[Open] And Did the Countenance Divine

[graveling]

Who: Angel and You
What: Properly priesting, or trying to at least
When: July
Where: Yes!
Warning(s): None yet

1. I will not cease from mental fight [Temple Matters]
With Degas on his sabbatical, Angel is taking on the full mantle of Priest of the Mothers. He’s wearing the brown robes of a priest and the green stole with braided knotwork patterns similar to Celtic designs along it, even though doing so makes him feel a little like a child in their father’s shoes.

Still, he’s here if you need guidance or blessing, trying to fill the role.


2. Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand [Milk and Honey]
As he’s trying to fill the role of full-time priest, Angel’s still in his robes as he brings products from Kasprak farm into town. Vegetables and fruits, eggs and goat’s milk. And, of course, honey, in small glass jars all with a wax stamp on top–a bee with a pair of stylized feathered wings.

He’s visiting stores and restaurants, but if you catch him on the carriage Arcadia’s pulling, you might get tossed a ripe tomato or offered a melon. There’s plenty to go around.


3. Till we have built Jerusalem [A Day Off]
Sometimes, it’s all a bit much. Angel occasionally runs away from his duties. Never on days when there are services planned, never when he’s scheduled for something. But when restlessness strikes, Angel’s feet take him to the wild parts of the island. Paradesium, Lockwood Forest near Elsie’s Tree, and even nosing around the cave near Tawny Beach, though it’s been caved in since he and River had their adventure. He isn’t wearing his robes, he hasn’t combed his hair, he might be up a tree or sitting on a rock, and he surely isn’t expecting company.

But still, if you approach, there’s a sheepish little nod and a wave.


4. In England's green and pleasant land [Wildcard]
[find me on discord at darkersolstice to plot]

Comments

[graveling]

"Back in the storage closet's fine. I can make tea, if you want some."

There is no smug in Angel's face or his voice, no implication of 'told you so'. He seems to take Fever wholly at face value, holding in whatever questions he has. Her experience over the course of the night is hers to integrate, not his to poke at.

[abhorrently]

"It'd be appreciated."

She'll go put it away first, and then return, her expression not having shifted an inch while doing so. Her hand ruffles her own hair, and then she finally bursts out with:

"Is this the part where you interrogate me about what happened, or am I allowed to wait for the tea first?"

[graveling]

Angel turns to face her, lets out a snorting sound (which only draws attention to the fact he isn’t really breathing most of the time), and then turns to head to the kitchen again.

Stay of execution interrogation, clearly.

[abhorrently]

There's an answering exhale, something annoyed that already is knowing some of these answers will be difficult to admit. Gods, she hates being wrong about important things. Or at the least, misguided. It's easier when one just has to go out and kill the right person, or mislead someone, or something she can do.

If a very small dragon was flicking its tail in pure irritation, that would be a good analogy to how she looks right now.

[graveling]

She gets a few minutes to herself while he makes tea. Two mugs, herbal. Mostly spearmint, from the smell when he returns.

And still, no questions.

“If you want someone to call you in sick to work with religious ecstasy, I think I have that authority as long as I’m wearing my robes while I do it.”

That’s so much better.

[abhorrently]

"Given the season, I think I can afford to tell you to fuck off and not get divinely smote for the disrespect."

Mama's farthest away, after all, and Kora would probably laugh. Still, she's taking the tea and sipping from it.

"Thank you for letting me stay over."

[graveling]

“Disrespect is a shitty thing to smite someone over any time. C’mon, you know I could be being a lot more of a dick right now.”

And there’s the subtly implied ‘told you so’.

[abhorrently]

There's a tensing of her jaw, but she takes another breath and sets the cup down.

"...why aren't you? I was expecting it."

He could be worse. She does kind of deserve it.

[graveling]

“I wouldn’t want someone doing that to me. Fever, whatever you experienced last night is yours. All I need to know is that you slept like you weren’t being tormented, so something went right.” He shrugs stiffly. “Are priests all dicks where you’re from?”

[abhorrently]

"I wouldn't remember if they were."

Her posture slumps a little, and she leans her head back before looking at him again.

"I guess...I just thought somehow you'd know. That she'd tell you or something would be already there." A tiny pause. "Beyond actually getting to sleep."

[graveling]

"Mortanne's not a gossip. My relationship with her isn't the sort where we talk behind people's backs. She's my mother, not my chatty best friend. And I wouldn't ask, too, because I mean it--your dreams are yours. I'm not owed answers about them, good or bad."

He slurps at his tea, trying to defuse things with a little funny sound before finally asking a real question, but not the one she expects.

"Why are you still here with me, instead of taking what's in your head and going home?"

[abhorrently]

"I don't know. Does it matter?"

It is a heroic feat of effort that she doesn't correct him, remind him that it's not her home. She hasn't made one of those yet. Her roots are only across the surface, fragile and easily crushed.

[graveling]

"I think it might? Maybe. I think it might matter to you."

Angel shrugs.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

[abhorrently]

She's quiet for a long while after that. Sipping the tea, gathering her thoughts into the right order.

"...she knows about me. What I am. And she brought me here anyway. I don't understand her thinking."

When you've spent the last several months repeating something to yourself over and over, getting it contradicted will require more than one night to process.

"She also said you were right, so go ahead. Bask in that. She talked about a community."

[graveling]

"A community that you can be a part of." This isn't intended to come out as gloating.

He absolutely realizes Fever's going to read it as gloating.

[abhorrently]

She glares at him a little, but then slides her eyes away.

"...that can depends on a lot of things. A community's one of those things I don't have memories of."

Or, well, the tattered echoes and shadows that hint at other things say there was nothing like what is here - what is on offer, if somehow she doesn't fuck this up one way or another.

[graveling]

"Yeah? Me neither. Means we're not carrying bullshit notions from home about how it's supposed to be, though, also."

A lot of the people here, he's noticed, were failed by the communities they did have.

[abhorrently]

"Means we don't have any idea on where to start, though."

Fever sips from the tea again, wanting to keep drinking it while it's warm.

"And it isn't home. It's just a place I was, before I was here. Home is for people."

[graveling]

"That sounds pretty ass."

[abhorrently]

"Why? It's how I've felt ever since I woke up."

Not here, but back there. Since she realized she was a thing with a name and a consciousness.

[graveling]

"I'm not saying I don't understand it, Fever. I'm not saying I don't remember existing in isolation wandering from here to there after digging myself out of a shallow ditch. But, like. It's pretty ass only to know that. And it's kinda okay to have a place to call home."

[abhorrently]

"But you've got to have it in the first place, before you can call it that."

Which draws them back to Angel's point about this place, about setting down roots, about the idea of a community in the first place. Wallpapering her apartment and redecorating some didn't stop the disconnect she feels inside when she steps into a place that feels like someone's home.

[graveling]

"Putting it like that, you make it sound like home is something you just get and have, out of nothing." Angel's head tilts to one side.

[abhorrently]

"Isn't that how it goes, though? You're born into it, or you drift around looking for it, or you stumble across it."

She shrugs.

"Some people aren't going to fall into any of those situations. It's a matter of chance."

[graveling]

"...no? No."

The look on his face is the one you get when you're tasting something in a dish that's not the main ingredient, but is strong and there and you want to describe it, but you're not sure if calling it out is a done thing.