Gods, Guards, Titans, and Poets? What is going on?

[Ricky Maze]

Ricky's face showed a definite fear of the unknown as the tree revealed itself as a child, the wisdom she passed on provided a sense of foreboding doom that only omens could bring. Titus' reaction to faith in deities came as no surprise, for a while Ricky himself fell into the same pit of doubt. He even questioned Laviku for a while, and he only had a simple understanding of the Sea God. Yet to rely on other dieties, what others out there did he need to pray and give faith to? What other God or Goddess did he need to devote himself to? Would they give him the ability he needed to protect everyone that mattered to him?

Ricky's face still showed fear but within the fear hope seemed to bloom, a possible chance to bring more safety to his friends. If he could protect them all, save them from anything that endangered them, then he would give his spirit for such a gift. "Which god?! What god will help be save her, save everyone from any threat that exists?! What must I do to protect them all?"

[Philomena]

The little child, hollow-faced and emaciated in her thing shift pulled her braids behind her ears, and closed her great broad eyes, then reopened them. Behind one there was a shape. She reached into her eyes and pulled the shape out - a bone-handled penknife. In the strange logic of a dream, this happened quietly, and without magic. Her eye was gone, and in its place, the hollow, with the blade. And then the blade was in her hand. And then, she whistled, low and hollow, raising her arm.

A great clattering, came through the sky, like the flapping of a thousand birds, and over head, of a sudden, a great flight wings overpowered the lowering air, heavy and dark masses of blue=black feathers, blocking out the sea. Her tiny child's arm waited, and single bird, a tiny brown wren, an old grandmother of the Zatuska foothills, came and settled, tiny, almost weightless on her arm. She reached to its tail, and genlty, plucked a single feather from its tail, it flew back into the sky, but the cloud of birds did not leave, the beating wild movements of their wings so violent, that it stirred Minnie's hair, her unblinking eyes, one still filled, the other hollow, staring at the two men. She took the pen-knife, cut the feather into a tiny pen. Then, with no hesitation or hesitation, drew the knife across her wrist, and it began to well up blood - but it was not blood, it was black ink. She dipped the pen into the living ink pot, and begin to write, on her own skin, staring forward, writing fine traceries of words, the names of gods, in long, flowing strokes, running up and down the tiny neck, across she hollow shoulder-blades.

"I am nothing, only a dreamer like you. I am only a dreamer. I can write the names, and read them to you. I can tell you what they say, Wave Guardsman, Strong Man, both. But to find a god takes not guidance, but wisdom. Your own wisdom. You must learn to be small, to be a child. All men, from the newborn babe, to the eldest Nuit, all are children, before the Gods." And her hand kept writing name after name. Rhysol. Syna. Ivak. Laviku. Dira.
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[Titus]

"What are you writing child?" Titus ask. The look on his face was one of rage and annoyance. "Why are we still here and why do you keep talking of the gods? You keep avoiding my questions." he groaned as he watched her write. His lance fell down from the sky, piercing the ground causing it to stand straight up with the tip down. "Well then" he said looking over to it. He took it in his hand, ready to use it to get answers, but when he lifted it up it burnt his hand. Causing him to releases it and pull his hand back. "Shyke" he said waving his hand, the skin on his hand was not burnt but was hot to the touch. "What is this witchcraft" he roared out in anger as he turned towards the girl. "Answer my question! Why are you speaking of the gods? They have done nothing for me why should I even care what they think" the anger and pain in his voice rippled through the air. He turned towards his lance and killed it away, causing it to crack and smolder into ashes.

[Ricky Maze]

She wrote on and on, a list that told him what deities to repute for. He had to keep a mental note in his mind upon watching her, eyes focused on the names that she wrote down as he subconciously inched closer to her. Just a little closer then he would see the names... Titus seemed to be in a rage, unable to control his emotions as he found Gods and Goddesses useless. Strange... he reminded Ricky of a time he thought the same. Specifically a time when he became alone, all because he lost the only brother he never had. Yet he had learned that he was not alone in fact. He still had friends that would be there for him even in dark times, and so he finally grew to understand that each and every friend had a place in his heart. That. That was what love was, the ability to allow others in and hold value to them. To treasure the time and the memories that were shared, to protect the ones that made so much of a difference in his life when he needed it most. That was love, and if he could allow such people into his heart... then sure enough he could do the same with Gods and Goddesses too.

"These higher powers will help me? Give me the ability to protect the ones I love and treasure most?" His mind quickly went to Telion and Hannah, and then of course Leila, and Nai'a, practically every single person he knew in Zeltiva. All of them that had proven true enough friends, were cause enough to follow this path of wisdom. The girl would definitely see it in his eyes, the ever lasting will to keep all of them, everyone, safe from real danger. "How would they do this?" He was a simple man with simple questions, with the greatest intentions only pure from his heart. How could he change things? How could he keep everyone safe? What did Ricky need to do in order to become that person?

[Philomena]

The child stared darkly at the strong man. He spoke too much and without thinking. He was too angry, and a man cannot listen if he is angry, he could only rage. Who was she to a man who raged? A child, only a child. And so she set her pale lips to her arm and drank the ink the flowed there, the black of it filling her mouth, her throat pulsing in and out with great gulps of it, the overflow pouring down her chin, her neck, her shoulders. Slowly, but visibly, her fingernails grew darker, darker, her eyes darker, darker. until both fingernails and eyes were black as jet, pits of darkest dark inside the pale whites, traced with lines of black veins. And then, her lips smirched with the oozing jet, she spoke agian, her voice changed, charged with a hollow, still, quiet piercing power, now, the divine force of her own devotion.

"A man curses the gods because he refuses to be wise. Indifference is, perhaps, the way of Gnorist. But he that kicks against the pricks is he who is too much the coward to accept the possibilities of his own life. I have grown my trees too long for cowards to stand amongst them, even in my dreams. You will not stand here, and rage against Mother, child of perdition."

She turned to the other man, and the blackness of the impassivity of ink withdrew, quietly, and her eyes beneath had grown a piercing, blue, a strange blue... deeper than deep, heavier than heavy, filled with a great sorrow, the pale echoes of the heaven's own memory. Her tiny child's body shivered, and a wind came quietly, chill and damp like a coming autumn storm, the kind that pulls the last red and gold leaves down from the salt-stained birches.

"Oh, child, oh, my little brother..." she stepped forward and reached her tiny black smeared hand up to look at him, with a gentle smile. "The gods can do much, if we love them. But the god's do not grant emptiness, they grant life. And life, oh my little one... life is never, ever safe. You must learn not to be perfect, but to be brave. And... and..."

She sighed softly, and stroked the man's cheek, the blue eyes filled with a great pity.

"And perhaps... you will learn to forgive yourself."

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