CW: parental abandonment issues, allusions/implications of child neglect
The scene is familiar to what Gideon shared during her AMA. In a large cavern, dimly lit, skeleton constructs of bone and ligament toil in the fields.
Option A (Gideon): The bone farmers look taller, larger than life, this time. They tower over the fields, sentinels of the House that keep everyone still living alive. The child—you—linger on the edge, ducking around the corner of a side passage when a tall man in worn finery sweeps past looking over the fields. You're small, and you're used to hiding, and you know his habits. You wait, counting out three repetitions of prayer, before showing your face again. He's gone, and the farmers continue their work, untroubled.
You casually stroll casually down the rows of the field, inspecting each construct for something, some spark of recognition? Of newness? For whatever reason, you choose one of the constructs as your most likely subject and continue strolling in that direction. By pure happenstance of course, you pause near them, not immediately next to them so as not to spook them or be thoughtlessly raked up with the soil. A small safe distance away, you sit cross legged and look up and up and up into the treated skull of the construct.
The thought crosses your mind: are you my mother? You begin to talk as though she is.
Option B (Farmer): If you're familiar with farming, then the scene isn't so strange if you get past the lack of sky, the low light, and oh yes the minor issue of lacking skin or muscles or even a brain. Yet you think and you act and you know what to do. Your strength comes from the theorems holding you together since you don't have back muscles or glutes or magic of your own. Necromancy nestles all around you, fed by the energy stored in your dead bones, and propels you to... farm what you cannot eat.
The work doesn't hurt, however, with everything you lack. It's simply what it is, going through the motions along with every other skeleton on the field, and slowly emptying the furnace of your bones to feed the House that fed you. A small girl, dirty and smudged, with a mess of red hair and brilliant gold eyes 'sneaks' up to you where you work and sits nearby. Out of the way, not impeding anything you need to do. Simple company, and she talks.
Are You My Mother?
Option A (Gideon): The bone farmers look taller, larger than life, this time. They tower over the fields, sentinels of the House that keep everyone still living alive. The child—you—linger on the edge, ducking around the corner of a side passage when a tall man in worn finery sweeps past looking over the fields. You're small, and you're used to hiding, and you know his habits. You wait, counting out three repetitions of prayer, before showing your face again. He's gone, and the farmers continue their work, untroubled.
You casually stroll casually down the rows of the field, inspecting each construct for something, some spark of recognition? Of newness? For whatever reason, you choose one of the constructs as your most likely subject and continue strolling in that direction. By pure happenstance of course, you pause near them, not immediately next to them so as not to spook them or be thoughtlessly raked up with the soil. A small safe distance away, you sit cross legged and look up and up and up into the treated skull of the construct.
The thought crosses your mind: are you my mother? You begin to talk as though she is.
Option B (Farmer): If you're familiar with farming, then the scene isn't so strange if you get past the lack of sky, the low light, and oh yes the minor issue of lacking skin or muscles or even a brain. Yet you think and you act and you know what to do. Your strength comes from the theorems holding you together since you don't have back muscles or glutes or magic of your own. Necromancy nestles all around you, fed by the energy stored in your dead bones, and propels you to... farm what you cannot eat.
The work doesn't hurt, however, with everything you lack. It's simply what it is, going through the motions along with every other skeleton on the field, and slowly emptying the furnace of your bones to feed the House that fed you. A small girl, dirty and smudged, with a mess of red hair and brilliant gold eyes 'sneaks' up to you where you work and sits nearby. Out of the way, not impeding anything you need to do. Simple company, and she talks.