Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

What do I know?
So much.
But somehow nothing.
And if I’m honest with myself,
All those memories,
Short ones and long-lasting ones,
Are just dust.
What if I start from scratch?
The empty page.
And stop running.
Yes.
This time I’m here.
And all those years, months, and days,
I give thanks.
I give thanks.
— Estas Tonne, Internal Flight

It was hard to slip away, if only because morning and night had little meaning in the middle of Saun this far north in Idalos while Kali’rial’s warm and living embrace did. A few trials ago could have gone so very differently, and the storms that had ravished the island and almost washed her away from him had faded. Pash was achingly aware of that truth, but the hull of his chest was also so brimming full of the warmth of gratitude that he felt as though he would burst at the sea-worn seams. To say the words that she was home with him again, returned to his bed on The Muse from her time of rest and healing at the Order felt strange to say out loud to the Biqaj who found that for all the magical insight the spark of Empathy growing within him had granted him over the arcs, he still had difficulties sorting through his own feelings.

Or, perhaps just specific ones.

It was only with a token hint of resistance that the seafaring musician rose early, the weight of his intentions heavy in the hull of his chest. With hushed promises of returning in a few breaks and a few lingering kisses because he could, Pash took up his lute, his bag, and a small folding stool and left his sloop, sandaled feet weaving through the familiar crowds of the Scalvoris Town docks: dockhands and merchants, travelers and seagulls. There was still some wreckage about, ships having been damaged by the storms, parts of the dock destroyed—the material carnage a testament to the volatile weather not just of Saun but of the Island itself.

Sounds and smells of the sea faded once he walked the cobblestoned streets of the town proper, the morning smells of bakeries and food vendors opening for the day wafting enticingly through the air. They were not enough to waver the tall Biqaj from his course, however, the current of his thoughts leading him through town and toward the Glass Temple.

It was still technically early in the day, and in any other season perhaps it would have looked and felt more like dawn than it did, already hot as it was in Saun. The streets were quiet, hushed, with only a handful of other people out and about, starting their trial. He paused in the small, sheltered courtyard of the Glass Temple, the suns’ light filtering through the beautiful structure and casting a vibrant array of colors across trees, greenery, and stone. It was a lovely sight, and he stood for several bits to watch the play between shadow and light, letting the colors wash over his tanned skin with a wistful smile.

Thumb hooked in the well-worn woven strap of the lute slung across his back as if to anchor his thoughts, Pash entered the temple quietly. There were a handful of people in various colorful alcoves spending time in reverence to their favored Immortals, some with physical offerings and some with silent prayer. The Glass Temple was even more of a sight to behold from the inside—Saun’s sunny glare somehow turned from fiery discomfort into illuminated grace from within. Awe-inspiring, the lovely space for worship of all Immortals stirred the heart and tugged at the soul.

Pash first wandered past the alcoves devoted to the Immortals he called his favorites, spending some quiet moments of his own bathed in refracted color and offering words of gratitude. He had much to be thankful for, Kali’rial only part of the whole of it. U’Frek had kept them all safe through the storms a few trials ago, Zanik had allowed him the strength for the physical requirements of sailing through said storms, and Cassion would be honored with the stories of it all. Moseke had saved him once, in Ymiden; She was the Maker of Sev’ryn people; and it was through her blessing that Faith was able to heal injuries in ways that unmarked mortals could not.

While the tall Biqaj poured out some of his gratitude in prayer, he still was far from empty.

So he made his way toward the large common area which was often used for various ceremonies, ones that weren’t necessarily bound to a specific Immortal or ones that were open to celebration to all peoples who wished to join in. Setting up his little folding stool and settling into the seat, he slid the lute from behind him and set about very quietly making sure it was tuned. If anyone took notice of the seafaring musician in the large, open space, no one objected, no one stopped to watch. It was, after all, a reverent space, and no one was bound to worship in a specific way so long as they kept to the rules of the temple made of glass.

Once Pash had found himself tuned to his liking, he let his body relax into a comfortable position and began to play. His beginning chords were very quiet, whispers of a tune, as if putting prayers into song. They were the thoughts he didn’t have words for—which were many for the salty bard who often felt as though he expressed himself best in song instead of in spoken language. While keeping his improvisational tune low in volume but warm in key, Pash closed his eyes. Colors from the glass of the temple washed over his eyelids and shifted with the chords that made up his melody, and the tall Biqaj began to turn inward, letting the heat and the light of where he sat fade from his focus even as his calloused fingers moved with well-practiced familiarity over the courses of his lute strings.

He drew upon his personal revelations from Faldrass with Kali’rial: understanding that a meditative state for himself did not resemble stillness or quiet. He was most himself when in motion and making sound. The inner sea of his thoughts lapped at the warm feet of his consciousness, and while he could always see the colored threads of his own tangle as it shifted and changed, it was not the goal of his focus this trial.

The volume of his song had increased as the tall Biqaj drifted further inward. He set aside the sweaty, constant heat of Saun. He set aside the twisting colors of the temple of glass. He made his melody’s tempo fall into the rhythm of the beating of his heart and the steady motions of his breath. Pash began to settle elsewhere, for while his body could not relax completely while he played music, his mind could drift elsewhere as he willed it to. Before he could continue to pour his gratitude out to the Immortals he felt compelled to give of himself to, however, he sifted through the events of the past several trials, letting each exhaled breath blow away more unnecessary chaff from the kernels of truths he wanted to hold onto from each experience:

the decision to travel,
the sting of not fitting in,
the strange interests of the Immortals,
the savagery of the Scalvoris’ wild,
the near-brush with loss,
the real love he felt for Kali’rial,
and the steadfastness of friends …

Just as so much of Ymiden had seemed to want to crush him, so much of Saun seemed to want to push him forward. Where to? To what end?

