you have heard the stories about how the dead have already cried, like crushed grass and wilted flowers and memories carved into stone, then forgotten.
If he feels anything it is here in the mountains.
Even if the feeling is no more than breathless vertigo, the sort of lightheaded giddiness that comes with air thin as chiffon, it is something. A parched enough man might drink poison if it wets his throat.
Someone told him, offhandedly, that it is a holy place, a seat for their gods at the top of the world. He comes to understand, through listening quietly as the world turns around him, that Novus' gods are unpredictable, selfish, indifferent, but perhaps not outright cruel. Their seats on the mountain are probably empty. They are probably elsewhere, studying other people, eyes turned away from the people that want them.
Jask does not understand Novus' distrust toward its gods. His stomach clenches to even consider doing the same toward his own. They have already blinded and bound him. They have already eaten up everything he had or was.
He cannot imagine the Circle without his blind obedience. Hell, he thinks. Hell is real and it is an angry god.
Jask finds Elchanan in his wandering, musing as much as he can with his emptiness. He has seen no gods here-- maybe they do not exist to begin with. Probably they do not exist. It is just a mountain among many other lonely mountains topped by shrines. Jask finds Elchanan as he is deciding, again, that only the Circle's gods are real, and as merciful as they are cruel, and humming hymns to himself under the white disc of the moon.
He is silver in it, almost the same glossy sheen as the snow-covered rock. For a moment he stands, silent, watching the archpriest round the corner with a grace he could hardly attempt, let alone put into practice. Jask sees the staff at his side and for the first time in a very, very long time something stirs in him.
It is something uncomfortable. Something sharp, like a knife, between his ribs. He can't remember the last time he felt anything let alone the strange blend of longing and fear that bubbles up weakly in his stomach before dying back down.
His long, red robes flutter in the wind, tossing wet mountain snow down the slope, flake by flake.
"Are you a priest?" he asks, addressing the man first. They stand, holy man to holy man, and Jask feels...
uncomfortable.jask
Even if the feeling is no more than breathless vertigo, the sort of lightheaded giddiness that comes with air thin as chiffon, it is something. A parched enough man might drink poison if it wets his throat.
Someone told him, offhandedly, that it is a holy place, a seat for their gods at the top of the world. He comes to understand, through listening quietly as the world turns around him, that Novus' gods are unpredictable, selfish, indifferent, but perhaps not outright cruel. Their seats on the mountain are probably empty. They are probably elsewhere, studying other people, eyes turned away from the people that want them.
Jask does not understand Novus' distrust toward its gods. His stomach clenches to even consider doing the same toward his own. They have already blinded and bound him. They have already eaten up everything he had or was.
He cannot imagine the Circle without his blind obedience. Hell, he thinks. Hell is real and it is an angry god.
Jask finds Elchanan in his wandering, musing as much as he can with his emptiness. He has seen no gods here-- maybe they do not exist to begin with. Probably they do not exist. It is just a mountain among many other lonely mountains topped by shrines. Jask finds Elchanan as he is deciding, again, that only the Circle's gods are real, and as merciful as they are cruel, and humming hymns to himself under the white disc of the moon.
He is silver in it, almost the same glossy sheen as the snow-covered rock. For a moment he stands, silent, watching the archpriest round the corner with a grace he could hardly attempt, let alone put into practice. Jask sees the staff at his side and for the first time in a very, very long time something stirs in him.
It is something uncomfortable. Something sharp, like a knife, between his ribs. He can't remember the last time he felt anything let alone the strange blend of longing and fear that bubbles up weakly in his stomach before dying back down.
His long, red robes flutter in the wind, tossing wet mountain snow down the slope, flake by flake.
"Are you a priest?" he asks, addressing the man first. They stand, holy man to holy man, and Jask feels...
uncomfortable.
@elchanan
