[The Temple of All Gods] A Question of Faith

[Hana]

35th of Spring, 510

The Benshira stepped carefully into the temple. The only bit of her face peeking out from behind her veil were the telltale blue eyes that gave away her heritage. She kept her hands hidden away in the pockets of her gown, wringing at the worn linen nervously as she made her way towards the front of the building.

After a moment of hesitation, she moved to sit down. A pang of guilt went through her. She’d been in the city for three seasons, but this was the first time she’d sat within the walls of the building. Her gaze moved slowly from the floor up to take in the place she was in as she recalled that it had been even longer since she’d been in a temple at all.

Ha’na was a shy, quiet type of woman, truly insecure with her place within the world. Insecure was perhaps an incorrect word. She was more… Unsure. Displaced. Lost.

She simply sat there, struggling for communication with a universe she felt so little connection to. It didn’t take long before she started to doubt this whole situation; she was always quick to do it. She felt suffocated. A shaking, marked hand lifted up to remove the fabric from her face and pin it behind her head as she looked back down to the ground.

She told herself that she would sit just a little longer, hoping to find at least some form of the peace she used to find at the temple in Yahebah as a child.

[Gossamer]

Plot Notes

The moment she stepped into the empty temple he could feel her guilt. In a way it saddened him. There was always an aspect to the Benshira that often lead to this emotion, especially when they were away from their people and out among the non Benshira in the world. They had to be treated carefully for not only where they shy of buildings, but they were incredibly shy of other religious views. There was no wonder, though, why this was. The Eypharians had done a huge injustice to their people in times past and it was all but a cultural memory now to be shy of new things, new experiences, and the vastness of the world.

He approached slowly. Dressed in homespun that was a non-descript brown and tan, Glav Navik could have been a simple worker rather than an priest devoted to the free worship of all things and the understanding and cooperation that often infused such openness.

"When you have hands that long to touch - to create - in a way that is both primitive and incredibly useful why in the world would you hide them? The same can be true of a face hidden behind veils that longs to experience the world in ways few others take the time to even dream about. You've traveled far, herder's daughter. There is no hot desert wind here. There is no dates and figs growing on what precious water their trees can steal from the soil they can only find moisture in when they send their roots deep. You remind me of a gilded leaf that has been blow far off course from the tree that shed it. Tell me, daughter of Yahal, why you've come?"

He took a seat then, casually, his eyes meeting hers. A stranger would have perhaps described them as completely bland - like the rest of him - but since Hana was used to touching things - pulling shapes out of clay that was not too vastly different in color than Glav was - she could see the potential there buried in plain sight in his eyes. Everything about him was built to be dismissed. Everything surrounding him was designed to cause the eyes to slide off his form dismissively and move on to something that was far more of a visual treat.

But she got the strangest impression if she reached out her hands, freed them from her pockets, and touched him like she'd often times touched raw clay... she'd have felt something completely different - something her eyes couldn't see. Warm as volcanic clay harvested from the source, precious as gold though still in its raw form, mysterious as the twilight that darkens or lightens the transition between day and night and night and day. There was power there, a great deal of it, and she could taste it with every inhalation. But she could tell it was banked, biding its time, stoic.

He smiled at her and reached out to lay a finger on her veil right beneath her chin. "Are you hiding your face from the world, child? Or are you hiding the world from your face?"

[Hana]

Despite the fact that she felt strangely comfortable around the man, there still seemed to be the hesitation there that was all too typical of the woman. She only held his gaze for a few beats of the heart before eyes fell downwards. There was more than the cultural injury in this one, something about her screamed that she had many wounds from her own history attempting to heal over the scars of her people.

She was, genuinely, scared of everyone she encountered. There was that deep subconscious fear that each face in her life would at some point turn on her for something she did. Something wrong.

She pulled her hands out of her pockets, holding up her black palms for him to see. She turned the right one slowly so that the snake branded there. The scar had turned more silver with age, and it was clear that they were old marks. She had been young when the crime was committed – judging by her eyes she was still young. It had only been recently that she had started to understand that perhaps not everyone judged with the morals she’d been raised with. Perhaps not everyone thought her past to be as shameful as she did, but despite that she still felt it shameful.

