AND I WAS RUNNING FAR AWAY

private rp. original characters. written by samcat.

[erromes]

#ERROMES. - multimuse of mythology & fantasy-based clerics. heavily inspired by medieval catholic mythology. private & selective. written by samcat, 30+. fighting evil by moonlight with @heartevaded, @rottine, & @whinedarksea / @thrownsoul / @harvestshope

nahia of getaria, saint and martyr. helena tas vacek, priestess and single mom.

A STUDY IN: cults of martyrs, virgin motherhood, religious trauma, organized religion, the tension of feeling connected to godhood but not to humanity's version of it.

BLOGROLL: @motheredearth (if you wanna follow the bad guys) LINKS: carrd. about. rules. memes.

RULES AT A GLANCE...

i. private means i only rp with mutuals, sorry! ii. i have a life, i am not always here. iii. don't force ships on me, please! iv. do not vague post ab me, when i tell you i will block so fast. v. i am very shy but eager to plot! memes are usually the fastest way to interact :)

[erromes]

rating nahia's potential experiences with each of the traditional catholic archangels if they were to call on her for a task:

michael: 3/5. nahia would be able to function if she locked into soldier mode, and would be able to complete the task. she'd end the journey a very capable soldier, but would've lost... more than a little innocence. i think she would've had the courage to talk back to him when confused, but ... idk if that would've gone well. might've lost an eye for it, idk. she'd survive and die of old age, but it would not be a happy life.

raphael: 4/5. probably the best one out of the lot! he has a patronage to travelers and youth, so would probably be the nicest to her? i think that makes her Crazy(tm) but it's something raphael would be better at handling i think. it would make her more confident in asking questions and in asking for help.

gabriel: 1/5. this is the mary archangel, so obviously he's like THE guy to impress. so the pressure is WAY too high to be perfect. she would complete the task but probably do it poorly and absolutely die doing it, because she would in fact rather die than admit she has a question or is confused about the task. i think he'd be nice, but that would make her bite tear and kill, which she would feel bad about, and then just spiral from there. not a good scene. she's looking away.

[erromes]

i'm realizing more and more that nahia trusts the comfort of women much more than she trusts the comfort of men.

the deepest wound that leads to this is that her dad committed suicide when she was 4. and she has internalized that as her fault. in turn, she doesn't trust men to stick around.

but even after that, i think it's because she's been raised by a widower, another man. who is very kind! but i think nahia growing up with the mentality that she had to work to receive affection was ... unfortunately reinforced by being poor. like yes, she did receive a lot of praise from the widower jokin for being hard working and able to keep up with him! and with him being the central parental figure in her life, she doesn't want to worry him and potentially rock the boat of the affection system she thinks she has carefully set up by being hard-working.

it leads to nahia trying very hard to not even just seem fine, but be fine. this mentality can show up with regards to any gender, but if it is a masc-presenting person showing any kind of comfort to her, she is much more likely to feel anger and embarrassment that they can tell she's feeling negatively. whereas with women, it's ... something more fragile. she's much more likely to accept the care, because at the end of the day, her mom died when she was young! and she's a kid who wants her mom!

it's why if this were a joan of arc situation, the archangel michael would've been much, much worse for nahia. she still would've done as she's told, but she would've been so much more ... defiant and angry.

mama mary? no questions asked, she will do anything to experience that kind of divine comfort again. including die for it.

which begs the question, would nahia have been martyred if she were called by a masc-presenting divine entity...? idk .... maybe not though!

[heartevaded]

Laridae stared at Nahia.

“What did she–” Effi began, but Laridae interrupted her.

“Latin,” he said, a little breathlessly. “I think she’s speaking Latin.”

It sounded like Latin, anyway, or more like Latin than anything other language he knew of. Placing it was like slowly recognizing a song he hadn’t heard in a long time, half mentally grinding through vocabulary, hunting for matches, and half letting his subconscious dance crookedly towards it. Latin! It didn’t make sense. Had Nahia been bluffing before, just pretending to barely know English? If she really was Nahia Otxotorena from Getaria, Spain, that seemed unlikely. It felt right, though (almost), after the Old Norse. Why not swirl Latin into the messy, mysterious cocktail that his day had become? In spite of everything, a small smile tweaked the corners of his lips, making Effi scowl. ‘We don’t have time for this,’ radiated from her, and she was right.

“Nahia,” Laridae began. “We don’t have a minute. I’m sorry. We’re far away from that monster now, but we can’t be sure it won’t follow us. I have a friend near– well, not near, it’s Texas– but near-ish here, who we’ll be safe with. But we do have to keep moving right now.”

