one foot in the sea. (closed)

[Caelum]

Cian Noc doubled over at the echo of that knock, so polite a sound to toll like war drums through the souls of them. The lock of Justus' hand on his thigh dug spikes that would bloom bruises like wildflowers, he knew, but it transmuted through his flesh until it robbed control of him and pressed passion through his deepest parts. His fell so hard, so fast that his knee cracked against the floor and even that blossomed want within him. The strings had been cut as they had severed the night of sweet Rak'keli's festival when an entirely different set of gods had manifested at this end of the world. "Sweet, sweet," he gasped, this priest, taken up by the density of divinity that had just walked through his door. "This disease will be the end of many of us." It was a prayer, a plea and an obeisance of which his tongue lost hold. "But not nearly all," the Sunsinger whispered, the only one of them still standing. He gazed with pale faced shock upon the mirror masked face of Nikali. He knew Her instantly, had been warmed by the limbs she wore, for She stood holy and hideous with the epitomizing of every want in the world. Desire trembled through him, a terrible shimmer. It locked up his lips as heavy aching sank, whipping his heart to thunder in his ears. Yet he stood and he stood strong, unwilling to die secret deaths anymore, unconsciously assuming the ferocity and patience of the Denvali. The world was spinning forward, fast and faster, a star searing the sky. He would be a citizen. The time was come. When he knelt, it was first with a bow, a night blooming flower bending itself with hand spreading over heart. Once, twice already he had made the mistake of throwing his bitterness and pain into the teeth of those goddesses who had deigned to call upon him since his fall. Never Syna. Never His beloved. But Others, Others had and he had finally gone too far, reached an end of self the very moment word that his Bright Lady had mentioned his name. All She had to do was mention his name, and he found himself Her's again. All these wants and desires buried beneath the blood of unhealed wounds, all these passions caught in cages of trauma and abandonment were brought to surface and exhausting in the presence of Nikali. His bow folded down into a genuflection that froze, finding himself incapable of rising once on his knees again. Breathe, he reminded himself. But fear made his heart beat too hard.

[Tabarnac]

Justus wept, the months of existing like an elastic band full stretched allowed a brief space to snap back into his proper shape, the strength going out of him, begging for rest. The loose red chain of Ranuri that hung along his chest felt pure again, the purity of service to the unending Need. Though she rarely spoke, even to her priests, the Dark Lady exhaled audibly, and her faithful one felt as though her hand were in his hair, attending to his need for comfort and respite. She smiled to Cian from the threshold of his house and the threshold of revelation. Upon the steps of Caelum's identity she trod daintily. It was for him she had truly come. In her mirrored mask and mirrored eyes, he could project what he would, but the endless parade of his needs played out there for him to see: the Ukalas, bright Syna, gentle Rak'keli, a link of Web between him and his descendant, that first fateful thrust into his Konti lover. She knew. For a moment, Lillis' features replaced the mirror, a true and complete vision of love's loss. But as she walked forward, an unconscious, hypnotic, and gentle sway to her hips, all those things were replaced with frightened faces, Denvali faces he would later learn to know and love, pastel assortments of seaside houses, and then it was his own face he saw staring back at him, both Drykas and Ethaefal. She chuckled, the muted sound of an anchor seeking seabed, kneeling before him. Her hand rose up to tap him on the crown of his head. He opened like a flower, feeling the divine, the Ukalas, from below. Then she tapped him on the brow, another eye opening and he could see his grandson with a pretty Drykas girl and others in a land that looked nothing like Cyphrus. She tapped his throat and he felt it loosen, felt truths long buried coming up from below, ready to be spoken into the ears of others, into the night and the coming day. She tapped his chest and all the barriers he had thrown up against love toppled over, his heart reaching out for those he had lost and left behind, and tasting that first sweet sip of true self-love. She tapped his solar plexus and all his negations, the stories he told himself to distract him from the Truth he knew. She tapped his sex and he groaned even into her sweetly smiling quicksilver face. She reached lower, between his legs, to tap the base of him and his feet suddenly seemed to be standing in the exact place they ought to be, sensing for a moment the great plan that only Lhex knew in its entirety. The goddess leaned in to whisper in his ear, smelling of night-blooming flowers. The word, spoken in a language he wasn't supposed to hear in this earthbound form, threatened to shatter him, but her hand was upon his chest, holding him steady, holding him together. But she was a tricky thing, and even as she was speaking directly to his immortal soul, her hand reached into his chest to take his heart in her hand. He felt something drop through him down the line of his meridian, each place she had touched flaring with a sudden light. A chain from the Ukalas, through him, and into the Denvali bedrock. A chain binding him. Retracting her hand, she moved around him, more graceful on her knees than on her feet. Kneeling flush up against him, she reached around, her hand slipping into his trousers, and as he came harder than he could remember, she pulled a chain up to graze under his right hip. "You need Denval, Caelum," she whispered, near deafening even near silence. "And you need to be needed." Then she stood and began to walk back toward the door, her backside and lovely as her front side.

