ꙮ Some of the roads in the City closest to the pyramid-temple at its heart are covered, so that even during the heat of the day, you can walk outside and– there’s really no escaping the Sun’s light, not without being properly indoors. But it does make it easier. Later in the day, when the Sun comes near the horizon, Mu does not have night, exactly, as much as it has a long, drawn-out crepuscular sunset, the Sun dipping low on the horizon, spreading out like a bloodstain, but never quite letting the desert escape its bitter radiance. It’s easier then, too, but still not easy.
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#wolf
#yazhn ravhi
walks beneath one of those shaded roadways, towards the temple at the city’s core. He looks out on the lowered-but-not-setting sun, shading his eyes against its burn with a hand, clearly lost in thought.
ꙮ You have the strangest sense - for not the first time, since coming here - that when you look towards the Sun, it looks back at you, in something like recognition. It’s certainly not your first run-in with it, either. Someone– human, in his late teens- is running hell-bent from one end of the avenue to the other, isn’t looking where he’s going, runs headlong into you and then bows deeply and squeaks out an apology to the ‘honored wayfarer’ before immediately darting off towards whatever door he’d been running towards.
rocks back on his heels–he wouldn’t even be that off-stride if not for his distraction–and rolls his eyes good-naturedly at the boy’s back. “Honored wayfarer, hm?” he says to himself, half under his breath. Wolf sighs, looking back up at the sun–pricking his ears up to see if he can hear the ‘scream’ he knows all too well.
ꙮ The desert’s song, and just the desert’s song, and underneath it, a hollowness. Skin stretched over a frame, unbeaten.
frowns at that. A hollowness? He closes his eyes to listen more deeply, humming softly in the depths of his throat–probing in a way that, very possibly, no other living being could.
ꙮ The desert’s song echoes, reverberates. Off of what? Within what? There is a space, here, whether between white towers which no longer stand, or under the sand itself, it’s impossible to say.
grunts softly as he opens his eyes and places his feet back on the path to the temple–slowly, considering. Another mystery, another missing piece…his expression is rather that of a man chewing on a fairly sour lemon.
ꙮ There are lemon trees growing in orchards, just outside the City! On the other side of the City from the main gate into the desert, there’s a vast swath of orchard-land and farmland that’s been reclaimed over countless years, and they planted citrus trees, dates, figs. They’re all very sweet, though. I suppose that’s neither here nor there. As you walk towards the Temple: ⁂
is walking towards you, along the covered avenue. You mistook him for another white-cloaked Kin, this close to the Temple there’s any number of them, this late in the day, going about their business in the City. But then he looks up, notices Wolf, stops still on the street with an unreadable expression, raises a clawed hand in greeting.
stops in his tracks, blinks–realizes he’s basically just staring, and raises a hand in return. He gathers the scattered bits of his composure back up as quickly as he can. “Ah! Er, hello.”
: “Hello, Wolf.” His voice is higher than you’d expect it to be, from looking at him– carries the cadences of someone who leads a chorus in song, regularly. He starts back up again, closes some of the distance between them, so he doesn’t have to raise his voice. “I was just coming to speak with you.”
laughs, a bit startled. “Well then. It’s good that I ran into you. I was coming to see you.“ Wolf’s own voice fits nicely against Ravhi’s–baritone to the Kin’s tenor, a hint of weathered rasp contrasting nicely to the Yazhn’s smoother tones.
snorts, very softly, out of his nose, joining Wolf in amusement. “Imagine if we’d passed by like two hippalectria with messages for each others’ riders, then. Providence, that we did not.” The corners of a mouth that is not, terribly, used to smiling turn up in a smile.
chuckles softly, ducking his head a little–before his expression sobers, his eyes lifting to meet Ravhi’s carefully. “I….imagine you have questions for me.”
