Nobilis: Chancle of Charades

[PoliteSuccubus]

Please see Nobilis Thread if intrested in joining, thank you.

The Imperator known as Regina Orli, Lady of the Inner Light, had created a maze of such complexity and beauty it was very nearly a shame no one would be allowed to see it.

In the center she had built a temple of open white marble arches, a rectanglur pool made of a black glittering stone, and an altar of red jade.

On the altar, over a period of 100 days, she slew 100 mortal men and women who had answered her call.

"Come, oh ye who burn within with an inner light that will not remain hidden, come ye who yearn for better in a land barren of hope and joy, and die that joy and yearning not die in your world."

The Regina had thanked each brave soul that gave itself up to creation of this, her Chancle of Charades, and imparted a part of herself to it as well and set upon it two guardains to protect it and add to its power as well as their own estates.

To each Sovergen Power she created she gave rule over that aspect that was reflected in the Chancle....Play and Serendipity.

More Nobles could be added later, but she had been away from the Spirit Realm too long as it was, and some of her charges were in peril.


I Charge Thee, My Nobles, To Protect This Place And To Go Out Into The World And Fan The Light Hidden Within The Breasts Of Humanity, For Good Or Ill. Unleash The Talents, Light and Dark, The Flames That Consume And Inspire, That Lift Them To The Heights And Show Them The Realms Of Possiablity!

 

[SwampThing]

Andy clenched thegrocerylist in his hand and skipped down the steep, narrow stairs from the apartment he shared with his mother. He took the steps two at a time, three at a time, sometimes skipping back up a few steps before jumping a few steps further down. It was a complicated pattern, but the game was not to use any steps he'd use yesterday, while planning out which steps he wanted to have free to use tomorrow. It was a game of Andy's own invention. He made little games out of narly everything he did.


When he finally got out into the sun and smells and noise of the little brownstone neighborhood, Andy stoppped to climb the stunty tree in front of the apartment building. Up in it's twisted branches, he planned his next move. He'd go the long way around the bock to the grocery store, to see if the kittens were coming out from behind the dumpster yet. After he took the groceries back to the apartment, he would go to the playground and wait for his mother to pick him up at the end of her shift. Andy loved the new neighborhood, especially the playgroud. There were always kids around, and recently a small group of them had started joining him in his curious, elaborate games. He had something veryspecial planned for them today, involing kidnapping, a space circus, and a planet made of sponge.

Andy was lounging dreamily in the branches of the tree, looking p at the thin strip of changing clouds between the brownstones, when he felt everything . . . change.

 

[PoliteSuccubus]

Serendipity

When Sera was younger and living in the Home every Christmas she would set up a Nativity on her dresser top with a Barbie Mary, a GI Joe Joseph and a troll baby Jesus. She would make small presents for everyone, even those she disliked and hide them under their pillows so even the most forgotten or abused child would find something on Christmas morning.

When she turned 18 and was realeased by the state she had no cash, a high school dipolma, and no job skills. So she went into Job Corps to learn to be a Nurses Aide. But she discovered that careing for the ill wasn't really her cup of tea, switched to landscapeing, and didn't care for that either. She ended up in cooking, which was the lowest of the courses, and fit in very well. She mostly enjoyed making pastery with surprize fillings and elaborate cakes for weddings and holidays.

After leaving job corps she got a job at a Safeway bakery decorateing cakes and volenteered her time at homeless shelters and other such organzations. When she went to the park to hand out bagged lunches to people, she always brought an extra something and threw candybars or small toys in the sacks for children.

Then one day, as she was sitting on a park bench feeding the birds, she felt a call. Laughter like silver bells pulled her from where she sat and she followed and somehow found herself in a maze. She didn't remember such a beatiful maze being mentioned in any guide books....Angels stood at the turns and she realized that if one really paid attention to how they stood they pointed the way. An angel here turned her eyes to the left, a kneeling one there faced right, a rose in the a marble hand incated forward...but it didn't really matter since she was following the sound of merry bells.

