Between The Lights: Epilogue(s)

[liquidcitrus]

This is an actual-play writeup of a game I ran on the Jenna Moran fanclub on Discord.

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There is a sort of eternity, in the halls and the keeps of the Nobilis. It is not stasis, for their relationships and institutions are never completely stable. It is not quite that the present moment stretches eternally, or that it moves in an endless loop. But time is flexible, there. A thousand years ago, and a thousand years in the future, might be the same thing as now.

-- Lorica, by Matt Lincoln

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Today, we see what happened to everyone. Dozens of plot threads were dropped during the course of this campaign, but, well... even the ones that we never followed up on have their own natural conclusions, and I wanted to know what they were.

I have rearranged the discussions we had so that they are in better storytelling order. Therefore, there might be a stray reference or two to something that comes later in this document, and for that I apologize.

The Wildlady Konstanian

The Wildlady Konstanian lets Megan Kieros go, at her request. Claudia of Constantinople dies a noble death taking down some Deceiver or other. Rhonda Caseworth eventually ends up in the Falling Stars. Acadia --

<Sasha> Konstanian cups him delicately in her immense grasp. "Acadia," she says. "...Are you familiar with the Rite of Rescue?"
<HG> He turns his face away. "The Power of Truth is dead. The Estate of Truth is gone."
<Sasha> "It mustn't always be so."
<HG> "I am not an Excrucian, nor will I ever be." A single jeweled tear hangs in the corner of his dark, star-filled eyes; rolls down his face that without changing at all has somehow become beautiful beyond compare. "But I am the Strategist who is dying of the subjectivity of the truth. And to incorporate the rot in my heart into one such as you would be unspeakably wrong."

A few months after the events of the game, Acadia comes to the Wildlady Konstanian and tells her that Truth no longer exists. His last request is for the Wildlady Konstanian to save his sister-caelestis, the Power of Logic. And then he leaves, never to be seen again.

<Sasha> It might be so that he is somewhere in that far and sunless land, there waiting.
<Sasha> But Konstanian has given up the part of her that could walk there.

In his memory, the Wildlady Konstanian offers the Rite of Rescue to the Power of Logic, Lucy Adamantine; stealing her away from the Mimic Angel Laodan as it implodes.

The Wildlady Konstanian takes the Botanist Eliot of Vervain, someone from the files I've never mentioned because he somehow never came up, as her Noble of Alienation. She has Lucy Adamantine's Logic, and tries her damnedest to rehabilitate that Estate into something that might belong in Creation again. And she has a third Estate, too... which I won't name, because it'll come up later in this writeup.

Meanwhile, the Darklord Kethredamen is furious that Alienation was taken from him. Deep in the world, he confronts her. She confronts him right back. He backs down, and does not work with her again.

<Sasha> "If you did not want this, Keith."
<Sasha> "You should have killed me when you had the chance."
<HG> He stares at you, and does whatever is the Spirit World's equivalent of backing away slowly.

Every few years, the Wildlady Konstanian requests a seat on the Council of Four. She is stonewalled every time. But there are plenty of other things to occupy her life, between sending the same request again and again every few years. Does this state of affairs last forever? I don't know.

<Sasha> As far as Imperators go, Konstanian is impatient.
<Sasha> But still; a hundred years isn't too long to wait. Diane Spinnaker waited that long for someone to knock her from her perch, and she wasn't even a rolling story in the seas below the world.
<Sasha> Plus; she has a Chancel to create, friends to maintain, an overworked underling to mollify. A letter written in the sky she still thinks about.

Toby Houston comes, to ensure that the sealing of Anze Torquil is complete. He finally announces to her that it is. But he behaves like, and believes that, whoever Sasha Konstanian might be is gone, swallowed by the Imperial fire. The Wildlady Konstanian is deeply offended by this.

<Sasha> Listen: Konstanian believes herself to be a thief of the Imperial essence, human striving overcoming the limits of the world.
<Sasha> And she is an Imperator, so she is what she believes herself to be.

The Society of Steel

Now at rest, the Revolution cannot be called a Revolution anymore. Wildlady Konstanian christens it the Society of Steel.

