A Prayer In Disdain
Emersyn did not know the intricacies of the New World faith. It consisted of four Gods, five? She couldn't remember, the history was so old it was convoluted and difficult to understand. Now, with everything shaking the very foundations of it all -- what was real? Was any of it real? Or was it her, imagining things again? No, no, she made sure to check with others - not directly. No - no one could know Emersyn to be a skeptic, her image had to be propagated just right. And so, paying for few drinks to loosen someone else's lips seemed to be the best way to know for sure without raising alarms.
Emersyn learned then about the Island, the mysterious statue, and the day that stood still for so long that even she saw it herself, many days later after encountering her drunk informant in the bar. It rattled some cages, and although her emotional response was lacking, utterly, it rocked whatever world she once felt so sure in. The grullo was straight faced despite that, blue eyes neither reading nor reciting any changes in the way she was looking at Novus.
So why, then, was she going to Temple in the middle of the day when she could be seeking out Somnus? Her father would be ashamed of her now, if he knew that Emersyn chose to find answers to something he considered fanatical and pointless rather than making use of her time. Nicolai would rather see the girl doing something more useful, finding a position within the military would be his first point in the advice he would give her. Find her place within the ranks, establish firm ties with upper command, then start scaling the ranks until she could do what she did best. He had raised her to be a tactician at best, being a leader would come naturally.
Emersyn could hear him at the back of her mind, the summer heat screaming over the top of it all, his criticisms and displeasures. Knowing he was not a part of her current situation was the only thing that kept the gray's ascension, she was determined to see the Temple for herself. Emersyn wanted to know where the people of Novus went to make peace with their Gods. If magic could suspend a scene of life and turn it into the page of a story book, then certainly Oriens, the patron deity of Delumine existed as well?
What did they look like? What did they sound like? Was her god a feral god? Was he unlike his people entirely? Emersyn occupied herself with several questions, answered herself with many more, all for the sake of drowning out Nico's utter disdain. His disappointment felt very real to her, two years past his death, and she could not shake the realness of his presence in her life. Was Oriens like Nicolas? Was he hard on his people? Was he expectant of each and every one of them to be perfect versions of themselves? Everyone in Delumine that she had observed had a sort of way about their life that she sadly could not answer these questions for herself. So she climbed.
The heat was oppressive and more direct as she gained altitude. Once, when she first arrived in the city that was now her home, she saw (for the first time ever) a horse with wings. How much easier it would be to simply fly to her destination than to climb the wearisome path to the top. It wasn't much further, and she was determined to make her efforts count for something. A rucksack that did not belong to her carried a candle, fresh flowers, and a jar of precious honey that she wished to offer.
Emersyn arrived to the temple at dusk, she had started her journey before dawn (she was a very early riser) and had made it to the peak when the sun was highest in the sky. The young soldier felt a quiet victory for herself for not having turned around and abandoning the journey once met with the blazing heat of the day. She was relieved to see a setting sun, a thin veil of night letting the brightest of stars shine through the last of the day - altogether a breathtaking twilight that she shared with no one but herself.
That alone, was magnificent.
The temple looked as though it had seen better days. It did not look quite the way she imagined it to. A garden of Gods, clearly disturbed by something not of this world. Or if that something had been, it was no more. Emersyn took the details in quietly and maintained modesty as she cooled off in the shadows of the evening. The wind dried the salt in her hair, the peppery waves had gone stiff from all the sweat and hung in flat sheets against her gray skin. It bothered her to be this unclean but she was alone, and would deal with it as any soldier out on his own would do.
Emersyn chose no altar to bare her gifts and instead left what she brought spread out before her on the smooth marble beneath her feet. She arranged it neatly and pushed the candle out at last. There was no fire to light it, but that was beside the point that she even came for. The woman settled in against her carrying bag and rested her tired body. Although Emersyn was both hungry and thirsty, she chose to remain vigilant all night while fasting as her first devotion to a God she was not certain existed. As she rested she realized that she had no questions or requests for Oriens, and therefore, no prayer.
