2020-11-07 Breath of The Wild

Breath of the Wild

Participants: Jinny Lee Lorelei Luu Rhode

Location: Five Minds on the way to Winters Retreat

Date and Time: November 7, 2020

Summary: Five Visions

Mood Music: ± CΔT - "Moon Spells ±"

The first thing that rouses her is the sound of drums.

Next, an overpowering waft of smoke, fragrant and heady with herbs and blood and marrow.

“Breathe deeply, child,” a woman says, “And be without pain.”

Lorelei is laying somewhere with her eyes closed, her bare back on something rough and cold. It takes her a moment to realize that she is not dreaming, that this is not a strange interlude of a wandering mind. She stirs, or tries to, her limbs too heavy to lift, her body paralyzed with frightening efficiency. The only part of her that obeys are her eyelids which flutter open with soft slowness until she finds herself staring up at the night sky.

Her vision is blurred, as inebriated as the rest of her, but she can see the moon looming full and pregnant above and the myriad of stars that alternate between crisp pinpoints and hazy bursts. She’s trying to move again, trying to sit up, but it’s no use. Fear takes hold in her heart, replacing the dreamy surrender that coaxes her to lay back, to be still, to succumb to the steady drumbeat and the heady smoke that makes her head spin.

“Help…” she croaks out, “I can’t move…”

Internally, some part of Lorelei is screaming that this can’t be happening, that she has already endured this moment and survived – that this is a *mistake*, that this is a *lie*. But the other part of her is ensnared and driven by a strange instinct to indulge the macabre fantasy.

The moon continues to float above, bathing her body in cold white light. The longer she stares, the more crisply a face develops amidst the orb’s shadowy nooks and craters, and she realizes that it’s a familiar one – her mother, big-eyed and weeping. “Shhh…” the moon says, “Shhh my little love. You will be reborn as all things are. We will meet again. I know it…”

While the moon watches and weeps, an unseen woman speaks again, her voice booming out like thunder, “Father Odin! Mother Freyja! See here your spring maiden, Idunn, trapped in a vessel of bone and flesh and blood. We who worship ye cut her tethers and return her to thine hallowed halls lest thy orchard remain forever barren. With this, we plant the first seed of spring, renewing that which has been lost – and we do so in thy name.”

There is a flash of pain, first at her wrists and then the backs of her legs, and then slower, more delicate etchings carved into her sweaty flesh. Even though she cannot see it, Lorelei knows she is on a stone altar, arms and legs spread, while a cadence of voices chant in unison. Her body has been garlanded with flowers and fruits, animal bones and seeds, all of them soaking in her life’s blood. The priestess moves diligently, unflustered by Lorelei’s screaming, to scribe rune after rune, symbol after symbol, until at last the work is done.

“Mother,” Lorelei sobs, “Mother, please…”

The moon simply watches, both faraway and painfully close at the same time.

A woman tries to smear an herbal mixture inside of her lip, a tincture of yew and gelsemium to mask the pain and maintain paralysis, but Lorelei screams with angry defiance and *spits* the foul-tasting mixture out; the moment it hits the earth, the wet blob transforms into a cluster of snakes that swiftly slither toward the practitioners. The largest of them *bites* the Priestess, making her howl, and then all at once the woods fall silent.

Lorelei is suddenly alone. Well, not completely. There is a familiar growl off to her right, unseen for now, but the rumbly sound reassures her that she is not completely abandoned. She still can’t move, which creates another wave of panic. By now, she realizes that she is not reliving the trauma, that this *is* some sort of dream or nightmare or vision, but reality remains hazy enough that she can’t completely find comfort in it. Lorelei is a being who needs to be in control to feel safe, and laying here helpless and naked is as far from that as possible. Besides, prophetic dreams (or whatever this is) are not in her usual skillset.

“Fenrir,” she hisses, calling out to her avatar, “Help me.”

