when you've gone about things all wrong,

[faithlikeaseed]

WHO: Myr + YOU! (With starters for Herian, Vandelin, and Newt.)
WHAT: Bees, glyphs, knight-enchanting, just plain Chant(ing), and other things relevant to Myr's interests
WHEN: Early to mid-Solace
WHERE: All around the Gallows & Kirkwall
NOTES: Will be added as needed!

i. when the day begins to break // the Gallows courtyard

With the height of Kirkwall's summer cresting hot and muggy, Myr's made even more effort to confine his conditioning to the early morning hours. He's up and out before dawn to run laps of the prayer garden (much smaller than the courtyard, but fewer people there and the obstacles don't change day to day); after that, staff-sparring or grappling with whoever might be about, or barring a live opponent, a session with one of the dummies.

Then, magic: Today, he bends all his focus to a knight-enchanter's disruption field, throwing a rippling bubble of slowed time over a secluded corner of the courtyard. A footstep overheard, a voice--at the sound of someone approaching he'll toss a sunny smile their way, and a request: "If you've got a moment, d'you mind stepping inside there? Promise it's harmless; you'll just slow down a bit."

ii. in the things & the way they could have been // the library

Thursday evening, Chant discussion group. In light of recent concerns over the rifters, Myr'd opened the floor to talk of spirits--something he'd never have done on his own, uncomfortable as he is on the subject, if it hadn't felt like an inspired necessity. Tonight's discussion lingered long over Senior Enchanter Baden's treatise, with particular attention to how mankind's darkest desires intertwined with with the spirits' needs to lead them both into destruction. Not an easy topic to cover, not by a long shot, but--there was no true acrimony behind any of the arguing and no one had stomped off in a huff this time, so it went well enough.

Thus it's with a quiet sense of relief that he lingers as the rest of the group files out; he's usually the last to go, since it's his pledge to the archivists that gets them the study room every week and they expect the door locked when it's not in use. But today especially he needs a little bit of extra time to process what's been said and tuck it away--

Though he'll not be averse to anyone who wants to talk a little more privately on anything that came up in discussion.

iii. don't forget son when he's out on his own // Kirkwall alienage

Like many city elves born to the alienages, Myr's no precise idea when his nameday falls in the year. "Mid-Solace" is the closest he remembered from the little celebrations his father and Ben threw for him; he'd chosen the fifteenth himself much later out of a love of symmetry. (That it happened to coincide with the nameday of the comely Imayn--whose eye he'd been striving to catch at the time--was a nice bonus.) It had since stuck there, celebrated informally in Hasmal's Circle right up to the year of the rebellion.

After that--

After that he hadn't felt much like celebrating another year's survival, nor had anyone else. It still feels a little wrong to do so, even though the Inquisition's been a boon in other ways--but it is his thirtieth and that requires something to mark it.

He brings honeycomb and wildflowers to offer at the vhenadahl, that little bit of paganry even his father embraced. (The Maker, Iolan had said, had made the People as they were and given them to the lives they now led; He would not begrudge them their traditions, so long as it drew their hearts back to Him in the end.) He kneels at the foot of the great tree to make his gift of them; remains there, after, in quiet prayer to the Maker and His Bride, asking guidance for the coming year.

And then, as quietly: "I hope you can hear me, Dad. I know the Chantry says otherwise--but you'd always believed the Maker kinder than that, and I want to, too."

iv. wildcard

(Surprise me! Or hit me up on Plurk or Discord if you'd like a specific starter.)

Comments

[faithlikeaseed]

There's something a little sad about Myr's smile in response to that. "Completely forgiven. From the mortal point of view, that's not so strange an interpretation at all. The Realm of Opposition--the world we're in, rather than the Fade--well, the name says it all, doesn't it? It lends to the idea He abandoned us to suffer for something He'd Made us to do--and that does feel desperately unfair."

Something about what Kylo's said catches at Myr's imagination--He gave each side aspects of Him--and he tucks the thought away for later. Rifters are spirits... "D'you believe in someone like the Maker, back where you came from?"

[letoldthingsdie]

"Not specifically a 'someone', more of a 'something'. Where I'm from we call it the Force. It's the energy in all living things and between those living things, binding it all together." That was roughly what Luke would have said, at least, having drilled it into him so many times in his youth.

"The Force is the balance between all living things. People, for example have light and darkness in them. The Force is what binds those two things together."

[faithlikeaseed]

Huh. Myr's smile dims to an expression of quiet puzzlement as he sorts through that idea; it's not totally foreign--didn't the Rivaini believe something like it?--but nor is it something he's had much cause to consider. Nearly everyone had gods of some sort, and whether or not they were incorrect pagan traditions that probably arose out of spirit worship, it at least made sense mortals would want to embody divinity as something like themselves. Something understandable.

A faceless binding energy that didn't seem to have volition of its own is harder to wrap his brain around. "And does it act to preserve that balance if people go too far out of it? Do people worship it, or--try to placate it or serve it?"