Closed seek the beginning.

[Caelum]

Beloved, I have no illusions about the fact that my own personal history seems a bone-shaking sea storm in comparison to the mild spring days of some others who have lived and died here, yourself included. However, I feel bound to point out that I chose my way when I first came here, when I first departed your Goldenlands, and that the circumstances surrounding that choice run deeper than you can imagine. I won’t bore you with the details, won’t turn this into nothing but another twice told tale and one you, Syna, already have heard. But suffice it to say that in the midst of it all, I was offered a simple choice, and after my mind had been made up, I haven't had the desire to look back. I have heard it said that people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. You must have recognized in marking me through numerous lives and ascending me in my last that I was one who had already chosen a rough path so that the other half may find no necessity to sleep with one eye open. I am not young yet I still have much to learn, but what I do know comes from being taught that people, for all their flaws, are basically good and that that goodness is worth protecting. I have always rejected the god of justice, Syna, rejected him and resented him for enticing us with false promises should we bend our vices and break our backs in his name. I have resented him, and I have resented the naive and ignorant for preaching from his tomb of lies. I don't believe in his perfection, Syna, nor do I think that I would be invited to converse with Tyveth either now or when I finally lay down my sword in this life. There are two forces in this world, beloved, the sword and the spirit, and I am confident that the sword shall always be the conqueror. Though there are those who do not know my sword for what it is, you and I know the truth of it. And what's more, I don't fear violence, bright lady. Personal, private, solitary pain has been worse than anything anyone else could inflict on me. Even what you have in leaving me in the dark. So I tell you, with all your pretty promises, seek someone else to be the herald of peace. I shall fight for it at your side and die for it when you do. It brings me joy to do so. We are in no place to demand anyone should lay their armor down. Then they will be bare and open, ripe for a wound at their compatriot's hand. Lead us, beloved. Set the example, you and your divine colleagues, and show us how we, the mortal and the lost, may age with grace and dignity in the light of your sun and the love you share with your wild moon. It seems asinine to expect that we, the students, should be expected to do anything but practice the teachings of the gods no matter how flawed. Show us, lead us, and we will learn. Then, when we kill you all to set things right, we will have a fighting chance. That is a justice even Tyveth can't declaim. I remain, Caelum. 'Cause ghosts don’t die when hands take hands, and ghosts are not released. It’s ash to ash and dust to dust, or beast and back to beast. - Danny Schmidt. Timestamp: 84 Winter 513 V Blood was where he had to begin. There was no question as to the order of Caelum’s orisons when winter waned and his eyes turned west, toward the setting sun. It was the curse of his darkest goddess that held the most power to decimate all of his ambitions wherein the healing of his fellow dreamwalker was concerned. Did he possess more marks from Nysel, their beloved dream god, he might have been able to simply erase the horror-splotched spots of Kavala’s history that seeded her unnatural desires. With a single, murderous breath, he could blow the nightmare right out of her past like the pinching out of a candle. But Nysel did not love him enough. Further marks from Rak’keli, dark sister of Avalis and the second divine entity shared between Caelum and Kavala, could also have helped him. In the far reaches of the world aboard a pirate ship, and once even amid the dark canals of Ravok, Caelum had witnessed priests of the healing goddess alter the mental and emotional conditions of men with a brush of their hand. But Rak'keli did not believe enough in him. The grace of Caelum's first lady, bright Syna, had not dared to emblazon itself on him in the form of a gnosis. Not in this life. Not since he had been uninvited from her table, left with scraps in forms of hope and memory to try and do more than survive. He was not content with mere survival, no matter what mad odds the world's evils delivered him. Yet had Syna entrusted her power in him, perhaps he could have seen farther than the end, so far back the beginning would be new again and with such wisdom create a more informed course of healing for his friend. But Syna did not trust him enough. This was why he had to begin with blood. Nikali embodied all desire down to the darkest and most vile. No need was unknown to her, no addiction undiscovered, no lust not embraced. On sunset of the first day he knelt on the cliffside to pray. Blood dripped from his fingertips, spiderwebbing down the lines of his palms from the small, terribly exact incisions he had used to open up the scar tissue left from shackles long ago on either wrist. His enslavement had been brief, but his imprisonment had lasted an eon, aging the soul of him beyond recognition of even his first goddess. It was Nikali who, in coming to him at an end of the world in Denval, bound the busted pieces of him back together. Only afterward had Caelum been capable of actualizing the accidental ascension out of his forsaken state and back into the light of Syna's favor. It was upon this and Nikali's five fold blessing he meditated and therefore opened himself up to the whims of the wind. It blew through him and, for the first time since Zulrav had chased him out of Cyphrus a lifetime past, Caelum imagined it blew him clean. Sweet Rak'keli followed the goddess of need naturally, the transition smooth as the breath of her grace sweeping through Caelum's limbs until the incisions healed and new skin appeared. It was halfway through the night that this occurred, observed by Zintila's wounded stars. Lost in thrall, Caelum had not followed Tanroa's river and time had turned to little more than breath and prayer and, above all, determination. He knew that this wound could be healed. He believed not only that he could heal it, but that he might be the only person capable. The unique construct of his history and pursuits when coupled with the insights and talents both his own and loaned him by the gods compiled to become a man who could seek the beginning of his friend's most hated scar and root it out. Tear it out. And stitch her back up again. The sun was once again at its zenith, restoring her ethaefal from the wasting of the long night, he had turned to Nysel. The dream god turned his surrounded world inside out, pulling the bones from the earth just to remind Caelum that even Semele had suffered harm. Emotional and psychological wounds were as important as the physical and it often required shifts in perspective and an unraveling of reality to fix them. It would be up to Caelum, dreamwalker, to weave her mind back together again. The boom of the sea cried after Caelum when after nearly three days of prayer and fasting he returned to the Sanctuary proper and tumbled into bed. He slept for a day and, upon waking, finished packing his supplies and collected Kavala to depart on the Dreamcatcher for the absolute privacy of Reverie Island. He would map out his plan for her en route.

