Quincunx

Rarely, Tzimfemme cursed her mutable body. Most people only suffered reddened ears when someone was focused upon them; she would undergo metamorphosis under the pressure of her viewer's dreams, bursting out of clothes and changing coloration. Keeping close to Orlan held her features mostly steady nowadays, but some people--and Rosemary was one--retained their power over her. If the vampire's mad mind saw their bond as a disease, it was one: nausea and fever and hallucinations and mottled skin. "Dammit," she croaked, coughing, "dial it back a bit already, Rosemary!" "It is what you think it is." "I *cough* know that! And if I'm going to help with whatever idea you've got," lied Tzimfemme, "I need to be able to function! Give me something useful!" She straightened up, smiling, as the vampire let go of her hand and let the powder recede. Rosemary gathered herself and impressed to Tzimfemme's mind three mage names, one fused name, and an absence-of-name that screamed volumes. Tzimfemme doubled over again with the rush of memories, then crumpled to the floor, alternately cursing Rosemary and gritting her teeth against the emotions. Underneath her feet, her clenched fingers and toes started to dig tracks into the stone floor. After letting a vein into one end of the most coiled track near Tzimfemme's head, Rosemary turned her back and walked briskly away before the blood made it into the naked mage's system. ***** "Awaken." Minta pulled the zombie-skin crazy quilt more firmly over her head. When Rosemary shook her shoulder, she flipped a half-turn under the covers and tucked all of the quilt ends under herself. When one quilt end was pulled high into the air, she did one and one-half turns in midair before she was entirely free of the covers. Not even that and the resulting bounces coaxed open her scrunched-shut eyes. "Don't wanna! Rydia's sad so I'm sad, an' is all about a stupid boy anyway, an' is not time for me to get up yet, an' Tzimmy's being weird again an' nobody told me again. . .oooooooooo are you gonna tell me? Can I come this time can I can I can I pleasepleaseplease!!!!!" Minta shot out of bed and orbited around the bedpost and into a clean robe, landing with a bounce right in front of Rosemary with one sleeve turned halfway back on itself. Rosemary corrected the sleeve, then took a silver circlet of her own design (properly warded and engraved to be as distracting as the little one herself) and settled it on Minta's curly hair while sending thoughts of her spiritual sisters into the little one's mind. "Tonight," she whispered, "you will be where I once was. . ." Her fingers clenched angrily, and Minta protested. "Tonight you are the one to call, to see where she and I enthrall--and don't forget," with a sharp slap to Minta's backside that sent her scurrying into the corridor, "you're next to fall." ***** (to be continued)

The headdress was ruined; Rosemary removed it and tucked it into another belt pouch, then glanced at the wall. Wall to the right, stairs descending clockwise: she parted her dirty-blond hair as indicated and drew it into childish pigtails, all the while drawing closer to the yelling below. "I don't know what's going on, server-side boss." Despite the distortion of tone, that was recognizable as Tzimfemme's form of address. "Gods know we'd all be happier if you could get to her, but you can't--which is impossible 'cause this place never has anything but protective wards, and I trust you. We do. Whatever." Rosemary came out onto a landing and discovered Tzimfemme leaning out of a window and shouting down to someone outside the Pen keep. The naked mage heard footsteps and levered herself back inside, only to be startled and almost fall out of the window. "Don't do that, Rosemary!" she snapped, turning back to the window and continuing, "Someone wants to talk to me, better go wave at a few more windows, I'll try to send an elder around to you!" Abruptly she spun about and raised an eyebrow. "So have you heard anything about this?" "He's gone." "Have you heard anything new--" Tzimfemme stopped and assessed the hair, the dishevelment, the shell-shocked look which meant no information would be going into Rosemary's brain and only a repeating loop would be coming out. "Oh." A thin-lipped, dimpled smile spread itself on Tzimfemme's face and she did a brief, undignified hopskip of joy, her eyes glinting silver with the realization. One hand, powdery white, shot out and steadied Tzimfemme by the wrist. "It's not so simple," whispered Rosemary urgently, watching the light leach out of Tzimfemme's aura. "I yearned for someone to be paired, to spin and fall eternally. . .and none were. Those who were untouchable, I could not bind. Those who had been bound by you were not touched. Those who had been touched by you unbound themselves. You locked me away and I failed! You and I are the only ones so touched," and she raised their hands together into the moonlight. Tzimfemme's stomach lurched as she saw the pure, white imperfection rise to the surface of her own skin. "You preached truly," Rosemary rasped. "We are plagued." ***** (to be continued)

This doesn't feel like a poem with two minds. . .it feels like a poem with one mind. Only from having read your other works can I pick out the thread of your contribution, and even then it's not distinct, but part of the whole.

