Rory
[ I know I'm super late to this but please anyone come and hang out with Rory! I skimmed the thread so I know the gist of what's going on but I'm not 100% sure who is near who so I'm just sticking him with Wessex for now... ]
Rory had long ago stopped making a lantern for his father.
He had never met the man anyway; he'd just grown up with stories of a husband who was down-to-earth and not very forgiving, but not altogether bad. Rory had often imagined him to be like the father of his best friend—the closest he'd come to a male role model, really—but the older he got, the more he realized that the two had likely been nothing at all alike.
No, Rory did not make a lantern for his dead father. Yet he hung two from his stakes, both made from thin and carefully cured goat hides stretched over a metal frame. Their shapes were whimsical, the hides painted with swaths of soft colors, mixing and blending like the night sky. Painstakingly he had jotted down some of their constellations with bright white pigment. Candles burned within, giving them the appearance of being pieces of the night sky brought down to the surface.
Gently, he touched the chain from which one hung. His sister was somewhere else in the crowd—it had been many years since they'd hung theirs together. He still wasn't sure how he felt about that, although it'd largely been his choice.
And of course the Outlanders came, in droves, unaware of what was going on—some were louder, some were thoughtful. Rory's eyes, bright and blue and intense in the lantern-lit dark, watched them with uncharacteristic cold and wariness. Most of the time he did not mind them, but here they were treading upon something sacred, and Rory ill liked the way some of them moved.
It made him feel sick and sad and worried, afraid to leave his lanterns lest someone's lack of care knock them over; his palms were sweaty and his pulse fast and light.
This was not who he wanted to be.
And yet, he did not want this moment ruined; perhaps he had himself to blame, for not having told them of the upcoming festival.
Slowly Rory left this lanterns, gravitating towards the fire, towards the voice of authority, the one speaking what likely many of them felt. He found himself standing besideWessex, at war with himself. "I don't like this," he said quietly to the Ascended woman, fidgeting with the hem of his worn greatcoat.
Rory had long ago stopped making a lantern for his father.
He had never met the man anyway; he'd just grown up with stories of a husband who was down-to-earth and not very forgiving, but not altogether bad. Rory had often imagined him to be like the father of his best friend—the closest he'd come to a male role model, really—but the older he got, the more he realized that the two had likely been nothing at all alike.
No, Rory did not make a lantern for his dead father. Yet he hung two from his stakes, both made from thin and carefully cured goat hides stretched over a metal frame. Their shapes were whimsical, the hides painted with swaths of soft colors, mixing and blending like the night sky. Painstakingly he had jotted down some of their constellations with bright white pigment. Candles burned within, giving them the appearance of being pieces of the night sky brought down to the surface.
Gently, he touched the chain from which one hung. His sister was somewhere else in the crowd—it had been many years since they'd hung theirs together. He still wasn't sure how he felt about that, although it'd largely been his choice.
And of course the Outlanders came, in droves, unaware of what was going on—some were louder, some were thoughtful. Rory's eyes, bright and blue and intense in the lantern-lit dark, watched them with uncharacteristic cold and wariness. Most of the time he did not mind them, but here they were treading upon something sacred, and Rory ill liked the way some of them moved.
It made him feel sick and sad and worried, afraid to leave his lanterns lest someone's lack of care knock them over; his palms were sweaty and his pulse fast and light.
This was not who he wanted to be.
And yet, he did not want this moment ruined; perhaps he had himself to blame, for not having told them of the upcoming festival.
Slowly Rory left this lanterns, gravitating towards the fire, towards the voice of authority, the one speaking what likely many of them felt. He found himself standing beside
