reading_rainstorm | Stephanie's Heart: The Archive

In your dreams you are in a thick and foggy forest. It could be mistaken for the woods around Tributary if you don’t know your plants. You are on a trail leading into a clearing, in the center of which is a simple, concrete structure with a single door. A chaos star has been spray painted on it with a stencil.

You approach the structure. Looking over your shoulder you see a large shape lurking in the fog, obscured by the foliage. Two shining Feline eyes peer at you from the brush. You feel your heart rate spike as you turn the knob and find an old fashioned elevator tucked neatly inside with an accordion grate standing between you and the ornate, gilded interior. It creaks open as the presence behind you steps into the clearing. It is a sphinx, an eight foot tall lioness with the face of a woman and the large brown wings of an eagle on her back . The feminine face and olive skin tone of a Greek woman from antiquity smiles as she readies herself to to pounce, the wings on her back stretching and give a few readying flaps.You back into the elevator and close the gate with shaking hands as the sphinx leaps at the elevator. Her claws twisting and shearing the metal of the grate slowly, but she is too late. The elevator springs to life and you descend.

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A small light above flickers on as it illuminates your view outside the exposed elevator as you sink into the concrete structure. You descend for a few moments before an opening in the concrete gives you the view of an observation deck on a hill, looking down on the sprawling suburbs and campus of a college town. The elevator continues downward. The concrete gives way to old, dusty marble as you continue sinking. You see a vast maze stretch far and away that gets nearer and nearer. This has to be it, right? Your destination? No. You plunge further down, past the walls of the maze and the marble is replaced again by well polished wood. Beautiful stained mahogany rises past you as your descent finally starts to slow. You are greeted by another grate that creaks open for you. Entreating you to enter.

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From:

reading_rainstorm

She shrugs.

"They were strangers to us."

From:

maskformask

Were they...?

[shrugs back] I can ask Stephanie about it. There's no changing the past regardless, so there isn't much point in speculating on what I would or wouldn't have done.

From:

reading_rainstorm

"They were. We still aren't sure why we saved them."

From:

maskformask

Is the plural here "the sphinx" and "Stephanie?"

From:

reading_rainstorm

"Yes...the lines are blurry sometimes.

The difference between me and her.

At least from my perspective."

From:

maskformask

That's understandable. You've spent a lot of time seeing through her eyes, haven't you?

From:

reading_rainstorm

"You have it backwards. She sees through mine."

From:

maskformask

Fair enough. But wasn't at least one of them someone you did know?

From:

reading_rainstorm

"This is how we met. Just another kid meddling with things they could not possibly understand.

Something Stephanie barely understood."

From:

maskformask

Ahh. Well, many of us wouldn't be who we are without dabbling in the dark arts.

From:

reading_rainstorm

The sphinx smiles.

"Very true, indeed.

You're at the start of our trailhead on that path, if you want to know how it all started."

The end lies at the beginning.

From:

maskformask

I'll keep going, then. I'd like to know Stephanie better. And you better, I suppose.

[does that. I assume the implication is... the next room?]

From:

reading_rainstorm

"Would it not be wise to walk a ritual in her shoes then?"

By all means, you can leave if you want. There's a feeling of something unfinished as you head to the door, though.

From:

maskformask

[blankly, like a man from a canon where rituals regularly either summon abominations or drive people past all reason and understanding]

Why would I enact a ritual when I don't know what it does?

From:

reading_rainstorm

The sphinx blinks a few times.

"You mean you couldn't figure out it summons an arch fae?

Really, I figured you were smarter than that."

From:

maskformask

We don't have those where I'm from, except in misunderstood stories of other things. My understanding is that's still a poor idea.

So it wasn't you being summoned, then.

From:

reading_rainstorm

"No, my origin is still unknown to us. In truth I have been stalking the border of this memory looking for a lead to that end.

Something to show Stephanie so she resists her fate less."

From:

maskformask

And what's her fate, from your perspective?

From:

reading_rainstorm

"To become me, of course."

From:

maskformask

Well, obviously she's going to resist that. She wants to be Stephanie.

From:

reading_rainstorm

"I am also Stephanie. She does not see it yet, but we are the same. We have the same goals. I just am more willing to do what is necessary to pursue them."

From:

maskformask

Have you considered working on your pitch a little?

From:

reading_rainstorm

"We don't have very open lines of communication. This place is the most I have been able to speak for myself since we were fully embodied."

From:

maskformask

Okay. I think you need to find a way to do that. Because taking someone over and insisting it is for the best for both of you when you can't talk to that person is actually very creepy and she will fight you the entire way on that.