A half of a break rolled past overhead as Pash sailed the current of his inner sea, his song a meditative invitation for those who came and went within the Temple of Glass. He’d not opened his eyes to see if anyone had stopped to listen, and so he didn’t see the two or three who’d wandered past from prayers of their own to sit and let his melody take them elsewhere while he played the tune of his own journey.

Once he’d set himself aside one thought at a time, he could see the sea of his inner self spread out before his imagination like the deepest reaches of the Orm’del on a clear and glassy day. Calm waters, dark and teeming with life he’d yet to fully understand—his own—he only gazed upon it for a few bits before the swells of gratitude began to wash over his vision. He was, indeed, so thankful for a very many number of things, and as he allowed himself to both visualize those things and reach out wordlessly in musical prayer to express his thankfulness, it felt like swimming, like sinking beneath the gentle roll of a warm, summer wave.

The volume of his music picked up briefly, as did its tempo, Pash lost for a few moments in the invisible motions of his internal offerings, giving away his gratitude through each strum of his lute strings, each punctuated note that left his decades-old instrument, touched and played by Zanik himself, sending the hope, the warmth, the joy, the strangeness he felt into the warm air of the Temple of Glass where it faded into the colors that filtered from above.

U’Frek himself had called on him for aid, had kept him and those he loved safe through Saun’s storms, and made the seas calm again despite the rages of his sister, Chrien. Calloused fingers shifted on the frets as his thoughts became liquid like the brine of the sea, melody slowing languidly, Pash’s thanksgiving rising like the tide over the shores of a sun-warmed beach, sea foam and steady beat. His offering in the playing, his giving of himself in the sound, one more temple visitor coming to sit not far from where he sat on his little folding stool.

His was not an audience, however, for those who sat and heard were not listening to him. Moved by what he played they, too, were drawn inward, unable to simply enjoy the music so much as called by the undercurrents within the notes toward worship themselves.

Zanik had given him his gifts, long before he’d ever appreciated them. While his grandfather had taught him how to make sound out of what sang within him in silence, had the Immortal of Music always known where his strengths and passions would lay? Gratitude here became a staccato rhythm, forceful, punctuated sounds that were still smooth in their auditory prowess, but strong and beautiful as the Immortal so deserved. Pash didn’t entirely understand what Zanik’s choice in marking him as his own would mean in the untraveled seasons that stretched before him, but he knew that his intention was to honor what he’d been given with all that he had: body and song.

Slowly, Pash swam deeper, shifting slightly in his seat and again moving his fingers differently over the courses of his lute. The soundscape he created quieted again, fading into warm, living sounds as his offering of praise settled for a few bits on Moseke, who had kindly decided that it was neither time for Kali’rial to return to her Sev’ryn cycle without her familiar not did She deny Faith her abilities to heal her. These things were admittedly largely out of the seafaring musician’s basic understanding but his gratitude for the restoration of the woman he loved was very audible in his choice of chords.

Love.

That feeling itself changed the tempo of his strumming, brought forth a complexity and depth of notes that he’d yet to reach on the rest of his playing that break. Pash recognized the lingering darkness that loomed in the very depths of himself when the bright, warm colors filtered through his mind’s eye as he dwelled on his feelings for the dark-haired huntress that had grown, unbidden, in the hull of his chest over the seasons since they’d first met in Ashan. The light in the Glass Temple was bright but not searing, and as Pash played a distinctively new and more moving melody, he willingly let the light chase away the shadows—lingering fears and hurts from arcs ago, doubts and expectations, guilt and pride—until what was left in the calm of his deeper, deepest, part of himself was as it should be. Like a torch in the dark, the bright rand of his rich and living, growing and changing love shown in his innermost place. And it was very beautiful.

His real smile filled the room with the same happy glow as the notes his calloused fingers skillfully strummed on his grandfather’s old lute, the wash of all the feelings he’d explored with thanksgiving flowing from the sounds and filling the hearts of those who’d paused to listen in their own worshipful visit to the Glass Temple. He couldn’t help the outpouring of his own feelings into his music while he played, but, well, no one here knew of his gifts and no one who’d come to sit or stand and quietly enjoy his offering raised a voice in the colorful open space to object to the kinds of emotions that blossomed in their thoughts and warmed their hearts, either.

The tall Biqaj had improvised his musical thanksgiving for almost a break before he began to let his music fade. It was a slow winding down, a gradual return to shore for the journey of his mind, of his heart. Quieter, slower, his melody found it’s eventual end even as the last notes rang against colored glass and disappeared into the sun’s light that didn’t need his music to dance anyway.

With a smile and a long exhale, Pash relaxed his sea-built shoulders, lagoon blue eyes opening only after several bits of silence. There were smiles waiting for him, which caught the seafaring musician off-guard. He’d come for himself, only to bless others—their expressions mirrors of the gratitude he’d freely given away.

It felt like purpose. It felt good.

All the thanks he’d offered had mattered, not just for himself, not just to Those he’d been thankful to, but to others, here, in the Glass Temple, who’d needed to be thankful, too.

His smile turned a little shy as he stood, stretching languidly before slinging his lute back over his shoulder and picking up his folding stool. He said a few quiet gratitudes out loud with a wink before he made his way back out into the scorching street, sandaled feet light and content over the cobblestones, wandering his way back to The Muse and everything he happily called home.