Dark Tales From Dandelion

1

Vermilion looked down at his feet with a furrowed brow. “I will show you what I know in the time we have together. You have to listen to me, though. I won’t teach you unless you can promise you will only do as I tell you when it comes to the gun, Fiona. I’d also like your word, and the word of everyone here, that you won’t tell anyone who taught you or how you came to know the Rocco Way. I’d also like a Fishing from you, Pip. If you can all agree to my terms, I will teach you, Fiona. If not, then we will let sleeping lilies lie, as you say, Pip.”

Like the light creatures, the guns now had their hooks inside of Fiona, and nothing was going to keep her from them. “I promise I will tell no-one who taught me, how I came to know, or when I was taught or anything about the guns for that matter.”

“It’s settled then,” sent Pip, putting their black claws together. “Have you ever smoked Sly Grass before?”

“Yep, but never with a sesnickie. We go into Svargaloka as part of our initiation into Rocco class three,” Vermilion said. “We find our way out on our own; Some are still there years after they left. Some Drakes die there. I got my third class badge, though, so I know how to get out. My only problem is I need someone to watch Prudance while we are there.”

“That won't be an issue, Vermilion. If you're comfortable with it, I will hold her while you're gone,” Fiona offered. I hope he isn't apprehensive after hearing me speak Seru.

“That would be a huge help; thank you, Fiona.”

“No problem.”

Vermilion nodded his head, then handed Prudance to Fiona. The strange baby cooed, and Fiona felt something funny about this cooing, something like affection, maybe? Or frustration? She wasn't sure; it was a little confusing. Either way, she took the baby. She was going to learn how to use those guns, and she couldn't wait; she would hold millions of ugly babies for that opportunity, then kiss them as she handed them back to their loving, patient parents. Most babies were ugly; this one wasn't all that different. Looking down, she realized that this baby was all that different. Evil shits made this baby the way she was now, just like Carter now babbled due to the same evil shits. This baby, this thing, used to be a normal child. Rakshasas. Pilgrims. Whatever the fuck. She'd learn the gun and would use it, the sword, and the Inner Vibrations to deal with them if they caught up to her again. Them and that horned thing. Leere? Maybe—though Fiona felt silly even thinking it. More likely an impersonator with dreams of grandeur. Necrolore and Merrilore is a fairy tale, just as Leslie said. It’s silly! Something to scare children and members of the Hate into behaving—into refraining from touching themselves, into being perfectly aware and unattached and … empty. It was a fairy tale for children, true, but something had felt dark about it. The story-taker and the story-keeper? The story-taker, the Necrolore, would take all realities, all potentials and force them into one; one that He saw as the correct one. The Merrilore, or the story-keeper shared the stories and allowed them to grow as they would without any interference from Her. There was something terrifying in the idea of one reality, One Hream, and having to conform to that one dream, but unknowingly. In the book, once the Necrolore won, all beings forgot they ever dreamed a different dream of their own and could only remember it being as it was when the Necrolore took the story. Sometimes Fiona would lie awake at night pondering the horror of it. She thought she’d rather just cease to exist than suffer that fate. Looking at this baby had put her into a kind of trance. If I ever have kids, I’ll just keep that particular book far away from them, she thought.

Fiona looked away from Prudance and around the camp sight. Pip and Vermilion were gone. Quint looked amused by something.

“What?” Fiona asked.

“Looks good on you,” Quint said.

“What does?”

Quint nodded his head at Prudance. “The baby. And that sling was quite impressive.”

“Anyone can make a sling,” Fiona said, blowing some hair out of her eyes.

Quint raised his eyebrows. “I can’t. Makes me wonder—”

“If I knew how to tap into my memories, I would have long before now.”

Quint shrugged.

“Quint?”

“Hm?”

“What do you know about Leere?” Fiona said a bit sheepishly.

“Well. That depends what you know.”

“I’ve read the fairy tale. About the Necrolore and Merrilore.”

“And?”

“And that’s it,” Fiona said. “Other than a few things I’ve heard you and Pip say. Putnam acts as if he may die when the topic is brought up. Did you see the way he flinched at the book when I was reading it?”

Quint laughed. “Yes. To phase-shifters, it is not a fairy tale at all. It is truth.”

“Why though? It’s ridiculous. One Dream?”

“Well, let me ask you this. What do you believe in?”

