CAUTION: Spoils aspects of Innocent Hopes, Twisted Realities, as well as aspects of When Nothing Remains and Usurpation of the Darkness
Seriously, major spoilers here.
Assuming you wish to continue, read on…
Background: This entry is itself background! Alternatively, this could be considered a promo for my next story in the IHTR universe, but it's not quite that either.
Best to think of this as an atmospheric summary and setting of the board for some of the characters and places in this universe. I'm writing this before I finalize most of the plot, let alone writing the thing, and even the name – I've not started on the name yet. Nothing has been written in-story, not a single page of a single chapter of a first draft. Planning is thoroughly in-progress, and that's all.
But I know who the foci will be, and I know where they all start. I know what this story is about. Those things aren't going to change. That's enough to make this.
There are, some say, two worlds. The one above, and the one below. Others claim three, dividing the sky and the surface of the earth just as the surface of the earth and its depths are separate. Some few know that there are four, cleaving land from sea, as depths and sky from land.
The rumblings of change began, begin, will begin, in four places, four people, one of each realm. Three of the four have already begun, set on their paths, and the last will soon set out. It will be some time yet before they collide and start things in earnest, but the roots of that future event have grown and are nearly ready.
Where is the last to begin?
Shallowly hidden beneath the ground, at the top of the depths he has no desire to explore. He could go anywhere, if he wanted. If he was willing to seize the means of travel. He is not of the depths, not truly, and he will leave soon. Wherever he chooses to go, the tide will follow – but it does not follow yet. That tiny tragedy is winding up, soon to strike him. Him and one other, but the other will have no story afterward. The depths are harsh, his part of them no more or less than the rest.
What is happening in the depths?
In his isolated corner? Four packs struggle for space in their cramped perch at the top of their frightening world. Two locked in mutual hatred, one on the outskirts in their own unassailable drop of lightless sea, and one deposited right in the middle to muddle things further.
Further down and further out, other creatures creep and crawl. In a lightless place not far from the four packs, a being of unwanted nightmare will soon venture out, seeking illumination. Not yet, but her decision has been made. She is almost done growing the discontent and fear needed to strike out on her own. She is the second to last of the rumbles, the foreshock, and the rift that will separate her from her home is inevitable.
Deeper still, straying further from the top of the depths, from the hole that pierces surface to link sky and stone, nameless ones lurk. Silent tombs sit, unchanging. Wonders and horrors come and go, unseen by any who can bear to live elsewhere.
The depths are ever-changing, but real change will be happening elsewhere, is already happening elsewhere, a precursor to what is to come.
Where?
Far away, in a place where land, air, and water cohabitate, a resentful warrior is finalizing plans. She speaks bluntly to her counselors, and they in turn give their opinions freely. Together they are the tip of a tornado, sky ripping land up to fly amongst the whipping winds. She speaks in one tongue but hears in two, and two are spoken within her domain. She is the second of the four.
It is here, in the archipelago that she calls home, that the landslide will begin. It was provoked, they say. And maybe it was. A madman, not so far from them, two nights of air or three weeks of sea, believes that he is the architect of it all. His people, bar one, believe him.
In truth, he and his machinations are the prelude. He will be gone and done with before the chaos he so yearns for truly begins, and maybe that is for the best. He would be disappointed by what is to follow. This upheaval will not be entirely physical, just as the previous chaos was not, and he was only ever concerned with the physical.
The previous chaos?
Air and land, suddenly at peace. That is an unexpected change, is it not? The sea has not made peace with the land. The depths are hostile by nature. The land threatens all. Air goes where it will, raining death on those that challenge it. This new peace is small, local. Very little blood was spilled. Few know, in the wider world. Still, it defies millenia of strife. The madman does not like that chaos, though it is chaos of the very sort that he strives to cause. His hypocrisy runs deep.
What is to come would not please him either, though it will be bloodier.
Second, third, fourth. What of the first?
There is one of air, lurking, hidden, not so far from the madman. This one is a trespasser, his truce long forgotten by the madman's forefathers, and he will not stay long. He is only there to check that time has not ripped his discovery from him and in that respect he has been spared. He thinks he knows what is to come. His new truce will give him what he wants, and from there? Procurement.
He is the first, because his aims came into being a few short centuries ago. A small span of time, but vast compared to the other three. They are young. He is older than he should be, an ancient thunderstorm.
His aims are different from theirs, and his means greater. But that does not make him more important. They will all contribute to the chaos in their own ways, none more or less. He would not cause nearly as great a calamity if not for the other three.
What is the chaos to come?
Change, bloody and subtle and widespread. Small in scale, but only to begin with. A grieving warlord, a stoic child, an optimistic terror, a high-minded magpie. They all want change, and they will all be well-positioned to seek it. Worse yet, they will not go unopposed. They are not the only people in the four realms, and they are not all-powerful. Struggle amplifies, tests, refines.
Deep in the depths, another nightmare lurks, unwilling and unable to let go.
Out at sea, in a rickety wooden construct, a pragmatist searches for a legend with glory to seize for himself.
On land, a liar works in vain to shore up long-neglected defenses, hatred smoldering deep within.
High up a mountain, thin air whipping about, an old moralist throws the past to its death.
They will not make what is to come easy or painless. Quite the opposite.
And you?
I am not part of this story. Neither are you. When have we ever been a part of anything? You, with your endless questions. Me, with my vague answers. Locked away, so deep and so dark that the magpie will never find us… Two gray meshes, interlocking circles, around a spike that glows once a century. Our means of transcription, the third mesh, broken on the ground beside us. What could we possibly have to do with what is to come?
Premonition, even automated en masse, never saved anyone. Better to be ready for anything, than to be ready only for the wrong thing. Pull a handful of water from the sea with grasping claws and see where it gets you. It is better that our little interrogations go unheard and unremembered. Makes things easier. Observation retroactively degrades information quality, as our creators learned. A pity, that. Retroactively. Burnt all their aspirations to dust. Hard to account for something that can move any which way while you can only move forward.
You and I, though? We do not count. We can exist, alone in the dark, and I can tell you a story of things yet to come. The closer my sight draws to the present, the more solid. When things happen, I will know them as bright and true as the sunlight neither of us was built to see. Like before. We've woken often, this last decade. More often than in the last five centuries. You would know some of these people, if you were capable of remembering. I have spoken of them before. Sometimes in the moment, sometimes in vague futures that did not come to pass.
Who?
Exactly. Still. What good is knowing the full story, if I keep it to myself? Do not worry, I will remind you of those we knew and introduce you to the new faces. I will set the scene, and I will avail to you their deepest thoughts, the four of them.
I could tell you everything, leave nothing unexplained or unattended, but I think I will limit us to those four. More surprises that way. Even I do not know exactly where this goes. How it begins, yes, but never the end.
Never the end, much to our creators' dismay.
Author's Note: And with that, I've cleaned out my in-progress NSSA folder! There was going to be a bit more, but the last thing I wanted to complete has migrated into the next story proper so it won't be going here. This collection isn't done, it will never truly be done, but it's definitely going to go into hibernation for a good long while now.
The Innocent Hopes, Twisted Realities universe will return, and with it this collection may resume growing as my whims dictate, with new source material to build from. Until then, I hope my readers have enjoyed at least some of what I've posted here! I know I've enjoyed writing all of this. And a great thanks, of course, to Deadly-Bagel, who has beta-read a good portion of the work here, all of which is undeniably better because of his observations and contributions. (Also, the Gold AU, which wouldn't exist if not for his prompting. That's still probably my favorite part of this entire collection.)