Closed ghosts that we knew.

[Caelum]

The tale of Vanator's wives dropped through Caelum's consciousness like a series of prayer beads, unstrung. They plunked somewhere in the bottom of his soul and echoed outward, reverberating. These ripples told him he had been right and as they faded within they left lingering scents of familiarity and kinship. Despite the gravity of Vanator's story, Caelum found himself smiling quietly. It was far from mockery, far even from the gentler but still barbed graveside humor he still often delivered. Instead it was a quiet, almost happiness. It was so soft, so strange, that he did not yet recognize it. But in being told of the beloved dead, of the lost and fate's vagaries, how could happiness well? It beaded up like blood, is what it did, a small, fragile drop from a pinprick of hope. It had been a long time since Caelum had made a friend. A true friend, fast and worthy. Listening Vanator beneath Leth's wild but watch eyes, he felt that he might have discovered a man who could become one. He saw no irony, only a sort of compliance to pattern, that the man in question was the brother of the woman whom Caelum already called a close friend. He mentally added Tamar, Kashik, Khiara, and little Zivatar to those to be especially named in his prayers. This was a many who prayed often, nearly all the time, an unceasing conversation with not only the goddesses who called him their own -- Syna, Rak'keli, and Nikali -- but with many others in the pantheon. He had come face to face with quite a few, and been directed and drawn by more. They could be bastards, it was true, but they were his bastards. Perhaps an odd viewpoint, but Caelum was an odd man. "Lillis." He smiled when he said her name. It was not the first time he had done as much since their parting, but it was close enough that the raw grace of it was plain. He felt that returning the story might be the best solace he could use to shelter Vanator. As he considered the words he would use to do this, he readied his body and listened to Vanator's instruction, nodding his immediate agreement to the plan. It seemed a sound one. "Lillis and I met at the graveside of her mother and sisters. Looking back now, I see it as the omen it was. They had been attacked by slavers, ones I later learned had not chosen their caravan randomly nor come across konti women traveling by chance. With having just lost her family, Lillis wanted to travel with me. I was en route to Zeltiva then, so I took her with me." He watched Vanator's fist swing toward him, slowed a little for teaching's sake, and he paused in order to do as suggested and pivot on the balls of his feet into the blow. He turned left and brought up his right hand, automatically falling back on one of the cutting, thrusting patterns drilled into his learned kata. Strong fingers caught Vanator's wrist, almost surprising himself, and he pushed the man's arm outward. It was at that point he hesitated, realizing he didn't quite know what to do next. His body stilled and dark eyes flecked with gold lifted with a blink. "Should I turn in, you think, putting my back to you, or out." He demonstrated then in slow motion, reversing the direction of his pivot while maintaining his grip on Vanator's wrist. It placed him behind Vanator's punching arm and in a likely position for a throw. "We fell in love," he picked up the story matter of factly, something sad but sweet creeping into him. "She painted the windowsills of our apartment gold and kept the store. She painted everything." Breath eased out of him and he released Vanator's wrist to spin back around in front of him, gesturing for Vanator to throw another punch at him. "And she saw my death. It was first thing she learned about it. It was her gift from Avalis. The slavers found us again, and I learned their true purpose. We were parted and I was enslaved, shipped off to a certain Zaital in Ravok. Lost myself in the dark for awhile. Well," he sighed. "Last time I was here, Kavala chased Lillis' chavi for me. She died free, and left a child with a loving father. She'd known love again, and for that I am glad." He trailed off, this time catching Vanator's wrist with alacrity. He started to pivot, but Vanator was strong and using his strength this time. Foolishly not expecting this, Caelum opened himself up to retaliation.

[Vanator]

Vanator, at the edge of his consciousness, found it curious how his feelings regarding the Ethaefal seemed richer at closer proximity. As the men engaged in their martial practice, the Denusk felt comfortable with the intimacy of the conversation, finding himself wanting to reveal to Caelum his story, finding a balm in simply speaking the words in the arcane Drykas' hearing. The usual guarded position of his most personal aspects were deemed needless in the presence of the charismatic celestial.

