After dropping the others at various, seemingly random spot within Yggdrasil, it was finally Tasha's turn. The navigation system of the air taxi begins flashing warnings about going off-route, but Thoth seems to override them without saying anything. There's just the whirring of his cybernetic eye lenses. The rise to the mid-canopy, where there are still breaks in the upper layers to let sunlight enter.
When the car sets down, Thoth offers Tasha a folded bit of paper. "The directions to find your selected area to practice," he says, even though he's already handed out similar ones as the others were dropped off.
"Thank you," Tasha replies, accepting the object with both hands. Knowing Thoth isn't big on small talk -- or talk in general -- she gives him a respectful nod and then rises, exiting the air taxi on to the wooded canopy.
The car lifts off and flies back into the darkness. The spot where Tasha is to start her hike is fairly well lit, thanks to an opening above. The 'ground' is a combination of soil and loam and something like grass that has built up on the wood over the ages.
Still amazed to be walking on a tree that in itself has soil, plants, and further trees upon it, Tasha makes her way in the sunlight as she reads the directions. Having expected the usual chaos, the lone walk in the woods settles on her shoulders like a warm blanket, the sound of the wind through the trees, the animals, and the feeling of isolation and peace are welcome. It strikes her she is so rarely alone anymore, and that now and then, it's nice.
The first line of directions reads: Seek ye the stoic one, and follow the shadow of his staff.
And so Tasha raises her head to look around. Stoic, she knows now, represents endurance in the face of adversity. That could be said of many things around her, including herself, so she decides it must be something special and stand-out.
Just beyond the well-lit area, the tree opens up more. The branches are more bare, and hint at different shapes. There are a lot of shadows though as a result, but also glimpses of other lit areas deeper in.
Tasha isn't sure based on the shadows, so picks the one that looks most staff-like to her and ventures that way, but no further than the next lit area. There she looks around again, having decided to repeat this process until she finds what she's looking for, visiting each area in turn in a clockwise pattern.
She nearly misses it, due to the size. A large vertical branch at the edge of one of the clearings has an abstract sort of profile, suggesting a face of sorts, but mainly there is a 'twig' as big as a regular tree trunk that juts at an angle into the glade, with another branch from it going back to the main one so it looks a bit like an arm holding it. The shadow is almost directly below the staff, pointing deeper still into the shadowed areas.
Tasha regards the figure of the tree for a long moment, appreciating it, and then she turns and walks deeper. As she goes her painting kit thumps against her side against the modest Vartan coat she chose to wear, her outfit shorts under a skirt, long resilient booties, and a tank top in Katie's style. She even has a pair of sunglasses perched on her head, in case she needed a darker view of things. So far, the pleasant mix of light and shadow has been inviting, even calming.
Eventually she comes to another little grove, with a small pond. There some sort of floating blossoms in it, which some sort of circular current (but there's now wind or other obvious force to set it into motion). The second like of instructions reads: Take the first path that the dancers lead you to. The flowers are turning clockwise from Tasha's vantage, and there are a several branch-paths leading from this area.
Tasha looks to her left, the direction the flowers swirl, and then searches for the first path available. After a moment of searching and ensuring she didn't miss some other, closer, path, she begins down the one she spotted. This, she decides, must be it: The first path in the clockwise direction, her left.
The paper directs her to 'Seek out the weeping singers, and there find your place.' As she goes along, there's definitely some sort of sound further ahead.
Tasha isn't sure about staying next to a bunch of weeping, but she's not about to stop now. And so she keeps walking, putting the directions away now that she's done with them and taking more time to look around and enjoy nature. Real, wild nature, as alive and flowing as her home world, beyond even Charon's cultivated gardens. She breathes deeply; ship air is so sterile.
Eventually the sounds turn into a sort of music, in the way wind-chimes can be musical. Tasha comes upon a larger glade, this one hidden by vines she has to push aside first. It's a bit like the Cathedral, in that it is an inverted bowl, with branches curving in towards the top, where it's open. A pond below is fed by streams coming out of the branches themselves, some overhanging enough stream directly down into the pond. Other founts have the water spilling over shelves of what might be petrified fungi, with holes and ridges that produce the odd music. The water seems to be drained off near the center of the pond, probably to some lower level.
