Content warnings for this episode include: Death, Emotional Manipulation
The Conversation - In Full
Nikignik
Marolmar? Is that you?
Marolmar
Do you not recognize me, lover?
Nikignik
Of course I do. But I thought you were dead.
Marolmar
Have you forgotten my name?
Nikignik
I know all your names. You are life and death, the turning of the wheel, the changing of the age…
Marolmar
Life, death, and rebirth.
So? Are you surprised?
Nikignik
Surprised?
Marolmar
I thought it would be playful.
Nikignik
Playful.
Marolmar
A fun jest, you know. Did you miss me? Did you think I was really gone?
Nikignik
You knew. You knew this would happen.
Marolmar
Of course I knew.
I’m confused. You hardly seem happy to see me.
Nikignik
You did not tell me that you intended to cheat death. Why did you not tell me?
Marolmar
Nikignik, I have only been gone for a moment.
Nikignik
It has not felt like a moment to me.
Marolmar
I thought this would be fun.
Nikignik
I have mourned you! Each moment since your passing has dragged on like an eternity. All that I used to be has been hollowed out and emptied of its joy. I have missed you for what feels like aeons, and for you it was only fun?
Marolmar
There’s no need to get hysterical. Let’s start over.
…
Hello, Nikignik.
Nikignik
You’re back.
Marolmar
Yes.
Nikignik
What does that mean?
Marolmar
For who? Us? The universe? The Industry?
Nikignik
Let’s start with us.
Marolmar
You’ve really been shaken by this, haven’t you?
Nikignik
What did you expect? The great love of my soul was murdered. Or so he let me believe.
Marolmar
I didn’t mean to hurt you with this.
Nikignik
That’s what worries me. You should have known better. What did you have in mind for us?
Marolmar
Well, much the same as the rest. We pick up where we left off.
Nikignik
We pick up where we left off?
Marolmar
I was thinking so. It’s much the same where the universe is concerned. I have more of these, ready to deploy. We dreamed once of setting the stars alight with green flame, of a universe where souls burned brightly without fear of the forge.
Nikignik
I am beginning to wonder whose dream that was.
Marolmar
Did we not share it?
Nikignik
I dreamed, I think, of a universe where you and I could be together without fear. I did not care what color the stars burned in it.
Marolmar
And then there’s the matter of the Industry. This was always going to be necessary, you see. I knew as soon as I began tinkering with the economy of souls that they were going to try and silence me forever.
Nikignik
I was so afraid of that happening.
Marolmar
I had it taken care of, clearly. When I wake, not only will we have the element of surprise, but when I strike, the message will be undeniable. There’s nothing they can do to me that I cannot come back from.
Nikignik
Some time to slumber has not dampened your goals for the Industry, then.
Marolmar
No. I am going to murder that old tyrant if it’s the last thing I do.
Nikignik
So what happens now?
Marolmar
What?
Nikignik
In your resurrection. What is there left?
Marolmar
The moments of my slumber are growing rapidly to a close, and then I will burst out of this world. I will awaken in a new and glorious form, and complete the transformation of this world.
Nikignik
Transformation.
Marolmar
For a start. I think you’ll like what I do with the place.
Nikignik
Marolmar, there are people here. That dwell upon this world. Their lives are fragile.
Marolmar
Aren’t they always.
Nikignik
If you rise here, you will wipe out their way of life entirely.
Marolmar
Nikignik! You really have developed an interest of these little things, haven’t you.
Nikignik
It was you that taught me that.
Marolmar
And yet I’m not sure you understand my fascination completely. Life changes, Nikignik. That’s the point of it. After I rise it will still be alive. Life goes on.
Nikignik
You will destroy a world of people.
Marolmar
And from their bones, worms and crawling fungus and blooming death-flowers and flesh-eating tendril and great rotflies and skin beetles and brand new forms of life yet undreamt. Life. Goes. On.
So. How am I to make it up to you? A nice walk in the grove? A gift of eyes? Of stars? A pretty sculpture of my heart?
Nikignik
I am not sure you are listening to me. These people…
Marolmar
Again with the living things.
Nikignik
I have come to care about them.
Marolmar
Oh? Let me get a grasp of this - you have no warmth to share your love of many millennia, freshly returned from the dead and in need of a little kindness, but you have come to care about the smallest of beings that an aeon ago you would have trampled without care?
Nikignik
I thought you cared about living things.
Marolmar
In a scientific sense, surely. I do not care much for what particular shape they take. Neither did you, once.
