"This town ain't arbitrarily large enough for the n+1 of us." - Azag
A shot rang out and scattered through white dunes. A perfectly clean puncture pronounced itself on a sign so practiced upon it now read "We come to the vill ge of histo ic Es gila".
"Heck of a shot, Miss!"
The Miss at hand ignored him. She cast her revolver into orbit around her index finger once, twice, stopped it, and fired its fifth bullet effortlessly, harmlessly through Welcome's l.
A tall, muscular old androgyne approached the girl and her tutor. "Well I'll be! You've certainly taught her right."
"Me? Nah, the kid's got talent of her own."
"I can see that. D'you think she'll need the gun much longer?"
Though her back was to them while she holstered her gun, she frowned at the remark.
"Well... to tell you the truth," her mentor whispered, "I do believe she is psionically impaired. Says she once was what they call a 'human', which I can only infer, judging from her physiology, must be a close relative of the cowboy, but she ain't got the same telekinesis as you and I."
The elder nodded in pity and looked over at her. "What's her name?"
"She ain't got one."
"That so? Girl! May I ask who you are?"
She turned and walked over. Her hand was outstretched to shake, but the gesture was clearly unfamiliar to them. "Marie Crawford."
"Well, Sheriff Ninurta over here was saying you ain't got a name."
"I don't. I'm literally the name, 'Marie Crawford'. Pleasure to meet you, erm...?"
"Tiamat. Mayor of this humble burg. I've been hearin' about you. They say you came a long way to get here."
"You could say that. I've been thinking about looking for a way back, but I don't think there's anything left for me, where I come from."
Was she happy to call this her home now? Absolutely not. But she was content, and no longer was there any eldritch scheme, or treacherous nemesis, or ever-present risk of becoming a witch left to threaten her. Life in Esagila was quiet, but she was no longer sure she minded.
She had to herself a small bedroom at the inn, with nothing to it but a bed, a nightstand, a dresser which she never used, and a broken clock. The innkeeper, Inanna, had told her that it had been fitted wrong, and now it ran backward. Marie explained that it didn't run at all. It was broken. Inanna retorted that the thing which had broken it hadn't broken it yet, but rather would in the future, because it ran backward. Well, then, Marie joked, at least then you'd know when it's going to break. Inanna didn't get that. Marie said oh well never mind then.
And she had to herself the tutelage in all ways of life by Sheriff Ninurta, who had given her the nickname, "the Name with no Man". He had proven himself exceptionally knowledgeable in anything from charting the stars (at least he told her they were stars, but that felt hard to believe) to tending the soil (completely sterile white sand, save for an artificial turf one-to-one recreation of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon upon which the town was built).
She caught herself looking up at those stars now and then. She tried to let herself go and fall into the horror she'd felt one night in Jonquil. There was no such horror here. Above her there was nothing. Not void, not vacuum, nothing. A sky that wasn't quite there. And there came with it the strangest feeling, or lack thereof. Something she'd felt from the day she was born, a subconscious tickling that every second of every moment she was being watched and judged. She still felt as seen as ever, but no longer the focus. A deer illuminated, but not in the headlights.
The following night - time being present as ever but far more vague, such that Marie decided to call it a night - she found herself invited to Tiamat's estate for a drink. Every other aspect of this world being as strange as it was, she was almost concerned to consider what a drink could entail. And yet, accepting had only been polite.
Tiamat poured her something, for sure, and they both partook.
"So what brings you to this town, if I may ask?"
"I'm not sure. For all I know, this is a strange hallucination I'm having in the wake of some severe neurological lesions."
"Oh?"
"But isn't that life, really?"
"I..." Tiamat stroked their chin. "Is it? I'm not sure that's actually true."
"Oh, don't worry about it. If I run my mouth, I'll just bring the mood down. I'm not from anywhere as idyllic as this."
"Of course, darl. Mage-warrior cowboys such as myself always wanted to build a utopia for weary travelers such as yourself here."
"Darl..." Marie echoed.
"Y'all good?"
