The Only Rite

[allwasmine-blog]

ϟ The Silent Giant [Nar & Julian]

[uneasyliesthehead]

It seemed to take just a moment too long for Nyphestos to accept the extended hand, but Felix let that moment hang, forcing himself to accept it where once it would have felt awkward.

Like a rejection.

But his elder brother had sought him out.  To tease him and test him, perhaps, but not to snub him.  He smiled as the handshake met, squeezing slightly before releasing just as Nyphestos withdrew his own grip.  

“I take exercise in an hour,” he said, giving his brother a playful, upward glance.  "A bit of premature silt will hardly weigh me down for that.“

But the chilly, elder royal had already changed the subject, so he did the same, allowing his brother to lead in this, now.  Newly-trained court instincts said that such a concession was unwise, but other instincts of the same ilk said that it harmed nothing and gave possible advantage to let his brother think he had the upper-hand.

And Felix’s own instincts said damn it all, it didn’t have to be so complicated, but he rather doubted Nar would agree, on that account. 

"You know the palace staff, brother; the preparations have been underway long enough that the final touches are only that - touches.  The most crucial tasks have already been long complete; arrangements made.  Guests have been arriving for the last week, of course, but all necessary accommodations lie only in wait for occupants.  Speaking of which, you own apartments were aired last night, in anticipation of your arrival,” he answered, still maintaining the easy warmth in his manner.

[allwasmine-blog]

Yes.  Nyphestos knew the palace staff.  The head of both palace operations and Julian's advisory board had spent his early years standing at Nar's side, building a lifetime of trust and communication skills in preparation for Nar's "inevitable" ascention to the royal throne.

Sellech would still make that journey.  Would still stand beside the throne.  Would still advise the king.  Sellech would continue on as he had always been.  It was merely the man beneath the crown who had changed.

But Nyphestos could hardly be bitter about it anymore.  Ultimately, it meant that a man with the most level of heads upon his shoulders was the one speaking nearest to the king's ear, and...well.  It was likely Julian was far better at listening to counsel than Nar had ever been.

Julian was discussing...something to do with his chambers?  They had been aired.  At least he hadn't been too early for that, he supposed.

"And what of you, brother?" the words were shaped easily, casually, smoothly as the eldest prince stepped forward in an arc to circle the crown prince, gaze soaking in the details of his appearance from head to toe, as though it could inform his questio further despite the fact that he was going to await an answer all the same.  "Are your own preparations completed?  Have you composed your speech?  Have you rehearsed the walk?  The length of the traditional cape may be problematic if donned without practice."

[allwasmine-blog]

Dionysus, Jason, Zeus

Dionysus: What was your most unruly moment?

When his father’s Last Will was read aloud and declared Julian--not himself--as Crowned Prince, Nyphestos lost his composure before the family for the first and only time.  He’d called that there must have been a mistake.  He called it a forgery.  He’d shoved his attendant Sellech as well as the nearest guard (though that hadn’t done much) and fought being pulled out of the chamber.  He accused his brother of having done something.  He kicked over a pedestal and smashed a vase and broke a sculpture before finally being dragged from the room, though by that time he’d fallen numb and staggering.

Jason: Have you ever betrayed anyone who loved you for personal gain?

Nyphestos certainly doesn’t believe to.  Perhaps the word “betrayal” would require definition, but he strives not to do to any of those close to him what his father had done to him.  

Zeus: What thing are you most hypocritical of?

Nar wants Julian to succeed and is committed to seeing that he does.  And yet, he takes a dark pleasure in the disappointment and concern he feels any time his brother makes even the slightest error.  He both fears and adores the whisper that slicks between his ears--you would do better--and therefore is left simultaneously striving for the Crowned Prince’s ultimate success and yearning for moments of failure.

[allwasmine-blog]

♆ ✄

Send ♆ for something my muse hates.

Nyphestos does not like to be kept waiting.  He will manage such circumstances with aplomb and the appearance of patience.  He will likely appear untroubled, as clearly the tardiness is the problem of the tardy party, and if he has another matter to attend to then he will simply leave.  But it annoys him, in fact, a great deal.

