you're standing in the sea | february catch-all

[terriblepurpose]

Who: Paul Atreides and pals; Junia and that feeling of having no pals
What: Catch-all
When: Month of February
Where: Various places in Trench, the Farther Shores


Content Warnings: Violence, prophecy, Dune spoilers, The Locked Tomb spoilers, intimidation and threats, psychological manipulation, references (non-explicit) to suicide, visual depiction of blood

Comments

no church in the wild | the emperor

[terriblepurpose]

In the city of Trench, there is a correspondence conducted, if two letters count as such.

Paul only needs to read the answer to his supplication once to know it by heart, with a kind of despair he will not name even to himself. He reads it again anyway over the next few days, as if he can divine some new insight from the words, the medium, the messenger.

It is, in the end, unnecessary. The answers he needed come from other sources.

In retrospect, Paul can see that much of his recent behavior has been reactive. He has demonstrated a shameful lack of discipline. He has allowed himself to be provoked. He flinched.

Things are going to be different here.

When Paul arrives on the doorstep in person, his hair is freshly trimmed. He is dressed plainly but appropriately in solemn black, twin silver pins set on either side of his collar beneath his hooded overcoat, his signet ring under his left glove. He discarded his shield generator and his wrist knife in one of his caches, judging them unnecessary, even vulgar - the pair of swords sheathed on his back are only a formality to be set aside once over the threshold.

The warm, candlelight moon is just beginning to crest in the sky as he knocks on God's front door like the light tapping in of a nail.

[necrolord]

The mansion had been grand, once. Now it's half-decayed, a big creaky haunted house at the outer fringes of Gaze; the gentle light of the clocktower barely touches its roof, and the dead trees of the Trenchwood press tangled to its back. John hasn't seen Canaan House in a hell of a long time, but he still finds this fitting.

Bare moments after the last tap, a skeleton answers the door. It bows to Paul with mechanical politeness, the movements of a construct without a soul, and then turns to lead him in. The floors are tiled in the same black stone as the ocean cliffs, and where age or violence have gouged chunks away, the cracks have been filled with a bright whorl of bone.

God is puttering around the kitchen down the hall. His shirtsleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and when Paul and the construct arrive at the door, he's wiping flour off his hands.

"Navigator," he says, pleased, as though he cannot see the set of the boy's shoulders and read trouble. "Welcome."

[terriblepurpose]

Paul bows at the waist on acknowledgment, stiff with formal reserve. When he straightens, he slides the swords from his back and tucks them under his arm, looking around the innocuously macabre kitchen. There is a certain incuriosity in his observation that's unlike him.

"Thank you, captain," Paul says, calmly, with the respect he feels is due, "I'm sorry to have interrupted you."

He looks over the kitchen again, and decides to set his weapons down on the open counter nearest the doorway. His movements are unhurried and smooth, his heartbeat as steady as a downward ticking clock. There's a deliberateness of control in every gesture and breath, a studied stillness.

"...does your offer of conversation still stand?"

[necrolord]

In a stranger, this would be an interesting degree of control and a baffling degree of disinterest in skeleton-themed decorating. God is accustomed to a certain level of fear in the people around him, a baseline hum of expectant anxiety. There's really no shame in getting jumpy around a guy with this many titles and this much stuff made of bone.

In Paul, the clamped-down stillness makes him look two seconds from snapping. Only question is what direction he'll snap in; they've already checked the 'horrified vomiting' box.

"Of course, Paul." His tone is warm, pleased to be asked. "We can have a seat in my study. Mind if I put the kettle on?"

[terriblepurpose]

The faint twist of Paul's mouth at the sound of his name is evocative of that very memory of lime peel bile, but his eyes remain deferentially shaded away as he nods.

"Not at all," he says, and means it. There's no reason this has to be uncivilized. Paul isn't a barbarian, which is one of the things he's here to illustrate - so he leaves the swords where they are without so much as a backwards glance or a lingering brush of his fingers.

Instead, he undoes his coat and folds it over his arm, and politely adds: "Is there anything I could help with?"

[necrolord]

"Mugs are in the cabinet by your shoulder," he suggests, because it always seems to do Harrow good to be given rote tasks when she'd otherwise hover a tight two paces behind him. God fetches the kettle and fills it, then drops in a little moonlit orb to heat the water, where it goes plunk. Once everything is set out and the water left to boil, he leads them from the kitchen and down the hall, absentmindedly righting his shirtsleeves as they go.

