Zoe Tzimiska's Journal

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

I failed. They did not trust me. Would not trust me. And I could not tell them why.

Now we are all in danger.

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

I keep thinking back to yesterday and the encounter. I know I should have acted differently but in the moment with all the sights assailing me I could not so easily divide my focus.

And the vision I saw within its head plagues me still. The woman; The snake; The giant. Atop her cliff, the coin clasped in her fingers.

Who is she?

Why was she there at all?

Was she another like me?

Did she lead it to me?

Who is she?

I escaped the circle, if it was a circle. But I could not break the egg.

I keep rebuilding the pieces, while each day they come to tear them apart again. I've seen what I could be. What I was. And what failure means. There is so much beauty and it clouds me. He whispers and it is so very tempting still.

I am not a beast.

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

The charge I've taken weighs heavily on me. Visions linger overlong and this pernicious regret begins to suffocate.

I see him on his ship. Surrounded by coiling rope and swirling gull. And I weep for how far he has to fall.

I see the girl in the darkness left with the rats that were not rats. And I despair at the necessities that would soon bring her to spiral.

A savage anticipation lingers in the air and I know I will face him again soon.

I say I am not a beast and he says he is not a weapon. Desperation drives me to make truth of one and deny the other.

There must be purpose. There is something to be made from these endless trials. There can be redemption in Her Light for at least one of us.

I'm so sorry, Gemarian.

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

Despite all my work with grasping Her Canon, sometimes I am gripped by old terror. Spiders may needle my flesh and I do not squirm. I may be drowned. Stabbed. Burned alive. And my vessel will persist long after the screams and pain subsides.

In my fallen state I have caused and seen a thousand personalised small horrors and only tasted their sweetness. If my heart quickened it was only in anticipation.

So why did I feel the black wolf's teeth upon my throat when she approached? I could barely speak, barely move except away from her. That is for a fearful dead girl; it is for the worldly; it should not be for me. The past must not grip me with rage, fear or any other passion. It should not spite the future nor my toil. I should not freeze nor let her poison eat at me.

I would not be on this path if not for her ilk. I am wretched but I will not be forever, where before I could only be swept away by my House's whim and doomed to the falling of the world.

Should I be grateful? Should I feel nothing?

There is a twinge of vengeful satisfaction and perhaps it is wrong. The unrepentant deny themselves grace and fall to spiral snares.

Next time I will look at her and smile.

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

A new muse has come to me and I am ever brought along to far off places. I'm not entirely sure it is through her action or my own that I walked into my own ground again to see the wide open maw cast in black red and purple.

There is light there still at least and I will nurture its small flickering flame if I am to have any hope of reaching Her. This hard won clarity wrested from the serpent's jaw is not to be cast away. To think that I may have to give it up to break an army fills me with dread and want.

A small consolation to the knowing of my wretchedness - there is a Door leading from me to the Forest. I have not yet fallen. As Sister Selsi has said, to climb the mountain the slope becomes ever more perilous until the peak is reached.

I celebrated in the Forest and marked my passage with circle. Nine circles weaving a circle of their own, and nine points along each, eight without and one within. Such was my joy I did not realise I was found.

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

The shackles and bindings start to chafe. A thousand cruel monsters lurking in the dark thirsting for our deaths and I have to contain myself because it might offend a dwarf. I have to bear the strikes of the orc where I could set them all down were they all not crowding me. I could let him loose. Let myself free and drink them all down in their kaleidoscopic plenty until I choke...

Restraint is so very hard at times.

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

Travel through dark halls amidst ancient servants turned into horror is not something I am unfamiliar with; whether in the Waking World or in Dream, it is Known. However to see it manifest through the eyes of victim is a new experience entire. The unbreakable squeeze as one's ribcage cracks, the cloying all surrounding blackness as the predator on the edge of sight readies to strike his helpless prey. The blind companion whispering comforting words, unheeding of the danger crawling closer behind.

I screamed. I cried for help, though ruination did not come. And now I savour it- a new circle. Failing and strength to chisel and shape. Fearful woman. Feared woman. I eat away my imperfections.

