come_sailaway | Second of Sun's Dawn (OTA)

By now, after having a Sheo-concept float in and out of her head, she's lost some of the reserve and formality that might ever accompany addressing a god. So it is that she simply crouches down when she's near the scene, head tilting a little to listen.

"Decent rendition, but far less delicious when ink and paper take the place of flour and egg."

But if he wants a cupcake so baked, then so it will be.

"Haven't decided whether or not it's an occasion for one yet. So I'm just dwelling on the idea." He looks up at her with a sad smile.

"It's very quiet today. Normally I can't hear myself think on the Second of Sun's Dawn. And you know that I'm a very loud thinker."

"Why today of all day? What usually makes such a racket?"

Clearly, it's important, if it usually lets in such chaos as he describes.

"It's my Summoning Day, of course!" He looks back down at the cake sketch, giving it a wistful little nudge.

"It's the day when I can most easily hear the prayers of mortals, the day they know is best to call upon me to work my magic. Deals are struck, madness is made, souls are given over to my domain. It's all part of the cosmic dance, and in that dance, it's the day that I stand at the center of the ballroom. Even a childish whisper without a hint of ceremony behind it reaches my ears on the Second of Sun's Dawn. I am with the people of Nirn, and they are with me. But it seems like, while their voices would be able to reach me across the sea of Oblivion, this sea stifles them."

And at that, her face lights up in delight.

"So, it's really close to your birthday. Why didn't you say anything sooner? I could have plotted something for you to be surprised by. A way to celebrate you!"

"Oh, well, it being my birthday is another question. I don't really remember being born, you know. Actually, I do remember it was unpleasant. A lot of chewing my way out of my own skin. Rather itchy."

"Still, I suppose there's no reason my summoning day can't also be my birthday!"

"I don't have a birthday, so you've got to have one. That's how it works."

She has nothing in her memory that aligns with a birthday, so clearly, other people must bear the birthday burden.

"What's the proper way to celebrate, aside from sending souls into madness and dancing amidst thunderstorms? You have to have some sort of traditions we can copy. And I'm procuring you a proper cupcake before we have to eat the drawing."

"Is it now? I couldn't just simply find you a birthday to call your own?" He chuckles.

"Hmm, well... it depends on which part of the Isles you're on. In Bliss, there's singing and dancing in the streets. In Crucible, the people gather to drink up on the rooftops while screaming the names of their mortal enemies to the heavens. In both cases, there's feasting. Lots of knife-throwing games, and some illegal but completely unofficially sanctioned betting on baliwog races. And then at the end of the day, Haskill and I retire to my chambers, and we speak sweet nothings until I'm able to finally get some sleep."

"We could attempt Crucible style, since I figure there are others who would be fine with drinking on the roofs and shouting at their enemies. But we can't follow it up with the betting, just the knife games....ah, we'll have to make a new tradition then, something that suits these settings."

She shrugs her shoulders. If he chose to give her a birthday, she'd accept it, but she isn't going to bypass that this is the day for him in all respects.

"Right now, it all depends on if you're hungry or not."

"Oh, I could eat a Scalon, love. How high up do you think we could get on the ship? High enough that our voices might carry across the void?"

"No, but we could get high enough to start echoing at the least."

Or get shouted at to come down, or witness whatever the beacon brings back.

"Right, my vague and hazy idea is tea, cheese, cake, cheesecake, and we try to both play those games in the arcade that get quite loud that I have no idea how to properly play."

They'll probably do abysmally. And isn't that fun?

"Hmm. I'd be wary about the arcade if I were you, love. There are powerful traps in there, as I found out when I went there with Erin Peters."

"Traps? I've been in there plenty of times, and I've found no traps."

"You have to look down. The circles, love! The circles are deadly dangerous!"

"Perhaps I'm just stronger and better than the circles, then. They've never affected me even once."

"I would guess it has something to do with mortal nature, but I've seen it happen to... wait. WAIT! Oh, I get it! The circles only affect cats!" He practically leaps to his feet in excitement over the realization.

Edited 2024-02-08 18:18 (UTC)

"That would explain a great deal. Someone taking caution to catproof the machines, so they wouldn't sneak into them and get stuck."

It makes as much sense as anything else on this ship.

"Well, in that case, I suppose you'll be in no danger if we go to the arcades for a little fun. I'll let you lead the way, love. That's usually how summoning days go."

That's her cue to link her arm with his, and start guiding.

