The Marches. Asgard.
Closely fitted black rocks of stone just high into the mists of the Marches. Sleek and smooth, the stones seem more like blocks of onyx now, instead of something more natural as they may have once been.
This was Asgard, the high world of Norse dreams. Beyond the stone, a flowery landscape wafts a sweet scented season, as if spring eternally expects summer. Asgard's fields resemble smooth green lawns, kept cropped by herds of deep red cows and woolly sheep, and its forests are home to bountiful deer and song birds.
Beyond it all, a large hall opens, vaulted ceilings of shields and beams of spears unfathomable. Valhalla, it was once called, with 540 doors, each allowing 800 great warriors to enter. It is still the grandest keep, a place prepared for those who will do battle at Ragnarok.
A bit away, keen eyes see the clouds open to the hall Valaskjalf, where Hildskjalf rises. Odin's very throne. He is not there now, such the way of many of the Old Ones, who now live in The Marches.
Going onward is simple. A thought, and the mist covers Asgard again, and the bridge Bifrost appears, ready to let traveller pass along.
There are sentries in the mist. Sentinels of wary, black eyes, whose attention turns with the sudden black feather tilt of a head. Lined upon boughs of the trees of Asgard, a murder of ravens keeps watch upon the green. Rooks and crooks and dreamers and thieves...
You're not surprised --
It is impossible for the Creator to be so and any who dwell in Its favor, close to Its bosom...
-- that I have come here to wallow in you...
Gone are the black wings, the black beak, the black talons. Gone the rough and gravelly voice, the hopping upon the green lawn of Asgard. He strolls now in vestments made of starlight and nebulae, his dusky face dusty with brushing constellations. Shimmer and swirl, the Herald's a-walking...
A moment while strolling, a moment taken for himself. Oh, is that the first sign of falling? Dreamers have felt him, and he has moved among them, but now... just now...
A moment for Galadriel...
"Well," comes the voice of a young man. He has appeared from nowhere, and presumably one of the Marches' regular dwellers. The young man laughs, sitting on a nearby crag now, his blondish hair falling at his eyes and upon the nape of his rough-hewn shirt.
You have seen him. One of the few of the Aesir left upon the Marches, their worshippers long gone. In a former existence, he was Loge, the most glorious of the Norsemen. It is much to say that he still remains. Some essence still swirling in the World for him.
"I wouldn't have thought I'd see you here," he quirks, amused with the notion. Golden eyes are tinted with the sunlight he once knew.
Suddenly, he is on the ground, not so far away. "Isn't there a rule or something right now...that you can't be here alone?" He clucks his tongue, chuckling contentedly to himself. "Ah, wait. I get you all confused sometimes."
He looks well, Loki does. Something agrees with him these days. When so many of the Others have gone, he perseveres. Unafraid. "To think. You've come to Asgard..."
"I am not alone, Loge. Where do I go that my Father is not with me?"
Ah, now that's divine logic! You remember yourself, Herald -- to pluck logic convenient like full grapes upon a lush vine...
"...and, yes... to Asgard. What mead-hall could compare to it. And here... where else?... to find a grouping of those I call my cousins," a spreading of his hand, a sweeping gesture to ravens sitting upon the bough of a great tree. Nine such ravens. But be they cousins, I wonder. I would know your servants, Beleth. I know a raven from a writing desk...
"No, no, you have me fairly caught, Loge," and with a shimmer his aspect, his image changes. To something of a bard he once was once upon a time on earth. Rough wool dyed red, with browns and greys. With dark hair that never once belonged to Saxon or to Norseman, but to Eire. At least it was always his preference. Hands lace behind his back, and a harp plucks, song created with the motion. "I left my guards behind, like a rascal. They wait for me, where I must, in time, return to them," whatever Time is, or whatever it matters here. "Asgard... suits me. Where better for One to come when One needs to feel..."
Galadriel beams suddenly, but quietly. "Brave..."
Loge grins, bottom lip pulling up in high snark. "No need to flatter Old One-Eye...he isn't around. At least not at the moment." Loki looks around the lawn and then to the ravens. "You can do better than Asgard, Herald -- your bravery won't be tested here. Go to the other Tower, if you wish to be so emboldened."
"So, what's it like to have a leash?" Loki goes on. "You knew it had to be just a matter of time before they slapped one around you..."
