The silence is deafening, one that swells and consumes with a bitter regard – it is not a soft silence like one finds at the calm shores of mid-tide, the wax and wane of the ocean as it breathes, rushes, and recedes. This is one that sparks with a tangible static – one that drives and pulls and sputters sharply into the breeze, one that threatens in its end to ring in your ears and unsettle the blood in your veins. With what coldness it can muster; it is a calm, but it is not calm, it is far from complacent. And so Erasmus, too used to such a silence, holds steady while the others rush in. It is the same silence that holds at the gate of an enemy, a pause between two armies drawn to their peaks to observe, and then – and then – it is all metal, all copper, all blood and pain and screaming madness that seeps in to a sane man's bones. Do they know?
Perhaps he is wrong. Perhaps they will climb that mound and fight amongst each other. Perhaps there is no army waiting in the dust and sand, their spears sharpened and their teeth sharper still. Perhaps he will only hear the clash of muscle and brawn as those brazen bodies clamber and break against each other like the waves on the shore – and the cherished relic will rise above them, gleaming soundly for whoever ascends. Perhaps he is the fool, sitting and waiting while these creatures move on to fight for a god's precious trinket. Who is he to deny his own ignorance? He cares nothing for Tempus. For a golden statue. For the bodies of those who encroach upon it now with the static sparking and arching in their eyes. But oh, what did he lose?
He is watching the girl with the spinning wheel of an axe when he feels something collide against him. At first his expression is harsh – his brows draw in, his scowl deepens to a dark menace that dredges the ground beneath him, shirking the small apology of a – “Erasmus?” the predatory angles of his face shift loosely, and something sly sneaks across them instead. Of course she would come. She was not here for him, she was here for the shining thing on the mound, the golden trinket. The lore. How could he blame her? So was he. What fortune was it that she, of all the creatures who surrounded the thing now, dumbfounded and anxious, found him? A gambler's luck. She was a sight for his strained eyes anyhow, and he took no modesty in drinking her in for that small moment. “Pleasure of a coincidence."
It is business that draws her attention however, to this new thing, to this glimmering thing – and her eyes swell with the writhing of silhouettes that mount the relic-crowned hill. His still swim in the green, green vision, and the way her neck curves too nicely for his peripherals to ignore. “Can you see it?” He nodded absently, raking his tongue against his teeth as he followed her gaze up, up. It shimmered from there, as if it had soaked in the sun's rays and expelled it with brilliance. “It's there. But - something isn't right, Aghavni."
He watched the way the thing shone. It glimmered. It grinned. And in the heavy silence that surrounded him all, he wondered if it may have even laughed. He recalled the tales of the gods his tribe had fettered with fearful lectures and glorious repentance. Were not the gods endlessly cruel? Were they not so conniving, so amused with mortality? Perhaps a god intended to watch its patrons beat each other in the name of possession. Perhaps a god would see who would fight, who would negotiate, who would steal. Or perhaps – oh, dreaded possibilities – perhaps it was something worse.
He thought about the meeting with the not-moonlight and the facade of death. He remembered Eshek, that lonely god, the way the forest bowed and mourned her existence, the way death kissed her heels and laughed in her light. He thought of the wind that swept a wayward map between them, between her prying eyes and aching ribs, between the reaching grasp of not-moonlight, eager to devour his shifting shadows. He remembered how something unnatural crawled – slithered – from the heart of sand. It twisted, gnarled on itself, a serpent thing lurched from nothingness hungry and desolate. “I saw something, earlier." But he is a heretic, and his words are unsure, untacked, as if each could float away on the air of disbelief. “It was like–"
Erasmus is a thing born of lore, and it did him no favors without its recognition – he is a stubborn, untrusting thing, however a product of mistrust he is alone. He is the rock swallowed by a serpent god, a stone wept from the eye of a titan. A rock fed on the black bed river that drained it dry, that cracked the lowly serpent with straining coils of gold. His titan blood rushes hot and furious in his veins, and something crawls in the pit of his stomach as the sand beneath his feet all too softly, all too faintly, moves. All things scream against him, and he has the pieces – but he lost to its song when something beneath the mound shifts. With it his blood pulses a hungry song, a depraved song, a tattoo against his ribs that weaves and waxes and binds his grain with unearthly mettle.
All the island is a moving thing, by which a whim rises that supersedes all mortal fear. That static silence has turned to sighs now, and some screams, as roots and leaves and moss and sand all whirl and knot themselves into a briny skeleton that winds its way around the relic. There are those that leave, scattering into the dark of what forestry was left. There are others that fall back with awe and a quivering contemplation, something hollow in their eyes as they watch the weaving thing rise like a snake. And there are the rest, those brave and foolish that look to the thing with a challenge, sparing only a moment's hesitation. Erasmus bears witness to all, watches the thing rise from the sand and the roots, its plated back shuddering with sea-green leaves. It bellows with its tree-knots and hissing sands, and bows back against its shadow. “–That."
But Erasmus knows there is no glory in spectating.
And where a boy should be terrified, and a mortal should be hesitant, the titan-blood in his veins screams for deliverance and penance. It pulses in his ears, thrusts its heat against the cage of his core. His eyes swell with the thing, the great snake reflected in the darkest parts of his eyes that shine and glimmer with want. Almost too routinely, his mind searches his side for a blade but there is none – but it is casual loss, and he cannot help the way he is suddenly moving. Each step is a drumbeat cleaving the sand, and his mane almost snaps in the wind like a whip when he takes to a forward charge. Its head, a swaying, toothy thing, is a shadow in his peripheral amongst the silhouettes of those who rush against it. But his mind recounts to where the relic once sat at the things base – and that mortal brain hopes a lackluster prayer that the others have distracted the thing well enough.