...

Would that he was not gone, I want to speak to him again of this waking terror. To castigate him. To mirror him. To command him. To deny him. To rise as he falls and break free. There is a new loneliness that has settled in my heart since. I grieve again for a fallen twisted man and poor other Zoe, denied lesson and fallen as he to bestial ruin.

But he is gone now and I am left without my whipping boy. My lesson. I can tolerate all slight in waking, but when I am denied in the greater realm? The stirrings of wrath eat at me and I wonder if I can let them have their way without jeopardising my purity further. She is already so fearful of my every move that even existing near her may be enough satisfaction.

Perhaps I will punish her with kindness. Let her think I mean to eat away at her little toes and she will do it all herself.

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

The Crown shone bright and illustrious with its otherworldly promise. A world made anew. The ash and waste would move at my word and all would be set right. Its people would thrive again in the Garden and all my wants would be met. I could feast and they would grow happy and live. Were all its promises madness? Or could it have done the same for me as the King's?

When I left the waking world the Crown was returned to me. My rat retainers stood a line in shining columns before my throne.  My City was remade anew with all its former splendour. From my plinth, I waved my scepter and fallow fields turned golden with ripe harvest. Loukas stood at my side, and Leo the other.

Lines snaked through the streets and down into the Gutters, all to pay their respects. One by one they came and at the lead, was Him. He came to me and bowed low, his muzzle touching the floor.

"Hail Calipha! Hail Queen of Rats! Orentes! Ephia! Yllaris!

The city thrummed with their hum, at one with the purpose. A million beady eyes.

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

It comes to me now in the waking world. This sudden knowing. Without warning, without struggle, it is there as if it has always been. From my glimpses in dream, now a whispering. Riddle and Truth. How can there be light where light does not dare to tread?

Light comes from a source. And the only true light left in the world is Her. No False Crown. No Golden Temptation. Within the trees She is there. Waiting.

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

They entered my dungeon and despoiled what was mine to claim. The tracks they left were clear and I found the Mouse scurrying in her little hole. The flash of teeth was all it took for her to give up the Owl.

I am denied my right by their flouncing trespass. So I will take back from them my pound of flesh.

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

I never expected his words to be so sweet and luring. The same as me. The same want. He could see it. He knew it. I knew it. Kneeling and broken things by my feet and the effortless will to take. Eat. Eat. Eat! Nibble. Gnaw. Bite! A mirror to my own heart that I could not rend in kind. Safe from me but knowing. Ary. Ary. Arymathras.

And as much as I wanted. I knew folly when I heard it. To act on want is to deny the promise of so much more. While my example is taken from me, I still have his memory. Joyous feasts have their costs.

Now as my heart cools, I will leave the Owl to hunt alone. I have the due I'd take.

The Mouse? Perhaps the Owl will eat her for me. Or perhaps...

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

The line between dream and waking continues to blur. Last night I was a shadow spun upon the Mouse's wall. She whimpered. She scurried. Through crack and crevice we chased. Loop after loop. Then down. Deep amidst thirst and sorrow. Where she was blind, I could see clear. No light. No torch. Only me.

When I woke my eyes had changed.

...

The knowledge I have been long denied is urging me to imprudent action. There are no intermediaries I can think of that I can trust, not with so many yearning for destruction. Yet to walk that spiral way would be to invite doom. A weapon lost, what better replacement? Still...

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

Mistakes and missteps. A gamble taken. Will it be death or enlightenment?

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

If I was not who I am now I would take their refusal as an invitation. You would have been so amused Gemarian, were there more within you than hunger.

And if you lived.

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

A rare pleasure to walk so free and openly. They fell easily and we shared such a liberating joy in the Knowing. The fast was broken and yet I still had control. There was no voice howling at my ear urging wanton excess. No spirals at all! At that moment I was closer to purity than I had ever been and it all came so easily. A small push and a circle and the Gate opened wide in the onrush and through came passion.

See what I do with myself, Gemarian? Your doom will never be mine. In Her Light, I am remade.