Mere Ember

Log Info

• Title: Mere Ember
• Emitter: Zeke
• Characters: Zeke, Faranmidahn, Cryosanthia
• Place: A10: Temple of Daeus
• Time: Friday, March 27, 2020, 9:55 AM
• Summary: Zeke takes Cryosanthia to the Temple of Daeus, to get her alone and away from the arguments outside. Despite his best efforts, the pair of sith are trailed by a small lucht knight, Faranmidahn. Cryo is very happy to see her, so her presence is welcomed. Zeke heals Cryosanthia of her injuries, and asks her if she wishes to remember what happened to her. Cryo explains she remembers some things, and that she had a plan to create memories and leave clues, and believes she was successful, to a degree. She also shares that it was a long, lonely time, and she misses Zeke greatly. Still weak, Zeke gives her tea to help her sleep, and both reassure Cryo she's not broken, even if her memory is scrambled.

-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=<* A10: Temple of Daeus *>=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-

The temple of the Sun Lord glitters golden beneath the same. Rather than walls, the majority of the temple is composed of what appears at first blush to be a raised round platform made of one of the largest slabs of marble likely in existence. Columns rise into the air as if to hold some massive ceiling, though instead of a normal ceiling, one finds the deep blue sky, studded by a disconcertingly close canopy of bright stars. One should not worry, however, as the rain never falls, and the wind never blows on this particular temple, but for a gentle breeze, whatever the weather outside may be.

Despite the austerity of the columns, warmth suffuses the grounds. A grand, marble statue of the Shining Knight stands a the center, a hand outstretched in benediction. Beside Him, the statue of Althea, their hands clasped in love. The central position of the temple to the others gives view to all of their children, and the two look upon one another with the solemnity of love that has been the center of so many tales and legends.

Masterfully designed mana lamps provide further soft, golden lightning where needed, their pedestals carved in the form of the Dragons of Light, over which Daeus is said to have dominion in His form of Draco Solis. Majesty, justice, and welcome suffuse the temple grounds. Around the central temple are a series of smaller buildings, each with a simple function and form. One houses the sacred book depicting some of the earliest known translations of the Laws of Light, which pilgrims from near and far come to visit. Another houses the well-appointed quarters of the Sunguards, and among all the ground bristle the Sunblades.

-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  Appearing, in Order  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Cryosanthia  6'9"     267 Lb     Sith-Makar        Female    A dashingly tall, lithe, white lizard woman.
Zeke         6'8"     239 Lb     Sith-Makar        Male      A blue-scaled sith-makar in shadowy robes
Faranmidahn  3'3"     35 Lb      Halfling          Female    Albino Lucht woman in black leather armor with a BIG spider
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Inside the temple, it is surprisingly quiet today, and Zeke is glad for the calming aura of the surroundings. The normally peaceful sith-makar is cleary agitated. This is evedinced mostly by the lashing of his tail behind him which proves that if something were to spook him right now - it would not end well. He moves slightly to the side of Cryosanthia, his posture protective toward the younger female and his green eyes dart around the surroundings as if seeking out something that might attack them.

He hails a fellow cleric, asking if there might be a space that he can use for a time and he is directed further into the temple, his movements more preditory than they have been since... he was very young. He is so preoccupied in fact, that he is not moving with the care he usually displays, showing off a certain grace to his movements that is often hidden by his use of a staff to walk with.

Following sight of the pair along the way, Faran made her way along as best she could with her smaller stride. That she hasn't slept is apparant, nor, for some reason, has the little Knight reequipped her armor. Her expression is drawn and grave and, she gives the temple itself it's due with weary detachment before she pads toward Zeke, "Z-zeke...? Cryosanthia...?"

Cryosanthia follows, her body mimicing Zeke's movements, ready to fight with her mate. Her body having decided that. Perhaps the long isolation, then the strong sith-makar scents awoke a bestial thing deep within. Cryo's awareness floats along, watching with a dispassionate interest, fascinated at reactions, sensations, smells she's experiencing. Mentall cataloguing them. Clinical. There's a certain disconnect, even the way she smells is wrong.

