2022-11-18: Mutus Liber
- Log: Mutus Liber
- Cast: Marivel Armitage (as Belle), Seraph Harmaus
- Where: The Cape of Breath
- Date: November 18, 2022
- Summary: Not all of Harmaus' 'selections' are purely for their value as good fertilizer. Some are chosen for more vindictive purposes. But, is it not possible that there is potential for something to be gained by this particular meeting of minds?
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Belle is MArivel's long time confidant and presently works as a kind of snarky butler in her household, such as it is. Her lifestory before she became what she is today is long lost, but she is known to be a compatriot of Marivel's and has been so as long as anyone presently alive has known her. She lives at the 'Crimson Castle', not unlike her master, and she tends to the empty fortress.
Usually the Crimson Castle has a bunch of defenses activated. Robot sharks patrol the waters surrounding the island, there's similarly robotic drones lurking around the island and a fair amount of just garden variety of monsters and beasts but today only the latter are a concern. The robot sharks and doll guardsmen are snoozing away, having been given the 'day off' for many days straight now. Belle is, for all intents and purposes, alone.
She doesn't seem to mind it.
Belle the Storykeeper is presently working in one of the many gardens surrounding the exterior of the castle. Her disembodied hand is using a water can to feed the plants while the rest of her sits on a bench, flipping through a massive book. Much like the Cat, she sees herself as a seeker of truth. She's unarmed, but is wearing thick and heavy robes and bandages that cover the bulk of her body except for her blood red eyes. She smells like a partially decomposed corpse. But she also smells like... Marivel's longtime friend.
Ratatoskr (Rata) pages Lydia Seren and Seraph Harmaus: mind if I send a watcher?
[20:28] Idle message sent to Ratatoskr.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
This is not the first, or even the third or fifth castle that Harmaus has had opportunity to come creeping into in his many centuries of life. There is much that can be gleaned if one is patient in the sanctums of power, after all, particularly if one is a generally invisible cat-shaped being.
Even those possessed of the ability to see a Seraph, after all, might not immediately clock a cat-shaped Seraph as being anything other than a particularly fine feline.
He has been aware that the castle exists -- indeed, he had come here once another time, in another guise. But since then, traveling to the castle has been a little more... fraught.
But even a blind pig can find a few acorns, or so the saying goes: eventually his luck takes a turn, just in that span of time as he travels the lands seeking what he must for the needs of the garden-to-be. And once again, Harmaus walks the stilled halls of of the Crimson Castle, the sanctum of one who has become a repeated foe to his aims.
And, it would seem, one who has become a noted ally of the flower he would force to bloom. Perhaps he will find but information in these stilled halls. Or, perhaps...
"Ah..." breathes Harmaus, settling on his haunches as he espies Belle. "One alone, here, yet? Speaks it its name?"
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel certainly hasn't acted like an ally but Belle knows that the two have more in common than the Crimson Noble would prefer to speak aloud.
"I am alone." Belle admits looking over to Harmaus. "Until just now." There is a faint wrinkling of the face coverings obscuring her mouth. "My name is Belle. I collect stories." Her head turns slightly to focus on Harmaus. Unlike Marivel's prickly nature to the cat, she seems unperturbed--though how much of that is her body being entirely covered but for the eyes is unsure.
"I know your name--or rather, the one you call yourself by. Seraph Harmaus. I must apologize for my mistress's treatment of you. She sees herself in you. Parts of herself she does not like to see the light of...day."
"Would you like to share a story with me?" She asks, chained to her nature like a prisoner.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Harmaus has picked up upon -- observed directly, even -- more than a few things that suggest that Marivel may have some tie or another to Lucia. But even if he's wrong, by his reckoning... she has been thorn enough in his side with regards to his various aims.
Perhaps it isn't merely efficiency and effectiness that drives his hand (paw) in this, but sheer pettiness.
That, and he's never been the sort to look a gift horse in the mouth. If the gates are down, then he'll see himself in for whatever it is that he might find.
"Stories, collects it? What knows it?"
He is a spirit with the body of a cat, and she is an undead being. Neither of them are precisely normal, as most in either world reckons it -- he seems scarcely surprised to see her and she him.
"...Ah, knows it of me? Its mistress speaks of me! But, offers it apologies and sorries?" His tail swishes once, left to right. "It matters me not. Seeking apologies from it not what seeks I."
