Alluvion

[Patricus I]

Philip absorbed these mysteries with devout attendance to each clue. He was accustomed to being the shadow behind the screen and wearing enigma like a cloak. That the roles were reversed bothered him for his own limited insights as much as the injustice of a girl’s undeserved fear. Certainly, she was afraid of the all-intimidating ’him’ whomever he be. The shivers wafting from her skin rippled the air as much as it did his dream flesh, but the emotion permeated like a foul stench. He sneered with the distaste of all of it. “Another wolf will keep them away,” he said, and on the heels of proclamation rolled a promise: “Me.”

He lurched in the heaving swirl of worldly motion that followed. A prelude was absent to the change, and in the midst of far-flung souls, his hand gripped upon hers tightly to prevent their ripping apart across the divide. A downness dropped them into a new place, or perhaps an upness rose while they remained fixed. Either way, what he beheld was completely unlike the previous experiences. The room was in constant flux, but it wasn’t a wind that tossed the ever-changing environment. As soon as his eyes settled on something, it disappeared. Even the furniture shifted.

He wasn’t sure if the loft was a home or an art studio, maybe both. Paint splattered furniture as much as the walls. The same speckles decorated Nimeda’s fingertips. “This is where you live,” he noted the flickering dishes around a sink and blankets shifting around on a couch. A charming life she must lead, like the souls of old.

Curiosity pulled him to the cityscape displayed through the window. “Moscow,” he said to himself. After a few moments, when he turned to regard her, his hands were clasped gently in front of his waist. Whatever it was he was waiting upon, he clearly wanted her to fetch it for him.

[Thalia]

Noctua moved to explore their new terrain, and Nimeda flopped back against the floor like it was a cradle of soft grass rather than hard boards. A careless swipe of her fingers urged the ceiling to part for the night’s sky above, filled not with the twinkling promise of other dreams, but a moving constellation of stars. It was only at the utterance of Moscow that her attention diverted from her idle play, and when she twisted upright once more her clothes were bone dry, her wild curls ordered now into braids around her crown. “I’m not fond of this city,” she said. “It sleeps so deeply these days. It’s not what I remember.” Though what that might be she did not elucidate. 

Noctua called himself a wolf before, unknowing of what he spoke for he was certainly not of the kin, yet she understood the sentiment in her own unique way. He was more like a father. Her lips quirked a pleasant smile at the comparison. It made her feel safe, like some small creature sheltered in the palm of another, but also rained down other, older memories. A lattice of rules caged alongside that protection, once; rules she broke with impunity and childlike enthusiasm, both in her friendship with Melinoë but also others that ought not cross the boundary into His shadowy realm. Forbidden was not a concept natural to her watery soul.

She bounded to her feet, a blurred shift from one state to the other, and absorbed the shifting room herself. A penchant for bright colour flooded the walls, for which she laughed delightedly. Some old song hummed itself to her lips, eyes half lidded to a memory of wagon wheels and a happier time. What a strange thing to have persisted! Meanwhile she began to riffle curiously through the detritus of her Other’s existence. Canvas fluttered. Paintings bloomed and faded. She held a ripped sheaf of paper in her hands for a moment, a drawing of a riverbank that held almost the detail of a photograph. A moment later it crinkled with folds like it had spent some time in the confines of a pocket, before it vanished altogether.

“Do you help all those who have a need, Noctua?” He was standing expectantly by one of the windows, framed by the cityscape beyond. She did not seem to mind his inactivity. Behind her a canvas set upon an easel scrawled furiously into something violent and fiery. A blink later and the entire studio was cast in bloody droplets of paint, the painting ruined, and then gone. Meanwhile Nimeda pondered a framed picture containing the mirror of her own face alongside another whose dreams she watched frequently. Such a practical mind drifted often to the white halls of her most enduring passion; her work. And Mara’s prison. Nimeda shivered.

She reached distractedly for Noctua’s hand once more, and their world changed again; quickly this time, and without flourish, as to the whim of one used to travelling by such means.

The second dwelling was more orderly in its arrangement, and if it moved in flux as all such ephemera did, it did so into various states of clinical precision. Nimeda blinked. This time she did not release Noctua’s palm immediately, taking everything in with a wide gaze first. She had seen this place in her sister’s dreams on the occasions she did not dream of work, but never passed the threshold of her own volition. Such urbanisation held little charm for her, despite the very precious soul who called it home in the waking world. The apartment was simply furnished and neat. Nim’s bare feet padded to a framed picture on the wall, beside a bookcase whose innards gently fluctuated like soothing tides. A newspaper clipping lay trapped beneath the glass. Nim could see the faint trace of her own outline reflected against the sheen, imposed over the paper and ink portrait of her smiling Other standing beside a painting. Words accompanied the photograph, but Nim only stared curiously at this strange proof of a life she had no memory of.