"A leash, Loge? It is not a leash..."
Curls move before his eyes and silver glitters in response to your gold. "Not all endeavors end as one may expect. Or even wish. But the matter is in moton, and Right has been served. It is greater than I." All of it. "A leash? A leash... what does it have to do with the Greater Good, Loge..."
This is not a debate that should be had with Loki. Or any debate for that matter. In this, I am out-matched. Yes, I. Herald of Blandine, Archangel of Dreams. Galadriel the matchless... out-matched.
The vision of the Dark Age bard shimmer to a fade, a flapping of violet wings, the dust of the universe sparkling to the green lawn of Asgard. "But you are right. I will admit I stand a coward in Asgard..." Fingers lace together and Galadriel is in slow motion, strolling... when he wants to be somewhere else, he simply will be...
That makes Loki's golden brows rise. "Well. They have so tamed you," he sighs, almost honestly. "You used to be...so different. Almost worthwhile," he chuckles, brows opening. "Too bad. I say that's Dominic's fault."
"Blame, Loge... that is for bards to lay," Galadriel notes, a pause, a glance over his shoulder. I dare not say a word of Dominic. For him there is nothing. No enmity. No love. Just sudden evenness. "But, it saddens me, Old Flame," he twists in his speaking, turning to face you with wings unfurled, "... that I only once crested the edge of Your Worthwhile. No rings then?" violet brows cock upward. "No shiny stones? No tribute fair? Good health to you, Loge."
I want to be in the garden...
And violet slips among the mist...
I should work. I should be tending dreams.
And he is surrounded by fountains, flowers and shining stones...
Mistress of the Nighttime Hours. O Lord of Midnight Visions. I am home...
The tower does indeed swirl about you, forming from the nothingness that is.
At your feet, a glint of red-gold. A circlet for the brow. Something Loki himself would wear once upon a time.
"Herald!" cries a voice, a young angel looking a little surprised. He is standing near another, a conversation halted in surprise. They both turn and bow, keeping their eyes low. "Um...we did not expect you," they say, trying to see the glinting thing beneath drawn lids.
Behold, a trinket...
O, how the smallest things bring... such joy. Such joy. A trinket. A prize. A treasure for the Herald. It is not the 'thing' of it...not even the shine of it... but it is the giving of it. A missing part of him, that trickster spirit that should laugh madly and place the circlet on his head with a yawlp of praise, is nowhere to be found. But the Herald Once Ribald and Blithe is now touched and misty. "Good," the Herald says as he bends to lift the circlet, "that means I am not so out of practice. I wonder... where is my guard?" Rising, Galadriel pivots but he does not look from the circlet. He looks to it, holds it, pulls it to him, and then promptly drops it into a pocket in his vestments. And then to you both, hands on hips and wings lifted. "I will not ask... it is not fair," Galadriel says, "...to ask where your rivals hide when you are fast in a game of hide-and-seek..."
Is he serious?
Playing a game with Michael's guards?
The two angels look up and at each other, scant shadows in their ethereal forms. One a snake. Seraphim. The other? A motley set of eyes and formless waves. Kyriotate. "Um..." the snake responds first, "...I think...he is talking to Demuriel," he motions. The Keeper of Dreams. Sometimes on loan to Yves. "In the Spindle Hall."
The Kyriotate shifts aimlessly, expressing agreement in a series of chimes.
Finger to mouth...
How many times has this been seen?
...the Herald starts a smile that does not finish. A smirk. A curve of something Him that is Answer and Riddle in the same expression. Ask no questions, and I will tell you a secret.
And there are secrets in this universe, and Mysteries...
I will say nothing -- O, let you say nothing too...
In vestments of constellations, wings of violet, dusky visage dusted with remains of comets, the molten silver of which comprise his eyes, the Herald turns from the younger Seraphim and Kyriotate, finger pressed to spreading mouth. He does not say a word. Sometimes, that is the best way to handle Truth...
Mistress of Dreams...
Master of the Mirrors of the Universe...
I have eluded my guard. O, delight! O, it has been so long...
So long since I have felt this free...
The young Seraphim nods -- all seven eyes blinking. The Kyriotate shifts, most seeming to bob in obedience. They peer at each other, and the Seraphim asks, "Is there...anything...we can get you, Herald?" Otherwise, we will depart.
