idolpro | Amaranth: A Dream

Entry tags:

!ideal world

Amaranth: A Dream

Once, there was a maiden...

...whose battles called her far from home.
She slew the thing she feared most, and conquered the land that feared her.
As she fought, far away, she knew her children needed guidance.
She knew they faced tyrants.
She knew they faced fear.
In her homeland, things were broken.
So, she held up her hand before the sun, and cast a shadow on the world, and drowned the troubles of her home in darkness.

"Survival's a long reach," she said.

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[ As you begin to travel the path, it is possible to make out small distinctions between the three voices:

One of them is especially familiar, if (like all the voices) a bit higher-pitched, as if the singer were younger. Its bell-like beauty is serenely perfect.
The second, which your memory might also try to place, is sometimes too eager for the next words in the song, and sometimes seems to pause. His notes aren't as pure as the first voice, but they are full of sorrow and longing.
The third is harder to hear than the other two. But when you can hear him, you hear the lost and bitter quality of his song, though it is no less beautiful for it. ]

Edited (wheeze ty) 2020-08-10 08:05 (UTC)

[ He can guess the first one. The other two are a mystery (or rather, he isn't really sure?), though he can't say he'd be happy to find out regardless. What's at the end of this path? ]

[ At last, you arrive at a clearing in the blackened trees. Despite the ruin around you, the shrine still has that sacred, held breath of a feeling to it—like this place is almost too sacrosanct for you to be here. For you are not the shrine maiden.

Three ghostly figures enter the clearing then, too, each from a different direction.

There is Persephone, white-haired, graceful and self-possessed... and then black-haired, and then young.
Lucifel, with that smile he gets when he wishes things were different, but knows he will go through with this next act anyway... and then black-haired, and then young.
The third is unfamiliar, his dark hair cropped short but showing white roots. As he walks, his skin begins to rot. But then he is white-haired and healthy, and black-haired, and then young.

The figures walk towards each other until their forms overlap.
And the young shrine maiden looks towards...

...Oh. There's Persephone, speaking with... well, himself.

When you look back at the shrine maiden, though, he is different: not even human, but instead formed from layer upon layer of fragile flower petals. ]

Edited 2020-08-10 08:39 (UTC)

[ Huh. So this is what hollowed grounds are like. The thing about Wu-Jian, in so much as he remembers and knows, is that 'sacred' doesn't really mean or feel the same as it would for other people, when its gods are as easy to meet as they are.

...Looks at the flowery shrine maiden.

Looks at Persephone. ]

...Am I interrupting something?

A, ah, discussion...?

[thank you, Persephone, for the gift of understatement.]

Though, ah...

[ The shrine's flower maiden turns to consider you both once again, then addresses Eclipse. ]

Why have you come to this place, Solar?
You are not like ^me_us. You can be happy.

[ Amaranth's son(s)' face, or the flower petals attempting to stand in for him/them, is set in a soft but emotionless smile. ]

[ Oh, wow, this sure is a...strange conversation. ]

I have a bad habit of poking my nose where I probably shouldn't.

...I've come to see what I can do.

[Persephone himself is as calm as ever.]

I am, ah, not certain what can be...

...We could try bringing him off the island?

[ What's sanctity. ]

You mean for ^me_us to... l̪͕̪͚̮̪͓̗e̸̤͕̪͜ͅa͔̲̥̰̭͍͙ͅv̢̜̗̻̮͉̘ͅḙ̴̥̝͞?

[ Meanwhile, Shrike has joined you and the strange scene. ]

Edited 2020-08-12 03:45 (UTC)

[

]

...hello.

Your mother wants to see you.

...ah, is that...

[makes vague gesture.] Though I'm not, ah, certain... [looks back and forth between the really flowery...him to the other two and back again.] ...How did you, ah, get here...?

[guess who doesn't know about the bridge.]

We... made a bridge, of sorts. She waits on the other side—

...she can't come here. So you must go to her.

[ she looks at... the other one. ]

Both of you.

[ ... ]

...Persephone.

[

... ]

I am not only ^myself_he.

[going to kneel down by himself and ask, quietly.] Do you want to leave? Or do you, ah, wish to stay?

[ a glance at the real one—

and she nods to him, deferring to his wanting to ask. ]

...if it's duty that keeps you here—prayers won't help this world. As much as we all wish it.

[ Well, they're giving a choice, and Eclipse sure isn't going to say no to them doing that. ]

Think about it?

[ The small maiden sways slightly on his feet, expression sliding away, if only the slightest bit, from that perfect-serene smile.
He looks, for a moment, very young, and lost. ]

If the gods can do nothing... was it meaningless for ^me_us to come?

...I don't think so. What brings good into the world even for a brief time, and brings peace and happiness to others... there's nothing meaningless about that.

But there's always... an ending.

It wasn't, ah, meaningless, no. It, ah, meant something. [just going to keep kneeling by his...double.]

[ His flower petal face looks between all three of you, then fixes on Persephone. One small, delicate hand reaches out to rest on ^your_his pale cheek, and your eyes meet once again. ]

In the end, ^I_we cannot ever find that meaning here. It is an answer she does not have.

.... ^I_We will come with you.

...thank you.

And, I'm sorry. Please, then...

...follow us.

[gently takes his other self's hand, then, to follow after Shrike.]

Re: The Shrine

fallingflowers - 2020-08-23 00:46 (UTC) - Expand

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