??? 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

[sancrimony]

[ looking behind to the strip, thoughtful, and then reaching down to see if he can touch the base of the fountain ]

Re: THE GARDENS

[idolpro]

[ You hand touches that white stone base, and... tt bends to your touch, illusory, disappearing in a bright blue flame.

Now, the real garden spreads 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. ]

Re: THE GARDENS

[sancrimony]

[ ah

his eyes fall to the red flowers, to the single spider lily, before kneeling down

he's not picking it out or anything, just touching the flower ]

Re: THE GARDENS

[idolpro]

[ You study the flower... and you just know, with the complete certainty of your heart, that it is loss without possibility of return.

How do you know that? Unclear. But the knowledge feels as natural and certain as air. ]

Re: THE GARDENS

[sancrimony]

[ of course it is

bitterness wells up inside of himself and he stands himself up, moving away from the flower and toward the tree ]

Re: THE GARDENS

[idolpro]

[ It had been real, too, that flower. Real with such an intensity that it made your own realness feel almost ambivalent in comparison.

But then, so is every flower here. So is the grass, and the sky.

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. ]

Re: THE GARDENS

[sancrimony]

[ pressing a hand to the tree, not kneeling or taking a rest but just absorbing the sight and feeling around him

if there's nothing interesting from touching the tree he's going to start going back toward the gate ]

Re: THE GARDENS

[idolpro]

[ You press your hand to the trunk.

There's something almost profound to the touch. Meditative, perhaps, if meditation could be distilled to something as simple as a touch.

...But nothing specific happens, and the gate stands open. ]

Re: THE GARDENS

[sancrimony]

[ well, trying to see if he can cross the gate then ]

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. ]