[Kavala]

The thing about winter was that towards the end of it, when the sun first started peaking through the clouds and the green grass was piercing its way up through the aging snow, the horses started going into heat. It meant a lot of planning on Kavala's part. It also meant penning up the boys. Kavala hated the time of year because she hated removing her best guardians from the herds and stalling them because she didn't want blood relatives covering blood relatives. There was some compensation done. For example, she'd gelded by and large the majority of the male Denusk two year olds as foals and instead of running them out in their own bachelor herd like normal, she split them up and divided them out into the mares for added protection.

They'd fight, get broody as the mares got moody, but in the end it was better for all the horses to have some of the bigger warhorse animals scattered within. And this year, finally, those first Denusk foals were technically two year olds and she'd use the uncut boys for breeding. That didn't bode well for her usual stallions, Ghost and Silk, because half the mares the new Denusk stallions would cover were blood relatives. In fact, Kavala thought long and hard about selling the pair, gelding them and turning them into warhorses now that most of their breeding usefulness was over. But in the end, she couldn't do it. Outside horses she brought in to augment the bloodlines could be first covered by the pair and then rebred back to denusk stallions once that was going on.

It was just too bad the mares couldn't be bred yet. Kavala wouldn't breed two year olds... she'd wait until they were three. So, she'd spent almost ten days with her studbooks spread out on her desk, each and every horses' file out, and making pairs with the stallions, reviewing good and bad qualities of the mares and good and bad qualifications of the stallions, and trying to balance them out. For example.. horses with shorter necks or weak tail settings were never bred to stallions with the same issues. They were given to overlong necked stallions and stallions with high tails. The goal was to have each foal be better than their parents. So to that end there was a pile that belonged to each stallion, and each mare got a card with her name on it and her strengths and weaknesses. The cards were then split out and given to the appropriate stallion's pile. It would be his luck and love life for the spring. Then, once every stallion had covered and caught every mare in his pile, the horses could start going out together again in one big herd.

The striders were easy. They sorted it out on their own and stuck to family groups, breeding outside those groups. Besides, Kavala could never have penned up a Strider Stallion. All she did instead is threaten to geld them if they covered a horse not of their own breed. And beings that she had geldings now among her striders, they knew she meant business.

So it was with exhausted satisfaction Kavala was able to get the breeding program up and underway with instructions to the groom and the rest of the horse handlers. The cards were all punched out, placed on iron rings, and hung on the stalls of the stallions so there could be no mistake. Kavala imagined each stallion hung out gossiping from their stalls, bragging about the size of their to-do list come spring.

And so that night after her final decisions had been made, she went to bed exhausted. When she woke in the morning, Caelum was there. He didn't tell her to pack. She didn't need too. Reverie was already fully stocked and was just a short sail away.

What she didn't know was why Caelum wanted her alone. She didn't ask though. She trusted him and together they sailed the Catamaran roughly a mile off the shore of The Sanc and tethered her up to the island. When they were debarked and sitting side by side under the pavilion on stone seatting lined with cotton pillows, Kavala turned to him and finally asked.

"What are we doing here?" She said quietly. The Konti thought she knew the answer, but wasn't sure she was ready to hear Caelum actually voice it.

