one foot in the sea. (closed)

[Caelum]

The Denvali healer canted his chin to brush a kiss to Siwa’s cheek when she passed him, but he otherwise remained slumped in the door way with an iorn weighted regard resting on the Drykas before him. Humor had fled his face, sinking his expression into a sobriety it almost never seemed to know. “That’s because he can’t speak his name, Justus,” Cian muttered at last and proceeded to watch a scowl shroud Caelum’s face. “It’s Caelum,” he said and the name failed to feel right in his mouth, but then it never had. It came with a sigh as he drew himself up, adjusting the bag on his shoulder. The doe eyed young woman was offered a respectful nod and if his gaze lingered a moment too long, well, he was yet a man. Cian erupted with laughter, sun warmed and chortling, before reaching out to grab Justus’ arm and tug at him until he followed into the foyer of the clinic. “Don’t kill him yet. He saved my life once, he did. Come here,” and this last was softer, rangy arms snagging about Nikali’s priest to deliver a quick, cozy hug to his friend. Justus looked as though he needed it. Caelum observed this and glanced again at Siwa, something baffled and bemused creeping into his eyes as he remained on the porch. A titter of the wind bumped up against the chimes strung from the eaves, releasing a delicate music into the night. “The two of you are madly in love again?” He heard himself say quite before he could take it back. Phantoms had laid themselves over the pair of priests, twisted and vanished with a blink; but like the dropping the dock beneath his feet it failed to give him any real aid. “What’s this you said earlier? About Them? Who’s Them?” He trailed off as Cian narrowed his eyes at him. “Stuff it, horse lord,” Rak’keli’s priest informed Rak’keli’s marked. “You can stay here at the clinic, you’re wanting, but keep that tongue of yours behind your teeth when it comes to me. Eh?” “I’m not here for you,” Caelum mumbled again. He was beginning to get the feeling he would be saying that a lot.

Player’s NoteHe calls it sexual healing. Don’t pretend you didn’t know.

[Tabarnac]

A wary glance traced Caelum when his name was finally announced, something not quite settling within him upon hearing it. A false note, a new identity. He tried not to feel the pull of the chain around him at the tug of stirring lust in Caelum-who-was-not, tried not to feel queasy as whatever was poisoning the connections between the gods and the Denvali worked its way into his veins. But then Cian was embracing him, such a calm, sure thing, and just as he was about to take a moment's solace, words were said that rang true even as they sounded out of place. "Pardon?" he asked quizzically. He could not even answer the question for his startlement. Who was this Caelum-who-was-not? It was difficult not to distrust newcomers at this time, even those for whom Cian Noc himself vouched. Siwa, displaying her good training and her empathy, had slipped as silently as a shadow to open the door behind her recent lover, waiting for the men to enter. Clearly there were words to be spoken, and though no outside eyes were visible, the air of suspicion in Denval made shoulders hitch up and voices carry.

[Caelum]

I never love nobody fully always one foot on the ground An unknown chain, transferred through the terms of an aborted gnosis, slithered through the floor of Caelum's soul. It dragged at stardust and scar tissue, tightening his skeleton at the joints as he remained standing on the front porch of the former barracks, chin down and eyes watching too many things that were not layering themselves across things that were. The invisible chain tugged at him, catching his breath, and he shifted uneasily while thought of carnelian cords recalled from a sin washed dream remembered itself to his skin. Long fingers flexed against the strap of his bag and within the foyer of the clinic three filled with varying needs waited, expectant, filling him with a sense of dislocation and distortion. "Caelum?" Cian prompted from within, something behind his eyes gentling. "I meant it. You can stay here. Give an old cohort a chance, eh?" The corners of Noc's eyes crinkled, quizzically, and he gave both Justus and Siwa a wondering glance. "Siwa," Caelum found his voice -- locating it somewhere in the litter and debris of scrambled senses -- and rolled forward to cross the threshold in a fatigue-heavy gait. Helpful was the word that trailed a comet tail across his mind, desperate for distraction, for the integrity to be found while losing oneself in service. "Do you think you might could fix us up some tea? It's damnably cold and, uh, Justus and I here have been out in it too long, I think." Cian blinked, then blinked a second time while nudging Justus toward the kitchen. A hand rose, god marked and static, to beckon Caelum toward following. "Your secrets are yours to share, not mine," Caelum said this softly at Cian's back, causing the more learned healer to look back. A line of tension eased that had been difficult to detect before, but visible now that it was gone. "Your gods," Cian picked up the answers to the questions Caelum had previously laid down. "Leth," a pause. "And Syna. That is the Them that was meant. They were here. Do you know anything about that, Kasb'el-by-night? Or is fortune failing us all now?" "Don't believe in accidents," Caelum muttered when Cian confirmed what Justus had said. A breath emptied him and he paused in the door way to the kitchen where copper pots glowed in candle and moonlight and a collection of potted herbs decorated the windowsills. "Here," he echoed. "She drew me. That is all I know -- She drew me. And I'm here. I didn't expect you to still be, but it can't have anything to do with that, can it?" Cian scrubbed a hand at his mouth while ambling to the counter, reaching up to pull a misshapen but prettily glazed clay jar out so he could pry off the lid. Cookies were lifted out to be set on a plate. and by protecting my heart truly I got lost "We don't know," he said finally. "We're under attack --" "Justus said as much. But I don't understand. By what?" Caelum dropped his bag with a jangle and thud at the door. "We don't know." "What do you know?" A wisp of frustration coiled through Caelum's words. Cian's hands paused and he slanted a long look at the newcomer. "I think he's got a touch of Nikali," he remarked after a long minute to Her blessed. "Caelum, sit down. Denval is not going to be fixed in the next five minutes." *R. Spektor.