Silently, on alabaster wings strung with lapis, Demuriel wends his way in. Raising his ophidian head, he peers at Galadriel, a bit distractedly, with cerulean eyes. Like Quetzelcoatl in the snow, the angel makes his way, stately and sinuously, across the interving nonspace, watching the Herald. Perhaps amused, perhaps bored; the serpent's face is difficult to read.
And now another arrives. The two youths swivel and bow quickly, as if they have seen the older angel recently. "Keeper," they chime across the Symphony, acknowledging his presence.
Demuriel inclines his long head gracefully. "Galadriel," he says, his voice low and sibilant, not like steam, but like the rustle of grass in the wind. "What brings you here?"
"O, no... no, I need for nothing... only to dwell in the favor of the Creator and to swim in Blandine's fountains..." Lightened by the sudden lacking of escort -- for he had expected to be met by Michael's four-headed Chaldean lions the very moment he entered -- he rubs his hands together, then lifts the three globes that hang at his waist. Spheres rotated, chiming, by nimble fingers...
And he turns...
...as if he shall, in the very next moment, take a running slide against the polished stone of the Tower that Is And Is Not...
...but the Cherub Herald holds, his fingers stilling. The hematite globes halting their revolution. The chiming falling to the hush. And the elation that had bubbled up in a moment of mischievous liberty quiets once more. And the Herald's wings outspread, violet. His head inclining. "Answering dreams, Keeper. Visiting the Marches. Testing Logic with Loge. Receiving tribute from Norsemen. Hoping to see, Blandine." And enjoying a moment of Not Being Watched...
Scales of light ripple as the Keeper swims through the aether. "Trying to avoid more trouble by daring it to cross your path?" Demuriel wonders idly. Slowly he turns, rainbows cascading from his belly, soft sighs of feathers against the ground.
Okay, this is where we leave.
The two younger angels bob themselves again, the young Seraphim giving a secondary nod to the Keeper. They quickly turn and float out towards the Gardens, removing themselves from the chimes of elders.
"I know of no other way," comes the reply so even, it must be True. But then, you would, of all, know that, wouldn't you. It is simple, this truth. It rings softly. The globes rest again, idle and silent, and the Herald laces hands behind his back. "I have a love for paradox, Keeper. Almost as great as my love of the dreams of cats and dogs, horses and birds..."
Simple. Purely.
"Paradox," Demuriel pronounces gravely, "is the mother of all creation. Dreams are not -- yet they are all, yes?" He doesn't wait for a response before moving around, behind Galadriel, and back to the front. The length of his ice-white body trails behind, forming a less than protective circle around the younger celestial. He tilts his head, leaning just over Galadriel's shoulder, looking where Galadriel looks. "And what is this I see before me?"
It is the shifting of Matter. Formless shapes that shift, carving out a new space. A new understanding. It so easy to do so. Think...and it Is.
"A wandering Star," comes His voice, Blandine standing...in his own part of the Tower. With you both there. From Him, stardust falls, tiny comets in a microcosm of a Universe.
It is his Throne Room, a vast space with no limits. The open galaxy itself so intimately held. To the left...a gaseous green world far away and nearby. A dark hole to the right, swirling up the last of some light.
He turns, and the flakes of Time fall away from his dark cloak. A cone it is, drawn up at his neck. Yet on it...the patterns of String Theory. The Truth of It All.
Hers smile for Galadriel. A favorite not seen in some nights. Days. Months. Ages.
And for the Keeper, a slanted smirk, as if the Archangel has been reading minds.
"How could I not be Here," there "...where two of my Oldest Are?"
I find myself at home among wandering bits of stars, galactic refugees hurtling in their own way. From orbital pull to orbital pull. Among stars, a part of the heavens and yet owned by not just one star. To go as it wills, so long as the greater universe wills it to will such a thing in the first place. Put a comet in a box and it becomes a rock...
A wandering star... this suits me best of all...
"I shall defer to Keeper to matters of Age, My Master and Mistress of Sleeping Hours Unending. Age before beauty, the humans say. I have lost a battle of wits with Loge of Asgard... I fear my wit is dull as the round stones at my waist. How I am rusty..."
