ph_logs | (closed) you come at such a time

(closed) you come at such a time

Who: Fever, Cecil, and a particular Worm.
What: Cecil's been the messenger for a call - time to have it answered.
When: Post-flood
Where: Paradesium.
Warning(s): To be added if needed.

After the most immediate tasks of getting back on their feet, of aiding Pumpkin Hollow to dry out and giving the man a moment or a few to feel settled, Fever comes calling to cash in on a promise Cecil has made her. The rains are gone, the path is manageable, and she must go - she has to go. Whatever lies hidden in the caves, under the earth, has been so patiently waiting for them to come back. For a heartstopping bit of time, she worries that it may have been flooded out with the unnatural storm.

And then the dagger is found washed ashore with other items, amber bladed and as sharp as ever. And a passing few who might also be looking into this curious phenomena would have witnessed her letting out a cry, clutching it to her chest as if she was worried it would be taken from her. When she puts it back where it should be carried, it feels like a sunrise after a night of restlessness, like some deep knot of tension in her has relaxed, allowing her to breathe.

She has to see. Has to know. They have to go at night, regardless of warnings about the night on this isle. Fever will swear up and down to Gerry to keep Cecil safe if she must, but they must go, when he's ready. His memory will guide them. If what he met down there doesn't want to call out again and lead them back.

Regardless, she stays close, tension coiled in her like a spring when they get to the cave. It's so hard to not start running, but she doesn't know the way.

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The Worm hasn't necessarily noticed them, but it's clear that it's open-minded and looking for conversation. As soon as Cecil is within view of the cave entrance, his mind is bombarded with the strange chirps and chitters and squeaks that the godling makes, as well as the psychic smell of petrichor.

The response to an invasion of his mind is less welcoming this time. Cecil flinches back physically, scrambling to attempt to raise walls (they're made of balsa wood and rice paper, if anything at all), to keep the force of the Worm's influence out.

"Fuck off, I've had enough bugs in me for the moment. I'll come talk, I'll bring your friend, but leave my head alone."

"It's in your mind? What is it saying?"

She looks at least mildly worried, but she's also following his lead into this cave. Whatever way they have to go, that's up to Cecil to show.

The Worm responds in kind, startled and frightened, and the sounds of creaking roots and squeaking mycelium is suddenly muffled behind a mental wall of damp, mulchy bark.

"It's not using words. It's...just c'mon."

Cecil ducks his head, shoulders hunching, and leads the way into the cave, feeling kinda icky while he does, but knowing this is all a necessary thing.

"Things are often in my mind. I don't keep them out well. The bugs got me pretty right away. And there are other mechanisms for controlling me on this island. Me, specifically."

She's quiet for a bit as she follows him, keeping her eyes sharp. Finally, she speaks up again.

"Before I came here, someone put a parasite in my skull. It threatened to eat my free will. Transform me into a monster, literally."

So, she's saying, she understands.

"It is incredibly fortunate that you weren't overtaken by the buys on the ship. You'd have hated that."

Turn, turn, they're approaching where Cecil met the mycellium mass before.

"I feared that happening to me the entire time. Sorry you had to go through it."

She's sincere when she says it, from one brain hijacking victim to another.

A great, terrible something emerges from the nearby wall. It's grown since last time.

It doesn't say anything, still a bit shaken from Cecil's pushback earlier. It doesn't want to be yelled at. Instead, it sprouts more eyeball-caps, its fibers turning over one another continuously like some bizarre, three-dimensional myceloid kaleidoscope. Shuffling closer, the two visitors can see that there are so many jewel-like chrysalises hanging from a half-dozen antler-like branches.

Cecil walks over toward the mess of organic matter, holding out his hand to it quietly.

"Well, did I get your message to the right person?"

The shambling spirit presses itself against Cecil's hand, warm and soft as ever. Then, in one hiss of spores and a groaning like ancient trees in high winds, it says a single word.

"Yes."

This shape, this being is nothing she has seen in her memory. The creature that fought at her side before was not the same as what's in front of them, the strange fungal beast that yet grows and lives. But, all the same, she knows it. She knows it, would know it anywhere. It is the Worm and it is him. It is the end result and yet the beginning. Fever steps forward before she can listen to what Cecil is asking, seeing the chrysalises. Gems of the sky. She knows - had known, perhaps, from the first, but just couldn't hear.

It was you. That fluttering hope that had been in her soul when the butterfly had been set free. She had kept her promise, and so had he. So had it. A concept does not truly blow away in the wind. When she was on the ship, and sat up in the night, and had doubted - and then to have faith again, and then to see it rewarded.

"It's you."