"We don't see many visitors, so I hope you'll forgive the mess." The study is nearly spartan, after the rest of the house. The furniture has a greying, neglected sort of quality; the walls are mostly bare. If anything, it looks like the office of a professor: on every flat surface is a riot of papers and notes; books borrowed from the Archives; bits of bone and bloodstone set down here or there. God shuffles things aside for a moment, rather unceremoniously, and gestures Paul to take a seat. He chooses the chair opposite, not the big one on the other side of the old oak desk.

He does not sit backwards on the chair, but he really thinks about it.

"So. What brings you by?"

[terriblepurpose]

Paul takes off his gloves before he dutifully reaches for the mugs. His thoughts are a hot white static as he watches God's hands at work on kettle and sleeves, as he watches the rise and fall of divine breath in the movement of his back.

He has to get it right the first time. Every nuance has to be exact. He still isn't sure if that's going to be enough.

"You should have seen my corner of the Archives when we met." Paul sets out the mugs, tone mild, and takes his seat across from God. He rests his hands on his knees and sits straight backed, but not tensed.

"I've been thinking about where I left things between us," Paul says, eyes full of his open, unguarded observation, "The miscommunications that have kept happening - and I've realized, I have you at a disadvantage, lord. I know so much about you, and yet I've told you so little about me. I'd like to correct that."

[necrolord]

God's eyebrows quirk up. He thinks, possibly, he sees where this is going. Whatever has been laid on this kid's shoulders, it's a hell of a thing; it's enough to wind him up this tightly just because he doesn't trust himself not to break.

With a monster on the horizon, maybe he's being asked for absolution. Or pressed into believing it isn't deserved, which is exactly the same thing.

"You're under no obligation," he soothes. "But I'll confess some curiosity."

[terriblepurpose]

There is only so much control that Paul can exert at a time. The trade off of his completeness of focus is that it leaves him exposed to reciprocal observation.

So God may well take note of the fact, now and in hindsight, there is an instant of hesitation shading into doubt, a single, slender crack in an otherwise expert mask. His eyes flick away, and when they return, there is nothing left of it.

"Thank you," he says, a little softly, "But I confess, I've struggled with where to begin. It's a challenge, explaining yourself. I thought - what would any of the words I might use mean here? What does it mean for me to say to you - I am Paul Atreides, a ruling Duke of my House, Imperial kinsman? Or Paul Atreides, student of the Ginaz school? Paul Atreides, Bene Gesserit trained? A whole empire of context that isn't here. The context I have acted in as if it still exists, or it matters in this place so far from it."

"I've been trying to communicate with you as if I expect you to understand any of that." Paul leans forward, slightly. "And that's a kind of communication, in its own way, isn't it? The ways that we fail, and misunderstand each other. On the ship, for example. Do you mind if I ask you - and I won't be offended - what you thought I was afraid of, lord?"

the dirt is temporary | satoko hojo

[terriblepurpose]

The camp on the beach is only a suggestion at the end of January on the distant Farther Shores out of sight of the boardwalk, the city itself a suggestion on the horizon.

Paul Atreides sits cross-legged outside of his four-sided tent and looks out at the sea with a notebook open in his lap, occasionally adding a line here or there to a sketch of what seems to be a mass of squirming, mouthed tentacles, which might be more disturbing in a different universe. A long-tailed hopping mouse that appears to be made of black ink crouches besides him, but she's alert to the rest of the world in a way he is not, and she's the one who notices the approaching stranger with ears raised and whiskers outstretched as she rises on her hind legs.

[loopsbian]

The beach is something unfamiliar to Satoko, something uniquely alien. It's nothing like the warm rivers of her youth; it's ice and sand and detritus encompassing a vastness unlike anything else on Earth. Another world encased by eroded rock and decayed life. And while the emptiness and scale of that other world isn't entirely new to her - while she has been into that vastness and returned more times than she can possibly count, whether human or squid or something else entirely - the land surrounding it feels almost liminal. Like it can't decide whether it's land, or sea, or something else entirely.

She despises that uncertainty. She has for as long as she can remember. Maybe that's why she's put off exploring this part of their surroundings for so long. And maybe that's why she honestly appears taken aback to find another Sleeper out in this place.

"...my apologies. I wasn't aware anyone lived so far out from the city." She doesn't sound quite like she's questioning his sanity for it, at least - just like she's considering it. "Is this private property, then, or am I allowed to look around?"

