Member
DaftJive
Birdboy
tadcfnaf
Tlazolteotl
silver21
Scrawl Banditta
Neziul
Vec
JFK
MaeBᦓ꠸᥅ꪀꪖ
...did not play favourites.
The sapient mortals were an amusing bunch. Full of boundless ideas, stumbling into new innovations with their blind curiosity, and brimming, absolutely brimming with emotion. Watching them struggle between their dreams and despair had been most entertaining in the early days of Ashuru.
Then it had grown stale. Where was the novelty in struggle if everyone was going through it? Worse still were the mortals who had come to worship Sirna. The ones who took to the lullaby shrooms like a moth to a flame. The shamans. The occasional priests. They had come to rely on Sirna like a crutch, seeking answers instead of creating their own. Uninspiring.
Still, it was only through mundanity that true gems could shine. There was that old mortal who’d spent his last years toeing the line between insight and insanity. Oh, and that little Dreamwalker who had asked for their name all those months ago. In recent times, however, Sirna found themself fascinated by a young human by the name of...
JOKO PULAM
In a village where the likes of Ma'otah and Tolamu made waves with metallurgy and pancakes lived a young man who had come to admire the vast space that hung over their heads every day. These new additions to the sky were fantastic. Whatever the gods were doing up there, Pulam hoped they kept it up because boy, did their work make for wonderful muses! First, it had been the Great Fire with the warmth and colour it brought to the world. Then, the Violet Eye (and its admittedly less impressive sister that everyone seemed to overlook) had awed the village with its fearsome entrance. Pulam hadn’t been sure what to make of them once the shock had passed and everyone had settled back into their usual day-to-day lives, but it was so clear now!
It began with the dreams. It was a strange thing, to dream so fully and wake up remembering most of it. Most of what Pulam could remember happened in a place different from here, where the village’s land rolled flat with the occasional hill and stayed warm and dry. The place he dreamed of was white and blue, where the ground sunk beneath your feet and the land dipped into water that stretched as far as the eye could see. He dreamed of dipping his fingers into little pools of dye, the way he often did in real life, and swiping them across leaves instead of red clay. He dreamed of a tangy-tasting breeze, of constantly whispering trees, of a pale, white moon in the sky, backlit by midnight blue.
Then Pulam woke up and got to work. Time was of the essence! He didn’t know if the dream would fade like other dreams. He would not wait to find out.
His choice of canvas took some debating. Pottery was an option, but this was imagery that he felt could not be captured by physical objects. The little clay plates that he and some of the other villagers painted on might be suitable, but he found himself dissatisfied after a few attempts. He needed to go bigger. Something that would fit his vision. Something that others could see and be awed by the way he had been awed upon sighting the round thing that draped itself across the Great Fire in the sky. Pulam stared at the blank red wall of one of the village’s homes, smack centre in a well-worn path.
Huh.
...
There was quite an audience gathered in the village centre by the late hours of the morning. Some were sitting. Most were standing. All of them watched as Pulam spread broad strokes of paint across the wall of one of the bigger buildings in the village. He paid them no attention, for his vision was taking shape now.
It took time, but eventually, inevitably, the wall was finished. Darkened blue and black spread across the wall’s bottom half in repeated overlapping semicircles, resembling the vast rolling water Pulam had never seen in life. A white circle hung over the horizon line, outlined in a brilliant lapis blue.
A simple caricature of water and sky, but as he stepped back to admire his work, skin splotched with spots of colour, he couldn’t help but think that it looked real nice for his first attempt.
I should sleep under the Violet Eye more often!
ᦓ꠸᥅ꪀꪖ
...couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment. They did not know of Pulam’s personal thoughts or opinion on the moons they had created, but the fervent passion and joy he took part in from the visions the moons granted him had been clear as day. So they had taken his visions of the old life J̶̶̨̙̐́o̤͒͠k̶͉ͨ͠oͯ͑̐҉͕̠̟̕ had lived and they allowed Pulam to remember the scenes he dreamed with uncanny, vivid clarity, so he might execute his artistic will with the skills he possessed.
And what a result this was! Sirna wasn’t sure what was wrong with the mortals who feared their moons so, but this one understood. Not that they played favourites. Of course not. Sirna watched all equally as they were meant to do, judged none, etcetera, etcetera, and did a spectacular job of it, if anyone asked. Particularly if a Patron asked.
Truthfully, they should seek their godkin responsible for the movement of the Violet Eye and its Pale Sister. They had brought out the latent potential within Sirna’s moons; it was only right to thank them.
The question remained: how should they begin looking for them?
~