Post by Poison Dancer on May 11, 2019 10:18:42 GMT
The sun sets low over Waterdhavia, setting radiant fire to the gloomy spires, making sweet sacrifice of the day and heralding the night to follow. Peculiar, is how Reikuna feels in these spaces between, her exotic heart set to a slower, more deliberate pace as movements slow and the mind begins to fog. She was never able to sense release at a departure; as though a farewell were too important to proceed, but should be harnessed to lie still and unbloodied at the feet of both parties. No ending, no beginning, just the passing thrill of existence, mundane and meandering. A sweet fantasy, that's what it was. Almost...
No. A sleek bang brushes her cheek as Reikuna quietly shakes her head, keeping her gaze low as she steps swiftly through the trade district. It wasn't a desire to live, or be, just a mutation of the will to move forward. Transitional passages marked time wasting, farewells without greetings when you knew the conversation to follow. The setting sun is a nicety, a kiss from daughter to mother. Sailors do not crave the calm before a storm; they fear it, dread it, and chase it away with the preparations for a long and nauseous night. No, Reikuna does not long for rest or contentment. She does not wish for the satisfaction of another day survived.
Biting a curse in broken Kara-Turan (she likely couldn't tell you the precise language or dialect), Reikuna quickens her pace toward the lodging house set aside by her humble guild. It's far to the rear of lavish merchant fronts, of semi-decayed manors and towering townhouses, in a darkened alley secluded beneath the walls of the City of the Dead. A reek of damp hay and damper armpits strikes the lithe cleric as she steps from one set of cobbles to another, her calloused heel rolling to keep her balanced upon a loose stone. At the apex she half-turns her head, using the momentum to sweep the land like a wary prey animal.
Combined with her resumed stride, it all amounts to style her as a woman who knows what she wants and is most certainly going to get it. It also hides her unease as the sun leaves her back and abandons her in a new void - between motion and rest, between life and death. Reikuna sucks in a breath, rather enjoying the scent of man's decay after so long on the 'free and open road'. Nature is a comfort because it will always be, even in the wake of the Night Serpent, but the reminder of man... it's a bittersweetness, a taste-beyond-tastes that she can't help but find intoxicating at times.
Her head briefly spins, but nobody bothers her. Good, she thinks. Her actual companion is seeing to the livestock and presumably will follow shortly with her effects; until his return she yearns for no other. She needs solitude and shadow, by which to clear her head and commune with the Grandness of Tragedy. She niggles even now at Reikuna, not whispers these days but outright howls, warbling screams that promise pain and despair, loss and grief. Worse, Reikuna finds herself wanting it all - longing for the blessing of her goddess, for those blessings to descend upon others. It's okay, she assures herself, this is right and just; they will crave those blessings, as she does.
A delicate-seeming hand crudely thrusts open the lodging house door, a tiny mannequin on tinier strings rattling protest as it's dislodged from a perch atop the frame. It's no kind of alarm, but Reikuna knows it needn't be. As with so much in the mortal world, there is more than meets the eye. It lies like that, life, existence, curdling old porridge through yellowing teeth and proclaiming ambrosia. At least some of us won't choke on it, she rather grimly muses as she slips a steel-backed mirror from her pocket and removes the rudimentary ward beyond the flimsy woodwork and dangling micro-puppet.
The building beyond receives no more than a cursory glance. Reikuna knows who is here by the nature of her entrance - she doesn't need to speak with them. She heads swiftly to the rearmost passage, which is cold, dank, and leads to a tight spiral stairway (she trusts Feng will have no trouble navigating it, later) at the head of which is her Waterdhavian lodging.
It would be wrong to call the room bare, but it's... messy, and little of that mess has a purpose any more. Reikuna places her pack at the head of the stair and then eases her way out across the floor, beginning on all fours and then spread-eagling out as she stretches, slender limbs slipping between the cracks of rubble and clutter. She moans as she unwinds her joints, uncaring of the hitching of robes and mussing of hair, enjoying the brief respite of relief before she thrashes her frame against the floorboards, clearing a large space in the center of the ill-kempt room.
