[ semi-open ] and sometimes we sing to the dawn

[accordance]

Who: Lord Light, a couple of people (closed threads in toplevels within), and you.
When: April 12-15, thereabouts
Where: Around Capablanca
What: A useless old man ponders the meaning of his existence. And also builds some things on the side.
Rating: PG+ for Adra's mouth

one;

[ Contrary to first impressions, there is indeed peace and quiet to be found in Capablanca. As one walks along the beaches further and away from the town center, the number of establishments dwindle one by one - until the last ice-cream parlour marks the end of built shoreline. The stretch of untouched sand may be quite small compared to the rest of the beach, but it's still sizeable. Sizeable enough to provide a place of relative silence for Heroes to meditate properly.

It is here, upon the sand, that he draws. Detailed, complex images are sketched into the beachside, a little away from the shoreline so that they would be untouched at low tide. It takes him hours to complete a single drawing, but he doesn't complain a single bit - merely one figure with white hair bent down close to the ground with a single branch in his hand.

At night, high tide washes them away, but he returns for at least an hour every day to add one or two. At other times he builds perfectly regular rings out of shells and other materials lying around, all without a single word. A few locals come to watch, but even then their curiosity wears out as he continues, focused on his task.

If anything, the art is pretty. But what could they mean? ]

two;

[ On an afternoon when the sun is not as harsh, he climbs Ventoso Hill alone. Once he's reached the top, he elects to stand and watch the scenery - he's so still that he might have been mistaken for a statue, if not for the fact that his hair moves and flutters in an opportune breeze.

After a while, he shifts his stance to one more regal, and he begins to sing with a voice much younger than his speaking intonation. When he finishes, there's the slightest hint of a smile on his expression - but it will fade away as soon as he is approached, returning to his normal calmness.

His voice resumes its usual pitch, too. ]

Can I help you with anything?

three;

[ In the mornings, he can be found near the piers - or more specifically, where the seabirds frequent. He might be seated on the jetty or walking along the beach with a small bag of breadcrumbs, and after a while seagulls will start to flock to his location. He feeds them with a rather distant expression (more distant than usual, that is), letting them land on his shoulders and arms.

However, if you express interest in what he's doing, he'll look up with a much more focused countenance. ]

Hello. Would you like to feed them as well?

wildcard;

[ hit me with anything and I'll roll with it! or if you'd like a specific starter, feel free to pm me or contact me at eonflamewing, we'll work something out! ]

Comments

[accordance]

My children dance on endless worlds.

[ With this, he returns the greeting, but he does not rise from his position until he has finished the last stroke. He continues speaking, though - recognizing that voice from Palamède. ]

It was intended to be a ladder. A ladder to the skies above.

[ A ladder to bring his people to space, to a different world that did not crumble beneath their feet. But it was not meant to be. ]

These are things I remember.

[sunderings]

And there are those which you do not.

[ Otherwise, the man's former sentiment would have no purpose at all.

Patient in his observation, Sion sinks to the sand beside the drawing with a seamless air of grace, disturbing neither the artist nor the sediment which is his canvas, but casting a gentle glow of light across the illustration with his presence all the same. It accompanies him, wherever he goes, that aura, stemming from the blood which runs incandescent through his veins, and as it illuminates the ladder before him...

Sion's hand hovers over a finished portion of the image, tracing over it in the air with delicate motions, as though he meant to commit it to memory. ]

It is too beautiful a thing, to only ever be intended. The skies should always be within reach.

[ Do you mourn it? Sion thinks but does not say. ]

[accordance]

[ There are things that he remembers, and things that he does not. It's not so much as he has forgotten as that he cannot remember - what was once a mental library of centuries of knowledge had become closed, further out of reach - and difficult. The interwoven threads of thought and reason had become blurred, out of focus; and it's taking him more effort to force them into clarity.

He watches Sion pour over his drawing, falling silent. When the other speaks, it takes him a few seconds to compose a reply. ]

What should happen does not always happen. There are exceptions to every rule.

[ Mourn it as a tragedy, perhaps, but he knows that it was inevitable. The Reset was inevitable, from the way it was orchestrated. An event out of even the gods' power to prevent. ]

I can only wait until this can become a true ladder once more.

[sunderings]

What a luxury it is, to wait.

