The Book of Abolition

[Savine]

The Book of Abolition

1 Pandit Adithi, fourth of her name, cursed as her paduka sank into the freshly fallen snow. Crunchy frost greeted her bare feet, but at least it had the decency to melt away at once for its heresy. After all, Adithi may only be a scholar within the Temple of Beyandi, Goddess of Broken Shackles, but even she had to abide by her god's scripture, which included freeing oneself of earthly possessions. The young scholar originally feared that meant donating away everything, even her first edition volumes of The Impassioned Flames of Cantor, but really the translators of the sacred text somehow landed on wearing stilt-like shoes so their feet would never touch the ground.

That was all well and good until the weather became temperamental and decided to snow. Not a soft flurry caused by some northern wind god seeking courtship with the southern variety, which leads to the warm air retreating in disgust. No, such squalls were a sign of something or other. For the Byandin Pujari it would be seen as an omen of good fortune. The broken cycle of the seasons meant new possibilities.

For Adithi, it was obviously a mistake.

Unlike her fellow Pandits and the higher-ranked Acharya, Adithi had dreams of being secular. She couldn't help but sour at the clergical hypocrisy of Beyandi. How could a goddess cry pools of salty nectar over the injustice of Great Forks' slaves when she herself proscribed against breaking scripture? What kind of freedom was that?

It didn't require divine revelation to see how this kind of snowfall would threaten the Decadence's drug fields and, with it, the city's economy for the entire year. Maybe the agriculture gods would receive more prayers, but you'd be drawing ire from not only the gods of commerce but even the Three. Needless to say, someone messed up.

Adithi just hoped it wasn't Great Forks that had pissed off someone or something greater.

"Pandit Adithi." The daydreaming scholar started. One of Acharya, Deo, she could tell from behind those ridiculous hastate mitre-masks, was beckoning her to join the procession into the temple that had started without her realizing. She sighed ghost-white breath out into the frigid air and donned her white-cat mask. She never bothered studying its ecclesiastical symbology.

Midnight satsangs were rare, and Adithi figured Beyandi was taking advantage of the inclement weather to demand more devotions from the temple. Whatever, Adithi only needed a few more shares of the temple's dakshina until she had a talent to her name for this year's census. She'd be bumped up to a full-fledged koruphe. With the title, she'd be eligible for the Acharya rank and, with it, the freedom to teach and, more importantly, study outside the temple, namely, at the Violet Meadow.

All it took was a little auction of a certain hard-to-get Southern romance and a year of scrimping on mud-flavored coffee. If tradition didn't forbid it, Adithi would've whistled a tune as she followed the other Pandits and Acharyas. However, the moment she passed the temple's threshold on her, balancing on her stilted paduka, the wishful scholar had to shield her eyes with her haori sleeves against the blinding white light flooding from the middle of the temple.

Behind her feline mask, Adithi lowered her sleeve the tiniest to see what was happening. At the center of the fiery corona of light, radiated their goddess in her eight-armed lioness avatar. She floated above the earth, free of Creation's shackles on corporeal bodies. Her lithe, white-furred arms and hands bore the Prāna, Apāna, Shakti, and Anjali mudras, all stretched out before her breast, encircling a tiny star of power and light.

Adithi's breath escaped her lips and ventilated out the sides of her mask, turned white from the winter air behind her, but sizzled out of existence under the weight of Beyandi's divinity. The Pandit could feel her cheeks press against her mask's sides as she began to smile.

Maybe there was something to omens after all.

[Savine]

2 The sun broke over the horizon, its rays piercing through the overcast clouds pregnant with inchoate snow, ready to fall once more. A flood of people stood waiting and shivering outside the great walls of the City of Temples. Amidst the crowd was one oddity: a massive, leathery rhinoceros with two people perched atop the horned beast.

Fellow queuers nearby couldn’t help but double-take the Southern creature. Few would push their gaping children behind them in protection. Obviously, not many here were well-versed in the modes of transportation from other Directions.

