Chapter Text
It is… tired.
That is a surprise.
It has not felt exhaustion before. Before, it simply went. Before, they fought and killed and ran and searched forever without stopping to rest its mind. Yet now, as More than it was, it finds itself…
Mmm. It feels too vast. This size is much too sluggish to move about in. It can do so much, and yet… it has never felt so unwieldy.
And so many minds! All fluttering about, whispering, crawling, shouting, playing, searching, dreaming. It can feel them, swirling within itself.
Slowly, ever so slowly, one mind slips away from the rest. Everything That Is Nothing shrinks, slipping between the bounds of what Is, into What Will Be, slithering through the cracks formed within the crust of the Great Shell, up through the wet of her domain, brushing up against the mind of its fellow in enlightenment (the Flesh Mother greets it kindly, if not with a bit of shock) and Forms.
It has never had Form before. No, that’s not right. It has, but… everything Else about It hasn’t. That’s right, It has a name. It has been called something by the Spider. The Half-Spider. It can feel Her, the coiling Half-God, shedding the moisture of Her body over It’s mask. Their mask? No, They have no mask. They are Else. It is… themself.
What strange concepts Life thinks of. They. He. Her.
Ah. The mask. It is cracked. It finds themself displeased. Despite the shedding of the guise that hid the Focus of Nothing, It finds Itself wanting to Be again. Perhaps It can create. Else has only ever consumed, but It sees no reason not to try.
The Fledgeling Being within the Weaver’s domain has skill, It thinks, amidst forming Itself around the mask. It can feel the Spider recoil, no doubt seeing Its actions as something strange. It ignores her, forming Themself a new shell. This one will not be so fragile.
Yet, as they push Themself into the mask, it strikes them. A pain lances through their Minds. The Old Enemy, the Old Dream, it is not consumed. it is stronger than they had feared. United Under One as Nothing may be, the One has not been a being for more than an instant, and the Dream knows far more than It could ever hope in its minuscule time Before.
it pulls. It tries to fight back, but it does not let them. For an instant, the Whole sees with the Sight - places far beyond what It could have imagined Before, strange realities that do not agree with Its pitifully small vision. The Dream is far larger than It had ever thought - it has run its roots, shining essence so unlike the roots of Its mother, throughout all of these places.
it pulls.
It does not go easily. It wishes to stay - to reunite with the Sister, to comfort Them, to make sure Its home is rid of the Light. But It is so much weaker, so diminished after Ascension, and the Dream is so vast. It claws at anything, pulls Itself, cries out in a voice void of sound, but it can never hope to succeed.
It takes with It only one other before It is pulled to Other.
—
He has had many regrets.
Alone, mindscape grey and dull, he has much time to think. Time, like many other concepts, has no meaning here. Purgatory, he thinks, would be a worse kind of hell than any burning pit of fire. Alone, with silence so oppressive that his ears begin to ring, is enough for the strongest mind to break after enough time has passed.
It does, fortunately or not, provide ample time to think. Not that he wants to be alone with his thoughts. No, it was bad enough in the quiet realm of the Fusang. Here, it is the only thing he can do. Think.
And regret.
The Apeman. The boy. Perhaps his biggest regret, before his foolish attempt to slay his old master had begun. He had been too blind to see it, then, but the boy had been, perhaps, the only one besides Kuafu that he truly cared for. And he had abandoned him in a foolish quest.
Kuafu. His friend. Ah, that big cat had always been more emotional. He, too, had been one of the few he cared for.
He’s been a royal screw up, hasn’t he?
The Fangshi tilts back. His head, held up by his will to keep going, falls. His fur hits the empty, grey water of the mindscape, and he finds himself drifting down. Down, down, into the depths of his mind.
He knows this will only trap him further. He can’t bring himself to care. Why does it matter? He’s failed. The Immortal Cauldron Project truly was the worst thing he could have ever proposed to the other Sols - now, it’s even been used to trap himself. He was a fool, blinded by his own ego and status, and now… he pays for it.
Perhaps all he can hope for is this nightmare to end.
—
“Priestess!”
Oh, good. She wasn’t hoping to get some rest. Not at all.
The High Priestess yawns and stretches, flicking her tail in annoyance at the Acolyte that just ran up to her. Her grey fur, sodden with rainwater, clumps and rubs together uncomfortably against her clothes, and she’d like nothing more than to take a shower and clean herself.
Joke’s on her.
The Acolyte, who she’s much too tired to remember the name of, bows stiffly, his own shorter tail flicking nervously. You can tell a lot about someone by their tail. Most don’t bother to learn, but she finds it quite useful. Whatever’s happened has sent the Dream Chapel into a frenzy - Acolytes and Dreamers rush about in a tizzy, some just shaking off Essence, others heading to the Communion Rooms. No doubt they’re trying to get in contact with the other sects.
She’s drawn out of her thoughts by the Acolyte in front of her waving repeatedly. She told her subordinates to treat her like anyone else, but right now, she dearly wishes she could use her power and order them all to shut the fuck up.
“Yes?” She grumbles, barely managing to keep the annoyance out of her voice, though it shows in the twitch of one thick eyebrow.
The Acolyte bows again and stammers out a message. “T-The other High Priests are calling an emergency meeting. They wanted me to alert you as soon as you arrived, a-after the whole princess debacle.”
Oh, right. That Dream Dive she did for the king. That was quite the mind. Such a vivid imagination! Sybil nearly misses the rush of wind through her fur, but quickly refocuses, narrowing her eyes.
“A meeting? What for?”
“T-The goddess, High Priestess. She’s angry, and lashing out at anyone who tries to Dream.”
Ah.
Her mind, still weary from her travel back to the Dream Chapel, suddenly becomes aware of a pressure behind her eyes. It begins as a deep ache, before slowly expanding. Her vision clouds. She barely registers her knees impacting the floor, the pain so dulled in comparison to the white-hot lance between her eyes, and her body refuses to react when she topples forward.
All she feels is overwhelming pain and anger.