[Caelum]

“We’re here to heal you, Kavala.” The answer was delivered directly, without ceremony or hesitation, and Caelum’s altogether too old regard met hers. With the siren sound of the sea surrounding them and the sky a naked sprawl above, cloudless in the morning light, they were both of them in their element. A breeze rustled glossy green fronds and the hem of the tent canopy, flapping it softly as Caelum weighed his friend and the depth of her determination, her will to come out clean on the other side. “The day I returned to Riverfall and walked through your gate, I promised to try and heal you. You told me you wanted the wounds on your psyche fixed because it sickens you, rotted out from the root that grew inside of you during your captivity." He sat forward, strong shoulders spilling into a slump beneath the cream colored fabric of his short sleeved tunic. Daylight bronzed him, almost glittering off of his hands as they rose to underscore and accent his words in familiar gestures. They moved with urgency, but not with haste, eloquent in their choice of he and Kavala's shared language of Pavi. "I said I would not do it while you were pregnant. The risk was too great. But now we have Relac and Ia'del and the winter was a long recovery for both your body and your mind. The hour wasn't right, but spring's in swift approach. I can almost hear Tavasi coming, heating up the blood in my veins." He smiled when he named the god of spring, mocking himself gently, but sobriety remained pointed in his stare. "As it is your wish to have the compulsion erased from you rather than seek a different sort of reconciliation, the only route I could conceive was to try and carve it out of you. You're strong, and I must be stronger. There is an herb I've cultivated and intend to use. This is going to hurt, and it's going to hurt for a long time. You need to know that, and that if you need to walk away, you can do so now. But not later. Once we've begun, we have to see it to its end." One hand fell out toward her, palm up and calloused fingers lightly curved. It was an invitation and he seemed as patient as the interminable pounding of the tides on the edges of this carefully crafted island. "Do you still want this? And will you trust me with it, with you? This is going to be very, very difficult, but I promise to be with you through it all."

[Kavala]

Kavala was in fighting shape now… that much was true. She’d worked hard the rest of winter and trained with both Anir and her brother to build the precious muscle up she’d lost during the pregnancy. Her skin had cycled back to its normal shape and even the massive stretched portion of her body had somehow miraculously firmed back up until only the very well trained eye could tell that she was a mother. Only her breasts remained full because they were in use. And she rather liked them bigger, for when she was not nursing they were nothing special. While Kavala had no real vanity, it was nice to be able to see a lover’s eyes alight at the fullness she normally didn’t enjoy.

But the whole truth was the stretch marks on her stomach blended in with other marks on her stomach, abdomen, thighs, back, chest… faint lines of history carved in her skin with razor sharp precision. Even when her son or daughter nursed their hands caressed old wounds that the Konti tried not to see. Most people didn’t believe the lines when they saw them, so faint and precisely cut into her skin with the sole intention of causing her pain. Oh, Kavala had bled, alright. She’d bled a lot. And then she’d suffered the attentions of a man who could not become aroused unless he was causing pain and exacerbating it by his unwanted attentions. Kavala was glad she didn’t know his name. She was also glad she’d seen him cut down by an Akalak sword before her very eyes.

It hadn’t helped that the enormous blue man that had pulled her from the slaver’s wagon cage and stroked her fresh cut wounds and shook his head with pity. He’d turned to a companion and gestured at her… “She’ll still be lovely when she’s healed up. I wouldn’t hesitate to contract her, even with the marks. Look at the strength in her body. She’s either been servicing them a long time and been fed well or she’s fresh caught.” He had said, studying her body like she was a piece of meat. He’d checked her over intimately, looking for the destruction of her ability to conceive first and foremost. She hadn’t wanted a strangers hands there, but with the events of those days of slavery, she didn’t fight when he’d pushed her back on the wagon bed for an examination, pronouncing her whole when he was done looking and touching. Only then had he taken off his cloak and swung it around Kavala’s form. She’d ridden into Riverfall on the front of his saddle with his hands wrapped around her waist against her bare flesh, occasionally brushing her breasts.

It hadn’t been her introduction to sex, thankfully, but it had been her introduction to the majority of the attitudes of the human race. But the marks were not what Caelum was offering to fix. No… the marks represented something else, something far darker in her soul. For the slaver that had made them on her skin had twisted her perception of pleasure. He’d bound her up until she was helpless then he’d cut her until she’d bled then cut her again over and over again, while raping her, until he broke something in her mind. Kavala knew instantly it had become a defense mechanism because suddenly the knife wounds had felt good. The pain had equated to pleasure. She needed it to feel whole and have a release. And it had ruined her for relationships since then. If a man didn’t hurt her, she wasn’t truly pleasured fully.

It was a confession she’d had to make to Caelum when they first started working together. It wasn’t something a healer who always wielded a scaple could hide from another that did as well. The Ranuri in Caelum’s blood made him feel the desires of others. And he acutely felt Kavala’s pleasure and arousal every time he picked up a knife that was sharper than a pigsticker. She couldn’t help her reaction, her desire, her need. He would feel it as his own. And so she’d quietly told him one day… confessed the issues to him.. so that she would not have to hide from him or exclude him from simple things like surgery. They’d managed to work around it. Caelum never gave in to Kavala’s burning need for him to cut her, bleed her, and bed her whenever he picked up a knife. In fact, she tried very hard not to look, not to think, and not to feel.. And he’d never tempted her past reason, often leaving the cutting to her or even working on separate cases.