[ Were it in him, he could be envious, resentful of this man who has time to spare, for it is something which Sion has never had—always, he had carved a path forward, rushing against the hand of fate to break the rule (that beautiful equation of HUMAN) which would see his realm erased. And now, now he has spent two months, some weeks and some days, entrapped in a cage which has parted him from his campaign. He is not unconvinced that his presence in Enprise is not yet another elaborate work of the Goddesses, those who feared the power of his name and would seek to confine him yet again, so he would not break that which has always been, and because of it...

He has been agitated, a reckless thing, even if he seems the picture of ease, at present. ]

If one could but wait a thousand years, imagine how the knowledge, the magic of humanity might coalesce into a single, searing burst of revelation.

[ Drawing back his hand, he turns his eyes toward the sky, the white locks of his hair pooling atop the sand. ]

More than a ladder, it would be transcendence true. [ He gives pause, then, before carrying on without further preamble: ] I have wondered at something, ever since we fought at one another's back at Palamède.

[ The stare which he turns upon Lord Light is fathomless, primordial and deep, far beyond his own years. ]

What are you?

[accordance]

[ Lord Light is one accustomed to silence. Had Sion not followed his reply with a question, he might have continued their exchange of cryptic metaphors - but that train had abruptly been severed by an inquiry that is so very real.

However, reality itself can be difficult to explain. All mortal beings - and even some gods - experience it through a filter. There are very few who can see the world as it is, without the need to route it through sensory organs, and he is one of them. One born from the cold logicality of reality did not need those filters to perceive the world. How, then, does one convey the raw meaning of it all to someone who could not comprehend it?

The answer he gives is delivered in the same quiet tone as before, his own grey eyes calm and lucid. No sign of emotion, merely acceptance. ]

I am Lord Light.

[ He has no name, only a title. A title given to a concept that was borne out from the desires of collective humanity, a concept that did not originally exist in the laws of the world. His title carried their hopes, the image that they gave to him. To ask the nature that lay deeper than that would require comprehension that even he did not have.

The one lie that he could not pierce. ]

[sunderings]

So you are.

[ —Sion's voice is a silvered thing, airy and light as a too-charmed laugh falls from his lips and he falls as well, laying back until his shoulders meet with sand and his hair pillows beneath him, golden eyes half-lidded as he considers the sky and takes in the sound of waves, finding the answer to his question somehow appropriate.

Perhaps Lord Light is the only true answer which the being before him is able to communicate, knows to give, and if it is, then...

Sion is certain that he's found it, something similar to him. ]

And I am Sion Astal, Hero King of Roland Empire. Well met.

[ They had not, in fact, made proper introductions when there had been a battle at hand, and Sion sees fit to mend the matter now, exchanging one title for another. ]

What is it that a Lord of your stature presides over, then? [ —he plays upon the appellation, bothering not to mask his intrigue. Where Lord Light is impassive (and everything which Sion himself could be), Sion is vivid, expressive as he speaks: ] Your children alone? The world and its many realms? The heart of everything to be found inside of it?

[accordance]

Well met, indeed.

[ The difference between them is stark yet ironic - both men of flowing white hair and (sometimes) golden eyes, and yet one is markedly more vivid and the other as still and quiet as meditation. ]

I am not a Lord, or nobility, in the syntax sense. My name is one part only. [ Many people have made this sort of mistake, so he's used to correcting them. And then he switches to Krytheian tongue and repeats his name again - its not the same as how it is said in the common language that they have been using. ] I am Lord Light. A name that the people use.

[ But the subsequent questions are easier to answer. ]

I am the guardian of Krythe. [ And that, too, is his only bound duty. To watch over his nation, and guide it. ] That is all.

[ But even so, the only claim he has made is layered. ]

[sunderings]

[ Taken, perhaps, with the sound of a language thoroughly foreign to him, Sion gives himself to repeating the words—what he manages is not perfection, certainly, but it is markedly close for a first attempt, and he'll not forget the other man's refined intonations, I am Lord Light resonant, yet, in his ears. ]

Krythe. I have heard of no such place, as I am by far certain that you boast no familiarity with my empire, but even so...

[ Could he be satisfied with this? The answer which he had received? He knows there is more to be said, that his senses are keen and his suspicions are true, and yet if he is proven to be correct, beyond a shadow of a doubt, then what will be left? He will be forced to walk but one path alone, and perhaps that is something best avoided in this realm, in this place.

