nexus_crossings | This Mortal Coil

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This Mortal Coil

Micolash is in the Nexus Plaza, thankfully looking cleaner and smelling better than the last time he'd been asking questions. The cage is still in place, of course; why would it not be? He even looks a little healthier! Not much, as his skin is still sallow and gaunt over angular bones and features. But at least not as unsteady and proportionally more alert as well.

He's not quick to ask a question, however. The scholar is instead on a sofa, long legs pulled up onto the seat with him and folded in front of him. The rest of the sofa, normally big enough to seat three, is piled with books. Easily two dozen, if not more. A glance at the covers that are visible will show a selection of possibly recognizable names: Erwin Schrödinger. Charles Hartshorne. René Descartes. David Ray Griffin. The one he has open on his knees right now is a collection of Thomas Aquinas' summae and related theories.

The scholar is content to immerse himself in this reading for hours on end, but eventually, he seems to recall where he is. And that he can ask questions if the fancy takes him.

"What do you think. Or believe. Happens after death?"

Getting RIGHT to the heavy stuff, it appears.

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The other names are written down in turn, now approximating the spelling for these, at least for now. He has much more to write down, so clarity can be established later. (Aiakos in particular is written with underlining and a circle around the final syllable: kos. An '/m' is added after the end of it, for some reason?)

"Oh, do not apologize, this is all quite. Compelling. Men lifted up by these gods, these higher beings, is remarkable to hear..." He's still writing, now moving up to the upper margin to write 'Oedon' there. A line from that word down to the written 'Hades' follows, then a bracket next to said god that is labelled with [GREAT]. And then, finally, one more from Hades to the listed judges, another bracket added that reads [KIN].

"Are these beliefs considered antiquated? Where you are from? Or are they accepted as truth."

Now that he's a little closer he can spot bits and pieces of what's being written down. His head twists and cranes as he tries to get a better look. "Antiquated... Except by a few people, my family included... What are all those notations for?"

"Similarities," he answers. "People here speak not of the Great Ones, as if they do not know Them at all. I once feared They were absent entirely from this Dream; a hellish notion to consider seriously. Unbearable, even. However!" He waves his left hand at the surrounding books, said hand still holding his pen and still smeared with ink. "Research has caused me to reconsider my concerns in a new light.

"What if," Micolash's voice drops to a murmur, almost conspiratorial or as though he is sharing a vital secret, "They are present? But They are mistaken for gods? Or perceived similarly? Spirits, forces of nature, even ghosts. People in this Dream do not possess the knowledge or the clarity of sight to see Them as They truly are."

Well! Potentially sacrilegious proposal, that. But Micolash doesn't have the best track record on agreeing with churches to begin with.

Edited 2017-10-13 20:17 (UTC)

Viatorus' brow twitches worriedly at the sight of Micolash threatening the books with ink stains. He carefully nudges the books as far away from the wild flailing as safely as he can. "Um... That's... That's not impossible. In my world the gods have been renamed and reimagined many times over as people have tried to understand them..."

The creases in his brow deepen and Micolash gets his full attention again. "If the 'Great Ones' aren't gods, or spirits, or forces of nature, then what are they?"

"As are mine. There was a time when Oedon was a name spoken only by the pious few of his chapel, while the other names were lost to us. Over time, however, with excavation and research, we came to know Them and Their place among us."

Oh dear, we've come upon his most favourite subject. And as he is a college professor, he can go on endlessly about it if given the chance. Micolash grows more animated with his gestures and inflections as he goes on, his passion for this subject infusing him with more life and energy than he is normally seen exhibiting.

"It is easier to say what They are not than what They are. They are all and nothing; present and absent. Beings higher than we wretched mortals, unfettered by the constraints of flesh and bone, of time, of space. Evolved in ways to have grown new senses, new sight. Reality, to Them, is subjective. The Dreams are Theirs to shape and travel. Planes of reality are as floors of a building to the Great Ones, free to climb and descend them as They see fit. Cognizant of all knowledge, all understanding..."

Micolash's voice is beginning to tremble. With excitement? Or emotion? "To gaze into the stars and marvel at their bright distance from us, their aloof and radiant light? Is as unto gazing into the eyes of a Great One. To study the moon is to study Them. Observable. Tangible. Existing someplace lofty where mortal body cannot travel. To look over a dark ledge and feel the mad urge to jump is to know Their draw. To want to shed this profane reality and enter Theirs instead..."

The excited rambling with energetic gestures does nothing to put Viatorus off. Even the conflicting, confusing information he's being given doesn't dissuade him much. He simply listens, hands coming together to fidget as he considers what he's being told.

