audio | un: hidden

[matermali]

( cw; cannabis )

[ There is no softness to the voice that murmurs onto the network in the midst of the night when people should be sleeping. Those sweet souls are not her concern if they don't wish to hear. She offers no comfort, but a reminder of what's been lost—what can still be taken.

In doing so, the woman's raspy words creep out from beneath the shadows with a voice that drags—no, it crawls—over ceaselessly hot coals. In its shudder to whisper out a poem borrowed from home, there is a smolder always bordering on a choked gasp. But no hurry, no hurry. Where do you have to be? ]

Old Yew which graspeth at the stones...that name the under-lying dead; Thy fibres net the dreamless head, thy roots are wrapt about the bones.

[ To that, a pause that looms with omen. ]

The seasons bring the flower again, and bring the firstling to the flock; And in the dusk of thee, the clock beats out the little lives of men.

[ Now, a strange yearning nearly begins to dissipate the smoke that seems to scorch her throat.

Hush, take a moment. Take a breath; hold it. Feel the shiver of a fingernail at the nape of your neck, feel it trace the curve of your ear to borrow your attention. Only just. No, don't turn. Don't touch. Just listen; the whisper can still singe. ]

O not for thee the glow, the bloom...who changest not in any gale, nor branding summer suns avail, to touch thy thousand years of gloom.

And gazing on thee, sullen tree, sick for thy stubborn hardihood; I seem to fail from out my blood...and grow incorporate into thee.

[ For a time, it seems that may be all. Then, in the same hush she speaks with a more particular address: ]

I hear that we have been denied the ephemeral — to exist endlessly within a perverse mirror of God’s image. Here, nature should protest. Instead it menaces with its silence.

[ There is a silence of her own while Vanessa takes a drag to sigh out a thin stream of smoke into the evening air. Her voice now drops so low it grates and pinches too close, like gravel against tender feet. Tickling whispers are gone; they flee the weighted melancholy that persists. ]

We carry on within a dollhouse between worlds. Do not be tempted by its pretty trinkets, lest you truly be cursed to wander the demimonde forevermore.

[ Denial still rules paramount over the rumor of immortality, but the lack of bodies is an...unsettling implication. ]

...The graves lie empty.

Comments

[matermali]

It speaks to you?

[ While speaking to the perpetuity of nature and the ephemeral state of men, she wonders how this one actually takes it. For many, it's more of a melancholy, if not a strange peace. ...Though some have claimed it to be denial.

And it has been chopped to ribbons here. ]

Most prefer what was written just before.

[vecna]

I suppose so.

[That it speaks to him. That time is a tempo that segments human life into laughably categorized parts, ever marching onward, a ridiculous notion that they often label as order. Continuing on and on and on until they’re nothing more than corpses in a grave.

This is what he thinks. What he says is always a defanged version of that amongst those he doesn’t know.]

There’s an inevitability to it that’s fascinating. Though I guess that same finality doesn’t apply in this city.

[matermali]

Perhaps more fascinating when not considered so intimately. Do we now go on eternally with the tree? Do we together whither away with each passing of the moon, only to twist into a perverse mimicry by morning?

Do we forget? What else has been taken from us?

[ No, the dignity of death may not apply to this city, but she's reluctant to believe it. It seems he understands enough of her point, at least. Few people here seem to appreciate poetry, so Vanessa will take what she can get on the matter. ]

Have you witnessed it? The supposed eternity we have been granted?

[vecna]

And what "we" is there to continue on with that tree? There's not much left without memory or consciousness to anyone's name.

[Maybe this is a man who appreciates certain snippets of romanticism, prettied up as poetry—the clock bit, for example—but the rest isn’t to be wrapped up so delicately in his opinion. An individual is little more than what their minds craft them to be; and what remnants exist of that, sopped up in a tree's roots?

But he answers the question, soft-toned as ever.]

I haven’t. But it’s caused a pretty big fuss over this “network”. Someone’s already offered themselves up as an experiment, apparently.

[matermali]

[ That's quite precisely one of her fears spoken aloud, but no matter what the cards had suggested on her arrival, Vanessa has too many reasons to stick to her own beliefs.