"Yeah. I was just thinking, you see, that's what an old friend used to call me."
"Is that right?"
"I mean, I think so? My memories of life are pretty scattershot. I'm mostly just the ren of the soul. The name."
"That explains the ghostly appearance and all."
"...Yeah." Marie sighed.
"What happened to the rest? If you don't mind me asking."
"I wouldn't know! I could be all that's left after some kind of particularly gruesome death, or I could be a copy-paste, and the 100% version of myself hasn't even noticed. Or maybe there never was a full Marie Crawford to begin with. I don't know. It doesn't really matter anymore, does it?"
"I guess not."
They each helped themselves to a refill, and meditated on that. Tiamat looked up.
"Are you with someone, kid?"
"Wh... at? Why?"
"Got two kids. Each lookin' for a suitor. A son and a daughter, 'bout your age. I wasn't sure of the inclination of your proclivities, see, but as their parent, it's my job to see to it they go get themselves a fulfilling life."
"With all due respect, I'm not so needy or shallow as to-"
Tiamat tossed a photo of their children across the table.
"Wow, uh. Uh. Um."
"Hm?"
"Do you think I could arrange to meet them at some point?"
It was late now, or so she told herself. She wandered out into the street - never more or less busy than it always was in this sunless world. The familiar faces offered curt acknowledgement, and she returned it. Those she did not yet know, just the same but twice as curt.
She stepped off from the synthetic grass onto the white sand and wandered, guided by the light of the town. It was crisp outside, but not unpleasantly so. She removed her shawl and felt the air take to her arms and neck.
The dunes were some way out, but the trek did not tire her, nor, despite their gradient, did the climb. If anything, there was almost a therapeutic consistency to the sand, and her journey upon it was a brisk march.
In the early days, she had believed this desert to be featureless, empty. Now the shining of its soil sang to her. Now she could read upon it beautiful megastructures forged by winds and centuries. Now she found breathtaking patterns cast upon it by the shapes of the constellations.
The further she strayed, the more welcoming the dunes became. She could lose herself out here. In fact, she'd decided already that perhaps one day, she would do exactly that. Who knew what else might exist out here? Just not today, though. Not in the midst of such a perfect life.
Esagila was a light some way off. Not upon the horizon - it was hard to describe such a thing as existing with no haze and the desert remaining visible for billions of lightyears from where she stood. But it would do. Once convinced of her own solitude, she laid down to watch the stars.
Ninurta approached upon the outline of a stallion suggested by his own psionic levitation. "Room for one more?"
"Sure."
He lowered himself and joined her. "What are the stars sayin' now, do you think?"
"I don't know. They've never looked like this before."
"Well I'll be, they sure as heck haven't."
"What do you think they mean?"
He grimaced. "Well, the only time I'd ever seen anything remotely like this was shortly before you rolled into town. Even then... that wasn't quite like this."
"So you think someone else might show up soon?"
"I haven't a gosh-darned clue what to think."
He stood up.
"Guess we'll find out soon enough one way or another," Marie shrugged.
"That we will. Why don't I give you a ride back into town, and you get yourself some rest?"
She sighed. "Maybe that'd be for the best."
In life she had said a great many things which proved themselves completely and utterly wrong. None even so much as approaching this.
Though she thought this her new life and final resting place, her Camelot and Avalon, a brawl between omnipotents would effect collateral damage in every moment that whole empires could not dream of in lifetimes. The signature of strange eons circled above like vultures. But nobody knew. Nobody could know, at least not just yet.
Marie awoke to the ticking of the clock in the hall. If it only woke her now, she presumed it must have just begun. In that case, whatever (had broken/would break) it must either have just left, or was rapidly approaching.
She changed quickly and ran out into the street. Already a commotion had begun, families running about, faces she knew, pointing at the sky. She followed their gaze.
She did not have words to describe what she saw. If she did, though, they probably would have sounded like this:
A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.
Something tarnished the crystal dome which held the stars fixed in the sky. A clean cut. Perfectly clean, in fact - nothing was harder than the diamond tip slicing through it, and therefore, its path through nothing was an immaculate hairline fracture.
