Entangled Heavens

[Ardamovic 6]

ENTANGLED HEAVENS

a story on lex' excursion to insanity

 

"Τὶ δύσκολον; Τὸ ἑαυτὸν γνῶναι."
 

 

 

Golden light filters through the Petran Autumn forests. Lex sits, as usual, at his guard post, flicking through his logbook, memorizing important identification numbers and names between glances downward, vigilant for any shadow that might have slipped past unseen.

 

But as the sun begins its slow surrender, restlessness takes hold. His foot taps the copper grates in rhythmic staccato, noticed by travelers, and his fellow levymen can tell by the way he asks his questions that he is itching to end his shift.

 

When at last this day his shift ends, he flicks the logbook closed and makes his way to his chambers. His desk looks messy from having drawn a few pictures, some scrapped and scrunched, thrown below the table to make space for new ones. This is not his nature; Lex is tidy, precise. But for weeks now, he has been a man possessed. He cannot wait to mount Lightning, his noble white, and lose himself in the velvet dark of night. His Petran-issued armor glimmers in the moonlight as if one has trapped the very essence of the moon in the steel that rests upon this elf's body. His hand wanders to one of his two swords on occasion, carefully checking if it remains in place—and it always does—yet still he checks, again and again.

 

Amberdell sleeps.

 

Lex removes his shoes with ceremonial care, bare feet silent against cobblestone as he ghosts through the village, a giant among the smallfolk, careful not to wake a single soul. To any stranger, this would seem the behavior of a thief, but the elf they call a "biggun" seeks only knowledge, not trouble.

 

Yet trouble comes regardless.

 

Lex quietly sneaks into the town hall, then sits before the bookshelf detailing halfling culture. He reads page after page, sometimes prone, sometimes standing, sometimes kneeling—yet his gaze remains fixed on the words before him, and he soaks them up. He has waited for such a getaway for a while. A creak on the stairs.

 

Eyes meet across the silence. A halfling, descending. The first thing to pull Lex from his reverie in hours.

 

The halfling is not overjoyed by the fact that a stinky elf has come to visit, and Lex is surprised to find a halfling roaming the town hall at this time of day—though he fails to realize that night has already turned to day, that he has spent more than plenty of time reading, yet not enough to quench his thirst for knowledge.

 

After some verbal trickery, at which Lex is particularly adept, he is let off the hook. The shovel prepared to assault him is luckily not used, and he could return to reading—or so he thinks. A faint bell rings, yet the particular sound is unmistakable. Cerulia has rung its bells, and Amberdell is in disarray.

One halfling after another rushes to see what is going on, Lex and the previously met halfling joining them. As Lex passes by the library, the other halfling gives a knock at the door. A small figure emerges from the burrow, giving Lex a puzzled yet warm look. When their eyes meet, Lex simply says, "Don't mind me," hoping the figure will not think anything odd of him, seeing this particular elf here without prior notice.
 

The three, amongst others, run along the coastline, their feet sinking into warm sand, the elf's armor now shining in the sun instead, clanking with each step. Slight waves can be heard. Just past the halfway mark: movement beneath the sand. A vine erupts, twists and turns around his ankles first, then his knees, and Lex runs harder, but he is running in place, trapped in some nightmare of tanglewood potions and paralysis. Each step feeds the growth. It coils around his thighs, his waist, his chest, and still he fights forward until it reaches his throat. It has fully ensnared him and is slowly wringing every drop of life out of him. He quickly understands that he will soon be unable to breathe if he does not act. His fingers tear at the vine, and thorns bloom beneath his touch, piercing palms and neck alike. Droplets of blood running down the vine invigorate it, and crimson-red roses blossom from it, in exchange for Lex's life.

 

The world softens at its edges, a white veil drawn across reality. The others fade into silhouettes, then nothing. He tries to scream but no sound escapes. The tranquil waves turn into blood rushing through his ears, and tears track down his pale cheeks as he realizes, amidst his last breaths, that there were words unspoken he had wished to speak earlier. Offering a last look at the white veil above, it slowly fades to dawn, then a few stars can be seen dancing their farewell performance, twinkling out one by one.

 

Though Lex will not remember, he eventually sees a handful of images.

 

He first sees the moment he held a lesson for his fellow levymen in the strategies of fighting darkspawn. He hears the darkspawn creeping up outside the Petran gates to interrupt his lesson, and he even tastes the beer they enjoyed after successfully banishing the darkspawn threat thereafter.

