231. [POLSKA] Field Promotion
Renate Sandvik dug a hole.
Thunk! Scrape, scrape… thwump.
What was the hole for? Who was it for? Renna couldn’t remember. Perhaps she’d never known in the first place. And perhaps not knowing was the point of the exercise.
Thunk! Scrape, scrape…
She’d been digging for some time. Hours? Days? Kalpas? She couldn’t remember. Not that it mattered though, did it? She’d dig from dawn to dusk and through the night. She’d dig for eternity if she had to. No goal, no quota, no end in sight. Digging was all. Digging was what she did.
Thunk! Scrape, scrape…
Sand, clay, silt, mud, peat, loam, ash, Dust. All the monosyllabic substrates that made up the slopes of Mount Meru. Renna dug through them all. Sometimes with brute force and determination. Other times with patience and creativity. The hole grew wider and deeper, a yawning void asking to be refilled.
Thunk! Scrape, scrape…
Renna ignored the void’s plea. Other souls were welcome to try if they wished, but her job wasn’t to fill. Her calling was to dig. Dredge up the secrets buried with sand, ash, and Dust. Resurrect the stories lost to the scourge of time and impermanence.
Clink!
The shovel hit upon something solid and gestalt. The ripples rose up and coalesced into shape, voice, and meaning—vague though they might be. The first such gestalt bared shark teeth and roared with a king’s courage as it charged into battle. Renna kept digging, summoning more gestalts for her to read, interpret, and remember.
A mother read to her child, passing down wisdom embedded in words and pages. A lone warrior moved mountains with the strength of thousands. A spellcaster flew from Realm to Realm, buoyed by limitless endurance. And a pink frog dug and dug, immersing herself in the memories and intents that churned all around.
Thunk! Scrape, scrape… thwump.
“Would you watch where you’re flinging all that dirt?”
Renna looked up, startled yet somehow not at all surprised. A figure stood peering in from the edge, somehow visible and right there despite the hole’s boundless immensity.
Within Renna’s gaze, it took a Ksana or two for the newcomer to resolve into one shape, one voice, one meaning. First, Renna saw and desperately yearned for the wrinkled smile of Inge Bjornsdatter—red-and-gold ribbons upon a lotus-white field. Next, she recalled her fireside chat with one Feverfew ere’Tully—she of the famous stew and obscure stories.
In the end, the figure settled into that of a pink frog. Face lined and dignified by age. Dressed in foreign clothes Renna had never seen let alone worn. Yet decidedly, undoubtedly herself—unmistakable for the patch of polished basalt atop her head, left out in the open for all to see.
The woman—Renna herself from another time; perhaps another life altogether—reached for her shark denticles to brush away the dirt. She then peered closer with wide-set eyes, expression mellow and unreadable.
“Find anything interesting?” the woman asked, though with a formality that suggested she wasn’t particularly interested in the response.
“Depends who’s asking,” Renna gave the first answer that came to mind.
The woman nodded, seemingly appeased. As though she’d been waiting to be appeased at all.
“That’s the simple truth of it, isn’t it?” she commented, still not quite fully engaged. “Only those who ask the question can ascribe value and meaning to the answer. Which is why we must keep digging. Even if, sometimes, it all feels so futile.”
Renna couldn’t help but frown. Was she destined to become so waffly in old age? Surely not. She dearly hoped for this apparition of herself to have originated from a different incarnation, so she’d never have to find out.
“Agreed,” Renna agreed just to move things along. “May I get back to it, then? This hole won’t dig itself.”
The woman smiled. Kindly enough, if perhaps somewhat strained. Do I look like that when I smile? Renna didn’t know. She rarely smiled, and even when she did, she wasn’t likely to do it in front of a mirror.
“I suppose I can’t stop you if that’s what you wish to do.” The words came out a little slower, a little more deliberate. “Is it, though? What you wish to do? Is this perhaps how you aim to find your serenity?”
Renna looked around at the hole she’d dug so far. Boundless edges, unfathomable depths. Yet the work wasn’t done. As long as her feet stood on solid substrate, there was more for her to dredge up. Dredge up and fling onto more unsuspecting passersby.
Restless—perhaps the furthest possible thing from serene—Renna gripped her shovel and raised it. But the certitude with which she’d performed her endless, monotonous work had been disrupted. The shovel stayed in the air, its wielder unable to decide where to strike next.
“Don’t take this as me being a hypocrite.” The woman spoke from right there. From somewhere far away. Her smile remained, having lost some of its strain. As if she’d finally recognized herself in her counterpart. “I only speak to the duality of being. How we must strive to find the balance in all things. Do keep digging. Do ask your questions. But if you’re able, once in a while, stop by and share your answers with the rest of us, hm? Because if you don’t—”
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The apparition faded, leaving Renna alone inside an immense, unfathomable hole of her own handiwork. But it managed to get one last word in, as was only the wont of storytellers up and down Mount Meru.
—then the world would be full of holes with no one to fill them.
Renna sat a while with the thought. Let it settle into the sand, ash, and Dust. A smile spread on her face, though she didn’t know exactly where it’d come from. She did, however, have a pretty good idea of what the smile looked like.
