GREEN
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1140 6.38 KB 92
1140 6.38 KB 92
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>You can still feel her head against your chest.
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>As Discord finishes his story, you bring your hand to where Noire’s head was.
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>The hand passes through, planting your palm against your beating heart.
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>You open your eyes to see Discord leaning back into shadow, sparing you the sight of his monstrous face.
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“I…”
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>His yellow-and-red eyes narrow.
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“I remember.”
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>”Do you?”
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>You nod.
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>He steeples bony fingers before him. “Good.”
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>You look around, more to take your eyes off him than out of any curiosity
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>The log cabin around you has more defined features now.
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>Hints of color.
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>You recognize it, now.
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>You look to the floor away from the chairs and the table around which you and Discord sat.
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>Between those windows was a chimney, a fireplace at its base.
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>Between that fireplace and the table the Ember illuminated is a wide stone floor.
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>A pattern is carved into it an arc, vaguely-quadrangular forms at regular intervals.
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>When the Ember’s light glints off them, you can see those forms are orange, unlike the dark floor proper.
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>The pattern you had Noire etch into the central stone platform of your home on the Island.
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>This was that same home, then.
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>”No. Only a memory of it.”
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>You look back to Discord.
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>”And not your memory either. Mine.”
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>He waves a hand back at the floor.
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>You follow it, looking at the stone pattern more closely.
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>You’d left the three sockets at the bottom of the arc empty.
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>They were supposed to represent the three pieces of Noire’s crown she placed inside the world-machine to grant it magic.
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>Here, however, is different.
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>Here they are filled.
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>Just like the others, flat-topped orange crystals fill the three once-emptysockets, now looking strange without the darker arc in the stone passing through them.
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>Not right.
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>”Just like the rest of it. Nothing right.”
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>You look back at Discord.
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“I thought you said there was nothing at all, here.”
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>”I speak of what this used to be. MY memory. This last gasp of reality’s defiance against the void, but within it the reason for reality’s collapse. It wasn’t RIGHT.”
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>He shouts that last word, punctuating it with a bang of his fist against an arm of his chair.
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>But as soon as that flash of anger came on, it’s gone again, and he settles back into shadow.
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>”And with my first story concluded, perhaps you may surmise why.”
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>The Ember twinkles, drawing your eye to it as you think.
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“Because of me. You said it was my fault.”
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>One of Discord’s eyes twitched, and he didn’t immediately reply.
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>You look back at the stone square in the floor.
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>So many memories, now.
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>What had happened here?
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>Where’s Noire?
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>”I suppose we have not gotten far enough, yet. You have more lifetimes to recall. It will make your punishment all the more painful.”
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>You look back at him, at his once again narrowed eyes.
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“I could have bought that I was responsible for this before, when I knew nothing. But now I can’t see how that might be. I made this place just as much as she did. She made it for me. How could I have destroyed it?”
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>Discord sighs and turns his head, gazing through what you know to be a doorway into the library.
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>”You loved to write, didn’t you?”
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“Was that it?”
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>”Yes and no.”
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“That’s not very helpful.”
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>”The truth rarely is.”
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“Please, I’d like to understand. I don’t want to brush this off.”
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>You shake your head.
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“You have me hooked, now. Whatever happened here, I have to know.”
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>”If you looked in there now, you’d see some books you wouldn’t remember being there. Later additions. Some by your hand, some by others.”
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”Did they not heed my advice? Everything I wrote, I wrote to protect them from my people’s mistakes.”
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>”Learned as you may have become, you were not omniscient. And that learning matters little if you don’t remember it.”
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>The shock hits you.
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“I came back here. In another life.”
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>A white glint reflecting the Ember’s light; the creature before you grins.
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>”Yet a quick study you remain. Good. This will be smoother than I feared.”
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“I came back and I wrote another book. But what knowledge from my home could have destroyed reality?”
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>”Oh, I’m certain this wouldn’t have been possible where you’re from. But here’s the thing about knowledge: It’s never one way.”
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“I was afraid of that.”
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>”Hmm?”
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“Of others coming and screwing everything up with what they weren’t ready for. That’s why Noire encrypted so many of them.”
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>”But not the one you wrote later. Your magnum opus.”
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“What could I have done?”
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>You realize the question can be taken two different ways as soon as it’s out of your mouth.
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>Discord chews on it for a few moments.
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>Literally, almost; you can see the silhouette of his jaw working.
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>When he speaks, it’s not to answer.
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>”Every mystery is a problem to solve, for you. Its solution is understanding. But once you obliterate the mystery with understanding, you can never go back. If the mystery was important, its sudden absence is a new flaw. No longer bound by it, others may use that understanding for something terrible.”
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>He spreads his arms now, indicating their sorry shadow of an environment. “Mystery and magic are the same. If wholly understood, it is merely physics by other means.”
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“So I… solved for magic?”
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>A twinkle lights Discord’s eyes, but he doesn’t reply.
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“What about… She made a child. A… a son. What about him? What happened to him?”
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>”You will learn, in time.”
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“Who was he?”
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>Discord recoiled as if slapped. That grim glee you could discern from the shadows is wiped off his face in an instant, and he looks away to a distant corner of the room.
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>”Yes. Who WAS he? So long ago even I can hardly remember.”
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>When his eyes fix yours again, they’re softer.
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>”I think that is something you should tell me, rather than the other way around.”
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“But I can’t remember. Not yet. You haven’t told that story yet.”
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>”Then maybe I shall begin now. It will answer some other questions for you as well, even some you don’t know you have yet. Your punishment can wait until after.”
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“Did he-”
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>But Discord holds up a hand to stop you, again looking away.
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>”We shall do this properly. Let us allow the story to refresh both our memories. Your first return was not as auspicious as your first arrival, but once again your kindness shone through to the first being you met…”
by E4-NG
by E4-NG
by E4-NG
by E4-NG
by E4-NG