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| Fallow; for aniketos! <3 | |
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| Topic Started: Jun 23 2017, 10:37 AM (250 Views) | |
| Phaedrus | Jun 23 2017, 10:37 AM Post #1 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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The Immortal Gardens had become a forest. The dogwoods soared to dizzying heights. Once-tended roses rambled into thorny brush, swallowing the twine that held them. It was wild, Fae, alien. Tree boughs knotted overhead, their yellow leaves fluttering to the ground. One spiraled in the breeze and dropped soundlessly into the water, floating past a lotus swollen to the size of a cauldron. The pond was still, black — peppered by so many yellow and red leaves that they appeared as a meadow unto themselves; the openings reflected the grey branches above, scattered like mirrors through the pool. Grass stirred underfoot. A ghost appeared in one of them, drawn and pale. Only the yellow of its eyes shone bright, staring out at the world beneath spinning leaves. A frog croaked and launched itself off one of the great lilypads — it shattered the surface of that black mirror, dispelling the phantom. For a moment it rippled grotesquely — a pale thing plucked and pulled in a dozen directions, formless, shapeless. And then it disappeared. Phaedrus shrank away from the pond, clutching his cloak tighter about him. Where am I? He struggled to lay his memory over the abandoned gardens — saw the ghosts of children pushing wooden boats out into the pool, promptly scolded by their mothers — remembered fanning himself not terribly far from where he was standing, scurrying under the shade for a picnic — heard the raucous laughter of festivals, the great splash of a drunkard plunging beneath the surface — Nothing. The birds chirruped. As he walked, the grass rustled beneath his boots — occasionally an owl gave a low hoot — but else wise, an eerie silence had descended. It wasn’t like the mad chatter of springtime and summer, when the boughs exploded with the songs of birds and cicadas and woodland creatures. Instead it was the tired, feeble farewell of autumn and winter — the tapering songs, the long stretches of silence, the slowing heartbeat of nature as it laid to rest. The necromancer grabbed his elbows and frowned, continuing down the path he had walked so many times before. A tree had grown mighty and then fallen with sickness — its roots tore a wound out of the ground, and its boughs smashed into the surrounding peristyle, crumbling half of it to ruins. A decapitated statue stared up at him, her face dirty with rain and pocked with lichen. As he walked, he found her body — once a beautiful work of artistry, and now… Something had made a nest of it, now-abandoned but still piled with droppings. Phaedrus minced around it, breath tight in his throat, fists balling by his sides. Moss and vines twined around the upright marble statues, burying the columns in leaves. The grass had grown high here, once a rich green but now withered to a dry, crackling yellow. Horror crawled through his guts, prickling the back of his neck. Wrong. Wrong. It was all wrong… It felt like he’d been gone from Madrid a hundred years, not two. Like he now journeyed through some ancient, forgotten temple, not the square where he’d spent many a lazy afternoon, content to do nothing more than sit and read a book. The grass brushed up to his hips. Phaedrus stared up at the ruined colonnade, barely able to pick out a path through the thick shoots. Cursing, he pushed the blades aside, seizing tufts of it— it withered in his fists, crumbling to black ash. This had once been his favorite way through the gardens -- one he had walked so many times he knew every inch of it. He'd walked it in sickness, in health, in joy and in agony — there, a small pond where he sat on a secluded bench, away from the babble of humanity and kept company by the chittering birds and squirrels, his favorite place to read a book -- a copse of exotic Daroan shoots, where he'd carved scandalous things into the bark with a passing lover -- the wild, more untamed parts where great oaks joined hands above, where he walked when the city was too much, his thoughts too loud, his dreams too frightful -- the cafes where he'd had countless cups of tea, bringing it to his lips as red trees swayed in an autumn breeze -- endless fragments of memory -- Crows exploded from the underbrush. Phaedrus flinched, throwing an arm over his face at the blue-black blur; the murder perched on a broken stone table, their beady eyes fixing him in silent judgement. The cafe stood empty. Only the ghosts of afternoon chatter and clinking teacups lingered in that carcass -- the cozy building stood ruined and forgotten, crawled over with vines and withered flowers, the seats and tables choked with leaves. Roots had swallowed the columns, held them fast as a lover. Birds chirruped in the silence now. Above, the menacing hum of cicadas shook the trees. A squirrel looked at him in terror before it darted off, disappearing into the broken door. Where am I? It felt like a dream -- a broken city displaced in time. A dull buzz filled his head, suffused through his senses; he walked like a man in a fugue, a great, cavernous emptiness gnawing his chest. It had nowhere to go — swallowed up his throat, ate up his guts — till he felt like a husk, as if the true Phaedrus had crawled up and out and left this frail skin behind. Miss Cybele ran this, some voice inside him whispered. She was a round, harried woman, always with a furrow in her brow and flyaway dark hair, but she liked him, and he liked her, and they talked on many a thing and nothing. She prized herself on her scones, and made perhaps the mightiest brew of black tea in all of Madrid. I put in condensed cream, she winked at him once. Something I learned from a Daroan. But don’t tell anyone. And he’d tittered and promised so, and she’d tittered back, hurrying off with a clatter of tea-things. Where was she, now? At any moment he kept expecting she would walk through that door, apologize for the mess of things and dust her hands in a long-suffering way. But no one came. Through the hole in the door, he could see scorch marks in the wood — collapsed, blackened rafters, grown over by moss — smashed ceramic and jagged pots glut with rancid water. Did she escape Madrid in time? Was she one of the many grey faces in Reine, shivering in burlap and wasting away through the winter? Did she survive? The necromancer drew his finger over a table — it came away black, a line now smeared through the mosaic. Swallowing, Phaedrus wiped it off on his cloak, clutching the fabric as if it were a lifeline through that dead world. He’d taken to wearing emerald again — stood out like a garish scarab amongst the muted greens and yellows of the gardens, his hair like a