Lillis. Now, Vanator peered into the Drykas heart of the man, the mortal soul with which the Denusk could relate. The tale of Caelum's affair with his lost love was almost familiar, the themes so very Drykas.

The recitation was interrupted by the motions of their spar, Caelum testing the technique the two of them attempted to develop. When the Eth inquired as to his preferred position, Vanator answered briefly, still engaged in the age-past Ankal's story. "You don't want your back to your opponent, ever. Staying on the outside is better." When Caelum shifted to end up behind Van, he nodded. "Yes, that's good."

The Ethaefal resumed his telling, the unfolding of it revealing elements that mirrored Vanator's own life. The Denusk's empathy with the strange being sang deeper, the sting of the slaver, whether the men of Ravok or the Zith of Cyphrus, was the same. A tinge of jealously pricked the Drykas man's heart when he learned Caelum discovered the fate of his lost love, Kavala providing him the closure Vanator once craved desperately for himself. Kavala could have trailed the chavi of the lost Denusks, of mother and father, of Kashik and Khiara and Zivatar. But Vanator knew they were gone, knew the storm swept them away. Knowing the details of his beloved family's death would bring him no closer to them, and only pour salt into the wounds that had began to scar over. He had created closure of his own.

The men resumed their postures, and Vanator cocked back his fist for another practice punch, still moved viscerally by the poignant similarities in their lives. Vanator found any expression of Drykas bravado, boasting the enduring hardships such men could overcome, empty and ridiculous. Vanator felt, more than anything, the understanding and empathy between them. It was a comfort, indeed, to find a man who knew the pains Vanator himself had suffered. The moonlit smile upon the Denusk's face, soft and strong, was sufficient to express his appreciation for Caelum's loss and gratitude for sharing it.

Vanator slung his fist again at Caelum, practice speed, a haymaker aimed at the lean former Drykas man's head. The Eth was quick and seized upon the Denusk's wrist, but did not drive Van's momentum forward. Without the manipulation of his balance, Vanator was able to plant his feet and stiffen his arm, stealing Caelum's advantage. With a stable foundation, Vanator pulled at the Eth and swung his left fist at Caelum's head, again with reduced force.

[Caelum]

Amid the tapestry of Vanator's needs, before the power of ranuri could quite expand to touch upon the threads of his desires, Caelum discovered a need of his own. It was simple as the settling of the wind around them as they trained each other and themselves. He needed to be silent for a chime or two, to sink into the peaceful space he and Vanator had managed to construct in the courtyard tonight. It helped calm the troubled edges of his mind, still broken into pieces that attempted to manage the ranuri well enough and long enough for him to actually learn something from this training session. It was that little haven surrounding them, woven by their words, that allowed the ethaefal to move with greater grace, that helped him emerge fully into the martial dance even as his grip on Vanator's arm was used against him by the Ankal's greater stretch. He thought, therefore, of things like comet tails when Vanator's left fist swung for his head, and how they would leave afterimages of light to trail across the vision of men struggling to stop looking over their shoulders and turn from the past to tomorrows instead. The kata was remembered by his bones and they ducked the rest of him while he reversed the angle of his grip on Vanator's wrist. This lower position allowed him full access to the greater strength of his legs when he pushed Vanator's arm up and out in the same direction that the man's opposite fist was swinging. The intention was to use Vanator's momentum against him, to help Caelum not only escape his punch and sping him around but to force Vanator to tumble to the ground as well. Caelum's muscles burned from strain, but the cross pattern step that came next in the motions of his kata served him as it was supposed to, between his own steps and his deflection of Vanator's blow placing Caelum behind the drykas and in a position to potentially put the man in a choke hold. He neglected to do that and stepped back instead, shaking a little at his arms as if by doing so he might be able to sluice off some of the compulsions given him by the ranuri as if they were water. "I've never tried a choke hold," he admitted to Vanator. "Though I'm pretty sure that would have been the next move. Since you're too fat." He grinned then, clearly teasing the drykas. "Too fat for me to throw, that is."

[Vanator]

Words fell silent as the two men again began to spar in an unchoreographed dance, trying to better their martial skill by trial and error. With his next pulled punch, Vanator soon learned the benefit of the training exercises Caelum had been rehearsing. With a fluid motion the Ethaefal redirected the heavier Drykas' momentum, leading him in a rotation until the Eth was behind him. Vanator thought he felt the beginning of another redirection that would serve to topple him, but Caelum did not follow through, instead releasing Van and stepping back.