[terriblepurpose]

"Private - ?" Paul looks up in surprise, echoing the word, and he smiles immediately and easily at the appearance of a newcomer. "No. You're free to look wherever you like."

It's an informed guess to assume that whoever this is, she hasn't seen the message on the network. Paul has been mildly surprised at how many people that seems to encompass.

"My name is Paul. May I ask yours?" There is a slight emphasis on the may I, a sliver of recently acquired specific tension around the asking of names that has nothing to do with her, personally.

[loopsbian]

If she notices that odd note in his voice, she certainly doesn't show it. "I can't imagine why you wouldn't. It's Satoko Hojo - a pleasure to meet you, sir."

The words she uses are respectful enough. But there's a certain disconnect between them and the rest of her demeanor: her tone, her body language, the look in her eyes. It's slight enough for most to wave off, but whatever it is she considers Paul, it certainly isn't 'her elder."

She immediately begins to take a closer look at his camp, walking around the tent as she speaks. "If you don't mind me asking, are you bothered often out here? I can't imagine many come to visit without good reason."

[terriblepurpose]

"There's no need for that," Paul says, at being called 'sir', waving it off with the pencil still held in his hand as he closes his notebook and rises to his feet. Once standing, he inclines at the waist in a polite half-bow. He notices the slight discrepancy, but it doesn't bother him so much as he takes it as something worth noting, just in case.

"I have visitors occasionally. More so lately." He's not going to drag out the mystery too long. "This is the site for a monster hunting camp. That's what I've been calling it, anyway."

There has to be a better name, but he's deliberately not trying to supply one.

[loopsbian]

"Is that so? Where I come from, all sorts of people pay attention to the way you talk." She shrugs, almost theatrically, and shakes her head. "Well, I'll do my best, but it is quite the old habit. I wouldn't expect any changes overnight."

Not that she has any intention to try, of course. She might not be beholden to custom for any real reason by this point, but there's some comfort in sticking to the way she's always done things. Perhaps once she gets bored, she'll spice things up then-

-and given what she's just heard, she doubts she'll be growing bored of this young man too soon. "A monster hunting camp? That's quite an ambitious project, don't you think?" Her interest is clear down to her very movements; she stops in her tracks, turning her head to face him directly as she speaks. "Are there others that stay here, too?"

[terriblepurpose]

"It's the same where I come from," Paul says, with a half-wry smile as he tucks the notebook under his arm. "But given how many places we all come from, keeping track of the appropriate levels of formality to use with everyone -"

He holds out an open palm as if to say, what can you do? Her other question is much more imminent, so he turns to that next.

"It is, and there will be. It's a large monster." While Paul isn't writing off this newcomer as a potential aid, he has a certain ambivalence about recruiting people, even interested ones, without a full accounting. "A reality shifter from the ocean. People have been having visions of its arrival."

brethren bathing bones in brine | a nameless confessor

[holyjudgmental]

[The missives that Junia has set herself to the work of putting up are not all of a kind. She has been feverish with devotion, and such a thing has always drawn a certain burning glory of inspiration from her. As such, each has been graced with its own particular sort of homily. Of these, she took particular pleasure in penning those she affixed in the district of the so-called Disciples.]

HARK!

Verse XII: Forbid thyself from incurring debts!

To those from BENIGHTED WORLDS which do not know the MOST HOLY WORD AND THE LIGHT - heed this passage! Reflect upon it! For it is KNOWN that the so-called MOTHER MERCY is a CREATURE OF DECEIT, A BEAST OF FALSEHOOD, and that HER CONFESSIONAL is NO TRUE 'MERCY', but another FOUL RUSE, an ENTRAPMENT

and

that the alleged NAMELESS CONFESSOR is a FEY THING OF FEATHER AND WHIM whose motives are UNFATHOMED and whose nature is UNCANNY

and

that TRUE CONFESSION may be found BY THE GRACE OF THE LIGHT AND THE FLAME, ETERNAL AND VIGILANT, THE RESPLENDENT AND SEARING ILLUMINATION at the CHURCH OF THE LIGHT, granted freely to all at NO COST TO YOUR PURSE OR SOUL

TARRY NOT: MAKE HASTE TO SALVATION, AND INCUR NO DEBTS

[Between that and the blazing bonfire she has set outside the Cassandra-bordering church she has drawn a map to on the backs of the letters, Junia has no doubt that soon, the doors of grey stone building will open to let in the first of what surely be many grateful lost souls.]