Unfortunately, just inventing a new Society has not exactly solved the issue of factionalism in Noble society. If anything, it accentuated it, by cracking it in half. Even the bridging efforts of people on both sides - and the eventual sharing of the Falling Stars and the Green Snakes, as organizations that are kept by and can be joined from either side - will never heal the divide. But Diane, Cheshire, Punctuation, Rumor... they all try.

There are a few hardliners, of course, who refuse to accept the Society of Steel's legitimacy. Soil's-Regal. Bran of the peacock-feathers, who was once Diane's. But fewer and fewer agree with them, over the years.

<Sasha> Soil of course is barred from Locus Konstanian, the Lotus Estate
<Sasha> Konstanian is capable of being incredibly petty, should she so choose
<Sasha> And delights in bringing up, whenever she happens to speak to a Power, that she cheated Soil's Regal out of four untoward accusations against her honor

What happens to Revolution herself, I ask? Sasha's player tells me. Her purpose -- the bleeding, and the screaming, and the striving -- gone, she works as the Erus (the local ruler) of Locus Konstanian and the administrator for the Society of Steel. The hollow in her heart left by all that fighting gone will eventually heal, with time and work and learning to become friends with her signatories, but... it will take a long time. And there is one wound she keeps, in the memory of Sonja Aronsdottir, who inspired Sasha to envision a better world. The cut on her palm, the representation of the line that Sonja once sliced in her palm, still drips catalytic mercury.

Diane's other Anchors, and their eventual fate? Well, Vien of the raven-cape is dead. Bran of the peacock-feathers tries and fails to strip the Society of Steel of legitimacy. And her wife Annie, who is the white sand beach, will eventually die fulfilling the duties of a Power, but that will be many years from now.

The Digital Cleave never does become better people.

It takes many, many years for Megan to become comfortable with the idea of being part of a Society again, but in the end she probably does join. As an alternative to the Ravens that many Nobles use to visualize and converse with the spirit of the Society of Flowers, the Society of Steel begins to prefer pigeons. Megan gives her blessing.

<Sasha> Pigeons are tough little bastards. They will survive anything, live anywhere. Worm their way to the cracks of society and nest there. They were something beautiful and glorious, before, but to the right mindset they are more beautiful and glorious still.

Maddie's 14th Birthday

<Maddie> A few months after defeating Anze, Maddie turns 14. And on that day she has the most lavish spelling bee there ever was.
<Maddie> On that day, the final word of the spelling bee is one that no one has ever heard before, Rider or not. When she speaks it, everyone in attendance who has ears catches fire.
<Maddie> The next day, she turns 14 again, of course. And the day after that.

Maddie moves her "yearly" spelling bees to Locus Konstanian; and, soon afterwards, she finds at least a word of that Forbidden Alphabet she wanted so much. And turns 14. Then she continues to turn 14 for many, many years to come.

She crashes fashion shows wearing ARthur, the sunglasses; nobody can stop her and nobody tries. She keeps Hattie (who never does admit to having agency) on top of the Doombot, who remains completely, unsettlingly immobile and dead. She Anchors the elephant, who occasionally flies her places. She burns Anze's hand, and keeps the candle that she used to burn it.

<Maddie> The candle doesn't have a wondrous power, but it's alive even in the prosaic
<Maddie> Her bond is that she owes it seven favors for defiling it with a strategist's flesh
<Maddie> In the first ten years, it's only called in one

After spelling bees, Maddie and the Wildlady Konstanian play games with each other. Maddie wins most of them, including tic-tac-toe, Connect Four, and Uno. After Rescuing Logic, Konstanian becomes terrifyingly good at Monopoly. Though apparently she does give Maddie a bonus payout for her "birthday" after some pleading, and then Maddie decides to drag a game on for five days, collect all that birthday money, and win that way.

Because she is definitionally fourteen, most of Maddie's memory is lost in the mists of deep time, and usually - when she isn't being an Ancient - she's only ever aware of the last handful of years of it. The memories of the year of Anze Torquil and Revolution and Sonja, though... they begin to fuzz at the edges, but they never go away.

