the offering

in tenebris est veritas.

She falls to her knees and hangs her head.

The fire throws light over her like a blanket over a bed, wrapping her in a glaring heat that tries and fails to comfort her. But it cannot pry into the deep shadows behind the eyes of her mask, nor the echo of darkness that dances elusively behind her. It cannot fathom the trials that have been laid on the path to reach them. It can only reach upward into a clear, careless sky as it crackles like laughter at her bowed posture.

She cannot bring herself to acknowledge it. Not yet. Is it an illusion? It could be another trick, a test of the maze that has already exhausted her muscles and strained her wits. She must be worthy of witnessing it, or perhaps only worthy of the cruel joke that it is not real. Her mind is scattered and frail, but so too might it be open to the wisdom this power might bring. The bowl and its flame were the object of her search, after all. And she can almost feel the static sensation of magic here, as if it were the very fuel in which the flames burned.

Finally her head and the heavy mask it carries tilt upward, as one. She inhales in a deep stutter, but manages to keep her strength as she speaks lowly to the blaze. “I have come to this place, the place of the beginning, to seek what might be found.”

A lone arm emerges from her heavy cloak, reaching toward the flame. She repeats herself in a somber mantra, infusing the words with intention and magic. “I have come to this place, the place of the beginning, to seek what might be found.”

A complex bone charm hangs from withered twine tangled between her carved fingers. A small uncut stone surrounded by a halo of phalangeal bones resembles a planet and its rings. “I have come to this place, the place of the beginning, to seek what might–”

With a quick gasp she stops short, fingers curling back toward her and tucking away the little effigy. Perhaps it was a noise that startled her, or a glimpse in her periphery; perhaps it was simply a feeling, her inner senses heightened in this strange and sacred place. Her head turns towards what she thinks to be the source of the interruption, her once passionate mouth now quiet as the grave.

She stands abruptly, searching.

the lullaby

We cannot pry into the who's and why's of fate and chance; we make fools of ourselves in even trying to force reason onto hopelessly complex and ever-branching decision trees. In short, let's not ask what brought these two together, at this particular time, and in this particular way. All you need know is this:

Remi is a man on fire. No, that isn't quite right.
Remi is fire.

The tawny wings that stretch from his broad shoulder blades combined with a boyish head of curls might at first suggest someone (or something) angelic. Fire, after all, need not always be a thing of malevolence. The scars that silver his torso and across his neck...those too need not immediately be read violently. Oh but the eyes. From the swaying shimmer of the flames that line his body, Remi regards the knelt figure with a flat sea-glass green stare.

"Do not stop on my account." In a voice that sounded rather melodic (read: Italian) if not subdued, the Lullaby folds his arms comfortably across his flaming torso and gives the figure a polite nod.

Because of the fire, it might also be prudent to mention that Remi is naked, if only because his clothing has entirely burned away.

Every shade of hurt you know
From the deep blue to the marigold
It's gonna make sense someday lookin' back

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

in tenebris est veritas.

A moment of stunned silence follows his words, followed by another. The flames that surround, no, comprise him seem to laugh joyously for his presence, but she can only feel a cold, sinking curiosity that stretches time and confounds speech. She has been warned of the whims of the powerful, and knows too little of the divine to tell the difference; this seraphim creature, in this place of prophecy, in all his light and beauty, is a deity in every respect.

Her knees weaken with the instinct to kneel again, to oblige him and resume her chant in aberrant worship of him, but stubborn ego dares her not to. Instead her chin tips ever so slightly upward, bringing the sharp nose of her stag skull mask with it. Her heart is a drumbeat in her throat, her tongue dry paper behind lips of fragile glass. Still she manages to form the words, "I am Chaele Omriwin, shaman of the four winds. I have come to pay respects at this point of power.”

The little effigy, partially hidden by the shadow of her cloak, clacks gently at her side– as if imploring to be cast into the fire. “Who...” she begins, though that does not seem like quite the right designation. “What are you? What do you know of this place?”

the lullaby

Staring as if he had the ability to peer through the marrow and bone adoring the shaman's face, Remi looks from the masked figure to the guiser of fire behind her, and then back again. Despite the flames that made his features look almost illusory as the heat of them caused the air to shimmer, his expression was easily readable as one of skepticism with regards to this being a place of power.

"I am the Lullaby." Remi replies, taking a step forward. Predatory though he might be in other shifts as well as just a man, with a body encompassed by fire and feathers, his more aggressive nature was perhaps soothed such that his movements were fluid instead of rapacious. "The demigod of.." Aiming to move around the shaman that he might bring himself alongside the bowl of fire, Remi smiles to himself for a moment as he considers. "..death, I suppose." Had he ever said it so bluntly before? "Most just call me Remi."

