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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2018 2:22 pm
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Traveling beyond Yael’s shore had been an enlightening experience—and not one Zekiel had ever expected to partake in prior to. It had simply never seemed the gods intended such a thing for their Chosen.
In retrospect, however, it was still something he was glad of doing despite events not unfolding quite as one might have hoped. It had been strange, and invigorating simultaneously to step upon the soil and breathe the air of other gods and peoples. While there, he felt a different history in the air. Hundreds of thousands of lives and stories unheard and untold of on Yael weaving together a tapestry no less complex and rich than their own, if still alien.
But, he had found nothing they’d come for.
Tacrith was still nowhere to be found, and on the larger scale, it didn’t seem that collaboration had yet netted any cohesive answers as to how to address the Dretch abductions. His people were still frightened. Confused. And at the gathering, it seemed the other nations hoped they would lay down more lives of their own for an uncertain purpose, when it had been they who polluted their shores with the corrupted tree women to begin with.
But at very least, the threat had shifted off of them for the time being. So it was with at least that sliver of consolation that Zekiel had returned home.
It felt good to return to his temple, the sights and scents familiar and soothing, like the welcoming embrace of family as his boots had crossed the threshold again for the first time since his departure. Further, in his absence there was no shortage of work to catch up on and a seemingly endless train of those hoping to have a personal audience with him, so that one wouldn’t think his mind would still find time to wander.
Yet, even as the weeks passed between his trip abroad and his return, he could not shake the sense of something coming. Something larger than any of them, beyond their gods and unexplainable. I’m going. They took our people…if that is where we must go to stomp out these vermin, so be it. A small pinch furrowed his brow as Rainer’s words flit back to him, not for the first time, and in a spontaneous decision, Zekiel reached, taking fresh parchment and a quill to him before drawing a breath.
It was time, he thought, to call on the audience of a friend himself. So far as he understood it, one of his oldest and closest peers from his early training days in the Sanctum had recently ascended to the rank of cleric, and congratulations were in order regardless. If he thought it might be calming just to see her well also—that would be as it may, and perhaps the opportunity to talk with one also close to the gods would loosen some of the stray energy tangling itself under his skin.
Dearest Fallon…
His pen scrawled neat, looping letters as he laid out an invitation. The last winter festival would be upon them soon, anticipating the coming of spring, and perhaps, if her timing worked out well, the town would be especially lively upon arrival.
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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2018 4:36 pm
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“Thank you, Madame Yenne,” Zekiel said again with a tip of his head. “Gods be with you.”
“And also with you, Father.” The woman, a middle-aged florist who ran the local garden shop well before his arrival in Ilidan, gave a smile as he stepped away, his purchase carefully tucked under one arm.
Madame Yenne hadn’t missed a single mass to his awareness since he had begun conducting them himself, and somehow, she had always managed to sneak a word in with him about her flowers, eventually inspiring him to pay her shop a visit himself. He found it reminded him of someone, and had made a habit since of being ‘persuaded’ into at least one purchase a month—not that he usually had any idea what to do with them but set them about his own temple and eventually pass them on.
This time, however, he had come with intent, and after some time spent explaining his absence, had gone on to inquire at length about the meanings and uses of the various flora in her collection. She evidently noticed his particular curiosity this day, but had let it be after he assured her it was intended for a close friend who had only brief occasion to visit.
The maghai daisy had an especially small center, little larger than a fingertip, with fair, thin petals and a winding stalk with a propensity to climb given half the opportunity. Atop that, despite its delicate appearance, the plant was well-known for a surprising hardiness, its blooms often persisting into the chiller months long after other flowering plants shriveled for winter. According to Madame Yenne, it represented beauty, growth, and endurance.
As Zekiel made his way back towards his temple — to which he had provided Fallon with instructions — he mused on how long it had been since he first met with the young woman, a girl then, in her greenhouse.
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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2018 5:15 pm
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Thankfully, Zekiel arrived at his own front steps before — if not much before — Fallon did herself, and was just in the process of wondering where he ought to set the potted plant in his grasp for the time being, when the sound of movement down the way caught his attention. Illidan’s temple was set atop a hill overlooking the village to its east, which lit up each morning in sunrise, and the jungles and ocean beyond to the west. It made for a lovely view, but sometimes difficult access during heavy rain, given the slope of the path up.
Thus, on hearing approach, Zekiel quickly set the flower’s ceramic container to the side of his path before the door before darting out and glancing down, and surely enough—he beamed. “Fallon! Oh- You’ve luggage…” He started his way down the path as quickly as he thought maintaining any appearance of ‘priestly’ dignity might allow—that was apparently important. And he stalled at her side, offering a hand with a glance to her bag. “Is there anything I might help you carry? Did you fare well on your journey? You look…”
Tired.
His eyes warmed a touch. “You look as though the gods have kept you busy. I know I can’t be the first by now, but I wanted to congratulate you on your promotion…the title suits you. Now I need only wait to call you priestess.”
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2018 7:56 am
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“Of course!” As soon as it became clear it wouldn’t be objected to if he aided her with it, Zekiel took up the bag carefully, and it wasn’t particularly heavy, but being that she had been the one to make the journey again to see him, it felt only right that he do whatever things, even small, that he might to make her visit easier and more inviting. At her explanation, he nodded. “That sounds wondrous. You did always make such life with your plants. It is good of you to share it…”
Some, apparently, had thought Fallon spent arguably too much time and dedication on her plants, at least previously. Or, so Zekiel had heard. But it was good to see she hadn’t abandoned that connection entirely, and couldn’t help draw to mind, as they came up the path:
“Speaking, actually, of your plants,” he said, “I understand you have mostly ceased work with the greenhouse to focus on your studies—which has had its rewards as I see, and blessings upon that! I thought, though- Well, since my arrival here I have come to know a woman who owns a garden shop herself, and whenever I step near to pay her visit, I think of the greenhouse as you once showed it to me.”
As they came to the temple’s entrance, he notched his head to indicate the conspicuous small plant by the door. “I don’t know what to do with most of them, but even if you don’t have time to spend in a whole greenhouse, perhaps there’s room in your window for one bloom to help inspire fruition in your studies? And, when you have a temple of your own…” He tipped his head. “You’ll have all the space about it to make green if it pleased you. It could be planted anywhere in the earth about your grounds, and when it blooms in full summer, the veins in the white petals loop in small spirals…Madame Yenne says the maghai flower is a symbol for growth and endurance, of which you have done both to make it where you are.”
He blinked, though, at the lattermost comment. “Lessons? In progression?” His smile was warm, but bemused as he shook his head. “I would teach you anything I knew, but I think you’ve always been a better student than I. I couldn’t say I know yet why the gods brought me so far as they did…but I can only attempt to account for my blessings and never forget the gods’ kindness.”
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