Fallenreaper
Ti
Jumbus
Silly
Echotech71
Astro
Kuro
Chronic
Lildear18
pantothenicAct Two: Scattered to the Winds____ __ _ _
Chapter Two: Folly______ __ _ _
Humans, in their eagerness to see yasoi as some extension of the forest, to define them by and have them embody it, made a dangerous mistake. They looked upon Loriindton as an ideal, formed of the trees and alive in perfect harmony with nature. In the early morning sun, it emerged from the nighttime mists: an apparition of great golden boughs that groaned softly in the breeze and shining silver bells that gently chimed. For seven thousand years, they had looked upon the changing visage of the city in the trees and decided that it symbolized peace, permanence, and beauty: things to strive for. In truth, this was little more than a reflection of that peculiar human need to place everything in neat little crates so that it could be understood.
It was a need that Talit'yrash'osmax did not understand. She and the others were close now. The undergrowth was growing sparse and the animals fewer. The trees towered to unnatural heights, carefully cultivated over millennia by yasoi hands. Their mighty roots drank endlessly of the Ascel River and choked out those of their smaller brethren. The sun beat down through the gaps in the canopy, parching soil and grasses. The sharp hum of cicadas rose in urgency as the day wore on and smoke from hundreds of chimneys filtered, foul and phantasmal, through the branches. In truth, Loriindton was an unnatural place: a blight upon the sanctity of the eternal land picked at relentlessly by the folly of men. Mud and stone covered the forest floor and leaves, maintained through the use of the Gift, remained year-round on their branches. At this time of year, they were transitioning from yellow to green instead of growing anew.
Then, the new arrivals were passing through Athal'riimas, the vast arch and its hundred dangling chimes stretching over their heads. On the other side lay a hive of activity. Milling crowds moved in all three dimensions: back and forth on foot, up and down ladders, stairs, and trees. Dozens of wagons clustered along the network of roads that branched from Athal'riimas. Loud voices filled the air, competing with a smorgasbord of scents and sights: multicoloured banners, cooking meat, spices, sweat, and shit. It was a sensory bombardment thrilling for a human but almost overwhelming for many yasoi.
"Home, ladies and gentlemen," announced Tali in an ambivalent tone, bringing Pishcar about. The horse had been trained to walk in reverse. "Senses keen, bags clasped shut, hmm?" She motioned for them to follow.
Everything on the ground floor of the market was cleared by the early afternoon and the decorators came out in earnest. By Ypti herself, they covered the great plaza with more ribbons than Talit had thought existed in the whole of the city. Next came the treasure wagons and the long travelers, and they bargained and bartered in the background as long tables and stages took shape along with the throne for the Grand Mockery. Casks of wine, mead, and spirits were arranged in sculptures and bolted or tied into place. Hundreds of hands combined to build a tiims'archa course that snaked around, up, and down many of the lesser trees, through the fountain, and right to the foot of the throne itself. By the late afternoon, bards and music troupes were drifting in and out of the plaza, claiming the plum spots, and vendors were busy cooking up jumpoi and sharring'oss. For those who hassled them too much, there would inevitably be a few slices of jumpoi'asca.
Lifted into place by the magics of the Festive Guild came the swinging post, and then tetsoi booths and Dare Squares. The Chefs' Guild soon had a roaring fire lit and a spit turning with dozens of chickens, turkeys, pigs, rabbits, and boars. Before long, afternoon gave way to evening. Dancers swirled about to music and torches were lit at ground level and many others above as the sun set. Then came the jesters and acrobats, resplendent in their multicoloured livery. Families wound through the thickening crowds and a dozen individual practice sessions and sing-alongs congealed into one great musical ensemble.