There is the snap of twigs and the rustle of underbrush, and then an enormous wolf comes loping into view. He is a vision of terror and strength, standing almost six feet tall, with a luxurious coat and a bloodied muzzle.

“Help yourself,” the God-Killer snarls, utterly pitiless, “You’ve done it before.”

Lorelei frowns, not especially surprised by the answer but annoyed nonetheless. She grunts, trying to sit up, but her body remains locked in sleepy paralysis. She lets out a noise of frustration, then a curse, and finally a scream before giving up and relaxing atop the altar once more. Her fingers have, at least, begun to twitch, the first sign of mobility below the neck.

Fenrir opens his enormous maw and lets out a bored yawn.

“Hurry up,” he says, turning as if to leave, “This is embarrassing.”

The enormous wolf begins to pad away from her, pausing only long enough to grunt, “If you were free, where would you want to go?”

Lorelei thinks about that. She imagines all of the fantastic and faraway places that she has ever visited. She thinks about the commune in New Hampshire where she grew up – where this memory takes place. She thinks about sunny California where she lives now. There is an answer forming on the tip of her tongue, trying to be born, but her guard immediately goes up, not daring to think it. Not daring to say it.

“Coward,” Fenrir growls, sounding disgusted. She hears him push through the underbrush, leaving her helpless upon the stone altar. His voice floats, as much in her mind as it is in the air, “How are you going to fight in a war if you can’t even spit out one goddamn word?”

Lorelei feels a quiver of rage rattle through her body, making her hands suddenly ball up into fists. She forces herself to look away from Fenrir’s retreating form and resume her focus on the sky. The moon is just a moon – no longer her mother. The stars are crisp and brilliant, no longer shrouded in throbbing softness. She knows the answer now, knows it as well as she knows her name, but she’s still too afraid to say – too afraid to admit it. More startling than anything, Lorelei feels tears prickle in her eyes. Some part of her knows that she is crying on the other side of this vision as well, her physical body mirroring the ephemeral one, as she is guided toward an answer. She hasn’t allowed herself to cry for years.

Lorelei’s mouth falls open, trying to speak, but her pride flares and she is rendered mute.

It isn’t until a single tear beads in the corner of her eye and rolls down her temple to *plop* onto the altar that she whispers, “Home. I want to go home.”

Just like that, the binds on her body relax. She is not only free, but flying – moving faster than any bird, any wolf, any man. She is propelled like light itself, not born from the cold reflective glow of the moon but from the sun’s invigorating brilliance. Countless places, people and things blur past, including a streak in the sky that looks like a shooting star. Or maybe a meteor? It blazes with fiery wrath on its arched trajectory for the earth, a single red eye flashing with frantic insistence. The sight of it makes Lorelei tense with fear, then defiance, until she tears her astral gaze away to focus on her journey.

Up ahead, a thick plume of gray smoke rises toward the sky, too concentrated and streamlined to be a wild occurrence. It wafts up in what appears to be a steady, straight column, but as she grows closer, she realizes that it is actually spinning in a slow but steady pattern. From the top, it would look like a spiral. Somehow, she knows that is her destination.

Lorelei’s phantom body surges with added momentum, flinging her toward the smoke signal. She catches a glimpse of a single sign – ‘Laurel Canyon - 5 Miles –’ from the corner of her eye. And then, all at once, the rush stops.

Lorelei opens her eyes.

She is sitting in her all electric Bentley convertible, her hands gripping the steering wheel with white-knuckled intensity. Somehow, she drove all the way here on autopilot. One hand fumbles with her seatbelt, clicking it off, while the other gropes at the door handle. She is thoroughly shaken by the intensity of the vision and the sensation of having *no goddamn idea* where she is. And yet, that’s not completely true – somehow she knows that she’s in Laurel Canyon and that the initials WR are involved.

