Time Flows Silently Away (Solo)

by **Aello** on March 28th, 2012, 7:03 pm

Timestamp: Spring 26, 512 AV

Streamers of golden light tousled Aello's deep brown hair. The color of course bark, coming away from the trees, like old scabs from the skin. The shards of light wove into her hair, lightening the darkened edges. For a time, she seemed almost innocent, sitting by the edge of the bluff, overlooking the sea. Her legs dangling over the water, feeling unnaturally heavy as they swung, willing the currents on. The spray of the sea to jump even higher as it crashed into the rocky shore below; so that for once, it may lick her. Have but a taste of the bottom of her boots. She glanced out at the water, sparkling with the sun's rays. Glistening really, as birds called lazily overhead, and the clouds ran to either end of the light blue sky. Like curtains parting so that the rest of the world may put on a show. She thought she could hear men grunting as they pulled on the strings, as the wind whistled to try and mask the blunder, while the sea, usually such a deep green coupled with a blue as dark and frightening as the night sky devoid of stars, rocked silently. Undulating like the fronds of grass surrounding the girl, in the breeze. Her fingers wove through the stalks as she closed her eyes and turned her head skyward. She could feel the softer fronds. Those damaged by storms, with fraying edges tickling her pale, aching flesh. The numbness of days past having been stripped away along with her soiled bandages. Stained with both blood and grime. Tossed into the garbage heap, endless piles of rubble. Trampled underfoot over and over again, until it had joined the decay. Aello ruffled her nose in disgust, as the metallic scent, roused by her memory, filled her nostrils. It seemed to circle the air, her neck, lifting her chin into it so as to force itself inside all the more. The aurist's stomach churned as her eyes fluttered open. As she lost the scent of the sea. She felt as though she were choking on the memory now, as she forced herself to cast her gaze outward again, taking it all in. Its endless sense of majesty. Soon, the dust had settled. Soon, the winds had carried it away, leaving only what had once been. What still was.

An uneasy smile overcame Aello's lips as she studied the line the sun made in the water. A nearly straight one, off to her right. Indicating its rise in the east, its birth, as morning overcame the night. The golden color, appearing a fiery orange on the water's surface, rippled as the sea tossed and turned as though in sleep. The edges blurred as the girl watched it, her legs coming to the end of their swing. Her head coming to rest on her left shoulder, as she considered her meeting with the ghost of Tanroa's follower the previous day. How the goddess was said to know what was, is, and would come to pass. How the goddess was said to understand time, how people flowed within it, their lives but drops in a larger river. How she was said to be a guardian of it, who oft kept to her clouds, and was not at all likely to interfere with the lives of men. Thus, it would be difficult to gain her favor, so that she may see what once was, and also, at least in theory, difficult to bring about the goddess' wrath and general displeasure as well. Aello sighed, sucking a breath deeply in through her nose, before allowing it out through her mouth. It came out in a hot wave; a burst that shot for her nostrils. It was as though she were smoking opium, far less intoxicating, all the more likely to incite deep thought. Troubled thoughts even.

Aello began to wonder if Tanroa ever did anything like this. Simply stare at the sun. How it rose in the sky, and then sank. Over and over, denoting the silent, sweeping passage of time. She wondered if she only followed it with her eyes. The tempestuous blues the ghost had described, or if her hands followed it too. Over and over, guiding it with her will to come and go. To rise and sink; opposite the moon. Or if she didn't simply watch, but instead, walked with it, to keep it company. She imagined such a thing must be monotonous. Tiring. She supposed there would be little to talk about after so many years of following the same routine. Moving along the same path, with the sun and moon. Alternating perhaps, so as not to grow bored; and yet, the ghost had said she was patient, and essentially, all knowing. Perhaps then, she couldn't get bored, and would go on this journey anyway. Each and every day, or simply most days, just to offer the celestial orbs company, something else for the lovers to stare at. Perhaps, she never grew warm, even so close to Syna's radiance, or so cold next to the dark side of Leth's moon. Perhaps being a goddess made her impervious to such things. Aello simply couldn't be sure. Not when she couldn't come to know her better. If she truly was like she, weak. So easily set aflame, or turned to stone. Icy as the heart.

