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of gods and geysers - Printable Version

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of gods and geysers - Arialla - 06-11-2020

[say]"Breathtaking ... "[/say] Arialla muttered, moving carefully between the geysers and mounds of the Rainbow Road. She'd come out here just to explore after hearing rumors of how spectacular the place was -- and it had not disappointed. Places like this probably existed in her own home world, but she never would have traveled far enough to see one. And I should start appreciating Caido, since it looks like I'm going to spend a long time here. Arialla tried not to let the thought ruin her mood, but -- she was trying to accept it, the possibility that she might even spend the rest of her life in Caido. The thought of never seeing home again cut her to the bone, but she could salve it a little with thoughts that at least the place she'd found herself trapped in was so beautiful.

Mm, no. Not salved nearly as much as she'd thought. Arialla paused in the shadow of one of the mounds and covered her face with her hands, trying to overcome a sudden wave of homesickness before it left her in tears.


RE: of gods and geysers - Melita - 06-12-2020

[say]“Wow!”[/say] A wild, exuberant shout meant to echo across the horizon, the moment Melita’s eyes took in the full expanse of bright, beatific colors. She didn’t have much to compare to – save for illustrious hues amongst reefs – and stood amongst the geysers’ embankments in a savage, gaping sprawl, jaw unhinged, enthusiastic smile rippling across her mouth. The staff in her hand, since she’d been previously swinging at nothing, went limp at her side, a rush of untamed presence completely embodying her essence. A rampage of movement, motion, and sound followed, her limbs carrying her around fixtures and frameworks, frenzied, frenetic, rushes of maneuvers along its boundaries. Poor Fangorn leapt to catch up, grumbling and growling the whole time.

The youth gave no thought or pause to anyone else in the vicinity until she was almost right on top of them. [say]“Oh, hello!”[/say] No recognition granted or given, she’d never seen this other woman before, and she was entirely too distracted by the beauty set out before them to render her as familiar or not. [say]“Isn’t this lovely?”[/say] And then kept right on rushing forward, intending to circle the entire periphery.


RE: of gods and geysers - Arialla - 06-12-2020

The other woman's yelling startled Arialla out of her grief, which she supposed she ought to be grateful for. She dropped her hands from her face and just watched for a moment, dumbfounded, as another redhead cavorted around her. And was that a ... gourd of some kind, moving around at her heels?

She had to smile at the woman's enthusiasm. [say]"It is, it is!"[/say]

Arialla wasn't sure if she should follow the other woman or just stay where she was, so she decided to move around a bit, look like she had somewhere to go. She wandered aimlessly through the geysers and pools in the same general direction as the other woman, though not nearly as quickly.


RE: of gods and geysers - Melita - 06-13-2020

The youth eventually slowed down, twisting along the colors, stare heightening, widening, as she gazed in wonder beyond the hues. She hadn’t noticed the coiling heat of the geysers until now, so perhaps it’d been wise (for once), to go gallivanting across the water’s surface in bare feet. Were she someone of scientific, scholarly platitudes, she might have already known the circumstances surrounding the rainbows’ existence – unfortunately, the youth had long since been bent towards more ferocious inclinations. Nonetheless, her mind spiraled and consumed, pondered to the best of its abilities, crouching down by the embankment, tempted to reach a hand out, a finger, to touch the realm of heat. Fangorn’s grumbles, clearly understanding the enticement, provided adequate warning, and so the youth was forced to pout, furrowing her brows.

The other woman seemed prompted by the entire spectacle too, though didn’t enact the same bombardments around the pool – and her gaze lifted back across the tangible fragments and filaments, filling in the void of silence. A loud holler ensued, in the midst of battle it would’ve been a howl; here it was speculation and not much more. [say]“Do you know what it is?”[/say]


RE: of gods and geysers - Arialla - 06-14-2020

[say]"Beautiful?"[/say] Arialla guessed. She wasn't sure whether the question was rhetorical or if the woman actually wanted her to explain the phenomena. Arialla had no idea what caused the colors and geysers. Not here in Caido, anyway: [say]"At home we would call these the work of a god, steam and run-off from his forge. But I don't know if Caido has a forge-god."[/say]

Watching the other woman did make Arialla a little concerned. She definitely shouldn't be touching the geysers. But the gourd thing seemed to successfully guide her back from that, so Arialla didn't say anything.


