Merule

My Sun and Moon (Engel x Raafling)

I'm really sorry for disappearing on you like this. My thesis is currently swallowing my life, and my promises of posts at more hopeful than anything else. It's best not to count on me for this week and the next,but then this month of experiments will be over,if you still want to continue.

I know you said you hated people dropping out,but I shouldn't have promised you replies where I wasn't sure I could deliver.

My Sun and Moon (Engel x Raafling)

Still busy but easing up. I should be able to get something up either today or tomorrow :D

My Sun and Moon (Engel x Raafling)

My thesis will require a lot of attention for the rest of the week, and then I'll be gone for the weekend. I think I'll be able to get some posts out, but i can't promise I will.

When the Roar Falls ~ PopeAlessandros x Raafling

At first Autharyx feels like he has made his point well, but when Viltez turns his focus on his food without talking, doubt starts to creep in. His host’s face is red again, which is an indication of shame, right? Was he not clear enough that he wanted to stay? Or did he say things that were ‘inappropriate’? Viltez had seemed worried about his reaction, so he’d tried to make it clear that he thought it was a good idea and that he was only thinking about his host’s comfort, but perhaps he should have pretended to be more conflicted about the idea?

With every passing moment of silence he is more and more certain he’s said something wrong, but when Viltez finally answers it sounds positive enough. Autharyx looks up with an expression of slight surprise, but turns it into a smile now that everything seems to be okay. The rest of the meal occurs in silence, but to Autharyx’ inexperienced ear it seems to be a companionable one rather than an awkward one.

When Viltez stands up to put the plates away, the tail slips from his arm and he is free to stand up and do his own share of helping. Viltez seems busy in the kitchen, so Autharyx uses the time to tidy up the living room further. From the corner of his eye he can see his host’s tail wring and twist itself, and he once again wonders whether he’s said something wrong after all.

When the man turns to him with a question, though, there is a smile on his face even though he stumbles over his words again. Autharyx’ eyes dart to the tail that was still moving in a far more restless way than usually, but perhaps that doesn’t mean anything?

“Um, yeah, bed is fine,” he says, cursing himself for the hesitation in his voice. If Viltez is smiling, surely he didn’t want Autharyx to act like something is wrong. If anything, he is probably covering for something Autharyx said earlier, right? Best to just go along with the cues his host was giving.

Mind made up, he feigns a casual air as he walks to the bedroom, in the meantime still trying to go over what he might have said wrong. It must have been the eagerness, right? Apparently humans had a thing against sharing beds and he didn’t show that clearly enough. Should he try to do it after all? Or would any more talking only make things worse?

He is already in his (Viltez’) sleeping pants with his (Viltez’) sleeping shirt in his hands, when he decides the uncertainty of maybe having done something wrong does not sit well with him. He already told Viltez he was from a different culture, right? So he might as well figure out if or where he’d gone wrong.

“Viltez,” he says, looking at the other man with just a hint of a frown. “Is there something I did… wrong?” The word feels distasteful in his mouth as a means of referring to himself, but ‘rude’ would imply that he’d done it on purpose and that would be worse.

“I assure you, I did not mean to offend, and if I did it was an accident…”

My Sun and Moon (Engel x Raafling)

Just a heads-up: I will be away from friday through to sunday. Discworld convention here I come! :D

My Sun and Moon (Engel x Raafling)

Ruby was glad the gun didn’t seem involved any more, but the constant drinking wasn’t all that much of an improvement. Aizawa was already slurring her speech, and the words that came out of her mouth made it clear she wasn’t fully in control of her faculties any more. That, or she just didn’t care about being indecent, it was hard to tell. She tried to ignore the way her cheeks heated up, glad that her dark complexion would keep any blush from showing. At least she didn’t seem interested in provoking her, because she quickly moved onto the next subject.

She couldn’t blame Aizaw- no, Tsuki for still having doubts, but Ruby had none of her own. She’d seen dozens of people touch the holy papers that day, and many more before that. Tsuki didn’t have that advantage, and neither did she seem to be very familiar with- or appreciative of- religion in general.

“Er…” Ruby floundered a little when she was offered the bottle, trying to think of a polite way to turn down the alcohol. She must have been very obvious, because Tsuki pulled it back almost immediately. Though she was still a bit concerned about all the drinking, at least the religious question was more her domain.

“The scripture contains many references to intoxicating agents, some of which can be quite contradictory,” she said. “In general, the clergy err on the side of moderation. It is not wrong for one to enjoy life’s pleasures, but to cloud the mind is to close your heart to the beauty of the world the goddesses have created. Er, at least that’s what the priests say.” It wouldn’t do to antagonise her, after all. She was quiet for a moment, unsure how to broach the subject of what would happen next.