meets Wolf’s gaze, amber-gold eyes meeting his. His nictitating membranes blink, once, milk-white over his eyes. “Do you, now?” His head cants, slightly, to the side, and his eyes dart away from Wolf’s. Only briefly. “But the Temple thoroughfare is hardly a place to share thoughts at length. Come, let’s find shade together.”
nods, briefly. “Aye, agreed. You know this city better than I ever shall–lead the way?”
lets out another soft huff though his nose. “I ought to show you a map of the City. It was built in order to be comprehensible to those who live in it. Spend enough time here, and you’ll know it as well as I.” But he does turn, and motions for Wolf to follow, back to the Pyramid. Not the main entrance - a side-street, and then a small zigzagging ramp, with a channel of water built into the wall along one side that you could dip your fingertips into, lightly, and then an archway into the bulk of the Pyramid itself, and blessed shade.
chuckles softly. “Comprehensible, certainly. But I am coming to find that cities have souls and textures of their own–ones that must be lived in to be truly known.” His smile turns wry. “Alas, I am only a visitor.” Wolf sighs in relief at the shade–he’s used to the outdoors, and rough weather, but Mu’s sun is still taxing.
looks thoughtful, in response to that; lets the backs of his claws run along the white marble of the half-wall as he climbs the ramp. “A visitor, but a welcome one, as long as you choose to stay here.” Something happens with his eyes, outside of the Sun’s light; his pupils widen dramatically, his eyes relax. “I assume the lands from which you traveled to us are not burdened with this light? I am glad it is not unmanageable for you and your fellow travelers, then.”
: “I am used to the outdoors and the road; in the days before I came to wander the worlds, I walked many miles going from settlement to settlement.” Wolf smiles, a bit wistfully. “But no, the other worlds are not quite like this. My own world’s ‘Centrelight’ is quite gentle. Samudra is always overcast. And the Beast has no sun at all, but shining moons.”
listens to the names - Centrelight, Samudra, Beast - like he’s tasting something unfamiliar for the first time. “How strange. One imagines that the Sun one knows is the only thing that is, and could ever be, and all this time, there have been lands lit by less-harsh light.” This whole time, he’s been leading Wolf down a white-marble corridor with off-paths into storage rooms, a visible Rite practice arena, what looks like a classroom; finally, he turnes, presses his hand to a crystal panel set into the wall, and a door slides open. Inside: a room richly decorated in red-and-gold tapestries, couches surrounding a central table, an alcove off to the side, every bit as soft and welcoming as the Pyramid’s hall was angular and unforgiving. “Please, make yourself comfortable. Would you like coffee?”
looks around the room–taking it in, ears going a little pink as he surmises that he’s in something like Ravhi’s own quarters. “Yes, ah, please.” He sits on one of the couches, eyes still roaming the room–always circling back to Ravhi, however. “Do not envy my world overmuch, Yazhn Ravhi,” Wolf says, gently. “For it is doomed.”
sidles over to the alcove off to the side, and fusses for a few moments, pouring water from a pitcher into a little copper pot on a metal stick that he half-buries in a tray of sand; Wolf can feel the slight but perceptible application of burning gnosis. Softly, in response, eyes focused on the ibrik he’s holding, delicately, in one hand, “How so?”