Lorelei climbs out of the car and shuts the door. Her vehicle is electric, so it’s unlikely that anyone heard her arrive until this moment when the *thud* breaks the silence. The house she parked in front of is HELLA creepy, which might be reason enough to make some individuals pause, but Lorelei carries an inflated sense of confidence so she doesn’t even hesitate. She has been brought here, guided along by the tug of a phantom string, or perhaps a trail of spiritual breadcrumbs, and there’s no way she’s leaving until getting some answers.

She hesitates at the front steps – however briefly. There is another individual on the porch, a tall man only viewed from the back, and something about his silhouette stirs recognition. Strangely, his presence is more of a deterrent than the spooky house he stands in front of.

“Coward,” Fenrir growls in her mind.

“Shut up,” she whispers to him.

And with that, Lorelei draws her shoulders back and presses forward, her confident gait announced by the spry sound of footsteps.

The backyard of Lee’s small Los Angeles home is fairly minimalist. An infrequently mowed lawn spread out beside a comfortable looking patio with a fire pit situated as the central feature. Tonight, as with most nights, Lee is outside smoking a cigarette, enjoying the night air. The fire is lit, half-burned logs crackling and flickering as Lee’s eyes settle distractedly on the flames. He’s sleepy, tired after a long day, his eyelids drooping, the cigarette’s path lazy and slow on its way from ashing in a nearby can before lifting up to his mouth.

Inhale.

Exhale.

And then it hits him - the fire growing to envelop his vision, spreading and consuming until all he sees are shadows and flame. The world burns away and the lights go down, leaving a viscerally dark expanse. Lee is left standing alone in the woods beneath a sky with stars that seem both far too distant and far too small, a sky that feels somehow two dimensional. And all around him, danger. Something stalks in these woods, unseen and unheard, felt only in the flickering suggestion of watchful eyes and the prickling of the hairs on the back of your neck. As imperceptible as it is undefined, a predator from the time before things had silly human things like names. A creature made only to rend and destroy to sate its eternal hunger.

The woods themselves are colorless (cinematographer’s note: black and white imagery - dreamscapes, the past, lurking danger) in the semi-darkness. Hoary, indistinct trunks rise all around him, both wild and confining all at once - pocked lines rushing by that mark the edges of his reality. It leaves Lee reeling, where usually his visions are fluttery and indistinct, this one reached up and dragged him down beneath the world. There’s none of the familiarity of the demesne as he stumbles ahead. His legs are leaden, an image of snarling terror taking hold - flickering then increasingly real as he tries to make his way out of the clearing and back into the safety(?) of the woods. Each step making a soft click-click-click that matches his pace, a rattling sound that ticks faster and faster until it reaches a rapid pace and fades into the background of Lee’s mind.

He hits the treeline with a rustling vibration, deeper than sound is supposed to be, the sudden intensity of the soundw kicking Lee into a state of panic, his feet pounding against the earth to keep him one step ahead of whatever slavering thing can be heard and felt at his back. The chase seems to last forever, time stretching and contorting, the moment losing all meaning save the desperate urge to survive in the face of unknown danger.

Then suddenly there’s an interrupting flash in the sky, one of the too-distant stars flaring with unnatural brightness then tilting its way down and out of the sky in a lazy arc over Lee’s head. The spiraling arc of its descent leaving a bright, bluish line etched into the sky (cinematographer’s note: spirals - change, evolution, progress).

And still, Lee runs for his life, able to hear the excitedly huffing breath of some great wolf or other beast driving him forward. Until with a sudden force, the star impacts the ground nearby. The force of it blasts Lee off his feet, throwing him into a tree just in time for the unseen monster to strike - whatever it was disappearing into the woods as Lee lies crumpled, just off the path.

He gets up a moment later, pushing to his feet and holding his ribs as he stumbles his way forward, toward the star’s crater, pushing through trees and underbrush until he finds it. Ringed in fire like some ancient altar, a square hunk of metal rests at the bottom of an impact crater several feet deep. Clearly man made, a small red light blinks uncertainty up toward the sky, a broken and shattered camera lens sticking out from the left side, half buried in the ground.

