Cromagnum was profoundly transfiguring Echo by bestowed vantage and the touch to her visage’s bare feet. This world observed through time in glimpses now beneath was a simulacrum of Earth.

Vermillion was even more beautiful—somehow—despite.

Earth’s bounty had been nigh unending. The grace clearly visible in its every intricately complicated facet proving a kaleidoscope of splendor. Nothing seemed contained by terms of glory in its making. The largest mountain on Vermillion she’d found herself standing upon was changing Echo. She felt more connected to the whole of existence when in contact with stone of mass this grand.

Aboard Rheinmasst—doing her part with Semblance; some final deciding upon a name for her now constantly projected duplicate made—with that self being met by hunger and need for rest all her own, Echo was gifted a balance to their existence’s complications.

When Synecdoche stuck around too long things got interesting—Echo forever able to draw that one back and project them at will in ways and through means she’d choose.

Semblance was amidst her own process. They weren’t the one they’d been.

A swap had taken place. The girl who’d been Echo before would live as her own Semblance—the switch divine—all parts agreed.

She was a compliant failure who needed time to integrate back, she’d not remain in constant physical projection forever. They’d grown to respect each other through rivalry, and it was a boon to them both for the never-ending challenge of supremacy to be rightfully won by the version of self she’d wanted to take her body’s throne all along.

Holding the field of three understandings in self and purpose and past with trauma was a stretching notion to the mind. Penrose staircases of possibility for the why of her lifetime had caused an analytical abundance of Echo to go mad and then execute itself by allowing her now permanently projected visage to take lead.

Vermillion was a distraction, witnessing it through Synedoche’s eyes before they blinked from existence and allowed the two which remained in conscious webbing some break. Every morsel of ripeness within her heart’s fruit would reach soul of Ecatosh.

Semblance hadn’t allowed herself to be understood by Countess Vysara.

She’d remained hidden in shadows of Rheinmasst—hair braided tightly into tails—allowing intricate designs of Vysara’s suppressed working class’s body art to be applied upon her face and arms—something she’d been drinking amongst them was turning her eyes to spectrum of flame.

No one would know this as Echo any longer, for the one in charge had been a duplication of design—nothing was lost but that of lie. She’d only rebecome to another impossible transfiguration within that same physical form so riddled by a lifetime of ongoing trauma. The heights of possibility she might achieve when free from burden was absolute in its unspecified enormity.

Vysara found Echo’s portrayed delectability stunning.

Diving into Synthesis would be the single most graceful attempt to enter water of Echo’s lifetime—an arc to its leap beyond her design—the shuddered breaths she’d feigned when crawling out too precious—that head she’d given in the aftermath as perfect as always.

Witnessing had proven Echo to be controlled—manipulated—and this woman who saw herself the true and future empress wouldn’t know they’d been playing her right back.

Stiggmatt had been seen by Synecdoche while Echo encompassed the beast of a woman it manifested. Her mind would’ve been taken in Synthesis if she’d any strictly defined functions left unmalleable. She was a brain-changer—unique in her ability to shapeshift the mind—it allowed congruence to any foul creature without being overcome, now that she’d reached such heights of power embodied by right of Ecatosh.

Countess Vysara was in hand and not the other way around.

Their planet of salted earth and burnt sky and unhidden depths of chasm would instruct of Vysara’s loneliness. All life on Stiggmatt was scarce. Those beings around Hitheroth were not of equal measure.

It never had anyone to play with growing up—no one nice—nothing close to equal. Just as Echo Béleaph had been reborn, stowing connection always to her Semblance, able to play with possibilities and sights through space and time with Synechdoche’s flexible grace; transfiguration was the under-beast’s gift.

Intentions held in Echo for the length of an era saw her getting what she wanted at last. She was a new person.

Released had been all attachment she was willing—understanding every horrible fate that might become from her actions effects, forgiving herself and those others who’d done her wrong and not allowed their honesty to aid the proceedings, leaving to rot he who’d not deserve the chance.

Hope would be the counter—what made this intention set most loudly with pride. She’d screamed it to Ecatosh in sight of Chiron upon realization of the depths in Rory’s disappearance. It was most heard of all her many pleas through time.