"Sand Dollars, the fromagerie, and then we'll set up in the arcade. That way when we want to indulge, it'll all be at hand. I know they have a cheddar from Waterdeep that's actually quite good."

This is more like it, rather than the walks in the Village, with him and her both stressed. This is far more joyful.

He lets out a happy sigh, one tinged by an air of very relatable tiredness.

"I could go for a good cheddar. Oh, and maybe some emmentaler. A nice, sweet, nutty emmentaler."

"We'll get both, naturally, and at least one other. Three always seems to be a significant number in ways, and there's bound to be something that will spontaneously catch your eye. Now as for the games - do you prefer more luck, or actual skill?"

"Why not a bit of both. Definitely have to have a couple rounds of skee-ball. Have you ever rattled around in a skee-ball machine? It's a lovely time." He lets out a hearty laugh, before his expression softens to something more contemplative.

"I don't want to trouble you for anything, but being as self-interested as the best mortals, I'm going to ask- at some point, and I don't care how you go about it, do you think you could give me a bit of prayer? It'd make things a little less lonely in here, I think."

Her expression softens, and she pauses in their walk to look at him in the eyes.

"Do trouble me. Whenever you like. Do ask me such things. You ask for nothing I am not glad to give."

Things she can give. Things that are attainable. Requests, not orders. She's still adjusting to it herself, but she knows she'd do nearly anything for him. If a bit of regular prayer would make him happier, then she'll give it with joy in her heart. He's allowed to presume, to press on their connection - that he doesn't still feels odd, the sensation of looking over and finding a cat one didn't notice sitting nearby and calmly waiting to be offered a bit of breakfast.

He's allowed to ask, because she knows he won't demand more than she's capable of.

He stops, and absolutely beams at her. He makes a motion to take her hands in his, though the motion gives her the option to pull away if she's uncomfortable with the contact.

"Fever, love... I can only say it would have been wonderful for you to have known me as I am earlier in your life? The way we talk, the things we talk about... I think that, even in the darkest parts of ourselves, the parts most saturated in suffering, we are better off for having known one another as we known one another now."

She smiles back, pressing her hands in his gladly.

"And yet, if not now, I would not have had the freedom to know you as I do. It would not have been allowed, and I might not have looked to understand you the same."

He knows what she means by that.

"If I didn't know you, I would be so much less certain of myself."

In her mind, there is color, fragments of things she knows. The bright laughter of friends around a fire, the caustic shouting of a family who can't decide whether to stay or keep running, the smell of hot metal and leather when fighting back to back with another. Birdsong and the welcome cool touch of a river after an exhausting fight. Magic prickling on her skin, rosewater on her tongue, the sparking joy when caught in a rainstorm. Desperation and frustration when it seems like one's back is against the wall. The blows of the Mistress of Pain. A friendly touch, a corrosive hatred, a slit throat because she did not like their eyes. Blood red that flows into the red of magic projectiles that don't miss. The soft, warm weight of a friend asleep on her chest. The music he recalled the day they met.

Ever shifting, ever changing. Things beloved and hated alike, no one settled feeling within it. As she thinks the words, she says them aloud, infusing them with the love that settles over it all.

"Hail Sheogorath, the Prince of Madness, the Lord of the Never-there, sovereign of the Shivering Isles and of all who would defy pure reason, pure order. Hail he who exists in the hearts of all mortals. For he is of the metamorphosis, the caterpillar reborn into the butterfly, with wings to soar over all walls. He whose blood I carry in and out of my veins."

If he can trick reality by its own rules, she can claim some small portion of this on a technicality. She may look it in the eye and ask if anything she says is untrue. The amber dagger at her back, the blood he had her drink. It counts enough to swear by it, to bend the rules in a more appealing direction.

"Hail the Madgod, on this and all other days."

Without a word, he hugs her, in the most open, sincere, heartfelt embrace anyone could possibly give. He's trembling with emotion, tears streaming down his cheeks.

It catches her off guard, but she finds her arms returning it, tightly wrapping around him. She has to breathe in, breathe out - the emotions rising in her are too much, too much, straining at the bars of her ribcage, and impulse has her bowing her head, burying it in his shoulder and shutting her eyes to just breathe him in.

It is the feeling of being wrapped in a heavy blanket after walking through the snow, hot drink in hand. The painful, warm tingling in fingertips as they remember how to be dexterous again. Comfort extended to the weary.

"Thank you," he whispers, not yet pulling away. There's so much in those two words.

And then he says another three.

