Jackal Among Snakes
Chapter 603

We've had some hard times, the three of us. There was a period when the youngest considered every word and action he said to us like it might be his last. Maybe he was right to do so, given how two of us had acted once; one a zealot, the other cold- blooded. But he brought with him from Earth a little softness, rounding the edges out of his elders. One of us had been sharp by nature, the other by nurture, but our youngest part had taught us lessons beyond his years.

But then, he'd just as quickly say he wouldn't be who he was without the aid of his elders.

Then again, none of that really mattered. We were as one, now. We had been expecting pain, perhaps confusion, when we reached out and touched the Tree of Being. Nothing of the sort came. Instead, it came as naturally as being. All our insecurities and uncertainties, when unified, felt insignificant. How could we reject ourselves for what we'd done? A ludicrous idea. Our mistakes are our own, our fears are shared, and our desires are understood. It was intensely comforting, though the emphasis was certainly on 'intense.'

We had a desire, a single will, and a purpose for coming here. Once we had acquainted ourself with who we were, we took a measure of our surroundings. We lingered near the roots of the Tree of Being. Here, the existence of will was shepherded upward toward the light. The roots were the point from which the plant drew its life, but the true beauty of the tree existed further upward. It existed in the place it might be exposed to light, and where, in turn, our minds would be exposed and seen.

Trepidation rose within at the prospect of bathing in the light, at being seen by all who would look. Yet one part of us retained its boldness, its adventurousness, and its unending desire for deeper connection. And that one part, though a minority, was enough to send us rising upward. We did not lack for courage, to say the least. So long as one of us could persuade, we would keep pressing onward.

So we rose through the roots of the Tree of Being, rising upward with the ferocity of comets shooting through the starry skies. We grazed countless other ascending stars, but the roots were many and divided and we gleaned nothing from our brief passings. Before long, however, we felt an intensity unlike anything else we'd experienced before. Myriad wills collided, each of them opposing forces with just as much, if not far more, being as we had. Just like us, they had been, and after this, they would continue to be.

Our delusions of grandeur were truncated in the trunk of the Tree of Being, rather fittingly.

Our grand ascent met their chaotic whirlpool of golden minds, where the sheer magnitude of their being crashed against ours with noise enough to drown out the purpose of our existence. Those that had been for millennia uncountable crashed against theirs. The birth and death of civilizations, the slaying of ancient gods, the coming and going of Gerechtigkeit in all the times that he did... so many other existences, so many other consciousnesses, so many other beings and ways to be. It felt sufficient for us to be whisked away by the whirlpool, to listen to the melodies of minds far older and vaster than ours... after all, how could we hope to learn if we don't stop to listen?

At least... it was almost enough for us.

Deep within us, one part carried with it an indignance that could not be suppressed. It asked many questions. What made us lesser? What demanded that their stories demanded more attention than ours? What made one suffering, one being, more interesting than another? Who decided that just because we had not yet been, we could not soon be? Who decided the fact that we had lost meant we could not gain?

And that cynical indignance permeating through all of us gave rise to a strength of will that was unimaginable. It was the strength of will to forge an empire even when crippled and blind. It was the strength of will to carry on, even when those closest had cast you aside. It was the strength of will enough to consign everyone, even those you loved, to terrible fates without breaking stride.

And so, like a rocket, we plunged into that whirlpool of will and being, disrupting its very heart. Our story rung out through the whole Tree of Being, regardless of our existence's brevity in face of the Gilderwatchers. We were important, and our being mattered. Vasquer's story, our attempts to end the cycle of judgment, our very existence-it rung out boldly, heard and seen by all who could. And thus, the whole majesty of the Gilderwatchers took note... and descended upon us.

The mind of a species was a fell thing. The brevity of our lives meant each was subject to unimaginable scrutiny. It was a cyclone, earthquake, and tsunami all at once, washing over us in a golden tide of will and thought. Yet we did not break, and we did not bend. We stood tall and proud before the Gilderwatchers, letting them see and understand our being.

Just as we understood and accepted ourselves-the mistakes, the insecurities, the reasonings born of our reason so too did the Gilderwatchers. We felt the countless reactions to Vasquer's parting-the bold child who, kept ignorant by a peace treaty made before her birth, headed into the world seeking answers her kin could not provide. Sympathy, disgust, contempt, envy, longing-we received all these feelings and more, and while some minds did not change, they did come to understand. And understanding, we knew, was the most fundamental thing to being.

