The point of surrender
Currently in Saint Claire, it’s a sunny day. The temperature is 56 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius). The wind is calm today. The barometric pressure reading is 30.01 and falling, and the relative humidity is 57 percent. The dewpoint is 41 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius.)
Currently the moon is in the waning Gibbous (Galliard) Moon phase (60% full).
It is currently 18:11 Pacific Time on Sat Mar 6 2010.
Tim slips into the Umbra an hour or so after sunset, once his evening rituals are done and he can be sure the moon has risen in Gaia’s Shadow. He travels in lupus and on foot rather than through the sky, but does keep under the cover of his auspice Gifts. He takes a path around the southern border of the Empty Forest and out into the sparser cover that leads to Chu’mana’s den among the rocks, tracking prey as he goes. As with last time, he seeks something small to drive towards her–a mouse, or a rat, maybe a vole.
The hunt goes easy for Tim, whether by skill from practice or just luck tonight, he is able to flush out a large rat. Herding it towards Chu’mana’s lair proves easy as well, almost as if the rat has sensed its fate and is resigned to it. And again, as with last time, there is no warning on the approach. What seemed like a dappling of moon shadows on the ground becomes a blur of movement as she strikes, and the offering is accepted.
Golden stills as the snake strikes, stopping midstep, then settles down on his haunches and waits. He’s curious enough to steal glances as she works on the rat, but not rude enough to stare. There’s a note of pride in his posture; it’s been a good turn of the moon for him, maybe.
The snake’s eating is abbreviated tonight, as the rat turns quickly into spirit-stuff that she absorbs. Still, she looks content with it as she coils herself into a pile. *Now then,* she says, tongue flicking in Tim’s direction. *Have you brought wisdom, or have you come seeking?*
Golden’s ears pin back as he considers that. Finally, he shifts his stance. Seeking. It’s a decisive answer, even if it took him a moment to come to it. His ears come forward. If you would show me.
There’s a pause before she answers. She tastes the air between them, considering. *Are you sure?* she asks, gazing unblinking eyes at Tim. And though he hasn’t been bitten, yet, it seems her eyes are already starting to change shape and color.
Yes. Golden’s fur shudders at some memory. That is my path, among Owl’s people. To seek. And as Owl’s son twice over, to seek what I do not know.
Chu’mana strikes, not on the Strider’s foreleg as she has in the past, but on his shoulder. Moreover, she doesn’t let go as she has before, but keeps her fangs buried in his flesh. And no sooner does this fact register, than Chu’mana is growing huge, and coiling herself around him. Twice, now three times her original size, and her coils looping about him, pinning his wings and legs in place, constricting….but not so much that he cannot breathe.
Golden grunts in surprise, both at the pain from his old battlescar and at the effect of the bite itself. With effort he chokes back Rage and uncertainty’s desire to have him fight back, and accepts the coiling in as dignified a manner as another predator can. A mantra to the Nagini flits through his mind and he focuses on it as Chu’mana tightens around him.
As Tim ceases in his instinctive struggles, the fangs withdraw, though the coils do not. Instead, after a moment’s pause, they start expanding again, growing until they’re bigger around than Tim himself, then again doubling and tripling in size…or perhaps it is Tim that is shrinking. Finally it cannot be said that he is wrapped within them any longer, and he stands once more on the ground. Chu’mana’s scales shift slowly through different colors and patterns, some obviously found in nature, some…well if they are found in nature, Tim has certainly never seen anything like them. *Come then, and find me,* Chu’mana says, her voice echoing in the Strider’s mind.
Remembering what things were like last time, Golden takes several minutes to just follow the patterns. First with his eyes, tracing them as best he can and watching them evolve from the familiar to the alien and back again. Then with more than just his eyes, letting instinct and his mind feel their way to other shapes and forms, and colors that the eye can’t (or won’t) see. He blinks and begins to seek the rattlesnake herself among it.
After a little while of wandering, Tim begins to notice a consistent theme through the shifting patterns. At one junction, forced to choose between right and left, the pattern continues along the ‘walls’ of Chu’mana’s coils to the right, but not to the left.
Golden pauses at the juncture, and looks to the right, his eyes following the theme he’s been tracing. But then he looks to the left, and his ears come forward and his tail goes up. He moves a little towards it, sniffing out of habit but seeking some other pattern he might have missed.
If there is a pattern to the left, Tim’s mind cannot grasp it. In either direction, the path quickly rounds a corner, and nothing can be seen.
With another glance to the left, possibly to remind himself of what he’s about, Golden continues turns back to the right. Owl seeks the unknown–but my charge is to seek Rattlesnake. The pull of his Pack and Tribal totem to the left shows in his stiff movements, but to the right he goes, looking again for the pattern that lead him here.
The right-hand path leads him on a while longer, until he comes to another junction. This time, the pattern seems to lead both to the right and to the left.
