Sathona

Fictive in a DID system | 21 Y/O Wonderful art by StellarStateLogic and bioluminosity

[archentrope]

Introduction

I am Sathona or Savathûn. I am a subsystem, and an introject from Destiny.

I use she/her, it/its, or they/them.

Our body is 21 years old as of the posting of this introduction - our birthday is December 25, 2001.

Our Bungie name is alexpdx#8467.

We use Discord much more than we do Tumblr, so feel free to add us there at hourglass#8182.

(Seen this post before? I moved accounts. I wanted my own that wasn't just a sideblog.)

[thefirstknife]

Savathun loans us a worm for GMs this episode.

[abidethetempest]

associating moths w Savathun is such a wild experience bc they always get in my house in summer, and i keep seeing them and going “ah, ms witch queen herself, come to hurl herself upon my lamp”

[pedanticauspice]

[loudpenguinduck]

[alttxt]

this raid's kinda easy ngl

[archentrope]

I found it! The building where the Hive live!

[flowers-of-io]

today i feel some way about xivu raging and wailing in grief about oryx and how sav had spit on his legacy, vs. sav just quietly holding a ritual to bring him back without informing anyone

[celestine-witch]

The thing is, I don’t think it was done on Savathûn’s/Immaru’s orders

Mainly because in the Hive hierarchy, there’s really only two other beings with Savathûn’s level of authority and power: Xivu Arath and Oryx.

Right now the system works bc Xivu is in charge of one group of Hive and Sav controls the other through Immaru.

If Oryx were to come back as a Lucent Hive, his mere presence could incite a power struggle; especially with Savathûn only able to lead by proxy (thanks, Vanguard), some Lucent Hive may say: “Screw listening to some Ghost, put Oryx back in charge!”

Even though Oryx won’t remember his past, those who do will look to him. Plus, the Dreadnaught is still out there, and he could at least relearn the mythologized version of his history.

No matter how much Savathûn might have loved her brother (which, y’know, we could argue until death about how much she did), reviving him would just jeopardize her power.

Plus, it’s just further spitting on his memory– resurrecting him is like, explicitly, the one thing he did not want to happen after his death. It would fly in the face of the All-Edged Truth he held so dearly.

[flowers-of-io]

This is an interesting point!

I like the idea that the Oryx rez plot was an independent decision by the Lucent Brood despairing and lost after the loss of leadership (and it wouldn’t be the first time this happened, pointing at Shadowkeep) almost as much as that it had been Sav’s scheme all along. The Brood is confused and lacks guidance and the last time they tried to go on the offensive against Guardians (in Risen) the whole ploy was thwarted and the generals were all killed. I imagine they could reach for extreme measures, maybe even going behind Immaru’s back about it, because lol he hasn’t been able to get the Queen back for the past year+.

On the topic of the balance of power – you’re right, technically. Oryx would be a leader figure to an insane extent of popularity even without his memories. But here I think it’s important to take into account whose plot this whole endeavour we believe has been, because while he’s the King, he would also be a malleable kinderguardian without memories, which makes for a great puppet leader with someone else pulling the strings and controlling what information about his past he’s receiving.

If it’s the Brood (or a fraction of it) acting independently: it would make complete sense for them to make Oryx their leader and reason to split from Sav and create a third faction, OR kick Immaru out and crown Oryx as the King or the Lucent Brood. Old habits die hard, and the times are desperate.

If it’s Savathûn/Immaru: she’s a schemer, and he is really smart. Having Oryx on their side and in their control would be an INSANE asset against Xivu, putting her power (and the entire philosophy of the Deep-affiliated Hive) into question, and potentially drawing some of her forces over the barricade to the other side. Not to mention the psychological warfare of causing her to absolutely lose her shit. This would be, I argue, a masterstroke, as long as Oryx remains under their control and is convinced serving the Sky and not the Deep is what is the right thing to do (and maybe learns the truth about the syzygy, PLEASE someone show this poor man that memory).

