ph_logs | [Open] And Did the Countenance Divine

[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]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She lunges for his hand and he grabs her hair with a solid grip, like controlling the head of a horse--no give, no tenderness at this point.

"I know you didn't."

It's not comfortable, not with the pounding in her head, but a different thought somehow cuts its way through - he's more bite, less bark than she'd given him credit for. Good.

(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.

What she doesn't see: this is priest shit, too.

"Because I am not going to abandon you while this is going on." His grip remains firm.

In a time like this, she reaches for the wisdom of madness, as she desperately tries to unbind herself. Her wrists will be chafed raw, afterwards, but there's nothing for it. And she breathes in, and madness whispers, don't fight what you feel.

"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-

"You're allowed to. Hate me with everything in your heart. Hate me as much as you fucking hate yourself, if that's possible."

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.

"You don't get to fucking talk like you know me."

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?)

Angel wrenches himself against Fever suddenly, pressing her upper half to the floor and just about sitting on her. It's a pretty open dominance display, and done without shame or uncertainty.

"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!"

There are no words for a long moment, only her breathing harder, listening to the last of his words go into silence. He sickens her to the core. She still hates him, and the only thing that prevents her from wordlessly shrieking her rage and revulsion is that lingering grasp on herself. If anyone else sees, they'll have to die too. They'll have to stack up to the Temple's ceiling. Gods, it would be beautiful.

"...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.

“Naw.”

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.”

Damn him, damn whatever led him to be a priest here and now, damn his strength and the bindings and every inch of this isle, may it all be ruined and laid to rotten waste. In a single breath, all the tension is back, and she's fighting as hard as she can to get him off, trying to go back to that one idea. There is a dagger, and if she can only get it, if she can hurt him then she can do something about all of this and wash it away. Blood will soak out everything that batters at her skull. Killing will bring joy. It'll be over, she'll be free, it'll be handled. She just has to do it. She just has to keep trying, and trying, and trying. If he was truly dead, he'd eventually have to let go, and she'd be able to twist herself free.

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.

(...He took the cur of Gehenna, this most defiled creature of Murder, and held it in His immutable embrace. In His most perfect knowing he walked with it into the Sea of Fallen Stars - the cur clawed and screamed and ripped and tore, but he brooked no quarter. And when the sea ran red with the blood of the Divine, the wailing and gnashing ceased.)

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.

Sade, dis-moi Pourquoi 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.

She doesn't bite.

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.

Seconds pass.

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.

"...yeah. I'm here."

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.

"I'm going to get off you. Nothing sudden, now. We're going to be slow and careful about this." He moves off to the side that allows her to see him, the look in his eyes soft with lingering concern for her well-being. "There we go."

It takes her a second to focus on him again, trying to connect the sight to the absence of pressure on her back. Thoughts coming back in, careful ones. Just breathing, steady and slow. There's something like guilt in her expression, and she can't hold his eyes for too long. This isn't how she wants to be seen.

"Are you hurt?"

It's important to ask.

“Nope, not at all. You tried to bite me, but I overpowered you. And the words didn’t hurt either, so don’t start worrying about that. You are hurt, or at least hurting. I can spare a Healing Word or Cure Wounds for the chafing on your wrists, and I have a supply of the special honey, too. If you want to try some of that for the not-wrists.”

He’s still tasking, in the manner of a working dog, instead of being done with her now.

"Okay. What makes it special honey?"

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?

“The flowers that the bees make it from are a special gift from Serranai. It tends to help people relax a little. Like, it definitely wouldn’t have prevented this, but it might help you recover.”

He’s bracing for her to be mad he didn’t try it up front anyway. It’s less a curative, more a gentle comfort.

"Not a sedative, then."

They'd have needed something very strong, to keep this down. She can't be mad. She spent all the energy that would have been rage in his direction on herself, on trying to get away from him. She looks as bad as she feels, and there's no point in pretending otherwise.

"I'll try anything, really. Whatever might help."

He could feed her rat poison, and she'd still eat it after knowing what it was.

"I'll be back shortly."

And he is, he is. With tea and a little bread, and a knife to cut the cording from her hands, which he does carefully before healing the chafing in a soft display of golden holy light.

"I coulda grabbed that dagger you kept trying to go for. But that felt real rude."

With her hands free now, she carefully moves herself up back to sitting, watching him as he heals her. Instantly, the pain there is soothed away, and she slowly flexes her hands to stretch them. No lasting damage. She can do as she likes again, as long as she takes care with her movements.

Which translates right now into her reaching into her pocket to get a small box, and some of her headache medicine, swallowed down with the tea. That'll kick in soon enough.

"...If you'd done that, I think it would have made everything worse. So, thanks."

She might have torn her arms from their sockets trying to get it back. Touchstone, talisman, protection when she'd already given up her hands and thus her ability to cast.

"I meant for cutting you loose just now. I wouldn't have made the mistake of trying to grab it in the midst of things." Angel sits down beside her again, relaxing as much as his body may.

"Thank you."

The bread, she'll have to eat in very small bites, to make sure her body doesn't reject it. It's a wonder she didn't physically cough up bile, and kept it all metaphorical instead.

A moment passes, and her eyes flick to him, then away.

"...Sorry. For all of that."

It's an inadequate apology, but she's beginning to feel the self-consciousness start to grow. Sure, Angel already knew she was strange, and she doesn't fully hide that she's a wretched, terrible thing, but this feels like a wound's still open. Something where the right implement can still be shoved in and twisted. Her throat exposed. Say sorry. Bury it. Bury it so deep it suffocates.

"You only get the one. Apology, not instance of me helping you, I mean. I will do this a hundred, a thousand times, if it's what you need." He means it, too, even though he knows she's going to be as ~~much of a bitch~~ self-conscious about asking for help as Father Mulcahy is.

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