But what is it that Harmaus seeks?
"A story? Jaeja... I speaks story, then it does me favor. Yes?"
His eyes narrow. "Speaks will I of story from long ago. From far away. Of Silver Star, speaks I."
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
If Marivel has a past with Lucia, even Belle is unaware of it. She has not been involved with the Crimson Noble for that long.
"I'll be happy to share stories with you, though I cannot share all the stories I know all at once." Belle says. There's practical reasons for this. Only having one mouth for starters--though she does keep it written down so maybe even if she can't share everything with her voice she could just..give him the book. But she doesn't do that just yet.
"I see." Belle says for not seeking sorries and apologies though that is hardly a surprise. "Very well, you have a pact. And I will share one of my stories now, and another after I have done your favor."
She extends a hand towards Harmaus's paw. Much like with Seraphs, 'pacts' are pretty serious for her and MArivel both. She will follow through on Harmaus's favor to the best of her ability in exchange for a story.
Ever chained to her own nature...
"The Silver Star." Belle bobs her head once. "The Mistress speaks often of it, where her lost mentor escaped to."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"No, no," Harmaus agrees, flaring his whiskers. "Is not possible, sharing all stories at once! Never hears I such a thing. But I hears a story now, perhaps. I hears a story, I tells a story? Or trades it another thing? Needs I a favor from it. For this, trades I story."
And here he rises, when she says she will grant him the boon he asks, and pads over to sit far, far closer to her side. Slowly, he extends a paw to meet her hand.
"Pact is complete," he says to her, raising his gaze to look up at Belle.
"Speaks I now of village. Far, far to north is this village. Much ice and snow, but in cold months, sky lights with strange fires."
He closes his eyes as if to recall it.
"Cut off from many is Pohjola -- that is name of village! -- but Pohjola has protector. Spirit of great power. 'Seraph', such is called on Silver Star. Pohjola thrives. Grows!"
His tail swishes as if to recall it.
"Then the man came, one day. Man was merchant. Many lovely wares! Many buy from merchant, but, ah..." Harmaus ears flatten, ever so slightly.
"Merchant is sick. Merchant soon dies. Others also sick, also die. Seraph can do little, little! Power not enough, yet. Understanding of world, of illness, of humans, not enough, yet. Not everyone die, but... ah. Village of Pohjola finished. The people leave. Only Seraph remains. Seraph learns important lesson..."
Harmaus is silent for a moment more.
"...Seraph learns how little it understands. Seraph learns to seek, to learn. And so Seraph wanders forever after."
His taile swishes again from side to side.
"I completes my tale. It holds up end of pact?"
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Belle bobs her agreement to Harmaus. It seems there is a pact. And then she listens. A story about a Seraph from Pohjola. Despite how it reads like a parable--and perhaps it is a parable--it does feel like a strangely personal story from Harmaus. Whether it's literally true or not, it has truthful resonance and so Belle places her pen to paper and scribbles. Her decrepit hand moves quickly. There is a faint gleam from the book but she doesn't close it, instead flipping through for a story to share as well.
"Yes. I shall keep to the pact. First, my story, then your favor. You gave a story about death, so for balance I shall give a story about birth. You gave a story about the Silver Star, so I shall give a story about Filgaia. Yours was of commonfolk, mine shall be of nobility."
Belle places a flimsy finger on a page. "Ah there it is. One of the first I collected."
She exhales, smoke escapes her throat. "Once, long ago, ere your Goddess came to your world, ere my Mistress came to this world--there was a king and queen of a hated tribe deemed vile by the people of this world. They were called vampires and monsters. They were seen as part of an indelible darkness that must constantly be strived against. Like horror monsters from horror stories. They had carried this legacy amongst themselves and their people for so long that it became part of their shared heritage and would stay with their people well after their passing, even after the stories changed."
"Why were they hated? They were hated because they were different, yes, but just as animosity can linger purposelessly it can also carry a seed of truth. The king's people once invaded Filgaia for the purpose of conquering it, coveting the light the way you covet knowledge. Desiring that which they did not have."
"But that was in the past. New vows were written and these people were meant to be allies to Filgaia. They could no longer hunt in the night to add people to their court and so their numbers dwindled from hunts, from walking into the sun, to...returns to their ancestral void."
