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IC INBOX ( KENOS ).
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█ To Commune with Set is to stand barefoot in an endless, scorching desert. The sun illuminates all, scalding the shadows themselves out from underneath whomever enters his dominion; the arch of gentle, distant, waves of sand mask the precarious chasms, towering dunes akin to mountains. The sense of vastness, timelessness, is of particular notice, lending itself to the alien, eldritch quality of his mind. There is a dark storm in the distance, and you know intimately that this divine being is far from benign. You cannot bargain with a force of nature. You can only survive it. |
a week or so after the Exalt Oracle;
Hayame had suffered. Suffered in ways she could not confide in others without shame, or could not accurately explain to others without bodies like hers. One of only two she would trust to understand was Set… but.
She cannot be so weak as to seek comfort from him so openly, so pathetically. She is his warrior. If she does not remain strong… she will not be anymore. So when she reaches out to him, in that familiar space where sand swirls against snow-]
Set.
I have a favor to ask of you. The price, you may name.
[In her “hands”, a persimmon and a pomegranate. On her face (in her soul), exhaustion and hauntings.]
You can coax these things to grow… yes?
[An invitation is extended in the mind. To the house Liem Talbott had built in Alenroux. The one she now resides in. A “home”.]
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It feels poisonous, to grow things. He should be killing them, after all, desiccating verdant things and transforming them into arid sands. Osiris is the god of life and the black, life-giving souls, not him. He is the master of red lands, dead lands. ( It has never felt right to him, to have those abilities, since they day he'd found the lost shrine and taken on that spell — the most simple little spell, allowing him to induce flowers to open and know the weather. But, it is the piece of divinity he has. Stolen, he thinks he can be a better god of greenery than his own brother. ) ]
I can.
[ He doesn't lie to her, even as the thought twists through him.
It always does, even if he still performs such work. Uses spells that are anathema to his domains. ]
Do you know how to tend to fruit-bearing plants, Hayame? It is hard work, but worthwhile. I find it soothing.
[ In their joined minds, he accepts the invitation as if she'd written it to him and posted it to him. It gives him somewhere to redirect his energies, and perhaps — perhaps, because he is so lost and pained, it makes him kinder. In a strange way, as if his cutting mind being subsumed by his own stormy emotions brings out something different inside of him. Some old need to protect, and support. He was a guardian deity, once. A husband and father.
He signals to her that he is on his way to Alenroux, to her home. Her lovely home, given to her by someone who wanted her to have a place to belong. ]
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(Had Set retrieved his son? She had wanted to ask, and yet... the fact that he had not said a word about it... Did he know she had "punished" Gen in her own way, unable to honor the claim she had ceded him in the face of the brat's fresh crimes against Meridian and her personally? She was going to shatter his shard, but by the time she found where the body had fallen...)]
... I do not.
I thought good soil and exposure to rain would be enough for such a thing. If there are things you need to teach me about this... I must ask you fold it into the price you ask of me.
[Are friends supposed to be able to ask favors of each other without the need for prices? She doesn't know anymore. But it feels like an imposition, that she be asking him for this, so surely she is the one incurring debt. The one staring at the pomegranate and persimmon in her hands and wondering if putting down roots in this place will answer the question he had so recently asked her about the fact that she could not deny her presence in this world.
He is on his way... and though she debates greeting him by standing in front of the home Liem Talbott had seen constructed, her hands folded in front of her equine chest... Surely it was more fitting that he see the inside of her... "home"? Or no, perhaps that was too presumptuous of her? He would have visited before now, surely, if he had interest or intent. Or... was he waiting for an invitation? ... Actually, no, the idea of the chaotic god of war waiting for invitations is very silly of her.
She goes to wait for him outside.]
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Keeping abreast of Kenos's movements was, after all, something he was passionate about.
Landing by Alenroux's Cornerstone was one matter. Locating Hayame's home was the second. Using her landmarks and guidance, he travels the distance necessary to locate the place she had finally, finally come to rest in. A place worthy of her weapons, of her work, of her. Were he to continue finding her in the stables, the insult to his own status would only grow. What manner of god would permit his greatest of warriors to reside in a place unsuitable for her, after all? It was wrong, to him. To think that she was bidden to live in a place designed for horses. Not a jinba, not a woman like her. ]
Hayame!
[ He calls to her, once he sees her. A figure who takes to Alenroux in the shape of her people, sands folded over and over into a facsimile of flesh and limb. The streaming red of his tail and the manic, prissy trot of his hooves approach — his arms thrown wide and inviting. ( His mood always seems so bright, when his shape mirrors hers. The deep appreciation he has for her innate power, her speed and the freedom to run is beyond measure. ) ]
You are not wrong, by the way. Good soil and water are vital for crops. Knowing how to attend their boughs and roots are equally important, I have found. While I am not a god of arable land, I have studied up on what knowledge I did have. [ What he knew of, due to Osiris and Isis. ] And, one of my Meridian-granted spells enhances the health of plant life. I have used it all throughout Alenroux, and now, it is for you.
[ Which means! ]
So, put thoughts of price from your head! Just tend to my Discord afterwards.
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But here she is now, in front of the home that Liem Talbott had supervised the building of, with its large door and high ceilings and open flooring and all sort of features that made living in it easier for a jinba. It would be more obvious if he came inside. All of those features would apparently be of even more use than usual, seeing as-]
Set... I did not expect you like this...
