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RESPITE WATERFALL POOL - EARLY AFTERNOON
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Xochicoatl slithers towards the pool of the waterfall, uncertain of herself in the moment of actually going forward with this ritual. It feels strangely selfless, as she has gathered the reagents that Xochi's journal had indicated. The young coatl approaches what seems to be the remains of an older ritual circle, turning her head towards her companions to give a gentle smile, "It feels as though we have been meant to fulfil this ritual here, hm?"
Erika is kneeling to the side, crossing her arms as she does: "I hope it does. Or, well, guess it does? I'm not sure, but it's probably the right thing to do?" She sighs and smiles: "Sorry, not encouraging. But I'm with you, Xochicoatl."
Louma trails along behind Xochicoatl, dressed in simple clothes and toting a satchel with the two most relevant texts she could find, as well as two pots of black and red paint and some brushes. Mostly because she has no idea what they're really going to need and wanted to feel like she'd accomplished something for all her dead-end research. "The venue certainly has that sort of feel to it. We're about as ready as we can possibly be, hm?"
Nesseth moves with the group, not really knowing what to bring along other than himself, though he settles on also bringing along some odds and ends that could maybe prove helpful in at least setting up the ritual a little more... convincingly (he figures). "I think so. With that circle there, and with this spot being where Sammi usually spent her time, it's probably safe to say the ritual should be conducted here."
Louma looks from Erika to Nesseth, sighing quietly. "We're here for you, Xochicoatl. We may not know exactly what to do, but our instincts are collectively good. Without Sammi's uncanny prowess, all we can do is fall back on the actual shaman rituals from a century ago, as far as I know. Unless something better comes to your mind, Highness."
Xochicoatl nods, and begins removing the reagents, handing each one to her friends as they gather around the circle. She nods to Erika, handing her an egg. "You are all encouraging me in this matter. I do not know what this ritual shall do, but I have faith that this Is the right thing to do, and I think you for your honesty." She moves to Louma, giving her the bundle of feathers, "We shall trust to the Ancestors to guide the way, Captain. I thank you, for your trust." and then to Nesseth, giving him the container of hair. "It seems to be the right place. I wish I better understood Sammi, or... any of this. But I thank you for your friendship."
Erika gives Xochicoatl an encouraging smile, or at least as encouraging as she is able to muster while having really no idea what's going to happen.
Nesseth nods as he takes hold of the container Xochicoatl gives to him. "I just wish we could have figured something out that doesn't involve sending you away, Xochi. I'm sorry..."
Louma grips the feathers carefully, moving to her place in the circle and setting her satchel aside. She feels a sense of irony, considering her own regrets in leading Xochicoatl on before and how this all started with Xochi wishing to retake her own regrets and missed opportunities. "When you find your freedom again, I hope you will grant me a second chance to make things right again."
Xochicoatl bows her head to Nesseth, "I have already forgiven you, Nesseth. And you as well, Louma. I... will do that, yes." She turns away to glance at the waterfall, watching the beauty of the world outside of what she had known to this point. Her words are tinged with some unnamed sorrow, "If... When I return here, yes... yes I will still forgive you both." She smiles sadly at Erika. "To you, of course... there is nothing I have to forgive... I only ask that you forgive me."
Erika smiles just a bit warmer at that: "Nothing to forgive. You did what you felt was right." She steals a quick kiss from Nesseth before settling onto her place in the circle.
Nesseth moves to take his spot in the circle after a few moments, and a small smile at Erika, though it's still with some sadness that he regards Xochicoatl once he's in his spot. "I just hope that gift we'd put together for you will be enough to help you keep up your spirits until you do come back to Respite." He smiles slightly, "The pictures, at least, should be a good reminder."
Xochicoatl pats the small satchel with the photos and the gift. "That all remains close to my heart, Nesseth." She slithers into a circle, coiling up beneath herself as she stands in the center of the ritual circle. "Then... shall we begin? I do not know what to say, other than the hints within my otherselves journal, and through your research, Louma. But I shall do my best."
Erika smiles and nods slowly: "By your lead. Let's hope this works."
Louma smiles lightly, thinking briefly of the pictures and carving they'd gifted to the coatl as their version of a farewell gift. She nods at Xochicoatl with a centering breath. "I have memorized two prayers that I believe will help the ancestors see us favorably. That which you found in the journal should be recited simultaneously."
Nesseth nods as he stands straight and still, though he looks over at Erika with a nod. "I'll leave this part to you and Louma, since I've no real knowledge of these rituals. If you need either of us for anything, though, we'll be ready to help."