A shudder shot up the length of Aello's spine as she wondered how the lady of time herself would mark it. How closely she would follow it. If she would use a method quite so crude, or perhaps, something slightly more advanced, like a sundial, or even an hourglass. For although she could not see any now, from where she sat, she knew there to be a surplus of beige grains littering the shoreline. Shells whittled away into oblivion. The backs of fallen crustaceans weathered away by the rocking of the sea. Thrown ashore by angry waves, to be beaten down by bubbling foam, and the relentless crash of water as it pounded its gnarled fists on anything within reach. She supposed the goddess could gather several handfuls of the substance, and craft a glass all her own with her power. Keep it hidden from all; the quiet keeper of time in that fashion. Or perhaps, she could somehow keep an hourglass so grand as to serve the lady herself in the folds of her robe; a pocket. Perhaps she kept it with her always, just in case the sun or the moon failed. But why would she? If she truly was an all knowing goddess, would she really need an hourglass, or even the sun's passing alongside the moon to know which hour was up? Which was about to come to light, and then fade away into oblivion? Was there truly, an implement greater than the goddess of time, Tanroa herself, for determining such things? Aello shook her head, for some reason she had her doubts, and yet, even so, she felt that Tanroa would still, have some sort of method, save for herself of calculating such things.

by **Aello** on March 28th, 2012, 7:04 pm

Perhaps it was not quite as crude as Aello had originally thought. The woman simply walking alongside the sun, each and every day. Shaking her head at the thought, she began to see how silly it seemed. For surely, if Tanroa walked the same arc, the same path with Syna each and every day, there would be a shadow in the sun. A sort of eclipse keeping the world from a portion of her radiance. No, Aello shook her head, that simply cannot be, there must be something else. Another way...

For a long time, Aello's thoughts wandered, until she came to consider that perhaps, Tanroa watched the endless ebb and flow, the cycle of the moon and its sun, from above. Far above, in the clouds. She wondered if she was perched in a lofty place, amongst the fluff, perhaps with the deities she held most dear. She wondered, if she calculated time, much as she did. Watching everything though, from a different place, or perhaps, walking above the orbs the others made. Silently keeping track of how everything flowed, from one edge of the world to the next. Even though she had already come to know. Even though she already knew how all would be, how everything may once again be doomed...

Aello sighed as she looked up at the sun, now high over her head. She could feel it beating down on her skin, warming her, as the gulls flew away. Oysters and small fish clutched in their talons as they circled the currents, heading off to their nests to feed. To them everything must seem so simple, a damned relentless cycle. Get up, feel hungry, go out to hunt, go back and feed, sleep. Over and over again. Man was not as simple. Neither were their lives, although at times, when everything was watered down, she supposed it could seem as though it were that way. She wondered if Tanroa thought it were so, from where she watched. Or perhaps, turned the pages of the book she had read so many times before; had memorized, word for word. She wondered if she carried it with her, or if simply, she had burned it, in the hopes of having it too, turned to ash, within the confines of her mind. But she could never forget, it must be torture to never forget, perhaps that is why she would always rewrite it, even if only in mind, and not on parchment. Scrawled with a quill that bled only black.

Aello's fingers danced over the swaying grass. She supposed it must get lonely, knowing all. Understanding all. Seeing all. She supposed the goddess would ache to have another with her. A lover perhaps, close friends, mature enough to understand her. The weight she carried. The burden she bore for the world and its many inhabitants. She supposed she would keep a small company, of the oldest and wisest gods. But again, she could not be sure. For always, the goddess would need to keep those whose realms delved into her own divine, would she not? And who could be any less tied to time than those who still carried breath? And those who lost it? Who else would be close to the goddess of time but her lady of death, Dira herself? And of course, her counterpart in the light of life, Kihala?