The flames retreat as Lee moves forward, the flickering dancing flames twisting away as if molded by his presence, the crackling of burning wood the only sound as he approaches the fallen satellite, crouching beside the still-hot machine and reaching out a hand to touch it.

Instantly, the light flares back to life, lighting the area in an ominous red (cinematographer’s note: red lighting - sudden violence, blood, warning). And above them, the ‘stars’ seem to turn and shift in response, wheeling around the sky, rearranging into a net high above. The whirring sound of metal gears announces the emergence of metallic limbs as the crashed satellite thrusts its way up from the earth, with a sudden spray of dirt and debris.

A predator no different than the unseen beast was. Defined, understood, explainable but no less deadly for it, seeking to consume and control to sate its endless need for growth.

A voice in the distance cries out, startling Lee out of his shock - the cry is distant, a single word ‘home!’ and Lee takes a step back away from the beast. He turns and starts away, his feet flowing faster this time, fast enough that he lifts into the sky unbidden, shooting up into it with a wild freedom.

Behind him, he can feel the eyes of the first beast, the undefined rage, turning his way. And so he wills himself forward, the land beneath him resolving into the outskirts of Los Angeles, a smoky trail guiding him toward a neighborhood with a Jacobean house. Behind him, the beast surges upward, large and looming, an unseen danger, a bluish cast to everything around it (cinematographer’s note: blue lighting - a deep sadness, inevitability, death). And just ahead of it, a proud falcon with a bloody beak, cast in that blue, struggling to escape that same creature.

And then he’s awake once more, his old beat up truck in the driveway of a house he’s never seen before, his hand already on the buzzer. He stares at the door for a few seconds, confused before some sort of rumbling growl draws his attention back and leaves him blinking at the sight of a woman, a look of clear confusion in his expression.

"I just assumed that joining back up with the Traditions meant I'd have to shoot at people again." He was complaining. Was that how it went? He didn't remember the words. Or this wasn't the same time.

Grace seemed shocked or perplexed at what Jason had meant, and why he thought that's what the Traditions were.

Three days later he was under fire from an ISIL transport chopper packed full of fanatics, and he was feeling, lowkey, nothing because this is the kind of shit that being Wise came with. He was creeping through a shelled ruin with a loaded shotgun and smelling cordite in the air. He was trying to convince a guy to jump out of a helicopter with his force of will. Because Grace was wrong. Because standing for something in the Ascension war meant killing people.

~Once Upon a Time we lived in Melies and in the cellar of a condemned New York stage theater we held the party that never stopped. I remember the clatter of the reel. I remember when my girlfriend picked out naked wire Edison bulbs with copper fittings and the man I taught Magic with an Ace of Spades. I remember the card games and the burlesque shows and I remember the night they came for us, there, too. I remember the man with the Marlboros and Mirrorshades.~

Jason was running, too.

It rained shards of glass in Melies and somebody's blood was painted across the huge brass framed mirror behind the bar while all of the holy liquors peddled in the shrine soaked the floor. The Agent's X-5 barked in snort snaps over the high pitched whine of chaingun fire from the HIT Mark in tow. He ran hand in hand with Jess toward the hatch and they made for the Subway. The five seconds they had while the android hammered in the door was enough for her to pull a Vulgar trick and recall them to her Domain.

That was how it'd played out.

In the dream, however, he took a hit that didn't slow him down from the X-5 and thought to himself 'this time I die.' He was running when he emerged from the subway. Running for some reason while he was back in LA years later, with a jolting segue that almost jarred him awake from the perplexity of it. Running from an Agent at the University.

