[Mkguild] Divine Travails of Rats - Pars VI. Acceptio (n) - THE END

[Hallan Mirayas]

Excellent story, MattRat!  You are the ur-example that I hold up when telling people about Metamor Keep, and this really showcases why.  Fantastic characters, vivid settings, intricately woven plots...  beautiful.  Just one tiny, tiny quibble... I -was- planning on having Alexastra told who her mother was.

Aside from that, please continue to make mine Metamor!

Hallan

Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2015 05:47:11 -0400
To: MKGuild at lists.integral.org
From: jagille3 at vt.edu
Subject: [Mkguild] Divine Travails of Rats - Pars VI. Acceptio (n) - THE END



This is the final part of the story that Ryx and I have been working on
for the last two years.  I'm sorry it has taken so long to share but
here is its final moments.  Do let me know what you thought of the
tale!  Some thoughts of my own to follow tomorrow.  Thank you
to everyone who has shared this journey with us over the years!


----------


Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats

by Charles Matthias and Ryx


Pars VI: Acceptio


(n)




Wednesday, June 23, 724 CR,
Evening




This was not the Temple, Charlie realized when he opened his eyes and
stared up at the wispy moonlit silver of mares' tails scratched across
the star dappled darkness above. A breeze whispered across his whiskers,
cooling the edges of his ears and filling them with the quiet rattle of
leafless branches. At his back was a cold hardness; no bed, nor table or
bench, but stone.


Something cracked in the darkness, a reverberating peal of thunder
that whipped away the clouds and sent the bracken into a frenzy of
fearful rattling. The fullness of the moon gazed down upon him, occluded
by two forms that towered above him though only one cast a shadow. To his
right towered a feathered pillar of fearsome black, slender arms ending
in taloned hands that clawed at the night. To his left a shorter form,
stout and familiar, looking up at the black monument of feathers and
terror.


“A soul for a soul in return,
mistress.” The shorter form spoke, his voice hardened with resolve but
torn beneath with the choice he made. “That is what I offer.”


Another voice gasped in the moonlit darkness but Charlie could not see
the speaker, decrying the bargain being struck. The raven held up an arm,
fingers splayed in a halting gesture toward the unseen plaintiff. Charlie
could only gaze up at the two; rat and raven glaring at one another over
the stone upon which he lay, immobile and mute. His sire lowered his head
slowly, bringing his gaze down upon him, and Charlie saw the pain within
his dark eyes. But there was something else, both within and without that
gaze. A hardness, a resolve, but neither was truly of the rat that bore
them. At his side a shadow shimmered, vaguely rat-like in form but as
much misty serpent whispering into one of the rat’s ears. As Charlie
gazed into the grief of his father’s gaze he saw his eyes harden, the
muscles of his jaws clench as he came to the culmination of a path
chosen.


“This is what I offer,” Charles said, without looking up, reaching out
one hand as if to touch his abandoned son. The shifting darkness at his
side became more substantial at the resolve in Charles’ voice, pressing
closer, casting its dark shadow across him, all the while whispering into
his ear.


“The bargain is struck.” The raven croaked flatly, as if both pleased and
offended that her demands would be considered at all, much less met. “The
exchange is agreed.” To seal the bargain the raven’s head darted forward,
easily twice the size of the rat's head toward which it struck. But when
her beak snapped shut it was not upon Charlie’s father, but rather the
shadow whispering in his ear. Blood glistened, lingering in the air an
inch from the closed beak, but the source of the blood was no longer
present.


In the instant the razor's edge of the beak closed the shadow at Charles’
ear expanded, losing form as it enshrouded the rat, and he was simply
gone. The raven reared upright, her vast wings flaring wide, and that
hanging drop of blood landed upon the stone near Charlie with a quiet
pat.


“Where did he go?” A surprised voice called out. A new form appeared at
Charlie’s right side, but not that of a rat. The tall, slender frame of
his adoptive father strode into view, looking at the ground as if it had
become a predator of rats.


“Where he must.” The raven croaked quietly.