She can't possibly be happy.

Words bring her dissociated view back down into her self, and she reconnects. Calm and power radiating. "Faranmidahn! Come here! I've missed you too. I'm really happy to see you."

The sound of his name startles a response out of Zeke, but his words prove that his thoughts are far away. "Even after thisss one told him!-" Zeke stops, blinking and realizing that this is not the proper response. He stops in mid-stride and takes a breath, recognizing the little warrior-caste and focusing on her. It calms him more that Cryosanthia is so clearly pleased to see her. "Peassssce on your nesst."

Zeke's tail gives a little thrash behind him, such emotions are not easy to simply disipate, not even with the more calming scents around him. "Greetingsssss Faranmidahn. Thissss one isss glad to sssee you asss well. Would you care to join ussss in privacy? Thisss one wisshesss to take Cryosssanthia to a... sssafer location." Another thrash of his tail.

Faranmidahn is still... struggling to reconcile the profound changes in Cryosanthia in the wake of stepping out after that woman. Her eyes almost seem solid pink as they sweep over the two sith, her friends. She swallows, stepping uncertainly closer on Zeke's posture, but Cryo's words about 'missing her' about how different she is speaks volume about time passing severed from them. A concept her mind more familiar with from the Vast, but of such scope...? The lucht finally draws near, reaching out almost to touch them, but hesitates.

"Peace on your nest, yes." Cryosanthia chuckles, "I should get used to saying that again. She is dessirred Zeke, so dessired. I want to speak with you all, so badly."

Excited, eager, definitely the Cryosanthia of old. Though now, she is Cryosanthia old. Taller, thicker, rougher, more spines, wearing robes. Moving like an egg-watcher, the dangerous, ready defenders of nests, the really bad mothers.

"Find seculsion Zeke, ask me questions, both of you. There's so much to tell, I don't know where to start. It's okay to touch Faranmidahn. Do you wish to examine me? It worked."

Zeke pages: She would... occassionally refer to it as 'home' refering to it being Cryosanthia's home however

The blue-scaled sith seems uncertain a moment, but nods in agreement, worry slowly replacing whatever had upset him. "Yessss. Of courssse." With a slight flick of his tail he leads Faranmidahn and Cryosanthia further into the temple to a room where they can have some privacy. The room is empty and roomy enough to be comfortable with a few cots and a few stools out of deference to the sith-makar who roam the halls. Stools are more comfortable than chairs after all.

Zeke ensures that the room is empty and the door closed before he finds a place to stand, eyes hooded and watching Cryosanthia. "Thisss one... doesss not know where to begin. Thisss one... would you ssssit Cryossanthia? Allow thisss one to heal you?"

Faranmidahn swallows her heart and steps closer to hug her tightly as her tiny body can manage. She doesn't cry, thre's nothing left for her to do so yet, but she does make a dry, broken whimper before she says, "I'm glad your back!" An odd statement, reductive, perhaps, but it's the only thing that sounds right. That said, she reluctantly releases her grip and nods to Zeke, following him to where he would lead them, "I... will not cast in the chapel. It's... rude."

The white-scale sith hugs the little lucht very tightly, lifting her up and curling her neck against her head. She makes a thrumming noise, almost like a loud purr. Comforting vibrations. "It's ok, don't cry. I'm sorry, that I put you through this."

She sets her gently down.

"Of course." Cryosanthia nods to Zeke, takes one of the stools, slides it underneath her and settles. She concentrates on her forearms, and her robes vanish. She's wearing nothing now, except her white gloves, the sleeve bracers, and a gold ring. She removes the gloves first, with a strange practiced ritual where she takes a glove off, touches fingers and slides the ring over, then removes the second glove. The sleeves follow. She folds them on a cot beside her.

To a healer's eye, she's naked. She's also pretty beaten up, a general level of injury and battering. "Perhaps I should ask, what do you think happened?"

