Category Archives: The Enfolding Abyss

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The ones I don’t really get to see anymore, I miss them… some more than others. There are ways that I haven’t been like in a long time, ways we only are when we’re together. These counterpart-nerships are special to me and I feel lessened by their remoteness, that combination of their distance and existence. I feel an invisible dance from afar, knowledge of a time approaching.

There are dragons that have never appeared to the life forms of the Pan-Galactic Imperium, and are unlikely to ever do so. They are rooted elsewhere, and so unlike in form that Imperium sentients may not even be able to seek or meet them. All dragons can meet all dragons, not that they will or should. They can’t all live together, but they can all be together on the Tabula Rasa. The tiniest glyph, the smallest inkling of desire to communicate can be the anchor holding the space, and there is always at least that. The beautiful Tabula Rasa, Level Plaine – ever haunting to return, a place only of perpetual passing, a between-all.

Now the gulf widens, like a rearing back before the clash of horns, as dragons determine how they feel about all this – the release, the attack, the phasing. There are already great differences, and opposition. There shall be woe.

Arkuda remembers the previous, and only other, Pan-Galactic Imperium-centered dragon conflict. Now is the time to feel and gain strength, before the falling out robs what precious is left as things spiral outward and people become lost in the forces.

Love blooms and dies on the Tabula Rasa. Life changes, and so does the universe. Arkuda goes to observe the changes. ‘E feels scales tugging apart, as though losing someone identity-bound. This discomfort was anticipated going into the Viridian Phasing. Also, a spot of deadened scales is coming back to life, sometimes with a burning sensation. Arkuda remembers the Chainers, too.

A number of dragons were born after the War, as the wounded balance was corrected. New, old, exiled, abstaining, participating – Arkuda imagines cutesy figures of them jumping or flying into a shared zone and dancing together. The thought is so nice, ‘e imagines it twice. That’s how Tabula Rasa is supposed to feel, with the joy in anticipation. Despite the impending turmoil of an epoch, the dragon feels it now, like the newborn young. Every time, as if the feeling itself were a key to entry.

 

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The dragon Arkuda shifts into the next platform of er gateway stair. Here, different thoughts along different avenues. Things stretch in the direction of one’s direction, such as they might. The order of things within orders of things can be glimpsed as the way forward and through. Unlike the dragonroads, the gateway stair runs along a different conception of place – more like transmutation than travel, though it is transporting. Each dragon goes by their own Stair, a process sometimes referred to as sublimation.

While many dragonroads are closed to some, this way cannot be shut. Every dragon alive may reach Tabula Rasa, but whether any others will be present nearby depends greatly. One may be impossibly far from others on the Plaine, yet still find or read the effects of glyphwork carried in the grains. Thus was it known, during the long time of exile, that some kindred were not dead. Their existence was still part of existence, known because there was a mark left in somewhere in Tabula Rasa, evident to those who checked.

It’s time to refine the Phasing, keep the emittance well-constructed and boisterously robust. Factor check: song, strength of song, bond of song to trees, frequency of hearing, times when heard, physical records, content and relation, memories accessed between phenomena, etc. How best to balance and defend? Unanimous participation doesn’t have to mean unending burden. This Councillor is readjusting to military matters; such things happen. So far, there have been no new attacks by the Red Nexus former exiles. Arkuda must check among the participants who may be vulnerable, and figure out how to interface with the peacefully abstaining. The Tabula Rasa has answers! ‘E comforts erself with that assumption.

Arkuda hopes to see some of the dragons no longer visiting Imperium locational space due to non-participation in the Viridian Phasing. ‘E also wants to know more about the recent disturbance in the phasing lattice which left energy signatures and an image of the Princess in command of an unusual vehicle. Arkuda feels an excited nervousness – that of a teacher hoping their pupil will remember all they’ve been taught, and wishing for them to be even greater than that. Had that really been all the time ‘e’d had to teach her? ‘E thinks Soleil would make as good as, or better, a Queen than many. The rearrangement in her absence is less comfortable, lacking familiar presences (especially that of Queen Ascendant Charlotte). The royal line is down two engines, when sometimes there are only two. It’s like losing a dragon: the entire universe has to readjust, and it changes everyone.

The Queen withdraws often to self-counsel on her own chosen matters. Her doings are not Arkuda’s concern, though they exchange niceties almost daily. Arkuda reads each greeting, but not too deeply. Celeste has been looking somewhat fearsome: hair flat and swept into a bun, simple garb lacking only the armor. Her civility remains fully composed as she carries it round the halls.