Louma nods to Nesseth, smiling in turn to Erika. "I am ready when you are. We all are. On your word, Higness."
Xochicoatl nods to each of her friends. "Then we begin." She takes a deep breath, "That which walked upon six legs, the Essence of Youth, the Essence of Desire, and, the Essence of Regret..." She grips her hands on the scale of yet another friend, sending a silent prayer to Aktzin, wherever he may be, to aid them as well. "We dispel the regret, to gain the power to remake what was lost. And now, close your eyes, and make your wish."
Louma takes another steadying breath, holding the feathers forward as she begins reciting a plea to ancestors she'd barely acknowledged before now. If they're there and listening, now would be the best chance to prove their presence to her, and she hopes deeply they will. "O mothers of our scales, eternal lights in the darkness, grant Xochicoatl your audience. Lead Xochicoatl so she might be lost no longer. I seek this of you in your eternal light, o givers of love. Provide her with your gracious favor."
Erika tries to be as quiet and solemn and... whatever it is that she needs to be here, but it's helping?
Nesseth likewise goes quiet, letting Xochicoatl and Louma recite the rituals. He lets his eyes drift shut, as he makes a wish within his mind for things to resolve favorably for both Xochi and Xochicoatl.]
Xochicoatl speaks her wish aloud as Louma's prayer completes, "I wish... to embrace my regrets, and acknowledge them, to embrace the pain of my past, and to restore the balance, to return those lost to us, so that None shall be prisoner."
Louma ends her prayer listening to Xochicoatl's wish and waiting. She begins muttering the second prayer under her breath, or so it seems at first. Xochicoatl might recognize it, and even Nesseth might if he catches a few syllables as Louma recites a repeating short plea in hisses and rasps, gripping her hands together around the feathers. Otherwise her eyes are locked blankly on Xochicoatl as the ritual goes on.
Narrator: The World around the circle goes gray... Within, Xochicoatl turns with a strange sense of deja vu, as everything goes still, and her friends remain motionless and without color. And outside the circle, Louma, Nesseth, and Erika see only a strange darkening light as sleep takes them...
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A MOMENT - REVEALED
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Xochicoatl gazes over the vast black sea. It is both familiar... and not familiar. She has never been here, but read of it, in books to scare children. In whispers in the dark. She flaps her wings, flying over the water towards the last pinpoint of light in this dead world. A single star, hanging in the void. She reaches the point, looking down. Unfamiliar shapes writhe and slither beneath her, the water almost seems to be something else, wicked and hateful. But the light of the last star peers down to reveal the one who does not belong.
Xochicoatl bends down as if to whisper into the sea, speaking words as though they were part of this ritual that she has known in her heart since she arrived in Respite, "Arise, my other half... Xochicoatl. Arise and leave this hell behind."
Xochi does rises up, buoyed upon the shapes of the dead. Her flesh is nearly gone, bone stripped clean, save for the last vestigates of sinew and scales upon her head. Her body is limp and weak as she opens her eyes to look up at the surface, a faded light in her eyes glowing dimly. "Nesseth? Is it... no... it is you? The one who escaped through the window, yes? You should not have come."
Xochicoatl looks down at herself, the dread within her tempered with determination, and in the face of this nearly-skeletal Coatl she feels familiarity, and pity. "This is your fault, for you should not have opened the window, yes? You should not have brought me here."
Xochi sighs, "Maybe. But it is better this way." She bows her head beneath the water, to look back at the dead who seek to embrace her once again.
Xochicoatl shouts in a commanding tone, "Do not look at them! Do not look down! Look at me, Xochicoatl!"
Xochi starts, looking back up to meet the gaze of her younger self.
Xochicoatl straightens up, wings spreading, "You are the one who would be Queen! The daughter of the Black Prince. Deny your throne, but you cannot deny your blood! This is not your fate!"
Xochi brings a bony hand up to her chest, "I have no choice anymore. You must take it, it is a gift to you now. You can live a better life than I. One without regret."
Xochicoatl shakes her head, "You make your own choices. Do you wish to embrace this? This pit of hate and self-loathing? You are living the regret! What would our Father think?"
Xochi slumps again, but dares not look down, "He... he is here. They all are. I recognized him..."
Xochicoatl points upward, looking to that last remaining star. "You do not recognize him or you would have already seen the truth. He is not there. He is Here. He remains with you, it is only your doubts and fears that recognize him below. You see them, because you fear to see them. But Xochicoatl, you do not recognize the bodies in the water! They have no grip upon you! They will take no more from you! And we will be free!"
