Miach Glimpses

[Miach]

Alone in his newfound sanctum, the mage going by the Shadow Name of Miach was carefully placing his ritual material in front of him : silver dagger, some corn, water, a single white robe. No candle nor light of any kind. Not tonight.

Even though today was not the prescribed day of the calendar, Miach felt appropriate to sanctify this place with a ritual in rememberance of his old mentor Menwel. As Persephone had been abducted from her mother by the god of the Underworld Hades, so too had he been robbed of a beloved one by the very same god. And contrarily to Demeter, the end of Winter would not see Menwel coming back. In the cold of his cave, the Acanthus wanted to bond with the goddess, and send a message in the Underworld that the dead were being missed.

First, Miach took off all his clothing, and stood naked in the cold of the cave, chanting verses of purification, and calling to the spirit of the Greek Goddess of Earth and Agriculture. They shared a bond in their mourning, and he understood Her barren earth to be a symbol of his scorched heart. Keeping on chanting, he then cleansed himself with the clear water he had brought, purifying his mind and body carefully. He needed them to be mystically fit, if he wanted to don the white robe of a priest, as that was his role in this ceremony.

Once completely ready, he started the ceremony proper. From his mouth came a slow and long recitation of the coming of winter as Demeter’s heart, his heart, felt the loss of the loved one vividly, and stopped properly accomplishing its function. His body, his mind, were getting numb as his will to live left him, and his last tears were dropped. This loss of will culminated in a winter when everything was frozen, each minute lasting an eternity of silence and stillness, as the minute before, as the minute after. Nothing moved, not a heartbeat, not a thought. He bathed in the presence of Death.

After a long time of pure stillness, laying on the floor offering himself to the Gods below, Miach stood, and took the corn. He sowed it in the ground, both as a gift to the departed, and as a promise of futures to come. Taking the dagger in his dirty hands, he then slowly slashed his wrist above the furrow he had made, his droplets of blood an offering to appease Hades, and a fertilizer for the crop to come.

Death was all this: the moment you stopped, the moment you were stopped, and the moment you intended to move again. That was the meaning of this ceremony, and it was not lost to the Enchanter. Thanks to his dead mentor, that was still very much alive in his heart.

[Miach]

Alone in his sanctum-cave, Miach was focused on the flow of mana coming from the cemetary in the north-west. The ambiant mana was something very much palpable, but it had a different flavor with the Spring close at hand, and the Acanthus was very much puzzled that he hadn't perceived it sooner. Pushing aside the now-useless occult paraphernalia he had brought to help him synchronize with the flow and refill his inner reserves, he instead sat on the still dirty ground, careless of his white robe.

In the deep of his cave, Miach sat on the ground on his knees, his hands firmly grasping a staff planted in the soil. He closed his eyes, and focused his mind on his sensations. The Enchanter couldn't see the steam from his steady breath. Breathing heavily and slowly, he visualized himself as he had been taught by Menwel, his ever-present mentor, walking in the mists, in the deep of a forest.

Slowly, slowly, steadily, the sun of his perception parted the mists away, revealing the nature of Mana around him. Sometimes, it was berries. Sometimes, mushrooms. At times, apples or other fruits. It all depended on the environment. All the purpose of the breathing, the mists retreating with each breath, was to let the subconscious translate in images what the senses felt. The tools you could use were there pretty much to help you visualize the scene, much like mudras helped visualize an Imago.

Today, perhaps because of the cold that still bite the flesh, or the closeness of the cemetary, Miach expected something somewhat dull, and cold. Carots, or cabbages, maybe. But instead from the recessing mists, his hand brought back oranges and mandarin, to his surprise. Those fruits were sweet like the Spring to come, and heralded warmer times, while keeping the body strong to face the late hardships of Winter. But more than that to Miach, they were a sign that Death-too-Died, and that winter passed on, to make room for another Spring.

The Acanthus bite heartily in the fruits of Mana, getting ready for another year coming.

Thank you.

[Miach]

On a lazy sunday afternoon, Miach was slowly recovering from a hang-over, and wondered what to watch on TV. There was no exciting game, no interesting talk-show, nothing. Well... he was not off to a good start. He started petting Bastet instead, but his cat was in a foul mood too, and quickly escaped his grasp to hide behind cushions. Cursing his aching head, the tall Acanthus didn't feel like reading or listening to music either, so he started dressing at last. A walk would have to do...

