estdeus_innobis | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Dream.

There is a great sea. The sky is grey, the water green, and the seafoam is the flecked white of milk on the turn. The shore is stone and shingle, and the cliffs are bone-shades. Will you wake on the little fishing boat that rides the waves, wary of great beasts that lurk beneath the surface, or on the cold and stony shore? Or perhaps as some watery thing yourself, breathing in water as cold as ice and with a salt-iron taste like blood?

[OPEN TO ALL]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I'm glad you're alright (http://community.livejournal.com/estdeus_innobis/405311.html?thread=10294335#t10294335)," I say, touching her arm lightly. "And it's beautiful, it's like a heterodyne chime." It's a sunlight disc under a cloudy sky, warm and bright in my fingers, and when I hold it up I can see what it could fit into, the bright lines of gears and springs that could be.

The blond man is shifting through his masks, but that is of less matter, I think, than what he says. "Let me as all of you a question; Does the word Excolo mean anything to anyone here?" and it's strangest thing, word that means something to me and yet reaches beyond, speech and soliloquy at once.

"I know the word," I say. "It's where we need to be going; we should be there, in truth. Standing here, so far from it--the lynchpin of it must have been damaged in some way." I pause a moment, looking at him. "How did you know to speak it?"

He is not a man, nor a lion. She is not a clock, nor she a seal, and all our natures are strange and true. He is a lion, a man, she a clock, she a seal, and confusion comes over me. I grasp the hand of the woman close to me.

"Est Deus in Nobis," I speak to the man's word. My confusion drains away now, and I feel fire under my skin. Winter's fire, a bone fire, when it charred my eyes and I saw. "We are in the wrong place, I think." Unless there is something more here, something not found in that elsewhere we ought to be.

As soon as I say Excolo, there is a dawning of recognition. Kate is the first to speak; "All roads lead", The China Doll knows it and knows it's where we need to be and asks how I know it.

"Est Deus in Nobis" The witch speaks the word, and I nod as the fisherwoman speaks with a girl Lucien knew from the Carnival.

"We are in the wrong place, all of us. And we all know Excolo, for it is where we are all from..." Look at CeeCee for a moment, then smile and kiss her cheek before speaking again. "...in the waking world."

There, it is said. Let us see where this goes now.

"We are in the wrong place," Arik says, and the rest is only the matter of us dreaming, and I do not hear because there is the sound of a wind in my ears, and the great slow sweeps of sea and sky come to pieces under the scatter of light and shadow flickering together, the small movements of leaves in clusters and thin fingers of light reaching down to mulch and dead leaves.

And I can taste the salt on the air, and feel the shifting stones beneath my feet and hear the waves, but I see a different land (http://community.livejournal.com/estdeus_innobis/405098.html?thread=10301034#t10314858)--thicketed rather than bare, and a darkness of shadow rather than clouds. It spins as my sight gusts forward, tangle of branches and silt of moss.

"This is not the wrong place," I say, but in agreement, because the opposite of a truth is a lie, the opposite of a greater truth is another truth. "This is only not the end of the journey. Wish and serpent we have seen; now we must go to the tower."

Excolo. Dreams. Yes. I 'member standin' on th'shore now, 'fore I shed m'skin. I 'member knowin' I wuz inna dream. Don't 'member what came b'fore....but "Excolo"..."Est Deus in Nobis"...yeah, alla'at means somethin'. Might be where I know Kate an'er girl from. Feels right t'me.

"This is not the wrong place," onna th'women says, an'I nod.

"We wouldn't be'ere if'n't wuz th'wrong place," I says. "We's 'ere cuzzit's where we need t'be."

"This is only not the end of the journey. Wish and serpent we have seen; now we must go to the tower."

That there brings 'nother'a those twinges. "Th'tower," I says. "I got'n odd feelin' 'at's where we should avoid. Think'ere's somethin' bad'ere." But'is ain't no ordinary dream, izzit? Mebbe th'tower holds th'way t'wake up. "Where izzit here? Still north?" No idea how I knew'at.

"Go we should by boat," I say with certainty, and I do not know how I know this but I do. "The way through the forest is dangerous." And the girl who knew the witch's name nods and says this is so. I look to the shorthaired woman. "Can we travel in yours?"

"Surely, we can," I say, smiling. So many of us and all and my coracle left me and Leah in close quarters, but when we pull, some having their feet dug into the sand and some wading into the sea, it stretches out long and fine. That's my girl, light and shining and balanced on the grey waters, and I pat the hull.

"North, then?" and I look that way and there is a smudge or a cloud or a rising line on the horizon, and I can set a course by it. It's as if tehre were a track through the waves, the hull is cutting through so smooth and fine, and we are on our way (http://community.livejournal.com/estdeus_innobis/405996.html).

"Go we should by boat," says th'woman't got swallowed by th'snake. "The way through the forest is dangerous."

Can't say I disagree. Feel more comf'rt'ble'n th'water anyway. Th'girl who took th'gear....Zann, tha's'er name, I know't somehow...says we c'n use hers. Well, best t'go 'long wit' th'crowd, I guess, but I don't get inta th'boat. "'ll follow along," I says, an' throw m'skin back over m'shoulders. Know't's gonna hurt, annit duz...th'skin sinks 't's way inta me like'a plant takin' root, flattens m'tits, crushes m'arms, fuzes m'legs. This low, bark'a pain rips outta m'throat's m'face's crushed 'n reformed, m'eyes stretchin' wide an' wet. An'en't's done, an'm pushin' m'self inta th'shallows, an' th'water closes over me like a blessin'.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only