~He remembered the way his feet ached from running in his loafers. He remembered the way he wished he was younger, and that he wasn't an professor in a tweed jacket, even though it hadn't happened yet.~

He staged a fighting retreat against the nightmare all the way back to his bed, through Wayak and the House of the Mummy, past Lee where he snapped awake, and he knew at once to offer him shelter. The groggy academic put on pants in a hurried dance while headed to the door.

You remember when we came to the city, don’t you?

We all found ourselves here, searching for that secret ingredient

That hidden thing we hoped might turn gutter into gold

Base into noble

Weak limbs and wavering voices into something everlasting

A story bigger than us

You remember, don’t you?

The hiss of a spray can echoed through the nearly deserted city streets.

Dressed in her usual Bombing gear - Bombing being the term for spray painting illegally that she picked up from somewhere - Jinny puts the finishing touches on a mural she’s thrown up on the buildings opposite the Los Angeles offices of ICE. Part of her graffiti style is to bring humor to serious events, and today she’s decided to tackle immigration. Stepping back to look critically at the art, a bunch of penguins with spears menacing a polar bear family on an inner tube that are trying to get across a river in a snow-covered landscape, she nods and peels off her latex gloves, tucking them in the box with all of her empty cans. Sure, the art probably won’t survive a day or two, but who knows? This one might buck the trend and survive for a week. At least the people driving by and in the office buildings will get a show for the day.

Signing it with a flourish at the bottom, Jinny shivers as a chill breeze moves through the streets from the north, sending what few leaves and not a little bit of trash dancing down the block. The wind is sharp, cutting, blowing through her hooded sweatshirt like it isn’t even there. She straightens and turns to look to the north when, suddenly, the wind stops and she hears a whispering sound that she’s only heard once before, during a trip to a ski resort in Olympic Valley.

“...Snow?” She blinks in confusion, looking up as the first fat flakes fall from the darkness above, one landing on her nose and causing her to sneeze, others falling on her shoulders and in her hair, dusting her form with tiny crystals of ice. It never snows in Los Angeles. The climate isn’t right for it, the temperature is too high, and even the weatherman said there was no chance of rain - it’s why she came out tonight, but then, another chill breeze from the left - from her mural, the penguins, the polar bear gone, a snowy landscape that surges forward to surround her.

The city is gone and she is alone in the wilderness, her bag left behind on the streets of Los Angeles.

The cold is bitter, seeping into her bones, making her feet feel leaden, her fingertips going numb almost immediately as she pushes them deep into her pockets after pulling up her hood and tying it tight around her mouth. She’s nowhere near prepared for an arctic cold like this and she desperately, desperately searches for any sign of civilization or life. Thank goodness the wind that brought her here died down because the chill would end her life almost instantly.

This isn’t real, she keeps telling herself. I’m having another vision.

She straightens and looks around and sees tracks leading off into the woods, her body already starting to react to the cold, shunting blood from her extremities to her core to conserve heat. Footprints. They may lead to civilization. Through chattering teeth, she turns to follow, shivering, stepping in the tracks already made, heading into the darkness of the woods where, at a distance, a campfire flickers, its flame beckoning. From behind, a howl, the sound of something running towards her, and Jinny’s animal brain responds, sending her running - trudging really - through the snow in an effort to get to the fire and, hopefully, safety.

When the wolf catches her, it slams into her with its shoulder, knocking her to the ground, sending her tumbling as it runs off on dinner-plate sized feet. She’d swear she heard a scoffing sound as it trundled by, circling her, fixing her with a predator’s gaze before it sat in the snow.

“Exploration isn’t without its dangers.” the Pathfinder said from behind her right shoulder, nodding towards the beast that’s sitting there, watching them both impassively, its tail sweeping through the snow behind.

“You said she was strong.” The wolf rumbled. “You said they’d all be strong. Worthy.”