Heading into Tahoe park, he watched families walking with their children, elderlies shaking off their weariness to enjoy a few rays of the sun, lone men strolling with their dogs, birds whistling idly, and he smiled. Nothing was more refreshing to him than the painting of a moment enjoyed. He walked leisurely between the few trees, and smelled the wet grass. The fresh air was doing him good, and he soon felt cleansed of the last vapors of alcohol, and his counsciouness expanded to encompass the whole scenery. The tall man basked into this feeling of belonging, of harmony. That was every man's birthright, Menwel bad been right about it. And it was now his duty to preserve it.

A little while later, the doctor was back in his appartment, and sat at his desk. While outside, he had made up his mind about what he intented to transmit within his lessons to come. Of course, he would teach anatomy, basic chirurgy, mundane drugs, and the like, but most of all he would teach that one's body had to be perceived as a metaphor of the wilder nature, that to take care of it, you had to feel a bond to the person you were healing. There were no true healing without love.

He started writing feverishly, until late in the night.

[Miach]

Alone in the limited brightness of his sanctum, Miach was sitting cross-legged on the floor. His eyes closed, his breath slow and steady, he focused his mind's eye not on himself, but on his surroundings instead. He pictured this cave without anyone in it, devoid of any life, but not of its echoes, neither of its promise. The shadows were calling for someone to stretch them, the air was calling for someone to stir it, the ground was calling for someone to stomp it.

His palms flat on the ground, the Acanthus listened to the music of the earth as it sang the memories of lives it now contained within. The bones and blood and flesh of men past were within it, part of it. From the ground, answering to the call of the air and the shadows, Miach pictured dust gathering, coalescing, slowly forming the shape of a man. As time went on and on, that man started to take the shape of an old man, bent on itself, lacking the strength to straighten up, but with definite features. His eyes were blind, his hair was white. He couldn't move a muscle, and neither the air, nor the shadows were satisfied.

Slowly, slowly, the air started to enter the man lungs, the earth yielded more and more material that the shadows gathered to, coalescing as a greater and greater whole. The eyes started perceiving things, the lungs breathed more and more heavily, the muscles were no longer mere flesh around brittle bones, but real power waiting to be released. The process went on, and on, till a tall red-haired man in the prime of his youth couldn't bear it any longer, and sprang into action, stomping the ground, stirring the air, and lengthening the shadows. The ground, the air and the shadows rejoiced, and were proud, for they had given birth to Miach.

[Miach]

It was an early Spring evening. The weather was nice, if not quite warm yet. In the Tahoe park nearby, late strollers were enjoying the fresh air after a busy day at work. In his flat though, Miach was bent over papers on his desk, scribbling frantically.

Ever since he had been granted leave by the Curator to use the Musem's premises as teaching grounds, he had been hard at work summarizing the theoretical knowledge, the practical know-how required to handle both the mundane and awakened sides of Life. There had been so much he wanted to share ! Most of all though, he had wanted to pave the way for the deep understanding of the fine balance between a body's components, and that it was merely reflecting the balance of the outside world. There were so many parallels that could be drawn between a body and the world, if only people would look... But this underlying concern would have to be sparsely displayed, lest the readers were distracted from the most important parts of the work: how best to save the dying human next to you ? Picking examples from years of experience in the ER, he had tried to illustrate things as much as possible.

Call him an optimistic, but Miach had a feeling he could transmit things, that he knew how to explain, to teach. Heck, it was not only his good looks that made him liked by the students. As he had been preparing his lessons for the Awakened of Sacramento, a side-project had started forming in his mind. The more he had been working, the more the Acanthus doctor had been convinced it would be worth his while to prepare a set of lessons for the Sleepers too. Who knows, maybe a few of them would even Awaken ? Eh... better not to dwell too much on it, but he remembered that Menwel's eyes were sometimes glittering with hope at the prospect of mass Awakenings...

Anyway, not only Miach had been preparing lessons to teach medicine and Life to a specific public, he had also been sifting through his material to prepare a book for a wider audience. He even had a name in mind. He would call it "The quickest 911", for of course the quickest 911 answer possible was the person making the call herself.

It was an early spring evening, and the Enchanter was about done with his work. He even had started sorting out the mess that would be self-publishing his book, and he looked forward to it. Now all he had left to do was make it read by the few people he had started trusting.

[Miach]

M.Matilli laid on his bed, his face composed. His chest moved up and down slowly, with only the irregular hiccup now and then. One big tube protruded from his mouth, and was linked to a life-support system, which sounded the passage of time with *fuuuu-chump* every few seconds. Another cable was linked from his chest, near his heart, to an oscillator which displayed with mute *bip-bip* the weak heart beating for all its worth. Near M.Matilli stood only one man. He was tall, red-haired, with a white medical gown, and looking intently at his patient.

