[LOG] I Had a Dream, Which Was Not All a Dream...
Deirdre makes the journey through Dream, to Tir Na-Nog'th, and around the Pattern to where her new body awaits her through the Dreaming. This is a purely spiritual journey through symbols brought to life to reach her final destination.
The journey is Tarot-based.
The Pattern Room in Tir-Na Nog'th is frozen in time. There is Liam and Mordred in the center of the Tir-Na Nog'th Pattern, Liam covered in blood and holding a flashing knife over his head and Mordred looking on with victory in his eyes. Portia called Taith and Igraine hold off hordes of exact duplicates of Castle Guard. The bodies pile up around their feet. A dark shadow graces the door at the top of the stairs to the Pattern Room. The Pattern itself ripples and glows and then starts to fill the entire universe, bigger and bluer and more immense until nothing exists except this enormous bright blue path on an infinite black.
As things begin to change, to freeze, Deirdre's gaze is torn away from her two sons, forced upon the Pattern itself, the ever-growing light. The world narrows down to it, be it reality or vision, and Deirdre moves towards the begining of that path. If she were someone less than a Princess of Amber, it would be like a moth to the flame. But there is far too much determination in her for that.
Although there is nothing but the path and the blackness, the path beckons on, demanding Deirdre with walk or not, but by its silent presence it makes it clear there is only one way out of this Dream.
Deirdre has already been prisoner of the Dreaming, and other places in-between, once in this tale. She's certainly not about to resign herself to letting such happen again. There is the usual taking of a deep breath, the moment to clear her mind, before she puts her foot on that first step of the path.
And suddenly Deirdre is standing on the edge of a cliff, one foot almost over the side. One more second and she would have gone tumbling over the side. The sky is blue and a small path winds to the edge of the path and then around the side. A small colorful tent is off thattaway. A breeze blows.
It has been a very long time since Deirdre felt like the Fool, but with one foot over the edge and her balance a delicate thing, any child of Omens and Fortunes would surely imagine themself such. The pose made for a Tarot card is held only briefly, before she takes a step back from the edge. A moment is taken to examine her surroundings, hair blowing in the dream-breeze, before she begins to move towards thataway.
A colorful tent stands down the trail a bit with a little flag flying off the top merrily. It's nice and pleasant here. It feels like an Amber of Old.
Deirdre continues on the path, each step a careful one. She moves nearer to the tent, studying the flag, trying to determine who it might belong to. Pushing down memories of Old Amber, for the current time.
The Magician has abandoned his tent, it seems, for he is not here. But the sword, the wand, the coin, and the cup are here, sitting on a small table. As is the hermit, sitting where the Magician ought to be, his lantern to one side and peering from under bushy brows. He feels like he ought to be very familiar, somehow, but he is still the hermit. He laughs as Deirdre approaches and asks: "So which one are you, Fool? The High Priestess? The Moon?"
Deirdre glances to the Hermit's face, trying to place it, but giving up that quest as the question is asked of her, as his laughter brings her back to full attention. "We all start out as the Fool," she offers. "And there is a piece of all three inside of me. But the Moon, the fullest. It always comes back to the Moon."
"The Path to the Moon leads right through the Wheel, the Devil, the Tower, and Death," the Hermit says. Then the Hermit laughs and says, "But you know that! You know the Wheel is rigged! The Devil has your children. The Tower waits at the end of time! And there is always Death. Are you sure you still wish the Moon? There's an easier, more pleasant path, you know."
There is a small quirk of lips from Deirdre, not quite enough to be called a smile. "There is always Death, no matter the path. But Death is not always so permanent as it sounds. While there are easier paths, pleasant ones, I learnt long ago that the easiest path is not always the best, Hermit. I know my path."
"The Death is real here," the Hermit says. "If Death takes you, you never reach the Moon. You become dissolute, forever. But is that so bad? To be the Fool? Of course not!" Then he gestures at the four symbols before him. "Take your weapon, Fool. And take the High Priestess's scroll!" He suddenly has a scroll and he hands it to Deirdre. "May these protect you on your journey to the Moon."
"There are worse things," Deirdre murmurs, taking the scroll from the Hermit's hand. The symbols on the table are studied, and the coin is palmed. "Be well, Hermit," is offered, and she's ready to exit the Magician's tent.
