>>6330687“So be it…” she picks the vial, holding it at arm’s distance like it could harm her, then, she closes her eyes, uncorks it and downs the contents. The blue liquid disappears inside her body. “Ack!” She sputters, giving the vial back to him. “It’s—it’s terrible. I can’t feel my tongue!”
“I know I know…” he rubs her shoulder, trying to comfort her.
“What was that?” You inquire.
“Just a precautional measure,” Helias reassures you with a half-smile. He touches the vial, which seeps into the glassy darkness of his body and disappears. “For the future.”
No further words are given. You let it go.
Instead, focus on the pod, which is starting to stir in the air.
The Helias from the past picks up an enfeebled Bragia and fits her inside the pod, darkened skin, ragged clothes and mace—and whatever it remains of her dignity. She holds out a hand for him and he springs up like a droplet off a splash, hanging onto the surface and slithering inside to wrap himself around her.
The pod raises silently in the night, towards the looming form of Ansàrra’s spherical palace, flying without a sound over the city.
“Is this it?” You ask watching the pod raise.
Did Ansàrra strike her out of the sky like that? Without ever hearing her?
But it would not explain her current looks—
No, there is something else.
The Stilladìa does not answer. She just lets the images from her memories speak for themselves: the pod raising in the air, the spherical palace growing from what it must have been Willow’s moon to as large as a house, then a whole square, then close enough you can make out the different geometries of its interior, the arches and causeways the staircases and the towers that seem to turn into each other, into a fugue that gives you a headache.
Ansàrra’s palace.
[cont.]
I noticed stupid Canva did not correctly portray Sumerian numbers so here's a screenshot. REEEEE why can't 2025 programs correctly display 5000 years old script 