The six Festive Masters leapt up on top of the long tables and pranced about. Every single one of them had drank a substantial amount and all were properly, obnoxiously jolly. Pie Man had both thrown and received pies. Frolicking Fish was squirting people from the fountain and the area around her was already a no man's land except for those young men who saw... boobs first and foremost and were willing to endure the relentless humiliation. The Tickler was busy tormenting a waiter who was holding up one end of a massive roast peacock on a glass platter, close to getting him to drop it. Fat Ferit, meanwhile, was huffing and puffing, stumbling and bumbling all over the place in her frilly robes and liberally helping herself to people's food and drinks with a mixture of obsequious apology and barbed jokes. Baron Pecker was strutting around smugly with his great jaw, feathered hat, tights, and even greater... pecker, winking at all the women, chatting them up with the corniest of jests, sneaking up behind people and... poking them, and demanding duels with 'offended' husbands, while shamelessly bending the rules or running away and claiming victory. Peering out from a small window overlooking the plaza, Talit blushed at the sight of him. Aged twelve, she'd asked her mother wonderingly if it was real.
“No more real than the last time you asked,” teased a curmudgeonly old voice from nearby.
The young woman turned. “Old Nan,” she replied, instinctively bowing.
Leaning heavily on a cane, Merit’entasp’osmax shuffled forward. She stopped in front of her triple-great granddaughter and they stood eye to eye, the elder not having to look up very much. “My dear little Tali.” Old Nan pinched her cheek fondly. “Glad you made it back in one piece this time.”
“It was only men,” Tali replied, hovering close behind as Old Nan took a few steps back and settled gingerly onto her armchair.
“Humans,” grumbled the old crone, “and the two worst sorts: Eskandr and Parrench.”
Talit sighed. “I know you’re not half as opposed to the latter as you like to make it sound.” The floorboards creaked in a familiar way underfoot and the air smelled faintly of chamomile.
“Hmm, maybe,” the former Baroness admitted. “But also not half as favourable as you like to think.”
“Then I shall just have to push harder,” the potential future baroness teased. Yet, it was met not with some witty rejoinder, as usual, but with a tired smile. Merit lifted a steaming mug unsteadily to her lips and took a long sip. She seemed somehow a good deal older than the last time they’d seen each other, towards the end of winter. “Your brother pushes me one way and you the other,” she sighed. “It is altogether too much pushing, I fear. The two of you seem determined to turn me into a prune.”
“Why, but you already are, dear Old Nan. Have you looked in a mirror of late?”
“I try to avoid them,” the old woman grumbled.
“I suppose, at your age, I might as well,” Tali admitted, still pacing, but Old Nan’s eyes found her just the same. She shook her head. “By my age, you’ll have been a goddess for over a century, Yrash. You must accept that you are Vyshta.”
The young woman’s eyes flashed. “I am Talit first; not some mere body for the fallen goddess to inhabit.”
Merit smiled reassuringly, but she seemed old and withered these days, and she lacked the forceful glow that Tali was accustomed to. Perhaps ascending as a goddess was much preferable to old age after all. “Each vessel remains herself within the goddess. You should not worry. There will simply be more to you after you ascend.”
Talit sighed. “And how you will love to tell me “I told you so’.”
“Hmmmm.” Old Nan sipped from her mug, silent. It wasn’t like her to pass up an opportunity to poke fun at her younger kin, but she sat there on her chair, suddenly quite still, eyes staring ahead with no particular sort of focus. “Old Nan?” Tali prodded, “What is so interesting about the wall, hmm?”
Merit blinked. “Oh, yes. Nothing, dear. I was just thinking how glad I was that you’d made it back safely. War is such a horrid business.”
“Yes, Old Nan.”
The former baroness paused. “Have I forgotten something? Were we on another topic?”
“Nothing of consequence,” Tali lied, and the old woman smiled. “Ah yes, it just came to me that there was a jest I had wished to make.”
Smoothly, Talit strode up to the padded chest beside where her Old Nan was and sat on it, setting her crutches to the side. “And what was that?” she inquired softly.
“Oh, just that I was happy you’d come back in one piece this time.” She winked.
Tali forced a smile, but her need to do so came not from an objection to jokes about her missing leg. They had been a part of her life for over a decade and she was well used to them by now. Old Nan was repeating herself. She was forgetting things. There’d been hints over the past few seasons, but she was much worse now. “I am supposedly the goddess of fortune incarnate,” Tali replied, probing once more.
