HFTH - Episode 186 - Strands

Content warnings for this episode include: Fingers, eyes, missing eyes and hands

Intro - Responsibilities

Nikignik

You are dreaming. And as you dream, the world changes. A fire creeps closer to the roots of Scout City, trailing from one rooftop to the next. The King of America is dethroned and his chair sits empty. The Saint Loris returns to a chapel of the Black Eternity, although she does not know it by that name. A ghost flees through the woods, carrying the name of a killer, and an old man and a dead teenager cannot outrun what follows them. Loyalties and loves and trusts are tangled in a delicate fabric, and it is stretched to the point of breaking.

I… will be right back. It’s just quickly, there are… responsibilities. There is all of this unfolding, and then also I am a newly appointed member of the Council of Heavens, and there are some duties I must follow up during our intermission from court. I cannot say I look forward to this one in particular.

sound of Nikignik moving through the halls in the chambers of the Council of Heavens

Nikignik

Pardon me. May I enter?

Skryekeskrye

You are late.

Nikignik

I may have tarried in the hall… but I do not recall setting an appointment to speak with you, so I cannot exactly be late.

Skryekeskrye

It was certain that you would seek me out. It is not the first intersection of our threads, nor the last. You have just come while I am busy straightening threads. You may speak while I work.

Nikignik

Are you claiming to have predicted that I would visit you during our intermission?

Skryekeskrye

Behind my veils are eyes and fingers twisting fibers into thread. Behind yours are insults. You hold much doubt for one so young, and one so short on hands.

Nikignik

I assure you, I did not come to question the validity of your craft. I came, if you have a moment, to ask more about your history. Why you joined this council. I am trying to begin to understand each of the council members individually. What they each bring to the table.

Skryekeskrye

Tables, fables. I was bound to this duty by my thread, just as you were.

Nikignik

You were also offered a place here by Syrensyr?

Skryekeskrye

Do not confuse the means of transportation with the reason for the journey. You are here because the strand of your story leads here, and so it has been since the first letter of your life was written. You cannot see them, can you? The threads, silver-clear and glistening, stretching out into what has been and what is coming? You cannot hear the way they sing and shriek as the tensions of the universe bind and snap at them.

Nikignik

I see much. But as a rule of thumb, only what is actually there.

Skryekeskrye

Rule of thumb? Are your other fingers lawless? Creeping towards what evil, yes, inching forward…

Nikignik

Forgive me, it is a… figure of speech. Your… ‘strands’, are a mystery to me. The ability to foretell the future seems impossible, and yet for this Syrensyr seems to have invited you to join the most prestigious body of government in the universe.

Skryekeskrye

I did not come at the invitation of the soul-forger. I came of my own accord, because it is where my own strand leads, and its course I must follow. Our methods are different, our destinations similar. My eyes are turned far to the future, but Syrensyr wishes yours to safeguard his present. Yet you resent our similarities.

Nikignik

What does Syrensyr ask of you, in your work here?

Skryekeskrye

I sigh and sigh, and prophesy. Of distant dooms. Blistering endings. Stars blackening and suns falling out of their sockets.

Nikignik

Is that all you see?

Skryekeskrye

What are you looking for?

Nikignik

This Urnundurn business is… disturbing. Do you see yet how it plays out? What becomes of it? Whether there is any hope for overcoming him? Despite Syrensyr’s calmness about the situation, we have not tested our strength against the black eternity. I do not know if even all the members of the council are a match for his enormity.

Skryekeskrye

Tapestries are fragile before they are woven. Few lay eyes upon all my futures. Syrensyr alone listens to all I have to predict.The more you seek to change your fate, the more you weave it, hand and string. Manipulating the strands can drive you quite mad, you know.

Nikignik

Ah.

Skryekeskrye

It is also not what you are seeking, is it? The future, the dismal end to all my threads. You are looking for something else, much nearer to this crossing.

Nikignik

Am I?

Skryekeskrye

And I can guide you. But not for nothing.

Nikignik

Perhaps there has been a misunderstanding. I want nothing from you, except to hear your story.

Skryekeskrye

You do not know you want that which you need which I can provide, until I reveal it to you.

Nikignik

By which you mean?

Skryekeskrye

You will ask how a small god can kill a great one.

Nikignik

…I disagree.

Skryekeskrye

And yet you will. Any moment now. .

Nikignik

Does not knowing the future allow you to circumvent it? But naturally, that is the question at hand, what with the vast darkness swallowing up our universe in its slow fashion. You and I are observers, more than fighters. I am not sure how I can aid in the effort against one so all-encompassing.

Skryekeskrye

Speak for yourself, One Hundred Eyes. There is much an observer can do to sway the future, if the right threads are plucked. I know you know this.

Nikignik

…

Nikignik

How can a small god kill a great one?

Skryekeskrye

Another prophecy completed.

Nikignik

I do not think that counts.

Skryekeskrye

I will say this: Syrensyr keeps armories of more than his own soul-forged weapons. Hidden within his belly, behind the molars, inside a cavity, there is a treasury of vile blades. Urnundurn’s own. Daggers hurled from the edge of the universe in the hopes of striking through the heart of a god. Syrensyr keeps them and covets them, so that he alone may wield them, or prevent their wielding. A single nick, a swift cut, begins to unravel the strand. Twist apart threads and fibers. Render the unfettered and indescribable into so many finite words and disconnected molecules. A school of fish scattering in the sea, a structure of sand grains collapsing as the sun dries it. Eyes sputtering out like supernovas.

Nikignik

…how much do you see, really?

Skryekeskrye

More and more each passing moment.

Nikignik

Do you worry that someday you will see something you should not?

Skryekeskrye

Do you?

Nikignik

I have seen too much of that already to mind.

Skryekeskrye

Then we are of a like mind. Now that I have paid you, you must pay me.

Nikignik

I did not… ah. What price do you seek?

Skryekeskrye

A kindness.

Nikignik

If I can spare it.

Skryekeskrye

I have lost my favorite hand. If you could keep an eye out for it for me. Return it if you come across it.

Nikignik

Ah. I am familiar with the discomfort of losing parts. I will do my best. Not for a… transaction. But as a kindness.

Skryekeskrye

Twisting us all around each other. We already were tightly wound. This is where the thread branches, I think. There will be one loose end.

Nikignik

I had best take my leave. There are others to meet with. But thank you, and, I shall do my best to return your hand.

Skryekeskrye

Knock first next time.

Skryekeskrye

*hums Fly Me To The Moon as Nikignik departs down the hall*

Nikignik

I am sorry, dreamers. Where were we? Ah, yes. The fire.

The bonus story that goes with this episode is called ''Brimstone' and is available on the Hello From The Hallowoods Patreon. Consider joining for access to all the show's bonus stories, behind-the-scenes and more! Until next time, dreamer, please be wary of any small lemonade seller positioned on a front lawn. Try to get a sideways view and make sure that the seller has feet rather than legs that grow directly from the soil. The lures of lawn anglers can be surprisingly realistic, short of these small details.