{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/a1",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/a1",
  "publishedAt": "2021-02-24T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "In Wentalel, Marka stares into her watery reflection on the surface of\nthe park's pond. The black nerve that writhes across the blue sky\nframes her face. Or frames those garments that truly frame her face: the\nantenna-band bearing heraldic insignias above, the horns guarding her\nantennae's base, and the antiquated shadowsteel helmet that she wears,\nvisors up.\n\nShe likes to think of herself as a modern day knight. There are no\nknights in the heartlands --- haven't been since the Third Dominion.\nThe alliance that came before, though, had burnished itself with hope\nand heroism, something reified in the knights envespered. They really\nthought of vesperbanes as heroes, back then. Idols to admire. Warriors\nblessed by ancestors and saints. They really thought there were saints,\nback then.\n\nMarka is yanked from her reverie by a yelp. In the fringe of her vision,\nshe sees the motion: it's a father wrenching a nymph up and back, his\ncompound eyes staring at her, hard and dark. She can tell by his\nreaction that he sees the cloth tied between her antennae, bearing a\nmetal plate, revealing what she is. The nymph, though, is looking lower,\nand not just because it's smaller.\n\nDown she looks, and Marka sees a dodecahedron of stiff yet flexible\nfibers. It bounces like a air-filled ball would, but won't pop when\nheld in raptorial spines. It settles to an uneasy stop less than a\nbody-length beside her.\n\nEven held in the father's arms, the nymph is reaching out for it. It's\nclear what happened: the kid chased after the toy, but got snatched up\nwhen he saw the nymph tended closer toward her. Toward the vesperbane.\n\nHer maxillary palps press tight against her mandibles. It's not good to\nshow her feelings so blatantly --- but being here again has loosened\nher hold on herself.\n\nShe crouches down to pick up the kid's toy, and, holding it, she pauses\na moment to let them guess her intention. And guess they fail: she can\nsee the nymph's face start to fall, and the father's raptorials\nclench. She makes a motion like she's about to throw, and the father\nbraces himself --- like she would try to hit him. The nymph, though,\nperks up, and holds out their raptorials. Marka decided that moment to\nthrow.\n\nShe's a vesperbane. Her throw is competent, landing right in the kid's\nlegs with velocity low enough it wouldn't hurt if it wasn't caught.\n\nThe nymph makes an excited noise and waves, toy in spine. But the father\ntakes that moment to turn and leave, without a word of thanks. Marka\nknows by the way his head is cocked as he departs that he is watching\nher all the while.\n\nMarka returns her gaze to the still pond and the sky's black nerve\nwrithing in reflection. But there's no peace to be found there,\nanymore. She gets up.\n\nFar across the pond rises an edifice of chiseled stone and carved wood.\nTimber costs less and has to travel less this far south --- a few day's\ntravel from the great ambrosia woods --- but you still didn't build\nbuildings of the stuff, these days.\n\n(And more than just one grand building is wrought in this expensive\nstyle --- it's mirrored, in intent if not quality, by all the ones\nsurrounding, houses and shops alike.)\n\nPeer long enough trying to divine the meaning of all its spear-sharp\nspires, severe arches, and stones engraved with letters of the Pure\nScript, and you may realize what's up.\n\nThat vast building, easily as tall as twenty mantids, is Wentalel's\nchapter of the Church of Blue Welkin.\n\nAnd it's why Marka came back.\n\nShe spends a time studying the design. She considers herself a student\nof history --- now. She wasn't the last time her eyes fell on the\nChurch.\n\nShe casts her gaze around. The Church imposes and looms, and she can't\nstare long without the urge to look away.\n\nThis, where she waits, isn't an old-town district, not really. Wentalel\nwas here long before the church. But the buildings are made to give that\nimpression anyway, of something ancient that fickle modern times have\ngrown around like a fungus. It's convincing.\n\nMarka pulls out her watch. The outer case of the timepiece is stamped\nwith the mark of welkin, and when she clicks it open, the thing --- a\nmess of gears, struts, and an enervate core --- is crammed with\nvindicators' engineering.\n\nShe snaps the piece closed and returns it.\n\nIt's not yet noon.\n\nIn less than an hour, her appointed time will come. She'll set foot in\nthe Church once more. Best case, she'll finally get all the answers she\nwants. Worst case, she'll at least, finally, get closure.\n\nWill she catch fire when stepping onto church grounds? As a fifth-instar\nnymph, the hierophants had pronounced it and she'd known it to be true.\nAs a seventh-instar, she realized it was a lie just like everything else\nthey preached. Now, at the cusp of teneral, several courses of enervate\nphysics in her gut, she wonders once again.