[Worship] I pray to the sky. Please, I'm begging you God.

[Emersyn]

Tell Us How You Aren't Afraid to Die

The soldier has never asked a whimsical question to anybody in her life, naturally, nor has she pondered the unasked answers - until now, where she has finally asked and been answered.  Ipomoea, well known to Delumine but a stranger to Emersyn, manifests in her deep left peripheral, a sanguine and cream boy with flowers in his hair.  Emersyn gambles his character worthiness off of one short glance to her side against his words.  Whatever details she has spied, it is Emersyn's procedure as a soldier to put all of him together faster than he can reveal to her himself.  

Eventually, she engages him without so much as glancing his way.  A flick of the ear, perhaps, to set a stray strand of silk straight with the rest of her hair. 

"I learned that heroes are not born, they die.  Facing Death is the greatest enemy of all time.  Heroes conquer their enemies by being survived in scriptures.  In a way, that too is as timeless as stars."    A gentle shut down, she is not strong enough to carry the whimsical nature of the topic.

Emersyn has never truly wondered about stars.  She has contemplated their scientific belonging in her universe.  She has weighed out their devastation should they fall from her sky.  Yet, she has studied enough about her world to know it is unlikely that - should a star fall - the odds are thin that they would ever grace her with their presence.  Novus has yet to make a fraud out of her science, but somehow she feels that there might be magic out there, and if she cannot accept it - it may begin to work against her.

And so,

How perceptive of Emersyn then, to notice how Life manifests across the nonporous, marble floors.  That cannot be lichen? Or grass? the soldier skepticizes to herself. Even when the seemingly dormant temple shimmers with life she fails to be convinced about the kind of magic that deceives the laws of physics. It aggravates her almost as much as it overwhelms her.  Yet still, the squaddie keeps her eyes on the ruins, listening to both the man and nature unaware that it is his magic. 

A beetle crawls over the statue and it disgusts her.  Coolly, Emersyn turns to face her stranger with pinned, stark blue eyes, her face glowing bright in the twilight.  Affixed to her monochromatic lips is a welcoming smile.  If only Ipomoea knew how much chaos and static filled her heart, but he won't, not when she smiles the way she does.  Not when she invites him in so kindly, so carefully.

Emersyn blinks slowly, and gazes back at Oriens.

"You are not interrupting my worship, by the way.  Stay, the stars are about to come out."  The sky was wearing thin with inky fatigue, the stars were pulsing brighter - bolder.   "Please."  She adds after forgetting she need not command people like she would her soldiers.  The invite is sincere enough, or maybe Emersyn is too tired to expend precious energy in pushing him away.  She moves as if to invite him in her circle. "What do you have there?  Is it for Oriens?"  His scrolls are a thing of curiosity, Emersyn's voice sounds much like the wind in its sweet, smoky, and sibilating tone.  

The wind reaches out to them as if it has known Ipomoea and Emersyn its whole life.  In a way it has, it has followed their separate pathways since the beginning only to converge now where two strangers come together for a singular purpose.  

Emersyn looks beyond the magic and into what feels like mayhem with all these broken pieces and cracks in the foundations of the statue with reverence.  "Why does this Temple feel so empty?"



@Ipomoea  This will get better. Still working on this one's current situation.  
~~~