This was dangerous! Rosemary brooded over the silversmith's bench, counting under her breath as the burnished hammer rose and fell, seventy-four strikes in a minute to mimic Rydia's heartbeat. She'd insisted on a gold circling instead of silver which could bind the moon-worshipping, and then forbidden Rosemary to inscribe anything protective upon the outside, and insisted that a name go within! Strictly it would not have been her failing if he slipped into that golden zero and been devoured, but even those who feed upon others must be moral. . .and he was nothing demonic that deserved to be eaten. Rosemary only did what she could, forming each letter inside of one of his more powerful names engraved too fine for angelic eyes to read, and dotted the name under which she'd obeyed him with a bit of power--herself, falling forever, spiraled counter-clockwise. Was she enough to plug the new, gaping hole in the universe? . . . She raised the ring to her right eye, squinted all around it, turned it and presented it to her left eye, gazed through it. Flawless, it fell into a clutch of mossy velvet and Rosemary turned her feet away from the silver spiral of eyes upon the wall. So few eyes were open to watch her, these days. ***** Rydia slumped to one side of her hammock, only half her face and a concealing hand showing over the edge of the sea-green silk. The hammock hung still as death, more still than Rosemary as she brushed the door aside and waited for her patroness to express some interest. After some minutes, Rydia gathered her strength and pushed herself upright, then sat with head bowed and hands gripping the hammock edge desperately. Rosemary sank to one knee before Rydia and opened the fistful of cloth, exposing the ring. One ear twitched weakly. "It's like. . .having a bit of him here," breathed Rydia. She leaned heavily to her right and freed her left hand from the hammock; Rosemary slipped the ring onto her finger without skin contact and drew smoothly away from the sudden tears. Whispering "thank you. . .thank you", the winged elf unfastened all of her shining earrings and dropped them onto the velvet. As Rosemary transferred them to a secure money pouch, Rydia dared to ask, "Have you heard anything of him?" "Gone," said the vampire flatly. "No!" Rosemary stared down at her with pity. "My six-and-six-again is fine, don't weep for him. The other one, she who was caught in it all unwilling--gone." She flung her arms out exactly as wide as the spiral upon her wall downstairs, indicating the two eyes of which she spoke. "And no-one notices, save me. . .and he. . .and now, who else is gone?" Unbelieving, Rydia screamed, and the power of an archangel flooded out with it. Rosemary screamed also, but in terror, and fled down the spiral staircase with half her headdress burnt away. Above, Rydia slammed the heavy door shut, then slumped against it and howled with misery, wringing her fingers against the new ring. It couldn't be true. . .couldn't be! Not while she was confined here and her love forbidden to follow! Couldn't be true! It isn't. But where is their love? She whimpered as the brilliant silver light faded from the ring and the ringing silver voice from her mind. Her spiritual sisters in the quincunx were meddling again--but in what? ***** (to be continued)

Cat Haiku. (reposted) Accidental meow! Tried to hold it in, but, but, You had tuna fish! (revised) Silent killer cat, Sleeping in a sunshine heap, Armed with killer farts. (fresh) Let me out again! Other side is neither here Nor when I go out. Ew, snow, ew, snow, ick! Pawprints tell this sorry tale Until the overhang. (with apologies to suzy becker*) Couch and loveseat both, Your bed, my bed, here and there-- I flaunt my hair loss. *author of All I Needed to Know I Learned from My Cat, including "Flaunt your hair loss" illustration.