In her voice and on her face, a relief and joy. A reunion she had longed for, if it was at all possible. And her mind is open, if it wishes, to come in and let her pour out so much. Things that were and are - the sensation of slowly falling, the taste of new picked citrus, the rushed chaos of the recent battle and the texture of saltwater dried on the skin. Pieces of things witnessed, and the rush of her emotions, all tangled and layered over with happiness as a lace veil. The feeling of his summoning day.

Her arms are extended outward, even for this shape.

"I missed you so much."

Cecil steps aside to watch what is clearly a deeply emotional reunion. It isn't his to be a part of, but it does bring him joy to have facilitated it. He was useful. His open mind that lets bugs and mushrooms and Lot 37 in without the least bit of resistance was useful.

That's good enough, right?

The great and frightful myceloid leans into her open arms; its countless hyphae tickle against her skin.

"Beloved. Mercury ^rising.The (other) elf _->_in<- the mirror. Trust given, a dangerous thing. We have ~~not~~ been a p a r t , but we have been a p a r t . Senseless senseless. It is good to behold you with (something like) eyes."

It is great, and terrible, and soft in her embrace. Contentment, elation, understanding blossom from her mind - oh, she could live her life knowing that they had met, that nothing can erase a concept from being, that he'd still be in her head. But she's a selfish creature in the end, as mortals are, who longs for what and who she can touch.

"Now we are together. Now I know where you are."

After the flood, after those who might have ripped this new chance and settlement away from them, it feels a little like how she imagines coming home might feel. Blown on the winds to settle and grow anew. Laying her cheek against the creature for a moment, she then pulls back - not enough to let go, but enough to turn her head and look at Cecil.

"I can't thank you enough for bringing me here. You've no idea - no favor is really too high. But allow me at the least to formally introduce you. The creature called Worm, this is not its only guise." Oh, she could bog the man down with titles, with greater understanding, but what matters is far simpler. "Sometimes he is of the earth, as he is now. Sometimes he is a beast a hairsbreadth from savagery. And sometimes he walks as a man among others. But no matter the form, he is Sheogorath."

A name, its true name. The name of the being and the star. And the name of the one who she turns back to, eyebrow lifting.

"You owe Cecil something of an apology for prying in his mind without knocking first."

Just because the Worm has a free pass to careen about her skull as it would, that doesn't mean everyone's content to let that slide in their own. She can practically hear him treating the remark with indignation - telling a Daedra to apologize, the audacity - or, he might laugh, if he's as grateful as she is.

"It's fine. Hard to knock on something that doesn't even really have a door. My mind is penetrable."

It's not fine, but he doesn't want to bring down the mood here. This is a reunion, a celebration, a homecoming. His hurt doesn't belong here.

"It is nice to meet you, Sheogorath."

The Worm seems to grow in size with pride as it's introduced, then shrinks in shame as it's told off.

"Desert Shade, Sunshine ((Sounds)). _Se^a soul. ^Se_a of sand? Soul of sand. Sol and sand..."

Its eyestalks are fixed on Cecil, but there is no sensation of a mental intrusion. In fact, it seems to be pointedly trying to keep its psychic glow cloud to itself.

"You have no door... would you like teeth? Teeth for the _floor. An intruder enters, and you bite them. Taste the blood of their mind. The o^ce_an at the ~~edge~~ of the world is made of knives."

It's... attempting an apology?

Edited 2024-05-03 03:21 (UTC)

She sighs a little, but it's more a fond exasperation than anything else. That's about as much as can be extracted in this form, at least.

"Penetrable or not, having a door or not, it means something to be asked first."

And from her particular tone, that's coming from personal experience.

"Let me also apologize on his behalf, as much as I can. I'm..." Not the pieces, not that connection. But someone close all the same. And she inwardly feels shy, not wanting to openly declare and name the connection that they had chosen, for fear that somehow naming it will open it up to being bled out. "We understand each other. Or, well, he understands me, and I understand that I'll never quite be able to get it."

Madness, after all, lacks a solid definition, and she leans back into the mycellium.

"When he changes again, to be more like you and me, I'll nudge him your way. He's a sparkling conversationalist, when he's got a mouth to speak with."

"You're the Scion-to-Be. Her, h e r, the she on two bees who knew a friend waited."

Cecil is unashamed, unafraid to repeat exactly what the worm had said behind her back, using the words, in the order, unabashedly.

"He loves you."

"Beloved. Mercury ^rising. She. S h e," the godlet agrees, individual fibers slowly embracing her like thousands of arms individually trying to hug her.

"We would call you a name. It is a dangerous name. It is a name for Beloved. The knife knows it. The Voice would witness. All that is ours would be yours. Our ~~enemies~~ would be yours. We have many of those."

A pause, as it shuffles, thinking.

