22nd Spring, 515 AV – The Temple Of Laviku
The construct in many ways dwarfed the ones surrounding it she reasoned as she walked the winding path, slowly meandering upwards towards the Temple of Laviku, it was both grand in size and location. It had been chosen for a reason she knew, it was obvious. The chief deity of Zeltiva, given a hill from which to look down and around upon its worshippers from within a building both well constructed and expensive. As always it seemed to her that worship cost quite a tidy sum of gold. She was not sure if that was because the Gods demanded it or that the people thought they required it, religion was a nebulously mysterious thing to her mind. Philosophy she could handle, worship was something else entirely. It was only as she found herself getting closer that the details began to become discernable to her sight.
The Temple loomed, impressively gigantic of course, but the most interesting and potentially revealing thing about it was the stone from which it had been constructed. She didn't know the name of the stone but she had heard tales of such a thing, long since vanished animals pressed into it from epochs long past perhaps. Some were familiar to her as her fingers traced them with fascination, others were alien and barely comprehensible. They spoke of something she herself had experienced, though perhaps longer. The Protohuman through the mirror, he had been from so long ago in humanity's history that he had had no knowledge of her clothes even. Had only spoken Nader-Cannoch and even then they had communicated poorly. He had spoken of a darkness she was sure, a Queen. Something terrible.
Had such a thing killed these creatures here, under my fingers? she wondered to herself as she finished the circuit of one pillar and began to make her way towards the entrance once more.
Another mystery found within Zeltiva, one which would likely never be solved, she was gaining a few of them already and she was filled with an internal glow at their possession. There was no desire for them to be used for other purposes as there had been before though, for the most part. She was beginning to just enjoy the solving of them, the discovering and trailing. She reflected upon her recent journeys as she stepped across the massive threshold and took in the curved staircases before her, sweeping around a central section of the Temple in the near distance. She was still filled with an anger and bitter hate that she had lost her home, her birthplace. She would never be able to return to Sunberth. She tried not to blame anyone for it, even herself, but it was difficult. She hated that she sometimes even found herself blaming those she cared about. She never voiced such things, internalized them instead. Yet they were there, bubbling within.
“Foolish woman, to blame those who had no control. No one owns the mob. Or the future. Or the past. If anything I should blame myself, for not seeing it sooner. Perhaps not even the Gods control all. Their fate could be just as indeterminable to them as ours is to us. Is that so Laviku?” she asked the silence quietly as she walked.
It was a peaceful place, one which was provocative of reflective thought. She found a bench towards the centre, before the murals of Laviku and the storms, and sat with her legs crossed and head bowed. Eye closed in relaxed thought. It had been so long since she had tried anything approaching a meditative state but she knew something that required doing when she saw it. If she didn't find a way to reconcile things within herself she would destroy whatever things she found in her new world soon enough. She took a deep breath, inhaling sharply and exhaling for as long as possible. She felt her muscles respond and she kept up the rhythm – longer out than in – as her mind flickered with images when she wished it would become blank. She swallowed her frustration and tried to push it to one side.
If anywhere she could learn to let go surely it would happen in a Temple, she reasoned.
The construct in many ways dwarfed the ones surrounding it she reasoned as she walked the winding path, slowly meandering upwards towards the Temple of Laviku, it was both grand in size and location. It had been chosen for a reason she knew, it was obvious. The chief deity of Zeltiva, given a hill from which to look down and around upon its worshippers from within a building both well constructed and expensive. As always it seemed to her that worship cost quite a tidy sum of gold. She was not sure if that was because the Gods demanded it or that the people thought they required it, religion was a nebulously mysterious thing to her mind. Philosophy she could handle, worship was something else entirely. It was only as she found herself getting closer that the details began to become discernable to her sight.
The Temple loomed, impressively gigantic of course, but the most interesting and potentially revealing thing about it was the stone from which it had been constructed. She didn't know the name of the stone but she had heard tales of such a thing, long since vanished animals pressed into it from epochs long past perhaps. Some were familiar to her as her fingers traced them with fascination, others were alien and barely comprehensible. They spoke of something she herself had experienced, though perhaps longer. The Protohuman through the mirror, he had been from so long ago in humanity's history that he had had no knowledge of her clothes even. Had only spoken Nader-Cannoch and even then they had communicated poorly. He had spoken of a darkness she was sure, a Queen. Something terrible.
Had such a thing killed these creatures here, under my fingers? she wondered to herself as she finished the circuit of one pillar and began to make her way towards the entrance once more.
Another mystery found within Zeltiva, one which would likely never be solved, she was gaining a few of them already and she was filled with an internal glow at their possession. There was no desire for them to be used for other purposes as there had been before though, for the most part. She was beginning to just enjoy the solving of them, the discovering and trailing. She reflected upon her recent journeys as she stepped across the massive threshold and took in the curved staircases before her, sweeping around a central section of the Temple in the near distance. She was still filled with an anger and bitter hate that she had lost her home, her birthplace. She would never be able to return to Sunberth. She tried not to blame anyone for it, even herself, but it was difficult. She hated that she sometimes even found herself blaming those she cared about. She never voiced such things, internalized them instead. Yet they were there, bubbling within.
“Foolish woman, to blame those who had no control. No one owns the mob. Or the future. Or the past. If anything I should blame myself, for not seeing it sooner. Perhaps not even the Gods control all. Their fate could be just as indeterminable to them as ours is to us. Is that so Laviku?” she asked the silence quietly as she walked.
It was a peaceful place, one which was provocative of reflective thought. She found a bench towards the centre, before the murals of Laviku and the storms, and sat with her legs crossed and head bowed. Eye closed in relaxed thought. It had been so long since she had tried anything approaching a meditative state but she knew something that required doing when she saw it. If she didn't find a way to reconcile things within herself she would destroy whatever things she found in her new world soon enough. She took a deep breath, inhaling sharply and exhaling for as long as possible. She felt her muscles respond and she kept up the rhythm – longer out than in – as her mind flickered with images when she wished it would become blank. She swallowed her frustration and tried to push it to one side.
If anywhere she could learn to let go surely it would happen in a Temple, she reasoned.
