2022-10-23: Speculum Alchemiae
- Log: Speculum Alchemiae
- Cast: Seraph Harmaus, K.K., Elise Riesdale
- Where: Ruins of Celesti
- Date: October 23, 2022
- Summary: Harmaus meets with Elise to speak of his plans, and he is not alone. Here is where everything starts in earnest.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
It has been a little while since Harmaus last graced Elise's halls.
Oh, he is here, now and again, of course. He would hardly be her faithful servant otherwise. It is simply, as he has said to her before, that there are times when his work takes him far, far afield from the domain she makes her home.
When he comes pacing down the approach to her throne, he does not come empty-handed.
...Empty-pawed? Or perhaps, empty-mouthed might be more appropriate. He drags the papers along as if they were but a fresh kill, a present that he deposits at Elise's feet.
"Finds I," Harmaus says to her, eyes wide and bright, "the proper soil."
The details -- such that they are -- might be gleaned to an extent from the paper package. It's something about a seminar abroad in a particular site near Meria...?
"Knows my lady of 'Primarchs'?" Harmaus asks, tail aswish behind him.
He will not be the only one to grace Elise's presence this day.
There is another he has asked -- without permission -- into the audience of the Rose Queen.
There is much and more to be done, after all, and if he has his way, it will begin.
Quite soon, indeed.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
There is another presence here, though not one unfamiliar to its hallowed halls.
No -- the chime of metal that tolls the white-armored knight's approach is a rare, but quite familiar sound to this place.
They emerge from the shadows of Elise's hall as if they were made from them and were simply choosing now to separate from the lack of light's embrace. The heavy sounds of their footfalls ring with great pronouncement as they follow behind Harmaus, but the knight has no proud catch to throw upon Elise's feet like the feline Seraph does.
At least, not any obvious one; not yet.
Instead? Instead, for now, K.K. is a silent presence at the back of this meeting space, their gauntleted, clawed hands clasped behind their back and the polish of their faceless helm reflecting the flicker of light in this place as it tilts downward towards those stack of papers, detailing something unexpectedly portentious. 'Knows my lady of "Primarchs"?'
The knight is silent, for now. The weight of their unseen gaze merely falls upon Elise, awaiting answer.
<Pose Tracker> Elise Riesdale has posed.
Sunlight and blue skies find the geodesic dome of Elise's palace gardens a perfect paradise for the hermit hellion queen of roses. She is exactly as Harmaus saw her last, a pale stone statue with long flaxen hair, garnet red eyes, ruby-hued lips, golden filigree claws and gold-dipped feet, drapped in red silk. The gold throne makes her look small, draped as she is between the solid armrests; as grand as the throne looks, it certainly is not one of comfort for a normal human being.
The Hellions that have taken to her mountain kingdom have made their place in the many, many rooms of the mountain palace, establishing a kingdom of 'peace' as much as one could.
Naturally, the ones who have most taken to Elise's rule are ones who are content to be shut off as well, content to stew in their thorns as the blooms of malevolence ensure their further transformation. This is not the home for hermits of nature, genius, and/or philosphy, or those who withdraw due to politics, noise, technology, or other complaints of life.
It is an eternal palace of the present, of fairy tales and roses, oblivion and illusion. The queen gives and enables, furthering the kingdom's reign and the solidity of its halls. Food is grown, stolen, or hunted by those who have taken to a more feral nature, who present it much like a cat bringing home their kill. Though, sometimes, there are offerings instead, like the white sprays of asters placed in a blue celadon vase. They have the look of something picked from hardened, dry ground, but are presented with the same majesty as the shades of roses around the grounds.
There have never been papers offered, like Harmaus does now. But, Harmaus is a Seraph, and subject to a different will and manner entirely.
Gold eyelashes flutter, and she's present. "You grace my throne again, Harmaus," she says, with an elegant, slow smile. "How may I be of assistance to you?"
The white-armored knight's presence is also noted. "And another visitor. You are welcome here, as always. " She gestures with a hand. "... So. Seraph Harmaus..." She moves quietly, bending down to take the papers at her feet. "Primarches, you say? I have never heard of such things. Are they a type of Seraph?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
One such as Elise might never change. In this, she is much like the Seraphim: an eternal moment that endures, unflinching, into the future.
...Or at least, until...
"Assistances asks I in this," he says to Elise, suggesting that the pamphlet of papers is the key to understanding his goals. "My lady seeks planting gardens, yes? Here lies most wonderous soil for the seed!"
