披星，戴月。

It does not seem that Raphael willed it.

Strong calves grapple onto the devil, greedily taking the heat and friction being offered. His mouth parts in a soft moan. His hand sought to reach Raphael's neck.

Dammon blinks. "You have my people locked in the dungeons of this tower," he reminds Ketheric. "I would never do anything to put them in any trouble or at risk." He's sure whatever cult-hallowed magic Ketheric possesses would keep him safe anyway, but he doesn't add that.

❝ the gods are not cruel, they are merely curious. ❞

❝ i have seen empires rise like prayers and fall like silence. ❞

❝ immortality is a slow kind of hunger. ❞

❝ even the divine grow tired of being worshiped. ❞

❝ i once loved a mortal. now the stars whisper his name. ❞

❝ the sea does not forgive. it only remembers differently. ❞

❝ they called me a myth to make me easier to forget. ❞

❝ the sun envies those who can set. ❞

❝ every prophecy is just nostalgia disguised as fate. ❞

❝ my hands remember the shape of creation. ❞

❝ even the gods kneel to time. ❞

❝ i wore divinity like a wound. ❞

❝ there is no glory in eternity, only repetition. ❞

❝ i loved you in every age, and none of them were kind. ❞

❝ the altar still smells like your prayers. ❞

❝ lightning does not ask for forgiveness. ❞

❝ to be feared is not the same as being known. ❞

❝ my heart beats slower than centuries. ❞

❝ the constellations were once my mistakes. ❞

❝ you built temples for me, but i lived in storms. ❞

❝ love, like prophecy, never asks permission. ❞

❝ i have turned grief into galaxies. ❞

❝ mortals call it tragedy. we call it memory. ❞

❝ i spoke the world into being and have been silent since. ❞

❝ the ocean taught me patience, then drowned me in it. ❞

❝ i am both the curse and the cure. ❞

❝ eternity is not mercy. it is echo. ❞

❝ he swore devotion, and i answered with thunder. ❞

❝ the moon only reflects because it cannot burn. ❞

❝ i am the story the poets feared to finish. ❞

❝ divinity is just loneliness with better lighting. ❞

❝ mortals die once. gods die endlessly in legend. ❞

❝ the fates never speak, but their silence threads everything. ❞

❝ i have loved across lifetimes, and each time, it ruins me. ❞

❝ creation was easy. enduring it was not. ❞

❝ my name has been worshiped, cursed, and forgotten, in that order. ❞

❝ the stars are just old gods pretending to be light. ❞

❝ i do not dream. i remember. ❞

❝ he prayed for glory. i gave him consequence. ❞

❝ thunder is only my heartbeat caught in the sky. ❞

❝ i built the world, but i cannot rebuild myself. ❞

❝ every offering is a confession. ❞

❝ i envied mortals their endings. ❞

❝ the divine bleed in metaphors. ❞

❝ i carved your name into eternity, and eternity flinched. ❞

❝ even olympus trembles when the heart remembers. ❞

❝ i have walked through centuries and never found forgiveness. ❞

❝ the gods are not kind, but they are honest. ❞

❝ i loved you like ruin loves beauty. completely. ❞

@wreathcrowns gets a starter!

Dammon doesn't trust being in Moonrise any more than he trusted being in Avernus. He'd been resigned to waste away in the dungeons of the tower, but whether it was fate or bad luck, the guards had heard he was a smith. Their last blacksmith had been lost to the curse, and now--

Now Dammon has a forge, and a locked door keeping him in it.

Maybe he can earn some freedom for the tieflings. A life working in Moonrise is better than one wasting in the dungeons. Those he came with are a hardy bunch; they'd survived Elturel's fall, the Emerald Grove, and this cursed place so far. They will endure here too.

Ketheric is without fear, so the fact that he comes without any guard or protection to Dammon's forge is no surprise. Dammon pauses his work weaving repairs into one of Ketheric's sets of chainmail and bows his head.

He holds out the mail for Ketheric to examine his work-- the part he has repaired is done of his own style that he learned in Avernus, leather strips artfully woven among the rings to keep even the sharpest arrows from making it through.

That's all to say that the forges would receive a hefty batch of large sized armours irregularly.

Ketheric does not put it on anyone else's agenda, but when he remembers after some time, he walks in on a random night to check on their progress. At the sight of Dammon, Ketheric had to pause, as though he'd just stepped into the wrong room. His mind quickly goes through a couple of recent events before he nods to himself.

A dagger, a shortsword. Anything that would provide her with the power she needed to so her future was guaranteed. He was in as vulnerable state as the great Ketheric Thorm ever was but she was stuck with pruned fingers and a feeling of being unmoored. With another grunt, Valentine lifted the cleaned armor from the basin and set it aside. Always aim to seem weak and ineffective. Not that her skills were even remotely close to his but her father had told her a thing or two. Not enough though. Perhaps she would don the armor, stun him, then push him into the water deep enough to stop him from ever breathing air again (presumably).

Though, Ketheric does not mistake that compliment of hers for anything else other than a manner of coaxing. It draws yet another unseen smirk, and shaking of head.  ❝ You need to gain more strength before meeting me in battle. Bring my cuisse and greaves to wash. ❞  he commanded, more mildly, in contrast to the prior challenge to her pride.

Ketheric stepped into the bath chambers proper, but left the doors ajar, so that they may continue to converse about the potential of her training. He removed his circlet and placed it on the side of the sink, and hung the towel.

"Some nights, I cannot stop," Halsin confirms. Ketheric's hands move to his shoulders, and he smiles at the gentle intimacy. It's a smile that turns softer at the ministrations of his lover, careful work that seeks to pull the tension from his body.

For a change, the blessing is a welcome one. Halsin tilts his head backwards slightly, eyes closing as he enjoys the other's hands on him. It's the relaxed state the other elicits that has him speaking again, nearly without thought.

❝ ... praise Selune. ❞ Ketheric let out, forcing this rage to uncoil itself. ❝ The world is unkind. I wish the circumstances that brought you to me were better. ❞