“The priests will be expecting me back down soon,” she eventually said. She knew the casual tone of voice probably wasn’t going to fool Tsuki, but she had to say something. The last thing she wanted was to have more people come in unannounced.

“I should probably go back down for a bit and talk to them… They will want to talk to you as well…” she said slowly. She couldn’t imagine Tsuki having a good reaction to the thought, so she quickly went on.

“You said you wanted more proof, right? Well, they can give you that. Everyone can touch the paper, and if that’s not enough there are other plans. There’s a temple in Iceland that has an artefact that used to belong to the last moonchild. Just a small trip- all expenses covered of course- and you will know. If we were wrong, you’ll never have to hear from us again.”

My Sun and Moon (Engel x Raafling)

The laughter had been bad enough, but at least she had been able to talk over it. When the woman went back into her office without even deigning to answer any of Ruby’s questions, though, she could do little more than watch from the doorstep. She still had a gun after all, and Ruby didn’t want to provoke her any more than she’d already did. At least she could take the opportunity to quickly peek at the nameplate on the door again, so she would be able to put a name to the woman. Aizawa Tsuki. Was that in western or eastern order?

When she looked back into the room Aizawa Tsuki was gulping something presumably alcoholic down straight from the bottle. Ruby stared in shock for a moment, which morphed into embarrassment when the moonchild caught her eye. At least she put the bottle down for a while to talk, and the words were interesting enough for her to try and ignore the next swig out of the bottle.

“You’re a natural seer?” she asked, a slight note of awe in her voice. The priests loved to let people know that they were really good at predicting the future, but Ruby had seen how much preparation, ceremony and, well, guessing were really involved with comparatively basic divinations. And no one she knew would even want to come close to suggesting they could tell how people died. That was the domain of the moon, after all, and not something for mortals to guess at. Well, except for the woman across from her, obviously.

“That’s…” she paused at the stricken look on Aizawa’s face. This was probably not the time to talk about how amazing she thought her gifts were.

“That sounds like it could be a bit much for one person,” she instead said softly. The gun was nowhere in sight, so she carefully stepped into the office that seemed to double as apartment.

“I’m sorry if I startled you, I never meant to. I just… there isn’t really a way to bring new like this gently, I guess,” her voice was low and soothing as she approached the woman as she would a frightened animal. Her powers might not be very… subtle, but other than that caring and soothing came easy to her. As excited as she might be to have discovered her equal, at the moment she only felt for the hurt she was obviously feeling.

“Are you okay? You never told me your name.” She had read it from the door, of course, but right now they needed to have something neutral to talk about.

My Sun and Moon (Engel x Raafling)

Ruby blinked a few times at the unexpected turn of events. She'd always thought she was good with people, but that was when she was in familiar territory, with people who knew who she was and what they expected of her. This woman didn't recognise her even after being told her name, and Ruby felt a little stupid for not having anticipated that possibility. Sure, she knew intellectually that there were a lot of people who's lives were almost totally unconnected from the gods or the church, but that thought was so far away from the reality of her own life that she'd never really taken the time to consider what it meant. Though she doubted she would ever have imagined that it would fall to her to explain to the daughter of the moon that she was... well, the daughter of the moon.

"Um, yeah, I am," she said, playing with the ends of her dreads in an unintentional nervous gesture. She new it would be best if she just got some priests to explain and show that the paper most definitely didn't work for everyone, but something stopped her. This woman was supposed to be her chance to finally not feel alone any more, and she wasn't about to fade into the background while the priests did all the talking.

"I'm on the news at least once a year, on the summer solstice. My mom is a priest in the Celestial temple of the Great Pyramid, and my mother is the Radiant Sol." She said it as casually as she could manage. This wasn't some great declaration, after all, just a statement of fact to the only person who might be able to understand how she felt.

"You do have divine heritage. It's not your family though, just you. No one but a demigod has enough divine spark to light the fire like that, and if you want to see others try there are people downstairs who can touch the paper as well. The seers of the twelfth hour have spent the last couple of weeks pouring over a set of divinations that eventually led us to your apartment block. A set of divinations that all pointed to the same thing: a child of the moon living right where you lived up until a week ago. They assumed we were looking for a child, but apparently they were wrong..." The woman's earlier insistence that she didn't have any divine heritage sprang to mind, and she quickly kept talking before she could be dismissed out of hand.

"I know it must be quite a shock, but have you never felt like you were different? Did you ever catch a cold as a child, or any of the other diseases others seem to catch every year? You must be gifted, right? Everyone always talks about drawing the power out, nurturing it and learning how to use it, but that's not how it works for you, right? Wasn't it more difficult for you to turn it off rather than turn it on? Surely you must have felt as if you were... different from the people around you. Well, it was because you are," as Ruby talked, the desperate edge creeping in around the words audible even to her own ears.

