S Y S T E M | A T | I C - Printable Version

She came in quietly. Uncertain. Fear fluttered in her tiny heart, but it had nothing to do with the bitter cold outside (which hardly cut through her fur), nor with the predators lurking throughout Ursa. No; she had eyes all around her, now. (A reassurance, when her mercurial moods swung north; an icy pressure, when they fell, for surely they were not only watching her, but judging her with Mother's grasping hand?) No predator would reach her without her knowing, though that hardly stifled her ever-present tension.

No, her fear this day was unrelated.

Mother had summoned her, had made her an offer along their whispering link--a link which had, over cycles, grown and swollen like some living thing curling through her mind. A link that had pushed other thoughts gradually away. Ananke had begun with the mantis's gift a welcome distraction, a quiet reassurance when anxiety rose up. Reassurance had grown into advice, into direction; and that, in turn, into command. What had once been a murmur of promise had turned into purpose. And Ananke--grateful to have something other than fear in her heart--had embraced it, clung to it, subverted herself to it as if trying to cast aside her trembling self altogether.

____

Paws scuffled quietly across the powder, never sinking in, Ananke's light weight braced atop the crust. Here, at last, she stopped, for the depths of the tunnel before her were yawning with shadows. Behind her, the last of Ursa's "star"light gleamed; before her lay the unknown. It wasn't that darkness or tunnels scared her; on the contrary, they reassured her rabbit's mind. A burrow, a warren; that was safety; that was home. But she'd been invited to see Mother directly, now.

...Among other things.

Things that, while eager to accept, Ananke found that she rather feared. But what else is new? she asked herself, demanded of herself, with surprising venom. She was sick of being scared--afraid of every gust of wind, every rattle of branches, every judging stare. Tired of being too afraid to befriend someone just in case they decided that she, like so many of the Lessers, would be better suited to serve as lunchmeat than an ally.

Mother had promised her courage, power, strength. The chance to aid others, to help them grow and learn. To cast aside her fear altogether. And Ananke had never desired anything more in her short life than this; already she had decided to accept, no matter the cost.

Reformation, she remembered, Mother's voice echoing in her mind. And that was fine with the white rabbit. She'd never liked who she was. She'd always wanted to be something... different, something better, and Mother promised her she could be.

She pushed into the tunnel, hopping warily at first, her senses hard at work to ensure she was alone. She reached out her magic, too, to call for herself a little light--the tunnels were far too large to navigate with whiskers alone, and she knew she had a long, long way to go.

The wisp that sparked up was cold fire, a lonely little blue-green light that looked far too small where it bobbed in the vast tunnel up ahead. Its light gleamed off the chipped ice walls, and Ananke blinked through the falling flakes of snow to stare forward. This is it, then, she said to herself, and pushed forward--leaving daylight behind, and plunging into the unknown ahead, following Mother's careful guidance.

Unsurprisingly, Ananke was afraid.

The grind was a slow one. Glacial, in fact, but--in Mother's mind--every bit as inevitable. One Gembound, then another; only a handful, now, but given time that number would cascade exponentially, her patron's influence spilling out across the caves.

Ananke would be another in a long line of her kind: those who rejected the unstable magics they'd been created with, and who embraced, instead, the stable structure of Order. Who then moved, methodically and with Mother's guidance, to march that Order onward.

"Come, my child," she crooned, as the white rabbit picked her way through the icy tunnels. Mother directed her: down that split, across that little gap, down the curve into the dark. "You are almost here. So very well done; so clever, and brave..."

Hours later, when at last Ananke had navigated the tunnel maze, a white rabbit pushed blinking into the light that spread from Mother's inner sanctum. The Praetors stepped aside, and Mother pulled herself higher. Her towering white bulk, linked to honeycombed walls by pulsating masses indistinguishable from her very flesh, gleamed and throbbed. "Welcome home, Ananke." Voice, now: none of the mind-whispering that had led her here, no. She was blessed with the brush of Mother's true words across her ears.