So it was with surprise that Kavala stood staring at Caelum, her awareness rocketed back to the present. She figured he wanted to talk. She had assumed he wanted to Dreamwalk somewhere. She might have even been under the assumption that they were going to get a bit of time away. But this wasn’t what she expected … not at all.

Kavala opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again.

“I had thought we’d wait for your second mark so you could massage my Chavi and turn it off.” She said softly, looking up at Caelum. After all, she’d lived one whole life with a Chavi that had been altered so that she could settle into the Cytali as chief of security and lived out her life in ignorant bliss of being Ruv’na.

“I wasn’t sure it would solve the problems, but I was hoping.” She said, turning and beginning to pace. That was more like the old Kavala, not the wasted one that Caelum had been experiencing the whole of winter. When she was thinking, she was walking, moving, being alive. It was part of her fitness, a sign of her health, and a definite indication that she lived - as in her awareness - in her whole body, not just in her head.

A mired of emotions ran through her body though her face was absolutely blank. Fear materialized within her, but it was not the strongest emotion by far. Kavala was very often NOT afraid of things, even things she should have been. Then she felt an anticipation of wanting the pain, then hope, then darker things like lust and finally shame. Shame was the deepest of the emotions and settled the heaviest on her. It rode her heart and coursed through her veins.

She didn’t even try to hide it from Caelum. Kavala knew she couldn’t. He was the only one of her friends, family, or people that knew her secret. Even Vanator didn’t know. If she could somehow walk through the misfiring of her brain and come out healthier on the other side, she wanted to do so.

“Can it make me worse?” She asked suddenly, knowing her resolve was coursing through Caelum just as strongly as it was coursing through her. Kavala had already made up her mind, knowing Caelum couldn’t know the answer to her questions. They were just something she had to speak about anyhow.

“You are the only one that knows about this now. Ronan knew once, but he rejected me for it I think. Riaris didn’t know… no one else has ever known. Only you now. You and I.” She said softly, reaching up to cross her hands across her chest and rub her arms with her palms as if she was cold. Kavala wasn’t cold though. She was warm, very very warm, and studied Caelum’s hands in an almost predatory way. She wanted to try… very much so… and she anticipated enjoying it.

But there was something else too… something Caelum might not have thought of.

“This could change you. In trying to undo something broken in me, it could cause you more damage than you ever anticipated. You’ll know how much I like it, Caelum. And that can’t be good for you… what if you like giving that kind of pleasure to someone?” She asked, knowing it was a dark thought but one she had to voice anyhow. She trusted Caelum and knew he was smart and strong. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try to protect him even from himself and his generous heart.




Count: 1,375

[Caelum]

Caelum remained seated, longs legs stretched out before him and an arm sliding over the back of his seat. His eyes were heavy lidded as he watched her rise and pace, following the egress of her thought process with an almost lazy one of his own. He was typically an on-the-feet thinker himself, constantly in motion. It was half of what it was to be a healer, and all of what it meant to be a dreamer -- they were seekers and doers, fixers and changers. Yet in the moment he bided, listening to his best friend come full circle in her understandably nervous considerations. "It could make you worse," he conceded, but he failed to sound overly concerned about it. There was not so much as a trace of disgust or pity in his face or even in his eyes as he looked at her, eyebrows lifting ever so slightly. He knew what shame felt like. It desired to be gone, it wanted to shrink and make of itself as small a target as possible. It wanted to hide, to weep, to be filled. He blinked and stirred, shifting forward and to his feet. "And it could break me." He acknowledged that as well, as utterly unperturbed with that possible outcome as he had been with hers. His feet found a pattern, ambling closer to her. "We could wait until Nyself gives me his favor with a second mark," he went on, patient as the waves at hand, making music with the thunder of their destruction. He came a halt before her. "But we don't know when that might be, if ever at all. So I suggest, as your physician, that we try for it now, Kavala." He stood close enough he could swallow her wants, and will them to being like wishes for Priskil. "And if it makes you worse, I will try again. If it breaks me --" He smile was a long knowing curl, older than the rest of him. "I will heal."

[Kavala]

It was a lot to think about and a big decision to make. Kavala suddenly understood why. Caelum brought her all the way out here and wanted to give her the choice. He wanted to make sure she understood the costs to both herself and what it could cost him. Kavala reached up and ran her hands through her hair, pacing again, glancing periodically out to sea and then back to Caelum. She looked resigned, a bit frightened, but in the end, there was a lot of resolve in what she was saying.

