[A]

Oh.

Well, 2.6 dropped and I got inspired to write this again. I haven't really found the time to play so anything lore-related is me running on lore videos. Kinda glad that my headcanon's been approximately confirmed though.

On with the chapter…

Edit: Grammarly. I swear I made another mistake somewhere, but it's late already.


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Chapter 8 - The Long Dream

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The cold got worse. It's made me realize that cold immunity isn't really all that the fantasy community has it cracked up to be. Imagine this: you're one of the few able-bodied people in a tightly-knit community, and if anyone else steps out of their house, they'll be falling ill come sundown. This meant that nearly all of them would spend the day sleeping. This meant that the responsibility of making sure everyone is fed rested squarely on three individuals.

If we analyze that further: dad's hands are too phat and too cold to be taking care of anyone, let alone feed them. The other guy was an old hermit that lived at the edge of the tribe's perimeter, outside and in the cold, who had straight-up pulled a middle finger when I asked if he could help me with the caretaking. Suffice to say, those two decided to be men and went out fishi — I mean to buy mil — I mean hunting.

Fortunately, I discovered that Hilichurls were capable of hibernation. More than half of the tribe was in such a deep state of sleep that it would take throwing them off the bed or hitting them on the head with a rock to wake them up. The others? Well…

"Hey Samu," Alexa's croaky voice greeted, bringing me out of my reverie.

I moved from where I was standing in a daze by the entrance to her room, picked up the third layer of boar skin that was on the floor beside her bed, and put it back on her. Alexa giggled.

"Thanks."

I looked at her. It had been a week since her fever broke. If we're looking at the progress of healing, her leg's already well on the mend. The problem was, well, the aforementioned Long Dream. And no, that's apparently entirely different from everyone else's standard hibernation — a difference driven into a bump on my head by Zeno using her metal rod of seniority.

Simply put, the Long Dream was a bio-magical phenomenon in which a Hilichurl turns into an adult. It's also an incredibly frustrating phenomenon because no one in the tribe would actually tell me anything about it. Oh sure, you can ask about how to prepare for it: get a bed, eat more food than a stomach has any right to hold, and get comfy. But if you're question was what happens to you while under its effects? I asked my dad and he just went silent; I asked my mom and she immediately sought out another chore; I asked Zeno and she cackled and told me I had no balls. Ask anyone else and they'll avoid the conversation entirely.

Assholes.

Alexa coughed, so I went to get her a water bowl. The liquid had gone cold, so I performed a little trick: extracting Cryo essence. It was a big fat middle finger to physics. With a little wizardry, I sucked all the coldness out of the water until it actually became quite warm and spread the chill juice to the rest of my body. Cultivation, Qi circulation, xianxia, wuxia, hwacha, haiyah. Haven't read enough about that shit to get philosophical about it.

I went back to Alexa and helped her drink. She cooperated with a docility that I wouldn't have expected from her a month ago. It pissed me off but I wasn't about to tell her that.

Then all of a sudden, I felt a bout of dizziness that threatened to steal my consciousness. Fortunately, I caught myself using the cot. The bowl, however, wasn't as lucky and slipped from both of our hands and spilled onto the floor. Groggily, I looked over to the girl and found that she had fallen fast asleep, so I tucked her in.

"You should rest as well."

I around and found that Zeno had dropped down from her little hammock. She was wrapped in multiple layers of cloth and fur and was without her staff.

"Go back to your hut. Quickly now."

I stared at her. Then I glanced towards Alexa.

"... No," I said.

"No?!" the shaman said.

I nodded. "Yep."

"Then where will you sleep? On the floor?"

With a confidence that I did not know I had, I clambered over the sleeping girl and plopped myself to her other side. I looked smugly at the Samachurl as her hands faltered between waving around in anger and a double fist pump. She settled on dropping her shoulders.

"Very well," Zeno mumbled as she began moving back to her hammock.

"The girl will very much need it."


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I wasn't sure when I'd passed out. All I knew was that one moment I was tucking myself under a blanket in Alexa's bed. The next thing I knew, I was standing in the middle of a marble bridge supported by nothing but the clouds. Actually, everything around me was clouds… and marble bridges, and marble spires with gold, decorative facades.

Oh hey, it's the fucking title screen, I mused. I paused.

Oh fuck, it's the title screen. I gulped. Celestia.

Nope nope nope nope— I burst into a run, following the path as more of it assembled in front of me. Blood pumped into my head as my heightened state suddenly made me keenly aware of the sound of wingbeats in the background. A quick check around provided me with nothing living within sight, which meant that whatever that thing was should be massive.

I kept running and running and running. I swayed, nearly lost my balance and tilted dangerously off the side of the path, cursed, and managed to at least fall onto the path on all fours. There was motion behind me. I scrambled to my feet, trying not to think about the feathers and cubes and eyes I was glimpsing within the clouds from the edge of my sight.

Marble slammed against in front of me, stacking vertically until it formed a pale door.

"Fucking finally!"

I lunged forward, running with a speed that would rival the most experienced Fire Dancer in my tribe (my mother). The air rippled behind me as whatever creature coming after me roared something incomprehensible and inaudible. My hands slammed against the door and heaved just as I started hearing the sounds of stone being ground into dust. The door gave way easily enough and I tilted forward and fell.

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The priestess didn't know what to make of the king's son.