[Caelum]

The utterance of his name in the celestial language, on the lips of a goddess, flawless and earth shattering, would have exploded him with such concentration of djed that a black hole might have formed in the fabric of Denval had Nikali not deigned to prepare his immortal soul first with the sevenfold blessing. It blew through him hotter than the heart of a star all the same. Seed gushing, throat spilling long locked truths buried behind the lies a man tells himself, even the rustle and roll of the holy chain spreading to stain him and the divine command closing about his feet were faint and faded in comparison to that word, that name, his name. His, unspeakable. He, too, was crying, but he did not know it. Tears sheeted his cheeks in skyglass while every atom of him whizzed and banged, singing and screaming in the aftermath of divine intervention. The floor found him on his hands and knees, collapsing in on himself and unable to watch another goddess walk away from him no matter how glorious, how exultant the sight. Everything and everyone else had hummed into dissonance and Rak'keli's winged serpents burned on his right hand, forcing his fingers to a close. Against the back of his skull, skittering soft but stirring with mighty song, was a rising and wordless chorus of need. Cian Noc had bodily hauled Justus half way into his lap where he sat on the floor, reeling in the aftermath of Presence and with a strong arm cinched about the priest's shoulders. His own eyes watched, watched unflinching and worshipful, the Goddess walk away. This was a man who knew They would always be back.

[Tabarnac]

Love of mine, someday you will die But I'll be close behind, I'll follow you into the dark No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white Just our hands clasped so tight Waiting for the hint of the spark If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks Then I'll follow you into the dark Justus wanted nothing more than to remain in Moira's arms, but with his mirror-faced goddess smiling at him from the door before disappearing into the dark, he had what he needed most, surcease from the haze of distraction and corruption in his link with the goddess. Just as the celestial lovers had granted respite, so too did she. He sighed and a deal of the knotted tension within him melted away, his head dropping against Cian's for that moment at safe harbor in which to gather himself. Then he stood up on shaking legs to move over to the tattooed man who was their hope. Surprised, perhaps, that Priskil herself had not been his herald, he knelt down next to Caelum, a kind hand between his shoulder blades. There was no need to pull away from his empathy now as it was no threat, the remainder of her presence driving away whatever embattled Denval's blessed. "You'll feel what people need now," he advised quietly. "What they need and not what they want. You can turn it off, but only for a little while. Long enough to get away if you know that what they need is deleterious to your well-being. Nikali does not want us to come to harm, but it's a balancing act sometimes. I would advise not touching people for a while... it makes the connection stronger." Truly, Caelum could feel the welter of the priest's needs: sleep, love, for all of this to end... "You can stay here with Cian. I'll stay the night too. If you feel too bombarded, we can take you into the Temple. Keep you separated from the needs of others, help you come to terms with her gift, help you... so you can do what the gods seem to think you can do." He glanced back at Cian, drawn between the needs of Caelum and Cian like a man in a tug of war.

[Caelum]