“I feel like it would be selfish to ask you to do this for me at great personal risk, Caelum. I would put my life on the line for you at any moment. That is the kind of friendship we have and that’s how I feel about you, but this is a lot to ask of you.” Kavala said, looking thoughtful. “I can tell you are willing though, despite the risks. And truthfully there is too much on the line to have this thing inside me. Sometimes I wake up and wonder when it’s going to grow past me. I don’t actually know how to put words into what I am feeling. What I mean is… what if it’s suddenly grows or changes? What if I start taking pleasure from giving pain to others and not just receiving it? What if it starts controlling me and I get myself somehow into a very damaging relationship because of it? Well, who am I kidding? I’ve already been in several because of it. There isn’t just me to think about though. There’s the kids… not just Tasival and Ralac and Ia’del. There’s Lillian and Larik and Cadra and all of the Cytali too. This needs to be gone so we can be stronger and you guys don’t have me sitting here with this deep dark … thing inside me.” Kavala added, reaching up to fold her arms across her chest and rubbed her opposite arms.

She glanced at Caelum and even now could see the hunger in him that even talking about produced in her. She knew what that look meant and knew he felt all of her wants and needs acutely. She shook her head, manipulating her own needs instantly. She had years to perfect the art being around her sister. Her need for him to be happy and unaffected far outweighed her need to feel the delicious cut of a thin blade slicing her skin. She didn’t NEED that… she just simply wanted it… but to a far lesser degree than she wanted all of this behind her and for it to be a dark episode in her past she didn’t need to ever think about again.

“I wish you had two marks. You could just erase that time in me, Caelum… replace it with something pleasant… it was only thirty days or so in a cage. That amount of time in the course of years should not change someone’s life.” Kavala said quietly, and then slowly settled into one of the comfortable chairs to stare out at the ocean. “I don’t want this for us, but I think we all need it. Me most of all.” Kavala hesitated, and then closed her eyes, leaning back.

“I don’t want to owe anyone anything in this world, Caelum. It’s really important for me after all I’ve been through. But I keep thinking I owe you more and more and more as the days go by. I’m not sure why that is… but it is.” Kavala opened her eyes and turned her head slightly to meet Caelum’s gaze.

“When I was a child, I hated being a Konti. All I wanted to do was be human so I could be a first wife to an Ankal and rule a Pavilion. That seems like such a silly dream now, so ignorant and naïve. Now I wouldn’t change being Konti for anything nor would I trade the short life of a Drykas for the stability of a pavilion full of family. I can’t imagine living on the grass again. I’m too well grounded here. Every step we make changes us Caelum. Practically every breath, I sometimes think.” The Konti mused, looking like she would say something else. “I’ve been telling myself that I’ll be grateful for this darkness, sooner than later, but I don’t think it’s true. I think it changed me when it was forced upon me and I’m a colder more calculating woman for it. I don’t want to be cold and calculating. I want to be warm and rich and vibrant and live ever moment I have in this life to the fullest. How do I do that with this inside?” Kavala asked, her eyes roaming as fast as her mind was turning over the logic that was circling around in her brain.

“I can’t. It has to be gone. We have to try at least. We can wait, like you say, but it would be stupid and our enemies will exploit all the weaknesses we have. Best try and fail rather than never try at all. If you are willing, I’m entirely willing. If you break, Ill be there to help heal you if I can. I feel like I should apologize for it ahead of time, but you know? This wasn’t my fault. I didn’t ask for it so I have nothing to be sorry for unless you get hurt. We aren’t going to get hurt.” Kavala said firmly, and then turned to Caelum again. She nodded, decisively.

“Let’s do it.”

Count: 935

[Caelum]

“You will never be beholden to me, Kavala.” Caelum said this was certainty, bright eyes on her face. He remained standing this time, his turn to slump with indolent grace in the scoff of the sea wind. The troubled tide of her desires ebbed through him like a familiar shore. He knew the tug of this current and was familiar with all of the foot trails winding in and out of the tidal pools. They were littered with dark passion and ill-conceived yearnings, the sort that might relieve her for an hour but would steal off like a lamented lover with the dawn. It had heat pooling in his belly and turned his eyes heavy lidded and almost predatory, transmuting his beauty with the mirror of her into something dangerous and haunting in the bright wash of day. He could feel Nikali’s fingertips start to spider walk up his spine, but he had paved the path for her. He had laid in bricks taken from the walls of all of his gods, imbuing them with the strength and perception of Nysel, the saving grace and hopeful light of Syna, but most of all the conviction and life from Rak’keli. Rak’keli, help me. He cast his hopes toward the pantheon, mediating even over Avalis and Laviku as Kavala’s parent gods, Wysar and Akajia as the patrons of Riverfall that tied them, Yahal and Priskil for the matter of their realms and lingering a while on Leth whose battles he thought he might begin to understand. There were so many, he thought, and that he would want to have as witness to this. To be on their side, to be in Kavala’s favor. Nikali could turn out to be the key, but in order for that be he had risk a thorn choked road. A sigh left him, long and heavy. “I only ever wanted to be at home in this life,” he admitted to his friend, something immeasurably weary in his smile. He held a hand down to her, beckoning for her to rise and come with him, to trust him as he led her into the dark. “Don’t apologize to me for this. Never apologize for this. I understand what a moment can do to change a lifetime, let alone thirty days. I want to help you come fully out of that cage, Kavala.” When she took his hand and rose, he stepped forward. Tilting his chin, he laid a quiet kiss to her brow. It was a kiss of benediction, intended to bestow what grace he could before he led her by the hand to the steps winding down. Their passage whispered through quiet as they descended and their portion of sky diminished, the remains to be close guarded in his heart. The sound of the waves grew greater and they reached the chamber door. He pushed it open and stepped inside, releasing her hand to come to the small trunk of supplies he had brought with him from the Sanctuary. “You have a choice,” he told her while crouching before the trunk. He reached inside to lift a length of leather straps and set them on the floor. Next came a small, ashwood case. He thumbed open the latch to reveal an array of scalpels, glittering and razor sharp as the teeth of moon. “Of where you want to do this. Here, above, or below in the sea cave.” The case snapped shut and he placed the straps on top of it before tucking both beneath his arm and standing to face her again. His eyebrows rose ever so slightly and he weighed her conviction, believing it to be strong but understanding how greatly these things could waver in the face of immediate threat. “I’ll need you to disrobe, Kavala, and I’m going to have to restrain you. Make your choice.” And when she did, they would begin.

