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bestworstcase · 22 days ago

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@pinkrosealice

Thank you so much for the further explanation, I think most if not all of your speculation is incredibly sound! But just so I'm not misunderstanding your point your argument is that The Monarch at The Crossroads is The Wheel correct? Or are you arguing that the Monarch is a Hod from Stone that has otherwise not been explicitly named? And The Black Dove refers to not The Monarch himself but a Name of the Monarch who would eventually ascend to become the Hour known as the Ivory Dove? At the risk of causing further confusion and or time lost on wild speculations, how do you think that tracks with the information we got in Hol in relation to a certain Black Wolf and Rowena, and how this all might relate to The Wolf Divided and Ys? Regardless your enthusiasm for the lore of these games is so commendable and inspiring!!!! So again thank you for your response. It certainly gives me a lot to think about!

i'm normal ab the wolf-divided come closer

OUGH okay so. the six attested gods-from-stone—wheel, flint, tide, seven-coils, horned-axe, & the egg unhatching—do seem pretty inarguably to have been the only gods-from-stone at least insofar as 'from stone' is taken to be a discrete category as opposed to a catch-all for the pre-lithomachy ruling hours usurped by the gods-from-blood and light. my thesis broadly is that the gods-from-stone originated from the wood and the house of the moon—that is (in biblical terms), the pillars of the earth.

the gods-from-stone are of particular importance vis-a-vis the events of the lithomachy for obvious reasons; however, they were not the only hours around during that time. the Nowhere-hours existed as well. disciplines of the scar hushery commit makes the implication that the mansus exists at all because of conflict between the gods-from-stone and the Nowhere-hours:

The Mansus is the fortress in dream raised by the gods-who-were-stone. Nowhere is the inevitable scar beneath it. Monstrous, the gods-from-Nowhere; but cruel, the gods-who-were-stone.

similarly, the priest can give this sermon:

'In the House of the Sun, the dance of the angels of Glory does not cease. Those who were cast down, wave or wound or snow, are gone from the House, and as long as their parts in the dance are filled, they may never return. Therefore let us join hands, and add our little steps to the dance.'

two of these are unambiguously gods-from-Nowhere—snow, and the blackbone—while the third is evidently the giribrago, who seems to reside in the glory based on what very little we can glean about him. and these are all hours who were 'cast down', which is the same sort of language used elsewhere to describe the extirpation of the gods-from-stone.

and of course even in the present, we find Nowhere-hours exerting influence and wielding in some cases considerable power beyond Nowhere; the mare-in-the-tree, for example, is both the third hour of calyptra and the sister when the sister-and-witch are not conjunct (with the applebright being the witch in relation to the mare).

likewise the vagabond has gone Nowhere and i would argue that she ought to be considered a god-from-Nowhere as well as from flesh for several reasons (the traveler is always returning and is thus, in a way, always nowhere; her painted river flows up into the mansus from nowhere; neither the vagabond nor nowhere can truly be kept out).

the point being that the Nowhere-hours may exist outside the laws governing the, for lack of a better term, gods-from-somewhere, but their exile is imperfect and likely always has been—just as alukites are monstrous outlaws but the ligeians wield immense power as Names of the Twins and holders of the keys, the gods-from-Nowhere are an exiled class of abyssal gods but some have been quite successful in establishing footholds of power in the upper realms.

it's just that this is impolitic to acknowledge, in-universe. the Nowhere-hours don't count, and things like (for example) the malachite's liaisons with the mare-in-the-tree are regarded as anomalous and kept secret (even if poorly) because they are forbidden.

hence: the monarch-at-the-crossroads is/was a god-from-Nowhere contemporaneous with the gods-from-stone. as i said, broadly my theory is that the gods-from-stone ruled over the house of the moon,* the woods, the bounds, with the house of the sun being its enigmatic reflection—before the dawn, night, so to speak. given that context, it makes sense to me that the house of the sun might have been ruled by a Nowhere-hour.

(*i consider the meniscate to be a god-from-stone as well as from light for this reason; she presides over the house of the moon now and she "was born in the moon from light")

there are a handful of references to the house of the sun during this period (e.g. in the book of dissolution) and all note that it was different in some fundamental way.

now consider that:

one tradition holds the mansus to be a fortress raised by the gods-from-stone in the course of their conflict with the Nowhere-hours.

the wood, the bounds, and the house of the moon are all conventionally figured to lie beneath the house of the moon, between Nowhere and the mansus.

it is the gods-from-blood and light who are said to have opened the ways into the house of the sun, and nearly every attestation of the gods-from-stone locates them in the woods or the bounds.

…so it actually makes quite a bit of sense for the gods-from-stone to have been in conflict with a Nowhere-hour whose domain existed above theirs—the Sky. the firmament. the Thirty Birds who had dreamt themselves out of Nowhere to become the Monarch-at-the-Crossroads. (in the allegorical sense this also tracks: one builds a house to protect oneself from the wind and the rain.)

and this loosely follows the biblical order of creation: first the separation of day from night, then the parting of the waters, then the formation of the earth, then vegetation, then celestial bodies, then birds and fish, then the beasts of the land. the monarch-at-the-crossroads in this reading represents the parting of waters; and the gods-from-stone presided at the emergence of land from the sea (flint, tide, seven-coils), the growth of the wood, the creation of celestial bodies (wheel and egg unhatching, sun and moon). and then the lithomachy begins with the birds of the air and the fish serpents of the sea.

