Burning Needs (Caelum)

[Sondra]

Sondra paused, taken aback by the idea of alchemy. It had never struck her. "I- never thought of that. But I worry that what is at the end of the string... we might have different intentions for it." She resumed the pace of the living. "Though, the more I see of Zaital, of this old life, the more I pity him." Her head pivoted away, not wanting to see the reaction from someone she surmised would only find horror in Zaital's unquenched madness. Unquenched madness, as she spread the phrase around her head it sounded like a description of love. That word frightened her more than "madness". "He and I are both looking. Looking to capture all the 'supposed to's' that our lives ought to have had. But the difference is, I can adapt to their absence. He cannot. And that is the crux of madness." Not that she was doing an exceptional job of adapting, but she wasn't facedown in a ditch as most would have predicted. Sondra grinned suddenly, "Petch it. I'm talking like my grandmother. Probably some symptom of scurvy. I'm bad company sober." The Opal Clinic was soon before them, and Sondra fled into the receiving room. She didn't want to twirl anymore verbal nooses over her head. But Caelum could halo her in the freedom of dreams, merely by standing there. Telling him these rare details felt natural, like she had been writing him letters for eras. All her unwritten missives had actually been penned and sent instead of lost and cast aside. It wasn't so, though, and the reality of their acquaintance made her brace her spine against the untried intimacy.

[Caelum]

"Don't hang yourself with it," he advised. A frown twisted his mouth with those words, a caution that had been repeated too often; but this was a fallen creature, a busted and mud smeared thing that knew well the danger in being given a little too much rope. His frown loitered when she pulled away, rushing ahead of him into the welcoming embrace of the converted garrison. The clinic's foyer was lit by dawn light and hoarfrost at the windowpanes, limning the shapes of furniture in elf light. He removed his jacket, shrugging out of the worn folds to hang it on the curved arm of the elm stand waiting for that purpose beside the door. He stood there for a little too long, rubbing at his hands to massage out the ache cold had left in his joints. They felt cramped of a sudden, as if he been spending the majority of his days bent over, struggling to write out an impossible language. Zaital. "You are Zaital?" The words felt like frost melting on blue lips, bleeding over a bitten tongue. "I.. I didn't know that, Sondra." His gut churned with unease and the scars he should not have had on his back itched. He ducked his head and shifted forward, tilting his head in continued invitation for her to follow. He made his way down the creaking hall, peaceful and claimed by what felt of a holy dim. The scents of flowers and herbs, carbolic, soap and recently baked bread lingered "Why do you pity who you were?" He wanted to know, more than half mumbling. The weight of fire tinted hair shifted against the color of a soft worn linen shirt, half untucked, when he looked at her. He ducked into the kitchen a moment later, the heat from the stove staking out a camp against the winter chill. "It's rare anyone remembers their past lives," he went on, eyebrows still drawn, mouth still frowning. A crouch caught him and he opened the trap to the stove, using a fresh fag of wood to build back up the coals. The iron clanged a louder counterpoint to the beansidhe wail of the windchimes Cian Noc had strung for reasons of his own from the winter barren limbs in the orchard. "You must then for a reason," and he looked at her again, lit by flames and sitting on his heels. "The reason you're here." Hope clutched at his chest. "Food," he remembered, shaking his head and pushing back up to his feet. "I'm sorry."

[Sondra]