My Sun and Moon (Engel x Raafling)

The Woman's final words sent a cold shiver down her spine, but at least she was pointing the gun away. It wasn't ideal, but it was a big improvement from the situation 30 seconds ago.

"I won't try anything," Ruby said quickly. At east, she hoped that bringing news that would uproot her entire life would not count as 'trying anything'.

"I just want to talk. We have got a lot in common, even if it doesn't look like that right now," and even if she didn't know what 'BFFs' were. It didn't matter. Even though the child of the moon appeared to be a bit less... dignified than she'd been expecting, she was sure everything would end up all right.

"This paper it's.... a test of sorts, used by the clergy to... look for certain characteristics," she started out slowly. She hadn't actually expected she would ever have to explain this beyond 'your child is blessed' and though the gun was no longer pointing at her, a conversation where one of the people involved was holding a gun was very difficult to mistake for a conversation where that wasn't the case.

"You know how cmost families with a lot of gifted people can trace their lineage back to some god or another? Well, this paper can be used to show the so-called 'divine spark' a person might possess." As she talked Ruby slowly got some of her confidence back. This, she knew how to do.

"Of course a few drops of divine blood will be only enough to lightly singe the paper. Generally the more poweful the reaction, the more powerful the divine heritage within the person." She paused for a moment, giving the other woman (her name had been on the door, hadn’t it? why hadn't she paid more attention?) a chance to start connecting the dots.

"i am the only person currently alive who is able to set the paper aflame like that- or I guess I was." She looked the white-haired woman in front of her straight in the eye, trying to figure out if anything of this was making sense. If they really were the same , surely she must have felt like Ruby had? Out of place, different than anyone else she’d ever known… It could only be a good thing to hear that she really was different, right?

“My name is Ruby Eleana Solaris. I’m… er… You may have seen me on the television sometimes?” she finished rather lamely. It felt… cheesy to introduce herself as ‘daughter of the sun’, she never really had to before. Of course before she’d only really interacted with people who knew who she was from the get-go, which brought other awkwardness with it. It would’t be like that now, though, because now they were the same. The celestial goddesses were equal in every way, after all. Was it really too much to hope that they would be as well?

My Sun and Moon (Engel x Raafling)

Ruby had thought it would be a breath of fresh air to talk to a normal person rather than a priest or a worshipper for once, but she had to admit that she found the unnecessary reverence and hesitation preferable to the open hostility she could read on the woman’s face. She wasn’t even saying anything, just staring at her with eyes narrowed in suspicion. At least she was looking at her face this time in stead of staring into space. If this was how people acted when they were drunk, she could understand why the church was so dead-set against it.

When the woman finally spoke, Ruby wasn’t even disappointed that she didn’t know anything. She clearly hadn’t been thinking straight when she thought that it would have been a good idea to come up here alone. At least the woman hadn’t seemed to have recognised her, which at least kept her from embarrassing the church. Now she only needed to take a paper and they could both go back to-

Her thought process ground to a halt with the bright flame flaring up between them. For a moment all she could do was gape slack-jawed as everything she’d been expecting was wiped away in the bright glow of the burning paper. Not a child then.

The hesitation was enough to have her end up with a gun pointing in her face, and the bright spark of joy she felt (she was not alone) was just enough for her to be able to push back the memories that came rushing back at the sight of the barrel. A lifetime of practice turned her focus to her breath before she needed to make a conscious decision to do so.

-Three counts in, four counts out. Four counts in, five counts out.-

While she could feel the flames within her pushed away just out of reach, she had this under control. She had to have this under control. With that thought she took a slow step back and held up her hands to show she wasn’t planning anything.

“I… No one ‘set me up’ to this,” she said, not bothering to hide the fear in her voice or eyes. As long as that gun was on her, she was very afraid, though not for the reason the moonchild probably thought she was.

“We were… looking for someone. Like I told you, there was a divination,” she didn’t much want to tell her she was the daughter of one of the goddesses as long as she was aiming a gun. That had to be a shock, right? The last thing she wanted was to startle her into doing something drastic.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I would never hurt you,” she said, hoping the truth of her conviction would shine through in her words. She slowly lowered her hands, gesturing with the paper case to show that she wasn’t reaching for anything else.

“I’m the same as you, look.” She slowly reached for a paper, not flinching when it burst into flames the moment her fingers touched it. She held it up between two fingers as it burnt itself out in seconds.

“I can explain everything, but I need you to put that gun away.”