The Dragon Councillor has been relearning. Redefinition, reassessment, recognition; the return of distant relations; proper guardianship. Re-examining the traces of time, records and stories. The landscape redrawn. Arkuda’s spirit gazes over the brink of a familiar and limitless abyss. This looks to be a dragon conflict. When dragons are at war with each other, everyone suffers; the seas boil.

Lines, thoughts, paths, stretch, intersect, bend, form, terminate, begin; iteration after iteration in due gate-stair process. Stepping through thought-being like the undoing of a puzzle lock. The opening of the gate transforms it into the next, along with the self in the gate – integrative decompression with a steamy hiss.

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Arkuda begins passage via the Gateway Stair to the Level Plaine, Tabula Rasa. The way is framed in thought and realized in transformation.

Now, the sky is still dark. The many suns in the sky are distant, but if Arkuda can see them, they’re within arm’s reach. Sunlight penetrates the deepest vacuum of space, if not the lowest ocean. In darkness, the dragon Arkuda sees light, and is the light seen. This light endures as long as day, as long as life.

Arkuda knows all these places within reach of er being, though not the way that memory recalls a place already visited. They’re as near as the next step, part of the elemental world of this dragon’s existence. Worlds of worlds: draconid reality.

The dragon has chosen a place in er Seat: where ‘e is known in many ways, by many, and knows many. The seat is strongest around the root existence, but is also much wider; its nearness to root is defined by myriad relations.

In this place of Seat, ‘e can see er place of work: a certain conception of function which humans chiefly ascribe to, and which is an interactive process of the peoples of the Pan-Galactic Imperium, the currently flourishing connective. The time phase during which Arkuda has been deeply involved in Pan-Galactic endeavors has been as happy for er as the one in which er current name was given.

The dragon breathes deeply into er channels; a hundred pollens or so, the blending of breezes in tiny streams, a tinkling sense to each thing. Outlines of pre-dawn hue begin to dim yonder city lights beneath the rugged slopes, scars of a planet.

This particular place holds a meeting of factors which allows for a certain fluidity of being, a transformational autonomy. Dragons seek this the way people seek privacy. To everyone, dragons are so unlike, and yet so like; as familiar and unknown as one’s own molecules. They live under the tension of alien kinship, as a consciousness of something that is a part of other things (or do other things arise from dragon-being?). A dragon is a distinct person of memories, feelings, and parts, but also something elemental in all its aspects everywhere.

They are mysterious also to each other but share many understandings, the greatest of which can be achieved on Tabula Rasa, or Level Plaine. Arkuda feels an eagerness both warm and cool, like an elysian breeze. A drawing together is much needed, energetically speaking, for this dragon. ‘E wonders who else is of the same mind. Divides have grown.

The King Ascendant is unlike the recent scion line in draconid relational attitude. The Dragon Councillor is adapting through a difficulty of difference. Grant Vario was not inculcated with association until as an adult he joined the scion line as Soleil’s father, and he has never engaged in a Studious Tradition. At times he makes strange requests, believing that a dragon can know or do things ‘e cannot, or demanding unusual endeavors of discovery. Whether Arkuda can gain something on the Tabula Rasa to give to these inquiries is ancillary. ‘E’s going to see the others in the place where only they can go.

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In his office, Draig Claymore received a call over a particular dedicated line. He picked up and listened without saying anything. The caller spoke: “I saw something. And then it was gone.” It was the private investigator Derringer on the other end. Claymore appreciated the succinct summary delivered in nugget order of importance. As though this fellow had experience receiving important yet patchy calls.

Claymore responded, “It is also reported gone by my alerting sources.”

Though uncomfortable on many levels, Derringer told it straight. “It looked very much like the Princess in some kind of planet atmosphere cruiser.”

The General masked his reaction with nonchalance. “That’s weird.” His desk was very clean, so there was nothing nearby to grab. Instead he just stroked the surface of his totally clean desktop.

“The target slipped me either on purpose or by accident, after I declared myself. I got one scan and a series of images.”

“Okay,” replied the General. “I need you to send those to me before leaving the ship in its home, with logs intact. Then, go back to doing what you do. Continue as you were.”

“Thanks. I will.” Draig found Derringer’s dry candor refreshing. He ended the call. Swiping his hand over the clear surface again, he got out from behind the desk, heading toward his armoire. He donned a lightweight cover, and went to go have a look.