Thea once told me a story that was not quite a story. One without a beginning or ending. She was not entirely sure if there had been a middle part. To her who was a keen reader, the sequence stood out as a misplaced abomination in a novel otherwise immaculately crafted. It was a chapter, she recalled, towards the end of the book where the hero would soon confront the villain, and preceding it, only a few pages fore, was his heartfelt union with the heroine. So in all, it was an unnecessary little story, led to nowhere, foreshadowed nothing, clarified little. She even went as far as asserting that if one were to remove said portion from the novel altogether, no reader would find a thing amiss, nor in any way would the satisfying ending become undermined by the omission. If anything, it ruined the pacing, so Thea said. And yet, she confessed also, that of that long and epic book, it was the out-of-place bit that persisted in her memory to this day, and by and by, had come to leave an impression greater than aught finely written parts elsewhere in the book.
It went like this: one full moon night, when all souls were at rest, our hero wandered the lodging house his group had chosen for a brief respite before the important day, and by mere chance, he stumbled upon an unused room. The door was barred and the interior long neglected. But in an inexplicable betrayal of his cautious nature, the hero pried the door open to take a quick peek within. And lo and behold, the hidden space, which should by all sensible reasoning be covered in dust and cobwebs, was instead filled to the brim with greenery. Though it was in the second story of the building, plants of hardy roots had wormed their way in the cracks in the walls and reached therein, projecting foliage from every crevice and recess. The shattered window afforded light for their subsistence, while the dust itself had been overlaid by a thick layer of moss. A jungle in the most unlikely and forgotten place, locked deep in a dingy house, imprisoned in the heart of a busy city. But what people had abandoned to time and decay was in truth reclaimed by nature, was beautified and exalted. Overcome by this unexpected sight, the hero then sat down in wonder on the soft moss, and heard, though it was in the middle of the night, songbirds’ chirping sounds, as though it was spring morning and sunshine abounded upon every leaf. Time stood still there, while space was dressed in strange garbs out of place.
When the hero came to the next morning, he wondered if that room of greenery was not a dream. And yet he never sought that room out again, occupied as he ever was with the overthrowing of his villain.
So it went.
Thea surmised that the chapter had been written the way it was so the author could have omitted it at the last minute without affecting the work as a whole, but had chosen otherwise in the end.
I wonder if I reminded Thea of that abandoned room.
Azures are creatures born unobserved, and often they prowl mindlessly long before they are by chance found by a ship.
Mayhap all things hidden from mortal eyes take unexpected turns. And like an ancient casket dug up from underground, whoever could tell what’s waiting inside to spring upon the world? These forgotten things are frightening indeed. And so are closed minds and sealed hearts.
As I walked the narrow hallway helped by Valerian, my caretaker until then, I thought long. I stumbled in my mind, looking for something that likely wasn’t there. And my soul would not be at ease until it is found, but perhaps I never would. I looked for Valerian’s salvation.
If nature could not excuse one’s sins, then could grief? Could insanity? And if not these then is there aught to be found that would lend the judges of life mercy? Is there a thing, an abstract force so powerful that one is blameless for being unable to overcome, and should be excused for being controlled by it? Love mayhap? Or despair, or madness? For if there was such a thing, then even the darkest deeds could be pardoned.
I questioned myself and my intentions.
As I walked abreast that upright figure, that paragon of a knight I ever respected, though had only known in person briefly, I desperately looked for a reason to forgive her, to foster in me the courage to keep her from the sentences befit her actions. I did so because, without a need for such reasons, I had already forgiven her in full. Not so easily as I would have Thea or Litzia, for they were my dear friends. But all the same, I had not in me the heart to hate her, nor to even get just a bit angry, just a tad displeased. I sought reasons for my irrational feelings.
I tightened my grip on the runestaff. It was mine, with the Hierogram of Lost Azure writ on its end. The common runes of Gale, Thunder, and Will followed it down the staff’s length. But it was the useless hierogram that marked it as mine. Rosa Alba, commandant of the Anemone Order had made me engraved it there for some unknown reason on an idyllic afternoon. So it was mine. My tool of war. Apparently, at some point in the night when I was asleep, Valerian had visited the cabin I shared with Litzia and asked for the staff, presumably using my rehabilitation as an excuse. Then before we left the sickbay, she had handed it to me, though she herself went unarmed.
I shuddered to think of what she could possibly need me and my runestaff for.
