The Chantry Dream

  • Gypsy Moths fluttered like musical notes given form, their scaled wings glinting with multi-hued flashes catching the light streaming in from the stained glass windows of the chantry. Their's was a dance of joy and sorrow, an admixture of light and sound, moved to wingbeats by the voices of the singers, adding their own hymnal trilling to the song. Elven voices joined those of man, accented by the soft sub-vocalisation of the monks, whose every movement produced resplendent chimes from the silken robes adorning them. Colour and sound lit the temple in waveforms and particles, splashing like the falls of water spilling from the walls, while the faces of every race angled upwards, mouths moving in unison to create the assonant melody exalting The Dragon.

     

    Seeming to sway to the glorious lamentation vocalised by man, mer and moth, dragon's tongue flowers and dragonthorn pettles glowed under the emerald and ruby gaze of sculptured serpents, marble statues of eternity created by very mortal hands. To the choir it was as though Akatosh slowed for the duration of the song, Himself perhaps caught in the gem-fragrance of memory yet to occur, or ensnared by rapture-notes from the future time where amnesia eats the faces of dreaming ada. A day could become a year in that holiest of sacred spaces, a place once graced by the pure and blessed feet of the Highest Highness, the Paravant.

     

    Swept up by this dream intoned, the congregation for whom the language and words of the song were unknown for it was older than the bones of Nirn, nevertheless had pictures painted in their minds, images of a lofty peak capped by a crown of snow where dragons circled a pristine plateau, roaring with fire-speak.

     

    Knights of the Order of the Hour, red-diamond armour gleaming in the scintillant rays of filtered magicka, heard within the notes of the song Al-Esh's own voice, perhaps captured like the scattered fjyrons of soul repeated in verse by the moths above them. Past and present became as one to the paladins of Auri-El and knights of Akatosh, and they found themselves standing shoulder to shoulder with minotaurs, whose hooves beat a futile rhythm  to stamp summer back into the palid vanish of lost myth-echo. Upon the altar above, encircled by the daybreak of aetheric grace, itself an echo of aurbical thunder, Perrif raised a slender hand, holding within her perfect palm a crystal dripping with the blood of shared madness.

     

    And then the singing stopped, the moths flew back to the faces and necks of the monks, while the men and mer of the choir blinked their eyes, adjusting to the silver and red light of the newly risen flesh-divinity of Shezarr whose presence changed the ambience of the now-quiet chantry. The Time Dragon resumed his flight, leaving in His wake a tranquility and sadness only normally sensed within the depths of a shattered gem, a hollow emptiness where once divinity lay, and the dream once glorious ended with just a sigh, unheard by apathy.

Comments

12 Comments   |   DeltaFox and 4 others like this.
  • Sotek
    Sotek   ·  July 8, 2017
    This is a beautiful piece Paws.
    It's also given me an idea, what with the moths... 
    Sorry it took so long but I had other blogs to catch up on. I didn't want to leave other members work and jump to this without going through their pieces...  more
    • Paws
      Paws
      Sotek
      Sotek
      Sotek
      This is a beautiful piece Paws.
      It's also given me an idea, what with the moths... 
      Sorry it took so long but I had other blogs to catch up on. I didn't want to leave other members work and jump to this without going through their pieces first. 
        ·  July 8, 2017
      Thanks Wolfy :) Yeah, the moth priests in the Pocket Guide wear robes that when they move produce an "ancestral chorus." And the link between the moth priests, elder scrolls, and time seemed to good to not have them appear in Akatosh's Chantry. Thank you ...  more
  • Rogue
    Rogue   ·  July 5, 2017
    This is one of the most beautiful pieces I've ever read.
    • DeltaFox
      DeltaFox
      Rogue
      Rogue
      Rogue
      This is one of the most beautiful pieces I've ever read.
        ·  July 5, 2017
      You're making him blush, Rogue. :)
    • Paws
      Paws
      Rogue
      Rogue
      Rogue
      This is one of the most beautiful pieces I've ever read.
        ·  July 5, 2017
      Haha! :D Oh, knock it off!
  • Karver the Lorc
    Karver the Lorc   ·  July 4, 2017
    in those first [days/spirits/swirls] before Convention... that which we echoed in our earthly madness. [Let us] now take you Up. We will [show] our true faces... [which eat] one another in amnesia each Age."



    :)
    • Paws
      Paws
      Karver the Lorc
      Karver the Lorc
      Karver the Lorc
      in those first [days/spirits/swirls] before Convention... that which we echoed in our earthly madness. [Let us] now take you Up. We will [show] our true faces... [which eat] one another in amnesia each Age."



      :)
        ·  July 4, 2017
      Spot on :D And a bit of Distributed Soul was sprinkled on top :) 
  • Sotek
    Sotek   ·  July 3, 2017
    I haven't read this yet but I will. I've a fair few blogs to catch up on but I will get there. 
    Meanwhile Paws, I noticed you haven't signed up for NaNo despite posting a blog in July. 
    Come on Paws, come and join in with us...more
  • DeltaFox
    DeltaFox   ·  July 2, 2017
    Words cannot describe the beauty in this text.
    • Paws
      Paws
      DeltaFox
      DeltaFox
      DeltaFox
      Words cannot describe the beauty in this text.
        ·  July 2, 2017
      Haha, thanks Fox :) Sometimes the muse takes me. One day I might actually write something longer than a few paragraphs :D Thank you for the kind words.
      • DeltaFox
        DeltaFox
        Paws
        Paws
        Paws
        Haha, thanks Fox :) Sometimes the muse takes me. One day I might actually write something longer than a few paragraphs :D Thank you for the kind words.
          ·  July 2, 2017
        Will there ever come a day when you decide to write a novel?
        • Paws
          Paws
          DeltaFox
          DeltaFox
          DeltaFox
          Will there ever come a day when you decide to write a novel?
            ·  July 2, 2017
          Man, you've exceeded my daily tolerance of kindness :D I have a very small magicka pool and can barely manage 400 words, let alone a whole chapter ;) I leave the serious writing to my betters.