Oh Happy Day [Caelum]

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

This time he nodded and smiled vaguely for memory of dead Hasieran, the huge, beautiful stallion whose choosing had given the young Sama'el such faith in himself for the brief span of their time together. If such a creature as he was could choose a young boy that nobody thought much of, well, surely a Strider knew who to choose... "Lillis?" He blinked. "A Konti fortuneteller? Very beautiful, reads cards and such...? But I met her in Syliras last Spring before I returned to Endrykas. She was kind and wise and we..." He would not go into how beautiful he had thought the woman since she was, apparently, his ultimate grandmother by marriage. That was a bullet narrowly dodged, though she hadn't exactly thrown herself at him. He had merely admired her. Extremely. He sighed when he could not think if she had spoken of leaving or remaining. There had been a sense of the wanderer about her, perhaps part of what had drawn them together in friendship. "I don't know if she abides there still or has moved on. I'm sorry. Perhaps we should camp soon."

[Caelum]

The night-made Drykas damned near fell off his horse. The dappled grey startled, restless with his rider's abnormal movement that had him jerking back in his seat so hard that he was forced to fight for balance. In an effort to aid his rider, Vega came to a total standstill with the heads of grasses whispering against his withers in the thunderous rush of wind. "What?" Caelum said, gripping the loop of his yvas in both hands while straightening his position. "Sam --" Loosening a hand, he reached out and leaned too far over again, grasping his descendant's forearm in a surprisingly strong grip. "You saw her? Lillis De'Nyres?" Disbelief was swamping his eyes, a fool's faith deepening the hope that rippled with the increasing wind across his face all the same. Chevas mark throbbed against his flesh and he swore it would burn hot enough to brand him.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

Wide-eyed in the luminous dark, Sam was nearly yanked out of his saddle but for Dohaina nimbly dancing on an impossible axis to stay under him. She was a dancer, was his golden lady. Of course, this meant that somehow he had done wrong without knowing, without realizing, and he felt a rush of shame boil up from his stomach. "I... I think her surname was De'Nyres, or something like that. She was just Lillis to me. Told me that Dohaina was waiting for me on the Sea of Grass. Well, not in so many words, but her fortunes came true. She... she was telling fortunes in Syliras a bit over a year ago, and I left on Midsummer, and she was still there. I didn't know... I... I'm sorry..." He wondered then what it would have felt like had Dymphna merely disappeared and not married another, whether he would leave Cyphrus and roam the land again looking for her. His guts clenched up at the thought and he suddenly appeared near tears, a boy more than a man. "I'm really... sorry..."

[Caelum]

Memory rose unbidden of a rows of wave-tossed stones arranged in complex pattern in a grotto of dead Sylir’s walled city. There amidst long green shadows, pasted against the wall and weathered in a border of half grown vines had been a painting. It was an elaborate rendering of Caelum himself, crafted from the well of talent maybe only he alive could give a name to: Lillis. He stared blankly at Sama’el, the haze in his eyes slowly clearing as if blown off by the wind. “Shit,” he said and hastily released the Watchman, slumping suddenly all too weary in his horseback seat. “Sorry. I’m sorry,” he mumbled and lifted his hands to scrub them down his face. “It’s just I knew she was there, but I was too late. I’m always too bloody late. Sam –“ His hands dropped and his mouth twisted with a grimace. “I’m sorry,” he said for the third time. “It took me off guard, is all. I’ve not come across anyone else who’s seen her. Did she seem well?” The question was tentative. They should make camp, but for this little while Caelum appeared unable to lead, but he might follow.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

"I'm sorry," Sam said again. It seemed to be part of the family litany, spanning back uncounted generations. He reached out, put his callused hand on Kasb'el's shoulder in mute compassion, but soon began to brighten, nodding. "Oh, she was well. I mean, she was healthy. There was a little something melancholy about her, which is probably why we gravitated toward each other. I mean... We didn't... you know... gravitate, but we talked, you know? It was like having an older sister, perhaps. Which... now makes more sense... She probably just missed you. I think she was looking for something. Someone. You." He patted the shoulder before urging Dohaina onward toward the likely spot for camping. "I'll keep an eye out for her," he promised. "And that isn't... that isn't an idle promise. I ride circuit now, and I can walk the Web. I'm getting better and better at it. I might see her if she passes through Cyphrus even if she doesn't come through Endrykas proper."

[Caelum]

Sama'el received a bland stare in response to his stuttering about gravitation and Lillis De'Nyres, the woman who had watched him die in a fall over and over and still drew him into the cradle of her arms. "She's a beautiful woman," he said finally, relief at last washing in on the white foam of fear. It turned a tired smile to his mouth and the frame of him looked too young in this land, emblazoned black against the blacker night. Vega gratefully followed the golden strider's lead, keeping these most unexpected relatives close. "You've mentioned the Web before," he went on, attempting to stable the emotions that slipped and surged through his soul. Curiosity tended to prevail in such situations. "But what is it? It seems entirely Drykas by the content I've heard it in, only I don't have any recollection of it."