For now, at least. ]

...I believe that we might find understanding, you and I, for both a king and guardian are meant to guide.

[ And he has a beautiful illustration of his own to actualize. ]

[accordance]

[ Sion says 'my empire', while he says 'my people'. That, more than anything else, embodies the difference between them.

But he has no inkling of what runs through Sion's mind, only what he can observe from the outside. So he nods. ]

It is entirely possible. I have dedicated my existence to guiding my people. Even if I may be separated from them now, even if the people of Enprise are not my own - I will help them.

[ Is this a sentiment that Sion feels? A compulsion to assist? He, as the pinnacle of a nation founded on principle of industry, does so because it is aligned to his true nature. Krythe had no magic of its own, so its people turned to innovation and scientific advances to keep up with the other nations. They are a people most keenly aware of their shortfalls and work to overcome it. Above all, their church preaches betterment of society through industry. What excuse does their head deity have to not embody every single one of those traits?

There is none. The truth is that he must be a role model, and that he will. Even if Krythe is gone. ]

[sunderings]

Who could ignore this world's wish to be saved?

[ A compulsion it could be called, his will to assist the people of Enprise. Sion Astal is a King comprised of his people's wishes—since boyhood, they had fallen upon his ears, pleas for peace, for a kingdom where all those within its borders could simply laugh and live, and by the revolution he had orchestrated (and by taking his Lord father's head), he had opened the doorway to such a place, and even now, realms away from his own world which needs to be saved, he finds himself unable to tolerate the war which stands to ravage Sansvoir: he cannot abide by the tragedy which looms now over two nations and over all those innocents who might be drawn into the conflict. If by his hand he is able to help even one person, by virtue and by nature, he will lend his aid. ]

The people here want only for peace, and in them I see my own countrymen and all living things. I have long since made the decision to protect them and to discern the truth of this war, and so...

[ His eyes flick up, meaning to catch Lord Light's, gold boring into grey for just a moment before a gentle smile crosses his face. ]

...perhaps we are comrades, united by this will.

[ And that is marginal relief. ]

To everyone that I can— [ He raises his arm in an elegant gesture, offering his hand to Lord Light. Whether or not it will be taken, though.... Who can say, aside from Lord Light himself? ] —I intend to reach out with compassion.

That is how I will guide.

[accordance]

[ Sion says 'this world's wish to be saved'. He doesn't believe that a world is capable of wanting to be saved. Only its people can wish for those things, and even so they are not the ones who can deliver it in its entirety. No way around but hard work and dedication.

But he isn't here to argue, so he says nothing of it and keeps silent. ]

So it is.

[ The hand is not taken, however it is out of a gesture of politeness. It does not feel appropriate to him. ]

I am observing. I wish to learn of the history of this world, and how it came to be. To learn of its full story, to see all cause and events play out - it is only then that we can understand this world, and what it truly needs. I have always been a watcher of fate, and here it will not change.

[ The two of them take different paths, but borne from the same desire. It shows how different their origins are. ]

[sunderings]

[ He feels as though much could be discussed between them, that there is something powerful in all that which they choose not to covey and in the disparity between the places they hail from. Menoris, his world, has always always been alive, long before humans had come to people it, and though he wholeheartedly believes there is a wish to be heard within Enprise itself, it is now time to readjust his vantage point and to realign himself.

To keep the hand which he'd raised—so it hadn't been taken for what it was—extended toward the sky, natural light filtering through the gaps in his fingers before...!

He rises in a precise economy of motion, finding his feet once again. ]

I believe that it will, for we ourselves have been changed by our summons here.

[ Watching, waiting...

There is a far cry more to being. ]

Instead of being so simply a watcher of fate, you may come to have a hand in breaking it, and I... [ It could almost be fond, the way in which he gazes upon the other man, eyes passionate and bright. ] ...am curious to see what sort of face you might wear, on that day.

[accordance]

[ Perhaps he understands the laws of time and causality more, but only because he was borne from it. A passive observer whose only actions were to ensure it flowed correctly. A maintainer, a protector, never a player upon the stage. ]

The world is defined by change. We must accept them, and change ourselves accordingly. Only then can we fulfil our duty.

[ As opposed to Sion's vivid gestures, he barely moves when they speak. ]

I, too, am curious as to what sort of circumstances will bring about such a change.