“And perhaps you have come to accept that, yes?”
“It is as I told you just now: I shall be Talit first and foremost, always.”
“Oh, but you will be,” Old Nan assured her. “Each vessel remains herself within the goddess. You should not worry. There will simply be more to you after you ascend.” Word for word, it was the same. Something in the young woman’s chest snapped. “And how you will love to tell me ‘I told you so’,” she repeated. This time, however, the elder noticed something amiss. She scowled and set her mug down unsteadily. “I fear I may not have the opportunity, dear one.”
“Old Nan?”
Merit looked her way, eyes sharp for a moment, as they had always been previously. She reached out with a gnarled hand and enfolded one of Talit’s. “I had a conversation like this with Dyric already.” She furrowed her brow for a moment, looking confused and trying to push through it. “At least… I think I did.”
“Granny Merit,” the young woman squeaked.
“No sounds of weakness, girl,” scolded the former baroness. “Those will not do.” She brought her mug up to her lips again and then stopped and scowled. “It is only water in here,” she growled. “The tea is still steeping. I had forgotten.”
Tali rose and hopped a couple of steps to grab the pot, returning in a heel-toe shimmy with it. “It is… a horrid thing to grow this old,” Old Nan admitted, “to be a shadow of oneself, to know it and yet not know it.” She stared ahead in reverie as Tali poured another mug for her. “Things you used to do with such ease drift out of your grasp and you’ve no choice but to accept it. A bitter pill…” she trailed off.
The young woman went silent and tired old eyes found her. More particularly, they found her stump for a moment. “How indulged I must sound, dear girl.” Merit took a sip of her tea, eyelids flickering as she savoured it, and shook her head. “You know far more about loss at your age than anyone ought to.”
“I know a thing or two about perseverance as well.”
“Oh, I have persevered plenty long,” Merti snorted. “When I was precisely your age, I stood there on a hilltop, just outside the forest with a boy I loved at the time and we watched flames consume Old Avince. That is how very much is inside this old head of mine and how hard it is to organize all.”
“Perhaps the Gift of Essence can help?” Tali ventured.
“I have tried it.” Merit waved dismissively. “Three times, apparently. I have written it on a scrap of parchment so that I do not waste what little time I have trying it again.”
“Old Nan,” pleaded Tali, “you must continue to persevere, please, for one more year and hopefully much longer.” She started to rise, but thought better of it, instead shifting to more fully face the old woman. “I understand that it is my duty to ascend, and I would not be so selfish as to shirk that, but I am frightened. For all of the Gift that I have, I truly am. No vessel of Vyshta has made her twenty-fifth birthday in over a millennium. I… do not think that my chances are very good without -”
“You must persevere,” said Old Nan simply.
“And I shall, with every ounce of my being, but…”
“Talit’yrash, there is something I must tell you,” Merit began. “An admission I must make.”
Tali could feel her heartbeat accelerate. She swallowed. “What is it, Baroness?”
“I will not be among the living this time next year. Twice, in the past month, my bowels have failed me. On some days, I need to be carried down the ladder from my home.” She shook her head. “I have been coughing up blood for a week now. So I have taken -”
A long, low sound - impossibly loud - reverberated through the room. Tali leapt to her foot and grabbed her crutches as a second sound, slightly higher in pitch, cut through the elder’s words. It was the hornmaster. Three more notes sounded, each loud enough to be heard clear across Loriindton. Old Nan was covering her ears, muttering something, and then the last of the notes faded. It was time for the guests of honour to take their places. Sunset had given way to dusk and the former baroness would struggle to see much of anything in so little light. Tali drew upon the Gift to set every candle in the room aglow. “It is time for us to appear, dear Old Nan,” she announced, as the elder pushed herself free of her armchair with some difficulty. “Time for the mockery, but first, what was it that you were saying?”