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

Dohaina too was weary, but she had been born and raised on this terrain, leading Kasb'el's mount with relative ease. Sama'el only checked in from time to time to guide her; it seemed she almost anticipated his desires sometimes. His brow was furrowed in thought, trying to piece together the dates and legends surrounding his ancestor and the Web. "You must be Drykas," he cautioned, "even when you are in your other form. The Web is known outside, but not understood. It is our sacred mystery. Anyway, Arin Drivankali was one of us before the Valterrian. He created the Web out of whatever magic he learned with the clans and without... I'm not sure how long before the Valterrian he actually did this. Ancient history," he apologized, flushed in the gloaming. "But it's energy... it ties the Drykas together, and our Striders, and our pavilions and things. Like a spider's web, those of us who are... well, spiders, can weave it, and we can travel upon it, and we can get information from it. That was how I found you... I was, there was an astral version of me? A spirit. My spirit saw you this morning, and so... Well, that's what it is in a nutshell. I can move about a hundred miles in any direction with it before my spirit gets stretched too thin and it gets dangerous. But I think I'm close to being strong enough to test that boundary... I'm just being cautious because I don't want to get lost on the Web. I don't know if anyone would be able to find me."

[Caelum]

"There are other methods of soul stretching," he hesitated, not seeking the appropriate word so much as tasting the decay at the center of the right one. "Of projecting I've been shown. It seems as if they might be distant cousins. See --" It required immense concentration and the result was that his eyes went heavy-lidded and his reliance upon Sama'el and his eldritch strider deepened. His hand rested on his thigh, clad in a fingerless glove, and heartbeat by heartbeat went limp and along with it the limb to which it was attached. Not for the first time, Caelum strove to visualize the pieces of his astral spirit as it untangled itself from his skeleton and extended beyond corporeal boundary of his skin. It had to do with auras, he had long since been made to understand, but had yet to achieve the ability to view. He thought he caught a ghostly glimmer, however, when his projected hand ruffled through his ultimate great grandson's hair. "Not that I would much recommend conducting a similar initiation to mine," he added dryly, coasting over wounds within that remained unhealed. This was a home coming and he had no wish to burden Sama'el with the horrors that had passed since they had last seen each other. "Caution is wise," he concluded, perhaps overly concerned for states and manipulations of souls.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

Sama'el listened dutifully to his elder's wisdom, nodding the caution he recognized. All those Drykas he knew who were initiated into the mysteries spoke of caution as the highest virtue, and he accepted this as a rule of law. But as they ambled into the growing gloom of a copse of trees, unusual in the plains, he thought they had merely lapsed into companionable silence. Thus he turned his head toward the touch to his hair, a bit self-conscious of its median state between the short hair he had sported outside of Cyphrus and the slow growing stuff that was not easily braided yet, he yelped at the distance between them, eyes wide with surprise. "How did you--?" He blinked, but got the impression that Kasb'el didn't want to talk about it. Sama'el could totally understand that desire, having it most of the time with regard to much of the intervening years between his previous Drykas life and his current one. Some shames were best left crouching in the darkness rather than exposed to the light for those who offered tenderness. Dymphna was probably laughing about him with her husband now, if she even thought of him anymore. "Curious," he said, but his smile flashed out of the dark. He had a great respect for the mysteries, but he also found a childlike joy in their discovery. "We can camp in here. No good water for about an hour, but I stocked up and I can set up a dew-catcher."

[Caelum]

Caelum cast his eyes across the bedraggled copse. It looked at once brave and forlorn amid the tree barren surrounds. It endured, he privately thought, shoving up through a neglectful earth to stand in an alien landscape. It wanted to live. Riding gear creaked as Vega, tail swatting wearily at the flagging wind, ambled to a grateful halt in the shadow of the sparse branches. Caelum dismounted, thudding heavily into the grass with a cackling pop of his spine and a sigh that left him to blend with the interminable wind of this region. "A few swallows to wash the dust from my mouth," he was telling Sama'el while the rest of him moved like automatic instruments, falling into a song too often sung to manifest in an incredibly banal symphony of unpacking and seeing to his mount. "Vega will want some water, eh?" He gave an absent pat to the windrunner's neck before tossing his saddlebags against the squabbling roots of a tree. "But the sun sees me through, doesn't She just?" Irony coasted, although subdued, as it most always did when he mentioned his goddess directly or out of the corners of his mouth.