[The Sanctuary] This Hallow Ground

[Kavala]

Kavala wasn't what one would term 'religious' in that she went around and preached what she believed in or belonged to a priestesshood in any solid fashion. Instead, Kavala was a deep thinker and a spiritual person, moved greatly by the Gods and what they gave her and her friends in a day to day basis. Bathing, running, every ritual Kavala delved into was one that tapped into her inner self. She wanted to induct Sama'el into this sort of thinking if he wasn't already there. She suspected he was. So as she waited for him, she lit incense from the basket and made sure the candles around the stone basin were flickering brightly.

When he joined her in the water she faced him, bowed to him, and softly said. "We gather here to tend to prepare our physical, mental, and spiritual self to the rite that we are about to conduct below in the Semele's arms. If you will allow me, I will tend to you, Sama'el of a future Pavilion, Sapphire clan." If he nodded, she'd gently grasp him by the shoulders, turn him around so he faced away from her, and then would step close.

She would gently grasp his shoulders, and push him down so that he could submerge himself briefly in the salt and oil scented waters of the bath. Then, helping him to rise, she'd take handfuls of a fine grained cleansing soap sand and step even closer, beginning to systematically wash him. While her touch was not sexual, it was intimate, for she was not afraid of bending beneath the water, picking up first one of his feet then another, running her hands up his legs, gently soaping him. No part of him was left untouched though she gave him the privacy of facing away from her. Her hands moved up his thighs, resoaped, and then moved to cleans his sex and his buttocks before moving across his stomach and chest.

Carefully with a healer's methodical intensity, she cleaned each hand, beneath each fingernail and stroked upwards, removing any impurities from his arms and shoulders. She gave the same attention to his chest and back, finally carefully washing his head and neck. She rubbed shampoo into his hair and rinsed his hair carefully with one of several pitchers of hot water, gently tipping his head back to keep the soap out of his eyes. When she was finished, she urged him to turn to face her and she studied his nude form protruding from the waist deep water for a long moment.

Then, carefully, she stepped forward once more. She reached out and touched his forehead with both sets of her fingertips and lifted her voice higher, in a pitch that was intoned to be sacred.

"Blessed be Sama'els mind, that learns of all he needs to know this day and all days hereafter."

Her hands spread slightly, slipped down his face, and gently covered his eyes, giving him a chance to lid them as she did so.

"Blessed be Sama'els eyes, so that they can see what he needs to see this day and all days hereafter."

Scales scraped lightly against his skin as Kavala moved her fingertips downward, across the swell of his cheeks to rest against his lips.

"Blessed be Sama'els lips, that he may utter only wisdom and be therein wise enough to keep his secrets."

From there, her fingers trailed further down, exploring the curve of his jaw and the hollow of his throat, sliding across his shoulders pausing there.

"Blessed be Sama'els shoulders, that he may carry the burdens life, love, and faith place upon him."

She dropped her hands further, this sort of touching far more intimate than any cleansing could ever be. She wasn't making love to him, but rather in some rite more sacred than almost time itself, she was turning his body into some sort of sacred temple in a cleansing and purification that he could feel as tangible. She paused at his chest, her hands spread to each pectoral. Had he been a woman, she would have cupped his breasts, but since his body was firm and hard, she only splayed her webbed hands out.

"Blessed be Sama'els breast, formed in strength and uniting the whole of him."

Had he been a woman, she would have spoke of the function and beauty of his breasts, but she had no such comments for men. Her hands moved together once more, over his heart, and paused there while she breathed deeply and thought of what she wanted to say. Her eyes had a half-lidded glow to them that made her gaze intense even though she stared at his heart and not into his own eyes.

"Blessed be Sama'els heart, that it may beat fast and strong with all the passion it contains and the love it needs to share."

Her hands dropped lower to his stomach and splayed open across his abs. Once more the webbing showed between her fingers as she spoke.

"Blessed be Sama'els stomach, that he may always nourish the temple that is his body properly and regularly."

Her hands dropped lower, unashamed as if she were his lover, she cupped his genitals, capturing them in her hands with the utmost care.

"Blessed be Sama'els phallus and seed, that he may bring pleasure to himself and others and produce a new generation of his people who are all infused with his ideals and beliefs."

She released him gently and knelt in the water, keeping her lips above it but obviously needing to reach the rest of him. Her hands smoothed across his hips, down his thighs and to his knees. Once there, she paused and spoke again.