The scroll, among magic symbols, also says: "What do your instincts tell you?" The hermit laughs as Deirdre moves on.
Down the blue glowing road, quite a while really, stands a cart. And on this cart is an enormous wheel. On this wheel are alchemical signs and sigils of magic power. A Merchant sitting on the cart next to the Wheel says to Deirdre as she passes: "You are the tenth visitor I have had today!"
Deirdre leaves the laughter of the Hermit behind her, glancing down to the writing on the scroll. She holds it in her off hand, as she continues down the path. "Fate and Destiny, ever turning," she murmurs to herself as the wheel and its merchant come before her. "But certainly not the last," she offers with a nod. "Is this my spin?"
Deirdre, quietly, studies the positioning of the symbols on the Wheel, as if to attempt to decide where they might fall, the next turn around.
"The Tenth Visitor gets a Free Spin!" the Merchant says as he gestures toward the Wheel. There are the letters R-O-T-A with a combination of alchemical signs and foreign letters.
Deirdre places her hand on the Wheel, and after a brief pause, she gives the Wheel a spin. She steps back, to wait and see where Destiny leaves the symbols.
The Wheel of Fortune spins and spins! And it slows down and hesitates unnaturally over four of the strange letters. "Yodh," says the Merchant. "He. Waw. He. You have won a Tetragrammaton!" From the Wheel, merry bells sound like it's a winning combination. "I am that I am! I am what I will be! Why, you have won existence! Now that you have won the right to exist, what do you plan to do?"
"I plan to continue on," Deirdre replies to the Merchant. She does not look victorious, just yet. "And finish this path to where I belong." Her head is dipped, and then she's turning from the Wheel and the Man, to re-take the blue path.
And as she leaves the blue path behind, she soon finds herself, inexplicably, at the foot of an enormous, black mountain. Up the side of the mountain a huge half-man, half-goat sits upon an enormous throne. At his feet are Deirdre's sons Liam and Mordred, wearing collars around their necks and chained to the base of the throne. And there Liam shoots up heroin while Mordred revels in power and madness. The Devil smiles at Deirdre as she approaches and says, "Come. Take a collar and enjoy." He waves a hand and there, on the ground, open, is an empty collar.
The expectation of anything to follow pure logic was cast away at the start of this path, with the Hermit in the Magician's tent. There is no shock, or shying away, in Deirdre as she stands before the Devil and his dark throne. She glances to each of her pictured sons, before looking into the smile of the Devil. Bending, she takes the collar, holding it in her hand. The shadow cast by it is studied, and she shakes her head. "I will not be slave to anything, including my own desires. I free myself." With those words, the collar is cast aside. "My sons will have to do the same, for themselves."
"They can at any time, Fool," the Devil says and sure enough, the collars are large enough to slip out of with ease. "All I am doing is bringing out what is within them all along. They can be free if they wish to be."
"Every light casts a shadow, and we all have that within ourselves. You are only the tool by which they find it. I accept my own shadows, flaws, weaknesses." Deirdre gives her children another glance, and offers towards them, "Free yourselves, for you are no victims." And, unless the Devil stops her, tries to make for the path again.
The Devil does not stop Deirdre as she passes, but her children do not bother to try to free themselves from their vices. The Devil calls out as she passes: "Some use their desires to reach the tops of mountains, Fool! Do not forget that!"
Just beyond the Devil, leading up the black mountain, stands the Palace of Amber in all its glory, the central Tower gleaming in the blue glow of the path.
"I will not forget it," Deirdre calls back to the Devil, though she does not look back to him or her children. Forward, that is the only way. Or at least that is what Instinct is telling her. Her eyes set upon the Palace. Amber, where all roads lead, and the Tower. She travels up the mountain, pushing on in the journey.
The Palace with its looming Tower stands in the way, in the center of the path. It straddles it, with two black mountains on either side, effectively blocking the Path. Somewhere inside that Tower are Deirdre's brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. Everyone and anyone is in there, somewhere. Perhaps looking back at her.
Deirdre looks up, and up, at the Tower. With no way else to go, to keep the path, she moves forward. Right through the front door, as some problems must be faced head on. At first, at least.
The front door does not budge. It is as closed as can be and, for a ghostly Deirdre, surprisingly solid. The High Priestess's scroll, given to Deirdre by the Hermit, begins to glow.
