deercountry | Stop assembling this bewildering cartography

Entry tags:

Stop assembling this bewildering cartography

who: Pyrrha Dve | Duty & others
what: Various September happenings
when: All month
where: Bone House, Outpost, Staging Point, Around Trench

content warnings: see individual starters

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CW: River of Regret typical imagery/gore, discussion of murder (of romantic partner/enemy), death of newborn, & more to come

A feather floats in the air, one of many Pyrrha has seen as the month goes on. This time, she catches it. As soon as it makes contact, she burns it to ash, hot blue-green flames. In the next, she freezes each piece of ash and gently holds the sub-freezing crystals in her fist. In the split moment it takes her to do as much, ravens surround her. For a moment, she reaches again for the flames, but though they surround her, they do not hurt her. Pyrrha treats them with the same respect.

It's over in a few seconds. Instead of cobbled stones outside a gambling hall where she was, Instead of dank moldy hallways reminiscent of a dead world the last time she slipped between places, she's in a bright silent world. Even the river on which she floats is quiet. Her attention slips over familiar faces, lingers long enough to see they are not an immediate threat in the guise of those she loves, and takes in the broader suspiciously peaceful view. She doubts ravens deposited her in a canoe with family for a sweet September picnic.

"I don't recognize this place," she says softly as they drift down the river and the smell that greets them is less serene.

Edited 2022-09-10 02:51 (UTC)

CW: violence, complex identity issues, ethical quandary

The following prompt comes from Chapter 21 of Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.

CW:
Duty stored the book all day to work as usual. The chill weather makes his leathery skin crack like book bindings as old as he is. Though Trench is dangerous and though there is much to do, he goes to Sanctuary and reads instead of other activities to reduce corruption. The book opens to a spot long in the story—leaving him the odd man out the way the younger lyctors may have felt—but it's compelling, interesting, and familiar. A confrontation many years in the making, consequences for actions long taken.

“Seivarden Vendaai,” said the left-hand Mianaai, “this ancillary—and it is an ancillary—isn’t human. The fact you thought it was explains a good deal of your behavior that was unclear to me before. I’m sorry for its deception and your disappointment, but you need to leave. Now.”

“Begging my lord’s indulgence.” Seivarden still lay facedown, speaking into the floor. “Whether you give it or not. I’m not leaving Breq.”

“Go away, Seivarden,” I said, expressionless.

“Sorry,” she said, sounding almost blithe except her voice still shook slightly. “You’re stuck with me.”

I looked down at her. She turned her head to look up at me, her expression a mix of fear and determination. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” I told her. “You don’t understand what’s happening here.”

“I don’t need to.”

“Fair enough,” said the Mianaai on the right, seeming almost amused. The left-hand one seemed less so. I wondered why that was. “Explain yourself, Justice of Toren.”

Here it was, the moment I had worked toward for twenty years. Waited for. Feared would never come. “First,” I said, “as I’m sure you already suspect, you were aboard Justice of Toren, and it was you yourself who destroyed it. You breached the heat shield because you discovered you had already suborned me yourself, some time previously. You’re fighting yourself. At least two of you, maybe more.”

“Both Mianaais blinked and shifted their stances a fraction of a millimeter, in a way I recognized. I’d seen myself do it, in Ors, when communications cut out. Another of those communications-blocking boxes—part of Anaander Mianaai, at least, must have worried about what I might say, must have been waiting with her hand on the switch. I wondered how far the effect reached, and which Mianaai had triggered it, trying, too late, to hide my revelation from herself. Wondered what that must have been like, knowing that facing me this way could only lead to disaster, and yet obligated by the nature of her struggle with herself to do so. The thought amused me briefly.

“Second.” I reached into my jacket, pulled out the gun, the dark gray of my glove bleeding into the white the weapon had taken from my shirt. “I’m going to kill you.” I aimed at the right-hand Mianaai.

Duty pitches forward into the book and keeps falling until he finds himself on his feet aiming a gun at one of two identical looking people, Mianaai he presumes.

That Mianaai, the one he's aiming at, sings in a baritone, slightly flat. Though he's never heard the language before, though he's sure it's been dead a long time, the kind of time he understands, he understands the words.

