Post by Kage2020 on Apr 3, 2005 21:37:37 GMT -5
Sephiroth recently reminded me about this and while an old piece of fiction it is interesting to show the evolution of ideas as well as some 'insight' into my imagery of the eldar. It is, however, old, and unformatted... Treat kindly.
Jareth sat in the glade, his mind focused on the gentle breeze that stirred the leaves and branches of the ancient hoon'orn, the heartwoods. He could almost imagine that that the cool, dewy grass upon which he sat rested on the back of a planet. That the cooling breeze was the result of the movement of this huge ocean of gases rather than the differences in atmospheric pressure maintained in the various forest domes. Sometimes it was almost too easy to forget.
His eyes swept over one of the trees, from the thick mass of the roots, the trunk which must have been at least fourteen-times his own height, and the dark canopy which embraced the stars. Walkways wrought out of wraithbone, the living heart of the Craftworld, stretched from one side of the dome to another. Intertwined with the branches they looked akin to the jumbled weavings of a spider.
Yet this web was empty, or at least felt more empty than Jareth could ever remember. He was young by the standards of his people, only two centuries, but he felt older, much older. The Seer Council said that he had an "old soul", a throwback to the time when the tea-sithe had ruled the galaxy. His gift they said, but also his curse. It dedicated him to the Path of the Seer despite his youth, the normal development of his spirit attenuated by this, this... curse. Bitterness welled up within his heart, but he quashed it. The tranquillity of this place would not be sullied with his ill-feeling.
Calming his mind, Jereth let his sight shift to the crystal dome and the stars which lay beyond. As he slipped further into the karnilea tea'istar, the wraithbone within him singing out to the heart of the Craftworld in psychic resonance, sight shifted into Sight. His soul cried out in joy. This was the compensation! With an ease that disturbed his tutors he could free his mind and let it glide through the n'at palurin. It was believed that the breeders - the mon keigh - of the Imperium called "Navigators" utilised a crude form of wraithbone to guide their journeys through the n'at palurin Shaking off the pity that thought of those brief, unfortunate dullards engendered, his breathing became rhythmic. With harmonisation, their came transcendence, acceptance: the pulse of the universe. The pulse of the wraithbone, of his heart and mind; indistinguishable.
Jereth felt himself be drawn to the stars, the light in them calling the light that was the centre of his being. As he moved through this Other realm he Felt something nebulous calling to him and, for a second, there was the glimmer in the corner of his eye of something vast and... It was gone.
A thousand light years away, their was a touch on his shoulder and the extension of power through him. The stars rushed around him as he was drawn back. With a snap that made Jereth dizzy he opened his eyes. Turning his head upwards, he looked into his own reflection in the darkened ellipses of Talonderiel's mask, watching as he plucked the small wraithbone shape that danced in the air above his right hand.
"You have been using your gifts once again young Jereth, and this time, as many others, without the support of your tura. You understand that there is danger associated with this, yet you still persist. You have not fully meditated upon the full potential of your abilities, and the Council is yet unsure. Despite this, impatience is your only answer." Cocking his head to one side, he continued with a tone of amusement, "Perhaps you are a breeder in the skin of one of the People? That you will shortly wrinkle and decay before you can complete your training as a novice?"
Jereth had no time for Talonderiel's humour, whose comments too often touched upon the core of his problem: his feelings of dissatisfaction with the Path, or rather his own place within it. "Perhaps you dwell upon the breeders too much, Talonderiel, and their psyche now superposes with your own, causing you to rush around dressed as if for war."
"The cub has claws! Are they yet soft because he still sups at the mothers' teat...?"
"Why did you disturb me?" While he understood that Talonderiel meant no harm, indeed the sarcasm was a part of the nature of his clan, he could not fall into the same pattern with such ease
"Your jaunt caused a disharmony in the Song of the Heart. The Ancestors are not happy. The Bloody Handed stirs, or at least He dreams of strife. That is why I am dressed in such hardened manner."
"And I had thought that it was a metaphor for your essence, Talonderiel."
"Hardly, apprentice. You should not dwell upon the essence of another when your own escapes your will with such ease."
"Do not take me to task. You are not my tura, nor a member of the Council that you can chastise the pupil of another."
"And now the cub growls through eyes still misted from the nurtured warmth of this mother! For surely this is why you cannot see what is plain and in front of your face? I may not be your tura, nor a member of the Council, but I have been judged worthy to bear my own responsibility. Remember the Path! Now, young angry one, go and see how your growl bears up to your tura. Even now she summons you, though she grows impatient, as well you would know if you listened to the Song of the Heart."
Jereth quelled his anger. That was not the Way, even if it took Talonderiel to point it out to him. Further the Song was harder to hear when strong emotions were present. For a second the paradox and irony of that truth struck him. For one of the People to hear the Song, then strong emotions have to be absent and one must draw into the n'at amin. To reproduce, however, these same emotions must be present. Eldar evolution, it would appear, was a myriad of contradictions.