She did pray then, to anybody, that her God was not an angry one, and that her silence would not be seen as derogatory to the whole act of worship. If anything, Veneror peak offered a spectacular night sky, one unlike any other that she had ever seen. Even back in the city.
"Do you know what happens to falling stars? I don't. I do wonder about that from time to time."
~~~
Worship - I pray to the sky. Please, I'm begging you God.
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It had been a long time since he had last come to Veneror. Sometimes, when he felt especially lonely in the markets of Denocte, when he escaped from the music and the bonfires to the lake, he liked to remember that day. He had met a girl here, with a rose as red as his own eyes braided within her hair. They had talked without knowing each other’s names, had shared secrets from their pasts as if they were old friends. That had been before he was a Regent, and before he found the magic running wild through his veins. He wonders now how Messalina is doing, and where she might be - her letters had stopped quite some time ago, and although she had promised to meet him at the Night Court, he had yet to see or hear mention of her. Worry gnawed at his heart each day, when Odet with a single shake of his head let him know that no, there were no new letters for him and no, there was no word of the Champion in the marketplace. Ipomoea spends quite a bit of his time remembering her now, remembering the blue of her eyes and the way she looks down when she smiles. And more and more often he found himself reflecting on the day they had met, there at Oriens’ shrine. It astonished him now, as he began his climb up the mountains, just how long it had been. And still he remembers that day, and each of his other journeys to the top of the world, as if they had been only yesterday… The first time he had been just a colt, and less than a month shy of his first birthday. He was an orphan from Solterra then, off to see and travel the world - or so he had hoped. The wind had been strong that day, when he had stood at the edge of a cliff and looked out at all that lay below him, marveling at the way he could see into a part of all four Courts. The sky had looked impossibly big, which at the time had seemed backwards to him; how was it that the closer he got to it, the larger it seemed to grow, and the further from reach it seemed to be? He had been equal parts awestruck, and enchanted. And when the traveling merchants had settled for the night at the temple, offering gifts and prayers to their patron deities, he had gone directly to the first of the five statues that had caught his attention: Oriens. Although he had not yet been a part of the Dawn Court, still he had been drawn to the god of the morning in a way he couldn’t explain. He had been so young, and so naive then; he had chalked it up to fate, as if it was his destiny to join the northwestern court and serve the god of wisdom. All he had wanted then was to grow up and find a home, a place to belong to. Sometimes he wished life were still so simple as it was then. Sometimes he wished he could go back to that life, when the biggest of his worries was where his next adventure would take him. Night is falling quickly as he climbs the mountain, but Ipomoea does not rush himself. It’s the morning that he has come here for, a desire to see the sunrise from the top of the world. It’s a long way off, he knows, but the mountain beckons him forth, the night-blooming flowers whispering sweet nothings in his ear as he passes, and he knows that morning will come soon enough. The mountain today is the same mountain from his memories, the same mountain that had saved him as a child when he had grown sick. The same mountain where he had been given a name, and a life, and a future. Only now he knows that it was not the gods who had done so for him, nor fate. Ipomoea is not so naive as he was before, although still he reveres the morning and the promises each new day brings. In his grasp is a scroll, rolled up tight and bound with a scarlet ribbon. He holds it close to his breast along his walk, as if it’s some great treasure - and in a way, it is. For it is his offering to Oriens, a collection of short stories from the island that he hopes to add to the god’s great library. And as he approaches the temple’s doorway he is prepared to lay it on the altar and ask for the god’s blessing (although he’s no longer sure what good will come of that). But a voice coming from within the sanctuary makes him pause at the threshold, and it leaves his freckled ears straining to listen. As Ipomoea peers into the temple he sees her there, resting before Oriens temple. The woman inside is painted in tones of silver, and her face is vivid and pale in the darkness, reminding him of a ghosts’. But her voice is very much real, and he listens to it quietly. He hesitates for only that moment. “Perhaps they become like us,” he answers her quietly, as he steps across the entryway and into the temple. His hoofbeats sound too loud against the stone floor, the quiet night hiding no secrets. “Perhaps that is how heroes are born, from falling stars.” It’s a fanciful thought, and it has him wondering - how many heroes-to-be has Ipomoea met? How many children were born with stardust in their veins and galaxies in their eyes? Surely that was how legends began, the storytellers always said that fate was written in the stars. But then he remembers himself, and he pauses several paces away from her, away from the chipped and broken statue of Oriens. “Forgive me, I did not mean to intrude on your worship.” there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him, I only let him out at night sometimes. I say, stay in there,I’m not going to let anybody hurt you @ i adore her ;u; please excuse this rambling mess ”here am i!“ 
