HFTH - Episode 209 - Kindred Spirits

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Kindred Spirits

NIKIGNIK

breathing audibly

NIKIGNIK

Where to go from here? That is the question, isn’t it. To the funeral of grandmother Briar, or Shelby’s hunt, perhaps? That is overdue. Diggory and Percy and Clara should be getting back to Scout City, and just in time for the Groundskeepers. Somewhere farther out, maybe? Benson the Dissembling Man, perhaps. They would not see that one coming. We have barely spent a moment with Apollyon after his return, and as he must face the Black Eternity…

Took from me. That is all it does, taking. But a thousand stars on the edge of creation somehow felt small compared to the single mote of green light that I still treasured. I wish that it was destroyed. At least then I would have the satisfaction of knowing that no one could besmirch Marolmar’s grave again. But this… occupation. Inhabiting it, filling it with holy power, a dark tabernacle. Wounds all the more.

Pull it back, Nikignik. Pull it back together…

NOPTILNOPT

Are you alright?

NIKIGNIK

Ah. I… hello. Yes.

NOPTILNOPT

I did not mean to startle you.

NIKIGNIK

I am not startled, exactly. I am just not used to being around an entity that I can not see coming a mile away.

NOPTILNOPT

A mile away?

NIKIGNIK

Forgive me, it is an… earth expression.

NOPTILNOPT

Earth is that planet you talk about, yes?

NIKIGNIK

I… talk about?

NOPTILNOPT

In the dreams. You speak in dreams.

NIKIGNIK

I do. I will admit, I am surprised that you listen—that you dream. I have known very few of my contemporaries who made a habit of that. I am used to going unseen in more than one way, I suppose.

NOPTILNOPT

I did not mean to disturb you if you were in need of… solace.

NIKIGNIK

Oh, not at all. I was… simply collecting my thoughts.

NOPTILNOPT

I see.

NIKIGNIK

How long were you… here?

NOPTILNOPT

Not long.

NIKIGNIK

Ah. Good.

NOPTILNOPT

But, I sense, longer than you might have liked.

NIKIGNIK

Ah.

NOPTILNOPT

I was not trying to spy on you, understand. I was actually looking for you.

NIKIGNIK

Ah. Yes. The business at hand. I am certainly willing to help in whatever way that I can. Although I admit, I am not entirely familiar with your duties within the Council.

NOPTILNOPT

Few actually are. Each of them has a different assumption, I think, when they bother to think about me at all. I can go unthought-about for aeons, really.

NIKIGNIK

Does that bother you? Being forgotten by them?

NOPTILNOPT

On the contrary. You wouldn’t expect it, but it offers a unique freedom. I go where I want, when I want. I answer to others very rarely. There is a universe of social politics and complex grudges in this place, as I am sure you have gathered. There are times I am thankful I am almost an outsider, looking in, rather than being caught up in their battles.

NIKIGNIK

It is fascinating, is it not? Out there, in the universe… I do not know if you can see this, but I see it constantly… they are fighting. Tolshotol gives rise to these… guardians, of sorts, these golden wolves, whose entire mission from Tolshotol is to hunt down the agents of Syrensyr on a given world and destroy them. And yet, here, in the Council, Tolshotol acts as though she is Syrensyr’s very own bodyguard, here to preserve him from all danger. Their motives are so complex, our business-fellows.

NOPTILNOPT

You have begun to understand it, but watch these proceedings as long as I have and you will only grow more bewildered by the day. Hostility and friendship sit in the same hand, more often than not.

NIKIGNIK

Which do you feel towards me, Noptilnopt? You have had plenty of opportunity to study me, I take it.

NOPTILNOPT

I am not sure yet. I watch you less than you might think; there are very large proceedings indeed underway during this intermission of the Council. But… I am trying to decipher you, Nikignik. I have not managed it yet. But I am good at deciphering.

NIKIGNIK

What is there to decipher?

NOPTILNOPT

That is the nature of the inquiry, isn’t it?

NIKIGNIK

I suppose it is. I am an indescribable being, much like yourself. I have countless eyes spread across all of the expanse of this universe; omnipresent. I am of the breed that was born in the orchard at the center of the universe. I spent my earliest days watching, and dreaming. I was recruited to be a watchdog for the Council of Heavens, but I could not focus on that task with a universe ahead of me. I became entangled in a plot to unseat Syrensyr from his throne. I brought his enemy to justice and have been welcomed back to a more official role within the Council. Is there ought else that you are attempting to decipher?

NOPTILNOPT

None of that is what I think of first when I consider you. I see that although you are here, your attention, your… heart, perhaps, lies with the Earth you dream of. You care about its organisms, that is clear in the stories of it that you tell. The enemy of Syrensyr you speak of is dear to you in a painful, complicated way.

Your imagination and creativity is as boundless as the universe outside of this Council Chamber. So what I am attempting to decipher is why you here, trapped with us in this tomb of cosmic business. What you are doing here in these halls, earning the good graces of the being who killed your Marolmar. This I am not sure of, yet.