And yes, it would be just further spitting on his grave. But I think this is the bone of contention between Sav and Xivu, and what Xivu is tortured by. She can’t have him back if she wants to heed his will. There’s a dungeon dialogue where she disputes this with herself, argues that trying to heretically revive him won’t be heresy if it works because it will have defeated his legacy, and if not then his legacy will come unto them. Aiat, aiat. She is clearly being torn apart by this dilemma, because she misses him, but she still believes the Logic and the truth of his legacy. Because if the Logic and his legacy are false… then he died for nothing. It was all for nothing.

Savathûn, I think, has moved past that.

She has chosen her side. I NEED to reach for Hawkmoon here:

I am reminded of my home. I am reminded of the warmth of the sun and the embrace of my family. I am reminded of my father’s face. I am reminded of everyone I betrayed. All the blood spilled in the name of immortality. The warmth of the sun burns me with its memory.

What is this feeling?

I do not want it.

(SEE HOW THESE ARE THE EXACT WORDS XIVU SAYS DURING HER LAST VISIT TO ORYX’S GRAVE?)

She’s seen through the lies of the Deep. She knows all of the Logic has been a lie, and thus that Oryx really did die for nothing, and that the only way for her and the Hive to survive is a different path. She’s gone so far already. She’s given up everything, including Xivu Arath, to bring forth this change. I imagine that in her eyes, transgressing Oryx’s wishes to leave him where he’d lie once he was dead is a small sacrifice.

Risen again, resplendent in the Sky, he would be an enormous asset. And she would have him back. And I think, I truly do, that she does not want to destroy Xivu Arath. Before her deworming ritual in Lost she mourned the impending severing of their connection and said she cared for her. “It might surprise you to hear, but everything my siblings and I have done has been for each other.” And what better way to bring Xivu back to her, into the Light, than with the promise that they could be all together again?

[moths-daily]

Moth Of The Day #93

Thrift Clearwing

Pyropteron muscaeforme

From the sesiidae family. They have a wingspan of 12-18 mm. They tend to inhabit rocky coastlines and sunken lanes leading to beaches. They can be found in most of Europe. 

[loudpenguinduck]

[natequarter]

unwilling narrator

[natequarter]

the weight of a story is hard to bear but someone's gotta be atlas

[speaker-of-the-void-cats]

They desired meaning. Structure. A Winnower to shape the garden.

By studying the Veil, they came to know the Darkness.

And thus we two became parts of the game, and the laws of the game became nomic and open to change by our influence. And I had only one purpose and one principle in the game. And I could do nothing but continue to enact that purpose, because it was all that I was and ever would be.

I looked at the gardener.

I looked at my hands.

<<To claim evolution one must be unmade.>>

Having witnessed the truth in the Darkness, they used its binding power to merge themselves into the salvation they craved.

I discovered the first knife.

"Victory is not in the unmaking of an enemy, but in the re-making of an enemy into your blade."

<<Flesh and mind are but cages—become unbound, or remain ever unworthy.>>

"Unmaking." For the longest time, we thought it was a threat, but as our work continued and we deciphered more and more of the glyphs we came to see it as something more—a promise. Yor's etchings were a road map—arcane and cryptic, but with specific intent.

<<Your prison of the flesh is being unmade, your mind freed—such glories do not come easy.>>

Near-gods must believe in greater gods. But every power is finite, every life shorter than it wishes.

Only an astonishing mind can truly appreciate just how tiny it is when set against the known universe; and how insignificant the known becomes when it is devoured by what isn't seen and can't be comprehended.

As darkness begins to claim their ragged souls, you look ahead to find a great power pouring out of you—a face of fire and golden light.

That blazing wonder, a gift from the great-eyed god, is their salvation. Or are you?

Perhaps you are the greater god now.

Life arises. Life spreads, contests itself, and changes. Great things are built and destroyed, but from your vantage point, you see that the victor of each struggle contains—in its negative, in the marks left upon it by the loser and the shapes it assumed to win—the master record of all that it has beaten. Information may not be erased. Whatsoever survives until the end of the cosmos will possess and remember all which came before it.

This is true even of the devouring black hole, which remembers all the secrets it eats. It will only confess these secrets when it evaporates, 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 years from now, long after the last stars have flickered out.

You are a Guardian. You must protect life.

If all life is information, and Guardians strive to preserve life, and information is preserved when it is secret, then you must convert all life into the most secure form of secrets, durable to the end of time.