“Where?!” Malger demanded again, glaring up at the taller bird. “He needs
my escort here, his Dream is too deep! He cannot wake before danger,
here!”


“He is not Here.”


“Where, then, has he gone? Let me go to him, Nocturna!” Frightfully bold,
the marten, making demands of a goddess. But she was also, on these
realms, as much a wife as he could have. He was not her equal, but in
some ways he was more powerful even than she, because life beat within
his breast.


“You cannot, love. You are bound here. He has gone beyond; deeper. He has
crossed the Bridge to Lilith’s domain.”


Malger’s jaw dropped, aghast, his entire posture horrified, and furious.
“She will kill him!”


“She will not.” Nocturna shook her head slowly. “She, truly, can not. He
has a guardian to see him safely through to the end of his quest. It
girds his mortal soul from the touch of any of Us, light and dark alike.
I cannot strip that from him; only he can cast it off.”


Malger finally seemed to realize what his Goddess was saying, his posture
growing stiff. “The shadow, again? It has attempted to take them all;
only he remains.” He raised a hand to his brow and groaned. “And I
brought him on this path!”


“All found the paths upon which to take their journey, my dear.”


“I must awake, the others need to be warned.”


“Tell only one, Malger, who awaits with you. He has prepared, and knows
what to do.”


“What of him?” Malger finally
sighed, looking down at Charlie for the first time, worry writ plain upon
his angular muzzle. He was younger, here, less hardened by his life of
politics and intrigue. “Has Charles truly abandoned his son to
you?”


“Has he?” Charlie found himself speaking, but there were none to speak
to. Malger was gone, as was the towering form of the Raven.


“No.” A voice far softer than the bird reached his ears and Charlie sat
up. He found that he had been lying upon the same altar that he had seen
his father place him upon; an offering to Nocturna. He sighed and bowed
his head, for all that he had witnessed was true, it had come to
fruition.


His father's tale, vast and powerful, could not take away the bargain. He
had been sacrificed for a ghost. 


“And, yet, you were not.” The same voice again, gently admonishing.
Charlie raised his gaze to find a rat standing between the stones where
once the Raven had towered. Black of coat and blue of eye she wore a
simple, if elegant, gown of shimmering black silk. Such was always
Nocturna’s choice of costume for the realm of Dreams was a place with
little color save what those who dreamed brought with them.


Charlie swept an arm across the top of the tor, taking in the massive
stone plinths and altar stone upon which he sat, “What, then, is this if
not a place of sacrifice? Of bargains? Of selling and
purchasing?”


“It is a place like any other, Charlie.” Nocturna admonished softly,
“Like a fountain or a crossroads or a market stall. Simply a place.” She
did not approach any closer than the ring of stones, her hands clasped
demurely before her stomach. This was the first time in all of his years
that Charlie had seen her take on the guise of a rat. It struck him
profoundly and he found himself gasping at it.


Nocturna, a being of the Dreams as much as its Deity, was not limited to
a single aspect; she was change, malleable to her own whim and the needs
of the dream. For Malger she had once been human in appearance,
unchanging, until he himself had lost the form he had been born to and
became a pine marten. So she had changed, for his sake, assuming the
forms of many species in his Dreams, save for a few.


Since the curse took Malger she had never against assumed the form of a
human. Since Misanthe had come to his side she had never against become a
fox. Since Charles had become his son she had not become a rat – until
now, in his painful dream.


“WHY?” He rasped, slapping the stone. “Why did you bring him to do this?
To give me to you?!”


“He did not, Charlie. He never did.”


“Then why am I on this bedamned stone?” He slapped the altar again,
glaring at her.


“I planted a seed, a thought, an idea of a realization that must come, in
time.”


Charlie rolled his eyes and slid off the stone. After a moment glaring
down at it he reached down to grasp its edge with both hands. Despite
being as massive as a castle gate he flung it up and cast it away, but
only as far as the circle of stones. It slammed against the plinths with
a muted crash and fell to the earth, broken into halves. “What are you
blathering about, Nocturna?” He snarled without looking at her, glaring
instead at the broken stone.