<Maddie> She will always remember Sonja, though, as the sister she had that died when she was like 5
<Maddie> (Similarly, over time Konstanian becomes "that sister I had who ascended to the imperial plane when I was 5")

Maddie does, eventually, acquire the Estate of Ice Cream. She gives it to her mother Grace, who theoretically remains Anchored and subordinate to her daughter but in practice becomes a more equal partner in their relationship.

The Darklord Kethredamen is never really the same again, after he loses Alienation. He's still an Imperator, still the story the world tells itself of how fog and ice cream and metaphors exist. But his demeanor grows smaller, more brittle, more willing to let his Nobles run everything.

(One of Maddie's few true fears is losing everything if Kethredamen should ever disappear. The Wildlady Konstanian offers to perform the Rite of Rescue on Maddie if that ever happens. Maddie is very, very grateful.)

As to Maddie's relationship with the two Societies? Her position suspended between the two, never having formally renounced the Society of Flowers but personal friends with the one who made the sword itself, leads to her spelling bees being one of the best ways to meet people from the other Society. Sometimes this leads to new friendships forged; sometimes it leads to the Noble equivalent of bar brawls. And the allegiances of Maddie herself -- everyone knows why she does not go on pilgrimages to Misenchronic Engine, and why she spends so much time in Locus Konstanian.

Occasionally she is attacked, by Excrucians or others, and she wins almost all of these fights.

<HG> Honestly, you fight a lot of things off. Mostly successfully. The entire society split thing, and your position in it, ensures that you're always an easy target for disgruntled members of the one or the other.
<Maddie> Maddie doesn't even mind that, really. She likes fighting.
<Maddie> Especially because it's usually followed by winning.

Maddie attends the funeral of Ariane Lambert, that one Saint of Scheduling who tried to bribe her with "the Firebreathers". She remains on good terms with the rest of that Familia.

Every few weeks Maddie irritates Mount St. Helens, who suffers the fourteen-year-old trying to challenge her to thumb-wrestling or invite her to spelling bees with relative dignity.

<Maddie> Maddie invites Helens to every spelling bee and occasionally comes by to be annoying. She doesn't really mind that Helens mostly brushes her off. That's what makes it fun!
<HG> She responds to every invitation to the spelling bee by cutting the first page remaining out of a dictionary she keeps for the purpose and mailing it back. She is already to the letter D.
<Maddie> Maddie has every one framed, in a giant room dedicated to the purpose in Locus Kethredamen
<HG> She has also threatened that should you continue to push her past the end of the dictionary she will start on the Encyclopedia Britannica.
<Maddie> Maddie has all the time in the world.

And the little lightbulb, the first thing that Maddie ever took from Anze, lives a long and happy life in one of the chandeliers of Locus Kethredamen.

The Departure of Saul

Saul, the purpose of his ascension now finished, Sonja's death now avenged, finds himself empty, drifting, purposeless. Maddie can't help because she's Maddie. Kethredamen can't help because he's been broken by the loss of Alienation. So Saul Ravid, the author and the Power of Metaphors, goes to the Wildlady Konstanian.

<Sasha> Ironically enough, Konstanian wants to check in on him.
<Sasha> She's fine. She is becoming herself. She is mad at Toby Houston and Surolam and is trying to understand the rules to Monopoly but overall she's fantastic.
<Saul> "You could always play something that isn't Monopoly. Monopoly is a bad game."
<Sasha> "Did you know," she says by way of conversation, "Free Parking doesn't actually do anything? It's just a blank space."
<Saul> "Not according to the house rules."
<Sasha> Konstanian gestures at the steel-flower landscape. "I think this is my house."

Wildlady Konstanian suggests that he write another book. It is impossible to fill the hole Sonja left in his heart, but maybe he can grow something new. Saul hesitates, so Konstanian continues: She has a new Estate, birthed from her nature, and she has been saving it for someone worthy. And if Saul created the wondrous Sonja Aronsdottir once... he could, perhaps, create someone new to carry that legacy. Tell another story, of someone who could aspire and make the world better in the way Sonja's vision of Heaven could.