The Pathfinder looked over. “I said they would be worthy, and they are. You were the one who said they needed to be strong. There are many other strengths she has. That they all have. Loyalty. Friendship. Love, even if she doesn’t realize how close to the end of that path she is.” Pathfinder fixes the wolf with a pointed look. “After all, while she takes many paths, the one she followed today led her here. You chose yours to move through whatever ordeal you set, and the one that chose its manifestation through darkness, and flame. They all will lead to the same place. With the sea at their feet, dreams in their head, and the stars in the sky, they will be a formidable group to stand for ascension.” Pathfinder smiles. “Wouldn’t you agree.”

The wolf scoffs. “We shall see.” The wolf stands and stalks forward, towering over Pathfinder and Jinny, fixing the red-haired woman with his baleful gaze, finally declaring lowly. “I would eat your heart if it did not belong to that City you love so, to see if you are as brave as you are acting.” He licks his chops, stalking in a tight circle, leaving tracks in the snow.

“You do not need to do that.” Jinny says, her voice somehow not trembling. “If I do anything unworthy that would shame your herald,” Jinny looks to Pathfinder for confirmation before looking back to the wolf. “My heart is yours. It is not the first oath I’ve made to a spirit.”

“You should not make oaths you cannot keep, Dreamspeaker. I am no simple spirit of the forest or of the hunter. I am a fickle, capricious sort. I will claim what is mine.” The wolf says, moving closer, threatening.

“Fenrir…” Pathfinder says. “She knows what she is saying. She wouldn’t have taken this path if she didn’t, and I wouldn’t have let her come here otherwise.”

Fenrir gazes down at Jinny for a long moment and then his head shoots forward, grabbing her left arm, his fangs sinking deeply into her flesh, jerking her forward through the snow, dragging her on her knees. It’s painful, drawing a hiss from Jinny as the fangs tear into muscle and bone, but she does not pull away, her fingers curling away from the fangs until her median nerve is severed. Her arm trembles as the wolf’s hot breath blows over her skin. She yelps for the first time at the sound and the sensation of bones crunching in her wrist, nearly passing out, but somehow she stays upright. Surprisingly, Fenrir is being gentle marking Jinny - it could have taken her hand with a snap of his jaws, but it didn’t. There is a marked gush of blood when the wolf rips its teeth free, blood dripping from its muzzle. Jinny curls around her mangled arm, staring wide-eyed at the beast.

“Do not cry. Tears are for widows, children, and cowards. It does not suit you.” Fenrir rumbles. “Give me your arm.”

Hesitantly, blood staining her shirt, gushing with rhythmic pulses from her severed artery, Jinny offers the Avatar her arm. Fenrir watches her tremble for a moment, then leans down and breathes over her wrist. In an instant, the pain evaporates. The wound scabs over before her very eyes, sensation returning to her fingertips, the flesh turning pink from the ghastly white it was before. The wound throbs for a second, fading to a pale red mark around her left wrist that vanishes into nothing, leaving only the memory of pain sparking in the back of her mind. “The pact is made, then.” Fenrir says, Jinny’s blood staining the fur around his muzzle. He takes a step back, jerking his head, as Jinny tests her fingers, touching her thumb to each finger in time, wiggling them, moving them every way she can. “Go.” Fenrir shakes its mane and looks towards the fire that blazes brightly before it vanishes. “They’ll be there soon. Both of them.” Looking away, Fenrir howls and the wind blows and a few flakes twirl and then? Fenrir is gone.

Pathfinder stands and brushes a hand over Jinny’s face. “Until next time.” she says, turning and moving behind a tree, vanishing into the forest, leaving Jinny alone. She gasps, letting out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, and falls back into the snow to calm her racing heart, to look up into the clear, star-strewn sky. She gasps.

The hardwood floor of Shoe Antechamber 4-B is not comfortable to the back of one’s head.

She sits up, a small drift of snow and a bit of her blood steadily melting into the carpet, and stands, brushing herself off, just in time to hear the knock on the door.

“They’re here.” she says simply, striding out to meet them. Whoever they are.