"You've been chosen...do you accept?" a voice asked.

Chosen for what, and what she was accepting wasn't given on a spoken level, but in her soul she understood.

"I do, oh, yes, I do!" She breathed. With a flash of something more than pain, more than pleasure she felt her soul torn apart and put back together again in a new pattern.

Where Sera had stood, an ophran girl with a hard life and a generous heart, Serendipity now stood with all the power given her by her Regina to bring some small happiness into the lives of others.

"Rejoyce as you will, then join your fellow Noble Play and act in my name to do my will." Orli instructed her. "I depart to continue my struggles in the Outer Relam."

"As you wish, goddess." Serendipity agreed. "Your will is my dearest desire."

 

[SwampThing]

In the center of the maze lay a deep black rectangular pool. A small duck bobbed and splashed in the pool. It looked up at the lady who stood beneath the marble arches.

"Hey lady!", Andy called out, "Look, I'm a duck!"

 

[Maka]

Alain Lee’s life was haunted by neon.

He could see the flickering light out there beyond the window, beyond the dim, murky image it cast back of him. He looked at his image, all backlit by the glowing neon. Tangled dark hair, pale face, haunted dark eyes. Eyes of a visionary or a poet.

Yeah, he thought, That’s me. A fucking poet.

Neon’s cheap, tawdry flashiness represented everything he hated about life, and that was a great deal. All along the street, the neon lights offered their own deliriums and opiates, in pink and red and yellow and green like a sickly Christmas: GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS, JACKPOT ARCADE, SMUT CINEMA, SHAUNA’S ADULT SHOP… he could see it all from the motel window.

I offered them poetry, he thought, I offered them the darkness. And they chose this grubby light, these shameful secrets lit by neon.

The blood from his wrists was beginning to trickle down his arms. The messy cobweb of red his straight razor had made of his veins looked vaguely interesting, in an abstract way, through the haze of alchohol. He took a final gulp of bourbon and let the bottle slip through his fingers to the floor. He had, assuming he hadn’t managed to fuck up cutting his artery as he’d fucked up everything else, approximately five minutes to live.

Branwell Bronte, he thought, Moderately talented poet convinced he was a genius. Overshadowed by his more talented sisters. Ended up working as a railway clerk of all things. Died of fraternal jealousy. Addictions: opium, alchohol. Last words: “In all my life I have done nothing either great or good”

He was technically welshing on a deal. He’d promised his parents he’d go back to the firm if Neon Thickets was a flop, go back to smug, bald golf-playing boss, go back to shy, quiet, adoring little secretary he’d probably end up marrying, go back to nothing special. Well, fuck that. The promises of poets and madmen were worth less than dust on the wind.

Edgar Allan Poe, he thought, Madman or poet, like there’s any distinction, with one foot in the grave and the other in Hell. Married his thirteen-year old cousin. Attempted suicide. Disappeared, later found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore wearing clothes that didn’t belong to him and died in hospital. Addictions: just about anything. Last words: “It’s all over now”

If he listened, it felt like he could hear his hearbeat beginning to slow, as the blood that should have been pumping it oozed out of his wrists. Outside his door, he could hear the janitor’s radio blaring muzak; soft, insidious beats that got inside your head and ate your brains out.

Sylvia Plath, he thought, Perfect golden girl on the outside at first, all cracked and flawed within. Much more in love with death than any of her oh-so-cruel lovers. Suicide, leaving behind two children. Addictions: heroin. Last words: “I must sleep now”

He could definitely hear his heart’s last beat. It pounded in his ears, drowning out everything else as he slipped to the floor, seeing only dimly through a grey film drawn over his eyes. Everything around was just indistinct shapes. The alchohol had kept the pain at bay but now it suddenly rushed at him and he let out a gargled cry.

Funny, he thought, I didn’t think it would hurt that bad

And then a female voice answered him.

Well, what did you think, boy? Did you think poetry was a game? Did you think it was a hobby? Did you think you could do anything but give yourself up to it fully, flesh and bone, word and mind, and let it cut you open and pull you inside out?

