[P] Man sieht nur das, was man weiß [Eik]

[Turhan]

“ bone to rune ”

In shamanism, the belief that there is no death is a concept grounded in the belief of the soul existing in a never-ending process of regeneration. Our soul remembers our ancient past, engages with our current environment, and knows our future lives. We live forever and our soul is immortal.


Our existence, however, is marked by numerous transitions—both between our many lives and sometimes even within the frame of what we view as the current physical life. Emotionally and spiritually, one of our most dramatic transitions involves the leaving of this physical vessel that we currently occupy and the passing to the next realm of our eternal existence.  

-- some dead guy


Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.


Many nights caught up to his restless mornings, and it left Turhan wondering if he would ever sleep again.  His dreams were more like disturbances, they exhausted him, yet strangely his insomnia brought with it an energy he hadn't had since he was twelve.  Call it anxiety or call it mania, but the Elder found the strength to wander out into the night alone and away from Tinea. 


Hours led him away from all that he knew - if he could regret anything at all - it would be the fact that he never got to see Terminus when he had his eyes.  Until now, he had only ever been to the edge of the world once before, where solid rock met a great and vast purlieu of sea.  He had never been past it - seen past it - and knew that for all his wisdom, he was still just a hollow bone.  He did not know what lay past the water - yet he claimed to hear the wisdom of the gods.


The blind mystic did not need to see the stars to feel them vibrating with their vibrant energy, nor did he need sight to know the moon was a waxing crescent which hung massive, fat, and orange against a clouded sky.  The black of night had a certain heaviness to it from how clammy his sky felt.  The dew point must have been close to being reached from the moisture in the air, he deduced that the sun might have set six or so hours ago and morning was as near enough.  The vitality of crickets chirping died away in the serpent grass.  Somewhere far away an owl was screeching for whatever reasons Turhan could not discern.  His hearing was keen but not immaculate.


All of his aimless wandering lead him down to the immediate beach where he waded knee deep into the salty sea and stood there, but before he had done such a thing - he dropped his mask in the sand far behind him.   This is where he lost hours of his time, and memory, these absent-minded wanderings.  However long it was it was long enough, the tide had gone back out to the sea and left his feet covered in seaweed.  He had been standing in the water for quite some time because it felt right at the time.  Water meant purity - and these days the Elder felt like his soul was under attack.  By who?  He wasn't sure who could answer that, not even he had the answers. 


And so, he looked to the sea.


But saw nothing.

T U R H A N
skull to dust

@Eik This was sadder than I wanted it to be!  I promise it'll pick up!

[Eik]

He comes here often. The crashing waves create the perfect white noise to muffle, sometimes erase entirely, the overeager buzzing of his mind.

(As each wave draws back, pebbles tumble over each other in chase of the sea, thrashing like mermaids. Giggling as only sea pebbles do, they laugh at him: 'all dreamers love the sea' before the waves swallow them once more.)

He passes the discarded mask without a second glance, mistaking it for driftwood and kelp. His attention is caught by a man with no hoofprints, who stares and stares at the dark and hungry sea. To the dappled grey it seems there are many stories in the curve of the taller man's spine, in the way it bows to the weight of time. He does not think he wants to live to be that old, but at the same time he can't imagine anything other than aging endlessly until someone takes his life by force.  Living until moss and lichen take him over and he turns to stone-- or dying in a pool of his own blood. He has not ever pictured any other conclusion.

See- in the long years before coming to Novus, Eik built his life around certain assumptions: a framework to structure his mind so it would not consume itself. One such assumption is that he will die fighting. But this assumption was born in a different land, a crueler one. His framework needs revisiting but the problem now is that Eik isn't terribly imaginative, and so he hasn't thought much of what happens after death. Or even what happens before it- the loss of sight, sound, memory, movement. These thoughts only come to him now as he looks at the man tangled up in seaweed with the moon gleaming on his aging back.

Each step brings him closer and closer to the tall and rickety stallion, close enough now to see smooth scars catching the moonlight and the outline of bones. Close enough now to smell the horseflesh beneath the heavy salt smell of the sea. They stand even but apart and it is silent except for the gentle cycle of the ocean- the crash of a wave, the tumble of pebbles, the crash of a wave, and so on. In the silence between sounds, his mind reaches into the dark, uncertain what there is to find out there. Uncertain it wants to find anything at all.

Silence suits him. Hell it suits everyone, even the ones who don't realize it. Especially them. But nothing in this world lasts, and although it displeases him Eik is the one to gently break the peaceful silence. 

(he has the oddest feeling, sometimes, that his choices are not his to make. All he wants is to be left alone to sleep forever, but here he is in the middle of the night, doing the thing he least wants to do. Other times he feels scarily alone, a speck of dust floating on the current of the universe. He does not know what is worse: slavery or loneliness) His voice is raised loud enough to be heard over the waves, but quiet enough to be easily ignored, if the older man should so choose- "Are you searching for something?"