<Sasha> "You created that, Saul."
<Saul> "It was..." Saul's voice chokes. "A fluke. An accident. I'm not anywhere close to that ideal myself. I don't know how I could do that again."
<Sasha> "I think Sonja would say you should try."
<Sasha> "Don't tell the same story. Don't write the same book. But... write something about the way you wish things were. About how things should be. About how you wish we were."
<Sasha> "And I will make that dream something closer to reality."

Many years later, Saul returns, bearing a new book. Someone who grew up in the shadow of Sonja Aronsdottir, who was expected to follow in the footsteps of her older sister, but who eventually carved a path of her own. Her name is Birgitta Aronsdottir. Konstanian takes the stuff of the Lotus Estate and makes a golem of it, takes the story and breathes into it a soul, and gives it the divine spark of...

<HG> and there is a girl with cowslip in her auburn hair, eyes that glint of steel, the simple dress of a traveler, and the 7-11 logo tattooed onto her left foot.
<HG> Which is actually very easy to see immediately because she is barefoot.
<Saul> "7-11. Really?" Saul looks up at Konstanian.
<Sasha> "Would you have written the same story if you knew that was the Estate?"
<Saul> "No."
<Sasha> "It is as it should be."

Yes. The convenience store 7-11, the place from whence Sasha Konstanian was plucked from the mortal world so long ago, is an Estate of reality now. (And one of their marketing slogans used to be "Oh thank Heaven", so it even fits.) And when she opens her eyes, Konstanian tells her what her duty is.

<Sasha> "Protect the world from those who would destroy it."
<Sasha> "Shape 7-11 into something beautiful."
<Sasha> "Do what you would like in the world."
<Sasha> "...Be my friend, perhaps, if you wish."

And so Birgitta Aronsdottir learns how to exist. She is truly Immortal, held at the YA protagonist age of 17 (though it isn't her birthday). She learns to wear shoes because otherwise people ask weird questions about the logo on her foot. She fosters her Estate in the world, by advising the 7-11 higher-ups on where to open stores, and strolling into stores and fixing the Slurpee machines without asking. She keeps birds and studies the divine Botany. She goes sledding with Maddie on Mount St. Helens after fresh snowfalls.

Eventually she finds herself ready to have one last conversation with Saul Ravid, her author.

<HG> They're in the Lotus Estate again.
<HG> She's set up a cheap plastic tablecloth as a picnic blanket, and has unpacked some sandwiches and bottled tea.

They talk about who Sonja was. What beauty is. What Saul's lost along the way. He says that he cannot find the answer to the emptiness within him that Sonja left, and it is driving him to wander the Ash. She tells him that she won't stop him from going away, but she will be sad if he has to leave.

At the end, Saul offers her the journals of the Powers of Metaphors. She refuses to take them, though she does speed-read and commit them to photographic memory (because Aspect can do that). She tells him to put them back in the libraries of Locus Kethredamen, in case someone else needs them.

<Saul> "...Birgitta. Thank you. Just, for being you." He smiles.
<HG> "I mean, I can't be anyone else but me, can I?" she teases him, gently.

Saul promises that he will come back one day. Revolution gifts him the Ravens' knowledge of the secret paths among the great branches of the world tree. Birgitta hands him a 7-11 rewards card that will never run out of points, for if he ever needs food along the way. The Lady Konstanian says she'll make sure that Maddie doesn't burn down the Chancel while he's gone.

He leaves. I don't know if he ever comes back.

<HG> And maybe then she looks at him retreating, and then looks at the Lady Konstanian, and she says -
<HG> "I couldn't keep him."
<HG> "I'm sorry."
<Sasha> Konstanian is unconcerned. "It happened as it was going to happen."
<Sasha> "We will see him again."
<HG> Birgitta looks at the little flowers that float ever gently through the air of Locus Konstanian. Right now they're cherry blossoms. Impermanence. "I hope he finds what he's looking for."

On The Next Episode...

All we've got left is my own retrospective. Though I suppose I might make a masterpost, once all this is over.