It was a blood diamond. It was the veta madre of blood diamonds. It was bloodshed. The oldest, and yet final pyrrhic bastard of the most elemental war-dances. Who gives a fuck that it has happened before? It is happening now.
By the time the deathwhistle chorus made landfall, every mage-warrior had taken to the streets and concentrated their efforts on keeping the bolide from falling any farther. For a moment, they appeared to have slowed its descent, but then its form came into view.
Marie raised her revolver and fired its last bullet. Uselessly, but she knew that. It was not an act of violence. It was a declaration of hatred.
Close enough to shine now with the light of the white sand, a tremendous golden dragon sprouted wings and slew all but one of its assailants with a split-second storm of sand and fire. All that remained to beggar belief further than the Knight's inexplicable presence was that of the one paroxysmally throttling it, and the implement with which she did so. But those were mysteries to ponder in a land less dearth of time.
Time. The broken clock at last reached its starting point. The town was rife with so much death and failure now, it was as it was at square one of settlement. But not even was the square's 1:1 ratio permitted. The firmament beneath the town avulsed on deity striking dirt. The ground ripped itself up. Esagila was annihilated beneath the power that pierced the cosmos.
To compare it to the end of the world would be barbaric.
For a single, terrible moment, it was as if the world had never been born.
PART 3: A WORLD OF TWENTY THOUSAND GIRLS
Four billion years hence, generations of culture and religion and study and thought would seek the divine spark, the process or substance of animation that could turn dust and water and amino acids to the stuff of life. Marie Crawford, or whatever thereof she may be, had the privilege of seeing for herself.
:רֹוֽא־יִהְיַֽו רֹו֑א־יִהְי םיִ֖הֹלֱא רֶמאֹּ֥יַו
Light boiled the sea and split the sky, its heat kissed her face where she stood in a craggy shoal, on a shore of only rock and fog, revealed the horizon, otherwise invisible, and before her, the battered, burned, naked form of her lover...
The light. So long as the tree of life descends from the realm of the divine to the mortal world, so too do mortals dream of ascent in the cultivation of a tree of death. A tree emanating no archetypes of Godliness, but its own poisonous fruit. The seeds, of course, the same enlightened cinders cast in Promethean impartation. Marie recalled the first to harvest the tree, the sons of bitches not yet born but only born because of what she saw, thought of how they must have looked on in sadness and awe and horror as she did, what stories they must have told one another in the shade of the leaves upon its crown.
There comes a story from the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu scripture, where the prince Arjuna refuses his duty to battle if it means he has to kill. The God Krishna insists that he must stay by it, for his hands will be clean: to decide who may live and who may die was to the gods alone; the universe was too immense to be shifted by the wills of mere mortals. Eventually, Krishna reveals his supreme form to Arjuna, and with it, the power he holds over the world.
कालोऽस्मि लोकक्षयकृत्प्रवृद्धो
लोकान्समाहर्तुमिह प्रवृत्त: |
But if the life on this planet could be born in such an image of death, then whatever gods determined the justice of fate must be absent, or insane.
She looked down at the form of her lover and understood just how human she wasn't.
Mækiu wasn't moving, but Marie had enough to grieve already. She gathered herself and wandered into the pernicious warmth of the briny blue.
Billions of years later, a young woman sat by a fire. Its very existence marked the elevation of her species' capabilities. Incipient were advents of healthier food, safer nights, easier winters, controlled burnoff, toolcrafting, pottery, a list of potential innovations of unprecedented breadth. The only problem was that nobody could understand that. She could, though. She knew exactly what she was looking at.
Her mother sighed. "Come on, love. You've been staring at that thing for too long, it can't be good for your eyes."
"I'm fine."
"Why don't you get up and do something productive? I don't know, like stalking wildebeest."
"This is productive. Whatever, you wouldn't get it."
