there are two kinds of spiritual law

Ezekiel de le Poer · 07-20-2011, 08:09 PM

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Word Count → 700 :: Private.

The storm had begun mid-afternoon, when bruise colored clouds rolled in from the west. Ezekiel had watched them come from his cave, and tasting the rain in the air and studying the jagged bolts of lightning cut across the sky. They struck the bay often, hitting the water and the beach with savage indifference. He did not fear storms, but respected them. This explained why he lingered in the safety of the stone cave, perched near the entrance and smoking silently. Ezekiel made a point not to smoke around the others—he disliked the way that Talitha scorned him for such a thing, and knew many saw it as weakness.

It was safe to smoke during storms, for the wind and the rain hid the smell of tobacco and clove and (rarely) marijuana. He liked the cloves because they did not dizzy his sensed as the marijuana did. While it gave his scent a strong note, Ezekiel knew how to hide this if he so desired.

An hour into the storm the wind had become so savage he had retreated fully inside, where Ibsen was. The raven lived in the cave, as he had since birth, and neither of the two found this odd. He was sitting on one of the books the coyote had brought back from the city, reading it slowly. Words were still difficult for him.

“The storm’s getting worse,” Ezekiel said, leaning against the deer-hide pillow he had fashioned. It was stuffed with pine needles and smelled pleasant, on top of providing a comfortable place to rest.

“It is summer,” Ibsent replied in his harsh voice, for nothing could make a raven’s speech smooth. “You said summer is when the storms are worst. It will pass.”

The coyote smiled, amused by the blunt pattern his companion used. “How’s your story?”

A laughing caw came from the raven. The coyote’s choice of words was well-made. It was, after all, a play by the man whose name the bird carried that was the subject of discussion. “I think I spoke better as a man,” the bird admitted, hopping back to turn the page with one clawed foot. “You should get more books.”

Outside, the thunder roared and the wind howled. Ezekiel turned his head towards the sound, listening with interest. He wondered how the majority of the clan felt so safe in the Mansion. Stone walls comforted him, and despite the heat of the summer, his home was cool. The small amount of light given off from an oil lamp was enough for the two animals, though Ezekiel knew that the small supply of lamp-oil he had found in the city would not last the summer.

“I’ll go soon,” he reassured the bird, who made a noise at this but settled back into his book.

Ezekiel slept for a few hours while the storm blew on and out towards the Atlantic. He woke recalling a dream, but it faded the more he fought to grasp it. Frustrated, he slunk outside while Ibsen slept on his open book. The rain had cooled the night air considerably, and the coyote shifted to his Lupus form so as to better travel. It was an easy thing to do from the caves, for the dirt trail lead away from this point in various directions. One route followed the new line of the borders, the other cut directly north, a third followed the river, and a fourth turned east and towards the Mansion.

The Aquila took this path but veered away at the scent of deer. He was large enough to hunt alone, though he himself preferred hunting with the bow. Still, he would not pass up an easy meal. Yet the more he tracked the source, veering wildly through thickening forests and closer to the border, the more he realized this deer was terribly elusive. He hadn’t heard anything, nor had he seen any other hints that the animal was around. It was peculiar, but his nose told him he was close, and so he followed with a hunter’s easy trot. Perhaps if he was noisy he’d spook the damn thing and it would make itself known. That way he’d at least know it was there.

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Caillen Winters · 07-21-2011, 12:44 AM

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OOC → ilu forever bb <3

Rain.

His conscious knew the wetness for what it was, the heavenly tears that fell as crystals and shattered on the hard earth below. Such a fleeting lifespan - A tumultuous fall from high to low, ending spectacularly yet without distinction from the mass death of all those that too, fell. And the sound; The cacophony of death, a continuous soulful drumming, like the beating of a thousand heartbeats all at once.

The forest shrouded him like a womb, and although the rain fell, he felt no cold. He existed on the brink of feeling; A sigh on the air that passed through the caress of leaves and left no trace for the mortal eye. He was a weightlessness, a gentle voice heard only by those who walked the worlds beyond this one. As the rain fell, he watched the forest that had once been his forest, and it breathed him in and out, in and out.

Form.