Echo needed to hold the hope she might see Rory again—some chance to embrace her once more—heal the scars she’d never feel right bearing inside. Yet she’d demanded a seeming contradiction to be her strongest point of will; being able to do so without any attachment unneeded in retaining that healthily.

She was the wrong woman for this challenge—Semblance.

The wish destroyed most of herself to become something new. Earth had broken her, and she’d seen fit to become the warrior of heart she knew it suppressed from being. It was unknown the darkness and healing this journey of intention would bring. It would prove to be the bravest undertaking a person could.

For her final release to be the simplest thing—after facing every other darkness of her lifetime—to help Lauren—had shown Echo why.

Peace was found in restful places felt in the future where Semblance would be at rest amongst the people. She would return to The Foundry with Echo. She’d be known to only a few but have her needed place to rest. Inside Echo Béleaph would one day be her home, for Horus had seen that Semblance would become together with rightness of soul’s purpose in highest order.

Rheinmasst was incalculable in terms of design or location for all forever when morphed passed edges of reality. It didn’t exist on the same plane in totality, projections made the battleship which all would witness as a facet of Elaria into form while obfuscating its trueness.

There was nowhere it would actually move.

Ecatosh understood Hitheroth’s creation as its rival—Countess Vysara their soulful community’s enemy of creation, sporting free will her own from the undergod from who she was spawned; itself once a soul of Ecatosh.

There were thirty-four others alike it, banished to holes and enclaves of containment within simulations throughout now resurrected timelines.

They’d all be saved, every soul, allowing the count of Ecatosh to reach its original seven-hundred—minus one man who’d become a speck of Gargantua. Even this dark god hidden beneath the horror of Boreál’s galaxy would make it home, and Echo would show herself as its ally more than any.

She was going to help it die.

I knew I was going to write about The Justiceers Conclave (The Foundry, perchance). It was an unseen fixture from my first book. Separately—I understood deep down that this was written by a bitch from its future who was the in-game author of that story, off recorded histories and to her sensibilities.

In case I’m not understood—it’s Miriam Halafax from Justiceers writing the conclave’s history in this series—Echo is her echo, obvs.

I snuck one ‘Regardless’ in to prove it when she was breaking her own wall there for a minute. There were like three chapters where I let Miriam poke through with her bullshit in this, just a hair.

I fucked everything I write into that universe by how I wrote it, I’m just embracing it—there are lots of souls in Ecatosh for a reason, Echo was trippin in that part.

Nothing like a totally reliable narrator to keep things interesting—this book is free of that. Justiceers is meant to be unreliable AF. Horus’ helmet is my fav in joke for those who know the lore—Miriam hates helmets so much that she creates ‘bubble-shields’ to not have to write them and so she can pretend her hair isn’t jammed up in a big dorky knob. But its also because a badass ‘higher’ part of her soul can’t take its helmet off, ever.

The actual fourth wall stays up in this series though, so it can be singular for those who don’t want to take the full plunge of Miriam’s kaleidoscopic insanity. They just have to suffer one really unfortunate seeming ‘regardless’.

Batting around Poe a lot has been fun—in terms of who I think she really represents. Understanding how I’m the lone projector at last helps. She’s the kid I never got to be. :)

For the record. I do not have strictly defined multiple personalities going on inside me. I have a diaspora of creative projection and believe all types of mental challenge can be overcome through integration and healing into acceptance. This book is playing into them all intuitively. I was having panic attacks earlier in the book and it was literally the chapter where Echo got fingered which got me worst. Then, in the insanity climax of her misbegotten perception forward it was the ‘‘her pussy was fresh’ line. That’s going to take a good while to get less scary to me.

The mind-stretching bits with Semblance and Synecdoche do represent real challenges of my own as well. With this creative ability I have to feel constructed personalities and write with them, it’s difficult to ride. The traumatic holding of my past and shattered self of real is Semblance. I’ve always known that through gender transition my path would equate to some kind of ego death and rebirth. This has just been the hardcore-est. And now I’m like the Sherlock Holmes of owning the simulation—so whatever.

Time Throws Fire | Part Eight | Chapter Forty-Six

the second novel in The Foundry series

Time Throws Fire

Part Eight| Synthesis

Chapter Forty-Six

Discussion about this post