halcyon

songs a siren wont sing // Cameron Beck.

me for the rest of my life

A figure bowed in prayer; it brought him no comfort, only fear. Uthyr derided hysteria but could not calm the warnings of his heart. He had never looked upon a fanatic and been imbued with respect -- their grand gestures struck him as horribly material, neither poetically divine nor spiritual. To speak this to Llyr would grant him no relief of conscious -- it was a hard task, to gaze upon one who worshipped with tender feeling, whose only relic was his faith. Uthyr remained a breath away from Llyr, perceiving clearly how impure his form was beside a praying form. "I wonder how I would appear in the eyes of your god - I lack both truth and faith. It brings me comfort to believe we share a common prayer now." He paused, letting his declared heresy fill the air -- Llyr's silent prayer in tongues now dead, had been severed. Uthyr's words fell upon the back of Llyr's head; a mass of lovely dark curls, denying him the grace of the mage's visage. "I pray for our success, and I pray for a death shrouded in glory; what do you seek?" 

The candlelight flickers, commanded, like acolyte to altar, and a biting chill races Llyr’s spine in turn, though his eyes remain firmly in place. He knows what’s coming. He knows it in the static electricity of the moment- in the goosebumps that break out along his arms, in the familiar silence of the unswept sky beyond, the gutted carcass of night ceasing its convulsions in the early hour. The cut and stare of a thing intending to harm - even to one so sheltered - is impossible to miss. Llyr is steeled for the sword, for the axe, for whatever instrument mind find the back of his head in this hushed vestibule between the ribs of the room, the pulse in his ears beating so loudly he mistakes himself for its heart, for something living- ( In that glint of dark shepherds in by the draft of commanding presence, the two of them could be anything. Ghosts, maybe- haunted and haunting. A repository for collective hunger. Posthumous burials. Suicidal toddlers with fistfuls of glass. He thinks on the sun, and he thinks on the way dog has to be fed and fed and fed and fed. Prays forgiveness for both. ) -but the blow never finds the mark he’d willed it to, his skin set to crawl by the voice a meagre breath from the back of his head that doesn’t cleave him in two the way he wishes it would. Truth. Faith. A common prayer, Uthyr says. Llyr doesn’t know what to do with that. It sits awkwardly in his chest; like everything else, it’s edges are undefined. All he’d left with is the impression that it feels- strange. Strains against it confines, like pups onto a whelping mother. Llyr smiles, nonetheless, a quiet curl twinging at the edge of his mouth (earnestly - if a little naively - warm in greeting, appropriately weighted by the heaviness of the journey ahead) and turns to face Uthyr. As is right. As is respectful. Eyes lucent, mind open, ready to receive- even if another shiver claws itself down his back. “For our success, as you say. For our lives,” his expression stays rigidly homely, hospitable, in a way that doesn’t quite line up with the weight of the sentiment, “for the sun to touch our faces and deliver us, if we should die in deliverance.” There’s a moment of silence. Of something softer than calculation. His tongue wets his bottom lip before he ventures, mild, curious, “what does death without glory look like?”

on being unloved by god

some  wear  duty  well,  as  they  would  a  shield  or  a  cloak,  an  extension  of  one's  self  —  like  to  say,  this  is  what  i  am  born  to  do,  as  if  people  are  born  to  duties,  death,  and  heroism.  it  evades  maerope,  duty  and  all  its  siblings,  companions.  no  duty,  no  purpose,  to  the  rest,  no  drive,  no  motivation  (  nothing  beyond  a  sense  of  loyalty,  head  bowed  in  an  earned  obeyance,  perhaps  an  inherited  one  ).  maerope  is  a  wanderer  trapped  in  the  skeleton  of  fidelity  —  her  father's  doing  —  and  she  lingers,  and  she  doesn't,  is  here  and  there,  bathed  in  the  shadows  of  vinnesse  while  letting  her  face  shine  in  the  night. she  recognizes  herself  in  a  fraction  of  each  of  her  companions.  this  is  face  i  have  worn  before,  or  that  is  what  a  wild  dog  looks  like  when  it's  starving,  or  here  is  a  quiet  hole  that  i  have  sank  into.  with  a  blade  between  her  fingers,  she  swallows  her  words  and  ignores  her  thoughts,  a  watchful  eye  on  the  other  quiet,  silent  soul  amongst  them.  a  mirror,  fractured  and  strewn  unto  marble  floors.  a  fragment  of  glass  that  may  slice  the  palm  if  held  wrong.  a  prayer,  of  sorts,  that  is  yet  to  be  memorized  (  despite  the  ever  present  bruise  of  the  knees  —  maerope  thinks  of  a  childhood  with  straw  beds  and  wooden  floors,  blessed  be  the  mother,  blessed  be  the  girl  ). her  approach  is  careful,  a  calculated  path  of  stepping  on  loose  stones  (  to  warn  of  a  coming  intrusion  )  yet  avoiding  weak - looking  floorboards  (  to  assure  that  there  is  no  threat  ).  the  palm  of  her  hand  is  filled  with  stolen  grapes,  not  yet  ripe  and  sour  to  the  taste.  maerope  watches  for  a  moment,  this  creature,  this  person  —  eyes  upturned  to  the  ceiling  as  if  the  answers  will  rain  down  from  the  heaven.  she  looks  upward  and  tries  it  for  herself.  why  me?  why  my  parents?  did  i  not  deserve  better?  wasn't  i  just  a  child? maerope  drags  her  eyes  back  down.  she  asks,  "does  it  help?"  and  rolls  the  grapes  on  her  fingers  like  a  cool  marble.  "prayer?  what  does  it  bring,  answers  or  comfort?"