But no matter what course I steered, after this the truth would be brought to the captain. And no clemency would be granted, Anemone alaris or not, for one who has turned upon her allies is as well an oath breaker. If not by my own hand, then Valerian would offer herself, no doubt. And that…
We halted before the cabin. I wondered how long it had been since Valerian last entered that room. But all that time away had accumulated to this moment, and our conversation from earlier seemed to have provided her with the needed courage to push it open this last time.
And so she did, into the room where Marigold lay.
For reasons that were now obvious, among the alares of Ala Estival, I knew the least about the Valerian’s pair. She had belonged to another Ala before, lost her partner, then in the dark hour reformed the pledge with Valerian. She spoke little, if ever. I could not even recall her voice, if indeed, she had one unclaimed by grief.
Marigold was, in all ways, an utter stranger to me, even after all this time we had shared in an Ala.
And I could not understand her or what she had gone through. Her grief to me a nameless grief. I would not pretend to be able to empathize with the pains of one unknown. So many of my shipmates had likewise perished on that day. The very day Thea had embraced me, shedding tears of relief because I was not among the dead. In the end, no matter how kind a person is, one can only afford to earnestly grieve or rejoice for those she knows and cares deeply for.
But what of Valerian? She had spent at least some time with her current pledge-sister, not as much as a pair of alares is wonted, but the pledge links thoughts and emotions. And above all, is a shared understanding between those who grieve not sufficient common ground? So perhaps there was more going on between them than what Valerian had told me. Not just hatred and pretension. But that is a truth I would never learn. For it was not my place to probe, nor my business. There are secrets we need not know.
I knew only the facts.
That when we entered the room, Marigold was sitting at the porthole. She wore black, a thin veil settled over her streaming blond hair. She gave a sigh, as though by the sight of our arrival, she had already perceived all things untold.
Valerian left my side and, to both Marigold’s and my surprise, knelt before her pledge-sister.
“What is it, Valerian?” said Marigold, “what could you be doing that for? There is not in me the atonement you seek.”
“I do not beg for forgiveness,” Valerian said, her hands clasped upon her chest, her frame rigid and her voice strained, like a frightful child in the middle of a great and solemn cathedral, at once under the scrutiny of a thousand men and women, as well as all the gods. “Only to confess, and to grovel.”
“What do you need from it?” Marigold curled her lips, and a fiery look shot from her eyes to the pathetic saintess at her feet. “Your heart’s desire is to have your Primula back, none in this sky could grant you it.”
Valerian winced at the mention of her late pledge-sister. “I have many grievances, Marigold.”
“And none but one matters in earnest,” she said cruelly, “You know what it’s like too, don’t you?” For her own pain she cast low her eyes. But the moment soon passed, she jerked up as though the stray thought burned her only to touch upon. “What do you think could have happened if you had done otherwise and followed the doctrines of your goddess that day, Valerian?”
“I would have guarded the refugees with my own body,” Valerian answered, her voice low and timid, “And I would have persevered my spark of life until my palm had run on their torn flesh and lifeless eyes, and known that I could not save them, only then might death claim me.”
“And that girl, Primula?”
“She would have laid down her life beside me,” she wept, bitter tears impeding her speech, “no, I confess! I regret not my sin! Were I to do it again, I would choose knowingly to abandon them to cruel death! It is only her that I regret!”
“And never will you have your atonement. Do you not see, Valerian? Not in me, nor any deeds. Your one sin you will never absolve: the death of that one precious person you failed to prevent. Never forget, Valerian, never forget who you are, and what is your one failure!”
Marigold shifted her gaze to me, the flames within had not diminished in the slightest as excitement overcame her. “You there. Nor do I repent the pain I did you. No, I have but one single regret, and that alone is more than I could bear. Suffering is known to me better than aught. Mine is the ultimate despair, not of one but of all. Keener, wiser, deeper than the pit of Underland!”
“You rave,” I said, “you are not sane! Was it really you and not Valerian who betrayed and plotted to murder us?”
“If I am insane then everyone is! If I take my revenge upon the innocent, then it is the wish of many, not alone mine, I know, for that is the truth!”
“Madness, Marigold! You speak madness!” I cried, “It was not only you who lost someone! Valerian did. Litzia did. Many of us lost something that day! And yet they live on, they do not wish for murder!”
“Preposterous for an azure to say! But what expectation have I for a thing empty! I will tell you, fool! And I will tell you, Valerian, who is more foolish than fools! I speak at once for the dead and the living, for I teeter on the edge between worlds! Behold my despair!”
