STF_PAD_NET 01.04.8426

VII

Initiation is a very involved ritual. It consists of many tedious trials and tests. From scratching perfect circles to flying obstacle courses to recitations. It’s not simply a ceremony with smudged ashes from smoldering incense or any sort of solely symbolic gesture. It is an introduction to a new language of subnature, by their harmonic interplay.

After one week of what would be rigorous initiation without the worldly wisdom Vasan had wandered their way through, the two arrive at a final test. They sit opposite each other in the lowest, most secluded altar in the temple. Devoid of sunlight and moonlight, with only dim earthlight neutralizing their tones. Making them humble. A place almost as petrified as the Fifth Moon’s ruins, with wearing words on the weaves in its walls. They draw circles on a pad of resin between them.

Jaquel scratches a point. “These should be easy for you.”

Vasan listens, sat in ceremonial robes, sitting perfectly upright.

“As we start, you are nothing. What must you be before you are anything?”

Vasan draws a circle. “A storm of energy.”

“What must this storm have to keep its form?”

Vasan draws 3 circles that intersect across the middle one’s center. “Body, Mind, and Soul.”

“Your mass, your spin, and your charge.”

Vasan nods.

“Your body is made of…”

“The dust of life.” Vasan points to one circle on the outside, and points to the rest, “The fire of love, and their song of order.”

“It’s mass, it’s charge, and their spin.” Jaquel rewords.

“Your mind is made of…”

“My patterns, my context, and their thoughts.”

“It’s spin, it’s charge, and their mass…”

Vasan nods.

“Your soul is made up of…”

“My voice, my dreams, and their love.”

“It’s spin, it’s mass, and their charge.”

Jaquel wipes the slate clean. “What do you become?”

“A tone.” Vasan draws a circle, then places their claws straight down on the floor beside them. “It stays. A steady root among the noise.”

“What do you have?”

“A form.” Vasan draws another, leaving an eye shape where they cross, returning their claws to their lap, laying in an open figure over their lower abdomen, “That flows. Which gives me my lens for my light to show.”

“What do you do?”

“My will.” Vasan draws the third circle, recreating the form before but without a bounding circle, and returning their claws to clasp over their diaphragm, “That burns. With which I can make perfect choices.”

“What chooses?”

“My heart,” Vasan sketches a fourth circle, drawing a serpentine iris through an eye shape as the circles crowd together. “That lives. That steers the storm of life through my soul and conducts the harmonies of life.” Their claws take a praying shape over their heart, their palms shaping the opening of a funnel of energy that flows out through them. The energy built between the two of them is tangible to my probes. Smooth strings of energy spin around them. Vasan’s energy consolidated more than I have felt it before.

Jaquel sits. Blank and stiff. “What makes it so?”

“My word,” Vasan draws a fifth circle in the gradually fanning out pattern. “And the souls that hear. My wings, and the breeze that carries me.” They stretch their arms and wings out as wide as they are able.

Jaquel follows suit. And they stay in this position, channeling something, communicating silently. Neither leads the other in simultaneously closing their wings back down.

“What keeps it so?”

“My vision,” They draw the sixth circle, leaving a nearly complete wheel of 6 of these overlapping the one they started with, returning their claws to their temples. “That expands. Which lets me see the illusions of the world as the shadows cast by the branches of the highest heavens.”

The grackle sits silent for seconds that seem so much longer. “Why?”

“My light,” Vasan draws the seventh circle, completing the wheel, and places their prayer hands above their head, “That shines. Which seeks to illuminate whatever is caught under shadow.”

“What do you seek to become?”

Vasan encircles all of the circles. “Complete.”

“And what makes you, in your completeness, as a drek,” Jaquel specifies, “What are you besides a beast?”

“I am a being.” Vasan recites, “A being is many doings in harmony. To be complete is the act of being complete.”

“You were a being of the present.” Jaquel tees up. “And now...”

“I am a being of being a being after.”

Jaquel nods. The slate is wiped clean. A bundled stick of sweet smelling roots is lit.

The two sing.




VII
Lost Time

<<< >>>