“I…” She started to say, voice no louder than a mouse, as her gaze tipped to the corner of her eyes to watch him. If he made the wrong move, said the wrong thing, simply looked at her in a way she deemed not right, she would run. She would run, and she would never come back. That was her story. That was what she did. She swallowed hard, willing herself to speak. “I look at them every day while I work. They are always there reminding me…”

Reminding her that she’d done something shameful. Reminding her that she did not deserve what other women her age did. Reminding her that love was something to keep a stranglehold on, because if it mixed with passion it would very well end up in pain. Deep, horrible pain. That was what she’d learned more than once. And perhaps that was why she was there. She loved. She was terrified of this fact, like a person freezing to death within walking distance of a fire simply because they had once been burnt. She let out a heavy sigh as she looked away again, the thin layer of fabric over her face moving with her breath. It seemed she was unable to keep eye contact.

The thought of love… The fact that someone claimed to love her, and she believed him. Well… She knew it wouldn’t last. She knew any day he’d realize that she wasn’t worth it. Of course none of this was said out loud. She hid her face; there was no surprise that she would hide the depth of her own psyche.

“The other day… I met a man marked by Nikali. He understood me – What I desired,” is what she said instead. Glav didn’t need to see her entire face to know that she was rather amused by what she was telling him at this point. “He couldn’t give me what I desired. He suggested I come here. To perhaps consult Cheva. It simply made me realize that I have spent so many years searching for peace, but… Perhaps I have searched for the answers that no man can answer – That only the Gods can.

“I love, and I am loved now… And it is so large and terrifying to me… So completely foreign like a new language in a new place. I would say that this is the type of love that has gotten me into trouble before, but… It is so much more than that love. So very much more…”

She paused then, looking down at his hand. Her fingers moved to deftly remove the veil from her face. The fabric was tucked and pinned away. What she was hiding was beauty. Beauty that she felt others had taken advantage of in the past, using her for their own means. Beauty that had caused her nearly as much grief and suffering as her passion. But she didn’t realize she was beautiful, or at least she didn’t believe it despite portraits of her sitting in Eypharian nobles’ homes with her depicted as various humans from myth.

“I don’t care to be looked at,” she said quietly. “I don’t care to have attention turned towards me… It makes my stomach hurt.”

[Gossamer]

Glav looked thoughtful. He said nothing for a long long time. In fact, he took such a long pause that the silence drew onward, awkwardly, long past any decent semblance of a break in conversation. For a creature of peace, he moved quickly. Glav snagged her hands in his own and pulled them fully into his view. He pulled them so close in fact that her arms outstretched and her sleeves pulled back, revealing all of the ink.

Yet he was gentle as he did so. And at his touch, even more peace settled into her soul, calming her, setting aside her fears. It wasn't to last, of course, not beyond the doors of the Temple or even beyond his presence. But it was there, nonetheless, in that instant.

"Cheva can't help you. No one can. Not at least if you seek divine help. Look, Hana. Look at your hands." He did something then, so that he released his grip on the very tips of her fingers for a moment and readjusted his hold. His hands now held her fingertips and yet cupped like he'd just dipped them in water and lifted them with the palms full of liquid. The ink bled off her wrists, so too did the serpents, until it dripped down her fingertips and into his palms, pooling there and leaving her hands bare. They were familiar hands, the hands of her youth, unstained by the sin of her walk into womanhood. Inside his hands, cupped in his palms, the ink swirled like living snakes, writhing and eager to seek out her skin again.

Glav met her gaze, holding her sins in his hands, and smiled slightly. "Cheva cannot help you because you hold no love in your damaged heart. This man who has reawakened feelings in you is worthy of love, but you do not truly understand the concept, Hana. I am sorry, but it is as clear to me as the ink stained on your hands is to you." Still he held her hands, holding the ink cupped in his palms. "Cheva can cause love to blossom and spread, easing pain and reinforcing the light, but you must have it before she can help." He bowed his head then, slowly, and the ink rose up like a living thing from his palms and spread across his fingers, inundating her digits once more,s preading across her hands, and up into the familiar patterns. He released her hands then, his own free of inkstain, and took one last look at them.