Sondra followed Caelum as he moved, shifting to absorb the setting. Winter was slipping off her, releasing her shoulders. She stood a little straighter and unfolded her limbs, warming alongside the dawn. Still cautious, her eyes cast about to every corner. An old habit borne of being places she shouldn’t. When Caelum spoke her old name, one foot slipped unconsciously behind her, the posture to take a blow. She had hoped he would know more or nothing. The way their dreams drew together, she had assumed he would see. There was unease in his slowly drawn reply. He knew enough to dislike the name. The calm of the clinic reminded her of Mura. Whispering healers and women with soft omens walking from one to another with soothing sounds. It made her scales itch. She always felt like she was tracking mud into those pale rooms. Her head bowed as she plucked at inner knots. Don’t hang yourself, indeed, she thought. Questions were loosed, but they were moving forward and she tripped over answers. When the kitchen took them in, Sondra found a corner where she could sit. It smelled of soil, ash and tubers. She liked it better here than in the herbal, stringent halls of healing. Only Sondra would smell medicine amongst flowers. The sound of chimes made her smile, it sounded like home and loneliness. “Caelum.” She quietly said his name with a woman’s power, the soft command of a mother, lover and seer. “It can wait for one moment,” she smiled imperfectly, “I promise.” Gesturing inward, she asked for a moment of pause to address the dread she hid. “I’m used to following omens and whims wrapped in Ukalas ribbon. Dreams, signs, calls. There is meaning to them. Especially my recent ones, they’re thick with purpose. After seeing you, they were even stronger.” Tugging on her collar, she showed tendrils of blue fire where Ivak moved through Glav to bless her. “Zaital in more ways then one. But I am not Lanzara,” her jaw clenched around the latter declaration and she checked Caelum’s eyes for recognition of the name. Her fingers released her collar and she shut her eyes, exhaling heavily. “I am merely his punishment as dreamt by Lhex.” Leaning back into her corner, she released Caelum from her unspoken request to be still a while. “I pity him because he gave his life to help a god and died in darkness. He traded his eras and his mind for hope.” She began to rub her wrist with her thumb, trying to ease the pain perpetually clenching her hands caused. “An Alvina of Sylir told me the divinity of peace and civilization could not rise again until Ivak was set free. Perhaps this is true,” she shrugged, not fully convinced. “And perhaps Lanzara heard it." The Konti's eyes raised, clear with honest searching. "Does the Unburning One still seem entirely monstrous then?”

[Caelum]

While Sondra spoke, he reached for her hands. He witnessed the nervous massage, the gathering and releasing of tension and drew her right hand into his. The tips of his fingers traced veins and finger lengths before pressing gently against muscles and tendons in an attempt to ease out the ache. He did this with his head bowed and listening, the hymns of dead men unsung between the syllables of her words. "Pity is a cruel thing to offer such a man," he said at length, thinking of other souls withering in shadows to assist the gods. He glanced up, coin bright eyes brief against her own. "Cruel," he repeated and released her hand. He reached for the other one. "I knew one of your relatives very well once," he continued in that quiet, deep manner. His eyebrows were nettled and the frown kept returning to his mouth. "An alvina of Sylir," he breathed and it was a laugh, disbelieving and bitter. It caught in the back of his throat, transmutating into a cough. "No shit," he concluded, "And all our bloody orisons." A lungful of air was dismissed and when he met her eyes this time it was head on, thousand leagues and forward. "Ivak is less a god than He is a catalyst, an agent of change. Destruction breeds creation, does it not?" He stepped back, the act reluctant, restraining of himself it appeared; and he turned to the stove to lift the lid off a heavy pot waiting on it. "No, Lanzara doesn't seem so monstrous to me," he admitted. Irony twitched his shoulders as he reached for a bowl and the ladle. "But Denval is besieged by a murderer and a strange power that is corrupting the gnosis marks of all gods. You were drawn here. As was I. Recalling two different lives and that appear on surface to be unconnected." The bowl of hearty lamb stew and a thick slice of buttered bread was taken to the kitchen table, set at the place closest to the fire for her. "But I tell you, Sondra. I don't believe in coincidence."

[Sondra]