takes a deep breath, exhales, and as he speaks, his voice settles into–not quite Salme’s ‘storyteller’ cadence, but something kin to it. “Almachadta is a world of verdant growth, of endless green. As Mu is a world of Radiant gnosis, as Samudra swells with Pellucid and the Beast glows with Burning, my home is a world of Flourishing. We want for naught, save perhaps metal and stone, in a realm where life springs as easily as breathing. But there is a catch–a sickness at the heart of the world.” His eyes go distant, and his face grim. “A sickness of hunger already takes root in my world. Hunger without satiation, spawning terrible monsters from the depths of Life, consuming without end–until all is ripe, and the world is devoured from without, in shattering and fire. Only a seed remains, a hidden temple around which–we surmise–the world reforms.” ⁂
looks directly at Yazhn Ravhi, then. “Two-hundred and sixteen times has my world died in fire and hunger, and two-hundred and sixteen times has it been reborn. Over and over, unbeknownst to its inhabitants, for…250,000 years.” He smiles tightly. “It is why we walk the worlds. We seek to understand why Almachadta–and Samudra, and the Beast–die and are reborn in endless cycles. So that, gods willing, the cycle may be broken, and the worlds that we love–and have come to love–may be saved.” Wolf’s smile falters and turns grim. “…I do not know if we shall be in time. There is precious little time left.” 🙧
meets Wolf’s gaze, when Wolf turns to look at him, because he’d already turned away from the ibrik to watch him as he spoke. ⁂
is silent, listening, and then, a moment after he finishes, he turns his gaze back to the ibrik long enough to lift it out of the sand, place it back in, lift it up again - there’s some sort of complicated ritual, playing itself out here, culminating in carefully pouring its contents into two small, delicate-looking cups, and placing them on a gold platter, which he carries over and sets down on the table in front of Wolf. There’s a small metal vessel full of sugar cubes, and the two cups of coffee, which smell vividly of spices – cardamom, cinnamon, as well as coffee itself. He takes one of the sugar cubes, very carefully places it in his mouth, and then sips from his cup of coffee, through the sugar cube, sets the cup down, and then, finally, and flatly: “There is a rite of renewal, here, that our records report as having happened two hundred and sixteen times in our history.”
’s eyes sharpen, locking intently on Ravhi’s. “Tell me more.”
, for that moment at least, has not a scrap of attention for coffee. He looks like…a wolf, with his nose pricked by a very particular scent.
continues. “The last time this rite of renewal was celebrated was twelve thousand and ninety-six years ago. I knew it was– I knew the history, when your companion spoke, but I needed to verify, with the Zvahr. I needed to be sure. It cannot be a coincidence, I do not think. I do not know what it means.” He reaches, halfway, towards his coffee, and doesn’t make it there, his hand kind of hanging, mid-reach.
nods, once, sharply…then leans back, exhaling. Very deliberately, he makes himself take a sugar cube, and a sip of coffee, and savors it even as the tension in his shoulders makes it clear he would very much rather stay on the hunt. “We would very much appreciate, Yazhn Ravhi, anything your people could share about this rite. As you can understand, it seems…significant. It may be part of why Mu does not suffer the same cycle of death.” He forces a bit of a smile. “…the coffee is very good, by the way.”
looks up at Wolf, eyes gold and bright. He makes himself take another sip of the coffee – and it is good, it is beyond simply good, it is like running a razor over your tongue; it lances through you like light; you are opened, by it, to a spectrum of colours not otherwise available, and afterwards you are as a molted snake, everything dead flensed off of you – sets it down, carefully, on the platter. Very softly: “The details of the rite are unrecorded. Experienced only by the Yazhn of Yazhn in service, that year. Kin, of course. I could find his statue in the Halls, but– only the God could reawaken him to ask him what he saw in the Holy of Holies. To the rest of us, it was simply… one celebration, among many, albeit one noted and remarked-upon in our histories.”
sighs, his shoulders sagging, just a bit. “I see.” His smile is very wry. “I wonder what it says about my companions, and our journey, that my first thought is to make the request of your God.”
, softly, responds. “It says, to me, that you care for your world deeply, and wish to understand anything that would shed light on the threats which face it. I would do the same, were I in your position. I would beat down the God’s doors, I would leap to finish the Work in a single bound, in order to ask of Him my question, if my City and its people were in the balance.”
