[ Angel's fear of rejection is unlike anything Ilde has ever thought of before. She had no fear of being rejected. She had no fear for the kindness nor feelings of others, such things were immaterial to her survival. Such things were immaterial in the inevitable deaths of all those around her. Only she had the Godking's favor, the certitude that he would not torture her like the rest, not when she was so honest and pure.
He thoughts start there. Start with Dreus and his palace set upon the hill, a beautiful open air structure with high stained glass windows, onion doomed rooftops, and mosaic floors that were always stained with blood. The stairs that lead down into the earth are grand, tiled in alternating colors of sand and clay, winding in a spiral deep into the cool underground. One pathway leads to dungeons, one pathway leads to torture champers, another to a dwindling harem where sick and tired looking women lie in chains.
But one secret door leads to her garden, hidden in the labyrinth behind its ornate door.
Her garden smells like dirt and compost and lightning, the lingering ephemeral scent of the magic that Dreus has imbued into the cavern. A warmth subtle enough to nourish life rather than extinguish it, his small experiment in gentility, abandoned by him and handed to someone better suited to peace. The garden is dense and lush, suffocatingly so in the enclosed space, but in this wasteland world where nothing grows it is a miracle.
Ilde's plants are pampered, growing larger and larger every year she tends them, her sweet monstrosities of which she shows no fear. They droop heavily with sweet fruit, right into the palm of her hand. She thinks of their sweet smells, the stickiness of fruit juice, the sweet rot of fallen petals. She thinks of dirt beneath bare feet, in the grooves of bare hands. Of sitting hidden deep within the foliage, separate from the rest of the world, whispering poetry to herself to keep her soul from starving, ]
There was the Door to which I found no Key; There was the Veil through which I might not see: Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee There was--and then no more of Thee and Me.
Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn; Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs reveal'd And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn.
Then of the Thee in Me works behind The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find A Lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard, As from Without--"The Me Within Thee Blind!"
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He thoughts start there. Start with Dreus and his palace set upon the hill, a beautiful open air structure with high stained glass windows, onion doomed rooftops, and mosaic floors that were always stained with blood. The stairs that lead down into the earth are grand, tiled in alternating colors of sand and clay, winding in a spiral deep into the cool underground. One pathway leads to dungeons, one pathway leads to torture champers, another to a dwindling harem where sick and tired looking women lie in chains.
But one secret door leads to her garden, hidden in the labyrinth behind its ornate door.
Her garden smells like dirt and compost and lightning, the lingering ephemeral scent of the magic that Dreus has imbued into the cavern. A warmth subtle enough to nourish life rather than extinguish it, his small experiment in gentility, abandoned by him and handed to someone better suited to peace. The garden is dense and lush, suffocatingly so in the enclosed space, but in this wasteland world where nothing grows it is a miracle.
Ilde's plants are pampered, growing larger and larger every year she tends them, her sweet monstrosities of which she shows no fear. They droop heavily with sweet fruit, right into the palm of her hand. She thinks of their sweet smells, the stickiness of fruit juice, the sweet rot of fallen petals. She thinks of dirt beneath bare feet, in the grooves of bare hands. Of sitting hidden deep within the foliage, separate from the rest of the world, whispering poetry to herself to keep her soul from starving, ]
There was the Door to which I found no Key;
There was the Veil through which I might not see:
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There was--and then no more of Thee and Me.
Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn
In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn;
Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs reveal'd
And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn.
Then of the Thee in Me works behind
The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find
A Lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard,
As from Without--"The Me Within Thee Blind!"