He was near enough to make her skin burn. She felt fingers and heart heat working over her webbed hands, endeavoring to soothe the pieces of her she dreaded most. His memories flared and subsided with her gift, leaving a charred residue in her mouth and another woman’s name. Strangely, the latter grieved her more than the former. Meaningful words evaporated off her tongue, so her confusion could only manifest in looks. She remembered the power of Rak’keli’s mark, the compulsion to mend and gather, strong as parental instinct. She smirked inwardly, knowing there was petch-all Rak’keli could do for her. His calming gesture was merely the abundance of his goddesses flowing over. The Ethaefal's distaste for pity was a warning jab made heavy by his personal history. A host of creatures longed like Lanzara, stretching their arms heavenward, hoping divinity would clasp their empty hand. Sondra was still a drunk, stumbling about other's pains, even when sober. Pity was the nearest she had come to love with Gregoire. She didn’t know whether the emotion had sustained or eaten her. When his pity stopped, though, so did her spirit of sacrifice. Teetering Sondra, she chided, how could one see so much and know so little? Grandmother Eunoe would have broken the walls into cards by now and read the city its future. When the Ethaefal cursed she smiled slyly, and remembered the present. A mouth on this one, something they had in common. He withdrew to tend to the food, pausing in the retreat. The goddess’s tethers she imagined. She would thank her later for the farce. “No. No coincidences, son of dawn.” She added without thinking, “I saw you and I found you.” Catching herself, she draped her phrase with mysticism. The ability to spin Konti shyke had saved her ass on several occasions. “I should say other powers saw and found you. I’m the legs. Such is my race. More vessel than will.” With little dignity and childish drive, Sondra tore the proffered bread and used it to sop the stew. It was hot pleasure after endless meals of hardtack and fish. She’d forgotten the texture of something from the earth. Bread was stuffed in her cheek when she finally managed a sheepish word of gratitude. It was a curse to both be ashamed of charity and need it consistently. Eventually she slowed herself down, cautioned by burning her mouth. “You knew a Zaital once, will I like the story? Is he kin to the murderer here? Or the strangling power?” Sondra was plucking at the loom, trying to see which threads made the brightest pattern.

[Caelum]

"The gods are too flawed for all our vessels to safely contain," he remarked, caustic tone leavened by the steady lessening of her body's need for food and warmth. It unknotted his stomach and he sank, a mug of still steaming tea cradled in scarred palms, to sit across from her. "Even that of an entire race," he went on, lashes heavy in their veiling of his eyes. It still could not hide their infernal gleam, what with the daylight striking through the windows with all of the energy of ruptured dawn. "They have laid their hands on me a time too many, sin-speaker, pulling and binding me beyond the ability to maintain complete ignorance. They fill a soul instead with answers the questions to which are more difficult to comprehend than Virates' true will in the heart of Kalinor." The pad of his thumb rubbed at the mug's rim and the smile that threw itself across his face was knowing and unkind. "Depends," he admitted. "What sort of stories do you like? This one won't do well by a fireside, but it would suit a campire for the damned. I don't know if the Zaital I knew is kin to anyone, though to learn he is to murderer wouldn't surprise. Blood will tell, after all. He's an agent of change in a city defended by the god of chaos. It's a wonder Ravok hasn't deified him yet."

[Sondra]

The name of Ravok summoned an involuntary grimace from the Konti. "I'm lately from there. Swear it's got more mages than whores. Got a bit tangled with some." She blushed, pretty as the flesh of a conch shell, and hastily corrected, "Mages not whores." Glad for the distraction of food, she elaborated while looking into her bowl, as if it was a new kind of augury. "I was travelling with some too. Two were dabbling, the other...I was prepared to split Hadrian's head open, much as I cared about him." She chuffled a laugh, "Maybe it was because I cared about him." She looked at Caelum, her eyes sad despite the broken smile, "As you can tell, I'm a gem of a friend." Remembering her and Hadrian's last odd communion she blinked back something that hadn't the power or distinction to express itself beyond garbled pain. Was there anyone in her life that wasn't fissured straight through? "But enough on crazed Hadrian," she made a private joke aloud, betraying the disintegration of her sense, "Cradrian, if you will." She rested her hands in her lap, having scraped the bowl. It looked like the setting of a child: too uncouth to understand that it was supposed to leave a little behind. "Tell me that story. The dark one that means most to you." Strange that she deemed that the one nearest to Caelum's core. "I won't say I am incapable of being shocked, but I have had fair acquaintance with wretchedness."

