The current seems to get stronger, tumbling Lilac through warm, liquid darkness. There's no sense of direction, no walls or anything that she can feel, just the ragdoll body of the eeee washed along with her, and the occasional slithery thing that snakes across her skin.

The experience is terrifying. Even with her acute vision, Lilac can see nothing, and has no way of knowing where she's headed or if she'll be able to breath again. Her lungs can hold out but only so long, and then she'll face breathing in this strange fluid – and potential death. Still, there is some comfort for the woman. She knows she threw herself to the currents with Dragonfly that she might save Dragonfly. Even should she die, Lilac thinks she'll rest in peace. It's the dying part that scares her now, rather than the hereafter.

Can you hear me, Gibson? Thank you for all you've done for me, even if I don't deserve it. I, I hope you find someone … I hope you live a happy life. Lilac remembers Gibson, the first time they met. At first she thought he was intimidating, but his kindness won her over. He's the first man that had shown her any genuine kindness since her curse, and if she didn't love him, she at least thought the world of him. And Kinny, I hope you can go home some day, You don't deserve your fate, and … I'm sorry I failed you. She remembers Kin, too, so brave and yet so scared and alone. I'm sorry I didn't go with you. Kin always gets in to trouble without her.

End over end, it seems like the blackness goes forever. Pressure builds uncomfortably in Lilac's ears, and her lungs start to burn. And then suddenly, her movement is checked. She seems to float in warm nothing for a moment, and then suddenly a crack of light splits the darkness, and both woman are thrown at it. There's a roar of fluid, and Lilac finds herself falling through space amidst a shower of water, only to land in water again. At least this time, there's a surface, and a direction she can determine as 'up'!

Deep in her thoughts about her friends, Lilac is taken by surprise by the light! She opens her mouth in a bubble-framed look of surprise, before being thrown at it, flailing! "Wha- waaaaaaah," she screams as she falls, until she hits the water with an indignant, "ow!" Blinking dazedly, she breathes in precious air, wondering if she's dead and where, if anywhere, she is. Was that … ugh, ow … was that the light?

The bardess' pointed ears come unclogged when she crests the surface again. She finds herself in a dimly lit chamber, flooded… she has to tread water to stay afloat. The air is almost as moist, and it's hot in here. Droplets trickle from a gash in the ceiling, presumably the one that Lilac fell through, but it seems sealed up now, like a valve. The walls themselves have a sheen to them, lumpy and irregular. The actual source of light is soft, apparently shining through one of the walls, like the phosphorescent fungus from the 'garden' filtered through a semi-translucent layer of some sort. Steam rises from the pool, and tunnels of various sorts perforate the chamber, some reachable, some not. Dragonfly floats nearby, face down.

The pictograms didn't say anything about this … Lilac wonders to herself, forgetting, for a moment, the gravity of her situation as she looks around in wonder. I could be anywhere.// She turns slowly once more, taking it all in, then shakes herself. "I have to keep focused," she says, her own voice helping to steady her. Looking around briefly lest her spot Dragonfly, and Lilac goes to scoop her up again. "This isn't going like I hoped, but we're not done yet," she promises the corpse. Treading water, Lilac proceeds towards the source of the light, wondering if someone might be there. "H-hello? Is anyone here?"

There's a wet sound (everything down here sounds wet, of course) and some parts of the walls… move. Flanges extend from some part, and a hole opens up. The flanges lengthen, spreading into a cone-like shape, spreading into a membrane. The membrane thickens, going from semi-transparent to opaque, and when Lilac speaks again, the cone twitches and adjusts to aim in Lilac's direction like a Khatta's swiveling ear.

Lilac's ears shoot up when the wall begins to move, her eyes wide and her tail tucked. She stares at the wall a long while, blinking as if her brain were having trouble processing it. Finally, she offers a somewhat lame, "Um," followed by, " … hello?" to the cone.

A round shape seems to roll behind the wall, swelling out, and there's a rushing sound like something filling with fluid. Eventually, the 'blister' splits, membrane pulling away from what looks like… well, it's unmistakable, really. It's an eye the width of a pumpkin. It focuses on Lilac, pupil narrowing. A voice seems to carry from everywhere around her, one with no real definable nature. Sometimes it seems to sound masculine, sometimes feminine, sometimes low and sometimes high, not so much changing as it seems to simply be heard different each time. "One lives. This was not the pact. The meat is food? You are here to bear young?"

