{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/b1",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/b1",
  "publishedAt": "2022-01-22T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: subchapter\nShe loathed that vesperbanes wore masks.\n\nIt was probably a fiend. Maybe a wretch, but they felt powerful enough\n-- in that dreadful, getawaygetawaygetaway sense trained\nvesperbanes inspired --- to be a fiend. Or was it arrogance to think\nWentalel would staff a fiend for something this routine, for pawns this\nundistinguished? She would have looked closer, but she didn't want to be\nnear them.\n\nShe watched the bane kick a nymph in front, grunting, \"Keep moving.\" The\npawns were all walking in a line, double or triple file, but this nymph\nhad made them lag to a halt.\n\nWas that worth kicking them, a nymph, though?\n\nShe hated that vesperbanes wore masks. What expression curdled there\nunderneath? Was it cruel indifference, or crueler pleasure? The impulse\nhad to be an evil one --- no other motivation could lead to such an act\n-- but there were evils that could be fixed, and evils that should be\npurged.\n\n\"You're doing it again,\" the nymph beside her murmured. She had bright\npurple and green chitin, and she gave a forgiving palp-smile when the\nother nymph quirked a confused antennae. \"The 'I will burn everything\ndown and cast me a throne from the ashes' look. You're doing again.\" In\nresponse, the other nymph only looked unimpressed, so she continued,\n\"The deal was you'd act like less of an obvious villain, remember? I\nguess you would need the reminder, huh?\"\n\n\"But maybe I should burn everything down,\" she said, touching the\nmetal in her robe pocket. \"I have a flint lighter. If you'd be kind\nenough to pour the oil...?\"\n\n\"I'm not going to join your revolution, Emmie.\"\n\n\"But when they write the history books, wouldn't you want to be\nremembered on the correct side?\"\n\nRheni puffed up her abdomen and pushed a deep gust of air out of her\nthroats, half-hum and half-sigh. \"What are you even revolting about?\"\nThe tone was made of both exasperation and indulgence --- her will must\nbe weakening! The other nymph would get through to her at this rate!\n\n\"This unjust, and suboptimal system, of course. Isn't it obvious?\"\n\nRheni glanced in front of them. The pawns ahead were getting moving\nagain, a procession of big-eyed nymphs in plain robes just like them,\nand the two of them again followed. Rheni said, \"As far as I can see,\nyou're just scowling at a vesperbane doing their job.\"\n\n\"A warden,\" she spat. She had seen the antennae-band before all the\npawns had fallen into lines --- four swirls like symbolic hurricanes,\nwhich meant this bane was somewhere in Navera's chain of command, of the\nWindborne Stronghold. \"Why would they be here?\" she asked.\n\n\"To keep us safe. It's the purpose of all wardens.\" A perfect answer,\nsure to get a passing mark and a smile from the instructors. Rewarding\n-- not that the other nymph would know what it's like.\n\n\"It's a waste of a vesperbane. Given power over flesh and earth, and\nit's used just to kill? Why, instead of building houses, growing food,\nhealing the sick?\"\n\n\"You already won this argument, remember,\" Rheni said. \"You convinced\nme, and I said I'd be a stewart instead of a warden.\"\n\n\"Yes, but why even have wardens?\"\n\n\"But who else is going to stop defects?\"\n\nShe looked at the nymph-kicker. \"Are they stopping defects? What, do\nthey think one of us is going to turn into a joyous mother to-night?\"\n\n\"Don't say that name.\"\n\nShe only twirled her antennae dismissively.\n\nIt was a moment of silence but for the footfalls of the nymphs and the\nheavier falls of their guide somewhere behind. \"What would you even call\nit?\" Rheni said. \"This third revolution of yours. The Re-realignment?\"\n\n\"The dealignment, clearly,\" came a high voice. \"A vesperbane thinking\nthemselves fit to rule could only be a step backwards.\"\n\n\"Having someone sensible in charge of the world would be a step\nforward, vesperbane or not. Have you seen the state of the\nheartlands?\"\n\nRheni, beside her, gave a strangled contortion of palps. Her antennae\nstretched out toward her, pleading, concerned.\n\nThen she placed the voice, and turned to see the sour face of the guide.\nA nymph on the cusp of teneral, they had pale cyan chitin and the dark\neyes of a long-trained vesperbane. Thick robes shelled them, but parted\naround their thorax, making a show of their only accessory: by braided\nhyphae-roots hung their all-important necklace, its centerpiece a\ngnarled and runic core --- it was the harusign.\n\nThey were staring down at her with a frown, judgment underwriting every\nhair of their palps. No mask spared her the sight.\n\nMaybe she shouldn't set ablaze the temper of the haruspex who would\nmake her a full bane tonight --- but should she be afraid of a little\njudgment? No, not when she could find its match just walking around with\nher forehead bare.\n\nWere they talking? She could only feel her heart beat in her auricles.\n\n\"-- better than the syndics? You are nymph trained to nurse the vespers.