now all that said

one thing i think worth keeping in mind with regard to the Nowhere-hours is that they are, in effect, chthonic powers – they are not dead per se in the sense that the gods-from-stone or the sun-in-splendour are dead, but they also do not seem to be considered alive per se (and certainly if "the oldest living hours are the gods-from-blood" then the Nowhere-hours who are older must necessarily be unliving.)

death is down – death is Nowhere – and 'dead' is also not an immutable state of being but rather seems to be understood as the act of descent itself (cf the major forge victory: "I am Nowhere. Nowhere is lit by lamps of black nephrite. In Nowhere, we hear the voices prophesying. In Nowhere it is very cold. But it is always possible to be deader." – if death is down then "deader" implies "deeper"). and because the passage from life to death can be figured as a threshold, the sanguine exception applies – the door must open both ways, that is, the dead can rise back into life.

we can find any number of examples demonstrating this principle (the thunderskin, the sister-and-witch, elegiac winter-long…) but it's also interesting to consider with regard to the Nowhere-hours. what does it mean to be from Nowhere? a thing that begins in the depths and seeks to rise can't be dead (because it hasn't ever died) but it also isn't exactly alive. i think – and this is very tenuous, i don't have firm textual evidence – that the Nowhere-hours may be sort of reverse-psychopomps, in that rising from death is possible fundamentally because the Nowhere-hours are down there and striving in the other direction.

now, the serpents & venoms hushery commit:

In the dawn times the sun was lower, so we gave it our blood. From our blood it knew us, and so it was kinder. Its serpents brought us its poisons to drink, and so we died. But we only died a little, and so we dreamed, and returned the next day to give it our blood again.

infers an equivalence between death and dreaming – and that suggests some interesting things about how the monarch-at-the-crossroads came to be as per the sky determination 'we came from nowhere': the Thritige-kind "dreamed themselves out of black glass, to be their own Monarch." this is, as i noted previously, overtly drawn from 'the conference of the birds' and the last thing the birds in the poem must do to achieve enlightenment or reawakening as the simorgh they seek is self-annihilation. death here is figured as metamorphosis.

likewise in the secret histories, the Thirty Birds dreamt themselves out of Nowhere, and dreaming is figured as a kind of dying; thus, the monarch-at-the-crossroads became so by rising-from-death. but the Thritige-kind weren't really alive to begin with because they came from Nowhere, and i think this is the key. the monarch never died, but he came to life from death.

who leaves a place without entering it?

put a pin in that for a moment. let's talk about rowena and the black dove. and henavek.

first point: like vak, henavek is a god. (conversations on this subject between yvette and arun indicate there is one tradition which regards vak and henavek as sister and brother, and another – or possibly the same – that they're lovers.) denzil "refers to it as 'Tavas Mytern' - perhaps 'the King Tongue' - and speaks not of 'it' but of 'him', as if the language were a living king indeed."

both commits for henavek get at the 'as above, so below' conceit ("what starts in the roots, ends in the sky" and "what starts in the sky, ends in the earth"). this is a thematic idea that comes up again and again in relation to certain particular hours but the most salient repetition is the birdsong commit for leaves & thorns:

The gardener's first lesson is this: look up. What starts as weather ends in the world, what starts as sky ends in the soil. This is what the birds know, and the birds know most things first.

now. the monarch-at-the-crossroads is the thirty birds is the sky, the winds—the breath. one tradition holds that speech, that language opened the way into dreams; speech is the first wound and first weapon and first key. and this is, evidently, not a metaphor, or at least not wholly metaphorical, given that ebrehel… exists. ebrehel is 'the word of god.' ebrehel, gatemaker, scarsword, is the shapt of an hour. ebrehel was to be borne by a king against the city unbuilt, it's associated with the presence of worms, and the exile finds it in the church of st marzanna the white—which is either an epithet for snow or a name of hers, or both.

it follows for ebrehel to be the monarch's shapt – it opens the way for worms in the same manner the thirty birds dreamt themselves out of nowhere, and the connection between speech and breath and the winds is intuitive. thus my inclination is to identify henavek, the king-tongue, with the monarch-at-the-crossroads.

which brings us to the black dove:

Coquille asks Yvette what she knows of the line of Kelemdu, the 'Black Dove'. Yvette describes a Henavek folk-tale in which the Black Dove is assigned the wardenship of the Moon-marches by Henavek himself - a folk-tale associated with Brancrug.

and:

Serena and Yvette discuss the death of the Marcher Lord Gwilym Ddu, 'Black William', in which the nuns of St Brandan's might - might - have been implicated through their dealings with the old powers of the hills… Yvette brightly suggests there might have been some linguistic confusion between 'Gwilym Ddu' and 'Kelemdu', the Black Dove... but Serena puts her finger to her lips.

