#the cold flame of agnon

[ehlnofay]

Summerfest Day 5 - DEVOTION

The cold flame is burning over Crucible, and Pax lies gasping on the Sacellum floor.

The fire glows in the hearth with all its too-many-colours; the prophet-priests crowd around her, hands on her shoulders she can’t dredge up the energy to shake off. There’s light in her eyes and her body feels wrecked and they won’t stop talking and for a moment it’s all so sadly, sickly familiar that she digs her nails into the floorboards, carves crescent-shaped dents into the soft wood.

The wood is already burned. There’s a path seared through the walkway, blackened and charred; the fire smells clean and bright but the little chapel stinks of smoke.

Not just the chapel – Pax’s eyes are adjusting, and the rest of them is adjusting, and they can feel the holes singed into the fabric of their skirt, pressed against the raw skin of their knees. The fabric is torched, the weave of it coming apart under the clumsy press of their fingers. Damn it. And it’s not just the skirt, neither – it’s all a fog but they remember other things. Their bow’s gone to shit. Doesn’t matter too much – not like it was a good one. Not like their old one, left out in the other world. The skirt tears with a sound like snapping twigs. They blink.

It's all a fog. Nothing’s clear since the garrison courtyard – since staring up at the blossom of flame writhing phantasmagorical in the brazier and faced with another stupid fucking choice that wasn’t one at all. (Really? Are we really doing this? What even is this?) They’d been mad about it, they think – not like that’s new – but (It’s something that burns and it’s better than the alternative.) The warden-women of Cylarne gave them a boost, which they suppose was nice. Then they’d crawled into the brazier and swallowed the fire whole.

Or it swallowed them. Or both. Something happened; something bewildering, something surreal. Pax doesn’t know what because Pax doesn’t fucking know anything anymore – but his body feels like a ruined city, people crying out from the mess of him. The fire licked his skin raw and ran through his veins and sewed itself into the lining of his stomach, carved a space for itself in the soft feast of his organs, and it hurt like hell to bear – flame roiling around him like some horrid halo, the colours kaleidoscoping in his eyes (green-gold glitter and boiled lolly hues and the light of the burning sun and the darkest pits of the ocean and all), tearing apart his body and fitting itself into all the seams – it was a nightmare, it felt like some kind of dying, suspended animation, an endless immolation – and he feels so lonely in his body now without it.

Like the mortar has come out of all the cracks. The veins drained of blood, the lungs clamped tight like blacksmith’s bellows, air rattling around in the hollow core of him. He is more wreckage than person. And he’s lying on the Sacellum’s wooden floor, staring into the hearth, the prophet-priests dragging him up to sitting. He hears his dress tearing a little again, crumbling at the touch. It’s definitely ruined.

(What isn’t?)

“Why didn’t,” he tries, licks his lips. (They could barely talk in the midst of it – flame curling out of their mouth in space of words, their voice strange and raspy and aching, too scattered to conjure up much to say. But they remember begging, yelling at the prophet priests to take it – take the bloody fire, it’s here, take it! They hadn’t wanted to be rid of it – felt kind of like they were dying, and also like they’d never die; as long as the flame danced around them they’d live forever. They wouldn’t be alone. It romps in the hearth, now, giving light to the whole city, and Pax – and Pax is feeling that horrible rotten recognition again. Pax wants to tear up the floorboards.) Pax rasps, “Why didn’t you fucking help me?”

“We did,” says the one in red, a soft-edged spot of blood against the dust motes in the light; the other one, pinched-faced and hard-knuckled, tips his head and hedges, “We tried. You weren’t quite here.”

Pax is here now.

Pax is more here than they’ve ever been anywhere.

She sits up, with the help of hands on her back she’d shake off if she were sure she’d stay upright without them. “All hell,” she says, scrubs the back of a hand over her eyes. “Fuck’s sake. That was not worth it.”

That’s just a fucking lie. It was worth it. Pax doesn’t even know what it’s trying to be worth – barely knows what the Flame does, what it’s supposed to do, why it’s so important (for morale, or a symbol of Sheogorath’s power, or maybe just a city-wide heater). Doesn’t know anything about it beyond what it did to them. It doesn’t fucking matter. What it does isn’t the point.

(She’ll take absolutely fucking anything that doesn’t send her back. She’ll rip the Isles apart with her teeth before she has to look over her shoulder.)

The flame curls in the grate, beautiful, glowing. A pair of hands leave their shoulders, and the prophet-priest with the vestments the colour of pond algae slips down the blackened walkway and out the door.

“I knew it would light for Dementia,” the blood-spot one chatters excitedly, adjusting the press of his hands so she’ll be a bit more comfortable. (She hates him for it, a bit.) “All the time I’ve tended –”

I don’t care, Pax wants to say, but she can’t really be assed, so she just sits slumped on the wooden floor, digging the cracked nails of one hand into the fissures between the boards, watching the hearth. She reaches out and dips a bare hand into the flames.