Narrowing turquoise eyes at the Herald beside him, Demuriel stretches out, coils about a random fleck of stellar matter, and sinks his nose in, breathing deeply the astral savor. "Your wit has never been in question, I think," the serpent purrs. He lives up to his name, looking to Blandine for support or disputation, the lapis-tipped plumes that tip his tail becoming momentarily mired in the fever dreams of a dying child.
"What?" Blandine glances between you both, finally settling his gaze at Kit. "You lost against Loge? Did you keep quiet?" Bah.
And suddenly, Blandine sits upon his throne.
"It is, I will say, a delight for all that you are here, Herald. Everyone speaks of you and hopes you are well in your duties..."
"Sometimes Truth is kind," comes the soft, symphonic reply. Sometimes. And he smiles at it, the mirrors of his armor, reflecting the dreams of Multitudes, shimmering. "And yes, I am humbled. Loge spoke of Dominic and leashes, and my Master I found I had ...strangely...for once... and possibly the last time ever... nothing to say. I kept quiet."
Molten silver eyes glance to Demuriel. "A day and a night and a time out of time for Paradox, yes?"
There is no breath, but there is a lifting and a lowering of violet wings. A physical sigh, and exhalation of sorts. "I belong here, My Master. I am reminded whenever I am able to return. I am endeavoring to work as much as possible here..." Where I am strong...
Where the leash, if you will, is not so profoundly felt...
"I hope my duties please..."
Looking at his reflections in Kit's armor, Demuriel becomes lost, transfixed by the galaxies of his faces. At Blandine's words, he flicks a single unblinking eye to his lord, and says, "There is not time for Paradox, only the paradox of time, lost, gone, exhausted, unending. So much written, so much unsaid."
"You have been in Yves' stacks too long," Blandine half-frowns. It is not a change in his expression as much as it is a dimming of some light. But it lasts not long. Deprecating humor for the Keeper. It is all Blandine has these days.
"Not long enough..." the Keeper whispers, and falls silent.
"In fact, both of you sound as if you keep his counsel," Blandine adds observantly. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you, but it can make conversation...melancholy. "Do either of you visit Novalis' gardens?" Do anything for fun? "If not, perhaps...time..." not something Blandine really understands, "...spent there would be...pleasant."
"Not while I'm here," O, for he who protests so much for a loss of Logic, there is sudden, cheerful debate. "No time for Paradox? I shall make Time, as Time is a substance made of Distance and Rate... I shall craft Hours and Minutes, wrap them in a box of riddles and slap a bow on it. It shall be called Time for Paradox."
"I do not think I am permitted to go to the Library, but the gardens... hmmm..." The ribald mouth puckers in Thought. "I have not been to Novalis' gardens I do not think ever. Do you think she would mind too terribly the presence of the Lions Who Must Go With Me Everywhere?"
Rings of Saturn light at Blandine's brows as he catches Demuriel. "What keeps you from the stacks? Either of you?" He seems surprised at the notion. "Even Michael's servants walk the floors, with their library passes..." another attempt at humor!
Sniffing disdainfully, Demuriel chooses not to get the joke. He merely watches bubbles of soulstuff, rising from a sinking ship somewhere in the Aegean, then is distracted again by the flow of young spirits back to earth, watching them hover about a hotel for newlyweds in Japan. "Novalis' gardens. I like them. So much to smell, and so many delightful stems and shrubs are there to rub the spots I can't itch." As if he could itch. "Yet, I grow bored of so much growth without decay. Unbalanced, I think. Better to wander Yves' halls and hunt for secrets."
"O heaven! Delight! They can read... one would never know for all the adventures that have been proposed to me. Climbing, My Master, the very summits of earth, as if I did not know that I could fly...I do not see the point of the exercise. The fighting. I am no good at it. I get too philosophical and then end up on the floor with a sore jaw..."
A dusky hand makes a wave, but the humor gets a second look. This is an unforeseen happenstance -- as all happenstances are, what a thing to say -- that my falling of wit should be lifted by my own Most Subtle Master. "I do not dare go to the Library now for fear of lecturing..."
But then Galadriel is grabbed for a moment of Thought and Consideration. A lift of a hand, a scratch to the dusky chin. "Hmmm... but Demuriel... has touched upon something. To scratch an itch. Perhaps I should lie in the grass, put flowers in my hair and sing songs of love. Soldekai should be amused."