"Blessed be Sama'els knees, that he kneel at the alter of life and be able to rise and fall as life demands him too."

She moved lower, which was a challenge to stay above the water enough to speak and to still touch his feet. She was unable to do so, and so she dipped beneath the water to gently grasp his entire foot, one to each hand. He could hear muffled words beneath the water, but nothing he could make out clearly in the end.

"Blessed be Sama'els feet, that they must carry him on his path - a pathway that will not be an easy one."

And with that, she rose before him, offered him a smile, and reached out and kissed him on either cheek. "You are ready now, I think, Sama'el. Would you do me the honor as well?" She asked, starting to present him her back if he looked agreeable.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

Sama'el was a couple of months shy of nineteen years old, so it took a deal of focus to maintain the purity of this ritual. Of course, he had heard of places where rituals involved sex, but nobody had ever pointed him in the right direction or he might have gone there for a time before returning to his native Cyphrus. But he nodded and bowed to her in turn, because if he had learned anything from life and from his more recent studies of the magical nature of things, it was the importance of equal exchanges of energy. Nature had its share of imbalances, but they tended to lead to equilibrium until that balance was upset again. One had to respect even the person shining one's boot or else the work dehumanized the other. There was a moment where he balanced on a knife's edge between the sacred and another kind of sacred, where he wanted to hold her and enter her and show her the sort of love she should have had among her people. But she had given him no real indication that she desired such, and for all he knew she might be punished for it. Her child was beautiful, but Sama'el could not help but think that the beautiful product came from an ugly source. She had her Sanctuary, however, and he had to respect the choices she made to have that. It was not like she would want to leave all this just to join his rag-tag, would-be pavilion. Perhaps someday... The decision soothed him somehow, and so her hand across his chest calmed its beat rather than driving it faster than it already pounded. The heat that rose in him came from the water instead of his loins, and while her hands down there felt good, what might have been was set aside for another day when they were different people and so were their circumstances. What was left was what the ritual promised: he felt cleansed. Her hand there reminded him that this too was holy, but the intimacy of her touch could be a comfort and not necessarily an incitement. The thought occurred to him, however, that under different circumstances, he would be reacting quite differently. "Thank you," he said quietly when it was done, and nodded his agreement. Equilibrium. Not sure that he could do her ritual justice, he said, "The Water is holy." He took a ewer, eased her head back and let the warm water flow carefully over her scalp. Lathering her with her own soaps, which spread around their hips like a profusion of tiny white flowers in the dimness, he held his hands at sacred places, silently praying to Syna, to Viratas, and to Zulrav to guide and protect her. Sama'el prayed for wisdom at her crown, foresight at her third eye, right speech at her throat, love for herself and also for others at her heart, courage and truth at her solar plexus, fertility and creativity at her sex, and grounding and strength from her root. "Bless her entirely, o my gods and goddesses. Prepare her to receive Semele's gift." His hands ran over her again like a benediction, gentle over skin and scales, and then he carefully poured water over her head to sluice it all away. "She is clean," he informed them, and then, inspired, he kissed the back of her hair, the blonde hair gone dark with wet. It was not the kiss of a ritual nor the kiss of a lover, but a kiss that said, You are ready. It was enough.

[Kavala]

If nothing came of their ritual and no reimancy was produced, Kavala thought it was more than enough that she'd shared this time with Sama'el. It was so refreshing, so sincere, to just be doing something actively to prepare oneself for something sacred and to do so with another who was equally sincere. Sama'el was a deep thinking, a complex man just finding his own skin and learning his way in life. She respected him and knew him for what he was: Core Drykas. The plains produced all sorts of men, but here was one that she could easily push forward and say 'Here, here is the heart of my people. Here is their essence and the molding of philosophy and environment. Here. Here is the strength and the core of our greatness."

When she was among her own kind, Kavala often forgot about the scales and gills that graced her body. She might look Konti, but she thought as a Drykas through and through. Every action Sama'el made lent her to believe that he was serious and the ceremony was sacred. His hands on her body were wonderful, safe, not demanding something of her other than her ultimate purity for her presentation to arcana and to Semele herself. Kavala didn't understand when she started crying why she started crying. Facing away from him, his hands around her, his fingers gently sluicing away impurities about how dirty she'd felt. Had it been a year? Had it been longer? Her mind could not even think, not really, as the hot water and soap trailed across her.