RE: of gods and geysers - Melita - 06-14-2020

Beautiful, while truthful, didn’t signify or snare at the answers Melita craved. The slightest of frowns immersed itself along her mouth, a twist and turn of a sigh, the unknown still basking and billowing before them.

But she listened to the other words flowing thereafter, tilting her head a fraction, a fragment, and nodding at understanding, in comprehension. Perhaps it was the work of a god, a herald, brushstrokes on canvas, a moment of artistic venue, and then left to its own devices. After all, how many times had she experienced it in Helovia: awe-inspiring heights, enigmatic caves, glasswork for noses to press against and stare upon the world below? [say]“Maybe we would too,”[/say] she offered, the uncertainty still there, but less pressed for a suitable response. She could take this one. [say]“I don’t know anything about a forge-god though,”[/say] and the youth laughed, another effervescent thing unwinding across the colors. Were there a deity blessed by rivers of fire, she’d set her faith and credence within the embers and brimstone.


RE: of gods and geysers - Arialla - 06-16-2020

[say]"No one's mentioned to me if one of the gods here has a blacksmith aspect,"[/say] Arialla agreed. She didn't like leaving a divine question unanswered; she was a priestess, after all, and she was accustomed to being the authority in such matters. But, then, she wasn't a priestess here in Caido. [say]"Rae is the god of change, right? And this seems like a place of change."[/say]

It also seemed like an odd venue in which to have a theological conversation; Arialla laughed at that thought as it occurred to her. [say]"Whichever god's to blame, it's a gorgeous place. I never could have seen this at home."[/say]

If only this were a temporary visit, and not the rest of her life.


RE: of gods and geysers - Melita - 06-17-2020

No, no blacksmithing aspects to gods, and she nodded a little from across the way at the notions of Rae, of change, of influential purposes. Maybe this world was a press of alterations, where water and colors blended together into an opus, an oeuvre, a masterpiece, of contortions no human could possibly encompass. [say]“Whomever created it did a fine job,”[/say] she murmured, quiet in her crouch, in her stare beyond the pale, conceding defeat in her lack of knowledge and wisdom.

The newcomer, the stranger, mentioned home, and a pang swelled in her chest, enclosing over her heart. This was home now, but Melita had others too – some malicious, some radiant, some blistering, some incandescent. Perhaps they would’ve had this too in Helovia, trickled on down from the Veins of the Gods, where pedestals and paragons had fallen, but not their hearts, not their minds, not their souls. [say]“Where did you live?”[/say] The youth extended to the other Outlander.


RE: of gods and geysers - Arialla - 06-17-2020

Arialla nodded. [say]"We would have considered this place sacred, perhaps, a place to commune with its maker ..."[/say]

Nobody had really asked much about Arialla's home before. She didn't realize until the stranger spoke how much she wanted someone to. It hurt to think about, but -- someone ought to care, who she had been. Where she had come from. [say]"Armenistris, on Ikaria, in the Aegean Sea."[/say]

The names would't mean anything to the stranger, she knew. But it helped to say them, to remember that she had a heritage, a home. Out there somewhere. Even if she could never go back. [say]"It's a small fishing town, the kind where everyone knows everyone else. Torchline reminds me of it, a little -- the shore, the fishing boats. But it's very different, too."[/say]


RE: of gods and geysers - Melita - 06-18-2020

The names and phrases meant nothing to her – but they held significance to the stranger, and so she listened, in the quiet, bubbling depths, in the kaleidoscope hues bristling near their armaments. Most Outlanders, like herself, like this woman, held special testaments in their heart to the places they cherished the most, worlds they’d never see again, images, places, and faces that would only spiral through their dreams and memories. Sometimes it helped to say them, to give them life again, so they weren’t merely aches and pains in the residual. So perhaps this was much like a shrine to her – and Melita could imagine it so, with a little sacred relic close at hand, a place to drop their offerings to whomever deigned it theirs. [say]“Have you met any of the gods here?”[/say] A light whisper, haphazard maybe in its wake.