"Fat!" Vanator retorted with mock ire. "Solid muscle buddy!" Van jibed slapping the flat of his hand on his chest. "But you are right, I almost walked right into a choke with your help!" Van laughed. "I think with a choke, you have to hit it fast and hard, and keep the head and shoulders over the heels to keep them off balance."

Vanator returned to the subject of lost loves. "Kavala finally told me in the Summer that she had also pursued the chavi of our family. As I suspected, they were dead. But Kav was able to tell me it was a swift and merciful death. There was some comfort in that." The Denusk lifted a hand to brush away loose locks from his face, disheveled by the mock fighting. "She told me you had been here before." Caelum was a sort of enigma to Vanator, manifold in his mysteries, some of which he had yet to discover. The fact that Caelum was Eth was curious enough, though Van had come to terms with his once glamorized idea of Ethaefal when he met Eida, who was as human, and fagile, as anyone he had met. Still, they were celestial beings, having been with the divine, unlike the earthbound man. Then his sister had revealed that Caelum was once Cytali, in lives past, as they all were. This was a revelation that, frankly, the base horseclansman still found hard to accept. Of Caelum's ranuri, the Denusk was unaware, unable to correlate the man's odd behavior with the effects of his gnosis.

"Lets try that again, and this time work in the choke hold. Just don't squeeze until I pass out, or you will find this fat man toppling on top of you!" When Caelum was ready, Van threw another haymaker.

[Caelum]

Dark hazel eyes met Vanator’s when he spoke of the chavi, those enduring life strands in the purview of Nysel. After a few ticks, he inclined his head in a nod, humor fading from his moonlit features with the twist of their conversation back toward the more sober topics. “There’s grace to be had in mercy, and honor as well,” Caelum opined quietly. The rest was settling over him when Vanator suggested trying over. A quick smile flashed, amused by the image of the “fat” man falling on him, and he shifted back into the tight readiness of his kata. Awareness thrummed through his limbs even as his muscles tensed and he shifted his weight into a position to enhance his equilibrium. Before he could prepare any further, Vanator’s side-swinging punch was rushing toward him. Instead of attempting to dodge the blow by stepping aside, Caelum dropped his left shoulder and let that hand fly out, focusing on bracing his feet against the earth while catching Vanator’s right wrist before it could make contact with his face. The heel of his boot bit into the earth as he curved a quick turn, shoving at Vanator’s wrist to turn him as well and in the same direction as his momentum. You have to hit fast and hard, Vanator had instructed him a bell ago on how to properly perform a choke hold. And keep the head and shoulders over the heels to keep them off balance. With his opponents own words echoing in his mind, Caelum rose up behind Vanator and snaked a strong, lean arm about his neck from behind. Teeth grit and just as he began to pull backwards in an attempt to keep Vanator off balance, his ranuri got sick of being stifled and shuffled aside. Need blasted through Caelum. Wine stained chains dragged across the floor of his soul, the sound of their clanking reverberating through the rest of him. His heart clutched and his arm around Vanator loosened before falling aside entirely, his physical senses all invaded by the needs and desires of the drykas Ankal before him. “I have been here before in more ways than one,” came his confession, breath catching. Hands rose, fingers unfurling from the fists that had tightened into to shove back heavy braids of hair and then slide down face. “Both in this life and in at least one another, the last in which I trained Cytali recruits in the arts of intelligence.” His hands slipped a little lower down his face, low enough that he could blink owlishly and dazed at Vanator. “I’ll help you learn what your role and the roles of your family have been and will be in Nysel’s sect,” he promised quietly. There was more, of course. There was, in fact, a great deal more about Vanator still flooding Caelum’s senses. Some of it was good, and some of it was human. The fact that Vanator desired Sybel first and always caused Caelum to smile. It was faint and weary, but it was true. He was realizing that he was going to have to explain to Vanator about Nikali’s gnosis. “I’m sorry. I sort of got slapped by divine magic there.”

