Arc 9 | Chapter 357: this translator is just so done
translated by catren mjuna—also known as catren hannly, her grey sander name stripped from her by purism, her mjuna ancestors, and the mysteries of her family’s past and place in the aether’s intentions—shortly after her sixteenth birthday. — catren mjuna, age 16
this translation was stored within the de la rue archives following her eldest brother’s marriage to judith de la rue. shortly before catren moved to the northern reaches of baalphoria, it was removed from the archives at her request. it is unknown if the original translation still exists. this particular translation exists solely within olivier de la rue’s censor, pulled from his memory once his censor was installed. — olivier de la rue, age 16
“one day, someone will return to this. originally, i thought it would be myself. now… now, i wonder and swipe up the originals before the wrong set of eyes can see what i have never been capable of bringing myself to even skim over.” — catren mjuna, age unknown
✮ ✮ ✮ day 4 ✮ ✮ ✮
[t12 v. t12:day four of the proceedings; initial check; stress levels increasingly unacceptable; anchor has once again been refused by the sezr; this one no longer feels that the hetj is the source of his stress; nay, it is the disregard of the sezr for the state of this one and the hzc alike that rides upon this one’s heart and soul]
[t12 v. sezr:calm, even; a gentle flow of water over the world; no longer does their flow feel calm within the belly of this one’s soul; it is instead a consuming maw all its own, sucking down the will of all those to who would dare fall too long within the sezr’s company; it has been too long already and there must be two, three, a thousand days left for this one to remain at his disposal]
[t12 v. hzc:the wildfire grows evermore; yesterday remains within them; the contents of that day had but little bearing on the guilt, shame, and anger of hzc]
[t12 v. hetj:there is an ominous nothingness here; a yawning darkness like the maw of a beast, threatening to snap around anyone who gets too close, yet now… it seems to shrink, to shrivel under this one’s gaze at times, even; aware; the knowing of consumption, for knowledge eats]
[t12 v. t12:stress levels acceptable; acknowledge that stress levels are rising yet more; this one would continue keeping distance from hetj, but also extends that distance to the sezr; seek anchor again? it feels like no more than a lost cause at this point of time; this one fears his soul would crack long before the sezr would risk another soul setting eyes upon this incident]
[CATREN: if the first day is summarizing, the second a discussion of the details of what was done with those who disappeared—a discussion which resulted in no answers, as far as i can tell, beyond the already stated desire to create an undying army for the forces beyond the aether and an implication that many of those who disappeared from the tidal cities may still be stuck in that undying state in an undisclosed location—the fourth day is an attempt to learn about the future.
what the forces from beyond the aether have planned.
how many of its servants the hetj is aware of the existence of.
where they are. who they are. if they all have the same mission, both in the sense of playing a part in this upcoming conflict or in the creation of undying soldiers.
few of these questions find answers within the fourth day, the only thing of note—which the hetj states—being the following, said in a moment of seeming annoyance that the serz is pestering her so repeatedly with the same questions, which she has otherwise refused to acknowledge or simply talked around:]
hetj: this eminent one is of course aware of the existence of their colleagues in preparation for war. as to the truth of whether this eminent one is aware of their exact identities and missions, of course she is not. this is a long, careful preparation. all it takes is a single error for our story to crash around us. by separating ourselves, a single crash is less likely to snatch onto the plans of all the rest and bring everything to ruin.
sezr: crashes such as this that your lack of forethought and care has brought you here?
[t12 v. hetj: annoyance, exasperation; they do not seem happy returning to this conversation yet more]
hetj: has this eminent one not already covered the topic of whether my custody is an error or not? why is it that your aether is so infallible you believe everything happens for a reason, and yet your supreme eminence refuses to believe the opposite might be true? my benefactor is just as capable of placing his pieces so perfectly no error lights across the world.
sezr: here, you have been arguing so profoundly that the forces from without the aether have power within our world only under the choices of ever fallible mortals, and yet you argue the opposite now. which is it? do you act of your own accord at the gentle push of your master, or do you follow your master’s will like an eager pet, hoping its tender guidance will lead you to nothing but glory?
[t12 v. sezr:confident; enjoying this perhaps too much; why does his language usage for some of his comments lean so heavily into the common vernacular as opposed to his standard elevation of antiquity? it is a rub across this one’s soul that leave lines of burning ash]
[t12 v. hetj:annoyed? conflicted? she has been nothing but a mawing darkness these last days, and yet, now… it flickers… flees, even? every question, every seemingly unintentional word falling from her mouth a chase upon its tail]
sezr: even ignoring such words, perhaps this lays most important at our feet: if two beings of such immense power clash and plan as they prepare for a war that will stretch out around and through us, do not their plans clash? you seem inclined to be here, speaking what you will at the perfect sparks of time and recording, yet, may the same thing not be true for my supreme eminence? for the honourable hzc? even for our specific transcriber, to whom this dramatic scene has played out? has one of our benefactors won the play for power of this moment? shall our dance continue? or was there never a game to begin with, only a massacre?
