{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/apocrypha/dialogue-with-plagues",
  "description": "|",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/apocrypha/dialogue-with-plagues",
  "publishedAt": "2023-12-13T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "The blood of vesperbats is restless.\n\nThe order Chiroptera is known for resilient immune systems, but\nvesperbats are a cut above, having striven and lost in evolutionary\narms races against parasites and pestilences of supernatural\nvirulence.\n\nTempered in that forge, the blood of vesperbats poses almost as much a\ndanger to it as it is to what would harm its host. Almost.\n\nVesperbats surpass every creature in regeneration --- wounds torn open\nwill visibly stitch themselves shut, while sundered limbs can be\nreattached mid-battle, or if left severed, will fruit wriggling stumps\nwithin an hour.\n\nBut the attack it cannot heal, that which can make a vesperbat bleed\nwithout reprieve, should stir real fear... but not in the bat.\n\nVesperbat blood is restless, and it finds no rest when shed from the\nbody --- no, being outside flesh unchains it. It is blood that bears\nregeneration. Pools of the bats' blood grow larger even when left\nuntouched, and gore upon the blade reaches out for its wielder.\n\nAnd should the blood engulf and entrap something living? There is a\nreason batslayers do not go for the jugular. The blood of vesperbats\nis hungry; it will consume.\n\nAmong the bats, it is law: wounds should be cauterized, and spilt blood\nshould be burnt. (And it will turn to hot, hot flame; this oily blood\nburns with all the restless energy that stoked growth.) This cleansing\nflame is an imperative. But if one fails this imperative? Most of the\ntime, nothing happens...\n\nBut the blood is hungry, always hungry, and if it finds something to\neat, it can grow and persist. It's a blind, deaf, mute thing. But it\ncan smell, better than anything else alive. And it is as effective as\nany slime mold.\n\nA blood mass like this is evolution let unleashed. Every cell must do\nits part, fight for its own survival, or be replaced by one that does\nit better. A blood mass has stem cells, and all the genes of a\nvesperbat. Given enough time, it will remember how to construct bone,\nflesh, muscle, fat, nerve... gamete...\n\nEven a bat centuries old fears a myxogoth.\n\nThere is but a single mercy. The vespers do not live in the blood, and\ntheir endowments aren't shed when they bleed. But it is known, the\nsecret of every profane vesperbane, that all it takes to nurse a\nvesper is bat blood upon a vespermalum...\n\nGods, if gods can hear, let an envespered myxogoth never appear.\n\nIntroduction\n\nWhat is ichor?\n\nThe blood of vesperbats, yes, the crimson flow that crawls from the\nwounds of direbeasts, of course. But pray tell, what is the blood of\nbats?\n\nWhy is the touch of ichor sufficient to turn a maned wolf into a\nvoracious direhound? Why can a vesperbane eat their weight in meals\nwithout bloating a pound? Why, really why, does the word \"myxogoth\"\nstrike utmost terror in the heart?\n\nEven these powers are less perplexing than its limitations. If the\nblood of bats is so endlessly mutable, why does it recoil from the\nbrain specifically? Why is it impotent to alter the trees of weevils?\nWhy, after millennia ichorblooded, do bats and beasts cling\nsteadfastly to their natural forms, if anything is possible?\n\nBecause every mother bat loses her child, a sacrifice-gift remembered\nwith each pulse.  Because a bat has betrayed its brother before he\neven draws breath.  Because the hunger of red ichor is a pale\nimitation of the attenuation of black nerve.\n\nThe lore of bats is old, older than any reliable history recorded in the\nheartlands or the lands beyond. The only kind who can tell the story\nare the ambrosia weevils, remembering millennia in the roots of the\nworld.\n\nWeevils don't often speak of the matter, and never in any detail. But\nbefore deathless ovitheions ruled the temperate broadleafs, before\nfoolish empires of termites destroyed the dry tropics, before\ngrassland mantes first cried tears of sapience, the weevils rode upon\nbats and loved them.\n\ni.\n\nHanging from the boughs of ambrosia galleries, feasting on treats\ncooked by the weevils and their attendent gestalte bees, devouring any\nbugs that intruded upon their nest, the ancestors of bats had\nflourished with ascent of insect civilization. Though each viewed the\nother as a helpful pet, neither could claim mastery. The wicked teeth\nand claws of a bat could rend the shells of any insect, while the ever\nmore clever tools of weevils and bee gestaltes, wielded by swarm, had\nput many bats from the sky into the ground.\n\nWeevils cloistered themselves in galleries of cultivated tree and\nfunga. While trade with bees, ants, or roaches offered luxury and\nefficiency, the fruits of rotten trees alone could sustain a weevil\ncolony. But every colony would one day wane, and every foundress\ndreamed of her daughters spreading far and wide. The queens of ants and\nbees could fly, but weevils, thrice their size, had lost flight.