{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/09",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/09",
  "publishedAt": "2020-04-25T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "\"This is a test,\" you say to your mother, your antennae twisting and\nuntwisting nervously.\n\nShe arches an antennae. A pause, and then, \"Why do you think that?\"\n\n\"Because...\" You consider the intent way she has her raptorials held,\nthe determination she reeks of. Would she be asking you this if she\ndidn't want to do something already? \"You said you're testing my\njudgment as a vesperbane. Well, you're testing it against something,\nright? Seeing if I live up to standards the stewartry would hold me up\nto?\" And if this was a test, the correct response couldn't be pointing\nthat out. Had you already lost?\n\nShe sighs low. \"No, Eifre.\" Her antennae uncurl and splay outward, as\nif she could smell the correct way to phrase her next words. \"This is a\nfailing of your training, I suppose. Tests and standards to hew to,\nhistories and logics to memorize. Being a vesperbane is nothing like\nthat.\"\n\n\"What is it like, then?\"\n\nTlista's head leans back, her gaze rising toward ceiling, perhaps\nseeing beyond. \"I'll say this: when, if, you're faced with a\nsituation with a correct answer, you aren't going to need training to\nsee that. And I'll say this --- call it a hint if you like ---: we are\nnot in one of those situations.\"\n\nThis calms your twisting antennae a little bit, but uncertainty does not\nleave your face, and you don't venture a response.\n\n\"Dear, we are each born with but a little piece of reason,\" your\nmother says warmly. \"You're old enough to use yours. I want to hear\nwhat it has to say.\"\n\nWith that, your legs slack a little bit, and you ease up. Your antennae\ntap each other as you begin thinking. A binary choice, a dilemma. Take\nthe potion to the witch, or look into her basement.\n\n\"I am as interested in the fruits of your reasoning as the growth\nitself. Think aloud for me.\"\n\n\"Okay. I think we have two choices: save Maune, or see what in her\nbasement.\"\n\n\"Save the witch?\"\n\nThat trips your sprinting thoughts. \"Wha?\"\n\n\"I know you haven't forgotten everything Maune's said.\" Mother curls\nup one of her maxillary palps into a knowing smile like you've missed\nsomething.\n\nAnd it only takes you a few moments to recall. \"My daughter said you\nthink there is a way to save you.\" \"Two ways... But I have a\npreference.\".\n\n\"What did she mean by that? Two ways?\"\n\nYou can see her palps twitching against her pars stridens. She pauses, a\nconsidered silence. Cede another hint, or keep the test results pure?\n\nShe lets out a breath, and finally says, \"The witch of the ambrosia\nwoods. Consider why she might have that name.\" A pause, then, \"The\nweevils are fond of her. I doubt they'd let her die this easily. Maune\nwould rather not resort to their methods, which could be for a variety\nof reasons.\"\n\nTlista stops there, and you're sure it's deliberate.\n\n\"So, rather than saving her, we'd really be saving her from some\nunknown but maybe not good saving by the ambrosia weevils?\"\n\nTlista notably does not nod, but watches.\n\nYou weigh the options. \"Maune is in pain, and will be until we go and\nbring the potion to her. She asked us to do this, and is expecting us to\nbe doing it and nothing else. And yet, she's a defect. It's deeply\nwrong to assist defects. It's counter to the Dream, and vesperbanes are\nsupposed to uphold the dream!\" You stop to draw in a breath. Your\nmother nods.\n\n\"So, what would a vesperbane do? We've managed to infiltrate the lair\nof a defect! We can report this, there's even vesperbanes in the area\nwe can report to,\" you say, and Tlista cringes. \"A vesperbane would\ngather all the information they could, which would entail looking into\nthe basement. But, dealing with a defect, why wouldn't they place\ntraps? Oh no, I don't know anything about disarming traps, not even\nspotting them.\" Your pitch rises on that last sentence. You bite a\npalp, and after a moment Tlista places a foretarsus on your head,\nscratching you between your ocelli.\n\n\"You can continue, it's okay.\"\n\n\"Well, you told those vesperbanes that you were looking after the\nambrosia witch. And, um, you and Maune seem to know each other? And she\nseems... kinda nice? It makes me wonder if we shouldn't be treating\nher necessarily as an enemy defect.\" All defects are enemies, genius.\n\nTlista looks down, thought playing out in flexes of her antennae and in\nthe twitches of her maxillae. \"I... knew her, before she went missing.\nWe completed a few missions together as fiends, and created a few novel\nendowments. She was, is, a genius. You can tell by how young she is. I\ndon't even remember if she's made imago yet. If so, just barely? Even\nnow, she reminds me of...\" Tlista stops herself, shakes her head, and\nfinally lifts her gaze back up. \"We were never close; I was an imago\nwhile she was still a nymph. But I respected her intelligence, and she\nwas... helpful, in my poisons research. I gave her direction\noccasionally, insights or questions that guided her own studies. I...\nwonder, sometimes if she would have gone defect if we'd never known\neach other.