-     -     -
There is no better way to know us
E I K
than as two wolves, come separately to a wood

@Turhan my goodness I missed writing with you :')

[Turhan]

“ bone to rune ”

The land, she breathes beneath his feet.  The wind soughing in his ears tell him something, something ..


But It (She), the universe (o' Vespera), always tells Her song in the way the wind bends and pitches.  She tells the Elder, in her own way, Her secrets of the universe; Of Life and of Death, and to the prayers he carries to Her, for Her.  So that they - together - can answer them.


And He (Turhan), the Elder (a Golden One), is always listening.  


Sometimes she is so Mighty and Great that he cannot hear anything but her.  Sometimes, sometimes,  he can feel her deep within him.  Resonating like the stars She creates.  From the tips of his ears to the softest, most vulnerable hearts of his hooves - she feels like lightning inside of his soul if souls could feel such a corporeal thing.  O' Vespera is penetrating and fear-filling with her voice alone, when she makes a mule out of Turhan she becomes a violent and fearsome thing.  


"Prayers," croaks the Elder's voice but it is not Turhan who answers Eik. 


"So I, may answer them." He says in so many words.  The old horse doesn't move to look at him - why?  Eik's presence beside him won't make any difference whether the stranger can be seen or not.  The timbre of his voice will never bend or sway a thing like Turhan, he does not hear him.  


Something else though .. something else hears him.


A rare breeze wraps the two horses in a balmy, comfortable heat.  It is enough to take the chill off the new waves coming in.   It ruffles all the feathers, ribbons, and witches' bones, it shakes at all the bells that tinkle and jingle against his deep bloody bay skin which ward off evil should it be near.  


She must be coming. 
She must be here. 
She is here.


All the manners of Ilati hair flutter lively like snakes in a pulling breeze in their chain braids.  Most of them loosely attached to his own thick black hair begin to blow away in the wind when Vespera comes to 'listen'.  Each one woven with intention - with a prayer inside sealed with hate, with hope - hope that it Vespera will take it and hear their voices, all of them.  


Brown ones, black ones, white ones, red, silver, yellow, and gray ones -- most of them untangle and blow away.  Strands and strands of them scatter when the warm breeze huffs hard and makes all the holes in Turhan's mask whistle hauntingly somewhere behind them. Turhan cannot hear it -- he is tuned into something else entirely.  


"There are, too many."  His words are not his own.  His truth is real -- How real?  ..  Real enough.  His voice is soft but secure, tired but energetic, simple but too powerful for what it all really means.


"Have you come to pray?  I will listen."  

T U R H A N
skull to dust

@Eik   My heart beats with joy again.  You and Eik really make a difference in my stay here at Novus.  Thank you for being here! Have some of my weirdest writing yet! <3

[Eik]

Prayers?

The wind picks up, and at first he does not recognize the sound of bone striking bone. That once-familiar clatter combines with the ringing of bells-- using his tall companion, the wind is playing an eerie tune. In contrast, Eik absorbs all sounds except the slap of his mane on his neck with every gust.

Where he should feel fear, or at least caution, there is only a nervous sort of excitement-- and a strange calm that blankets it.

"I do not know how to pray."

(From the calm, anger slowly rises like a wave)

The old gods had been pleased most by actions, not words. So his kin prayed with their bodies. Fighting, feasting, fucking: they honored their gods by living and dying in passion and violence. At least that is what his people believed-- but how could they have been right, when in the end the gods let the world burn? All of it, even the great tree where life was born, gone in godless flame.

(It crests, then crashes on itself. In its wake, silence and darkness and the smell of hot iron (blood). And then nothing at all. No feeling, seeing, hearing. He becomes hollow as a vessel, as poised as the flat of the blade.)

He opens his eyes and sees only the half-hidden moon reflecting on the waves. What is the point of prayer? Either you are heard and ignored, or you are punished for wanting the wrong thing.

His heartbeat quickens as he thinks of his relationship with his creators, thump-thumping in his ears over the howl of the wind. The sea pebbles continue to tumble over themselves in fits of mocking giggles each time a wave recedes. 

He doesn't know what is going on, he usually doesn't, but if there was ever a man to calmly play with the shit hand he was given, it was Eik. He searches himself for a prayer, for anything, and find no hopes, no dreams, no wants for himself or anyone else. "Even if I  knew what to say." Another gust lovingly, violently plays with Turhan's thick mane. "I don't want the attention of the gods."

-     -     -
There is no better way to know us
E I K
than as two wolves, come separately to a wood

@Turhan <3