torch. At length he tore his eyes away from the ruined cafe, keeping his head down as he descended the stairs. He only half-focused on the crushed weeds beneath his boots, heart twisting. The building hunched like a great beast at his back. His shoulders wound with tension, a kick in his step as he tried desperately to get away, unable to look at it or any of the other gravestones of his old haunts and memories. The whole of Madrid was a cemetery, its streets lined with mausoleums. While in Angkar, he had been afraid to go back -- desperately afraid as much as he desperately longed for it, because he had no idea what the city, his city, might be like when he returned. If there was a city at all. He'd been lucky up on the hill. The houses of lower Madrid had been swallowed by Maedaigh's forest, sprouting with trees that pushed through stone and roofs and drowned them in a bark tide. He could’ve very well been homeless; he could have run down Willowfair and only seen rubble at the end of the lane. His house had survived, red door and all, but it would never be the same. Everything -- everything would forever be overlaid with gruesome flashes of red -- of death — screams and smoke, the people of the city dead in the streets… Madrid was changed forever. It now bore the scars of Maedaigh's conquest; like him, it had been torn apart, beaten, changed irrevocably. And now he navigated this new city as much as he navigated himself—this cold, odd, fey thing that had sprouted in the Conquest and bloomed in Reine. Death was too kind for Her. Against his better judgement, he pressed further into the gardens, strung by morbid curiosity. The way became thorny, but he did not care; he withered the vines with a blast of magic, kicking them aside at his feet; the trees grew taller, the sun fainter between the branches, the cicadas louder. And at last, he stood at the mouth of his favorite path. Oaks knitted their branches above here, caught in a patchwork of seasons; some leaves still lingered in autumn, lit like a brazier — other branches were bare and gnarled — still others sprouted with the thin, pale leaves of spring. The trees were old here, and their boughs spilled and twisted to the ground in a tangle of arms. Once he found it beautiful. He walked here often, for it was a quiet, peaceful place. The oaks swallowed much of the noise and babble of the patrons and city, waiting patiently like old sentries. The stone path through it was always carpeted in leaves and peppered by tenacious weeds, not as well-kempt as the rest of the Gardens. Autumn was his favorite time to come here, because the trees robed themselves in crimson and orange, and when the light struck their leaves, it transformed the path into a hearth. But now it felt menacing. The boughs gnarled black, stark — had they always been so? — charred and war-torn, looming like fists about to strike. Great chunks of the path had been uprooted, and now stones half the size of a man laid scattered like children’s blocks. Tapestries of moss hung down, buzzing with a flurry of tiny insects. The weeds had become trees in and of themselves, shooting up like pikes. You are not welcome here, the grove said. Phaedrus froze, unable to go any further. His hackles raised, mouth half-open, breaths coming short and quiet. Turn around, instinct whispered. Go home. He could no longer see the end of the path; where it had once thinned and turned into a small, old temple, now the overgrowth eclipsed it in shadow. The hiss of cicadas spiked to a crescendo. As if Maedaigh could still exert her power... turn the weeds into grasping tendrils... at any moment he expected the trees to quake, open their trunks in a splitting roar — He heard the crack of a branch — felt the presence of another — and spun like a startled cat, hand flying instinctively to his dagger. An inhuman hiss left him. Edited by Phaedrus, Jun 23 2017, 10:44 AM.
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| Aniketos | Jun 25 2017, 01:51 PM Post #2 |
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Unter friedlichen Umständen fällt der kriegerische Mensch über sich selber her.
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(Oh look, here's the music! "I really must be going. I have an appointment...this afternoon. Soon." "Do you want any of us to walk with you? The Immortal Gardens have become a bit confusing and it's easy to get lost." "No, no, I am sure I remember the way out." Saying so with a grand wall of false certainty, Aniketos turned his back on the workers and chose a way through the Immortal Gardens. He had come out here to take in the efforts of the people who had been tasked with finding whatever food they could in the Gardens – berries that normally grew in autumn, roots that could be eaten, weeds that still persisted in putting out leaves. He didn't have an appointment now – in fact, the afternoon was his own for once – but he just had to get away from them all, and get out of here, without anyone seeing that there was anything wrong with him. Some days were worse than others – that was all. He had woken up this morning feeling fine, but as soon as he had come to the Immortal Gardens – it must have been something about the sun, which seemed hotter to him than anyone else, or it must have been the shapes of the trees or the cicadasong gnawing at his eardrum. Whatever it was, it had brought back certain modes of thought he had hoped had left him. As Aniketos forged his way through the forest, everything he saw seemed to be constantly shifting: the trees moving in a slight dance, objects vibrating relative to each other, the dry scraggle of underbrush lifting up and down like waves. He was quickly lost. He had thought to follow the path lined by the dormant curls of raspberry bushes, but it had been the wrong way to go and he soon was in unfamiliar territory. His breath came quicker than was comfortable and sweat began to trickle down his temples. He found himself making his way up the side of a steep hill which was populated by straight-backed evergreens. He thought, Is this where I came that one night? Is this where Leofric and I...? He vacillated between opinions of familiarity and unfamiliarity, searching the ground for patches of cyclamens before remembering that even if they were there, they were sleeping, exhausted from their endless summer. He felt his mouth getting dry as he came to the top of the hill – why had he not thought to bring any water? Aniketos had hoped that being at the top of the hill would give him a vantage point from which to plot his way out, but the ground on the other side sloped down too gently, leaving hime with nothing but a view of trees. "Aahhh," he groaned. This small emission sent him into a brief panic. He must try to quell his emotions, he told himself – it was only when he admitted desperation that he would be truly in trouble. Remembering that night – an