Well, that was not quite what Deirdre expected. She looks on the doors for a moment, before the glow of the scroll takes her attention away from the current problem. She lifts the scroll, to see what it has to suggest.
"Are you like the men in the tower still, small and alone?" the scroll reads. "Or are you your own, ready to shout down the foolishness of the old ways?"
"I'm my own. It's time to move away from the old ways," Deirdre says to the scroll, and herself, and the door. She places a hand on the door. Not to pull it open, but to push it down.
The door doesn't seem to want to be pushed.
Deirdre is determined to get past this, away from the Tower and on towards the rest of the path. And, taking the advice of the scroll literally, she lets out a loud, angry shout.
And with Deirdre's shout, a huge bolt of lighting streaks from the Heavens and SMASHES into the Tower. It is momentarily lit within and then the Tower shatters, throwing stones in all directions. Little people fall out of the Tower to smash on the ground, little people who look like the Elders of Amber. They fall out and land everywhere, their little illusions smashed. Thunder rumbles. And a glowing blue path is through the rubble.
There is no more than a heartbeat of mourning from Deirdre at the destruction of the Tower, the tumbling of her siblings. Some things must be destroyed, so new life can take its place. The old must make way for the new. And with the sound of thunder rumbling in her mind, hands tight around the scroll and the coin, she presses through, along the glowing path that will continue to lead her.
The path leads through the mountains. The path opens to a fallow field on the other side. The air is cold and wintery. The trees are bare. Sitting in the center of the field is a skeleton in black armor on a white horse.
The feeling of cold has only been a vague memory, up until this point. Deirdre watches as her breath fogs the air, and something about that seems to further steel her resolve. She does not pause until she is only a few feet away from the skeleton and his horse, and looks up to greet him by name. "Lord Death."
"You have died," Death says to Deirdre in the dream. "You sacrificed your old world. Your old self. Both are gone. Dead."
"Some deaths are only temporary. Others, so that we can be reborn." Deirdre meets the gaze of Death, as much as one can manage such things. "I have been stuck in half-life, bound as a ghost, for too much time. I come to claim my new begining."
"Death is natural, Fool," Death intones in a voice hollow and yet rich. "You must deal with your loss and move on before new beginnings. Old leaves must wither and fly from tree branches before new ones may appear." Death reaches out his hand and asks: "I must ask you to pay for passage."
"Death is part of the circle that spins onward and eternally," Deirdre says, looking from the skeleton's face, down to the hand that is extended. The hand holding the coin is held out, a thumb brushing along the carved pentacle, before it is offered in turn to Death.
Death takes the coin and then it is gone. "Your path leads toward the Center." And there before Deirdre is, again, the glowing blue path of the Pattern.
Deirdre inclines her head, giving Death the respect that is his due. "Thank you," she murmurs to him, before leaving his skeletal pressence and the Coin behind. The glowing line is followed, stayed upon as firmly as she would do so in the world beyond dreams and visions.
As Deirdre leaves the cold plains of Death, she finds herself on a path that winds and wends for some time. And when it feels like the journey is at an end, that there is only one more step, Deirdre finds her path blocked by an enormous Angel, all dressed in white. The Angel says: "What you assume is right. You have only one last step on your journey. One final step on your path. But you cannot take that step until you lay your past and know the next step leads, forever, to change."
Deirdre's head tilts back so she can look towards the Angel's face rather than just its middle. A breath is taken, and while she does not quite hesitate, there is clearly thought before her words. "I am willing to accept change. Things have been stagnant for too long. The past is a ghost I must move from."
There is no way to truly leave the past behind," the Angel says. "Each step wears down the shoe a little bit, to shape the next step. Your past is always under your feet. You cannot run from it, hide from it, or leave it completely. But you can call it up, come to terms with it, and become more. Are you willing to accept this?"
"I can remember and learn from it, but one should not linger on it too long, or they lose the present and future," Deirdre offers in thoughtful tones. "I am willing to accept this. We're all marked by our pasts and the things we've done."
The Angel hands Deirdre a small trumpet.
Deirdre takes the trumpet, and makes a brief look to the Angel. There's a moment of time spent, before she lifts it towards her lips. She never was one for musical talent.