"It could be now! or_later... Time is ~~not~~ a -line-. What is 'first?' But things must be done. You decide. We may help the _se^a soul grow teeth. We do ~~not~~ decide. We are the idea. Take thought in hand and shape the future."

Cecil calls her out, precisely and as neatly as if he wielded a diamond tipped knife, and he'll see her eyes widen, glance away, an unaccustomed hesitation and vulnerability. It is a difficult thing to be loved when one lacks the context for it. It makes Fever want to run away, feeling it lance her chest in a painful and wonderful warmth. Like out of the rot, out of the endless death, there might be some chance for something worth saving, and the prospect is so terrifying that she would need to bury herself in the urges to prove that there's actually nothing.

But she can't run away. So many threads want to keep her there. She's too connected to go and hide.

It is a powerful thing, what is being offered. And it is because it is powerful that it must wait. Until she can look into golden eyes and try it on for size, to see if her hands leave too many stains to be worth it.

"...grow, Worm. Until you make yourself a chrysalis and allow yourself to change again. Until you've recovered enough strength to come and rest where you know you are welcome. I will be here to greet you."

Grow and change, until he is a form she can walk hand in hand with, until he can dart in and out of her mind as he sees fit, until they can have tea in the middle of a storm and celebrate all that is absurd and all that is not, until she can tell him and show him that here, things can flourish in a way that they could not before.

(The name she has for him, she does not speak aloud. Only thinks it, with the same protectiveness that she might cup the bloody scraps of her consciousness in her hands. Whispers three words to the godling that are as meant as they were the first time she spoke them.)

"Cecil."

Her voice has softened, gone quieter.

"The offer is just that - an offer. If you'd rather just be let alone in your mind for now, no offense will be taken. I don't think he'll be pestering you at odd hours anymore." Beat. "Well, he might, if the mood truly strikes. You can't predict something like him, it goes against his nature. But at the least he'll know I'm gravely disappointed if he's causing a friend grief."

The title is said and meant, with all of her.

Edited 2024-05-03 21:04 (UTC)

"Wait, I'm the one you're calling the sea soul? I'm from a desert!"

But the ocean is a desert with its life underground and a perfect disguise above, isn't it? He'd quoted so much to Alice recently. It's a nice diversion from the question at hand for a moment, before Fever's voice, softer, catches his attention. Gentle enough to be somehow painful on a tender spot. He stares at her quietly for a moment.

"Thank you."

_Se^a soul... is ~~not~~ your name? Do the ^ai^rw^av^es lie? ^Se_a soul. Gershwin. Palm mer. If this is not the name of the Voice, what shall we call you?"

It burbles in contemplation.

"Name aside... we will be patient. Such a difficult thing. We will wait, and know what it is you want. What she wants. We are a Worm, we do as a Worm does."

"And when you call, now, it will be heard."

As long as it calls to the soul happier to be bothered. There is a space in her head meant for a worm. There is a lightness that will be in every prayer addressed to the mirror. If she could cry, she might - a great pressure rising in her head, it hurts and twists, and she leans herself more into the creature instead, closing her eyes to get a bit of relief.

"...wish you could come with us."

It's softer, quiet. She could spend hours like this. But that means consigning Cecil to that, unless he's more willing to navigate the night alone, but that feels terribly unfair.

"Cecil, from Caecilius, from Caecus, meaning 'blind'." It's a quiet aside, not really relevant to anything except everything. There's a tradition of blind seers, after all.

He watches Fever leaning into the vast mycellial mass, and then looks up at the roof of the cave, as if trying to see the Glow Cloud (all hail) in the unfamiliar sky.

It whiffles in thought as it turns that revelation over in its discordant, fibrous mind. At the same time, it's drinking in Fever's intentions, her thoughts, her wishes. It knows, without having to really think about it, how it can bring one of those wishes closer to reality, and in an unspoken agreement between them, without any kind of external warning, it moves to take action, drawing her bodily into it until there is no sign of her.

Fever is falling down, down, down, past windows that look out through the eyes of another life, until those windows grow closer, closer, closer, sinking into her eyes like contact lenses. And then those eyes are her eyes, and the thoughts behind them are her thoughts. She's buried in despair, and ecstasy, and grief, and the dull, unrelenting ache of futile compassion. She hears her tongue lay curses in a familiar voice, sees her hands rend hapless mortals asunder, sees a weeping beggar lifted from the ground as their face shifts from hopelessness to joy. Words break and reform in her mind, their splinters cast to the earth to sprout new meaning. And mirrors, mirrors, mirrors stretch out endlessly above her, their surfaces dancing fluidly in an unseen wind.

Mercury rising.