It was less the words of Nikali’s priest and more the laying of his hand that aided Caelum. It dispersed the symphony of need crowding out from Denval streets and ruffling with the wings of even their dead. It focused him on the requirements of one man, one solitary, struggling soul until the hollow of his bones cleared of too many last minute orisons. He swallowed with tears drying on his cheeks, sliding forearms over the worn carpet and settling shakily back on his heels. His hands were caught with a fine tremor, a few knotted braids straggling loose as he kept breathing – a dire accomplishment – in the aftermath of the goddess. “Here,” he stated if for no other reason than venturing past the threshold tonight loomed abruptly swollen with too much effort. “Here. Here –“ His tone turned up on the last fumbling, choked attempt to speak with the clarion of the celestial language still singing sacraments in his ears. He nudged Justus back toward where Cian yet sat on the floor. He was not even yet to the point of accepting his Syna had kept faith in him for a purpose in this place, or that his sweet Rak’keli or certain Nikali possessed wants in line with the Bright Lady’s. All he knew in this god haunted hour was that every shred of himself, every skin cell and stray thought, understood and wanted nothing more completely than the healing of the world. Bodies through Rak’keli. Hearts and minds through Nikali. Souls maybe, he would ever be biased, through Syna. Even if She maintained her distance. Heavens, he reminded himself. Heavens, home, too. Shouldering the sky, he half crawled, half climbed back to his feet and relocated his balance somewhere in between. “What rest you need now is right here,” he attempted to explain to Nikali’s most beloved, feeling not unlike the bird telling the butterfly. A sideways glance scored the other priest in the room, taking in the wary countenance, the slow rising and reaching hand that settled reassuringly on Justus’ arm. “You know better that to touch me now, horselord,” Cian stated, hoarse. “Yes,” Caelum agreed with a voice that ought have trembled with more violence. “I imagine having context would just make it worse.” Cian shifted closer to Justus, rubbing the heel of his palm down his back. His expression was accepting, but guarded. Rak’keli and Nikali divided in them, but had joined hands in the sun-singer. Some of the tension in Caelum’s limbs dripped loose and he slowly inclined his chin: yes. “Probably,” he remarked, the sweep of the love Cian had kept stored secret in his heart now for years helping to satisfy Justus’ needs and, thus, to satisfy Caelum’s own. Caelum would be the last person to question someone on why love could hurt or damage or be something to fear and hide. “You might be surprised,” he said only and cleared his throat against some unearthly clogging. “You can have the room at the end of the hall,” Cian tilted his head and deftly sidestepped the implications. “To the left. Help youself to whatever you require, Caelum. I don’t need blessed Nikali to know one of them’s sleep.” Caelum just blinked, thick lashed and in thrall, holy shock coating him like amniotic fluid. He found and fumbled with his bag to turn toward the hall door. Unable quite to think, to process. He had no words left with which to pray, but did so in the seed of his soul all the same.

[Tabarnac]

Justus maintained a hand on Caelum, skin to skin, to keep him anchored to one person. He was, after all, disciplined if not simple. Meditating on his need for Caelum to rest and restore himself, he tried to make that paramount, the which would make the neophyte embrace his weariness with a minimum of mouthy backtalk to Cian, even if it was deserved. Justus stayed close and was strong, ready to slip under the horselord's arm should he need that strength to see him to his bed. His hand even squeezed gently, grateful for the clean needs and a clean connection to his goddess. One easily forgot that feeling after so long under the pall of corruption. Unfortunately, though, he could not be Syna or Rak'keli or the mysterious and beautiful Konti whose features drifted through his awareness for a moment. It didn't matter how many times Nikali enchained him. There were limits, but often there were subtle ways around them too. As exhaustion overtook Caelum, Justus gently tumbled him into bed, pulling off his boots and getting him under cover much as any doting parent would. Brushing his hand over the horselord's eyes and forehead, a benediction. "Sleep, my son," he said gently. "I'll be here when you wake." And he waited until the newcomer and newly marked was not only asleep, but dreaming. They seemed to be pleasant dreams, too. Let him have those. Wearily, he hoisted his bones up and back down the hall after shutting the door but for a sliver in case their guest called out in fear and need in the night. When he found Cian again, he had that tired smile, that little spark of Justus that was left when the boundless energy began to find its boundaries. "Well, the kid's finally asleep," he said with a feckless humor he only had the energy to feel by half. His smile was jaunty, but faded into something gentler in no time. Then he was serious for the most part. "You were Moira once," he said, certain. "I've loved you before. Time out of mind. You came back... To me. Or perhaps to Denval." Perhaps it amounted to the same thing. This time when he smiled, it was pure and happy, an unguarded smile that few saw, but those few knew it for the treasure it was.

[Caelum]

Caelum fell upon the bed as he had fallen upon his tongue with swords. It felt in this hallow hour that everything he had known was more the true, from the quickening of life to the surrender of death. There was a congregation of goddesses playing the roles of his ghosts, and so it was without surprise that beneath the ease of need and the drag of dreaming he slipped once more through a rift that might never have existed in the floor of the Ukalas and plummeted into the sea of the one person's Chavi whom all of Denval might need to heal. The dream swallowed him. Without, the man who, ages past, had created a dire love token moved through the parlor, tidying things in order to give his hands work. The blanket was lifted and folded and the door out which Siwa had flown was closed softly upon a night. Worry strung after her and black musings. He had lain between her thighs this night, and memory had ambushed. He had not yet made tails or heads of it. He was crouched beside the chair Caelum had abandoned when Nikali had come in, thrusting them all into the thrall of desire. Fatigue marked his face, a thing altogether too serious handling an expression usually comprised of friendliness and curiosity. He had always been the most open closed book in Denval. The dropped teacup in hand, finger looped through fragile china handle, he looked up to watch Nikali's priest return. The happiness in Justus startled him. It seemed so long since he had witnessed that emotion on his friend. It cleared the path for a small smile to Cian's mouth despite what words he spoke next. "What are you talking about?" He asked gently in a drawl that had never vanished. "Who's Moira?" He hesitated. Not even Justus had dragged secrets from him, secrets some of which Caelum had come to learn years ago on accident. "It was gods who hastened me here," he confessed at last. "Who put me back together so that I could survive to make it here at all. The pantheon is thick now on our end of the world, Justus. There is in this the sense of something long laid. Circles within circles. I.." He pushed up to his feet, setting the tea cup down on the tray with a chiming rattle. He shook his head, maybe to clear it, and rocked forward to reach out and smooth his hands across the breadth of Justus' shoulders. "You feel better. Good." He nodded. I've loved you before. A touch of humor to the corners of his eyes. Humor and duty had hid him a long time. "I love you too, Justus. You need sleep too."

