[The Temple of the Sun] [Flashback] Contemplations on a Dawn

[Alses]

Contemplations on a Dawn Timestamp: 43rd Day of Summer Alses had risen unusually early, even for her, with her body clock so closely entwined with the rise and fall of the sun. So early, in fact, she was still in her Konti seeming, a cumbersome sack of ungainly flesh (or so it seemed to her, with the sense of a return to full splendour looming large in her mind) and ravenously hungry – though this was tempered, moments later, by a wave of nausea. There was nothing to eat in her modest home, in part because, as a Daughter of Syna, she feasted richly on the abundant light that bathed the earth on even the most overcast of days, and in part because, as a young apprentice, there had been an unfortunate incident involving food. For a long time, since her birth in the foaming waters of the Zeltivan bay in fact, she'd drunk only light, not really seeing the purpose of physical food – at least, as it applied to her. She was quite prepared to accept that other races needed to eat, to replenish their stores of djed that they depleted every day, either through hard work, arcane exertion or the simple daily processes necessary to stay alive, but for her, the kiss of Syna was enough. Eventually, however, getting tired of the continual cajoling to at least try something, she had allowed herself to be persuaded into eating, and long-dormant tastebuds fired into life – a new pleasure for her to delight in, a dimension to the whole business of refuelling that she'd never even considered previously. The other apprentices looked forward to seeing more of her in the dining hall, a radiant work of art to brighten up the place at the very least, but alas, such a happy resolution was not to be. Shortly after her first lunch – which had left her smiling like a sun, drifting along on a tide of well-being and wonderment at all the tastes that she'd never thought about before, Tathis Arenn (the use or purpose of the second name still eluded her), her master, had given a lecture on the dangers of overgiving and exactly why the more...sensitive and advanced books were locked away, a lecture which had almost instantly plunged Alses deep into the morass of memory, a vision sharper than knives and more vivid than reality had pounced upon her unwary head with no warning at all. It had been a gruesome vision, to say the least. An elderly magus, with robes of surpassing beauty and craftsmanship, intricately woven with glyphs in thread that shimmered and danced with its own internal light, sprawled out on some library floor in a pool of his own, blackly-shining blood and scattered fragments of bone. Sick, twisted glyphs, a triple circle perverted and gone horribly wrong, shrieked and gibbered around him, writhing in fuming, corrupted djed, wild, chaotic energies whiplashing about with frenzied abandon. The walls – behind slumping bookcases that had burst and cascaded volumes and scrolls to the ground – had melted and run like taffy, a mosaic floor of breathtaking complexity lay shattered and defiled – spears of earth, pools of sullenly-burning fire, a gaping rent that soughed mournfully as the air around it spiralled away into the Void – but the true horror of the memory was the laughter, and the figure from whence it came. Once, it had evidently been an apprentice, and now...a monstrosity, glutted with unfamiliar djed, gushing oily res from weeping slashes on its shattered, deformed arms that caught dirty flame the instant it touched the floor. Its laughter, as it read from an ornate book chained down to a lectern that feebly flickered with remnants of shielding power, was not the high, maniacal laugh of the villain so beloved by song and story, rather a full-throated snigger, mean schadenfreude that shifted and wailed across the spectrum as wild transformations, the unbridled flux of untamed, untrammelled djed obscenely characteristic of terminal-stage overgiving, distorted the former apprentice's voicebox, and much else besides. Alses had been reduced to near catatonia at the ferocity of recollection, the revulsion and terror that had rushed over her as the memory swept forth from the dark recesses of her soul and caught her consciousness in a vice-like grip. She'd awoken, several hours later, in her own bed, with Magister Tathis standing vigilant guard, and promptly vomited, lavishly, over his shoes and herself. The experience had never quite gone away – resulting in her eating almost nothing, and venturing outside more, to feast on the rich, ephemeral warmth Syna's light brought and so to avoid the ugly spectre of...of gastric ejection (even the word 'vomit' made her feel sick, once the phenomenon had been explained to a distraught and disgusted Alses). Shaking off the memory – something she was practised at now, she fought down the weakness of hunger and stumbled over to the washbasin, performing her ablutions with an autonomy that suggested her mind was entirely elsewhere, as indeed it was, counting down the slices of time until she could leave behind the heavy mortal seeming and embrace a little touch of the divine once more. Absently, she splashed water over the twin lines of gills that ran down her neck, having found, through uncomfortable experience, that they tended to dry and become tender in the rarefied air of Lhavit, an irritation that scritched and prickled at the edge of her consciousness unless she nipped