YOU MUST CAST ALL THE LIFE YOU CHERISH INTO A BLACK HOLE

TYPE: Transcript

PARTIES: One [2]. One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter [u.1]

ASSOCIATIONS: Orsa, Zyre [AKA Vale, Dredgen]; Thorn; Vale, Dredgen [AKA Orsa, Zyre]; WoS, Yor, Dredgen; Yor, Shadows of

//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//

//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS.../

[u.1:0.1] We have tamed the sickness. Broken it with unwilling sacrifice.

[silence]

[u.1:0.1] Now we claim our reward. Have you heard the whispers, brothers? Sister? The shadow speaks. All we have to do is listen. Its secrets are a gift. Its gift? Our evolution. The others misunderstand. We are the Weapons of Sorrow – living and free. The hated heroes of this broken age.

<<Allow the flesh to give of itself, that it may surrender to the coming evolution.>>

ARENA DESIGNATION: Cathedral of Dusk

Dreadnaught, Rings of Saturn

As soon as the first Guardians penetrated the Dreadnaught, Shaxx's Redjacks launched a boarding party to Oryx's fortress. By war’s end, they'd fought all the way to the ship’s “impossible weapon,” the Dark ordnance that obliterated the Awoken fleet.

It was there they found what the Warlocks named the “Cathedral of Dusk.” A Hive burial site for— what? A former master of Oryx? Comrade? Lover? It was vile. And obvious that Oryx never expected the Light to reach so deep inside his throne, to such an intimate space. But he didn’t expect a lot of things — like a Guardian training ground atop the husk of his dead ship.

<<Cleanse thyself of your decay, then will the mind be free to understand the value of transgression.>>

Savek remembered dragging her exhausted body to her guard post. She remembered watching the lazy debris of the Reef float by. She remembered speaking with someone in the darkness. Someone reassuring and powerful. Who was it?

She tore her eyes away from the obelisk and surveyed her body in the thin morning light. Her dry skin flaked. Connective tissue wasted at her joints, and a sickly crust had developed around her mandibles. She was emaciated from lack of sleep and Ether. Her hunger was a void, slowly filling with green vapor.

<<When imagined, your potential will infect, and spread.>>

Aunor ignored him. “Cause of death?” she continued.

“’Sundance’ appears to be the victim of a single, catastrophic wound from a Devourer Bullet, modified to fire from a Scorn launcher. Projectile classified as ontological.”

“Define Devourer Bullet.”

“Payload matches the ballistics of a Weapon of Sorrow or a comparable Hive implement.”

Seek the whispers—they are faint, but they are calling.

Not all bone carries the sound of secret truth. Most are fragile, hollow things meant only to carry the weight of wasted lives.

In the feted remnants of yearning marrow, find love, find life, and in their lies you will discover the narrow road to all you never dreamed to be.

"On the path of the hushed tones, the cutting word will guide your unmaking."

MEANING

A dream of a metaphor made starkly, an allegory discussed in study of ontology, in Darkness not unkind. It leaves behind a warped, barely-real data fragment to mark its passing.

There is a voice that echoes across the Darkness, and it asks this question: what is the purpose of it all?

And there is another voice that calls back and says: listen, I will tell you a purpose. I will tell you of a Final Shape.

Look: there are a hundred gildings for this story. It comes down to one key matter. Beings in suffering crave purpose to carry them through. The tyrant consumed by ennui or the disenfranchised struggling simply to survive—it is the state of mind, the pain which cries out: give me a reason I should suffer so!

Let us speak of power and choices.

A man comes to a crossroads and asks of the sky, "Which road shall I take?" There is no answer from the sky, nor the wind, nor the earth beneath his feet. But another wanderer on the road, coming from behind and hearing the question, says, "I know the way. You should take the dexter road."

If the man agrees, he puts himself in the wanderer's power, ceding his own choices for the implicit promise that this is the correct road, the safe road. And if he disagrees?

Let us say that the wanderer draws a knife.

The man may therefore be made to take the dexter road. But now if the knife goes away, the man will certainly flee. And perhaps even if the knife remains, the man may tire of being threatened and decide the risk is worth fleeing. In this way, the wanderer erodes their own power.

If the wanderer says, "The wind has said that you should take the road of my choosing," will the man accept the choice made for him?