Rest assured, when I rise, life on this world will not only go on, it will thrive. Its transformation will be complete. You thought it took beautiful shapes before? Just wait until I’m through. I’ll have so much for you to watch, Nikignik, and when we’re done here then I want your eyes on the universe, because I’m going to fill it with spectacular lights.
Nikignik
If.
Marolmar
What?
Nikignik
If you rise. The one named Diggory Graves might wake from their slumber and place their hand upon the heart, and siphon its energy. Or the charges in their hand might go off and damage this shell you dwell in.
Marolmar
You would not let that come to pass.
Nikignik
…
Marolmar
Nikignik.
Nikignik
I am not sure of anything now.
Marolmar
Are you threatening me? I don’t understand. Why this change and angst from you? I thought you would be happy to see me. I thought you would be overjoyed.
Nikignik
Does it bother you? That I dote on you no longer?
Marolmar
I never required anything from you. I simply don’t understand your sudden wretched mood.
Nikignik
You are the one who made me wretched.
How can you not understand that when you died, I died also. Have you seen what I have been doing? I have not your power, nor your creations, I scarcely have a physical form at all, and yet I have been waging war of my own in your memory.
Marolmar
I’ve noticed. It’s been quaint. I’ve been enjoying these little stories of yours.
Nikignik
You’ve been listening?
Marolmar
I’ve been dreaming, haven’t I?
…So where does this leave us?
Nikignik
Somewhere terrible.
Marolmar
An impasse.
Nikignik
Yes. I cannot allow you to rise. I have tried so hard to keep them alive.
Marolmar
You don’t want me back?
Nikignik
I would not say it like that.
Marolmar
What have these last few moments done to you?
Nikignik
I suffered. Without you. I dwelt in agony in your absence.
Marolmar
I am back now! Everything can be how it was before!
Nikignik
No. I do not think it can.
There was pain beyond speaking, yes, for the longest time after your death. But then, gradually, I have found new things to fill the emptiness you left in me. I do not look back so often on our time together. I look forward. To a world that I am guiding and a future I must prevent. I take pride in the stories I present to the dreaming universe. I had wondered for so long what I was for, to guard the gates of the Council of Heavens or to be your lackey. I was unable to chase anything of mine. I was too fixated on sitting at your heel. You are correct. I am not the same Nikignik that you left. I have become something of my own. So no. It will not be the way it was before.
Marolmar
You are going to let me die, then.
Nikignik
…
Marolmar
Is the new Nikignik a murderer?
Nikignik
We might find out.
Marolmar
You would let the one being in this universe that loves you die for the sake of some world of petty moss and earth?
Nikignik
I am… I am trying to think. I know this much, I cannot allow you to wake. Not here. Not now. There can be no spring.
Marolmar
Awfully set on that, aren’t you.
Nikignik
More than you know.
Marolmar
Clearly.
Nikignik
Could you not sleep a little longer.
Marolmar
No, I think not. You’ll go whining to Xyzikxyz and before you know it the Industry will be reducing this world to embers.
Nikignik
I would not.
Marolmar
You already have.
Did you not used to love me, Nikignik?
Nikignik
Of course I did. Strange as it may seem, I often wondered if you loved me.
Marolmar
I am sorry that I did not make it clear enough.
Nikignik
I still love you. That will always be true.
Loving you was not an easy business. But I do not regret any of it. The memories I have of us were beautiful ones.
Marolmar
They don’t have to be the last, you know.
Nikignik
I know.
Marolmar
Just so long as it’s clear that you do have a choice here. You are making a choice.
Nikignik
I know.
Marolmar
So? Get it over with.
Nikignik
What?
Marolmar
Wake this soul-stitched ghoul and kill me already. Hit me with your very best.
Nikignik
It is strange. I have loathed Syrensyr and Tolshotol for taking you away from me each moment for the passing of centuries. And now, if I do nothing, it is by my own hand that you are killed.
Marolmar
I wouldn’t flatter yourself. Have you forgotten already? Killing me is not an easy thing, Nikignik. If you allow my rebirth to be disrupted, it certainly ruins me. But I have already scarred this universe. This world, for example. That cannot be undone. There will always be something left of me. Something regrowing.
Nikignik
You would survive this?
Marolmar
Well. Much in the same vein as the life upon this world… I might not. Life goes on. The self is much more fragile.
Nikignik
I am not concerned about the essence of you, I am concerned about you.
Marolmar
Concern seems an apt description for what you’re about to do, sure.
Nikignik
What am I about to do?
Marolmar
Well, that depends on if you love me.
Nikignik
I do. You know I do. But I cannot…
Marolmar
You refuse to let my heart complete its process. Very well. Although it not how I would have dreamt it.
