[2.14] The Prerequisite to Providence

Sol,

The Raven From Rome

“You’ve seen it for yourself now,” Selene spoke up from the central dais. She smiled. “Though you’ll need context to make any sense of the why not that stands before you.”

The Saint of Scarlet Hearts waved her hands invitingly, urging us back to the saltwater pool her tripod sat inside. Griffon and I shared a glance.

“We’re filthy,” I said, reluctant to make an even greater mess of the place.

“Some more so than others,” Griffon said, eyeing the soiled chiton that I’d used as a rag with disgust. I slapped the broken bone jutting out of his arm, returning to the center of the platform while he cursed my city, my bloodline, and the dog I’d raised when I was child.

I sat at the edge of the pool and let the salt-water cleanse my feet. Griffon joined me a moment later, choosing the spot to my right so he could elbow me with his unbroken arm.

Selene waited patiently for us to gather our thoughts, smiling faintly at our back and forth. She had always been a living contradiction, since the day that I had met her on that indigo pavilion beneath the Storm That Never Ceased – simultaneously wise beyond her years and as childish as a girl could be. She was on the cusp of the rest of her life, eager to see all the wonders of the world, desperate to experience all the joys and the tragedies, great and small, that she had been denied by her father. That portion of the girl was all too similar to her brother. I had seen that side of her more and more as time went on—in the days she kept me company in the Tyrant Riot’s underground estate, and during the weeks that we’d spent questing for a golden cup of wine.

But it was in these moments that I saw the other side of things—the woman that she had risen up to be, far before her time. There was a steadiness to her, seated on that tripod, a certainty in her soul. The girl who had stammered and huffed her way through the first repetitions of the combat training that Griffon and I had promised her was nowhere to be seen now. Griffon could have threatened to tear the pillars of her principles down and cast them over the edge right then and there, and I had a feeling she wouldn’t have blinked. Neither would she have allowed either of us to lay our hands on anything that could make a mess of her cultivation. She was in full control of her heart.

It was that certainty more than anything else that quelled the worst of my concerns. Griffon was still furious—insulted on a personal level, and viciously defensive of a familial bond that was still newborn and fragile to him. But he kept his silence for the time being, kicking his feet idly in the pool and considering her honeycomb tripod with a frown.

“I promised you both the why not, in the absence of the how,” Selene began. She gestured once more all around her, to the pillars of her principles. “Behold, the why not. These pillars that you’ve turned your noses up at in disgust,” she said with amusement, “are the best example I can provide as to why I cannot tell you what comes next in the fourth step of your journey through the Sophic Realm. But that won’t make any sense without the proper context.

“First, you have to understand how I came to be this way. You’ll have to retrace the steps I took myself.”

Griffon tensed up beside me, leaning forward, and a moment later the tripod began to buzz beneath the Saint of Scarlet Hearts. From the ink-black darkness of the myriad honeycombs, smoke and vapor began to seep out into the open air. Every cone seemed to belch a different color of smoke, until the pavilion was swallowed up end-to-end by a riotous light show of smog.

I held my breath, uncomfortably reminded of a night I had suffered through a lifetime ago as a young man, caught out in the boglands of northernmost Britannia—naked and afraid, and higher than any upright son of Rome had any reason to be. I’d been out of my mind, then, under the influence of a bowl of mushrooms that my fellow soldier from Gaul had promised me were a Black Forest delicacy.

“Trust,” Selene repeated softly, and I reluctantly inhaled the vapors.

At once, the mountain range hanging above my head began to spin, and the saltwater pool started to bubble and churn around my ankles. It was a relief when the mist got thick enough to block out the sight of the mountains entirely — it settled my stomach and allowed me to ignore the fact that they looked like they were falling.

The buzzing grew louder, and Griffon lashed out with his unbroken hand, plucking a wriggling shadow out of the smog. I leaned over, and we both peered down at the struggling honeybee caught between his fingers.

“This part may hurt,” Selene said soothingly. “But I have faith in my ancient brother and the revenant’s ability to endure it.” Then, without a hint of duplicity or humor, she motioned like she was pinching a bee out of the air and jabbing her arm with its stinger.

Griffon rolled his eyes and, without looking, jabbed the bee’s stinger into my neck.

I made it halfway through the motion of dunking his head into the saltwater before the venom met the vapor somewhere inside my soul, and melted together to form a far more esoteric poison.

I blinked… and found myself looking at a girl with sunkissed skin and lively scarlet eyes, no older than ten, if even that.

I squinted, wondering why the girl looked so familiar.

“The Civic Realm,” Selene said, with a younger voice to match her younger frame. Yet that ageless certainty was still there, marking her as she was. “The first stage of refinement, or as some call it, the prerequisite to providence. The first step, and no step at all, depending on who you ask. This is the phase of a cultivator’s life that defines their struggle, but it must be said that the obstacles involved aren’t quite as… spectacular as what follows in the higher realms.”

The young girl reached through the mist and pulled from it a cup of kykeon. She took a sip and then let it go. It hung there, suspended as if on strings, while she reached out again to pull an olive from the miasma.

She went on like this for a while, explaining between bites and sips. “The consensus on the Civic Realm—if there can be any consensus at all—is that it is the time for preparation. Natural treasures are thought to have their greatest impacts on a cultivator’s development if consumed and internalized during their formative years. Habits, both good and bad, are ingrained deepest in this stage of life. It is in some ways the least important stage of a cultivator’s development, and in others… well, there aren’t many races where it hurts to have a running start.”

When she finally stopped reaching for treasures, there were hundreds of them gathered around her, a cloud of riches nearly as thick as the vapors themselves. Enriched food and drink, precious herbs, and priceless powders—bounties that I only recognized from my time abroad on campaign, and many more that I couldn’t even begin to guess at.

“There are other considerations as well—far more, if you have the good fortune to be born into a wealthy household. For example!”

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The young girl hopped to her feet, balancing on the tripod and flourishing her arms. “We exist both body and soul, and thus even a sedentary existence like an Oracle’s daughter must properly temper her body if she is to have any hope of advancement.”

Balancing elegantly on the tips of her toes, the girl began to glide through the liquid choreography of a dance routine. The scarlet vestments of her station had not shrunk down to match her smaller stature, but she danced so smoothly that the voluminous silks weren’t any hindrance at all.

“Despite what you might think, violence is not a requirement for a cultivator to progress,” Selene said with careful consideration, not looking at either of us while she said it. “Exercise is a universal good, and far less demanding than the martial path. The more strenuous the tempering early on, the better the foundation in the end.

“I would have spent my youth swimming if it had been up to me, but my father didn’t trust the other Raging Heaven mystikos outside of his domain, and the pools were so rarely empty. So instead, I tempered my body through dancing.”

The young girl paused in the middle of a dizzying heelspin, glancing sidelong at us and grinning impishly.

“It wasn’t as thorough a tempering as some of the more barbaric methods, admittedly. But you might be surprised by the strength and flexibility required to meet Donna’s exacting standards. If nothing else, I honed my reflexes to a keen edge while avoiding her sandal.”