\n\nHer raptorials shake. She's unsteady on her feet. She makes her head\nturn and her gaze focus on anything else, some distraction. The throngs\nof people walking the street. One of them wore the all-encompassing\nrobes of a percipient, surrounded by a mini-phalanx of civilians dressed\nas Wentalel guards. They looked about as appropriate as bunnies guarding\na vesperbat.\n\nThey marched --- except the percipient, whose robes went so low they\nlooked to float --- toward the Church.\n\nMarka growls or sighs. Her distraction took her right back to what she\nhoped to be distracted from.\n\nThis was all a formality. A game. A scheduled appointment? For her, at\nthe Church of Wentalel? As if the one she'd come to meet wouldn't see\nher name and remember exactly who she was. As if she didn't have\nintimate history here, like ink stains on the record-paper.\n\nBut this fiction let her pretend this was an impersonal inquiry. If she\nhewed to the ritual of the appointment, she could be anyone. If her\nnerves break and she goes now, familiarity could be assumed, of course,\nand she wouldn't have to wait. Wasn't like they could be busy.\n\nMarka starts walking, to clear her head, a quick stride away from the\nChurch. She'll explore the city.\n\nNot far away from the faux old-town, the architecture becomes more\nmodern. Bleached banestone buildings that can be thrown up in a few\ndays. These particular buildings rise high and brim with occupants like\ntenements, modular designs stacked on top of each other like nymphs'\ntoys.\n\nEverywhere, poles and other things to hold stick off the sides of the\nbuildings, fit for climbing or perching. Listless mantids line the faces\nof the buildings, some of them so unmoving (in sleep?) that they seem\nlike adornments.\n\nThe road Marka follows continues under an overhang where a different\nroad crosses above. As she passes under it, she startles at a small\nmantis swinging down from one of those perch-poles, motions lithe and\ngraceful, landing lightly in front of her. They do not block her path,\nbut she was in danger of clipping them if she kept straight.\n\n\"Hullo\\~\" they say. As soon as she hears the high, lilting voice, she\nmentally corrects the pronoun to 'he'. The golden yellow mantis stands\ntwo thirds her height, and when his antennae rise, she sees their length\naccentuated with ribbons and setae extentions.\n\nHe... His abdomen is covered --- 'covered' --- by a breathable,\nrevealing fishnet dress. Flared sleeves fall over his lower legs, but\ndon't actually close, meaning some motions free glimpses of bare\nchitin.\n\nHe looks like a courtesan. Or --- an unwelcome line of thought\ncontinues, cast in her father's tenor --- he looks like a damn whore.\nThe only piece out of place is the cap over his right eye. The eyecap\nwas the sort a grizzled adventurer might have, except his had a\nfloralwen pattern woven into it, and flowing straps integrated it into\nthe rest of his... attire.\n\nA slender dactyl reaches out and touches the upper part of her foreleg.\nShe jumps, but the touch is soft. Her eyes flush. She's not wearing\nfull armor because the Plains Southern are hot. His digit glides along\nher chitin, brushing against her setae, and stops at the thickness of\nher joints, her muscles evident.\n\n\"You're from out of the city? I don't recognize you. And you seem the\ntype to be... rather distinctive\\~\"\n\n\"I did live here, long ago. But I left to pursue, uh, justice and\nadventure.\"\n\n\"Mmm, sounds so noble. I think... you're a vesperbane, are you?\"\n\nThe question was asked in an unexpected tone --- a mix of true\ncuriosity, yet also polite humor like an answer was assumed.\n\nShe says, \"Yes, I serve the wardens. Countenanced for four years.\"\n\n\"Heh, that armor really gives it away. Still, even among vesperbane not\ntoo many have the brazenness to trot around dressed like a Third\nDominion Deathknight.\" He withdraws his dactyl, and it goes to rest on\nhis labrum, and his palps run along it.\n\nMarka straightens up, raptorials cleching closed with force that\nprobably wasn't enough to crush thoraxes. \"I am not dressed like a\nDeathknight! Deathknights had thorax-plates marked with Oosifea's\nbrand! Their ornamentation was always colored deep green like hemolymph\nor bloodred; mine is the color of blue welkin! Deathknight armor's\nblack iron did not reflect the light even when clear of enervate, but\nthis is vindicator shadowsteel!\"\n\n\"Calm down honey, I believe you. I can see your visor doesn't have\nthe eight pointed star the Dominion liked so much.\" He gives a\nreasurrant curl of his palps. \"I know how the old alliance dressed its\nwarriors, but I also know that most can't tell the difference. Don't\nyou?\"\n\n\"There is a difference.\"\n\n\"Sure, sure. It's just --- you know it was just a little tease, right?\nThat's all.\" The tarsus of his other foreleg pats her cleched\nraptorial.\n\n\"How does a courtesan know so much about imperial history, anyway?\" It\nstrikes her as a rude, untoward quesiton even as she asks. But she\nreally wants to know.\n\nWhen his palps curl into a smile this time, it's with maxillae opening,\ndentation visible. \"Oh, but how much entertainment can I be if I can't\ncarry a stimulating conversation?\"\n\n\"That's fair, I supp",
  "title": "Interlude 1a"
}