The Enmity of Scolrys, Part XXVI: The Greensong
Left to ponder the notion of a Divine bargain, the Speakers of the Heartwood turned to each and every councilor to plan out their next move. The council pondered over the course of several weeks how best to satisfy the request of the Divine Memory, leading to several conversations about the last time they had settled eyes upon Elder Life and thought upon the lifegiving song She had spoken of so many times before. Though many members of Duiran had different interpretations, the council came to some consensus on the broad details of the ritual and left to their guilds the matter of organising each aspect that would then link together in a proper manner.
Throughout the next two weeks, each group charted the course for their individual contributions. The Prideleader and her fellow tribefolk came to the conclusion that the Rhythm’s beating heart must once more present, as it had been during the bringing of Lunar Turmoil and sacramental beseechment of the three Ithmian tribes. To this end, they surmised, they would need to provide primitive percussion through drums and other clamour. The Shamans of the Praadi decided that the use of leylines – and thus the songs of life’s memory – would be the best manner of contribution for their sacred collective and inquired with sources and ancient texts to find the best manner to do so. Seeing the risk of so many dangerous techniques piled up into one ritual, the Sentaari Monastery decided to take it upon themselves the task of seeing the way through via telepathy and guiding the energy – a metaphysical threading of the needle that would require their mental prowess to properly instrument.
As the time rapidly approached, the council prepared their totems and drums, undertook their intense meditations and composed their sacred lyricisms. Satisfied with their diviniations and acting upon instinct alone, the council converged upon a hilltop in the western Ithmia and began to perform their own version of the Songs of the Evergiving Earth – a spectacle that drew the Indelible’s notice. With their voices rising and falling, the Shamans sang of ruin, renewal, life and death, their individual experiencing weaving together myriad memories via songlines – an act that created a dangerous convergence that began to combine the psyches of all ritualists present. True to their word, the Sentaari monastery asserted clarity that untangled these twisted lines, stymying the fatal forces at work just enough to ensure the ceremony’s success.
Satisfied, Lexadhra made Her move.
Through lyricism, impression and rhythmic commemoration moved Immortal Memory, Her void-dark eyes twin obsidian mirrors upon which the ritual vortex reflected all its vital glow. Lexadhra warped and wove within it all, a needle working through and around the fabric of time and life’s experiences to stitch together a trail into the future. Her silhouette outlined in the pellucid mists of Her domain, the Goddess of Memory reached forth into the centre of the oscillating songline vortex with one slender arm.
Myriad phantasms superimposed themselves where Lexadhra stood as She toiled away at the greensong’s heart, making of Her frame a stationary tableau of divergent timelines and deific figures. Her lips parted to let loose a wordless harmonisation that steadied the churning force before Her, Her normal melody and tone transfigured to resemble one left unheard for more than a decade.
The dissimilar personae blended and merged until but one face now gazed upon the convergence of songlines: Yanai, the Evergiving Earth.
Vibrant sunlight roiled from the Elder Invoked, its radiance breaking away into diffused mists that alluded to the true actor behind that Immortal mask. Chanting beauteous verses of the Eternal Song, Elder Life – or what remained of Her within the nexus of Lexadhra’s virtue – renewed Her efforts within the ritual’s resultant power. Shadow and light’s interplay dappled the hilltop in wavering penumbras and shimmering coronae both, the intersection of Azhoan myth and Aetolian reality giving life to something otherwise mere inches beyond cosmic reach. Nascent growth blossomed into being amidst the raging storm, setting new seeds and spores to the Ithmian winds – a sowing of potential previously withheld or else not yet dreamed of by the prevailing Source of Life.
As Her voice reached a crescendo and life flourished underfoot in heretoforth unseen quantities, Yanai – Lexadhra, Immortal Memory, Life Remembered – began to draw Her hand away from the songline vortex. A long, rugged length of unknown wood followed in the wake of Her hand, its rough emergence casting emerald sparks all about. The vortex calmed – as if to birth the beginnings of this implement, this simple sample of arboreal life, was to soothe its savage heart. Brought to unity and harmony by the hand of the Indelible, the ritual’s energies dispersed – and with it, the remains of Her assumed guise as Elder Life. One final nova of vital light sloughed away from Her, bathing the gathered Duirani in the maternal warmth of an Elder Goddess never truly known.
In the aftermath, the Indelible explained why it was that She had needed Duiran’s cooperation for the beginnings of this task. Dia’ruis, much like Dendara before it, was a place of life and sentience – a complex consciousness unto itself, the plane had its own idea of will and natural order that was strong enough to order entire swathes of Chaos if left at the lirathyar’s mercy. Citing Haern’s destructive potential when facing down Lanu Du’s legions, the Goddess assured the council that She would use the procured material to instrument and guide a vast quantity of energy. Noting the new fungal life underfoot, Lexadhra theorised that such specimens would do no harm to the Ithmia before fading away into a curtain of mist to see to the next leg of Her schemes…
Penned by my hand on Falsday, the 23rd of Slyphian, in the year 3 AC.
