A Otherstide Paradox: Chapter one: Marie’s Ghost
Dec 19, 2022 18:36:49 GMT
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Post by Anastasia on Dec 19, 2022 18:36:49 GMT
Marie was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of her nullification was signed by the engineer, the controller, the nechronmancer, and the chief mourner. Homunculette signed it: and Homunculette’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marie was as dead as a door-nail.
Homunculette was old. Time had run him down. He was often alone, of course this was mostly his fault as he had made an effort to distance himself and focus on his work. The closest to a friend he had was a Cwejen called Rodonanté, although to call them friends would be like calling Lord Foaming Sky and Investigator Thirty-Nine friends. Rodonanté was Homunculette’s scribe, errand boy, man servant, butler and cook. Rodonanté did everything Homunculette did not do for himself, which was rather a lot as Homunculette focused only on his work. You see Homunculette was Castallan of the Citadel. A job filled with dull repetitive paperwork and stamping out any imagination amongst the common folk. Talking about stamping out imagination, Homunculette had stamped his out several centuries ago in the last years of the first War Kings rule. He was cruel and unfeeling. He carried out his job dispassionately and would not hesitate to execute his grandmother (had he had one and not been born in the loom the House of Blyledge) if he had been ordered, but only if it had signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public enquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters (this is only a slightly inaccurate description of the Homeworld’s complex bureaucratic system and Homunculette was the most Bureaucratic of the lot). Today was the eve of Otherstide. Before the War Otherstide had been but a minor celebration. But now it has become a staple celebration. A time to bring together all those who fight in this war. And to care for those who could no longer fight.
Homunculette did not care for it, in fact on this day he had been asked to help out in the paradox injury ward of the war Hospital (it was traditional for all those who stayed in the Citadel to help out at the Hospital’s over Otherstids, this tradition had been started by the First War King themself nearing the start of the War) he rudely refused.
And Rodonanté had asked for the day of to celebrate with his House (a long-standing transition for those of the Little House of Cwej who dwell on the Homeworld, due to their hereditary link to the Other and their worship of Pale God of Seven, a identity taken on by the Other who will rise from the Blue Box and elevate them to the status of Ruling House), this had almost be refused yet he allowed it, he grumbled and moaned about it all day, but he allowed.
Homunculette did not like Otherstide.
On that Evening at 8 Bells Homunculette arrived at his door. Yet something strange occurred when he reached for the seasons to open the door. For a few brief nanoseconds, for a time so brief a human would not have been able to perceive it, the Sensor had taken on the form of Marie’s Console. Homunculette stood back in shock, but then on closer examination it was the same circular concave dent in the wall that it had always been. He shoke is head and dismissed the idea, and with a forceful wave of his hand opened the door.
It was while later until anything else unnatural occurred but as Homunculette was he was just sitting down for his meal of vitamin pills (the standard rations of soldiers of far lower status than that of Homunculette, but being so uptight and secretive he never attempted to acquire anything more pleasant). He had only had one or two before he heard it. A faint cracking. That of crack was not simply the sound of pipes (the Homeworld had no need for them), nor was it the sound of the floor (Homunculette as with all officers has a temporally renfored flooring that made no sound) it was the cracking of bone and cartilage. Homunculette, hearing the noise, looked to the locked door of his chambers. And watches in horror as the door slowly opens. Yet nothing enters. Homunculette let’s our a sigh of relief, realising that up to that moment he had triggered his Respiratory Bypass System. When suddenly a labored wheezing groaning noise fills the air. With a stutter and when last groan a woman appears in the air she is bound in chains which only a Time Sensitive could see. She is Marie.
“Homunculette,” the spirit intones, “I have Come to speak with you my former pilot.”
Homunculette looks on in abject fear for as he looks he sees that Marie has scars across her biodata scars so large and horrifying that should any member of the lesser species could gaze upon they would be driven mad. “Marie, how is it that you stand before me? How can you be here? You who are dead many a year, I saw you die on earth, I watched as your internal dimensions destroyed themselves, you are dead. Yet with mine own eyes I see you. Oh Marie, tell me how this can be?”
“I Have Come to speak with you my former pilot.” the Specter once more says.
“What do you wish to tell me?” Asks Homunculette cowering in abject horror at the undead form of his age-old companion.
“In our time Traveling amongst the other peoples you picked up traces of them and when you died amongst them tiny amounts of their Biodata bonded to you. You gained enough Biodata to grant you passage to the City, I myself was granted access to another domain where I slumbered. But when I awoke I was punished for my crimes by those of the next city. I was bound in the bones of those I killed. My sisters were not punished for they had already renounced their sins yet I was incarcerated for the crimes we committed and so will you be my former pilot. Yet of the sins you committed the greatest is yet to pass you have time to change what will become of you. You may save others. You may bring peace. But should you carry on down this path you will suffer far more than two lifetimes in a row. One of those eternal. Tonight you will be visited by three others of my ilk; they will show your Past!” The sound of the first strike of the bell fills the air “Present!” The sound of the second toll fills the air “and that which is yet to come”
“Your ilk? Do you mean Timeship?” Asks Homunculette as with everyone strike if the bell Marie fades.
“No. I speak of Humanity.”
And with the ninth Bell Marie vanishes without a single wheeze.
And so Homunculette still terrified tries to Rationalises what he has just seen as indigestion (which, Itself, is not very rational as those of the House do not digest food in the same way you and I do) and unsurprisingly, as all homeworld’s will ignore the inexplicable, succeed. And so with that he heads to bed without a second thought to what just happened to him.