The person, the person, the person with weapons.
You should be afraid of the person with weapons. You should be afraid.
All around the cry goes out, put on armor made of iron.
The person, the person, the person with weapons.
You should be afraid of the person with weapons. You should be afraid.

Despite being the person with the only visible weapon, Duty cannot move. No matter how much he focuses on the few millimeters necessary to depress the trigger, his finger doesn't budge. It's like facing John, except she sings instead of saying 'stop.' She isn't John, but Duty gets the vibe they have some similarities. Otherwise, why this book, this scene, this memory?

“Justice of Toren One Esk,” says the right-hand Mianaai, “shoot the instance of me to the left of the instance that’s speaking to you.”

Muscles move without him willing them. He shifts his aim to the left and fires. The left-hand Mianaai collapses to the ground. It continues from there, out of control of his own body, able only to play along as the person he has the briefest impression of and reading the reactions. Shortly enough, he gets his movement back.

Seivarden asks for an explanation. When Duty doesn't answer, Mianaai spells it out enough that Duty can understand. The trouble with so many bodies, so many Mianaai's. They are not all the same person. Duty doubts it stops at two.

He's still not in control of himself, just as Mianaai promised. He shoots a guard under orders. He learns more about Radchaai ships and AIs. They walk out into the civilian population, panicking and causing chaos. When he spies someone suspicious, Duty acts on instinct. Not only does the gun point toward the person, a silvery layer expands from within him and coats him.

Something hits him hard in the side—a bullet. He shoots the first armored person because this is too open, too many civilians, too sloppy. He turns the other way and sees the gleam of another person with silver around them. Some kind of armor. That's them. He shoots, and the silver layers disappear. They're dead.

Still not in control of himself, they head toward the docks. If this person in control gets her way, everyone in the station dies. If she doesn't, civil war, and even more people die.

Edited 2022-09-10 03:18 (UTC)

CW: letting go/loss, grief, so many feels feels feels feels

Once more, Pyrrha treads the now familiar route from Bone House to the nearest lamp, traveling to the lamp near Trenchwood Farm, and walking the rest of the way there. No more deals by lamplight. The farm is familiar and comfortable. It's a place where things grow, whether crops of plants or herds of animals. It's a farther cry from the reaches of the Nine Houses than her abode. Today, that feels right.

One hand slowly turns a skull carved of bone—her own bone, her own carving—around and around, wearing it down, though it has lived for too short of a time to yellow with age. Her eyes look upward at the clear sky that looks not a spot out of place. This strange peace amidst various trials is precious. Life in Trench is precious, no matter how many times people may die. It never stops mattering.

Her steps take her to the chickens, decked out in little hats that make perfect sense in the weather. Her head has red ocher fuzz soft like moss. That russet hair is covered by its own hat, one measure to preserve body heat when the air leeches it out of her. Not that it does much good. Her aches are magical in nature after all.

She smiles. It's still a good day.

"Me neither-- but I think I've heard of this."

Oscar sat quietly in the canoe, looking as much like the lost and confused teenager that he felt like. He had managed to avoid the falling feathers of Never Mind's birds by a stroke of luck last year-- a rarity for someone that lived with and worked alongside a literal bad luck charm. Stilling himself in the little boat, he looked around at the other passengers and tried not to panic. Palebloods were on a sensory roulette that month, and for the moment Oscar was having a hard time feeling what his body was touching. There was a certain detachment to it; he felt the pressure of it, but none of the attending details.

Stillness was the only sure way to be safe.

Cautiously, he shook his head-- and watched as a black feather fell out of his hair and onto the bottom of the boat.

"Boat, feathers, and a river... this sounds an awful lot like something I heard people talking about. It was something about... personal fears?"

A shrug. So much had happened. At that point, he was focused on learning to filter his new telepathic and empathic abilities that he didn't pay as much attention as he should have.

"We should probably stick together. No one I heard stories from sounded like they enjoyed their boat rides."

