the previous one was something that did not interest her. “Have you good folks discovered fire yet? The wheel?”
Without even considering the fact that it was an exclusively Quacian entity, Mathias - smile since faded and eyes once more wandering - casually replied, “Of course. Fire is the only thing that keeps the creep at bay.”
“Where did he touch you?”
“Where did who touch me?”
“Your creep.”
“My-”
“I’m not judging. I’ve had my fair share of would-be assiliants over the arcs.” She shook her head, shaking away what was clearly a mental shudder. You did what you had to do. My personal choice of retaliation was a knife slathered in lightning-”
He blinked three times in rapid succession, bright gaze one more settled unsettlingly upon her. “Are you-” He paused, considering, then spoke again, clear and calm voice not without an undercurrent of confusion. “Are you referring to a… sexual assailant?”
“Look, I’m not sure you should keep oversharing. Within a break of this partnership, I’ve discovered that you’re a cannibal-”
“You seem to believe that to be the case, yes.” He corrected, not without a carefully woven string of amusement in his words.
The eyeroll could be felt in the way her tone tightened as she pressed on. “-a survivor of sexual assault. Anyone else would have told you to bugger off. I’m not sure what other skeleton-in-the-closet’s gonna scare me off? Do you not bathe? That might be the dealbreaker.”
It was hard to tell whether she was mocking him or being oddly sincere.
“As generous as your magnanimity is, I would be in the wrong to accept it under such false pretense.” He, for one, sounded wholly guileless - though, that alone surely made it suspect given what she knew of him. “The creep is not a… person. Not in the traditional sense.” He paused, brow furrowing for a trill before he thoughtfully added, “Though I suppose it is not outside of its purview to… sexually assault a body.” He blinked at that thought. “I cannot begin to imagine why sentient plant-life would ever engage in something so… carnal - and with so many fluids -, however... it is not, as I said, impossible.”
They passed another door - another rejection. “And I do bathe.” He added, nodding more to himself than Fiona. “I find I prefer cleanliness to slovenliness.”
“I wouldn't say it raises my opinion of you, but it certainly doesn’t lower it.” Next door, more intense scrutinization on her part while he lingered behind her.
“Thank you.”
“So your Quacia is, correct me if I err, a city plagued by plant-like lifeforms that harass and assail the living - what did you say… the ‘meat?’”
He nodded.
“-are fended off by fire-”
Another nod.
“-and you just can’t get rid of it because, for all your many primitive adaptations,” she removed herself from the door and looked him straight in the eyes. “The mages of your city cannot fathom the idea of a second spark in their soul?”
An old jab from a conversation trials ago. And still just as irrelevant. Mathias blinked, head tilted just off to the side and took a trill or two to reply. “Perhaps you misunderstand?” If it was an insult, there was no indication of it in his voice or eyes - perhaps the most genuine thing he’d presented thus far. “I do not possess a second spark, but I cannot attest to the choices of any other mage and the state of their soul.”
“Ah, my mistake. I saw you as the biggest fish in a tiny puddle. My apologies.”
A compliment? Or, rather, the retraction of one. Mathias didn’t seem bothered by it either way, and his short-haired dream mentor didn’t seem to expect outrage. She returned to her door inspection once more. “Quacia is quite large. I would not be surprised if there were people far more capable than I.” The manner in which he said it, though, had the vaguest hint of something cold and bitter. “Though,” he continued, steadily maintaining their share stare, “I can assure you, the ‘tiny puddle’ I swim is, at the very least, uncomfortably cramped.”
“Certainly is when you’re eating your pondmates.” she mumbled just loud enough for him to hear. He winked then, face almost blank and shifting in an instant to playful humor that, as always, didn’t read his eyes.
“Were you not only a moment ago assuming I already am?”