Objectively speaking, he was a good man: healthy, smart, and one of their most skilled warriors as evidenced by the way that he was able to handle the old taskmaster. Strictly speaking, she shouldn't be complaining about his inclusion in their delegation. He needed the experience to know how one should handle the divine when it came to the prosperity of their small kingdom. After all, the messengers of the Sky Palace were the ones that taught them how to grow food and harness the power of the world around them.

No, her problem with him was much more subtle. It was ideological; the man was an avid practitioner of the philosophical arts. She didn't understand, exactly, how he had turned out that way seeing as she was his mentor. She wasn't lacking in impressing the importance of their reverence: her warnings against the disrespect against the divine were constant and the ritual offerings that they held towards the Sky Palace were performed thrice every day. Still, it seemed that whatever she said and whatever they had done flew through one ear and out the other.

So when the other elders had pushed him into accompanying her for the delegation, the priestess had to down a few herbs to stifle a growing headache. As if the country's relationship with the people from the sky wasn't strained enough.

At least her own daughter was free of such thinking. Sure, she had been worried at first; the girl was a rebellious little mouse with all the hallmarks of a prodigy equally as potent as that of the king's son, but thanks to the lack of social immunity granted by being royalty and literally being her own daughter, the priestess was able to hammer out that particular way of thinking from her own daughter.

Yet still, the young woman fancied the man, so she wouldn't be able to rest just yet.

"Touch nothing and say nothing," she hissed at both. Her daughter recoiled slightly while the man flinched but gave her a hard stare. The priestess could do nothing but sigh and fix the crown of Irminsul branches on her head before opening the entrance to the way down. "Follow me."

Into the depths of the earth, they went, spent in silence and the sound of water dripping down from the stone above them. The priestess had been through this process many times before and had come to be familiar with the two hours of walking they had to do to reach their destination, which was why she found it amusing how her two companions grew irritable and jerky not even half an hour into their journey.

"Do we have to walk back this way?" her daughter asked during one of the many breaks they took on the way down the specially-built stairwell.

When the priestess smiled at her and said nothing. The whelp of a woman paled.

When they finally reached the end of the stairs, the two were filling the corridor with echoes of murmuring and banter. It made it that much more satisfying when the priestess clapped loudly and silenced the two with the power of the sharp reverberations bouncing around them.

"The two of you are to wait outside," she said, eyeing each of them so sharply that they flinched. "Neither of you will be allowed to follow after me or be allowed to speak while the communion is being held."

She waited there until both of them nodded, and the priestess expressed her satisfaction.

She entered the chamber closest to the ocean under the land and stood before the pale tree, where Celestia's envoy manifested itself in her presence. The priestess bowed before the representative of the divine and made her greetings, praising the blessings that their kingdom had received and the countenance of her guest as in tradition.

The envoy instructed her to raise her head and praised the priestess's countenance and work in the guidance of their young. The envoy praised the actions of their king for his obedience to their will and remembrance of their place before the heavens. The priestess felt the praises that the divine being gave her and her people and thanked the envoy for its mercy and benevolence.

Pleased with this, the envoy began its transcendental dance, moving its ethereal form to enchant the priestess with the enlightenment that the mortal was seeking. Yet before the immortal had taken its first step, the entrance to the chamber was thrown open and the king's progeny burst into the ceremony, the priestess's daughter following more than a few steps behind. The heir made his way towards the foot of the tree and said:

"Hear me, envoy, your tyranny ends! No longer shall Celestia govern the lives of the kingdom and we shall reign with our own hands!"

Enraged, the envoy pointed a finger at the prince and cried, "Foolish mortal, know your place! Kneel and beg for mercy or your arrogation shall be your undoing!"

"Never!" the prince replied.

"Then you shall bear the curse of your foolishness, just as many others before!"

The envoy bore a wicked and beautiful smile and lashed at the prince with a whip of light. It struck the man in the temple and bore into his soul. The prince cried out as fire devoured his body and left charred but whole flesh in his wake, turning his hands into claws and his hair into fur. Both the priestess and her daughter cried out as they caught their kingdom's heir in their arms.

"It is clear now that this kingdom has reached the height of its arrogance. It is now time to begin the cycle anew."

Then the envoy turned, summoning waves of light and disappeared into the brilliance. The two women would bring their prince back to the kingdom but for naught. He would live the rest of his life living like a beast, blessed with an eternal youth yet a beastly body, a degraded mind but with all his memory.

In the evening of that day, the Heavenly Pillar which served as the envoy's residence above their kingdom fell and pierced the heart of the civilization, destroying the capital with force and fire. On the second day, the Heavenly Pillar released a bright cloud that swept over the land, destroying man's creations and its records. On the third day, the Heavenly Pillar summoned a storm that destroyed the crops and the roads. On the fourth day, it summoned a mighty winter storm to cover what has not been destroyed in snow. On the fifth, it altered the creatures of the land, turning them into monsters that would hunt the remaining humans in place of its creators. On the sixth, the sun was covered in darkness and all that looked upon it were afflicted with the same curse that the prince of the country suffered.

On the seventh day, the Heavenly Pillar released rings of light into the air, singing songs of salvation and life, of the cycle beginning anew, a song that lasted until nightfall when the Heavenly Pillar lost its divinity and light and became naught but divine marble embedded into the ground, and the Palace in the Sky flew away from its place above the kingdom in search of a new civilization to foster and destroy.


CHAPTER 8 END

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