The pure white basin made of pearl and bone, with carvings of letters long forgotten, captures the full moon in its clear waters, their stillness disturbed only by a faint tidal pull. Gazing into this pooling, Luu faintly sees a reflection, barely recognizing it as her own. Her hand hesitantly reaches out. Droplets of blood fall downward, their arrangements resembling a constellation. Looking up, she sees herself with an attached rope tied to one foot, hanging upside down in suspended self-sacrifice. The blood that falls from above, negligible compared to what stains her hands. Oh sweet Lucius, how many thorns pierced your hide, before you ate your lady’s flower?

The turn of the wheel, and blood begins to flow forth. Mixing with the calm water, the blood takes suspended shapes in the shimmering with sidereal light, the form of twelve zodiac, their orientations flowing like the precession of the equinoxes; it is only now that Luu can clearly see herself in triplicate

“You move to wash your hands of blood, as if you were never taught how. Pathetic that you call yourself my priestess. I should flay the skin to expose your bones and then bleach them in the sun, before I scrape the poetry from them, so that you don’t waste my sacred hymns. Then in my temple burn what remains as fragrant offerings; sweet suckling skeletons, readying themselves, to serve like caramel, drizzled into sigils that will leave nothing of you. Child, you shall show me what wisdom your bones contain, or dissolve them in the mysteries of my milk.”

The face staring back at her looks like her own, but truly it is a mask of Luule that she has grown to fear and despise more than any others. Those brief moments when the reflection drops this mask to wink at her soul, reveals a Goddess more ancient than others would believe possible, and this too is a mask. A reminder that sends a shiver down Luu’s spinal column, its sweet sugar, waiting to be dissolved.

As if apprehending Luu’s concern, the reflected mask of the Goddess assures her, “It is not what they say it is, and this confusion causes much pain, not to mention your current stagnation. Death? What is that? A mere fairy tale. The Unnamed? No, that is a different beast entirely. This is simply The Nameless One. The transformative process we all go through, whether through intention, necessity, or intervention. Withholding its mysteries would be cruel, for they are never a completion. Stagnation never leads to true transformation through The Nameless One. Judge for yourself. Would I tell you lies for reasons other than a great truth?” Splitting the mirror, the mask of the Goddess hands Luu an ancient and ornate boline, already ritually cleansed and purified of the history of unknown bloody offerings that had once stained its form.

Her body trembling, Luu reached to accept the offered; and when their hands touched, like worlds colliding; a star exploding, the wheel turning. Only herself in the mirror, only water in the basin, the grip of the boline as firm as the moon’s. With her gaze held tightly onto her own eyes staring back, and with a deep and relaxing breath, she feels the energy in her chakras, as she steps away from this space.

Where she finds herself surrounded by twelve, the center of a circle, the thirteenth. “Tonight brings profound transformation for all of us,” she explains with a projected confidence, free of threat or hostility, “there is no tragedy here, only joy. This is something you have been looking forward to all of your lives. It is sweet and full of lightness, offering all possibilities.” There is a tender smile on Luu’s face, as she fulfills her necessary duties without hatred or hesitation. The boline cuts down the twelve, three at a time as they collapse into piles at the four corners of the circle. As she works her harvest, their flesh and meat rapidly mutates, cleansed into light that fills the space; their blood flowing inward to fill the circle, boundaries defined by bone caerns

From each quaternary of bones, Luu carefully arranges them into a triangle, appropriate to the elemental alchemical symbol for their cardinal direction. She works reverently, singing liminal hymns to each in turn, and then listening as they respond with arias of obedience; watching as languages marks the bones. With the twelve divided by three into four, she steps from outside of the circle, transmuting herself from the specific role she had taken on.