Edited 2024-03-12 03:57 (UTC)

Her response is also three words, barely breathed and more felt in a heartbeat, for the great and terrible fear that it would all be ripped away, that something would rise up and claw its way from her skin. And yet, and yet, even if it hurts hurts hurts, she feels it. Breathes, trying to be steady.

(Invisible, unknown to her, in the darkest depths, sodden with guilt - a little girl cries and cries until she forgets how to do it anymore.)

For one moment, at least, she forgets to think about what is and isn't deserved. She simply feels all that she does, and lets it take up space. So much fear. But so much more than that.

After more than a year and half on board the Serena Eterna, a four month disappearance, numerous run-in's with people from all walks of life and multiple universes, a few near-death and full-death experiences, amassing a list of casual enemies, recently being thrown down a set of stairs, and immediately throwing herself back into the mess of inter-ship politics...

At the end of the day, Clarke Griffin still hasn't completely learned her lesson about approaching strangers. If anything, her general wariness of new people has degraded throughout her stay. And where she'd have previously given the man muttering to himself over a plate in the middle of the atrium a wide berth, this time... It catches her eye. Not like she has anything better to do than drift over, keeping to the edge of his multi-sided self-conversation until at least getting a better look at what's actually on the plate.

And... yeah, that's weird. But it takes barely a few blinks, and a few seconds to find a lull in his chatter to interject —

"If you wanted a real cupcake, we could find you one."

Or at least draw a better one, but she keeps that sentiment locked behind her teeth.

"Haven't decided if I want a real one yet. I'm more just contemplating the idea. It's what the cupcake symbolizes that I'm really thinking about." He glances up at her, a glimmer of starlight escaping the eyes of an otherwise ordinary-looking old man.

No stranger to starlight, but perhaps a bit removed from the girl who used to sketch by it, Clarke meets the new mans eyes and finds herself... just blinking a little. Unsure of what to make of that little hint of other-worldliness that for once doesn't feel too foreign.

But it's just been a flash. And thoughts are kept under lock and key and several layers of practiced compartmentalization. They're having a conversation, after all; one that requires a response in this space, and she can't think of many other meanings behind a singular cupcake.

"Is it your birthday?"

"Oh, no, no, no. I don't really have a birthday. I was born before time made sense, you see... or perhaps just after it, but before anyone knew what to make of time. But I was also born before that, long, long before that, only that's something we shouldn't really talk about."

"Today would have been a day of feasting and festivities in my kingdom. A time when the space between spirit-prince and mortal subjects grows thin, and mad miracles can occur. Instead, I'm here, and it's very quiet despite all the noise."

Where she'd come from, birthdays had been celebrated, but more a point of reporting for census and increased responsibility in whatever chosen field a child was already pursuing. Clarke's birthdays had been marked with gifts and congratulations, but she remembers even more fondly the increased access to the medbay onboard the Ark. In her experience on the ship, people had celebrated with cakes, ragers, hastily planned surprised gatherings, or not at all. But she's read enough of the entirely fictional library to still equate feasting and festivities to a party. And festivals are annual, so it all boils down to the same thing in her book.

Still, the man seems pretty set in his own explanation of the cupcake drawing, and she's not about to tell him off; it'd earn her nothing.

Instead she slowly, cautiously invites herself into another one of the couches while he speaks, and tilts her head — considering. He speaks like gods she knew before him, though with less dejection than Venti and more pride than Jenny. Interesting...

"Well, if it's that you're celebrating, the space between spirits and mortals is already nonexistent. And it still stands that you can't feast on paper."

"Oh, I already know it's nonexistent, especially in my case. After all, does anything really exist? Oh, but we shouldn't talk about that. The space between us is dubiously real, but I'd still call it about eight feet or so! And you can absolutely feast on paper, it's just much less advisable than feasting on cake!" The stars in his eyes shift a little, like light bending against the pull of overwhelming gravity.

"But on a summoning day, my head is supposed to be filled with voices, my ears so clogged with prayers that I wouldn't be able to stuff them full of gauze if I tried. Here, though, it's barely a handful of distracted mumbles and a half-conscious whisper or two. Flat, like paper. And that's why I'm not sure how I feel about a real cake."

But we shouldn't talk about that. He's said that same phrase twice now, and goodness if it doesn't pull at the edges of temptation, wanting to push forward. And sure, objectively they could all eat paper, but the tired and broken ship doesn't seem to be in that dire of straits yet. But the conversation steers elsewhere, a little to the left.

"So you miss prayer?"