"But... they're not gods? They're... beings that... communicate with humanity?"

The excitement only gets brighter when he is asked this. "Yes! Oh, but They do not speak to us with words. It was clever Caryll, the Bergynwerth runesmith, who discovered a way to hear and to transcribe. Finding depictions we could perceive as mortals. For when a Great One speaks, it is not a word. Or a sentence. Not even a thought. It is a sign pressed into the very meat of your brain; metaphysical concepts elevated to inhuman utterances. To receive and to understand a rune is to understand a hidden truth! About thyself as well as the nature of this reality."

He scoots himself on the sofa now, feet still up on the cushion with the rest of him, to better face where Viatorus is. The shifting causes one of his book piles to topple over. Micolash pays this no mind. Not when there are such things to discuss!

"And They do reach out to us mortals. Oh, without enough Insight, you might never even be aware that They are trying. There is so much to speculate on the why, but there is one that is certain; They all crave children. Even Formless Oedon, the Greatest of Them, is not exempt from this desire. In fact, it could even be argued he feels it more keenly than the rest."

It all sounds fascinating, and frustrating. Dealing with something that is so hard to grasp must be like trying to study smoke in the brief glimpses you see as they slip away. Even though it all sounds so strange, Micolash talks about it with certainty, with confidence about the unknown. Viatorus can't help but get drawn in... and snapped back into reality with the tumbling of books.

He jumps in surprise and immediately kneels down to start tidying them up, taking care not to bend or rip the pages. But Micolash continues talking, so he glances up periodically to help keep his attention on the other man.

None of it sounds particularly nice... but it does sound fascinating. There are concepts here that have barely been touched by the mages Viatorus has studied. "And even though it's so difficult for humans to understand, we can understand..?" A pause passes and he tilts his head at Micolash. "Are they- the Old Ones, are they good?"

Micolash 'helps' with the book clean-up effort by finally sticking a leg out. In order to, using one untied shoe, shove aside another stack to make room for the one being remade. He's not normally THIS careless with books, but he can get so swept up in discussion re: his field of study. He hasn't even paused in talking to give that pile the boot.

"Oh yes! It is as if-..." His eyes briefly lose focus as he thinks. How to phrase this. "Say you were to understand a single, profound word in every sense. You know it in all its implications, in all its metaphysical potential, its universal impact, its meaning, its raw and basic power. You have taken a single word, a lone concept, and meditated upon it for a decade. Without. Ceasing.

"Now take that, all of that. All that time and vast understanding, that unlocked potential! To achieve and perceive all of that is to hear a rune."

Goodness, but that description got Micolash all wound up. He does hope it makes sense, as he's been known to blather on long since he's lost his audience. But he has no time to dwell on it, because an even more compelling question has been asked.

"You ask if they are good..." the scholar begins slowly, bringing his hands together at the fingertips. "...Mine is not to say if They still...perceive such mundane, arbitrary concepts as good and evil.

"But. I have never seen a single one act in malice. I have never known one to reach out with anything worse than curiosity. If They cause us harm, it is only because our minds our young; our bodies weak. Our eyes, too few and yet to open. Their desire for offspring, borne only from each one losing Their own and yearning for surrogates. To be a host is to be as unto...an adopted child. Chosen. Nurtured. Needed."

By this time, Micolash's voice has dropped entirely to a reverent whisper. Though he now pauses to lift a trembling, pale hand to his face, now wearing an expression of contrite confusion. Reaching past the bars, gently touching thin fingertips to one cheek and looking at the liquid they come away with. In the midst of his words on these Great Ones and Their nature, the scholar had begun to weep. Tears dropping from his eyes freely, unbidden and undetected. At least until this very moment, though the man seems to be smiling in confusion at having such a response.

Viatorus gives the tidying up effort more attention than Micolash, but most of his focus is on the man as he rambles on. Occasionally a title will catch his eye and his brow will twitch in and out of a frown before adding it neatly to the pile.

He doesn't even bother to try and speak up in the brief pauses between the outpouring of theories and studies. It's clear that Micolash has a lot to say, and, honestly, Viatorus is happy to listen and think about what he's being told. The drop to a whisper gets him to look up from the books again and he blinks in surprise to see tears running down the other's pale face.

After a moment of rooting, he offers a soft white handkerchief, a 'V' elegantly embroidered in the corner. "I've heard of the concept of meditating on single concepts, or words, to truly understand their potential. I never knew anyone who did it for so long, though, or reached a metaphysical epiphany because of it..."

He hesitates before asking softly, "Have you... communicated with them? The Great Ones?"