Dimly surprised that he wasn’t dead, Alain opened his eyes. The film had lifted, and he knelt on stone in darkness. Blessed, warm, musky darkness without their neon and noise.

And his lady’s voice came from the shadows, audible outside his head this time.

“My cousin is greedy. He grows fat on too many of my adherents. But I won’t let him take you, beautiful sad boy. I have other plans for you”

As she spoke, images exploded in Alain’s head; of dark beauty and fireworks and desert winds and ropes of sand and rainstorms, until he thought he could weep with the glory of it all.

He did not move from his kneeling position.

“Lady”, he said, “You are my muse”

Her voice was sad:

“The Muses served me once. And they passed away, as many fair things have done. The light eats them up, or they give in to my cousin the Razor God, patron of suicides”

Alain was silent.

“You have been chosen”, his lady’s voice spoke at length, “You have been chosen to bring the darkness of poetry back into this world of tarnished light. Will you accept?”

“Yes”, breathed Alain

There was a tiny note of joy in his sad, dark lady’s voice:

“Then go forth, son of Terpsicore. Dazzle and terrify and delight them with your poetry, until once again the world is rich and wonderful”

The darkness lifted, and Alain was left in a quiet place. His wrists still bled. He wondered if they would never cease. The thought did not worry him.

The blood on his wrists seemed to spell out, in tiny jagged red letters, a couple of lines of poetry:

Take me aside. Tell me a sign
Send me a neon heart. Seek me inside.

 

[PoliteSuccubus]

Sera

Sera smiled amusedly and lay down over the broad edge of the pool.

"So you are." She smiled and flicked water at him. "But, how did you do that?"

She cocked her head as listening to some far off sound. "The Others are coming, and we will need to make plans with them. Will you remain a duck?"

She sat up and rubbed her temples. "Ah, so many things in my head today! Things that must be done, things I want to do, voices of those I need to...." She stopped and smiled ruefully.

"But you know all about that, don't you Duckie? You hear all the voices too. When the others come we will discuss what must be done." She snapped her fingers. "I'll surprize them with a small dinner!" She grinned. "Perhaps....Duck ala Ornage?"

 

[SwampThing]

Play

Andy spat water at Sera, and laughed at her teasing.

"I like being a duck. I wondered if I could, so I wanted to try it. Do you ever try new things, just to see if they work? Just to see what you can do?"

He climbed clumsily out of the water and waddled around Sera in a dizzying circle.

"Yah, the voices. So many good ideas! But so many of them are bored, boring. We'll have to show them some good games, okay? Like, when the others come, we'll hide someplace, and the first one to find us gets to invent a new kind of tree. I'm going to hide in a dusty old jigsaw puzzle in the back room of a hostel in Barcelona."

 

[Maka]

We are the words
We are the music
We are the thing itself

-- Queen of Swords


He found himself standing in a great subterranean court. In the distance, there was a muffled splash of water, coming from the one working fountain among the dozens that lined the walls. The court was in ruins; with dark moss and underground fungi growing in cracks in the walls, and statuary, faces worn bare and blank by the passage of time, stood in alcoves. Dust lay heavy on everything.

This was how it should be. Entropy was poetry, a melancholy, graceful beauty. Glory and grandeur were for other arts.

His wrists still bled. The severed arteries no longer gushed blood, but there was still a slow trickle. Dried blood encrusted his shirt and black coat. The pain was dull, but always present. He paid it no heed, except to glance at the new red letters forming along his arms:

Send me a neon heart
Unarmed with a walk like a girl

He pushed open the great double doors at one end of the court, and immedietely was doubled over by a coughing fit, as he inhaled clouds of centuries-old dust.