“This is… the- what was it you said before?” It was different than he remembered. Where before there had been vague… somethings, he now saw neatly arranged stone portals carved from a single slab. Some were granite, others marble, and a few were a smooth, glass-like obsidian. There didn’t seem to be much sense in the order of their appearance, only that, though their materials differed, they all were carved into the exact same rectangular shape, propped up between invisible walls. In the center of their otherwise featureless surfaces, in the exact same place and made of the exact same material, was a small, circular midnight black pearl, about the size of his thumb.
The doors - for he knew they were doors now - stood tall and silent. Not a one beckoned to him, yet he felt the unflinching pull of his own curiosity urging him forward nonetheless.
“Crossroads, land of too-many-doors, the hallway to everywhere and nowhere, the veil, the world of a million cunts. Call it what you need. I call it a resounding argument for population control.”
“There are certainly quite a few of them, it seems.” Though accurate in fact, the statement still seemed to carry the hollow ring of understatement. As far as he could see - and without any real landscape aside from the twisting, curling pathways that wove through the veritable forest of stone, he could see quite far -, there was no end to the portals. “And you… pass through them? Explore the worlds beyond?” His eyes, bright as ever, seemed to almost twinkle with unadulterated interest as they slowly left the odd, smooth black glass of his own door that possessed - as far as he saw it - the only white pearl in the sea of black.
“Define ‘worlds beyond’.” Zipper’s tone was something he recognized in Graciana all too often; the barely veiled anticipation that came with crushing all expectations. Yet, unlike in such instances with the Madame wherein he knew what reply would most satisfy her in shattering his assumptions and carefully reconstructing the pieces back into simple, uncluttered fact, Mathias had no idea what it was Fiona wanted him to say.
So, instead of attempting to say what he imagined she was waiting for, he tried with the closet thing to accurate recount he could. “Dreamscapes, you called them? The Dreamscapes of other people, I imagine.” Calm and steady, his voice held no rush or urgency as he carried on conversation without looking at the young woman beside him, gaze lingering on door after door, each one identical in shape and pearl but entirely different in stone and pattern and texture.
“Windows into depravity.” she corrected him.
He let out the smallest sigh of “ah” to offer he was listening.
“The fantasies too ugly to show anyone.” Though he raised a brow at that, she, too, didn’t seem all that interested in making sure he was hearing and kept her eyes ahead, moving around between the doors and expecting him to keep up with her brisk pace; she was looking for something herself. “The dreams they’re too small to follow. The mistakes they pretend they never made. To see a dream is to see disappointment and self-indulgence. There is nothing more dull and less inspired than peering into a stranger’s dreamscape.”
“Hm.” An acknowledging sound, Mathias found his attention drawn back to the short-haired - and shorter tempered - woman. “So… you are saying that humanity, as it is perceived in the waking world, is much the same here? A waste of air and space?” He didn’t sound surprised, though Mathias rarely ever did. “Little more than… meat?”
“I would appreciate it,” she said, inspecting the sides of one of the doors they had walked past. “If you stop sounding so hungry every time you say ‘meat’”
His brow quirked in a playful arc as his small smile played into his voice - all quite deliberate. “Are you worried I may try to… eat you, Fiona?”
“I’m worried I might clog you up so hard, your mother’s digestive tract implodes. I’m a bit harder to swallow than your usual long pork.” He chuckled then, and for all the world it sounded genuine, but there was nothing in his eyes but that same bright, empty light. “Does your cripple god demand meat of all his subjects?”
Again, he chuckled, though this time softer, gentler. “You foreigners never fail to entertain.” A nicety - etiquette all of it. “Meat-” he paused, still keeping time with her footsteps, their gait about the same given their shared, diminutive heights, “Of all kinds,” he grinned, “Is quite expensive. The Wounded God calls only for blood - though it is understood that blood should come from those who understand what it is to lose it in the first place.” He didn’t bother to adjust his words to suit the palate of heathen - after all, he didn’t really have the capacity for it. The Wounded God was all he knew - speaking of the rituals and expectations was as sensible as straightforward as calling the sky blue or the oceans wet.