The trumpet sounds one pure, simple tone that reverberates through this entire space in Dreams. The ground shakes and then large fissures appear in the path. Deirdre's earlier selves, as a child, as a General, as a Princess, many many many earlier selves crawl out of the cracks like they are the dead being raised at Judgment Day. Perhaps this is Judgment Day. And there they all stand, for a moment, gazing upon Deirdre. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them.
Deirdre, perhaps, did not expect facing her past to be so literal. But there she is, and there she is, and there she is again. She looks over the reflections of herself. The Deirdre that rode out to her first battle. The Deirdre that studied at Dworkin's feet. Deirdre the Fighter and Deirdre the Lover and Deirdre the Eternal Student and Deirdre the Mother. There is even Deirdre That Slit Her Wrists Over The Pattern For Her Brother. She meets her eyes over and over again, holding the trumpet to her side.
And there is a sense that all of these previous Deirdre selves forever her for what she has done and what is going to do, for ignoring the lessons they had to teach her, for all the wrongs done in the names of this cause or that. As Deirdre begins to reach an understanding with them, they begin to float up, one after another, to meet their Final Judgment.
Deirdre watches as her previous incarnations, victories and defeats, float upwards. Lessons quietly learned and unremarked on in the dream, as no one has to learn them but herself. She watches as they leave, and then turns her gaze back towards the Angel, offering it the trumpet back once more.
The Angel has already disappeared. All that is left is the glowing blue path.
"Well, then," Deirdre says to herself, as there is no one else around. She does not look back upwards, in search of the Angel or Herself, but takes up the walking of the path once more, for those final steps.
Deirdre finds herself where she started -- in the Pattern Room in Tir Na-Nog'th. There is Liam bowed over the bodies of Corwin and Deirdre with the ritual knife in his hands. There is Mordred with his arms crossed and a look of pure exultation in his eyes. There is Igraine and Portia, holding off the endless castle guards with a body count at their feet. Except now Deirdre stands in the center of the Tir Pattern and the body, her body, seems to draw her close.
Deirdre lets the body draw her close, following instinct now, as she had before. The look to her children is only brief--there will be time for other things at a later hour. She moves toward the body, familiar despite it being a slightly younger face than she's used to wearing.
The body is welcoming. It feels like home. It beckons and the perforations from the ritual allow an easy in...
Deirdre kneels by the body, and makes to entwine fingers with it, to join and take that easy in it's offering her.
And it certainly allows that easy in.
The journey is Tarot-based.
The Pattern Room in Tir-Na Nog'th is frozen in time. There is Liam and Mordred in the center of the Tir-Na Nog'th Pattern, Liam covered in blood and holding a flashing knife over his head and Mordred looking on with victory in his eyes. Portia called Taith and Igraine hold off hordes of exact duplicates of Castle Guard. The bodies pile up around their feet. A dark shadow graces the door at the top of the stairs to the Pattern Room. The Pattern itself ripples and glows and then starts to fill the entire universe, bigger and bluer and more immense until nothing exists except this enormous bright blue path on an infinite black.
As things begin to change, to freeze, Deirdre's gaze is torn away from her two sons, forced upon the Pattern itself, the ever-growing light. The world narrows down to it, be it reality or vision, and Deirdre moves towards the begining of that path. If she were someone less than a Princess of Amber, it would be like a moth to the flame. But there is far too much determination in her for that.
Although there is nothing but the path and the blackness, the path beckons on, demanding Deirdre with walk or not, but by its silent presence it makes it clear there is only one way out of this Dream.
Deirdre has already been prisoner of the Dreaming, and other places in-between, once in this tale. She's certainly not about to resign herself to letting such happen again. There is the usual taking of a deep breath, the moment to clear her mind, before she puts her foot on that first step of the path.
And suddenly Deirdre is standing on the edge of a cliff, one foot almost over the side. One more second and she would have gone tumbling over the side. The sky is blue and a small path winds to the edge of the path and then around the side. A small colorful tent is off thattaway. A breeze blows.
It has been a very long time since Deirdre felt like the Fool, but with one foot over the edge and her balance a delicate thing, any child of Omens and Fortunes would surely imagine themself such. The pose made for a Tarot card is held only briefly, before she takes a step back from the edge. A moment is taken to examine her surroundings, hair blowing in the dream-breeze, before she begins to move towards thataway.
A colorful tent stands down the trail a bit with a little flag flying off the top merrily. It's nice and pleasant here. It feels like an Amber of Old.