"What's gonna happen to this generation?" her uncle snapped. "Growing up with fire. It's not good for them. I mean look at our lot - we turned out fine. We weren't... risking getting burned every hour of the day."
Millions of years later, these fields ran dark with blood. Lucius had spent his entire life learning to fight for the glory of Rome, but the reality of war was something not a century of training more could have steeled him for.
And here was Caturix, the Gallic warrior who had seen his lands crushed by red and silver uniforms. He had a home, once. He had a people, once. Now the only paths before him were up, or into the ground.
Both men were battered and bruised. Both had seen the face of death and despised and coveted it in equal measure. Each cursed inaudibly in his own foul, incomprehensible tongue. Their eyes met, and they each caught a reflection of their own sick, barbaric grief. How small ideology and religion and borders looked in the face of their wounds. Why were they fighting? They told themselves each in their last breath that they warred with one another so that their children would never have to do the same.
Thousands of years later, these streets ran thick with rabid football lovers. Catalino had spent his entire life learning to cheer for the glory of Italy, but the absurdity of almost losing in the penalty shootouts was something not the rest of the '06 World Cup could have steeled him for.
And here was Lucien, the French fanatic who had seen his team crushed by blue and white uniforms. He had headers that would go 2-1 in extra time, once. He had tackles that would be awarded appropriate penalties, once. Now he was in the middle of Germany with nothing to show for it.
Both men were battered and bruised. Both had seen the face of death and despised and coveted it in equal measure. Each cursed inaudibly in his own foul, incomprehensible tongue. Their eyes met, and they each caught a reflection of their own sick, barbaric grief. How small ideology and religion and borders looked in the face of their wounds. Why were they fighting? Because in the face of all humanity, all compassion, all reason and damnable sense, Trezeguet almost had that fucking goal.
Years later, Hüriye wandered out from the train station, onto Unter den Linden. A light drizzle immediately welcomed them out into the open air, but the cold did not perturb them. A cushion of warm, dry air took to their body and ensured not a droplet of rain got comfortable. Not that they minded the discomfort of the cold, but it was better not to risk their steel mask rusting and sitting on their face askew.
The directions from here had been clear. Had it been a drier day, they would have left an earlier station and enjoyed the walk. Then again, it might have irked their colleagues to be walking around in the broad daylight of the most tourist-dense spot in the country, given what people may have thought of their mask. The train had the advantage of nobody else on board honestly caring if you lived or died. Everyone had their own problems on the train, and their business was their business. If some teenager wandered about with steel plating grafted to the bottom half of their face, that was nothing compared to the fact that that one really nice apple juice was out of stock this morning, I mean really can you believe? For shame.
They stopped just outside the British embassy. Supposedly sovereignty was something the Attendants of the Deep Light respected, and an English friend of Hüriye's was kind enough to offer them and a traitorous ex-Attendant an hour of shelter from the Empress's omnipresent eye.
Hüriye had only ever gotten to know one Attendant in their life, and they didn't hope it wasn't her - they were something of an ascetic, and did not take it upon themself to dislike other people - so much as come at the situation with certain expectations. They stepped into the assault on the senses only the most stupid, deranged, or British could mistake for a lobby, and instantly locked eyes with...
It must be said that the idea of hate never crossed Hüriye's mind. Proclivities of ill will were not something which they held, and to know that someone was doing well in the wake of departing what with a fraction more organization could be called a junta felt wonderful. But they did bear an emotion characterized not so much with hate as with expressions to the tune of 'Wow, really? Shit. Alright.' There was nothing particularly hedonistic about, really. One must imagine even the Dalai Lama would have known the feeling.
They stepped into the assault on the senses only the most stupid, deranged, or British could mistake for a lobby, and instantly locked eyes with their former territorial nemesis and one of the Empress's auxiliaries, Annika Schneider.
WHAT DOES YOUR SOUL LOOK LIKE?
The significance of the actual, tangible soul has been a point of great debate for a long time, and a point of people trying not to dwell on it because the concept is actually pretty alarming for an even longer time. So what is the soul, exactly, and what does it do? It's clear that it embodies the self of its owner, but that feels like a borderline tautological definition which begs the question: just who the hell are you?