Tasha thinks she could just stay here forever; she can see why faeries would visit this place. It's alive, beuatiful, comforting, and with just that mix of inexplicably natural detail, light, shadow, and time that has confounded artists and urban designers since beyond her knowing. She settles herself down at the edge of the bowl, using the curve as a kind of backrest, then begins undoing her paint kit set and the second faux-leather container under it, all hanging by arm straps.
Tasha's paint kit is much as she left it, except she took some time to create new paints from her stocks of Abaddonian soil and other raw materials she learned can be used to make the stuff. A few paints are modern synthetics, paints of bright gold, silver that settles in to a mirror-finish, and sealant to protect the works underneath in a handy spray. Ear little portable easel gets set up, and she pulls out her cards, clipping several up with a few entirely blank.
"The paints you make yourself are usually the best," the voice of Mollymauk notes over Tasha's shoulder. He doesn't cast a shadow. "Some of the shiny works can work though too, because they're shiny."
"It's very hard to make shiny paint without high technology. I tried. It just looks bad steel work," Tasha remarks, by now very used to voices suddenly speaking to her out of the blue. And Molly isn't just any new voice; they met before when she visited the ancient dragon. "Space has a sad lack of pigment, unless you know how to draw black from emptiness itself."
And so Tasha gets to painting. Her own set of cards follow a clockwise time theme, and are spread across the forces of the universe in a top down and back arrangement; many parts of a whole and a whole in many parts. Based on Thoth's own deck, it seeks to work with the universe, and the universe within the person.
For Tasha's deck, the Fundamentals -- those beings and memetics essences that represent some pillar of reality itself that cannot be further reduced to some better representative -- act as the 'Major Arcana'. Already made the Null, a card that depicts many things swirling deeper and deeper in to an utter-blackness created from high-tech light entrapping paints, the Dragon depicting the circle of life, and others. Two new cards have been added: Chaos, Order, and Balance, and are little but sketche son a cardface.
"So, will this be for divination, or something else?" the purple devil asks, still seeming to hover behind Tasha's shoulder (or he may just be a disembodied voice). "What is your focus while you paint them?"
"Divination, introspection, and the use of magic," Tasha replies. She starts with order, since she's worked on several chaotic cards and feels the need for something new. Order is easy enough; she already has sketches. Using a pencil, she begins on the outline. It becomes clear that blocks are being used with a solid, right-single designs, neat and tidy, each of the four divisions equal. Going in sequence, random objects and shapes steadily become part of larger, more orderly designs, until the whole thing looks around again and what had been rendered to smaller and smaller orderly bits end up looking like the same chaos that Order started with -- a play on how immensely complex things can create new chaos from abstraction, interpretation, misunderstanding, and the need for ever more Order to manage it.
"Tricky," Molly notes. "Sort of makes me think of those old drawings of non-Euclidean stairways, or how certain angles can make something look inset or outset. Minds like to pick one or the other perspective-wise. So it's fun when they can't decide."
"Yes. Meetings the beings I have, and seeing what I have, I've learned that order can create chaos and chaos, order. They also don't have to. It's an important thing to remember, and maybe a useful weapon." The next card is Chaos, which is much like Order, as the orderly is broken down and change until it ... ends up resembling the Order that it sought to change. "Chaos can create order by its nature. Even beings like Thotep and Mr. Yellow have patterns. Look at clouds and you'll see things."
"And ultimate order can only lead to chaos," the faerie claims. "Because at that point, there is no other direction available."
Something seems to flit across the water, but it may just be sunlight following the ripples of the whirlpool. The water music also has a pattern, but seems chaotic all the same (or it could just because of the rapid tempo of it).
"Death is available, but when everything stops that becomes stasis, a timeless rapid infinity. All that's left is what you say, something to change it." Tasha goes about painting the cards now that their outlines are done. Chaos is a whirl of order in to a madness of colors that end up resembling the original order, and Order is much the inverse. The colors are different, and the amount of order or chaos, but fittingly enough, they're similar.
Tasha pretends not to notice the movement. Besides, she needs to paint.
Balance comes next, and rightly so, for it uses both themes split in each section. Order becomes Chaos and Chaos Order, showing that the two sides to the coin manifest in Balance, and that Balance is a constant effort even as it seems to right itself. Each transition may be more or less appealing to the viewer, more Chaos, more Order, but only the card taken as a whole is a precise mix of both, demonstrating how difficult true Balance is, and how it migth only be obtained as a whole.