Saddling the beast, Dancing White Flame surveyed the crowd before her. Along her travels with Moonlight on the Riverbend, both had heard stories of the city known as Decadence. Usually, those words spoke of revelry and excitement, a heaven on earth away from the Blessed Isle and her Imperial Mountain. But for Flame, she saw into their subtext: a city borne over the broken backs of the impoverished. A kingdom that had better rights to be called hell.

From atop Enduring Iron Ram, Flame could see above everyone, the masses pouring into a sinkhole at the gate. Each one fighting against the other to be next in line for the soldiers erected over barrels looking down at every entrant. Iron Ram fumed white air out of his nostrils, causing a young mother’s chiton to flutter as her babe, resting their head against her shoulder, perked up and smiled at the beast.

Time crawled along as Flame, Moonlight, and Ram sauntered closer and closer to the open gates until a smooth-faced soldier stayed them with a shout.

“Yield!” He held his hand up, unable to raise any higher than Ram’s muzzle. Sweat trickled down his temples as he looked from the rhino and up to its masters. His eyes darted straight to Flame’s daiklave.

“Ah, Prince,” he stammered, “Welcome to Great Forks. May I know you and your…” The guard tilted his head to get a better look at Moonlight, “...guest’s intentions?” He returned to eying the colossal blade, belying his practiced words with a nervous gulp. “It is my duty to inform you of this city’s… neutrality regarding all faiths.”

 

***

 

3 Great Forks, City of Temples, certainly lived up to its name. Every street, every alley, every nook and cranny, there was some godling, some preacher, some worshiper. For anyone who didn't call the place home, they'd reel from the dizzying kaleidoscope of colors and shapes that filled every vantage point. It was easy to get lost in such a myriad of details.

Fortunately for Waves Under the Night Sky and The Truant in the Garden of Death, they were following the recommendations of one of Waves' followers, Bethsi, who was once a resident of the city. Her impeccable calligraphy and invocatory style made her suggestions sound almost too ostentatious for what should've been a helpful list of destinations to visit. Instead, Waves had to decipher every embellishment and effacement for clues to their next spot.

Remorse for harms enacted against Creation and its beasts? That ended up being a decent street vendor who took over his mother's rice dumpling stall. He had offered the duo a flight of different meat stuffings ranging from gazelle and its lean sweetness to the rare nightjar whose taste resembled a chicken that got lost in the Elemental Pole of Wood and returned scarred by its experience.

Overall, not that bad of a find.

Unfortunately for the pair, Bethsi was too young when she was sold outside the city and knew little how to invoke cryptic missives about the city's illicit offerings. It took the gentlest of touches for the devotee to accede her whole story to her goddess. Bethsi as a little slave girl, knew her parents had made just enough coin to rise above their station as indentured slaves. The best she could offer was, 'Guided by balance and earnest will, we tread in search of life's distilled fill.'

And that led Waves and Truant to the center of the Beehive district, named for its twisting alleys and street stalls littering the sides of buildings like honeycomb ready to release its ambrosia to any and all.

[Sarcasticfury]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dancing White Flame

It seemed that news hadn't traveled from her home to Great Forks. Otherwise she didn't think that she would be getting called 'Prince' or any other fancy title, even if was a botched version of her actual title. She looked down from her position on Ram's back. "Our intentions are to provide charity for the downtrodden." Technically true. It is charitable to free the slaves of Great Forks, is it not? "I have no intention of unsheathing my blade unless someone attacks me or my guest first and I have no intention of breaching the neutrality of Great Forks. Fear not."

Mostly true. She always gave the slavers a chance to voluntarily free their slaves before she drew her sword. It was more a formality, but she did it. And as for the city's neutrality, she was more grateful for that than anything. She had opted to not cut Moonlight in half because she had gotten her out of a bad spot earlier. Others lacked the motivation to spare her, so it was certainly convenient for them to be in a neutral place where they wouldn't have to deal with that. She didn't want to get in any more fights than necessary. "Are you going to let us in?"

Edited August 1, 2023 by Sarcasticfury (see edit history)

[Valgunn]

The Truant in the Garden of Death

The Truant in the Garden of Death’s bone-white cheeks bulged and blood-red lips struggled to remain together. At the previous stall, she had shoved an entire roast nightjar into her face. Her eyes had been larger than her stomach, and her mouth, but she was determined. If she were a mortal woman she would have choked by now, but she was far from mortal. Empowered by the Void slowly devouring reality she could do the impossible.