[Tabarnac]

Justus and Siwa too awaited Caelum inside, and the demure girl bowed acquiescence for the man's request. At Cian's bidding, Justus too went into the kitchen, helping Siwa about her business. While he set the kettle of already warm water over the smoldering coals in the hearth, she prepared little satchets of herbs: tea for clarity, ginger for energy and to settle the stomach, spearmint to sooth, chamomile, too. Always intuiting need even without Nikali's help, Justus emerged in time to hear Cian mutter to him. "It is possible," he said, "but gnosis has been known to shift around while everything is... warped like this. But he is welcome to come to the Temple to meditate upon Her mysteries if he wishes to do so." His hazel eyes strafed Caelum as he removed his coat to allow the heat of the room to work its way into his muscles. Through the slit of his collar, his chain was clearly visible, nearly complete but black as soot these days. He could only pray it would not be permanent. He sat down unconsciously where there was room enough for two. Cian healed bodies, Justus healed hearts and minds. Sometimes it seemed like it was the two of them against the world. Waiting for Cian and Caelum to follow suit, he glanced toward the kitchen to see Siwa approaching with a tray of steaming, fragrant cups. "Ah, thank the gods."

[Caelum]

Cian turned as Siwa entered, giving her a lazy smile out of gratitude while lifting the tea tray from her capable hands. "Thank you, pie," he told her, using a teasing endearment before moving deeper into the parlor to slide the tray to the coffee table. A stack of old physician and alchemy -- alchemy? -- books were scooted aside. Learning, curiously enough, by the significant look Caelum delivered him beneath his lashes that Siwa would really prefer to serve, Cian flopped down onto the settee beside Justus and stretched long legs out. A scramble of fingers caught the corner of a worn soft knit blanket, washed so often the brilliant blue of it had long since faded, and tugged it from the back of the settee. He let gravity unfold it before pulling it around Justus' shoulders, a defense against the cold. Caelum watched this, all of this while, while settling creaky as an old man into a tall backed leather chair by the window. He created a vivid shadow in the warm den, in need of a shave and the heavy knot of Drykas braids threatening to come lose. A faded swirl of ink decorated the outer border of his left eye, a mark some found to be strange. It was the glimpse of Justus' mark, gone bad, that he was looking at however. That was when he realized Rak'keli's kiss on Cian's face was no longer pure, but looked tarnished and wan. "I will," he told Justus after a minute. He would go to the Temple and pay heed to Nikali. The sense of bitterness and challenge in him had been beaten and he was tired, too tired to protest any more after having been hauled by divine hands so long, so far. "What did Syna say?" He heard himself asking before he could take it back, bite his tongue and guard his heart.

[Tabarnac]

"She said many things to many people," Justus said, his strong arm going unconsciously around Cian's shoulders. There was a strange sort of balance between them, and these were confusing times when one needed to know where the support was sure. "What she said to all of us was that trouble was coming, and trouble was here. We have to remember who we are and defend ourselves." Siwa knelt beside their guest, ready to see to whatever needs he might have. Dark hair in a lover's knot, fell over one shoulder, revealing a pale, swan-like neck. Denval had many things to offer. "And she told us to seek out the sun-singer," he added wearily. "I thought perhaps an Ethaefal, but most who abide here belong to Leth. Or did." The particulars of those deities relationships with their fallen avatars was not quite certain in his mind. He was chained quite clearly to Nikali, and would serve Her until he died.