[Patricus I]

With every brush of color to haunt their surroundings, the shade of Philip’s white attire glowed with neon impressions. As a man of faith dropped into the midst of worldly storms, as much as he was present, he was also set apart, and just as the colors touched him, he was not of their kind. The white of his seemingly athletic attire was subconscious as much as deliberately selected. White, black, red – these were the colors of profound symbolism and Philip was a man of faith even in dreams. As he watched the kaleidoscope of time churn around them, he remained steady in the instability. Nimeda floated among the living walls as if she were more a part of it then even she realized. It was in that moment that Philip truly connected the line of a dream back to a place of reality – and the mercurial nature of it all.

Her question elicited an annoyed reaction, not so much because she asked it, but because it delved straight to the first-hand knowledge of his life’s work. “I help none of them, Nimeda. Ten billion souls walk the earth, and every one of them say they need something: money… fame… rescue… healing… sex..” He looked at her as the list concluded as though judging her reaction to which of those items she coveted most, but it was not for him to grant any desires, least of all to her. He was nothing. He was powerless. He was invisible. When he continued, an expression of great contemplation darkened his expression that it verged on sadness. “The ironic thing is that everyone does need something, but it’s not what they think; nor is it for me to deliver.” He wondered if she may pick apart the riddle. It was life's great question: what does man need most?

Before his curiosity was sated, inspiration struck Nimeda like lightning, and in a wash of light and color, they were yanked through the empty unknown. The apartment that formed was orderly in a way that appealed to him. Her directionality honed with objective destination, and Philip followed on her heels. He wasn’t a tall man except in presence of aura, but she was petite at his side even still; a hovering essence that he was acutely aware crept close. The picture was recent, the caption illuminating. He read out loud with the resonant voice of one accustomed to crowds hanging on his every word. “In a new exhibition, artist Thalia Milton blurs the line between art and reality with delicate sensitivity of the senses. Milton is an artist based in old Arbatskaya of Moscow’s elite district. She is famous for illustrating what she feels not what she sees. She paints a world dressed in ideas that are close to her heart.”

When he looked at her, it was with the scrutiny of this newly revealed shade overlaid upon what he knew of the girl from the river. “It seems you have another name after all,” he said, thinking of his own lack of identity. He wanted to tell her, but the desire was birthed by an ego he vowed to ignore.

[Thalia]

Nimeda tilted her head and watched the vague outline of her reflection do the same. She could see Noctua too in the shine of the glass. His words drained off like water from a duck’s feathers, and yet still they seemed to leave her strangely pensive -- else perhaps it was the resonance left by his answer to her earlier question. She could not rightly say. Nimeda’s names numbered many, and she did not know or remember them; this was but one droplet of identity in a churning sea. It felt a little like being presented with a glimpse of one’s soul though; something you weren’t really supposed to see. Thalia.

“That’s why Jon says it’s dangerous to reach out with Need. The Dream might answer, but not to the question you think you asked.” She tipped a shoulder, nonplussed by the academic advice -- sensible though it was -- and blinked her grey gaze to observe his profile.

She had wanted to ask if he might help Mara. But now it felt like a trespass into waters he might instead frown upon, and so she did not.

“I watch sometimes, in the inbetween place, you know? Much truth lives there.” She didn’t admit to crossing the threshold into those dreams, of course; it was an impolite thing for her to do, for starters, but also felt like it might be an action of which he would disapprove. She was cognizant of the shifts in him even if only on a subliminal level. Disapproval would sting but it would not stop her either; they were tiny windows into the world and minds of others, shining like the evening sky. The infatuation revealed her loneliness.

She came to realise, then, that he had made need sound like a bad thing, and it brushed her expression with a frown.