As he spoke, Laridae studied Nahia’s face for signs of comprehension. Seeing none, after a beat, he ventured, “Scisne latine loqui?” Do you know Latin?

“Me paenitet,” he continued, mirroring Nahia’s pronunciation and cadence. Not the way he’d learned to say “I’m sorry” conversationally– it was a little formal– but being intelligible was most important right now. Gingerly, Laridae pared away the complexity and uncertainty of their situation, leaving behind simple concepts that he could (hopefully) communicate successfully. “Exspectare non possumus. Non est tutum.” We cannot wait. It is not safe. “Quaeso veni nobiscum.” Please come with us.

[erromes]

LATINE. Does she know it? No, she thinks, disparate thoughts merging together for one brief moment before fluttering away from each other again, scattering like gulls from a wave. Those gulls persist in her mind's eye. It arcs over the ocean and skims across the surface of blue-grey memories. It's enough to get her to look up at him, and only then does she realize how closely he's peering at her. Immediately, she waves him off. Don't look at me. She must move quickly. I don't need help. Don't look at me. Her embarrassment is growing teeth.

Nahia gets up too fast for her dizziness to fade properly, but she clenches her teeth and her fists to force stability into her shaky legs. Her kelp-brown eyes, distant and glassy with vomit-induced tears, flick to the sky. If Laridae had gotten en eerie feeling looking at that Ebay prayer card earlier, he would certainly feel it again now - something harsher, though. Something dirtier, yet more plausible. The moment passes. Nahia is once again just a confused teenager focusing on the ground beneath her feet, and a curt nod is offered in place of any verbal confirmation.

I am ready. I will obey.

[erromes]

here she is, the most beautiful nightmare woman <3

[heartevaded]

[ ► helena coffee (blonde cute) ] : LMAO WHAT?? [ ► helena coffee (blonde cute) ] : uh no?? [ ► helena coffee (blonde cute) ] : are you joking? say psych [ ► helena coffee (blonde cute) ] : who did this to you?? u arent overreacting that's insane you arent weird for asking [ ► helena coffee (blonde cute) ] : it's a shitshow out there on the apps but that has never happened to me from any gendered personlol [ ► helena coffee (blonde cute) ] : what app is this? i didn't know you were on the apps 👀 what deranged type a weirdo is trying to date u?? ☕☕☕☕

[erromes]

Helena exhales sharply and settles into the seat at her kitchen table with self-righteous fury. Thank you! There she goes, tip-tapping away.

[ text: Nat Souven ] OMG I'm NOT on the apps and we are NOT dating!! 😖😖😖 But it is crazy right?? We're FRIENDS, not COWORKERS!! [ text: Nat Souven ] I'm not a CUSTOMER. Who does he think he is?! [ text: Nat Souven ] Thank you for the gut check, I'm so mad!!! 😡😡😡

[erromes]

i just realized i've been yapping about my hellhound!nahia verse and i didn't even have it written up on my carrd. ok my brain won't let me yap until i have a verse i can point to, this is on my to-do list for tomorrow.

[erromes]

@heartevaded . for nat

[ text: Nat Souven ] Hi! I have a quick question. It's a little weird I think??? [ text: Nat Souven ] Is it normal for a guy to send you a link to his calendar to like? Hang out with him????? [ text: Nat Souven ] It feels weird but IDK??? Am I overreacting??? Help!!!

[erromes]

all of my muses are chronic fumblers except for helena, who by sheer force of horniness and a huge rack, can bag an autistic baddie (laridae @heartevaded) with 0 skill.

[heartevaded]

“Welcome to Austin,” Laridae announced, just before Nahia threw up. He winced. The air around them, which moments ago had been pleasantly crisp, cool, and damp, was now hot and thick with humidity. Laridae immediately felt sweat start to prickle his upper lip and under the collar of his inappropriately warm jacket. Overhead, low, dark clouds threatened thunder.

It had been easiest to travel here. When speaking with Nahia before, when he’d been trying to hurry her out of his way, he had begun to set his mind on it in preparation. Still, Laridae’s arms ached dully as if he’d pulled the fabric of space between Washington and Texas together physically with his bare hands. (He hadn’t, of course, but that was how he liked to visualize it: as a big, simple grid that could be folded, pinched, or twisted neatly. The mind directed the magic. So, if he pictured folded up graph paper, it naturally strained his fingers, his wrists, his forearms, et cetera.) It was a much more taxing spell when he couldn’t rely on the sigils he’d set up in his offices for the juice to power it.

