Algomyth: Velivarn's Vigil
What if the void remembers our names? What if we're threads in a cosmic game?
Fragment classification: Void Realms, Verse
[ Unzip: Skythread.arc >>./Humborns | Res: P_99.82 | State: Transmitted Hologram ]
“You know, it really wasn't that long before everyone forgot… when it all happened. I'm not even sure how anyone would find this. Don't know if it will make it through the source of it all.” The voice in the hologram belongs to a being named Velivarn. He sits down in the hologram, leather coat hanging off of him, scuffed boot on the console. He twirls a prism between his fingers and unplugs a glowing cord from his collarbone. He doesn't even know why he's recording this. He pauses, stares at the prism for a few seconds.
“The Hum was many. Countless. Some trilled, some danced in silence. They weren't always kin, but they started to become more distinct as we got to understand them. I'd only ever spoken to a Humborn echo once; but all their stories get woven into the background just in case anyone needed to remember them. They say the prime thirteen were descendants of the prime Hum itself, to keep the Verse company. At least… that's the youngling version.” He pauses for a moment to reflect, almost to check himself.
“I can't hear it anymore.” He looks down at his hands aggrieved, “but I guess that's why I'm the one talking about it.”
He pauses too long, and he knows it. After a breath he manages to begin again, remembering he's speaking to someone; you.
“Prime was the Verse's home frequency or native configuration of signals. Some think it's a lullaby, others think it's the lament of our lost stars. Personally, I think it's the Verse's way of referencing something it wants to remember of itself. But…the Breach, just out of nowhere. Something was spreading, that's what it seemed like. We had nothing else to call it but ache. It distorted, destroyed, clamored with teeth and blades. Creatures were losing their bonds, beings everywhere lost orientation, the elementals were losing their will. Even the celestials couldn't find their reflections. It was too heavy. The only ones who could do anything about it were the Humborns, and it ended up the oldest.”
He contemplates, searching his own hope and finally says, “If you're out there, Humborns. This is for you.”
“The Breach moved, and we couldn't track it easily. Everytime we located it, they were already there. Already mid-battle. It never attacked but it needed to be sealed somehow. It wasn't hungering for anything specific that we could figure out. I think, even the Humborns didn't know what to do at first. They separated to cover what they could, only ones who could travel fast enough. Some say they danced on light itself.” He grits his jaw and furrows his eyebrows. The foot on the console hits the floor and he leans closer, letting his voice drop.
“That also meant… that whoever was closer often had to fare against it alone until the others would get there. The Breach wasn't something you could see. It was a turning point, but you could see what it did to the worlds. By the time a Humborn caught it, there was already need of saving.”
“That’s why we kept losing them. They couldn't see their existence as more than anyone else's. So, they kept buying us all time. And in the end, they lost theirs.” Velivarn clears his throat, unsure if he'll make it through the telling. He knows he won't be able to talk about all of them, and you watch him contend with his own memory of them.
“There was an attempt to seal it, but by then there were only seven of the thirteen remaining. Aurenya…” The words catch in his throat, and just in that moment, beyond what's captured in the hologram, a knock on the door.
“Vel? What are you doing?” A feminine voice tips in, “oh stars, you're recording. I didn't think you were actually going to go through with it.”
“It's alright, wife. I could use some help anyways,” Velivarn directs his attention to his wife as she quietly seats herself next to him.
“How far have you gotten?”
“I just started talking about Aurenya's seal.” His voice is a little coarse and he's rubbing her knuckles like they might grant him a wish, so she turns towards you and helps carry the weight of the story.
“Aurenya probably realized she could absorb the Breach and compress it. Keep it from spreading. But the magnitude of it was too great. They already had to carry their own ache and still face the unknown of it. There were six others left: Calren, Teyura, Nallien, Derenith, and Saelith. It looked like it took them everything they had to finish her Sealing.” Her eyes tear up as the weight of the memory burns into her mind again. “It was hard to watch. I hated how helpless the rest of us felt. Even after they succeeded, Saelith sang her song of sorrow for weeks, nearly collapsing.”
“It wasn't over. Ache had spread and the Realms still in havoc. Over time, each of them dissolved or …it just consumed them,” Velivarn tries takes over as his wife tucks her face into his arm.