(<- cf 'ud rocashaas' and 'annals of st brandans')

the backstory here vis-a-vis rowena and kelemdu gets laid out by connie after the affair of the rising while (if given 'a pale lady and a prince of wines'):

Eva Dewulf was a many-times-great daugher of Rowena of Ys, and of Kelemdu the Wolf. Yvette, we suspect, is a daughter of Eva's line - descended both from Ys and from the Dewulfs.

so. one of rowena's epithets is "wolf-wife" and if kept on as secretary persistent she'll reference "my kelemdu." connie believes that only one of them was immortal when rowena gave birth. the story yvette recounts of kelemsu's appointment to wardenship of the moon-marches by henavek aligns with the black dove being a name of the monarch-at-the-crossroads; rowena seems to have gone long later than that – perhaps even as late as 600 AD, but i personally am in the camp of rowena being, or having been, queen lagiah and in that case she might be the first alukite. (but not the oldest. important distinction.)

which is to say, if connie's putting the pieces together right, rowena bore kelemdu's child when she was mortal and later devoured that child after growing long – but not before that child had children of her own. and then however many generations later, giles dewulf ran off with hafren waters.

yvette's insinuation that kelemdu may have been identified with black william is not, i think, altogether baseless. ud rocashaas:

An anonymous confessional account of unsanctioned activities by the nuns of St Brandan's. The title is a Henavek phrase that might be translated as 'the spirit flees the shadowed places.' The author writes guiltily of her dealings with hill-children and Carapace-relics - she suggests she herself has a connection with one of the Carapace-kinds. Most of these dealings are trivial, but she claims to have arranged the death of the Marcher Lord William de Braose, called Black William... De Braose' wife, Eva, evidently seeks the Abbey's help to free her from her hated husband. Subsequently he is found in the bed-chamber of the wife of Llywelyn the Great, Prince of the Welsh, while attempting to negotiate the marriage of his daughter (also Eva) to Llywelyn's son. Llywellyn takes this badly, de Braose is hanged, the elder Eva inherits his estates and makes a substantial endowment to St Brandan's. In the author's telling, de Braose was 'innocent of all but cruelty' and the adulterer found in the bed-chamber was a shape-changing 'undergoer'...

note that translation of the title – the spirit flees the shadowed places – and the author's implied connection to "one of the carapace kinds." which kind? well, she tells us in the title; the kind that fled the shadowed places. the kind that dreamt itself out of Nowhere. yvette, who speaks henavek and is well-versed in the folklore of bancrug, is – i believe – making this connection because kelemdu, or a remnant of kelemdu, was involved in arranging the disgrace of gwilym ddu.

there are also some eyebrow-raising similarities here in what went down between eva dewulf and abraham wheelock and, notably, connie will only mention kelemdu if you give her 'a pale lady and a prince of wines,' the one book about eva dewulf that provides a detailed account of her relationship with wheelock. so there is some sort of real connection here that yvette has noticed.

now this incident – the death of black william and subsequent patronage of st brandan's by eva de braoise – is also mentioned in the annals, along with the construction of the winter tower and the death of abbess nonna…

…who was devoured by black elie.

the relevant texts here are 'the most sorrowful death of lady nonna' and 'the shadow in the stair' with circumstantial support from elie's books ('commandments for the preservation of all that exists', 'a journey to the grove', and 'the secret colours'), tied together by this pair of conversations:

Stanislav asks Douglas about the death - reputedly murder - of the Abbess Nonna, almost six hundred years ago. Douglas acknowledges it's technically within the Bureau's jurisdiction; and that the Bureau doesn't recognise any statute of limitations short of eternity; and adds that he has a great deal on his plate; but promises to look into it, and asks Stanislav some incisive questions about rare poisonous herbs. Douglas has been looking into the six-centuries-past death of Abbess Nonna. He's questioned unspecified sources that he doesn't share with Stanislav, and concludes that Nonna was possessed by a Name of the Blackbone and 'put down' by her sistren - 'nasty business, but best thing for it.' He and Stanislav discuss the herb-mixtures that might have laid her open to that possession.

…and elie herself. if the institute allies with ys:

'My first calling: to preserve what exists. My second calling: to preserve what exists as it is. An alliance with Ys will do little for the second; but it is necessary for the first.'

if it's foe is nowhere:

'I was called on to extract a Worm from the spine of a shepherd. It had been in there almost twenty-eight days, but it showed no signs of development. I have learnt of other such cases: the Worms are weakening. I will not speculate as to why. I do not trust it yet.'

if its agenda is peace:

'For so long I have striven to keep the world afloat. So many times, my efforts have been undermined by treachery. This Institute has done nothing like that… yet. I dare to hope.'

serena says she's nectar-long, which might seem like an odd pull for name of the blackbone—except that the blackbone has associations with earthquakes and nectar is the aspect once called blood, which (as i discuss here) seems to have been a grail-precursor and thus associated with the sea. and while black elie is apparently free now, the details of her biography and present interests align with the prophecy of the weaver's tale:

There is a prophecy among weavers: of one who will unwisely seek to find the future in a tapestry of her own hair. Her house will grow dark, shrouded in the labyrinths of her tresses. Pilgrims will seek her in the cellar of her house, where she will plead with them to cut her free. They will always fail, and she will always devour them. At last one will come who will ask instead to stay with her. Others will join them, until the house becomes a palace and the palace a city, below the world, where all are welcome and in the tapestry all truths are revealed.

we know (from her 'commandments') that elie was entombed in an 'unmarked sepulcher' and also (from all three of her books) that elie had a keen interest in prophecy; the killasimi text (textile?) 'one thousand threads' supports reading elie (the prophetic 'matriarch of the well') as the weaver in the prophesy.

and the description of the "tenebrous spirit" which possessed lady nonna, which ernestine peterhans later nicknamed the donkerling and douglas identifies as a name of the blackbone, aligns precisely with the prophesied behavior of the imprisoned weaver: she will plead for freedom and devour all who try to set her free, until at last one asks to stay with her. and then they'll raise the city unbuilt.