And so she rose startingly. A deliberate look flashed in her eyes as she stood in that bleak light of dawning day. She looked at us, but not quite so. An eerie thing, I felt that she was not quite there, but a lasting image of another time, another world that we had chanced a glimpse of some entity from another reality. And as though she in fact was not there, was not breathing the same air as we did, but through vapor and smoke, the reflective trick of a muddy mirror. So her image fizzled. Then down came a pour, wetness flung wildly in the confined space. A squall raged.
Broken timbers shot through the air, splinters shattered furniture. Then a violent swing burst the ship hull, and gray light flooded in. I lurched to grab at Valerian, who was still as dead on the floor despite the supernatural storm. Now a phenomenon beyond terror occurred. Marigold shifted. Her face changed. And at once she bore many, many faces. Faces familiar, faces that I had seen but were no more. And came the thing that rendered Marigold’s voice in my memory forever indistinguishable: from the lone figure rose hundreds of voices in unison, which chanted and cried and roared a cacophony of sounds beyond words. Like unseen hands of darkness groping at my sanity, tearing and gnawing upon it, striving to rip my soul in twain.
One particular face persisted in the rapidly changing aspect of Marigold. That of one I knew well and had beheld not long before. It shriveled as though in some immense rage or pain, and cried ungodly cries in the voice that before hence I had only heard saying gentle words. Begonia, once pledge-sister to Litzia. Its aspect was beyond ashen, as how it must have been that day, obscured by a mere white sheet from my vision. “Must I die...” At times the distorted voice was intelligible. “...must she...”, “...home so far away...” and many more of which I would never learn the true meanings. So horrified was I that the battered wind had little effect on my rigid body, which was now as dead still as Valerian’s.
“Think you this is some trick?” at intervals a more conversational tone would mix in with the shrieks and moans, “The dead’s grievances live on within me! That evil day when the life ahead became pointless, when the monster’s darkness engulfed me and all beside, when death seemed the preferable course, I was awakened by a strange light! Not to hope but to a despair that went beyond life! It came to me, stroke by stroke, symbolizing my thenceforth existence!”
She spoke of the second assault on the leviathan. That time when Litzia’s secret effort had saved us all, and something else. But whereas the strange phenomenon had assaulted me with the memory of my past life, something far more sinister had been born in Marigold.
And that glowing thing too, it resembled what I had achieved thanks to Litzia’s bizarre power when we first met. Strokes that glowed in the storm about us, forming a symbol, a rune. A hierogram of Marigold’s making.
Thea once told me a story that was not quite a story. One without a beginning or ending. She was not entirely sure if there had been a middle part. To her who was a keen reader, the sequence stood out as a misplaced abomination in a novel otherwise immaculately crafted. It was a chapter, she recalled, towards the end of the book where the hero would soon confront the villain, and preceding it, only a few pages fore, was his heartfelt union with the heroine. So in all, it was an unnecessary little story, led to nowhere, foreshadowed nothing, clarified little. She even went as far as asserting that if one were to remove said portion from the novel altogether, no reader would find a thing amiss, nor in any way would the satisfying ending become undermined by the omission. If anything, it ruined the pacing, so Thea said. And yet, she confessed also, that of that long and epic book, it was the out-of-place bit that persisted in her memory to this day, and by and by, had come to leave an impression greater than aught finely written parts elsewhere in the book.
It went like this: one full moon night, when all souls were at rest, our hero wandered the lodging house his group had chosen for a brief respite before the important day, and by mere chance, he stumbled upon an unused room. The door was barred and the interior long neglected. But in an inexplicable betrayal of his cautious nature, the hero pried the door open to take a quick peek within. And lo and behold, the hidden space, which should by all sensible reasoning be covered in dust and cobwebs, was instead filled to the brim with greenery. Though it was in the second story of the building, plants of hardy roots had wormed their way in the cracks in the walls and reached therein, projecting foliage from every crevice and recess. The shattered window afforded light for their subsistence, while the dust itself had been overlaid by a thick layer of moss. A jungle in the most unlikely and forgotten place, locked deep in a dingy house, imprisoned in the heart of a busy city. But what people had abandoned to time and decay was in truth reclaimed by nature, was beautified and exalted. Overcome by this unexpected sight, the hero then sat down in wonder on the soft moss, and heard, though it was in the middle of the night, songbirds’ chirping sounds, as though it was spring morning and sunshine abounded upon every leaf. Time stood still there, while space was dressed in strange garbs out of place.
When the hero came to the next morning, he wondered if that room of greenery was not a dream. And yet he never sought that room out again, occupied as he ever was with the overthrowing of his villain.
So it went.
Thea surmised that the chapter had been written the way it was so the author could have omitted it at the last minute without affecting the work as a whole, but had chosen otherwise in the end.