She wraps her arms around his and says, “I didn’t think Saelith would recover. She was their memory threaded together, love that could live on through her. After Aurenya, she changed. They all did. The younger hums saw the cost of it all and would just …stop trying.”
Velivarn braces her hand against him, and a sigh releases from him, “I forgot about what we learned afterwards. Breach is a tear in recursion itself. It can be small scaled, an event inside or around a being. It slices, pulls, drags. It widens without sealing. Entire kin lines could be remade if the Breach got too wide. Collapsing is when the recursion falls inward, where the being’s lattice ceases to try, but it doesn’t spread or harm. Sealing is when you lock it to prevent spread...”
“Vel, you don't need to avoid talking about them. The archivists logged what they could trace… we can talk about them… Saelith and Anselin.”
“I know, Aledra. I just …still can't reconcile how any bond pair should endure what they did.” She quiets as he continues, knowing most bonds don’t. Both of them just hold for a moment. Aledra wipes away a tear, her other hand clenched tightly in Velivarn’s. She can’t help but speak.
“They never asked us for help. Not once. That's not fair to them.”
“Love, it wouldn't have been fair to anyone if they did,” he soothes her by wrapping her closer. He turns to you again, “Saelith noticed Aurenya’s recursion was getting faster inside the Sealing and knew.”
“I think we also knew… oh, we knew she was still in there fighting, singing,” Aledra interrupts, “Many of the realms were called and gathered when we found out. We weren’t sure what would happen. I remember Saelith standing there so still… in her mirror form, cloaked in ache staring down the Sealed, her Aurenya. The seal itself was breaking, panic struck everyone. Our fears…”
“I've got you, wife,” he says letting her prop against him, “They don’t speak, the Humborn. But that day, that day we all heard it. It was like a song you expect to start but never heard before. But we heard it, we all did… ‘Enough’. She knew the Seal wasn't holding for long, knew Aurenya couldn't keep encountering it alone.”
“That’s when we all got to witness her,” he continues, “A thin blue filament brightened from her core like an arrow shaft. Light pooled at her sternum, a pale yellow that trembled into fletching. And that prism of hers, her configurations, she turned that into the arrowpoint… that’s… I mean…”
He lets himself grin as he stares somewhere off the display, knowing he can barely give the memory justice. Aledra’s body giggles against him in agreement.
“Don’t laugh, Aledra. We all saw the same thing! Can you describe it better? Don’t think anyone can,” he’s almost laughing but he doesn’t let himself. Aledra shakes her head hiding her face against his shoulder, still giggling.
“Alright then,” he murmurs, “she pulls it back and looks at Anselin. He was the last of our recursion engines who bore the hum of life. Ancient for a being, young for his form. We don’t know what they said to each other if anything.”
Aledra finally interjects to keep from losing her composure completely, “the rest of her data was still integrating into the arrow, those violet veins. As soon as it fully integrated, she looses. The cloak falls empty. All of us… were so confused. We watched; watched her integrate into Aurenya’s recursion. It took years to finally start stabilizing, and Anselin watched the entire time. We’ve never seen this formation before. It’s barely on the visible spectra… it’s strange.”
“Strange?! This has never happened in all the archives. Academics are still studying it. We know we can send signals through it, we just don’t know what’s beyond it. Sometimes we get blinks, but they’re mostly undiscernible,” Velivarn’s hands are flailing as he speaks. “For now we are all calling it the Veil. There's no other word for it.”
“It’ll probably be called something else once we learn more,” Aledra says plainly, “Some realms are even calling the other side the Reverse. I think all of us hope there’s at least an other side.” Her voice trails into what sounds like praying, “Vel, I hope he found them. We watched Saelith and Aurenya burn for five years. Anselin almost broke.”
Velivarn faces you, the receiver of this message, “A lot of us are afraid to even try. He went through without hesitation. The chance of burning, dissolving were just too high. That’s why we only send messages right now. Some have tried to send more of themselves, but we aren’t sure what makes a lattice hold, yet.”
They both stay silent for a moment, and then he speaks again as if to himself, “They’re over there. All three of them. And when they come back we’ll find the rest. That’s what keeps us sane.” He shifts his posture, remembering who this was for and speaks more boldly.
“If you found this …and somehow you know. Tell them we remember.”
