The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Highbeck Glacier Village
Attaday, the Eighth Day of HorseBekkah, Daxia, Keiko, Lyric, Nizhentska, Grandmother Starwatcher, and TomomiThis is how it ended: Nizhentska sitting on the cold stone, knees drawn up, leaning back on straight arms, and looking up at the motionless Fae tablet. On either side of her stood Daxia and Lyric, their own observations of the broken clock piece for the moment completed. Above them, the night sky arched, the stars far brighter and far more numerous than could be seen from any mainland keep. The Fae tablet held its place now, still. It was not, or at the least did not feel like, a contented stillness, as if it had completed its mischief. It was a pensive stillness, taut and expectant, as of it were waiting and at the very limit of its patience.
This was something that could be very understandable. It had been broken for a very, very long time.
One of the other tablets slowly passed over the trio's heads, making its slow revolution around the Ancient clockwork device. Its path was silent and certainly well-ordered.
How they got to this point, however, was anything but well-ordered. They had actually started back in the warm, safe, glacier-covered village. It began with Grandmother Starwatcher considering, very seriously, the nature of Lady Bekkah's opposite and whom it might very well be — or rather, who it was certainly not.
"Nin, nin, nin. Not Imperial, ja? Imperials easy to figure out. Once figured out, even most tangled circles become straight line. Someone else, ja? That one, ja, may have been horrible influence on certain tzarina, deep inside has good heart. Must be someone else, perhaps someone farther away.
"Perhaps someone whose tales have never reached this place. If so, how would I know?
"How can this one be then?"
Nizhentska, however, was mulling another matter, glancing back to Lyric every now and then. She held her response until they were making their way up to the Clock's mesa, their footsteps muffled by the soft snow. Her pace slowed, finally coming to a stop. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes narrowed and crossed as if she were trying to see the tip of her small button nose.
"Chasing Fae foxes and Fae foxes being chased! What if you were Fae fox in expanse of snowfields, all alone, in great white empty, where sound is muffled by drifts and crevasses. If Fae fox were to yip, would there be yip? If no one there to hear Fae fox yip, is it actual, or is it dream?
"When does Fae fox become Fae fox?"
Their appointed guide peered across the short distance between herself and the minstrel.
"Are you girl dreaming of being Fae fox, or are you Fae fox dreaming of being girl?
"When are you real?
"Nin.
"When are you actual?
"Ja."
Tomomi tilted her head.. or, rather, the hood of her travel cloak — keeping her well-sheltered and protected from the cold — had a very definite cant. She took a step closer to Keiko as if to find some much-needed anchorage.
"You are making a Mouse's head hurt."
This was when Grandmother reached out with her large, heavy tome and bopped her Initiate on the top of her head. She just have Nizhentska a look.
"No hurting our guests. Very impolite."
"Hurt?" Nizhentska snorted back the fierce retort. Well, fierce for only that one first word. She kicked at the snow at her feet, sending up a small flurry of white.
"Only asked question. If not ask, how am I supposed to know? To know, must ask! And who taught Nizzy that? Certain Grandmother, ja? Certain Grandmother with very big book.
"Bah! Not fair! Life not fair for Nizzy! Grandmother gets big book for writing and beating on poor student! But Nizzy? Nizzy must just remember!
"Hurt?"
She turned her attention back to Lyric before looking up at the broken Clock.
"Think Nizzy like being hurt? May think Nizzy crazy, not that crazy."
Stretching out her arms straight, she turned around in place as she looked up. The night sky arced above them, scattered with stars brighter and more numerous than could be seen from any mainland keep.
"Listen to Nizzy, Nizzy tell about hurt.
"Her name was Kathreen, and she was just a stable girl. She worked very hard, but she had a soft heart. She never learned the way of swords and shields, never held a spear, but she believed, and she was a good girl, and she was so proud that they let her wear a simple leather necklace from which hung a white star. She looked after everyone else's midnight brothers, making sure they had water, that they had a nice place to rest, that they could have carrots or apples or a cube of rock candy when they wished.
"Then came that bitter night when the sun set over the temple, the night when the terraces flowed with blood, dancing down the carved steps like water over stones, the night when heroes were born and died in but a heartbeat. No one knew her, no one thought about her, that night. She was just the stable lass, and there was death on their doorstep. Look deep into your hearts and be honest... truly honest. Would you have remembered a stable lass the night Bordertown fell?