She was not a philosopher, and her world was primarily a sensory one. Whether it was fame or money, healing or rescue or sex, Nimeda made no judgements. It mattered little to her if those things nourished soul or sin, and she was usually willing to give whatever it was she felt someone else required, for comfort of all kinds was intrinsic to her nature; that nebulous power to forget. Puzzling over his words, she had a sense of misunderstanding though. Nim recognised all shades of sadness, but not this. Deeper than death or loss. An unfamiliar flavour. Perhaps his life beyond the dream was one bound into the service of others; ten billion souls-worth of them, which seemed a rather heavy burden. That many drifted in the inbetween place, for sure, and Nim could not hope to visit them all.

“Noctua, I would not ask you to do something for me you could not do. Or did not want to do, either. I would not ever ask it of you.” The words were simple and earnest, and as transparent as she might make them. A little confusion still lingered. It was quite clear she was concerned at being one of said needful souls to presume upon his charity. Though she did not linger upon it, any more than she had upon Tristan’s promise followed swiftly by determination that he was not even in Moscow. Curiosity continued, despite that she had the small sense that he might not welcome the questioning. “If you listen to so many, to whom do you tell your needs?" Then, a little more pensive. "Have you ever asked here? Though you should be careful. Jon was not wrong.”

[Patricus I]

Need was unreliable, he agreed. Something about this instance, though, carried Nimeda to a place of answers. Thalia Milton., he recalled the name. Upon waking, he would have her found, but then what? He anticipated Thalia would not understand the purpose nor recall their present dream. He knew nothing of this place between waking and sleeping that she described. Truth was unlikely to exist there, as it was unlikely to rest in man at all. Comfort was a plush bed for sin to slumber.

“The world is a place that runs from sacrifice and escapes suffering at all costs,” he said. It wasn’t evil that drove a girl to bring joy to others, as displaced as her desires were. However, that didn’t make it right. “You said to be wary of the dream as it may take us to the wrong need. I say be wary of your own desires, because whatever it is that is valued most must be denied. No one leisure is evil in and of itself, but when pleasures and comforts rule your future, you cease to seek the truth waiting in between your flesh” he pointed at the picture momentarily before fixing his gaze upon her, ”and your soul.” Thalia and Nimeda; Noctua and Philip; Patricus I and nobody.

Who are we? For what purpose are we born? He doubted the answers waited In Between no matter what truths she claimed to slumber there forever. The truth was shocking to those who were uncomfortable hearing it. When he took up her hand, it wasn’t to dissect the truth of the branding, but to impart a wisdom to someone far greater than he. Almost as if he needed her to hear what he was to say. To accept it: She was a powerful person fully capable of divining the answers to her own need. ”I see that your journey is not that you have asked for too much. It is that you have been satisfied with too little.” The smile that followed was one of mournful joy, the kind that hoped she would accept. He was not immune to these whims either. Who am I? For what purpose was I born? Nor would he seek them, as his journey would end irrespective of the answer. He listened to many. He absolved them all. He was second only to Him who was the answer.

When he dropped to his knees, it was while still clinging to her palm. The emotion that bricked his lids tightly closed was softly vulnerable and yet the face that angled toward hers was fiercely guarded. Hers may have been the palm of Holy Virgin. The last time the dream changed for him was out of desire to reveal himself. Now, it came from a desire to reveal a truth for which he was not the keeper. ”I give my need to you,” he said with the earnestness of a demand expected to be granted. Though he clung to Nimeda, the demand repeated itself, ”I give my need to you,” he said. While it was unclear to whom the admonishment was addressed, it was surely meant for one far greater than he.

[Thalia]

Noctua had a pleasant voice. A voice made for stories. Its cadence lulled her and drew her close, if the words themselves did not always blossom understanding. What bleak beauty! She did not worry for her soul, and she did not know how to explain how tightly her thread was bound to the endless turn of the wheel. Death cut her loose, when it happened, and she did not covet those turnings for they left her drifting and anchorless; far removed from even the solidity of her presence now. Where did other souls go while they awaited the right turning? She did not know. But she did not believe in a world caged by the sacrifice he spoke of. Comfortless and cold, and beholden only to faith.

She was pensive as he spoke, willing to listen, absorbing what she heard carefully and slowly, and only able to hold so much.

He took her hand. Nim was unusually quiet now, the profundity of the conversation beginning to unravel all sorts of thoughts inside, most of them pressing a small frown between her brow. Moral dilemma was not a preoccupation of hers, but led so sweetly into those waters she did consider it, and the half-seen tapestry of her long past made her shiver. 

Satisfied with too little.

