Requiem.
Still Forest rises from her fidgeting lounge, “{~It will take you days to reach ~you destination at this rate. ~Perhaps I will ~be ready to see ~him ~after some time away.}” She gives us a wide berth as she passes beyond us, heading towards the city.
We wait a while longer after she leaves and when it’s just the three of us once more, “^The bard left with her… I do Not enjoy presence masking.^” Outside of Darling’s vision, one of Acolyte’s eyes catch the barest flicker. =The Unnamed Bard, Story Writer, Not- Story Learner=
“{Indeed. Nothing wrong with learning for the sake of knowing. But Still Forest shouldn’t have told us everything she did, even if the consequences of that may turn out for the better. Compulsion and Masking are a horrifying combination. All the better he’s not following us any longer. The weight of our journey is likely to take us through enough challenges. Having to worry about our actions, our choices not being our own would be Absolute Darkness.}”
Reginald has a thoughtful look on his face while Darling buzzes and bobs in agreement. =Warn, Only- This, Observer=
“{We’ll just have to be aware of the possibilities. Live with the results. If he is protected by the [System] there’s not much to be done. But when he oversteps himself. We’ll turn the last page in his book, if needed.}”
Fortunately, the drama of the recent adventures seems to pass over us for a period of calm. We end up taking a few breaks during the night, just to gaze upon the sky. Reginald points out some common clusters and strokes of the shimmering beauty above while also just simply basking in the glory of the heavens. Free from the city. Free from many of the concerns of his prior existence.
We take the time to speak more together, build friendships, learn the nuances of each other. All the while we are also learning about ourselves, our choir. The once purely physical differences between us have matured into a new score of personality and potential. The growth of the branching developments happened slowly enough that our unity was never in jeopardy.
The next few days of our journey are similarly pleasant, a lull for which we are grateful. No chaotic press of humanity, no hidden plots, no challenges to our oneness nor our field. No monster attacks either, though considering the quantity of arcana spilling from us, that seems more in line with our expectations.
We arrive at Yojimbo’s farmstead a little before dawn on the third day of travel, our pace unhurried but far more consistent that during our trek with Sergei. Yojimbo lives quite isolated from others as we reached the end of the road early on the second day. The path leading towards his property seems far less welcoming, much less receptive to traffic. Yet, it is still well tended and in good repair if one looks beyond the camouflage of overgrowth.
Even the woods we pass through are artistically maintained. Intimidating and spooky from certain perspectives, but also having vistas of beauty and grace. All of them seems carefully cultivated to turn back those who don’t know the way, while offering a soft comfort for those who have been welcomed. Graveskull even comments on the taste, nutrition and texture of the grasses and leaves as we hike through, a rumble of appreciation after the bland fare along the main road.
“(Seeing you grazing still seems strange somehow. I mean, I get that only the big one does it, but all the sharp teeth of the others just make it look… kind of ridiculous?)”
“{We’ve chosen to lean more heavily into the speciation aspect of ourselves, and of us all, Graveskull had the more ideal start position for consuming minerals and plants. And if you think the outside looks strange, let us expand your imagination to what’s happening within,}” we take a particularly large mouth of the thick wild grasses to give the impression of a beard as we slowly grind and chew our way through it, “{Acolyte and DM have worked on our organs to make them more compact, efficient and interconnected. Such that, as the grasses first travel down into our gullet, they are met with a train of bees that sifts through them looking for pollen or other useful bits to take to the colony.}”
After we’ve finished with that mouthful, we reach out and snap off an offending branch and with assistance, begin devouring that, “{Though when we’re eating something less hospitable for them, the passageways they take to the esophagus are closed.}”
He chuckles a bit, “(Requiem. Is this sort of goofiness an act, or is it more of who you are now that the pressure of the city isn’t bearing down on you?)”
We turn a head towards him and clock it at an angle, “{Both? Both works. Who a person is can be extraordinarily complex. As a hydra and especially a Tiamat variant, we just have an advantage at expressing that as ourselves. More than one point of view can be true. That’s been a lens we’ve been crafting to better understand and attempt to view this second chance we’ve gotten.}”
He nods and then sinks back into deep thought. We’ve seen this more and more from him and we’re proud of it. We can’t really know how Yojimbo will take the concept of his quest, his task, but we’re seeing him putting forth plenty of time and effort into considering how compatible our goals really are.
After bringing him back into this world, and practically tempting him into this new life rather than dealing with the consequences of his corpse. We won’t, we can’t abandon him to his… fate. Yeah, that [Title] makes more sense the more the world throws at us. It’s a temptation, a tool and a responsibility all rolled up together in one little package. {Research on [Titles] incomplete. Progress made on Defiant of Fate wholly insufficient to make predictions.}
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Sometime later Darling asks us for DM expectations on how much longer before they’re ready to bloom. {Scaffolding complete. Biological geometry established for basic structure. Prototyping of construction materials ongoing.} Acolyte opens a few eyes to look at our shoulders, and there is indeed a discoloration and restructuring happening for having an additional stalk. Unlike the explosive growth we experienced back in |Tranquil Glades| this feels more natural for us.