She can't remember why it's such a mess, and she doesn't care to just now. She just needs space.
Opening eyes she did not realize she'd closed, Reikuna finds herself cross-legged in the dusty gap created by her exercise. Tendrils of what can most easily be called 'power' lap at the fronds of her hair, unable to frizz the silky strands but lending them a curious, unrelenting buoyance, and the occasional crackle of static. Her nostrils are full of an acrid odour; Dendar's scent, her divine musk. In the cleric's hand is a slim, finely-carved wooden mask, the eyes hollowed out but for four curving panels - a small lattice, really - creating the impression of a serpent's. Filigrees of wood billow out from the cheeks, their natural whirling beautiful to behold - but eerily reminiscent of tentacles, more than whiskers, their tips facing every which way in sympathetic parallel with the mouth. A smile and a scowl, repeated ad infinitum along each lip. A wave of conflict.
Reikuna stares intently between the lips of her own creation, seeking the Fugue, plunging closer with each breath to the edge of living, her intensity only ebbing faintly as she pauses to suck upon the small clay pipe held in her other hand. She can neither smell nor taste the production of the glowing embers within, but her head spins all the same, her brain rattling around inside a can as said can is in the process of being opened. Air rushes in, and Dendar's wail becomes more desperate, more personal, the penultimate siren drawing Reikuna into a fervent embrace. That embrace is beyond her, without her, and it sends her spiralling into unconsciousness.
The dreams come again.
When the woman awakens, it's in an entirely different setting. The floor is clean, her possessions are neatly placed about the room - which has been aired, and fragranced with something other than pure ozone - and fresh clothing is laid out for her on the chair beside her bed. Which she's in. Her head throbs, but it takes only a few moments of bewildered staring to remind her of what's important: her heart sings. It sings to the inglory of Dendar. With a rapid flutter of breath, Reikuna sits up and looks to the window - it's dark, and rattling with charms caught in the cool breeze. Lady Moon winks at her.
Creeping naked from the tangled sheets, Reikuna begins to pull on her robes of ceremony.
What a lovely night to spread word of the end.
[1,250 words]
No. A sleek bang brushes her cheek as Reikuna quietly shakes her head, keeping her gaze low as she steps swiftly through the trade district. It wasn't a desire to live, or be, just a mutation of the will to move forward. Transitional passages marked time wasting, farewells without greetings when you knew the conversation to follow. The setting sun is a nicety, a kiss from daughter to mother. Sailors do not crave the calm before a storm; they fear it, dread it, and chase it away with the preparations for a long and nauseous night. No, Reikuna does not long for rest or contentment. She does not wish for the satisfaction of another day survived.
Biting a curse in broken Kara-Turan (she likely couldn't tell you the precise language or dialect), Reikuna quickens her pace toward the lodging house set aside by her humble guild. It's far to the rear of lavish merchant fronts, of semi-decayed manors and towering townhouses, in a darkened alley secluded beneath the walls of the City of the Dead. A reek of damp hay and damper armpits strikes the lithe cleric as she steps from one set of cobbles to another, her calloused heel rolling to keep her balanced upon a loose stone. At the apex she half-turns her head, using the momentum to sweep the land like a wary prey animal.
Combined with her resumed stride, it all amounts to style her as a woman who knows what she wants and is most certainly going to get it. It also hides her unease as the sun leaves her back and abandons her in a new void - between motion and rest, between life and death. Reikuna sucks in a breath, rather enjoying the scent of man's decay after so long on the 'free and open road'. Nature is a comfort because it will always be, even in the wake of the Night Serpent, but the reminder of man... it's a bittersweetness, a taste-beyond-tastes that she can't help but find intoxicating at times.