Identity A flossy mess of thoughts Caught on a phrase or word so cruelly burred. The skein of thought was spurred. . . A single skein was made with pain-- made separate from the whole.

another Legion Anti-Legion Thoughtware 2000 collar bites the dust. . . I was going to add that the best advice probably sounds like lunacy to you now, being of a different and higher wisdom, but after that series of posts, I fear to say it.

Frantic--I love lists and digging around in vocabulary for every word which might possibly cover some aspect of the situation. That you squeezed them all into meter gives them a soundtrack! (just then the dot under the exclamation point expands to the size of a transcontinental train tunnel and spills out a Mack truck bulging with caffeinated brain bugs and being driven by ((dear gods no)) Minta--they careen through the review, leaving strawberry jam treadmarks, and out again through a gap-toothed smilie smile.) . . .Yeah. Like that. If that's a freewrite, then you have an internal editor. Observation not criticism.

That does change it. I read without sound usually.

re: DarkPain's signature: If you take a group of monkeys and put them together with typewriters, eventually you'll be able to produce any work of human history. Asylum operators might be trying a similar theory with people and God. That a monkey can't tell the difference between "Friends, Romans, countrymen" and "owethR TFGKL dlakd" hasn't occured to them yet. Going back to the thread in Cabaret Room that compelled me to post--Arwen is a poet for whom free verse is correct. The first verse is flavored with form in the first four lines and a true couplet further down, but if this were compressed into meter, it would sound trite. Instead it flows, sweet and dim without music behind it, a dreamlike quality that I have learned is part of Arwen-the-poet, whispering 'help' so as not to alarm anyone who hears.

Very jagged. The form that comes and goes is too uneven for me to comment upon. If I chop off the first line, the poem talks about backbiting. If I take the first four lines, you're sitting at an oral examination. If I focus on the center of the poem, people are copying words they have no right to use. Don't understand why you italicized 'play' in any reading.

Of that last stanza, lines one and three are good, yet two and four seem like they are there only to pair with one and three. You do need that summary stanza though, so scratch the two weak lines (and take the apostrophe out of 'one's' ). There may need to be a comma after 'Look', first line, second stanza--if quotation marks were there, you'd need one. The first line of the first stanza has a comma in a similar spot. For that matter, the entire first stanza is well-balanced and shouldn't be changed. Is it the wind speaking in the third stanza, or the mind to which it whispers? I can't advise on the rest until I know.

A metered, formed poem makes trite expressions much more noticeable. It is very discouraging to record your thought and realize that you've seen it before in just that frame. I hope freeform makes it easier for poets to learn how to select the exact stops and words to illustrate their thoughts, instead of making lazy poets. Create, cringe, change. . .cheer? To answer the original question: There are many freeform poets who do not put enough of themselves into their work, and may as well be as amoeboid as their lines. Every poem requires steel, if not necessarily girders.

(Tzimfemme leaps backwards, out of biting range of a particularly ruffled rabid goose!) Watch it!!! I just waxed!

(The Oompalumpens eventually realize that the doorway is just too narrow to admit a giant TV camera and spend several hours sitting around idly before one buffs up a non-essential corner of the camera. After a drive-by shinysnatching, the doorway has been stampeded to the requisite width and the camera operator--Rydia!--levels the lens at Adrynna.) Because it's so much more fun to see what people can create! If I wanted to read lists I would have stayed in school. . . (Flashback to Rydia in what passed for a biology class under Blue Mage tutelage. Her notebook is filled with drawings of hellhounds chasing capes, pairs of pegasi in aerial maneuvers, and detailed but workable instructions on how to make imps do hampsterdance. . .)

Gwaihir--that ain't working. Allow me. . . (Tzimfemme whistles sharply with two fingers. Immediately the doors to the laboratory wing ((home of Dr. Tzimfemmestien, Astralis, and other scary people)) swing open to reveal a giant TV CAMERA being trundled out by dozens of Oompalumpenproletariats. . .)

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! catapult pleaseplease! (Minta capers madly around Aardvark, giggling in anticipation of flying through the air! Her zombie, on the other hand, desperately tugs lengths of intestine out of its gut and tries to rearrange it into letters. . .)