[CATREN:within the context of all that has been said, i do continuously find myself lingering on the repeated implication that this questioning, this document, and even my translation itself, are nothing but pieces in a game that has extended through our history far longer than we may be capable of appreciating—a game which may extend for centuries or even millennia more, if any of this is to be believed.
before i leave my dear readers with the final readings of day four, i will add the inescapable feeling that befell me while working on this day: this has all been done and talked over before, and this iteration has fallen short of reality and truth. perhaps it is simply the call of mystery from the missing day three, but i cannot shake the feeling that much of what was discussed on day four—which came to as little conclusive facts as day two—was but a repetition of questions asked before, answered before in such difference that, were one to match across the questions and answers of days three and four, they would seem a confusion of different stories.
the feeling that answers were once spoken into the world, recorded with t12’s careful hands and observations, then snatched out of the official document will not leave me. whatever was contained there… it would have to be something so important or terrible—so revealing of both the aether and her enemies—that all four involved here would agree to sever their connection to it and play out the questioning with more control than they experienced on day three.
the things they speak of here, all these queries as to the plans that the aether’s enemies hold… what in all the stars could one or both sides have revealed that could have led to this stage play of questions and reactions?
this is, of course, but my own opinion, and i must admit, i have been staring at the words of these long dead souls with far too much intensity for far too long. slave to my imagination as my relatives so often tell me i am, this may very well be nothing more than leaps of my mind and fascination as the end of my torment comes.
yet, i leave those to whom this document finds itself with this, t12’s final readings of the fourth day. make from them what you will.]
[t12 v. t12:day four closes; this one feels worn, as though their soul has been ripped over shredding coals with each press of his fingers into the paper on which he writes, his soul floating where it does not belong]
[t12 v. sezr: calm, even; a gentle flow of water over the world; yet, a torrent brews there now, waiting to pull anyone who dare glance away from his intentions down into a darkness to rival the hetj’s]
[t12 v. hzc:the same; the same; the same, all day long; how this one wishes he could have buried himself with that simmering wildfire, more stable than anything else through this room]
[t12 v. hetj:a thousand fluctuations; the dark maw exists, and yet… and yet, this one cannot shake the feeling it flees, ever slowly; what a strange thing, for something so powerful to take so long to hide itself away in its shame]
[t12 v. t12:stress levels acceptable, under these circumstances; had there been more than a single day left in which nothing shall happen, this one would surely have sought leave; this one doubts he would have been granted such a kindness; this one increasingly doubts even the kindness of a future will find him]
✮ ✮ ✮ day 5 ✮ ✮ ✮
[CATREN:while, admittedly, there is likely something within this fifth and final day that is relevant, it has escaped me. perhaps it is the fault of myself, that hope held tight to me as i translated this work believing some answer would find its way to me. i admit, this is all so interesting, yet i cannot supply commentary on yet another day of summarizing.
there is a summary of the initial questioning.
there is a summary of the information t12 learned from various sources between that initial questioning and the first day of this questioning, said once again only for the readers of this document—at least, as far as i have been able to tell, t12’s sections were never stated aloud, but really, who knows?
there is then, of course, a summary of days one, two, four, and a run down of all that will happen on this last day—spoiler for this document i am definitely not translating: it will all be summaries.
perhaps the most interesting thing to come out of my skimming—yes, skimming; i am quite done with translating or even reading yet more of this—is that day three is never mentioned. even when summarizing, it has been erased already. while there is some chance that the transcript of the last day was copied from a different version of the documents as a whole—one where day three had been entirely erased, and day four shifted into day three to avoid suspicion—i find this somewhat unlikely, as the handwriting of each document appears to have come from the same hand. i can only assume that by the fifth day, the decision to remove the third day had already been made, and t12 already instructed to act as though it had never happened. i suppose that falls into place, should my assumptions of day four’s repetition and alteration of day three be more than a simple fantasy.
the most annoying thing about this situation is that, as my great uncle has only now pointed out to me—not that he knew i would be attempting any translations and could have warned me beforehand—i should have read all the documents in their entirety before translating anything. ‘sometimes, reading fully is a detriment,’ he said, explaining that it can eat at the translator’s brain when they happen across errors in consistency between early and later moments. ‘shall we correct the error, and risk marring the perfection of the author’s intention, or leave it to become a error upon both them and ourselves?’
i do not know the answer, although i have so far happened across so few errors between each of the documents that do not seem the purposeful intent of the speakers that i do not think anything worth changing. what else he pointed upon, however, was that by reading the entirety of the documents i may better have prepared myself to this constant summarizing. ‘now,’ he said, ‘you cannot bring yourself to even read the last page of this document, as you have burned your desire into the aether. the answers you seek may well be within those pages; yet, you cannot bring yourself to find the joy you once had for the story.’
this is precisely what has befallen me. answers may lie here, and yet i can barely bring myself to look upon their scrawling text, let alone bring my brain to process what i read back into baalphorian. perhaps, one day, when the aether wills it, i shall dig back through the boxes of these documents my family has kept safe for centuries and find the presence of mind to turn my attention back onto this story.
yes, that may be a good way to think of it: this is simply the result of the aether’s will—a drawing away of my motivation because now is not the time to finish this story. perhaps it is for myself that i do not finish, whatever is contained in this final day not yet something that should find itself fit into the language of baalphorian. perhaps it is for someone else, to whom my translation will find itself. to know is power and trouble, mixed into the melting pots of our brains. the drip of information into us can churn up things that may break us. then again, given the content i have found within these documents, perhaps it is information that would break our world itself.
a drop of information, leading whoever happens across the story to seek out this mysterious force from beyond the aether and pledge themselves to it.
a speck of information, capable of turning a hero into a broken shell; making them think too deeply on the destiny they hadn’t yet known written for them.
perhaps that is the most terrifying of all this: the question of how much the aether truly is pulling strings, attempting to find a way to win a conflict not yet upon us. am i the translator of a document that may shape the world, decades, centuries, millennia from now?
how terrifying that my errors in translation—for i am sure there must be many, no expert as i am—may break the world.
then again, perhaps it is errors in which we shall find our salvation, each a careful placement in the masterpiece of all these preparations for war. i wish no conflict upon this world, yet to imagine my own script of baalphorian may save life as we know it… that is rather romantic, is it not?]