He was unaware of when, detached from mind and body, he became form. The simple pleasantries of existence were welcomed, but this connection to the earth was uncannily familiar. Had he had form once before? A flicker of conscience, something dark and warring and held at bay by the silver strings that bound him still to the otherplace. His womb was contracting, and the silver-gilded leaves rustled with the magic and the power of the forest. It remembered him. Carvings in trunks held little particles of who he had once been; A sad and lonely memory, as a man waltzed with a woman across the bark of sentinel pines.

The forest held her breath as he was born again. At first, the light went through him - He was not yet real, not yet capable of existence. But then the rays found matter, and he was a shadow, a figment of the imagination that lingered in one's peripheral vision, never seen, only felt. Was the rain in this world, or was it simply in his mind? Memories stirred now, deep beasts that lingered in the murky dark as sharks in deep blue water.

Sometimes, he saw others, and they walked the land and left prints where the heels of their feet landed. The forest captured these little prints of them, preserved in her mulch and her very blood. She never forgot, but she was old, far older than they, and there was so many of them. Sometimes, he would linger in the corporeal form, and wait until he could see his reflection in the whites of their eyes - But that was all he was, a reflection, and the walkers would pass on without knowing why the hair on the back of their neck was standing up.

Day held no meaning, as night. He was the voice of the land, and it was ageless and cared little for the chasing of sun and moon. He and a thousand others, Forms in the Rain, glittered like stars in the darkness. Maybe they were real, or maybe they were just little droplets that fell from the heavens, waiting and waiting for that final brilliant, tragic, little death.

Life.

His memories clung to bleached bones. They rotted under the earth, near to the heart of a woman with wild hair and deep pain. She had interested him once, but now there was movement within him. Perhaps it had started when the rain had, but the rain had been falling for an eternity now.

He left the dark, cold earth and wandered. There was a place in the heart of the forest where a terrible thing had been done, and the earth there was red with blood when seen by the eyes of the once-Caillen-now-breath. Slowly, the forest had healed that glade; deer grazed on the stubborn blades, their exhales glinting as steam in the cool air. He liked the deer; Especially the stag, so proud as it watched over its harem. They were children of the forest, not intruders, like the four-leg-two-legs. Something about the animal pulled at the memories, and suddenly he could feel them, flowing through him, pulling him from one world to the next. Life! The deer froze, and they watched him but they were not frightened, for the saw him. A great strength filled his chest, and a great pain, and it was lungs and ribcage and heart! He remembered, and his legs grew long, perfectly elegance. He remembered, and his antlers twisted like branches towards the bruised sky.

Feeling flowed from every point, and maybe he was bound to this place, for he felt no urge to leave it. The rain fell, and it hit his glossy white pelt, so white, too white. Unnatural, and yet, perfection of nature. Eyes that had no pupil saw, through all worlds and all places, and he was so joyful and so sorrowful that for a moment it felt as though this new body might be torn apart.

The deer fled, but they did not run from him. The forest-children were wraiths, and they melted back into the woods as silently and quickly as they had come. He alone stood in the glade, jets of steam furling from leathery nose. The droplets bounced around the ivory stag, almost like an aura, lit by his pelt and the mysterious rays of light. The Hunter came, but he did not fear this little Death. He feared Nothing, for he was, and would be, eternal.

Still as a statue carved from purest diamond stood the magnificent stag. As the rain stopped falling, he turned his head to the approach of paws, and Waited.

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Ezekiel de le Poer · 07-21-2011, 01:54 AM

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He felt the air change and held his breath. Like all creatures of the forest, all beasts of shadowed places and ancient woodland, the coyote gave himself over to the sensations of the land. Each noise spoke to him; his ears turned wildly at the night-birds and beasts. Wide eyes sucked in what little light given away by heaven, but even now the boughs were thick and their roots deep. Ezekiel relied on his other senses. Whiskers brushed against undergrowth and trees as he passed light-footed and with a coyote’s gait.

A tingling sensation erupted along his left arm and the golden shadow exhaled. The air felt heavy; the rain had not chilled it as he had hoped, and instead filled his lungs with hot warmth. Ezekiel’s body felt sluggish. He panted as he walked, head and tail even with his spine—he walked like a wolf, though he did not consider himself this. Yet there was much of his father’s blood within him. Much too, of his father’s faith, though this had been watered down like the wolf. God did not speak to Gabriel’s unworthy children. Talitha doubted and Talitha blasphemed. Ezekiel had strayed from the flock and come to know other, weaker things that perhaps did not serve the God of Isaac and Abraham and Moses.