it in the bud. She finished dressing hurriedly; on occasions such as this, when she woke early, restless, it was her custom to flit through the city to the perfect place, and there, just as the first lemon-yellow ray of dawn touched the eastern horizon, to drink in the freshest, newest of lights as they broke over Lhavit, heralding the change from Konti to full celestial Ethaefal. Whilst the dual-natured city never truly slept, as such, the period when the last of the night waned and dawn prepared to burst forth was one of the quietest; only those with the most urgent of errands, or those who had to walk the furthest, were about on the starlit streets, save for the ever-present, ever-vigilant Shinya, sharp swords and gleaming metal spears all aglow in the soft, pre-dawn light. Unfettered by crowds of people, she crossed the vast expanse of the Surya Plaza with ease, taking wide, sweeping detours around the traders and wanderers just setting up their stalls on the etched and polished flags. Alses had no desire to stop or be stopped, to engage in conversation or be otherwise delayed at this early hour – when she had attained her celestial form, gloriously attired in her crystal crown and her skin like fire-opals, well, then, perhaps, she would stop and bow, exchange pleasantries and enjoy the small delights of such human contact. But not now. Not as Konti, heavy and dull, despite what other races might say about their lithe and graceful forms. The sky was brightening in the east, suggesting that soon Syna's glory would burst forth anew, and Alses quickened her pace over a spectacular skyglass bridge, one that soared high on flying buttresses and graceful arches to touch the topmost tier of Tenten Peak and so brought her to the very edge of the Temple grounds.

[Alses]

Whilst home was comforting and the bustle of the Azure Market nice, the Temple of the Sun had been her anchor in Lhavit ever since she'd first seen it, great dome blazing in citrine and gold, the abundant light striking gilded highlights from the friezes and frescoes, from the capitals of the columns and even the scales of the fish that leapt in the lake on its grounds. The first time she'd seen that expanse of liquid, glittering like diamonds and sapphires under a perfect sky, she'd had to quash an irrational impulse to jump in, to frolic and dance and swim in the crystal-clear waters like its plumply well-cared-for inhabitants, although that had passed when she set eyes on the focal point of the whole complex. A fire, burning in poor imitation of the eternal blaze that was Syna in her heaven, but nonetheless embodying some portion of that same divinity within its flickering, dancing flames, called and sang to Alses – and doubtless, to the circle of women, robed in ember-orange and brilliant yellow, getting ready to perform the dawn rites in honour of their goddess – and hers. There was power here, faith, it buoyed the heart and lifted the soul, the ultimate 'Everything will be all right'. The light of Syna and the symbol of her power purified and uplifted, banished shadows and doubts- Alses found herself rocking on the edge of the broad golden line that marked the limit of approach that worshippers were allowed, closely watched by two Temple guards, bunched and ready for action should she step but a foot wrong and disturb the Taian priestesses at their duties. Chastened by their stern gazes, she turned her gaze – with difficulty – from the blaze and curved round the Temple colonnades to the terraced balconies that faced out from Lhavit, gazing down on a misty sea pierced here and there by lesser peaks and up towards the infinite heavens, the meeting point of the sacred and the profane. There were chairs and benches here, sturdy skyglass and gilded wood, so that the weary could rest and the contemplative think in peace and tranquillity. Each balconied terrace was insulated from all the others by swathes of mountain roses and the mosaiced leaves of massed fadeong trees clinging gamely to the sides of the peak, filling the air with beguiling scent and the gentle sense of life, all around. So shielded from prying eyes, and yet with a magnificent view over the misty peaks all the way to a distant horizon, Alses settled, calmed and relaxed, letting the Change rush over her as the first fingers of lemon-yellow light crested the far horizon, lancing through the misty peaks and setting the cloudy sea all aglow. The Change was a shift that began slowly, at first, tiny motes of golden light painlessly dissolving the webbing between her toes, washing gently upwards as Syna's influence on the world waxed with every ray of light and every shade that the sky took closer to powder-blue, turning alabaster-white Konti skin and scales into the infinitely more varied and richly complex iridescence that marked her celestial form. It was, as ever, a quick transformation once begun, a travelling bow wave of golden lights that purified and rebuilt everything in their wake, culminating in the crystalline masterpiece of Alses' crown-of-horns, shining like a miniature sun, leaving her refreshed, renewed, in all ways reborn, glorying in the touch of the divine whose song echoed in the vaults of her mind. Alses laughed as the orb of the sun cleared the horizon at last, a clear and chiming bell-like cadence, a ripple of unadulterated joy as she turned her unwebbed fingers this way and that in the rising glory of light. To