Her head briefly spins, but nobody bothers her. Good, she thinks. Her actual companion is seeing to the livestock and presumably will follow shortly with her effects; until his return she yearns for no other. She needs solitude and shadow, by which to clear her head and commune with the Grandness of Tragedy. She niggles even now at Reikuna, not whispers these days but outright howls, warbling screams that promise pain and despair, loss and grief. Worse, Reikuna finds herself wanting it all - longing for the blessing of her goddess, for those blessings to descend upon others. It's okay, she assures herself, this is right and just; they will crave those blessings, as she does.
A delicate-seeming hand crudely thrusts open the lodging house door, a tiny mannequin on tinier strings rattling protest as it's dislodged from a perch atop the frame. It's no kind of alarm, but Reikuna knows it needn't be. As with so much in the mortal world, there is more than meets the eye. It lies like that, life, existence, curdling old porridge through yellowing teeth and proclaiming ambrosia. At least some of us won't choke on it, she rather grimly muses as she slips a steel-backed mirror from her pocket and removes the rudimentary ward beyond the flimsy woodwork and dangling micro-puppet.
The building beyond receives no more than a cursory glance. Reikuna knows who is here by the nature of her entrance - she doesn't need to speak with them. She heads swiftly to the rearmost passage, which is cold, dank, and leads to a tight spiral stairway (she trusts Feng will have no trouble navigating it, later) at the head of which is her Waterdhavian lodging.
It would be wrong to call the room bare, but it's... messy, and little of that mess has a purpose any more. Reikuna places her pack at the head of the stair and then eases her way out across the floor, beginning on all fours and then spread-eagling out as she stretches, slender limbs slipping between the cracks of rubble and clutter. She moans as she unwinds her joints, uncaring of the hitching of robes and mussing of hair, enjoying the brief respite of relief before she thrashes her frame against the floorboards, clearing a large space in the center of the ill-kempt room.
She can't remember why it's such a mess, and she doesn't care to just now. She just needs space.
Opening eyes she did not realize she'd closed, Reikuna finds herself cross-legged in the dusty gap created by her exercise. Tendrils of what can most easily be called 'power' lap at the fronds of her hair, unable to frizz the silky strands but lending them a curious, unrelenting buoyance, and the occasional crackle of static. Her nostrils are full of an acrid odour; Dendar's scent, her divine musk. In the cleric's hand is a slim, finely-carved wooden mask, the eyes hollowed out but for four curving panels - a small lattice, really - creating the impression of a serpent's. Filigrees of wood billow out from the cheeks, their natural whirling beautiful to behold - but eerily reminiscent of tentacles, more than whiskers, their tips facing every which way in sympathetic parallel with the mouth. A smile and a scowl, repeated ad infinitum along each lip. A wave of conflict.
Reikuna stares intently between the lips of her own creation, seeking the Fugue, plunging closer with each breath to the edge of living, her intensity only ebbing faintly as she pauses to suck upon the small clay pipe held in her other hand. She can neither smell nor taste the production of the glowing embers within, but her head spins all the same, her brain rattling around inside a can as said can is in the process of being opened. Air rushes in, and Dendar's wail becomes more desperate, more personal, the penultimate siren drawing Reikuna into a fervent embrace. That embrace is beyond her, without her, and it sends her spiralling into unconsciousness.
The dreams come again.
When the woman awakens, it's in an entirely different setting. The floor is clean, her possessions are neatly placed about the room - which has been aired, and fragranced with something other than pure ozone - and fresh clothing is laid out for her on the chair beside her bed. Which she's in. Her head throbs, but it takes only a few moments of bewildered staring to remind her of what's important: her heart sings. It sings to the inglory of Dendar. With a rapid flutter of breath, Reikuna sits up and looks to the window - it's dark, and rattling with charms caught in the cool breeze. Lady Moon winks at her.
Creeping naked from the tangled sheets, Reikuna begins to pull on her robes of ceremony.
What a lovely night to spread word of the end.
[1,250 words]