Maybe along with all else that came with it. Belief, and paragons, and festivals, and superiority, and celebration, and worship. Plenty of this takeaway is colored by Clarke's own historical run-ins on the ship, but she's not above trying the shoe on to see if it fits. And after a moments consideration —

"I'll pray to, if you'd like. What's your name?"

An odd expression crosses his face. He seems... genuinely happy at that idea?

"Sheogorath. Prince of Madness."

Everyone knows Clarke Griffin, she aims to make peoples day and has absolutely no ambition to end this entire reality.

"Sheogorath?" she tries the name on for size, just making sure she's got the pronunciation right across her tongue. Maybe quirks an eyebrow a bit at the subsequent title, because boy does that sound a bit intimidating but —

Ultimately does not change her next step. She settles back loosely in the sofa cushions, folds her hands over each other in the confines of her lap, bows her head and closes her eyes. A beat of absolute stillness as she works to shake off the rust, but eventually settles on staying silent and just thinking as hard as she can around the words:

Sheogorath, Prince of Madness. On this day that would be your well-celebrated Summoning Day, I pray for us both to get what we ultimately want. May you find a real cupcake aboard this ship, or if not — at least some cookies from the cafe with ice cream sandwiched between them. Best thing you'll ever taste, I promise. May you make your own festival with friends; sing karaoke, dance in the Rainbow Renly, watch a movie on the pool deck and eat way too many crab legs...

(A little peek here, one eye cracked and looking through her lashes to see if any of this is registering. It's how it'd worked for Venti, but Yato and Jenny had been different so who even knows.)

He's staring at her, now-indigo eyes seeming to peer directly into her soul.

"Mortal, mortal, mortal. I appreciate the well-wishes. It's a nice little bowl of words. A tasty treat for a lonely Madgod. But... if you want to pray for something, I'm going to need you to speak, and I'm going to need you to hear. I've told you already, it's not the cake I'm looking for, it's what it symbolizes. All the talking about eating paper is just incidental. If you're going to pray pretty little words to cheer me up, then that's fine, but it's another paper cupcake. Praying for something, now that requires substance. Are you willing to offer me substance, Clarke? Are you willing to offer me thoughts?"

Well, she ought not be too disappointed that old methods failed before a new audience, but something about that reproach rubs in the wrong direction. Both eyes open and lifting her head back up, though her hands stay in her lap and her lips blanch white with how tightly she buckles them. And in meeting that transfixing indigo gaze, a shiver runs up her back; then back down again with thunderous footfalls when Sheogorath calls her by name without any introduction, and asks for more.

"Sorry." That sure didn't sound all that apologetic, but gift her one more positive interpretation of surface level emotion. "I'm still learning how to do this."

And she could tap out here. There are some thoughts too precious to share, and those all currently live at the very frontal lobe of her brain; all she's thinking about day and night, ideas she chews more thoroughly than any bite of food. But curiosity had dragged her over here in the first place; had hooked claws into her ribcage and now refused to let go, had killed the cat just to bring it back to kill it and bring it back again. So for once, she doesn't make a swift and graceless exit, even though the little voice in the back of her head urges escape.

"I guess I don't know what constitutes substance anymore. What sort of thoughts do you want to hear?"

Something frightful creeps into his voice, the thought of a shriek turned to the weeping of a violin. Yet that's just a thought, an impression that emerges from a voice that is utterly that of an old man.

"You wish for us both to have what we ultimately want, you said. That could mean so very, very much, mortal, and there's not a single bit of intention behind those oh-so-carefully-crafted words. Oh, I could feel their meanings on their own, of course, definitions and syllables and phonics and all those little booky things that old Mora keeps in the deep dark sea. But chained together, they mean nothing without intention. Like I said, piece of paper scrawled with a cupcake. Edible, without a doubt, but not actually cake. If you really want something, you have to want me to know what you want, or else you can tell me plainly, if we're going to pretend that I'm a mortal and I can only understand the words as you say them."

"Oh and I should mention, the word wish is a dangerous one to throw around when you're uncertain about how to pray. Best you hope my dear unbrother Clavicus isn't listening, as he likes to tangle wishes like I like to tangle a good ball of yarn."

"So, would you like to try again, little mortal Clarke, or are you going to leave me with a plate full of pretty words, gladly accepted of course?"

Say what you will about her, but Clarke Griffin has great prey instincts. Looking into his eyes, hearing that quiet screaming akin to a dog whistle in his voice but not properly registering it — her body at least has all the appropriate responses. Goosebumps, suddenly everything feels cold, her heart beats a little faster... And again there is that instinct to run away from this conversation, but. He's caught on to the edge of her facade and seeks to rip the mask away. Pries and digs, but most alarmingly challenges her. Right there, at the very end.

