2020-07-01 Triangle, Heart, Vision
Triangle, Heart, Vision
Location: A frightening and familiar landscape, a forking path
Date and Time: July 1, 2020 11:23 pm
Summary: First contact
Mood Music: Coil - "Slur"
All around them the desert lay in tatters, encompassing everything they know. An infinity, an eternity; but those are not all created equal. First was thirst, and remembering that the rest came flooding back. This infinity, this eternity, they are bound, much like they themselves were until a moment ago.
Mark the ground, begin to move forward.
The bones they pass by suggest to them that many never remember their thirst, or perhaps they did and in the end it meant nothing. No, that is incorrect, it does mean something, even if it also means death.
Turn right, continue forward.
Shark-infested water, message in a bottle, no one is an island. Water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. The glass bottle turns back to sand and flows through her fingers, but the message is retained. The markings on the bones sing to Luu like poetry, and she wonders if these had once been her words.
Turn right, continue forward.
When they come to a rest, the ground below does not bear their marking. The wind can shift the sands and hide many things, but that is just one of many excuses to ignore the truths we see. The higher dimension confirmed, the shifting territory separates from the tattered map.
Dreams of towering heights reduced to squares. The complex motion of a spiral reproduced as a directionless circle. A straight line coming to a sharp point can leave one blind; a dark descent into nothingness. Easy to blind yourself, and plenty are eager to help.
The thirst is still there, a blessing from the sun over their heads, but knowledge on it’s own simply means more sun bleached bones.
To Know
To Dare
To Will
There are many Sphinxes, many riddles, and with them many initiations.
When a man waves one hand, pay attention to what the other hand is doing. Misdirection, a classic trick of the Magician. Man led astray by man. Wandering the desert in a circle around what they believe to be the corpse of a Sphinx, but is something else entirely; their hubris has made them blind and their blindness has made them weak; and they are being watched by so many hungry eyes. The circle grows smaller; the snake swallows its tail, but Leviathan devours all and all devour Leviathan.
A Triangle, A Heart; a different map, a different territory.
All around them, the shore is barren, the waves crashing relentlessly against jagged rocks, the sea the color of a fresh bruise, lurid, with blues, blacks, and violets, extending to the horizon in all directions. This is their reality - trapped between the sea and the cliffs beyond. Cruel fate has placed them here, their stomachs twisted around like knots, tongues thick with thirst, the water surrounding them unfit for drinking, a single sip bitter and sour, taking even more of what they have little to spare. The memory of thirst awakens other memories and compels them to walk.
Build a caern of jagged stone, follow the shore. A mark to show they were there. There’s nowhere else to go.
The wreckage of ships, both colossal and diminutive, appear from the mists, seemingly everywhere as they walk, jutting out of the choppy surf, impaled on hidden reefs or boulders, shattered beyond repair or, in most cases, recognition. Ships of steel and reed, of wood and plastic, impossibly ancient or blindingly futuristic, all these shared the same fate, dragged down into the hungry sea, shattered on rocks by the hubris of their captains. Like Icarus, flying too close to the sun, so did these captains, tempting fate. Seeking the middle path.
Build a caern of jagged stone, follow the shore. A mark to show they were there. There’s nowhere else to go.
The stories of these ships call to Jinny, beckoning her with the knowledge trapped in their holds, antechambers, airlocks, drydocks. The sand beneath their feet shifts, transmuting into the contents of a thousand thousand libraries scattered along the shore. Promising answers if only they would stop and investigate and leave the path behind. The bones of those who stopped are still there, clutching pages with eldritch, alien writings to their bony chests, the ink smudged, written in a thousand lost languages, unreadable, the pages dissolving under their touch, the great work lost and meaningless with the ideas crumbling. The pages spread out over the beach, cushioning their feet as they walk, the ideas they held lost for eternity, forgotten, unknown, unspoken of.
Find a caern, crumbling and smooth, follow the shore. There’s nowhere else to go.
The wind blows the sand aside, to reveal the beginnings of a road in a small cove, treacherous and winding, set into the cliffside. Ancient cobblestones set in concrete by the hands of skilled craftsmen, each one etched with runes, hieroglyphs, symbols, geometries. Walls are painted with figures dancing, drumming, worshiping, storytelling, the sea unable to scour them all before they recreate themselves, brightening in the presence of the two before fading away as they pass.
Words on the wind, songs echoing out of the dark.
Footsteps in sand blowing away as soon as the foot is lifted, leaving no trace.
The path is unclear, uneven. They are unsure. Afraid. Is there no clear path?
Many hands offer to help,many voices on the wind, the others obscured while jostling for position. Some words honey-sweet, others threatening, cajoling, tempting.
The glint of a dagger in the darkness. Shining eyes. Gnashing teeth. If you aren’t with us, you’re against us. A threat to be extinguished to deny our enemy the benefit of your company. There is no middle way.
Another caern, surrounded by crashed ships, the stones worn smooth by blowing sand. It’s been here a while. The path...how long have they been following it? And how many have come this way again and again and again? Is there really nowhere else to go?
They stop and rest, the steel-gray sky splintering above their heads, the sun burning through the clouds, the cliff sides blown away like sand on the wind, dunes boiling up in the distance, the wind slowing, heat starting to rise.
The desert is welcoming to travelers. Come on in. Stay a while.
A tree in the distance, reaching high to the sky, the desert floor shimmering, glowing, coalescing to reveal the tree beneath Yggdrasil, the tree of life growing up, promising enlightenment, the tree of knowledge growing down, a reflection, promising destruction.
The choice of self versus the choice of all. A scale to be balanced, a doorway opening if they only dare.
Towers rise and fall in the distance, neon, glass, and steel gleaming in the rising sun, shattered windows melting, reforming and blowing away. A cycle of birth, death, rebirth. Lifedeath. Truefalse. Peacewar. A triangular coin with three sides glittering on the ground, forgotten, abandoned in the midst of the etched bones. A ring of gold, triangles etched into its polished surface, embedded in the road. Eyes watching from a distance, ghosts of what is, what was, what will be, what could be, whispering temptations sweet and profane, promising power, wealth, knowledge. An end to the hunger. To the thirst. If they world only step away.
The road is ever present, leading into the desert, toward a mountain. She looks and points, the sky shifting from night to morning, the glow of the sun to the east, the moon to the west, the road between. Narrow. Treacherous.
The Middle Path exists.
“Let’s go.” She says.