Absently, Tali’s eyes went back to Baron Pecker and his ridiculous display. “Ah, a-hah, yes!” Merit replied, shuffling up beside the much younger woman. She leaned in and whispered with an impish grin. “It isn’t real, Talit’yrash. No more real than when you were twelve.”
Tali was about to protest and remind her of the serious nature of their conversation, but Old Nan seemed so pleased with herself that she had not the heart and, in any event, the old crone had likely forgotten. They could discuss it later. “As if I haven’t heard that one before,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “Come on now, let’s go. It wouldn’t do for the guest of honour to be late.”
Shuffling ahead of her with tiny, uncertain steps, Merit twisted carefully and gazed back upon Talit with fondness. “My precious Talit’yrash,” she said softly. “I want you to know how very much I love you and how proud of you I am.”
“So, are we still calling her ‘baroness’ because we wish to honour her or because she’s forgotten that she isn’t anymore and we wish to humour the old bat?” People laughed, most of all Merit. “You’ve lived too long, Baroness. Why, soon, there’ll be no one left to check your wild tales of Avincian days. Why, for all we know, you could claim that Avincians could all fly by means of their flatulence and we would have no choice but to accept your firsthand account!” The former baroness was well-known as a storyteller and, at times, as something of an embellisher. “But, of course, we wish you all the best,” continued the Master of Mockery, “many more years to your long and healthy life… and just as many where we have an easy excuse to hold a mete’stiroi!”
Hoots and hollers. Tali smirked guiltily. Near the other end of the dais, she could see Dyric grin. “Ah, and of course, it isn’t just our grand old lady who’s having a birthday today!” The master spread his arms and stalked up in front of Tali. Reaching out, he took some of her plum wine and downed it. “How could we forget our ‘twins of destiny’!?” He made twinkle fingers as he twisted to take in the crowd, “though, let’s be honest, Talit’s the only one people really remember, isn’t she?” She let out a guilty snort of laughter as Dyric’s smile grew pinched. “And a banner month it has been as well for our resident flamingo. Why, with how many Eskandr she sent to their little green building of the afterlife, perhaps people will finally remember her for something other than having one leg!”
“A girl can dream!” Tali responded from her seat.
“Dreams,” replied the Master of Mockery. “Those are good to have and, let me tell you, young lady, that all of us dream with you.” He shook his head and smiled, somewhat serious for a moment. “One more year,” he announced, “and the most obvious vessel of Vyshta we’ve ever had gets to ascend and all of get a whoooole lot luckier.”
People shouted and clapped.
“Don’t fuck it up, Tali.” He winked. “Seriously. I’ve already picked my lottery tickets for next year’s event. Just… don’t eat anything stupid or fight any more scagbiists or Eskandr. Stay away from sharp objects and… for Exiran’s sake, take the bridges and not the ropes, hmm?”
“I shall expect a healthy cut of your winnings,” she teased, and he made a strange face, twisting dramatically on the spot and regarding the crowd. “You see, this is how you can tell she’s not Shiin.” He shook his head and tapped his temple with a finger. “Not very bright.” He turned back to her. “Missy, it’s my job to mock you, not the other way around.” He paused again, twitching on the spot and taking in the revelers. “So… it’s just occurred to me that it’s been so bloody long since we’ve had a real live Vyshta, that nobody really knows how to use the damned thing!” He skipped up to her and leaned in. “I mean… Tali, what do we do? Are there… magic words?”
She shrugged. "'Please', perhaps? I dunno." He tilted his head. “Do we… rub your head for good luck?”
She glared. “Try it, bub.”
He leaned in conspiratorially. “Bribes?”
“Well, I never!” she gasped in mock horror.
“Ah, yep. It’s bribes,” he announced. “When they get indignant, you know.” He nodded knowingly, looking disappointed, and shook his head. “Typical Vyshta.”
Following his brief skewering of Talit, the Master of Mockery moved on, setting his sights on Dyric: “a proud yasoi nationalist who extols the virtues of all of our traditions… though he’s never actually tried any of them,” and “a politician who won a resounding victory in the last race he ran in: a footrace… against his sister.”