innocent night, in comparison – so, so many years ago, he thought that if he went back down the other side of the hill he would happen across a wall soon, which he would be able to climb. On the other side of this dreadful forest, which threatened to eat him up, he was sure he would be able to recover. He walked on, but soon found himself in another place he did not recognise here. The soil was softer here, being at the bottom of a small valley, and the trees were hung about with moss. No, no, this was not good. He had to force himself away from the notion that he would see Her walk out from behind a curtain of moss, her white body gleaming in the dim light. The constant shifting of his vision became more turbulent and he was always whipping his head around, looking for the source of the movements in the corners of his vision. Groaning softly, he supported himself against a tree for a moment. He was sweating but his mouth was dry. He let his head droop for a moment, but then he rallied himself. He was on lower ground now. Perhaps he would be able to find a stream and drink some water. He could rest in the shade, clinging onto his mind, and when he felt better he would be able to move on. Setting his eyes ahead, Aniketos walked on, but his limbs felt as shakeable as sand and he stumbled, nearly fell. "Get it together!" he hissed to himself. Picking his way through a patch of weeds, he found that there was a sort of path making its way through the mess. That was good! The path must lead somewhere – hopefully out of here. He lurched forward, and stepped on a branch, which cracked beneath his foot. There was movement – a human shape whipping around to stare at him with a snake-like hiss. Aniketos was startled, but then regained himself, realising that he knew this face. Still, in this state, it took him a moment to recall the name and how he knew this man – yes, they had met several times, and his name was– "Phaedrus, wasn't it?" he said, making a wobbly imitation of joviality. "I apologise for scaring you, I was merely–" But he was forced to stop because of a dreadful itch in his throat. Behind Phaedrus was a small temple of some sort, now covered over with vines. His mind tipped dangerously to the left. We're in Solibar, he thought, without wanting to. Then, No, no, this is Madrid, not bloody Solibar. He felt a fool, wandering through the Immortal Gardens like this, his head practically spinning off his shoulders. Shouldn't he walk on and leave the man alone? But the need for water had him weak at the knees, and he thought (somewhat dramatically, he was sure) that if he said nothing then he would surely die. "I'm sorry to trouble you but – have you any water?" |
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| Phaedrus | Jun 25 2017, 03:48 PM Post #3 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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The necromancer froze. His hand dropped from his belt, fingers going limp. It took his body a moment to steer away from the hurtling course of his mind — and so he looked at Aniketos like a deer caught in the thickets, his eyes wide and feral, as if the Councillor spoke to an animal that did not understand him. Phaedrus, wasn't it? He came to. The necromancer blinked, the mad fever-images of Fae pushed out by surprise. A jittery half-laugh escaped him. “Councillor?” Phaedrus snatched his pale hand to his chest, embarrassed at his overreaction. “Yes… um, oh, no! I am sorry, nerves—“ his tongue would not cooperate, mad and bumbling. Absently, he realized he hadn’t truly talked to anyone today. He'd jolted awake in the pre-dawn, as on so many nights, chased out of sleep by his nightmares. Then he’d hurried downstairs, breakfasting on sad handfuls of nuts and oats, and resumed the back-breaking labor of restoring his house. Tearing out rotting floorplanks… killing weeds in the mortar… keeping the wards on the broken windows… He’d set upon these things with such focused tenacity that he scarcely knew where the days went. They melted by him, trickling like rainwater over a pane of glass. For if he stopped, if he rested for a single instant, he’d… Today was different. After a morning’s worth of plastering, the tension winding his limbs had become unbearable. And so he’d thrown down the trowel and shot off for a walk, numbly following whatever path muscle memory took him. In truth, he hadn’t expected to meet anyone out here. And certainly not… Even stick-thin and worn from the war, the man’s presence filled the grove, radiating a quiet, self-possessed dignity. They’d met only briefly — and each time for dire, terrible matters, suggesting war strategies only to be whisked out again — but now he stood here before him, unharried, clad in a simple tunic instead of armor and regalia. It was like being afforded a glimpse of a mythical creature before it darted off into the groves. At any moment he anticipated the crrack-crack-crack of other footsoldiers making it up the path, but none came. The silence startled him, felt strange and wrong. Was he alone? “I…” Aniketos' question caught him off-guard, for he was lost in the sight of the man's curls and liquid amber eyes. Phaedrus slapped instinctively at a wineskin that was no longer there, feeling its absence like a tooth. Even after months… “…do not,” he finished faintly, as if surprised by his own answer. He never carried water. On the march to Nemetona he’d forgotten one, noticed the stares from others when he did not stop to take a swig from a canteen or make water. Occasionally he wandered off under the pretense of it, but never too far, terrified of what might ambush him through the trees. You are not them, his mind had reminded him at each turn. And certainly they suspected. Certainly plenty of the infantry had figured him out. Phaedrus swallowed, picking through his mind for other options. “But there are some ponds back—“ he took a moment to orient himself, eyes alighting on the blackened brush. The necromancer lifted an arm, pointing at the pale outline of peristyles peeking through the trees. “—there. The water is stagnant, but I can boil it.” Phaedrus' eerie yellow eyes lingered on him, tracing the odd pallor of his skin and stance. He looked like a scarecrow just barely hoisted upright, a sight that sent his guts crawling. Why is he here, in the middle of the bloody woods? Did he follow me? Why are there no guards? For a horrible, paranoid moment, he wondered if it was not Aniketos at all, but some hideous, Fae skin-changer. Like the one at Ahmim, the woman who… “Councillor, are you well?” Concern suffused his tone, but he kept his guard up, watching the man carefully. "Do you need to sit?" |
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| Aniketos | Aug 1 2017, 11:44 AM Post #4 |
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Unter friedlichen Umständen fällt der kriegerische Mensch über sich selber her.