“That sounds fantastic.” Credit where credit was due, she managed to make the words sound completely sincere. She had moved on to the next door - apparently whatever was on the previous one was something that did not interest her. “Have you good folks discovered fire yet? The wheel?”
Without even considering the fact that it was an exclusively Quacian entity, Mathias - smile since faded and eyes once more wandering - casually replied, “Of course. Fire is the only thing that keeps the creep at bay.”
“Where did he touch you?”
“Where did who touch me?”
“Your creep.”
“My-”
“I’m not judging. I’ve had my fair share of would-be assiliants over the arcs.” She shook her head, shaking away what was clearly a mental shudder. You did what you had to do. My personal choice of retaliation was a knife slathered in lightning-”
He blinked three times in rapid succession, bright gaze one more settled unsettlingly upon her. “Are you-” He paused, considering, then spoke again, clear and calm voice not without an undercurrent of confusion. “Are you referring to a… sexual assailant?”
“Look, I’m not sure you should keep oversharing. Within a break of this partnership, I’ve discovered that you’re a cannibal-”
“You seem to believe that to be the case, yes.” He corrected, not without a carefully woven string of amusement in his words.
The eyeroll could be felt in the way her tone tightened as she pressed on. “-a survivor of sexual assault. Anyone else would have told you to bugger off. I’m not sure what other skeleton-in-the-closet’s gonna scare me off? Do you not bathe? That might be the dealbreaker.”
It was hard to tell whether she was mocking him or being oddly sincere.
“As generous as your magnanimity is, I would be in the wrong to accept it under such false pretense.” He, for one, sounded wholly guileless - though, that alone surely made it suspect given what she knew of him. “The creep is not a… person. Not in the traditional sense.” He paused, brow furrowing for a trill before he thoughtfully added, “Though I suppose it is not outside of its purview to… sexually assault a body.” He blinked at that thought. “I cannot begin to imagine why sentient plant-life would ever engage in something so… carnal - and with so many fluids -, however... it is not, as I said, impossible.”
They passed another door - another rejection. “And I do bathe.” He added, nodding more to himself than Fiona. “I find I prefer cleanliness to slovenliness.”
“I wouldn't say it raises my opinion of you, but it certainly doesn’t lower it.” Next door, more intense scrutinization on her part while he lingered behind her.
“Thank you.”
“So your Quacia is, correct me if I err, a city plagued by plant-like lifeforms that harass and assail the living - what did you say… the ‘meat?’”
He nodded.
“-are fended off by fire-”
Another nod.
“-and you just can’t get rid of it because, for all your many primitive adaptations,” she removed herself from the door and looked him straight in the eyes. “The mages of your city cannot fathom the idea of a second spark in their soul?”
An old jab from a conversation trials ago. And still just as irrelevant. Mathias blinked, head tilted just off to the side and took a trill or two to reply. “Perhaps you misunderstand?” If it was an insult, there was no indication of it in his voice or eyes - perhaps the most genuine thing he’d presented thus far. “I do not possess a second spark, but I cannot attest to the choices of any other mage and the state of their soul.”
“Ah, my mistake. I saw you as the biggest fish in a tiny puddle. My apologies.”
A compliment? Or, rather, the retraction of one. Mathias didn’t seem bothered by it either way, and his short-haired dream mentor didn’t seem to expect outrage. She returned to her door inspection once more. “Quacia is quite large. I would not be surprised if there were people far more capable than I.” The manner in which he said it, though, had the vaguest hint of something cold and bitter. “Though,” he continued, steadily maintaining their share stare, “I can assure you, the ‘tiny puddle’ I swim is, at the very least, uncomfortably cramped.”
“Certainly is when you’re eating your pondmates.” she mumbled just loud enough for him to hear. He winked then, face almost blank and shifting in an instant to playful humor that, as always, didn’t read his eyes.
“Were you not only a moment ago assuming I already am?”
