by Cailleach » Mon Jul 20, 2020 11:58 pm
Cailleach snorts out a brief laugh before pulling Sam forward and the two stumble headfirst into the waters. Everything seems to tilt all the way around and they find themselves beneath the waves, the land they were just standing on only existing above the surface like some kind of mirage and all around them only open water. Cailleach grows flowing fins around a fish-tail and swiftly pulls Sam deeper. The light quickly fades around them as they dive but somehow the waters remain comfortably warm. And as the light fades and Cailleach grows bioluminescent bulbs at the end of her fins Sam can catch glimpses of streams of light filtering down from where 'her' island rests above, streams that Cailleach is following down until they're the only thing giving them any kind of reference point in the endless dark. The pressure must be crushing but instead of it there's only the increasing feeling of sinking into nothing, like the abyss beneath them only grows wider and deeper as they swim and they become smaller and smaller. Two specks suspended in the faintest of light-beams disappearing into nothing... That's when Cailleach's hand slips out of Sam's and for a moment she's not even sure if she could swim back up by herself. Which direction even is up anymore as all directions just seem to make the emptiness around them swell...
And then, just like before when they breached the surface everything seems to flip and fold in on itself and all around them things bloom into existence from the dark, like eyes finally adjusting to the blackness...
They're suspended in water, air, nothing at all, awash in an Astral sea and below them the extending branches of an enormous tree, glowing with scintillating light. And then it's a giant sea anemone with it's arms drifting lazily. Like a magic-eye picture it seems to shift between her own and Cailleach's interpretation of something beyond their ability to truly perceive. And from all around them smaller lights float towards the tree. Raven, flying with sparks of light clutched in their beaks or claws, landing on the tree and placing the sparks in it's branches. One of them comes close to Cailleach and she lifts her clawed hand and the Raven turns into a nightmarish fish of pure black, light clasped behind it's needle-thin teeth. It swirls around Cailleach's hand and she actually smiles for a brief moment before the fish dashes away towards the tree.
Here and there a raven lets go of the light it carries and it dances through the air as it gently dissipates, and a few throw back their heads and swallow up what they carry before darting away.
"They're using their gift. Our gift." Cailleach says quietly. "You tell me how many of them turned out 'wrong' or 'right'.