Welcome to Desamarai

[Lyra]

(Herrre it goes. Sorry if it's bad, I'm a bit rusty.)

It was another one.
She had turned up at the gates to the Temple in the middle of the night, wandered in ,and had started yelling.
Seridine had been taking a break in the courtyard, sitting on the portico in the shadows and watching with starry eyes the silent statue in the centre. The old woman had come in, her shape bleached by moonlight, and started to yell out word, startling the other devotees there and the few that had come to pray.
At first, Seridine couldn't understand what she was saying- her words jumped off the marble walls and bounced over people's heads. But she stood, drew closer, and the disjointed phrases stuck themselves together.
"...the edge! A tragedy will befall us, the storm is coming!"
Then she was speaking lower, her eyes shining upwards, starry tears slipping out onto a wrinkled face. "O I see, O I see. Before all that chaos she is standing, smiling. Those pale..."
She drew towards Isiliah's statue, reaching outwith a knobbly hand. The statue ignored her, stared up with marble eyes. "Isiliah! Stay on guard, they're coming for-"
Seridine put a hand on her shoulder.
"What do you think you are doing?"
The old woman gasped and turned about, staring at Seridine with fearful eyes. "It's you!"
She seemed to recognize the pale angel. Seridine shivered.
"...Do I know you?"
Words poured out fast from the woman's mouth and Seridine could only make out several, things about feathers and bats, skulls and glory.
Seridine wordlessly began to guide the woman towards the gate, but she recoiled from her touch, snatching her arm away and hissing like an animal.
Seridine then glanced around and realized all eyes were on her. She flushed and turned back to the woman as if to hide it. "Could you please-"
"Don't touch me, wench, traitor! You are a shame to Isiliah's people!"
Now the flames in Seridine's cheeks grew further. Her pale eyebrows collided and she turned her white-painted lips to a frown.
"I am not! I've been in her service 25 years, I-"
"-lose her soon. The dead call from the stone-"
Why is it that I deal with them? Seridine couldn't help but wonder, trying to get the woman to move towards the gates, [i]Twice before and now again..."

[Akira]

A hand lightly rested on her shoulder and was gone again as like a shadow he ghosted past, wordlessly taking the old woman's tiny hand in his own, eclosing it completely, firmly , with a gentle smile, guiding her to the gate with an air of calm.
Truly he hadn't been here long, but a few months, but he was fitting in with their patterns. He could not cast spells, true, and sometimes envied those who did, but he was content to sit on the edges of their classes and watch. It did not mean however that he could not study things in his own time...he particularly took interest in alchemical studies, with the thought of one day being able to let others use his creations as cures for the sick...
When not studying he often trained at the back of the temple and was often mistaken for a guard of sorts, but he didn't mind.
He'd tried to explain his name to them when they'd first asked, and failed miserably. It was simply not pronouncable in this language. So they had called him a ghost, a wraith, a shadow or spirit, for all his silence and watchfulness.
The poor pale girl had had to deal with these people several times already today...it was about time someone took a hand in helping.
He wasn't sure how to react seeing her standing there flustered, but the best thing to do would be to simply remove the problem calmly without trying to cause too much trouble in the process.
It seemed the old woman didn't know what to make of this either, the tall silent figure in his robe, calmly leading her to the gates. Calm enough but there was strength in that grip and unwavering tread, despite the cloth over his eyes.
Barely a whisper, like tides breaking on the shore, "Come madam, this fuss is not needed. You are scaring the children. Return tomorrow, and rest assured I will take personal note of your vision."

[Lyra]

The woman seemed to come to earth at the other person's touch. She looked up at him with great confusion, wondering why a white-marked man-thing was touching her. She clearly had no recollection of what she's just been doing. "Yes. Yes. That's right." And she shuffled off, her time-worn face crinkled with worry and confusion.
Seridine looked over at this newcomer- she'd seen him around before. He was rather new and very outlandish to her. "Thank Isiliah. How'd you do that? Whenever I try they just keep screaming." She sighed, still frustrated, and stared down at her feet before realizing- "Thank you...ehm, what's your name?"
A blush rose in her pale cheeks and she looked down again, pressing white-painted lips together and smoothing her long head-feathers with the palm of her hand.

[Akira]

He raised a hand in a wave to the little old woman as she trotted off, clearly confused, ears twitching as he caught the almost fragile voice at his side, relieved.
Rubbing a shoulder to stifle goosebumps in the chill night air he turned his blindfolded face to her, the same calm smile still in place and shrugged slightly.
"It is not pronouncable on a human tongue..so this man considers he has no name. That is a bold thought...who is a man with no name..."
He laughed softly, a slight frown bunching the cloth over his eyes, confusion creeping into his own movements.
"This man does not beleive the people realize they have the vision. And you...are..."
He thought for a moment.
"A delicate voice..a big heart..you are Seridine."
It was not so much a question as a statement, hovering somewhere in between the two, though his calm was back, confusion gone. Almost infectious, like giggling.
"It is dark now? The light does..hurt sometimes."
One hand pulled the cloth down as a noose around his neck, revealing the white marks, distinct on shadowy skin around his pearlescent eyes.
He blinked.
"Isiliah...she is beautiful tonight..."