a Daughter of Syna, the dawn was the richest of feasts, a veritable banquet cargoed with energy, a direct link back to the realm from whence she had come, all unknowing, and Alses gloried in it on her secluded balcony, feasting and drawing the radiant djed into herself, instinctively crystallising it into the form that fuelled her very existence. At length, sated and fulfilled, limned in the rising glory of light, she offered up her fervent prayers, bent in supplication to the sun as it began the daily climb. “Radiant Lady, I thank you for the feast this morning! For your light to see the world, for the joy and beauty you bring, I give you my service and devotion as ever I have. To the glory of the sun and the Everlasting Flame in all things that I do today,” she finished softly, flicking her gaze skywards as she always did, straining to make out the fissure she knew was there, but never managing to actually see it. There was quite another reason, aside from the quality of the light and the comforting rites and rituals to Syna, that Alses often came here. That reason was that its unique qualities made it a very useful to practice her auristics, a very close second to her primary discipline, an art which resonated with the aesthete inside her and had started, only started, to unlock the hidden beauty of the world around her. Today would be no different from any other practice day, though she'd started earlier than was usual, for her, and the energy which came with her meal and Change still hummed in her bones and struck highlights from her skin. But first...relaxation, to prepare herself. A hard stone prickled at her thigh – eyes closed, the better to remove physical distractions, she swept it away with an impatient hand. The rosy sting radiating through her leg faded, slowly. Her breathing calmed after the not-quite run though the city; she was here, she had time, and her heartbeat sounded, now slow and regular, in her ears. Tathis Arenn, her old master, had taught her the trick of it: 'Listen for the pace within yourself,' he'd said calmly, hands warm on her slender shoulders. 'The heartbeat is the most fundamental rhythm there is, the most basic working of the body. It starts the day we're born and just carries on, steady and uninterrupted, until the day we die.' The words had struck a chord, resonated with some ur-memory from long ago deep inside, so far buried it never overwhelmed her as did newer remembrances, and she'd found the technique useful to tune herself, for want of a better word, like the magecraft items she worked on, to collect the disparate threads of thought and emotion – ones that often wound through several, unconnected lives – into the present, the here-and-now. Alses was no master of meditation; not for her the unearthly peace and unconcern that characterised such individuals, but nonetheless, thus focused and calmed, hearing the steady beat of life in her mind and purging all other considerations as best she could, afforded some advantages. The heady scent of the mountain roses slowly receded from her perceptions as she sunk deeper into her meditative state, an itch sitting uncomfortably on the back of her hand faded. Memories, as ever, were difficult – dealing with a confusing welter of many, unconnected experiences left her mind unsettled, a confusing whirl at first, but practice and perseverance had seen her able to calm the maelstrom at last. Her breathing slowed and deepened, a natural response to the calming of the rest of the body, and, so prepared, she opened herself to her Sight, waking the internal djed from its usual tight, whorling coils about her radiant centre and directing it outwards, methodically flushing her body with a fine tracery of djed conduits until her skin tingled with an intangible webwork of them, and with a final mental push directing them further out, opening her eyes as her Sight flowered and the artist unseen daubed every single thing she could See with streaks and whorls of brilliant colour, forever a part of his work, tweaking, shifting, changing, replacing, a chameleon kaleidoscope of colour and hue. Still a novice, the auristic flood, even from just one sense, was near-overwhelming, a half-grasped tidal wave of concepts and impressions – Alses half-closed her eyes, blurring the colours still further, and fell back on meditating on her heartbeat, rich and red, heavily cargoed with life and just a hint, an elusive touch, of something else, something greater, a spark of what she once was. Slowly, adjusting herself at each step, she opened them wider, taking her time. 'It's beautiful,' she thought, wondering like a child, as she did every time, at the beauty hidden in every facet of the world. She sent another small prayer up to Syna for the gift of light and heat that supported, well, all of Mizahar; without it, none of the beauty and vibrancy that life brought to the world would exist, and her Sight would be much duller. There was a quality to the Sun Temple that made it ideal, in Alses' mind, for her practice – the pure devotion that the Taian showed. Their every thought, near enough, was bent to their faith, the love for Syna which permeated every facet of their auras in a flood of white and gold. Secure in her meditative state – or as secure as she had been able to manage, at least, provided that no unexpected event threw her, now was the time to test her theory. 