|
Post by Cody D'Avalon on Oct 20, 2023 1:47:46 GMT
Well, that didn't exactly answer Cody's question. However, it did in a roundabout way. At least Cody no longer has any expectations of being welcomed with open arms.
"Oh, well... If she doesn't like you she must be psychotic."
|
|
|
Post by Lorelei on Oct 20, 2023 12:10:10 GMT
Lorelei paints the gloomy picture saying, "She is more a prima-donna who has gained a sense of entitlement when she was chosen to be regent. It was a choice between the remaining red-heads, whom the others do not trust, and her. The rest of the Elders are either dead or have, for now, left Amber..." .
|
|
|
Post by Cody D'Avalon on Oct 20, 2023 20:03:54 GMT
"Regency is a tenuous position. I wouldn't want that job. You have to work twice as hard to get half the respect..Just seems like tyranny comes with the territory."
"Not to excuse her, of course." Cody gives Lorelei a sheepish grin.
"That's enough business talk. I've been living inside a fish for over a fortnight and now it's time to have some fun."
"I know what Llewella said about the Terror's cachet but from my experience cachet is fleeting anyway. The hip crowd is fickle. Always moving on in search of the next big thing. If the place is worthy, the cachet will eventually circle back to them."
"So... That's my way of saying, 'will you accompany me there?'" Cody flutters his eyelashes at Lorelei in an attempt to sway her decision.
|
|
|
Post by Lorelei on Oct 23, 2023 4:41:09 GMT
Placing her arms on his shoulders, wrists crossed behind his head, she asks, "Are you saying it wouldn't be any fun to stay here with me..."
She leaves him and the question dangling for an uncomfortable moment and a few heartbeats longer as she gently turns them so that he can see her bedchamber over her shoulder.
With a sigh she says, "You have to remember that I live here. To ignore the advise of either royal sister means I won't hear the end of it for a very long time... I can take you there, but I won't be going in. There are also things I should attend to that cannot be put off much longer."
"As long as the earlier preparations took for Brian, it may already be pushing morning topside and I told Ovid that I would help him check-out Garnath."
"I can check on you every few hours until you are ready to see me again," she adds tapping his mirrored compact, her hand uncomfortably close to....
.
|
|
|
Post by Cody D'Avalon on Oct 23, 2023 15:37:48 GMT
Cody isn't one hundred percent immune to Lorelei's seduction. The evidence hopefully concealed behind the sporran he always wears.
Taking a calming breath, "Plenty of fun; and consequences."
"The Royal Sisters would make me a Eunuch."
Cody could grow a new pair but he is fond of the ones he currently possesses.
Carefully Cody gives Lorelei a brotherly kiss on the cheek and disengages from her embrace. He lifts the ornately embossed and jeweled flap on his sporran and places the compact mirror device inside. "And we both have people waiting for us..."
Lorelei, tapping Cody's sporran containing the compact, sends pleasant shockwaves through his body. Clearing his throat, he asks, "So, what's so interesting in Garnath?"
|
|
|
Post by Lorelei on Oct 24, 2023 14:14:52 GMT
"What's so interesting in Garnath? That's a long story, but the highlights thus: During Oberon's last and extended absence Eric ceased the throne. A very short time later Corwin returned from Shadow with his memory still shattered. He sought aid in Rebma - I was conceived and he was allowed to use our the Pattern, restoring is memory and sending him elsewhere. Their rivalry restored, Corwin attempted to take the throne, not because he wanted it but because Eric had it. Corwin and Bleys attacked Amber. Corwin was captured and as his eyes were being burned out he uttered a blood curse. That curse was the final straw, allowing the Black Road to reach into Garnath and marking the official start of the war with the Courts. The rest is just history. It is believed that something of that curse remains. Being Corwin's daughter I may be either sensitive to the curse or oblivious to it...," Lorelei explains. .
|
|
|
Post by Cody D'Avalon on Oct 24, 2023 15:56:33 GMT
Cody is paradoxically attracted and repulsed by the news.
"Fascinating. Of course most of what you told me is fairly common knowledge."
"Everything except the part about any remnants remaining."
"I too may have some affinity with it. You remember how I told you that I traveled the Black Road as a conscripted mourner following Oberon's Funeral Procession? We traversed it all the way to the Courts and into the Abyss as it desolved behind us."
"I had thought that that passage had caused its erasure."
"Huh, if I had known that parts of it still remained, I could have sought it out and used it as a shortcut on my recent passage here." In theory at least...
"Has anyone notified your father?"
|
|
|
Post by Lorelei on Oct 24, 2023 16:40:48 GMT
"I have no means of contacting him, and I don't know if others have tried," Lorelei answers. .
|
|
|
Post by Cody D'Avalon on Oct 24, 2023 17:41:57 GMT
"Yes, that is a big problem. From the rumours in the Courts, only an initiate of his Pattern can penetrate his Shadows. And he's not very receptive of Trump contact. Or maybe even Trump can't reach into his realm."