[Caelum]

It was a thorn digging between his ribs to find with how great a thirst he drank up even the repeated words of his goddess. They slid down a parched consciousness in provocative dearth, failing to quench his need and only tempting him further. He swallowed and allowed his eyes to drift down to where Siwa had settled herself on the floor at his side, attempting to allow the beauty of her image to soothe him. It too failed, however, as her submissive pose -- so graceful, so pure it could hardly be considered diminishing -- poked at a nervousness to chains that had been born in him not so far in the past. A ghostly clanking rattled around in his skull as Nikali, a goddess he previously had little communion with, stretched with a sigh. It left his fingers flickering on the arm of his chair, stretching out an ache where beneath the sleeve old scars no ethaefal should bear waited to fade. His kind was not supposed to scar. There were many things, he long figured, he was not supposed to do. The result of the warring sensations had him easing forward to the edge of his chair. Cian, settling easily against Justus' side when the priest's arm came about his shoulders, watched in silence. Caelum was on the verge of sinking to the floor, of putting himself on at least a physical level with Siwa and thereby trying to somehow reconcile her need to feel useful with his need to not feel as if he was subjugating someone. Sun-singer. Caelum's eyes came up so fast that the ensuing blink could have caused sparks from his lashes. He found Justus' dark regard and the rest of him went still as statues who stood with marble mouths too scarred in a grotto off Ravok's black waters. His heart thudded once, twice more, then stopped altogether. Ticktock. Tick. Tick. Images and illusions that had gathered round him in dreams this season long collided like comets, sparkling his vision to blindness as the room wavered. He blinked once more, remembered to breathe. "No.. No need to seek him," he managed at last. "I.. That's me. Kasb'el --" "Sunsinger," Cian finished with a whispered and wide eyed revelation.

[Tabarnac]

Justus stared at their guest with a look that would have been comical in other circumstances, in happier times. All the same, he felt the goddess' husky voice chuckle darkly within him, chains restlessly clanking one against the other, as things began to fall into place. He glanced nervously to a window, half expecting to see that telltale flare of white light from the spire of the Chapterhouse of the Order of Radiance where Emereki guided the faithful in worship of Priskil and the amiable goddess spoke to her friends. Hope was born anew within him. Even Siwa looked up at Caelum, dark eyes wide, pale face astonished, and she held his gaze for a moment too long before gazing intently upon the floor again, needing him to be what he said, the hero who could redeem the beast. But the priest didn't know Caelum from A'dam, instead glancing to the side for verification from a trusted source. The epiphanic mien should have been enough, but this was life or death, future or destruction, and for once Justus needed something. As Siwa, he needed this to be true or else he would be torn apart by the chains pulling him in every direction, without surcease, without his patron goddess' unsullied gifts. "Is he what he says?" he whispered.

[Caelum]

Cian looked at Justus, mouth opening, but no words came out. Was he? It was slow that his regard tracked back to where Caelum sat on the edge of his chair, candle and star light puddling his shadow against the windowpane. It felt not unlike self fulfilling prophecy, he would later think, maybe even comment upon. As with the flaring strength of their needs, of Denval's needs stumbling through him, he could not but answer, could not but be. "Kas'bel Sunsinger," he heard himself say, looking from face to face, wary of the great expectation and waking hope grown visible on them. "That was my name. You see --" And he rolled up to his feet, rangy shoulders easing back so he could shrug his way out of the jacket with the chill and salt damp still clinging to it. It dropped to leave him in shirtsleeves he shot, tugging them up to reveal the sprawl of black ink littering his arms. The windmarks named him, told his story or rather the story of the man he had been. "When the sun's up," Cian told Justus and Siwa quietly, "He changes. Ethaefal. He's a son of Syna, our horselord." Into the expectant quiet, Caelum swallowed. This was a whole new sense of inadequacy. "The Bright Lady may have told you to seek me, but," apology spread through heaven encumbered syllables. "I don't know why. And I don't know what to do."

[Tabarnac]

There was a creeping, crawling silence, abuzz with questions and possibilities, and the three men were powerless to break it. Finally it was Siwa who did, pouring tea for all here gathered with a grace and humility that were unmatched. There came from without the chuckle of chains underwater, a whiskey roughened amusement, world weary and wise. Siwa's cereus face went ghost-pale and she dropped her cup to roll under Caelum's chair, her hot water seeping into rug and floor as she stood up and ran out the back. "Siwa!" Justus called after her, alarm snapping him out of his lethargy. But her name became a moan of desire, drawn out. "Ahhh." Indeed, all three men felt their loins tighten with desire, its object unclear. But hearts too, and minds, sharpened with longing for something, someone, approaching. Justus, at least, knew this slither within, pulling taut, pulling at everything, every iota and atom of him. He fell back down, one hand clutching the arm of the couch, the other gripping Cian's leg with bruising force, but for the healer, the pain bled easily into this strange, unfocused desire. Caelum had felt a slight, corrupted version of this since he had gone against Justus' suggestion regarding his gnosis, but now he was as caught as they were. Whereas Syna and Leth warped the world with the weight of their presence, this one's gravity would rip a man from himself. "Attend, attend," Justus groaned through grit teeth, "she comes, oh... prepare, prepare, fabulous, incipient... Glory!" They all tumesced at her approach, the answer to need rather than the drive to procreate. There was a polite knock at the door, Siwa perhaps having come around to the front again. But no, the door opened, and a woman walked in, naked with invitation, sacred and profane, face hidden behind her fabled mirrormask. "Greetings, Sunsinger," she whispered, soft as thunder. "The great work begins..."