[Caelum]

With hands clutched about the clay mug and shoulders hunkered up against the mantle of dawn, he stared at the sin speaker with an expression crossed by shock and wonder. "What game is this?" Words breathed out and he grimaced, every glory slathered line of him unaccountably earthly even with Syna's rise. Light glinted sharp as needles as he ducked his chin and sucked up air, squinting into the dissipating steam coiling off the surface of his tea. Then he was pushed forward, leaning with hands sliding across the table, perhaps leaving trails of dayshine on the grain, to grasp her wrists. The grip of was gentle, but fast. His muscles belonged to man constantly fleeting across the earth, trapped in an interminable nightmare of seek and heal and seek as if he were a forgotten remark of Marcus Kelvic. And wasn't that just twisted? "Cradrian?" Was what he ultimately said, Sondra's jest shattering the almost angry haze that had sizzled about him but remained unechoed in his touch. No, for when he touched her, it was with reverence. "Cradrian," he repeated and laughter exploded out of him, unexpected as a flock of great winged birds taking to sudden flight. "Gods, Sondra. I can't.. You know.. Aelius? Hadrian -- Cradrian Aelius?" He might not stop laughing until noon.

[Sondra]

The Ethaefal was shifting before her, twisting into various grimaces. Sondra was unable to hear the music that governed his dance, so his expressions made her wary. An internal dread began to pave the rest of the Konti with the fragment of Avanthal ice that was ever lodged in her heart. When asked of games, the Konti flinched with fear. Its transmutation to aggression would be slow, as she had slipped into a vulnerable state, some of her armor cast aside. "No game..." she murmured, still dazed by Caelum's change. When he took her wrists there was resistance against gentle fingers. She felt his hands give then softly resume their circle. Though the touch was reverent, it reminded her that, if caught in earnest, Konti limbs were easily overcome. An uncomfortable thought to one acquainted with the sins of men. His laugh broke against her face, widening her eyes. "Petch me, Caelum!" she half growled, "Is that all?" She exhaled, her head bowing and nervous laughter giving way to the genuine sound. Her laughter lacked the feminine music expected of her sex, it was a broad, lively sound with a silly lilt. "Yes, yes. Cradrian," it still made her smirk, "Aelius. I take it we have a mutual friend?" Always a trace nervous about nearness, she made to withdraw her wrists from his grip. It was a tangled piece of need, the desire to be both touched and left alone. "We met in Syliras when I was trying to con a bit for fortune reading. Can't read palms for shyke, but others don't know. They just see Konti skin and assume. Then tried to to throw him down stairs when I thought he was after me. Case you couldn't guess," a humorous cock to her mouth, "I'm a bit jumpy. Had to make amends fast. And hence an illustrious friendship was born. Or something like that." Her fingertip followed the wood grain absently as her glance faltered. She couldn't hold a gaze when talking about herself. "Shocking as it is, I don't have many friends. I like him more than he thinks. It's fear that makes me mean." As the conversation fell onto another subject, she was able to look up. "And Hadrian says and does some things that make me nervous for him."

[Caelum]

"Fear can keep us breathing," he smirked. "Even when it makes us mean." It was with reluctance that he released her wrists, returned the soothing metronome of her pulse to its solitude within and sat back with a stretch of long legs and the toss of an arm across the back of an adjoining chair. He shook his head in a splintering of sun colors while laughter loitered on his face, elevating it out again and brushing back toward divinity. "For as long as I have known him, Hadrian has walked a thinning line," and here his humor waned, drawing his eyebrows together with thought. "It is one foot before the other, but ever on a balance beam. Betimes he keep a pace to break his neck, too. I treated the burns on his hands myself --" A roll of eyes towards the copper bottomed pots hanging from the ceiling rack. "-- When first he was learning fire reimancy. He could do with a touch more fear, I think, to teach him greater caution." He rose to his feet, gathering up her empty stew bowl to carry it with him back to the belled stove. He did not ask if she wanted more, but picked up the ladle to refill it. He served and was undiminished. Amid all the arrogance his bitterness and often caustic commentary suggested, there was this. "We argued," he continued, quieter now. "Before we parted last in Syliras. You and I must have been there at the same time, Sondra. He was leaving for Ravok shortly, and I called him a fool." A beat. "Among other things. I told him not to go. I begged him not to and, yes, it is for that very Zaital I still owe you the story of." He turned and his shadow stretched across the wall, too large for the rest of him. "He is alright then? Reckless still, yes? But whole? And the friend he journeyed there to aid..." He trailed off and looked at her with an sharpened expression. "Was that you?"