NIKIGNIK

I assure you, I am only here in your council to make amends for the mistakes of my youth, and to work in a more permanent fashion to secure the safety and smooth operation of this universe.

NOPTILNOPT

The words leave you, Nikignik, but they are not really yours, are they?

NIKIGNIK

Of course they are.

NOPTILNOPT

Are they?

NIKIGNIK

You have asked me many questions, Noptilnopt, and yet I scarcely know anything about you.

NOPTILNOPT

Oh. How rude of me. I suppose not. Forgive me, my… curiosity, gets the best of me sometimes. I am, like you, born of the orchard. It took me so long to understand my own existence, unseen by anyone else. That I still existed, despite never being tangible to them. I am old, Nikignik. Older than even Olbsalolb or Skrykeskrye. I have been watching this universe a long time. I dream long, dark dreams, until the day that your voice began echoing in them. Sharing stories. I am worried about the end of our universe, the one that is gnawing at all the borders of the light. And I am worried about you, because despite all this talk of becoming the new eyes and ears of our council-master, there is something in you that is very far away, and very afraid.

NIKIGNIK

I look out the universe, and I find it full of joy. Life, bursting in a thousand forms. Pursuing its own shape and color with a voracity that gives me… hope, I think. It fills me with something bold to watch it grow. To choose, despite all adversity, to flower. But you are correct. I am, too, filled with fear, because I look out now on the edge of our universe and I see the hunger that desires to drown every life, every voice, in nothingness. And the nothingness is not a… it is not a foe, it is not a threat, it is not an evil that must be defeated, it is something inevitable. Is it not?

Things that grow, stars that burn, life that blooms, all fall back to nothing. Time takes life apart, takes all of its loves and aspirations, all of its great hopes and dreams and plunges them back into silence. Every treasure, every memento of the past, time takes. The day is coming, far off yet, when even the molecules of this universe will still, and all physical matter will lapse into a placid silence, and you and I will truly have nothing left to watch. Urnundurn is a great foe, yes, but he is only the name of the inevitable. Are you not afraid, facing that? Afraid that all of this activity, all of this life, is destined to be nothing, mean nothing in the face of a vast and empty eternity?

NOPTILNOPT

Not afraid, exactly. I am sure you have seen the same, but nothing ever lasts for long. Not life. Not love. Not even us, in the grand scheme of things. It’s always tumbling down, and right into the next thing. I hope it isn’t headed straight into the maw of the Black Eternity, certainly. But a lot could happen between now and the heat death of the universe. You fear the stagnation of all things, but things are stagnant already, in a way, aren’t they? All these council members. All these pre-ordained workings of the universe, following their plan.

NIKIGNIK

Yes. Exactly. Where is the room for growth? For change? When all things must pass in the same automatic routine they have been commanded to for aeons?

NOPTILNOPT

Change is dangerous to them. But mark my words, change is dangerous within the council too. I would watch carefully which halls you are wandering, Nikignik. Which doors you are lingering outside of.

NIKIGNIK

If this is about the armory…

NOPTILNOPT

Mm. It is not about anything. Unlike you, in your new position, my secrets are my own. I only mean to say that there are others in the Council who might feel much more threatened, and whose suspicions might grow quite intense by comparison.

NIKIGNIK

I appreciate the warning, then. But I am quite new to this Council business. It is only to be expected that I will wander the halls.

NOPTILNOPT

Wandering is one thing. Pacing outside the door, thinking, is another. Again, I am not one to judge. It is like I am not even here.

NIKIGNIK

You talked of change. What do you wish to see for this universe, Noptilnopt? Duties or no, you are still a part of the Council of Heavens. Your hand is on the wheel of the universe.

NOPTILNOPT

Change can bring good or bad, Nikignik. But I must say… I am ready to see it, either way.

NIKIGNIK

Either way. But I have much to think about.

NOPTILNOPT

I shall leave you to your thoughts. But if you wish to speak them, at some point, I am never far.

NIKIGNIK

I’ll be seeing you.

NOPTILNOPT

No, you won’t.

NIKIGNIK

...I can never feel him arrive, but I can feel him depart. A shift in presence, in weight.

And I am weighing, a countless stretch of light-years away, a dozen human beings, preparing to fight for the black eternity’s power or to labor against it.

Do you love life more than change, Nikignik? They were born together, but now it is certain that if one succeeds, the other will be forever transformed.

Think back, Nikignik. Back to Earth. Back to the Hallowoods. Back to the story.

Ah. Right. I know just where to begin.

The bonus story that goes with this episode is called 'The Threat Within' and is available on the Hello From The Hallowoods Patreon. Consider joining for access to all the show's bonus stories, behind-the-scenes and more! Until next time, dreamer, don’t turn off the light. It is needed in many places throughout the universe, and it plays a vital role in supporting life on many planets.