I don't wish to evade the world | OTA

[unsheathedfromreality]

Who: Illarion, Ives, and anyone else sucked into the chaos vortex
What: A yurtwarming party + memories and misadventures (in comments)
When: Whenever
Where: Wherever
Shakira: Shakira

Content Warnings: Will warn per prompt!

November had been a cruel month for all Trench, mired in corruption and sacrifice; December had opened no better with its piercing chill and Sleepers pit one against the other by an ancient and echoing folly. Darkbloods in particular had been afflicted with the compounding feeling of control slipping through their fingers, and even Illarion--whose dead heart was beyond most emotions (so he thought)--couldn't escape the sense that everything was about to go horribly, irrevocably wrong if he didn't rein it in.

So he'd vanished into Trenchwood to get control of his life existence and somehow ended up building a couple of yurts with Ives. Funny, how that worked out.

Forever my home (OTA-ish, with Ives, early January, Trenchwood)
With the start of the year and the advent of the Egg Moon, life (and undeath) is suddenly looking a lot more positive. Once they'd finished their house-building, Illarion noted (and Ives agreed) that there were certain forms to be upheld: They should invite other Sleepers over to visit. Invitations trickled out over Omni and Omen to people they know, informing them of a new Lamp location and offering an opportunity for food, camaraderie, and conversation away from the heated and busy confines of the Snake Den.

The square for their odd little village of two (sometimes three) is where all the action's at, for any who come looking in response to the invitation. The fire pit is the center of attention: Large enough to contain a bonfire, lined with hand-laid stone, and often host to a simmering stewpot with food enough to share. Several logs surround it at a comfortable distance from the heat, allowing ease and conversation. Ives' yurt stands nearby, just large enough to give the Giant a sheltered place to sleep, and a small covered well with attendant pail offers fresh water. The Lamp, and its Lamp Friends (decorated with ribbon for the season), are opposite the fire from the yurt and a little ways into the trees. Discreet incense burners ring the clearing in a faint pall of smoke, with scents of pine and wet moss that pleasantly smooth Trenchwood's harsher odors--and more importantly, keep the beasts away.

A path leads away from the fire, off toward the distant mirror of the Salt Lake, permanently red this month thanks to Moon Presence's... presence. Sleepers with very sharp eyes might make out the mounded shadow of another yurt in that direction.

One or both of the Giant and the shrike might be found hanging around the place if expecting guests. Ives may be tending to a fine vegetable stew, attending to various little maintenance tasks, or simply sitting at his ease by the fire. He's also acquired a pan flute at some point and is looking for any excuse to play it. Illarion's often keeping incense lit, mending gear and cleaning weapons, or when he's in the mood--and that's often, this month--holding forth in story or song to anyone around to listen.

((OOC: Let us know if you want one furry, the other, or both on your tag in!))

Comments

:,)

[unsheathedfromreality]

[I'm keeping it safe. That's...very endearing, in its way. As if they were in some human chivalric romance and he'd given the young man a token of favor.

Illarion shakes his head with a quiet chuckle, producing another handkerchief and offering it over.]

This is very kind of you, but it is a thing meant to be used. So you do not have to wash your sleeves so often. It does not upset me that you use it.

[And there's the questions he expected.]

Not pretend there is nothing wrong, but set aside all that is wrong for a while, in safe company. The world is hard and cruel and requires much vigilance, but if we do not make time to lay that aside, we become hard and cruel ourselves. We lose our edge to exhaustion, and cannot decide well or act swiftly when we must.

You are familiar with the two philosophies of life here in Trench? The practical and the pleasurable?

[peripheries]

[Oh.

Well he was not going to wash his sleeves at all. Or at least not until they were frightening. Also, how many of those did you have? Where did they come from?

Anyway, he takes the handkerchief and blows his nose as suggested, in the middle of Illarion talking. Rude. But he was listening!]

Isn't that the philosophy of most things? To seek out pleasure, only to be dragged down back into the practical and painful? You think being with others can mitigate that?

[unsheathedfromreality]

[He'll take Tabris using the handkerchief over incessant sniffing or snotty sleeves, even if the timing's not what he'd like. Timing can always be worked on.

(He has one more handkerchief than anyone will ever need from him.)

He gives a quiet, huffing laugh at the answer.]

This is how it often comes out, if one does not spend much time thinking of the cost of one's pleasures--this vacillation, between pleasure and pain. But the philosophies, they are a little more than this.

Here--let us sit.

[Their conversations always run long, and while Illarion's immune to fatigue, he knows his charge isn't.