Deirdre continues on the path, each step a careful one. She moves nearer to the tent, studying the flag, trying to determine who it might belong to. Pushing down memories of Old Amber, for the current time.
The Magician has abandoned his tent, it seems, for he is not here. But the sword, the wand, the coin, and the cup are here, sitting on a small table. As is the hermit, sitting where the Magician ought to be, his lantern to one side and peering from under bushy brows. He feels like he ought to be very familiar, somehow, but he is still the hermit. He laughs as Deirdre approaches and asks: "So which one are you, Fool? The High Priestess? The Moon?"
Deirdre glances to the Hermit's face, trying to place it, but giving up that quest as the question is asked of her, as his laughter brings her back to full attention. "We all start out as the Fool," she offers. "And there is a piece of all three inside of me. But the Moon, the fullest. It always comes back to the Moon."
"The Path to the Moon leads right through the Wheel, the Devil, the Tower, and Death," the Hermit says. Then the Hermit laughs and says, "But you know that! You know the Wheel is rigged! The Devil has your children. The Tower waits at the end of time! And there is always Death. Are you sure you still wish the Moon? There's an easier, more pleasant path, you know."
There is a small quirk of lips from Deirdre, not quite enough to be called a smile. "There is always Death, no matter the path. But Death is not always so permanent as it sounds. While there are easier paths, pleasant ones, I learnt long ago that the easiest path is not always the best, Hermit. I know my path."
"The Death is real here," the Hermit says. "If Death takes you, you never reach the Moon. You become dissolute, forever. But is that so bad? To be the Fool? Of course not!" Then he gestures at the four symbols before him. "Take your weapon, Fool. And take the High Priestess's scroll!" He suddenly has a scroll and he hands it to Deirdre. "May these protect you on your journey to the Moon."
"There are worse things," Deirdre murmurs, taking the scroll from the Hermit's hand. The symbols on the table are studied, and the coin is palmed. "Be well, Hermit," is offered, and she's ready to exit the Magician's tent.
The scroll, among magic symbols, also says: "What do your instincts tell you?" The hermit laughs as Deirdre moves on.
Down the blue glowing road, quite a while really, stands a cart. And on this cart is an enormous wheel. On this wheel are alchemical signs and sigils of magic power. A Merchant sitting on the cart next to the Wheel says to Deirdre as she passes: "You are the tenth visitor I have had today!"
Deirdre leaves the laughter of the Hermit behind her, glancing down to the writing on the scroll. She holds it in her off hand, as she continues down the path. "Fate and Destiny, ever turning," she murmurs to herself as the wheel and its merchant come before her. "But certainly not the last," she offers with a nod. "Is this my spin?"
Deirdre, quietly, studies the positioning of the symbols on the Wheel, as if to attempt to decide where they might fall, the next turn around.
"The Tenth Visitor gets a Free Spin!" the Merchant says as he gestures toward the Wheel. There are the letters R-O-T-A with a combination of alchemical signs and foreign letters.
Deirdre places her hand on the Wheel, and after a brief pause, she gives the Wheel a spin. She steps back, to wait and see where Destiny leaves the symbols.
The Wheel of Fortune spins and spins! And it slows down and hesitates unnaturally over four of the strange letters. "Yodh," says the Merchant. "He. Waw. He. You have won a Tetragrammaton!" From the Wheel, merry bells sound like it's a winning combination. "I am that I am! I am what I will be! Why, you have won existence! Now that you have won the right to exist, what do you plan to do?"
"I plan to continue on," Deirdre replies to the Merchant. She does not look victorious, just yet. "And finish this path to where I belong." Her head is dipped, and then she's turning from the Wheel and the Man, to re-take the blue path.
And as she leaves the blue path behind, she soon finds herself, inexplicably, at the foot of an enormous, black mountain. Up the side of the mountain a huge half-man, half-goat sits upon an enormous throne. At his feet are Deirdre's sons Liam and Mordred, wearing collars around their necks and chained to the base of the throne. And there Liam shoots up heroin while Mordred revels in power and madness. The Devil smiles at Deirdre as she approaches and says, "Come. Take a collar and enjoy." He waves a hand and there, on the ground, open, is an empty collar.