He is entranced with the ethereal memories of war as he flies forth against the thing, and when he draws near there is only bloodlust and hunger that moves his bones. He seeks beyond the leafy scales and the whirling sands that plate its wood-bones – he wonders if its blood tastes like the sea, always the sea. And just how many vines must be cracked to rip the relic from its ribs.
Perhaps he is wrong. Perhaps they will climb that mound and fight amongst each other. Perhaps there is no army waiting in the dust and sand, their spears sharpened and their teeth sharper still. Perhaps he will only hear the clash of muscle and brawn as those brazen bodies clamber and break against each other like the waves on the shore – and the cherished relic will rise above them, gleaming soundly for whoever ascends. Perhaps he is the fool, sitting and waiting while these creatures move on to fight for a god's precious trinket. Who is he to deny his own ignorance? He cares nothing for Tempus. For a golden statue. For the bodies of those who encroach upon it now with the static sparking and arching in their eyes. But oh, what did he lose?
He is watching the girl with the spinning wheel of an axe when he feels something collide against him. At first his expression is harsh – his brows draw in, his scowl deepens to a dark menace that dredges the ground beneath him, shirking the small apology of a – “Erasmus?” the predatory angles of his face shift loosely, and something sly sneaks across them instead. Of course she would come. She was not here for him, she was here for the shining thing on the mound, the golden trinket. The lore. How could he blame her? So was he. What fortune was it that she, of all the creatures who surrounded the thing now, dumbfounded and anxious, found him? A gambler's luck. She was a sight for his strained eyes anyhow, and he took no modesty in drinking her in for that small moment. “Pleasure of a coincidence."
It is business that draws her attention however, to this new thing, to this glimmering thing – and her eyes swell with the writhing of silhouettes that mount the relic-crowned hill. His still swim in the green, green vision, and the way her neck curves too nicely for his peripherals to ignore. “Can you see it?” He nodded absently, raking his tongue against his teeth as he followed her gaze up, up. It shimmered from there, as if it had soaked in the sun's rays and expelled it with brilliance. “It's there. But - something isn't right, Aghavni."
He watched the way the thing shone. It glimmered. It grinned. And in the heavy silence that surrounded him all, he wondered if it may have even laughed. He recalled the tales of the gods his tribe had fettered with fearful lectures and glorious repentance. Were not the gods endlessly cruel? Were they not so conniving, so amused with mortality? Perhaps a god intended to watch its patrons beat each other in the name of possession. Perhaps a god would see who would fight, who would negotiate, who would steal. Or perhaps – oh, dreaded possibilities – perhaps it was something worse.
He thought about the meeting with the not-moonlight and the facade of death. He remembered Eshek, that lonely god, the way the forest bowed and mourned her existence, the way death kissed her heels and laughed in her light. He thought of the wind that swept a wayward map between them, between her prying eyes and aching ribs, between the reaching grasp of not-moonlight, eager to devour his shifting shadows. He remembered how something unnatural crawled – slithered – from the heart of sand. It twisted, gnarled on itself, a serpent thing lurched from nothingness hungry and desolate. “I saw something, earlier." But he is a heretic, and his words are unsure, untacked, as if each could float away on the air of disbelief. “It was like–"
Erasmus is a thing born of lore, and it did him no favors without its recognition – he is a stubborn, untrusting thing, however a product of mistrust he is alone. He is the rock swallowed by a serpent god, a stone wept from the eye of a titan. A rock fed on the black bed river that drained it dry, that cracked the lowly serpent with straining coils of gold. His titan blood rushes hot and furious in his veins, and something crawls in the pit of his stomach as the sand beneath his feet all too softly, all too faintly, moves. All things scream against him, and he has the pieces – but he lost to its song when something beneath the mound shifts. With it his blood pulses a hungry song, a depraved song, a tattoo against his ribs that weaves and waxes and binds his grain with unearthly mettle.
All the island is a moving thing, by which a whim rises that supersedes all mortal fear. That static silence has turned to sighs now, and some screams, as roots and leaves and moss and sand all whirl and knot themselves into a briny skeleton that winds its way around the relic. There are those that leave, scattering into the dark of what forestry was left. There are others that fall back with awe and a quivering contemplation, something hollow in their eyes as they watch the weaving thing rise like a snake. And there are the rest, those brave and foolish that look to the thing with a challenge, sparing only a moment's hesitation. Erasmus bears witness to all, watches the thing rise from the sand and the roots, its plated back shuddering with sea-green leaves. It bellows with its tree-knots and hissing sands, and bows back against its shadow. “–That."
But Erasmus knows there is no glory in spectating.
And where a boy should be terrified, and a mortal should be hesitant, the titan-blood in his veins screams for deliverance and penance. It pulses in his ears, thrusts its heat against the cage of his core. His eyes swell with the thing, the great snake reflected in the darkest parts of his eyes that shine and glimmer with want. Almost too routinely, his mind searches his side for a blade but there is none – but it is casual loss, and he cannot help the way he is suddenly moving. Each step is a drumbeat cleaving the sand, and his mane almost snaps in the wind like a whip when he takes to a forward charge. Its head, a swaying, toothy thing, is a shadow in his peripheral amongst the silhouettes of those who rush against it. But his mind recounts to where the relic once sat at the things base – and that mortal brain hopes a lackluster prayer that the others have distracted the thing well enough.
He is entranced with the ethereal memories of war as he flies forth against the thing, and when he draws near there is only bloodlust and hunger that moves his bones. He seeks beyond the leafy scales and the whirling sands that plate its wood-bones – he wonders if its blood tastes like the sea, always the sea. And just how many vines must be cracked to rip the relic from its ribs.
@Aghavni - i don't think erasmus will ever be mad that she runs into him.
@Erasmus chooses option 2.
