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[Open] And Did the Countenance Divine
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]
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]
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Stumbling through the doorway, she presses her forehead to the wall. It's cool, which says more for the effort she's exerting than for the actual temperature. Twitching, trying to breathe. She's going to suffocate like this. The only way to breathe is to steal it from someone else's lungs. Her skin is going to crawl off of her body. But she's trying, she's trying - doesn't that count for anything?
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“You don’t need to turn around. Just give me your hands.” If she does turn, though, she’ll see he grabbed a length of black leather cording, on which is strung a silver jingle bell with a black velvet bow at the top. The cording is long enough for this operation, and strong enough that she would need to actually strain to break it.
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Go, she thinks, and shut the door. Hammer and war drum, in her head. In her bones, in her blood.
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"You listen here, Fever. The community that I want to build is one with room for you. One where you don't have to struggle alone forever with this, or with anything else. I'm not saying it's going to be easy or perfect or instant, but I am going to put in the effort, for you and for me and for everyone who doesn't know how people is supposed to work."
He kneels behind her, in a position that would get painful after a while for someone with a circulatory system, and holds onto her bound hands just as tight as the cording does.
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"...you're playing the frog, Angel."
The sound that comes from her is humorless and low. If he knew her thoughts, he'd reconsider such pretty words.
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"Didn't ask you to stay."
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"I know you didn't."
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(And that's space, that's the tiniest crack to breathe through.)
"Why, then?"
Go do what you have to do. Whatever priest shit is left undone - he could no doubt wait for her to tire herself out. Though how long the bindings would hold would be a problem.
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"Because I am not going to abandon you while this is going on." His grip remains firm.
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"I hate you."
Bitter and acidic and numbing as venom. She hates everything, everything living. It's vile, how it all endures. But right now, she despises him the most. The force of it has her hands clenching. He needs to bleed needs to have his tongue removed needs to be the scared one-
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Angel's grip with the hand against hers tightens, when her hands clench. He's ready in case she tries something, and has a few surprises up his sleeve.
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From this position, she can't kick him, can't bite him, but she can try and thrash, trying to twist her upper body - how she's going to get the concealed dagger at her back, what she's going to do with it, the plan will make itself known if she can just lay her hands on him-
"Why do you even care, I'm not anyone to you. "
Just some fucked up woman who came in and started making her problems his problems. If she lets go, then there won't be the pressure on everything else. It's as if the moment something like being welcome is held out, she has to dash her own chances and prove everything she thinks is correct.
(This should have been expected, really. So far away, but it's all still here. Right where it always is. Everything wants to crack apart, after being so good for so long, after fighting for months and months, and it's over this. This. Gods, does she remember shame?)
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"Everyone's someone to me, damnit. Especially those who aren't people. Especially those who aren't someone to anyone else. You can take your self-loathing and suck on it, but I will continue to care. The person I'm working to pretend to be is someone who chooses to help. Okay? I choose to help!"
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"...let me up."
Softer voiced as this is, it's a trick. A trap. Don't let her up. She's relaxed some only because she's trying to pry under his guard.
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He remains atop her. His body is awfully cold and stiff against her, feeling like every bit the corpse he already is.
“We’re waiting a while.”
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She can outlast him. She's indomitable. She can keep going. But he doesn't move. No matter how she gnashes her teeth or tries to flip herself over or attempts to slam her head into the floor. It's all red and she hears her own heartbeat in her ears and she has to keep trying.
Time passes. She doesn't know how long. There are pauses, moments where she isn't fighting, but they don't linger - she's trying to get out, get out, her wrists chafed raw and the ache of continuous strain in her muscles under the headache.
And then at some point, one of the moments stretches on, and on further. Silence that fills the air. Stillness, and her eyes are focused on nothing, the fight retreated somewhere deep inside of her. Just quiet, as quiet as one might wish it to be when conducting prayers.
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Sade, dis-moiPourquoi le sang pour le plaisir?
Le plaisir sans l'amour?
N'y-a-t'il plus de sentiment dans le culte de l'homme?
Sade, es-tu diabolique ou divin?
Angel waits in patience, not breaking that silence that stretches between them. He is the deadest of dead fish, and he will continue to have her. That is the job she tasked him with, when she spoke up and told him to get her hands bound.
His hand reaches, the back of his fingers (cold, so very cold) touching her forehead gently like checking for the presence of Fever in a child. Seeing if she'll snap again, if he risks proximity to her face like that. He's aware the scorpion is bound to sting, that his fingers may be about to get bitten. Maybe she deserves a little bite, as a treat.
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Her forehead is warm - she's overheated from all the exertion. His touch is a cool balm, and all she does is breathe. Listen to the quiet, she hears Daisy's voice saying. So she does, literal as it might be, on the floor and full of pain. But quiet in abundance. It'll take more energy than she has at the moment to feel humiliated by the whole ordeal, yet it will come.
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Minutes pass.
His voice rumbles out of him like distant peals of thunder. “You with me again?” As if she’d done nothing more than fainted or had an epileptic seizure.
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Soft, strained, as if all the fighting had scraped her throat raw, and not just her wrists. Neck and jaw hurting from being clenched, from all the strain. If Fever could teleport, she'd roll her body just like this into the hot springs, to soak out the aches.
No request to get up, to be untied. That's out of her hands at present. She's still trying to process what just happened - that she can remember all of it. It's not hazy. That choking, searing feeling around her heart was absent. Something was different, this time.
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"Are you hurt?"
It's important to ask.
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He’s still tasking, in the manner of a working dog, instead of being done with her now.
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Medicine in her pocket, she remembers that. There's a pill box there - it'll work, when she can get to it. That'll alleviate her head. Simple thoughts, logical ones. Breathe in, shift, and the farthest she can get is just to roll onto her side instead of her stomach.
Why hasn't he left? Why hasn't he pulled away, now that the threat is past?
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