When the old man had arrived unconscious a few hours earlier, Dr Blyes had been on duty, and had immediatly set to reanimate the man. His heart had been weak, but still beating. His lungs had been weak, but still functioning. His eyes though, had not been responding to any stimulus, and that hadn't bode well. After what had seemed like hours trying anything to get the elderly man back to consciousness, the Acanthus had had no choice but to declare him comatose, and had him sent to another wing where he could wait while he saw to other patients.

His watch over though, Dr Blyes, Miach in the Awakened world, had not forgotten about the old man, and had walked to his room. Asking nurses where to find the old man sent them a few hours before, he had quickly found the place. He was alone, without any family left. And Miach didn't have to have seen so much, studied so much, to know the man was simply dying from old age. There was nothing he could do in this battle between the Life he loved so much, and the Death he feared so much. He was powerless, and but a mere witness to this losing battle for his side.

After a short hesitation, he decided that if he couldn't fight this battle, nor hope to prevail, he could at least bear testimony to the valiant fight that Life was putting on. He hoped M.Matilli wouldn't object. Carefully closing the curtains, Miach called to his powers of Sight, and soon he was looking at Life and Death ebbing and flowing around the form of the old man. The raw beauty of the show was mesmerizing, and true to his nature, Miach hoped that the weakening pulse of Life would stabilize. Its beauty was such that certainly it wouldn't vanish from this world, would it ? Nature couldn't allow it ! But the cold, damp, sharp tendrils of Death were slowly, surely making their way ever closer to M.Matilli's weakening heart, though. With each passing minute, it took a fraction of a second longer for the next heartbeat to come. With each passing minute, the darkness was creeping more and more deeply, wading its way through the body to the source of the light, to the source of Life. After agonizing minutes along the same pattern, Life blazed one last time with a searing light as M.Matilli's body burst to Miach's awakened Sights. Then the nearby machine's sound stopped.

And the rest was silence.

[Miach]

Once again alone in the basement he had claimed as his Hallow, Miach needed to connect to the ambiant Mana flowing all around him. His studies in the nature of the Death Arcana needed a constant flow of Mana, and his reserves were nearly depleted. His methods of choice were working just fine, of course, but he felt like he should maybe try another approach.

The Acanthus mopped up the floor of dirt, and groaned. Someday, he would have to make some more lasting arrangements. Once satisfied, he picked up the six white candles he had had prepared. The first one was to last 10mns, and each 10 minutes more, so that the last candle would be extinguished after 60mns had passed. He placed them in a line in front of him, each a good yard farther from him, so that there would be less and less light as time went by. When he was finished with his arrangements, he rehearsed quickly in his mind what he was to do: light on the candles, sit in the silver circle he had brought, watch his body become darker and darker as light would slowly fade to black, and focus on the shifting shadows, and the symbol they were of the change Death brought into his body as time went by. He found it fitting, and that should be proof enough it would work, given the very personal nature of the Arts. Time to get to it.

Miach undressed, shivered, and grabbed the matchbox next to him. Starting from the farthest candle, he then lit them in one row with a long match, and crouched cross-legged in the circle. The Enchanter then lowered his head so he could see both his body and the row of candles in front of him. It was not long before his knowing eyes could pierce the semi-obscurity, and gave him a good sight of his skin, his hair, his nails, all the things that made him "him". He burned the image of "him" now in his mind to the last excruciating detail, and waited till the first candle burnt out. As it flickered for the first time, he already noticed minute changes from the image he had collected before. Minutes passed by, the lighting changing as the candles burnt down, and he could see and feel his body reflecting on his scale the change that was wrought: light faded away, and he changed, lighting notwithstanding, from his hair to his breath, from nail to toe, from deep within to right outside.

When the last candle was extinguished, Miach made a mental tally of the changes that had happened in that whole hour spent sitting. His "old" self had nearly disappeared, leaving room for a new "him". In a short hour doing nothing, he had changed so much he didn't recognize himself.

[Miach]

With his first course well on its way, Miach was feeling more and more nervous as it got closer. He still had to set a date, and send the actual invitation, of course, but more than enough people had already expressed interest, and he had the backing of the Curator. Only his preparations were not to his liking...

