Echoes

The initial burst of panic and uncertainty pervaded at first; Given their brief touching on the subject of how the entire world can change around you in an instant and his own experience with the sort of event, Cunning Fool surveyed his surrounding as quickly as he could. Strange shapes that made little sense suddenly appeared, having always been there and not yet existing. It was a scene he was familiar with despite having no recollection of it, and it was a long moment of watching before he realized that he wasn't all there. Not in the usual sense, either.

It wasn't as if he was witnessing the... party. He had no corporeal body to speak of, no actual presence. His senses stretched out to touch the entirety of it, ceasing witness only at the very borders of the bubble of consciousness. The scene itself makes little sense to him on the initial view but somewhere in the recesses of his brain? Knowledge? The strange seams of shared awareness? He recognizes the shapes, and legends of things that even his own legendary sort share tale of, but despite his whereabouts he has a tough time knowing how he is, let alone where or when.

His mind's eye perceives a child birthed of a woman, clearly too large for her frame to handle. It is painful to bear for all parties involved, including the coyote in his strange sort of empathic nonexistence. From behind his view comes running a male, though behind doesn't accurately reflect direction when one is aware of all things about him. The thought dawns on him but is lost in the din of the scene and mood and sense of spatial awareness. The male looks at the woman, who has ceased struggling after her child is birthed, runs to her side. He expires beside her, the two of them dead mere moments after their kin is revealed.

Tugging in the back of the coyote's shared stream of awareness is astutely aware of where he is.

The scene is different now, changed, but is the same as if it had only ever been this room, a school house? It is occupied by two people, a boy and a male from the previous scene that seemingly never occurred. The dragon is looming, speaking words the coyote is already aware of as he listens to them for the first time. The boy is dimmed, quiet. Obedient. The dragon speaks and the coyote feels confusion and anger, though certainly not of the level of his cousins, as he is abused with indifference. The dragon speaks lies and half-truths in a way that is the polar opposite of how the coyote views his own arsenal, and the boy drinks deeply of his poisonous mindset. Aware of the scene before it is concluded, he perceives the scene freshly, with renewed horror and wanting to shout down the agreeable and impressionable child.

The coyote was thrown back by his new perception, his eyes and mindset feeling frayed as he witnessed part of himself in the shared consciousness of his newfound state watch himself through the eyes of what shared his consciousness. The awareness extends to something not viewed corporeally and instead shows a strange duality of reality and the dreamworld. In one eye, he sees himself as the rest of him sees himself, trotting recklessly through the woods without regard for his tail. He had been made aware of the extra pair of eyes given his semi-permanent view in the sky, and in his other eye he saw himself as he had been dreamed to be. The mask he wore painted on his face since birth was overlaid by yet another that had been on his face since Birth, and on top of that even was one given to him by the wild dreams of myth and legend. He wasn't sure exactly who he was viewing at any point in time except for the implication, despite the vision being clear as day.

Things were made clear as his shared awareness echoed in his mind. Feelings that existed before he did, truly, came to the front, flooding. Cunning Fool was lost in them for a moment, scrabbling for air and orientation amidst a wall of complex thought and emotion. The cold walls of aloofness in his companion and self are laid plain before him, their construction bare, their implementation obvious. He sees how his own attempt at wit comes across like barbs, sharp and biting. His attempt at friendly compassion come across as cold indifference.

The scene is different but the same as it ever was, and he is inside the diner of his dreams. There is the woman, glorious and plain, and his Father, grinning and laughing constantly. The punchline is revealed, and it hits like a sack of bricks. The Trickster looks directly into that bubble of awareness, seemingly looking everywhere at once despite being straight ahead, and his words feel more for his son than they did for his nephew.

A fine joke. A fine joke.

Repeated for them both, perhaps.

Awareness floods in anew, in a form Cunning Fool can naturally interpret. He sees the insect, the vermin. He shares a gasp at the sharp implement piercing them both. He thinks he understands what has drawn him here. And before him, imprisoned in his own personal dungeon of despair and misery, his new friend.

Walls between them, built by both, owned by neither. He could glimpse a friend in need, a companion who sought kinship and deeper. Cunning Fool did not quite grasp what his role was, as was his namesake, but he knew how to help here. Inside, his mind touched on the gift his cousins had lent him without knowing it, his paws grasping for it but sliding away. Their rage could do nothing here.

"A fine joke. But I can do you one better."

Cunning Fool trotted along the line of hedges, peering through the tightly coiled branches and barbs to look on his friend within. He felt a knot of guilt and sympathy and took footing, attempting to brace himself.

"Ryoki, I am here. You do not have to be afraid any longer, or feel sorry. I have heard you, and I remain here. Won't you please wake up and come speak with me? We have much to talk about, I would like to think, and many thoughts and feelings to exchange. So please, wake up. I am here."

He stood anxiously, wondering if his words were even aloud.