It was this that allowed him to believe in what his eyes found. How could they not? The stag glowed without giving off light, and it felt unnatural, it felt wrong. Ezekiel’s hackles rose and he grew still.

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Caillen Winters · 07-21-2011, 02:31 AM

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OOC → <3

Badb came with quiet steps, and the stag waited patiently, knowing as the forest did that he was soon to be. There was a warmth to the air that did not pervade the immortal hide of the beast, but it was not cruel by nature. Blue eyes will filled with sorrow, such a deep and impervious sorrow that one could almost feel it sliding tendrils through warm flesh.

When the Prince came, it was with lowered head and raised hackles. His eyes glowed shallow gold in the hazy light.

The stag was still a heartbeat longer, before large head swung so haunting gaze could latch upon the hybrid's features. There was a desperation that clung in scent to the man's pelt, like an illness. He was the cursed, and it would linger there, in his blood and the blood of those that came from him, forevermore. The stag knew this, for he had been summoned to this place by the words and the actions of this man's blood, and the blood of those who knew the spirit.

The stag tossed its head, silvery antlers carving the air. "Tá a fhios dom, Badb. Tá mé Sé, agus tá mé Siad," The words echoed, in thought and body and action - It was the voice of a woman they knew well, and the voice of a man now dead; the voice of a spirit. The forest was quiet but for the voice. It was free of joy and anger, but heartbreakingly beautiful - Each note a crystal droplet of purest sorrow. Cloven hooves stepped closer to Ezekiel, and fresh green growth sprang up where a hoofprint should have been.

The majestic creature dipped its head so that swirling blue eyes could gaze nearer to the male. There was no fear of the predator within it - No fear of a death that could never again come. "Ná bíodh eagla ort, ceann ghránna. Tá sé féin agus iad mé, Macha, Pemtemweha. Tá a fhios dom." The voices swirled as one and filled all languages so that he would understand, beautiful and terrible like music as the stag pawed the air with one glowing hoof.

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Ezekiel de le Poer · 07-25-2011, 11:38 PM

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Word Count → 3+ ::

Ezekiel saw but he did not wish to see.

His eyes widened in the dark, sucking in the glowing beast. It was powerful, magnificent, beautiful—it was dead and unreal and cold. Half of him was drawn to its light; the other half repelled. Desperation rushed through his blood. Run! came the cry, but his feet would not obey. The earth held him fast. He imagined he could feel it turn beneath him.

A voice carried through the air, through the wind, through his heart and soul. It was her voice, and it was the voice of a dead man, and it was a voice of something both more and less than what had once been. Faith gave power, and forgotten gods and spirits fell away, grew weak. Ezekiel’s mouth opened to taste the night air. Copper. Water. New-turned earth. Did he know that language? He must have. It was as clear to him as the language of beasts.

The savage thing that was a coyote in one hand and a bird both raven and eagle in the other stared into the eyes made of fog and clouds. Ezekiel stood rigid, his head rising to meet the strange thing that was but was not a deer. He called himself Macha. He called himself Pemtemweha. This name the Aquila knew—he had heard stories of the great white beast that protected his own. Ezekiel’s fur rose along his spine to an impossible height. Fear filled him.

“She called you,” he accused with shock. “She used mudjimushkeeki.” The fear turned to anger almost as quickly as he had realized this. The black-brushed hybrid bared his teeth at the not-deer. “I did what I was taught, Pemtemweha!” He honored the herd, he did not abused the deer—how had she managed to call their god down on him?

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Caillen Winters · 07-26-2011, 12:42 AM

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OOC → <3

Eternal eyes saw the man's soul, trembling within him as his faith burned through. Fear brimmed in the eagle's eyes, but the stag remained poised, pure in all ways. He was the forest, exhaling around Ezekiel, and he was the sky, stretching forever across all worlds. He was the deer-god, and as knowing passed through the eyes of the sinner, Macha nodded slowly. He could hear the language of the man's heart and mind, the thoughts before they were voiced. The eagle spoke more with his heartbeat than he ever could with his tongue.