Restless yet tempered by a sense of serenity not entirely her own, she gripped her shovel anew and brought it down.
Thunk!
***
“#*%&… @^$#…”
Renna woke to the sound of foreign words in her earhole.
“&@~$*. %~#^?”
She jumped in her seat and reached over her shoulder in one motion. The sensible reaction when caught unawares by an unknown entity.
But her hand found only air where she’d expected DREDGER’s handle. As for the entity, it turned out to be a tortoiseshell Tiryaga woman, who jumped back in a fright at Renna’s sudden movement.
Feverfew? No, couldn’t be. Too young and far too slim to be Duskpool’s resident stew-slinger. Renna didn’t know this woman. No more than she knew the room she’d woken up in.
She found herself sitting in a cushioned chair, also utterly strange yet more comfortable than a chair had any right to be. She blinked several times as she came to grips with her new reality, empty hand still hovering above her shoulder.
The Tiryaga was dressed in a fashion far removed from any Duskpooler Renna had met. Dark-blue fabric fit loosely yet functionally upon the woman’s slim, feline figure. Multiple pockets housed pens, notebooks, and various other tools unfamiliar to Renna at first glance.
Just a Ksana later, she realized with genuine shock that she had seen this exact attire before. The apparition from the strange dream she’d just woken from! The tortoiseshell woman who now peered at her with apparent concern was dressed the same as another incarnation of Renna herself. Did that mean…?
She looked down at herself with equal parts curiosity and apprehension. No OYSTER, no DREDGER, no hooded suit. She instead wore—rather comfortably, she could admit—a dark-blue uniform that had been cut and fitted to a diminutive frog Yaksha. Whatever reality had sprouted her dream self, she was living it in the here and now.
“%~#^?”
The same question from a moment ago, no more intelligible on its second go-around. It occurred to Renna that Feverfew—for that was who this was, wasn’t it?—must know her. Or know the version of Renna that should’ve sat in this chair. And if she had to guess, she’d been woken up to fulfill some kind of obligation… but what?
She nearly croaked a question in response, then thought better of it. Best not exacerbate the confusion by bringing the CMV into the mix. She instead gestured to indicate ‘I’m fine’, then stood to her full height—just as lacking in this reality as in any other.
Still somewhat dazed, Renna forced herself to focus as she observed her immediate surroundings.
Funnily enough, the alien room shared some key similarities with the palace guesthouse she’d spent her childhood in. Richly populated bookshelves. Glassware and instruments of possibly clinical or scientific function. And even a small garden of sorts: a collection of potted plants ripe for harvest and brewing.
This must be my room, Renna reasoned, even as she resisted the urge to walk over to the plants. At the very least a room personalized to my needs and tastes. Do I… wield some kind of ‘authority’ here?
Young Feverfew certainly seemed to think so. Seeing that Renna was fully awake, the tortoiseshell promptly handed her a thin, metallic tablet. The object had a perfectly flat surface, upon which appeared words neither printed nor handwritten. They were in foreign script, of course, and no more comprehensible than Feverfew’s speech.
And yet… as Renna stared at the words uncomprehendingly, she realized with another jolt of shock that she could understand them.
[OR 1: GORMAN, Lapis]
[27F, Mriga]
[Procedure: revision facial reconstruction]
[Attending Surgeon: Dr Rowan ere’Kenmuir]
Out of all the bizarre phenomena that had assaulted her in short order, this one hit Renna the hardest. She tried to keep her expression neutral as she examined the tablet, confirming and re-confirming that the words on the ‘page’ were completely foreign. Yet the fact she could understand them anyway must mean…
Pathsight, she concluded. This tablet must be imbued with Wayfaring magic, a byproduct of which being its words are translatable by Pathsight. And that’s not all…
Against all odds, the pieces started to fall into place. The information in Renna’s hand, though delivered to her by means utterly inexplicable, nevertheless helped orient her to the present reality—to her obligation.
This place was a hospital. That much was now abundantly clear. Renna even had an inkling as to its exact location.
And she—the version of her entrusted by Feverfew the nurse to look over an operating list—must be a member of its surgical staff. A pink frog working alongside feline professionals… and apparently important enough to have her own office.
I suppose stranger things have—no, in truth, I suppose not. Until I find evidence to the contrary, this is the strangest thing to ever happen to anyone. I had hoped to learn more about the Duskpool Infirmary and its buried history, but this… certainly isn’t how I’d pictured going about it.
Renna kept her eyes on the tablet, buying herself time by pretending to read the list. Truth be told, her mind was already on the verge of breaking, in no condition to take in any new information. And yet… her unseeing gaze did fall on something that caught—nay, demanded—her attention.
A little ways down the list, embedded within words that signified nothing and names that told even less, was an entry unequivocally and inexorably meant for her eyes and consideration.
[OR 5: ENRIGHT, Realgar]
[15M, Mriga]
[Procedure: excision of pineal tumor]
[Attending Surgeon: Dr Renate aft’Sandvik]
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