The most common misconception, particularly within societies which place little emphasis on notions of community, is that the soul is one's own consciousness. It is the device by which their inside world operates. Certainly this explains why one's own awareness increases with proximity to their soul, but not much else. If that were the case, why doesn't a soul gem disappear when its owner is asleep or comatose? Why, as a manifestation of the soul, does a witch's labyrinth resemble their subconscious mind?
If this self-centric model of the soul were true, it would have some unsettling ramifications. The information in the conscious mind, like all information, can be copied. If you could reconstruct an entire person from this, could you become someone by learning everything they're aware of? Does a soul promptly appear and disappear at the waking and resting of its owner, respectively, and each day is replaced with a new soul containing only the memories of its predecessor? Are dissociations or retrograde amnesia destructions of the soul? Are unpleasant thoughts a part of you, and therefore something for which you should be judged?
No.
Of course not. That's stupid.
So what is the soul, then?
Thankfully, in the face of all this, there have been a great many societies which actually have their philosophical shit together. For millennia, Chinese scholars have orbited, sometimes uneasily glanced at, or, among the more daring, approached, the nigh-ineffable notion of qi. Qi is an omnipresent life force. It connects every bit of matter to every other bit of matter in existence, and is responsible for the animation of all living things. Being a force, imperative to its continuation is the achievement of balance. Channeling qi in a balanced way assures good health and longevity (something which Madeleine Whitman had reinvented, in the worst way). If qi is, on any level, analogous to the soul, then the soul might not be something which exists in a vacuum, but is defined by its owner's place and state within the universe.
Another idea along these lines comes from Polynesia. Though Anglophones have, in recent decades, perverted the specificity of the word, the Polynesian name for this life force is mana. To cultivate mana, one's connection to the universe, is about as direct as the idea could be: one relates their culture to their identity, and their actions to their community. To act in support of one's community may appear, in the wake of consumerism's lengthening shadow worldwide, like acts of charity, but "to give" does not necessarily imply "to be charitable". Charity is optional, and only occurs in ways of life where the respect and dignity of being able and willing to provide are not assumed of one. If this philosophy resembles a useful model of the soul, that would explain why contractees with more influence over the lives of others are capable of channelling greater power.
But to describe self-definition through acting for the community as an artefact of only a few outlying cultures is the ultimate demonstration of a stubborn mind. This idea does not merely exist here and there, but the Algonquian people on the opposite side of the world to China developed the remarkably similar manitou, and antipodean to Polynesia, the Bantu had developed the existentially direct philosophy of ubuntu, which - if we might paraphrase Descartes's infamous axiom - broadly means, "we are, therefore I am". Ubuntu is a line of thinking which cuts right to the core of the issue: there cannot be an identity without 'the other'. One may as not exist at all if not in relation to anyone else. Even then, that might be selling the matter short - perhaps it's worth calling into question whether the self and community are meaningfully extricable.
It is worth noting that none of this is necessarily supernatural or magical. This is a line of thinking which may be practiced by anyone from any background, and in fact more or less has. But if we take the above to all be true, we can postulate the following: if one were to be the only person in existence, for the entirety of their life, they would have no culture, as there would be no community to share it with; no gender, as there could not be two extremes for one to find a place between; no age, because they would not conceive of the possibility of their life having an end; and no name, because who would be around to call it? Every aspect of one's identity is either defined by those around them, or by the individual in relation to those around them. In a vacuum, there is no identity, is no self, is no soul. That, then, is what the soul must be - one's relation to the universe around them. Hence a magical girl's insentient inertia when distanced from her soul: not because of her lack of consciousness, but the other way around. She loses the spark of life because that very spark is what allows her to act in her world.
(A/N: Hey guys! Remember how I said I'd do a part 2 writeup at the end of the year? I lied, it's out now: https /puellafuriadarkmagica tumblr com/post/686651718087458816/pfdm-part-2-retrospective )