More vague Odyssey related rambles. I think I’m putting them here because I’m too scared to put them on facebook; my friends are actually good writers, and I’m too terrified this is all self indulgent fluff.
"I would say that's not appropriate, but..." Phoebe looks at the remains of the chaos in front of her and tries to hide a smile. There are chitons strewn all over the place, jugs cracked on the floor and cups scattered all over. If she didn't know better she'd think she was looking at a temple of Dionysus. The two boys awake enough to be cleaning up, half heartedly remind her so strongly of Meander it hurts. The older Ithican is still around, still seems to spend half his life clearing up after his kin, but to see the next generation doing the same is strange.
"Priest," one of them manages, holding out a jug of wine to her. "Will you join us?"S
he shakes her head, "Too early for me, but don't let me stop you." She picks her way past them, picking up the odd bit of detritus, and makes her way to the central altar.
"You'd be pleased, I'm sure," she says to the empty space. "Everyone drinks in your name, tonight there'll be all kinds of trickery and chaos in your name."
Priest of Cleonidas is far easier a job than priest of Hermes ever was. Too easy. She has too much time to spare and she's avoiding something, something she hasn't quite defined yet.
Once upon a time she would have asked Lysandra what to do (or at least she thinks she would have, if they’d had time for this to be a thing they actually talked about), but now she just has a tree and her imagination of what her friend would have said.
Her footsteps take her to that tree anyway, and she sits in its shade, "At least if he'd gone off to that island, I could have gone back to the underworld, I wouldn't have to watch everyone get old."
It's the kind of thing she thinks Lysandra would have laughed at, reminded her that she offered to speak to Apollo to fix her, that she got to live and love."I never asked for that though," she reminds her friend who is a tree. "In fact I very clearly said I didn't want it. I wanted a trial period, or something. I didn't ask for this."
She doesn't really know why she's worrying; after fifteen years most of them still have plenty of life left in them, but it's becoming more obvious that they're getting older.
I have a lot of feels from Odyssey. I am still compiling my froth post (it’s really hard to write about an IC relationship without coming across a bit weird) (also I keep making myself cry)
Anyway, there is lots of fic being written, and now Phoebe’s tragic backstory (which isn’t actually very tragic) is out, I figured I’d join in the party.
“But Kyriod said...”
“When are you going to stop trusting the priest of Eris?”
Phoebe shrugs, “It makes sense though.”
The other priest laughs, “Of course it does. It’s all rubbish though, whatever works best to cause the most trouble later down the line. Surely a priestess of Hermes can see between the lines?” The disdain was obvious, at least they didn’t remind her that technically she was breaking divine law by continuing to worship Hermes.
“There’s nothing between the lines. He wouldn’t lie like that when Greece is on the line.”
“Suit yourself.” The older priest stands and limps off. Serdika is full of priests, but they all bow to Hades or Ares, a few to Hera or Demeter, and the younger ones flocking to Nike and the Dogs of War. There was little respect for the God of Tricksters, even before he was consumed by Thoth, and even less respect for the Goddess of Discord.
Phoebe sighs and brushes herself off as she gets to her feet. She pays her final respects to the Lord of the Underworld, an offering in the name of her parents left.
As she wanders the city, she thinks of the letters she should write; to Lysandra about the problems that they have, to Calliope and Sadiki to make apologies for things she has no power to apologise for. Chances are that she won’t write them, she’s too easily distracted, too ashamed, too clumsy with words.
She catches a brief glimpse of someone who looks too much like Androcles and she thinks of the knife on her belt, but that’s another thing she still can’t do. Another lesson that she’s learning the hard way.
You can’t kill the people you love, but you can’t love the people you can’t trust. Or at least you shouldn’t.
Maybe next annual she’ll let someone do it for her.
Maybe next annual the priests of other nations will stop treating her and Lysandra like foolish children.
Maybe next annual she’ll be quick enough to match words with Kyriod, rather than fumbling her way through conversations and getting flustered whenever he agrees with her.
