And Amun died once more in that most severe and grotesque way at the tendril of the messenger - that something someone was never meant to be seen, nor comprehended even with a vast mind such as his. There was no method in anticipating something so far away from a daft human mind, after all. To these gods, one must not pray nor tread upon. The crush and swell of infinity and every speck of knowledge unknown and well-guarded (with terribly good reason!) splintered him and he fell apart. Or so was thought…the tale never truly ends.
The space was empty and He, not but a whispered memory of Amun, floated there formless and so very confused initially. It is not a pleasant joyful occurrence to be call back, reconstructed into knowing you are there. After such an awful demise at the slimy tentacled one, it would better to leave these planes, yet…
The space became an empty spanse and upon this canvas, a paint dispensed from an unknown cup and was applied with the brush that he couldn't comprehend. What was being observed made him feel dull and he wasn't sure but he was able north cared for what was happening on the scene. He wailed and wept, mourning the long journey and for time grieved in a very mortal way. But in this time the canvas was being filled and after you exhausted such sorrow you looked at what was being shown to him
The scene as of in ancient Laconian tradition, the people had sewn Farmed gathered foraged and plucked from their world and we're asked by tradition to be thankful for what they have been given. These gatherings and first gifts of season soils would be placed in basic flaxen sacks and taken to the cradle for the high priests or perhaps the Ocuum themselves to benefit from.
What was unusual is that these tithings we're being placed and a great sack instead of numerous ones and the cylindrical container, a bulbous and lumpy thing was definitely at at capacity and was yet to be Field filled still buy some uncanny vacuousness.
Amun’s mind went to work on such an unusual equation and he was relieved to be momentarily distracted dog time though time what irrelevant here….. It was mystifying to vicariously observe the situation what backwith the sack knowing that capacity wasn't inevitabe yet the filling kept on and on of all the varied goods.
Amun went to the thing and felt its side. He pressed and identified grain powder leaf and bulb - be it fruit or vegetable. The sack felt greasy in places on slick with sap, oil, or pulp. There was something else too though and this thing amongst the wrong was the greatest of all that didn’t belong in that great bag. He knew that.
He wasn't neccesarily at ease with the task but felt through the material searching for quite a (an irrelevant) time just the same, driven by insatiable desire to know. Always the need to know, such folly. There it would be, or so he his cerebral capacity on the sensation of ‘touch’ in this spanse of unbeing would communicate to his cloud mind.. no just a roll of vegetation - perhaps fine smoking leaf in a container or a hard bread? Not it, so he thought and felt with his dulled mind. He dismissed the task until it lurched beneath his probing.
Moved! Such a foulness, he rejected the thought yet traced back to where it had been beneath the weave of coarse fiber — there it was! A strange vibration of something living, until it jolted from Amun’s groping and dug away, deep and escaping the surface. Amun was unnerved and a revulsion hit him. This trespass of a wicked thing, festering within the labors and gifts of the people was an afront. He would remove it and in his dull state he had few options. He came up slowly and stupidly with a solution because he was consumed with the task now.
Amun balled up his mind into a projection of force and stuck the sack at the spot of the movement. He did this many, many times like a Laconian pugilist would train to build stamina, techniques and toughness of fist and of mind. He could see the many fibered material bend but not yield. Even the contents within gave way and there were dark juices and dusty emanations from the vacuous thing. Amun had to strike deep enough to either penetrate into the contents or the creature festering inside. Again and again he pounded it with his mind, the assault causing a perspiration and fatigue in his absent being - an odd sensation to be certain, one to be scribed in his own tome at a later point should he progress beyond this place with it’s found deed.
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The saps and juices ran down from the thing and later gave way to substance. The dust congealed there and formations over time took hold and grasped at a surface yet to defined in Amun’s empty mind. The formations slowly crept from the baseless void up and up, climbing to take hold of the bag as Amun’s assault went on and on. As it progressed in this act, a voice entered Amun’s being, for his mind was formless here, “Why do you act this way? What is it that you seek?” Amun, while not deterred thought back, “there is a corruption within the goods of the bag. I mean to cleanse it so that the toiling not be tainted by it.”
“How are you certain of it’s intent in a place such as this?”
“How is one certain of anything, in any befouled place?” Amun retorted to the voice that seemed to be coming from everywhere.
“This space is where I dwell and you are but a most discourteous guest. Employing such a rigor without reason. Is this normally how you would greet a host who has prepared a space for us to meet?”
All at once, Amun with a relief and realization of restored clarity, saw the thing for what it was. It was a most sacred and elder tree and he had been a most rude guest.
The spirit spoke as Amun reeled and collected his desperate thoughts (he should very well apologize), “Amun, you should know this lesson but I will offer you a great gift of reminding you of it, if you wish?”
Amun knew that he should and that this was indeed a great opportunity to conjoin with the benevolent thing. Amun knew that in his present state and to be so daft in his approach, the root of Gaia, the first tree, called Druatia, called Prunus, the song of the many songs in winds at the dawn of this ship’s first light in her glade. Impetus and great hubris took their hold of Amun, such folly!
The rawhide barbs took root to his breast simultaneously, on tender flesh that wasn’t there until the Great Root told it to be so. From her great circumference he dangled, suspended in body and mind. His spirit was singular, his thought a pin in an vast array - he saw only one thing and it was a ray of enlightenment. He dangled in miserable euphoria and the song that was their song playing on and on. It was a haunted coupling. The branches parted above her, the leaves of those astral eaves allowed that light, a perfect aural crown of heavenly splendor lightened that space as he hung by his bared chest, his flesh was there but barely - made of a starry substance now but his recollection was still the vessel reddening in her radiating. His eyes lolled but the perception by traditional means wasn’t necessary anymore, the sight was all through his experience now. He was warmed and enthralled with this communing, he just dissipated in it for a long time.
*****
Choirs, a cacophony of witnesses chanting ceremoniously. The fallen by his acts of consumption in concentric circles surrounded them, chanting the ritual in unknown tongues. Their words were not meant for a Laconian colonizer - one who pushes their sphere of influence until it crushes such as this choir into a forgotten space.
*****
When she spoke it was stoney plate that formed nations, the storm that humans today know all too well that could uproot all that fleshy hands build, it was a light that gives life to that which gives light and command the dark to part - this insight was holy and pure, “Would you consume this tree, Sin Eater? Is it your place to take in the rooted mass upon all foundations are built, One of Many? I can remove the ugly thing that moves within your bowel and brain, Amun childe. Your suffrage and story will cease, your burden would know rest. You would be nestled here and new journey would begin.”
Tethers bit and after so long broke free, his ether that was once soured sprayed violently on the green things, their dancey-coupling now done after so many countless revolutions around the star she had shown him.
“You will fail. Take and consume what you came for.” The voice on calming seas bemoaned dourly. “The hour is late and your trial has been destined to continue.”
The single leaf she shed, it floated out there afar. He took and ate of it. It was not pleasant and he took no joy in the mastication. It was wrong and so was he. The choice made and another point on another time was plotted and Amun was flung there too gaining so much terrible insight.
When he had gone out from there, dark had returned, as he always did, where light of the world was absent. There was but a slivery, spark when she decided to speak again, words that no one heard, no one at all. The words weren’t ever meant to be heard in the first place.