Send ✄ for a favourite movie (play?) of my muse’s.

The Girl in the Rain has been Nar’s favourite play ever since he first saw it at age thirteen.  It’s a classic Gellostan folktale about the visage of a girl seen reflected in the falling rain, the visage of whom drives several people mad wondering whether she was real and whether they were leaving her out in the storm to die by failing to pursue her for one reason or another.  It is a tale of chasing and hiding from demons.

[inboxideas]

30 Greek Mythology Headcanons

[allwasmine-blog]

Achilles: What is your greatest flaw? Alexandros: Have there ever been repercussions to your actions you regret? Antigone: What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done? Aphrodite: Have you ever fallen in love with someone you’d never have expected to feel for? Apollo: What’s the worst illness you’ve suffered from? Ares: What angers you the most? Artemis: Is there anything or anyone you would protect fiercely? Astyanax: What is the most tragic thing to have happened to you or involving you? Athene: When was your strongest and bravest moment? Clytemnestra: Have you ever done anything unforgivable out of lust? Demeter: What would you most grieve for if it was taken from you? Dionysus: What was your most unruly moment? Hades: Have your actions ever caused a great number of people to suffer? Helen: Do you have any spur-of-the-moment actions you regret? Hephaestus: Are you particularly skilled at any crafts? If so, which? Hera: What are your views on marriage, and how - if at all - would you like to be wed? Hermes: Where would you most like to go, or where is your favourite place to be? Hestia: Where do you feel most at home? Jason: Have you ever betrayed anyone who loved you for personal gain? Medea: What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done out of spite? Medusa: Have you ever been punished with anything you feel you didn’t deserve? Midas: Has anything you’ve ever wished for really backfired? Nike: What was your greatest victory? Oedipus: With hindsight, what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? Pandora: What is the worst gift you’ve ever received? Persephone: What is your favourite season? Phaedra: Have you ever lusted after someone you shouldn’t have? Poseidon: Have you ever been so consumed in a task that you lost the reasoning behind it? Thetis: What’s the most you’ve ever done for your loved ones? Zeus: What thing are you most hypocritical of?

[allwasmine-blog]

ϟ The Silent Giant [Nar & Julian]

[uneasyliesthehead]

Even very obviously just come from the road and trailing an ephemeral shower of fine dust, Nyphestos seemed more sure, more regal than the younger Voltaire would ever manage.  It didn’t make Felix uncomfortable in the way that it once had, or not as much so, for in recent years he had at some point learned the truth that it was better to aspire to be one’s best self rather than to wish to imitate what one was not.

Still, he had to remind himself occasionally.

The crown prince himself was acceptably garbed for intimate company and desk work in rich brown trousers, creamy lawn shirt, and a deep red surcoat, which he wore with an easy fluidity that suggested a body that preferred to be in motion more often than not.  His official appearances later in the day would require a change to a far more embellished, less comfortable version of the surcoat and the addition of a circlet upon his fair hair, but he would not be girding himself in such state trappings until it was necessary - it spared both his comfort and his valet’s nerves; everyone won.

"And here you are."  Felix smiled as Nyphestos approached and took the final handful of steps to close the remainder of the distance himself.  "Hardly suffering it, but your arrival is a welcome surprise, brother," he replied, voice smooth and light as he extended an arm to clasp.  "How do you fare?"

[allwasmine-blog]

A winter-sky gaze dropped to the extended hand. Time slowed, a tingling erupting in Nyphestos's palm.

His entire life had been one long, effortless march of majesty, or so it seemed. He had always been praised for his Kingliness even as a child, though behind closed doors he had practiced long and hard in the search of praise from the one person he would never receive it.

Felix did not possess that untouchable air.

He held something else. Something warmer. Something better. Looking into his eyes, Nar did not see the porcelain doll gazing back at him that he saw in his sisters and youngest brother, nor did he see their father's image as he did when he looked into a mirror.

He saw light. He saw freedom. He saw...something alive. Both perfect and imperfect.

To touch it was to dare chaos to call his name.

