As they walk the night ~
Ari - Calling up to Eve's height, "Excuse me ?"
Eve - Examines a moment as Adam looks back to them. "What is it Ariel ?"
Ari - ... "Ari. Are you a goddess ?"
Eve - A look, "Not precisely ... why ?"
Gabby - "Goddess of suspicion."
~ Adam giggle-snorts.
Sam - "She's Eve."
Ari - "I know who Eve is but there's nothing about her being so ... "
Eve - "Are you asking why humans are so short ?"
Ari - "No ... I'm asking what's happening."
...
Eve - To Sam, "I'm not the Eve you've heard of. We, are an archetype of three women. The archetype. Not the women themselves."
Sam - "Noah's Archetype ?"
Eve
- Glances to Naamah who looks away ... "No. An archetype ... is like a
circle. Every circle you see may be different, but they're all a circle. And we, are three women."
Mike - "Like the fates."
Gabby - "Or three witches. There's always three witches."
Eve
- "Yes. Both, and all such things. But we're also what happens when
three people get together. Two can converse and share secrets, be
themselves. But add a third."
Sam - "And people compete."
Eve
- "Yes. As children, you may know less of the furies, but some day."
To Ari, And what's happening is you are, for some reason, trapping in a
world we such things as we three, exist. Dreaming yourselves here."
...
Eve - "Your connection with this ... " A smile at the walker ... "Thing, is unknown. That's why we're here. To answer all these questions."
Mike - "We thought you were here to protect us."
Eve - "Mm. No. That's why he's here."
~ He looks back and shakes his head.
Naamah - "But we will."
Eve - "Until we know what we seek to."
Lilith - "Which means seeing it to the end."
The
three turn to each other, letting the walker pass then approaching.
Ari pops her head over and sees them drawing their swords before gone in
the darkness.
Adam - "Don't worry about it. It's what they do."
Ari - "Excuse me ... what's in the box ?"
Adam - A smile, he pats the lid. "Oh ... nothing but another story entirely."
____________
Cybal - Kneeling to Bal who watches from a glowing sphere of light in his hand. "But it is inaccessible to us who can think and feel."
Bal - "Not to me. I grow stronger by the minute." A twist of the castle outside. "I will extend that power, servant, to you."
He watches her shriek in agony a moment, bursting into flames before settling into a fiery form, she stands in no pain.
...
Cybal - "Thank you. My lord."
She
turns and blasts a cave into the mountainside. Blasts again to dig it
deeper, Bal closes his hand satisfied, his armor over flesh nearly
completed with another grind of steel, he stands.
Bal - To those
gods and nightmares lingering in the throne room, "Prepare the turrets
and catapult, trebuchet and crossbow, dip it all in oil and prepare it
to launch. We go to war. We burn that Erie wood to the ground, they will hide no more."
_________
She
walks burning into the core chamber of the volcano, where an iron
structure has been fused over by the ages, suspended to the caves wall,
as if to catch the inferno beneath it.
That magma having risen it sets like an isle on top of it. She closes her eyes with a vision of Bal leaning into his fist on the throne, she begins to glow. She leaps to a suspending platform. and walks toward this core.
The size
of the mountain itself, she looks up to the belled cave overhead, opened
to the air. Between the gasping smoke she sees the dot of a
Cartographer in the sky.
~ Bal looks more closely into nothing before his throne.
Her
eyes focus further and further as a hawk, the cartographer seen looking
back through his scope, taking notes on the structure. She keeps
walking.
________
Naamah carries Eve over her shoulder covered in band-aids.
Eve - As they pass, "Sorry I was condescending."
Then up to Adam.
Eve - "Sorry I mocked your pain."
Lilith - "And ?"
Eve
- A sigh. Mumbles, "And we are hereby sworn to protect you on your
journey through our lands. ... But not one second more !"
Lilith fist to black.
________
Voiced
over while Cybal walks for a central structure, four pillars with a
squarish platform at the top, but all smelted over and rough, barely
more obvious than a natural formation.
Sam - "What's condescending ?"
Gabby - "I thing it's like descending ... except con. Which is like the opposite so she was climbing."
Sam - "She's sorry she went climbing ?"
~
As Cybal does, there seen winding steps smoothed over, winding around a
throne at the center of the pillars, going down. She places a hand on
it, her protection immediately begins to fade. In pain as she falls,
"I'm sorry. My lord."
Her protection returns.
Mike - "No it's like conning somebody. So she's sorry she was conning us ... down ... right ?"
Ari - "Wait was everything she said a lie !?"
Adam - A laugh ... "No. It means she's sorry she was talking down to you."
The stare at him like he's nuts.
Ari - "She's a giant. How else is she going to talk to us."
~ Cybal descends the steps winding around the pillars, Bal watches through her eyes.
Gabby - "Maybe it's like ... con - de - sending."
Mike - "Like sending us flack ? I'm not supposed to do that anymore."
Sam - "No it makes more sense like con - descending."
Ari - "Yeah !"
Gabby - So ... she was climbing down the hill, backwards ... which means going up ... "
Mike - "Which makes her even taller ... "
Sam - "So talking like an adult !"
All - "Oh ... " They call out, "That's okay !"
Eve looks up from Naamah's shoulder, thumbs up, slumps back down.
~
Cybal reaches a chamber, walls smelted but a smooth floor. She reaches
down to touch it, a hesitation. Then as her finger nears it, a tiny
static jolt before her hand across the smoothness. She looks up from it
to a gap between floor and wall. A smile.
Then his voice in her head, "Return." A tiny fade in that protection, a look of sadness nearly broken.
________
The
old gods who think themselves nightmares on break again from their
construction, impossibly halfway there to the river's mouth.
One - "Do you think we will get to keep one ?"
Two - "Keep wot."
One - "A walkey thing."
Two - "Oh no ... I'm sure he'll hoard them all to himself."
One - "Why's that ?"
Two - "Well. Because it would be evil."
One - "Ah !" A laugh ... "That it is my friend ... that it is ... " A toast, they drink.
(credits)
________
Maid - Stomach growls. "That was weird."
Chef - "What was weird ?"
His stomach growls.
Chef - "Hm."