Interlude 2a

::: subchapter She loathed that vesperbanes wore masks. It was probably a fiend. Maybe a wretch, but they felt powerful enough -- in that dreadful, getawaygetawaygetaway sense trained vesperbanes inspired --- to be a fiend. Or was it arrogance to think Wentalel would staff a fiend for something this routine, for pawns this undistinguished? She would have looked closer, but she didn't want to be near them. She watched the bane kick a nymph in front, grunting, "Keep moving." The pawns were all walking in a line, double or triple file, but this nymph had made them lag to a halt. Was that worth kicking them, a nymph, though? She hated that vesperbanes wore masks. What expression curdled there underneath? Was it cruel indifference, or crueler pleasure? The impulse had to be an evil one --- no other motivation could lead to such an act -- but there were evils that could be fixed, and evils that should be purged. "You're doing it again," the nymph beside her murmured. She had bright purple and green chitin, and she gave a forgiving palp-smile when the other nymph quirked a confused antennae. "The 'I will burn everything down and cast me a throne from the ashes' look. You're doing again." In response, the other nymph only looked unimpressed, so she continued, "The deal was you'd act like less of an obvious villain, remember? I guess you would need the reminder, huh?" "But maybe I should burn everything down," she said, touching the metal in her robe pocket. "I have a flint lighter. If you'd be kind enough to pour the oil...?" "I'm not going to join your revolution, Emmie." "But when they write the history books, wouldn't you want to be remembered on the correct side?" Rheni puffed up her abdomen and pushed a deep gust of air out of her throats, half-hum and half-sigh. "What are you even revolting about?" The tone was made of both exasperation and indulgence --- her will must be weakening! The other nymph would get through to her at this rate! "This unjust, and suboptimal system, of course. Isn't it obvious?" Rheni glanced in front of them. The pawns ahead were getting moving again, a procession of big-eyed nymphs in plain robes just like them, and the two of them again followed. Rheni said, "As far as I can see, you're just scowling at a vesperbane doing their job." "A warden," she spat. She had seen the antennae-band before all the pawns had fallen into lines --- four swirls like symbolic hurricanes, which meant this bane was somewhere in Navera's chain of command, of the Windborne Stronghold. "Why would they be here?" she asked. "To keep us safe. It's the purpose of all wardens." A perfect answer, sure to get a passing mark and a smile from the instructors. Rewarding -- not that the other nymph would know what it's like. "It's a waste of a vesperbane. Given power over flesh and earth, and it's used just to kill? Why, instead of building houses, growing food, healing the sick?" "You already won this argument, remember," Rheni said. "You convinced me, and I said I'd be a stewart instead of a warden." "Yes, but why even have wardens?" "But who else is going to stop defects?" She looked at the nymph-kicker. "Are they stopping defects? What, do they think one of us is going to turn into a joyous mother to-night?" "Don't say that name." She only twirled her antennae dismissively. It was a moment of silence but for the footfalls of the nymphs and the heavier falls of their guide somewhere behind. "What would you even call it?" Rheni said. "This third revolution of yours. The Re-realignment?" "The dealignment, clearly," came a high voice. "A vesperbane thinking themselves fit to rule could only be a step backwards." "Having someone sensible in charge of the world would be a step forward, vesperbane or not. Have you seen the state of the heartlands?" Rheni, beside her, gave a strangled contortion of palps. Her antennae stretched out toward her, pleading, concerned. Then she placed the voice, and turned to see the sour face of the guide. A nymph on the cusp of teneral, they had pale cyan chitin and the dark eyes of a long-trained vesperbane. Thick robes shelled them, but parted around their thorax, making a show of their only accessory: by braided hyphae-roots hung their all-important necklace, its centerpiece a gnarled and runic core --- it was the harusign. They were staring down at her with a frown, judgment underwriting every hair of their palps. No mask spared her the sight. Maybe she shouldn't set ablaze the temper of the haruspex who would make her a full bane tonight --- but should she be afraid of a little judgment? No, not when she could find its match just walking around with her forehead bare. Were they talking? She could only feel her heart beat in her auricles. "-- better than the syndics? You are nymph trained to nurse the vespers. Syndics have been trained to coordinate society. You would not be sensible, no more than you should expect yourself more sensible