(eva dewulf is the one who asked to stay with her. but we don't have time to unpack that rn so let's just leave it at "the wolf-name coelle drowned herself" and "rowena implies drowning is a fundamental aspect of wolf-ascension" and "the blackbone gets namedropped in 'the crossing to moon' for a reason" and "who was teresa looking for in port noon in 1932")

final point, black elie has the aspect fear: nowhere ("This one understands the all-consuming horror of the gods-from-Nowhere") but that in itself is ambiguous – is it feeling all-consuming horror about the Nowhere-hours, or understanding the all-consuming horror felt by the Nowhere-hours, all of whom seem desperate to escape Nowhere? – and thus not necessarily in contradiction with elie being the name of a Nowhere-hour.

wheeze. ok

the point of all this is to get to cygnifer <3

the other eye of the serpent:

In which the heresiarch Cygnifer attempts to resolve certain mysteries of Lightning. Cygnifer considers Lightning to be 'the division, the connection, the joined serpent.' The Serpent's Eye is said to be the Sun - but as the division and connection, it must have a second Eye. Cygnifer considers and rejects, three times, the hypothesis that the Moon is the Serpent's other eye, insisting that it and the Sun do not share a nature. (This, as much as the Serpent business, is what got him burnt by the Church.) He proposes that the Serpent's teeth are towers, that the Serpent's mouth is a gate, that the Serpent is the 'devourer of Ys'... and 'therefore' that the Serpent's other eye is amber.

WHY ARE YOU BURNING HIM. HE'S RIGHT

some facts.

the spider door is also known as the serpent gate (and 'the wrong door')

anbary & lapidary ("'Lightning is a little life, and jewels are its eyes'—Eva Dewulf") aspects sky/forge, same as the sky determination; anbary means lightning.

the wolf-divided is represented by the tower card – traditionally depicted as either a lightning-struck tree or lightning-struck tower. see also: orthos wood, tower revek, & the furious tantra.

the wolf-divided is 'the wound of the sun's division', but the received and shuritic versions of the book of suns intimate that the wolf existed in some form before the lithomachy.

the wolf-divided is associated with wind and the smell of ozone – lightning – and with shipwrecks (cf the mausoleum of wolves, "a faint descending howl, like metal tearing in the hull of a ship") and drownings (coelle, name of the wolf).

there's a snake ->

some more facts:

wolf-snow?? wolf-snow it's right there. snow that eats flesh.

"Death alters; Snow endures" (husher, on putrefactions & calcinations)

'Here is your paint,' whispered the Wolf to the Pale Girl. 'Here is your knife-for-scraping. And here is your face.' (a child's treasury of golden afternoons)

snow – not the elegiast! – is the patron hour of hush house.

'chione at abydos' was published by an 'apollo fireweaver' in 1892.

sir david greene, eighth librarian of bush house, embezzled funds from the nocturnal branch and eloped with an 'a.f.' in 1903.

'abydos unveiled' ("An oil painting of a city foundered in snow. Behind its bleakest tower, a sickle moon rises.")

nix abolix. fucine for 'snow unmaketh'. lmao

ok. ok.

snow is a Nowhere-hour. Nowhere is an abyssal cosmic ocean and it's also death. every other winter-Hour is associated with the sky somehow – the elegiast is an aviform hour, the horned-axe has horizon and dusk/dawn associations as a threshold guardian, rags and the madrugad are from light. how come snow is from Nowhere?

and, in the same vein, how is it that the lightning is "the serpent that devoured ys" – that is, the sea? why is the wolf's howl the sound of "metal tearing in a ship's hull" and why is it that drowning is how the wolf's names ascend?

and what happened to the monarch-at-the-crossroads? well

points at fucine the queen's weapon

There is a story known to smiths: of a Queen whose realm was invaded by a great army. When she learnt that there were nine invaders for every defender, she ordered her army to surrender its swords. Night and day her smiths laboured to melt down the swords to bronze, while her generals threatened mutiny and the enemy advanced unhindered. They used the bronze to cast a Bell, but each time the Bell was rung, it cracked and had to be recast. At last on the night before the invaders reached the city, the Queen surrendered her crown to the casting. When at dawn the smiths rang the Bell, it cracked the moon like an egg and drove the sun from the sky. The invaders fled. But the Queen without a crown was no longer any queen at all.

this is about ys:

Ys, by her arts, found the strike-tone that shakes the Hours. For this reason among many of the Hours discourage traffic with Ys. But a bell cast with this secret could speak the Ys-note...

and here's memory: storm:

There are storms great enough to shake the moon from the sky, and one's thoughts from one's skull.

and – last piece – there's sabazos, a phrygian sky-god associated with sabazine (whose commits concern port noon and sabazine), and whom yvette may discuss with arthur:

Yvette raises the subject of Sabazine again with Athur. She has been reading of the god Sabazos, who brings madness by deploying the weapons of speech-in-silence. Arthur has heard of these techniques, and very cautiously shares a very little… [Lesson: Sharps]

and what are sharps commits about? speech tearing open the way to dreams. so that makes a clear connection to ebrehel and to the monarch-at-the-crossroads, but the idea of 'speech-in-silence' is of winter and specifically in the vein of snow's tradition that speech is a wound.

historically sabazios is fairly obscure, but one of the icons associated with him is a hand with a serpent twined around the wrist. the greeks associated him with zeus and dionysus, and strabo linked him to zagreus – whom the secret histories identifies with the thunderskin.

the thunderskin is also identified with marsyas, the musician satyr whom apollo flays alive to punish his hubris.

now, apollo wasn't associated with sabazios, but he was a god of music and poetry and prophecy (among other things), later associated with the sun. wolves, various birds (ravens, crows, swans, and hawks), and serpents were all sacred to him.

in one myth, apollo sends the white crow corvus to spy upon coronis and, when the bird reports her unfaithfulness, apollo turns its feathers black in rage; the beachcomber – a god-from-flesh depicted as a black crow and described as a "voyeur" who tells tales of the forbidden liaisons between the mare-in-the-tree and the malachite, and in orthos wood:

This is the great oak where the masked Crow once roosted. Lightning has split it from head to heart, and the tree is charred and rotting.