Overall, Billie has been enjoying his time at the farm over the summer. It's a bit like being back in the halfling lands at home, except no one stops him from eating as much as he wants, or makes him do anything really. There haven't even been any fires, or chicken fights.

He's outside when Pyrrha arrives, just laying in the grass, and watching the wind blow the leaves around. He grins when he sees her and hops up and goes to greet her with a hug as she approaches the chickens, free roaming across the lawn.

"Pyrrha! Hi!"

In one smooth move, Pyrrha picks Billie up in a firm hug. She turns that into a full circle rotation and a second one before she kisses the top of his head and sets him down. She exhales and smiles at him. Joy crinkles the deep grooves on her face.

"Billie," she greets in return. Her eyes return quickly enough to the farm around them. With her usually gravelly voice, Pyrrha asks, "What spot on the farm makes you think of me?"

Billie laughs with joy as Pyrrha scoops him up, and spins them around. She is quickly becoming one of his favourite people in Trench. It is always a good day when she turns up at the farm.

He has to think about the question, though, not for long. It's not too hard to pick out a spot that reminds him of her. Of course, it's perfect.

"I know just the place, come on." He grabs her hand to lead the way to the cherry blossom tree growing behind the greenhouse. He looks from the tree back to Pyrrha. "It's a Guardian Tree. It protects people, animals, and nature, but we have to look after it, too."

Pyrrha follows Billie along, relaxed and trusting. If something (or someone) jumps out to attack them, she'll handle it. There are stories going around of a monster attacking farms. However, that won't be Billie's doing.

The tree is beautiful, even in autumn. It reminds her of the tree at Sanctuary, and she wonders if they're related. Amaterasu, the name she's heard around Sanctuary, isn't with them anymore. The trees still are. That's a sentiment Pyrrha feels kinship to. Not in the sense of a cavalier to a lyctor protecting him from heralds. Simply that their impact outlasts them. It can be good, and it can still help. Whatever they move onto, there's always that.

"You get me," Pyrrha says. "We all need some looking after, even me." Everyone. The protection also means that the flower should be safe. Yes, the stories Pyrrha's heard says the flower cannot be destroyed, not so long as someone is here. That's no reason to tempt fate or any passing Pthumerian.

"Regret," says the third figure in the canoe. The unworldly voice with its echoes of walls and spaces not present is surely familiar to both Pyrrha and Oscar, even if its owner is presently huddled up beneath his heavy cloak (ornamented with raven feathers) with an uncharacteristic moroseness. Like all of his obvious moods, Illarion's current black one has an air of pretense and overacting to it; this is something he has to put on for it to be seen, even if the emotion beneath it is genuine.

Might be, in this case, very genuine. Both he and the Omen huddled unhappily beneath his hood are sporting flashes of dawn-pink, hoopoe-pink, in their feathers--a giveaway the shrike's corrupted, if the visible feathers themselves weren't.

"It is regret we are here to confront, and confess, to be shriven of. Then the ravens return to take us from Hell's River." He pauses the space of a mortal breath, then adds, "Or not. This is not one of these places that forces the truth from one, though I am not recommending ignoring what we will see. It is a worse way to leave, whatever secrets it is keeping intact."

"Noted," Pyrrha acknowledges both Oscar and Illarion. Sticking together is common sense. Refusing to play along in Hell's River, the promise is in the name. The longer one stays, the worse it gets. Everyone has secrets. Oscar and Illarion have painful ones she's never heard, she's sure. If they didn't, if none of them did, they probably wouldn't be in this boat together.

Unlike her companions, however, Pyrrha's secrets wind their way back to John. It's a byproduct of her long life, such as it may be called, and she hasn't had that particular conversation yet. His absence is a gift. It shouldn't be forced. There's never a good time, but she'll have to make time.

Before the river has time to call her out, Pyrrha exhales slowly. "Like anyone, I dislike secrets being forced," she says, "unless any of us give permission, I propose we all agree to keep what's shared between us. Agreed?"

Pyrrha acts on her own terms.

Oscar looked between his newfound parent figure and the mysterious bird that sometimes roosted under the same roof as the man who would be God with a gravity that I'll befit a teenager. The situation was unexpected, and the company-- though kindly enough-- provided their own kinds of perils with these challenges.