than the stonelifter sculpting a house. Your attempt would topple over." The haruspex leaned in for emphasis, dark eyes wavering, subtly rippling in their pigmentation. She returned the gaze, and quirked her palps. "Why would it topple over? It's just laying bricks on top of bricks. They won't fall if there's something beneath to support them --- do you think I'm too stupid to notice that?" There was a hard scrape, either wordless or some curse not fit for nymphly tympana. "Impossible nymph, foolish! I pray you give the care of your vespers even an ounce more respect, until the instars make you one quarter wise." Their foreleg moved. "Here. Take this and speak no word further to me." With all the unease of one glancing away from a threat or target, she looked to what was offered. Any pawn could identify the vespermala, a thing like both rind and nut and neither: that theca or chrysalis in which the vespers waited for a host. She glanced behind her to see the nymphs behind her gingerly holding onto other mala --- the haruspex walked up the line, handing them out while they marched to the pharmacium. The cyan bane was already walking away, and she looked to Rheni, who held her own with two tarsi. "It's really happening, isn't it?" She nodded, and started walking with pawns coming up behind her. In one tarsus she held her mala, tossing it once to feel its weight and distribution. It was dense. The haruspex reached into a bag for the next malum, tearing off a label -- nametag? --- affixed to each mala with a kind of cleanly detaching wax. As no other pawn was hot off an argument, each took their malum with worshipful care. A lack of motion jerks her gaze back. The pawn immediately in front of her had such a singular focus on their new malum, even with the line coming up from behind, that he failed to move quite when she thought he would. She had to arrest herself mid-step to avoid colliding --- the sudden jerk loosening her grasp of that heavy weight. Her vespermala flew from her grip. Its impact on the stone of the hall made a loud crack that resonated throughout the space. "You dare!" The haruspex had whirled to stare at her, eyes deeply pigmented like a hunter watching prey in the night. Suffusing the air, she felt that dreadful intensity that wreathed every vesperbane. She ducked, quickly jumping forward, tarsus grasping for the mala, all her legs low to the ground like some roach. The intense moment passed. Pawns started walking again, palps brushing whispered conversation. Retrieved, she turned the mala in her tarsus. She found a dent and shatter line where it hit the stone. "Oh no," Rheni said, following her gaze. The other nymph had sucked in a breath she didn't feel up to releasing. Rheni looked between the cracked mala and her own, held tighter in her two foretarsus. "Emmie, here." The purple nymph holds out her own, and tugged on the other. "Really?" Rheni half-smiled, and it was done. They walked closer side by side after that. Their destination was dark. The pharmacium was dank like a swamp, humid and hot for no reason. It spawled like a cave, a network of halls that met and branched and along their length, and they curved inward for little dark alcoves. The alcoves were staggered, alternating. Each pawn was directed to one, and in here, you couldn't see any other. She'd watched Rheni break off for her own alcove, and now she was alone. The other nymph puffed up her abdomen and sighed out. Anticipation still had her bouncing. It was time to meet the vespers. She lay on her abdomen, legs curling up beside her. She held her forelegs close, sat the mala softly on the ground in front of her. She breathed, but her mind wasn't on the breathing. She couldn't, as the mentors asked, breathe in the air of this world and find peace. She couldn't ground herself in the moment and relax. So, eyes paling, she cast her mind to another visage. An alteration of the meditation ritual she'd told no one about --- the only way she could enter that state the neuroprojectors deemed trance-like enough. She imagined another world. A world with no wardens, where no one looked at her forehead and then looked at her, where sensible mantids had rooted out all the evil ones. A world without hierophants or haruspices, just knowledge-hunters and mind-nesters. The bed of her thoughts quivered, and she felt near to that state where an hour could pass in between gyrations of her mind. Close enough. The voice of the haruspex rang throughout the pharmacium, dripping with that solemnity and proclamation that undermined the peace of mind she had just cultivated. But she held onto the image which wavered in her mind, and tried to ignore the words, sifting for the real instructions, waiting for when they could begin. "Hark, O vespers, hear our plea..." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ She dreams without memory. ::: {style="color:transparent;text-shadow:0 0 5px #666;"} Two beings, o