It was a quality which Nyphestos had become aware of shortly after their father had left the crown to Felix. Many years had been devoted to a quiet obsession over what it possibly could have been that earned the boy the place meant for him.

Obsession bred many things. Fascination was one, and it remained.

Take it.

The mental stop took a fraction of an instant, and it could easily be hidden by Nar's own standard slowness of motion. Face unchanging, his left hand met his right, and he pulled his glove from his hand by the thumb, then the fingertips, extending a now naked grasp to meet his brothers.

"Sore from my ride and reveling in it.  It is far too rare that I mount a steed these days."

Strong but elegant digits wrapped around the warmth of Julian's hand.

All that stands between you and your destiny. Just a man. Warm flesh and sinew. Like a goat.

Nar's thumb twitched against the knuckle of Julian's.

Enough.

"It would be a shame if your attendants had to scrub silt from your fingertips." He withdrew the grasp two heartbeats later, slipping it swiftly back into the confines of his glove. His hand felt hot to him now though he had always been cool of touch.

"So. The day after tomorrow. I had anticipated more of a bustle when I arrived."

[allwasmine-blog]

ღ ➷ ✎

Send ღ for a crush my muse has had.

At the age of eight, Nar's father had invited him to share drinks in his Seraglio for the first time.  There had been a young courtesan, perhaps fourteen years in age, who had knelt at his side an fed him olives.  She'd had eyes like marsh lights and a smile that said silently, "I know the truth of things."

She had braided his hair and told him he was beautiful.  On his thirteenth bellday, she was his first choice for his own Seraglio, and there she remains.  Rumor has it she is pregnant with his first son, though why it has taken so long is a mystery to many.  Nyphestos still enjoys her company, yet avoids keeping it.

She knows the truth of things.  She always has And that is disconcerting.

Send ➷ for a sports headcanon.

Nyphestos is not given to frivolous sportgames, but excels in sparring and archery.  One of his proudest moments as a brother occurred at his last visit to his youngest sister.  They had always enjoyed bowmanship together, but when she out-shot him on the game range, he knew he'd taught her properly.

Send ✎ for a school headcanon.

Even in manhood, at least two hours of Nyphestos's day is devoted to reading.  In youth he had devoured every tome of lore and legend he could get his hands on rearding Airs, Earths and their respective magicks.  But resenting his ancestors for losing their own did him no favors, so he had forced his attentions onto more grounded subjects.  The book he is presently reading is a tedious almanac detailing Kagekia's regions--both held and wild.

He'd owned it since his tenth bellday, but while he'd used it as a reference many times, he had yet to read it cover-to-cover.  This year, he was determined.

[allwasmine-blog]

✚, ✿, and ✎

Send ✚ for one of my muse’s prized possessions.

Nyphestos owns many things, but few hold sentimental value.  He has received more gifts in his lifetime than he can count, but even those from individuals he cares for often lack meaning.  He appreciates the act of kindness but does not actively prize the items in question.

But.  There are one or two.

His battleaxe, Matilda, was named after his mother, Queen Matilda Herengilde Peory Zelphenia Voltaire.  She had given him many things in his lifetime, but it is the axe he wields in her name that brings her to mind.  And in his own reflection in its polished blade, he sees her, and remembers.

Send ✿ for a happy memory.

He can still remember the last time he and Felix played a game together.  It was just before their father had perished.  A four-man strategy game called Prudentia that favored cautious shrewdness over aggression.  Despite Amalia's penchant for impatience, she and Nyphestos made a deadly pair upon teaming up, and had wiped Sellech and Felix out completely before turning their eyes on each other.

Nar still could not wrap his mind around how she always beat him at that game.

Send ✎ for a school headcanon.

While Nyphestos was never a savant at math or science, he'd studied hard all his life.

Or almost all.  At the age of five, his father had stepped in on his tutelage and requested that he recite what he'd learned about star charts that day.  He had not retained everything the first time around, and made several mistakes in his recitation.  His father had been disappointed, and told him so.

It was a mistake he never repeated.