The matronly black mouse did not take affront at his angry boldness and
momentary tantrum. “You are a Dreamer, Charlie. It was born to you, as it
was to Malger. But you lacked a very important path to its realization
that Malger had.”


Crossing his arms over his chest Charlie turned to lean his hip against
the empty pedestal upon which the altar stone had rested. “What was
that?”


“A corrupt priest.” Nocturna shrugged her feminine shoulders, long tail
swaying back and forth in the darkness behind her.


“A what?”


“Malger was brought up into Eli’s House, he knew nothing of the Pantheon.
Nothing of the Dreams into which he could stride, unknowing. Had he kept
the Yew the darkness of his sleep would have driven him mad, despite what
I was teaching him.” Nocturna finally paced slowly into the ring of
stones, her fingers trailing lightly along the edge of one half of the
altar slab where it rested propped against the plinth that broke it. “But
he was turned away from Eli by darkness in another, the very Priest of
his sire’s House. His anger at that corruption opened his heart and mind
to my touch, and my instruction, though he knew me not.”


“You were Mosha to him, then.”


“And ever would I have been, but for that skunk, Murikeer.”


“Who brought all of this about.” Once more Charlie waved a hand to take
in the henge.


“In passing, but that was his fate.” Nocturna paced slowly about within
the limits of the stone circle. “But Malger had earned that love long
before Murikeer forced my hand, in taking from me a mighty
burden.”


“This still does not answer my question, Nocturna.” Charlie muttered with
a frown, watching the Goddess of Dreams pace a wide circle around him.
“Why did you force Charles to choose between me and a ghost.”


“No, Charlie, he never chose. He fought, with every last fiber of his
very being, and continues to fight to this day. It was the shadow that
chose, not its bearer. You know this already for you have heard it from
him.” Nocturna’s voice took on some of the crushing power that Charlie
had sensed from the Raven; the Presence of a deity speaking down upon a
mere mortal who challenged it. His heart skipped a beat and Charlie
wilted a little under her flat stare. “But you lacked an escape, Charlie.
The seed had to be planted, for what you are could not be embraced by
what you would have been.”


“Riddles.” Charlie scoffed, though with less vehemence.


“You would have been of Eli’s House, Charlie. You would have lacked the
influence of a corrupt touch to make you question that faith. And, yet,
you would have been a Dreamer as your father is, nonetheless.” Nocturna
stopped pacing, her hand resting lightly upon the aged stone face of a
plinth at which her piercing blue gaze was directed. “The dichotomy
weighed heavily even upon Malger, though he was growing ever more distant
from the Ecclesia at the time due to the evil of one man. Even had I come
to you, in time your faith would have pushed me away, and yet you would
still Dream.”


“As Malger has told me, many times, over the years. It would have driven
me mad.”


“To the deeper grief of your sire, dam, and family than they now suffer,
as you fell apart before them and they could do nothing to help because
they would never have known the reason of it. The loss of Ladero was a
distant wound, suffered long after the blade had fallen. But it cut
deeply, its agony keen, and its injury was so grievous it left a place
for the shadow to fester. But your loss, protracted over time and lack of
understanding, would have been a fierce bludgeon that would have crushed
his spirit. And in so doing, it would have devastated the entirety of
your family.” Nocturna turned her gaze from the stone toward him, one arm
slowly waving to encompass the scene. “So, I had to plant the seeds of
knowledge within his heart, even as the shadow sought to corrupt his soul
to its own ends.”


“So that he could give me up?”


“So that he would know why he must, and he could, and not lose you to the
madness which would have come otherwise.” Coming forward the Goddess
rested a hand lightly upon his shoulder, her eyes incongruously blue
against the black fur and flesh of her rat face. “All he lost in the
bargain was your name, Charlie. He never lost his son. But, in the end,
it was never for his own peace that I led him to bring you to me.” Her
hand dropped, touching the tip of one finger over his heart before
drawing away. “It was for you, and this one moment.”


Charlie raised a single brow, his scalloped ears cupping forward. “This
moment? What of it?”