With great care Zeke examines Cryosanthia's injuries. Her lack of clothing is secondary to someone who has spent a lifetime or two in the care of those who can not care for themselves. His crystal claw touches her shoulder and with his tail going still at the touch he can not feel he focuses on the power that wells up inside of himself. The warmth that will chase the pain from her body. He can not undo the things that made these marks, but he can unmake the pain. He does so.

"Thisss one can sssee." His voice is soft, not willing to share the secrets of what was done with her if she does not willing to share them herself. "Thisss one can sssee what you have sssuffered, but doesss not know what happened. Doesss not underssstand why."

"My mother called it Vahs'feyig'n." Faran says softly, bringing a finger to her lips a moment, then, "The closest translation I can give you is 'The disjointed flow'. There are places in the Vast where time moves at a different rate than the areas around it. A moment on this hand is an hour for this one." She does wince a little bit, but, "Is... there anything to drink?"

Cryosanthia closes her eyes, inhales, as she feels the warmth flow through her. Injuries, aches, fading, her body returning to health. Her crest rises. Her tail, doesn't move, that's interesting. She seems bigger and her scent is strong. The happy thrumm in her throat returns, sounding like a small rumble. Her eyes open, firm and focused.

"I must be clear. She messed with my head. My memories are fine up until... I believe it was still yesterday for you? Fine up until then. After that..."

She shakes her head, "After that, my memories are melted, sliced, deleted, disjointed, remixed and erased. They are confusing, but I remember. I remember lots of things. Like the Vast. It must have been like that. It took years, took decades, but my plan worked. I choose to stay."

"To make it work."

As the injuries fade and go away Zeke seems to relax some, his tail only flicking once behind him. He thrums once in response to her humming, acknowledging her return to health. "Thisss one thought that thisss might be ssso. Ssshe ssstealsss the memoriessss from thosse that ssshe capturess. Ssso that they can not give away her sssecretsss." He sounds displeased as he moves away toward the door, pulling a tea pot from a cabinate there and begining to make tea for them at Faranmidahn's request. "What plan did you have Cryossssanthia? To make you ssstay in sssuch a plasssce?"

Faranmidahn smiles gratefully at Zeke as he starts the tea, but his question has her turning a curious eye to Cryosanthia as well. She steps forward though, laying a hand on the older scales if allowed, but she stays silent, not knowing what to say.

"My plan, when I left with her from the Fernwood, was to be useful, ask for nothing, refuse nothing, try to discover ways to counter her messing with my memory." The older white-scale sith-makar explains, looking between the two. She's very casual and clearly comfortable under examination. Any inhibitions there likely stripped away. "I think it was successful, because it logically is. If I wasn't useful, she would have sent me back sooner, and if my plan didn't work to a degree, I wouldn't remember a thing at all. I feel, through all my memories, that I wanted to be there. That I could have left at any time. She could have put that emotion in me, but to what end? She doesn't want people to remember, this is a fact. She is... indifferent to emotion. She made an agreement not to harm me, to let me go at any time, and manipulating me to stay longer than I want would be harm. The logic can get convoluted where perhaps, I would ask for it? But I don't believe that happened."

"I'm sorry if it is a little confusing. Are you following?"

Zeke can only blink at Cryosanthia's explanation. He breathed out but finally shook his head. "Thisss one doess not underssstand. Perhapssss ssshe did make you want to ssstay sssomehow. If you can not remember entirely, then how would you know? You sssay you wanted to ssstay, that you feel asss though you did, but to what end? Can you remember anything?" Zeke steeps the tea and moves toward Cryosanthia, crouching down so that they are eye-to-eye. "Do you want to remember?"

"To see what you'd do?" Faran muses, "Though... she could have simply honored the deal as stated." The Lucht shudders at the thought of being in a place for so -long-. It isn't in her people for such a thing to happen. With Zekes query, "This is not the chapel... I can cast my detection spell if you wish?"

"Yes. I do." Cryosanthia looks back at Zeke, open and unblinking. "I know because I think I know. Arg. Let me try another way."

