??? Explora Session 3: 9AM PST/11AM CST/Noon EST Start

[idolpro]

[ You go, onward and upward.



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THE GATES | THE COURTYARD | THE FOUNTAINS | THE GARDENS

Comments

Re: THE GARDENS

[firstworldproblem]

[Do not tempt him, Imeeji, with his desire to nap at all times.

He shuffles up to the statue and places his hand on the sculpture. He tries to remember what it used to look like. There was rather memorable game for BARiTONES that started in a garden.]

Re: THE GARDENS

[idolpro]

[ Once you're here, the desire to sleep isn't so strong. Somehow, it's not your place to rest.

And that fountain really is, as far as you can tell, that exact same fountain, with that exact same statue:

It's beautiful... or at least it clearly once was. Its base—the places where is hasn't been shattered, that is—is of pure white stone, cut without blemish, lines perfectly straight. Whatever the sculpture once was, though, is impossible to say. From some angles it looks like it could be the base of a person; from others, it just looks like alien geometry.

You place your hand against it, and—

It bends to your touch, illusory, disappearing in a bright blue flame—beyond it, the real garden stands before you: a meadow beneath a sky that shimmers with the shifting rainbow of light, with the horizon stretching as far as the eye can see. As the colors merge into that horizon, they form a pure-glowing white. The meadow itself, filled with flowers, reflects the sky in its rainbow. In fact, one might notice that no two flowers are exactly alike in color or breed.

You yourself stand at an entrance: a gate of white metal that gives off its own light.

It feels as though one mystery—the mystery of where you are—is slowly beginning to resolve, but how you got here is still a wonder. It weighs on your mind, in the back of your throat like a lump, but at once, you feel as though the drowsiness still remains, and your eyelids feel heavy.

Some yards away, there is a single tree. Its swaying branches beckon you to rest beneath them, if only for a moment. Unlike moments before, when this place was not really yours, now it is... private. Personal. ]

Re: THE GARDENS

[firstworldproblem]

[This is... hmm. Hmmmm.

A sky filled with dazzling lights. A knoll carpeted with brilliant flowers. And the boughs of a tree to nap and quietly observe the spectacle before him. Thanks for the personal attack, he's absolutely without question going to recline under that tree.]

Re: THE GARDENS

[idolpro]

[ Up close to the tree, you can see that its leaves are lush and green, but not of any species you can particularly identify. Actually, it's more like... the platonic ideal of a tree?

And still, taking a rest beneath its branches feels like the most natural thing in the world, somehow. You sit, and you surely don't mean to nod off, but you find yourself drifting off anyway.

You don't remember what you dream, but you wake up to strange pinpricks—as though your leg had fallen asleep, but across your entire body. . .

Oh, what an embarrassing position for you. Or, as the kids say: GOTTEM. ]

Re: THE GARDENS

[firstworldproblem]

[He stares at the statue for a long while, minutes probably, in thought before placing his hand on the sculpture again.]

Re: THE GARDENS

[idolpro]

[ The statue isn't here any longer, in fact. Whatever it was, it doesn't exist here, in the truest form of the garden—part of an old painting wiped aside to restore the blank canvas. ]

Re: THE GARDENS

[firstworldproblem]

[Durr, I can read.

He is going to stay under this tree for a good half an hour or more, lying on his back, enjoying the shade, and staring up at the sky.

But he will eventually get up and pick flowers if he is able.]

Re: THE GARDENS

[idolpro]

[ It's remarkably peaceful, despite the strange, almost out-of-body feeling it leaves you with, each time you come back to yourself. You could compare it to a particularly distilled form of meditation.


...But eventually you get up. Considering the flowers seems to confirm (at least in your immediate vicinity) that no two are the same. You lean in further, towards the nearest one to you.

It's a large, pale purple flower, its eight petals spread evenly around a tufted center, its stem twining up a tall blade of grass. Clematis—or at least one variety of it.

...And this flower is the part of reality that is the experience of being something given gifts—of being someone who knows that there is true goodness in the world.

How do you know that? Unclear. You just do; the knowledge feels as natural as breathing.

Do you pluck it? ]

Re: THE GARDENS

[firstworldproblem]

[He brushes his fingers over the petals and considers. But in the end, he does not. He pushes off his knees to stand.]

I wonder why you left this place. Or why your god abandoned you. Do you strive to return to this utopia I wonder.

[While he is tempted to simply relax under the tree for a few lifetimes, he turns to that white metal gate to leave.]

Re: THE GARDENS

[idolpro]

[ Why did you leave this place, Hades? Why did your god abandon you? Do you still strive to return to this utopia?

The only one here to whom you can pose these questions... is yourself.

But the gate is open to you, if you wish to leave. ]

Re: THE GARDENS

[firstworldproblem]

[The last time he tried to sleep for a long time one of his best friends perished. An act he does not wish a repeat of.

He does leave.]

Re: THE GARDENS

[idolpro]

[ As you pass through the gate, it's as though a heaviness lifts from your chest—some terrible weight that you hadn't realized you'd been carrying. It had felt like terrible anguish, but now you can hardly remember it—it's as though it was a dream.

You find yourself in front of a fountain, with no way to cross back to where you were before. ]