[pocket-sizedadvisor]

ϡ , ✚, ☂

ϡ - Sleep

Sellech does not sleep much at all. Since the King was killed and Jullian was named Crown Prince, he has been in charge of ruling. Of course, he did have another advisors help for a few years, but he was old and frail. Perhaps the toll it took on his body was the final nail in the coffin? Either way, Sellech only gets enough sleep to function. Usually that time is around three hours per night.

✚ - A prized possession

He has many books in his room that he enjoys when he has the time (which is very rare). But hidden among all of the political and heavy reading is a single book from his childhood. In it is a fictional story about an Earth hero who lived long ago. Before the Earths fought the Airs for dominance. This book was one of the very few gifts he has ever received. Written on the inside cover is: To: Seijun From: Nar.

☂ - Weather

He doesn’t really favor any kind of weather, nor does he hate any weather. However, it is more convenient not to have the staff clean up water on the floors so that no one slips. Then again, the rain brings a crisp feeling to the air.

[allwasmine-blog]

"I am surprised to hear you've kept that.  I thought it would have landed in the Chasmal Library by now."

[inboxstuff]

Send me symbols to learn more about my muse

Send ✚ for one of my muse’s prized possessions. Send ✿ for a happy memory. Send ➷ for a sports headcanon. Send ♆ for something my muse hates. Send ϡ for a sleep headcanon. Send ღ for a crush my muse has had. Send ✄ for a favourite movie (play?) of my muse’s. Send ☂ for a weather headcanon. Send ✎ for a school headcanon.

[allwasmine-blog]

ϟ The Silent Giant [Nar & Julian]

[uneasyliesthehead]

The Crown Prince was not an early riser by nature, but nature had not been allowed to have its way with him for a very, very long time.  Now that his coronation date drew near, the mornings were getting even earlier, for there was always more to do, more preparations to be made, more courtiers to speak to and pacify. 

It chafed, in an abstract manner, but Felix couldn’t afford to care about that right now.  Instead, he threw himself into each day like a cluster of stones cast from the fist of a mangonel, taking on as many tasks as he could handle to chip away at the wall between him and perfect preparedness.

It was a very sturdy wall.

This particular morning, he had risen well before the sun, dressed, and begun sifting through correspondence over a tray of breakfast he’d ordered up from the kitchens.  An hour later, it seemed the gods had heard his quiet mental plea for something more interesting to attend to, though with a twist of perverse humor: a runner arrived at his study to inform him that his elder brother had just arrived, unannounced and without a retinue.

Well, then.

Felix thanked the girl and rose, corralling tousled, wheat-blonde hair back into place before setting aside the stack of letters and striding past the door guards, descending from the tower to seek out Nyphestos.

[allwasmine-blog]

Fingertips skated onto the ornately carved slide of a banister.

One.

How many steps up the Crown's Stair would Nephestos climb before his brother, tipped to his arrival, came to meet him?

Four.

Or would Sellech intercept him first?

Five.

There were a total of twenty-two in the first flight, sweeping from part-way into the hall and arching overhead to the first landing in the Northeast Tower. The second and subsequent flights sported another thirty-six from the end of that first hall up into His Royal Majesty's bedchambers.

Nine.

Ears pricked to muffled footsteps above and below. Somewhere in the hollowed tunnels hidden behind unflinching walls, the Steward was undoubtedly parting staff members before him like a one-man procession.

Fourteen.

He reached the curve of the stair at which it began to spiral back to the floor above. Frozen eyes caught a fleeting glimpse of a fleeing maid's skirttails.

Seventeen.

He could see down the hall. The mouth of the narrower yet window-framed Sun's Stair that led up to the crowned prince's private quarters remained empty.

Eighteen.

Nine--

A reflection in one of the windows.

Twenty-one.

The eldest Voltaire placed one foot on the stair penultimate to the landing as Felix descended the higher stairway just in time to save himself from criticism.

Always just enough. Never more.

Enough indeed. Remember yourself.

Bitterness.  A festering disease that soured the heart to sweeter sentiments. It had held court in Nyphestos for far too long. He had allowed it--eternal fuel for the fiery determination which had transformed the stormy pile of sodden stone he'd been ascribed into Kagekia's greatest source of wealth.