Xochi blinks at the fire within her younger self, and reaches a hand up, placing her bony palm upon the black water. "This may be... but I still cannot escape."
Xochicoatl drives her hand beneath the water, gripping the skeletal arm. "No. Not alone. But we were never alone, were we?" She begins to pull upward. The water sticks like filth, resisting, until after a single heartbeat that seems to last forever, Xochi's hand breaks the surface.
Xochi's gasps, the black water sloughing off to leave behind muscle and flesh once more, little by little reforming, but it is not without cost.
Xochicoatl's tail begins to wither, the flesh seeming to turn to dust and dissapate in equal measure to Xochi's recover. She feels no pain, only continuing to pull free her older self despite the the sensation of fading.
Xochi 's arm is pulled free, but she looks towards Xochicoatl's tail and gasps, trying to pull away from the younger coatl, "You will be lost!"
Xochicoatl grunts, tightening her grip and flapping upwards to add the power of her wings to her efforts, "No, I will be free. And so will you. You do not belong here."
Xochi resists at first, but stops fighting as Xochicoatl is far stronger, being much younger and more determined. Xochi's face begins to push through the surface of the water, the scales reforming around her eyes as she breaks into tears. "Do... do not do this! Do not sacrifice yourself for me."
Xochicoatl shakes her head, pulling Xochi's arm in closer to her. Her tail continues to break apart, progressing upwards as more and more of Xochi's flesh is restored. "You judge me wrong. I do this for myself. Just as you did when you began this ritual. We are both selfish, are we not?"
Xochi laughs sadly, freeing her other arm to reach up and embrace Xochicoatl, hugging her younger self tight. "We are."
Xochicoatl hugs back, wings flapping as she continues to lift Xochi up and out of the water. "Your friends are waiting. They miss you."
Xochi sobs slightly, feeling a huge sense of relief. Her wings regrow as Xochicoatl's fade, and yet they continue to rise over the sea. "Will they not miss you?"
Xochicoatl frowns, more of her body fading to dust. "There must be balance. And I was never truly real to begin with. I can feel the truth of this. But I will not be caged again, by flesh or by dreams."
Xochi's long tail begins to wiggle free of the darkness, and she looks into Xochicoatl's eyes solemnly. "Where will you go, then? Back to that manor where I opened the way?"
Xochicoatl shakes her head. "There was never a way back there. This price paid in flesh, to gift you your ritual's wish. I performed the same ritual to find you here, and made my own wish, but there can only be one Xochicoatl in that world."
Xochi takes a deep breath, still crying. "I am sorry for all of this. I hope you can forgive me."
Xochicoatl chuckles, her wings beginning to fade away as she is losing strength. "I forgive you. There is a lesson here in forgiving one's self, yes?"
Xochi laughs again through her tears, her wings now taking over the flight as Xochicoatl's fade. Xochicoatl fought to free her, but the final effort is hers alone. If she wished, she could sink back down, she could surrender herself to her sorrows and regrets. Instead, she presses forward, "There is. There is also a lesson in learning from one's past. And... you have taught me much. I will not forget this."
Xochicoatl chuckles, nearly gone, "For your own good, you will." She sighs, weakly looking up towards the one star, high above them, "Fight on, Xochicoatl. He is proud of you."
Xochi looks up as well. She looks to the star and nods, recognizing it at last, not one of the dead within the water, but still high in the sky. Her arms pass through the remains of Xochicoatl as the younger coatl fades away.
Xochicoatl smiles, the last of her flesh and form given to Xochi to restore her body, be it in truth or symbolic, reality or dream, it may be difficult to say. The last bit of her form spreads out, glittering like stardust, to spread into the heavens above this accursed place. No more darkness, as the stars alight once again.
Xochi hovers aloft in the air as she watches, fully freed of the darkness. She lifts her hands together in prayer as the moment begins to accelerate. The light grows, swallowing up the darkness, until at last there is nothing but the light, and everything goes white.
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SEVERAL HOURS LATER
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Narrator: The Sun is already starting to dip down towards evening as the three reawaken, shaking as if from a nightmare they can't quite recall now that they are awake... in the center of the circle, there is no sign of Xochicoatl...
Erika groans as she wakes up with a thrumming headache, slowly blinking her eyes open. She gets up to a sitting position though doesn't recall ever laying down to sleep in the first place: "Hmmmmrf?"
Louma is pooled at the side of the circle, a wing covering her head as she becomes vaguely aware of how sore her entire body is. She takes a few moments to register that she is in fact awake, and not alone by the sounds Erika makes. She shifts slowly, looking toward the okapi's voice. "Is it... Night? What... happened?"