Not 'a seed'. Not 'seeds'. But 'the seed'. There is only the one -- as far as he is aware -- just the one seed that will permit him to see all his dreams brought to reality.
Is a Primarch a sort of Seraphim, wonders the Rose Queen.
His ears swivel just the once at the sound of the footfalls. There can be no mistaking them.
Harmaus' whiskers flare, but not once does he take his gaze from his queen.
'Twould be disrespectful otherwise when seeking audience. And he knows already who approaches the throne.
"Nay, my lady," Harmaus says to Elise, gazing up at her as if in reverence. "Many knows little, little yet of Primarchs. They are power -- power from Blue Star itself! Knows my lady of Crest elements?"
He continues, even unbidden.
"Four elements: Muse, Geo, Wing, Fray. Thus four Primarchs. Like dragons of my Silver Star, but, ah-- no successors! Only one by four, now and forever. Each and all possesses great power but they hide, hide from this world. They slumber."
"They fade."
Cats can't smile or grin -- their faces won't permit it. Still, with that glint in his eye... is that a 'smile'?
"I finds one. Slumbering, yet -- Primarch of Geo! It wakes not, however one tries. So many, many years -- and ah, sleep continues! But its power remains. This what thinks I: we borrows its power. Geo is primal, raw... generative." Harmaus' pupils are now mere slits. "We borrows it, and into this seedbed, we plants beginning of new dawn. None suits better than my lady's power, yes? We must see seed along!"
But what is this 'seed' of which Harmaus is speaking?
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
The seed.
All one needs is one, when it comes to the type of garden Harmaus wishes to cultivate.
The type of garden that took root in Ignas, too, years ago.
And the one responsible...
The Trial Knightis one who speaks only when they deem it necessary. Thus they remain, behind Harmaus, so still in their stoicism they might well be a statue as Elise takes up the gift that Harmaus has cast at her royal feet.
Primarchs?
Harmaus offers his answer to the Hellion queen's curious question. And it is here that K.K.'s head tilts.
"They are ancient entities, cultivated from the power that thrums through your star. 'Twas Muse's scion first that awoke to this era, the Primarch Rahab. 'Twould not be the last of its ilk to do so. And now, but one remains unbroken from its slumber."
And that brings Harmaus to...
'Primarch of Geo!'
Once more, the knight lapses towards silence as the Seraph of Light explains his intentions -- his agenda.
But what of the seed, indeed?
And, despite the heinous acts K.K. has committed, the knight is still, apparently, given to proper etiquette as they step forward, one clawed gauntlet pressed to their chest as they dip their head in the presence of Elise.
"If her majesty will permit me."
They are all too willing to let them see exactly what that seed is.
<Pose Tracker> Elise Riesdale has posed.
"My garden allows for all seeds, should the soil be the sort they require." Cupped fingers spill dissipating glitter like a farmer letting soil fall to the wind. "But the soil to feed ambition is a rarer sort."
"Ancient entities of this planet, which you both call the Blue Star. That much, I follow. And Crest elements- be they a source of magic for those who lack the symbology tattoos?"
As the Seraphs are denoted by the elements, the Primarches are noted by the elements of the Crests. ".... The last one slumbers while their sibs have awakened."
Her gaze drifts from Harmaus to the knight, interested in the vague reason that brings them here alongside Harmaus, but not directly *with*.
"If that is the Primarch's will to slumber," Elise says, contemplative, but still invested in Harmaus's passion. "If they wake, would the earth roll and buckle? A tortoise that carries the world must do so smoothly. Would our seed prick their sleep? Or, perhaps, ensure their slumber?"
They can borrow this Primarch's power, Harmaus says, to plant the seed. But what, exactly, is this seed? And what of the soil they procure?
The knight interjects. Elise nods. "Please. As someone who knows about these Primarchs, I am curious as to your thoughts as well, fair knight."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"None other has such, my lady," Harmaus says, long tail twitching the once. "Thus I returns. I beseeches! Asks I a boon of you... and promises, again, my services." He'll rededicate himself, if necessary -- whatever it will take to gain her cooperation in the task to come.
"Yes," speaks Harmaus. "Learns I much and more -- practitioners exist beyond Symbology. Yes, beyond Veruni artes or Her gift!" The last is accompanied by a bit of a sneer, a wrinkle that exposes the teeth as he parts his jaws. As if he had tasted something foul. "Taps they power of the Ley -- the power of the Primarchs!"
This is not... entirely right, at least in the way of which Harmaus is framing the subject. But it is close enough -- certainly as much as he feels matters for Elise's understanding of the situation.