"Deep inside you the seed lies buried, Hana. It is one that has lain dormant since you left childhood behind. It bloomed then, when you were freer and not so wise to the ways of the world. It was the last time the plant grew within you... and what is left of it is the last seed it ever produced. It needs to be nurtured, planted, and grown. Only then, Hana, will you be able to truly give love to another person. Only when you can take off your veil and show your face proudly to the world. The seed is love, Hana... but a very special kind of love. It is the love of self. You must love yourself before you can love others. And in loving yourself, you must forgive yourself. That is a very special process, Hana. For you must sit down at your potters wheel and revisit all your mistakes in your life. You must look at each and every one of them and understand why you made them and who's fault they truly were. Then take clay, stuff from the very body of Mizahar itself, a special kind you have mixed yourself and throw it. Shape it into a vessel. Only you will know what kind and how.... but the important part is that as you shape it, release your sins into the clay. And remember, your sins are not of the flesh but of the soul. They are sins against your very being. Your loathing, anger, judgment, and hatred of self. You must sterilize the soil of your soul if you want love to grow. And you must trust me... that this is the right thing to do. The best thing." He paused then, reached up and touched her forehead, and then spoke again.

"You might not get it right the first time. It might take a single day. It might take a single year. But you will know when you get it right. The evidence will be clear. Then bring me back the vessel you have wrought. And then we will talk again of Cheva and the things that might still burden your soul." He said softly, dismissively, then waited.

[Hana]

In the split second before peace washed over her, Ha’na had flinched and tried to pull away. She hadn’t meant to, but it gave away one of her secrets. Someone had put their hands on her. Someone had hurt this woman. That was not to say she thought he would cause her harm. It was just a survival mechanism that kicked in before her mind remembered she was human and in control of the situation.

She studied her hands, realizing that without the ink there, she hadn’t remembered what they looked like. While the peace was there she still teared up slightly, her body nearly ripping at the seams to release whatever poison she’d carried around in herself over her marks and scars.

She looked up at him when he began to speak, and kept her eyes on him in a manner she’d not before. Whether the peace brought bravery or she simply didn’t wish to see her palms sitting firmly in reality was up in the air. After a moment of simply peering at him, she finally said softly, “I don’t fully agree with you.”

She swallowed as if it took all of her strength to say that; however, in that moment she let him see a quick window of the woman she truly was when not overcome with her fears and pain. The woman she forgot she was.

“But perhaps we have a different understanding of the very same thing… You spoke of me being a herder’s daughter, but I am not…” She offered a shy little smile. “My family grew olives. In the desert, it is nearly impossible to grow from a seed purposefully, and even if you do manage to grow a seed into a tree, there is no promise that the olives that come from it will be the kind you care to eat…”

Still her eyes did not leave him, there was a strange little twinkle in the depths of their blue – Something alive hiding behind the pain she carried. Something bright and brilliant.

“What you do to ensure that a tree bears the olives that are desirable, you must graft onto the wild undesirable trees. So you attach a few branches from a good tree onto the old one. You tend to them. When new branches from the old tree grow, you cut them off so that the grafted ones may thrive.” She nodded, hoping that her Common was not failing her getting across what she was trying to say. “To say I cannot experience love in the state that I am in is to place me into the realm of animals that seem incapable of the emotions that we humans hold as our own. I am not an animal. I love. Perhaps I cannot love fully to the depths others who have not traveled in the manner I have, but I can still love. My new love, sir, is a grafted branch on a tree that cannot bear the fruit that others so desire. As the wild tree still produces olives, I still produce love.

“What we, what I wish to do is take the grafted branches and grow something new. These old wounds are the branches of the old tree, and in order for the new to survive, yes, I must strip them away otherwise they will force the grafted pieces to be rejected. It takes a small miracle to grow a seed in the desert, and I am tired. I refuse to swim across a river when there is clearly a bridge next to me. So, yes, I will take your advice. I will agree to do what you tell me to do, because I want something worthy of my care… But please, do not insult me by telling me I am not capable of understanding love in the state I am in ever again.”

And with that little monologue given, she peered at him for a moment longer before her eyes finally fell away once again. Behind the veil was a fighter even beyond the blush that had suddenly filled her cheeks.

