sins only god can forgive.
If first impressions are the most lasting, then he knew he would certainly not forget this moment he was assaulted by the sweltering heat and a despairing sight that was his first impression of Novus. No, this was not what a wearied man would hope to see after crossing the ocean—desert, as seemingly vast as the sea but half as pleasant on the eyes. His saving grace was that a city lie along the shoreline that he traced alone, where occasionally he was cooled by an errant wave that lurched upon his legs. For too long it looked just like a mirage. So much, that he wouldn’t allow himself to believe his eyes until he was walking among the crowds within where his other senses could be satisfied.
He traded glances with a few market patrons, but mostly everyone saw through him as they mulled about paying mind to their business. Blyse was plagued with discomfort as he looked at their faces, each one as unfamiliar to him as the last. He never realized how much he took for granted the familiarity with his clan. The only thing here that remotely resounded with his past was the slow, steady wail of a blacksmith’s hammer and a single scent which played in the air like a musical note that was hard to discern from the rest. These were not his people. He had no people,he needed reminded. Blyse had given that up on what most might perceive as a whim.
The overwhelming road ahead was just beginning to dawn on him. He needed to find his people. He needed a plan. He needed to strategize just how he was going to find his way in to a position of safety in a land he knew nothing about, but where to even start? That mare, Celeste, she called herself. She was the soothsayer that brought him here, the mare with the gift of Vision who saw a truth that so resonated with him he would betray his own people to follow her.
But then, of course, she left him in the desert.
How sweet. She did part with some cryptic instructions to a place called Denocte and that was the only known value to him in this entire equation. Blyse pushed through the crowd and stole the first alley that took him away from these strange faces. What he found on the other side was a shrine of sorts. Head-high walls of stone stood before him, worn and cracked with barely legible inscriptions. Flowers, trinkets, and other small tokens of love were strewn at the base and idols as unfamiliar to him as the equine of this land stood upon pedestals. He had a guess as to who the idols were for.
“Solis.”
He murmured that name, trying it out for the first time. He had only heard it in the Soothsayer’s rambles. She spoke about the Gods a lot in their brief time together. Mostly she spoke about her own. Rarely she spoke of his, which was a strange concept to him—belonging to a God he was not yet sure he believed in.
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