Over the Holidays I will be releasing the rest of this Story. One Chapter at a time, Stay Tuned for the Ghost of Otherstide Past.
Homunculette was old. Time had run him down. He was often alone, of course this was mostly his fault as he had made an effort to distance himself and focus on his work. The closest to a friend he had was a Cwejen called Rodonanté, although to call them friends would be like calling Lord Foaming Sky and Investigator Thirty-Nine friends. Rodonanté was Homunculette’s scribe, errand boy, man servant, butler and cook. Rodonanté did everything Homunculette did not do for himself, which was rather a lot as Homunculette focused only on his work. You see Homunculette was Castallan of the Citadel. A job filled with dull repetitive paperwork and stamping out any imagination amongst the common folk. Talking about stamping out imagination, Homunculette had stamped his out several centuries ago in the last years of the first War Kings rule. He was cruel and unfeeling. He carried out his job dispassionately and would not hesitate to execute his grandmother (had he had one and not been born in the loom the House of Blyledge) if he had been ordered, but only if it had signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public enquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters (this is only a slightly inaccurate description of the Homeworld’s complex bureaucratic system and Homunculette was the most Bureaucratic of the lot). Today was the eve of Otherstide. Before the War Otherstide had been but a minor celebration. But now it has become a staple celebration. A time to bring together all those who fight in this war. And to care for those who could no longer fight.
Homunculette did not care for it, in fact on this day he had been asked to help out in the paradox injury ward of the war Hospital (it was traditional for all those who stayed in the Citadel to help out at the Hospital’s over Otherstids, this tradition had been started by the First War King themself nearing the start of the War) he rudely refused.
And Rodonanté had asked for the day of to celebrate with his House (a long-standing transition for those of the Little House of Cwej who dwell on the Homeworld, due to their hereditary link to the Other and their worship of Pale God of Seven, a identity taken on by the Other who will rise from the Blue Box and elevate them to the status of Ruling House), this had almost be refused yet he allowed it, he grumbled and moaned about it all day, but he allowed.
Homunculette did not like Otherstide.
On that Evening at 8 Bells Homunculette arrived at his door. Yet something strange occurred when he reached for the seasons to open the door. For a few brief nanoseconds, for a time so brief a human would not have been able to perceive it, the Sensor had taken on the form of Marie’s Console. Homunculette stood back in shock, but then on closer examination it was the same circular concave dent in the wall that it had always been. He shoke is head and dismissed the idea, and with a forceful wave of his hand opened the door.
It was while later until anything else unnatural occurred but as Homunculette was he was just sitting down for his meal of vitamin pills (the standard rations of soldiers of far lower status than that of Homunculette, but being so uptight and secretive he never attempted to acquire anything more pleasant). He had only had one or two before he heard it. A faint cracking. That of crack was not simply the sound of pipes (the Homeworld had no need for them), nor was it the sound of the floor (Homunculette as with all officers has a temporally renfored flooring that made no sound) it was the cracking of bone and cartilage. Homunculette, hearing the noise, looked to the locked door of his chambers. And watches in horror as the door slowly opens. Yet nothing enters. Homunculette let’s our a sigh of relief, realising that up to that moment he had triggered his Respiratory Bypass System. When suddenly a labored wheezing groaning noise fills the air. With a stutter and when last groan a woman appears in the air she is bound in chains which only a Time Sensitive could see. She is Marie.
“Homunculette,” the spirit intones, “I have Come to speak with you my former pilot.”
Homunculette looks on in abject fear for as he looks he sees that Marie has scars across her biodata scars so large and horrifying that should any member of the lesser species could gaze upon they would be driven mad. “Marie, how is it that you stand before me? How can you be here? You who are dead many a year, I saw you die on earth, I watched as your internal dimensions destroyed themselves, you are dead. Yet with mine own eyes I see you. Oh Marie, tell me how this can be?”
“I Have Come to speak with you my former pilot.” the Specter once more says.
“What do you wish to tell me?” Asks Homunculette cowering in abject horror at the undead form of his age-old companion.
“In our time Traveling amongst the other peoples you picked up traces of them and when you died amongst them tiny amounts of their Biodata bonded to you. You gained enough Biodata to grant you passage to the City, I myself was granted access to another domain where I slumbered. But when I awoke I was punished for my crimes by those of the next city. I was bound in the bones of those I killed. My sisters were not punished for they had already renounced their sins yet I was incarcerated for the crimes we committed and so will you be my former pilot. Yet of the sins you committed the greatest is yet to pass you have time to change what will become of you. You may save others. You may bring peace. But should you carry on down this path you will suffer far more than two lifetimes in a row. One of those eternal. Tonight you will be visited by three others of my ilk; they will show your Past!” The sound of the first strike of the bell fills the air “Present!” The sound of the second toll fills the air “and that which is yet to come”
“Your ilk? Do you mean Timeship?” Asks Homunculette as with everyone strike if the bell Marie fades.
“No. I speak of Humanity.”
And with the ninth Bell Marie vanishes without a single wheeze.
And so Homunculette still terrified tries to Rationalises what he has just seen as indigestion (which, Itself, is not very rational as those of the House do not digest food in the same way you and I do) and unsurprisingly, as all homeworld’s will ignore the inexplicable, succeed. And so with that he heads to bed without a second thought to what just happened to him.
Over the Holidays I will be releasing the rest of this Story. One Chapter at a time, Stay Tuned for the Ghost of Otherstide Past.