His eyes flick back to her own, and the reverence therein holds steadfast. The tenderness. In a voice soft, like praying, unworked hands, “and comfort, I suppose, in knowing you’ll come to know. When the time is right.”

Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End? Mary Oliver

fucked up he bears a wound he has never suffered, and so will all his kin.

Bone, Mary Oliver

He's grown not to expect an answer. The silence between he and the sun could - and has - filled centuries, filled graves. The consolation in it is limited, gunmetal-bitter; a pale, airless crawlspace, or maybe a grave of its own. The desperation in it, now, is where religion finds its roots, inviolable, sacrosanct, an implacable thorn someplace between his ribs. He doesn't recognise it for what it is. Blind, transient and fledgeling, he thinks - in that hollow space between seconds - of the rise and fall of the sun beyond the bleak. Of candlelight licking at shadow. Of spider silk and empty rooms. Of burying the dead, and blinking blearily into the next morning. Llyr closes his eyes, and doesn't wonder why he gets no reply. Tries not to— and then someone does, and his heart lurches with enough vehemence that, for a second, he wonders if it's torn itself from his chest. His flinch is a stifled, inward thing, restricted to a surface-level blink down at her and no more. "Oh," he says, first- soft, measured and easy. The hammer of his heart in his ears (dizzy with it; for a foolish moment, the same organ had willed it to be Lathander's voice, every nerve alive and trembling with the static electricity of the possiblity of being heard, finally; in realising his mistake, his breath stutters, then drains completely) is assurance, at least, that it's still in place. He smiles, and it's a warm, mollifying thing. "Oh, no- not interrupting." It's difficult to interrupt something with no defined edges. Something that doesn't know how to occupy the space it keeps. Llyr's head tilts fractionally, smile a homely, hospitable thing. Handcrafted, just-so. "Prayer isn't ever over. This life is one of service." It's his brother's face he's wearing. His brother's calm, pacifying voice. Too many times had Llyr asked the same question of him, those years ago. His smile twinges at its edges, faintly playful. "So .. there's an awful lot of interrupting you'd need to do if you really wanted to interrupt."

Tamino in WICKERMAN [x]

And music- music has always been a spectacle, even to a boy penned into the devout silence of hallowed ground too early to acquaint himself with it. No instrument has ever found his hands - none but his voice, and even that, through the years, has gone unused - nor did any choir take root in the sect that raised him, Lathander's halls starved of sound, save for the orchestration of the clergy and the organ reserved for ceremony. There had been passing performers, though, come to worship. Llyr had only seen - heard - them in passing moments, a leashed dog minding its own; he remembers each one, the memories of strummed lyres and lute strings a private indulgence reserved for the smallest hours of the morning. He'll remember this one, too. It seems impossible not to. The jaunty lilt of it carries the same way light does: with cutting, razor-edged delicacy. Fills his chest. At least- makes the brutalism feel softer, lighter- easier to bear. Instinct commands caution. Ingrained teachings command that he gravitate to it, this makeshift light in the dark. No candle is one wasted. No candle is one in vain. He’d meant to observe, not to disturb. It’s difficult, as it turns out, to be mindful of one’s feet while quite so enchanted, the novelty an enticing one. Llyr freezes, white cloak stilling like a hound at his ankles. The pause is one that seeks permission, first. And- the Bard smiles, continues his strumming. Llyr smiles in turn. It bleeds into his eyes, their stormy, gold-flecked grey turned lucent, gratitude an open wound. “Blessed,” he echoes; the irony in it registers a moment later for him, eyes narrowed in amusement. He takes no step further into the room- not without invitation. Lingers in the doorway like a thing come to haunt. “I’m not so certain if its being a private show. I could hear you. Ah .. down the hall.” There’s no accusation in his measured voice, just a quiet enthusiasm- albeit just as carefully metered. As for a cleric’s free time, Llyr responds in kind with a quiet huff that verges on playful, “in ways far less entertaining than private shows, I’m afraid.” But the musician asks for indulgence, and so indulgence he gives; he has been asked a question, and so answers it. “With the holy texts of their god, mostly. Prayers - like trances - can last days. Some are given missions. Some carve out their own. Some reinstate their holy wards. Some, if given the privilege, spend time shepherding in and out those that mean to walk on hallowed ground..” His smile softens at its edges, head tilted a fraction to the left. “As I said .. in ways less entertaining than this.” A beat of silence. Two. Calculative, in some tentative, rabbit-hearted way. His eyes flick to the lute cradled in the Bard’s hands. “Does your instrument have a name?”

The Robot Bird Tells Me How It Is I Am in Hell, Shane McCrae

Soleil (Pierre Clémenti, 1988)