…the cultist's expedition finds the charred, lightning-struck remains of the beachcomber's nest. and besides the black dove, the monarch had a name called the white crow.

so.

in essence, before the lithomachy began, i think the monarch-at-the-crossroads ruled the lower skies—the firmament, the house of the sun. and another god-from-Nowhere (who may be identified as or otherwise a patron hour of ys; generally i just call her the Sea) ruled over the sea—Nowhere. birds of a feather, worms of a scale.

'the dream of the conspiracy of the lower skies' implies that the hours' fear of the crime of the sky is not abstract:

Damaon suggests that the Hours have constrained their rivalry to avoid a war within the House of the Sun. He identifies the 'Fear of the Crime of the Sky' as the reason that Hours do not satisfy other passions. He speculates on the horrifying possibilty of Hours turned alukite. 'What then would they devour?'

– that it has happened before. the 'crime of the sky' is the crime that the sky committed. the moth is the thought that was shaken from the monarch's skull; the red grail is the blood that was spilled; the forge is the fire of the moon that fell from the sky when the monarch and the sea came together.

(on the forge being born from a fallen moon/meteor impact, see the star-shattered fane and line that up with what we know about the unwise mortal and the flint and the egg unhatching.)

there is always an element of violence involved in the crime of the sky – union through the creation and consumption of one's offspring – and this is the point where it gets a little strange, because gods-from-Nowhere aren't really alive and can't really die, as such. death alters; Snow endures. and Lightning is 'the division, the connection, the joined Serpent.' i think the Sky and the Sea ate each other and in doing so became the Serpent, who is both of them.

and then, during the intercalate when the forge of days divided the sun-in-splendour, the Serpent was divided and became snow and the wolf-divided. both of whom are still the serpent, who is still the monarch and the sea. because Nowhere-hours don't die, they change. and – remember that i said this:

who leaves a place without entering it?

of the monarch-at-the-crossroads ascending from death without ever having died. well. that is one of the chandler's enactments.

the chandler's wish:

The author makes a passionate argument that the Hour named Chandler is in fact the oldest, even though he does not exist, because he is - supposedly - the culminating event of a plan that precedes even Grail and Moth.

sometimes the chandler is attested as male, sometimes female. they both do and do not exist; the chandler is the culminating event of a plan set in motion before the grail and the moth existed. the chandler will arise through the second dawn.

what precipitates the second dawn? the wolf-divided eclipses the other solar hours – feasts upon them – and through their deaths, becomes whole again. snow awaits the sun in the mausoleum of wolves. the sky and the sea become the serpent becomes the wolf and snow become the chandler.

wheeze.

last thing. the monarch is identified with sabazios, whom strabo associated with zagreus – the thunderskin.

sabazios is strongly associated with zeus, apollo's father; apollo is the serpent, lightning, who scorched the white crow's feathers black.

apollo flayed marsyas. marsyas is the thunderskin. why is he called the thunderskin?

sabazios was also identified with dionysus: zagreus was sometimes identified with the orphic dionysus, child of zeus and persephone.

marsyas was a devotee of cybele who challenged apollo to a musical competition and lost. secret histories traditions hold that the thunderskin was sacrificed by the red grail for ambiguous purpose – to appease the horned-axe, to protect her, to challenge the twins' dominion over the heart principle, to seal the pact of the triple knot. 'apollo and marsyas' implies that marsyas was flayed before he became a name of the red grail.

The Skin of Marsayas gives oracles, and is later smuggled to Phrygia, where the priestesses of Cybele use it for a drum. At the climax, the striking of the drum drive would-be violators of the priestess to suicidal madness. The opera ends with a wistful hymn from the youngest priestess on the beauty of mountain pines.

when did the crime of the sky become a crime? serena can raise this question:

Fraser and Serena speak of Antaios, who might have been a child of Name-emanations of the Flint and Wheel. Fraser wonders why, if Antaios' forebears were immortal, they did not suffer the urge to devour him. Serena provokingly asks when he thinks the Crime of the Sky first became a Crime...

now consider this: marsyas was a poet and musician who went long beneath the serpent – apollo, who flayed him and came to regret it. he then became a devotee of the red grail, one of the three offspring of sky and sea who had slain the wheel, the flint, and the tide.

the name-emanations of the wheel and the flint bore offspring with each other without being inflicted with the all-consuming hunger for their offspring because, serena suggests, they did so before the crime of the sky was outlawed. the hunger is the punishment.

the horned-axe demanded restitution for the slaughter of the wheel, the flint, and the tide. so the red grail sacrificed the thunderskin, who loved the malachite, and the malachite gave him up. at this point the thunderskin was certainly long and may have been a name; the malachite likewise had ascended to hourhood. and the thunderskin was both a (symbolic) child of the sky-sea union – having gone long under the serpent – and devotee to one of the real offspring. and he loved the malachite, with whom he might have produced offspring.

he was a proxy for sky-and-sea, for the serpent and its offspring. the crime of the sky became a crime through this treaty between the red grail and horned-axe and malachite, which established the law and its punishment – the insatiable hunger to both punish the parents and insure the offspring's demise, so that the violence enacted upon the wheel, flint, and tide could never happen again.