“{We have a way to track DM’s progress. When the area of the new stalk, the differently shaded part on our shoulder. When it continues to swell and patterns become more distinct around its surface, he’ll be ready to sprout. The further along, the more space the rest of us will provide for the budding until they are ready to tear through the embryonic sack.}”
“^So, you don’t grow additional heads by tearing yourself in half. You just prepare an area, saturate it in nutrition until the new being fills the space and then comes out? Like a normal creature?^”
We laugh at her incredulity, “{Correct. The memories you may have from before or right after your change are just from intense battle. While we can advance that way and have managed to hold onto more of ourselves on occasion from a fight. That is not what we would consider the normal path for growth. Only maturing through death defying combat would make our species either extinct or we’d become hyper dominant, saturating ever potential niche our biology would permit.}”
“(Uhh,)” Reginald raises a hand, “(I had some time and money to spare while Darling was helping me with shopping for my outfit. I went to an archivist to pick up an in-depth guide on hydras, just to learn. It mentioned a habitat exactly like that dubbed the |Swamp of Rend|, where the only creature larger than bobcat were the hydras. It was a dumping and execution ground for the dynasty that controlled this country before House Wraithmare took over.
“(The hydras grew large and strong off of eating the prisoners until they ate out any other predator or large fauna. According to the excerpt, it is now a beyond hospitable place that is kept sealed because the initial guards and nobles would entertain themselves by teaching the hydras to rip people apart. They got so adept at that they eventually overran the outpost and devoured everyone.
“(Every expedition sent there has taken severe casualties and it’s basically just been abandoned, despite the various resources that were initially found that prompted the outpost in the first place.)”
We share a pointed look with Darling. “^No. Whatever it is you’re thinking, just no, Requiem.^”
We mimic a pitiful whine we’ve heard from some of the pets we’ve observed in the villages and city, “{Oh, come on. We haven’t even said anything yet. You can’t refuse us when you don’t even know what we’d ask.}”
The frustration is plain in her scent and how she hovers in place for a moment, “^I’m going to regret this, surely. Fine. What were you actually wanting to do?^”
“{It’s more a question for you scholarly types. We were just curious about property rights and how a Clan could go about obtaining land ownership. Axis and us have dominion of the caldera, by right of power. But adopting a swamp of possibly feral hydras just sounds like a fun goal. Toyo’s primer on pathfinding and Axis’s experiments mean we should be able to stitch the regions together. And honesty, having a buffer layer between our peaceful garden and the majority of the outside realms seems like a good plan.}”
Darling just shakes herself back and forth while Reginald’s expression shifts between confusion, horror, and concern at our absurd proposition, “^I may not have been fully awake from much of those talks, but I can still remember some of them. Without a strong synergy of arcana or some other type of aspect, how are you going to manage a permanent, much less thorough connection between a peaceful forest caldera of undeath and a Darwinic paradise of a violent swamp?^”
We grin at having brought her into our scheme, “{Us. We will become the bridge.}”
Reginald chokes a bit on our declaration, his old body patterns still replicating in his new form. Darling just glares at us, “^Not to play the pronoun game, but does your us and we include us, or are you only talking about yourself. Because as much as I respect you, my hive of Serene honey farmers, aren’t much for conquest. Even if a swamp could be a reasonably effective location for another hive.^”
“{We are referring to ourselves only. Also, we don’t mean right now. Hydras raised on a culture of hundreds of years’ worth of survival of the fittest combined with ripping and tearing as a preferred means of combat? We aren’t ready to face that. But, laying the groundwork for legal ownership, or at least investigations therein to claim this unused territory seems like something worth all of our time.
“{Poking around with titles and skills and whatnot leads us to believe there is plenty of interpretation on the paradisical domain skill we have, [Elysian Field] is descriptively just a paradise of a defined location. And honestly, since our rebirth, we’ve greatly enjoyed the moments of delicious and glorious combat. It would not take much stretching of intent to synchronize ourselves in the swamp’s acquisition if we had the strength to take and hold it.}”
Reginald just bows his head and shakes it in exasperation, “(I can see why you were much happier that our guest chose to leave with Wrai-)” a pointed stare interrupts him, “(…Still Forest. He was right that your potential for story is outrageous, even if it wasn’t something he could really tell. A monster fighting a curse in the woods untouched by man for centuries? A yearling laying legal, political, and physical siege to a sealed land inhabited by vicious elder beasts. It being taken over and then just making this hostile resource into a moat realm, with no true intention of altering the lives of ordinary folk?
“(I don’t know what sort of people would enjoy hearing tales such as those, but they are far less inspiring than ones about heroes and villains. Personal revenge for injustices. Breaking shackles.)”
We nod along to his assessment, “{Exactly. As we said, we’re here to live our lives, not play a part in some story for the masses. If there was more time able to be devoted to it, some of the smaller moments, the nuances of conversation and exaltations of small triumphs could lead to a grander tale. But ours is not something that could be sung in a tavern for coin. Not on our current path at any rate, the future is ever unwritten and unknown.}”