The very first words the Captain ever spoke to her on board this ship had been you are so far out of your league, Wanheda. Time had passed and for the most part, Clarke had felt acclimated. Then every so often there's moments like this that really and truly threaten her grasp on the situation...

And she just doesn't really know how to back down.

"...I guess I'll try again."

This time there's no bothering with the pretense of lowering her head or closing her eyes. And those hands in her lap twist and tangle over each other, eventually finding hold enough for nails to bite crescent grooves into her own flesh.

I want to get my people off this ship. And I don't really care about what it takes to achieve that anymore.

It's a safe sentiment, one she's confident others share. But the depth of this want gushes out of every pore like caustic radiation. If Sheogorath wants to dig in a little, there's no resistance in regards to this topic. Feel how easy it would be to kill for this; to lie, to cheat, to deceive, to break promises. Feel the intention to reach her goal, previously wishy-washy but now thoroughly cemented. Grasp the familiarity she has with this route, preemptively tired but set in her way like a bulldog that just got its teeth around a bone. Listen to the rage kept under close lock and key thus far, but beating in time with her heart and indistinguishable from the blood rushing through her veins; it is dark and tacky and cloying. Hand in hand with it all comes the frustration of not knowing what to do yet, the mental equivalent of a beast in captivity gnawing on the bars of the cage and ripping all its hair out. It wants out, she wants an out, and where divine intervention has failed every time before it doesn't feel like it hurts to ask —

Can you help me with that?

Edited 2024-02-12 04:54 (UTC)

He slinks in between her thoughts, a silver shape pacing before the caged beast and thrashing behind its eyes. He is the itch, that desperate feeling of no way out, and simultaneously he is the ripping teeth and a sense of relief and a rallying cry of freedom, freedom, freedom! There's a dagger in the dark of her mind, the smell of blood and the weeping and screaming that can only accompany anguished loss. A sea of black blood suddenly rises in Clarke's field of vision, swallowing everything whole, as a distant voice, totally unfamiliar yet familiar enough that she knows she must have heard it just moments ago, whispers 'please, please, please.'

Then the rising tide sinks back, and he's sitting there across from her, eyes a little deeper in hue but otherwise still a a dapper but ordinary old man.

"The Spinner watched every corner, and thought nothing could sneak past her webs. But as she tacked up thread after thread, the vibrations left her nest shaking, day and night, to the point that she couldn't sleep," he mutters, sounding almost as if he's reminding himself of a story. "She became so fixated on every tremor, that when a great howling wind passed by her, she paid it no mind. For surely, her foes would know to be more subtle than that."

One moment she's sitting in the atrium trying her best at honest and godly prayer, and the next she's digging the nails of one hand into the back of the other in an attempt to scratch that itch. It's deep, it lives deep, it's like it can't be reached but at least in this instant she isn't worrying her thumbnail down to the quick. In the next moment, gnawing her own fingers to bleeding might have been preferable as the entire room begins filling with a swirling cascade of darkness that only registers as blood when her heart drops out of her throat and she remembers the same color is currently pumping through her own veins at heightened speed. Not real, not real — she screams internally, still halfway out of her seat and scrambling up the back of the couch in a vain attempt to keep her own head above water for fear she'd drown in her own blood again. For whatever good it does.

The begging crescendos. The wave crashes.

The atrium blinks back into stark, well-lit view and Clarke is left reeling in a terrified cold sweat. And wondering — if this is godly, do I really want to believe?

But in his own seat across from her, Sheogorath, Prince of Madness sits as if nothing happened. He mumbles, mostly to himself it seems, unbothered and at ease. And while Clarke can parse the words coming from his mouth, she can't quite grasp the concept. "I — what?" she splutters, rattled discomfort folding over on itself to sound downright affronted.

"You asked for help, little mortal. I've given you insight. Bits and pieces of desperation to examine, which might be from you, or might not be from you. Your blood, or mine? Your fear, or his? A pity you can't seek out my many-armed-unsister quite as directly here. I feel like her talents are best suited to what you seek. But... I think you understand, better than you did before, how desperately you want what you want. Is there anything else you want to say?" There are shadows dancing in his indigo eyes now, tiny images of daggers in the dark.

Second of Sun's Dawn (OTA)

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cw: blood mention, implied mention of self harm

carrying those cw's forward

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