Resonant memory lines the material of this armor. Imprinted within the folds of forged protection lies the flayed origin of the Dread.

In the strata of memory and experience within the Pale Heart, live moments, once buried, now revealed in the Light of the Traveler; imprinted in the Dread remnants that cling to a fading shape. Rendered knowledge, through the eyes of the enemy, in search of salvation.

***

The Pale Heart stands open, a shimmering angular tear spilling color out into the surrounding sky, slowly eclipsed by a billowing miasma of consciousness. The Witness surveys its goal, the closeness, the obscurity.

Here, within the Traveler, is a plane of unimagined form. Potential. Unrefined. Raw. Held tightly in the titular grip of the inculpable, seeding recklessness without care. The Witness would wrest that potential from the Gardener, casting trough away in place of an eager blade. One with which It would carve the Light from Its oppressor, should they refuse to see logic.

"We are alone." It touches down, and immediately the crudely vacant plane of the Pale Heart twists, as reinterpreted space sprawls from the Witness in all directions. Mountains burst from flat, colorless surfaces and a shroud of mist cloaks the darkening soil.

"We have come to claim that which you kept from us. From all life. But we are not required to carve this claim from you. Take up your charge. Bequeath your Light to its truest purpose. End our struggle."

The Witness stops, waiting for a response, and in the softness of absence, they listen.

Droplets of condensation || I flow beyond each life. All life. || trickle through cracks beneath the Witness's planted stance.

"Resistance? Then it is the knife." It thrusts a hand downward toward the ground. "It is the offering of your flesh that permits salvation. We can see its shape in the Dark, but your Light shall forge shape into reality. If you will not sacrifice willingly, nobly, we shall excise what Light is needed from you."

Soil splits and sinks before plunging into the maw of a great cave. "You cannot flee. A Gardener tends. Atone for the horror you have sown. Give your Light to the final shape willingly, or have it cut from you."

Recognition brushes the Witness's cheek, || My children. There is so much more than this. || softly, drawing It forward into the offer of an embrace.

But It recoils, slashing the vanillin air with the edge of many hands. "This place must be upended…" It maligns hollowness into cysts in the flesh. "…foundations unto foundations."

Pain like wind || I have shaped, my work, laid flat|| erodes away the shapes that spring from the Witness's touch and halt Its progress momentarily.

The Witness flicks finger like blades, again, and again, carving hollows from the flesh of the Traveler. The work is slow. Deliberate. Difficult.

It holds the surrounding pitch in place and presses against the borders, feeling the Traveler's patient defiance. "You were not prepared, when you uplifted us. It is why you left. It is why you fear your own change now. But where you sow change and abandon it to chaos, we correct this error. It is purpose We have given us. Is it not beautiful?"

There is || (SCREAMING) || no sound in the scar of the Traveler.