In the Kitchen of the Ravokian Fish

[Uleru]

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The 3rd day of Winter, Year 513

The forrest is beautiful, with towering oaks lit by a ethereal greenish light that filters in through the leaves. Yet, for all its beauty, the Otani cant shake the underlying wrongness of the whole place. Like the picturess landscape might at any moment crack and reveal the diseased roots.

Uleru frowns, her liquid body shivering like the surface of a disturbed pond. It's probably best she leaves this place. But how does she get out? Her pupiless eyes scan the forrest perplexededly, as if looking for a sign reading Out Of The Creepy Ass Forrest- This Way. But seeing no such sign she resigns to just keep moving forward. This place cant go on forever, can it?

After a few chimes voices can be heard up ahead, a trio arguing heatedly, if she isn't mistaken. She rounds the next bend of the forrest and sees something strange. There are indeed three people, standing in the centre of a crossroads, and it's three of the strangest companions she has ever seen. There is a tall, fair young man in a nice suit. His smile is bright and charming, his voice touched with honey, but his eyes are a festering black. The second is an elegant lady with a fine silk dress and a posh accent. Though her facial expressions have a strangely animated quality, not quite real. The third is a withered old man, his scalp full of scabs and his back bent like he spends more time huddled in corners than walking upright.

"Lo' the sea." Uleru calls automatically, using an old Svefra greeting as she approaches them. "Do you know that way out?"

All three of them look up instantly, their argument cutting off like a door has been shut between them. It takes a second, but it’s the young man who speaks first. "Of course, my lady" he says politely, his voice as smooth as his smile. "I'm the Liar, and the way out is that way"- he points down one the three identical roads.

"Ha!" barks the woman. From afar she could be mistaken for a fine lady, but looking again Uleru can see that her jewels are made of paste and glass, her dressed is worn and her makeup is hiding something. "Don’t listen to him, sweetheart," she continues, simpering coquettishly, "he never tells the truth. The way out is back this way"- she points to the road behind her.

"She's wrong", the weasely man smiles foully, "she's the Fake. She doesn't know the way, she just wants you to think she does." He jabs a withered thumb behind him, where another identical road winds through the trees. "I'm the Trickster, and that's the road you'll wanna be taking home."

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[Una Tanta]

Una's white skin was aglow with green from the filtered light from above. Her pink eyes tinted as the light reflected off the water. It was completely placid, even the wiggling of her wingers and toes didn't make a ripple. Her body was calm as still glass but her gut twisted inside. She knew the water, it felt familiar. She closed her eyes as it rose around her ankles and stomach, covering her breasts. Rising, with a force not of herself she walked along the top of the water it's surface twisting up her body modestly. The water slid up before her, behind her, and on all sides. Reflecting her image like a mirror and stopping her path. An urge kept her wishing to move but the reflections stopped her. "Who are you?" The voice from her dreams murmured, "Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?" "I want to go home" Una begged the sky. But, "Who are you?" Is all she heard in return. Gazing at her reflection in the mirrors she felt once again the overwhelming sense of loss. Since Cy's death she didn't know who she was, he had defined her in all aspects. As she stared her reflection grew paler, until it had the soft hue of Cy's skin. Her tentacles shortened slowly and split into millions of pieces. Softening they turned to his hair. Blinking once, she opened her eyes to his face. His eyes. His mouth. On her image. Running her hands slowly over her naked body she felt his chest and thighs under her fingers. Stepping off the water she felt a small grin frame her face, delighted she hugged herself. "I'm Cy! I'm Cy!" She screamed back at the sky who had so taunted her for so long. "I'm Cy!" She murmured to herself her fingers crawling deliciously over her body. The wrongness of the place disappeared from her mind, for everything was right when she was herself. "Hello" chortled the old man. He was the old man, because Una was sure there were no other old men. Suddenly with her were three others; the water, the woman, and the boy. "See what a good little chap we have here." giggled the woman stroking her arm, "He listened to me and look what he found. He found himself my dear, when he thought all was lost. I'm certainly the one to listen to. These two shmucks don't know what they are talking about!"