[Kavala]

The Konti simply stared at him when he said she’d never owe him anything. Disagreeing wouldn’t do any good, but there was a tiny Konti child back at The Sanctuary that said otherwise. And for the whole of Ia’del’s life and beyond, Kavala would owe Caelum regardless of what he thought and felt on the matter. She didn’t want to owe Caelum for this either, but a small part of her wondered if in fixing her – if he could – he wasn’t fixing himself as well. It couldn’t be easy, the Konti thought, living with her in close proximity.

There were surgeries they partook of together. There were knife fights they practiced with. Kavala held a blade in her hand every day, multiple times, and was intimately familiar with how one used them and how much pleasure and pain they could bring. And through Nikali’s gift, Kavala knew Caelum knew as well. It couldn’t have been easy on him. And for yet a second time that day she wondered why she hadn’t turned to drinking, fighting, or even other forms of release just because she refused herself this one. It was hard not having a lover around. It was harder still looking herself in the mirror and not calling herself the names she knew she had earned. It was one of the reasons she worked so hard. If she was working horses, she wasn’t thinking. If she was reimancing stone into a school, she wasn’t thinking. If she was letting Aweston half beat her to a pulp when they sparred it was because then she could be numb to all the things that plagued her.

The children helped. But what would they say had they been older and knew the reason Caelum brought her to this sanctuary? Would they shake their heads in disgust because of all the parts of her that were filled with darkness? Kavala didn’t really, deep down, believe there was a cure to her problem. Just like she didn’t really believe, deep down, she would be ever good enough to live up to her dreams. All she could do was try. And in the process she hoped this place of peace, this escape for her, didn’t become something else like a monument to yet another failure in her life.

If it did, she supposed she could tear it down stone by stone and make sure no one ever remembered she’d once built an isle just to prove it could be done. She’d rather do that, if Caelum failed, than let it stand as yet another symbol of her taint.

At Caelum’s words, Kavala came out of her self pity and met his gaze openly. “You can’t be at home in this world until you are at home in your heart. Neither of us are really even close to that. You seek something greater. I seek security. Both are an illusion.” Kavala said, somewhat bitterly, feeling somehow more free to let some of that which was trapped within her loose. This Kavala wasn’t calm nor collected. She wasn’t the wise stoic Konti that never let life ruffle her feathers. This one had a face full of shadows and a heart full of darkness. This was the one that could kill and feel no remorse and maybe even take pleasure from the blood on her hands.

She closed her eyes as Caelum kissed her brow and wished suddenly she could reach forward and wipe the taint of her off his lips. Anger rose in her, cool like the hottest fire, and she would have said more but he started to lead her away offering her a choice as he moved.

“Above.” She said automatically. “I’ll hide nothing more from the Gods nor myself. Down there, it will be even darker for what we do, and the walls will not be safety, but more of a prison.” Kavala said, convinced of what she knew to be true.

They moved then, going up under the Pavilion, but definitely into the light. Kavala slipped off her clothing, starting with her boots and then her weapons. She had more with her today than she remembered, frowning at how unconsciously she hauled the arsenal around. The blades and pouches that contained the darts and blowgun joined the weapons harness and all its arsenal off to one side. She pulled off her leathers and then slipped off her undergarments. The Konti wasn’t ashamed to be naked in front of Caelum. He’d seen all of her on many occasions. But such events were almost never in the light. Here, her scales glowed in iridescent beauty and the glow took away the detail of the etchings on her skin. Her gnosis marks glittered and even when the matching leather strap was removed from her hair, the cascade of translucent locks did nothing to cover her form.