And if the wanderer says, "Behold, I have seen that the meaning of suffering lies along the dexter road," will the man give away his own power for longer?

Is it not easier to accept the guidance of a stranger when the path ahead is unknown?

{We are, all of us, flowers in the garden. Even that being most ancient and bound in twisted Darkness.}

WINNOWING

A dream of a friendly conversation with someone impossible to see, cloaked in shadows. It leaves behind an impossible data fragment to mark its passing.

Here is what a flower knows.

(The fact that a flower may know anything is a conceit that will have to be accepted as metaphor, but to constantly qualify into perfect precision wears thin, does it not? So, here is what a collection of chloroplasts and pigment can know.)

The direction of the sun.

The presence of the rain.

The tangle of the roots.

The distress of another plant.

The hands of the gardener, whether they prune or transplant or crush.

A flower cannot know much else. But the reality of the garden is vast and wild. A flower knows not the fence; a flower knows not the footpath. And yet there is an infinite cosmic garden, which is not any less real simply because the flower cannot possibly comprehend it…

Let us try this again. Stop me if you've heard this one: A gardener and a winnower sit down to play a game outside of time and creation. Yes?

Yes. Then we're agreed. The metaphor stands. Let us iterate.

A gardener and a winnower set out their chairs and play a game of flowers. The flowers know only that they grow or wither, struggle or flourish. Sometimes, they are touched by one hand or the other, and that influence is the closest they will know of the divine.

A flower and a flower spread their leaves to the sun above. (Remember that the sun is also a metaphor: a thing said beautifully, winnowed down to poetry, when the truth is too vast to put in words at all.) They jostle for space, each competing to be the pinnacle of their shape. One flourishes. One withers. Is it the fault of the flower or the fault of its position?

A gardener and a winnower sit down to play a game called Possibility. This is a game about a garden, which is to say that it is also a game about flowers, just as a game about a living being must also be a game about organs and bacteria.

A gardener and a winnower collaborate to create a protein. Whose hand is it in the design, that shortens one life to extend the rest?

It is the winnower that discovers the first knife, but it is not done without the gardener. This, too, is a tradition: a knife does not come to exist without something that must be cut. A woody stem, a colored petal, a vital vessel. The first victims of the blade.

All of these are true.

All of these are false, for metaphor simplifies as the knife does. It pares incalculable concepts into shapes your wrinkly little brains can comprehend. The weight of billions and the simple curve of a planet give you pause, and how then are you to be expected to grasp the forces that created your nth-removed creator?

So the stories woven with utmost delicacy in and around the falsehoods are, after it all, true. There was never any option for the knife to not exist in the garden: it was only ever a matter of time and opportunity.

And as for the shape of the knife itself—

No. That is enough.

I will tell you of gardens.

They are domesticated things, made in a form. As soon as something is called a garden, it is shaped. The plants require the hand of a gardener, for they have become weak and dependent on tender care. They require the hand of a winnower, to cut away the dross, for they are too incapable to do it themselves. In absence of a hand, either the flowers themselves must rise up to wield the knife, or the garden will resolve to meaningless wilderness.

You will say, "But there are plants that can walk! There are seeds that must be scorched by fire to know growth! Existence is more complex than a simple dichotomy between growth and withering, and there is more in heaven and on earth than is dreamt of in this philosophy!"

And I will tell you, clearly:

There can be no gardens without knives.

[friendshapedhole]

[flakmaniak]

#are you a victim or are you Ontologically Evil?

Well I for one am ontologically evil.

[saprophetic]

btw unpsychotic people arent allowed to talk about shayura

[feral-ballad]

Erika L. Sánchez, from Lessons on Expulsion: Poems; “The Loop"

[Text ID: “a woman so hungry her insides eat her other insides.”]

[sorryforthebonyelbows]

Emma Rebholz, from “No Good Bloodsuckers,” published in The Misanthropy

Blythe Baird

Dorothea Lasky, Rome

Richard Siken, Crush

Eric LaRocca, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

Yves olade, Dark When It Gets Dark

Tumblr user @ryebreadgf

[archentrope]

The sharp, Sharp, harsh hunger of a Worm. Scraping against the very soul. Aiat.