As Talonderiel moved off, Jereth cocked his head. With a quirk to his lips he extended his senses through his body and, from there, to the material world. His robe rippled as he floated to his feet and then, with a slight twist of thought, raised up so that his feet barely touched the grass. As he breathed in, he continued to rise off the floor until, with a whistle he let the air out and the low gravity of the Craftworld reasserted itself. His mind, by focussing outward, now focussed inwards upon the n'at amin. Once again the Song was strong in his mind, vibrating through his body.
With a last glance over the forest dome, he turned away and made his way through the artfully wild shrubs - the People did not like the cultivated areas that many other of the races seemed to prefer - to one of the many exits.
The walk through the Craftworld was quiet. Even though the graceful curves relaxed the mind, the emptiness was harrowing. It was said that many generations ago the Craftworld had echoed with the sounds of myriad voices; the young and the old in laughter and sadness. He could not help but wonder what those times would have been like. Or, perhaps, before the Fall, though dwelling upon those distant times was not generally encouraged.
His thoughts merged with the cadence created by his footfalls in the long corridors. Although he could have at any point walked to the nearest transportation node and speeded the journey, Talonderiel's comments about his impatience remained fresh in his mind. If his tura wanted to see him, then he would have to wait for Jereth to make his way through the Craftworld. At numerous points along the journey he would stop to admire a piece of art, to eat or even to sleep. This was the pace of the Eldar, the beat to which they moved through the universe.
Eventually, however, he arrived at the Dome of the Crystal Seers whose associated structures contained the focus for the administration of the entire Craftword. Not only did the the Seer Council maintain its main training centre here, but the Clan Council deliberated the Craftworld's policy with the outside world. Jereth looked to his feet, unconsciously extending his mind through the wraithbone towards the Heart, holding back at the last. Even he was not foolish enough to trespass on the province of the Avatar of the Bloody Handed One.
"Always when you are summoned do you come and look upon those that have gone before," said the familiar voice from behind him. Without looking he knew the face that went with the voice: the piercing blue eyes and the tranquil face that was untouched by the ravages of time despite a living through eight life cycles of the People.
"It reminds me of what the Council wishes me to sacrifice," he replied, not able to keep the long standing bitterness out of his voice.
"This has been discussed many times before. Talonderiel has remarked that he believes Lanoreth, my own tura those many cycles ago before he took his place in the Dome, has shifted his shell to cover his ears. He knows, of course, that it is not possible but that is his way."
Jareth sat in the glade, his mind focused on the gentle breeze that stirred the leaves and branches of the ancient hoon'orn, the heartwoods. He could almost imagine that that the cool, dewy grass upon which he sat rested on the back of a planet. That the cooling breeze was the result of the movement of this huge ocean of gases rather than the differences in atmospheric pressure maintained in the various forest domes. Sometimes it was almost too easy to forget.
His eyes swept over one of the trees, from the thick mass of the roots, the trunk which must have been at least fourteen-times his own height, and the dark canopy which embraced the stars. Walkways wrought out of wraithbone, the living heart of the Craftworld, stretched from one side of the dome to another. Intertwined with the branches they looked akin to the jumbled weavings of a spider.
Yet this web was empty, or at least felt more empty than Jareth could ever remember. He was young by the standards of his people, only two centuries, but he felt older, much older. The Seer Council said that he had an "old soul", a throwback to the time when the tea-sithe had ruled the galaxy. His gift they said, but also his curse. It dedicated him to the Path of the Seer despite his youth, the normal development of his spirit attenuated by this, this... curse. Bitterness welled up within his heart, but he quashed it. The tranquillity of this place would not be sullied with his ill-feeling.
Calming his mind, Jereth let his sight shift to the crystal dome and the stars which lay beyond. As he slipped further into the karnilea tea'istar, the wraithbone within him singing out to the heart of the Craftworld in psychic resonance, sight shifted into Sight. His soul cried out in joy. This was the compensation! With an ease that disturbed his tutors he could free his mind and let it glide through the n'at palurin. It was believed that the breeders - the mon keigh - of the Imperium called "Navigators" utilised a crude form of wraithbone to guide their journeys through the n'at palurin Shaking off the pity that thought of those brief, unfortunate dullards engendered, his breathing became rhythmic. With harmonisation, their came transcendence, acceptance: the pulse of the universe. The pulse of the wraithbone, of his heart and mind; indistinguishable.
Jereth felt himself be drawn to the stars, the light in them calling the light that was the centre of his being. As he moved through this Other realm he Felt something nebulous calling to him and, for a second, there was the glimmer in the corner of his eye of something vast and... It was gone.