The expectation of anything to follow pure logic was cast away at the start of this path, with the Hermit in the Magician's tent. There is no shock, or shying away, in Deirdre as she stands before the Devil and his dark throne. She glances to each of her pictured sons, before looking into the smile of the Devil. Bending, she takes the collar, holding it in her hand. The shadow cast by it is studied, and she shakes her head. "I will not be slave to anything, including my own desires. I free myself." With those words, the collar is cast aside. "My sons will have to do the same, for themselves."
"They can at any time, Fool," the Devil says and sure enough, the collars are large enough to slip out of with ease. "All I am doing is bringing out what is within them all along. They can be free if they wish to be."
"Every light casts a shadow, and we all have that within ourselves. You are only the tool by which they find it. I accept my own shadows, flaws, weaknesses." Deirdre gives her children another glance, and offers towards them, "Free yourselves, for you are no victims." And, unless the Devil stops her, tries to make for the path again.
The Devil does not stop Deirdre as she passes, but her children do not bother to try to free themselves from their vices. The Devil calls out as she passes: "Some use their desires to reach the tops of mountains, Fool! Do not forget that!"
Just beyond the Devil, leading up the black mountain, stands the Palace of Amber in all its glory, the central Tower gleaming in the blue glow of the path.
"I will not forget it," Deirdre calls back to the Devil, though she does not look back to him or her children. Forward, that is the only way. Or at least that is what Instinct is telling her. Her eyes set upon the Palace. Amber, where all roads lead, and the Tower. She travels up the mountain, pushing on in the journey.
The Palace with its looming Tower stands in the way, in the center of the path. It straddles it, with two black mountains on either side, effectively blocking the Path. Somewhere inside that Tower are Deirdre's brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. Everyone and anyone is in there, somewhere. Perhaps looking back at her.
Deirdre looks up, and up, at the Tower. With no way else to go, to keep the path, she moves forward. Right through the front door, as some problems must be faced head on. At first, at least.
The front door does not budge. It is as closed as can be and, for a ghostly Deirdre, surprisingly solid. The High Priestess's scroll, given to Deirdre by the Hermit, begins to glow.
Well, that was not quite what Deirdre expected. She looks on the doors for a moment, before the glow of the scroll takes her attention away from the current problem. She lifts the scroll, to see what it has to suggest.
"Are you like the men in the tower still, small and alone?" the scroll reads. "Or are you your own, ready to shout down the foolishness of the old ways?"
"I'm my own. It's time to move away from the old ways," Deirdre says to the scroll, and herself, and the door. She places a hand on the door. Not to pull it open, but to push it down.
The door doesn't seem to want to be pushed.
Deirdre is determined to get past this, away from the Tower and on towards the rest of the path. And, taking the advice of the scroll literally, she lets out a loud, angry shout.
And with Deirdre's shout, a huge bolt of lighting streaks from the Heavens and SMASHES into the Tower. It is momentarily lit within and then the Tower shatters, throwing stones in all directions. Little people fall out of the Tower to smash on the ground, little people who look like the Elders of Amber. They fall out and land everywhere, their little illusions smashed. Thunder rumbles. And a glowing blue path is through the rubble.
There is no more than a heartbeat of mourning from Deirdre at the destruction of the Tower, the tumbling of her siblings. Some things must be destroyed, so new life can take its place. The old must make way for the new. And with the sound of thunder rumbling in her mind, hands tight around the scroll and the coin, she presses through, along the glowing path that will continue to lead her.
The path leads through the mountains. The path opens to a fallow field on the other side. The air is cold and wintery. The trees are bare. Sitting in the center of the field is a skeleton in black armor on a white horse.
The feeling of cold has only been a vague memory, up until this point. Deirdre watches as her breath fogs the air, and something about that seems to further steel her resolve. She does not pause until she is only a few feet away from the skeleton and his horse, and looks up to greet him by name. "Lord Death."
"You have died," Death says to Deirdre in the dream. "You sacrificed your old world. Your old self. Both are gone. Dead."
"Some deaths are only temporary. Others, so that we can be reborn." Deirdre meets the gaze of Death, as much as one can manage such things. "I have been stuck in half-life, bound as a ghost, for too much time. I come to claim my new begining."
"Death is natural, Fool," Death intones in a voice hollow and yet rich. "You must deal with your loss and move on before new beginnings. Old leaves must wither and fly from tree branches before new ones may appear." Death reaches out his hand and asks: "I must ask you to pay for passage."