Oscar didn't doubt they had painful secrets. He had his own, as well.

"Agreed," he said solemnly.

"This world has a way of tricking people into speaking even when they don't want to. I've worked hard to make sure that people have the option not to speak if they don't want to. "

A sigh. This had caused him a few headaches in the last couple of years...

"Sometimes other people are involved, too. The stories aren't always just our own."

"Agreed," Illarion replies in nearly the same breath as Oscar--then falls silent to give the younger man space to speak on. It's a kind philosophy the human expresses; the shrike inclines his head in mute approval.

"Then I would propose further that none of us seeks redress or explanation from anyone whose secrets these also are--whether they are in Trench yet or not--unless, as before, permission is given."

Many of the worse secrets that lay between Lyctor and Lord had already been given away in Gideon's spasm of contempt for her negligent god. But ten thousand year's a long time even as elves reckon time, and Illarion's sure that myriad hides a thousand other black secrets that Pyrrha wouldn't want turned indiscriminately on her Monarch.

And those of Oscar's relations Illarion knew certainly deserved their secrets guarded as carefully.

"Agreed," Pyrrha echoes them, grateful that this event is with them. No matter how hard it is, if it's kept between them, she can handle it. For a moment, Pyrrha almost laughs. The calm and security that comes with it. This doesn't make monsters of them. This agency is healthy, what people should be able to expect. It goes back to that old saying—do unto others as you would have done unto you.

She feels good about that one.

They round the curve, and her heart feels like it misses a beat. Of all the corpses to see in terrible injury, it's an infant, a baby, a newborn only one day old. So small, and its skin cannot contain its organs and their injuries. A horror Pyrrha has never seen and imagined so many times. It's a particular baby, one everyone in the boat knows, though it is far older than one day now.

As terrible as it is, she wants to gather it into her arms and assure it that everything is okay. Something she never got to do. Something she regrets. Because of course, this one is hers.

"There was a time that I thought a baby was mine," Pyrrha says after a few moments. No one asked her about it before, in the Mithraeum. They were too focused on other issues to give it enough thought. "Her mother was our enemy, and my necromancer killed her."

Love wasn't enough compared to the fate of the universe, the lives of millions. Not for Duty or the Saint of Duty. "It should have killed the baby. Odds were it did," Pyrrha continued, "so he didn't check. It was a secret mission. Even the Houses weren't told about it. A Lyctor showing up would've gotten notice. Would've endangered the secrecy." It wasn't everyday that people fell out of the sky, particularly those of unknown origin.

She takes a slow breath. They can see where it going.

It's a lot for a young person to take in.

A part of Oscar had witnessed horrors such as this-- had witnessed the death of armies with a single choice that his Crown revealed to him, witnessed villagers form a Circle around him across multiple lifetimes and wage war in his name, had witnessed the face of the woman he once loved slaughter their children... and himself. That part was, however, not quite Oscar. Not yet.

The sixteen year old that was supposed to carry the weight of lifetimes and centuries was struck breathless with the sight. He found his heart aching in a sympathetic reaction to Pyrrha's words.

For the moment, he didn't know what to say. With an unsteady hand, he reached out and grasped for her's.

"So, you never knew what happened?"

Oscar ventured finally, hazel eyes flashing gold in the dim lighting like a small woodland creature.

Edited 2022-09-19 02:04 (UTC)

There's not much the boy is afraid of, and that includes the Bugge. Let the monster come. He will fight it. The farm has become his home now, of course he will defend it.

Billie stands with Pyrrha, still holding onto her hand as he looks up at the tree, and nods. He feels an affinity for the trees in Trench, especially the Guardian Trees that, like the Sleepers, have found themselves in this place, so far from home.

"Yeah. Everyone needs someone to care about them and take care of them. No matter how big or strong they are," he says quietly.

Pyrrha squeezes Billie's hand. She stares into the dirt for a moment, but her mind was made up before she came here. She crouches and presses her free hand against the soil. The world is always changing. They are always changing.