Oh, but she felt herself begin to seep apart now, like she was suddenly too filled to the brim with everything, churning with the mud and water and blood of so many lives. Tears tracked her cheeks. His grip alone tethered her; that and his plea. But when he knelt her gaze widened in alarm. Nim stumbled to her own knees after him, like she could not bear the dissonance, while all around them the neat apartment began to flicker and scrawl and fluctuate with crawling, creeping images. Past, present and future spun, until the walls themselves dissolved like acid. “The earth bites at my feet,” she cried. “Light but it burns. An ending comes.”

She moved forward like a crashing wave in a bid that he hold on tightly, arms flung unceremoniously around his neck, face buried. Her heart hammered. Her eyes scrunched shut. It grew very cold, as if ice kissed their passage, but like a puff of arctic wind they were blown onwards without capture. She did not move for a while after everything grew still, and then at first it was only to lean back on her heels and blink tear-smudged eyes. Noctua seemed whole still. She was too. Her hair had unravelled down her shoulders, free of its braids, and dead petals drifted into her palm, almost colourless, like they belonged to some other world. As soon as they hit flesh they shrivelled and disappeared.

Her chin lifted. The dream was usually a place of endless twilight, but warm sun lit her cheeks instead. Verdancy surrounded them, and bright bursts of strange flower even she could not name. The grove she had shown Noctua appeared in infancy compared to this, a place civilization’s shadow appeared to have never even touched at all. When she pushed to her feet, the ground left a greenish impression where her skirts had pressed into the lush earth, and it did not answer to the whim that would have erased it ignored. They were in a pocket then, but not, she did not think, of the Grey Lady’s creation. Beholden to who, though? Or what? Noctua may not notice, and she did not want to scare him with their new powerlessness in this world, so she said nothing. Despite her tear-stained face a dazzling smile worked its way to her lips. Curiosity burgeoned barely contained. She offered a distracted hand to help him to his feet should he need it. Their passage this time had been frightening, even to her.

“I have never seen this place,” she said as he found his feet. Her fingers squeezed some comfort, and then released. Nim twirled in place so that she might see everything at once, apparently unafraid of such a beautiful unknown. Very little ever felt new to her as this did. Like the release of a rushing brook burst from old banks, she explored. Her palms brushed leaves, her mood washed clean, occasionally pausing to ensure Noctua stayed with her.

“Hello?” she called soft into the wildness. There was precious little sense of human here, but plainly she expected the answer of something. “The old ones stir,” she murmured, half to herself. Joy sprung at the epiphany, and her steps bounded off, hopeful that Noctua would find it in him to enjoy the exhilaration of it, but mindful that he was likely to hold more sedate inquiry of their surroundings. She did not stray far ahead. Around them their environment seemed to shiver and react. Branches leaned curiously and under no apparent wind to follow their progress. Flowers peeped their glorious petals as if to observe the sun, but shyly pointed instead after their ponderous journey into the heart of this place.

Unil, ahead, something thrust from the earth like a felled tree, utterly branchless. Vines wound around like a cage, obscuring its surface. Her curious steps slowed to inspect it, though she instinctively did not touch the grey stone she could see peering beneath the foliage. She stooped instead, head tilted, curls pooling over one shoulder. Some distant memory fought to surface, but faded beneath the waves. Something around them moved, ponderously slow. It caught the peripheral of her attention. ”Hello, ancient one,” she said again. She straightened to beam at Noctua, then searched for their company.

[Patricus I]

Philip didn’t push the weight of her body away. Her trembling vibrated upon the white of his collar, but the energy dissipated into calm stillness about his shoulder. He released her when she desired to depart the comfort of togetherness, but Philip was barely a willing participant in the ritual to begin with. It reminded him of the pats of solidarity he bestowed begrudgingly upon mourning parishioners at a funeral wake. Upon winning his freedom, he plucked at the hood of his suit so it lay in perfect arrangement and such was the extent of any disarray during the translation to wherever they now found themselves. He looked around, a poised pilgrim in a secret land.

Previously, awe and wonder flooded the dream of the ancient life strewn through mighty branches. Moss, peat, and lichen clung to the woods Nimeda showed him like the moisture on the air may have been the first waters to dampen the very Earth itself. This was different. The light filtered golden beams through leaves of extraordinary shapes, most of which he could not name. A warmth tingled his cheeks that when he turned toward it, a sense of peace settled his bones so much that if he wasn’t already dreaming, he may have drifted into another sleep.

