SSCS 04: Installment 16 of 34
The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress
This is Installment 16 of this year’s SSCS. If you want to start at the beginning of ‘The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress’, go here! If you want to know what the heck an SSCS is, go here!
(And the character list is here.)
Previously…
The stars, when he could look up and see the sky again, showed barely an hour had passed below, and then that it was barely a quarter hour more before the Moth Queen herself ascended the steps up to the labyrinth as he had done, making an entrance, along with six armed guard, calculated to display wealth and arrogance and decadence. Though her eyes, now kohl rimmed, still showed too pale, there was no more hint remaining of the simple, purposeful priestess she had been when below—and Du realized that many here in the night garden above did not even know such priestess did exist. And yet the labyrinth hinted at it, that the domain the Moth Queen maintained would never be less intricate than domain within domain within…
And he thought for a moment that her eyes caught his, once more, only for a half-flutter before she turned herself back to the sweeping, sudden press of her glittering courtiers. He thought he felt the press also of a sort of glamor—an imagined look, yet real enough to hold an invitation—one Du was very sure he should not answer, especially not on this night, especially not in this life.
…The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress
Installment 16: 22.1029
***
Far from any hilltops lit with eerie light, within a hidden archway and beneath a bridge wrought all of elaborate silver filigree—like dew bejeweled spiderwebs in the moonlight—at a place where the scent of orange blossoms floated on the air in some seasons, and the scent of oranges in others, the Chiton Horde stirred restlessly, impatient (whispering, waiting) for its missing shard to return.
In the garden above, beyond the great House wall (tall, penetrable), lay a place that had whispered of possible wisdoms, possible knowings. The wall was meant to keep all prying eyes out that might wish to be dazzled by the delights such garden could hold, meant to shelter House and garden from the rough hands and feet of would-be trespassers, meant to let pass only the scent of oranges or orange blossoms. And it was a wall easy to for chiton to climb (reach, root, subtle cracks). The last shard moved carefully there now from shadow to shadow, betrayed to any who might be watching only by the sharp flash of moonlight glinting off the trailing edges of inky carapace, and by the much subtler white moons of the shard-host’s eyes.
The excursion for this one had not been worth it. All within the House lay already in quiet slumbering, their sleeping minds too fogged with dreaming to let slip any wisdom worth knowing. But this shard would draw now back to the rest of the horde gathered outside, holding (keeping) other wisdoms gleaned from other Houses. The Horde was not new hatched, still clinging to the scales of its forbearers. It knew better than to meekly accept only the goods that were offered it (lonely homes, lonely flesh), for only the price that was offered, and had come abroad into the night to seek wisdoms appropriately.
To the base of the garden wall at last, the shard scaled it easily, chiton reaching and flowing to pull the host along, a shifting of inky carapaces to keep itself swathed in shadow when moonlight might otherwise catch it at the top of its climb, then down the other side just as quickly, rejoined to the Horde, once again whole (seeing).
Wisdoms found. Wisdoms missing. Rejoined into its whole the Horde conferred with itself, bits of night-black chiton and carapace flickering out from the edges of the archway shadows as it tasted the night for next purposes, next pathways. The bridges in this part of the city were gossamer fine, gossamer grey beneath the starlight and would not mind the Horde passing over or beneath them, but the goods (lonely flesh) would not be well-drawn this way. The goods would be forced to keep at anchor if the horde wished to pass this way, and that would limit options. Divided. Divided is less. But only sometimes.
One shard split itself away from the horde, moving out of the hidden archway only so far that it could slip up beneath the bridge and begin to follow out along its span from the under-side. There was a piece of wisdom in the House at the foot of this bridge on the up-current side that was worth watching (guarding) and so this one shard would stay. For now, the rest of the horde turned away, slipped down from the archway and out into the black, rushing waters. There were some good wisdoms here, but this was not the right part of the city for nesting, and the first of the goods would be coming soon. It was time to seek new wisdoms among those that would bring them, and for that the Horde must return to anchorage (temporary nest, temporary haunt).
The black river water swirled them up, flecks and pieces of black chiton flashing within the ripples of moonlight, tiny, white moons of hosts’ eyes closed away as the Horde felt and smelt its way through the waters beneath the city, the swiftest way to travel back to anchorage. Once it (they all) felt a strange throbbing pulsing up from the depths beneath a massive stone pilon, but the shard-hosts could not swim deep, and so the Chiton Horde passed on, eventually flowed out of the water again at a slime-soaked quay-step hidden from the moonlight by a great warehouse squatting above. This also was no good place for nesting (waiting, growing), too many bringers coming in and out when they thought the Horde did not see them, too many non-wisdoms cluttering the tastes in the air. But the first of the goods were to be brought here (offerings), and so the Horde spread itself out, one shard for each corner of the warehouse, and settled itself (shifting, stillness, watching) to wait.