Her response isn’t one he’s expecting - a stubbornly factual answer to her own fanciful questioning. “Even so,” he’s persistent, as if the hope that lives in his heart is not yet ready to let go of its fantasy. “Perhaps it is death that makes a hero, but it is birth that makes the person who becomes that hero. Their life begins long before the story everyone remembers them for.” It was easy to forget, he supposed, that any fabled character could exist outside of the tale they had been caught in. But he has met heroes before they become heroes, and he knows. It was only a matter of perspective, of choosing what parts deserved to be remembered. Because try as he might, not even a scholar could remember everything. As a child he had been ravenous, he had spent each day with a different book (or two, or three, or more…) Now Ipomoea cannot remember the last time he picked up a book simply for the joy of unraveling the stories it contained. It had been so long, he wasn’t even sure where he had left off the last time, or where he should begin again. He knew many would call it practical, to live through his own eyes instead of the eyes of an author of a book. And it had indeed had its benefits. But the world was beginning to wear on him, and more often than not he found himself day dreaming of alternate realities, of different worlds and different lives. Only he already knew, when next he picked up a book he would lose himself in it, and it would be a long while before he would be able to return. He blinks back at her when she turns to look at him, but his smile is small. Thoughtfulness - or perhaps it is sadness? - keeps the edges of his lips downturned, and he’s thankful the darkness of night might hide the way his eyes refuse to dance the way they once did. Stay. He had been ready to walk back down the mountain when she implored him otherwise. There was a small bluff hidden beneath a peak a little ways back, facing west. He knew from experience that it overlooked a great swath of the Viride Forest and, on a clear day, he might see the meadows of Illuster shining on the horizon. He had never spent the night there before, but he supposed so long as the wind stayed, it would be pleasant enough… But her voice interrupts his reverie, and his plans. Please. For a moment, but only a moment, he’s still. But then he smiles again, and takes two small, light steps closer. Close enough to set the scrolls there at the bottom of the altar, a small pyramid of paper and ink and lives. “They’re for the library,” he corrects her, even as he pushes the top most scroll into alignment. “But the legends say Oriens created the libraries, so I come to ask his blessing over the addition. Just some first and second hand accounts from the island in the south.” He tries to not let his voice sound flat, is careful to say what the legends believe opposed to what he believes. Because Ipomoea thinks here is the best place to see the sunrise in all of Novus, and it was conveniently on his way back to Delumine. He doesn’t say that he’s looking for confirmation, for something great to reveal itself to him. But maybe he doesn’t know that yet himself. He bowed his head respectfully at the fractured statue, then retreats a few paces. Overhead the stars are beginning to show themselves - shyly at first, then with more vigor. Ipomoea tilts his head back, lets their starlight anoint his features, bathes silently in the cool cloak of night. His mind feels far too slow tonight, turning itself over and around each time she speaks. Perhaps the people have lost their faith, he wants to say, and because the gods abandoned us. But he doesn’t. He just tilts his head and looks to the ceiling of the temple, where constellations and tributes to the gods have been etched. “Because it is,” he says softly instead, and lets her make of that what she will. The words feel like sin when he speaks them, but he pretends to not notice, pretends he’s talking only about the lack of worshippers present. But he’s not. He gives a subtle shake of his head and looks back at her, the woman with the smoky voice concealing monochrome thoughts. ”You’re not from here,” he says, and it’s not a question. But his voice is soft, almost amused, like birdsong in a forest. There is no judgement there, only quiet wondering. ”What do you know about Veneror?” And somehow, it sounds like he’s asking her to tell him something, hoping it’s something he doesn’t already know. there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him, I only let him out at night sometimes. I say, stay in there,I’m not going to let anybody hurt you @ ”here am i!“
