{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/atdra/02",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/atdra/02",
  "publishedAt": "2019-10-13T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "A forest creature, something with a fluffy covering and hard\nmouthparts and stalkless, recessed eyes and two thin and stiff stalks\nsupport it below. What was the word... Avian?\n\nBut birds were small things, kin of the laughing ravens. Nuisances\nthat clawed through trashbags and left droppings as they flew. Not\nmighty presences that loomed taller than me, mouthparts curving to a\npoint sharper than spears.  A thing which stood and scratched on\nclawed feet like many knives.\n\nThey were wild creatures, too, and not things that wore armor. The\nplates gleamed metal, and the wide metal covering the breast was big\nenough I glimpsed a reflection it. \n\nI stared, desparately curious how I looked to this bird.  Was I an\nenticing meal?  Had I gained new menace from my sojourn with the death\ngod?  Or was I still a feeble thing?  I squeezed my eyes.\n\nForemost I saw a slender bell, a membraneous exumbrella dotted with\nbreathing trachea.  Around them, circling my exumbrella in a wave-like\npattern peeked forth twenty-four rhopalia, lips blinking over simple\neyes.\n\nDangling beneath them, four grasper tentacles upheld the weight and\nrested on fan-like pads.  Eight flat tresses coiled around them,\nbristling with magical cnidocysts, like a rough ribbon rife with\nvenom, and the fluted outlet tingled with dormant power.  Wriggling in\nbetween them, sixteen short feeler-tentacles blew along the breeze.\nCentermost between them all, a single stalk came down in overlapping\nor segmented bulbs of membrane taut over cartilage.\n\nThe eyestalks were level with the bird's armored breast, and they\nturned upward to stare into the face of the beaked menace, head\npivoted so that a single fiery eye stared into the jelly-bodied thing\nbefore it.\n\nNo helmet on the head, and this left you free to notice the fluffy\ngolden down, colored like the metals on the finest altars.\n\nIn that fiery eye I felt --- recognized, measured, and known.  The\nlargest birds, the ones known only as morbid silhouettes in the\ndistant sky, you knew to be wary of them.  Only some preferred live\nmeals, but the ones do had not yet learned to be wary of a medusa.\n(And you would wonder if they should, given what often result from\nsuch encounters.)\n\nAnd this bird would dwarf any vulture or hawk.\n\nIt was an amusing thought, when it had first come.  Will this be an\nend?  Was it to be a gory feast of a death for me?  Now, it seemed\nmore a sober summation.\n\nThe feeling that thrilled through me --- electric and subterranean,\nthe forceful will to live --- was none familiar to me. But still it\nstruck true like lightning, with an utter verity that limned it as if\nit were a facet of pure reality surging through me.  It was\n_undeniable_.\n\nAn assured me: I must live, I would live.  I must escape, I would\nescape.  And I would kill the high priestess of Avelt.\n\nIt was not words that filled me, not truly.  But if it were, those\nwould be the words.\n\nMagic welled up mightily in my glands.  The exhaustion, the dearth,\nhad left me, and in its absence were rendered the tools of escape.\n\nI absorbed a breath---\n\nAnd it takes but a moment for all reality to be rent asunder.\n\n\"Do not be afraid.\"\n\nIt was --- it was the bird that spoke.\n\n\"Please speak to me, little medusa.\"\n\n\"What --\" I choked. Something from the holy studies must have returned\nto me, on some other level than consciousness.  I inquired, as one who\ninquires to a divine thing, and I asked, \"Who sent you, O thou\nsublime?  What purpose shall avail thee?\"\n\n\"How formal.  Relax.  You may know me as Eythe, He of knowledge, the\none who agnizes many things.  I've come to speak to you, little\nmedusa.  Relax yourself.\"\n\n\"Are --- are you a god?\"\n\n\"For your peace of mind, I shall say no.  You may think of me as a\nmere symbol or pretense.  It's all I ever was.  But do not worry about\nme.  I worry about you.\"\n\n\"Me?  I'm useless.  Below the consideration of --- anyone, whoever you\nare.\"  The soft flesh of my exumbrella undulated in waves.\n\n\"But you have decided something, haven't you?  I know many things, I\nknow that you intend something quite monumental.  Involving some high\npriestess, perhaps?\"\n\nI paused, waves freezing on face.  \"I could never accomplish something\nlike that.\"\n\nWhy didn't that feel like a lie?\n\nThe words may as well have never been said, for all that the bird\ncared.  He continues, \"So, allow me to return the inquiry.  Who sent\nyou?  For what purpose?\"  The head leaned lower, level with my eyes.\nHe said, \"Forgive me for insinuating that you wouldn't do this of your\nown volition but... you simply wouldn't.\"\n\nI simply wouldn't.  Somehow, I couldn't contradict the bird.  What\ncould I decide, on my own?\n\nWho sent you?  The inquiry had struck a match in my mind, and from\nits flame I could feel the earlier communion as if it were still\nhappening.  Perhaps it was still happening, and always would.  There\nwas something --- sublime to it.\n\nThe terminus.  