Micolash takes the offered handkerchief, though he first holds it in one hand as the other runs his fingertips along the hem. Feeling the cloth and the threads just for the sake of it. Something to occupy his trembling hands as he continues to speak. Indeed, Viatorus was correct that this man has a great deal to say and lends the air of someone grateful to finally have someone to say those words to.

"Yes." His voice cracks, trying to resume a volume more conversational. His eyes are on the kerchief and not Viatorus. "More than one, in fact. Some, only communing and feeling their thoughts in contact with my own. Oh, I say 'only', but those moments are positively transcendent.

"And others, I have had direct audience with. Some by chance, like Mergo. Some by mutual desire, as Amygdala. And others..." He trails off momentarily, taken by the memory of a particular Great One. There on that foggy lake, all muted sound and light, endless water stretching out of view all on sides. A being there who guards the Waking in her own way, who shuffles about on many spider feet and has eyes enough to see in every direction at once. Luminescent by merit of the plants growing from her and her ascended spirit alike.

"...Vacuous Rom, they called her. The Bergynwerth Spider. Vacuous! Such a cruel title given out of malice. Granted by fools who lacked the Insight to hear her. Frustrated that she knew so much and shared none of it. But who is to blame her? When one has achieved what she has, what reasons has she to share it? At least not freely. Oh, but I would sit with her for hours. Talking. Laughing. Caressing the craggy white of her face, the dark carapace of her body. Sleep amidst the lumenwood flowers on her back and have the most wonderful dreams."

Finally, he remembers he was given that square of cloth for a reason and Micolash starts to dry his eyes. It's a little awkward having to reach through the largest opening on the front of his cage, but he manages.

"I did not even require revelation, intimacy, conventional conversation. I just adored being with her."

Despite suspecting Micolash had managed to contact those he revered, Viatorus looks surprised to hear it confirmed. It's one thing to study the gods, even to speak to them, but to communicate so often and so closely is the kind of honour that makes a family famously respected, as Viatorus knows.

Since handing over the handkerchief he only got as far as to pick up another couple of books before he stopped to absorb the tale he's being told.

"You... spent time with her? So often? I... I've prayed to the gods, communed with them, e-embodied them, but it's never... tangible. Not really. It never feels like it, anyway." There is the slightest hint of awe in his sigh. "I've never talked to a god like a friend, or spent so much time with them..."

"Rom was-...is special. I knew her before. When she was still human, she was a student at Bergynwerth when I had just graduated and been instated as a new teacher. Marvelous woman. Sharp. Some found her ways offputting, but I knew. She was meant for greater. When she was chosen by Mother Kos, some say Kosm, it was a foregone conclusion. Oh, and how much more beautiful she became when she ascended!" He really does sound properly reverent, speaking with awe and affection at whatever shape this person had taken after this mysterious event.

"Only on nights of the full moon could she be visited again. Goodness, the rush at first! Everyone clamouring to have audience with Rom, only now recognizing her brilliance now that she'd ascended. But those seekers gradually became frustrated when met with her silence. She is defective, some said. She has become retarded in the process, others added. She is devoid, she is vacant." He hisses angrily, his hands bunching into fists, one grasping his pantleg, the other crumpling up Viatorus' hanky.

"Idiots. Reprobates. Ungrateful, sightless dullards. They did not know that you could hear her laughing in the fog, if you would just listen. She would sometimes sing when her flowers bloomed. When Bergynwerth fell, her lake went dark in sadness..."

Only now realizing he might be rambling (for once!), Micolash blinks and shakes his head slightly. "I'm sorry, I am going on and on, aren't I. In any case, it was Vacuous Rom who taught me the rune for EYE." He says it like you normally would any sort of word, but there's a heavier gravity behind it somehow. Unlike his usual cadence and odd emphasis on things, the word makes the air buzz briefly as if electric, and there is the fleeting scent of ozone. This happens in less than a second. "I carry it inside me with all due gratitude and praise for her."

The way Micolash speaks about her, Viatorus can easily forget that he's talking about a spider. Or someone who became decidedly inhuman looking. Even the anger is met with a sympathetic turn of his eyebrows. It's difficult to stomach someone bright and talented being torn down like that, so he doesn't begrudge Micolash his upset over the matter. Especially when Rom meant so much to him.

When Micolash breaks out of his story telling to apologise, Viatorus shakes his head. "It's all right. It's all very interesting." Especially the feeling that follows that particular voicing of the word 'Eye'. It's not hard to tell that there's something... special about it.

Viatorus tilts his head at Micolash. "What do you do with it? The rune for 'EYE'? What does it give you?"