'It's the same as before,' she thought, gratified and vindicated, as her Sight swelled to the maximum she'd been able to sustain thus far. Then, tinged with a measure of exultation: 'I was right! The auras of the ardents are remarkably constant; I can barely see any differences from yesterday! I won't have to worry about divining all the different intents, the colours and sounds and what they all mean.' Carefully, she rose from the terraces and made her way back towards the Temple, a milestone she'd set herself, the ability to actually move – and not crash into everything – whilst maintaining the concentration to keep the auras in her vision. They dimmed and flared, though, streaking faux-sunspots across her vision, and she'd had to blink away from Sight to avoid reeling and – always a possibility in the vertical city – pitching over the edge, a course of action that would only lead to a long drop followed by a very painful death. Age might not weary her as it did the other races, but a sword or lance or, in this case, impact with the ground, would kill her just as surely as it would a human, and Alses had long ago decided that, whatever the plans of the gods in their heavens, she rather liked the world, imperfections and all. Comfortably settled once more, this time in the lee of one of the great pillars which supported the Temple's enormous skyglass dome, Alses scrutinized the ebb and flow of colour and light around the gently swaying Taian. The frenzy of the dawn dance, the drumming of bare feet on marble and skyglass, the skirl of robes and the raw energy that was, in itself, a blessed prayer to Syna, was over now, and the priestesses were simply maintaining a sinuous flow about the eternal fire, a rippling dance that would slowly tighten coils of people around the great torch, moving faster and faster until the zenith was reached and Syna's full glory blazed down, flooding the Temple with light. The Taian were, as ever, focused completely on their charge, and in the constant, gentle glow of white and gold, for the first time Alses began to see the deeper patterns emerge, shyly, like an unfolding flower, skeins of colour that she would have sworn, just moments ago, were solid suddenly started to show their truer natures, fine gossamer threads of deeper meanings, more cherished secrets. Her eyes soon began to ache, a reliable first indicator of strain beginning to develop, yet she continued, intent on wringing every shred that she could from the new layers of Sight. However, foiling her plan and intent both, the spikes of needling pain behind her eyeballs began to disrupt her concentration; irritation sent coruscating spires of orange and red through her own aura, destabilising her calmed and reflective state further, and the broader, blockier swaths of colour with which she was much more familiar began to paint over the glittering veils and interconnected webworks that she'd just begun to marvel at. 'No! Not yet! There's so much I want to see; just a few more...minutes...' she railed in the privacy of her own head, all to no avail. Sight was already drawing away as she lost her grip on the djed and her diffuse network of it began to withdraw back inside her skin, some of the finer strands shrivelling and dispersing, winking into nonexistence, or – more accurately, perhaps – being absorbed into the prevailing natural flows of djed around Lhavit. Spent, tired, her skin aching at a million points and her eyes feeling uncomfortably hot and dry, Alses slumped against the cool skyglass pillar and allowed herself to drift, just for a little while, in the warm, diffuse red light filtering through her closed eyelids.

[Alses]

How long she sat there, slumped amid the waving grasses and with carvings pressing patterns into her spine, she didn't know – the sun through her eyelids was relaxing, calming. The ache radiating out from her eyes had faded fairly quickly, but sometimes, well, it was nice to just laze in the sunshine. To Alses' mind, it was another means of worship, a gentler way than the energetic Taian dances and rites, but no less valid than all of that. Delicious light spilt all around her, and the warm, forgiving heat of the sun struck through her skin to knead away the lingering aches and pains – physical perfection was all very well, but there were limits, after all – until her muscles melted like butter and she relaxed completely, every sense wide open and drinking in the world. The breezes cooled her sun-warmed skin as they riffled through the long grasses, a shivering susurrus that never entirely died away, cargoed with a myriad of scents, dependent upon their direction. From the east, there came the elusive smell of clouds, of dense-packed vegetation and all the wild things beyond the city's safe heights, whilst from the west they were laden with all the smells of the city – spices and fruit from the caravanserai stalls in the Azure Market, the stink of metal from a foundry somewhere – Alses' nose wrinkled in distaste – the organic smell of the Okomo and a melange of others that she couldn't identify, a mosaic-work of odours that spoke of civilisation, or at least, something close to it. Happily, Alses shifted position slightly; it really was shaping up to be a glorious day, even if tiredness had settled into her bones from her exertions. Perhaps next time she'd try again with glyphs – properly used, they did bolster whatever arcane art they were attuned to, after all. Alses