"She stood at the doorway, her arms outstretched, just like mine are now. She had no spear, no sword, no dagger, no shield. She just stood there. And the demon-kin and the multi-colored knights that had come on the Eastern wind paused. They could not believe this. And they laughed. They laughed at her, they chortled, they made jokes in a language she couldn't understand. But anyone, anyone could tell they were laughing at her. The laughter didn't stop even after they had snared her up, even after they had tossed her from one to another, even after she was nothing but a broken, silent doll, dull eyes fading as she looked up to a starry sky for the very last time.
"She had bought enough time for the black unicorns to escape...
"So they could stand by their soulmates and not die alone."
Nizhentska pointed to the sky... to a single star set away from the others.
"There she is now. The first set in the sky that night.
"So far away. Still alone."
Nizhentska pointed to the Clock.
"That is only place where she can still be heard.
"It hurt, ja.
"But how could I not?"
She was quiet the rest of the way up to the Clock. The silence grew heavy, and as if she knew conversation was needed, Grandmother spoke to Daxia.
"Not sure. Not sure correct. Tablets may not represent powers. May mean places. May mean people. Forest is place. Rhoni are people, demons come from spheres of wind and ice. Life and death are borders of our time here, when we rise, when we finally set.
"Fae are both. People and place. Now set alone. As for how old Clock is?"
The Starwatcher paused at the first trithilon.
"Best we know, was crafted during timeless shattering and may have been first of places built by Sisters. Her rising and setting brought order, ja, but then world shattered because of order, because of war.
"I think, me, that shattering was attempt to restore chaos to everything, despite Her path across sky. Perhaps Clock was then needed to bring order to all world's fragments. Other days, think Clock simply tracks passage of time in all places shattered, reminding us that even if broken, all still part of whole."
Tomomi just gave the Starwatcher a look, just like she did to Nizzy earlier.
"Apologies." Nizzy's grandmother grinned at their smallest companion. This brought Nizzy's bright nature back.
"Can I hit you now?"
Grandmother's answer was certainly predictable.
"Nin."
"Not fair."
"Is life."
Grandmother then returned her attention to the celestial mechanism. A short while later, Nizzy was at Lyric's feet. Both Lyric's and Daxia's investigations were quickly done. Because of the size of the Clock, none of the stones -- save for the Fae stone -- moved very fast, and their motions were predictable. Thus, they could get a good look at the misbehaving tablet, walk around it when at rest. However, it was high enough that it was just out of reach of Daxi's, the tallest of their group, highest fingertip reach.
To Daxia, it was, indeed, very fae-like... inscrutable, an unknown. For Lyric, too, it felt mysterious. As the Fae tablet used both logic and chaos, that should mean it would be more familiar to her than anyone else. Instead, the more she looked at it, the more she felt she was missing something important.
The Starwatcher spoke to Daxia.
"Fae tablet.. tablet just like them. Alone. Separate. Unknown. I do not believe tablets represent powers. Believe they represent People. Places. Things. All are bound by Time. Rhoni are people. Forest is Place. We know strange creatures, those summoned and controlled, are drawn from elemental spheres. Life, Death are our sunrise, sunset where each personal time on Heartwood begins and ends. The Fae? Fae are both people and place.
"Perhaps this why many runes do not show up in Clock.
"You maybe right.
"Question might not be how... but some manner of why."
Nizhentska shook herself, clearing metaphorical stars from her eyes.
"Achoo!
"I am no one's gift!"
Her statement was much more self-centered, returning back to the here and now, where it wasn't the idea of snow that made her sneeze but the fact that it was just, well, cold. Her nose wrinkled up; she looked annoyed again.
"But first time... first time tossed at anyone.
"Not just out."
* * * *
OOC: Good news! Both Daxia and Lyric asked or brought up so many interesting things in their two posts! Bad news! It was impossible to answer everything in one post. Good News! If there's anything that wasn't responded to that you'd still like to know, feel free to re-ask in your next post. 
Rerolling 1 1 3
Or maybe they have been conspiring with AJ? 
