[P] o sinnerman;

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends There is a wicked sort of pleasure he takes in coming to Veneror Peak for something profane.  It is not that he doesn’t appreciate Calligo; he loves her for everything she is, just as he loves Reichenbach and the Night Court for taking him in, for making him belong. But she will always be a foreign god. It was not she who had freed him from his cell as a colt; it was not she who had led him here. It was him. Him alone. He would worship with the others, but Acton said no prayers at night. Not to any gods, at least. But he could still appreciate the gravity of the place, the sense of something weighty, even as the air thinned and the slopes grew unsteady with scree and he cursed himself for not being in the shape he ought to be. Crow life had made him lazy over the last year; it was easy to get complacent, when you didn’t have to be so careful. Maybe it was a good thing he had to be very careful, today.  But there was no disguising his irreverent grin, his raven-dark hair that fell thick and wild along his neck, the flash of his eyes from behind the black mask he was born wearing. Luckily the peak was, for the moment, abandoned; high noon, it seemed, was not a preferred time to submit to the gods. Acton settled near a grove of aspens to wait, listening to the wind rattle the leaves, dry as bones this late in summer.  He could not say how much time had passed before he heard another coming slowly up the trail. The buckskin straightened, shaking leaves form his mane, poised, kinetic, ready to perform whatever role was needed.  None was. It was a quicksilver figure that came up the trail, a ghost on a spirit-peak, and Acton’s grin turned sly as he stepped from the slender trunks. “Your piousness has always been a source of inspiration, brother,” he said – too loudly, too carelessly, even if only the trees were listening.  Hopefully the gods ignored him as much as he did them.  @Raum