I wonder if I reminded Thea of that abandoned room.
Azures are creatures born unobserved, and often they prowl mindlessly long before they are by chance found by a ship.
Mayhap all things hidden from mortal eyes take unexpected turns. And like an ancient casket dug up from underground, whoever could tell what’s waiting inside to spring upon the world? These forgotten things are frightening indeed. And so are closed minds and sealed hearts.
As I walked the narrow hallway helped by Valerian, my caretaker until then, I thought long. I stumbled in my mind, looking for something that likely wasn’t there. And my soul would not be at ease until it is found, but perhaps I never would. I looked for Valerian’s salvation.
If nature could not excuse one’s sins, then could grief? Could insanity? And if not these then is there aught to be found that would lend the judges of life mercy? Is there a thing, an abstract force so powerful that one is blameless for being unable to overcome, and should be excused for being controlled by it? Love mayhap? Or despair, or madness? For if there was such a thing, then even the darkest deeds could be pardoned.
I questioned myself and my intentions.
As I walked abreast that upright figure, that paragon of a knight I ever respected, though had only known in person briefly, I desperately looked for a reason to forgive her, to foster in me the courage to keep her from the sentences befit her actions. I did so because, without a need for such reasons, I had already forgiven her in full. Not so easily as I would have Thea or Litzia, for they were my dear friends. But all the same, I had not in me the heart to hate her, nor to even get just a bit angry, just a tad displeased. I sought reasons for my irrational feelings.
I tightened my grip on the runestaff. It was mine, with the Hierogram of Lost Azure writ on its end. The common runes of Gale, Thunder, and Will followed it down the staff’s length. But it was the useless hierogram that marked it as mine. Rosa Alba, commandant of the Anemone Order had made me engraved it there for some unknown reason on an idyllic afternoon. So it was mine. My tool of war. Apparently, at some point in the night when I was asleep, Valerian had visited the cabin I shared with Litzia and asked for the staff, presumably using my rehabilitation as an excuse. Then before we left the sickbay, she had handed it to me, though she herself went unarmed.
I shuddered to think of what she could possibly need me and my runestaff for.
But no matter what course I steered, after this the truth would be brought to the captain. And no clemency would be granted, Anemone alaris or not, for one who has turned upon her allies is as well an oath breaker. If not by my own hand, then Valerian would offer herself, no doubt. And that…
We halted before the cabin. I wondered how long it had been since Valerian last entered that room. But all that time away had accumulated to this moment, and our conversation from earlier seemed to have provided her with the needed courage to push it open this last time.
And so she did, into the room where Marigold lay.
For reasons that were now obvious, among the alares of Ala Estival, I knew the least about the Valerian’s pair. She had belonged to another Ala before, lost her partner, then in the dark hour reformed the pledge with Valerian. She spoke little, if ever. I could not even recall her voice, if indeed, she had one unclaimed by grief.
Marigold was, in all ways, an utter stranger to me, even after all this time we had shared in an Ala.
And I could not understand her or what she had gone through. Her grief to me a nameless grief. I would not pretend to be able to empathize with the pains of one unknown. So many of my shipmates had likewise perished on that day. The very day Thea had embraced me, shedding tears of relief because I was not among the dead. In the end, no matter how kind a person is, one can only afford to earnestly grieve or rejoice for those she knows and cares deeply for.
But what of Valerian? She had spent at least some time with her current pledge-sister, not as much as a pair of alares is wonted, but the pledge links thoughts and emotions. And above all, is a shared understanding between those who grieve not sufficient common ground? So perhaps there was more going on between them than what Valerian had told me. Not just hatred and pretension. But that is a truth I would never learn. For it was not my place to probe, nor my business. There are secrets we need not know.
I knew only the facts.
That when we entered the room, Marigold was sitting at the porthole. She wore black, a thin veil settled over her streaming blond hair. She gave a sigh, as though by the sight of our arrival, she had already perceived all things untold.
Valerian left my side and, to both Marigold’s and my surprise, knelt before her pledge-sister.
“What is it, Valerian?” said Marigold, “what could you be doing that for? There is not in me the atonement you seek.”
“I do not beg for forgiveness,” Valerian said, her hands clasped upon her chest, her frame rigid and her voice strained, like a frightful child in the middle of a great and solemn cathedral, at once under the scrutiny of a thousand men and women, as well as all the gods. “Only to confess, and to grovel.”
“What do you need from it?” Marigold curled her lips, and a fiery look shot from her eyes to the pathetic saintess at her feet. “Your heart’s desire is to have your Primula back, none in this sky could grant you it.”