[Vanator]

Caelum moved swiftly again, refining the choreography of his defense, employing Vanator's momentum against him, redirecting the heavier Drykas and sliding in behind him, the lean, muscle-corded arm of the Eth looping around his neck like a steel cable. Caelum held his opponent for only a tick, Van expecting him to finish locking in the choke hold and giving him a squeeze for good measure. Instead, the wiry celestial's limbs melted away quickly, hasty steps separating him from Vanator.

The Ethaefal's demeanor seemed to teeter on distressed as he plied his plaited locks with his fingers, breathing out more revelation. Vanator turned to face him and stood in his tracks, chest expanding slightly with his labored breating, gold-flecked gaze fixed on Caelum with sober curiosity.

The Eth admitted to his history with the Cytali, pledging to help Vanator find his own. Van's eyes widened, sparked by the promise to help him find the very past and purpose he had been wrestling with since Kavala revealed it all to him on the beach in the Summer.

"You would do that?" The Denusk asked with a hint of awe. He knew Kavala would help him too, help them all find their place. A smiled creased Van's face, beaming in the moonlight.

A brow quirked when Caelum mentioned divine magic, confused as to what the Eth meant. Van took a step closer to the ancient Ankal. "What do you mean, what magic, what did it do?"

[Caelum]

Watching that smile transform Vanator's expression and radiate the evidence of his great hope outward in the night, Caelum found a smile of his own spilling into place. It remained self-deprecating, and something deep within it wearied with a fatigue that had nothing to do with blood and bone. There was no small grace to be found in Vanator's smile, appearing to him like a beacon to direct his feet, to bid him stay the course. "Yes, absolutely," he assured Vanator quietly and dropped his hands. The disjointed state of the Cytali today, their ignorance of the wisdom of their past lives, their lack of gnosis marks from the very god whose tangled Chavena they were destined to traverse, was very familiar to Caelum. Afterall, it was not unlike the vague, memory shapes of an ethaefal's past lives. They were always numerous and out of reach and there was never any lantern in either the sun or the moon that could cast the past lives back into detail. Caelum had found a sort of lantern on the rocky coast of Denval, stumbled his way into the asylum of its light and found himself paying the price. There was always a price, but he was determined that he would find less hefty ones for Vanator and his family. A glance was cast out of the night as if, perhaps, he suspect the wind to be listening in; and Caelum took a rolling step closer to Vanator, gesturing absently out of the world. "It's a dangerous secret, Vanator, but one I've already shared with Kavala." His gaze shifted, catching the other man's eyes with grim expectation. "But I believe very much in your determination to defend us, to protect what is yours, to stand by the honor you have begun to offer me as a friend." He pushed out a breath. "I'm marked by the goddess Nikali, as your sister Akela is." He lifted his hand, gesturing absently again. "This is why training such as this is so difficult for me, and so necessary."

[Vanator]

Caelum confirmed his will to aid the Denusks in their search, and Vanator as he delved into a world he did not know. The air around them, the atmosphere, light and shadowy structures of the Sanctuary themselves all seemed to take on an ephemeral, otherworldly quality as the simple sparring had lead to matters of more cosmic nature. The celestial Drykas turned a momentary glance around the starlit compound, drawing closer as if to confide some revelation to the Denusk. Did the Eth already know something, something about Van's past, his Chavena? But the truth that was revealed, spoken with a sober, intense gaze, was one of personal confession, a secret about Caelum himself.

The revelation was unexpected, but for the tick or so that passed as it sunk into Vanator's understanding, the fact was confirmed by the collaboration of once-unrelated behaviors and incidents that now made sense. Ranuri.

Vanator took an involuntary step backwards, not in fear or offense, but in consideration. Vanator knew of the mark Nikali placed on her chosen. Yes, Akela had borne such a mark. Van had only seen his sister once since she was marked, but Kavala explained its meaning, and the impact it had upon the relationship between his half-sisters. It had all but driven Akela away.

Vanator nodded as Caelum stated the difficulty close quarters activity such as their sparring posed, which also explained how easily the Eth understood his needs, and those of his family. The Denusk lifted his hand, ready to rest it on Caelum's shoulder in a gesture of acceptance, but the broad palm hesitated and lowered. A warm smile was shed instead.