(Ngha. 2 RP's and I'm outta juice whut. *headdesk*)

[Lyra]

Seridine looked back up at him when he spoke, lips still pressed tight together so they almost hurt. But they came apart without her noticing- she was watching him with wonder. He was and odd man, nameless and he could tell who she was...
Could she hear her song? The thought chilled her and as if he'd somehow stolen, she deliberately checked her song. As ever, it was those solemn choral voices, rising and falling.
She remembered she had met a man once, in the village near her childhood home who heard her song. One of his eyes was milky white and he had smiled with an almost-toothless smile and scared her.
But somehow this man, even if he could was less...intimidating. He seemed innocent, even cute the way her referred to himself.
"What should I call you then?"
She looked up at Isiliah and her starry consorts in the sky, breathing out the softest of soft prayers out off her tongue.

[Akira]

"What would Seredine wish to call this man? He has heard sometimes that he is a 'ghost'."
Lightly he poked himself in the chest, checked his own temperature and breathed on his hand.
"He is still among the breathing ones."
Almost absently he flourished a bow and nods to those entering the gate, eying him oddly then with smiles, returning the nods of greeting, gaze straying to rest on one of them as they took up positions and began to sing softly, praying to the goddess.
"If the peoples do not pray..does Seredine think Isiliah would still listen to them?"
He tilted his head on one side as if listening to the melody, though his eyes said he heard more than just the melody the worshippers were singing.

[Lyra]

She watched this ghost oddly, intrigued. His ways were odd, to say the least.
"Ghost it is then."
She too, looked at the worshipers, heart swelling to see all those as dedicated as she. She worked for these people and she worked for Isiliah and her love for it all, the night, the stars, that great globe of white nestled in the cold velvet above.
"Isiliah will listen. She always listens, but what she chooses may not seem the best for the person at first but eventually..."
She knew this, o she knew this. Esis...her ways, how she'd stolen (though he'd never been hers in the first place) Badat from her...It was all for the better, for here she was and where would she have been without it?
In love with a human, who would be aging by now and would be dead before long.
Gently, Seridine touched Ghost's elbow and gestured to the steps under the portico, where they could sit rather than standing about here amongst all the worshipers.

[Akira]

'Ghost' jumped as he felt a hand on his elbow then laughed, feeling a little foolish and nodded. It would be better to be out of their way, somewhere aside.
So..she guides our every action after all...
He remembered as they walked, the moonlight reflecting from the rippling sea, the sand between his toes, and the cold salty wind on his cheek. And..he hadn't been alone. But then, he hadn't understood. Even when she'd tried to explain it to him.
Was it the same in the Sun Temple?

"You don't understand...once you go to see the priests in the Moon Temple, you and I..we can't be friends anymore. I won't come to see you. I can't."
"But...why? What Aether believes is different but..why does that mean this man can't talk to her any more?"
"Kythckaugh-Rhythl! Don't you get it? You will end up like them, worsipping the lady in the moon...the people of the sun and the people of the moon aren't meant to be anything other than enemies right now!"
They sighed together.
"Politics.."

He sat, straightening his robe and smoothing the creases before he felt it happen, his limbs seized up as he watched the worshippers, rigid and staring through nothing, his eyes a fierce silver, as he spoke with a voice that was his own..but not his own..hollow and dead.

"They will stand, hand in and, and sing, and pray, Moon, Sun, Moon, Sun, Moon, Sun...Their fear will draw them together, together and break them, when Sun meets Moon, Moon meets Sun, the end of days is come...

[Lyra]

(Crap. Crap. Crap.)

Seridine sat, back straight, by Ghost, smoothing her (FACE with some loootion. Definitely just some looootion. (Jongo)) skirt and glancing over at him with gold-spiked eyes. He seemed to be thinking, in a reverie, and she hesitated before speaking, looking down at her feet with their toes pointed together.
"How long have you been here. I haven't-"
But suddenly he was talking in a voice that could not be his own, his body rigid, flat like a board. It was prophecy. She recognized it easily enough- she'd heard it three times today already and still it made her shiver, still it made fingers and insects crawl beneath her scalp.
Calamity, calamity, they're always talking about calamity...

[Akira]

As the light died from his eyes his muscles relaxed again, though left him with a throbbing ache in his temples, involuntary shivers passing through his limbs.
His lips refused to work and after a moment he managed to mumble out "S-sorry...it..happened again didn't it..." rubbing the gooseflesh on his arms he glanced at the people praying, no different from a few seconds ago.
"It seems to be happening more often...perhaps as the times draw closer...the people with their visions...at least this time there was no pain..."
Truly he had begun to fear the times when the seeing took him, for it often sent him in seizures, bringing great pain though only dimly aware of, it was like seeing the world froma distance, sensing the emotions distorted, like sound underwater.
His ears popped and he winced.
He didn't want to frighten the angel, though it was always a little frightening when he saw someone else recieving a vision, he could not begin to guess what it was like for them viewing what was thought of a 'savage' going into some weird frenzy and spouting nonsense at them.