[Gossamer]

Glav bowed his head slightly, acknowledging her disagreement. He wasn't one to grow upset at willfulness or a differing opinion. But, he was a good listener. That wasn't to say those he listened to always appreciated him, for his advice was not always easy to hear. But he was a great observer of words and actions, paying close attention to what was said and what wasn't said. So the flinch did not go unnoticed. Unfortunately, it didn't make her special. Most everyone, especially women, lived in a dangerous and dark world full of things that Glav fought on a daily basis. Sometimes the monsters were real and wore the forms of men. Sometimes they were personal demons and a woman's own headstrong action. Because her hands were black, stained with the ink of Benshira adultery, Glav could make a guess for himself and feel pretty accurate about it. Slowly, the peace he offered withdrew. She seemed to have no heed of it, nor indeed need.

"My pardon. I misunderstood. I took you for a Benshira. They are all sons and daughters of Yahal, who indeed is known to some as the herder, for his quiet strength and ability to survive and adapt is formidable. It is with pride we refer to him as such. I was not referring to your worldly sire. But again, I must be wrong. My apologies. Usually Yahal's stamp on his children is strong and easy to read. I have misread you." He smiled then, a humble apologetic smile, and let her vent her thoughts upon him as he sat motionless and took in her words.

He was silent a long time after she was through. He did not miss the warriors spirit within her. It did not surprise him however, for every living human post Valterrian had to be a survivor and a fighter in order to thrive in the world they found themselves in. The timid and easily cowed soon fell to predation, in whatever form it took. There was virtually no civilization left - no peace.

When he finally spoke, it was perhaps five chimes later. He left her sitting there, studying him behind her veil as he remained silent and thoughtful. "Your metaphor of the olive tree is interesting. I also find it fascinating that you would equate yourself to a humble tree but find offense at being precieved as being classified as an animal. Animals feel emotions. In some cases, they feel greater emotions than humans ever could. Some of them are far more intelligent than humanity could ever hope to be as well... though we all classify them as animals. I did, however, in no way equate you to one. I only said simply that you hold no love in your damaged heart. You have to understand love to truly keep it inside and nourish it." He said simply. It could be taken as an insult. But truthfully he meant it more as a statement of fact.

"You came here as a seeker on someone else's advice. I would consider that person wise because there is help to be had here. But if you are unwilling to listen, or only to listen conditionally, there is very little I can do for you. You are too quick to take insult where none is meant. And you do not seem to be willing to listen, because your defensiveness deafens your ears. Nor, I fear, will what I have suggested work with you - the casting of the vessel. You are not ready, nor might you ever be. Though I have hopes for the future. I have a good relationship with Yahal. His laws have always been wise, for all that you reject being his daughter." He said softly, almost sadly. The Benshira people were wise. They did not cast others into the light of adultery without cause. It was one of their strictest rules. If no one forced her to agree, then she wore the ink deservingly.

Glav was willing to give everyone aid. He was willing to let them start anew and change the course of their lives if they wanted too. But in order for them to do so, they had to trust him... and not be so harsh on their judgment of him or what he said.

"Besides, it sounds as if you already have a plan. Which is a good thing. Often one can accomplish on their own things of greatness if they simply have the will to see them through. It is best if they do them without intervention or help for it makes them stronger in the long run. However, that being said, you must first understand a thing to embrace it. Remember that. Because I specifically said you hold no understanding and I mean that." He smiled then, a small smile of sadness and paused once more to hear what she had to say.

[Hana]

Her spirit recoiled into itself as the peace was withdrawn, wound tightly around her, and almost seemed to threaten to strangle her. On the outside, to an untrained eye at first glance, she was placid. The only signs that something was wrong was the distance her gaze held or the way she dug a fingernail or two into the palm of her curled up fist – As if the pain would keep her from fleeing her body.

There was no doubt that she was listening. Her head canted in a manner that drew her ear closer to his words. She wasn’t fighting his message. She was fighting her own reactions; she was fighting herself. The back of her throat burned, and she willed her eyes not to fill with water.

When he was done speaking, she gave the faintest of nods, saying quietly, “I’m sorry. I feel as if I’ve wasted your time, sir… I will only sit here for a moment longer, if you don’t mind.”

[Gossamer]

Glav nodded. "I don't mind. I have a great deal of time. It is your kind who carefully minds their chimes and bells." With that he rose, gave her a humble bow, and resumed the task he was diligently working with when she'd came into the chapel.

. Character: Hana Experience: 1 XP Rhertoric Lore: Glav Navik (Made in Introduction) Additional Note: Nice metaphor. .