“You might think you need to restrain me, and I’m fine with that, but I don’t think you will have too. You don’t understand how much…. just thinking about a knife in your hand….” She didn't finish her thought. Instead, she opened up her emotions to him. Kavala, having grown to adulthood with a sister who was marked by Nikali, was well practiced in schooling her thoughts around Caelum. But here, there was no reason to hide it.

It was like a wall of need, of pent up desire so fierce and so desperate, slamming into him. She held so much bottled up inside, always, so much that it surrounded him rapidly and threatened to smother. Kavala’s facade was thick, well formed, well practiced and protected people who knew her and even herself from what she was capable of. Even those parts of her that were buried even deeper assaulted him for a moment. Even the facet of Kavala that was the assassin Crescent, always the killer, was even then looking through her eyes assessing his weaknesses, wanting to see what the color of his blood was – not for the joy of killing – but simply because she was rusty and dissatisfied with Kavala’s front.

If ever there was a study in nature verses demeanor, Kavala was it. Her nature was a beautiful thing with dark monstrous tendencies, critical in its thinking and analytical in its needs. Her demeanor was warm, loving, nurturing. The two were absolutely polar opposites and constantly warred with each other.

And so she stood there before him, waiting, and yet not wondering what was next. Instead she was wondering if she’d loose her friend forever, revealing this much of herself to him.

[Caelum]

When Kavala chose above, approval shone off of Caelum. A smile slid over of his mouth and if she looked closely she might notice that it was tinged with relief. Caelum felt most comfortable underneath the sky. While he did not necessarily feel uncomfortable indoors, he was definitely at his best with the air and light around him. The Sanctuary's underground Within was not his favorite place, but he was familiar enough with it now that it failed to really bother him. He tended to think of it like being in the belly of Semele, kept safe by her divine body that had suffered so horribly in the Valtarrian. In that way he felt a sort of kinship with mother of the stars, though what he had suffered from and as a result of the Valterrian could hardly compare to her trauma. It was enough of a connection to make him feel safe Within rather than trapped or forcibly contained. Still, he preferred above. "Good," he agreed with Kavala simply, knowing she would understand. Once above, Caelum crouched in the center of the pavilion and placed his case on the stone floor. It held more that razor sharp surgeon's tools and assassins knives, but a few hidden compartments concealed some other items he had thought might potentially come in handy during the course of this. He looked up at Kavala when she said that he would not need to restrain her. A strange expression crossed his face but eventually he inclined his head in assent, trusting that she knew what would be best for her in this regard. Later, if all went well with his course of plans, restraints might become necessary; but he did feel that he should lay out his treatment plan for her, concerned that her doubts might grow to outweigh her present conviction. She had gifted him with her trust, and he would hold her with great care. She was precious to him. An exceptionally sharp blade was palmed in his right hand, selected from the array, and he closed the kit to rise to his feet. He barely had time to take her in before her shields dropped and a massive wave of desire crashed into him. Caelum literally staggered back beneath the force of it, grip on the knife tightening. It stole his breath and all of his senses and felt like a million moth wings brushing against him, struggling against the skin of him as they might the glass shade of a lamp that covered a flame. With any one else they would beat themselves against the glass until they were bloody and die unfulfilled. Caelum was not anyone. He had skin that could shift and slough, skin that was gifted him by divine hands as a cocoon for the fierce spirit of him. His flesh was immortal, but still merely a shell, not unlike an outfit of clothing to cover and decorate the part of him that was really important. More spirit than man, more secret than story, crammed to bursting with purpose and sealed with a promise sure as the sunrise. The moths were let in. Kavala's desire filled him, flocking toward his flame. At their forefront was that for his knife, strong and long stored in dark, secret places by an unending shame. Heat coursed through his limbs and passion climbed inside of him for an almost languid stretch and that much, at least, was familiar. It had been several years now that Caelum had dealt with Nikali's mixed blessed of a gnosis. Physical desire and passions made themselves at home in him on a regular basis, leading to a long series of trysts that none of his friends were actively aware of. Although he was sure Elise and Kavala were observant and shrewd enough to determine how much of his time was spent at late nights and lazy afternoons, he had never actually told them. That was on purpose. He was afraid of what he might see in their eyes. Yes, Caelum understood shame. For the first time since they had come back up here, Caelum really looked at Kavala. Even the iridescent glimmer of her scales and wind tousled fall of her hair moved him, putting color into him and tightening everything below. She was gorgeous, and though he had always known and acknowledged that, she had never truly seemed to desire him. In turn his respect for her had cautioned the rest of him from truly appreciating the strength and curves of her body that now practically beckoned him. Slowly, he straightened from where he had staggered, spine lengthening and shoulders adjusting for balance almost as in preparation for battle. When he finally met her eyes, his smile spread wicked and wide. He did not walk toward her so much as he stalked her, strides long and deliberate. The heels of his boots clipped a sharp staccato against the paving stones and his shadow grew out behind him, away from the slow ascending sun. He drew close but did not touch her, eyes moving from her face down the length of her body. He traced the pale shimmer of all of those old scars that had begun this, that had seeded it all within her at the hands of man. There was no pity or disgust in his face, only passion and compassion, want and hunger. His mouth skewed to one side, thoughtful, and he stepped around her, his arm brushing lightly against her. "We'll start back here," he murmured, his strange accent thickened and darkened with heat. The blade was flipped in his hand and he gripped her shoulder firmly from behind. He did not make her wait any longer to feel the kiss of the knife. He drew it in a slow and shallow line up her spine, taking his time as he moved it in some pattern only he must have been able to see. It curved and ascended, bringing blood to the surface to well and spill. He was a warrior, but he was a healer first. The fact that he moved up her body rather than down it betrayed this fact to the observant. Blood would follow gravity, after all, and if he tried to carve through its runnels then whatever all it was he was attempting to depict upon Kavala's flesh might be subject to flaw. He couldn't have that. This was going to be perfect.