Patricus was a Pope who frequented the Vatican gardens day or night. There, an aroma of flowers lit perfume on the air that lingered even in his passing promenade. The experience was stale and lifeless compared to this. He was drawn to a bush of brightly colored leaves perched with yellow poms of fluffy blooms. Gold seemed to be threaded through the petals like sparkling veins. A sheen of dust was left upon his fingers that was strangely fascinating and equally annoying. A river glistened in the distance, and he considered cleansing his skin in the cool waters until Nimeda’s squeal of glee distracted his intentions.

He marveled at Nimeda’s novelty among the trees. It reminded him of a garden more than a forest, though shapes and colors were unlike any he  ever witnessed before. Such were the things of dreams, he imagined, and followed her as she explored. A frown burrowed his expression to thoughtful caution when she called into the emptiness. She waited as though expecting an answer, and for a moment, Philip held his breath with similar prediction. Habitation permeated his intuition, for the wildness of the previous woods was clearly absent. Growth and land undulated freely, but it wasn’t without design. So who was the gardener?

So Philip followed the angelic girl of dreamland prophecy as she plunged into the heart of the sanctuary. Behind him, white petals sprung from his footprints as he walked. As each petal opened, an orb of light wafted upward and hovered a few moments before it winked sleepily away. Nimeda’s gasp drew his attention from the phenomenon and pulled it toward a mound of swelling greenery ahead. He approached, hands steadily resting at his waist as always. He wondered if the miniature green mountain would lift its head as had the dragon with the yellow eye from so many dreams ago. It was alive, but seemed oblivious at best and disinterested at least, to their presence. Nimeda greeted it like an old friend: older than even she. Philip rounded to the other side. When he did, a face finally lifted.

It was unlike any face he’d seen before, and he stared silently to comprehend. It had a head of wood through which was etched deep crevices of bark. Green tufts that he took for gleaming grasses sprang from the top and rolled downward along its jaw. Thorny sticks circled its brow like a makeshift crown. More crossed the line of its shoulders like armor-plating, and from them billowed a cape of pine needles and bushy ferns. As its body unfurled itself before them, the shape flickered from a place of kneeling slumber to fully upright. When it did, Philip saw Nimeda through the opacity on the other side. Philip shivered as he had the sense that they didn’t awaken the creature so much as activate it. 

A yearning for knowledge plunged deep within. He had to know what this was and why the need brought him here. Though the creature stood nearly 10 feet tall, Philip positioned himself before it as if it may yet kneel to kiss the ring he was not presently wearing. He would not be surprised if it did. Instead, he probed for answers. Nimeda was with him now. ”Who are you?” he asked.

The creatures eyes were white globes in a very intelligent manner if not fully human. The irises were gold like the sun. They sought the origin of the question with an orderly scan of its surroundings, settling finally upon the little man dressed all in white posed before him. He spoke with a rumbling that may have been the voice of the eons.
“I am Tuuru,” it replied.

The agnomen meant nothing to him.

”What are you?” Philip asked.

Tuuru answered automatically. “I am an Arboreal,” it said.

Philip raised his chin, continuing the systematic interrogation.
”Why are you here?”

The hulking branches of Tuuru’s arms wove with the motion of woodsy undulation in a way Philip had seen in the black hole when he witnessed the branches of the cage protecting mankind. Likewise did the wood slither across the very surface of his arboreal skin. Philip shivered.

Tuulu’s cloak swirled and as the mighty carpet of green swept aside, a pillar was revealed behind him. 
“I am the guardian of the Four-Way Pillar,” he said. 

Philip gasped when he saw the Pillar. It was made of a golden metal he did not recognize, but for all purposes, seemed most like bronze. It stood slightly taller than he himself. Strikingly, at its top were positioned four heads, each pointing in the ordinal directions. The shapes were of a lion with its mouth reared open to snap, oxen with its horns angled sharply downward, eagle with its beak splayed open in frozen craw and a human man glaring with daring attitude. For each head, words pierced Philip’s mind, though he couldn’t be sure that Tuuru hadn’t uttered the four titles or if the words sprang from within: "speed, strength, flight and cunning."

The body of the pillar was wrapped in the hug of four arms. Four feathered wings were coiled about the rest, two angled downward while two angled skyward. Markings covered the whole of the pillar from base to the neck of the heads. They seemed to plunge below the level of the grass, though Philip could not tell for certain how deep the base was set.