It doesn’t feel nice. The fire still scorches bitter as a blade in the gut. But it doesn't burn. It curls around their fingers, squirming in their palm like a beating heart. The prophet-priest stops, startled; cocks his head and presses a finger to it, too – pulls his hand back just as quickly, hissing, and sticks his finger in his mouth to distract from the pain. He’s annoying. Pax ignores him; the fire twirls like it’s mocking him, licking at the ink in Pax’s wrist.

(He wants to crawl into the hearth. The fire dances, ravenous, incandescent; it glows the red of blood and gemstones, harsh metal-gold, its edges sharp and glittering as broken glass. Pax could cut himself to pieces on it; he would let it consume him until there was nothing left.)

(It’s hard to say, because they don’t know how long it took to get here, because Sheogorath would never give a straight answer in the first place – but they’re pretty sure that they’re past the point of no return. Even if they hadn’t eaten the mad-god’s pet flame, the time has marched inexorably onward, inescapable even here; the doors are most likely closed by now. No-one is getting in; no-one is getting out. Pax is trapped in here with the rest of them. There is no going back.)

(Good.)

The Sacellum door opens again. The blood-spot looks back; Pax doesn’t. The prophet-priest at the door says, “I’ve found a guard to escort you back to the palace.”

Still held up by the red-robed one’s hands, up to their elbow in flame, Pax grumbles, “I don’t need a minder.”

(None of them believe it.)

So Pax gets up, eventually. Pulls their arm back from the flame even as it grasps at them (and all hell, they think before they squash it down, it’s nice to feel wanted, even by this) and trails back down through the pews to the purple city-warden waiting impassive by the door. She doesn’t try to touch them, and praise fucking be for that, because Pax might have actually shoved her if one more person put hands on them, shaky legs be damned; she just leads them out through the city streets in silence and begins to take them up the steep, geometric tangle of the stairs.

Pax looks back at the shadow of the Sacellum once. The Flame is unmissable as it burns in the Isles’ writhing, sunless sky; if she squints, she can kid herself into thinking it’s close enough to count. It shifts constantly, jagged and garish, glaring as if with revulsion – but at least it’s looking at her.

[kind-of-a-shitty-wizard]

POV: you just exited Haskill's dialogue tree. these are from the voice file folders that @theraphos was able to get from the game, seriously thank you thank you thank you th

[elavoria]

tesinktober2022 prompt 14: power

The Cold Flame of Agnon burning in Cylarne.

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Athazagoraphobia (Part 16)

Waking up to a painful throbbing in her leg and a fresh helping of blood running from her nose to her chin is no longer a foreign occurrence. At first she had instinctively called for Li. Now she simply picks herself up, gaters her crutches, and wanders down the hall for her sorry excuse for a meal.

In the passing days, though with an icy demeanor to match her own, Bujing has been civil with her. Sometimes even inviting her to reminisce about better times. Or to ask her how she is feeling. She lies and tells him that she is well, save for her leg. But her head aches most of the time and her stomach is delicate and queasy every now and again.

“I think that we should set out for the prison soon.” He says. She thinks that he is beginning to pick up on the palpable feeling of foreboding. The inexplicable inkling that something dreadful will overtake them if they don’t make a move first.

Even without such ill premintions, Azula would agree; she is getting anxious just sitting around. It leaves her too much time to think and simmer in her multitude of regrets and physical discomforts. To dwell on everything she used to be, what she could have been. To realize, with a sense of horror and self disgust, that a part of her enjoys this. She thinks that it is the part of here that sees things that aren’t there. This part of her is glad that the world had gone to shit precisely when her life had. If she is going to fall, the world will fall with her.

“We should leave the palace tomorrow morning.” Li agrees over a stale, unsavory meal.

But the parasites decide that they will leave tonight.

She wakes to their incessant whispers. Their tendrils curl like curtains around the rungs that hold the canopy above her bed. Her ears ring louder as they draw closer. They wiggle about and reach out for her. Don’t they know that she is already one of them? But Li and Bujing aren’t. She ducks under their invisible fingers and within her rises a frenzied tingle as though those spirit parasites are trying to connect with those within her. In her mind there is an itch. A desire to succumb to the madness brewing in the recesses of her brain.

She steps out into the hall, she comes upon a sight that makes her soul run cold. They are inside. The hosts. An army of them.

They simply stand. Stand rigid and contorted at impossible angles; bent, twisted, and agnonized. In them, she can tell who has been newly possessed, their bloodshot, leaking eyes express a degree of torment and fear that the longtime hosts no longer have.

Azula’s stomach lurches all over again at the notion that the host is still there, if only a fragment of them. At the notion that perhaps they could come back.

Those of them that have no humanity left stare at her with lifeless, glossy eyes. She holds their stare, waiting for them to make a move of any kind. She resents how unmoving they are.

Growing tired of this game, whatever it is, she takes another step. And then another and another after that. Each accented by the clatter of her crutches. She weaves between decaying bodies. The only thing that follows her is their potent rotting scent and  their eyes. They don’t turn to stare at her, not in full. Instead, in a series of grotesque cracks and pops, they twist only their heads.  