[Kavala]

That smile… that incredible smile filled her vision and caught her undivided attention even as her needs sang at Caelum. There was no one more beautiful, more unearthly magnificent, and with a knife in his hand the sight of him made her tremble. Greed and want for him rose up in her like a sentient monstrous corruption. Part of her, the part that had always held Caelum on a pedestal far above her rank and file, screamed in pain and denial because it was like that goodness and wholeness was clamping down on the pedestal Kavala had placed Caelum on and was causing it to crumble. She needed him better than her, stronger, wiser, more immortal. But that part that demanded such things spoke with such a soft voice in the face of what he was doing to her standing there with that wicked wicked smile and that knife gleaming in his hand.

Kavala could almost feel his long elegant fingers wrap around her throat, hold her steady and still, while the blade kissed her flesh. Her jaw softened at the thought, causing her lips to part with a soft exclamation. Her eyes blazed with arousal, and heat flooded her body. Had she been a cat, she would have purred, rubbing herself against him. Instead, her eyes betrayed the small almost silent voice in her head and invited him closer.

Involuntarily her hand reached up, towards him, even as her other caught at her long translucent hair that covered part of one breast. She gripped it. She pulled at it, as if trying to give her lungs more room to breath.

He was so magnificent.

She studied him as he moved; casting a shadow behind him that almost seemed to be the Gods themselves gathering to witness whatever was going to pass between them. Her eyes roamed his boldly noting the scars and his gnosis marks and even the gold glint to his skin. She did not miss his arousal and longed to capture him in her hands and feel the weight of his maleness with one palm while she stroked the length of him with another. His eyes on her had that effect, because he claimed her beauty and did not turn from the fine scarring she knew he could see.

Kavala almost cried out in disappointment as he circled her, robbing her of the vision of him. When he gripped her shoulder, she bowed her head forward and pulled the rest of the hair off her neck, moving it to the front so that her back was barred to his will. She felt his breath on her neck and the firmness of his hand holding her steady.

The Konti shifted her stance, opening her legs to shoulder width apart – almost a fighting stance - and bowed forward slightly, invitingly, as if she wanted both him and the knife together in her flesh. This pleasure… this pleasure that was so unwelcome and so horrific had been denied her so long. She’d needed it, wanted it, even demanded it. But that it came from Caelum made the wait worth it.

The moment the knife dipped into her flesh and delicately parted her skin drawing blood, she forgot why she was there. She forgot her own name. She forgot her shame, her fear, and the isolation that came from being a Nakivak. There was no past, no future, only the here and now with his knife. It was like the cut relieved some sort of pressure inside her and the pain fired her center core like no touching of the hands, tongue, or shaft could do. Kavala cried out, gasping, and began to shudder. She drew in breath and trembled in pleasure as the blood slowly traveled down her back in one warm trail.

She started to whisper his name… “Ca….” but the whole of it and the sound of it eluded her utterly. The Konti arched her back beckoningly, inviting him to join his flesh with hers, wanting his hands on her, all over her, inside her, and the knife to join them. She started to whisper an exclamation to the Gods, but forgot who it was she worshiped, and why in the world she’d ever call to them when all she ever needed in the world was here in Caelum’s hand.

Kavala longed to see it, the bright silver mirroring the sky above Reverie Isle as it flashed in the sunlight before it bit into her flesh and brought the deep almost black crimson of her blood to the surface. The man who did this to her, who had made her so sick, had often kissed the wounds, playing his tongue across her flesh, and then he’d kiss her so that she could taste her own life force on her lips. She hoped Caelum would do the same, either with his lips or drag his thumb through the blood and then across her lips.

But instead of saying something, incapable of it in fact, she simply stood where she was and trembled like a small pillar of ice glittering in the sun. Her name was gone. Her purpose was gone. There was only the two of them, the knife, and his hands on her body. It was all that would exist in the world for her for a time.