: “In that, it seems, we are much alike.” Wolf laughs softly. “As are my companions. The Awoken, in particular, would probably just stride up to God, place his hands on his hips, and tell God what needed doing.” ⁂
takes another breath, and another sip of coffee, savoring it more slowly and more willingly, this time. Thus fortified, he sets his cup down, and–squaring his shoulders–sets himself to the business he came here for in the first place. “However, I fear we have gotten rather distracted.” His voice is gentle, low, and carries every bit of his yeresh presence. “Yazhn Ravhi…ask me the question you have wanted to ask since we first met by the embers.”
halts, in the middle of bringing the delicate cup to his lips; he continues the motion, taking a slow sip, setting the cup down on the table, almost managing to even make the motion look as elegant and deliberate as all of his motions have been. He closes his eyes– his actual eyelids, this time, maybe the first time you’ve seen him do that– and opens them again, looking right at Wolf. “Why, wanderer from afar, do I recognise your voice?” There is a second question, underlying that question, one which is unasked, but resonant in his voice.
smiles gently, just a tilt up of the corner of his mouth. He takes a breath, looks Ravhi in the eye–wolf-green to dragon-gold–and, feeling the weight of his words on his tongue, says: “Because you have heard it before, Yazhn Ravhi, when I called out to you from the darkness betwixt the worlds.”
stops, still, and tilts his head gently to one side, like as to compensate for his world tilting inexplicably on its axis. A man who is not easily lost for words, utterly lost for words, as the precise cadence of Wolf’s voice sink into his awareness, ineluctable as tides this world has never known. His mouth moves as though he was planning on saying something, but words don’t happen– his eyes search Wolf’s face for answers.
looks away and down almost…shyly. “I…apologize, if I have…” He looks, if anything chagrined. “…I was dreaming, and dreamed myself between the worlds. Each in turn–following something that I did not understand. Until I got to Mu. And heard you. Saw you. You were…” Wolf pauses, weighing his words–weighing them against the dignity of the Kin in front of him. “…distressed. And I…” ⁂
looks up, then, at Ravhi, searching that golden face–for what, even he may not be sure. “I am…who I am. I am He Who Holds the Fire, and on my world, at least, the sacred flames are entrusted to my keeping. And…” Wolf takes a deep breath, and lets pretense go. “I could not bear to think of such a flame darkening, guttering. Going out. And so I spoke. First with my voice, which could not reach you. Then, with the voice of my world, which yet could not cross the gap.” Softly: “We call that ‘resonance’ which I used ‘Alethic.’ To use it is to speak Truth into the world.” He closes his eyes, bows his head. “I spoke what hope I had. And prayed that it would be breath enough upon your embers to keep them lit, until I could speak to you in person.” ⁂
lifts his head, looks at Ravhi directly, ready to bear whatever reaction the other might have. “I have prayed every day, since then, that I might have the strength, and the chance, to make those words be true.” 🙧
meets Wolf’s gaze, and listens to every word that he speaks, and when he is done– when he speaks, again, using that resonance– he shivers, slightly, from head to toe, and one of his claws balls up into a fist, and, very softly, he says, “That was you. You speak with His voice. How…? Who– what are you, wayfarer?”
- You hear — and your Star hears — a song, echoing from the stillness: In Memoriam
ꙮ And then, as your eyes meet, you feel – something akin to, but distinct from, deja vu. A certain knowledge of– you cannot say. Either something that once happened, long ago, or something that will happen on some certain day; a moment that both is and is not Now. You stand, with him, in the light of a sun that warms and loves, in the heart of a jungle, with a white tower rising from the green. Out of the corner of your eye, you keep watch over–?
blinks, repeatedly. You know, without asking, that he perceived this as well.
shivers as the song–the Song?–goes straight down his spine. He could not look away from Ravhi if he tried. Raggedly, with what little breath he has: “…what are you to me?”
looks – sounds, when he speaks – as ragged as Wolf. No, ragged is the wrong word – transformed. He does not have an answer to Wolf’s question, other than to, very quietly, repeat it with his own breath. Eyes bright like embers, looking across the table at Wolf, claws digging into the fabric of his robes around his knees.