How much more is she expected to bear? ]

Yes, I heard. I leave fools to their own errands.

[ Her taste for the macabre doesn't extend quite that far. ]

We already barter our soul when we entertain the cursed luxuries of this city. I see no reason to willingly feed the beast our blood, as well.

[vecna]

[In this case, Henry’s curiosity does extend in that direction — not so much out of the macabre than a strange, amused interest in watching others dole out so much pain to each other, and willingly, in the name of theory and experimentation. Lab rats of their own accord. How novel.

He chuckles lightly.]

“Cursed luxuries” might be an overstatement. Have you seen the new bowling alley?

[Cursed with “cosmic” lighting aplenty, maybe. But luxury, it is not. However, that’s more of a rhetorical question than anything else.]

What would you have us do instead?

[matermali]

...I have not.

[ Whatever she's imagining about 'bowling alleys' is nothing like reality, I assure you. ]

But it is cursed. The more we take, the more it will take from us. A trade with the Devil, you see? To believe any of this comes without dire cost can only lead to further ruin.

[ But, of course, they can't starve. What would happen if they did? How would they be revived? A horrific thought; one she mulls over. ]

I can only advise that we refrain from taking more than what we need, lest we become too comfortable. Our attentions must remain sharp if we are to overcome this trial.

[vecna]

[Not that she can see it, but his brow rises. Maybe it's heard in the quietly lilting nature of his tone.]

"Trade" implies some willingness to be here. No, we're prisoners, and whatever we indulge in, you can also see it as taking advantage of the tools we've been given.

[But in this, their thoughts run parallel: only because they can't starve. They have to still live out of spite if nothing else.]

So, you're expecting something terrible to eventually happen. Right?

[matermali]

It is the excess that I caution, not the use itself.

[ But she understands most won't listen, and she won't press. Vanessa is more curious about why anyone would believe something terrible won't happen? She knows plenty about being a prisoner. Freedom is not seized with dignity. ]

You don't think so?

[vecna]

[Simply, airily:]

Oh, no. I do think so. I expect it.

[matermali]

[ Testing those waters. Skippin' rocks. ]

It doesn't worry you?

[vecna]

[He isn't sure "worry" is the right word for it. "Angry" is always the right word for it, in whatever form or degree it happens to take.]

I'm not a fan of the idea, but I'm not sure if I'm so much worried as I am... just waiting. For the other shoe to drop.

[He chuckles.]

My circumstances are unusual, though. To me, this city is just like the cage I was in before, but larger.

[Second verse, same as the first.]

[matermali]

[ Anger is far more useful, in her experience. ]

...How much larger?

[ She doesn't want to press, but he did offer, and it grabs her attention. She also knows about cages. ]

[vecna]

[Anger is, and sorrow, too. But the former is always, always there, forever inlaid with the latter.]

Much larger. I used to live in a lab. A fairly sizable one, underground, but I can't say it compares much to a whole city.

[Good thing Henry is a little looser-lipped now that he doesn't live in said lab. Who's going to tell him to keep his mouth shut? The US government? Well, good luck.]

[matermali]

[ Vanessa may be starting to notice some trends with some people she's meeting. ]

Is this a more preferable cage to you, then?

[vecna]

[Angry? Trapped? Just normal things for normal people, surely.]

A cage is a cage. This one might be more interesting since it's a departure from the routine, but is anyone really happy for as long as they're trapped?

[matermali]

[ Formerly trapped; still angry. Very, very normal indeed (well, for her). ]

I should wonder at anyone to find happiness while trapped in this realm, but survival is to be our necessity. We will find the key, and it will not be something freely offered to us with gifts of food and wine.

[vecna]

[A gentle, gentle laugh.]

Of course not. I suspect we'll have to really work for it. Starting with a bit of exploration.

Does that sound like something you'd be interested in? When you're not waxing poetic in the dead of night, I mean.

[matermali]

[ Hm. ]

Are you extending an invitation? To risk my company in the daylight may be bolder than suffering my poetry beneath the moonlight.

[vecna]

Well, now I have to ask. What does "risking" your company in the daylight entail? You can't be all that bad.