“We should keep moving,” he said, a little apologetically. Effi, who had squatted next to Nahia to awkwardly rub her back-- he thought he heard her saying, "Yeah, I hurled the first time too."-- glanced dubiously around at the stout evergreens surrounding them. The rush of a car, surprisingly close by, made both her and Laridae whip towards the sound. He allowed himself a smug smile. “We’re just around the corner from an Enterprise.”

Laridae didn’t like leaving that thing behind in Seattle. He didn’t doubt his decision but, nonetheless, unease gnawed at the back of his thoughts. "We can talk more in the car."

[erromes]

EXHALES AND INHALES burn against Nahia's throat as her body expels the last of her stomach contents, and as nausea-thinned saliva wells at the corners of her mouth, she looks up. It's Her, isn't it? Rubbing her back? That lady she saw, for the span of a single heartbeat, it feels the same. An undeniable truth that this Lady sees her. Sweaty and sick and dirty, but she is precious all the same. Peace settles her thready pulse, and Nahia closes her eyes in surrender.

Steady, pilgrim.

She opens them. It was always Effi there, rubbing her back. Tear-reddened brown eyes look anywhere but in Effi's face, and she grips hot grass between her fingers to distract from something that should scare her more than it does.

Nahia can't understand them.

It's a language she's never heard before, but...she should've heard it before. Which is impossible, because it doesn't exist. Right? The lines of the roads here are so smooth and so precise, the grass shorn and strange. She's heard minstrels tell of places in the Empire where great stone pyramids raise to the heavens - perhaps such craftsmanship extends to their roads. But the air smells sick here. Is that the price of such precision...?

She looks furtively at her companions. She knows she's traveling with them, but she wishes she could remember their names and where they came from. It will come to her. The world will order itself. Nahia must only act as if it already has.

"Mē paenitet." She wipes her mouth and smoothes down her hair. "Momentum mihi opus est."

[karanna1]

[erromes]

pov: you are jumpscared by nyan cat in the wild in the year of our lord 2026 bc helena just found out about it and made it her ringtone.

[adigitalgirl]

chloë sevigny as a nun in chanel couture — shared by @haleywollens via ig

[mcflymemes]

PROMPTS FOR CHANGES AND GROWTH *  assorted dialogue, adjust as necessary

you were never like this before.

you're not the person i once knew.

i don't want to think about it anymore. i've moved on.

people change. get over it.

are those gray hairs i see?

did you expect me to stay the same forever?

i got older. that's what happened.

yeah, well, things are different now.

i don't remember it ever looking like this.

did you move the furniture around in here?

i remember that used to be bigger.

when did that happen? did i miss it?

i wish we could just go back to the way it was before.

are you telling me it's over?

maybe i loved you once, but not anymore.

you look shorter than i remember.

what happended to your favorite chair?

you still look the same as you did the day i left.

did you do something with your hair?

is that a new scar i see?

the more things change, the more they stay the same.

everything's just the way i left it.

i made the mistake of trusting you once.

can't you see i've moved on?

stop trying to turn me into the person i once was.

what we had was special.

you've changed, and not in a good way.

you never would have done that years ago.

i don't remember you doing things like that.

when did this start happening?

is that new? when did that get here?

i barely recognize the place.

where did all the trees go that were here before?

i don't remember this being here at all.

when was the last time you visited this place?

your hair got longer.

still remember me, old friend?

this is just like old times.

do you ever reminisce about the good old days?

that might have worked once, but not anymore.

you really don't remember me?

you promised we'd be together forever.

you left. i had to move on.

i didn't have a choice in the matter.

things are different now.

they put me in charge of this place.

i never thought i'd see the day.

when you left, we had no one else to turn to.

there's nothing that can be done about it.

you can't turn back time, you know.

i miss coming here with you.

you don't look at me the same way.

i never should have left this place.

had you stayed, it might've been a different story.

change is inevitable. you can't fight it.

we were kids back then.

i'm sorry, but i don't feel the same way anymore.

nothing's been the same since you went away.

i wish you'd taken me with you.

that's not how it works anymore.

that's in the past for a reason.

there's no use digging up the past.

you didn't need to remind me.

[erromes]

Non é gran cousa se sabe bon joízo dar a Madre do que o mundo tod' há de joïgar. -- It is no large concern if she knows how to make a good judgment the Mother of the One who must judge the whole world.

[kingofthepitt]

the pitt s02e06 / hour six

[erromes]

(taps sunday mic) helena has desires.