Lilac cringes when the room speaks, stepping away from the eye in reflexive horror. She closes her eyes, hoping not seeing will help her think. What is it? Is the room talking? Is, is this all alive? What am I supposed to do? She sucks in a deep breath, then peeks at the wall with one eye. A moment of darkness did nothing to stem the sheer weirdness Lilac beholds. "Um, hello," she repeats, this time adding, "I'm from … the … the surface, I think? And I … um … well … This woman was hurt … badly. I, I came here to … to help her." She thinks to leave it at that, then she suddenly remembers something important to every talk: manners. "Oh, and I'm, um … Lisandra. This is Dragonfly. You are … ?" Whatever the room is, Lilac hasn't the foggiest idea. This is so far beyond her scope of knowledge, she isn't sure she didn't die.

The eye flicks back and forth, in that manner of eyes seen closely, taking Lilac's features, and the limp body she holds. The voice surrounding her plays on the edges of her mind. "You are not with the others. It has been too long. You bring this meat… you wish a pact?"

Lilac begins to adjust to the strange voice and unnerving eye, slowly becoming, if not comfortable, at least more comfortable than terrified. She forces her other eye open, and tilts her head. "I … I came to the Temple of Being, on behalf of my friends. I was supposed to look around and I … I made a terrible mistake," Lilac admits to the wall, holding the body out. She bites her lipm then adds, "I killed her. I did, I thought she was … No, I did it. It was my fault. I read your carvings, the ones from above. Were those … were those your people? Did you help them with a … a pact?"

"I do not carve. Stone is not of me. Stone is to rest on, and stone is the prison." The eye turns down to Dragonfly's body as Lilac holds it up, and nubs form on the walls, bumps that extrude into fleshy tendrils that extend to wrap around the eeee's limbs. "This one, you say you separated… yes. They came thus, before. Separated, minds quiet, being gone… just meat. Given to me, for the pact."

Lilac shakes her head, frowning. "I'm not sure what you mean. Can you help her? Can you bring her back to life? Aren't you … " Words failing her as she realizes what she was about to say, Lilac can only stare, eyes wide, at the eye that watches her. A god … This is the god of the Temple of Being! This must be what Hakuu wants – a god! The though of Hakuu having any influence over a god sends shivers down Lilac's spine.

The tendrils dangle Dragonfly before the eye. "Life. Yes. You wish it whole." The tendrils pass it off to more that have formed down one of the tunnels, and the eye closes, receding. The swell of the orb smooths out, and the slit seals itself, the membrane becoming featureless once more. "Small beings have no mastery over true being. I do. But all beings have need, small and me. The ones before, pacts were made. Go with the meat you wish whole. We will talk."

"Y-yes, I'll go. And, … thank you." Lilac glances after the body, then begins to walk along after it. A few steps in, and Lilac realizes something else she needs to relate. She had been so worried about Dragonfly, and so intimidated by the being that surrounds her, that she had barely give it much thought. Remembering Hakuu, however, brings her original mission to light. "God of the Temple of Being, there's something you should know, something important. Up above, there are … small beings? … small beings like myself, and they are an army. I think, the army comes for you. A man, Hakuu, I think he is here to find you."

"They linger, but they do not know," comes the voice. Even as Lilac walks on what feels like warm, slimy liver, the voice never sounds any closer or farther away. She can see tendrils continue to sprout out of the walls, floor, and ceiling of the corridor (more of a tube, really) passing Dragonfly's body along. "None of these have met me, though they prod at my extremities. You are the first in a great many turnings of the stars. The small ones gather in the stones above and play at what the others left."

Small ones play at being … At Being. This … this really is the god of the Temple of Being. This is what it all means … The weight of time and the sacred touches Lilac, replacing much of her remaining fear with a expansive awe. The first in a great many turnings … And, I came here by mistake … She shakes her head to herself. No, to fix a mistake, and for my friends. Lilac glances at the wall, unused to conversing with a being that is everywhere all at once, not sure where to look. "Then you know of them, great god of the Temple of Being? They are scholars, they are, um … knowers of ancient things, stories, and small people. Beyond them are those who fight, and among them is Hakuu. He is a mage, he weilds magic. He is also a shaper of form, an artist, but he is … He uses small people, crafting them to fit his designs. I, I think he'd … " She hopes her words won't offend the god, " … he'd try to use you. My friends and I, other small people opposed him him, we came here to stop him for using the Temple of Being, but we didn't know about you."