Fiona pondered for a moment. This was one of those questions that was very difficult to answer when put on the spot, at least for Fiona. She was working with five and a half years of experience, beliefs to time to become solid and worth fighting over. “Um … I mean, I believe in my sword. And the Inner Vibrations, and—”

“Love?” Quint offered. Fiona looked over to Carter’s sleeping form and shuddered a bit inside.

“Yes. And love.”

“And to you those things are true? Real? Worth fighting for?”

“Sure. What’s your point Quint? Void’s sake.”

Smiling, Quint said, “Someone who didn’t believe in fighting would think your belief in your sword was quite silly. Or someone who couldn’t attune the Inner Vib—”

“Alright, I get it.”

“You asked. Anyway, to answer your earlier question, you first must understand phase-shifters,” Quint said.

“That they can feed on the vibrations of thrummers, and turn their atoms from solid to gas?”

“Some do that, giving in to their base desires. The majority, however, feed on the vibrations of the same food that you and I eat,” Quint said, rolling his eyes a bit and adjusting his circle-rimmed glasses. “Traumatic past experiences aside—”

“I was stripped naked in the Shadow Wood, Quint, and felt them sucking on my vibrations until I passed out. That … is my first memory.”

“I apologize for my insensitivity, Fiona. Truly.”

“It’s fine. So, phase-shifters? The Necrolore?”

“Phase-shifters, when shifting, are constantly being tugged by the phase-warp they’ve touched; it tries to pull them into that potential reality, to keep them that way. It takes much training for a phase-shifter to be able to shift successfully without the potential pulling them into it. Ask Putnam about it sometime, but from what I understand, it is a constant struggle when shifting, even for those with many years of experience.”

“What does that have to do with the Necrolore fairy tale?” Fiona said.

“Well, phase-shifters are dealing with overlapping potential realities on a daily basis. This is all very real to them. Their existence is based in the many realities. That is how they live, shifting, feeling the tug of these different realities. They are built with such fluid DNA that they are able to take on a differing form, a different potential. So—now, remember, this is their belief, not mine—they believe that if all of the differing potentials are narrowed down to one—”

“They die?” Fiona said.

Quint nodded his head. “I mean, not does make some sense. But, I would think of it as more a figurative death. Like death of their old ways, their abilities to access the other potentials. But they take their prophesy about the Necrolore literally.”

Fiona snorted. “Prophesy?”

Quint smiled. “I know. You haven’t heard it I assume?” Fiona shook her head, still giggling. Moments like these made her feel … warm, and it made her forget about the life she was trying to remember. “They are a but cryptic and as far as I’m concerned are open to interpretation. There is some overlap between the phase-shifters’ the Hate’s prophesies. Would you like to hear?”

“Why not,” Fiona said, grinning.

“ ‘The key travels to its Mother to open her head

O’ children, my children don’t get out of bed

Here is fear, here is Leere, here is death of the lore

The dreams in your little heads will be His evermore,’ “ Quint recited.

“That sounds like some things in the book I read. Except for the key traveling to its mother part. What’s that?”

“Not entirely sure, but I’m told that on Lavender there is a statue of Leere and He is holding a key in His right hand, while in His left he carries the Eraser. The other one goes:

‘When three Void rings appear

It is Leere, it is Leere!

When His fingers are thrumming The Strings …

You will all disappear,

It is Leere, it is Leere!

With the bite of the sesnickie’s teeth.’ “

“What’s the Hate’s prophecy?” Fiona asked.

“Oh it’s very similar,” Quint said, yawning. “They also say ‘the Necrolore will have no right foot to put forward’, the common interpretation of that being there will be no correct reality, only the One that He chooses. ‘No eyes to see any others but the One Dream’ and so on and so on.”

“Do you think … the creature with the horns?”

“You’re asking my own personal belief?”

“Yes,” Fiona said flatly.

“I believe it is a man or a Rakshasa who is taking advantage of a group of people to gain power. When prophecies are involved, it isn’t hard to match them and use them,” Quint said.

“Then … why Leslie?”

“That I cannot answer. I hope that my old teacher the Woman in White can answer that question, or at least help us get Leslie out.” Quint yawned again. “Sleep pulls at me. And my voice hurts.”Quint rolled off of his rock, covered himself with his cloak, and was very quickly snoring. The man has no shame, and so can sleep easily, Fiona thought.

Prudance had sucked the rest of her bottle down and was now asleep. Fiona yawned and stretched out; The baby’s head lay on her shoulder, and she laid herself down on the grass. She looked around at her surroundings then drifted off to sleep.

A yellow-headed girl plays out in the yard. A dog, a cat, and a yellow-haired man lay down in the grass looking at the little girl.