Moving around the circle, speaking praises and offerings in sacred languages, that in this space are very much alive. At each corner, she performs precise gestures, the blood in the center beginning to circulate and blend. Luu begins a second traversal of the stations, the blood in the center agitating and churning as it cycles it around. This does not concern Luu, nor does it steal her focus when within the blood, snakes can be seen to writhe in frenzied motions. On her third traversal of the stations, she emanates sacred vowels, before pushing the piles of bones into the frothing blood circle filled with copulating snakes. In her new role, she waits and watches.

In an ocean of blood, snakes fornicate with abandon, as they twist their forms through the piles of bones marked with the poetics and sigils. The bones begin to melt into the blood, as if they were made of sugar, sweetening the blood, and dissolving into it the symbols of their ritual purpose; an act of reunification, purification, and transmutation.

Where there had been blood, now a pool of crystal clear water, reflecting the stars above. In the middle stands a bearded man wearing a loose toga, holding a staff entwined with a single snake. This man has a name, and though his number is sometimes that of The Nameless One, it is not presently, and Luu sees no need to speak his name. “I understand,” he says to her, “an exchange so that all of us might return to our rightful places, though they may now be different?” Luu gives a small nod of assent, before stepping forward to join the man in the cool water. Removing something from the snake’s mouth, he touches it to her forehead, between her eyes, leaving the mark of a pentacle. A small smile is given to him by Luu, which he returns, before also nodding in assent.

Gazing upward, Luu fixes her eyes on the full moon as she bathes in its light, and with quiet confidence declares “as I Will.” In the near distance, the animals can almost immediately be heard to understand what is happening. The howl of the wolves are the loudest, but they are far from alone; we are far from alone. The moon begins to descend towards the two standing serenely in the small body of water. The slow dislocation of this celestial body pulls other smaller ones with it, crashing to the earth with great speed and force. Violent entries through the atmosphere creating impact craters all around, immense heat and billowing smoke pouring forth; but it does nothing to break the empathic smile between the two.

As the moon draws ever closer, the sound of rushing water can be heard all around. The lunar pull affects the tides, but at this distance one can expect nothing short of a great deluge. The small circle of clear water remains remarkably still, as the entirety of the earth’s ocean surges towards the two, extinguishing the raging infernos around them. Right as the experience of the violence of the sea is imminent, Luu calmly declares, “As above … “ to which the man responds, “... so below.” With those words, they both become like water, disappearing and ready to take the shape of whatever holds them, as they are swallowed up, disappearing to drown in the abyss. They freely give the ultimate fit of their consciousness, dissolving into infinite joy and light within the cosmic ocean.

Bodyless and stretching across the cosmic abyss, in her mind she visualizes a small dot of unearthly pure and bright light just above her mind. It pulsates and grows into a sphere as it moves across her abyssal state. In it she sees galaxies and constellations, planets with properties yet imagined, and yet known to her. The orb turns its directions, and she catches sight of the Milky Way, and Ophiuchus bearing the serpent and a bright smile of light that seems aimed at her. The movements of the orb trace a pentagram, its flames resonating with quintessential energy in harmony with her body, the two creating each other.

It is a body that she finds encased in a pure white tomb made of pearl and bone. There is no way to breathe, for it is filled with the water that had drowned her across countless incarnations. There’s only one thing she can do, and that’s hold her head up high, and continue on.

Cheeks slightly flushed, Luu’s head slowly emerges from beneath her bubble bath. She feels relaxed, renewed, purified, she has taken a step forward, but she knows it is far from the last. Around the bathtub, the small flames of candles and fragrant smoke of incense, both burned quite far down. The space would be quite dark, if it wasn’t for the light of the full moon streaming in through the window. Stepping out of the tub, and onto a bathmat, she pauses, nude, and takes one more bath in the purifying strength of the light of the moon.

In her mind, she hears a familiar voice, and it bears a lesson she probably should have learned a long time ago.

“Sacrifices can be noble, and Ascension requires sacrifices and the sacrificed, but you must never sacrifice Love.”

As the words fill her mind, heart, and soul, there is a knock at the door.