The god of death, he who traces the glory of the\nworld.  Doubt could persist, but it had to be him --- who else would\ntend to a demesne that smelt so overwhelmingly of rot, decay?\n\nHe'd dared to tell me his name, even.  The name.  A terrible call that\nbegan with M.\n\nHow utterly I wished he hadn't --- I could well do without knowing.\nBut telling me that name, it was a sign of trust.  Even the hidden\nhistories did not record the name of the god of death.\n\nAnd he had given me his godsting. It was trust, so much trust.\n\nIt was not a sum that this god --- or pretense of a god --- would\ndeign to match.\n\nSo be it.  I was used to floating beneath notice, beneath caring by\nthose important.  I didn't sting, it didn't bother me.\n\nNo, it was the demand that pricked me. Who were they to know my\nmaster?  My task?\n\n\"You are endlessly expressive, for a medusa.\"  The bird cocked his\nhead, letting the other eye rest sidely upon me.  It blinked once, and\nwhen the beak opened again, a mournful caw emerged.  \"Perhaps I should\napologize?  It was not my intention to offend you.  I mean no\ndisrespect.\"\n\nA wave snapped across my face.  \"So you don't mean what you say?\"\n\nA pause, and a back and forth motion of the head.  Confusion was\nwritten deep in the posture, like a dune-dweller staring\nuncomprehending at rows of sunshields.  A cognizance of a cultural\ndivide.\n\n(But it was misplaced caution; it was not a fault of translation, but\na trap in words.)\n\n\"Of course I mean what I say.  I disgorge only truth.\"\n\n\"Then you meant disrespect,\" I stated simply.\n\n\"I don't mean to wrestle in words, little medusa.  I'm not here to\nplay whatever status games it is you jellies get up to.  I am\nconcerned only with the growing, churning might of Him.  He's\nplanning something...\n\n\"And I can look into your soul, little medusa, and I can see the\nbleakness that awaits you. I can see your path ends only in tragedy --\ngrand tragedy. Does it speak lowly of me to seek to avert that? No...\n\n\"Be still and at peace with me.  I am a god to your kind, and I can\nhelp but if you simply allow me.\"\n\nI rose higher on my stalk.  \"Then grant me passage into the hollow\nreef of the sun.\"\n\nA feathered head shaking.  \"That is not my domain.  Aveltane knows\nthose grounds, and I cannot overrule that.\"\n\n\"Well.  As that is all I would like, it seems you cannot help me.\"\nOne rhopalium angled up, an eye lifting to see the canyon wall I must\nclimb.\n\nIt was a lie, a damn lie. Curse my pride.\n\nThe bird was striding toward me, born on those overly thin stalks,\nthose legs coming down like swords, jointed tendrils stabbing into the\nglittering dirt.  The head leaned toward me.  When the beak opened, I\ncould smell a meal on their breath.  I knew what every cnidarian smelt\nlike.  The priests assured me the gods held no malignity at all for\nmedusae --- but should I trust that it was only hydra meat I smelt?\n\nThe bird spoke, and the reek of its gullet imparted an dark undertone\nwhich was not there before.  \"Do not seek to use me, little medusa.\nI am not a resource to be exploited.  Were I to assist you entering\nAveltane's demesne --- what ailment of yours would that truly allay?\"\n\nI had decided I would kill the high priestess of Avelt.  I knew better\nthan to say it aloud, though. Not now.  Indirection had its use, when\nspeaking plainly obscures the truth.  \"It would fulfill my purpose.\"\n\nA sharp, deadly shriek left the deep throat of the golden bird.  And\nnow they spoke in such a tone of prophecy, I could believe my doubt\nmisplaced; I could believe this truly was the vessel of something\nalterior:\n\n\"Medusae do not have purposes.  They are.  They chose.  They\nlive.  That is the right we carved out of the stone of the world for\nyou. That is what we fought for.\"\n\n\"And I chose to serve.  I chose to fulfill this task.  Would you deny\nme that?\"\n\n\"I can only imagine what soft words He fed you to provoke such\ndetermination.  I can only imagine what darkness he plans you to\nundertake in Avelt's demenses.\"\n\n\"I could tell you, if you'd finally agree to help.\"\n\n\"No, I cannot assist Him again. We've --- He's done enough.\"\n\n\"I remain unconvinced.\"\n\n\"For now. I will break you from this geass, I will drag you from\nthis path if I must.  I assure you: my patience flies long.\"\n\nMy stalk flexed, and I rose from my fearful crouch, cartilage popping\nback in place.  The words I'd spoken, which felt like echoes of M's\ntruth, they bolstered.  As if giving voice and word to that\ndetermination I knew only intellectually, as if that lent it some\nvisceral life.\n\nI twisted my bell, all wry, and said, \"Is this conversation over,\nthen?\"\n\n\"For now. But allow me one parting gift, little medusa.\"\n\nThe bird stuck its head into the bag, woven of taut fabric gleaming\nlike silk.  It arose holding in the beak a tight, leathery\nband. Dried, treated ghost snail skin.\n\nIt wasn't new --- as if a god's vessel would ever buy a present for\nme.\n\nAbove, an eye closed as if winking.  \"I agnize many things, and I knew\nto expect you.\"\n\nIt was an old, torn and nicked thing.  It was worn down by years of\nuse.  It had glyphs carved into ",
  "title": "And a Wingèd Doom Alights"
}