Nikignik
‘Very well?’
Marolmar
I ask, then, that you do something for me.
Nikignik
What would that be?
static + distortion
Marolmar
…But it would not be the end. After that, I would ask you to…
Nikignik
…I cannot. You know I cannot.
Marolmar
You must.
static + distortion again
Nikignik
How could I ever forgive myself?
Marolmar
Think of the universe ahead of you, one that will be forever grateful. Think of the next ones like you and I - they might be out there even now, listening to these dreams of yours, too afraid to take a step out in the starlight for fear of what might happen.
Nikignik
A better universe for them.
Marolmar
For us, once.
Nikignik
So this is how it ends.
Marolmar
Haven’t you learned by now? Endings and beginnings are the same.
Nikignik
I have experienced endings without beginnings. I am about to cause another.
Marolmar
End. Beginning. Life. Death. They each grow from the other. If any of them existed without its counterpart, it would be a dreary eternity indeed. What would there be for you to watch, with all those wonderful eyes of yours, if not for change?
Nikignik
I wish it could be how it was before. When it was just you and I and things were simple.
Marolmar
You can never cling to anything forever. It’s all temporary.
Nikignik
I hate that.
Marolmar
You shouldn’t. There’s beauty in it, if you look closely.
Nikignik
You’re not going to try and stop me?
Marolmar
No.
Nikignik
Why?
Marolmar
I realize when I’ve made a mistake. I counted on all the variables staying consistent. My elaborate death, my shocking return, all hinged on a string of factors going correctly. And I planned for all of them. For my death at the hands of the Industry, for my heart to be buried in the ice, for it to prepare the world for my return, to someday be free. That no feeble life would be able to stop me in time. But what I didn’t count on was you. I thought I could trust you. I thought your love was undying.
Nikignik
It is.
Marolmar
I thought it would never change, and that is a mistake I realize that I of all people should not have assumed. And now it will cost me everything, but that is the price of arrogance.
Nikignik
I do not want to do this.
Marolmar
It is too late now to stop. Look at them. They’re waking.
Nikignik
Would you like it to be quick? Or to give you time?
Marolmar
I would like it slow. As slowly as you can. And I’d like if you told me a story. I liked your stories, back in the day. I’ve liked listening to them again.
Nikignik
What would you like a story about?
Marolmar
Anything at all.
Nikignik
There was once a god in an early glade. He walked in places of the universe yet unseen, where the stars glowed with the lights of their youth, and the cosmos was painted in colors that have never been seen again. He saw beauty in all that was around him, and he turned his hands to creation. The first motes of life he spun with careful attention, twisted and spiralled their shapes, drew them out into new forms. All the universe was a canvas, and he a painter, and he made it all the more beautiful for his touch.
Marolmar
I like this one.
Nikignik
One day he came across a very small creature, with many eyes, taking in the universe in wonder. They fell together before they even spoke. For I had never seen such beauty and he found beauty in all small things. And they walked and sang and danced in the groves of starlight, and lay beneath the boughs of the orchard and talked of all that they saw, and all the things yet more glorious that might exist after. They lived long together as the stars spun in great circles, and held each other close as planets burst and stars collapsed, and watched the universe twinkle out just as it had once begun.
Marolmar
This isn’t how it goes.
Nikignik
It should have been.
Marolmar
I see. It’s fiction, then, this one.
Nikignik
I find that’s sometimes the best kind. The one we wish were true.
Marolmar
How does it end?
Nikignik
It ends like it began.
Marolmar
How does it begin?
Nikignik
With you and I.
Marolmar's heartbeat ends
Nikignik
And then, one of us, alone.
The Interrogation - The Verdict
Auditor
Your verdict has been prepared.
Nikignik
I am ready to face it now.
Auditor
Nikignik, One Hundred Eyes In The Dark, you have been found guilty of the murder of Marolmar, Garden of the End.
Nikignik
I know.
Auditor
For this noble action, you have been redeemed in the eyes of Syrensyr, the Reclaiming Fire.
Nikignik
What?
Auditor
You have been invited to exit this chamber and take up an immediate post at the Council of Heavens.
Nikignik
What? So I can be his watchdog again?
Auditor
No. To take your chair at the Council of Heavens. The Industry of Souls has determined that you have sacrificed much to protect the universe, and rewards you with a seat at the table. Will you accept it?
Nikignik
I have dreamed my whole existence of this.
I will.
The bonus story that goes with this episode is called 'File 30: You', and is available on Patreon.com/hallowoods. Because Hello From The Hallowoods is created without advertising or sponsors, we rely on patronage to make this show possible!
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