Axile
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"I remember my brother – sister? – as vast as a church. The sky – bruise purple, black as stout, but the storms: as violent and beautiful as music. I woke crying. I turned towards the stars. I lost it. Was it my fault? I need to go home."[1]
Axile is a planet in the High Wilderness, and the ancestral home of the Shapelings, also called the Axiles.
A World of Shapes
"Lightning sparks above you in the purple-black sky. The pool you dragged yourself from smells sharp and acid. You'll have to make the eye-scuttlers clean it out when you return."[2]
Axile is a harsh and rocky planet with a surface marked by craters and pools.[3][4] Though now devoid of life,[5] its atmosphere was once composed of thick alkaline vapors,[6] giving its skies a dark purple color,[7] and its clouds thundered with violent lightning storms.[2] The inhabitants of Axile primarily resided within the pools on its surface,[8] and are apparently adapted to aquatic environments as a result.[9] These pools served as refuges for the Flukes and the ancestors of the Rubbery Men from threats, such as the planet's dangerous winds,[10] but the deepest of the pools were also stores of Vital Essences,[11] and thus were places to practice the Shapeling Arts.[12]
During their time on Axile, the ancestors of the Rubbery Men possessed malleable and boneless bodies.[9] They used moon-misers as mounts to traverse the terrain of Axile, and relied on creatures called Eye-Scuttlers to aid their hygiene.[13] The ancient Rubbery Men sculpted many-roomed structures within their pools made out of black coral that contained contraptions, such as musical instruments.[14]
The Curtained Star
"By the standards of its kind, the star above is venerable and weary. It is tired of existing, but most of all it is wearied of the life below it in the pools. The fatigue of aeons makes its hatred no less deadly."[15]
Long ago, Axile orbited a star.[16] The atmosphere of the planet protected the shapelings from its gaze, but over time, this veil began to diminish, leaving the shapelings exposed and vulnerable to the star's purple-tinted light.[17] The Judgement of Axile was old, weary, and so very tired of existing. However, it also grew tired of its planet, and grew especially tired of the shapelings that lived on the planet's surface.[18][19]
Despite the star's advanced age, its hateful light easily scorched moon-misers to dust.[20] Even in the deepest places, the light of the star could be felt by the wise.[21] The weaker Flukes who couldn't retreat there in time could only cower in their shallow pools, the starlight exposing their flesh and reducing them to nothing.[22]
Ennobled Spires
"Do you recall how they came to that place? And we sang of our lightnings and shapeful disgrace? They tilted their vanes and ennobled their spires. We welcomed them then and commingled all choirs."[23]
Long before the fall of the First City, when the Echo Bazaar was en route to the Neath,[24] it along with its entourage of Curators visited Axile for reasons only the Bazaar knew.[25][26] The Bazaar and the Masters arrived and listened to the shapelings sing of the their pleasures and Shapeling Arts.[27] Following this grand welcome, the two groups proceeded to "commingle all choirs" in a uproarious ceremony involving amber and other delights.[12][28] Afterwards, the Bazaar and the Masters offered the shapelings a deal. While the exact terms, or the Bazaar's motivations for the deal,[26] are not known precisely, it is known that the Bazaar offered to share secrets with the shapelings to advance their arts to even greater heights,[29] as well as escape their dying planet.[30] In exchange, the shapelings would travel with the Bazaar to the Neath.[31]
While the benefits of this deal were many for the shapelings, the cost was steep: unable to find another price, the Bazaar demanded that the shapelings never love.[31][32] While some shapelings refused, perhaps out of principle,[33] plenty others accepted.[31] Many of the Flukes and Rubbery Men would go on to form a city of sorts deep below the Fallen Cities called Flute Street,[34] while the powerful Lorn-Flukes chose to roam the Unterzee.[35] After spending millennia in the Neath, many of the shapelings have grown nostalgic for their former home;[36] the Lorn-Flukes in particular have developed a boiling hatred for the Bazaar as a result of the terms of the deal.[37] In the Sunless Skies timeline, outcasts of the Flukes called Scorn-Flukes roam the High Wilderness, searching frantically for their lost home by attacking the memories of unfortunate skyfarers.[38]
The arrival of the Bazaar in Axile and the bargain that followed are memorialized in the recurring Do You Recall? poem.
The Wheel Turns
"The voice shakes the stone around you and churns the thick black waters around you into purple foam. The symbols brand themselves into your flesh. A RECKONING LONG POSTPONED. TRANSGRESSION OF SEVEN GREATER LINKS. REPLETION IS ABOLISHED. ANCHORS ARE WITHDRAWN."[39]
Unfortunately, the shapelings who refused the Bazaar's deal did not fare much better than their brethren who accepted. After the exchange was complete, an unknown speaker proceeded to shout blazing Correspondence from the sky, churning Axile's pools and branding the remaining Flukes with sigils.[40]
Soon after, the planet spun away from the star that hated it, leaving Axile a barren rock floating through the High Wilderness, abandoned and darkened, forever.[41]
References
Original article by HappiestIguana
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