[ti]solo[/ti]From Yuggoth

DISCLAIMER: All sonnets in this thread belong to Fungi from Yuggoth by H. P. Lovecraft. Applying death of the author here. The eventual goal is for Tuesday to read all 36 sonnets to Legion overtime, as they grow and develop

Ripples disturb the surface of the spring, at their center a creature that emerges from depths unseen. It peeks at its surroundings, searching this cavern that lies beneath the church, until yellow eyes aflame with candlelight fall upon her.

<'ꇙ꓄ꄲꋪ꒐ꏂꇙ.'>

A demand resonates through damp stone; a sound low, menacing, and cold. There's more ripples upon the surface now, the water moving with violence, but the creature is as still as an be, and despite its unshakable stare, so is the Alchemist. From where she sits on a smooth rock, she stares back, a lit candle by her side and one of the waterlogged books from the library in hand. Fungi from Yuggoth, the embossing on an old cover reads.

"Alright, but listen closely, okay?" For this creature of the depths, she smiles with the warmth of her candle's flame, fearless. "We only have time for one sonnet before we have to go."

For as many demands as they may make and for as menacing as they may act, the creature gives into her words, swimming closer to listen to her stories as they have always done. She — their trainer, their master, Tuesday — reads in a soft tone and with careful diction, narrating a sonnet for her Legion:

"The place was dark and dusty and half-lost
In tangles of old alleys near the quays,
Reeking of strange things brought in from the seas,
And with queer curls of fog that west winds tossed.
Small lozenge panes, obscured by smoke and frost,
Just shewed the books, in piles like twisted trees,
Rotting from floor to roof—congeries
Of crumbling elder lore at little cost.

I entered, charmed, and from a cobwebbed heap
Took up the nearest tome and thumbed it through,
Trembling at curious words that seemed to keep
Some secret, monstrous if one only knew.
Then, looking for some seller old in craft,
I could find nothing but a voice that laughed."

The cavern is in silence when it ends, only the steady fall of droplets from stalactites serving to interrupt the quietness. She does not make a sound and neither does the creature — Kyogre staring at her as if waiting for her to speak again. When she does, she stands, smiling with radiance.

"Alright, Legion, that's it for today. We have work to do."