He licked his lips. He knew this shape, though it was not as he had ever imagined it before. Nothing of the Earth frightened Philip, but there were plenty of beings on realms beyond the flesh that did. The guardians of paradise were among them.

His voice trailed to a whisper for he knew that he did not belong in this place. “And for what purpose is the Four-Way Pillar?”

Tuuru’s presence flickered again. Thread-fine streaks of fire criss-crossed the shape of his body until it reformed. When it did, Tuulu smiled. Bark flaked from his face in the stretch of his mouth.

[Thalia]

Hands braced in front of her chest and clasped together in wonder, she stared bright-eyed up at the immense creature as he unfurled before Noctua. Abandoning previous investigation, she bounded alongside to listen. Her thoughts rippled like a fresh breeze tickled its surface, encouraging all sorts of long forgotten curiosities to burst and fade in quick succession. One thing she did know, she was immensely pleased to see him.

As Noctua’s awe was drawn to the pillar, Nim remained close to the Arboreal. She reached to gently touch the branches of his great arm in a more familiar greeting. The gesture was not hesitant, though she was perfectly aware of his strength. “Small green shoots. A refuge. I see!” she told him, before he flickered and reformed to answer Noctua’s most recent question.

This time she too turned her attention to the pillar. “A purpose of great Need,” she said. No great illumination flared from her depths, and if she recognised anything at all of what she saw, this time she made sure it remained hidden. Emotions undulated down there she did not want to face, not because they scared her, but because she understood at least a little of their magnitude. “Did you forget the question?” Noctua looked … disturbed by what he beheld, and she touched him lightly on the elbow as though to guide him. “You must tell Tuuru what you have seen, Noctua, that he might understand why we need his help.”

[Patricus I]

Philip’s contemplation soon smoothed to passive absorption. He was never one to act on his dreams, despite the furor with which they enveloped his consciousness. He noted their meaning in a journal and moved on with his life undisturbed. He always knew he would bear the mantle of first among Bishops, but not because he dreamed himself standing triumphant atop Saint Peter’s. It was certainty as sure as the truth Nimeda sought in between soul and flesh. Destiny just was. The momentarily glimpse of the beyond faded, and Philip oriented himself to the present. Nimeda prodded he act. When Philip glanced at her, he winked. He felt more secure in himself now than the entire dream’s experience.

“Tuuru the Arboreal,” he spoke as though issuing sovereign decrees intended to be followed to the letter of his law, “I have seen a refuge crafted from the vines of your very bark. A smog surrounded the cage. You are the keeper of something that I need. Tell me what you know of these things,” he said. As he described the vision within a dream, if such a thing existed, he’d come to a contemplative stance. His hands were perched at his mouth, palms pressed together as though in supplicant prayer. Yet he paced unknowingly, a habit of many years. When his gaze snapped upward, it was to drink in the nuances of this creature from the wave of each grassy eyelid to the crinkle in his barky cheeks. Philip’s chin tilted high, expectant.

He wasn’t sure if the speech summoned some sort of authority to speak or if Tuuru would have shared the answer to anyone to stroll into his neck of the woods. Nimeda said she’d never been here before, implying its remote isolation or perhaps sheer hidden nature. This suggested few others, if none, would confront the creature as he had. When he reached out with the verbalized demand to be shown what he needed, it was with full confidence that he would be answered. The Arboreal did not disappoint.

There was intelligence in Tuuru’s eyes as he beheld first Philip followed by Nimeda. The intelligence was calculating, as if considering whether or not they were the ones he needed.
“The Great Wheel knows there are no beginnings and no endings, but an ending comes. The Four-Way Pillar summons the Book. The Book has four keys,” he said. With a great groan, Tuuru lifted his hands high overhead. From his fingers extended branches that split and formed new ones. Within moments a sphere swallowed them whole, the branches blocked out all but a few dim specks of sunlight. Although he knew they were inside the very cage he beheld in the darkness, it wasn’t confining. Rather, the seclusion was comforting as though they were nestled in the womb of the Virgin herself.