"Are you familiar with the ritual people are doing this month?" Pyrrha asks. She's learned enough herself, enough to complete it.

They round the curve. Iskierka--who has been here before; they've both been here before--sticks her head out from beneath Illarion's hood, craning her neck to follow Pyrrha's gaze with faceted red eyes.

Her Sleeper flinches like he's been struck. A scraping of clenched talons on wood fills the space of silence before Pyrrha speaks.

He has seen dead children before. Dead infants. War didn't spare the young; he has even seen infants killed in this particular vile way. (He has been accused of killing them in this particular vile way, something no shrike would do and no outsider would believe they didn't.

The Unearthed were another story.) It does not make them any less of a blow to the gut to see one, and think of--think of--

Who? There is a hole in his memory labeled my beloved, my firstborn; labeled dead, murdered, and it doesn't have a face to it or a name or even bright plumage. But the dead child on the stake reminds him and he has a heart soft enough now to be shaken by the reminder, as the Martyr is.

He clamps his fangs on a keen, waiting to a count of ten. "Or you are knowing, but much too late?" he rasps--barely above the lap of water against the boat.

Pyrrha forces herself to watch the image before her and to face the choice she made decades ago. Some choices change everything, and knowing that, she does them anyway. Some don't change anything at all. Some have larger consequences than anyone realized. They all have those.

She hears them both and sighs. Illarion—the parent—guesses the truth of it. Two decades too late.

"I don't know if I could have managed it," Pyrrha says, "following them down, getting the baby, and getting out. If I succeeded all on my own, he'd end up with the baby and no memory of getting her. That wouldn't end well for any of us. No, if I did it, we'd have to split it. Me getting him into it and forcing him to get us out."

She laughs hollowly.

"If I'd known she was alive, I would have done it," Pyrrha says. "Fuck the odds." Because as far as she is concerned, as far as she'd been concerned, that's her kid.

"She didn't land at the prison. He checked. That was the only way they should have been able to live," Pyrrha steers their boat closer to the dead newborn on a spike, "I kept my eyes on the living, not the dead. Never looked back until I learned better. She deserved better. She still does."

"That's my regret," Pyrrha says, eyes still on the baby. "I should've saved her. I should have raised her. She should've known she was loved her whole life." No matter that she isn't Pyrrha's by blood. No matter that that's the reason Gideon Nav lived.

He returns the squeeze of her hand gently, and watches as she crouches to press her hand against the soil. The Guardian tree helps keep the earth here free of corruption, and helps the plants nearby grow and thrive.

He nods a little. "Yeah, I heard people talking about it. You bury something to let go of the past, right? And a cool flower grows from it."

He hasn't done it himself, not yet anyway, but he doesn't have much trouble letting go of the past. He does his best to keep the past at bay himself.

There was a lot of details in this that Oscar was still catching up on-- but he had heard the basics of the core of the problem from Pyrrha during their first meeting at the boardwalk over the summer. Her partner, her other half, the original owner of that body had not entirely known of her continued existence even a myriad after the pact was made. She had existed alone, save for one other.

And, this baby.

Oscar lowered his eyes, watching unidentifiable bits of bodies bob in the water while they drifted past. He held tight to Pyrrha's hand, both for the anchor that the grasp allowed for him and the hope of providing one for her.

"Is there any way you can let her know now?"

He asked, not knowing exactly who this baby was. There were a handful of possibilities, but he was still outside the core circle of those who understood the politics of that timeline.

All he wanted was to support his people; that number included Pyrrha.

She looks over at Billie and smiles. "Will you look after my flower for me?" Pyrrha asks. "With all the responsibility that entails."

The flowers shouldn't need much gardening work. That's not the point. Even if there were no flower, Pyrrha is ready for the ritual of it, a formal goodbye to a life she no longer lives and to the problems tied to those places. The Nine Houses. Blood of Eden. Those issues have been wiped away. Others fill the gaps, but they are the problems she must focus on here.

Billie has a bit of an understanding that there are deeper implications behind looking after someone else's flower. After all, it's a part of themselves, and a window into how they are faring here in Trench with their goals of setting the past aside. At the very least, as well, it will give him warning should she need help, and after everything she's done for him, of course he wants to help her as much as he can.

