Reverend Father Sienna had appointed me as his scribe. We had a chance to speak to the prisoner and so I have transcribed, in a way that is at the very least eligible to Sister Chestnut— our acting editor— what the man in the black cloak had said:
A compelling argument, dear Reverend. If you wish to hear my tale without constraints, I will not deny you the conversation. There are many things of which we might discuss regarding our Pylon— as you call it.
My body fails me now and I’m afraid I cannot share much about the aforementioned event with the grace of lucidity. You may agree with me perhaps, that anything unimportant ought to be forgotten. Whether or not you believe my words is up to you as all I am able to offer is a story —held intact by the larval-things which consists my being. For the story I shall recall to you, if I wish to claim it for my own, ought not be forgotten.
The memory is that of a boy named Koda, born of a once populate township, remaining now as the few desolate kubu huts his father —and his father’s father—had built at the foot of Ennoia’s tallest hollow mountain. Their neighboring fellows, dumbfounded hylics though they were, would regale Koda and his sister of the once mighty Caldera. The great mountain our people had lived in surrounding the Pylon. How they had lived side by side with the Paraclete and could communicate with him whereas we were only permitted simple prayer.
The twins named Koda and Moth had been born after that momentous calamity, the destruction of our Pylon, never to meet their mother as she had fled further into the retreating seas alongside those who feared the land’s devastation. The land surrounding their kubu had been turned infertile, and on the hottest days, Koda was left to bake under Ennoia’s sun; imagining his absent mother as the unknown forces of our world rescinded and reclaimed, the waters of the once proud ocean.
You look at me with confusion dear Reverend, however the story I tell is not of any myth or legend, for we have no history by which to interpret. It is truth unabridged for I am not one to hide away from honesty despite the shackles I’ve currently allowed to be bared upon myself. Your scribe ought to pay attention as what I am about to recount to you now shall be the first evidence of Ennoia’s existence beyond the Bythos of which your great ship’s voyage had embarked upon.
It was on that hottest day when Koda had been sent by his father northward towards the fighting against those who had retreated along with our seas. He was still very much a boy, the glory of battle rung in his ears and tickled his brain. To Koda, this was the most fortunate of opportunities save for the fact that he would have to leave behind his twin sister —who was named Moth if I hadn’t said so already— behind with their father.
An epiphany arrived to the boy long after he had set out. A sudden sense of lucidity that I claw these walls for now. That the most minute of decisions could lead to the most horrible of calamities. Although he failed to realize (though perhaps not unfairly) that his present had already been decided by that which was yet to occur— overwritten by that which must occur. Do you understand dearest Reverend?
Mere days after Koda’s departure, Moth would run away from her father’s kubu towards the River Nerys, where we had been forbidden to enter. The river sourced itself from a swamp of glowing waters and dense fog that stray children (curious as they always are!) would often find themselves in, never to return.
When Moth had made her way to the swamp, she found that it had vanished completely. Replaced by the sheer drop of a cliffside she now found herself standing at the edge of. She collapsed on her knees and prayed deeply to the Paraclete (who is said to have only listened in return for sacrifice), dangerously unaware of the sediments that had shifted following the Pylon’s destruction.
Perhaps its first destruction before Moth’s enlightenment.
Moth could do none but count up in her head, a habit she acquired in times of fear, as she fell down from the cliff and into the cold swamp of Nerys. A land that had now laid in the lowest parts of our side of Ennoia. Despair struck in her in that final moment as she counted up to a number that would remain to her as unsatisfactory. A number of which she believed could’ve been of significant importance before all she could see was darkness.
I had once thought it good fortune. Moth’s revival had to have been that of pure happenstance. For as damned as we were, the Paraclete could not have been there to observe and decide that a single minute servant could be of great priority. Still —the darkness was momentary and Moth could see her body as you do I and I do you. She bent forward and attempted to cradle it in her aching arms and fragile legs though she hesitated to even take a single step as her vision had been impaired by the slashing claws of flying raptors— thought long extinct. She could see it now in her memory, the pain that followed, yet she could not remember having actually experienced it. Followed by the wandering spirits of the Nerys, she brought her corpse to he who was called Poemandres —forever to be in eternal servitude to her.
I would like to go on about the Nerys and its mysteries, dear Reverend, however I tire now and request that we continue this discussion tomorrow. Though here on your ship, I cannot tell whether it is day or night therefore I rely on your good wisdom to return once the appropriate time has passed and I am fully rested.
