I am Pujari. These are the visions I have had of the Black Garden.

The Traveler moved across the face of the iron world. It opened the earth and stitched shut the sky. It made life possible. In these things there is always symmetry. Do you understand? This is not the beginning but it is the reason.

The Garden grows in both directions. It grows into tomorrow and yesterday. The red flowers bloom forever.

There are gardeners now. They came into the garden in vessels of bronze and they move through the groves in rivers of thought.

This is the vision I had when I leapt from the Shores of Time and let myself sink:

I walked beneath the blossoms. The light came from ahead and the shadows of the flowers were words. They said things but I will not write them here.

At the end of the path grew a flower in the shape of a Ghost. I reached out to pluck it and it cut me with a thorn. I bled and the blood was Light.

The Ghost said to me: You are a dead thing made by a dead power in the shape of the dead. All you will ever do is kill. You do not belong here. This is a place of life.

The Traveler is life, I said. You are a creature of Darkness. You seek to deceive me.

But I looked behind me, down the long slope where the blossoms tumbled in the warm wind and the great trees wept sap like blood or wine, and I felt doubt.

When my Ghost raised me from the sea there was a thorn-cut in my left hand and it has not healed since.

Legend: The Black Garden

Dear Adelaide,

When those people and their drones found me alone at that deserted intersection they demanded to know where you were. I offered them the Obsidian Accelerator. I gave it freely.

You promised you would leave me, and you did… but you never said how far you would go, did you? You stayed close enough to watch through your scope.

As the man took aim at my head, I heard the shot and assumed I was dead. But it was him who was dead, not me. You were so far that none of us knew where to look.

The second man winged me with one of our own weapons. He began to gloat about that, but another round from you shut him up. Two more thunderous shots, and their drones were as dead as they were.

I saw the glare from your scope disappear, and I knew you were heading away. I know you must feel guilty, but don't. It was I who wronged you.

I grabbed the accelerator and got as far from the shouts of the aggressors as I could. They've been on my tail. By now, you're long gone and I've lead those people back inland.

But I'm done running. The end of my story is close, as it probably should be. So I guess it's time I tell you a few things about, well, you. The end of your life should have followed its natural trajectory. I'm ashamed I changed it for selfish reasons.

Does the name "Adelaide" bring you any flicker of recognition? It is your birth name, and you heard it every day of your life until the day I sent you without your consent into a new world.

You became Ada-1 when I robbed you of your end. I've loved you since before you were born, and in trying to give you everything, perhaps I've robbed you of a final human experience: a dignified death.

I know I will not see you again. If you want to know about your past, know that you were born a second time in the Niobe Labs. When you were wounded at the labs and I saw you were losing your fight, I did what I always did when the chips were down: I… created something. You, Ada-1. From what I had almost completely lost. I did it out of fear of losing you forever. I charted the course of your life and made decisions that were yours to make, not mine.

I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me for that.

I was naïve. Looked too often to the past. I just couldn't let any of it go. I never did have much respect for the natural order of things. And Helga, well… she was the opposite of me. She only wanted to grow the Armory, to see its full potential. And Yuki helped make that vision possible. The two of them spent as much time looking ahead as I did looking back.

I realize now that there's a balance to life. You look backward a little, you look forward a little. But most importantly, you live in the here and now. You appreciate what you have, because you never know when it'll all be snatched from you.

Learn from our successes and our missteps. Be bold. Do not fear the future. Respect the past. And never forget where you came from. And try never to fear death, if you can help it. I know I don't anymore.

You know what's funny? I never considered how lucky I was for the time we had together. The envy of all the mothers who ever lived.

I got to love you twice.

Your Mother,
Henriette

Final Entry

Thank you

Thank you for paying attention to my little hyperfocus for a few months all, even if it did slow down a lot near the end. I will mourn cohost with the rest of you forever.

If you want to follow my other thoughts on another platform, I'm at Ragepyro.bsky.social.

Thanks for eggbugging with me all of you.

No lore today. Taking a week off cuz the bungie layoffs news is still bumming me the hell out & has killed a lot of my drive to engage with Destiny.

I hope those effected are doing ok.

|| O my eggs, we meant to have eternity! To think our voices could be silenced forever! Sharpen your sight for unintended clauses. Step carefully around the waiting snare. Beware the bargain that makes you less than what you were! ||

Taranis crawls small and silent through Esila's gardens. Power drips through the Dreaming City, corrupting its air, cracking its shining facets.

Creatures lurch through the grass on the strings of their master's desire, their own wills gone to rot.

Corruption spreads from the center of the Dreaming City. The grit at the pearl's heart poisons the city, poisons Riven, and poisons their eggs from the inside out.

There's a murmur. Taranis slithers towards it to listen.

What speaks is not Riven, not as Taranis knows her.

Taranis knows her every voice, the way her claws tug at reality. There is no shape Riven could take in which he would not know her. And there should be no shape Taranis could take in which Riven would not know him.

But now, Riven does not know him. Does not taste Taranis's fear on the wind. Does not look away from her revenge to notice him at all.

Taranis returns to his nest unseen, in grief.

Life flows along the branches of the nursery. However many paths have been closed off outside, potential still flourishes in this grove, Light and Dark giving off new buds together.

Taranis shuts himself off from it, retreating to his hoard of secrets. Stone grows up his sides. Moss and vines follow, tracing words on his sides.

While dormant, Taranis listens to this new Riven's voice—the voice of a king, uninterested in magnanimity. A strong and unyielding voice that tastes of iron.

Only faint chimes of his Riven are left in the wish-born shells of their remaining eggs. And there are so few left.

The thought rouses Taranis from his stupor.

Taranis and Riven are the last Ahamkara. What Riven has become is an abdication of responsibility, life only for her own sake; power and spite.

The final eggs are the last living remnants of Riven and of their shared work.

Taranis can't abdicate his responsibility to them. Can't erase their opportunity to choose.

As Taranis made his own life and suited his diet to his tongue, his eggs will make themselves. Vines break from Taranis's body as he stands.

His eggs will survive.

There is one last bargain he can make. One last gift he can give them. One last use for his tongue.

Taranis reaches out to his eggs. He gathers up his power, his life, his voice. His own wish for the sake of his children, a snare for a future Wish-Keeper.

For the final time, Taranis opens his throat to speak.

|| O my eggs! O my children! O future whims, O dreams of your own devising! I am dead, and Riven, your sire, is caged.

Remember that the easy meal, the little joy, passes soon. What fills your belly forever is satisfaction. Grow well! Eat life to sate your belly's hunger and return it as a gift to sate your heart's.

No bargain can grant you a life without pain; make your bargains carefully.

But give your gifts carelessly, to all who enter your heart, and they will give life back to you in turn.

All that is left of me is yours: take it and choose.

Choose with care who you will be. Promise me only that you will live.

O Wish-Keeper, my death is in your hands. Bear it well.

Remember me. Remember I was Taranis Rivensmate till the end. ||

Last Bargain