A thousand light years away, their was a touch on his shoulder and the extension of power through him. The stars rushed around him as he was drawn back. With a snap that made Jereth dizzy he opened his eyes. Turning his head upwards, he looked into his own reflection in the darkened ellipses of Talonderiel's mask, watching as he plucked the small wraithbone shape that danced in the air above his right hand.
"You have been using your gifts once again young Jereth, and this time, as many others, without the support of your tura. You understand that there is danger associated with this, yet you still persist. You have not fully meditated upon the full potential of your abilities, and the Council is yet unsure. Despite this, impatience is your only answer." Cocking his head to one side, he continued with a tone of amusement, "Perhaps you are a breeder in the skin of one of the People? That you will shortly wrinkle and decay before you can complete your training as a novice?"
Jereth had no time for Talonderiel's humour, whose comments too often touched upon the core of his problem: his feelings of dissatisfaction with the Path, or rather his own place within it. "Perhaps you dwell upon the breeders too much, Talonderiel, and their psyche now superposes with your own, causing you to rush around dressed as if for war."
"The cub has claws! Are they yet soft because he still sups at the mothers' teat...?"
"Why did you disturb me?" While he understood that Talonderiel meant no harm, indeed the sarcasm was a part of the nature of his clan, he could not fall into the same pattern with such ease
"Your jaunt caused a disharmony in the Song of the Heart. The Ancestors are not happy. The Bloody Handed stirs, or at least He dreams of strife. That is why I am dressed in such hardened manner."
"And I had thought that it was a metaphor for your essence, Talonderiel."
"Hardly, apprentice. You should not dwell upon the essence of another when your own escapes your will with such ease."
"Do not take me to task. You are not my tura, nor a member of the Council that you can chastise the pupil of another."
"And now the cub growls through eyes still misted from the nurtured warmth of this mother! For surely this is why you cannot see what is plain and in front of your face? I may not be your tura, nor a member of the Council, but I have been judged worthy to bear my own responsibility. Remember the Path! Now, young angry one, go and see how your growl bears up to your tura. Even now she summons you, though she grows impatient, as well you would know if you listened to the Song of the Heart."
Jereth quelled his anger. That was not the Way, even if it took Talonderiel to point it out to him. Further the Song was harder to hear when strong emotions were present. For a second the paradox and irony of that truth struck him. For one of the People to hear the Song, then strong emotions have to be absent and one must draw into the n'at amin. To reproduce, however, these same emotions must be present. Eldar evolution, it would appear, was a myriad of contradictions.
As Talonderiel moved off, Jereth cocked his head. With a quirk to his lips he extended his senses through his body and, from there, to the material world. His robe rippled as he floated to his feet and then, with a slight twist of thought, raised up so that his feet barely touched the grass. As he breathed in, he continued to rise off the floor until, with a whistle he let the air out and the low gravity of the Craftworld reasserted itself. His mind, by focussing outward, now focussed inwards upon the n'at amin. Once again the Song was strong in his mind, vibrating through his body.
With a last glance over the forest dome, he turned away and made his way through the artfully wild shrubs - the People did not like the cultivated areas that many other of the races seemed to prefer - to one of the many exits.
The walk through the Craftworld was quiet. Even though the graceful curves relaxed the mind, the emptiness was harrowing. It was said that many generations ago the Craftworld had echoed with the sounds of myriad voices; the young and the old in laughter and sadness. He could not help but wonder what those times would have been like. Or, perhaps, before the Fall, though dwelling upon those distant times was not generally encouraged.
His thoughts merged with the cadence created by his footfalls in the long corridors. Although he could have at any point walked to the nearest transportation node and speeded the journey, Talonderiel's comments about his impatience remained fresh in his mind. If his tura wanted to see him, then he would have to wait for Jereth to make his way through the Craftworld. At numerous points along the journey he would stop to admire a piece of art, to eat or even to sleep. This was the pace of the Eldar, the beat to which they moved through the universe.
Eventually, however, he arrived at the Dome of the Crystal Seers whose associated structures contained the focus for the administration of the entire Craftword. Not only did the the Seer Council maintain its main training centre here, but the Clan Council deliberated the Craftworld's policy with the outside world. Jereth looked to his feet, unconsciously extending his mind through the wraithbone towards the Heart, holding back at the last. Even he was not foolish enough to trespass on the province of the Avatar of the Bloody Handed One.
"Always when you are summoned do you come and look upon those that have gone before," said the familiar voice from behind him. Without looking he knew the face that went with the voice: the piercing blue eyes and the tranquil face that was untouched by the ravages of time despite a living through eight life cycles of the People.
"It reminds me of what the Council wishes me to sacrifice," he replied, not able to keep the long standing bitterness out of his voice.
"This has been discussed many times before. Talonderiel has remarked that he believes Lanoreth, my own tura those many cycles ago before he took his place in the Dome, has shifted his shell to cover his ears. He knows, of course, that it is not possible but that is his way."