The tube opens out into another chamber. Something moves behind one of the walls, slithering behind the wet surface and beginning to phosphoresce, casting a stronger glow than before. Pools of fluid gather here as well, but not nearly as deep, some only puddles, and with no squirming things in them. Dragonfly is dropped onto the 'shore', unceremoniously flopping there with a faint slap of bat on flesh. Yes, the floor seems distinctly fleshy now, complete with capillaries zig-zagging across it like red thunderbolts. "Small beings do not use me. They receive the pact for their needs, and I grow. All small beings wish for me to change them, to mend flesh, to be reborn in a new form. This I grant to those who make the pact. It is for me to grow, to thrive."

In the ceiling, several long splits form in the pink, bulging out until the flesh parts around large eyes, or at least they look like eyes at first. The iris spreads until it dominates the orb, the pupil spreading with it, and smaller eyes bubble up around the rims of the larger ones, looking in. The pupils of the largest eyes seem to show a reflection from within… no, they're images.

"So you wish to live and grow? That's … I think that's something we all have in common," Lilac replies. "I left my home to see the world, to learn, to entertain, and grow in that way. I've grown in ways I didn't predict, too, like I was cursed with … " The human woman suddenly decides babbling to a god is probably not a good idea, and reigns in her urge to talk off her stress. "Um, well … hm?" She pauses, wincing when Dragonfly is dropped, then turning when the ceiling begins to change. "Ohh?" She stares at the change, asking, "These pacts, they're like … deals? Trades?"

"Pacts," says the voice, as if it should be obvious. "Something is always created from something, never nothing. So it is with being. Mastery of being moves flesh, shapes minds, holds patterns. Small beings expire and move into other small beings, endless churning. I persist, and gather unto myself, to become greater. None can make something from nothing. Not even Mother."

The images in the pupils look familiar. In one, stones and monoliths… it's the first chamber that Lilac found! Foliage bunches around the image, round and distorted, so there isn't much to see, but it's unmistakable.

Well, that does make sense, Lilac agrees, nodding slowly. Her father always told her "you can't get something for nothing," after all. She supposes it's a universal wisdom. "That makes sense, great god of the Temple of Being. I understand, I think," she says. Tilting her head, she peers at the image, ears perking. "There's an image in there," she exclaims, immediately deciding her surprised declaration of the obvious might sound rather dumb. Flattening her ears, she corrects, saying, "I mean, that's the Chamber of Birth, or that's what I call it, anyway. That's how I got here."

The image ticks back and forth, seeming to settle on different details on its own whim, very much like looking through someone's eye. Another eye's pupil fills with an image of a different room. The tablets around it are filled with figures in states of repose. There are some people gathered here, but they're difficult to see, given the angle. Another chamber appears in another eye, similar to the last, but the tablets and statuary are much starker, showing people laughing, crying, screaming, and everything in between.

The last eye seems to be looking into darkness… no, there's enough light that the image looks somewhat familiar… rows of faint, ghostly white.

The voice speaks again. "You fell into my mouth, and I swallowed you and the meat."

Those must be the chambers I missed, the human woman considers. They're all states of 'small' being. Birth, laughter, sadness, life … and death. The room of death makes Lilac cringe all over again, and she blinks at the god's words. "Oh," she breathes. "I thought the whole temple looked like a giant mouth! Is the Temple of Being all your body, great god? Even if it isn't, you are huge!" The woman says the words with such awe, such amazement, they're certainly a compliment. Shaking her head in wonder, Lilac then asks, "Are these states of being, then? Small-being, being? And, oh, um … if I may ask … who is your mother? Surely, a great goddess?" The idea of something greater than this god boggles Lilac's mind, making her head swim.

"Mother begat me. Mother held mastery over being, but did not seek to grow, to gather, thus was flawed as a small being is flawed, and departed. Mother must be gone now, as small beings go, in time." The small eyes surrounding the larger ones study the activity in the images. "You do not understand, as they do not understand what makes being. Life is the process you call the decay of your beings. Being itself is the sum." A tentacle stretches down from the ceiling, draping across Dragonfly's inert body. "This is meat, body, vessel." The tentacle snakes up, and hovers in front of Lilac. "You move the meat with mind, with thought, and the meat moves the mind with emotion, with instinct. The echo is last, the lingering, the pattern, the impression left by the sum."