\n\nTravel by land was perilous --- legions of reaver ants marched forever\non campaign; euvespids hunted in vicious packs; and therids lay cunning\nweb-traps. To say nothing of the bats of the wild, or anteaters, or\nbears. Cutting a path to a new gallery site required the finest\nweevil-warriors, and death still came as companion on every venture.\n\nWhen a new gallery was founded, the first eggs were layed, and the\nfirst spores inoculated the wood. The first fungal harvest always\nyielded an entheogen, and through it, the foundress witnessed\nrevelation, her theogony. This ritual bound a foundress to her\ngallery, making her its owner, or slave, or partner in marriage. Her\ndaughters might recapitulate it, binding themselves in miniature to\nbecome priestesses.  This marriage of a mind to something greater\nredefined a weevil --- the word is untranslatable, but poets call it\nthe metamorphosis of the soul.\n\nAll of this was to say, bats were not steeds to weevils. To the bats,\nweevils were useful pets. They would never allow themselves to be\nreigned and directed by small bugs, a mere source of food. But among\nthe foods offered by their pets were the myriad mixtures of ambrosia\ncultivated by weevils.\n\nA bat would never allow themselves to be ridden, but if they partook of\nthe entheogen? If they underwent that metamophosis of the soul? They\nwere no longer a bat, and the name for this was the etymology of the\nword dragon. In turn, the priestess, a partner in this marriage or\nsubmission or enslavement became a weevil dragonrider.\n\nTogether, they were one being, with wing and weapon, speaking and\nstridulating, commanding both bat and bug. A dragonrider and her army\ncould war with the perils of the land and survive. Their dominance was\nsuch that any skilled dragonrider soon had ambitions beyond simply\nscouting a nesting site.\n\nThey toured the land, seeking glory and adventure, vanquishing threats,\nmaking allies and enemies. All to prove their worth. A rider sung her\ndeeds at every gallery she visited, and once she impressed a foundress,\nthe foundress may consent to grant the rider a pick of her sons and take\none to a courtship chamber.\n\nEvery story of the deeds and sufferings of dragonriders glows with the\noverbright sensibilities of myth. And there is reason to dismiss all of\nthis as mere legend. Pyramids and megaliths and cave paintings persist\nin every continent of the heartlands, and every single one had been\nconceived after the supposed golden age of dragonriders. To believe\nthey ever existed is to place one's faith in the profound durability of\nweevil records. They claim their records woven into the roots of the\nworld. Indeed, ancient galleries separated by vast oceans do agree in\ncosmogony. But to accept this as fact? Foolishness. To admit the\npossibility? One must concede it reasonable.\n\nBut granting any of this... whatever happened to dragonriders? These\nancient bats bleed the blood of beasts, rather than ichor, the\nhypervital blood of endless growth and hunger.\n\nWeevils claimed the cursed blood of bats as their oldest mistake. But\nbefore we recount that story, bereft as it is of proper and believable\nrigor, let us discuss some facts won by modern knowledge-hunters\n\nAny animal that feasts on bugs is poised to inherit some dim reflection\nof its intelligence, and modern bats are the greatest insectivore of\nall, preying on every great arthropod. Noetic hormones are a catalyst\nfor cognition, and bugs evolved them first. Not an easy adaptation, and\nnot a cheap metabolism. So arises the niche of sapiovore.\n\nBats, more than any other beast, needed to eat bugs. Flight burns\nmore calories than any other mode of travel. Bats big enough to feast\non noubugs, big enough for a weevil to ride, loomed vaster than any\nother bat or bird.\n\nMost sapiovores simply rely on their prey to synthesize their nouetics,\nbut bats metabolize the nous into black fat: an exceptionally dense and\nefficient energy store.\n\nWhere did the weevils come in, though? The weevils cultivated ambrosia,\na fungus that synthesized nouetics. Between weevils being the first\narthropod civilization (domesticating severals bugs the bats might feast\non), and their willingness to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their\nfungal gods, and the potency of ambrosia itself, ancestral bats would\nhave eaten well. For fitness as steeds and war-mounts, weevils would\nbreed them ever larger, rendering the black fat adaptation ever more\nrefined.\n\nWeevil priestesses once practiced a whole repertoire of now-forbidden\nrituals they claim harnessed \"wild magic\". Prostrating themselves\ntoward the black moon tenebra, they sought divination and wisdom and\nsubtle power, calling down filaments from the aethershade. One of these\nrituals, now forbidden, is the dragonrider pact.\n\nBefore she bled the first drop of cursed blood, before she became the\nmother of ichor, a young bat bonded to a priestess. Together, they\nfought hundreds of battles, with a tour that visited every weevil\ngallery in the known world. Their unbroken chain of victories is\nremembered with awe even millennia later.\n\nBut every rider's adventure ends, in either death or birth. The rider\nchose birth, and retired to her own gallery, lay",
  "title": "In Dialogue With Plagues"
}