Golden gazes at this new choice, his eyes studying the pattern to the left and then the right. After some consideration, he places himself directly between the two choices, then points his nose up. He stays in that medatative pose, trying to feel his way to the pattern he’s searching for–correct path or not.
Whatever the answer, it is not forthcoming. There may be something different about the patterns, but Tim’s mind is unable to grasp what that difference, if any, is.
Presently Golden shakes himself out of his meditative pose, and watches the patterns a little longer. Then he moves to the left, but this time there’s no last glance given to the choice untaken.
The left-hand path leads on for a short distance, but it’s not long before something changes. The coils are moving, the path is getting narrower. Just ahead, the walls abruptly close together, the coils sliding against one another, and the space around Tim is rapidly diminishing.
Golden huffs out a breath and, repressing the urge to run, looks around himself. He seeks something in the pattern, trying to follow its changes even as the coils close in.
The pattern is entirely gone now, and there are probably only a few seconds before the walls close around Tim completely.
Golden starts to retreat to whatever open space remains, less out of fear than a desire to find the pattern again. He casts around for it, mind and eyes working.
The pattern is clearly visible back at the junction a little ways behind him, leading to the path he did not choose.
Golden’s ears come forward and his tail goes up. He keeps his pace steady, though, still looking along the maze around him and trying to find other hidden secrets.
The walls stop closing in, but that path is now blocked to Tim. The maze, as yet, reveals no more secrets.
A few more seconds to look at the blocked way, then Golden continues to follow the pattern and the path he’d previously not chosen.
The path leads on, but at the next fork, Tim is able to tell the real pattern from the false one, and is not lead astray again. Time passes strangely, and it’s hard to tell if he’s only been at this for a few minutes or a few hours. Maybe he’s always walked this maze, and his other life is the hallucination. At last, though, the path leads him to a clearing. There is a pit with a sort of camp fire burning in it. A large flat rock is off to one side, half in and half out of the fire. Opposite from Tim, who finds himself once more in his human shape, is a tall woman. From her long, long black hair, brown skin and especially the structure of her face, she looks to be Native American, maybe from one of the Southwest tribes. Through the flickering light of the fire, it’s hard to tell how old she is, though something about her bearing says she is middle-aged, though certainly not old. She is wearing a doeskin dress, but the light shifts and she might be clothed only in a cloak made of black feathers, or just her long hair, or nothing at all. She stares hard at Tim with eyes the flicker with reflected firelight, and her lips part in a smile that is anything but welcoming.
Being in in his birth form gives Tim pause, and he looks down at himself with curioisty, as if to make sure it’s really himself and not more of the changing patterns and shapes fooling his perception. He takes in the clearing, the fire, and the rock, then finally the woman. He brings his hands together, spread flat with the palms facing inward, and dips his head in a formal greeting. The words go unsaid–or maybe they don’t, but it’s only his mind that speaks the Kashmiri word. Namaskar. I am nothing before the Truth of the Universe.
*Then come and talk with me,* the woman says in Chu’mana’s voice. *And we will explore the truth of the universe…* She holds out one hand towards Tim, across the fire between them.
Tim glances at the fire, aware but not wary, and steps forward to reach out and take her hand with his left. As he does so, the wrist of his shirt pulls back just enough to see the beginnings of the rattlesnake tattoo on this arm.
Chu’mana’s smile widens as Tim takes her hand, and again time becomes a mutable thing. Words are spoken, exchanged. Food is prepared and eaten, and then more words, a twining of ideas and concepts like the sliding of coils, or bodies, against one another. But these are only vague impressions, for dawn is breaking in the material world, where Tim is now awakening. It is abruptly apparent that it is /really cold/ and he is totally naked.
Tim flinches and is unable to hold back a hiss of surprise; he’s entirely unused to be naked in his birth form anywhere that it’s cold. And of course, he immiediately has to wonder where his clothes are, and for that matter if he’s still walking the labyrinth.
Fortunately, Tim’s clothes are not far away and are in a relatively neat pile. If he’s still in the labyrinth, it’s hard to tell. It seems to be the Realm, but it also seems as though Tim sees /patterns/ everywhere he looks. In the trees and rocks, the way the land has been shaped by wind and rain, even the clouds in the sky hint at patterns just outside his grasp.
Tim scrubs his hands over his face, rolls to his feet, and grabs for his clothes. He manages to get his boxers on without incident, but then something about the weave of his shirt is utterly fascinating, and not until he shivers involuntarily does he think to actually put it on. This gets repeated a half-dozen more times for his jeans, socks, and boots, to say nothing of the jacket and its hand-embroidered Anarchy symbol. Several minutes later he’s finally dressed but incredibly cold for all the dallying, and he crouches down and looks around himself, trying to get his bearings.
<OOC> Aerynvale: He’s in the part of the Realm that corresponds to about where Chu’mana’s lair is in the umbra.