Sama'el did more for her than he could realize. As he treated her as something Sacred, he washed away something she hadn't known was there.

Taint was such an ugly word, but that's what it was. Kavala had lost her Drykas guarded purity to filthy slaver men that had no respect for the sacred. And every day of her life in Riverfall had focused around her requirement to allow a man not of her choosing to regularly invade her body to plant a child within. She had taint - so much taint - and with his careful ministrations Sama'el seemed to wash it all away. He said nothing, not even pausing, when she leaned back against him as they stood together. It was an incredible intimacy, but one she hadn't minded and welcomed. With her final rinse and his gentle kiss, she turned in his arms and smiled at him. The tears were washed away, but the evidence of them still lingered in her eyes. She leaned forward and stood up to kiss his forehead as well. Then she kissed each cheek and finally his lips before she pulled away and smiled.

"It is not often one finds such a kindred soul. Thank you Sama'el. This meant more to me than I think you could know." She said simply, then stepped from the bath. She offered him a warm fluffy robe instead of a towel, the robe acting as one regardless. Then she slid her own on, handing him neat little rope sandals and sliding another set on her feet. She made no move to take her clothing, nor did she figure she needed it for the ritual.

So instead, she simply lead him back into the main facility, down into the basement, and past the strange energetic barrier across the door. She would clean up the bathing chamber later, launder the clothing there, and have it ready for when Sama'el awoke if he did indeed sleep after their ritual. Once back in the chamber she disrobed and slipped the sandals off her feet once more, then waited to follow his lead.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

Had Kavala told him of the vision of him she kept in her heart, he would not have understood. There were things that had happened to him that he was only slowly riding through. Some stains took years and years of washing, and were never entirely absent. But he was young yet and his wisdom that of a young man with a lifetime's worth of suffering to learn from, and this was a good thing, a meeting of minds and kindred spirits, a ritual acknowledgement of hurts and an attempt toward healing, as well as a chance to pass on a gift from himself to another, increasing his confidence in those gifts. Had Kavala pressed him, she might have known how very similar they were. "You might be surprised," was all he said, though. Perhaps when he returned from Avanthal they would speak of hidden things. For now, he followed her out, wrapped in a robe more luxurious and clean than anything he owned. Down again they went, his feet finding paths more familiar now. Passing through the barrier still tingled, but did not spook him at all. It somehow tasted of Kavala, who was safe. This was the Sanctuary. No harm should come here. Once they were there, he stepped out of his robe and sandals, setting them aside. Suddenly it seemed right to bare himself before Semele, as if clothing were some sort of joke, some barrier from Her sight. He took out his dagger, always kept clean and stepped toward the circle they had prepared. Taking Kavala's hand, he led her inside the circle and helped her to kneel in the southern half, her back to Ivak, face to Semele. It was Her gift she courted, after all. He knelt in the northern half of the circle and reached south with his left hand, pointing the blade in his right hand toward it as well, hands on either side of Kavala. His left hand began to cup a small amount of res glowing red like smoldering ember, and though he was reaching south to Ivak, he was calling out to Syna, who had spoken to him in his fever dreams, to whom he sang every morning. She danced from east to west, and as the fire lit over his left hand, he felt something of the gift pass through him, west, toward the blade. A pain around his eye made him wince, and for a moment, Kavala saw something carving itself around his ocular socket, nascent gnosis granted but not yet manifest. In a blink of the eye it was gone. The gods had answered his call with Fire. It was begun. "Do you seek Semele's gift? If so, say it. Reach north and ask."

[Kavala]

Kavala had never been in a more sacred space or sacred ritual in her entire life. A small part of her sat back and wondered how Sama'el and herself could create such a thing alone and private with just their two souls and the Gods to witness it.

A smile played across her face. She followed him, knelt where he bade her, and then watched him perform is work with the glowing res in his hands. Kavala felt a kinship with Sama'el in that moment, and a kinship with all they were doing here. It was the _right_ thing to do. She knew it immediately. And it was one step towards making Sanctuary safer and ultimately turning it into a fortress for the Cytali. She decided she'd tell Sam about it eventually, about the dreamwalking and Nysel and all that it entailed, but afterwards, when the group was a reality and not just a fragment of her history. But that history linked her, made her stronger, and she stretched out her arms to the North when Sama'el asked her and instead of telling him, told Semele.

