“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.”
His scripture says nothing about actual morality.
Hatred, yes. Danger, yes. The swift approach of the end of all things--of course. But it does not even attempt at right or wrong or the complicated and often messy philosophies of other countries.
And why should it? The Circle exists to subdue or to kill, and there is no room for morality in genocide.
Solterra knows enough about genocide, probably - its streets are lined with the scars of old kings, cut into each limestone brick and stacked high on the wall. Jask can almost feel it in every ragged canopy, in the dry, warm breeze that pulls at his hair. If he could feel anything at all it would be the deep ache of this country, one that has no time to heal from tragedy to tragedy, martyr to martyr.
If he feels his heart clench it is the echo of something he may have felt, the same way that a mask becomes a face if it is worn for long enough.
It is beautiful in its own way: shop counters glitter with priceless jewels either fished up from the earth or drawn out of the pockets of travelers. This particular smell of spice is unique to the desert, turning the wicked atmosphere somehow even sharper, giving everything an edge of red or brown like clay. Even now in the dead of winter it is hot, and the spice sits in his lungs -- but it is perhaps not so hot, just in a way that rests on his shoulders like his robes, heavy in a comfortable way, solid like very few things are.
A voice like the droning of insects draws his attention, something that swims out of the crowd only because it goes on, and on, and on, and when it has stopped there is a distinctness to its absence, like the punchline to a very long and boring joke -- and the laying aside of laughter in its wake. He is drawn to the face only because it is attached to the voice.
He wonders if Reinhart will cringe when he sees jask staring, with two eyes as red as the blood moon and one like the sky itself, milky and blue. The red of his horn glints like a threat in the light.
He is unmoved, as ever
--and unmoving. As still as a spider in waiting.
Waiting,
Waiting,
Waiting.
@Reinhart