And just where is that Archangel these days and nights and months and forever?
In one of his typical quicksilver shifts of mood, Demuriel looks now at Kit with the simulacra of spectacles depending ridiculously from his nose, and he taps his tail tip on a lectern. "Stay to the quiet rooms," he suggests. "They have the best food, at any rate. Little mice that carry plagues of literacy and bugs that hear all the whimpering of the world. Wonderful place. I strongly suggest cross referencing 'dream' and 'deity.' The correspondences are overwhelming." Blasphemy? Who can predict Demuriel?
Demuriel huffs. "Flowers are for the dead."
The Dreamlord has had enough. Crystal orbs blink at each of you, then roll into spheres of onyx. Whether humored or now bored, it is oft hard to tell. But there is no lecture from Blandine, simply seldom-seen skepticism as he watches you both.
"Perhaps it is time for both of you to cease wallowing in the Ether." His Tower, that is. You seem to be content with your own sardonic natures. In short...go do something different. "All well then," he responds, "...Oannes' grotto is pleasant, I hear."
Onyx glass gleams at Herald and Keeper. You both can not be here now. That would be so perfectly acceptable.
The Dreamlord...sighs.
"My Master is displeased?" There is a sudden softness to the sound, the symphony that forms the language of no-tongue and all-tongues. Angelic with a cherubic warmth. And the look on the face is quick contrition. Contrition comes easily to him these days. And he settles most abruptly into something...
...serious...
This is the face of the Herald that has most often been seen in his recent, escorted visits. His quiet working. His coming and his going with so little noise, nothing of his usual flamboyant fanfare.
And then there is a nod, and then a sweeping bow, bending low. A glance to Demuriel and a lifting of violet brows, a flickering of silver eyes. What did you do? "O Dream of All Dreamers, I will... endeavor..."
He does not say on or for what, merely that he shall...
"Come now, Herald," Blandine corrects. "There is no harm," he smiles. Perhaps his own humor is something too unfamiliar in this age. "Go to the flowers and do as you will. Or go to the grotto. Just..." he smiles, "...sometimes there are better places to be...than here," his fingers trippling at the greater room. That is all.
Demuriel seems a bit taken aback himself, but his flat face doesn't register the emotion easily. Of course, in this place beyond place, there is no dissembling. Hearing Blandine's wordless words, he relaxes a touch, but concern still pinks the pallor of his wings. "I shall return to my studies then," he whispers.
"Or visit the citadel," Blandine suggests. How's that for a new idea. Maybe I shouldn't come up with new ideas. Blandine chuckles, admitting defeat. "I cannot win, it seems. Go and...enjoy your Time." That new fangled thing.
"Oh no... My Master..." Disagreeing? "... I have been to more worlds than I can count upon all the fingers and toes of my friends. But better than here? There is not a place that exists or that does not exist or that may exist if we but wish for it that is better than Here."
With that, Galadriel straightens. "I am not compelled to tell the Truth -- and God's Judgement is Infallable -- but it is true nonetheless..." He holds up dusky hands, looking to you both. "I will go, being the more headstrong, and will bring you both back... something..."
He turns in a swirl and a whirl of constellations, of the sparkling dreams reflecting from his armor in his motions. "Ah... I suppose I better find my guards. I do not need four heads upon two lions looking to give me a bite on my backside..."
"If you could win," Demuriel remarks, withdrawing into himself, "then both our Conductor and our Adversary would fall silent, and let you take your solo, bringing all to a shivering finale." A snowball, a silvery ourobouros, wings outstretched. "Yes, Galadriel, find the kitties. Nice kitties. Give them catnip, and keep them quiet and happy while the mice play." With that, he is, if not gone, elsewhere. Or focussed elsewhere. Demuriel would likely have some convoluted nonsensical explanation that wasn't for it. No matter. He's out of the picture.
Blandine watches you both, though his attention is already drifting upwards. To some distant horizon, long beyond the visible. A smile appears to be given for both of your comments, but he says very little, other than, "Let me know...how it All Turns Out..."
"If it turns out not well, I do not doubt that you should hear of it..."
Bad news seems to travel fast. And with Galadriel skulking about the upper regions, bad news -- as some would contend -- is always plentiful...
Posted by rowan at May 17, 2003 11:34 PM