“This is the moment of choosing, Charlie. Lune or Yew, you can choose.”
She turned slightly, raising her gaze toward the ever present moon that
hung over Her realm. “I can take away that which keeps you from your
sire.”


“I don’t understand.”


“I can take the Dream, Charlie.” Nocturna admitted softly. “If you
ask.”


Charlie leaned back upon the pedestal, struck dumb by that one simple
statement. “You can?” He gaped, aghast. “You could, had I ever asked?!”
Slowly Nocturna nodded, not turning her gaze from the moon. “Why, then,
did you never tell me?”


“Because you never asked, Charlie. And because it would have cost me a
son, myself.”


Charlie’s muzzle opened to speak, but no words escaped. His thoughts
reeled and stumbled about within his mind and all he could do for several
moments was blink, muzzle opening to speak only to close without a word
emerging. He stepped away from the pedestal and paced away from Nocturna.
“What son? I’ve never known you to harbor children as the other aedra or
daedra have.”


“I have, twice before.” Nocturna admitted. “The first I surrendered to
Man that he might Dream, eons ago when the Pantheon was young. Another to
one I thought was a kindred spirit, but I was duped and she was stolen
away from me.” Her voice trailed off with a sigh, tail stilling and ears
backing upon her black head. “I see her yet, though she does not know
me.”


“And, the son?”


Nocturna turned to look over her shoulder, one brow raised. “You,
Charlie.”


Charlie scowled, arms crossing upon his breast. “I am not your son,
Nocturna.”


She nodded, “Not of flesh or spirit, but through the Dream, and Malger
your father, I have known you from the earliest of your years. Had not
Malger stolen the burden of grief from my shoulders I would never have
had concern for your life, Charlie. I would have taken you or let you
languish into madness without concern, but for his interference. Because
I forced him to acknowledge me as I am, and not the guise of Mosha, I
have been forced to bring you to know me as well.” She turned finally, to
meet his incredulous stare, one hand resting over her heart. “And in so
bringing you to know me, I have been brought to know you.” Turning her
hand from its place over her heart she reached out to touch Charlie's
breast over his own heart. “You are, then, a son to me.”


Charlie could only chuff, stunned at that admission, lost for
words.


All of what she had done, to bring him to this moment.


“I can choose?”


“Yes, Charlie.” Nocturna nodded slowly. “I can grant the gift, and I can
take it away.”


“You gave it to me in the first place?”


“Not by direct intention, no. I offered up my first born child that
mortals could Dream as you and your father do. In that, yes, I gifted the
Dream to you. But I did not reach out and give it to you as I did
Misanthe.”


“Then how did I get this, Nocturna? My sire, my dam, their entire line…
none of them bent to the Pantheon.”


“Nor did Malger’s, yet still he Dreams, as did others in his
lineage.”


“You can… let me be as Charles would have wished? A normal son, like
Erick?”


Frowning, Nocturna nodded. Charlie noticed that her hands clutched each
other more tightly upon the stomach of her black gown. “Yes,
Charlie.”


“Can you take something else?”


Her eyes came up and she tilted her head slightly. “Something
else?”


“The Nightmare.”


Nocturna’s brows drew down slightly, confusion making her whiskers
twitch. “You bear them, Charlie, as they are a Dreamer’s duty.”


“No, Nocturna, not my Nightmare. My father’s; Charles. You gave them, can
you not take them away?”


“Guilt gives them, Charlie, not I. He decries me more than I believe he
does any of the Pantheon, moreso even than the Daedra, for what he feels
I have done to him.”


“Because of what he was, has been, forced to do!” Charlie pleaded. “And
he suffers for it! This dream, this place, plagues him such that I was
pulled into it. I have felt how it tears at him!”


Nocturna tilted her head slightly and raised both brows, the pink flesh
of her black furred ears pinning forward. “You ask that I take his
nightmares? What of your Dream?”


