[Worship] In a labyrinth of light

[Myfanwy]

Myfanwy, may you spend your lifetime
“”
Beneath the midday sunshine's glow,

Myfanwy had heard tell from the travelers through her forest - she called it her forest, displaying a possessive sort of fondness for the lush undergrowth  and the creek glittering like crushed diamonds as it gurgled and leapt through the heart of the wood - of other gods, whose names were marked only as an afterthought by the kelpies in the swamp. Their god was Time, a mistress as mutable as the tides whose love waxed and waned with the seasons just as the séasúr did.

Just as Myfanwy did.

But Time could not give Myfanwy what her heart desired, for the goddess loved her wild children and the depth of their winter savagery as much as she loved their grace in spring. They were her promise to the future that beauty would always be dangerous, and civilization could not corrupt everything. But what good was that to the lilac girl whose love of adventure didn't ebb with the onset of her hunger, whose curiosity drove her to discover even as the seasons drove her to destroy? All she wanted was a way to marry the disparate edges of her nature. Was that too much to ask?

She followed the path worn by countless years of worshipful wandering, timid now so far from the water's edge. Never before had she ranged so far, and the hunger that bore her hence could not even be sated by blood. Exactly where they said it should be stood a grand, mysterious statue on a stone plinth, gazing resolutely out over the peak: Oriens, he of the morning.

Strange to see something so powerful and so solid. Time was insidiously invisible as she brought all things to heel.

Sweeping the veil from her eyes, she met the statue's sightless gaze. "Please." Self-consciousness surged into her silver-freckled cheeks. Was it arrogant to ask mercy from a god?

"Don't make me face the hunger alone."

And on your cheeks O may the roses
“”
Dance for a hundred years or so.

@Random Events

[Random Events]

a mind as rich as navy

As the kelpie had wandered from her swamp, left her waters dripping from her heels, so did Oriens leave his statue. His form, a brilliant navy blue with beautiful glowing inscriptions, had begun to wander these lands. He knew so much of his people, yet he still had so much to learn from them. They were as surprising as he was present, his gaze never leaving them as he watched. But Tempus forbid him and his siblings from gracing mortal eyes.

Yet, he yearned. His mind, his body, it pulled him so - there was so much that you could not learn as a god suspended in the clouds. So much that he wished to feel, to touch and learn how it felt against his skin. In his mind, he knew of how it felt - such was the pleasantries of being afforded immortality and omniscience - but he yearned to feel it, alongside his people.

And so as she spoke, at the shrine of Oriens, light began to form.

It crept slowly into the carved rock of his face, illuminating the reflection of the sun etched into his forehead. The lines of his face began to glow, the light creeping down his neck and touching his legs, his hooves, the bands and symbols crafted onto his pedestal. As Myfanway bows before the shrine, light begins to wash over her.

The god of dawn opened his eyes and looked around. 

He saw the four empty pedestals surrounding him, the statues having disappeared in the preceding days. And then gentle, knowing eyes fell on @Myfanwy. Her plea, so desperate and unique.

The skin of his pelt looked so much like the lapis lazuli he was crafted from. It glimmered humbly, shined brilliantly as he moved and approached the veiled kelpie before him. His mane, appearing as one solid piece, descended from his behind his ears and formed the crest streaked with gold. The dawn-hued sun upon his forehead glowed with a comforting warmth, as did his eyes.

"Oh, my daughter," he whispered, solid hooves pressing into the stone and grass as he neared her. How he missed such a feeling. "You are never alone. But I know this is not the answer you seek."

[Myfanwy]

Myfanwy, may you spend your lifetime
“”
Beneath the midday sunshine's glow,

She felt naked, in spite of her solitude, without the veil's sheilding presence. Water was a distant memory this far up the peak and its absence left her feeling like half a person, robbed simultaneously of her safety and her strength. The statue before her did not bat an eye for her troubles; as she fell silent, her gaze dropped to her silvered hooves and a single tear slid down her star-speckled cheek. Where the salt-water passed, an eruption of scales followed, scrawling the truth of her across her face in an unsympathetic hand.

Even her emotions betrayed her.

A soft glow illuminated the earth around the place the solitary teardrop had fallen, subtle enough at first that she mistook it for the passage of a rogue cloud across the sun. But the light neither ebbed nor persisted - it grew, bathing her and the ground in a soft and soothing glow, until even she could not dismiss it as a trick of the heavens. Myfanwy looked up to see the statue alive with an otherworldly light.

The lilac kelpie shrank before that light, awed and frightened in equal measure as what once was stone stepped gracefully from his plinth and approached her. Awed, for certainly this was the god of whom stories had been told to her in the forests around her home. Frightened, for certainly he would see unworthiness in the hungry-hunter gleam of her naked eyes and the ugly tattoo of scales that had yet to fade from her cheek.

What if the séasúr kelpies were creatures only of Vespera? What if he could smell the swamp in  the dark crevices of her hooves and, naming her Other, chose to slay her in defense of his people?

But it was far too late to run now that the prayer spoken on a whim had brought forth the lord of the dawn, and in that moment an answer came in soft words rather than swift retribution.

Somehow that made it worse.

Myfanwy laughed - an unhappy sound like blown glass breaking - because her heart could not hope to contain the width and breadth of her own emotions. "I'm sorry," she gasped around the misplaced sound, because he was right and he knew it. He probably didn't even need her to respond. "When winter comes, I will be. I will hunt and I will kill, and I will not remember the face of my friend - or even my god."

Biting her lip, the stardusted lady swallowed whatever words had threatened to spill out amongst the flood waters of her desperation. The soft prisms of her eyes glinted uncertainly as she averted her presumptuous gaze. "I am proud of what I am," she continued more quietly this time, glancing back only out of the corner of her eye as though another kelpie might slither along and witness her heresy. She longed for adventure, to feel safe venturing beyond the relative safety of her creekside home. She wanted to see the sights that passing traders and courtiers spoke of so fondly, to breathe in stories and author stories of her own. "But I fear the beast, too."

And on your cheeks O may the roses
“”
Dance for a hundred years or so.

@Random Events

[Random Events]

a mind as rich as navy

His heart ached for her, throbbed within his chest. Immortal beings knew no physical pain, but emotional... oh, how he wept for his children. The panel of light that graced the broad expanse of his forehead glowed warmly, the hue slowly fading from the soft pinks and oranges of dawn... mimicking the shade of lilac that stretched across his daughter's skin. But as she averted her gaze, Oriens' eyes stayed trained on her with a tenderness unlike expected from a deity. He had answers - he always had answers - but such a question could not be answered by him.

She was the only one who could answer.

"My child..." he breathed, his head extending to her. "Some fights are harder than others, and some questions I cannot answer for you," his brow furrowing. Should she return his touch, she would find his skin had a small nip of coldness that blossomed into warmth... much like the Dawn that he presided over when he escorted the sun from the moon and into the sky. The expanse of his skin did not feel like flesh - but rather, it felt like a solid expanse of lapis lazuli, beautifully blue and interlaid with small flecks that resembled the stars that disappeared as the sun rose.

"I will not leave you, not even in Winter," a smile pulled at the edges of his navy lips, warmth spilling from the glow of his eyes. It illuminated the delicate silk mask and the edges of the scales that glistened in the path of her tears. He saw nothing bad in what she was - nothing hideous, nothing disgusting, nothing immoral, nothing wrong. He saw someone reaching out for help. "But this still begs the question: what questions do you have for yourself, or what answers do you seek from me?" 

Life, in all its unlimited knowledge, is perplexing and astounding even to those immortal. To exist is beauty, and to question the path you are given is courage. 

---

@Myfanwy!