[citywide storyline] inside of us.

[Caelum]

"You say that as though the medicine wasn't going to already include degtine," Cian shot back. Rue taught his smile to slant until the shake of his head knocked it loose. The bottles varied in height and shape, hue and material but were sewn into semblance by the exacting penmanship of the physician coding their labels. They went unread, however, location and contents long since set in memory, as he measured out a bit of lavender powder into a clean cup half filled with aqua leaves in a carrot colored liquid. Head bowed, long fingered hands were swift and steady as any warrior's on a sword hilt or captain's on a wheel. The hour Cian Noc's hands -- his calling, his sacrifice, his soul as they were -- began to shake was the hour in which Denval would be wise to shudder. "They're sick," he said into the silence. "Nothing whole and hale of soul could have done that to anyone, let alone an innocent and a child."

[Tabarnac]

Justus moved deftly to assist in the preparation, anticipating Cian's movements with an intuition that was darkly divine. He had gone through a period in his relationship with his goddess where he began to truly abuse alcohol, but that was past him. Now he was far too self-aware to fall victim to that particular siren song. But this drinking would be as much for a shared need of companionship and true simpatico as his personal need to hide from horror. "Sick," he mused. "I was going to say evil, but perhaps I am too quick to pass such judgments, being the dark priest of a misunderstood goddess. I suppose I could go out into the Unforgiving as a lamb to the slaughter, sate this creature's needs long enough to let in the cavalry, so to speak." He waited for his degtine patiently. "Bait?"

[Caelum]

Those words won Nikali's priest a sharp look and threw a wrench into the choreography of their work. The liquid sloshed against the walls of the cups, both at present balanced neatly as a juggler's balls in the palm of Cian's hand. It rippled with dissolving colors, the cloud dissipating with some strange alchemy to leave the concoction clear as glass. "Bait," he echoed Justus and blinked rapidly a few times. An abrupt motion pushed Cian forward onto his toes, his face kissing close to Justus and eyes narrowed with an expression hard as the diamonds choked forth from a tortured earth. "You been drinking without me?" He demanded. Eyebrows rose dramatically high. "What calvary is this you're expecting? Further," he dropped back down to his heels and grabbed at caps for the bottles, popping them furiously into place. "We don't need martyrs. Most times we don't even need heroes. You go ask your goddess what She thinks the people of Denval need and if She says you broken or dead, well, maybe She and I should have a talk. Bet She won't though. Huh?" The healer proceeded to fall into muttering to himself while tucking one of the medicine bottles into his friend's hand and grabbing up the other along with the bottle of degtine himself to turn for the door to the hall. Justus had apparently upset him.

[Tabarnac]

"Bait," he agreed. It made sense to him, but sometimes his ability to cut through the non-essentials to the heart of a need also cut through the ties that bound him to the rest of people he served in Denval. At times he was too mystical, and sometimes he needed to be brought to the primal present. There was a touch of illusion to him, some of it of divine origin, though few knew that. Most attributed it to his skills and the gifts of Cheva's dark sister. But a surprisingly strong hand caught Cian's wrist, and though nobody could remember seeing him fight, he was born and bred Denvali too. His arms wrapped around the other healer of Denval, the other person who could best understand the way life and blessed work wore a person down, stripping away the so much until what was left was hardly recognizable anymore. Perfection, it was written, is not achieved when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away, when a thing is reduced to its essence. Cian smelled real: blood, dirt, alcohol, sweat, sorrow. Justus was some unidentifiable blend of things that sneaked past attention and defenses, intoxicating and coaxing. "Let's get drunk, son of summer," he said quietly. "We'll need our wits about us in the days and nights ahead..."

[Caelum]

The breath that left him took with it the sharp, singing edge of tension within him as Justus wrapped him in exactly what he needed: a hug. Heartbeats littered the floor of time as he rested in that embrace, medicine and degtine still in hands but his head bowed for this brief while to a shoulder as strong as his own. It was good to be called what he was, to be reminded that though he had walked far and fought hard, all of what he had been born could but come up through the skin of him when god sized holes were letting all else go. "Yeh," he murmured agreement and with strength of his own, borrowed neither from divine friend or friendly god, straightened to offer a lynx smile. "Good idea." Their steps fell together as one, soft but echoing amid the walls of the remade garrison. They were weary, but they were undiminished. Such strides would find the way through the black storm building over Denval. Or die trying.