“Daddy, wash!” the girl says. She puts her hands above her head and jumps onto them, making herself spin like a wheel, her yellow hair whipping back-and-forth as she does. The man with the yellow hair laughs and claps his hands

“That was amazing, Ali! Do it again, and I’ll make sure your mama is watching. Diana, watch your little girl. She spins, she twirls, she flies through the air. Clap for her if you have a care!” The man says.

Diana walks through the yard; she smiles and watches as the little girl repeats her routine. Diana claps and jumps up and down. “Wow, Ali! That was amazing! I am so proud of you; I can’t believe you can even do anything like that. I bet your dad would fall on his butt!” says Diana.

“Do you wanna bet? I’ll show you right here right now that I, Jekken Burris, am a professional cart-wheeler, and I resent your lack of faith, Diana. I’ll bet you one of your sweet potato pies that I can land three in a row,” says Jekken Burris. Diana laughs.

“I have to say, Mr. Burris, that I am quite skeptical, and even the idea of you landing one is comical. I’ll take your sweet potato pie, and I’ll raise you: one made per day the next three days,” says Diana.

“I accept your terms, and now, if you please, watch the master at work,” Jekken says. “You watching, Ali?” The little girl is laughing and she nods her head—she feels very safe and happy, they all do. The sun paints their yard in a golden light that makes this all seem the slightest bit unreal—they all feel it, but no one comments for fear of dispelling the magic that they share in their secret hearts.

The man with the yellow hair puts his hands above his head, gives a wink to the little girl, rolls his eyes at Diana, and starts his cartwheel. Midway through, he realizes that he has made a terrible mistake and falls, landing on his butt as Diana predicted. The little girl and her mother fall in the grass laughing. The dog begins to bark and run back-and-forth between them playfully—the cat hissing at the dog and batting a paw at him whenever he comes close to her.

Fiona awoke to the sound of Prudance fussing. What was that dream? There had been a little girl, a man, a dog and cat; she had felt like she was, well, all of them. The man’s name had been … it was gone, leaving only a feeling of unease and confusion, and no recollection of why those feelings were created. She sat up with Prudance and began rocking her back and forth; this soothed the little girl, and soon after, she was back asleep. She remembered a time she’d come to Quint with a dream that had disturbed her. Oh … oh no, Fiona, you know what a dream means, right? He had asked. It means that you’re fucking asleep. That was all well and good and she appreciated the sentiment, but when was the last time a dream had left her feeling so uncomfortable? She shivered a bit and looked up at the giant orange moon, then at Lavender, which orbited Dandelion. She heard a fffttt noise and looked to her left and right where Vermilion and Pip now sat. Vermilion looked a bit lost, like the venture into Svargaloka had taken a lot out of him, whereas Pip looked very refreshed and contented.

“Hello, Vermilion. Bad Fishing?” Fiona asked. Vermilion stared straight ahead absently.

“I … we will start your training. Tomorrow,” Vermilion said, looking troubled. Fiona looked from Vermilion, to Pip, then back again.

“Um—”

“I am going to teach you the Rocco Way … and you will be the one that heals Prudance.” Vermilion took casings and shells out of his pocket along with a bag full of powder, then nervously began pouring the powder into the shells. “I don’t know how or when that will happen, but there it is. You don’t have any secret powers that you are hiding, do you? ‘Cause I’ll teach you, but if you know how to—I’d just as soon have you heal Prudance now, if it’s all the same to you,” Drake said, looking at her with his vacant eyes, pausing in his filling of the shells.

“I have no such powers. If I did, I’d have healed Carter by now,” Fiona said. “Forget that for now. What did the Fishing say exactly?”

“That ‘Vermilion will teach Fiona the Rocco Way’, and ‘Fiona will be the one who heals Prudance’—Pip came to both with one card: The Mother,” Vermilion said.

“I am pretty confused. I’ll start my training with you tomorrow, I like that part, but the last…I don’t know. It gives me a strange feeling. The Mother? Cryptic shit. Pip? You willing to do another Fishing tonight?”

The sesnickie perked up at this. “You’ve never asked for a Fishing before, Fiona. I’ve always been quite curious what we would see. Have you overcome your fear of it?” Pip sent

“I’ve overcome quite a few things by force recently, Pip. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go now,” Fiona said, handing Prudance back to Vermilion, who took her in his big arms and started swaying with her as she stirred.