Valerian winced at the mention of her late pledge-sister. “I have many grievances, Marigold.”
“And none but one matters in earnest,” she said cruelly, “You know what it’s like too, don’t you?” For her own pain she cast low her eyes. But the moment soon passed, she jerked up as though the stray thought burned her only to touch upon. “What do you think could have happened if you had done otherwise and followed the doctrines of your goddess that day, Valerian?”
“I would have guarded the refugees with my own body,” Valerian answered, her voice low and timid, “And I would have persevered my spark of life until my palm had run on their torn flesh and lifeless eyes, and known that I could not save them, only then might death claim me.”
“And that girl, Primula?”
“She would have laid down her life beside me,” she wept, bitter tears impeding her speech, “no, I confess! I regret not my sin! Were I to do it again, I would choose knowingly to abandon them to cruel death! It is only her that I regret!”
“And never will you have your atonement. Do you not see, Valerian? Not in me, nor any deeds. Your one sin you will never absolve: the death of that one precious person you failed to prevent. Never forget, Valerian, never forget who you are, and what is your one failure!”
Marigold shifted her gaze to me, the flames within had not diminished in the slightest as excitement overcame her. “You there. Nor do I repent the pain I did you. No, I have but one single regret, and that alone is more than I could bear. Suffering is known to me better than aught. Mine is the ultimate despair, not of one but of all. Keener, wiser, deeper than the pit of Underland!”
“You rave,” I said, “you are not sane! Was it really you and not Valerian who betrayed and plotted to murder us?”
“If I am insane then everyone is! If I take my revenge upon the innocent, then it is the wish of many, not alone mine, I know, for that is the truth!”
“Madness, Marigold! You speak madness!” I cried, “It was not only you who lost someone! Valerian did. Litzia did. Many of us lost something that day! And yet they live on, they do not wish for murder!”
“Preposterous for an azure to say! But what expectation have I for a thing empty! I will tell you, fool! And I will tell you, Valerian, who is more foolish than fools! I speak at once for the dead and the living, for I teeter on the edge between worlds! Behold my despair!”
And so she rose startingly. A deliberate look flashed in her eyes as she stood in that bleak light of dawning day. She looked at us, but not quite so. An eerie thing, I felt that she was not quite there, but a lasting image of another time, another world that we had chanced a glimpse of some entity from another reality. And as though she in fact was not there, was not breathing the same air as we did, but through vapor and smoke, the reflective trick of a muddy mirror. So her image fizzled. Then down came a pour, wetness flung wildly in the confined space. A squall raged.
Broken timbers shot through the air, splinters shattered furniture. Then a violent swing burst the ship hull, and gray light flooded in. I lurched to grab at Valerian, who was still as dead on the floor despite the supernatural storm. Now a phenomenon beyond terror occurred. Marigold shifted. Her face changed. And at once she bore many, many faces. Faces familiar, faces that I had seen but were no more. And came the thing that rendered Marigold’s voice in my memory forever indistinguishable: from the lone figure rose hundreds of voices in unison, which chanted and cried and roared a cacophony of sounds beyond words. Like unseen hands of darkness groping at my sanity, tearing and gnawing upon it, striving to rip my soul in twain.
One particular face persisted in the rapidly changing aspect of Marigold. That of one I knew well and had beheld not long before. It shriveled as though in some immense rage or pain, and cried ungodly cries in the voice that before hence I had only heard saying gentle words. Begonia, once pledge-sister to Litzia. Its aspect was beyond ashen, as how it must have been that day, obscured by a mere white sheet from my vision. “Must I die...” At times the distorted voice was intelligible. “...must she...”, “...home so far away...” and many more of which I would never learn the true meanings. So horrified was I that the battered wind had little effect on my rigid body, which was now as dead still as Valerian’s.
“Think you this is some trick?” at intervals a more conversational tone would mix in with the shrieks and moans, “The dead’s grievances live on within me! That evil day when the life ahead became pointless, when the monster’s darkness engulfed me and all beside, when death seemed the preferable course, I was awakened by a strange light! Not to hope but to a despair that went beyond life! It came to me, stroke by stroke, symbolizing my thenceforth existence!”
She spoke of the second assault on the leviathan. That time when Litzia’s secret effort had saved us all, and something else. But whereas the strange phenomenon had assaulted me with the memory of my past life, something far more sinister had been born in Marigold.
And that glowing thing too, it resembled what I had achieved thanks to Litzia’s bizarre power when we first met. Strokes that glowed in the storm about us, forming a symbol, a rune. A hierogram of Marigold’s making.