Walking the streets of Great Forks, the Truant stared openly at the sights. It was what she had come here for and she didn’t care how much of a tourist it made her look. She expected Waves Under the Night Sky had a greater motive than sightseeing, but the Truant hadn’t bothered to ask. It was enough for her to wander the city and enjoy being a tourist until Waves shared her plans.

The Truant crunched down on the roast nightjar in her mouth, breaking fragile bones between her teeth. She managed to swallow a chunk of it with a loud gulping noise. A slight trickle of juices escaped through her lips and down her chin. She dabbed her mouth with the edge of her tunic. The ghostly craftsman who had woven it from strands of silk and soulsteel would have been horrified.

“You see anywhere selling drinks.” Her voice was muffled by the remaining nightjar but was mostly intelligible. “I’m a bit parched.”

 

[Oceane]

Waves Under The Night Sky

The Infernal turned her eyes upon her gluttonous companion. She had been draped in ceremonious robes both literally and figuratively, throughout their trip across town, her crimson eyes distant as the stars. The line between quiet contemplation and intense brooding was a difficult one to gauge when it came to Waves, but her godly façade cracked ever so slightly to let shine a smile. Beneath, she was cradling her black opal with one hand.

"Right there," she answered, pointing towards a stall decorated with sweet-looking colorful drinks, hidden somewhat behind a crowd tall enough she wondered if Truant could see. In a strange but not unusual double meaning way, she also then pointed the same slender finger at her companion, touching her cheek at the corner of her mouth, in a spot she didn't wipe well enough. She did not betray a single moment of doubt when she next proceeded to clean her finger off, tasting the juice. Roasted and not quite flavored enough. Waves started towards the other shop, heedless of the people in between—they always moved aside—and of what Truant may have had to say about that. "Did you like the bird?" She herself hadn't eaten anything so far.

The question was there, but Waves' mind was not. She tapped her opal with a nail as she went, the noise quieted by the buzzing of life all around, but a perfect echo of harmony to those ears that could hear it. And it gnawed at Waves—she scoured Decadence for the divine halls she was guided towards, yet could only feel a deep longing to return to her bed, and to the Palace held within the gem.

[Valgunn]

The Truant in the Garden of Death

The Truant quickly crushed the bird into a paste of bone, meat, and sinew before swallowing it down completely. “Oh, yeah. Nice and crunchy,” she replied. Watching Waves with eyes as dark as the Abyss, the Truant could see Waves was distracted by something. It was beyond the little assassin’s ken what was distracting them, but not beyond her ken to see it was troubling. She didn’t take it personally. Her mind made up as fast as a shadow, she patted Waves twice on the arm. “One moment, boss,” she said before vanishing, the shadows opening up to welcome her in their dark embrace.

A second later she reappeared at the front of the queue for the decorated stall, slapping down dinars. Some customers were unhappy, but the stall owner was distracted by the glint of the silver. He happily served two drinks into the Truant’s hands before she vanished in her peculiar way again.

Onlookers barely had a moment to process all of that nonsense when the Truant reappeared beside Waves again, birthed by shadows. She held clutched in her hands two of the most saccharine-looking drinks. One was a colour of blue that seemed unnatural with cuts of red and green slashed through, and the other was so bright yellow it was like looking into the sun with flecks of black. The Truant held both out, offering Waves the choice of which drink she’d like, her blood-red lips stretched into a seemingly innocent smile. “Asked for the sweetest ones they had,” she said proudly. “I thought they’d be interesting to try.”

[Oceane]

Waves Under The Night Sky

"Hm?" Waves' interrogation was like a bubble popped in mid-air, with Truant's shadows doing the bursting. The Infernal watched with a smile as the girl got her prize and blinked back to her in an instant.

While she initially held Truant's dark gaze, Waves couldn't help but be compelled by the drinks. They looked so otherworldly. She took her hand off her opal, holding it in the air, humming, weighing this momentous decision appropriately. She decided she liked the black spots the most, versus the colored cuts. "Thank you," she said, bringing the cup up to her face, smelling it closely. Her eyes shot wide, "Oh, very fragrant. I can smell the sugar!"