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Ah, he can tell that I am weak. It never does for the people to know that their leader– But I am human! I am just a person! I need water. "Sit? No." His eyes slid around the forest, coming again and again to where he had been promised water. "Just a drink. Did not expect to be walking about–" his throat clicked drily again and he could not repress a wince, "–for this long. In such heat. Shall we?" He began to walk off in the direction of the ponds, saying on the way, "Well, look at us, going for a pleasant stroll in the woods. It will never be quite the same, will it?" Yes, the woods were a terrible place – had he ever understood the sorts of people who were able to walk amongst them, expounding their beauty? He had walked in them as a child, and yet the woods were the place where the fox murders the hare, the woodpecker pecks the doves, where mildew eats away at leaves, where trees succumb to fungus. Yes, yes, there was violence everywhere, and he could feel it now. Birds burst from a tree, twittering in fear; thick vines covered a tree, slowly choking it to death; fungus sprouted from the roots of a pine, sapping its life away. Aniketos' breath quickened, a prickling wave of hot, then cold, swept over his body, drenching him in sweat. All at once, he fainted and fell with an unceremoniously thump to the ground. |
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| Phaedrus | Sep 14 2017, 03:13 PM Post #5 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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Shall we? The man's curled head dipped. Phaedrus opened his mouth and nodded a fraction, still startled by the company. "Certainly," he chimed agreeably, smoothing the front of his tunic and walking back in the direction of the lake. Twigs crunched underfoot; every unexpected rustle or crack made him jump, tightened his nerves till they sung like a harpstring. "Hotter than the devil's bollocks," the necromancer complained with him, making a show of flapping out the collar of his tunic. In truth, the heat did not bother him in the way it must have bothered the Councilor, and other creatures of flesh-and-blood. He felt uncomfortable, certainly, but not in the sweating, mottled cheek flush of men with heatstroke. It would not kill him; but it was an inescapable heat, one that warmed his flesh like a stone in the desert. Thankfully Soto lacked the searing eye of Aten -- if he did not swaddle himself in clothes in the Badlands, he very well could use his flesh as a griddle. "Were you surveying the area?" Crunch, crunch. He spared a glance at the Councillor, trying not to linger overmuch. He really did look ill... "I decided to go to all my old haunts today. This was my favorite path through the Immortal Gardens. Fall was the best time, of course," he jerked his chin conversationally, eyes roaming up to the net of branches above them. Perhaps some idle chatter would keep his mind off things. He was always good at that; could talk himself hoarse without a peep from his conversational partner. "All the leaves going red. Like you were walking through a hearth or some such. And of course, the merchants roasting chestnuts and selling mulled wine, all those little stands..." He remembered getting shitefaced drunk off mulled wine and his own flask, then being dared to skate across the thin ice that had crept over a pond. Predictably he'd obliged; predictably he'd crashed through it like a stone, screamed like a freshly baptized infant. Phaedrus blinked. It was impossible to imagine. "Feels like another country now," he added softly, scratching his nose and clearing his throat. It will never be quite the same, will it? A small, wry smile twisted his lips. It faded as immediately it had sprung, wilting to a white line. "No," Phaedrus murmured. "Suppose it won't. I don't suppose anything will ever be quite the same." He knitted his hands behind him as he walked, eyes trained on the treeline. For a moment his feverish mind imagined spectres flickering in and out of there -- faces -- but no, it was merely a squirrel launching off a branch or a gnarled scowl of an oak. Aniketos' presence kept him grounded some, solid and real. As they passed a fallen oak, there was a sudden explosion of ravens; Phaedrus jumped at the maelstrom of feathers and cawing that fled to the treetops in a black swarm. Shaken, the necromancer stopped, frozen to the ground by the bad portent. He turned with a jittery laugh and nervous smile, ready to jape at-- Thump. The Councilor dropped like a stone. Phaedrus stared in shock before his body kicked in; a sudden, belated motion, arms and hands splayed too late to catch Aniketos, feet spread apart. "Shite," the necromancer hissed, ichor pounding in his skull. He dropped to his knee, put two fingers to Aniketos' neck; his pulse fluttered like a bird, skin covered in a thin break of sweat. Flapping out a handkerchief, the necromancer dabbed the Councilor's flushed, paling face, looking around wildly. They'll think I murdered him. "Half a moment," he urged in a nervous voice, as if the Councilor could even hear him. What could he do? If he walked away to find the water, he wasn't so sure he could find his way back -- and he certainly couldn't carry him for that distance -- Caulcis, then? But no, the proximity to such a creature might make it worse-- Phaedrus bit his lip, eyes bouncing around the grove. After a moment he raised his hand; the air around them dissipated of heat, became a cold, humid draft that ruffled the Councilor's stray curls and offered relief from the summer heat. "Gods damn it," he breathed, backing away from the Councilor and raking his boot over a patch of dirt to smooth it. He took out his dagger, squatting and pressing its tip into the earth. "Stay right there," the necromancer mumbled, as if the man could hear him. His arm moved like a compass, carving strange symbols and runes into the grove. Blinking, he shot another look at Aniketos. "I'll be--right back. Right. I swear." He stood, wiping the dagger, and was gone in a shred of magic. *** In his home he rattled through his things -- pans here and there -- silverware jumping in drawers -- till at last he found a container and a flagon of water he'd filled for the garden. The necromancer poured it to capacity, stuffing the waterskin into his belt with the nervous, jerking motions of someone in a hurry. Then, after a flash of thought, he seized a cloth and carefully arranged some seed-bread he'd baked yesterday, a small wedge of cheese, and some dried berries snd preserves. He wrapped it up deftly, tying a knot, and held it to his chest. The necromancer closed his eyes, focusing on the grove, the faint circle of symbols that burned in his mind... *** His arm came out first. The sack flew out of the portal, hitting the ground with a sad shff. Next came the waterskin, rolling into the grass. The rest of him was not so easy. Grunting, the necromancer clawed his fingers into the dirt, emerging from the earth like a dead man. He'd made the portal a tad too narrow, and bunched up his shoulders to squeeze them through, face pinched. Gods damn it. He pulled himself out on his elbows, crawling like a soldier from the trenches; a long streak of dirt and grass marred the front of his tunic while he dragged himself on his stomach, at last pulling enough of his legs out to draw them close and sit up. The wavering portal resolidified to dirt and moss, idle scratches in the earth. An aggrieved sigh bulled out of him. Phaedrus wiped the front of his tunic to no avail, hands coming away dusty. Instead he slapped them on his pants, standing and shaking out his leg, and bent to pick up the food and water. The man still lay on the ground, sprawled like some dead tragedienne. Phaedrus knelt beside him, studying his still, pretty face with a frown. "Councilor?" The necromancer urged, pushing Aniketos lightly on the shoulder to wake him. He kept on shaking him till he saw the golden lashes flutter and an unfocused slit of eye. Phaedrus unscrewed the cap of the waterskin, bringing it to his parched lips. A bit of it dribbled onto the man's chin. "Here you are. I found food and water." |
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| Aniketos | Oct 17 2017, 01:45 PM Post #6 |
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Unter friedlichen Umständen fällt der kriegerische Mensch über sich selber her.