Of course, he had already decided on the content. There was no way to avoid human anatomy lessons, some basic biology, both about plants and animals, pointing out all the common aspects and differences, and also some basic teaching of virology. The Acanthus was adamant about teaching some background in ecology too, which meant talking about the >Circle of Life<, and interdependence of the species. He had already decided that he would give an example of an Awakened spell for each mundane item, and thus prove the broadness, and the beauty, of the Life Arcanum. He had also decided on some practical exercises, bringing some flies, and other fungus. He knew an anecdote pertaining to each item to release the tension, he had prepared some pictures, some movies to illustrate his points. The Enchanter had also prepared a bibliography for those students that would want to go further on their own, and some homework to boot. What else could he do ?

He rehearsed his course time and time over the ongoing evening, making sure no topic was too long, nor casually brushed. Did he have an explanation for every shortcut he would take ? Did he have all his sources at the ready ? Were they all reliable sources ? All of those questions and many more plagued Miach as he thought about this course, and kept him from finding a peaceful sleep. And to say he was usually so carefree... but not so this time, because it mattered to him. It was his heirloom from Menwel, and he intended to transmit it right !

In the end, it was another restless night for the Acanthus.

[Miach]

Alone in the Miach-cave, the Acanthus was once again about to replenish his stores of Mana. He looked at the walls of bricks, the floor of raw matted earth and the low ceiling of planks supporting more earth, and wondered once again what was the history of this place. How did it came to be ? What happened ? What would happen ? It had reminded him of a story of old he had been taught by Menwel, and he had decided to act upon it.

Opening his backpack, the Acanthus took out the length of silk thread he had brought, and rolled it in one bundle on his right side. He then picked the three tools he would be needing: a rod, a ruler, and shears. He placed them on the table in front of him, slightly to the left, and sat on his chair. Now came the trickiest part, he had to set himself in the right frame of mind.

Miach pictured himself in his mind's eye as Clotho, the spinner, who spun the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle. In parallel to her actions, Miach was taking the raw thread and spinning it carefully around the rod so as to make a spindle of sorts. It was a life in his hands, and he was giving it shape, as his had been woven years before. After half an hour of deep concentration, Miach had rolled all the thread satisfactorily. Life was ready to be given, to be lived, and he-Clotho gave the thread to her sister Lachesis.

The allotter took the life that took so long to be created in her right hand, the ruler in her left one, and started to slowly draw on the thread. While still holding the ruler in her left hand, she drew a handful, that she measured with excruciating exactitude. It was a life in her hands, and as each life, it was unique, and precious. It had its very own shape and twists, its own course to run, and her duty was to allow it to express itself to its fullest. Each span of it was a myriad of events, some too small to be noticed but by a goddess of Fate, others momentous enough to influence the direction of every other thread it would meet. But no matter the thread Lachesis was carefully bearing testimony to, it only had a finite length. After another half hour of observation, she knew the length of the thread to be exactly seventeen yards two feet four inches and a half, all of which had been engraved in her mind.

Lachesis-Miach handed the thread to the unturnable Atropos, that was lying in wait just beside, with her shears ready to cut it down. Which she did, ending the thread of life as was her duty, to allow for her sisters to turn their focus to another, new one.

It ended Miach's ceremony too, and he felt refreshed in his certainty that his life had a meaning.

[Miach]

*thump - thump*
* tick - tick *
*thump - thump*
* tick - tick *
*thump - thump*
* tick - tick *

Sitting on a cushion in his Sanctum, Miach had his eyes closed, and was breathing slowly. He was focused on his heart. In front of him laid a metronome, currently beating a slow Adagio, nearly a Lento. Through breathing and concentration, the Acanthus was trying to control this organ, so as to synchronize its beating to the rythm of the metronom, symbol of Time. As he laid there focused on his body, his mind was drifting away.

How many people are actually aware that an eternity elapses between two heartbeats ?

If you define Death by an unbeating heart, then once an heart has beat, you're dead. And you become alive for the shortest time again when the next heartbeat comes, if it comes. To become dead again once it's over. So what we call alive is actually only a quick succession of life and death, with a reasonable likelihood of "life".

And when you are dead, there's no measure of time, since death is stillness and peace. So when your heart is not beating, you're in an eternal state. And it's only when it beats again that you're alive, you're changing. To fall back into death the next moment. So life is actually a succession of infinities, broken a finite number of times by a heartbeat.

As he came to this realization, Miach's heartbeat fell in line with the beat of the metronome, and the Acanthus reached a satori of sorts, when Time becomes the measure of Life in Death, and Death in Life, all walking toward the end set by Fate.

For an eternity, Miach was no longer himself, but only a part of the Universe, beating in unison to the tune of Time.

*tick - thump*
*tick - thump*
*tick - thump*