"That is quite a secret, my friend. but I am glad you told me." It was a mutual humbling, of sorts, Caelum confessing his controversial gift and Vanator knowing that his new friend could see the deepest of his unspoken needs. There was an odd form of camaraderie in it. Vanator had already felt a kinship to the strange man, and the Drykas Ankal he had been centuries before the Denusk was born. Now, there were very present things that, by Caelum's gnosis, would be shared. "My role is to help and support everyone here, Cael. Now, we can help each other. What you have certainly is a boon, to your own work as a healer and to the work here at the Sanctuary. But when it gets difficult, lean on me."

[Caelum]

Caelum felt hope crystallize in his chest, seizing up when Vanator took a step back from him. It swept his lashes low, dropping his gaze like a rock into the grave so that instead of studying the Drykas' strong features he could memorize the borders of their shadows instead. Leth limned them both in pallid light and the night around them grew cold in its age. "You understand," he said, eyes lifting. It was half a question and half a revelation, relief coloring his words as he exhaled. He shifted his weight, shoulders slanting comfortably, and tossed out a hand to the surrounding structures as well as all the stars that wrinkled their noses down at them. Caelum imagined the demigoddess Zintila snapping her fingers at those distant lights, hushing them so she might overhear. "Well thank petching Lhex," he laughed, the thin skin of tension splitting with the sound. It rumbled out of him, thick and warm, and his smile returned like it had never been missed. "I'd hate to have to explain to you what all that meant." He delivered Vanator a sideways look, the hook of his smile growing sultry. "Some men might take it the wrong way, eh?" He was teasing. Probably. The air fogged with their breath as he jittered a little on his toes, swinging his arms up to stretch out the sore muscles in his shoulders. A large portion of him was still occupied with sifting through the collection of Vanator's desires, and it was enough to blot spots behind his eyes. "I'm not fetching you a zith to kill," he finally muttered. No, he was not going to do that. No, sir.

[Vanator]

The physical preoccupation of unarmed sparring had lost its charm as the conversation delved into the man Caelum was. The Drykas saw it as a form of honor, a privilege to know the divine chains that bound the Eth, to be given a view of the complex being behind the mundane trappings of his nocturnal mortal shell. Vanator realized that he may not fully realize the gravity of his offer to aid the Eth. Nor was he sure how he could help Caelum manage the compulsions his gnosis imposed.

For his part, Caelum seemed to find relief in the Denusk's willingness to accept him and his Ranuri. Vanator was a realistic and pragmatic man. He now knew his most personal desires would be made known to Caelum. Not only that, but the Ethaefal would be driven to meet those needs. It left little room for shyness. Caelum's offhand comment, the curl of a wry grin laced with insinuation, did not faze Vanator, knowing the man's sense of humor, or, at least, he was pretty sure Caelum was teasing. Van was not a modest man, a year of humiliation at the hands of the Zith searing his sensibility when it came to sexuality. If the Ethaefal was suggesting something, it would not offend the Drykas. Men were not Van's cup of tea, but not everyone preferred the same leaf, that didn't render one person's tea intrinsically less of a tea than another. Vanator simply allowed his smile to remain as he huffed a short laugh.

Van stood, feet still planted but the rest of his body relaxed, a hand idly combing back unruly hair. Caelum's insight was confirmed by his snark about the Zith, garnering a glance from the mortal Drykas. Van's momentary sober countenance melted into a laugh and a grin. "I should hope you exercise equal discernment when faced with certain other desires you may come across." Caelum would become a confidant of Vanator's, if only by the fact that there would be things, wants, Van would not be able to keep from the Ethaefal. But Vanator welcomed it as an opportunity to make a friend, something he lacked. Van then realized that Caelum could sense the needs of everyone in his family, his sister, his own children, and Sybel. Van began to see the weight Caelum bore, not only the urge to satiate desires, but the simple burden of knowing so much intimately about those around him.

The Drykas' eyes darted down to the dusty grown, pale in the dim illumination. There were desires that he hid from everyone, things twisted in him by the Zith that only Kavala knew. How deep did Ranuri probe?