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That understanding coiled around us like a warm blanket, wrapping us in such tenderness and comfort that it felt all that we had ever done had been wholly worth it. We belonged here. We were welcomed here. Even those that disdained our actions understood and accepted us nonetheless. They let us be, together. Being was enough, surely?

For one part of us... understanding, acceptance, belong... it was nice, to be true, but it was not enough.

Our ambition ignited. Though permeating all of us, it came from one part the strongest. It was ambition enough to pursue the Alchemist with a sickly body. It was ambition enough to try and preserve all, even when it was not pragmatic. It was ambition enough to consume the knowledge of Erlebnis wholly, and ambition enough to try the impossible-breaking the cycle of judgment—even when a kingdom and a family awaited if nothing was risked.

And with that fire permeating us, it was enough to see understanding and acceptance not as something warm and pleasant, but as yet another whirlpool coiling around us and trapping us. Our ambition reminded us of our purpose. We sought neither acceptance nor understanding-we sought results. We sought Lindon. But more than that, we sought Traugott, and the Heralds. We sought everything, all at once, and to get it, we would risk the whole operation.

We burst free of the second trap, ascending ever upward along the tree. As we soared for the skies, we scoured the minds and wills of ancient Gilderwatchers for answers to questions we hadn't intended to ask. We saw it-flashes of Traugott, of the Heralds' presence. It was enough for our investigation to progress on both counts. But if Lindon could not be satisfied, these memories would fade, and everything would be for naught.

Lindon. As they ascended, the others' understanding beget further understanding. He was not a soaring star in this sea of wills, nor a being to be parsed through. He was the frame, the backdrop-he was the tree itself, keeping them all contained in this beautiful landscape. At first, we could hardly understand that... before it dawned that the totality of his being was vast enough it encompassed all of them, bearing it silently and graciously. He was enduring their battle of wills with all the poise of a tree erupting thousands of miles upward. He, alone, was supporting their minds and bodies while remaining totally unbending and unbreaking.

Yet when we posed the question of what such a being could want, the warm light of acceptance and belonging all vanished, leaving behind only the cold blackness of a void that should not be. We ascended up the trunk in total silence with no accompaniment besides ourself. Finally, we came to the branches and the leaves. It was the end, yet a new beginning. It came from what was, but represented what would be.

And here, we fell asleep to awake again.

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"So they awake."

Argrave slammed open his eyes, moving them around. He was returned to his body, and once again was only himself. It felt oddly wrong, like he was missing something, forgetting something. But when he looked around, he saw the rest of himself-his two siblings. When he failed to spot Rook, he scrambled up.

Argrave stood on a golden sea, his body rising and falling with the tides. But the tides themselves were the Gilderwatchers, and together they formed a vast ocean. As his siblings awoke, he once again spotted the Tree of Being. It seemed smaller, somehow as it persisted as a lone island in a sea of gilded snakes. And coiled around it all... Lindon, Argrave somehow knew. A silver feathered serpent coiled around his golden tree, looking at the three of them. His majestic mane of silver-white feathers billowed under the force of the winds of this great sea.

"Your labor bore fruit, as I thought it might," Lindon said, his voice echoing in Argrave's skull. "In all of our beings, never before has one of us been human... nor one of us been three acting as one. And behold; Being."

Lindon's head, as if pointing, drifted near where the tree blossomed. Argrave saw the lifecycle of the fruit before their eyes, passing by in an instant. Four great golden flowers bloomed on the tree. Then the petals fell away, and the base of it began to swell from a small, green thing until it ballooned into a golden fruit with an oddly serpentine shape. Argrave knew what it was without being told: it was a Fruit of Being.

Argrave locked eyes with Elenore, and he gave her a look as if saying, 'I told you this could happen.' She walked across the sea of snakes as the tide raged, asking, “Did you deceive us? When we sought answers to the question you asked, we found only the void!"

Lindon looked ahead. "Is that what you think I want? To deceive you?" His head drifted near the fruits, and when his head passed, they all fell into the sea. Their golden brilliance was subsumed by the ocean of one thousand snakes. "Or do I want your Being, bearing fruit on our tree?"

Argrave opened his mouth to speak, but all the tides of snakes beneath them writhed and churned before rising up in the shape of a golden box with a handle atop it. There, Argrave could feel the Alchemist, somehow.

"I have your Raven, and his fractured mind, well at hand. I can return him as you want him." The cube soared high into the air, and Lindon's head came before the three of them. It seemed as wide as the universe, yet compressed onto the point of a pin striking at their very souls. "But do you know what I want? You've come. Now, answer."