IC INBOX ( KENOS ).

[redsoil]

█ To Commune with Set is to stand barefoot in an endless, scorching desert. The sun illuminates all, scalding the shadows themselves out from underneath whomever enters his dominion; the arch of gentle, distant, waves of sand mask the precarious chasms, towering dunes akin to mountains. The sense of vastness, timelessness, is of particular notice, lending itself to the alien, eldritch quality of his mind. There is a dark storm in the distance, and you know intimately that this divine being is far from benign. You cannot bargain with a force of nature. You can only survive it. COMPATIBLE WITH: Exalt, Iconoclast REPELLED BY: Advocate

♠

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[redsoil]

[ Set's Shard is a weight, an anchor. Something unbelievably dense, for the sheer enormity of his existence ought to be spread across reality itself and not confined within the realm of mortality and limitation. Not a candle, nor an inferno, but an endless, dark pool into which one might dive and never find the bottom. Nor surface ever again, consumed as they would be by the sheer fathomless quality of his existence. And that existence settles warm against where John has stored it, pressed to him and linked by their rite as the man's memory pours forth like injury from a wound.

The golden-haired woman draws Set in, too. He briefly sees her as John does, in that hazy-shape that makes her appear herself, appear like Quetzalcoatl, and even, in one swirling moment — like Nephthys. Golden-haired and tawny-eyed Nephthys, with her broad smile and the way she would flash her teeth when she laughed, ever-balanced and playful. A harmonious note in the grand song of existence, counterbalancing the discordant shrill of Set's own. He can feel the love John had for the woman, the clawing hunger of it, the way it constricts within his chest because he feels the same sort of desperate love for his wife, for his child —

And it stops, abrupt. Allows Set to examine the memory of John's for what it is. ]

You are not alone this time, [ he musters, as he takes his feet in this strange, godly dark.

Before them, he can see what he had not seen before — the crumpled, desiccated husk of another tree. Something irrevocably dead, with dark, withered roots that have found their way to touch and connect with the sprawl of his and John's own. "Have found their way"? No, maybe they always had been there. Maybe the two of them had always been part of this dead thing, would that not make sense? A purveyor of death and a necromancer supreme.

He tightens his grasp on John, as their awareness of the dead brings it forth — and they connect. ]

[hyperpotamous]

[ at once, john knows what he needs to do. he no longer has time to worry about feelings when there's real work to be done. the entangled roots give him the guidance he needs to do what he's never been able to do before.

the Resurrection had been possible because the souls had never gone into the River; once that happens, there's no going back. john has never been able to separate a single soul from the stream of countless hungry ghosts, but with the Tree's help, it's like having a map to a buried treasure.

john knows there is no River here, but it's the familiar image his mind reaches for as he calls on a long-dead soul. they stand upon a damp, sandy bank alongside a deceptively still body of grey water. the clouds churning overhead are a green-tinged, oily grey mass. john recognises those same clouds from his memories, which despite his efforts, still manage to have an influence, however subtle.

john and set stand opposite a figure whose appearance can't seem to settle. it draws from both of them, shifting back and forth and achieving increasingly odd amalgamations as it grows more distressed. who are they? where is this place? what's happening?

its dead roots tighten around theirs, and the other Bearer starts taking more than just their images as if absorbing their essence and vitality will ease its existential pain.

it hurts, but john won't let go or let himself falter this time. roots have grown into and out of his Shard, and he's let the Tree work through him, steadying him alongside set even through the unpleasantness of having everything he is picked at by someone else. ]

[redsoil]

[ Set provides the sacrifice, the latent energy of the soul pressed into John's hands and permitted use — the density of his divinity is a crushing weight, an endless echo around them that increases in stubborn resistance as the figure that the necromancer summons forth begins to claw at their persons. Seeking to become them. No, to find their own identity. No, they are it's identity. Set has never known himself to have an "end", but in John he finds a place where they are tangled tightly into one another.

Where he can slip across the space where there ought to be a division between them, only to find that he no longer starts and stops with "himself". He is John, and the figure before them yearns to take that too. It feels like hands upon him, so he delves into the recesses of John's wisdom and spreads himself there, a sheet of soft sands and blown debris that rasps hard as diamond dust against the questing, yearning, panicked force of the other Shardbearer. Wordlessly, he roots himself among John's personage, and is fearless and furious as a storm; he neither hates nor loves the Bearer that tries to become them, to be known, he simply resists it.

Within him, there is a familiar refrain of being lost to the memories and minds of others and Set is able to stand steadier in the face of this onslaught because of his experiences with the souls of the dead, who sought to subsume and enforce their agony and misery upon him, hundreds and thousands of times. He feeds that ruthlessly back into the distant Shardbearer, in place of his vitality — feeling it stolen from him in increments like a wound in his throat, teeth and mouth drawing upon him in need.

Subdue it, he urges John without word or sound, as if he is the same unified thought within the once-man, now-god. Bend it to command, control it. Conquer it so it stops wailing / stops grabbing and pawing / bring it to heel. ]

[hyperpotamous]

[ fortunately for the both of them, john's personage is something that can be relied upon. he dislikes change and always has; john prefers the idea of something fixed and immutable, even though he knows it's impossible when even mountains are shaped by wind and water. life is change, but his unwillingness to be swept away by it means he's held firm to his own identity even in the face of incredible pressure before.

he is also aware of set, but their merging feels surprisingly natural. he has always known where he ends, and everything else begins, so the feeling of being at once finite and limitless is not as disorienting as one would think. it's hard to know if the thoughts of control and submission originate from him or set, but he acts on them anyway. the gnarled roots that resemble skeletal fingers crawl along the ground to wrap more aggressively around the Bearer's tree, and for a moment, it stops incessantly trying to steal from them as john pushes back.

the Bearer continues to struggle, its panicked distress warping the environment around them even more noticeably. john wasn't trying to draw anything out of the Bearer directly, but something passed between them anyway. flickers of foreign memories play in their minds, as vivid as if they had experienced them. john knows this person was a Zenith Iconoclast. he knows they were a king like he was an emperor. a Zenite who still longed for their home, kneeling before yima, whipped into the same zealotry as the Shard-bearers in the present who believe in the cause. the heat of springstar's sun. blood. pain. confusion. a bright light that blinds them before they are swallowed whole.

then the Bearer slips whatever control john might've had, its fragmented sense of self making it challenging to know what he should even be controlling. they cease to stand beside the River because they are plunged into the grey depths instead. you could never really drown in the River because it was all just a metaphor for something greater, but that might as well be what's happening now as they sink deeper as if drawn by a powerful current.

john had been here before — moments before yima dragged him to kenos — and drowning had been the least of his concerns. the sensation of water pressure is a full body ache, and it only grows more pronounced as they sink towards the dark riverbed. a great gash splits the river bottom before an immense mouth opens, baring rows of human teeth and searching, reaching tongues that writhe like worms and try to drag them down — a stoma. a portal to something like hell that only ever opens for the resurrection beasts. or for john. this is not a place he lets himself be dragged to with ease, fighting it all the way down, turning the murky water red with blood as he slices through the tongues as violently as he tries to break the hold of the Bearer's roots. john certainly doesn't want to be the weak link that ends them both... ]