"Yes," he says, on the matter of the slumbering Primarch of Geo -- the only one that yet remains unawoken into this world. "All others awake," he says, confirming K.K.'s own statement on Rahab, of whom he has known. "Wing and Fray wanders world as well. Where, knows not I! Would beseech them. Ah, but seeks I as easily source of rain and sea... the birthplace of fire! No," Harmaus concludes. "Odziozo of Geo slumbers yet, yes... but knows I where." He indicates thus towards the papers with the slightest flick of his head.
"The Great Works... is its slumber-bed. We goes hence. We borrows -- borrows, only! -- Primarch's power. We brings forth what must! We must seed the garden. Your garden," he says to Elise, fixing her with his gaze as if in reverence.
He must seed the garden and understand, at last, what it is that is lacking in the Blue Star... and see, for himself, how he can bring about Malevolence's truth fully to all of Lunar.
But a garden and a gardener are nothing without the seeds. And for that seed...?
His pupils dilate. "No-- no! No, controls not the Earth, Odziozo. No world-bearer tortoise, it! Slumbers it, and should us borrows its power, perhaps stirs it. But it wakes not! Long sleeps it through calamity and woe without waking. Why should now change this?"
He thumps his tail, once. "We borrow but some. We sets it as foundation -- but ah! Land and mountains rests easy through eons, stirring but sometimes. Foundations falter not! Seed is but catalyst!"
And here, at last, Harmaus takes his gaze from Elise with care and turns it towards K.K.
"Now... Trial Knight. Shows it my lady the seed."
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
What -would- change things?
What -would- make a Primarch stir?
Harmaus seems very certain that this will not; he seems very certain of many things. The Trial Knight, at least, does not dissuade the notion; they but wait through the Seraph's explanation of his plan -- of his offering, to Elise. K.K. seems to have only one thing to say:
"Those that sleep must all eventually wake, your majesty. There is but one sleep from which this fact is not immutably so."
Of this, that tinny voice rings with an absolute certainty:
"Like all who have slumbered before it, this Primarch too shall wake in time. There is ill reason to believe that shall be this day; but 'twould not change the face of things regardless."
Some things simply will - must - come to past.
Like the inevitability of a sleeper waking.
The rest, well. K.K. will let Harmaus speak for himself on those matters. It is not until Harmaus makes his request of the knight - and even then, not until Elise herself affords the knight her permission - that K.K. moves to act. They pivot, smoothly, to turn half-faced away from the queen and her of course faithful and humble servant.
"To seed Malevolence, requires a weight of it through which can be borne yet more. 'Tis through a relic of our star known as an Anomalous Orb that I brought the blight of man's get to Ignas." The anomalous orb with which they tried to corrupt the heart of the world--
"Such tools are now unavailable to me. However..."
Their gaze tilts back. They look down upon Harmaus, for a second.
"'Twould behoove you to get further hence than this, cat."
It is their only warning; after all, they have no authority over Harmaus. So, after that warning is made...
The knight reaches back behind them, with their left hand. There is a sickening churn in the air. A spiritually heavy feeling that grows so dense as to be choking. Even in this hallowed space of the Malevolent queen, the feeling of a Domain monolithic in size and potency can be felt just barely breeching the surface of this world --
--as space splits open in front of the Trial Knight. Within that gateway, all that can be seen is the churn of Malevolence. Rubble of a place long lost drifts aimlessly past, just once.
The armored fingers of their right hand spasm.
And from their depths is drawn a grand pair of pale, bone-white hands, each finger capped with hands of their own, unfurling from the edges of the breech like a pair of ungodly wings before they clench upon the outskirts of the portal. The pull of those immense, multitudinous hands draws out half of a body. Featureless, indistinct, bone white, eyeless save for the hint of a series of crimson eyes decorating its abdomen.
Seething with so much Malevolence it begins to warp the very space around it with its presence.
"... sufficient volumes of Malevolence shall seed fertile soil. Even a Hellion shall suffice. And there are none better suited to the task than he."
The faceless helm of the Trial Knight looks back to Elise and Harmaus, unmoved, as that gateway to some strange, lost land churns with nauseating Malevolence.
"He shall be your seed."
<Pose Tracker> Elise Riesdale has posed.
"Ah, Seraph Harmaus." Elise slips from her throne, kneeling down to carefully touch her claws over Harmaus's fur, should he decide to accept it. "I will grant my boon to this garden, but not in the name of conquest. The flowers that grow there shall know where they came from, but they will not be my servants. You do this for your cause, do you not? You own your story, Ardent Seraph Harmaus."
