“And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry void,
likeness, image of mystery,
felt myself a pure part of the abyss.
I wheeled with the stars.
My heart broke loose on the wind.”
drunk with the great starry void,
likeness, image of mystery,
felt myself a pure part of the abyss.
I wheeled with the stars.
My heart broke loose on the wind.”
There it is.
Fear.
He sees it often. A zealot is often stacked high with the monsters, stalked by the wide, wet eyes of the apostate and profane. They do not know, of course - that he is full of no more than holy silence and the quiet hymn that he hears in the back of his throat, rising each morning with the sun and slowing to a droning crawl as the sky turns from blue to red to violet to black in succession. He has never understood their fear.
(Fear is a body begging to live. Fear is a soul at war with its consequences.
Fear is the only reaction to the Circle's religion and the only reaction of its congregation to everyone else - someone has called them a snake, rotted from the inside, with many heads. Some have said their god is unjust at the best of times and sadistic at the worst.
Jask would agree, with a voice that drips with admiration. Jask would say "my god is unjust and sadistic" like someone might pray. Jask would ignore his trembling lips and the tears carving ruts in his cheek.)
It comes toward him, fear and charm and a smile that he mimics as best as he can, like a child's drawing of a smile that evokes the thing but is not the thing at all. The choker glints like his horn, like a threat in the hot white light of the desert. When Jask blinks the heat stings his eyes. He is still wrapped in unnatural stillness, only the rise and fall of his ribs to betray his life for what it is--there, if barely.
There is no accusation in his voice, no suspicion. Just a smile that is not a smile and a man that is not a man.
Jask stares at him for a long moment, reading his words even after they have been said. He must look like some alien thing walked out of the void, picking apart syllables in search of some meaning he can't find. "My name is Jask," he says, as if it answers the question, "I don't know. I'm not from here, I'm from far away."
There is still that fear, and stench of it, the words coming out fast. Reinhart's magic touches his skin and he is soothed--which is to say that Jask is unchanging, as still and empty as ever, as calm and as quiet as the day he was blinded. Maybe his smile widens, just a little. Maybe it looks genuine in a way that, on him, looks entirely ingenuine. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
When your life is a trance, what's another on top of it?
"It's to keep me, and everyone else, safe." Jask says, closing his eyes in prayer. "To banish evil."
@Reinhart