He gives her a smile, and solemn nod. "Of course I will."

"Thank you," Pyrrha nods.

Without using any tools, Pyrrha digs a hole out of the earth beneath the guardian tree. Her hands are covered in soil, as they cup it between them, and pile it gently to one side. Dirt gets under her blunt fingernails. Once it starts getting truly and well difficult to dig, the kind of digging that does require a tool or the repurposing of one of her weapons, she stops.

The hole is small, but it represents something much bigger. Pyrrha pulls out the skull carved from her bone, a Second House skull. She and Gideon designed it together. What it symbolized, how the details served that, how they might get taken once they were long gone (they'd asked Nigella for help on that part). Gently, she rests it in the depression in the dirt.

"A long time ago, I had to start a new life. You and me," Pyrrha says to someone who isn't here, "we did it all together. It'd be a lot easier to do it again if you were here. You're not what I'm saying goodbye to, though. You're gone from the Houses, and you haven't come here.

"The Houses. Somehow, I was still working on them all this time later. They need the work. As long as they're around, they always will. That's someone else's duty now. Whether that's me, back there, that generation of kids, or every generation to come. I'm setting down that burden, that responsibility. The Houses' time is over.

"I am where I am, and I will help the community I am a part of. Trench. The Sleepers. This is my home, and I take that duty freely of my own will. May we become better than we are."

In a few simple motions, Pyrrha buries the carved skull in the dirt she dug up. With care, she smooths it over. For a moment, it looks like nothing more than a place something scratched at the dirt. Pyrrha pulls the baton of bone off her waist and punctures her palm with it. A few cold drops fall and crackle like morning frost.

Her head remains turned low. In a few seconds, a small fresh shoot climbs out of the soil and lifts itself above the earth. The tip grows a bud which swells and splits to form a flower similar to but not quite a rose. The double impatiens is pale the color of her blood shaded darker toward the center with red. Beautiful and fitting.

Pyrrha smiles.

The infant's death-clouded eyes gleam gold in the unrelenting sunlight. Elven-gold, shrike-gold, but gold in (bloodshot) human pale instead of lightless black. Still familiar, hideously so, and for a reason Illarion thinks he can place--not one in thrown down the vast emptied well of his memories of home. This is a new memory, a new familiarity; it is something from Trench, and maddeningly unplaceable.

It is also Pyrrha's secret to tell.

The shrike pulls Iskierka's eyes from the infant on the stake and toward the Martyr who would gladly claim her--who had, who does, ferociously taking back what she'd been denied by not knowing. (Were any of the regrets he couldn't name by-blows? Were any children he'd neglected?) He cannot move up to join the other two at the front without risking the boat, but still stretches out of his miserable huddle to touch fingers to Pyrrha's shoulder in wordless support.

"Love cannot begin too late, for those who did not know it." As well he knows. (But not how, not by whom.)

They get close enough to the baby on the stake. She removes her jacket and stands up. Pyrrha balances in the boat, with Illarion's hand reaching from his counterweight, and gently pulls the corpse free. She lays the baby in the curve of her jacket and holds it close to her chest. A goodbye she never got.

"Given who I live with," Pyrrha says, and this statement means John primarily, Augustine to a lesser degree, "Gideon Nav hasn't wanted much to do with me." Sadness leaches from her voice, emotion freely following the regret. That sadness isn't defeat. No, Pyrrha knows it's a slow process, something that takes time.

She sits with the young corpse close enough to both other members of the boat. "It's going to take time," she says. The blood seeps into her jacket, but she doesn't care. This infant Pyrrha mourned and its regret deserve a farewell more than a spike along the river.

"No more regrets," Pyrrha says.

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Page 1 of 3

Stop assembling this bewildering cartography

Calculated Regret [Closed to Illarion & Oscar]

You should be afraid of the person with weapons (Absolute Immersion) [Open]

No matter the cost / For all that was lost (Growing Pains) [Closed to Billie]

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CW: body horror (infant)

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ongoing cw: there will be mention of war crimes

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CW: dead infant