"Death is part of the circle that spins onward and eternally," Deirdre says, looking from the skeleton's face, down to the hand that is extended. The hand holding the coin is held out, a thumb brushing along the carved pentacle, before it is offered in turn to Death.
Death takes the coin and then it is gone. "Your path leads toward the Center." And there before Deirdre is, again, the glowing blue path of the Pattern.
Deirdre inclines her head, giving Death the respect that is his due. "Thank you," she murmurs to him, before leaving his skeletal pressence and the Coin behind. The glowing line is followed, stayed upon as firmly as she would do so in the world beyond dreams and visions.
As Deirdre leaves the cold plains of Death, she finds herself on a path that winds and wends for some time. And when it feels like the journey is at an end, that there is only one more step, Deirdre finds her path blocked by an enormous Angel, all dressed in white. The Angel says: "What you assume is right. You have only one last step on your journey. One final step on your path. But you cannot take that step until you lay your past and know the next step leads, forever, to change."
Deirdre's head tilts back so she can look towards the Angel's face rather than just its middle. A breath is taken, and while she does not quite hesitate, there is clearly thought before her words. "I am willing to accept change. Things have been stagnant for too long. The past is a ghost I must move from."
There is no way to truly leave the past behind," the Angel says. "Each step wears down the shoe a little bit, to shape the next step. Your past is always under your feet. You cannot run from it, hide from it, or leave it completely. But you can call it up, come to terms with it, and become more. Are you willing to accept this?"
"I can remember and learn from it, but one should not linger on it too long, or they lose the present and future," Deirdre offers in thoughtful tones. "I am willing to accept this. We're all marked by our pasts and the things we've done."
The Angel hands Deirdre a small trumpet.
Deirdre takes the trumpet, and makes a brief look to the Angel. There's a moment of time spent, before she lifts it towards her lips. She never was one for musical talent.
The trumpet sounds one pure, simple tone that reverberates through this entire space in Dreams. The ground shakes and then large fissures appear in the path. Deirdre's earlier selves, as a child, as a General, as a Princess, many many many earlier selves crawl out of the cracks like they are the dead being raised at Judgment Day. Perhaps this is Judgment Day. And there they all stand, for a moment, gazing upon Deirdre. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them.
Deirdre, perhaps, did not expect facing her past to be so literal. But there she is, and there she is, and there she is again. She looks over the reflections of herself. The Deirdre that rode out to her first battle. The Deirdre that studied at Dworkin's feet. Deirdre the Fighter and Deirdre the Lover and Deirdre the Eternal Student and Deirdre the Mother. There is even Deirdre That Slit Her Wrists Over The Pattern For Her Brother. She meets her eyes over and over again, holding the trumpet to her side.
And there is a sense that all of these previous Deirdre selves forever her for what she has done and what is going to do, for ignoring the lessons they had to teach her, for all the wrongs done in the names of this cause or that. As Deirdre begins to reach an understanding with them, they begin to float up, one after another, to meet their Final Judgment.
Deirdre watches as her previous incarnations, victories and defeats, float upwards. Lessons quietly learned and unremarked on in the dream, as no one has to learn them but herself. She watches as they leave, and then turns her gaze back towards the Angel, offering it the trumpet back once more.
The Angel has already disappeared. All that is left is the glowing blue path.
"Well, then," Deirdre says to herself, as there is no one else around. She does not look back upwards, in search of the Angel or Herself, but takes up the walking of the path once more, for those final steps.
Deirdre finds herself where she started -- in the Pattern Room in Tir Na-Nog'th. There is Liam bowed over the bodies of Corwin and Deirdre with the ritual knife in his hands. There is Mordred with his arms crossed and a look of pure exultation in his eyes. There is Igraine and Portia, holding off the endless castle guards with a body count at their feet. Except now Deirdre stands in the center of the Tir Pattern and the body, her body, seems to draw her close.
Deirdre lets the body draw her close, following instinct now, as she had before. The look to her children is only brief--there will be time for other things at a later hour. She moves toward the body, familiar despite it being a slightly younger face than she's used to wearing.
The body is welcoming. It feels like home. It beckons and the perforations from the ritual allow an easy in...
Deirdre kneels by the body, and makes to entwine fingers with it, to join and take that easy in it's offering her.
And it certainly allows that easy in.