in tenebris est veritas.
Chaele had said too much. She winces as the sound of his contemplative silence elongates in her ears, knowing that it was something better admitted to the wind than to the very object of her envy. Even as the silence breaks, his words ring like the sympathy they aren’t. She heaves a little sigh, eyes set distinctly on the path ahead.
Eventually a few nods rock her antlered head: the first one of comprehension, the next of pensive agreement, and the last to acknowledge the honest advice he has offered. “Is that what you crave?” She replies, eager enough to move on from her confession. “Strength?”
She considers what else could be craved, what reason there could be to tap into this power they share, to steal those divine threads from the tapestry of the world and fabricate them into one's own whim. Strength was defensible, sure, and aggressive and seductive. But when it is held in one hand, the other hand holds freedom. The ability to do the desired thing, for the sake of that same desire, despite the cost or the obstacle or the weakness. She had learned this and other things from a long gone mentor, who is just as likely to be roaming the wilderness as decaying beneath it.
“I have learned more from the land than the magic it contains,” she offers, as if to insist that she is not entirely without talent. “There are subtler powers, like divinations and wards. I am familiar with the rites of the haruspex, should you care to use one of your kills for fortune-telling.”
Eventually a few nods rock her antlered head: the first one of comprehension, the next of pensive agreement, and the last to acknowledge the honest advice he has offered. “Is that what you crave?” She replies, eager enough to move on from her confession. “Strength?”
She considers what else could be craved, what reason there could be to tap into this power they share, to steal those divine threads from the tapestry of the world and fabricate them into one's own whim. Strength was defensible, sure, and aggressive and seductive. But when it is held in one hand, the other hand holds freedom. The ability to do the desired thing, for the sake of that same desire, despite the cost or the obstacle or the weakness. She had learned this and other things from a long gone mentor, who is just as likely to be roaming the wilderness as decaying beneath it.
“I have learned more from the land than the magic it contains,” she offers, as if to insist that she is not entirely without talent. “There are subtler powers, like divinations and wards. I am familiar with the rites of the haruspex, should you care to use one of your kills for fortune-telling.”