(I, as a ref, blew up a city a couple of weeks ago, as means of furthering plot. A lot of religious folk in game had a very bad week of it that week)
(3 of the gods have basically nothing to do in this chaos, the other 5 are busy as fuck. you can possibly also maybe see where my godly preferences lie in system)
(if you’re coming here from PLARP, NONE OF THIS IS CANON, this is me word vomming)
Ask me about the priests of Bronwen who dream, in the days after Celtar of her blind rage, lashing out across the seas. Talk to me about their desperate need for vengeance against an enemy that they don’t know, that they aren’t sure of. Ask me how she rails at these foreign invaders who rained fire down on her people, who bought war and chaos and destruction to the shores of Vara for no reason other than greed.
Talk to me about the numbers of her priesthood who fall to beserker rage in the year to come, who forgo all sense of fairness and honour, and who lose themselves in her fury.
Ask me about the red haired woman prowling in anger at what was done, and that she didn’t see it coming. The storms that wrack the eastern coast to no avail because the damage is already done. The rain that pours from the skies but which cannot extinguish fires born of foreign alchemy.
Ask me about the priests of Liren who wake screaming in their beds as their goddess, so young, so untried is faced with thousands of souls all dying in an instant, as they feel the pain of thousands burning alive in a city somewhere, who don’t even think before they say “yes” in an exhaled breath and find themselves at the gates of a city wreathed in flames that will not go out.
Talk to me about the priests of Liren who go without sleep, without food as they try to stem the worst of the misery, whose daggers run red with blood as they take life after life, ending the pain before it sends a soul insane. The priests of Liren who sit with the burned and the crushed, who hold their hands to numb the pain and tell them that all will be fine; that their loved ones are waiting. Who watch eyes glaze over as the injured finally find peace.
Ask me about the ones who venture into the city, robes smouldering, feet and lungs burning and daggers hot, using what power their Goddess can give them to find the living still trapped in pockets of clean air, to find the bodies trapped where all air has been devoured, warning against the undead as those abominations rise up in a city once teeming with life.
Talk to me about the priests of Liren who burn themselves out, physically, mentally, spiritually, who go to the arms of their goddess along with those who they are guiding into death.
Talk to me of the priests of Osrose who watch their Lord’s holy fire subverted into a weapon of destruction. Who can do nothing to turn back the fires that are their holy power.
Ask me how they stand side by side with their Nerozian brothers, finally, after years of niggling conflict and animosity, to hold back the undead that rise up from the flames and wreckage of a once great city.
Ask me about the priests of Neroz who flinch at the flames as they lick round their armour; immune to the heat but not to the burning of flesh. Ask me about the ones who stand with their Lirenite brothers and sisters ushering the dead into the world beyond and saying mass burial rites because there is no time for individual funerals, and no one can recognise the bodies anyway.
Talk to me about the ones who hold back wave after wave of flaming undead, who move too fast, who survive too long, whose touch shrivels or causes hours of agony.
Talk to me about the ones who look at the priests of Osrose and Starsha and pull their hoods and visors down so that they do not have to face the judgement of the other gods but who stand with them regardless, setting aside their fears.
Ask me of the Starshans who also wake screaming, the pain of mortals and gods in their minds. The people of Celtar who burn and the goddesses who weep for them, scream for them and vent their frustrations.
The ones who say “yes” in that same breath as the priests of Liren and find themselves in the chaos of a healers camp, desperately trying to stem the tide of burns and missing limbs, of infection and misery.
The hospitalers who would cast themselves into oblivion were it not for the stronger hands of those who know when a body is beyond healing. The Shield Bearers who form the cordon between the injured and what number of undead that make it out of the city.
Ask me about the priests of Shashay, who were caught in the revels that night and find it within themselves to be sober in an instant, to help the wounded and swear a bloody knife in the back to whoever did this. Ask me about the priests of Lanokash who can offer little but light to search by, a spell of guidance to another pocket of bodies, a kind and steady hand at the end of the day, and promises of knowledge, of searching, while keeping the ultimate knowledge of who bears the responsibility a secret until passions simmer and cool. Ask about the priests of Ash’i’el, who care so little for the cities, but who know that with war comes and imbalance, and who stand ready for when that war finally comes.