She closes her eyes for a second, folds her hands together. "There are things she can't erase, change, because they break the world. Logic, the rules of logic, can't be changed. Muscle memory. You can't make a Man forget how to walk. Well, I mean, you can make him forget how to walk and then he can't walk, and you can make him forget he knows how to walk, but if he can walk, his muscles haven't forgotten how to walk. His muscles can remember, when the man can't. You can forget a thing. You can forget a thing associates with a thing, but you can't forget how to associate, or you wouldn't be able to think. I can still walk, I can still associate. There are gaps, but the way I move, the way I think, kept something. Enough somethings. Enough clues."

"You must have seen I move like her. A long enough association, I would pick up her body language. Accidental or on purpose, she didn't erase that however I came by it. That's a memory. A very, indirect one. I took a long time, and I think I built a lot of clues, and left a lot of clues."

"And I'm sure I need your help to remember them." Cryo looks between the two. "Is that making sense?"

Zeke nods. This he understands. This makes sense to him. "Thisss one hasss sseen. You have been gone from usss a very long time Cryosssanthia. It may have been momentents for usss, but it hass been many decadesss for you." Everything about her has changed, but parts of the her he knew those years ago that have passed for her remain. "Thisss one will do everything thiss one can. Thiss one will talk to Ssseldan about allowing you to meet the other one ssshe kept. Perhapss you two will remember sssomething together that alone can not be. And there are... more mundane wayss to coax a memory to the sssurface."

Faranmidahn brings up her right hand in the first posture of her spell, but she waits until she is given the outright go-ahead to begin the incantation. There are wheels turning behind her eyes, but sometimes they lose traction, the road on too sharp an incline as it were, to tight a bend, and going offroad is bogging her down. At the moment though, the conversation is giving her hope, and she is content at the moment to fade out of the siths' attention for the nonce, unlike the other two. That was just rude.

Cryosanthia flicks a short gesture towards Faranmidahn. She's still looking at Zeke and otherwise doesn't do anything further. She nods to the blue-scale, "Thiss one would appreciate that. It may help indeed."

"I think..." Cryo's voice crackles, "... I think missing you, is important. I think I stayed long enough to miss you enough it hurts. I lived the years, I feel this body, it feels comfortable. I think I wanted to be sure I'd seek you out. That enough years, something would stick. I know, I know, she completely erased my memory a few times. I'd think I stepped from Fernwood, then I'd find notes to myself, with tick marks. Scents. She doesn't understand sith-makar scents beyond stink! You know Zeke. You know how much a smell can say. A smell is a key and I am a lock or I am a key and a smell is a lock, but anything... this I think, is how you must see me. The broken, is a specific kind of broken."

Zeke looks almost injured by Cryosanthia's words. By the thought that she was afraid while she was gone. Slipped from his claw-grasp before he could do anything about it and returned just as quickly but for her... It seems incomprehensible though, that she should miss /him/. Him specifically. It hurts his heart. The tea whistles and he rises to bring a cup, one for her which he hands her gently and a different cup for Faranmidahn. "Thisss will help you sssleep Cryosssanthia. You need ressst. Healing can only do ssso much." He nods to Faranmidahn and then without the fear that usually befalls him, offers to help Cryosanthia to the bed.

"You are not broken. Never that. You are whole and thisss one isss here to care for you. You will not be alone." He thrums for her, the sound to ease hatchlingsss and those you care for. "Sssssleep Cryosssanthia. Thisss one will be here when you wake again."

Cryosanthia takes the tea, and drinks it all down. Somewhat amusingly, she's dainty in her body language. The flows into her with a welcoming warmth. Like healing, but different, better. She nods, listening to his advice, and reclines on the bed. "Please be."

Faranmidahn's gesture is broken as the accepts the cup with a bow and a soft, 'Thank you, Zeke.' She smiles and reaches out her casting hand again to lightly touch Cryosanthia's scales, 'Not broken. Back..' she glances knowingly at Zeke, then up into her eyes again, 'And so very precious. Rest, my friend.' And, once she is settled in, she brings up that hand, her pallat rehydrated enough for, "blah blah beagle blrgl bleep blah bleep beagle sandy blah bleh sandy sandy" her incantation unhurried, now carried on gentle words. <unknown>