was, admittedly, a novice in their general use; her area of expertise in using the universal arcane language was limited to the highly specialised sets of glyphs used in magecrafting, in the preparation, purification and purging of the area. Even so, curiosity and desire had got the better of her in the past and she'd attempted to ink the glyphs for sight and clarity, purity and purpose onto her eyelids – as an Ethaefal, she considered her sight the most important of her remaining senses (Ukalas still called, siren-sweet, resonating deep inside her, but she didn't quite know how, any more, to respond properly to the song, to fully synchronise herself with the divine that perfused every single part of the world and step once more into the godly realms, hearing only tatters of the music of the spheres rather than the full symphony). Unfortunately, the quill had pricked and stabbed, drawing blood instead of inking lines, and soft, yielding skin had bunched and smeared as she tried to draw, ruining each and every glyph and leaving her looking as though she'd been punched in the eye. Rubbing it hadn't helped matters either; Alses winced in rueful recollection – the stains had lasted for weeks, and caused all sorts of problems, not least with the more sympathetically-inclined members of the Shinya; they'd kept asking who had beaten her up. She had to admit, it did seem a rather unlikely story, and eventually she'd settled on a terse and mysterious “It's just a side-effect of an arcane procedure I'm researching,” which seemed to do the trick. Magic explained away almost every anomaly – and with that realisation, she was able to wave away (at least, to the common fellow on the street) other oddities of either her behaviour, her mannerisms or her appearance – such as, for instance, why a Konti would have no gnosis mark of sight from Alvina and still less skill or interest in healing, or why her grasp of the personal pronoun was sometimes absolutely abysmal. In any case, what she was doing was research, in a way – although she knew it was 'research' that many, many others had done before her. She cast a covetous glance over to the west and the soaring bulk of the Bharani Library – so much knowledge was there, just beyond her grasp. Their entry policy was a sensible one, she'd admitted to herself much later, making sure that only the truly committed researchers and seekers after knowledge got access, but it was infuriating for a younger mage, and especially one without any truly unique experiences that she could set on paper. Even an account of her Fall would probably not be considered for inclusion – whilst Ethaefal were vanishingly rare, mythical almost, everywhere else, and an account of their birth from the horse's mouth, so to speak (an expression she'd picked up from one of the other apprentices at her old master's laboratories, though she still wasn't quite sure how it made sense) would be eagerly received, here in Lhavit her bretheren tended to gather. Doubtless someone would already have submitted such a work, shutting down that particular avenue of access. 'I should probably be writing all of this down,' she thought ruefully, returning from idle and useless speculation and daydreaming to slightly more productive mulling over the new layers of Sight that had briefly revealed themselves, the images still bright and fresh in her head. Complex concepts and new realisations were filtering into her consciousness as she experimented and grew bolder and better; a record of what she'd done and tried, what had worked and what had failed, would surely be invaluable – if not immediately, then down the line when she came to recreate an effect or understand a rare emotion. Then, too, if she tried to expand her glyphic repertoire at the same time, her recording project would serve as excellent practice – always providing, of course, that she could acquire a quill, some decent ink and a blank book to write in. 'Aha!' she thought, smugly. 'There, I'm ahead of the game. I won't have to scrounge and beg off other travellers, or make my own for that matter – I'm in a city for once. Markets! Stalls! Shops! Businesses! Much less messy, the whole business of procuring things.' With a definite goal in mind, Alses finally opened her eyes – the sun was teetering on the brink of zenith and the dull thunder of frenzied feet on marble reverberated through the ground as the Taian started the climax of their rite. No wonder no-one was paying any attention to a still, quiet Ethaefal almost blending into the carvings around the edge of the Temple, not with the frenzied dance and the leaping flames drawing the eye and drowning out most other sights and sounds. Alses performed her obesiances to Syna almost on automatic, magnificently indifferent to the furtive stares of Temple guards, and sallied forth into the secular parts of Lhavit. END OOCJust trying to get more of a grip on how Alses views things and how she experiments, so apologies if not a great deal happened . Hope it's not too boring.

[Quasar]

Alses: Skills Awarded Skill XP Auristics 4 Glyphing 1 Lores Awarded Lhavit at dawn Pros and cons of eating The dangers of overgiving The faith and rituals of the Taiyang The Temple of The Sun Mild overgiving Additional Notes: Don't apologize, your writing is excellent and I enjoyed the read . I look forward to reading more threads from you. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to PM me.