The dim cocoon darkened until he found himself drifting. He could see people standing around the Four-Way Pillar, each with their palms pressed to a different symbol carved therein. They were indistinguishable except for a young blonde woman. She was barefoot and wore a black dress and veil. Beneath her palms, the symbols on the pillar began to glow an eerie blue until the light grew so painfully bright, Philip put a hand to shield his eyes. She screamed silently before the light winked away with one brilliant flash. In an instant, Philip found himself standing on the ground near her. She turned away from the Pillar and lifted the veil from her face. Beneath was one empty eye-socket, blackened and charred.  The other eye was bright green and roamed freely about the socket, swiveling as though always in motion within the orbit. It never stopped moving despite her fixation upon himself. He wondered if the Pillar did that, but the injury seemed old, nor did she move as if in pain. Perhaps she was oblivious to the disfigurement. She offered what was in her hands to him, and he accepted it without hesitation. The moment he did, the dream yanked him from Arboreal’s vision.

When he opened his eyes, he was laying in plush grass soft as downy fur. The Four-Way Pillar was nearby, untouched as before. Tuuru was alongside it. A dizziness swarmed his mind that passed in a few moments. When he sat up, the gift from the veiled woman was nestled alongside his leg.

A sense of peace settled again as he held it aloft. It was about the length of a fork, slender and elegant. One end was honed to a blunt point. Strikingly, it was made of crystal or perhaps of glass. There was a weightlessness to the stake that defied its appearance. When he held it up, the sunlight caught the prism of its edges and a rainbow of colors were scattered about the garden.

This was the key that Tuuru described, or at least it was one of them.

He carried it with him as he returned. Tuuru nodded with approval. “You have the key,” he said. Philip agreed, obviously he had the key. Tuuru gave it to him. “Yours is the key of cunning,” he continued, voice booming through its wooden chest. Philip turned the stake over in his hands before interrupting.
“The keys of strength, speed, and flight remain,” he said, gaze shifting to the Pillar and the heads perched atop. Writings were marked into the column that Philip did not comprehend yet the meaning permeated his mind none the less. In the vision, the woman with one eye seemed to know the words. Philip, with all his knowledge, who spoke the language of ancients, didn’t so much as recognize the script. 

Tuuru was quiet. They needed these keys to work the Four-Way Pillar, the power of which flowed through a book that would save them all.

This was not the action he wanted. The Pope was the Bishop of Rome, not the hero of Rome. He was a watcher of prophecy, not a diviner of it. Most importantly, salvation was once laid at the feet of mankind and it was rejected - no, slaughtered; sacrificed. Destiny faltered. He was chosen by God just as he chose a life of service.

He understood what to do next, and in evidence, showed the stake to Nimeda. ”The key of cunning,” he said with a smirk.

[Thalia]

Nimeda sat unceremoniously where she had been standing, watching Noctua pace and question the Arboreal with all the commandment of the king she had perceived him to be before. Her knees tucked up, arms hugged around. “Return to the beginning and the end will finally arrive,” she muttered to herself. Those words had not been given to her though, had they? Too much squeezed her memory for attention. “An ending comes, anendingcomes.” Her face buried into the cage of her arms, body shivering despite the sun-dappled clearing. Fear contracted her ribcage. Her toes scrunched, curling to take shelter beneath the hem of her dress. They could not leave until they were released, and probably she would not have fled anyway; not with a similar betrayal so fresh in her mind. But where Noctua was graced with the premonitions to engineer a future, Nimeda saw the great holes rent from the path of the Wheel as it turned. Endings could not be stopped, and this one would be bloody and painful.

When her chin next propped on her folded arms, her face was blotched from tears, her eyes rimmed pink. She unfurled like a small flower, brushing the evidence away with her palms. “As your namesake,” she observed lightly, holding out a hand. “May I see?”

She took the stake carefully, as though it might easily smash to splinters in her grip. It hummed gently, perhaps only to her ears; a resonance not unlike the other old things that dwelled here, like Jon and Mara and Tristan. For a moment grey eyes peeked at Noctua, as though seeking permission, but if such was the intention she did not choose to voice it. With a quiet breath she fell back into soft waves of light. It was a lesser power here, and one she rarely relied on. But this was an object that sang to that inner gift.

As her fingers trailed the crystal, small veins of light probed too. They did not sink. They could not.

Until, suddenly, the power began to unravel from her -- sucked in like a vortex. The stake glowed faintly in the moment before she yelped and dropped it into her lap. She was not sure if the power had fled her control (unlikely), she had let go (possible), or the stake had ripped it from her grasp like a riptide. She stared down at it in surprise, not particularly enamoured of touching it again, though it showed no signs of life now. Her brows knit.

Around them the dream wavered; warped like someone had stuck a finger into a still pool, and now the ripples spread out. It lasted only a moment before it righted itself. Nimeda blinked. “It calls to kin,” she said.