"Goddess of Earth, I stand before you a child who has wronged you in so many ways in the past. Not this life, but in the last, I stood against you and your brethern, born of the Ruv'na and trained to kill by them. I did not fulfill the promise that they sought from me and instead was turned from the course by others who were more faithful and devout. But I regret the damage that I did do while I was among their midst. Everything I've done in this life has been geared towards making amends. And those amends mean a whole lot - healing animals, children, kelvics and the weak and innocent. My facility is slowly being outgrown and we need to dig deep, into your arms, to expand and be comfortable. We need to support more people and shelter them among the stones we stand in how. It is my goal to make this place a fortress so that we can base a new group among its stone walls. The Cytali need to live again, searching this time not for answers to what will come, but for healing for the world in that which has already passed. We need housing for the people, meeting rooms, shelter for the animals. I don't ask that this be given, but I ask that through Reimancy of the Earth - your body - I be given the tools to do what I must to make this come to pass. I wish to do this with only honor and good intentions in my heart." Kavala said softly, her arms outstretched, her body in a kneeling position.

"Grant me Earth, oh Mother of us all, so that we can burrow within you through my work and the work of other Earth mages and be safe forever." She said softly, passionately, her words coming from her heart.

When she was done with her words and her plea, she turned and studied Sama'el, expecting questions but unwilling to answer them until later, when things were quiet and they had their answers as to what was going to be given.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

He did not understand much of what he said, but his heart told him that she was good and so he let what he did not understand move away. If it was necessary that he know it, then know it he would someday. For now he could only help her with her request of Semele, and the goddess would decide if she was worthy. Sitting back on his heels, he left the witchlight burning over Kavala's shoulder, no danger to her unless she moved into it. He took first one hand and then the other, slitting her across the palm with neat flicks of the wrist, not deep at all, but enough to bite into blood. His almond-shaped eyes, dark and aware, stared into hers the whole while. Then he set his dagger down beside him and took her wrists gently in his hands, her palms up, thin red lines visible. She might have thought it a trick of the light at first, but he was truly starting to burn. That red, red energy was emanating from him, barely visible at first, but gathering. It was the essence of Fire wreathing him, Fire without flame, pure res. When he looked a right torch, his brown hair seeming almost Inarta red through the screen of his gods-dedicated power, it began to envelop her. It didn't hurt as it seeped into her nose and mouth, though it probably felt strange moving into her ears, playing with her balance, and into her eyes like itching tears in reverse. It surely stung the shallow cuts along her hands, pushing the blood back in as it slipped directly into her bloodstream. He poured his Fire into her so Semele would see his beacon fire and send Her gift there, into Kavala, to stay when their own auras were not so close that they overlapped. He stared into her eyes, purplish through the haze of his res until it was all inside her and they returned to a bloodshot blue, the tiny capillaries in the whites of her eyes glowing ever so faintly. Now was the moment of transformation and, sometimes, pain. Semele would answer with Earth, or the gods, in their wisdom, would send her some other Element to cradle within her soul. Or they would not answer, and he would have to let his res carefully dissipate so as not to harm her, though he did not know what he would say if the gods found her wanting.

[Kavala]

She trusted him, so when the res part of the ritual started, she did not flinch away when he sliced her palms. Instead she signed softly, as if the sensation was more pleasing than painful. And as his Res began flooding her system, she got caught in his gaze and let his Will buoy her up. She was glad she was on her knees for shortly thereafter a feeling struck her she'd never felt before. Her limbs began twitching and she fell forward, down on her hands and knees, pulling her hands from his. Kavala convulsed as the human res invaded her konti system and cried out. It wasn't painful, not exactly, but it was so alien, so foreign of a feeling that she felt her world was turning red and blazing with fire.

She didn't want fire though. Her passion was linked to something far deeper and a need far greater. Kavala knew of Ivak, but he didn't call to her or offer a connection like Semele did to the Drykas. She surged forward, clawing at the stone at Sama'el's feet and fought the burning inside her. She reached for the cool earth, the stone under her fingers, forced deeply up under her nails from clawing at the floor. She embraced the cool feel of the stone, its enormous weight, and the protection it offered. She fell forward onto her side, the red filling her sight even as she fought against it. The Konti knew the fire called to her, embraced her, wanted her, but she rejected it. Not now. Not this time... earth. Kavala needed earth. The red flooding her fused with her and she thought the battle lost as her soul seemed to catch fire, fire of Sama'el's making. But then the red swirled with blue and a new element fought for supremacy. Water swirled through Kavala's body infusing Sama'el's red with blue. The blue swirled to the white of air and then she gasped, arched her back, and continued to convulse as the white turned a deep green.