(the skin-drum of marsyas drives would-be violators of cybele to suicidal madness – the thunderskin beats to protect the skin of the world – the red grail compels those who commit the crime which created her to devour their offspring so that she will never be slain by the child of two gods, as she herself did to the tide. this is the reason for her involvement in the intercalate as well.)

he's the thunderskin. the skin of the serpent who is lightning, killed in effigy. and then he returned from death through the peacock door – vak – to preserve the law.

killasimi the weaver's tale is about black elie (and eva dewulf). killasimi the carpenter's tale is about governor collers.

deep mandaic the jeweler's tale is about the monarch at the crossroads (the butterfly-keeper) and the unwise mortal (the jeweler) and the egg unhatching (his egg). deep mandaic the chandler's tale is about the chandler (obviously) and her witness and the red grail but to be more precise it's about how the chandler is in fact the oldest hour.

fucine the queen's wound is about snow and the sky. fucine the queen's weapon is about the serpent. both of these are the same story. sabazine the fisher's tale is about ys. sabazine the sailor's tale is about noon. all of these are the same story.

ramsund the falconer's tale and the thief's tale are two halves of a secret.

ericapaean when i get you…

#i can be normal about the wolf-divided (lying)#this isn't even the Full Iceberg #i didn't even talk ab melancthe's heresies or calyptra or teresa :) or the ortucchio incident or #nina lagasse. or solomon husher or eva dewulf.#i also think i forgot to directly answer the question ab the elegiast rip.#yes i do think kelemdu ascended to hourhood in his own right and became the elegiast. black dove -> ivory dove.

37 notes · View notes

informedinterest · 3 years ago

Text

MCSM - a more Real..

Author’s Notes;

(Sl; Ligh implied

abus

Setting: Change to an ice

land

(A excessive

place To keep the characters from being hateable from the ,offset)

Several Char had to be edited slightly

The

Orde

Ston

Gabriel,

Magnus,

Eligard,

United

Soren

Defeated

the

Ender

Drag

Trac

the

word

“Right

shou

going

Now

‘’

Shifted

fro

perch,

Brigh

Light

Day

Gil,

loung

cop

‘Gabriel and

a Guide

defense,’

Jess

Olivia

Axel

Drap

wit

‘Log

ist

ics

Loose

assorted,”

Magnus

Aiden

wkward

Propp

“Action

ali

zatio

begotten

~Eligard

and

pre

viou

dis

card

“Evaluation

valati

Happ

ine

,”

Soren,

some

where

“Aw,

I was going

read

that

,”

Petra

(newly

Reach

for

the

many

stuffed

book

shelves

“Tr

Car

You

Guide

Geo

phenomen

,”

“

‘Iv-

and the many uses of Po

-‘

(The book

so scruffed into its corner

that that’s all that could be

re -

“Adventure;

Where

find

‘em

”

“Not

we’re

going

mak

con

tio

”

“Besides

don’t

you

ready

hav

tha

,“

“Yeah

but

it’s

��

“Besides

it’s different from the

traveling

edition

,”

“Trav

edi

n,”

Axel

sniffed

Lukas,

“C’mon

five

min

utes don’t want to be

late,”

“Con

,”

groun

Jesse

get

boar

Reube

for

trek

be greeted by what seem

like 2 million Quest’N

‘answers

posters

with Gabriel‘s

face

posted

it,

“This

bes

t day

lif

e,”

While the others were there to roll

the

eyes

except Lukas

“leave

be,

“

“If it was anyone else

I’d have to

carry them off the

floor

to,”

,”

“riv

,”

Cordial

ough

wit

Luk

“Tell

Ethan

said

hell

“

Not so much

with

rest of

them

“Our

Invention

Goi

Grea

”

“Our

wil

great

er,”

“What

got

“

“Ivor

fan boys

,”

Axel

Shrug

ged,

“Oh

speak

the

Devil,

You might have some company as

Ivor

fan

club

Pet

,”

“oh,

The

agai

”

“Wh

Cou

’t

books

he’

Written

abou

po-,”

Fad

Into

com

fort

able

not

hing

As they made it to the

zon

And

Olivia

start

draw

sta

istics,

for

build

So you wouldn’t mind

coming with me

and

helping me

find him,

would

you

Jess

e,“

“Um,

ah,

re,

should

done

here

right,

Lukas

“

Jesse

yelle

Lukus

Who

gave

thu

mbs

And away about

Olivia who is staying behind to talk to some

planners

“So what’s up with this

Ivor

guy

gain

, ”

I th

“I’ve

always

ter

I mean all the

scientific

. .

stuff,

Realiz

had

inter

”

Slyily

smili

ng,

“Iv

kno

plant

the

essence

“

“An

apothecary,”

“Not

Quite

,-“

“Huh

I’d

though

’

e,”

“Let

chec

“Jesse

stay

here,”

Please

“ what

are

you

doin

her

“

Iriat

“Mr.

