shouldering the sky. (charon/baku/tabernac)

[Caelum]

You know these deaths and pains I share with you. You have known so many since the dawn of man, and you will know many more before... Before what? Nothing but the road and the end could reveal that to him when the gods refused. It was those words, that thought that followed him into the emptying echo of what a word in the celestial language in the mouth of a goddess left behind. They followed him into oblivion like a rock into the grave, splashing against the unleashed walls of his soul in cacophony and sound-shatter. That solitary, djed-full word reverberated like thunder, spilling down the deepest of insides, past flesh and bone, muscle and tissue and beyond where any surgeon's scalpel could cut to leave divine residue behind. It left his soul smeared sacred and drugged. Eons passed through the eye of his chirugeon's needle, stitching and pulling back together previously disembodied memories as if they were skin to sew back up around them. Yosef from the tents of Gowan, Diralda with hands full of sun fire, Matrem who flew through the hurricane and always, always Kasb'el who was at once both the closest and the most far. It gonged -- he gonged -- with abrupt unification in the holy dark and out from that healed recollection spiraled a driving need to sprout hooks through what was yet earthbound and attempt to harness the whole of him -- skin, bone soul and memory -- in the direction of a nameless city. It was vanished with the wind by the time Caelum opened eyes. The hours were littered with haze, his memories fallen on their tongues with swords. He was alone in the light of day, crumpled in the cradling roots of a sentinel tree on the fringes of Riverfall where the roar of water swarmed the air at war with the song of the grasslands wind. Nearby his horse grazed, tail swishing at errant flies. Caelum reabsorbed the world for a minute before, caught still in a goddess thrall that would not fade for over a year's time, he bowed his head and wept. When tears had dried, he would set out again in a god-bombed daze. He would forget to wonder how long a man shouldering the sky might walk before all of him was shed in sacrifice and left on the side of the road.

[Tabarnac]

XP Award! Caelum XP Award: Riding +1; Horsemanship +1; Plant Identification +1; Herbalism +1; Observation +2; Medicine +2; Philosophy +5; Rhetoric +5 Other: 1 gnosis mark from Rak’keli, which will appear with a time delay, obviously. Additional Notes: Sorry this took three moderators to finish, but it was lovely all the same and hopefully not too, too disjointed for you. The riding and the horsemanship come from the beginning, when he was riding out of Riverfall and then relieved Vega of his tack. The plant ID and herbalism from recognizing the scents of the nearby herbs and grasses. Observation for how closely he paid attention to his patients, and that coupled with his bedside manner earned some medicine. Philosophy and rhetoric for all his internal struggle that finally came out when speaking to the goddess. Please put this in your profile for Storyteller Secrets: http://www.mizahar.com/forums/topic11364.html Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or concerns. Keep writing!