Lilac watches the tentacle move, suddenly having the urge to reach out and touch it. She extends a finger, slowly, so the god can see her move. "I'm sorry you lost you mother, great god," she offers first, frowning. As her finger inches, she continues speaking after a pause. "So, being is all that we … are? The mind, the body, and the … soul? It is all these things, while … death is … " she glances at the corpse of Dragonfly, " … the remnant, the ghost? Like, like a flash in the eye? There is the light which exists, and then when it is gone there is the imprint and … the memory of what it was. The light is sum, the memory is echo?"

"I do not mourn Mother. I remain," comes the voice. The tentacle angles forward, and Lilac's fingertip touches it. It leaves a slick residue. "Yes. Being is all that you are, and all of what you are is being. Mind, body, and the intangible pattern, the sum of these is being. You understand enough, now." The tentacle moves back, and slips across Dragonfly's torso, leaving a wet trail across it.

Lilac peers at her finger, amazed at having touched a god. She can't help but admit to herself that she never expected a god to be so squishy. Yet, in many ways the god of the Temple of Being fits her expectations – it is grand, ancient, knowing, and quite likely immortal. It dwarfs her in too many ways to count. "A greater being," she breathes in awe, before looking up. Walking forward, she kneels beside the fallen woman and strokes her hand tenderly. "Dragonfly has lost a part of her being, no … The being that is Dragonfly is no more. She is, she was … " the human blinks, ears perking in understanding, " … severed! Her being was sundered, by me … and now it is broken. This is the echo of flesh, of meat. She's … she exists in the memory, in her flesh, but her mind and … maybe even soul … are gone. I, I see why you call her meat, now, great god."

The tentacle coils on the fallen eeee's belly. "You wish this meat whole, the sum again. Pieces of body, pieces of mind. What do you offer the pact? What give you to gather unto me?"

Lilac's ears go askew, and she asks, "What do you want of me, great god? What do I have, or can do, that you would wish?"

The temple, the being, the god, whatever it is, seems to contemplate this for a moment, many of the small eyes rolling down to size Lilac up. "The ones before sent meat with meat. You are small… but this shell has not been broken long, and will not require so much to mend. You may give of your meat and your mind. Or you may carry me."

Oh my flesh and mind? I … Lilac looks down at her hands, her body, and back at her wings. How much flesh? And how much … mind? She decides to ask, rather than speculate. But first: "C-carry you, oh great god? But you are huge! I could not carry a fraction of your size!"

"You would carry but a fraction of me," rings the voice. "You would nurture me within you, and gather unto me, until I emerged. Such has been done with the ones before you, bringing myself beyond these stones."

"Oh, that doesn't sound so … wait!" Lilac gapes, the images on the stones of the Chamber of Birth flashing back. That's what they were saying! They made a pact, a deal! One was flesh, and body, and mind … the other was … pregnancy! Stunned, Lilac stands with her mouth agape and her ears skewed.

Several blinks and a couple feeble words later, Lilac can only manage, "I … " as she looks down at the fallen form of Dragonfly. A life … for a life. A child, a fragment of a god … in me? She isn't sure which is more disturbing, losing her flesh and mind or becoming the pregnant carrier of the fraction of a god. Feeling weak in the knees, she sits down. "I need a moment, to think. But, great god, if you took of my flesh and mind … what would be enough?"

The voice pauses, as if searching for a way to describe the answer. "Your mind may regrow, perhaps. Your body may not, but you would live."

"Oh." Lilac nods, her choices set. To resurrect a woman she killed, she must pick one – her flesh and mind or her womb. It's not as if Gibson and I could have children anyway, she tries to assure herself. She hadn't planned on children until she had tired of the road, but now, it may not be helped. It could be an adventure, and I'd get to meet the great god again. But … "Great god, do you know that I am a cursed woman? My flesh changes, I am … I have meat in two shapes. Can I even carry a child?"

The temple ponders this as well. "This I do not know, and the shape my being takes is not apparent until I emerge. The ones before you birthed away from here, that I would escape this cradle of stone. Not all returned."

"If that is acceptable to you, then … I … Am I really going to do this? No, Lilac glances at the corpse of Dragonfly, remebering, painfully, her journal and the brief glimpse in to her life, No. I came too far, I said I'd pay the price and I ment it. Dragonfly, I'll see you soon! Closing her eyes, Lilac takes a deep breath, and when she opens them there's a resolution there, a certainty that she has never felt before. "I … I chose to carry you, that Dragonfly may live again!"

"So be it."