"Balance never lasts," Molly claims. "The pendulum swings from Order to Chaos and back, but it never stops at the middle. It's more fun to try and make it swing how you want anyway though!"
"Isn't that your own kind of Balance?" Tasha smiles, but there's no rancor in it. She puts the three cards aside to dry, then pulls out several more. One is yellow, and one is black. They're half finished. The black one shows the journey of a pilgrim or traveler flanked by a goat, he next comes across a crossroads with a sign pointing towards a shining city and another towards a deep, ominous forest full of eyes. "Deception. Thotep's in this card. It represents a lack of understanding of the universe; madness is the greatest extent of not knowing, a detachment from the fact and truth of reality." half finished, she begins to complete the rest.
"Madness is a lot of things," Molly claims. "Knowledge of reality is as good a cause as lack of understanding. Or worse: knowing you don't understand something, but then seeing that understanding just out of reach. Not as fun as hubris though. It's so much fun to turn someone's hubris against them, or poke holes in it. Dragon taunting is a good example!"
"They do seem a bit full of themselves. Maybe that's why I keep flirting with them; I can't just too-proud and too-scary beings have their way even if they're my friends." Tasha finishes the Card. The signpost is labeled now, but backwards. The man walks in to the deep forest, surrounded by the impression of horrors that seem to draw closer, eyes larger now, sticks might be fangs or claws. The goat leads the way. The final quadrant shows the man's face as he comes upon the end of his journey, it might be surprise, or fear, it's certainly some kind of shock. The view is back down the path he came, pointed at his face, so you can't see what he sees, but you can see the goat going back down the path and abandoning the man. "Deception often leads the deceiver is a greater position, unless the deceiver themselves ins deceived."
"The very best form of deception is the truth.. or just enough to let the target deceive themselves," Molly offers. "At the end, that look is from their realization that it's all their own fault. Although really you just need to leave a bit of mystery, or something unsaid, to send someone spiraling downward."
"Yet it's not possible to know everything, and the sides can be uneven," Tasha counters, again without malice. It's just so. The last card shows a woman holding a lantern, standing before a ruined library. Everything is dark, except the lantern, which is yellow and bright. As the woman proceeds in to the library, she looks at tomes, lighting a candle as she does, the next seen shows many candles and many empty books, and the light is almost blinding. The final scene shows a mountain of tomes opened, candles everywhere, and the light is so great it seems as though the old library is aflame, and the reader is consumed by that light, indistinct against the blinding light of revelation.
"This is good enough. The madness of true knowledge is the lack of separation of self and other; it is the knowing of demons and other beings who possess no inner universe, no lie or lack of separation. The seeker is no different from the candle is no different from the light, they blur together. It is the consuming desire of knowledge."
"Do you wonder what would have happened had you chosen the card with the other key on it?" Molly asks. "Can you produce that one whenever you want?"
Tasha reaches back in to her art kit container bag and neatly places the Yellow Marker beside herself. "Sometimes I wonder, but I think it would have been some kind of tragedy. It still might, either way." She then places the Blue Marker beside it. "Mr. Yellow hasn't exactly left me, either."
"They open very different doors," Molly notes. "But only one is really tied to your soul. She'll probably call on you tonight for your armoring. I think she knows someone who can handle it. It's kind of ironic."
"A surprise and irony. Something to look forward to." The two cards are put aside, and so Tasha lays back, stretching. Painting isn't something you can rush, she's found, not if you want it to mean something. Perhaps a better artist than her can do so, but she needs time to think on things. "Maybe I'll paint the glade next. I've finished my Cards for now."
"If you could only paint it onto a card, with room for just one feature, which one would it be?" the faerie asks.
Tasha considers this. She looks around, noting the pond, the water, the roots that touch the water, the basin, the curve of the earth, the canopy, the strange mushrooms. Normally she would answer the place is all that it is; taking something by itself wouldn't be the same place. But if she had to draw just one thing, to paint it ... "The pond. I remember they can be gateways, and the way the roots reach in to it to draw sustenance, creating light and shadow, one world touching another, that speaks the most to me. It's also the center of the glade, and I've always been drawn to things that seem important and grand."
"What would you call it?" the voice asks next. "I was expecting the spring-trees, since they're the most fantastical. They are what most would choose. But all things do lead into the pond."