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No sooner had Phaedrus disappeared, than the grove began to darken, as if this patch of earth had been cast into incongruous night. Confused crickets began to sing beneath the trees and birds ran through their run of evening time songs and then fell silent. In this buzzing quiet Aniketos remained senseless. Now, with no one to observe but us, narrator and reader, a shape began to appear on the bark of a nearby tree. At first it seemed as a darker shadow than the rest, cast by some shape, but it gradually faded into incontestable existence: a great black moth, as large as a person, its lustrous black wings spotted with stars. It paused a moment, its antennae waving through the air like feather dusters. Then, as if having made a sudden decision, it lit upon the air and fluttered over to Aniketos' prostrate form. There it sat, covering his whole body with its midnight wings. Spiny legs clutched his sweat-soaked clothing as a curled straw unfurled from the moth's face and dabbled in his lips. A sack flew out of the earth and landed on the ground. The darkness and its god, the moth, began to fade. By the time Phaedrus had dug himself out of the earth, all sign of night had gone. The forest hummed with its daytime songs; all was as it had been when he'd left. Aniketos woke under Phaedrus' prodding. He was cold, despite the heat, slick with his own sweat and grimy with dirt. Helplessly, he received the water, then, once it was withdrawn, groaned with discomfort. Why this cold and weakness? Why this war and the thousands of people in their graves? Why Rathurn and Aethelmare and Mollica? He laid a hand over his eyes, all too aware that Phaedrus would be able to see his tears. Coming to a slow consciousness of what had happened, he sat up and, hunched over, clawed at his tears. Still dizzy, he looked at Phaedrus and said, "You mustn't tell anyone about this. Understand? It's the last thing I need." |
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| Phaedrus | Oct 19 2017, 07:18 PM Post #7 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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Aniketos stirred. Relief flooded him. What if he had not woken? What if he had taken terribly ill, and then to be found with the body—! He suckled at the waterskin like a blind, nursing infant, and Phaedrus withdrew it before it could spill over his chin. Then he waited. The necromancer’s brow furrowed, hands drawing the canteen close as the Councilor got up and groaned, batting at his face and eyes in fever. Absently he realized the man’s cheeks shone with more than sweat. Blinking, the necromancer set down the waterskin between them, averting his eyes as though he’d glimpsed Aniketos in the privy. Phaedrus swallowed, focusing his stare on a lizard twitching on the bark of a tree. He sat with studied coolness, allowing the man to gather himself. You mustn't tell anyone about this. Understand? It's the last thing I need. He blinked, daring a glance at Aniketos. The Councilor’s lashes were still sodden, rheumy with tears. They were raw, watery pools in the alarming pallor of his face. For a moment he feared he might topple again. Phaedrus sucked in his lips, nodding agreement. “Of course.” How many times had he wept in private? Wandered away from the barracks in Reine to palm his eyes, slam a fist into a wall, find a release valve for his grief? And on the way to Nemetona as well — he wasn’t the only one, he knew. When he laid awake at night, staring at the cold audience of stars, he heard men sobbing softly into their bedrolls, for none of them knew what the day might bring. He saw the glassiness in their eyes when the soldiers carted off a new corpse in the morning, stiff and covered in morning dew. Yet another dead from starvation and exhaustion. Marching alongside skeletons... “I shan’t,” the necromancer sniffed, handing the man the waterskin. “In fact, I’ve already forgotten.” Staring off into the canopy, Phaedrus kicked out one of his legs, elbow hanging languidly off his other knee. Something burned on his neck, left it hot and prickling; the skin of his back felt too tight, somehow, and the necromancer rolled his shoulders to relieve the tension, clearing his throat. “There’s some—seed bread,” Phaedrus went on, hesitating. For he did not want to sound like a babying mother, or prescribe what to do. “And cheese, if you should like.” It was unavoidably awkward. In the public’s mind, Aniketos was a hero of steel and iron— not a sweaty, pale mess trembling in the dirt, alone and at the mercy of a stranger. He felt the man’s humiliation acutely, did not wish to injure his pride further. But he was concerned. “I made jam,” Phaedrus piped, making the Councilor’s decision for him. In a deft movement, the necromancer untied the cloth, smoothing out the impromptu picnic between them. A pile of dried cranberries and dates glistened in the center, along with a squat loaf of brown bread and a wedge of soft white cheese. “Apricots,” he babbled inanely, shaking the little jar of preserves and arranging the silver butterknife beside it. “Neighbor’s tree still had fruit upon it… in this season. Mad.” Without waiting, he cut slices of cheese and bread, happy for a distraction. Phaedrus smeared a sliver of cheese upon the coarse, nutty bread, dolloping a bit of jam at the top. The confection done, he offered it to Aniketos, brows perking. “Eat something. This is dreadful weather for an empty stomach." Edited by Phaedrus, Oct 19 2017, 07:19 PM.
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| Aniketos | Oct 31 2017, 06:00 PM Post #8 |
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Unter friedlichen Umständen fällt der kriegerische Mensch über sich selber her.
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Staring off into the overgrowth and drinking water, Aniketos let Phaedrus prattle on. Had he been in a better state, he would have quipped "What, just now?" to Phaedrus' "I made jam." The impulse skittered across his mind and then passed like water slipping off glass. What purpose did jokes play? If they had meant anything before, then what should they mean now, when Soto was a ruin? Aniketos' attention belatedly fell upon the dainty that was proffered to him. Slowly, like a man whose soul has left him (and was that not what the physicians happened during a faint, explaining the symptoms he felt now – the chill and watery confusion?), he took the piece of bread and took a nibble of it. His stomach immediately clenched around that morsel of food. Grimacing, Aniketos put it down on the wrapper, forgetting to follow with any social nicety explaining that he simply wasn't feeling well. No, he looked again out to the overgrowth – a fallen limb entrenched in a mess of brambles – and expressed the thought that weighed so on his stomach, his voice low with brooding: "Wouldn't it have been better if we'd lost? All our struggling, and for this? More struggling? Méadaigh did win, in a sense. Now we know that we had no right to survive, that it was wrong for us to have killed her. Had I..." He paused, chewing on a dry lip, unsure if he should go on. But darkness filled the space where his soul had apparently tried to fly away, convincing him that nothing really mattered. "Had I accepted her, I never would have had to think this." |