Ivor

sir,

was

hoping

give

this

you

fore

the

sho

w,”

“Yes,

Yes-

Actual

glancing

thin

Mouth

agape

“Withe

Skul

l,”

She

“ This

..perfect,

thank

you,”

“Hel

your

sel

monds

ches

ther

“

“Sir,

thes

aren’t

diamonds,

these

are

moissanite,

.”

“Maybe

should

“Wh

y,”

“Because

thes

migh

por

”

“Don’t

wanna

mess up the

show,”

Petra

Jess

Mak

it’

the

re,

“ Axel

wha

doi

”

“Oh hey,”

Munching on

a bowl

pret

“guys,

Gabriel

stop

our

buil

sai

was

“Clas

and

gav

“this

[Sev

eral chains with the words

“back

stage

pas

” etc

hed

,”

“ Luk

wen

giv

you

ess

e,”

“Gill

geek

Out

over

briel,

Olivia’s

tal

kin

g with some

“

“Oh

hey

Petr

I requested

one

for

you,

Though don’t think you need it since you’re a

distributor

,”

Petra

smil

sly

ily

tak

“dis

trib

tor,

”

tag,

“Anywa

can

’t

sto

tal

“

“Hav

tur

som

guest

”

“That

woul

his

Room

,”

Jesse asked quickly as Petra lightly pushed him forward (from be

hind,

as he slid on

ward

“Yeah, t

‘The door clicked

t behind

A flight o

stai

s ,

“Well,

this

is,

ambitious

“

“Are you

kidding

having to build

stairs

all the way down in

ice,”

“ I had no idea that Ivor was such a

builder

architect

”

“ It’s a shame it’s so

Dark in here,”

light

ing up a

light,

As they made it through what

see

med to be

big

book

shelves

The li

ghts

flick

sud

den

Jesse

gras

ping a

han

her

mouth

(For no

part

icular

“ Nice

see

again,

no,

“

‘B

lon

tim

e,’

,no”

“FI

nally

out

of your

sh-“

“Mr.

Ivor,

sir,

“

“Aagh,”

Petra

eping into the

dar

nes

s, of the

dun

“I’m

her

to ask you about the

dia

Pe-

moissan

gav

,”

“It’s

”

“Get

Out

,”

“But-“

“Get out before I call

security,”

Petra

Slink

Jesse

ing

quietly

after

“Well

at least

we got

our

er.

Come’ on let’s go join the

others

before the

show

arts,

“Jesse,

I was lo

all

over

for

you,

-“

Lukas

“Axel

already

,told

”Course

did,”

gruff

ly,

just

pana

Ivor

“Finally out of the dark

nes

s of

your

shadow

,”

“Now how about

a real monster

and we’ll see how we measure up

.”

“Ivor,

really

isn’t

plac

tim-

“

Compartment

Reveal

Components

for

Wither

Ivo

last

par

“Wither

Skull,”

the

Withe

Skul

l ,

Petra

The audience burst into applause as it st

arted

g believing it to be part of the

show,

Gabriel,

tak

out

wooden

sword

The

Crowd

Disperse

as the

Wither

start

tack

ing

“Ivor

That’s

Eno

ugh,

Turn

this

thing

Lukas

Confronted

“Oh,

I will

One o’

Soren,

Once,

hey

it’s

not

work

Ivor pressing the button panicking

ly,

“Hey, guys

what’s going

on,

“

Axel

joi

at the cleared out

con

vent

on,

“Ivor’s

gon

Off

the

Wal

And

made an invention trying to

kill

every

one,”

Gill

repli

“Co

,”

“ an

destroy,”

“ Why won’t

this

stupid

wire,”

“Hm,

Wire

,”

“Axel

,”

Oli

“ I mean there was a

wire on

the

table,”

“Axel,

what

hap

pen

“Well,”

Axel

flush

ing,

“I um

took

it,”

“AXEL!!”

“What they did say take

whatever

you

”

“Wher

is-

it-

I used it to add

another light display to the

statue

thing,

“Well you

might

want

to get it

now,”

Backing away from the

destruction

stage that seem to get

eve

clos

Stepping

ove

r the

woo

den

ord

The

remote

dis

regar

frustration

As they were driven back to the

statue

cr,

“Got

,“

“Hand

Gill

”

Gil

Pas

sin

gave

Jess

who

Brok

dow

whil

Olivia

whisper

instructions on how to

put it

together to Aiden

Whil

Axel

Olivia

play

dis

trac

“Done,”

Tos

Lukas,

Who

went

pres

but

Only for

Ivor to

atch it out of his hand and do the

Honor,

And,

Didn’t

“So

Losers

,”

Leather

Jacket

Rush

by,

“ Ethan,

you’re

not

goin

hel

,”

Lukas

snapped

but they were already

long

gone,

Trail

ing

afte

the

To the

Edge,

Ivor

hauling

Gabriel’s

unconscious

form,

“I

want

to see him

humiliated not

dead

,”

Gabriel

stirrin

g by the

Edge,

Talkin

“Gill,

you

need

tak

emble

m,”

Tak

his

coat

“Fin

other

”

Pas

sing

And

Gil

Run

ing off in the opposite direction with the

wheel,

It’s flashing a

slight blue at Gill’

tou

Befor

brow

dot,

around

Mak

ing a small

streak

Shifting with the

users

stance to point in a

certain

dir

Tak

Broken

Crate

It was

nearly

sib

“Mag

nus,

bri

Sen

Us,”

“ Gabriel

huh,”

Magnus

hol

ding up the

Before

throwing him down the pile

he’

jus

struggle

cli

top of

Gil

Who’d

bee

por

“This.

point

les

s.”

