in tenebris est veritas.
Chaele’s bloody hands remain outstretched for a lingering moment, fingers curling absently as she contemplates Wessex’s prophecy for herself. Blown up-- it does not sound like a metaphor, though the shaman cannot imagine how such things could be known literally. Another drip of rain distracts her from these thoughts of fatality and her arms fall to the cold body before her.
Her mask, on the other hand, is directed toward the shawl. “Yes… I will take it,” she replies with as much solemnity as she can muster, though for now she leaves it where it is folded. Instead her hands are busied with a cut beneath the rib cage, which slices through the diaphragm as the knife is guided deeper within. Blindly, Chaele finds the arteries and pericardium that hold the heart in place. With a squelching of coagulated blood, she frees the organ and pulls it beneath her chin. A deep inhale reveals it to smell no different than that of any beast, but the exhale is satisfied nonetheless.
“Do you fear it?” is the natural, if not probing, question that follows. Chaele sets her prize into a box about the size of the one she had brought to the Spire so many weeks ago, then reaches a slick hand toward the lifeless face of the fae woman. Cradling the muddy cheek, she contemplates the differences between the lives and deaths of Fae and Abandoned and Demigod. Whether by murder or disease or, apparently, violent explosion, it is easy to wonder about one’s own demise. “Death.”
Her mask, on the other hand, is directed toward the shawl. “Yes… I will take it,” she replies with as much solemnity as she can muster, though for now she leaves it where it is folded. Instead her hands are busied with a cut beneath the rib cage, which slices through the diaphragm as the knife is guided deeper within. Blindly, Chaele finds the arteries and pericardium that hold the heart in place. With a squelching of coagulated blood, she frees the organ and pulls it beneath her chin. A deep inhale reveals it to smell no different than that of any beast, but the exhale is satisfied nonetheless.
“Do you fear it?” is the natural, if not probing, question that follows. Chaele sets her prize into a box about the size of the one she had brought to the Spire so many weeks ago, then reaches a slick hand toward the lifeless face of the fae woman. Cradling the muddy cheek, she contemplates the differences between the lives and deaths of Fae and Abandoned and Demigod. Whether by murder or disease or, apparently, violent explosion, it is easy to wonder about one’s own demise. “Death.”