Before she drank however, she pulled her head back, and proffered her drink to her companion. "Cheers, Truant."

[Valgunn]

The Truant in the Garden of Death

The Truant smiled at the sight of Waves’ little bubble of introspection popping. Her lips parted ever so slightly, showing a sliver of bone-white teeth and an unnaturally sharp incisor. “Cheers.” She tapped her frighteningly yellow drink against Waves’ before slurping down some.

Immediately one eye began twitching and she stuck out her tongue.

“Gah! I thought that was going to be banana!” She stared intently at the remaining yellow semi-liquid. “What is this?” She slurped some more up. Her eye twitched again. “Definitely no banana in this. Maybe langka?” Another slurp. Another eye twitch. “There’s strawberries in it, though.” She eyed one of the green bits. “No idea what the green is.” Looking back at Waves, she shook her head. “What about yours?”

Edited August 19, 2023 by Valgunn (see edit history)

[Oceane]

Waves Under The Night Sky

Waves' amusement only grew at Truant's bemusement. She was so expressive for a dead girl.

At her prompting, Waves took a sip of her own.

"Mm," was her first reaction. It felt so fresh—now that she'd tasted it, she smelled the mint hiding behind the sugar. She licked her lips, nodding. "There's mint in this." She drank again, and a slight blue tinge survived another lip licking. "I'm surprised. It smells like too much sweetening, yet tastes very light... I like it." She extended the glass to Truant. "Want to try?"

[Valgunn]

The Truant in the Garden of Death

The Truant didn’t even wait for the glass to be offered. It wasn’t clear if she had thought about trying it before or simply had no hesitation. Either way, a large gulp of Waves’ drink had vanished, slain by the thirsts of the Truant.

She didn’t make any faces this time, just licked her blood-red lips thoughtfully. “Yup,” she announced with a nod. “Definitely what I thought it was.” She finished her glass very quickly after that, with no further twitching. “You about done?”

[Naimless]

Moonlight on the Riverbend

Seated behind the sword-bearing Prince, the white-haired woman batted her eyes prettily at the smooth-faced guard. "Good sir." She all-but purred. "Surely a Prince may travel wheresoever he wishes in this great land, and be welcomed with open arms?" She asked the guard, her gaze focused solely on the man barring their path. "A hero of the realm such as her is surely welcome in Great Forks?" She continued, her voice sliding through the air like silk on bare skin.

 

"But." She pauses, letting me moment drown in the honey of her tone. "I suppose it is fair to question at least my presence." She admits. "I am my Prince's guest. As she is the sun, I am the moon, and her grace and peacefulness is reflected by me in kind."

[Sarcasticfury]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dancing White Flame

She's awfully poetic. It almost sounds romantic, the way she says it. Though for as much as Moon called her the sun, she had to admit that she'd be worse off without her had she not encountered her while on a raid, to say nothing of being much lonelier. Though clearly, Dancing White Flame was hardly the wordsmith that her traveling partner was. Being one of the Princes of the World, she didn't need to develop a talent for diplomacy in order to get what she wanted, as her privilege was good enough. She imagined that Moonlight didn't have such fortune.

"As eloquent as always, Moonlight. You make a worthy companion for a Prince. Now, will my companion and I be allowed through, or are more questions required of us?" She really tried to hide her impatience.

 

Edited October 10, 2023 by Sarcasticfury (see edit history)

[Savine]

4 The guard eyed the two and the beast for a beat before pulling a kerchief from underneath his polished thorax. He looked towards the other guards, who were just as fresh-faced as him, and wiped his brow. “Of course, of course...” Stepping aside and walking around Ram's massive girth, the guard waved them through. Massive, erect stacks of polished white stone with matrices of smooth marble snaking between them and binding them together. Many have heard the tales of Great Forks and its founding by the gods, almost in challenge to Heaven's prescripts. The city's miraculous wall, so perfect in cut, so impossible in constitution, enveloped Flame and Moon as they passed its open gates.

