Solo fire and fleet and candlelight.

[Caelum]

PermissionsSundry granted by Magpie. Thread Theme Song : part one: fire & fleet & candlelight I’m friends with the monster that’s under my bed. I get along with the voices inside of my head. You’re trying to save me, stop holdin’ your breath. And you think I’m crazy. Yeah, you think I’m crazy. Hey, that’s nothing. - Eminem.

[Caelum]

Timestamp: 91 Fall 513 AV. Ten years to the day ago thunder talked to the fissure in the Ukalas off the coast of Black Rock. Surrounding the seas of Black Rock had been the calm of a sunny morning before everything changed. The hydrangea sky yawned clear, the breeze crisp but not biting on this final day before brutal winter descended. The seasons teetered on a threshold while in the canal riddled city nearby preparations were underway for the Day of the Dead. Then came the change. The storm swooped upon this section of creation without warning, throwing a flock of gulls into the thunder of abrupt, frightened flight as the sky broiled itself into a sickly green. Lightning had walked the day while he fell, back into the cycle of life and death, shooting like a meteor through curtains of rain. The sun was swallowed by the storm. Its broken shards lanced the sky, Syna's light burning to blood beneath the swell of black clouds. The elysium existence which had ascended him beyond earthly tribulations of pain and hunger, cold and loneliness shattered beneath the buffet of the winds to swirl away like so much dust half the naked distance between hell and heaven's ceiling. A collection of memories, constituting all of the lives he had lived, broke and fell with him like a rock into the grave. The warmth and wisdom they offered vanished like Syna's sun in this storm, scraped out of him until the flesh of his soul was raw and littered with the ruins of the divinity which he had struggled lifetimes to obtain. By the time he hit the waters even his name had been erased. It was trapped behind his teeth, hot as an ember crumbling to ashes, but incapable of being uttered. Terror had clawed as the water closed over his head and his body wracked with what he did not remember was a sob. Oxygen he had not needed in centuries was cut off and so became the rest of him, sinking through the remains of himself. From the Sanctuary beach in Riverfall a decade later Caelum watched the sun rise. He crouched at the edge of an inbound tide, fingers sliding absently through the sand while memory lapped at the shores of his soul.

[Caelum]

It was a human man that found Syna’s son on his way back to the Sanctuary proper, the scent of salt clinging to Caelum as if it still tried to follow everywhere he roamed. That in and of itself was strange, but Caelum fell into step with the light eyed man, hands caught in the pockets of his riding coat. Later he would say that he never would have gone had not the man grabbed his arm when stumbling on a rock in their path, thereby slamming the desperation of his desire right through Caelum. Unprepared and off kilter due to the strange torment of this anniversary – birthday? – the ethaefal felt his will dissolve beneath the force of Nikali’s curse, eroding his reason and brushing to corners what desires he ached for on this day, of all days. Haev Provedan’s man waited outside the gates for him when Caelum disappeared into the Sanctuary to fetch his physician’s kit and snatch a few extra tools and medicines from the healing clinic. Out of reach of the slaver’s immediate needs, Caelum had the presence of mind when saddling up Vega at the barn to ask Aweston, already up and seeing to the horses, to tell Kavala when she woke that he’d gone to Rattling Chains to perform an autopsy. The head groom promised to deliver the message and, ignorant of the divine compulsions that could too often lure Caelum into danger, let him go without further remark. The ride to exhausted gem mine was relatively brief. It took half a bell along the Bluevein and into the moaning winds of the Sea of Grass. They rode in silence and at a swift clip, Caelum’s windrunner eager to stretch his legs in the morning light. The familiar motions of horseback riding soothed some of the sore edges of him, knees gripping against Vega’s sides with ease and the long fingers of one hand curved almost absently about the strap of his yvas. It was not until the gnarled tree at the fork in the road came into view that they slowed, and in Caelum’s chest his heart slowed a little as well. From the branches swung dozens upon dozens of manacles and chains. They rattled in the wind and created an eerie cacophony only the hardest of hearts would call music. Golden eyes lingered there as they rode past, taking the narrower, more ragged route that would lead to what once had been the Forivec Mine. “Is there a high mortality rate?” Caelum heard himself asking his guide before he could take it back. The wind snatched at his words, shuddering through the chain strung tree that was now at their backs. “Is this usual,” he rephrased, shaking his head a little at some shadow in his heart. Decath spat into the dust their horses were kicking up and let broad shoulders rise and fall with the rocking of his horse. “Nope. Not like this ‘un,” he revealed. “And you came to the Sanctuary rather than go into the city,” the healer pressed. These were late questions, delayed by ranuri and a black state of mind. Hopefully, they were not too late. “Why?” A pair of watery blue eyes slanted sideways at the ethaefal and swept him head to toe. Decath smiled and the expression had no mirth. “People of Riverfall don’t much like their dirty laundry left to air, friend. Keep us aside, all the ways out here, so people ain’t got to be lookin’ at chains and slaves and thinkin’ too much on where some of their mothers come from.” Caelum gazed at Decath for a long while in silence, tongue stuck into his cheek. The shadow spread to his face, turning his features grim. He nodded not because he agreed, but because he understood. He understood all too well.