Xochi rests upon the shore of the pond, looking like a washed up green log, waterlogged and unconcious. The snake seems longer than before, yet not quite as long as she once was. Her wings seem healthy and strong, raising further questions to those who would find her... is this the same Xochicoatl, the original...?
Erika looks at Louma: "Mmm...?" She then notices Xochi: "...oh? What happened indeed..."
Louma groans as she straightens up a bit, blinking at Erika before glancing about for Xochicoatl and Nesseth, her eyes falling on Xochi. "Highness!" She pushes up off the ground, spreading her wings as best as she can to sort of manage to hop across the surface of the grass to Xochi's side. "She's soaking wet..."
Nesseth stirs a bit, having somehow wound up near the shore of the waterfall pool as well. Unlike Louma and Erika, though, he's especially slow to wake, though how much of that is just due to his love of sleeping is hard to tell. However, he does start stirring as Louma's making her way over to Xochi a little ways away, and he grunts as he slowly pushes himself upright with a yawn. "What... did we... did we fall asleep or something...?" He jerks awake more after a moment, "Wait... did it work?!"
Erika makes her way to Nesseth's side, though her eyes are on Xochi as well: "It... I am unsure. Maybe? Is she okay?"
Xochi seems unharmed, other than the dirt and mud from washing ashore and a few bent feathers in her wings.
Nesseth rubs his forehead, and it's only then that he realizes he's soaking wet again, like he was during that first trip to the Dark Sea in his dreams. "I'm... ugh, damn it... just like last time..." He sighs a bit and looks over at Xochi, though he first spares a careful and long look at Erika to ensure she's okay too. "Hopefully... It's hard to tell since she looks so much the same as her past self."
Louma is bent over Xochi, head to her chest for a few moments. She nods, though still looks worried. "She's breathing, but not waking up. We should probably get her to Plume as soon as possible." She looks to Xochi's length, chuckling quietly. "I'm going to need help with that... She's put on a few meters since we last met."
Erika nods at Louma, then gives Nesseth a nuzzle: "You're wet. We should get you dried up when we get Xochi to the Clinic." She then gives Nesseth a full hug, though glances over his shoulder at Xochi and feels just a bit of pang in her heart about Xochi...coatl. For the moment, she hides her frown.
Nesseth leans into the hug and gives Erika a lingering one in turn. "Yeah... it's just like when I found Xochi the first time. I don't even know what happened this time, though." He sighs a bit as he slowly releases the hug and makes to stand up, "Could have just tumbled into the pond when I fell over, maybe... But let's get Xochi to the clinic for Plume to look over."
Louma starts working her tail under Xochi's, snaking it underneath to be able to slowly slither along with the bulk of that weight supported, though it will be slow going it will also be very easy. She busies her arms gently folding Xochi's impressive wings back and holding them out of harms way. "You two get her torso." She glances at Nesseth, "And it figures you could nap through falling into the pond."
Erika gives Nesseth's cheek a kiss before letting go and stepping over to help carry Xochi: "He's good in bed. Even if there's no bed involved." She gives both Nesseth and Louma a smirk.
Nesseth sneaks a kiss on Erika's cheek in turn as the two go to pick up Xochi's front end for the walk back to the clinic. Erika's comment makes him blush under his scales, though, and he sort of loses track on what he was about to say. "I mean, we already know I could sleep through just about anything e-except- except, uh..." He trails off sheepishly.
Louma sighs quietly. "If you two need some alone time I can fly ahead and leave Xochi to mediate this personal discussion." She's clearly got a smirk on, mostly happy that they may have made some progress today.
Erika gives Louma's shoulder a poke: "Oh you're not getting away that easily. You get to stay with us and we'll bring her home together."
Nesseth nods at Erika's stance. "Yup, you get to stick around and help us carry Xochi back while joining in on the commentary, whatever the topic. That aside, we do need to make sure Xochi is okay, and Erika and I can't very well carry her back just by ourselves."
Louma chuckles from behind the other two, keeping pace with them easily. "Hopefully Plume has some good smelling salts or something along those lines. She seems healthy otherwise. But I am not a doctor."
Erika hums, grunting slightly with the effort: "Mm, probably. We won't know what actually happened here until she wakes up, anyway."
Nesseth nods as the trio continues to make their way from the waterfall pond to Plume's clinic. "I'm sure Plume will get Xochi fixed up quickly, regardless of what happened. Might not hurt for Plume to give us all a quick exam as well, just in case."