[Amolina]

Yet another night, another dream, while Ravok lays silent, floating on the dark lake under the stars of the black sky. Amolina Moletta is asleep in her bed in the NHC apartment at Nitrozian Plaza, but her dreaming mind is full of life.

Dreams. They are like water, a floating, inconsistent, unreliable stream of pictures and sound, and before you have seen one picture the next one opens and you are left with questions you can’t put words on. What was it you thought, what was it you wondered, what was it you wanted to ask before the question eluded you forever ?


The forest stands green, and the wind makes the leaves rustle faintly. Amolina listens to the sound where she walks among high old trees. A ray of white sunlight finds it’s way down through the foliage high above. She looks up, at the trees, at the sky.

Everything is huge. She is a small being, just a small dot of life down there on the ground. And she is lost it this immense forest. She is lost. Where is she heading? She doesn’t know anymore. There is only the forest now, with it’s enigmatic shadows and it's greenish light.

Time is passing by. Her steps are silent, soundless, slow.

But suddenly the path takes her to a crossroad and a small gathering … Amolina stops to look at them and though they are near they also seem afar, so far away. For a while she just stands there looking at them, but then the ground moves forward and brings her to the group, just like she is floating on a wave of solid ground.

“Sister” says a woman, turning to her. “Sister dear, where are you going, what is your destination, which is the place you’re headed to?”

“Underground”, Amolina answers without hesitation. And words echo back to her, the echo of words unsaid.

Underground, Underwater, Undersky and Undersun
Down and down and down and down
To the bottom of the lake
where all will go
at the end

They are speaking to her, the woman, and the two men. But she pays no heed to what they are saying. A shimmering, translucent being has appeared. It’s presence hits Amolina like an invisible arrow, like a gust of wind, like the drumming beats of a strange heart. In this moment her soul flares up like a beacon and everything starts to vibrate with an invisible but palpable air of mystic innate life.

“Sister dear” says the woman, who is still speaking to Amolina like nothing has happened. “One thing you must know. When the trees lose their leaves and the forest stops whispering, I will be gone.”

Amolina looks back at the woman seriously and now she can see : it’s her own mirror image.

[Uleru]

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A creeping grey of malcontent seeps into the moulding, mixing with the green light filtering through her to making ugly patches of sickly light on the ground. She looks at the Liar, the Fake and the Trickster, searching for one glimmering sliver of goodness in any of them. Who should she trust? Suddenly a boy stumbles into the midst of their little gathering. He is naked and glistening like a new birth, his face a euphoric mask.
 
"You're the Dreamer then, aren't you?" Uleru asks, but the air between them congeals and the words stick in the air like the dead things in a web. Nothing can break the Dreamers fantasy. The forrest is protecting him.
 
The forrest the forrest, the forrest is wrong. It will have them all. Suck them dry. The Otani pulls a breath deep into her drying gills. She imagines she can taste a sweet poison on the air.
 
"I just want to go home", she whimpers, arms folding to protect herself. "Just tell me the way home."
 
As quiet as a shadow another guest appears. Uleru looks up instinctively as the Fake calls the new arrival 'sister'. What she sees makes her color fracture and shatter like a kaleidoscope. Black hair and blue eyes. Ocean blue. 
 
Salty like the sea. Black water and pearls. The river stays still for happiness. 
 
But she's the Fake. No, not even that. She's the Copy. Nothing about her is real. The drone of conversation drowns out of the Otani's ears as the trio speak to the newcomer. Her gills pull in another dry gulp of breath. Her eyes flick to the Dreamer, so lost in his fantasy, and she visibly shivers. These cant be my choices. Follow whichever deceiver she can trust. She cant trust any of them. She just wants to go home.
 
Her eyes harden as she looks to the Copy. The one constant in her dreams.    
 
"I know you. I know you", she hisses like a cornered cat, a shimmering finger held accusingly in the air. "Why are you here? What do you want? Was my heart not enough?! Do you want my soul to?! WHAT ARE YOU!"  
 
