I just sang in front of someone– he sweats, then shivers in the thin alpine air. When he looks at Elif, though, she is not laughing at him. She looks… awed. He whirls around (is there someone else here?) and once he sees nothing of interest, his attention returns to her with uncomprehending eyes.
No gods on the mountain, no magic in the water. Why does he feel so odd then, like he’s looking out through someone else’s eyes? And what's this fluttering sensation in his throat?
It must just be the cold wind in his eyes and the warm, bright water in his belly. He pulls his wings close and fluffs his feathers. What a bother it must be, to have to walk up the mountain. And, once there, to have nothing but your own skin and flesh to keep the warmth close. Thank you, his heart whispers to the gods. For wings and eyes and song. For peace and joy. And unexpected companions. He sneaks a look at Elif, a sly glance like he shouldn’t be looking at her, and returns his eyes to the altars as she speaks.
For someone so uninterested in seeing other places, cultures, religions, he was incredibly open minded to them. (although, uninterested is not exactly the right word for it-- he was interested, just... not very motivated to act upon this interest) He was also terribly uninformed. Or rather, over-informed.
See, Mateo half expected the Solterran prayer to involve blood in some fashion- a hunt, or a sacrifice, or maybe just a few drops of one’s own blood, taken with the gentle prick of a knife. The world is so much smaller than it seemingly used to be; there was much more travel between courts than in generations past, and with it the exchange of knowledge and culture. But in Delumine there was so much information going around that it could sometimes be difficult to tell the falsehoods apart from the truths. Many citizens were still very much misguided about the other courts– particularly Night, especially with all the recent whispers of dragons, but Day was also often regarded with an apprehension that bordered on bigotry. Barbaric tribes and civil war and burning libraries– the stories made him cringe. He knew they could not all be true, but he also knew that truth was the seed from which every story grew.
He is trying desperately hard to not overthink things, but he’s doing it anyway right now and it makes him feel all jumbled, like someone opened up his body and swapped all his organs around. Things don’t fit together. His idea of Solterra does not fit the boyish girl before him with the alaja and the green summer eyes.
“Oh, we do candles too!” He laughs, sheepish. “And other…” (boring) “… serious things. Singing is just… for me, it’s how I feel closest to Oriens. Or any of them.” For while Oriens was his patron god, there would be no sunrise without the night, no night without dusk, no dusk without day. It was a wheel, pushed along by Tempus, and it seemed to him you could not love one part of the wheel without loving the whole structure. But Dawn was… it was not just the court he lived in. The hope of a new day, the promise of the sun after the long dark of night, it was the fire in his chest that kept him moving, dreaming, singing. Flying. It filled him to the brim with love and gratitude– and then it overflowed.
Something that powerful deserved more than whispered words and a candle.
He wants to ask her more about her god, more about Solterra, more about herself, but it was just so damn cold that if he were to ask all the questions on his mind they would both surely freeze to death. "I wish Solis was here," he says, for the first time in his life, and he laughs a little to himself at the thought. He feels their time together coming to a close and it frustrates him that there isn't anything he can do about it so he just looks at the girl with a forlorn look-- a puppy that knows it is about to be left alone. "But they aren't here, are they."
He always told himself-- always felt that god was with him always. It's why he didn't come up to the mountain much, because he preferred to pray in the air or at the library or when he first opened his eyes in the morning and the light was streaming in the open window like a beautiful message in a language he hadn't yet learned. But it would have been wonderful to see a god in the flesh, as they were known to sometimes appear to mortals. Now that would have been a story!
(It briefly occurs to him that perhaps the girl is a goddess made flesh, and it was all a trick or a test. But he remembers how she looked at her own feathers to see if they had changed. It was not just the act of looking that he remembers but the specific expression in her green eyes. The intent in them, and how it relaxed into a certain kind of disappointment. He smiles.)
The wind sinks its teeth into his flesh as an annoying reminder of the physical world and Mateo shifts back and forth restlessly. "Would you like to visit me sometime?" It shouldn't feel so awkward, this invitation between friends, but for some reason it definitely does. A half-shy, half-laughing smile plays across his lips. He thinks he already knows what she will say, and it makes him feel strangely accomplished.
- - -
@Elif ahhh I love her. I'm not sure why I put off writing this for so long, once I finally sat down to it the words came easy <3