[unsheathedfromreality]

[The fey thing of feather and whim (whose motives are unfathomed and whose nature is uncanny) considers the hand-drawn map his Omen's holding through her eyes, then tips his veiled face up to consider the church before them. Light, he can't see any longer, but flame and its smoke he can smell, leaving no doubt in him that they're in the right place.

Whether or not it's for the right purpose is the murkier question: He isn't wholly sure which dim potential motive brought him here. To respond to the missive's provocation by demanding a duel from its author? Hardly--the context's wrong, and she's a priest besides, volkhv, sacred and unassailable in her person and office.

To provoke her in turn? Much more likely. Curiosity, too, gnaws at him, and something a little like guilt; he can't offer absolution himself, not as zhrets, and he may well be overstepping himself even by offering to listen to confession without it. Is she a roundabout first warning of impiety?

It is a possibility he must take seriously. To do that he must speak to her, and if in speaking to her he hears the voice of his own white gods of Sun and Ever-Flame chastising him for stepping beyond his bounds--well, they've also presented him with a solution, have they not? She can shrive him herself.

He laughs quietly at the tidiness of his own reasoning--they so rarely operated like that, outside stories; he's fooling no one--and lifts a hand to knock demandingly on the door. No magical compulsion prevents him from walking in on his own; it's the force of taboo that requires he seek permission to walk on another's holy ground.

He is dead, after all. Certain forms were proper.]

cw: religious self-harm

[holyjudgmental]

[The doors open, and the first thing that emerges through them is a miasma of dying lilies, the sickly-sweet toxicity of shed Vileblood nearly thick enough that one could imagine it as an oil-slick sheen on the air itself. The second is the short yet well-muscled form of a young woman wearing the simple garb of her office, covered everywhere save for her upturned face, even her hands in gloves despite the heat that roils out in actually visible waves against the frigid winter outside.

Her eyes are coal-dark and glassy as she takes in her first penitent, at first not quite comprehending the nature of the soul in front of her, but then it seems some recognition comes to her (or perhaps not; perhaps she is simply like this) and her lips curve into a joyless, pale crescent nothing like a smile.]

Do you seek to confess?

[There is a dried smear of greenish-red blood at her temple, a certain wan lack of coloration to her skin, and underneath her robes, Junia is a symphony of self-inflicted purgations. The scourge, the nettle, the fast, the brand: all of these have found their uses. She is euphoric, a pane of glass through which Light pours; she is a misery, a seeping mass of unwanted wants, her flesh shuddering under the curse of the damnable moon.

But that is no matter. She has a visitor.]

[unsheathedfromreality]

[Heat and the thick stench of Vileblood greet Illarion as much as the woman at the door, and he thinks: Ah.

Perhaps whatever moved him to this has nothing to do with him whatsoever. (Whatever led him to think it might?)

He and Iskierka both cock their heads to the right in the same swift gesture, eerie in their synchronization. His is a faith that offers sacrifice in propitiation and thanks, to cover debts to the gods and expiate offense--but it asks that payment in a shrike's blood only sparingly, and in flesh, never. Yet he still well-recognizes what's before him, seen and ((felt)) beneath that habit worn like armor.

Sanctified this place might be, it's sacred as the Tower's body is sacred to his Zealots: A haven of suffering and corruption.

She may not even realize. She may realize too well and be unable to stop herself. The latter thought has him set forcefully aside the nascent urge to pry, to pick and claw and see what she can be provoked into; makes him gentle his voice to mute the echoes as he says,]

I am. You would shrive even me?

[holyjudgmental]

[For all of Junia's railings against the uncanny, there is a certain familiarity with such things that she has acquired in the past (months? years?) since she was sent away to be interred in a crumbling mausoleum. This strange creature is less strange than many she has seen. Less strange, even, than some she has fought alongside. She observes the sympatico tilt of stranger and Omen with only a flickering spark of some odd interest, her head cocking to the opposite side in an unconscious echo.]

There is no shadow that cannot be driven out by the Light.

[Even the most damned of things are not beyond Its reach, though often such reach is found at the end of a holy blade or consecrated mace. Her own hangs by this very door, though she sees no pressing need to clasp it. A good sign, she thinks; she has clung to it overmuch, like some knotted rag doll, or a mother's hand. There is no need for such a thing, now that her church no longer wants for a penitent.]

I am Sister Junia. Step o'er the threshold, if you be a true seeker.