 

 

The second image is different. It is a snapshot of a very particular moment in his life, though he sees it differently than it truly was.

 

He sees himself in front of a gate, his hand resting on the shoulder of the figure next to him in an apologetic manner. With chestnut brown hair and a clip in its hair, it allows the hand not only to rest, but puts a hand of its own atop of his. The environment sounds like paper burning to ashes in such a violent manner, one would think a library had been razed. To an outsider this snapshot would look like a conciliation, but his true feelings—perhaps even the reality-true moment—have been replaced and locked up in a place even Lex's current state cannot force to display.

 

 

The third and last image is the most different of them all.

 

It is merely a book. A particularly large one, yet still one that would go unnoticed in a library for decades, centuries, perhaps even a millennium. Within it: his journeys, failures, victories. Buddies and "buddies." Things left behind.

 

And, as it is not fully filled, it holds stories yet untold. But the book is shut. And there is nothing else to it.

 

 

Consciousness returns to Lex as if no time has passed. Lex stands in the Voidal Forest. For the second time in his life. This time naked, glittering dust clinging to his skin like fallen constellations, a sword gripped tightly in his hand—an inscription telling him to return safely. He stares at the Obelisk and it understands what Lex wants to know, and sometimes it responds in a hum that resonates deep within his chest, and the answer to his questions appears in his head, though he does not truly understand. He stands and stares for a while. A day. Perhaps even two. At maximum three. He asks himself, and by extension the Obelisk, if he has died. He vividly remembers being choked to death just a mere blink of an eye ago, yet he feels the air on his skin and smells the pungent yet pleasant greenery around. He can hear a small stream and his feet are pricked by gravel. If he had died, he would not be here—yet a man so curious must ask. But the Obelisk does not respond, nor does it to any of his questions about his friends' wellbeing, the reason for him being here, the dust, or even what time it is. It only answers when it wants, and the answers are too shallow to make real sense.

 

He has been here before. Mysterious things happened then, too.

 

He knows how to get home, but he does not take it. Shame roots him. How could he return to the levy without armor? What if his halfling acquaintances met a similar fate, yet were not so fortunate to awake in the Voidal Forest? Curiosity burns to find out why this place, why the sparkly dust, why his sword—and why does the Obelisk speak to him?

 

But most notably, this man who built his life around evidential and factual studies has suddenly experienced something he has not read about, cannot explain, nor properly study. Something that defies all logic he built his life around.

 

The book of the previous Lex has been shut tight. No chapter would find a fitting explanation or transition to carry on with the story. In its place a seed has been planted, an ember has lit a fire, and a ball has been set in motion rolling down an infinite slope. The elf started to believe, and with it, he started to question the very plane he walked on.

 

Lex spends the next days foraging, building himself a small shelter, and watching the stars. He even manages to create a makeshift notebook in which he journals, to keep track of time. He eats all sorts of mushrooms and plants and drinks from the same little spring in which he washes himself. He even speaks to the Obelisk in increasingly casual tones, treating it as a companion to help him on what has suddenly become an outdoor vacation. Days turn to weeks, weeks turn to months, and months turn into a year. Insanity creeps in like morning fog, and he forgets his duties, his friends, and even the bouquet of buttercups and tulips he had been diligently caring for.

 

Only realizing that the amount of entries in his journal matches the guard logbook identification number of a person whose entry he looked at more than a handful of times on that fateful day makes him pause and glance over his camp. He has become the prince of this kingdom of madness. He grabs a bundle of mushrooms and greenery sitting in a cup of water, then walks over and picks out one of the bottles in his tent. He holsters his sword, throws the bottle on his belt next to his notebook, and starts walking. His slow stride turns into a jog, and eventually he runs. He runs and does not look back once, gaze fixed on the horizon. And again, tears flow, the corners of his mouth pull down uncontrollably as if gravity has taken hold of them, and he stumbles and trips a few times, unable to properly see amidst the blur caused by the tears. He runs as if he has forgotten something or someone, and he does not stop until he arrives in front of the door, ready to say the things he has waited to say for way too long. His hand extends, shaking. Fear lives in his fingers. But hope lives there too, like a small, defiant musin against a cat.

 

The changed man knocks.

 

Edited March 24 by Ardamovic

[SharpString 429]

Off in Riviénse, a bearded man would soon be happy to see his dear friend once again.