Harmaus may be pushy, but it isn't an unlikable trait. It interests her more than the compliments.
Smoothly straightening from her kneel in front of Harmaus, Elise reflects on K.K.'s words. "... You speak truth. The only way a dream can be everlasting is to bring it to the world of the waking. Otherwise, all that is left is..."... The one sleep that K.K. references, the one guest that has been rudely excluded from this garden.
A visitor she may invite herself, by allowing such beings with their own intentions into her garden.
K.K. warns Harmaus to step back, and the Queen does so herself, stepping back one marble tile's length backwards.
The clean marble reflects the non-light of the tear the Knight produces, making a small incision into a domain that begins to draw a cautious twitch to one passive red pupil. A flutter of emotion where there had otherwise been a theatre of expression from a finely made clockwork doll.
"This creature... is of another tier entirely." Elise raises her hand to her lower face, trying to mask the small hints of doubt that crack through. "So. My role is to create the garden for this 'seed' to bloom in The Great Works? It seems to be a very vigorous seed indeed."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Not for conquest? Ah, my lady-- I does this not for my sake. I does this for--" But she already understands what he does this for.
His own cause. His long quest, at last in its final hours.
"...My lady! Such kindness, my lady has!" he calls out, as if overcome.
The Primarch sleeps, K.K. remarks, but it is its nature that it will someday wake.
But even if it should wake as a result of their garden, it will not matter much. "...Yes," Harmaus agrees, thrashing his tail the once. "Matters us not. Garden blooms, perhaps it wakes... but, ah, we present only short, short time! Seconds to Primarch's eternity, yes?" He seems almost desperately assured of this, concerned perhaps that he will lose Elise's cooperation at the last minute otherwise.
However... there is one important matter.
The seed itself, as a matter of fact.
'Such tools are now unavailable to me.'
"It lies? After comes I with entreaties--"
'However...'
Harmaus stays his tongue for this 'However' alone. His accusing gaze is fixed on K.K. as they continue. As they speak a warning.
"Tcha," hisses Harmaus, slinking away a distance from K.K. "It has solution, or I has words with it further!" is their warning, his tail swishing furiously behind him as K.K. reaches behind them and--
Could it be? Might it possibly be? That weight-- that purity that rolls through the room: darker and blacker and more profound even than the Domain in which he now stands!
Harmaus sways for an instant, gaze unfixed as if briefly -- nearly -- overcome. He doesn't look at the gateway, not more than once.
It's like looking into the sun.
His sun.
Something emerges from the portal, inch by inch. It's alive, if in a sense -- so purely Malevolent that even at this distance, it makes Harmaus' teeth ache.
"Ha... haa..." Harmaus gasps, straining to stay upright under that spiritual weight so antithetical to his very nature as a Seraph. "...Ahahahaha...!"
His whole corpus trembles as he begins to laugh maniacly, gazing upon the living seed that will become his garden.
"I does it... I has! This seed... is mine! At last...!!"
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
'It lies?'
As space fissures towards a realm of bleak contradictory weight, the unseen stare of the Trial Knight falls upon Harmaus.
"I do not dabble in petty deceit, cat."
That spiritual presence the Hellion brings with it is intense -- yet even that pales in comparison to even the shades of the Domain lingering behind it. What could give off -that- much Malevolence, yet otherwise be so concealed?
For all the weight of it, the Knight shows no outward reaction, save for the occasional, twitching tremble of their claws.
Despite the weight of it all that must surely be straining upon Harmaus, though -- the Light Seraph is thrilled. As the feline spirit bursts into that uncontrollable laughter, the knight's stare lingers on him for a few seconds longer yet.
"..."
But it is Elise who that unseen weight inevitably falls upon, exactly as hidden doubt begins to chip at her equally hidden facade.
'I does it... I has! This seed... is mine! At last...!!'
And with that, the Hellion begins to withdraw, back towards the rift.
"When we are upon your Primarch, he shall be released unto your service," is K.K.'s answer to that glee, tinny, warped voice cool and steady. "'Twould serve you ill to have it linger until the opportune moment, when all is right."
The Hellion disappears entirely. The rift begins to reknit, the terrible weight behind it slowly growing lighter and lighter--
"'Twould seem the role given to you by the Seraph."
-- until all that remains is Elise's Domain, and whatever comfort it may provide her in the wake of what she has witnessed.
"To give shape to what you truly desire."