\" She shakes her head again, and this time resumes in\ncadence. \"I keep meandering. I hope that answers your questions,\ndear.\"\n\nYou nod. And it feels like you've outlined the extent of the issues,\nthose points in favor of each, and those not.\n\nStanding here, peering up at your mother, it's hard not to recall those\nvanishingly few times she had the time and energy to teach you\nsomething. It was basically cooking, whittling away at the stalks of\nplants, crushing chitin leftover from meals into fine powders, or\nboiling foul and acrid liquids. Sometimes your mother would name the\nthings you've made; vinegar, spices, obscure soaps.\n\nAnd it's metaphors, informed by that practice, that your mother returns\nto again and again. Whittling away, grinding down, and boiling away.\nReducing, simplifying and distilling ideas down to their core.\n\nWhen it came down to it, there were two options you have. Bring the\npotion and do what Maune has asked you to do out of compassion,\nrespecting what she's asked you not to do and disregarding what that\nnagging vesperbane voice inside you insists. Or: Look in her basement,\nout of suspicion and duty.\n\nIt's hard to keep ignoring a thought that you keep thinking around,\nunwilling to face. That Tlista's dilemma, and the insistent pull the\nsecond option has on you, isn't just curiosity.\n\n\"What if...\" You're hesitant to say it. \"What if Maune has\nsomething bad down there? Something... sinister?\" Could she? She\nseemed so nice.\n\n\"Of course. I'm considering the same thing.\" There was a breeziness\nto her tone. You could read why. This was the premise of the\nconversation, didn't you realize?\n\nYou twine your antennae together. You couldn't deny, either, that there\nwas a part of you that wasn't much concerned that there might be\nsomething sinister, or that Maune would suffer for your choice. As much\nas you were, or wanted to be, a vesperbane, you were also wanted to be a\nscholar. Driven by deepest curiosity, it itched that there might\nbe anything in that basement, and no matter what it was sure to be\ninteresting. There was pleasure in knowing, and there was pleasure in\nsharing. Why hide something, why bar someone from learning?\n\n\"She said we wouldn't understand everything we'd see.\" You tried not\nto take that as an offense to your faculties of understanding.\n\n\"She's also a defect,\" Tlista says in a tone of reminder.\n\nA few moments filled with thought. \"I'm at a loss,\" you complain to\nyour mother. \"If there's nothing bad in the basement, we should just\ntake the potion to Maune. But if there is something dreadful down there,\nwe shouldn't be helping the defect.\" You throw up your raptorials.\n\"But the only way to find out which is to go down there! It's such a\ntangle.\"\n\n\"Could I make an observation?\"\n\nYou'd welcome any hint. \"Yes, please!\"\n\n\"If you really thought there was a chance there was nothing, or\nsomething obviously innocent below, you wouldn't be so conflicted about\nthe choice. It would be a simple matter to glance in and determine such.\nYou're afraid. It's not a choice between acting immediately or\nlearning more, you see it instead as a choice between acting as you'd\nlike, in ignorance, or learning something you expect to make you not\nlike the first choice. This isn't a binary, and yet you see it as\none.\"\n\n\"When you put it that way...\" Your maxillae draw in tight. \"It\ndoesn't seem like much of a choice at all, does it? It's obvious how a\nhero would act.\n\n\"If I may make another observation?\" You just stare flatly at her. She\nlaughs once in her thorax, and then, \"You're still seeing it as a\nbinary.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"There are two of us, Eifre. We don't have to act unilaterally.\"\n\n\"So you mean for one of us to go into the basement while the other\ndelivers the potion?\"\n\n\"I mean for me to go downstairs --- you said yourself there might be\ntraps --- while you deliver the potion. How does that sound, Eifre?\"\n\n\"It sounds...\" you start. \"Like exactly what I said it was! This was\na test, and that's the right answer!\"\n\n\"Not at all. If you trust Maune, I will accompany you. And if you\nreally want to descend with me...\" Tlista takes a deep breath, and\nthen looks you up and down, and then looks you in the eye, \"If that's\nwhat you really want, I will allow it. The choice remains yours, and we\nare presented no correct answers.\"\n\nJust as you're about to say something, there comes from behind a\nhard bonk right against your head. You turn just slightly, and the\noffender comes into your periphery. The crow familiar, Reva. You aren't\neven surprised the thing knew exactly how to stay inside a mantis's\nblindspot.\n\nTurning further, you swat a raptorial at the crow. It dodges fluidly,\nflying up to your face and pecking right above your mandibles.\n\n\"Ow, what the why!\"\n\n\"Blood,\" the crow squawks harshly high.\n\nYou feel something pressed into your other raptorial \\-- it's the thick\nred potion, your mother is giving it to you.\n\n\"Your choice,\" she repeats.\n\nThe bird pecks you again, in the same spot, and you feel it piercing\nsharply into your chitin.\n\nYour choice, and"
}