voice

[monolike]

Who: Sorey et al
Broadcast: Yes
Action: Iskaulit
When: Shortly after drifting (late September)


.voice.

Hi everybody. My name's Sorey; I'm First Mate on the Huntress, but uh...

[He pauses. Sighs and starts over.]

A lot of people are missing. People we love. People who we don't know if they'll be back; there's a chance, definitely, a good chance, but that doesn't mean the pain and fear and the grief will go away. Sometimes, it even gets worse. The uncertainty is almost as terrible as the loss itself.

I'll be conducting memorial services in the Interfaith Center for the next week, every day at noon. Anybody is welcome to attend. It won't be anything fancy; lighting candles and burning incense, tea, reading some things from texts I've picked up along the way. If you don't want to come but you'd like me to say something for you during the service, feel free to leave it here. I'll add it to everything.


Also, if you'd like to come by just to have some quiet, or for a listening ear, I'll be here most times. There's an area where you can pray or set up altars or anything that you'd find more comfortable; we just ask that you cover up any symbols you make when you finish. If you need any help building anything, please let me know, I've got a shop area back on my ship.


Religious ties aren't necessary, either, and there's a meditation room next door if you just need some space to think. Please come by if you need anything.


.action. - Iskaulit

[Sorey can be found puttering about the Interfaith Center on most days during the current drift. He's usually in the kitchen, sometimes with Mikleo, as well as praying at the small elemental altar in a corner of the prayer chamber, separated from the lounge area by a curtain.

Sometimes he's curled up on one of the couches in the lounge with a book or a set of hand-drawn maps, frowning as he scribbles notes and erases lines.]

Comments

[rockily]

[ Truthfully Eizen has no idea how much of this will help, or if it will work at all but he's content to indulge Sorey for Zaveid's sake. For Edna's. If it doesn't nothing but make them feel better, it will all be worth it. ]

Go ahead, I'll try anything you think of.

[monolike]

Okay then! [Sorey bounces up and leads Eizen over into the worship room, drawing aside the curtain for him first before heading over to the draped seraphim altar in the back corner. He draws the shawl aside and folds it, dropping down a cushion and opening the doors of the shrine to reveal a hunk of quartz, a pinwheel, a half-melted candle with a book of matches before it and a snowglobe with a little dog inside.

As if handling delicate, ancient artifacts, Sorey moves the quartz and pinwheel aside to fit the coin between them. Sorey kneels down on the cushion, bows forward with his head to the floor. He straightens up, claps his hands together and lowers his head in prayer, though he doesn't speak aloud. No need to embarrass Eizen over this.]

[rockily]

[ Eizen follows silently, taking in the sight of the altar Sorey had built for his friends. It's strange, at least to Eizen, for he has never really had anyone pray for him before or build a shrine to him. Few knew of him outside of Aifread's pirates and those he had dealings with. Maybe his crew's adoration was a sort of worship and he never realized it, no one ever said it only ever had to be prayers said on bent knees and bowed heads.

He crosses his arms, watching Sorey put the coin amongst the other objects and kneels. It doesn't take him much to figure out which object belonged to who, to see the care in which the altar itself is maintained. A smile finds his face despite himself, head tilting as Sorey prays silently. Hopefully it'll work, or help, though in truth Eizen has no idea how to tell if it does. ]

[monolike]

[When Sorey had told Alisha days ago that he didn't know how to pray, he hadn't been kidding; he'd seen examples of it back home, of course, all kinds. Parents praying for the seraphim to heal their sick children. Corrupt priests encouraging parishioners to give more and ask for less. Morgrim had said once that she didn't know if receiving prayers and answering prayers was the right thing to do; that if it was just a matter of exchanging prayers for blessing, then nothing would ever change.

The relationship between humans and seraphim had never felt so great as it did in that small, unremarkable moment.

As Sorey kneels in front of Eizen's coin, the possessor of the vessel just behind him, looking over the items within the altar, Sorey reflects on what he can do. Mikleo hated the idea of Sorey praying to the little snowglobe as if it were a representation of him; that's part of why he wanted Sorey to keep it, because he felt comfortably removed from its image. They hadn't had any arguments about it since that huge one right after Mikleo forgave him, but Sorey knew Mikleo still thought about it, just as he did, from time to time.

The gap between seraphim and humans. One, natural inhabitants of the world, elements personified, but still beings separate from it and each other with their own thoughts and hearts and dreams. Eizen, an earth malak who sailed with humans across all the seas, was proof enough of the individuality of seraphim, and the complete opposite of those who wished to remain aloof from the world's problems as if they didn't live in it.

And humans; short-lived, sometimes even shorter-sighted, selfish but passionate, driven, peaceful if given the chance but so easily corrupted. Some Shepherds in the past even came to think of humans as a plague upon the world, their race poisoning the ground beneath their feet and giving rise to daemons and hellions across thousands of years in a cycle neverending. Self-loathing had driven those Shepherds to their ruin, as it had led Sorey to his own, and part of him wonders if that will ever change.

Sorey glances back at Eizen. He'd brought down a Shepherd, one of the first, and had eaten a Lord of Calamity. In the end, he'd been warped and twisted into a horrible figure, and Zaveid and Edna had put him into his grave, with Sorey's help.

He turns back to the coin and bows his head again.

He prays for peace, for adventure, for family. He prays for courage and wellness, and he prays for a release from heartache. With the image of Eizen fixed firmly in his mind, broad shoulders, eyes sharp as his sister's, Sorey piles unto his vessel prayers for his safety, and for his own determination to see Eizen through it, however he must. He promises to Eizen's vessel that he will protect his precious people, his sister and his friends, with every shred of his soul.

And when Sorey finishes he looks up, picks up the coin, and hands it back to Eizen to close Eizen's hands around it, and his own around Eizen's (as best he can), bowing his head over their hands both.]

As Shepherd, a servant to humans and seraphim alike, I offer these prayers to you, Lord Eizen. May they serve you well and strengthen your heart.