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| Phaedrus | Nov 2 2017, 07:36 PM Post #9 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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He did not take it well. Soon enough the confection found its way back upon the cloth, nibbled at little more than a mouse. Phaedrus frowned, but said nothing; instead he finished fixing another, bringing it up to his mouth and taking a bite. Silence ensued. The chirrup of birds covered his chewing — Aniketos stared at the trees with the rictus of a propped up corpse, and several times his eyes flickered from the Councilor to the brush, stomach jolting. Each time he expected to find something there. What? What are you looking at? He wished to prod, but instead he ate to fill the blossoming quiet, chewing slowly. Wouldn’t it have been better if we lost? Phaedrus choked on the morsel, thumping his chest and swallowing it. Next his head whipped to face Aniketos, brow crumpled like paper — shock bled over into accusation, and as the Councilor went on, his eyes whittled from their soft amber to narrowed flint. “Better if we had lost?” The necromancer repeated to him, voice hushed with incredulity. He scanned the Councilor’s face — pale, drawn, brow still glistening with sweat. Phaedrus leaned forward, mouth twisting in a struggle for words. His bow lips popped open; a scoff burst from them, brows peaking, but it was his eyes that burned like twin flames, fixed on Aniketos. “Better,” he muttered the word like a curse, face threatening to curdle. His confection joined Aniketos’, tossed rough and half-eaten onto the fabric. “Better, yes. Better—to be slaves to Maedaigh’s will. Better to be as the corpses lining the streets. Better to live under a tyrant with no love for human life.” A bitter rictus hooked his face. For a moment he looked off into the trees, his movements jerky, fingers twitching on the moist earth. “Better for her to claim Reine after Madrid; to seize our ships and land in Hoehomi, spread her roots past the Erth’netora and into Morrim. Better.” A derisive little scoff left him. Had he gone mad? For a moment he could not see the Councilor’s grief at all, heart empty of sympathy. He leaned forward with a rustle of cloth, forcing himself into the polite space between them. “Freedom is a struggle. Asserting our basic dignities is a struggle. There is always someone that wants to take it away.” Off went his hand, gesturing to nothing, gesturing to everything. “We did not do this for Madrid. Cities rise—cities fall. They come of dust and return to dust. This—“ he indicated the ruined blocks, a sliver of column choked by vines. “Is only the physicality. The skin, the—bones that hold the soul. “This,” he broke emphatically, finger jabbing his breast like a pike. Then he whipped it at Aniketos before returning his hands to his chest. “We fought for this. So we may live as we are, and think as we do, and act only as we command ourselves.” The necromancer’s lips ironed closed. “We have every right to survive,” he hissed. Have you gone mad, Councilor? Now that we ‘know’? What presumption? Who told you thus? For a moment something else lived in him, something not of Madrid and not of Phaedrus. His eyes burned. “It is not wrong to kill those who do us harm.” Muttered. At length his gaze slid off Aniketos, fixed instead on the thickets and brush. For a moment a painful feeling swelled up inside of him — too hot to the touch, coiling his limbs and fingers; he wished to blacken the shoots to rot, see them aflame, crackling, smoking like sucking pigs— as if somehow they might be an effigy of that cunt — A breath. His head pounded; he palmed his eye, as if it might alleviate the throbbing, wipe away the red images. Instead his hand came away trembling, fisting in his tunic. Accepted her. He turned. “You’re still under her influence,” the necromancer observed, matter-of-fact. His face went oddly still, mouth thinned, stare picking apart Aniketos as if he were a dissected animal. For a moment dread coiled in him: did it mean Maedaigh was not dead? Perhaps some of her magic still lingered in Aniketos, poisoning him from the inside. Or perhaps it was something not so dissimilar from his own condition: the memories, the voices carved into his skull, the words repeated so often they became truth… “What did she promise you?” He asked suddenly. |
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| Aniketos | Nov 6 2017, 10:39 AM Post #10 |
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Unter friedlichen Umständen fällt der kriegerische Mensch über sich selber her.
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Aniketos turned his head away in shame, staring at the leaf litter miring his feet rather than looking at Phaedrus' face. He only looked up when a finger was jabbed in his direction, and just as quickly he looked away again. His weakened body had no vigor for an upwelling of rage, even though he knew he should be angry. That was what gave him the ability to emulate strength in these early days of tireless rebuilding. In the shadow of that rage, however, lived the secret feelings of loss and despair, ones which he had never given voice to before, not even to Shrista. Oh, he could only imagine her reaction to well: some combination of laughter and anger, a bit of tough love to keep him going. Of course, this imagining could very well be wrong, but wasn't Phaedrus' rage proof that this was to be kept a secret forever? Yet he had known Méadaigh unlike any other Sotoan, or so he believed. How could any other understand what it was to love her and hate her? Aniketos shook his head ruefully at the accusation that he was still under her influence. "No, not like that. I know how to tell now when someone is in me and when they are not. But I have not forgotten her, if that's what you mean." "What did she promise you?" Aniketos' tawny eyes closed and he breathed in the air spiced with living leaves and dead ones. He remembered a bower of clover and mimosa, the feeling that his nerves had been spread to cover the whole of the living world around him. A word rose from his lips, born on a breath, "Love." He opened his eyes and turned them on Phaedrus, finally, reassured that there was simply a piece that the other was missing. "Love like you have never known. To be a part of everything...You know how our priests say we surrender our corpses to the earth? It was like that, but while awake and knowing that it was happening. Life and death were neither good nor bad, but all a part of the way it should be, and there was a love in me, and it loved everything, even...suffering." This was where he typically ran aground. His brow furrowed. Though his head was clearing from his faint, he relived the distress that had plagued him in the moments of his waking: Rathurn, Aethelmare, Mollica, every soul that starved in the streets of Reine. "Suffering being just a part of a greater beauty...but if so..." He fell silent, his fingers idly shredding a fallen leaf. "I think sometimes it was an illusion she just made for me, and her promise was false. But in those moments I wanted to live that way forever...All the badness in the world being not badness, but simple truth, a truth which meant something." He shook his head, angrily dusting off his hands. "Forget I ever said anything of it." |