As she begins to speak, he crosses the cool marble floor of the small temple. His passing stirred a small wind to life between his hooves, so that dry leaves and dirt rustled like something like beneath him. His wings reached out, gingerly, slowly, to brush the smooth floor clean, pressing their feathers into the leaves. The window faces east, more or less - and when Ipomoea reaches it, he can see the way the horizon has already begun to lighten. The sun is still hiding, somewhere far below the edge of the earth. Directly overhead the sky is dark, and stars still reign supreme in the absence of the half moon that had guided him here. But even as he watches, a line of fiery light graces the peak of a distant mountain, crowning it in gold. It will be a while yet before the sun sets in earnest, but somewhere a jay bird is heralding the morning. He leans his temple against the window frame, and lets his eyes fall closed as her words wash over him. It’s easy to let himself be carried away in her tale; with his eyes closed he can pretend to see it all playing out before him, like ghostly actors dancing across the stage that is his mind. The story lifts itself to the forefront, the center of his attention, and all else fades slowly away as he listens in the peace and quiet “And did she?” he asks softly at her conclusion, when the temple seemed to echo with the last musical strains of her voice. “Did you learn forgiveness here?” Forgiveness. For death, for war, for chaos, for all the things that marked their souls as red as the hills of Cantwell. Ipomoea was not a warrior. He had always known that. But looking a murderer and a monster in the eyes had brought the realization crashing down over him like a wave of ice cold water. Even when he wanted to, he could not bring himself to kill; even when he knew the cost of that one man’s life was suffering for countless others. He had hesitated, and it had nearly cost him his own life in the process. And yet he had stood by while others did what he could not, and now he was not so sure if that had been strong or weak of him. When he turns back to look at her though, he doesn’t see the red that would have covered her on that day she returned to her father. He doesn’t judge her for having taken the lives of others (although maybe once, before the war, before Raum, before he saw fires burning in the night, perhaps he would have). He sees only another girl from another land, having lived a vastly different life than him and yet still, ended up in the same place. Who smiled without laughter. There’s a wan, pale light coming in through the open window now, falling across Orien’s altar in a dusty streak. “The sun is rising,” he says quietly, and he’s not just talking about the sun. there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him, I only let him out at night sometimes. I say, stay in there,I’m not going to let anybody hurt you @ ”here am i!“
A smile twitches at the corners of his lips, and the sunlight glinting off of his eyes could almost be mistaken for laughter. Maybe tomorrow morning when he tries to smile, he’ll mean it. “I know,” he says. It takes time to heal. I know, I’ve seen it. Delumine deserves the best, she deserves Delumine. I know. I feel it, too. Dawn is more than just the morning. I know, he thinks, it’s why I chose it. Why it chose me. It has been so long since he has last come to Veneror. The whole walk up here he had thought back on his last night spent here at the feet of Oriens, when he had first talked to a girl with a whole ocean in her eyes. At night it had all felt muddled and confused, the pain hanging heavy over his heart like a shadow threatening to swallow him whole. But the skies were clear now, and so too was Ipomoea’s mind. He studies the remains of the statue as he steps forward and collects the scrolls. Where are you now, Oriens? he wants to ask. Where did you go? He doesn’t know if the god is listening, or if he’ll ever return to Novus. Maybe the people would choose new gods, if the old ones were gone for long enough. Maybe gods were not so immortal as everyone thought. “I hope you can,” he tells her when he straightens, the scrolls clutched tightly to his chest. “A lot of people have found their new beginnings here in Delumine, myself included. I think you can, too.” Why he’s so sure of this, he doesn’t know. But he offers the girl one last smile and a tip of his head. “I should be going, I fear I’ve taken enough of your time already. I hope to see you around Delumine, Emersyn.” Shifting the scrolls to his side, Ipomoea retraces his step out of the temple, back down the twisting mountain path. Her words ring in his ears the whole way down. Dawn is more than just a time of day. It’s hope. there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him, I only let him out at night sometimes. I say, stay in there,I’m not going to let anybody hurt you @ ”here am i!“ |