“He

’s

Insane,”

Jess

Admit

dejected

ly,

Shar

wit

Axe

“Then

ould

onto

the

nex

one-,”

Axel

shook

his

head,

“ We

need

to get

this

done,

We’re

stay

,”

Lukas

Speech

less,

Before

Going

ahead,

Aidan

“Hm,

course

I’ll

with

you,”

Eligard

far

mor

Co Operative,

Soren

“I

should

stay

out

re,”

Whe

The

got

Soren’s

hous

“Soren and I .. didn’t leave things off

too

go od

last time

I- we

spoke”

“It

would

better

you

go,

Soren, not so much..

Having

taking

knit

ting

lot,

And

docu

ment

ing his

rare

animal

fin

dings

Not p

ease

to be distur

How

eve

r very excited to see

Reuben,

Jess

’s

“Animal

lovely

creatures

Don’t

betray you

and take your

ings

I’ve seen

a few

of course

- but to see it

bonded

with

human,

You

must

tell

the

tale,

Sitting with

Soren

and having

tea

I found

Reuben

(That

’s his

name)

at the

place

built

our

treehouse,

”

While

ren

knit

ny,

“Now

back

the

point,

could

reall

use-

appreci

ate-

,“

Soren’s

fac

chan

ing at his

change

words,

“you

”

“I want-

to help you

I really do,

“

Soren

insist

“But the Order

and

I, didn’t

leave things on

good

terms,

Hesitatin

Cou,

“Would

Reuben be

here,

“

Jess

Nod

ded

“And you’d be helping a lot of

animals-“

“Fine-

I’ll

go,”

Jesse

Soren

Only to find

Aidan

Eligard

Long

ther

“They

went

ahead

Temple

,”

Lukas

whis

per

Swa

stories

Luk

ple,

The

only

thing

left

after

Wither’s

rampage

“And

our

tree

house

e,”

Lukas

poi

Petr

sho

And

things

clearly

went

down

ll from

Ivor,

im mediately

taking charge of the whole

op eration

as Soren

watch

Irr

iat

n th

side

lin

Goin

Mag

with

tim

“Who

dares-

“

Dro

ing the explosive behind his back as he went to

cuddle

Soren,

who

star

blank

“Soren,

‘how you been

cute

pig,

Always

a sucker for

(cute

animals,

how,

“

Holding up the emblem

intimi

datingly

“Al right,

oh right,

,sure

“

Mak

Temple,

ar,

“It’s

Done!”

Soren

raisi

bro

leas

“This will

activate

the

Wither

storm,

“

“Once

walking distance so

course,

,”

Shoving

devic

Lukas

Who

went

suit

as well as the rest of

them,

At the moment

arrived,

“I’ll watch

Reuben

for

you,

“

Soren

Offe

Reuben

Could take

a pretty

mighty

pun

ch,

but saf

risk

it,

“Sure

Reuben

likes

you,”

went

through

ici

Thr

Wit

her

Spawn

hord

The

Wither

storm

falte

fall

Com

Rescuing those that the

Wither

storm

had

cap

tur

Inc

Lud

Gab

el,

Fro

Only

for

star

mov

three,

“Run!”

Luk

They ran, castle destroyed,

and forced to find shelter in a

cave

“This never

would’ve

happened,

“

“Magnus please for once in your life shut your

accursed

mouth,”

Soren

snap

worriedly,

“Eligard help me attend to

Gabriel’s

frost

bite

,”

Into the Night

“Ivor,

I can’t believe

so such a fool

hardy

plan!”

Wak

Lukas

dis

turb

other

Goin

“I should’ve

stood up

for

yself

long time ago

Ivor

Give me that

in fernal device,”

“ it need

morganite

,”

“You use

dia-

mond,

”

as argument broke out

Lukas,

Petra coming behind

Lukas after being treated

for

minor

frost

-burn

Sm,

“Looks like I actually

ll have use of that

mor

ganite,“

Petra crossed her arms clearly haven’t forgotten the abrasive

behavior

ear

lie

“Pl-

huc

Morganite

“Yo

should

pro

bably

destroy

goo

easur

,”

Soren

giv

Luk

“Oh look at

Soren can’t kill an

ender

dragon-

s,”

“Ivor, you have

never,

Been

helpful

any

one

ever”

“I-

Mag

nus

C’mon on

that isn’t

true

right

��buddy ,”

Mag

nus

hid

ing

hin

Sore

Eli

gar

Cros

“It’s

time you leave

Ivor,

“

Ivor looking at them before running

into the Wasteland

Of the

mak

“Come on we have inventions

to make

and things

rebuild

,”

“Is it true that you didn’t

slay

the

end

on,

“No,

Aligardz’s

dragon

look

lik

mal,

I lulled

ep,

Not a blade pierc

d it’s

pel

Soren

Stro

kin

ueben’s

“Ivor’s

ma-

,”

a sound,

“We should get back to

invent,”

ren’

word

fad

as he enter

cav

Leav

ing

Jess

e with the

othe

Suit

ing up to take on the

Withe

last

tim

Soren

watch

Reuben,

The

Withe

fell

And

Lukas

Aiden,

Olivia,

Jesse

Axel

and

Gil

Petr

cam

hero

Axel

Event

ually

turn

int

count

abil

ity

The

End

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