"On the other hand, there are some folks in Chaos that don't believe that the Black Road was the by-product of any curse. It was just a case of the Courts catching Amber with its pants down. Eric was too weak and was already under seige. That plus the aid of Brand and the Amber-spawn, erm, Dara I and II."
"But especially the damaged Pattern itself, because of Brand. That the Black Road was literally the stain on the Pattern."
"A lot of arguments on that subject, though. For all the ones who insist that time only flows in one direction. That the stain couldn't reach back in time to pull the Black Road out of the Abyss."
"All of that metaphysical theory is still out of my pay grade at the moment, though." Cody chuckles.
|
|
|
Post by Lorelei on Oct 26, 2023 20:04:37 GMT
"I've been thinking that the mirrors could reach him if I knew any of them at the destination end. It's even possible that the way you travel may grant access," Lorelei postulates... .
|
|
|
Post by Cody D'Avalon on Oct 26, 2023 21:52:17 GMT
Cody is very intrigued with Lorelei's suggestion.
"Ooh... There's a concept. Access through the back door. I would have thought that other denizens of the Courts would have tried wading through Shadows from there to his doorstep. Assuming there's a line from his Pattern to the Courts. So, yes. No. Maybe...?"
Cody paces back and forth trying to form a diagram in his mind.
"No. What you are suggesting is access through a side door. Not the back door."
"Hmmm... Maybe. But I would have to have a good look at his front door first so I know what I'm looking for."
"You are of his blood; So why haven't you essayed his Pattern? Not to be taken lightly, of course, but that would give you access. If you wanted to find him."
Cody takes a seat and uses his fingertips to trace diagrams on a tabletop. Nothing visible, just to help work things out in his mind. Leaning back, he sighs.
"I spit-balled a few ideas with Auntie Fi when she intercepted me near the Courts."
"One of those ideas will NOT be popular with your D-Unit."
"I suggested that the current problems may be due to an imbalance between the powers. A simple solution may be the erasure of Corwin's Pattern."
"In theory, of course..."
|
|
|
Post by Lorelei on Oct 27, 2023 6:37:30 GMT
"More like opening a hatch from a service tunnel since the Abyss underlays everything. Those with a reason to try gaining access through Shadow would be using other Powers. They would find that wading through Shadow will always take one to his unbreachable gatehouse, not to Shadows in his realm."
"There is a significant hitch to walking his Pattern. It was inscribe on a plateau maybe a day's travel thru Shadow on the other side of Yggdrasil, beside a tree grown out of a branch cut from that sentient tree. That's not exactly a roadmap toward finding it, and what changes did its creation make?... I very much doubt he would allow it to be unmade...". .
|
|
|
Post by Cody D'Avalon on Oct 27, 2023 7:27:06 GMT
"Yes, yes, of course; Sidedoor, service hatch, however it works - That egg needs to be cracked."
"Speaking of the Younger Ygg. On my way here I had the opportunity to visit Venerable Ygg. Working from the theory that the powers are out of balance I asked it what it had observed. It said that Pattern is Waxing. But I couldn't get much more detail of by what degree or if this was just part of the natural cycle of things."
"As for unmaking Corwin's Pattern. I would make the following argument: Corwin, as I understand it, was Oberon's chosen son. But by Patternfall's end Corwin had inscribed his own Pattern."
"Given his own domain, he no longer desired Amber's Throne. The horned Matriarch saw this and also knew that the new Pattern would need to be defended. This forced a snap decision to chose Random; The least hated of the patriarchy to take Amber."
"With Random gone, preternatural storms raging and Amber in distress it would make sense for Corwin to return. Sacrificing his satellite Pattern for the one true Pattern."
Cody gets up and paces a couple of laps around Lorelei's parlor.
"It's all theological. A mere suggestion. I wouldn't cross swords to push the issue."
Taking Lorelei in his arms for a moment Cody hums a tango and dips her. Lifting her back up.
"Tangently: To hell with the Patriarchy!"
"The Jewel is needed and it is planted in Coral's head. Does that make Coral the chosen one? Would anyone bend knee to Queen Coral?"
|
|
|
Post by Lorelei on Oct 27, 2023 14:31:32 GMT
Lorelei enjoys the dancing.
"Would any follow Coral? That is a question that cannot be answered until she is back at the center of Order. She is an unclaimed daughter of Oberon..." .
|
|
|
Post by Cody D'Avalon on Oct 27, 2023 14:57:00 GMT
"And according to Auntie Fi, she's currently King Merlin's Concubine. Being held in some Harum."
"That can't be good for the balance of order."
|
|