\nSyndics have been trained to coordinate society. You would not be\nsensible, no more than you should expect yourself more sensible than the\nstonelifter sculpting a house. Your attempt would topple over.\" The\nharuspex leaned in for emphasis, dark eyes wavering, subtly rippling in\ntheir pigmentation.\n\nShe returned the gaze, and quirked her palps. \"Why would it topple over?\nIt's just laying bricks on top of bricks. They won't fall if there's\nsomething beneath to support them --- do you think I'm too stupid to\nnotice that?\"\n\nThere was a hard scrape, either wordless or some curse not fit for\nnymphly tympana. \"Impossible nymph, foolish! I pray you give the care of\nyour vespers even an ounce more respect, until the instars make you one\nquarter wise.\" Their foreleg moved. \"Here. Take this and speak no word\nfurther to me.\"\n\nWith all the unease of one glancing away from a threat or target, she\nlooked to what was offered.\n\nAny pawn could identify the vespermala, a thing like both rind and nut\nand neither: that theca or chrysalis in which the vespers waited for a\nhost.\n\nShe glanced behind her to see the nymphs behind her gingerly holding\nonto other mala --- the haruspex walked up the line, handing them out\nwhile they marched to the pharmacium.\n\nThe cyan bane was already walking away, and she looked to Rheni, who\nheld her own with two tarsi. \"It's really happening, isn't it?\"\n\nShe nodded, and started walking with pawns coming up behind her. In one\ntarsus she held her mala, tossing it once to feel its weight and\ndistribution. It was dense.\n\nThe haruspex reached into a bag for the next malum, tearing off a label\n-- nametag? --- affixed to each mala with a kind of cleanly detaching\nwax. As no other pawn was hot off an argument, each took their malum\nwith worshipful care.\n\nA lack of motion jerks her gaze back. The pawn immediately in front of\nher had such a singular focus on their new malum, even with the line\ncoming up from behind, that he failed to move quite when she thought he\nwould.\n\nShe had to arrest herself mid-step to avoid colliding --- the sudden jerk\nloosening her grasp of that heavy weight.\n\nHer vespermala flew from her grip.\n\nIts impact on the stone of the hall made a loud crack that resonated\nthroughout the space.\n\n\"You dare!\"\n\nThe haruspex had whirled to stare at her, eyes deeply pigmented like a\nhunter watching prey in the night. Suffusing the air, she felt that\ndreadful intensity that wreathed every vesperbane.\n\nShe ducked, quickly jumping forward, tarsus grasping for the mala, all\nher legs low to the ground like some roach.\n\nThe intense moment passed. Pawns started walking again, palps brushing\nwhispered conversation.\n\nRetrieved, she turned the mala in her tarsus. She found a dent and\nshatter line where it hit the stone.\n\n\"Oh no,\" Rheni said, following her gaze.\n\nThe other nymph had sucked in a breath she didn't feel up to releasing.\n\nRheni looked between the cracked mala and her own, held tighter in her\ntwo foretarsus.\n\n\"Emmie, here.\"\n\nThe purple nymph holds out her own, and tugged on the other.\n\n\"Really?\"\n\nRheni half-smiled, and it was done. They walked closer side by side\nafter that.\n\nTheir destination was dark.\n\nThe pharmacium was dank like a swamp, humid and hot for no reason. It\nspawled like a cave, a network of halls that met and branched and along\ntheir length, and they curved inward for little dark alcoves. The\nalcoves were staggered, alternating. Each pawn was directed to one, and\nin here, you couldn't see any other.\n\nShe'd watched Rheni break off for her own alcove, and now she was alone.\n\nThe other nymph puffed up her abdomen and sighed out. Anticipation still\nhad her bouncing.\n\nIt was time to meet the vespers.\n\nShe lay on her abdomen, legs curling up beside her. She held her\nforelegs close, sat the mala softly on the ground in front of her.\n\nShe breathed, but her mind wasn't on the breathing. She couldn't, as the\nmentors asked, breathe in the air of this world and find peace. She\ncouldn't ground herself in the moment and relax. So, eyes paling, she\ncast her mind to another visage. An alteration of the meditation ritual\nshe'd told no one about --- the only way she could enter that state the\nneuroprojectors deemed trance-like enough.\n\nShe imagined another world. A world with no wardens, where no one looked\nat her forehead and then looked at her, where sensible mantids had\nrooted out all the evil ones. A world without hierophants or haruspices,\njust knowledge-hunters and mind-nesters.\n\nThe bed of her thoughts quivered, and she felt near to that state where\nan hour could pass in between gyrations of her mind. Close enough.\n\nThe voice of the haruspex rang throughout the pharmacium, dripping with\nthat solemnity and proclamation that undermined the peace of mind she\nhad just cultivated.\n\nBut she held onto the image which wavered in her mind, and tried to\nignore the words, sifting for the real instructions, waiting for when\nthey could begin.\n\n\"Hark, O vespers, hear our plea...\"\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nShe dreams without memory.\n\n::: {style=\"color:transparent;text-shadow:0 0 5px #666;\"}\nTwo beings, o",
  "title": "Interlude 2a"
}