"Traveling boundaries is what I do, and I appreciate the different environment. I also like to know where things lead to, and I have friends that are Phins, so I think about water more these days." Tasha draws a brush, but hands it to her tail as she folds her arms and plants her elbow, head resting on her hands. "Transitions? Boundaries? Something about nature and two environments. Surfaces? Reflections? A good name takes time to consider."
"Boundaries is a good notion, but all of it fits. For those that live in the water, the air is a crushing thing, a place of weight and death. That holds for faeries and other creatures, where the physical world can be a dangerous place," Molly says. "In both cases though, you found more gods in the water."
"Yes. The easiest place to find someone is at home, unless they are a traveler. That seems to be true for gods as well as faeries and mortals." Tasha tilts her head, regarding the pond again. "I am a traveler. I traverse places, and so I am found in other people's homes. Eventually I found a way to travel to places that should crush me. A bridge, like the fingers of the tree reaching in to the pond. A traversal of boundaries to find sustenance."
"So long as you never forget that you can be sustenance on the other side of those boundaries," Molly notes. "That's why the boundaries exist. And edges. Edges are also very dangerous. Things can sneak through them, like cracks."
"Like the Ogdoad." But Tasha nods; she'll remember. "The armoring should help my taste. I fear for the others; I still wonder if they should travel with me, but I know now they ahve their own choices."
"Well, your little friend certainly could use more protection," Molly claims. "She's got daggers in mind. And daggers should be sheathed."
"You'll have to be more specific as to which little friend I have that has daggers, I have so many." But Tasha rolls her head to search the glade. "But only one is so overwhelmingly foolish and flippant as to follow me when I clearly intend to be alone. Reeka, is it?"
"No, not the little devil, the wolf with a devil in her mind," Molly narrows it down. "She must have always had some demons in there to begin with, in order to host similar without ill effects."
"I've thought the same. Out of everyone on the ship, it chose her, the scholar whom despite her knowledge is the least effective person to bring about change. I suspected it was willpower, or some shadow of her past, but nothing in what she told me suggests a demon great enough. Though, I suppose I'm the same way. It doesn't have to be much," Tasha remarks, settling back again. "A life treated as a doll, a world of lies, false praise, an escape to a new world and a new name, research, and then me and the friendship and horror I bring. There are many possibilities, but few certainties. Is she not doing well with her courtship of the fae?"
"Oh, she is a curiosity to be sure, and is drawing notice," Molly claims, "but perhaps not the best notice. Her darkness may draw in darker ones bent on using her. You should ask about having her looked at as well for some armor."
"Will it work, if they are already inside her?" Tasha looks up, brows arching. "Will it work for me, with Mr. Yellow?"
"You are more blue than yellow now," Molly notes. "And I'm not sure. I don't think it's ever been done for a mortal before. It's probably because you are one of Persephone's projects, and Kainudy feels obliged to help. Plus she's been stuck in her little cell for ages now, and it's either this or wait for her next breakdown."
Tasha blinks at this. "Well, it's nice to be of help?" She gives a little shake of her head, sensing a great history she has scarcely touch the tip of. "At least, I appreciate it. And I will check on Hakeber. Perhaps it would be better if I pushed the matter; better to find out what her darkness is now before we find out the hard way. I know how dangerous it can be, from my own experience."
"It may require finding a willing demon to look her over," Molly suggests. "But that shouldn't be too difficult. The Halfworld and Dream Lands have plenty to spare."
"The Halfworld and Dream Lands?" Tasha perks her ears, even as her hands go behind her head and she settles in. "We do have our Sam, but he has said nothing about it."
"Ah, he's not a proper demon," Molly claims. "The Dream Lands and the Halfworld are both realms similar to the Faerie ones, such that travel between them is possible. They are outside of the usual sea of universes, suspended in the Unformed, although that has many names as well. A primal chaos of sorts, with a desire to be given form. Kainudy shelters in the Halfworld, as she is flesh and blood and such beings are changed by long stays in Faerie. And she is particularly naked to the effects in her current state. But there are many interesting creatures there."
"It sounds like a place worth visiting. I suppose I should go there. How is their temporarily relative to ours? I'd prefer not to take more time form this universe than I need to, as Hakeber needs to be seen to, and I have tasks to discharge." Tasha pulls up her sleeve and runs a finger down the left arm cover, bringing up the menu which feeds her itinerary to her vision. "Is there any problem with remaining in the Dream World for a mortal? And while I'm looking at it, I do need to meet with a faerie. Besides yourself, I think. While I'm here."