"Insight. Valuable, vital Insight. Allowing me to see things further. Deeper. Piercing veils of the Waking that would otherwise hide metaphysical discoveries. I've...had enough of it since birth," he admits somewhat sheepishly. "To see things. Things no one else did. No one I knew saw them, at least. Certainly not my family. Perhaps I should have stayed quieter about it...? Though all that would have gained me was fitting in, which is not. Ever. Terribly high on my priorities." Yeah, it shows in his choice of headgear.

"But what Vacuous Rom taught me, told me, elevated it levels I'd not even imagined before. Enough that it would spur me to found the College of Mensis."

Micolash stops himself again, now flapping his hands and shaking his head. "Good heavens, but I am going on and on about myself! Please, what of you? You have spoken of knowing Dreams. Studying and seeing. I wish to know more of this, if you would be so kind."

Viatorus' sympathetic frown is back again with an unsteady smile at the mention of others not understanding. Part of him feels rude for assuming that this was somehow similar to his own early years, but the other part can't help but feel a sense of kinship to this man he barely knows. At least with how much he likes to talk, it's likely Viatorus will come to know him very well very quickly.

He's about to ask another question when Micolash beats him to the punch. His mouth snaps shut and his cheeks burn ever so slightly. Turning to look at the books on his lap, he runs a thumb along the edges of the covers. "W-W-Well, it's... i-it's not as thorough as your research. I don't... I've never met anything like a Great One. G-Gods, yes, but... they... whisper. They guide. They don't... teach."

Finally his hands come together to fidget and he looks up and Micolash with a wavering smile. "I dreamwalk, and I study dreams. When I sleep I can walk through my dreams, and the dreams of others. I can shape them, change them, but I don't like to. I prefer to teach the dreamer how to shape. It's better for them. I... I only change myself in dreams. If I can help it."

Micolash listens raptly, eyes focused and clear. Notable due to the fact they so rarely are. His fingers, always seeming to require movement and occupation, hold and feel the cloth of Viatorus' handkerchief again. By the time the young man has concluded, the scholar tuts chidingly.

"You're so quick to cut down your abilities and knowledge. Who taught you that? To mute your accomplishments? To discomfit your own potential?" He sounds genuinely sympathetic, frowning sadly. The brilliant should never be discouraged like he feels Viatorus must have been. Because in his experience, it is always learned behaviour beat into them by others. Uncomfortable family, jealous peers, a clueless society.

"What you describe is remarkable. You say you have not researched as deeply as I have, but you are able to change Dreams? That is a power I have known to only be in the hands of the Great Ones! Even I was beholden to Mergo and his powers; without him, I would have been left with nothing but dust and ruin upon arrival to the Nightmare Frontier. And has this always been...innate? Were you taught this by betters? Or has it always been there, like my Insight has?"

The chiding, although it is not meant badly, makes Viatorus' cheeks burn gently with embarrassment. He shouldn't be bringing his own insecurities into a conversation with a stranger... But... he really didn't mean to. How often has it been that his abilities have met with 'but why would you' before a polite, obligatory compliment?

He swallows hard and gives a quiet, uncertain, "Um..." until Micolash moves on from the topic of his habitual self-deprecation.

"I, um. I-I-I've always been able to-t-to dreamwalk." He rubs his thumb, eyes darting away from Micolash and back again as he thinks. "W-W-When I was younger I-I had a guide. A-A being. He showed helped me understand. Showed me how to change myself. Showed me how to pass unnoticed. Then he left a-and I... I had to work things out on my own."

Micolash's pale eyes go even wider with amazement at Viatorus' stuttering response, the handkerchief falling from his hands and into his lap.

"...Who was it. Did he speak a name? This mentor. Was he only in the Dream? Or did he appear in the Waking as well?" His voice has dropped again to a lower tone in his wonder, his fervor to know more. Although there's a niggling little thorn somewhere in his thoughts still, pricking him into irritation to know that this poor lad is so insecure in his abilities. So ready to talk down how incredible they are. Infuriated to know that he has been like this all along, most likely.

"I-I was a child. I called him Mouse, because he looked like a mouse." He rubs a knuckle and winces a little at the missed opportunity. If only he had had the sense to ask more, to see more, to hear more. "He was only in the dreamlands. I... I thought we were just playing. That he was showing me games. I... I didn't really understand the value of it until I was much older."

Micolash looks sobered, serious, a strange look for someone who's usually so...eccentric. Flighty. Strange. Just moments before, he'd been crooning in strange sing-songs and sitting on the sofa like some gangly teen with their diary. Now his feet are on the floor, sitting like a normal, respectable adult, his eyes without haze or losing focus. He looks like an actual teacher/headmaster now.