Absolutely, Ayshela! We should bind and gag anyone who has the potential to surpass 10k posts! I call dibs! (Tzimfemme jitters around with anticipation. Ayshela looks puzzled.) I have to explain the joke? . . . (droop) Finefinefine, we'll bind and gag anyone who is currently threatening to break 10k posts. You had the idea so you go first-- (Tzimfemme turns Ayshela around and propels her in the general direction of Peredhil) --and I'll catch the runner-up. Wait a sec. You ARE the runner-up. HEY YOU POTENTIAL 10kER! WAIT UP! We need to spend some quality time together-- (Ayshela, Tzimfemme, gags, restraints, et alia rebound off of Peredhilian politeness protections and skid in various directions. . .)

It's not just you. Something is waking us up like I haven't felt in many moons and loosing what hasn't been spoken-- Rosemary-speak.

That's why we turn to Pixar for Aardy. . .or should I say, "P. Sherman"?! Wyvern is entirely Mushu. It's painfully simple to imagine Yui-chan picking him up by the tail, scrutinizing the 'trust me!' smile and the burn marks from the latest get-rich-quick backlash, and wondering aloud what her ancestors have provided. Belle's father IS a gnome--Astralis. troubled sleep belongs with the gargoyles (I'm drawing a blank for the female's name, however) as does Damon Inferel. Falcon's people tend to knot together in my mind but I am sure they come together to be David Xanatos. Last, but not least, Melba sits at the radio operator's booth in Atlantis, gossiping placidly as the entire structure goes up in flames. . .

Bacchantes feel no fear, no pain. Tzimfemme whirled, dipped a shoulder, flung out a foot for balance and connected with the lower jaw of a lunging cottonmouth. It fell back in a wide-mouthed heap on the floor and struggled to rise again, but crumpled under Tzimfemme's heel. Goggle-eyed males drank in the tireless leaps and ignored the snakes, the callous kill, the thin froth at the corners of her mouth and the glazed eyes. She ignored them. Inhuman and breathy notes, thwarted reptilian rages all around, a burning gout of vampire blood: they wanted a frenzy. Tzimfemme's frosty-eyed plague would not allow frenzy and fenced the idea tightly in logic. The world would stop spinning if the music stopped--unless it was watered. Sacrifice. Make the world bloom anew. Falcon was not an innocent and William no longer a child; he would live. Seek. Falcon collapsed. Tzimfemme dropped into a starting crouch and strained her ears. She missed Ayshela's shrieks from above and the unending susurration of snakes gliding underfoot. Neither the unconscious malice of Ozymandias's shadow beasts nor Minta capering atop a table with her poisonous daggers firmly in hand disturbed her. Her body, fevered and caged, left her mind cool; somewhere in that mass of strangers was an appropriate young Bacchus to tear to pieces and venerate afterwards--but they were concealed. She couldn't sense the protective auras and spells of the Pen knotting themselves around the Fall Ball and even now bemusing most of the participants into acceptance of the situation. They were as untouchable as unicorns. Unicorns? The plague! For situations like this was the vampire blood meant. Once she burned that damned white death away, nothing would be untouchable. . . She heard the name while the blood was transmuting and went mad. Instead of shifting her shape to burst the brittle shell, the intangible aspects of Tzimfemme (let's call them Tzimm--'Tzimfemme thought-and-emotion' becomes awkward) lunged out of her physical self and raced away from the ballroom. Minta, startled for a moment, quickly recovered and dashed after the silver-tinged Tzimm, hooting happily and chanting an avatar-killing song she'd picked up from parties unknown. The body of Tzimfemme remained locked in the crouch, supported by the shell of plague, but it softened as the plague tried to permeate the empty body, and sank to the ground to rest on forehead and knees.

"And to think we called you the sane one," Tzimfemme gossiped cheerfully to Gwaihir. Earlier there had been a few tense moments when she'd corraled the former Army of Darkness people in one spot for chocolate sculpture, especially when the master file tried to formulate Yui-chan to be chocolate sufficiently dark without being bitter, but that had passed. Now Gwaihir and Tzimfemme and Degenero clustered around the drinks table, with Gwaihir safely away from the fancy glass punch bowls, reminiscing over less peaceful times and places. Falcon sounded the flute. Tzimfemme discarded the tray so smoothly it seemed to translocate from atop her head to the drinks table. The backwards curve of one arm towards the table trailed behind her as she shifted into a tiptoeing, hip-swaying step. Collarbones led as she sashayed fluidly out to the dance floor. Tzimfemme did not dance: she wrestled (in chocolate mudpits), she paced and loped, she did not concern her upper body with locomotion. Now, enthralled by the flute, she moved like a belly dancer and orbited Falcon in a detached dance totally inappropriate to a winsome ballad.