The woman is too far away, but one stride seems to eat up the distance between them and suddenly she is right in front of the Copy. Her accusing hand has curled into a claw, her fingers like the icicles on the eves of a house, and with panic in one hand and desperation in the other she slices it through the air. It catches just in front of the woman's ear and her duplicity peels away like a rubbery mask, exposing whatever lays beneath.
 
 

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[Una Tanta]

Una gasped and giggled with the huddled group as they watched the water rage at thin air. "Is she crazy?" Una whispered to the woman beside her, "Oh yes dear, yes, she's gone cuckoo..." The woman replied exchanging innocent glances with the others that stood around her. "We tried, but there is nothing we can do." Una giggled as the others enveloped her in their arms. "But there is something we can do for you deary, you can stay with us, stay with us forever." "Oh no, no. I can't miss." Una said touching the tip of the wrinkled nose, "I must go home to my beloved Una." "Oh yes! Of course!" The hook nosed woman replied a smirk on the edge of her lips. Ignorant in the elation of her dream she couldn't understand the wickedness of their trick. The elation of being in Cy tinted the world and unexplained giddiness bubbled along the bottom of her eyes. The other woman at the pinnacle of her screams reached forward and tore at the air. As the mask slipped from the face of the air exposing what was underneath Una dropped to her knees. Her scream wasn't loud, torn from her throat half formed. "No! NO!" Una screamed at the water. "How could you?!" Her nails had torn away the world. Cy's body had shed itself from her, torn and dead at her feet by the evil creature's nails. The beautiful forest surrounding them had disappeared. Roots tangled in the clouds, every tree lay on its side, leaves brown with death. Always peaceful in her woken world her dreams were a more torrid affair. "Why would you steal him from me?! Just because you've lost your heart you rob others of theirs?!" Una screamed at the woman. Her voice was a hurricane, a rush of words with such power they punctured the silhouette of the sky and the roots came tumbling down. They fell fast and hard, leaving deep crevasses in the newly opened land before them. Una fell from her knees to her stomach laying flat upon the deadened ground beneath her. "No...No...No..." She murmured nails digging into the dry earth. Limply flopping into her back she stared at the sky, her next words screamed so loud her own world rocked with it's strength, "You've taken me away from me!" Sizzle's cold nose pressed into the curve of her neck. Whimpering he pawed at her face before being tossed off the bed as she awoke, so startled she sat bolt upright the dark room as tight as a grip around her throat. "S-sizzle..." Una murmured. Disturbed from his peaceful sleep Sizzle found a new corner to curl up in and Una stared into the darkness alone, fingers running over her face searching for Cy in its depths.

[Amolina]

The translucent being had grown claws like icicles, attacked mercilessly and torn her face away. Amolina was aware of this, but though such a thing would have been maddening in reality, she was oddly unmoved in the dream, like peeling off a face was a natural and commonplace thing to do.

But she still wanted to save her fallen face. It could perhaps be fastened to her again somehow, like a mask ? So she kneeled on the ground and tried to pick it up. But it turned out the face was liquid and just kept running between her fingers, like water, like paint, like dissolving make up. In the process it became nothing else than a puddle of nonsensical splashes of color.

It seeped into the ground and was gone. Underground !

“I don’t know where my face went” she said. “The ground took my face.” She tried to dig, in vain.

“Don’t be squeamish” said the younger of the two men. He spoke in a critical and admonishing tone. “Can’t you even keep your face in place?” The other, somewhat older man, nodded in agreement. “The weak deserve what happens to them. It’s their own fault, for not being strong, as they ought to be. Now look what you’ve done, you silly woman.” Pause. “Hey, wait” he added pointing at her head, “Is that a brain I can see there, beneath the water surface …” A knife materialized in his hand. He was looking hungry.

“I don’t know her” Amolina’s mirror image declared. “I assure you I’m not involved in this. I have never seen that woman in my life. Do I look like somebody who would walk around without a face?” She laughed. “It’s no problem. I for one always have a proper face. I can pretend to be her.”

Amolina's own mirror image was denying her existence and taking the opportunity to replace her ! What was this? How could it be? Amolina stared in amazement, at the three people, at the dreaming boy that had turned up, and at the translucent being with the icicle claws. Amolina’s soul was still flaring with the feeling of mysterious presence.