Accusations poured forth. The tattered spirit that clung now to the gossamer strings of the stag deity remembered an old anger at this - The urge to protect and defend the woman at which such barbs were pointed. But the stag knew only sadness; an ageless, timeless sorrow. Whirling blue eyes gazed solemnly at the exposed teeth, and a sigh escaped from glowing maw to rustle as a breeze through the upper leaves of the forest. "Tá sí soitheach, mac an beanna. Ceann fianna i mo ghrúpa," Wide antlers carved the air as the magnificent beast shook its head, ivory fur dancing elegantly as large ears lifted forward and backward. "Ní raibh an méid ad'fhoghlaim tú go leor. Teacht ar na bealaí d'aois ciontach tú, Badb." The voice of all voices echoed through joined minds, and the silver one saw the eagle's darkness.

There was a stirring of anger in the open chasm that should have held a heart. But he was not of mortal flesh, and the beating organ would do no good trapped within a body made of moonlight. Glowing eyes flashed brighter, and the beast lowered its head slightly, dagger-sharp antlers dangerously close to the face of the raven Prince. "Ná cas as dom. Tá mé do amach anseo, ar an todhchaí sin go léir iompróidh tú. Tá fola ar do lámha, Badb, agus is é mo chuid fola!" Again, a silver cloven hoof stamped at the ground.

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Ezekiel de le Poer · 07-28-2011, 03:58 PM

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Word Count → ::

So it came to pass that Ezekiel learned the truth of Alaine’s blood—that she was truly chosen by the stag-king, as her stories had spoken of. Did that make him a raven, then? Perhaps. A raven with savage instincts like an eagle. He was some kind of monster, of this there was no doubt. He had committed a crime against the thing that was not a god to him and knew in his heart that there was no turning back. No ritual had been performed to honor the dead son; he had brought this upon himself.

Rippling fury grew at the idea. Ezekiel was still very much a boy, and like all boys, he had not developed wisdom yet. A threat was a threat even if it came from a spirit (demon? god?) and the strange thing that had come from the wolves in the shape of a coyote bristled. “You have no power here,” he hissed, his voice turning hoarse and strange. The voice of Badb, of the Raven King that had long ago claimed the rocky lands on which they stood. War was eternal. Purgatory was eternal. Shadows cast strange shapes on his back, turning the black patch into something larger, amorphous (wings, perhaps). His body felt strange to him. “Peccavi. Alea iacta est quibus finem.”

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Caillen Winters · 08-16-2011, 11:26 AM

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OOC → <3

He/Macha/Pemtemweha saw the dark shadow there, the lingering form of the Betrayer, of Lugh and Badb and the wing of Darkness. He saw all things - The old war, a battle of a time that stretched cold fingers far beyond the charred pages of the book of this world. The light versus the dark; A wheel that turned, never slowing, never stopping. Always, the war.

They were foes, in that world beyond this one. The brothers had many names, were many things, and would again be. Macha of the light and Badb of the dark. Nemain had kept balance in that place, but here the was no neutral, only the blurring of right and wrong.

Ezekiel's words aggravated the silver beast. Again it tossed its magnificent head, and antlers sliced through warm air, leaving it chilled. Such words were the truth - There was the source of power, a greater power than the forest, than the existence of the world and its mortals, but the stag was only an echo of this; A fragment of a reflection, a small thread in the tapestry. It was a shadow of the true power, and already, form was being taken from it. The beast's cloven hooves were no longer clearly defined - A shimmering of fog, not quite touching the green grown stemmed beneath.

The rustling of ebony feathers caused the stag to retreat a step, but its pale blue eyes whirred with the crackling of time and reality, with the force of the curse that had been cast. "Bhí muid deartháireacha, sa tréimhse ama roimh an am seo," The voice-not-voice pervaded all things, the rustling of the forest as it grew agitated. The silver stag snorted, its form shimmering in the half light as it reared, and towered above the hybrid. "Leat a bheith á ngearradh ar an bannaí, Peacach, agus tá ár n-séalaithe chinniúint. Is é an marc ar do fola!"

The voice ended on a note that held no noise, a deep sound that stemmed from within the soul, a sound of anguish and fury, a feeling from the void beyond the mortal world. With this, the creature lunged forward, a stampede of hooves and slashing antlers that carved at Ezekiel and through Ezekiel, nothing more than the most chilling of winds, something cold enough to freeze the soul. Then, the stag was gone.

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