[Hayame had not expected him to come to her wearing her kind's shape again. The last time she had seen him this way... those forelegs had found tight purchase on her withers, that red coat had been velvet beneath her hands, his breath had been heated against the back of her neck, and he (and she) had... Her unbidden recollections bring a dusting of blush to her cheeks despite her intent to remain stoic, a surprised little swallow working down her throat. She should focus- the time before hadn't been... like that, they had run and run and run away-
And she is not... not happy, not pleased, to see him that way.]
- Of course I shall. I have offerings, as well...
[Is that really price enough for this? Perhaps she should simply pick something else and send it to Akua's home before he might protest, and then never bring it up again so that it did not create feelings of debt? She manages to address that, first, restarting her thoughts where she stands in front of her home (it still feels weird to say or think "her home"), a young persimmon tree in a burlap sack transplanted and laid on the ground near the door, a large, ripe pomegranate fruit held gently in her hands. Knowing how to attend their boughs and roots...
But this brings her to the awkward fact that... Hayame doesn't know how to behave with a house. Now that he is here, and wearing her form, and they are outside, but could so easily be inside thanks to the home's construction... her one eye darts between her door and Set. There is a heavy dark circle under it not hidden by the patch, something caused by recent days of nightmares and restless sleep. Should she... ? No, surely it is more sensible to do outside work first, and then she can tend to his Discord in private where it belongs... ? The refreshment of tea will be more needed once he has exerted magic, surely? Yes, surely-]
... This one has no roots yet, no boughs.
[She proffers the unbroken pomegranate in her hands, red and round. She had scoured the market for the perfect one... to crack open with a slow press, pull, and twist of her hands, revealing the hundreds of glistening jewels of its seeds within. "They look like gems, right?" She can still hear that man's voice saying-]
Is there anything that can be done with it... ?
[The persimmon sapling she could at least get back into the ground by herself if need be, and entrust its fate to the weather above. But this one...
She has never grown anything from seed. Never grown anything at all.]
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[ As he approaches, he rotates slowly. Showing off all angles of his jinba shape without hesitation, red and sleek as he had been that day he'd run until his blind terror was left in the dust. Until he'd heard her laughter and dozed with her on the banks, among the reeds, under the sun; coming to her in this form, in Alenroux, feels right. A little like paying homage to her uniqueness, and her struggles as a woman who was not, in the least, bipedal.
He's never found anything strange about her. A jinba was, to him, as easy to look upon and find nothing foreign about as it was to have been simultaneously born of the night sky, his starry-breasted mother. His predecessors had oft been created in the image of animals, and shifted their form between flesh, world and beast without issue. To find accommodations for her lacking was a mark of mortal nearsightedness and limits, not divine issue.
Maybe it is why he does this, among the fields and growing domiciles of Alenroux. To be like her, and show solidarity - though, maybe like the centaurs of Kenos, he does not fully match her experiences. Her knowledge. Her existence as a jinba. ] That is a jnhm. A pomegranate. We had them in Egypt, so I am familiar with their seeds.
[ Beautiful things, glistening like jewels. He reaches out to the fruit, grasping it in his fingers and examining it for breakage. It'll need to be broken, to access the seeds, which are also the most tender and flavored part of the thing. ]
To grow something from seed requires a little more work, I have been taught. The seeds within must be freed and kept inside your home, until they begin to grow their roots. They respond to warm temperatures and sunlight. Once they begin to reach that stage, they can be planted. We can work step-by-step.
[ What he did not learn from observing his brother, or asking questions of him, he was shoring up on from the workers in the Greenwood Yards. ]
Something like this could easily become the first stages of a garden, you know.
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You should know fair well that I like it, Set...
[Honestly, she does not think he should have to ask, so surely he must just be out to enjoy her reaction. What that shape had been incidentally first born from... she despised, she loathed it with every fiber of her being that cared for this man. God. But the rest of it... the night he had helped liberate her from some of the chains her life had shackled her with, the first and only taste she has ever had of what it was to be with someone intimately in forms designed by nature to fit together, the splash of water, a rare moment of laughter, the quiet moment on the shores of the lake where they lay in the reeds with damp coats and fingers brushed through crimson and ebon manes, each trying to share the hope they had for the other that just...
... Would they ever come true? Or would they just keep pressing those hopes on each other with intentions that were good... and failing to truly honor what was being asked of them in turn? ... She didn't know. But the shape he has come in makes her... soften, slightly, as she willingly surrenders the pomegranate (jnhm?) to his hands, and hears his verdict. Ah. So it would not work so easily...]
I was introduced to the fruit here, I do not know of them in my world... But I have come to enjoy them greatly.
[Or maybe she enjoyed... how she had come to know the fruit, more. But there was surely no denying they were delicious. They were beautiful.]
... I can learn to do the work.
[As unfortunate as it was to not simply have it happen, with that strange and useful sort of magic, and be done with it... Maybe it was better this way. (Maybe it would be a good excuse, to invite Set's company in a way that felt more purposeful and less needing. Like how she had arranged for Liem Talbott to read from his sacred book to her, so that she might have reason to visit him after returning it to him, fearing that once that was done he would have no more cause to spent time in her company.)
Pivoting, she leaves the pomegranate with Set and goes to pick up the persimmon sapling. It was still a sapling, but it was already large enough to bear some fruit, and she has a hole for it in the yard where it might shade the home as it grows, she just wanted to be sure it would take to the soil and do well. The idea of a proper garden, though... She looks around at the still mostly clear space around the home as she unwraps the burlap to free the sapling's roots, considering. "My garden" felt just as strange as saying "my house" still did, but...]
A garden with trees might keep the night monsters from sniffing about as much, I suppose...