3

As the vibrationalist Sylvester finished his vibration, Svargaloka sprawled out before Fiona and Pip. The sesnickie could see the Bonjean Beetle in the distant Daisy Forest, lumbering slowly forward with it's sixty legs. They arrived in the same spot as before, the mushroom, the tall flower, the red tree, and the red pond. The Jakeereeds came, and as before, they swarmed Fiona. She stiffened at first but then obviously let them in on her stories because they all glided peacefully to the ground a moment later.

“Are you ready?” Pip asked.

“Yes, please,” Fiona answered, looking down at the Jakeereeds.

“Ok, so there are a few things you need to know before I start. I'll Fish a card; then I will be gone for a little bit.”

“Like actually gone? Or … like in your mind?”

“In my mind. It can take a while, specifically with hard cases, and judging by those Jakeereeds at your feet,” Pip gestured with their head toward the increasing number of the little creatures at Fiona’s feet, “you are something like a hard case, Fiona.”

“What exactly is that supposed to mean?” Fiona inquired.

Pip sent the mind smile.

“It means … one of the few people who the Jakeereeds reacted to in the way they are responding to you was—according to legend—the vibrationalist Sylvester, which makes me speculate that your Fishings may end up a little strange, like his. He did, after all, come to the sesnickie with the Sly Grass first, before any other race at any other tower,” Pip said.

“O … k. So you may be gone for a while. What else?” Fiona asked, giving the Jakeereeds a nervous glance.

“I may die or go mad. Certain cards, paired with certain people, have been known to do that. Although ‘Elephant Fucks Itself’ famously injured the brain of a sesnickie, if it were drawn tonight, I would have a completely different reaction to it because you are a different person than the one it was originally Fished for.”

“Well, at least there's a silver lining,” Fiona said.

“If either of these things happen, go back to Dandelion and get Quint. He’ll know what to do,” Pip said. Fiona nodded her acknowledgment. “The last thing you need to understand is that the Fishing can be either vague or very specific. With the Fishing we did for Leslie, I Fished the ‘Red Herring Drinks from an Empty Cup’ card, and it immediately took me down the mind grooves that led to a clear idea of what needed to—or was going to—happen. That was a very specific Fishing. Yours could be different. The abstract symbols on the card could lead to abstract symbols in the mind grooves I travel—which can be challenging to interpret,” Pip sent.

“My expectations are now at a healthy low if that was the goal. If there's nothing else, could we get started?” Fiona said, to which Pip replied with a mind smile.

“Sit directly in front of me, facing me, and then we’ll begin.” Fiona did as asked, facing her back to the large red tree, and Pip started shuffling the deck—closed their eyes—then Fished one card at random. Pip put the card face down in front of Fiona, opened their eyes, looked into Fiona’s midnight eyes, then flipped the card over. They looked down at the card, and as they looked, they accessed the RIGHT UNDERSTANDING. The card Pip had Fished for Fiona was the Tree of the Lost; it took Pip down the mind groove, and oh, what a lovely feeling. It was like being at the best part of a book and not being able to put it down; you just have to keep turning the page.

Suddenly … it stopped. The pages stopped turning, the path in Pip’s brain came to an abrupt halt, and Pip opened their eyes. They tried closing their eyes and going back down the groove, but it was gone.

“Interesting,” Pip said, looking at Fiona. They attempted flipping the card over and back again, looking into Fiona’s eyes and closing their own, but the mind grooves were just gone. “My inner eye is blocked to this Fishing; I will try another.”

“What’s wrong? Is it me? Has this happened before?” Fiona asked, a hint of panic in her voice.

“I'm not sure. I believe it does have something to do with you, but I've no idea why that may be. No, this has never happened to me specifically, but It is not unheard of. Let me try another.”

Fiona reached a finger up to chew on what small excess of nail remained. Pip repeated the Fishing process—this time Fishing ‘the Door of Three Traps’—and went down the mind grooves, again feeling the euphoria of traveling down them, then coming to a complete stop.

“Again, the mind grooves shut me out. I'm terribly sorry, Fiona. I hate for your first experience to be a failed attempt,” Pip said, not meeting Fiona’s eyes and shuffling the deck. Pip felt the hotness that comes with being under the pressure of having given someone an expectation and then the inevitable shame that comes from not being able to perform. They accessed the RIGHT UNDERSTANDING to try and understand at least what was happening, but nothing came of it. It was utterly baffling to Pip, and they wished they had a more experienced sesnickie to discuss this with.