Being named Lord of Gellostos had not been intended a punishment. But he had taken it as such, and turned his indignation and insult into profit. Into prowess. Into power.

To what end?

No amount of proving how capable, how wise, how innovative he was would ever change what their father's will had been.

Felix would rule. Felix would be King.

And Nyphestos would have to accept that fact. Anything less was a weakness he refused to tollerate within himself any longer.

So there he was.

"And there he is," Nar announced in a low drawl, lifting arms and spreading them, what little dust remained on his hands sliding off in fine golden swirls to make clearer the polished black and silver of his gloves and the Gellostosian navy of his jacket as he crested that final step and began to leisurely close the distance between them. "Undoubtedly suffering the hand of a busy morning already?"

[allwasmine-blog]

[allwasmine-blog]

ϟ The Silent Giant [ open ]

The 28th day of Coronortum 15 K.V. Golden celebratory bells pealed swallow-tailed songs from the censusial tower into the dewey, pear-blossomed dawn air.

Much of Chasmatias City was awake already. Some regions of Kagekia often waited for the sun's warmth to enable their day to begin or simply rose and slept like clockwork in a day with little or no sun at all, but the capitol's unforgiving spring heat bid its citizens start early in the desire to beat it. Rickshaws were running, vendors were setting up their shops, and gardeners were busy plumping and pruning floral sculptures on the castle grounds in preparation for the coronation ceremony to be held the following day.

Serbius had spent hours the two nights prior polishing Nyphestos's leather boots and gloves to a mirror finish and picking his jacket and trousers clean with tweezers, but all stark pomp was now quieted with a thin film of sandy dust, the likes of which forever blanketed the hidden network of tunnels that led between the major holds of Kagekia and Castle Chasmal.

He paid little heed. Not only did the dirt humanize and disguise both the Voltaire patriarch and his large stormy mare, it was Serbius's job to keep his boots shining, and the "advisor" was undoubtedly busy scrambling to make double-time in the effort to catch up to the large lord who had managed to subtly slip from his formal procession and into the low roads to arrive in the capitol a half-day early.

What measure of older brother would he have been, had he allowed the castle to ready properly for his arrival?

The whole palace seemed to feel the air shift from his first dusty footfall upon the front stairway. The doors were opened wide for him, the guards who manned them belying none of the recognized surprise he was certain to meet inside. But they knew him--they all did, despite the fact that with the exception of a recent increase in transient visits, Nyphestos dwelled on the other side of Kagekia from the capitol.

But this had once been his home, and sculptures upon paintings upon tapestries depicting his unmistakable ashen brown hair, long crooked nose, glacial eyes and towering height yet adorned Chasmal's halls.

Servants scrambled like mice caught feasting, some running wide-eyed to make sure Nyphestos's room was ready while others hesitated, scurrying back and forth between their previous task and the gateway to another, flustered by the new and unexpected development and still more stared dumbfounded around, wondering how it was the high lord had arrived with no belongings and no attendants.

It was only a matter of time before the head of the castle and and steward of the realm, Sellech, heard news of his arrival and came bustling out of some hole in the wall with the placidity of a corpse and the speed of a spectre. Nar was not necessarily looking to avoid or out run the petite man who had once been promised to him as his own right-hand, but he had arrived early to bid his good wishes to one individual in particular.

It was this intent by which his deliberate, patient footfalls carried him down the Northeast corridor toward the Crown's Stair, a cascade of golden silt shaking from his clothes with each step to be illuminated by every incremental panel of waking light he passed, like a dream of a silent giant dissolving in dawn.

[uneasyliesthehead]

Here is a post

Look at the post

[allwasmine-blog]

I am looking.  I fail to see what is so impressive.  You can do better, can you not?

[allwasmine-blog]

WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?

Nar heard the question and simply continued to walk.  ”The past” had visible effects on their world today, but it was neither a place which he could visit anywhere but within his own mind nor was it the business of any stranger to hear an answer so honest.

[allwasmine-blog]