Aello gasped at the thought. Maybe her lady, who also would need to understand the flow of time, so as to know when to claim life, and ask Kihala to replace the old with something fresh, was close to the goddess. It would make sense, wouldn't it, for all three of the ladies, time, death and life, to walk together, wouldn't it? All of them, watching time, even though a mere one of the woman, was its true keeper. She supposed all three would need to study the sun. Its flow, the shadow it cast across the world. Like a sundial when it hit the lightning bolt of metal just right. The girl's eyes grew wide. That was it!

The girl cast her gaze out towards the see again. The sun which was beginning to sink towards the west. In her mind, she cut off the water's ends, forming a rough circle. The line the sun cast across the water, shimmering in the fading light, glimmered on the surface. It was a line, an iron hand. A demarkation. It was the final word. It was time. The afternoon hour. THIS must be what Tanroa sees from above, Aello thought, as she stared down at the water. She must look down at the world from where she walks. Studying each of us, small as ants, and know us all within an instant. Know where our cities and our seas are. Where the sun and the moon are, and when they'll rattle off another tick, another chime, another bell. She must look down at all of us, at all of this, and see time in everything. Its subtle flow. Perhaps that is what the ghost meant when she began to talk about water. Time flowing...

Aello's thoughts trailed off for a time as she thought of time's silent passage. The way it flowed. She studied the crude sundial she had created in her mind's eye. The way the sun's rays continued to glide across the rippling surface. To tick inaudibly, over and over again. Inching closer and closer to night. Aello's hands, trembling as they supported her now, having watched for so long, sank into the grass. Her legs began to swing excitedly as she cocked her head, and smiled. There was a light in her eyes as vibrant color leapt across the sky- blues, purples, yellow, pinks and orange. Her eyes seemed blinded by it all, causing her to turn away. But, she didn't want to. She wanted to gaze directly into the light. Tanroa's servant, for Aello supposed, Syna helped the goddess to never miss a beat. In a way, the goddess needed her, and Leth too, to show all the glory of her realm. The passage of time. She needed two to make the world understand how she came and went. What she was and she wasn't.

Aello smiled radiantly as she stared at the clock ticking. Her time running away. It all seemed so crude. Too simple for a goddess of her brilliance and might. And perhaps it was. But Aello couldn't figure out why it seemed that way. What she was missing about the water; for she had cut it off, instead of allowing it to flow to either end of the earth. To the beginning and the cessation. The birth of life, and its snuffing out. When Kihala stepped in to create, and Dira followed to silently destroy. With every god and goddess in between rejoicing in the center. Gathering to bring the world what it needed most, in the hope that it may survive. Tanroa merely being the keeper of something far larger than any of them could ever truly come to understand; for in the end, they all seemed to serve. They were all players in the larger picture. Puppets in her grand act.

No one seemed to know she was the one pulling the strings.

Aello glanced up at the sky, at the moon which was starting to show from behind the clouds. "Glorious is the shifting of your realm lady Tanroa," she whispered, as she finally lay back in the grass. Slowly, she pulled her legs up, and tucked them under her. Her arms coming forward, cradling her face. She looked up at the sun as it finally sank, at the stars that shimmered in its place, a soft silver. "Glorious is the way you have devised, if it be true." The girl closed her eyes as she stifled a yawn. "If I am truly beginning to understand what your messenger said. The words whispered on near deaf ears."

There was a long pause. "It's difficult to say, isn't it? When there never seems to be enough time. Enough to figure it all out," Aello whispered, as her cheeks rubbed up against her hands, motioning to make herself all the more comfortable, as she listened to the grass swaying as Zulrav exhaled, and Laviku crashed angrily into what others had carved out of the earth. "There never seems to be enough of you..."

And yet, you're just right for me.

by **Echelon** on March 28th, 2012, 11:21 pm

Adventurer's Loot

A Gift
Experience is it's own reward.

Aello's Loot :

(Beautiful, and love to get in characters minds. Again this is a great start on a road to Tanroa, but in order to merit a more well rounded display of her place at Tanroa's side she will need to show us an aptitude for Tanroa while she is doing other things, perhaps around other people. I suggest some threads with other players.) - if you have ANY questions or concerns about this grading, don't hesitate to PM me.