There seemed to be an internal struggle, as if Kavala was made up of a whole host of different things all pulling her various directions. The color swirled again, going red once more and she cried out in frustration, opened her eyes where the whites had gone bloodshot and tried to get back to her feet still shaking. The convulsions had receded and the res surrounding her seemed to suddenly reverse course, oozing out of her instead of sinking into her. Red turned blue again faded out to white, then bled green as if the whole of her form was arguing. Then, suddenly, she came more fully to her feet again, reached for Sama'el's hands once more and gritted her teeth.

The res settled on a deep moss green and pooled into her palms, thin and ill formed, but formed nonetheless. Tears streaked with green slid from her eyes and she sniffed and tilted her head oddly as if she was trying to get something itchy out of her ears. Kavala stepped closer to Sama'el, grabbing his shoulders and leaning against him. She bled res, but this time res of her own making, not his crimson essence.

She said nothing, her body still trembling, though he could feel the heat on her skin as the gnosis mark on her ankle of the twin entwined winged serpents blazed to life and healed the cuts on her palms. She left only a slight smear of blood on his bare shoulder blades where she held him as her scaled body folded into his, exhausted, only his hands on her holding her up.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

Sama'el did what he could for Kavala in the throes of her transformation, cradling her head in his lap when she contorted and fell upon her side, offering his strength when necessary, other times his tenderness. He had gone through this too, and now he knew how Eldon had felt putting his own cousin through this. He wasn't sure, but he thought he could feel his res inside of her, almost like a phantom limb, and it felt like she was trying to change it, trying to change him. But he tried to hold it within her as long as he could, only retracting it when it seemed to him that it was time. This was an art rather than a science, and often one just had to use one's intuition. As the air began to glow again with res, some of it was green, though it flickered back to red under his control. The witchlight flared up, newly fed, and after he dispersed the most of it, candles throughout the room burned more brightly, reaching higher. His mouth fell open as her wounds healed themselves, remembering her connection to the goddess of healing. That was certainly a pretty trick. A divine trick, at that. If she was feeling anything like he had when it was his initiation, it was something like he imagined it felt to being born, battered, bewildered, cast into a new and strange world. He did what he could to make her comfortable as the midwife to her reborn self. Now she should be a reimancer, and hopefully a geomancer. They were certainly dressed for birth.

[Kavala]

Kavala took her time, concentrating on her breathing and the way the res felt within her. When she was centered more and steady on her feet, she pushed backwards and met Sama'el's eyes. Kavala was still bleeding newly formed res from her nose and eyes in tears of djed and strands of emerald, but she didn't know what it meant. "Did it work?" She asked softly stepping back, lifting her hands to stare at her palms. The cuts were gone, only thin barely visible lines and she blinked and looked around. She felt different, transformed, but she wasn't sure how.

"Is it Earth? Gods I felt so much of your Fire, Sama'el. I felt Water and Air too though. It was as if they were battling with each other over supremacy. Water felt so nice. So did Air. Fire burned though, in a frightening way. What comes next, Sama'el?" She asked, feeling wobbly and then grinning suddenly. "Something worked. Something definitely worked. It feels cold and solid and soothing. I think it is Earth." She said softly, confidence growing. Kavala stepped back, expecting the world to look different. It did not, but that didn't stop her from thinking it should.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

Sama'el laughed softly and cupped her hands in front of her, collecting little bits of res from her face, tears and snot, and everything, faintly green and cool to the touch. It was strange, because it was so similar to his, except that his burned. When there was enough in her hands to work with, he smiled at her. "This is the primal element," he explained. "They call it res, but it's just energy, primed to work with the elements. You have to focus upon it, change it with your mind, make it solid, change it to earth. Whatever sort of earth... loamy soil, sand, rock... whatever seems most natural, and you will learn to do the rest with practice, but your body has changed. I can... sense it. You were trying to change my res, and now you're creating your own, without trying. You do have to take control of that, though. If you create it without doing it on purpose, you can drain yourself. It might be... I don't know, but it might be like your spell upon the door, the energy you made to create it. Try to work with it like that, only... different." He was not the best of teachers unless horses were concerned. "Just remember what Earth felt like inside, and try to make the res in your hands feel like that too. It's not subtle work at first. You just have to get the knack of it down now."