Open a Door, Weaken the Walls

[seegodhatesme]

The storm was out of season, fierce and violent and full of screaming that only the optimistic attributed solely to the wind. None of the Speakers slept easy, their wagons anchored to the trees of the first copse they'd reached, canopies billowing violently all through the night.

Morning came with more than its own share of ill luck. Typhon's canopy hadn't survived the night, and so all the grain they'd bought in the last town was soaked. Three horses had gotten spooked and tangled themselves, and one was lame. A tree had come down on the Elder's cart tongue. And the road they'd been traveling had become a ragged, impassable streambed, running away down the long slope towards the plains.

Sypha waited only long enough to do her part of drying clothes and starting the campfires before she took to the air, to scout for a solution to the road. If worst came to worse, they could leave the carts and take the horses through the brush, but there would be a better solution, she was sure of it. She flew up the boulder-strewn new stream, riding fire and wind just below the ragged crowns of trees that still met above it, keeping her eyes open for options.

Comments

[epistemological]

"If you're asking if it was my intention, certainly not," he provides. He has his own ideas of how he ended up there, who would have put him there. He won't share them, or not exactly.

"But I have no doubt I was put there one way or another. The less said about it the better."

The Web is subtle but her influence spreads as much under ignorance as with knowledge.

"I have no desire to hurt you or your people. They are... well, in short, they are as close to a people of my own type as any in this world. I can't say that I don't come bringing darkness with me, but there is... protection, of a type, to being informed. And that I can do for you and yours."

[seegodhatesme]

“In this world,” she echoes back, one red brow raised in interrogation. She makes no effort to sound casual; the question thrills her to ask. “What is your world?”

[epistemological]

"A very different one," he explains, and that makes him sound tired. Not with her. With... all of this. "A fallen one, for all intents and purposes. One where everyone left was half-mad and tortured by fear to the point of breaking every day and night. A world without hope."

[seegodhatesme]

That, of all the things he’s said, puts a chill down Sypha’s spine, and she straightens on her rock. That frisson of awareness of being watched suddenly feels colder. Heavier.

“Is that- the darkness you have brought here?”

[epistemological]

"Yes," he says honestly, "it's a darkness that now has its claws in this and thousands of worlds. It isn't what I wanted but apparently" all too human frustration, "what I wanted doesn't matter, as per usual."

A sigh.

"I doubt it will ever be like it was on my world anywhere else, however. They learned their lesson. They almost destroyed themselves. They'll be more careful next time."

[seegodhatesme]

"How ominous," she says seriously, thoughtful.

"So they will be more subtle. I am not sure if that is good, or bad."

[epistemological]

"Better, I assure you, though not by much. What they will take, they will take in pieces, in drips and drabs, in children and fools and people in the wrong place at the wrong time."

He breathes out slowly. This is his reality now. No sense in being upset about it, at least until he finds Martin. If he finds him.

[seegodhatesme]

She leans back on one hand, watching him.

“The wrong place and time. Such as a country counting down the days until hell is unleashed to cleanse the land?”

[epistemological]

"Given how they've operated in the past, I don't believe they'll try anything on a large scale for centuries." A pause. "But I'm very curious what it is you're talking about."

[seegodhatesme]

Centuries. Okay, that lets the knot behind her breastbone relax a little. They aren't talking about something immediately urgent.

"In the end of winter, the Bishop in Targoviste burned a woman at the stake." Sypha's expression is far from opaque; the fact still fills her with sick fury, independent of the consequences. "A doctor, but they called her a witch. Lisa Tepes," she adds, because the name has been passed among the Speakers, not to be forgotten. "And then a fire storm appeared in the shape of a man - her husband. Dracula. The Church is trying to spread that he is Satan, but he's not.

"His wife was already dead. And now he's sworn vengeance on the entire kingdom. In one year, he said, he'll wipe humanity from Wallachia. We have about four months left."

[epistemological]

"And what's being done about it, exactly?" he asks, because he's still... him. He's still the man who walked into the building they were going to do the Unknowing in. He still went to the chilly north, into the unending darkness, to try and end an endless night. He is broken and he has had pieces of his humanity torn off of him and thrown to the winds but he always had more of that to spare than most would have assumed.

He still cares about all the unnamed souls who might drown in the sea of blood this man aims to make. Dracula.

Christ, that sounds ridiculous.

[seegodhatesme]

Sypha snorts, derisive. "The Church are denying that anything will happen. Though many of the clergy have disappeared, it is said. And some people are leaving, the wise ones. Others cannot, or they believe the church."

[epistemological]

It's very clear from his expression that none of that is terribly surprising to him. The Church means exactly nothing where he came from and he hasn't been terribly impressed by what he's picked up from here about them on this plane.

"And you? You don't have the air of someone who just lets terrible things happen to people... if I may say so."