"But one day, the queen had a request for the king. 'I want a child like the humans do'. But the king could not give her a child for they had agreed to not hunt humans for their sacred rituals of the moonlit night--and even if they were to get a human's permission, why, that would hardly be a good look now would it? And binding a daemon's essence to a human is hardly the same as having a child besides, wouldn't you agree?"
"The King puzzled over this for some time as his dear wife grew lonelier and lonelier before a simple solution occured to him! If he could not create a new Noble through their binding ritual, then perhaps there was another way. Something closer to how the humans bred."
"So he took his wife to the Abyss where they had not been for millenia and vanished within it for ten years. And once they returned, they had a young babe with them."
"The first, and last, true youngling of the Crimson Nobles."
Belle closes her book. "Now, how may I help you, my friend?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Life for death. Crowns for commonfolk. So the tales they each tell mirror each other, spinning threads from tales not well known from either world, if they have ever been told to another outside the lips that speak them in this place.
As much as Belle thinks she may have the measure of the thread Harmaus weaves, so he does for the take she tells him, of the babe born in the Abyss and brought out into Filgaia.
The first and last daughter of the Crimson Nobles.
The only, he knows, that remains in all of existance.
"Jaeja," he remarkes, when the telling is done. "A fine tale it tells. But I speaks and it listens, and it speaks and I listens. Now telling of tales is done," he says, rising onto all four feet, "and I asks now my boon."
His eyes slit. "Comes it with me. Comes it to a garden. Comes willingly? But, ah... comes it not willingly, then I forces it." He bares his teeth.
"I rathers it comes willingly. Easier, easier! But, ah... no matter if comes it not. Alone, is it. But alone is I... not."
They don't make a sound as they emerge. There are two of them, gilded bugfolk that shimmer and glint in the light. Elise's Rosenwach are not easily deterred or defied.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
If Marivel is weak to the light, Belle certainly feels like she's doubly so. The storykeeper's abilities are unknown simply because she hasn't been in a fight in longer than most lifetimes, but Harmaus speaks their favor. And their threat.
Belle can't help but wonder why. "You fish with the finest bait." She murmurs.
Perhaps it is fitting, that in this garden--Elise's Rosenwach are mightier than they might be anywhere else in this realm of death.
But there is still a pause. The price of defying a pact, even without such threats, is dire indeed. Once you are an oathbreaker you can never stop being one. Belle closes their eyes in quiet contemplation. "I was less alone than I thought..." Just a few moments of Harmaus's time. Less than they already took in their sharing of stories.
"There is no purpose in me breaking my oath here and it has been a long time since I had a story of my own to tell."
She closes the book. "I will come along. May I bring my book of tales, Seeker of Truths?"
However dark that story is, how could they have resulted in someone like this? She's curious to find out.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
All gardens are built on death, after all. From death comes life, and from life, death.
He is not subtle in his request, regarding either it or what actions he shall take should she fail to acquiesce. It's possible that Belle might prove the greater threat against a Seraph and a pair of tame Hellions. But it's also possible that the numbers may tip the scale, and that ultimately, Belle...
Cats don't smile. Yet, with that look in his eyes and that twitch of the tail, Harmaus might possibly be considered to be smiling here and now as Belle agrees to come willingly.
"Good. Good! Sees it reason? Obeys it oath? ...Ah, its book? Yes, brings it its book. Perhaps it adds new page, yet? Adds it tale of beginning of new world!"
The new world. The real world -- the true world. The world which will begin from the flower he will sow in his garden... one way or another.
And if there are those who will become buried as the new world is birthed, then so much the better for its doing.
"Come, now, storyteller! Walks it now with Rosenwach. Guide it to garden bed! I follows after."
There is still something he must leave behind. A single sheet of paper, to indicate the path which the first and last daughter must soon tread.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Belle stands up and walks with the Rosenwach. She brings the book under one arm.
Because she still hasn't reattached her other hand. Seems like she's leaving it behind. It waddles over to the page left behind and taps it with a finger before rolling onto its back and going still like an Addams Family muppet without a muppeteer.
A new world, she thinks. Very much like her Mistress indeed. She doesn't cause any trouble through their travels and is polite all the way over.