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+--- Thread: A Lesson (/thread-654.html)
- Armande - 10-06-2013
((This post takes place after Seth departs, and is meant to converge back onto the storyline with Aria's studies))
Aria was never truly alone with her thoughts. The Atharim went to great lengths to secure her privacy, however Armande also took great measures to ensure proper records of her progess. One of the major deficits of his predecessors was thin recordkeeping. The Atharim were masters of documenting the external, but monitoring their own internal members was dismal at best. There was no excuse for this failure, and under Armande's reign, would not be allowed to continue. Father Dmitri was part of the process, as was Father Joseph before him. There were even events of Atharm Initiation under Regus Wilhelm Ravid where no record of the newly initiated member's identity was known. That bothered Armande immensely. That there could be Atharim in the world unbound to their overseeing body of authority. Not only were these loosely held members liabilities, but it could impede the search for his own successor; a tradition of the Regus was to identify and train his own successor.
Armande glanced at the time, and noted how many hours Aria had been asleep. There were moments during the review of her video when he sat forward on his seat, silently willing her to come to a conclusion. She frequently took notes, and thankfully her words were transcribed immediately to the Atharim's network, synced by the penstylus she used.
It was one such screen that Armande closed. He'd taken his own notations overlaid on hers, questions, clarifications, even circling phrases that were of questionable legibility as she grew more and more fatigued.
The library was cool, held at a temperature and humidity slightly beneath comfort level to protect the contents of the room. Armande stood over the table where Aria worked those long hours, absorbing what events had been imprinted here. The child was an essential tool to breaking this code. Neither he himself, a master linguist and historian, nor a talent such as the burgeoning celebrity John Smith, would be able to translate the Voynich Manuscript. Of this Armande was confident. It took a furia, a very sensitive furia, to read the words. For they must be of Tongues, glossolalia. There was no other explanation.
Turning, he studied the child curled in a corner chair. So young and burdened by the world around her, a frightened baby calf struggling to gain its footing. Yet Armande did not sympathize with her. She was a keeper of secrets few in the world were worthy of holding. Father Dmitri's caretaking was meant to protect her, and by extension, the Atharim as a whole. Armande as Regus was a tool of their society as much as Aria as Empathic Furia, in mind they could not be any more different from one another, yet in function, the two were exactly alike. His life had been chosen for him as much as hers.
"Wake child." He spoke coolly, careful to maintain his emotions steady in her presence. It had been a failure on his part to behave as he had with Mr. Marx in front of her. He would not repeat the same mistake twice.
When she aroused, he requested her impressions of the work rather than her interpretation. It was not an academic translation he was seeking, it was the scent and mind of empathy itself, something alien.
- Aria - 10-07-2013
A cool voice permeated her sleepless dreams. "Wake child." Aria didn't want to rouse, she didn't want to move. But her back started to ache and she knew the Regus wouldn't like to have to wait on her. She idly thought, How long have I been asleep? It didn't really matter if it was a few moments or hours. Her superior wanted her attention. Aria blinked blurry eyes at him. At least he had stopped pouring emotions out every pore.
Aria sat in the chair properly and blinked away the haze. He hadn't waited long before he was questioning her about the paper, about what she'd felt. She'd written everything down, but she supposed he had to hear it for himself. Aria nodded before getting up to sit back at the desk with the parchment sitting idly by.
She wasn't about to touch it again. But looking at it could bring the feelings back. Bring everything she had felt to the forefront. It was like tracking a monster, once she latched on to the emotions, until it died or changed drastically she could track it indefinitely. It could take years with technology and transportation, but she would always know that feeling that scent anywhere. Thankfully she would never cross the path of this person or this parchment again once the Regus was done with her.
Aria glanced at her notes, she didn't need them, but she didn't want anyone to think she was making things up. She looked up as the Regus stared down at her. She hated that most people towered above her to begin with, but it wasn't only his stature in height that made Aria uncomfortable. His gaze made Aria shiver. She wanted to be gone sooner rather than later. But she knew that wasn't going to happen as long as she stayed in Moscow. He was stationed here now. She'd always be under his watchful eye.
"It's hard to explain what one feels." She added to herself, Can you even do it? She thanked God he couldn't read minds. "I feel death and destruction. The end of days. The fear the confusion and panic. But it's not just that. It was more specific. Something to do with a slain oroborous, not dead - slain. Like a dagger through the heart, not just plain dead" She paused and looked to the picture drawn in the corner and she pointed, "That one in particular."
She sighed, "Feelings are hard to explain. I kept getting Destroyer, but it's not the right word either. Something I probably read in the past brought Apollyn to light." She shrugged still not remembering where she had read that word. "I don't know why it sticks but it's the only word that doesn't slither away when I try to put the feelings to words."
"I can't make anything else out. It's all covered in the fear and destruction and the death of the end of days."
- Armande - 10-09-2013
Many times in life, Armande yearned for the ability to read one's thoughts. As Aria said, it is hard to explain what one feels. While broad, abstract sensations of oppression, threat, and force were understood, the question of others' emotions were alien concepts to him. So he satiated his mind of all aggression and focused on the necessity of this single task: Aria.
His eyes followed the trail of her fingers across the page. Before she truly fell into the bliss of the past, he came alongside her. The child's head barely reached his chest, and he forced himself to remember her as a sharp tool in the dark, a responsibility she was born to become, rather than as an autonomous consultant.
She began, and the chill wash of trepidation emulsified the pitch of detestation poisoning the back of his throat. He remained calm, what with the two clashing emotions battling for supremacy in his mind. What remained was clear understanding and razor sharp focus. This document mapped the signs for the End of Days, otherwise known as the End Times. The apocalypse was on the horizon.
He knew exactly what he needed to do.
He drew Aria away from the document. For now he let it remain where it was until he could properly store it once more. Hopefully, should he meet Mr. Smith, he could share some of the symbols and markings Aria correlated with specific emotions, such as slain and Destroyer, and the two could collectively draw from their own knowledge for parallel sources, especially this one glyph that seemed to give Aria the most trouble.
In the meantime, he had a society to lead.
And he intended to start with Aria.
He clasped his hands behind his back, "Ms. Piccolo, you are aware about our prophecies of Apollyon, whom the Jews called Abaddon. The symbol of eternity," he gestured at the ouroboros, "slain. Apollyon shall slay time itself. The gods have returned. This we all know. Remember that Apollyon is one such god. His reign will destroy all we know. Time itself." he urged, eyes glowing with chained ferocity. That MUST be what the document implied: Apollyon will slay the ouroboros and herald the end of days. A bone-chilling interpretation.
He did not wish to press her too far too soon, however. Therefore, a gesture and she was dismissed from the Regus' presence.
- Aria - 10-10-2013
Aria sighed. It was a doomsday prophecy and the Atharim were at the heart of it. Aria disliked prophecy, it meant lack of free will, which was supposed to be given to all men and women from God himself. It is how Adam and Eve betrayed him by eating the apple of knowledge. But the Regus spoke of reborn gods. They weren't gods, they are men who make choices, Aria was sure of that, there is only one God.
At the wave of a hand it was over.
Aria left the study and wondered what next. Where to go? She had no home as of yet. It couldn't be overly hard to find one. She hoped. But Aria was too tired, her had swam with the emotions of the paper. She needed to be away from it, but instead, she curled up on a lounge chair in the library and slept more. It could be a while before she had this much peace and quiet.