FIEND!!!!!!!! Without well-defined moral grounds of my own, I'd prefer to force people who DO have rigid ideas of Right and Wrong into behavior unmistakably Wrong.

Minta prodded the barely conscious doorman with her toes, first with the left and then with the right, just to make certain he wasn't napping. "Dontcha wanna see my invitation?" she pouted, spilling crumpled candy wrappers from her pocket as she tried to get the corners of the invitation unstuck. As soon as it finally came loose, though, the doorman sighed and lost consciousness. Minta was about to hurl herself into a pouting fit, but there was something funny about how the doorman didn't look hurt at all. . . "Neato!" she squealed after a quick magical inspection. "I bet it's a vampire without a mage too! I bet Rose will be really happy if I bring back another vampire for her so she can have somebody to bring to the ball!" She picked up the invitation, carefully smoothed out the crinkles, then jammed it back into her pocket. She braced herself against a gap between two floor tiles, ready to struggle with the imposing door, amending "I hope it's not an icky yucky boy vampire." ***** She parted from Elladan with a bit of relief. He lacked a bit of whatever was the opposite of self-preservation--other-people-preservation maybe? No. Extreme reluctance to let others make amends for having been born, that was closer to the truth. Tzimfemme had, she felt, exercised her mind enough to be an asset to humanity, but Elladan was one-quarter humanity at best and certainly not appreciative of it. Immediately she mingled herself in the direction of the refreshments table and away again with a tray of pre-sliced paninis and about three dozen cocktail napkins; recalling years of waitressing various Archmage functions, she balanced the tray upon her head and kept a hand upon its rim. First she stopped by Orlan for ogling and explanation of the night's plans, setting one of the miniature dark-chocolate Orlan figurines atop the tray, but drifted away to let Rapier inquire--in detail--why she had been encouraged to wear formal attire but Tzimfemme had not. Professional courtesy demanding no partisan behavior and no eavesdropping meant that Tzimfemme had to leave discreetly and stifle her amusement. As she wound her way towards Wyvern's Dinette of (Profitable) Discovery cart, Rune and Minta tuned in to the magical word "sugar!" and almost tripped half the dance floor while zooming across it to follow Xaious. Soon the tray bore the krispy chocolate figures of Wyvern and Regel, the peanut-butter filled Peredhil figurine, and a plain milk chocolate, features obscured, but not hollow as he had insisted, Vigil Stargazer. Tzimfemme nibbled on another panini to make more room on the tray; who to pick next, she ruminated, thoroughly missing the spectacle Wyvern was making of himself (again) as the tray prevented her from looking upward. She meandered out of the range of the slowing spell, but tingled with the knowledge of her type of spell being cast in the area and began to scan the crowd. Merelas! She partially knew him and not at all his companion: perfect. "About when we met," Tzimfemme began as she approached, not noticing Sam almost melt into the wall to try to avoid her. She locked herself into place before Merelas. "I know what I felt now. Grave wind but not yours." Conservation died in the radius of her voice; eyes looked sideways at brimming Tzimfemme, turbulent Merelas, tidal Sam Carmichael. The tide began to turn. "You're thinking about different people," blurted Sam. "I hadn't known there were others with grave wind." Sam made an encouraging motion, not wanting to say it herself, but for the moment Tzimfemme was lost; she tried to follow and found only a stark gray beach and foul-smelling sea. Merelas looked curiously at Sam, and she snapped back to the present. Tzimfemme took a bit longer, but finally shook her head slightly, rattling the contents of the tray. "Oh, yes. This." She steadied the tray with her hand. "You see the Miniature Chocolate Mages up here? They're Ångels of Åpocalypse series," and she touched the Serra Angel clipped above her right ear. "I've been trying to make a Pen series for the longest time, but so few people were willing to be measured for the molds. Here we have a festive event and no one can dance all night, plus there's a zero calorie enchantment on the hall if I'm not mistaken. Perfect situation. As a fire-mage-type, you would be made of krispy chocolate, and your companion there. . .not sure, but she seems like a caramel-filled chocolate type. . .well, let me demonstrate." Tzimfemme snapped open a pocket portal and removed a comb-like appendage, attached to a cable that ran back into the portal. "Fiber optic mana cable," she explained, and made passes with the comb up and down, left and right, front and back, all around Merelas. Another portal popped open parallel to the tray and displayed a perfect hand-height miniature of Merelas. The hologram bowed, then held out its palm and produced a spark for the audience. "A bit of a showman, I note," said Tzimfemme dryly. "Now you're in the master file. Hold out your hand the same way the hologram is, and think about yourself and chocolate." All three did; the chocolate figurine formed immediately for Tzimfemme, after a few moments for Sam, and in just under a minute for the bemused Merelas. "That's all there is to it," concluded Tzimfemme, perching the new figurine atop the tray. "Who else would like to be immortalized in chocolate?"

