RORY
He listened.He waited.
And as every time before, the seconds stretched, empty and lifeless. It was only the throb of his pulse, the sound of his even breathing, the oh-so-quiet whisper of candle flame. Rory closed his eyes. The air around him remained empty. There was no surge of power, no murmur of a deity slipping into existence. It was just him and the Shrine.
He opened his eyes. Still nothing. He wanted, so badly, he needed, but all of it was left unanswered. Untouched. Unacknowledged. Through no fault of his own was he left in the dark, to fend for himself, to find his own way, to fight his battles alone
—mortal and useless—
and in anger his mind snaked out and killed
each
candle
until the Shrine was dark. From behind him came a hesitant, quiet voice, apologizing for the blood fault in Rory, and he closed his eyes again, a pained expression on the face he still kept turned from her. It wasn't her fault: it was his flaw. He was an undesirable to the Gods, so they remained silent.
Snuffing out all their offerings probably wouldn't endear him to them any further, and though he looked within, he found nothing with which to spark them back to life. So he sighed, and tilted his head—burns healing upon his neck and the lower half of his face, the worst of it closed, the rest merely glistening and pink as it sat around his lips—and looked at who it was.
To his surprise, he saw that it was Maea. He knew who she was (who didn't?), but they hadn't interacted much. He'd mostly dealt with her brother. "Maea," he said in surprise, his voice mild, his eyes gentle. "It is not you." He said it with such certainty that it obviously meant only one thing: I am Abandoned.
He didn't know what else to say to her, so instead he stood up, and went to one of the lanterns nearby. He grabbed a thin stick and stuck it in the flame, willing the fire to take, to grow, and it flickered as it ate into the wood. With a sigh he returned to the Shrine with it, and set about to lighting all the candles he had put out.
It wasn't their fault.
It was nobody's fault.
It wasn't anything he could fix and it frustrated him.
as if you were on fire from within,
the moon lives in the lining of your skin.
the moon lives in the lining of your skin.