Inside, the duo followed the stream of populace that was quickly converging together as the main road constricted upon itself with obviously unplanned, makeshift stalls, carpets, and tables lining the street with vendors shouting out their wares. Textiles. Woodcraft. Musical instruments. The western entrance Moon and Flame entered began bombarding them with pitches and shouts in all kinds of languages and dialects. Ram snorted in frustration as more people were forced to rub shoulders against his side.

But then, a quiet fell upon the district, a sudden drop in temperature catching everyone off guard. Their words lost in their now visible exhalations.

A flurry of snow falls all at once, a torrential blanket of frost crashing upon everyone. Everyone Flame and Moon had entered the city with shouted in panic at the sudden meteorological turn, but the vendors and others who seemed unperturbed simply drew out umbrellas from nearby to shield them from the now incessant snowfall.

Moon atop of the now shivering Ram scanned the situation, her preternatural senses picking up on the tiniest of details, and saw a solitary snowflake flutter in the vortex of gusts. Out of the ineffable amount of snow and flurry, this one stood out in shape and brilliance: perfectly symmetrical with its arms breaking out into a multitude of crescents leading into a trefoil core. The snowflake glides just out of reach before an updraft of wind shoots it back into the sky.

And just like that, Flame and Moon find themselves in a scene straight out of the North.

 

***

 

5 The normal hustle and bustle of the Beehive retreated as a heavy blanket of snow enveloped the city. For Truant and Waves, such phenomena had become routine for the last month and, as such, merely presented an inconvenience as the cool drinks in their stomachs suddenly felt misplaced in such a climate. Many of the vendors sensing the same started closing up shop, unwilling to stand in the freezing cold with their already blackening fruits frosting over. With so many options closing up shop, the duo found themselves by themselves in the district.

At least until they were greeted with the soft footfall approaching them from behind.

Waves and Truant turned to find Markhis, another follower of Waves', stopping just outside of speaking distance from the pair. From the look of his snowprints, both could tell he had been running up to them but had slowed down to a humble creep the closer he got. His face ran hot with sweat, and his thinning hair had been whipped out of place from his hying. "Mistress!" he collapsed to the snow in obeisance, "Foul tidings. Our shrine—" Markhis whimpered, preparing for his goddess' wrath at ill fortune. When no retribution came, he looked up at the Green Sun Prince and her companion corpse for a sign to continue. "Our shrine has been blasphemed by a cult." He spat out that last word like a curse.

Waves stood over the supplicant, her hand still held aloft as if carrying the beverage that Truant had swiped. She should have been focusing on Markhis, but something behind him caught her eye. A snowflake of impeccable construction swayed back and forth through the air. Dozens of interlocking curves branched off from one another like tiny slivers of the moon carved from the flake's fractal pattern. Caught in an updraft, the mote captured the light just right, refracting colors that, in one moment, evoked a regal purple, as if it had been kept locked in a crypt, and in the next, a blazing white, akin to what can only be forged at the end of an unwinnable war.

[Valgunn]

The Truant in the Garden of Death

The edges of Truant's blood-red lips twitched slightly and a frown briefly formed on her face. "That sucks," she said irreverently, tossing her glass aside where it shattered into a dozen sharp fragments that glittered in the light. "Things had been going so well, too." It seemed as though she were talking about the defilement of Waves' shrine and the impediment to the steady expansion of her religion, but the Truant was more concerned for Waves' mental state. What a waste of silver, she thought as she imagined the salubrious effects of the fruity drink on Waves draining away in the face of this set back.

[Oceane]

Waves Under The Night Sky

"What cult?"

The distance in Waves' voice was notable. But she always sounded distant, as if looking to something else in the horizon that nobody could see, communicating with beings nobody could hear. Still, there was nuance to distance, and right this moment she was ebbing. "Details, Markhis," she commanded, touching the man's forehead with the palm of her hand, then circling the side of his jaw and pulling on his chin upwards—a usual gesture that notified he should rise.

Yet never did she look upon him, her eyes fixated upon the snowflake.

She sidestepped her faithful even as he spoke, and reached out for the shining beacon in the air.