It had been two and a half months since Tzimfemme had re-awakened, at the beginning of Ager Terra Seven (Reset that was Not), and moved the strangely permanent pack of personae to the Pen. They were still getting accustomed to their roles--not a day went by without one or another discovering that she no longer had ability X, memory Y, or emotion Z. Rydia had claimed love, and, after traveling to portions of the LotWR keep no nonmember was supposed to see, was starting to leach lust away from Tzimfemme. Tzimfemme's nightmares of drowning woke Rosemary up day after day and the naked mage began to feel the aftereffects of devouring a soul. Minta started forgetting to talk like an almost-grown-up-really girl would and slid back into more childish speech. The Pen, however unstable its inhabitants might be, was the most secure site in many universes. It cushioned the shock of the contract with Devil Prince MARI and kept awareness of the evil Penguin* from being directly communicated to its inhabitants. Still, many leapt from their writing-desks with the sudden knowledge of the world about to change beyond recognition. For Rosemary, it came through her spiral of silver engraved into her wall, the eyes of Ager Guilded laid out like an opening flower, when most of the eyeballs blazed and glared hatefully at the octagon of unaffected gazes. Rosemary, who was remote from this chart, still heard the howling disbelief from each mage as their name was forgotten and their eye drooped shut. "Those who sing," she crooned, tracing the connecting spirals of the few eyes which were still open. Aside from a clutch near the center and two out of a trail of six, still glaring, the wall was reserved for that perfect octagon. . .which was shifting. . .compressing. . .into an octahedron which rotated lazily on the wall even as the baleful eyes swirled like shrapnel and dashed themselves against it. The madness had destroyed Rosemary's ability to use words when it first hit, and even now the concept of 'Reinforce the Pen and you will be able to withstand anything' communicated itself in mathematical form instead. But how could she force it through her tongue so that the others might understand? That question was partially answered when Minta rocketed into the room with a smoking armful of green meat, trailing spent mana and pieces of orc. "Rosemary guess what! There's a super duper HUGE army coming to attack, can I kill them an' raise their dead, please!" she blurted. Minta had the authority of any other archmage now, but she tended to forget that and defer to Rosemary still in tactical matters. At the nod from Rosemary, she dumped the orcflesh onto the floor (oozy green blood slid towards the kitchen and blood gutters) and flung her hands upward. The meat was yanked upwards and, suspended in midair, began to fall over itself to form a humanoid shape. "An' that's happening to all the OTHER dead orcs out there, too!" squealed Minta as the new zombie took shape. "Now killkillkill the live ones okok!" * Penguin, aka Mary Min, was present in late 1998, the Reset Before Terra Divided, as a less-than-impartial admin who deleted mages of Ångels of Åpocalypse who warred against her guild Goddess Yaong. At the time of this story (October '01), she was being placed back on the Archmage staff as head of Customer Service. If that wasn't the eighth sign of Terra being deleted, I don't know what is.