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| Phaedrus | Nov 7 2017, 09:03 PM Post #11 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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He did not respond immediately. Instead a brow arched; he glanced away from the Councilor, nails snicking together as he picked at his thumb. The answer had surprised him, caught him off guard; for a moment his anger cooled, waylaid by confusion. The necromancer blinked overmuch, then tore his gaze away to stare at a tree. “Love.” He tasted the word, struggling on the tongue. "There is nothing that makes men stupider." His voice came wry, though not unkind. In those moments I wanted to live that way forever…. A chill crawled down his spine. He remembered Glede; the giant's metal bellow as he recounted his encounter with the great leviathan of Dead, the sweet ache of giving himself over to that buzzing mind, no longer himself but a dimming consciousness in another. And he! The spiced smoke of opium curling from his nose, buoying him up a place he never thought imaginable, laying his mind and pain down into velvety blackness. How he could have stayed there forever. No Phaedrus. No Glede. No Aniketos. "What easier way to win a war," the necromancer tittered. "Than to convince the enemy that their suffering and death is a goodly thing? That their extermination is merely a part of nature. Clever." Mouth hooked into a sneer, the necromancer looked down to his abused thumbnail, disentangling his hands. Forget I ever said anything of it. At that he glanced up, fixing Aniketos a moment with his eerie eyes. It felt as though he had been offered a glimpse into a private room, an old secret. The Councilor’s words were a raw wound— a fever dream, perhaps, unraveled by his swoon and sun sickness. He brought out his dagger -- slowly, so not to startle Aniketos -- and picked out the grit from under his fingernails. It went on some time; the dappled light flashed off the steel intermittently. Birds chirped. At length he paused, lips twisting, mouth popping open. "I was not born a free man, Councilor," Phaedrus broke, of a sudden. "My Master promised much the same to me. To hear him speak! Every misery he put me through had meaning. Everything was part of some greater scheme, he did well to assure me; and moreover, all he did, he did of love. It may have hurt me -- caused me great distress and pain -- but I suffered only because I could not grasp the vastness of his plan.” A mocking sigh blew from him. "He was a psion -- he lived in me, filled my mind with great imaginings; when I was alone, I was lost and afraid. But when he spoke to me, it seemed everything had sense and place, for he knew all. My qualms seemed wrong. Ungrateful. For who was I, so small of mind, so weak, to question a man so... enlightened?" A bitter scoff left him. A ring of black oozed under his nail where he poked too deep; the necromancer removed his dagger, moving to another finger. "I always thought he was a god," Phaedrus muttered. "Until I killed him. And then I saw him as he was: a weak old man. And now he is gone to dust. And we, the feeble and the unknowing, the lost children, live. Funny." His lips twisted hideously; he pointed the dagger to the trees, twirling it. "I never felt a love such as yours, no. And for that, perhaps, I ought to be grateful. If I thought my Master loved me..." a high-pitched, womanly laugh chattered off his lips. "Perish the thought." The necromancer sheathed his dagger, pulling up one leg and returning to his slice of cheese and bread. "The fing about all Mafters," Phaedrus continued, muffled, through a bite. "Is fhat they use honeft feelings for dishoneft deeds." The necromancer swallowed. "Perhaps there was some truth in what she showed you. But not what she used it for.” His eyebrows launched up; he shook his head, staring at the confection. “Some Daroan philosophers believe we are a shared consciousness. A soul born again and again into different bodies. And our freedom depends on the dissolution of our concept of self. But it does not propose apathy towards annihalation. It encourages respect for all life.” He shrugged, taking a bite, and put it down, dusting his hands. Next he drew a writing stick and journal from his bag and tore out a page. With a looping, frilly hand, he wrote the titles of some scrolls and books upon it, and a name. "It is incomprehensible to me, in truth," the necromancer snorted. "I am not clever enough to understand such philosophies. But perhaps these writings might avail you. And... I would seek out one Ylsabet Troy. She espouses much of what you have said. But her soul is good, and true. And she makes fine tea and lemon tarts.” In better spirits a giggle would have left him; instead came an amused huff. Phaedrus offered the parchment in a dainty hand, at last meeting Aniketos’ eyes. A brow arched. "If that is the path you wish to believe, then do so. But not under her hand or for her promises. Choose it for yourself.” |
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| Aniketos | Dec 12 2017, 02:11 PM Post #12 |
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Unter friedlichen Umständen fällt der kriegerische Mensch über sich selber her.
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Aniketos let out an odd, hiccuping laugh. Yes, Phaedrus saw things clearly, cut to the heart of the problem with a sharp knife. This was why Aniketos felt desire and regret mingling with dread and small, secret self-loathing. He had been made a fool of by love. Such an experience was not common to him, given that he had not felt the sting of love's intoxication until he was well into his twenties. How had he not thought that this experience she had woven for him was a weapon? He, who had spent all of that year figuring out what weapons to use against her! Of course, it had felt so genuine, that was why, and perhaps, in a sense, it was. "I wouldn't be surprised if she believed it," he murmured, staring his embarrassment down into the leaves. "What better justification for a massacre? Helped her sleep at night, maybe." Phaedrus went on to speak of his master, clarifying the situation by way of parallel, cleaning his nails all the while. The blood the issued from him when he dug too far did not look normal. It took Aniketos a moment to decide this. It was not bright, as it should have been even in this dappled light, but too sooty. He looked away from it as one does from a man whose clothes have fallen into disarray and whose balls are hanging out from the precarious cradle of his tucked tunic: reluctantly, and unable to help but glance back. He tried to pay attention, and got the gist of what Phaedrus said – but what a ghostly creature he was, so pale and so strangely dry in this weather, without the sheen of sweet that covered Aniketos' own olive skin. Aniketos took the list of books numbly, staring at the words on the paper with little comprehension. With a habitual moment of his hand, he opened his interdimensional storage space and stowed the paper away so quickly that there was but a flash of shelves, weaponry and the empty waterskin that had been his downfall. "No...You are right. Believing suffering is beauty should be a palliative, not encouragement," he said, finally. Again his eyes strayed to the sooty smear of now-dried "blood." A moment passed in silence. Aniketos' hand wandered to the food he had abandoned and brought it back to his mouth, this time to a more pleasing effect. Still, he could only take a slight nibble before he had to put it back down. He drank some more water – and, realised with annoyance that he already had to piss – then stared up into the trees to ask his question, innocently and unaccusingly. "Who was this 'Master' of yours, if I may ask? Should I have heard of him? Whoever he was, I'm glad the bastard's dead. You cut a tumor from this earth, I am sure." |