The change in the world is accepted, with that psychic assurance. She's drawn in, surrounded - and everything is changing, in flux. Her emotions, its emotions, what they see as one being, one entity at the moment. Herself and not herself, and the boundaries do not exist, melting into a grove and its myriad eyes and senses. And in return, she is laid open, drawn apart by the thinnest fibers and unknit at the seams. Until the hateful and agonized core of her is visible, the center where she believes all the rot lurks under her skin, decay with a hold on her heart. Dark and foul mire, consuming all that dares to reach into it.

Yet, decay is where spores may find the strongest foothold. Where something unique and strange can grow amidst the corpse of the old, turning death back to life. A mycellium network too new and transparent to be known and extracted. Around her heart like a veil. The spores nurtured by memory and faith and care, in every beat of her heart, in offerings scattered to the wind in hopes that they might find another, bit to bit. Where a young girl weeps endless tears from her wounds, where a woman watches the sunrise after wrestling with a night of agony, where the window is cracked to let in the springtide air of evening that whispers be at peace, where the shivering flood of ecstasy from designed purpose lurks.

The spores of the Madgod, held where they could not be lost or taken. She breathes out, and they move. It breathes in, and they find home.

Hail the transformation. Hail the death that must come, the rebirth that will. From the despondent, silent depths that shut out light and sound and warmth, and rising, rising to a brilliance of sight in endless mirrors, music in endless chords, the warmth of the sun. The warmth of an embrace when one has been gone and dearly missed.

Edited 2024-05-13 03:42 (UTC)

Somewhere in the tangled strands of the self, it finds itself sitting at a desk in Town Hall, going over records. Fever’s hands shuffle papers with expert paper-shuffling skill, and something in their head resists the urge to eat the document, as delightful as explaining that excuse to the higher ups would be. “The Madgod ate my homework” is, in fact, a statement that is accurate by technicality for anyone that has ever eaten their own homework out of desperation, caprice, or simply a surrendering to intrusive thoughts.

But no, instead, the document is given a second glance, and then a third, and a fourth, as spores mingle with spores and the whole mycelial network processes the lot in its ever-puzzling fashion. Words begin to wiggle across the page, strokes of a pen taking the form of tiny black caterpillars, and slowly but surely, the letters of the name on the document, “Theodor Gorlash,” rearrange themselves.

I’m that dithering old man. The one who can’t settle on which clinic he wants to work for. The one who talks to butterflies. The one who called Captain Nephila “Captain Bugs Bugs.” The one who forgets his shoes, we think.

I’ve been here all along, and I didn’t understand.

Then fibers pull away from fibers, and it’s like the blinds being thrown open to let in the mid-morning light when one’s still half-asleep, and then Fever is sprawled on the Paradesium floor, skin white-hot and tender from the raw severing of the physical connection with the Worm. And it’s leaning over her, cooing and chittering with concern.

Their connection, renewed by such an encounter - he's been here, and she hadn't seen him. Such is the way of the world. The spores may have blinded her to what was there, some self-preservation instinct in the way that he had lingered in her psyche after he had been forced into that orderly shell. Hence, they needed the blind seer, a friend to navigate the divide.

She's been here just the same, quietly waiting. Spring is a time of new beginnings, after all. Of waking back up after a long sleep.

And then it's too bright and too much all at once, made once again into a separate entity. Things don't exactly hurt, but they feel brand new, too sensitive. The need to curl up somewhere soft and quiet, and readjust to the nature of being. Her eyes flick around, overwhelmed with the great absence in her consciousness that will fade out as she remembers how to exist in her own frame. Weakened by the process - no one is strong when they first emerge - but still here. Still alive.

Her tongue feels so, so heavy. Words slur some into each other.

"Did it...work? Love you."

Emotions on the surface, not yet shielded by flesh and bone.

"Cecil...where...?"

Is he okay? How long has it been? Did he go through any of that?

(Infinite spiraling things and strange patterns and being, a mortal's mind isn't meant to comprehend it, her body as overheated as her namesake from the Weave in her set all a thrumming. The vast enormity, most will slip through her grasp, but enough will linger to form an impression that will tell her how much it was.)

Edited 2024-05-20 18:39 (UTC)

The words. The words. THE WORDS. So long she's been too afraid to say it, and now here it is, as easy as breathing. The Worm wants to take her in again, and hold her with its thousands of little arm-fibers, and shower her with so many feelings of love that her mind might only just hold against the onslaught of raw emotion, but it can feel her exhaustion like crashing waves, so instead it scoots backwards, away from Fever, away from Cecil, giving the mortals space. Eye-like spots made of amber and iridescent chitin glimmer in the dim light as it watches, making noises for which men have no onomatopoeia for.

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(closed) you come at such a time

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