"Well, you don't physically enter the Dream Lands, you dream yourself into them," Molly's voice explains. "But.. well, how long you spend in Faerie can be problematical, as time generally passes more slowly there. But for the Halfworld, it depends on how you enter and exit, and if anyone else has used the same door in the meantime. It is possible to enter, stay for many days, and then return to just after you left, so long as nobody else has used the door after you, and thus reset it's time."
"I see." Tasha would consider that it says a lot about her that she simply accepts this, but she's beyond even that consideration these days. the strangeness of the multiverse is part of her, now, as much as her wings. "I suppose I should be careful then. I'll see about help for Hake."
"Of course, doors aren't always necessary," Molly notes, sounding over Tasha's other shoulder now. There are more flashes across the whirlpool as well. "Especially since you have the Key."
Tasha does look over now. "The master key, huh?" She likes the sound of that; she always did enjoy getting in to things as a child, because usually the best things were behind locks. "I suppose the question is now: how do I find the lock?"
"The lock is on the Key," the faerie claims. The blue Marker is different since first visit to the dragon, as now the symbol floating in it is more curved and bordered in gold.
Tasha can't quite resist. She pockets the Yellow Marker and, just to be safe, puts her paints and tools back in their bags lest she somehow leave them behind as she vanishes off to nowhere. Once finished she takes the Blue Marker in hand and, with her other hand, lays a finger and tries to spin the symbol.
It the comma-shaped section under her finger lights up, and when she moves her finger the next one lights up as the other begins to fade. Once she's moved through all three of them they all glow warmly, and a voice asks, "Yes? I'm not ready for you quite yet. I have some things to deal with first."
"Molly said this Marker is now a Key and a Door, that is why I activated it. To figure that out. I did not intend to contact you early," Tasha explains, head tilted as she studies this strangest of communication devices. Like a datapad or phone, through her soul.
"Of course you did, or you wouldn't have tried it," the voice replies in a reasonable tone. "Unless you thought it would just transport you to me directly? Molly is a goof. It's not a Key and a Door. More like a Doorbell or Knocker. Or a pull chime. Intercom? Tell me if one those analogies makes sense or not."
"Most of them make sense, my technological exposure is broad. I was hoping it would allow me to traverse in to various universes without the usual complication, as there may be things or beings I need there. Hake, my friend, could use a review by a dream demon. I agree with Molly's assessment that there is some darkness in her that may become a liability for her and for us," Tasha explains.
"Eh? She have a soulstone as well?" the dragon asks. "Is she the same size as you? What sort of darkness? Does she read depressing poetry or like to start fires?"
"She was directly influenced and ... gaeased? Directed? Controlled? By an Ogdru-hem to accomplish a specific mission, but we both believe she has some greater darkness in her that allowed that hold to take place, and may be exploited further by others. She doesn't have a soulstone. She's the same size as me minus the wings. She is a scholar; her early life was being treated as a doll who was applauded for her research only to reveal she dug in to false truths her parents knew about. She left and joined an order, starting over, then she joined me, and was struck with this influence. She researches old cults and religious matters, it's how I found her. I was researching the same." Tasha lays the Marker on her belly and lays back again, getting comfortable. the glade is too nice for being at attention for evry long.
"Sounds like a possessed nun," the dragon remarks. "Nuns aren't so bad, on average. Not as bad as clowns or lawyers, anyway. I'll call you later when I have things.. arranged. Do you have sunglasses?"
"Yes. My girlfriend says they 'work for me,'" Tasha answers. She reaches up and waggles them a little, then settles back.
"Be sure to bring them," the dragon advises. "And eat a big meal. Unless you don't have a strong stomach. The entity I'm hiring is a bit.. uh.. weird to look at."
"I know the type. I have a strong stomach." Tasha yawns cavernously, but decides a nap here would likely see her waking up to pink fur, a fluffy dress, and ribbons, and then Hakeber might think she's mocking her. "And I will. I will now return to courting faeries; sorry for bothering you."
"Do not let them lick your eyeballs," the dragon advises. "They get weird after doing that. Also don't sneeze around them."
"No sneezing, no eyeball licking," Tasha confirms. "I'll see you soon, Ma'am." And so Tasha puts the Marker away, gazing out across the glade and settling in to the arch of her wings like some ostentatious pillow. Even if she doesn't manage to sway any of the fae to her cause, at last, she decides, the trip was worth it for the relaxation.