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| Phaedrus | Dec 17 2017, 10:57 AM Post #13 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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(Tw: self harm???) The question made him flinch. Perhaps he’d shared overmuch. But somehow, part of him did not care. Did it matter? Did it matter, when Aniketos had seen goddesses and daemons and the titans of the earth crash upon the shores of Soto, and spilled their blood of sap and stone? The Councilor, on some level, knew of his awful talents; he had demonstrated them in the siege and in Nemetona. His secret had outgrown him, fled from between his fingers, and he felt the lie of normalcy unspooling. “No,” Phaedrus mumbled. “You would not know him.” He wiped the dagger on his tunic and fiddled with it. “He died long before I did the rest. He was a physician, and then an alchemist, and then a necromancer, and then a dead man; he kept to himself, in the end.” A shiver rolled down his spine. "I gladden that he had no eye for conquest. He was always myopic.” In a fit of madness he retrieved the dagger again, breath tight in his chest; what did he care? He’d seen the man’s eyes flee to his fingernail, and worse,] he did not even deign to look at him now; he was sick of odd looks, odder questions and oddest reactions. Are you wondering? a cruel, hysterical voice bubbled up in him. Anger bolted through his chest, and he ground his teeth, jaw flickering. Let me dispel your wonder then, Councilor. Go on, see! The necromancer extended his arm, making a fist. And rather casually, as though cutting a cake, he pressed the dagger into the top of his arm and sliced it open. Discomfort twisted his face, but that was all. Thick black fluid bubbled, and a thread of it dribbled down towards his forearm; the flesh closed behind the dagger like lips, leaving behind a line the color of fading ink, and then fresh white skin. But for the line of ichor and the stains upon the steel, it very well hadn’t happened. “A terrible party trick, I must say,” Phaedrus simpered. He wiped the ichor on a patch of grass; the blades putrified and dripped into the earth in black blobs. Paying it no mind, the necromancer put the dagger away, extending his arm and wiggling his fingers. “I was the last thing he made,” he muttered. The necromancer rubbed at the spot where the wound had been, then reached for the bread and cheese again. “He took the soul of a man—“ and he lifted a wedge of cheese, “—and shoved it in a new body—“ splat! it went on the bread, “—and then sprinkled some necromantic shit atop it all—“ he crumbled some walnuts, flinging a dash of it on the cheese, and then held it up, “—and voila.” He kicked out a leg. “A sad jape.” But for all his attempted blasé, his hand still trembled as he brought the confection up to his mouth. It halted at his chest, left the cheese wobbling. He could not look at Aniketos, staring into the brush. “I pray you think no less of me. Whatever I am, and whatever has been done to me, I am still a man.” However querulous and hushed, as he said it, he realized he believed it; he lifted his eyes defiantly to Aniketos’. |
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| Aniketos | Jan 24 2018, 05:07 PM Post #14 |
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Unter friedlichen Umständen fällt der kriegerische Mensch über sich selber her.
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Aniketos watched Phaedrus' little performance with wide eyes, the line of his mouth wobbling as if he might cry again. The man – the creation? – lifted his eyes to meet Aniketos' – and whence had such eyes, yellow eyes like an eagle's, come? Were they rolled from clay by a careful hand, made, as the philosophers said, by mixing the exact proportion of fire, earth, water and air? Under such a penetrating gaze, Aniketos averted his eyes in shame. He shook is head and, as suddenly as he had looked away, looked back up at Phaedrus and impulsively reached for his hand, his face slack and his eyes bright with wetness. "I'm sorry," he said in a rush, wishing to be forgiven, "I struck a nerve – I shouldn't have asked. It was rude." Within a moment, however, he recoiled, feeling that his touch was unwanted. He put his hand – still cool from Phaedrus' flesh – to his forehead and, hunched over his knees, unable to look at Phaedrus. A slimy knot of awkwardness had tied itself in his breast. Though he knew that this was likely because his mind had yet to recover from fainting, he compulsively ran his mind over the missteps that had brought him here. When it came down to it, he should have brought water with him when he came out here. Then again, if it weren't for the war, he wouldn't have had to come down to the Immortal Gardens on such a hot day in the first place. Even if he had decided to come down here, his mind would not have been so addled with all this...all this shit. "Fucking Méadaigh," he mumbled. It always came back to her. Edited by Aniketos, Jan 24 2018, 10:52 PM.
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| Phaedrus | Feb 2 2018, 07:34 PM Post #15 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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Aniketos’ eyes widened. Go on, you wanted to see, didn’t you? You wanted to see. Everyone wishes to see, to know! his mind supplied malevolently as the man looked ripe to cry again, averting his eyes. A brittle, feral snarl came upon Phaedrus’ face. His temples throbbed, confection trembling in his grasp, and it sent a few crumbs of walnuts rolling, pooling in the fold of tunic in his lap. And then he took his hand. Some of the taut, old anger melted, face suffusing with surprise instead. He looked down at the Councilor’s olive hand—strong, rough with sword callouses and yet still elegant in its make, rising and falling in hillocks of knuckles, his perfect nails limned in dirt—and his pale, clammy, bony thing twitched vaguely under Aniketos’ warm, sweaty palm. Phaedrus swallowed past a lump in his throat, suddenly ashamed of his pulsing anger and cruel assumptions. I’m sorry, he said, and Phaedrus swallowed. Are you apologizing because you mean so? Or because you felt me? That viper in his mind lashed. I shouldn’t have asked. It was rude. The necromancer’s face softened. But then the Councilor recoiled from him, and it struck like a backhand, splashing his insides cold. It hurt. Phaedrus snatched his own hand away, fisting it in his tunic, and twisted the fabric, taking a bite of the food. It went dry in his mouth, harder to swallow than the Ikoi sands, and lodged in his throat in a massive lump, sealing off his voice. The Councilor would not even look at him. The homunculus threw his eyes to the trees, stewing in the insufferable silence, unsure if he wanted to cringe into a ball or get up and kick plants, shouting himself hoarse. The indecision kept him rooted there, chewing the cheese and bread like cud, and when he finally swallowed the sandpaper lump, he abandoned the vittle and crossed his arms, leaning on his drawn up knees. Fucking Méadaigh. “Fucking Méadaigh,” Phaedrus agreed, voice hoarse and low. He kept on staring, and for a while the silence kept on, broached only by the chirrup of a brave bird and the halfhearted answer of a cicada. Leaves rustled, but instead of assuming it a harmless squirrel, now he wondered—guts flipping—if it was another enemy. And I always shall, some horrified part of him realized. No human voices braved the thickets spare their own; they were a bubble of humanity in that overwhelming green, unwanted and alien, outmatched, outnumbered. Everything was wrong, wrong— And that wrongness welled up in his breast. He felt like he’d explode, suddenly, awfully awash in it; his face twisted, throat clacking, and then he let out an unexpected sob, burying his face into his knees. Edited by Phaedrus, Feb 2 2018, 07:34 PM.
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