The Master of Mockery was finished before long and it then became open season on whoever sat on one of the three thrones. Many tried their hand at the honoured craft, though there were other pursuits for all different types. The long voyagers continued their trade, music belted out across the plaza, and people leapt and swirled in dance, Tali joining them more than once. Tetsoi were applied liberally, the dare squares saw plenty of use, and a Mez’Qadurat ring played host to some particularly exciting combats. Food and drink flowed liberally. Couples stumbled out to shadowed alcoves and hidden booths, magic shows lit up the sky, and people covered their bodies in exotic glowing paints of the tiims’archa. Tired children bounced and bounded around, hopped up on sugar and excitement, before congregating with a heterogeneous mix of parents, snail enthusiasts, and lifelong gamblers around the racecourse. Tali had sponsored two snails this year - Blue Number 8 and Mondo - though she’d been out of town and not seen them in action. As was customary, she chose two children to release her racers onto the course: a boy named Anthan for the former and a girl named Vaidii for the latter. Tali watched the start, of course, for it was always spectacular with a crowded field of collisions, attack, and jockeying, and both of her snails were still in it when she wandered off. Races could take a good few hours, and she had other things to do.
Setting off, Tali wound her way through the crowds, stopped every few yards by well-wishers, sycophants, or others who simply recognized her and wanted to talk with her. Jaxan: she wanted to find him. She hadn’t had the chances she’d hoped for to spend some time around him, but he was… many things that she liked and those who knew her - and some who didn’t - were always advising her to stop thinking so much of Arcel: a married man and - more importantly - a human. Still, as she walked, a tightness hovered about the top of Tali’s stomach, and she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was the war, or maybe it was sharing a space, once more, with Dyric, who was family and who she was not on speaking terms with. It could have been the looming threat the Eskandr posed to her people. There would almost certainly be Tar’ithan looking to slip into Loriindton and an army hovered somewhere nebulously nearby, she had been told. Most likely, however, it was Old Nan and the strange conversation they had shared. It was the old woman’s precipitous decline and unusual thoughtfulness.
A stabbing pain shot up Tali’s thigh and she grimaced and hissed, freeing a hand from a crutch handle and reaching down instinctively to rub at the spot. Instead, all that she encountered was the end of her stump. “Stupid thing,” she hissed under her breath, gingerly grabbing it and trying to massage away a feeling in a body part that didn’t exist anymore. She knew this phantom pain for a symptom of stress and worry, so she grit her teeth, took a couple of steadying breaths, and reminded herself that it wasn’t real. After a moment of conspicuous stillness, she decided that her best course of action was to go check in on Old Nan, who’d last been seated on the very comfortable Prime Throne of Mockery, lapping up the abuse.
Shouldering her way through the swirling throngs, Talit came upon her three-times-great grandmother being set upon by Lyen. The young woman had fought alongside the maledict and knew well her occasionally sharp tongue, but Lyen seemed utterly jolly, prancing about, slinging barbed jokes, laying hands on people - including the nearby Dyric and the tall red woman Tali had run into on the road last night - and consuming copious amounts of wine. Tali smiled despite herself and blushed a bit. She was just about to call out for either mocker or mockee's attention, because they seemed engaged in some sort of interaction that she wished to take part in, when Lyen reached out and laid a hand on Merit’s shoulder.
For a moment, there was nothing noteworthy about it, but then Old Nan froze, and a look of sudden and conspicuous pain filled her. Her eyes flashed Dyric’s way, having not yet noticed Tali, and she slumped dramatically to the side, eyes still open, unmoving. “Old Nan!?” Talit shouted, barreling through the crowd. People clustered round or drew back, and voices rose. “She isn’t moving!” one shouted. “She’s… she’s dead!” hollered another. Finally, Dyric: “It was her!” he accused, pointing straight at a shocked-looking Lyen. “That maledict! She touched the baroness and this happened.”