But then another smile, tender and warm flourished. [say]“That sounds wonderful. At least you have a fragment of what used to be.”[/say] She meant it in aspects of kindness, something to hold onto, to reflect upon, when these worlds seemed so very vast, different, strange, overwhelming, and bewildering.


RE: of gods and geysers - Arialla - 06-19-2020

[say]"I spoke to Safrin,"[/say] Arialla said, thinking back to that conversation, which still weighed on her mind. [say]"She wasn't what I expected -- not like the gods of my own world."[/say]

And how would Arialla answer the questions Safrin had posed? What did she want to do? Should she swear herself to the service of a new god, or try to find a life of her own? Fight the Voice, or let the past go? Arialla knew she had to have a clearer idea of what she wanted before she spoke to Safrin -- or any god -- again. But she had no idea what it was.

[say]"Sometimes I think seeing things that remind me of home just hurts more,"[/say] Arialla admitted. [say]"But it is nice to have a place that's familiar, where I don't feel so ... adrift."[/say]


RE: of gods and geysers - Melita - 06-19-2020

Melita had only met Safrin once before, trailing after Sunjata amongst and amidst the wintry wonders of Halo – mainly to ensure he didn’t commit to something idiotic. It had been a wondrous surprise, to see the lady of the stars in all her glory, a highlighted beacon across the cosmos. [say]“She’s quite beautiful,”[/say] and Melita hummed under her breath, not much else to regale, save for the little ivory stones to match the momentous occasion. She’d kept those tucked away though, furtive and secretive. But the question wasn’t extended back to her, so the girl fell silent, casting a rock out into the water with a quiet little plop in between plumes of heat and curling ventures.

Unaware of what Safrin had proposed or regaled the stranger with, the honeybee child was forced to merely tilt her head, stare over the hues towards Arialla. For the youth, who’d lost too many things over time and worlds, her preference veered heavily towards moments of memory, of pleasant figments, unwarped, uncalloused by everything else falling apart around them. A soft smile alighted again, and she threw another pebble, watched it sink like the other. [say]“I would rather have something familiar, then nothing at all.”[/say]


RE: of gods and geysers - Arialla - 06-21-2020

[say]"She is."[/say] Safrin's beauty was the one element of their conversation that left Arialla without any doubts or confusion. But she noticed the stranger's quiet, as well. [say]"Have you met her as well?"[/say]

Arialla still wasn't used to the idea that in Caido ordinary people could pray at a shrine and actually expect to talk to a god. Back home, priests and priestesses spent months in prayer and preparations in an attempt to get a vague sign from their deity. Apollo had deigned to speak to Arialla once, and that single act of favor had catapulted her into the priesthood for life. [say]"At home the gods rarely spoke to us, at least not directly. It was all interpreting leaves and flocks of birds. Here ... it's very different."[/say]

Quiet then, as Arialla contemplated her homesickness once more. [say]"Yes. It's good to have something."[/say]

After all, her familiarity with beaches had at least made it a little easier for her to navigate her new life, letting her beachcomb her way into an offering for Safrin.


RE: of gods and geysers - Melita - 06-21-2020

An inquiry directed back towards her caused the youth to lift her head from staring into the multi-hued abyss, gilded gaze segmented back towards Arialla. [say]“I have, in Halo. On the tundra.”[/say] In the vast, open fields of ice and snow, where the chilling void should’ve pulsed and mauled her lungs, her bones, her life; but the goddess, in all her protective, shielding state, had allowed the cosmos to keep them warm. [say]“It was in a crowd, so I didn’t get to say much,”[/say] except gawk, and stare, immerse herself in the beauty of the evening. [say]“But there can always be a next time.”[/say] Her smile, bright and kindred, softened a little.

Then there were other sentiments and ruminations, familiar too in their regard. [say]“We had our gods, but their appearances were seldom. Usually in great or grave circumstances.”[/say] Emblems of faith and goodwill towards their chosen, allotted kingdoms, or harbingers of something monstrous, callous, and mutinous around the bend. Very rarely did they merely appear at a mortal’s behest – though the notion of interpreting other signs was intriguing. [say]“How did the leaves or birds help?” [/say]