[Caelum]

The wind was a little quieter at Rattling Chains, though the chains themselves continued to rattle their indignities at the empty sky. It was somewhat muted by distance and the general commotion of the Haev Provedan’s men going about their morning duties. Trenches of varying depths created what to Caelum seemed a labyrinthine moat surrounding the entrance to the exhausted mine and canvas tents scattered among them in place of actual wood and stone structures. As they approached, Caelum made a careful study of the camp’s layout. Due to the lack of buildings, he thought of as such; but he was yet Drykas enough in the presently sleeping bones of him to understand that businesses and homes and indeed even cities could be comprised of far more than mere walls. Ultimately, it was the people who defined the details of an organization no matter how large. And in the weak light of this last autumn morning, Caelum began to understand just exactly how greatly he had underestimated Riverfall out of a combination of ignorance and desire to make of the place a home. He knew very well that this darker side of the Akalak’s civilization did not define it, but without acknowledgement and full comprehension of the dual nature of the city these dual natured men had built a person could not claim to truly be of them. Caelum intended to apply for Kuvan status and become a full citizen of Riverfall in the coming weeks, but for all that he had passed through before and all this long season he had spent settling in, it was not until he dismounted in front of the first, sun bleached tent and watched Haev Provedan walk toward him that he understood the deeper details of what it meant to be a Riverfallian. “I brought what you wanted, Haev,” Decath announced. He shot up an eyebrow at Caelum, observing the otherworldly creature who shouldered his bag of supplies. “He’s a healer, he says. So says Rak’keli.” The man nodded to Caelum’s right hand where Rak’keli’s winged snakes glimmered in opalescent gold. The head slaver of Riverfall stopped to take stock of Caelum, pale, flat eyes sweeping over him without so much as an ounce of the interest Caelum was accustomed to receiving. As Caelum gazed back, returning the human’s study tick by tick, he began to realize that Haev would not show him anything of himself. The eerie silence of his ranuri caused him to hope that would remain true, but he doubted it very much. “From the Sanctuary, eh?” Have greeted, rolling forward to deliver a nod. He didn’t offer Caelum his hand and for that the ethaefal was grateful. “Fetched Kavala some bloodbane mares a few years back. How’s she?” “Kavala’s doing well. Expecting her next child soon,” Caelum replied easily, his smile rising up with a friendly tilt even if his eyes remained reserved. “The bloodbanes from Ravok. Of course. I know them well.” “Good,” Haev said shortly. Lean muscled arms folded over his chest and he stood hipshot, squinting at Caelum. “Never seen an ethaefal?” Caelum asked after a few long ticks had stretched by, and his smile slanted with self deprecation. “Been a while,” Haev allowed. “C’mon. Lets get you some water and I’ll tell you what I need.” Caelum imagined he would.

[Caelum]

They stood in the shadow of a the white canvas canopy at the entrance to a large tent. The shapes of wooden furniture and hanging cloths of dull colors were visible through the half open door flap. Caelum attempted to not touch the head slaver en route to the edge of the trenches a dozen rough yards to the mouth of the mine, but when Haev handed him a tin cup of water to wash the dust from his throat, it was near impossible not to brush fingers. That is, it was near impossible without making an issue of it. Caelum did not care to take chances with a slaver whose empty eyes betrayed an age not offered in his angular face. Up through the bottom of him, Nikali peered, and Caelum could almost see her mirror mask in his mind’s eyes, fracturing up the very pieces of himself. He tightened his jaw while desires were languidly translated by the soft susurrus of his own divine chain. “There’s a girl,” Haev began. “There’s always a girl,” Caelum interrupted, the more charming aspects of his personality sloughing aside to allow the older, harder edges of a well stoked bitterness to aid him on this day. Of all days. Haev's mouth tightened, but no anger shaded his expression. Caelum considered it to be more of a sharpening of interest. “There’s a girl like always,” he agreed with an slight inclination of his head. “Short version of the long story is she died in the night with a key in her belly I need back.” “A key,” Caelum echoed flatly. He blinked and lifted his cup for a long swallow of cold water. “So you don’t need an autopsy. You need an extraction.” “As you like.” Haev lifted a shoulder. “Can you retrieve it?” “You can’t?” Caelum dropped his eyes to the long, wicked looking knife hanging from the head slaver’s belt. “I could.” Haev glanced down at his knife. “But I don’t want to.” “I see.” Caelum lowered his cup and glanced toward the mouth of the mine. He did see. Nikali showed him the girl’s plain, pretty face and how in it was the ghost of another girl from another time, a girl whose memory was compacted deep within the stone faced slaver. Besides, more logically, locating a key small enough to swallow in the body of a corpse was not merely something for a strong stomach, but also something for a person who knew intimately the workings of the human body. “Will you do it then?” Haev pressed. He had come all this way. It was far from the damning ocean tides that seemed to mock him this morning. The ethaefal set his cup down and nodded. Yes, he would do it. Turning with the broad gesture of an arm, he said, “Lead the way.”