Besides, it will be good to determine if he needs more pillows.

He gestures Tabris to a convenient clutch of cushions, before picking one of his own to settle down on.]

[peripheries]

[He drops down to sit, stretching out and crossing his legs like a careless teenager.

With the warmth inside the refuge his nose is starting to run less, at least. He sniffs and looks over at Illarion.]

Philosophy? Is this going to be a boring lecture.

[unsheathedfromreality]

You will be the judge of that, will you not, little bird?

[He smiles without showing his teeth.]

Though it is interesting to me that you call philosophy boring, when you are being so very curious indeed about how and why mortals act as they do. Is not studying philosophy to answer that question?

[peripheries]

I spent most of my life trying to understand things by reading. Talking to people, watching them... there's so much more to it than I understood from trying to understand without doing.

[unsheathedfromreality]

[He rests an elbow on a knee and his chin on his palm as he listens, an altogether more relaxed posture than he's accustomed to adopting, well, anywhere else.]

Ahhh. Then this is another place your old instructors failed you, I am thinking. "Study" is as much doing and observation as it is reading--or, [his smile widens,] listening to lectures. Think of this not as one of those, but, mm--a guide, to some of what you may see in the field, among those you watch.

[A bird teaching an angel to human-watch.]

[peripheries]

[Scooting closer, wrapping his arms around his knees.]

I wasn't allowed to go out and see.

[So the failure was of course purposeful and done without care. But this is a common thread in his childhood that Illarion is certainly already aware of.

But now, Kaworu is looking at him with expectant eyes.]

[unsheathedfromreality]

[Too well he knows that thread. A certain committee of old men would never know how lucky they were not to wash up in Deer Country.]

Just so. Then we will make up for lost time.

You have perhaps noticed that Trench's people come broadly in two different sorts, yes? One very decorated, as a peacock with his feathers, and the other most plain?

[peripheries]

Yes. Those that show off and those that don't.

[A yawn and he stretches out, lying on his back, trying to think of the people in the trench that he's seen.]

[unsheathedfromreality]

The pleasurable, and the practical. The first rightly reason that life here is very short, and may end any time, so they must wring the utmost enjoyment from it before death comes for them.

The second, [his smile twitches a little wider,] rightly reason that life here is very short, and may end any time, so they must be ready for death to come for them in any form to have a chance to fight it off.

You perhaps may notice a flaw in each of these?

[If Tabris falls asleep... he won't be all that bothered. A refuge is for what it's needed for; the explanation's incidental to the reality.]

[peripheries]

They're both living their current lives in anticipation of a future life that may or may not exist, rather than living the life they have.

[He crosses his legs, bobbing the top one upon his knee to a thoughtful beat that no one else can hear. He glances upwards at the Old Man.]

Is that right?

[unsheathedfromreality]

Very good! The most practical do not take opportunities to live the life they are prolonging, while those devoted to pleasure above all else often die with regrets for all they could not do, while a little caution may have saved them.

A balance is required to give each life its fullest meaning.

[peripheries]

Everyone knows that. It's just harder to do than to say it. So most simply give up and give into fear or desire.

[unsheathedfromreality]

Does everyone? [He gives one of those characteristic avian tilts of his head, regarding the boy.] What does it mean to you?

[peripheries]

[He opens his eyes.]

To not allow my desires or my fears to shape the life I live here.

[unsheathedfromreality]

How do you mean to shape it instead?

[peripheries]

I don't know.

[He closes his eyes again, posture shifting from casual to protective, curling in on himself.]

How am I supposed to know something like that?

[unsheathedfromreality]

[Ah, little bird.]

It is not a question that needs a right answer. [He leans a little forward, enough to touch the boy's shoulder in feather-light reassurance.] Perhaps I should have asked, why do you wish to shape it so?

[peripheries]

[He rolls back over, looking up at the Shrike after his gentle touch.]

I want to have a life that's for me, with no purpose other than what I choose. No one from the outside trying to give me one.

[unsheathedfromreality]

[There's a reply on the tip of his tongue, a pattern he's used before on his own willful teenagers who think a life free of obligation the epitome of freedom.

That is like this, but also not. His children were younger than Tabris is now when they'd gained some agency in their own lives--by default younger than he was when he'd first even seen the outside world.

He settles back to leaning his chin in his palm.]

Would you want others to share this life with you?

[peripheries]

[Kaworu starts a little, rolling over onto his hip and sitting up so he can look straight at Illarion, an expression of concern knitting his brows together.]

Would you not be part of it?

[So the answer is "of course" and nothing else was ever considered.]