He was at the bottom of a great stairwell, reaching up unthinkable heights, and lined with huge bookshelves, filled with dusty tomes. Thoughtfully, Alain reached for the nearest book, from one of the bottom shelves, and thumbed through it. It was, as he thought, poetry. Sappho, in the original Greek and the English translations. The other books on the shelf were all books of poetry too, and all the others too; from Shakespeare to Milton, Yeats to Nash, Kavanagh to Khayam. There were rare volumes of poetry here; irreplaceable texts such as the second half of Kubla Khan, lost in dreams long ago, and the works of many brilliant, undiscovered poets, and perhaps the poetry of gods; cold, dark rhymes that heralded creation and destruction.

He scowled at the books. They’d have to go. He’d come back later and strike the match himself. Anyone who thought poetry could be pressed between the covers of books like a dead butterfly and locked away safely in libraries didn’t know shit about it. True poetry was writ in blood and pain and fire.

As he climbed up the stairwell; an underground tower three miles high, he sometimes thought he heard voices, filtering down the shelves in quiet, despairing whispers, like an omen:

“All I’ve learned is everything you love dies…”

“They’re there. They’re all there and we can’t find any of them. What shall we do now? Who shall know us, if we do not know ourselves? Whatshallwedonow?”

“Be careful what you wish for…”

“… all is illusion…”

And then suddenly, all the voices chanting softly together:

“Hail, Lord of Poetry
Seek us in darkness”

The voices were silent after that. At the top of the stairs, a simple stone door stood and he pushed it open and stood blinking, a man all in bloodstained black, in the sunlight of the temple.

 

[PoliteSuccubus]

Enter the Cammorae

Sera was playing hide and seek with Play when there was a deep
voiced “Ah hem.” in one of the archways.

Whirling about she saw a very ugly, tall thin man staring at her
with dead flat eyes. His suit was a rich black and absorbed the
light like a hungry thing but his body seemed to have mummified
within it.

“Hello?” She tilted her head and reached for him with her
fledgling powers, finding not a human or a Noble, or a Lord, but
something else. She frowned in distaste. Something icky.

The tall thin man bent stiffly, from the waist, with a faint rustling
sound that made Sera’s skin crawl.

“I am the Walking Man, you may call me Walker, if you wish.” He
smiled a dead man’s grin. “Lord Entropy, he who is the
Imperator of this Earth, made it known to us of the Cammora that a new Chancle and new Powers have risen, and may have need of us.”

Sera glanced at Play, who was still a duck, and listened to the voice in her head. But being new to all of this she was having a hard time understanding what it was saying to her. The voice in her head childed her for clinging to her humanity, so she chose to ignore it for the moment.

"Please explain." She said to Walker.

"Lord Entropy rules over the Nobles here on Earth. He is the only one of the Imperators who remains here to watch over the Nobles. He rules the court that judges the Nobles if they break his laws." Walker rasied a brow. "And he created the Cammora, who are beyond the law. When he created us he made us invisiable to the law. Anything contracted by a Noble for us to do is no crime."

"Whoa, like Ninjias!" Sera looked impressed.

"But, of course, we do smaller things as well. Simple things." He spread out his hands and smiled. "Our services are paid for in favors and magic. What is asked of us, we ask for payment in equal measure. A small thing, a small favor." He held his fingers an inch apart. "A big thing...." He held his hands wide and changed the moment into a shrug.

Sera bit her thumbnail for a moment. "Maybe you could set up a feast for our Lady Orli, and tell me about the laws?"

A soft grin crossed the Walking Man's face. "For such a simple thing I will ask a small, very small favor sometime in the future."

 

[SwampThing]

Play

Andy didn't like the ugly man talking to Sera. He didn't like the things the voices were saying about him. His mind swam with ridiculous tasks for this Ninja-man, but he didn't like the idea of owing this man anything.

Andy waddled away from Sera and Walker, poking around in the rest of the temple. He tried flying a little bit and found out that it's harder than it looks. He would have to keep trying.

Then he noticed a man in black, ddripping blood from his hands. As the man walked, the blood trailed on the ground behind him. It seemed to spell out words.

"Hullo. I'm a duck. Are you here to help the Lady Orli too?"