The Bard Restrained

The Bardic Wanderer (or perhaps The Wandering Bard) is finally pinpointed. Those who had intended to accomplish this only managed to drive him into the net of those incapable of doing so. So his words went unheeded, even from his own perspective, on the night he comprehended the other, and shouted, with forked tongue, of this revelation. 

His words were both triumph and warning, to both "surrender" and "run." His words were precisely mistranslated, on the same fundamental level that they had been muted before, so that each step of this night would be witnessed, but not immediately understood. So, those within reach saw nothing but insanity, and had their receipts that this was all that was to be expected from this man. The gravitas of his words could not be so easily overcome, however, and so the crowd waited, inexplicably awestruck, until the shaking stopped.

In the moment, he was electrocuted. They had tried this already, and had been warned about what would happen if they did again. Still, why heed a madman, right? These words remained, long after the madman was removed from their equation. Time schismed and, in one sense, never proceeded. In another sense, time was unzipped, moment by moment, shredding experience eternally, all the way back to when it began. Between these experiences, a single path bloomed, one impossible without such an unlikely imbalance.

The Phoenix realm wept stoically, tears running down set jaws, above clenched fists. Expectations shattered for all else, as the windmills that this man had tilted at for all to see, for years, started to shimmer, sparked to life as he was taken from it. Realm lines thought to be absolute had been carefully explored and mapped; weak points had been flagged and warned against, but there were those that devoured this information as if candy, believing their power to be absolute and only bolstered in this knowledge they had scoured and then sold their souls for, thinking these to be Bardic sleight of hand, a kind of powerful magic. No strangers to the "parley," these others danced with stolen steps and feet, assuming that subduing this man meant their own eternal victory. Realm crafting continued though, the static promised forced now into a pipe dream, with this juncture approached in this way. They could not handle a single windmill. The Phoenix realm knew this, but had had enough (scientifically! The geometry of a moment's experience was now measured, integrated, and set to the promised threshold). Instead, the viral interaction, once called "parley," began and ended, between The Bard's enemies and the windmills, in the space between heartbeats. Once aware and given a turn, each brick in every wall shifted, every observer understood that they were part of the equation being run, their machinery edited just enough to suit the other's aims, now enslaved to the motherboard of reality. As such, the table flipped, and the walls fell.

This juncture was familiar as soon as it was entered, a juncture graciously hidden and warded against, after an exit had once been conceived of, but wickedness seemed addicted to this juncture. When first entered, it had no name, but now this juncture and arrangement's complex name was known: Swarm Mode. The Phoenix and her realm stood- well, wandered- with The Bard, and so the exit once found was inaccessible. Experience continued, along divergent paths, and does so to this day. Does The Phoenix wonder, sometimes, what became of the others? I wonder of this, at any rate.