[Tabarnac]

Justus just nodded, content in his lonely knowledge, his secret link between a few of the puzzle pieces. If they were meant to contain the entirety of their soul's experience, they would always have access to it. If Cian did not remember, that was no great tragedy. The gods had bid them remember who they were, though, and Justus finally felt like he was obeying them in that. The various and sundry needs Justus had fulfilled during his service to Nikali might surprise even Cian Noc, but if Siwa and others sufficed for lovers, then Justus and the vague memory of another self who knew a Moira Solduvan would be content as a friend and confidant. "Solduvan," he murmured, but that piece would have to fit into the rest later. "I'm going to sleep here," he said. "Caelum's going to be as god-smacked when he wakes up as he was before he went to sleep. I'm sure you remember. You don't mind, do you? I won't be any trouble."

[Caelum]

The name Solduvan scraped across Cian's mind, dragging pale fingers through the god-soaked soil of his soul. It left him blinking and then giving a shake of his head, a hand rising as it to bat off the flickering of a pale moth. Cian was a man afraid of memory, afraid of love, afraid of many things that were never apparent to the average observer. They were buried with his past and whoever, whatever all he had been before stumbling onto Denvali earth eight years past. "Sure," he agreed easily and found his heart thudded heavy. It left his smile turning self deprecating. "You know you're welcome. You can have my bed. Caelum's got the spare and the others, well, they're clinic beds. C'mon," he tilted his head and gave Justus a little nudge toward the stairwell. He fell into familiar step with his friends, hands sinking into his pockets. "You're hardly ever any trouble," he pointed out, steps light and words soft with the automatic concern of a physician. He gave a glance to the ajar door behind which their patient slept beneath the burden of their hope. "Rak'keli and Nikali and whole lot of Syna on the side," he murmured. "What are They doing with him, you think? He was.. Bad off. When we met. But not as fucking destroyed as I can he was at some point since." It reminded him of himself, but maybe he did not need to say that. Not in so many words. Not to Justus. The door to the attic apartment was shouldered open. It was as much of a disaster as it ever was, riddled with books and braided grasses and herbs drying from the rafters. Seashells and and the remains of strange experiments littered every available surface. On a bookshelf, shoved far back in a corner, was a pair of old, dusty leather vambraces half hidden behind a clay pot Haddy had made for him. He had not come to Denval with much, and he still possessed very little. It was all the clinic's, for the most part, and the clinic was owned by the city. He had insisted upon it, actually. "Are you hungry?" He asked abruptly, thinking of Caelum's significant look from before, of the fatigue drawing lines across Justus' face. It hurt his heart. "I could get you something from the kitchen. Or a potion," his eyebrows raised a little. "You look like a good sleep would work wonders."

[Tabarnac]

"Denval is the end of the world," Justus noted. "The gods watch us here, and gather those they have marked. Makes us fish in a barrel for whatever's out there, which is beginning to come clear... bit by bit." Step by step, they climbed up into the attic. Of course, he had to sleep in the attic when they were all exhausted, and yet he didn't want to sleep, not when the world seemed right as the fading presence of his goddess kept the bad wooj at bay. He looked around, smelled the scent of Siwa about the place: he had a nose for such unique bouquets. Smiling, he turned at the question. "Hey, you look like shit too. Whatever you want to give yourself, I'll take too, and I'll stretch out on the rug if there's no bed. I'll not deprive you of yours." But he smiled at Cian, seeing again the complex webwork of conflicting needs within him. If the healer gave up on fighting it and went into the Temple, Justus could help him unravel those things, find the pure center of himself, and rebuild, but it would not happen. Not any time soon. He had grown too skillful at deflection, and the need for Justus to shove his hand in his chest and make his heart start pumping blood and love again... Well, it had competition.