[flashback] rare books (caelum & hadrian)

[Hadrian]

13th Winter, 506 A.V.

Phaleron's shop seemed deceptively small from the outside, but it went deep into the city block, with additions above and below for the preservation and sale of rare books. Scrolls, maps, folios, books... the place was a treasure trove for those in the know. It was rather dark, but the strange lamps were interspersed regularly throughout the stacks and tables and archival shelves, burning a kind of light least likely to damage the books over time, but killing the most humidity that might encourage rot and mildew.

Hadrian was home for his first vacation from the University at Zeltiva, a birthing-day present in his hot little hand -- a bank draft from Quaestor, his father's comptroller. The son of the merchant prince was soberly dressed so as not to attract attention, both for his safety and to sneak out from under the watchful eye of Praetor and the rest of the family guards.

He had become accustomed to a new freedom away from Syliras and his family, and he was going to keep as much of it as possible while visiting.

After greeting him warmly, Phaleron had left him to his own devices, knowing from experience how many hours the lad was likely to while away in his shrine to the written word. It was only a matter of time before he chose his prizes.

[Caelum]

Impractical. Impossible. These were the words that haunted him, striking like hammers against the bell of his consciousness until it echoed and tolled with denial and self-doubt. Regardless, the seven years in which he had so far been condemned to this earth he had spent seeking the same impractical, impossible end.

It had driven him from one end of the world to the other, criss-crossing through cities and back again so long as the road did not force him to pass through the Grasslands that plagued his dreams with aching, broken memories. He had never been capable of shaking the idea that therein waited for him something horrible, some fresh torture for an already raw soul.

It would be to Nyka next when winter's turn was half over. Fasolt had tipped him that way before vanishing into the wilderness again; but Caelum sincerely hoped to find something at least here in Syliras.

Truth was, he did not expect to. Bits and crumbs like broken mana, scattering not a straight path anywhere but zig-zagging and as entangled as a drykas knotwork telling the tales of all the world.

He glanced up from the heavy tome presently before him, sprawling over the table as if it was loose with it's secrets as a whore was with her charms. The queer light slid across the vibrancy of his frozen coloring, trapped interminably between the dying season and the dead one they were now in.

"What's that there?" He spoke up, shaking off his usual silence to address the young man nearby. There was something familiar about the book in the stranger's hands.

[Hadrian]

The lad blinked chlorine blue eyes at the Ethaefal questioning him, wondering how he could have missed one of the holy entering his presence, but such was the draw of knowledge. Something inside him reacted to the numinous Presence of someone decidedly more than human, even if exiled to the human realm.

It took him a moment to find his tongue.

"I, ah... I was looking for more information about the gnosis of Syna and Leth, but this one is about... you." He held it up, the leather-bound book cradled like a child in his arms. "Leth's Wounds, by Averly the Sojourner."

[Caelum]

The ethaefal stared steadily back at the young man for a long minute. Eventually he straightened from his hunch over the book only to slump back, rangy shoulders hunkering down. A cant of his chin beckoned the young man closer.

"Let me see it."

[Hadrian]

He couldn't rightly refuse a perfectly reasonable request from the ethaefal. Though his sudden renewed interest in gnosis lore might suffer for losing the book, his quiet quest for a gnosis mark of his own would certainly suffer for angering a celestial being, even one who was stuck here.

Coming forward, he carefully shut the book and held it out, trying not to stare. Nobody appreciated that except circus folk and whores. The book was reinforced with brass bindings; not an original, but an old copy. To Hadrian's mind, an authentic book was all well and good, but it was the quality of the content that interested him more.

"Here you are," he offered.

[Caelum]

A curt nod would pass for gratitude as he accepted the book, turning it over in weathered hands. It was opened with a reverence that in him was often fickle, an ancient well threatening to dry up beneath what had become the battering rather than the blanketing of the sun. Bitter bark hair, liberally streaked with auburn, bladed down, parting over the elegant sweep of horns that in this light seemed to have the hue of iodized copper when he bowed his head.

"What causes you to be so interested in the gnosis marks of Leth and Syna?" The language in his mouth was as ever wrong-sized, as awkward to him as that he now scanned in the pages of the Leth's Wounds. It was as rough as the hands of man against the hands of time, he thought, and shook his head at a particular passage. "Wise," he read aloud. "Scraps of wisdom spat from the sky." Derision scraped the edges of his words.

[Hadrian]

"Is it wrong to want a personal relationship with the gods?" he asked, his polite question resonating with an undertone of 'I should think you of all people would understand.'

Religion was a strange, come-as-you-are sort of thing in his family. They were regular in their devotions, but Hadrian had always wondered what it would be like to be marked out as special to a deity, to transcend one's existence. When his existential questioning had begun, his tutors and family had just shaken their heads and tried to steer him along more materialistic lines. But now at university, he was able to expand his studies and old desires were rekindled from banked fires.

[Caelum]

"To declare something wrong you must first define wrong," Caelum responded mildly. Those sun-blasted eyes never left the scrawl of ink on vellum, pages flickering with a rustle like moth's wings beneath his hands. "Wrong how? Wrong as in an immoral path? Wrong as in an inadvisable quest? Wrong as in the level of your worth to begin such an endeavor? What are your reasons? Why do you want to form a personal releationship with a god?"

The book was closed, abruptly, in his hands. The sound, though small, was yet loud in this otherwise quiet sanctuary. A hard expression twisted his mouth, eyes narrowing upon the young man.

"To do so for personal gain is wrong. Gnosis marks," a soft, dismissive sound, "As if they are the beginning and the end of a god."

[Hadrian]

"I think," he said carefully, "that this world is a testing ground... that... like a vale of soul-making, where we evolve toward godhead. I'm just trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do with my life."

He shrugged. That was probably giving away too much, but it was a common enough insecurity.

He wanted knowledge, and then wisdom. Power was a likely by-product, and he wasn't adverse to power, but it wasn't the goal. At least, he didn't think it was. The powers of self-delusion were strong, though, he knew.

He smiled wryly. "You don't happen to have all the answers, do you?"

[Caelum]

"You don't happen to have all of the questions, do you?" The instant rebuttal. An eyebrow crawled up and it was, perhaps, near impossible to tell, but he warmed towards the young man with that wry smile and honest words. "People always claim to want answers, but then they are ill prepared to form the appropriate questions. A person asks, why? And is disappointed when the answer comes, why not? You see?"

A shrug ghosted through narrow shoulders, head bowing over the book again, and he sank into a stillness typically reserved for wild things.

"While you worry about what you should be doing with your life, your life is happening," he said finally. It held no small element of sorrow, as if he spoke of things deeper than these rough words uttered. An abrupt shake of his head shattered a malformed thought and he offered the book back out.