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English
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Published:
2023-02-18
Completed:
2023-02-18
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1,111
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5/5
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A Final Phantasie

Summary:

When indulging in the wares of the Shopkeeper in Viric, we often hear it described as "sharing a phantasie of the Bazaar". But sharing with whom, precisely?

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: At the Edge of Sleep, Again

Chapter Text

Attempt a sleight of hand

After so many of the Shopkeeper's trance-dreams, you are beginning to notice certain patterns to your spouses' behaviors. A familiar turn of phrase, a characteristic motion of the head... personal tics that have remained constant across every vision you've entertained, no matter whom you'd supposedly wedded.

This second vision is the moment when the dream cycle is at its most malleable. With some clever Glasswork, you could take full control of the dream, and find out what's really going on here.

Unlocked with 6 x Shared a Phantasie of the Bazaar, Having Recurring Dreams: Is Someone There? 13

Narrow Glasswork challenge (11 for 100%)

Chapter 2: Attempt a sleight of hand

Chapter Text

Caught in glass

You sit down next to the Widow. You smile, like you often do, and suggest she have a peek at something you brought her. She glances up, only to find herself looking at her reflection in a hand-mirror, and its reflection in the window behind her, glass mirroring glass in infinite regress. In the first reflection, she looks like herself. But in the second, her appearance is muddled, mixed with your spouse from a previous dream-cycle. Four or five images deep, you can just barely make out her skin breaking out in scales, her eyes turning slitted, her shoulders shrinking away.

She moves as if to flee, but finds herself unable to leave her seat, pinned between the two sheets of glass. She grimaces, looking away from the mirror and at her own feet.

"Well. There it is," she says, and her voice is different, now. Not the Gracious Widow, but someone else, with a strangley familiar tendency to dwell on her consonants.

"Shall I bother trying to defend myself? Shall I say that, just as you bargained for a few dreams of an impossible life, I played my part because I wanted the same? Shall I insist that there was no great plot, nothing I expected to gain from the exercise despite the exercise itself, and a chance to pretend for a while that I existed?"

Her eyes turn to you – and her reflection's, and her reflection's reflection's, and on down the line. "Shall I confess that, despite all that, I've grown fond of you, after so many lifetimes spent together?" Half a dozen spouses, or more, speak in unison, now, in the repeated glass, their expressions as varied as their faces: afraid, resigned, bitter... but tinged with something else. Hope, perhaps.

"It would all be true."

Chapter 3: A trance-dream, disintegrating

Chapter Text

A trance-dream, disintegrating

You sit in the parlor with your dream-spouse, who is looking less and less like the Gracious Widow by the moment. They glance around at your surroundings, smudged and muddled and far more dreamlike than they were but moments ago. "The vision you were sold is a lost cause, at this point," they comment, matter-of-factly. "Viric is a fragile construction material, and that trick you pulled wasn't exactly gentle on the soil of Parabola. All that's left is me. And you."

They chuckle, mirthless and wan, through their teeth. "And now what will you do, having looked behind the curtain?"

Let the dream end

This wasn't what you signed up for, and you don't appreciate this creature spying on your fantasies for its voyeuristic pleasure.

Share a tender moment

You were hoping to find at least a facsimile of warmth and intimacy in these dreams. Apparently, your secret counterparty was looking for the same. Even if the illusion is broken, why not spend the time you have left comforting each other?

Come to a longer-term understanding

You've dealt enough with the serpents behind the glass to understand what they're after, and you're familiar enough with their way of thinking to work out the nuances of the arrangement properly. Your dream-spouse, for their part, surely knows you well enough by now to be an exceptional partner, and has already confessed a certain fondness. And at this point, you've technically said your vows to each other many times already. There's a mutually beneficial opportunity here, if all are amenable.

This will make the Serpentine Paramour your Spouse, disallowing other Spouses... unless you are willing to go through the peculiar expense and misery of divorcing a marriage officiated by the Fingerkings.

Unlocked with Access to a Parabolan Base-Camp, Connected: Fingerkings 3

Locked with Committed:

Chapter 4: Come to a longer-term understanding

Chapter Text

Yes. That is how it shall be

You make your case to your Serpentine Paramour. As you explain your proposal, their initial confusion soon gives way to shock... and then to helpless, sibilant laughter. "Why not! Why not, indeed."

The two of you stroll together into the Viric haze, swapping stories like old friends suddenly reunited, discovering for the first time what, in your trance-dreams, had been mere playacting and what had been sincere. Soon, you are at your base-camp, negotiating your revised marriage vows over mugs of a spiced cider that glows a gentle cosmogone. "Community property" notwithstanding, your body shall remain yours alone... but with the understanding that, as with most marriages, there will be a certain amount of mutually consensual sharing, when circumstances permit and the mood is right.

When the negotiations are finished, you and your intended will walk, barefoot, to the Dome of Scales, and make your vows under the watchful eye of that great serpent. You will notice that, among the trees, you are also being observed by someone who looks quite like you – if a bit older and wiser – holding hands with someone you only recognize by a characteristic motion of their head. You will awaken, refreshed and clear-headed, and make a stop at Empire Adornments to have the phantasie-crystal set into a ring. The remaining pill, you will hide carefully upon your person, in case it ever becomes necessary to urgently summon your Serpentine Paramour to your side. You will see your reflection in a shop-window, wearing a tender smile that is at once novel and achingly familiar. You will smile back – an acknowledgement, and a promise.

 

Chapter 5: (epilogue)

Chapter Text

Serpentine Paramour

Your constant companion behind the glass. In dreams, they take a hundred forms, always surprising you with their oneiropompic creativity. In London, they wink at you from mirrors... or you wink at them, when it's their turn to be about.

Effects when equipped in Spouse slot:

Notes:

This little ditty's existence is the product of two inspirations happening to arrive at the same time: this year's Feast of the Rose (heralding the annual arrival of the Shopkeeper in Viric), and the February Exceptional Story "The Hollow Triptych" (which provided a fascinating look into the mindset of the Fingerkings).

In particular, the Conjunction of Absence's view on promises as "words which transform what Is Not into what Will Be", and thus, the sanctity of promises to creatures barred from the Is, struck a chord... and then I started thinking about how the "phantasies" sold by the Shopkeeper are all nuptial – married life explicitly, with the oaths taking place "on camera", even for creatures like Mr Wines who (at least under normal circumstances) probably wouldn't bother with such human formalities. I wanted to explore that angle.

I also wanted to hop on the "fake screenshot of an outré Spouse" bandwagon, since it seemed like a fun medium for Fallen London fanwork, and since people on Tumblr have been enjoying that kind of content.

I hope you've enjoyed this one, too. ^_^