She could still see, but now when the mirror image refused to show her how she looked, she was blind for herself and had no idea who she was. She lifted her hands to her face and touched it, trying to feel what she was unable to see with her eyes. On the way there her hands found something else, hanging around her neck, like a necklace.

The translucent being’s words started beating strangely in her mind.

Was my heart
... not enough ?
Was my heart
... not enough ?
Was my heart
...not enough ?
Do you want
... my soul too ?

"Yes, I want my soul", Amolina said seriously.

But now she touched her own face and realized it consisted of water. It had become a river, a lake or a sea. With her fingertips she traced a pattern of lines on it’ surface. It was her name, written in water.

[Uleru]

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Uleru breaths a long sigh, like letting the steam out of a kettle. Slowly the grey seeps out of her body to leave her with the usual, unadulterated non-color she always wears. Her desperate anger has gone as quickly as it came. The unease produced by the forrest hasn't changed, but she is mastering herself, refusing to let it's evil poison her. Exerting a calm kind of control she has never been able to grasp in the waking world. 
 
She offers the woman, Amolina, her hand.
 
"I'm sorry about your face," she says simply. "But for what it's worth, I like you better this way. I can see you," she smiles then; a small, secret smile meant only for her. "You don’t need that mask, let that other woman have it. And you don’t need this", she passes a cold hand over her watery skin, erasing the name, "I can see exactly who you are now".
 
All this time the trio of Fakes Liars and Tricksters have been arguing among themselves. Their conversation nothing more than a background of white noise. But the stooped old man hasn't torn his eyes away from Amolina, and the thin string of drool hanging from his withered lip gives a hint of what he's thinking. 
 
Suddenly he speaks up above the squabbling of his companions.
 
"Delicious delicious", he says, looking straight at Amolina with greedy eyes, the blade flashing in his foul hand. "What kind of secrets could you have marinating in there love? What kind of trickery? Oh, just let me have a little taste!"
 
Suddenly he throws himself towards her.

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[Amolina]

The one that used to be Amolina Moletta is now a nameless and a faceless one and she lacks a mirror image. In this state it’s inevitable that a questions arises:

Who am I?

She, the nameless one, the faceless one, whoever she was, looks back at the liquid and translucent being and tries to figure out what it means by saying it can see exactly who she is now. The nameless one has a face made of water, this all she knows right now. A face made of water - and the surface of water reflects whatever there is to reflect, like a mirror. And she takes the beings hand.

Her face of water reflects a translucent face of water.

She looks at the trees in the forest and her face reflects the trees. She looks at the sky and her face reflects the sky. She looks at the trio of bickering people. The water mirror of her face reflects the young man’s face and she has the feeling that she’s taking on his traits and becoming a look-alike. She looks at the woman that used to be her mirror image and reflects her face back, and for a tick she feels…something passes by just out of reach for her perception, like the shadow of a fish in deep water, hardly discernible.

Lost in fascination she tries to grasp what she can’t grasp. But she is torn out of her thoughts with a jolt ! The third member of the bickering group, the older man with the blade is looking back at her and she knows …it’s The Drooling Fool. And this is what he says.

Delicious, delicious
The leech see us, the leech see us
The lecherous, the lecherous

The lies of us, the lies of us
What kind of secrets do you have
Marinating in there

Love
What kind of trickery
Oh
Just let me
Have a little
... Taste !

Amolina screams like a crazy ghost and tries to dodge the sudden attack and the blade. Her scream is like a seagull’s sound, a ravens call, the unknown sounds of unknown birds, foreign birds she never heard. If fills her ears, it fills the air, and conjures up a wind.

Her face has seeped down under earth, her name has been erased in water, and her nameless, faceless body takes wing just like a bird and rides the wildly screaming wind under the sky. They are flying up and out, oh, up and out, and her grip on the translucent beings hand is firm, bringing it with her. They are floating on the air, flying high above the trees.

Far down on the ground the forest starts to burn.