“It’s alright, Pip,” Fiona said, obviously trying to spare Pip by hiding some of the disappointment from her voice, ”why don't you just try it one more time, and then we can give it a rest? At least for today.” She gave them a playful smile and bent her head down to find their eyes. Fiona raised the sesnickie’s eyes with her own, and Pip nodded.

“Yes, I think that is a good idea. Thank you, Fiona. One more time, then.” Fish, closed eyes, eye contact, card flip, RIGHT UNDERSTANDING, mind groove, wall. This card was called Fang Bites Itself. There was nothing for it; Pip tried repeating the process with each card to no avail. “Nothing,” Pip said, looking down at the cards then back up to Fiona. “I’m sorry, Fiona. Three Fishings in a row. I’m going to look into this, and I'll keep attempting to ride the grooves of these Fishings.

“Maybe I'm not supposed to know anything about healing Prudance. It's just frustrating that other people get to glimpse some sort of path, and I'm going at it blind,” Fiona said, standing up and looking at the big red tree. Pip looked at the cards again.

“I’ll meet you back there in a bit, Fiona. Won't be long. Just want to brood over this for a bit longer,” Pip said. Fiona disappeared from Svargaloka, no doubt having seen a door in the tree and exiting through it in a space no one could see or touch, because once you glimpse the door that no one else can see, no one else can see you.

Pip looked between the cards. the Tree of the Lost, the Door of Three Traps, and Fang Bites Itself. What could it mean? Fiona had proven to be quite adept at any skill she set out to practice, and her natural abilities with the Inner Vibrations were almost unrivaled in the eyes of Quint. What part of that made a Fishing go awry? Did it have to do with the proximity of the Woman In White? No, that couldn't be it either, because Vermilion’s Fishing had gone fine. Is she blocked? Pip thought. It’s happened, but only very rarely.

Pip went on like this for at least a cycle before deciding to go back to Dandelion to get some sleep. There would be no solving this tonight, so may as well try and turn in.

As Pip exited, they focused on the stem of the mushroom, and if they hadn't been so preoccupied, they might have seen a figure peering out from behind the giant red tree. If Pip hadn't become suddenly obsessed with the failed Fishing that would now call out for their attention every two tiks, they might have seen the horn, the red cloak, and the black leathery wing. They might have seen the figure grab a Jakeereed—still sitting on the ground in an almost trance-like state—before it was completely done digesting Fiona’s mind stories. They might have heard the faint scream of the creature as its mind was infiltrated by the Low Vibrations. Pip neither saw nor heard any of these things, for Pip was now under the influence of the very addictive drug called an unanswered question.

4

Leere held the screaming Jakeereed’s body between His thumb and forefinger. The thing sounded like a toddler that wanted to be put down but hasn’t verbally matured enough to communicate that, so it shrieks and tenses its body up, maybe slaps you in the process. Leere watched it writhe. Terror was the main feeling He was imposing upon the Jakeereed for the exhaustive after effects the vibration held.

Vo-somu-ikestama-vo-ketst

He stopped with the terror and thrummed intense loneliness; the Jakeereed stopped flailing and turned into a husk-like thing, eyes vacant, head drooped, shoulders slumped, wings slack against its back.

Fall-maa-sto-ketst

Now Leere accessed the RIGHT UNDERSTANDING and reached out to the Jakeereed—a friend to ease the loneliness that it felt.

Leere asked to share in the consciousness of the thing, whose name turned out to be Stryp. Stryp obliged and Leere was able to watch what the he had seen in Fiona’s mind. Fiona had been with three creatures of light and had been broken by the experience. Something set out to change his carefully laid out plans, no doubt, by the Woman in White. What was she playing at? Fiona was a different person now and she had no love for her husband the babbler. The love was gone, replaced by the freedom of lust and ambition. She was an addict now, the hole too deep, like the hole that Low had ripped open in Leslie. Leere watched the Jakeereed’s Fiona movies—she had met a Drake and he was going to teach her the Rocco Way. She was going to be the one to heal the Drake’s daughter. Though Leere had watched the Fishing take place, he hadn’t known the full details until he watched through Stryp’s mind. Leere couldn’t make any sense of the cards that were Fished or the reason why the sesnickie hadn’t been able to actually foretell anything. Leere had heard of a few cases where the potentials were too tied up, or they were all about to come to their possible fruition, so there was no way to see anything about the future— considering the decisions that were going to cause more potentials to arise would be made soon. It was said that the vibrationalist Sylvester had experienced this in the Fishing process—too many potentials.

Leere tucked Stryp into a fold in his red cloak and left Svargaloka.