Striding forward Charlie reached out and rested both hands upon her
shoulders. “I am yours, Nocturna. Did you take the Dream I would still
be, for I have known you as both goddess and matron; mother. But my sire
has been tortured enough. Please, take these dreams from him.” Stepping
back slightly he dropped his hands from her shoulders and moved to bend a
knee before her. “Give him peace and I will offer my soul to you,
freely.”


Surprisingly strong hands for such a petite frame captured Charlie’s
upper arms before he could kneel, holding him upright. “Peace is his,
Charlie. I cannot take from him his sense of guilt, but I can take the
dreams that dredge it up afresh.” Releasing his upper arms she moved her
hands to his shoulders and held him at their length. “I have never asked
your father to bow before me, Charlie, as a supplicant to my sphere. I
will not ask it of you, either. Your soul is yours.” With a smile pulling
at the corners of her muzzle her blue eyes twinkled. “And, you know Me,
as you do your mothers both, and only beyond that as a goddess. No faith
will ever bar you from that knowledge, no matter how closely you cleave.
If you turn your gaze toward Eli you will not close yourself to me. I
will be here for you, always.”


“And I for you, Mother.”


The dark-furred rat allowed her smile to stretch nearly the full length
of her muzzle. “Thank you, my son.” Her hand touched the fur at his cheek
much as his mother did to show affection when in the public eye. For a
moment it seemed she might do more, but then she turned her gaze toward a
moonlit path leading away from the plinths. “Are you ready?”


She did not need to ask any further. “I am, Mother. And, for my
father?”


Her smile did not waver. “He will sleep in peace from this night forward,
my son.”


Charlie sighed and smiled. “Thank you.” He took a step toward the
plinths, and then passed through to the path beyond. A few steps and he
turned to look back, but plinths, shattered table, and the rat who was
Nocturna were gone. Only the bright moon remained to cast its silver glow
upon the land of dreams. He would not see the dread bargain
again.


“I have so many mothers!” He chortled to himself as he returned to his
nightwatch over the dreams of Keepers.


----------


Thursday, June 24, 724 CR, Ere the
Dawn




Charlie rose early the next morning before either Hogue or Jackson
could stir him. He slipped on his robe and quietly made his way through
the fresh thrushes, tiptoeing past his body servants as they slumbered on
their cots between his quarters and the hall. The whole house was silent;
not even Jeremias the Chandler was up to light the hall lamps. As a rat
Charlie did not need the extra light and knew every passage in the Sutt
home by heart.


But his nose did detect a familiar musk that had recently trod the hall.
He followed the scent out to the main family hall and smiled when he saw
his father leaning against one of the narrow windows overlooking
Keeptowne. Through that window he would see the dawn come.


The rat's entrance did not go unnoticed. His father smiled to him and
beckoned him to come closer with one paw. Charlie continued to walk as
silently as he could across the rich carpets until he was at his father's
side. They both gazed into an indigo sky as one by one the stars dwindled
from sight. Neither said anything for several minutes.


It was Malger who broke the silence though only in a whisper. “Dawn will
be here soon.” 


Charlie nodded, twitching his whiskers. “And the streets will be clogged
with travelers trying to leave Keeptowne.”


“Euper will be overrun for two days.”


“It will be at least three before life returns to normal.”


“At least.”


Charlie said nothing for a time and neither did Malger. After a minute of
silence the marten lifted one arm and set a hand upon his son's shoulders
to pull him closer. Charlie leaned into his father and smiled. His father
smiled in return.


“I spoke to Nocturna last night, as promised.”


“And?”


Charlie took a deep breath, straightening to his normal height, and let
his powerful rodentine incisors show fully with his smile. “I Dream,
still. I'm ready to seek a thief with you, Father.” The fingers of one
hand rose to touch the glimmering mithril crescent moon pendant upon its
chain about his neck.


“It will be difficult. We only have another month before your mother,
sister and I must leave for Breckaris.”


Charlie stood taller on his toes. “We are Sutt, Father. We will catch
him.”


Malger pulled him tighter. The first rays of the rising sun glinted off
the marten's fangs as he smiled.





**** THE END ****



----------


May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love,


Charles Matthias 




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