Reaching a hand into the fire where it parted away from him like oil from water, the alchemist pulls in a slow breath before his pale stare flicks from the flames back to the shaman. "It was said that this place could grant power to the abandoned—magic users." If this Chaele did not know who he was, undoubtedly she was an outlander. "If I remember correctly, there are myths about jumping through the flames to become stronger. " With hardly any effort at all, the flames dampen down, and it's with an expression of you see? that Remi regards Chaele.

"I imagine it is a bit like saying you can walk on water. Easier when it is frozen, but still water-walking just the same."

Every shade of hurt you know
From the deep blue to the marigold
It's gonna make sense someday lookin' back

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

When you see something out of the corner of your eye, turn to look, and see nothing at all, what should you conclude? That you were having a hallucination? Or that your peripheral vision is perhaps not to be trusted. Ask yourself, are you tired? Drunk? Under the influence of something? Is the lighting good? Are there lots of moving shadows about? Are there reasons you have to think that your mind is playing tricks on you?

Because...well, because it would be absurd to think that out of the corner of your eye you had just seen a house. A house with a figure slamming its hands against one of the upper windows with enough force to shatter it, and then...

Well, then you looked and it was gone.

Nah, you're probably just tired.

in tenebris est veritas.

His name did ring in the back of her mind like vigilance and dread, a word once spoken on bitter lips alongside the names of other distant, fickle beings. She had made it this far without meeting any of the entities that she had been cautioned against, and she counted herself lucky. But the predator lurking within his ease and grace was easy enough to intuit, she the presumptive prey that steps back as he steps forward.

A held breath is finally loosened toward the abated flames, her gaze finally turning away from him to witness them as he describes the little ritual. She had heard of just the same – it was why she sought this place out at all – but somehow she had not considered actually doing it. “That is not my power,” she explains, and it is true enough that the novice Abandoned can boast of no command of the elements. An amused grin takes shape in her voice as she adds, “Perhaps you are lying to me, that I might sacrifice myself to Death.”

Chaele might have kept her cool, might have gotten away with a pretense of hubris, if it were not for the illusory mischief that spikes in her nerves. Her head jerks toward the vision just as it disappears, born of heat and light and consumed just as blisteringly. Her eyes press shut to better ward off the disquiet that rises insidiously in her chest, and she can only hope in vain that the servant of Ludo does not notice or mind.

Her attention returns willfully to the flames, unable to meet his critical crystalline gaze. “Have you seen anyone do it?”

the lullaby

Her comment makes him laugh, making him look younger and boyish for just a moment. "That is not how I go about my work. But then, I suppose if I was lying, that is exactly the sort of thing I might say." Shrugging his shoulders, Remi lets his wings fold against his back where they disappear in a soft hush of feathers. Around him the darkness is banished by illusory images that appear so very real such that he looks as though he's standing in a sunlit glade surrounded by wildflowers. "I bring death, yes, but only to a select few. Those I collect are ones already marked by fate, but of a particularly violent sort." He explains. "I take those who would otherwise meet death horrifically and with a good amount of pain. I come to them early to spare them that." Glancing over his shoulder where motes of dust now dance delicately in the warm golden light, he looks slowly back to Chaele. "They leave surrounded by their favourite memories."

Sharply the illusion disappears as Remi too sees the house, the woman, the pounding of her fists. Narrowing his eyes into the darkness where nothing but a blurred after image remains, the alchemist tries to douse the snarl on his lips without immediate success.

Turning back to the flames and the shaman, the alchemist gives his head a shake. "No. But there is a first time for everything if you would like to try. I can keep the flames low, but...if you are quick enough, you would not be burned anyway."

Every shade of hurt you know
From the deep blue to the marigold
It's gonna make sense someday lookin' back

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

in tenebris est veritas.

Her gaze does not stray from the hypnotic fire. Not only is it an easy distraction from the uncanny beauty of the entity opposite, but it is the promise of a worthy challenge in the face of a fear that must be fully contemplated. Whereas the Demigod appears younger than he is, veiled as he is in illusion and divinity, the Abandoned is hunched with the burdens of mortality and trepidation. When she speaks, it is to the blaze.

“Is death not supposed to be painful? Are not such horrors as pain and death said to be a part of life?” She argues mostly for arguing’s sake, a pretense of potency serving as a poor mask for her stalling words. “I will thank you not to spare me such suffering, when my time comes. I am prepared for the end.”

She steps back then, a single long stride that seems to test the distance she will have to run before a leap. “I will also thank you for not lowering the flames. If this thing is to be done, then let it be done fully.”

Her hand rises to her the clasp on her cloak and it drops to the soft grass around her feet. Her arms are covered in scars that upon closer inspection are revealed to take the shape of carved runes, twisting gently atop flexing muscles as her fingers ball into fists. She takes another preparatory step back... but something stops her. Perhaps it is something other than fear, like the gaze of the laughing Lullaby or the shock of what could have been a warning vision. Or perhaps her nerves really have gotten the best of her. One need not see her face to detect the dubious frown in her posture.