"You speak to someone who spent so much of his childhood wondering why others, not even my brother or mum, could see the little boys who came from the floor to play with my blocks. Why only cats followed the paths of those strange, glowing slugs. Why no one else in all of Yharnam that I knew of, especially not the adults, would speak of the giant creature made of arms and mushrooms that had walked across the rooftops the night before.

"You were given a gift, Viatorus." Oh, he does remember his name. Or maybe it came back to him in this unusual moment of clarity. "A marvelous, dazzling gift. And you were blessed by the presence of someone, something. Another traveller, a Great One, who is to know for sure? Someone who saw you there in the Dream and taught you enough to grow into your own, perhaps.

But I can say with certainty; you are special. I have spent my entire adult life in pursuit of this knowledge. Surrounded by peers driven by the same thirst for understanding. To unlock the secrets that would lead to our own ascension. The intrinsic link between Dreams and the Great Ones. I founded a college with this single pursuit in mind, filled it with students and faculty who were brilliant, unconventional thinkers driven by our cause."

He reaches now, intent to grasp either of Viatorus' shoulders in his spidery hands, to shake him gently in order to emphasize his words. "And I have never. Not once. Found, seen or heard of something like what you have known and done all along. You are blind to your own potential, your own unique value, and it infuriates me to see that you only cringe and apologize, that you do not celebrate it. For if you do not, what do those around you have to say on the matter?" Nothing good, he gathers. Or at least nothing with proper respect and wonder that it is owed.

The changing nature of the man in front of him doesn't concern him. Flickering from emotion to emotion, thought to thought, all shown clearly. Really, he wishes more people were so easy to read. So easy to reconcile the emotions he senses with what he sees and hears.

It's like getting something he never knew he wanted: Recognition from a fellow expert on dreams. From another scholar. From someone who understands. He feels sick with nervousness, and with something he doesn't quite recognise.

"What good is it?" A familiar pang of hurt thuds in his chest when he says it, but he swallows and meets Micolash's gaze searchingly. "I've always done searched in dreams for the love of it. Because it felt right, and good. A hiding place for secrets the conscious mind can't understand... But that's what everyone asks: What good is it?"

"Dreams don't mean much on my world. O-Or to the people here." He rubs a palm on his trousers. "There are no schools, o-or colleges, students o-or teachers..."

He takes a deep breath and his knotted brow twists with hopeful uncertainty. "Is there really so much you can achieve with dreams?"

"What good is-...Viatorus." Micolash sounds exasperated, but not with the boy in front of him. It is only for those who he speaks of, those who would repeatedly and doggedly deny the value of his ability until Viatorus himself has begun to believe it. "The dreams of humanity are windows. The flight of the soul to realms we cannot visit physically, not yet, for our bodies are unfit, our eyes yet to open. The Dream, the Nightmare Frontier, what you call the 'Dreamlands'; all of these are the formations, the dwelling places, the kingdoms of gods.

"That you have always had a tangible ability, this...mastery over what should be the building blocks of beings higher than we mortal men? It is incredible. It is profound. And I feel as though it is only the beginning. You know what dreams mean for humanity. Now you will learn what they mean to the Great Ones. And oh that meaning... That path. That is the the key to understanding reality itself."

Deep within him, a part of Viatorus unclenches with the relief of hearing what he believed confirmed, or agreed with. At least as far as dreams being a way to traverse realms. Having any degree of certainty regarding what he has always known as hypothetical, unreachable things seems too good to be true, but he knows that he already trusts, already believes wholeheartedly that what Micolash says has some truth.

Calmer, now, he rubs his knuckles thoughtfully. What does he do with this newfound assurance, this small revelation? Whatever it is, he must not let this chance pass. That much he knows. Life is too short, and time is too little.

"Do you know how to?" His eyes drift up to Micolash's headwear. "That's what your work is meant to do, isn't it? The… 'Mensis Ritual'…? The cage?"

"I do. But." He sighs, finally sitting back once more, removing his hands from Viatorus' arms. One hand drifts upward, feeling the bars on one side of his cage. Dragging them downwards, fingers hooking on lightly on some as they go, feeling the texture of rust and cold iron.

"...It needs to be. Perfected. It required so much preparation. So much sacrifice. Even if I were to construct another cage, there would still be so much work to be done. However...I am eager to teach. To impart unto you all I have learned in the course of my career. And perhaps learn mutually between one another. It is as I said; I have never met someone with your talent. Who knows what we can achieve together now?"

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