Let It Slip

Part XXII

Having summoned the Books from Hell's library to her parlour, Zelda eased her hands into a pair of enchanted chainmaille gloves made from Damascus steel. With these gloves, Zelda was able to touch the books and turn their pages without fear of repercussions; they would protect her from any ancient magics hidden within their bindings.

Unable to be distracted by Lilith's declaration when there was far too much to prepare for, Zelda tried to keep her thoughts of the Queen at bay, but fleeting moments popped in and out of her memory - the endless blue of her eyes, the way she graciously interacted with the Spellmans, the way her temper flared when her minions disappointed her but how quickly she would cool when Zelda walked into the room, how she looked at the redhead when she thought the witch wasn't paying attention, the feeling of her arms around her.

"Damnit Spellman, focus. If you manage to save the world, you'll have all of eternity to appreciate your dark haired demoness. Get to work!" Shaking her head, Zelda reached forward to pluck the Bardo Thodol from the top of her pile of books and was surprised by its immediate levitation into the air, over her head, and behind her.

"I quite enjoy it when you appreciate me in the here and now....Spellman." Lilith's smile was unmatched as she magically held the book aloft, keeping it floating just out of Zelda's reach.

Blushing at being heard, the redhead groaned softly with her hands on her hips, "If it were up to you my sole purpose in life would be to worship at your feet."

Lilith tilted her head with a grin, taking a few steps closer to Zelda, "Would that be so bad?"

"It depends...are your feet cloven?" Giving up and deciding to take the small moments of joy she was being given within the chaos of their current predicaments, Zelda returned the grin and stepped forward to meet Lilith.

With the Bardo Thodol floating above their heads, the witch's lips met in a soft kiss of greeting. When Zelda pulled back, she slapped Lilith on the hip, "Enough of this foolishness, will you help me? These texts are challenging to decipher. When you sliced my hand and my blood fell to Hell's library floor, they appeared....but what is the connection to my bloodline?"

Lilith snapped her fingers and the Bardo Thodol fell into Zelda's hands, with a swish of her finger, the pages opened as she began to explain where she thought the link began:

"I believe the Bardo Thodol was activated when you died, darling. As you can see here, the 'bardo' is a state of transition between life and death - which is the tie you now have with Sabrina. While your earthen form has died, your spirit lives on...by my good graces, of course, which leaves you in a sort of limbo much like Sabrina is In Between. The skye gnas bar do is the first bardo of life and death, commencing from conception until the last breath when the mindstream withdraws from the body; when you took your last breath at the base of your staircase, your mindstream withdrew and the beginning stages of the bardo began in that moment."

Zelda frowned, her chainmaille fingers tracing over the ancient text as she struggled to conceptualize what Lilith was explaining to her, "My....mindstream?"

"Yes. In Buddhist philosophy, the citta-santana, is the moment to moment confusion of sense impressions and mental phenomena, which is also described as continuing from one life to another. I am not very current in my Buddhist philosophy but I believe it's akin to how other religions would describe your spirit. The essence of you." Lilith flipped the page magically, ensuring she never touched the actual text itself.

"Now here, you can see that the second bardo, the rmi lam bar do is a dreamstate. I believe this is suggesting that Sabrina's "In Between" is something of a dreamstate or dreamscape. This could mean that the body you buried isn't truly dead, or it could mean that her consciousness is trapped away from her body. That disconnection would create a state similar to death but there is some hope that if this is Sabrina's current reality, there could be a way to bring her back from the Dream."