sits in the silence for a long, long moment, staring…and then he starts to laugh, quietly, wonder pulling at the edges of his eyes and mouth. “I do not know. I do not have the faintest clue. And yet…” Wolf’s smile is warm, and real, and…shy. “Perhaps we could find out?”
looks up, and– there’s a glint of light off his eye, a brief flicker of– an expression on his face that you can recognise from Dyu’s, a bright hope he must have once held, a bright hope you know, suddenly, he’d been certain he’d lost, and found again, wholly unexpectedly, in an unexpected place. An unexpected answer to an unacknowledged prayer. “I think I would like that, very much.”
’s smile flickers to an almost painful brightness for a moment, and then he looks away–but smiles, still. “For all that these worlds have frustrated and terrified me,” Wolf says, his voice rich with nearly-surfaced laughter, and no small modicum of joy. “They still hold such…strange and unexpected wonders.” He looks back up at Ravhi, and he does laugh, then. “Is it strange, that I find it a relief that the world can still surprise me?”
tilts his head back almost haphazardly– not quite haphazardly, there’s a ways to go before Ravhi will let his dignity subside to haphazardness, but you get the sense that it’s the closest he’s come to the thing in most of his life– and looks thoughtful. He is not a man who is used to surprise– this much is obvious just from cursory observation. And yet: “No matter what we have seen, the world is always wider than it’s possible for us to imagine, isn’t it?” He pauses, briefly– and looks at Wolf, and in a fit of whimsy, perhaps, asks: “Would you play a game with me, Wolf?” He seems almost bashful, asking.
blinks in surprise–then laughs. “Yes. Yes, I would like that very much. You will have to teach me, but I will try, at least, to learn.” And now it’s Wolf’s turn to be bashful. “That…sun, that we…remembered? Saw? Would you, ah…like to see it?”
laughs, with him; he’s slightly rusty at it, but it’s there. “It’s a simple game, with simple enough rules. I never thought to play it with someone from afar; I have no idea what will happen.” He tilts his head to the side, curiously. “You have seen it before, then? You can… show it to others?” He cannot hide a curious interest.
: “What is it called?” He has a strange, sneaking suspicion in the back of his head–a suspicion that feels like…tea? “And yes, I have. Our Library…” Wolf trails off, looking a little wry. “…I think it will be easier to show you. If you want an explanation of how it came to be that way, I am not your man. But…” His grin is bright and anticipatory. “You’ll see.”
waves off ‘explanations’ as unnecessary in the present moment. He has priorities. “You know, I don’t think it has a proper name. I think the younglings call it ‘the Jar Game’, among themselves. I think I remember calling it that once, myself.”
feels something in the back of his head be distinctly disappointed, and ignores it. “Well, I look forward to learning it.” Wolf rubs the back of his head. “So much to show and so little time. That said…” He smiles wryly. “…I should probably get back to our quarters for the…’night’.” Wolf’s eyes flicker in a bit of rather uncharacteristic shiftiness. “I…may not have told anyone where I was going.”
looks, very briefly, terribly confused, in a moment of culture clash, before some very recognisable-to-Wolf impulses take over. He also looks– well, disappointed would be the wrong word. But he’s leaning -forward- on the couch, towards Wolf, and his eyes are bright, and– one imagines, one could imagine, one would be forgiven for imagining, that he wishes that this moment could last– perhaps not forever. But maybe a moment longer. Alas. He does manage grace when he opens his mouth: “–certainly, yes. I wouldn’t want any of your companions to worry about your whereabouts.”
flushes, visibly, and knows he’s flushing, and can’t help but lean forward a little himself. “I don’t…suppose it would hurt to stay a little longer? And hear about this game?”
fiddles with his claws, like a Godforsaken newly-woken acolyte. “As long as your companions wouldn’t worry…”
just gives Ravhi a cheeky, brilliant smile. “It’s lucky for us that I do have a reputation for being somewhat…rash…”