[The formal language, as is only proper. She steps aside and pulls the door back further, revealing an almost empty hall. The sticks of furniture that moldered in its plain grey stone interior are currently burning merrily outside, leaving only the candles along each wall, and the source of the interior heat: a brazier full of red-hearted coal that dominates the end of the wall. It is surrounded by polished mirrors slightly adjusted from the configuration she used to catch the Light and transform it into Flame at the end of a taper. It would not do to allow for unintended holy fire.]

[unsheathedfromreality]

[This notion of what the Light does with shadows has Illarion smiling, a moment's reflex to bitter humor. What is he if not one of those shadows given substance?]

Nor by Flame, I am expecting. Thank you, sister.

[Given the requisite invitation he steps across the threshold and into the hall. Iskierka looks around them with gleaming eyes, noting the weapon by the door, the paucity of furnishings, the mirrors and the candles and the glowing brazier. This does not feel like a place where one could or should lay her burdens at the volkhv's feet to sort through; it is a far cry from a proper grove, open to sky and Sun and the stars that might peer through the whispering branches to watch the penitent. This doesn't feel like a woman who wishes those burdens turned over to her, however temporarily. How could someone so far estranged from the society of other Sleepers hope to guide others back to it?

And yet: These are all the judgments of first impressions, of the initial moment, tainted by the implicit challenge she'd issued him. The full weight of his considerations are best withheld until he knows more about her and can place her in her rightful context. (Though instinct says that's unlikely to help.)]

I am fearfully unfamiliar with the ways of your Light. You will need to guide me in what is proper for confession.

[holyjudgmental]

[There is a flippancy to the way this one speaks of the Flame, Junia thinks, but for once, she finds her tongue remains stilled, no rebuke needing to be loosed or bitten back. She feels beyond such things, secured in her faith by the rigor of her penance and the duty that has been clarified by it. And besides, what if her shrewishness drove him off? Would it not be a grave sin to drive off a soul seeking salvation? Would she not be left alone once more in this church, with Cedar still not yet returned?]

I have prepared a place. Come.

[It is a nook shielded by a black curtain towards the back of the church, which Junia approaches with the measured footsteps of someone who is having to concentrate quite carefully on their measuring. When drawn back, the curtain reveals another curtain behind it, hanging between two outward facing chairs. She gestures at the leftward one.]

You will sit there, and speak so - 'Bless me, oh Light, for I have sinned', and then you will tell me when you last confessed, and enumerate the sins for which you seek absolution. Then I shall set you a penance.

[There is an eagerness in the way she says penance that may explain the absence of other lost souls in this lost place.]

[unsheathedfromreality]

[He comes as bid, trailing three steps behind her like a monochrome shadow; he waits as she pushes aside the curtain. The peculiar precision in her steps adds weight to his impression of wounded animal, in a way that makes instinct rouse.

How much of the month has she been doing this to herself? How easy a prey would she be?

He walks past her, following the gesture, but does not seat himself where bid. His hand goes to the back of the chair as he turns back to regard her, unseeing but intent.]

And what is it that the Light is naming a sin? [The marks in her flesh suggest that list may be very long and very detailed, if they are what he supposes them to be.] Broad strokes, sister, if you will humor my ignorance.

[holyjudgmental]

[Junia grips the back of the chair as she considers the question with the gravity it merits - and, perhaps, a small measure of consternation. She has never needed to explain sin before. It is like air, or light itself: always present, always known. Even heathens know the strictures they flout. (There is the precipice, again; if no one knows, then who will judge -)]

The gravest sins are those which profane against the Light, or seek its diminishment. [Junia closes her eyes, her voice unfamiliar to herself in her thoughtfulness.] Sins of blasphemy, sins of deceit. Sins of corruption and abomination, those that distort the nature of beings, or pervert the order of the world.

The next gravest sins are those against others. Sins of violence, sins of pride, sins of covetousness. There are also the sins of omission and of straying, turning away from one's people and one's duties. Sins of - [and her lip curls here, disdainfully] - the flesh, of selfishness.

Last, the sins against the self. The sins of doubt, the sins of hard-heartedness. These are the sins which give rise to the others, if not attended to, burned out at their roots when they arise.

[She opens her eyes with a faint gleam of one of those very sins in her eyes, an uncertainty - but she has said what she should, she knows. In the broad strokes.]

There are more specific sins I may enumerate for you, if you wish.