Azula shudders. She thinks that she hates the infected more than the parasites nestled within them.

Instinct cries for her to call out to Bujing and Li. She holds her silence. She doesn’t need them giving away their hiding spots...if they had even made it to hiding spots. She soon finds that she doesn’t need to, she hears a weak wail come from down the hall.

Azula goes to it as fast as her crutches can carry her.   Li’s cry sets the hosts in motion. Azula’s blood runs colder. She turns around and takes a deep breath. She reminds herself that they had planned on leaving anyhow. She calls forward as much fire as she can manage and sends the blaze down the hall.

She watches only long enough to make sure that the wall of flames will keep raging. Satisfied that they will, she follows the echoing screams, hoping that it isn’t too late. She finds the old woman on the ground with her back arched and her mouth locked agape. Silver threads dance on her lips.

Azula’s stomach sinks. She is going to be alone again. Perhaps forever. She wonders if this is a special hell crafted just for her. Damned to isolation in a devastated world, the last woman left. It will drive her mad, completely and irreparably.

She wanders over to Li’s contorting form and finds the best sitting position that her legs allow for. She takes the woman’s hand in her own. She is already dying, she knows that much. What are a few more parasites. The creatures seem excited to be reunited, she lets them sliter from Li’s flesh and soul and into hers.

She falls back, body seizing and twitching. They are going to rip her apart from within.

.oOo.

When she comes to there is silver-blue all around. Specters and phantoms scream in every corner. Li sits in the center of the room, she meets Azula’s gaze and shakes her head sadly. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Azula’s mouth runs dry. “H-how long?”

“Before you, dear.” The old woman says. “They got me when they got Lo.”

Azula shudders.

Li holds out a wrinkly hand and helps Azula to her feet. “But you’re not decaying.”

Li laughs. “I sure am.” She holds up her robes. Her wrinkled, sagging belly is pockmarked with oozing lesions and holes. “But it’s alright. I was decaying long before the infection.” She gives a cheerful wheezing laugh as though she had cracked a silly joke. “That’s what old age is.”

“I won’t have to worry about that.” Azula mutters.

Li flashes her a sympathetic look and places a hand on her shoulder. “You never know, princess. And if you don’t make it there, I’m proud to say that I’ve had the pleasure of raising you until the end.” She flashes a missing-toothed smile.

“Where’s Bujing?”

Li shakes her head.

“So it’s just us?”

She nods.

“How quickly had they gotten to him?”

Li clicks her tongue. “They didn’t get the chance. He took himself out quick and easy before they could.”

Azula finds herself staring blankly at her toes and the floor. She feels Li’s gnarled hand wrap around her own. “Come on, dear, I think it’s time we head out.” She becomes aware of the smoke wafting into the room. She feels numb as she lets Li escort her into the hall. Hollow as she notes the darkness of it. Hollower still when she realizes how quiet it is. They must be playing with her because they don’t whisper. They don’t make a sound. They leave her to dwell on the crackling fire and emptiness of a palace that had once been bustling and teeming with life and chatter.

In her mind’s eye she can see servants wandering down the hall with armfuls of towles, dipping their heads as she approaches. She sees guards switching shifts. The royal tailor with silk draped over her shoulders and in her arms. She sees war generals passing through the rays of a setting sun that stream through the windows, on their way to war meetings. She can hear the lively chatter. The clanking of pots and pans as the team of chefs begin their dinner rush. She sees a life that she had taken for granted. And she sees a dreary, lifeless, vacant hallway. Coated in dust and full of tattered tapestries.

Looking at the palace, from the outside is almost worse. To see something that had once been so grand, in such a decrepit, crumbling state. Many of the accents and ornaments on the roof have fallen and shattered on the cracked stone below. Their gold is tarnished. The spokes of the flame-like structure have lost their shine. She thinks that they might be cracking. The stairs and walls are spattered with mud and blood, a stark contrast to the time when they had been well-kept and polished.

Azula is like her palace. Or maybe the palace is like her.

“Come on,” Li says gently, “don’t look at it for too long.”

But she already has. She has already looked long enough for it to truly set in that her old life is gone.

She can’t say why she has done it. Maybe it is a way to make her feel like she has some semblance of control. To make her feel like this has been her choice. Whatever is compelling her, blue fire dances on her hands. She sends blast after blast into the palace, until it is fully ablaze.

The jewel of the Fire Nation is in its natural state.

[theraphos]

even when I haven't played oblivion in a while I still occasionally think about all the people I've seen miss 85% of haskill's dialogue because they don't know that when sheogorath tells you to summon haskill bunches or else "I don't think he feels appreciated" that is actually the devs themselves begging you to do so and it makes me sad please summon your haskill, folks. summon him after every single individual step in every quest in the main storyline. reload the game and summon him down alternate decision branches of those quests. summon him after all possible decisions in the cold flame of agnon. summon him during cutscenes. summon him before and after picking up the chalice or looting syl. summon him during combat. summon him during combat with jyggalag. if you don’t summon haskill at every possible inappropriate moment you are literally playing the game wrong appreciate your haskill, please and thank