12 More than growing things #3
Lyric carefully climbs down into the central valley of the crater.
It’s warmer, dusty and red, and he feels sudden balance like he’s been dashed with cold water.
Lyric sinks to sit, relaxing into the balance here.
It’s as if a little bit of Holy Silence settled where they landed.
This is meant to be, he thinks, as he closes his eyes and narrates an eight-count meditation for the listeners.
He begins with the north, the ecstatic spark, and walks them through locating and identifying just that single force inside themselves.
He moves east, to rising, the warmth of the sun and spine-straightening sense of courage.
Hold that separate, he tells them, feel the urge to float, to stand tall, taller, to be the best version of oneself.
Next is the south, flow, the pulse of blood in the veins, the everlasting cycle of breath and the life of water.
Finally they move to the west, and Lyric thinks of his sister and her powerful falling force, drawing everything toward her.
He speaks of what connects everything to the world, keeps us in our bodies, the feeling of family, of belonging.
“Everything is built of these four foundations,” Lyric says, eyes closed, sweat tingling his hairline from the heat of the noontime sun.
“There may be variations, iterations, complex arrays that only The One Who Loves Silence can understand, that the greatest priests and designers hope to know. But everything becomes four in the end. And at every moment in between. The first step to understanding Silence is to recognize the strongest inner force within. Find it, hold it, breathe with it.”
“What is Lyric Aharté’s strongest force?” calls someone.
Lyric opens his eyes and tilts his face to the bright sky.
The sun is not directly overhead; it is too late in the year for that.
There are two additional people perched around the ledge.
“Rising,” he says. He turns his palms up and repeats it.
“Rising, the force of hope and courage, of getting up again and again because that is what a person is made to do: keep getting up.”
“I hope mine is rising, too,” Setka says.
“All forces are equal, and all are necessary. Lyric’s sister is strongest in falling, and Lyric’s, ah, brother,” he stumbles, thinking of Garnet, “is strongest in flow. Like water, my brother cannot be stopped, but is flexible, loyal, and curious.”
“Will Lyric Aharté teach how to find a dominant force?” Setka asks eagerly.
Her thick tail balances her. In the bright sunlight, her scales gleam with iridescence.
She carries a strange beauty, though she disconcerts him.
Under Aharté’s laws her creation is a crime, but not her existence.
Technically. Were Setka to appear in the palace of the Vertex Seal, Lyric has no doubt her life would be similar to the numen’s.
And Lyric would have relegated responsibility for her life to someone else.
For all the layers of history and complications of law he painstakingly worked through as the Vertex Seal, Lyric knows that most of his choices and actions baked down to overly simplified basics. This or that, right or wrong, justice or mercy, Silence or apostasy.
“This priest will teach Setka to find Setka’s inner design,” he answers, before launching into the exercise. It takes a few attempts and personal guiding from Lyric for Setka, but she is blessed by Aharté: Her dominant force is rising, just as she wished.
Lyric begins a new meditation, helping those listening from around the rim of the crater to focus on their dominant force and reach for the same force out in the world.
He calls on everyone to move to the quarter they feel suits them best, whether they can sense their dominant force or not.
Then Lyric closes his eyes and focuses on the falling inside him, aware that this role of Aharté’s first priest is suited to falling, which will draw people to him.
As sunlight and wind ruffle the cloths and people come and go, slowly the balance of the center of the crater extends.
Lyric is pleased. It feels right. It feels like he could meditate at each quarter, and inlay Silence permanently into this rock.
There is a resonance here, and it might be his imagination, but it seems to strengthen over time.
Finally, Lyric brings the meditation to a close.
Up on the crater rim, Setka plops down onto her knees, curling her tail around her with a little help from her arms. “That felt good, Lyric Aharté,” she says, and the two people nearest her agree, having even shifted slightly nearer to the chimera.
“Such inner balance can be accomplished anywhere, given a moment to reflect and breathe,” Lyric says before climbing out of the crater.
“Please practice, share. This priest will return.” Lyric is reluctant to leave, given that his nausea has settled here in the balanced space of the crater shrine.
A side effect of feeling better is that his body suddenly requests sustenance.
Unused to making excuses for himself as the Vertex Seal, Lyric merely walks away.
Setka trails after him as he attempts to find the guest tower. Her tail drags behind her, though occasionally she lifts it up. It appears to strain her, and Lyric’s anger rises again. “Does it hurt?” he asks.
“Sometimes,” she says.
“Did Setka’s father try to undo what was done or only change it, expand?”
“Setka was born already mostly alliraptor, a fetal chimera, which is the most common way, and most often successful. Father never said if Father tried to… undo Setka.”
“Father didn’t try to heal you, only keep experimenting.”
Setka looks away. “Does Setka need to be healed?”
Lyric catches his breath. Heat slides up his cheeks. “Setka,” he begins. She won’t look at him. “Lyric is sorry for making assumptions, no better than everyone else. There is nothing wrong with who Setka is, unless there is pain. Pain is a body’s way of indicating imbalance.”
“It does hurt, sometimes,” she says again.
He steels himself and takes her hand. It is very much just like a hand, if drier. “Lyric’s wife is a talented designer. Iriset will be honest about helping with the pain at least.” Blunt, really, Lyric thinks.
“Then Setka could work more easily in the gardens,” she says with a fang-baring grin.
“Or help this priest build a stronger chapel.”
They arrive near the guest tower. “Does Setka want to come up?”
“Oh, this chimera cannot! Lyric Aharté, it’s not allowed.”
“All right,” he hurries to assure her. “Does Setka have a place to sleep well?”
“It is never too cold in the orchard,” she says easily, caressing the bony scales on her upper arm.
Taking a deep breath, Lyric tries not to sigh too aggressively. “Lyric will seek any needed permissions, and after the Night of Chimeras Setka will be a priest in training and need a new place to sleep.”
Setka ducks her head, and the strange spines in place of hair shiver. It’s truly disconcerting, especially when she glances up at him, her alliraptor pupils slitted in the face of the sun. “Thanks given, Lyric Aharté.”
“Lyric is enough, Setka. Good afternoon.”
The young chimera skitters off, her tail lifted parallel to the path. She doesn’t seem to notice the attendants jumping out of her way.