"Come... sit. I have much to tell you."

She would tell her of Chaos, and of Order; of mindless brutality and of crystalline clarity. She would tell her of the origin of this place, and of Ananke's people--though how much of it was true, very few would know. And then came the offer, at long last: Mother would remake her, if she desired. Ahh, it had been discussed, but in no true detail. Instead, she now granted Ananke glimpses, mind-to-mind, of churning cubes of luminescent crystal, thudding forward in a slow, eternal march. She granted her a promise: join with them, and join the Hive; become One with Order, and stand against the Chaos.

"Stand against it, as only you can. Only you, my child, have known what it is to fear, to be a victim--as so few others truly grasp. Only you can protect the weak, truly understanding their helplessness, with the power I will grant you." And the warnings, then, reeking of sincerity, interlaced with tempting promises--it would hurt, but all good things did. There would be no going back, and Mother was terribly concerned; but in the end, all would be for the best.

And when--inevitably--Ananke accepted? The Praetors would guide her to the place of churning crystal, to be remade. And Mother would be oh, so grateful.

Were they empty promises? The thought never crossed the rabbit's mind. Manipulation was unthinkable. Mother, above all--despite the scything jaws and snapping limbs of her and all her creatures--was no predator, not of Ananke's kind. She was her guardian. A protector, and a guide, a safe haven and beloved to her; beloved in a fierce, possessive, violent way. And Ananke believed her with the desperation of the lost and the drowning: if Mother was lying, after all, then her world was a dark smear of despair and little more. She couldn't be lying. There had to be light beyond her fear, her helplessness, as Mother put it: there had to be a way to transcend her constant terror. To become more.

To become strong. To become important. Beloved, trusted, relied upon. "There's nothing I want more," she answered, hoarsely; her only words in all this time. It was simple truth. There was nothing she wanted more than to be able to provide, to others; to be a pillar in their lives, rather than a mild annoyance. Or a meal.

And so, stars in her eyes that left her blind to the pulsing fungus around her--and left her seeing only magic and light--she turned to follow the Praetors out. To follow them to the marching crystals. The journey was another long one, and she was weary at its end, but Mother--again lingering in her mind, a reassuring companion--promised her that soon (very, very soon) she could rest.

For a time, when they left her with this strange not-Spire, Ananke simply crouched and watched. Watched rapt, watched awed and afraid, as the gleaming stone grinded and crept across the ice. How does it move? she wondered; and Mother murmured in her mind, whispering of unknown power greater than any in the caves.

A power that called Ananke, now, if only she would join it.

The white rabbit waited no longer: her heart surged with determination, and with hope (both so very rare for her), and she leapt in headlong.

It took a moment for the moving cubes to snag the white rabbit in their grasp, to twist bone and crush limbs and ribs and skull, to kill the rabbit's body and snare her magic in its own immense, almost unfathomable, power.

There was only the briefest time to feel the shocking pain, and only a moment to wonder if this was betrayal--and then, blessedly, there was nothing.

Mother watched, along the link, until that link was snuffed violently out.

It was not a betrayal. Well-... Not in the way the rabbit had feared. She would awaken, given time--a cycle to fully reform, her gemstone shot through and eventually fully remade as Clearstone, her magic absorbed and spat back out neatly Ordered.

And then would begin her reeducation.

"You," Mother would tell her, gently, lovingly, "are Ananke Drone." She would be granted the right to choose a title, though Mother already knew what it would be; and it would be combined with her new number, rigid and structured, as all things should be. As things always had been. 'Five One Three is Gatherer. One Oh Two is Watcher. Zero One Six's purpose is Cleaner...' "Zero Zero Two Priestess."

Let them infuse it with their religious ferver--Mother did not care.

She did not care, so long as they served; and as weak as her body was, Ananke would serve her well.