[Lyra]

Seridine was watching him intently. "Isiliah always seems to favour the women with this...not so often a man."
She realized how she sounded and shrank back from her self. "I'm sorry, I have no manners. You are chosen by her and so you are chosen."
I sound like a fool.
It made her uncomfortable talking about these things but she asked anyway as it seemed to...wrong to just return to mundane speech after a vision. "Did you...do you remember what you said?"

[Akira]

Shaking his head he pressed a finger to his aching temple.
"Not exactly. Strange...most times this man does not hear himself, just..sleeps while being awake...sometimes he sees himself. It is...like listening underwater!"
A grin split his face as he found the right words.
"Everything is..." waving a hand vaguely the man shrugged.
"Difficult. Many of the Lady's people have Seen these last days."
True, it was unusual for Isiliah to pick a male instead of a female, she always favored her own. Grinning he spoke the thought before considering, "Maybe Isiliah wanted this man to be a woman."
He let loose a throaty chuckle and slapped his knee, sighing contentedly before turning his eyes to the angel.
"Do not worry yourself, we both thought it. Sometimes this man wonders if he was not meant to have his sisters element..but then..he would not be here..." He lapsed into a thoughtful silence, thinking again whether he could learn to master the moon element even without being able to cast spells, and whether he could adhere it to his research.

[Lyra]

Seridine nodded, pressing her lips together and looking down.
Talk of seers was everywhere. The spoke of all sorts of things but most of all darkness, things about bones and war. And as much as this angel refused to believe it, as much as she called them delusional and sick in the head, there had been seers finding her and screaming her evil to the world.
Yet everything was as quiet as it had ever been. Things were still in the day here, people still danced and laughed in the night.
"There's something coming, I wish I knew..."
Ghost was talking and she couldn't help but laugh. After it died down, she still smiled, saying, "Perhaps. But it is a man you are and a man you shall remain...I think." She laughed again at the thought of him suddenly becoming a female and listened to him speak.
"You have a sister?" she asked with interest, smoothing back her head-feathers nervously.

[Akira]

"This man wishes he knew of this great thing approaching also."
Resting his hands on his knees the Siren allowed his smile to fade at the question, his lips setting in a grim foreboding line.
"Indeed...like many of this man's clan...she is one of a fiery soul, and passionate about many things...like many of them...bloodshed.."
His lips twisted a little in distaste, nose wrinkling.
"She was one to believe that by not following their warlike ways..they were being betrayed."
His hands unconciously clenched into fists on his knees, wrinling the soft material of his robe in tight bunches.
"No matter what my blood-kin think...this man believes it is wrong to needlessly throw away a good life...this man shall not fight...it feels as wrong as the air now..this sense of waiting, and prophecy. Inbalance."
He couldn't explain the sensation but of late, with all these people foretelling things, it was as if they all stood on the brink of a precipice, waiting for that cold blast of air to push them over the edge. No..he would not fight as his kin did, not without a good reason..
"This man apologizes. Such dark talk...it dampens the spirit. Our blood-sister..she was tall, as tall as you and more. But not as fair." He winked amiably at Seridine, considering his last memory of his sister, the one member of his kin that he was closest to and turned his face away from his companion so that she might not see the dim of fire in his eyes.

"Why will you not fight with us?! You bring shame to our family!"
Face contorted with anger the woman gripped the haft of her spear and shoved it at him roughly, blond tresses falling around her face and stirring tiny bubbles of air to drift past serenely.
"It is wrong...why should we kill? Where is the point...the endless conflict."
"Ever since those..those visions! What is wrong with you? Are you this woman's blood-brother or not? We fight for our honor, our glory, for the thrill of it!"
He remained silent where he stood, arms folded, face turned away from her, not quite meeting that proud gaze.
"Take up your weapon and join me! ...you are throwing away all our traditions...for this calling...take the spear..."
"..No. It is wrong to freely take another's life without this meaning."
"Meaning?! You are meant to use it to take the life, it is what it is made for!"
"No, not to kill. To protect."
Heshia hissed in fury and frustration, turning her back on him with disgust.
"You betray us all, Aska...no, not Aska. You do not even deserve a name, weakling! Gods help you when mother finds your nature..."

"We did not part well...she dislikes the thought of the land-walkers to have gods."
The man smiled ruefully at the thought of his sister's ignorance and shook his head.

[Lyra]

Instantly, Seridine felt bad for having brought it up. The situation was clearly a difficult one for him and she had-
"All life is sacred, all life has come from the skies..."
His compliment made her blush furiously and she turned away but that was fine he was quiet for a time and was thinking, remembering.
When her blush had faded she turned to him again to watch him speak.
"I can tell...I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."
She was looking down at the ground again, long white lashes shading her eyes sheepishly.