[Caelum]

Caelum followed the slaver down the old metal stairway and into the tunnels. It was steep going and the hard, split soles of his riding boots creaked with every step. The odd acoustics of the abandoned mine shafts caused the sound of it to resonate in such a way that the healer imagined the sounds they made to be traveling deep into the belly of the earth. The longer he spent in Haev Provedan’s presence, circling one another with words and long glances, the greater did his desires as well as the needs of all that to which he was so closely connected intensify in Caelum. He was just cursed enough to make out the shapes of these needs locations on the map of Rattling Chain’s soul. With only one mark from Nikali, Caelum often found himself looking at maps whose broadest regions were faintly outlined and whose details he was forced to employ his own talents in intelligence to ascertain. Observation, deduction, and long memory assisted him along with many others. Every experience he had, every memory he could recall from any lifetime within the reach of his mind, could be made of use. Dragged by the ranuri toward it, Caelum did not fail to do so now. As they sunk deeper into the tunnels, the ethaefal’s grim eyes absorbed all that they could. Syna’s light was fading behind them and he felt the dimming like the loosening of a lover’s hands. He felt as if his first goddess was reluctantly relinquishing him to the lush smile of Nikali while the torchlight grew, the fire chasing shadows along the pockmarked walls. The murmur of voices ascended and eventually enveloped, the vast majority belonging to the lighter resonance of the female octaves. There were women and girls and everywhere. They slept rolled up in blankets in pockets off the tunnel corridor and lounged in circles playing strange games with pebbles and stones. Others stood alone, using the softer bits of rock to scratch across the walls, creating everything from hatch marks to count time to a sprawling motif of a foreign landscape far, far away where half crumbled towers stretched their ruined fingers toward an unforgiving sky. That one gave Caelum pause, slowing his feet before it to make a study; but Haev plodded on. The women drew away from him and many of the murmurs failed and then faded. Eyes eased from the head slaver to land and ultimately linger on Caelm. He was accustomed to it. For cattle, they were not ill kept. The tunnels were cool, but not freezing between torchlight and body heat. None of the women appeared to be suffering from starvation and there was no rising stench of filth and disease. For brood mares, they were decent conditions. For people, however... "What are you doing?" Haev's voice jumped out at Caelum and something in his chest startled at the familiar tone, a half dead memory of his own grisly hours in physical chains causing a sick wash of adrenaline to ebb into his bloodstream. Caelum swiveled from the stone scratched picture, firelight throwing his shadow long, and met the emotionless eyes of the slaver. Courage crooked his smile. "I have an idea."

[Caelum]

"I have a business to run," Haev retorted with a faint rise of his eyebrows. "My idea will help you run it better," came Caelum's swift volley. Around them the tunnels of Rattling Chains rang with silence. It was the sort of silence that made mockery of peace and rather more commonly heralded a thunderstorm. The ethaefal rocked a foot backwards, unthinkingly shifting his weight into perfect balance with the alignment of his bones and thereby into the beginning position of his martial kata. His muscles tightened with readiness and the long fingers of one hand curled slowly into a fist, half hidden by the winnowing fall of his jacket. It was a defense measure and when the slaver noted it he damned near smiled. "Let's hear it then, sunlord." Haev's flat words beckoned like the sway of a snake as his hands slowly spun the shaft of his torch between them, causing the flame to flicker and swirl. "There are certain measures a woman can take when preparing to become pregnant." The ethaefal spread out a hand to bespeak a harmless gesture, encompassing the exhausted gem mine in its entirety. "And not a one of them will do harm to men or to those women who go into other, ah, endeavors. They're cheap, if done right, and will overall improve the health of your stock." "I'm listening," Haev said slowly. "Keep listening." Caelum's smile was a thin blade as he stepped forward, closer to the torch light and the slaver who wielded it. "And show me the way." Their eyes met in that pirouette of shadow and light, and for three beats of his heart Caelum wondered at the mistakes he had made. Not just this morning, but in all of his hours. Such was the power of a slaver's eyes on one who so well knew chains. Finally, Haev nodded and stepped back into the dark, beckoning Caelum to follow. * Continued at part two: and the gods receive our souls.

[Translucent]

Congratulations On Your Hard Work!

Caelum:
XP:+ 1 riding, +1 investigation, +1 intelligence, +3 socialization, +2 observation, +1 unarmed combat, +1 planning
Lores: Memory of the Fall. Have : Needed Caelum for extraction, not an autopsy.

Notes: I waffled on granting an unarmed because of a simple instinctive stance, but I looked and you were still Novice (not any more you aren’t ) so I went ahead and awarded. Don’t forget to edit your grade request

As always PM me if you have issues.