Okay. Chapter from Hel, Outlands
No, I did not misspell a damned thing. Unless it's something really obvious that I missed while hunting for the hard stuff.
Warning, gratuitous use of religion and the fucking up there of. Seph, if you have any issues with this chapter I take artistic liscense and say fix it your self.
He sits and starts to pen a letter, because it’s been years since he’s seen the face of the man who he gave his hands to, and there won’t be time to catch up on it all when they meet again. They could spend a month talking and it won’t be long enough. But that’s alright, the important things are still unspoken and will remain that way, silently understood. Still, he wonders what he should say.
It’s night and he’s writing by firelight, Seifer having dropped off after tending the chocobo’s and picking at dinner. The slave is tending the fire, staring into the flames with silent solemnity.
Tseng wonders if he’s praying in his strange Outland way.
Without conscious decision he picks up the quill and begins to write. The Outlanders are by far the strangest people I have ever met on my travels. It’s not just that their laws are different, or their traditions, or even, the way they fight with each other in barbarous bloody combat. The very fundamentals of religion and belief are different. In every Temple I’ve ever seen, no matter what nation or deity it is dedicated to, there is a special respect for Odin and his ravens. The wisest god rules over all others and is given the respect of a high place and a beautiful iconage when present.
But not in the Outlands. The Temples there are called Churches, and all of the Outlands, though seeming to worship the same gods, place not Odin in the highest regard, but Hyne. And collectively this is called the Church of Hyne. Though the priests and priestesses are both left and right hand, no Avatars are recorded. There are those I think take the calling, but always it is a woman, and they are named The Daughter of Hyne. A strange thing in these times, to take the title of a child of a god.
They do not seem to see this though. They see no folly in calling a vessel of a god’s power the child of that god. Goddess I should say. I… get very confused on this matter of belief. Even the prayers to the gods are different, the Outlanders do not pray *for* things. I have heard many a soul remark to me that to petition the gods for aid is to ask the salt to leave the sea. I don’t quite understand the meaning of this phrase. On the surface it seems that they believe asking the gods for blessings is simply foolish, but the deeper meaning, of which I know there is, eludes me.
The slave set another dry branch on the fire and something in his eyes made Tseng pause. It wasn’t an emotion so much as a lack of one. The Seer had no expression, no emotion; it was like his whole being was emptied out into the flames and given back as ashes on the wind.
It was disquieting, and he returned his attention to the letter.
Hyne is the sister of Kvasir, born out tears from all the gods. Where Kvasir was slain and turned to mead, she turned herself to a salty spring. Odin drank of both of them, but only Kvasir’s mead was beloved for it’s properties. Why then do these Outlanders give such honor to his sister, a god of little import in our own Temples?
The story goes that Hyne, knowing what had befallen her brother, turned herself into the salty spring to smite the dwarves who sought her power as well. In order to be blessed of Hyne and receive the gift of waters knowledge one had to choke down the acrid brine that she created. I know you know this, but somehow getting it out on paper helps to order my mind, so I hope I don’t bore you too much with common knowledge.
Another phrase I have heard in the Outlands is this, “Swallow your tears and drink like Gods.”
It vexes me a bit that I can not decipher the riddle of these confusing people. On the outset I had certain biases against them, as I suppose most do. They are rude, crude, violent, barbarous and strange, but not as bad as I feared. They are still people, not in fact, intelligent animals, and it seems to me that it should be simpler to know how they think and work because they are not as advanced as the rest of the civilized world.
He paused, unsure how much he could actually say without breaching confidence. He didn’t doubt that the letter would get to his employer. What he doubted was the safety and security that would keep the letter strictly between the King and Diamond.
Again he found himself studying the Seer. Wrapped in heavy white cotton robes, kneeling in the dirt, hair greasy and with bruise like circles under his eyes, he managed an almost ethereal grace, doing nothing more than tending a meager fire. The bronze collar and cuffs gleamed in the flickering light. Tseng wondered, for the first time in his life, how heavy the weight of a collar was. It sat there, hanging from a pale neck, a dead weight in the night that dug into the skin and left raised red bumps where it touched, and yet, the Seer never seemed to notice. Didn’t it chafe? Didn’t it rub and ache after a while?
Gray eyes watched visions in the flames and whatever they saw there, it failed to move him.
You might be surprised to know that I have been ruminating on this for quite some time. Many things have come to me over my travels, many questions and theories and philosophies. I miss our talks on the nature of man and purpose of life.
I have in my company, one who could answer many of my ponderings on the Outlanders, but I find I do not want to speak to him. Not because he is a slave, but because there is something within him that I can not define. I enjoy puzzles most times, but one that lives and breaths and stares me in the eye… I do not know where his power comes from, if he is blessed by his goddess or if he has tasted the tears of the earth, but I can’t bear to trust him. Like a wolf caged since birth, never knowing how to hunt, one taste of blood could turn the tame beast feral I feel. A stupid superstition, he is practically harmless, but my blood turns cold under his icy gaze.
You must be laughing at me. I wish I could hear it.
The darkness deepens around us and I must find my way to sleep so that in the morn I may ride closer to you and our King. I will set my quill aside for now and tell you more tomorrow of my travels. Good night.
He sets the pen down within its case; the tip wiped clean carefully, and rolls the parchment up. The letter and the others like it lie within a special box he spells closed each night.
As he prepares for an uneasy slumber he finds himself thinking on Odin and his ravens, drinking the wisdom of the Vanir through the blood and bone of their children.
He watches the sorcerer fall into dreams and stokes the fire a little higher. The flames captivate him. There is mystery to fire, a power and beauty he can not even hope to touch. Fire cleanses, it takes all that exists, both for good and ill, and turns it to crystal ash. He has been thinking, listening to the wind as it tells him it’s tales of sorrow and joy, and finally he prays.
He has seen the prayers of these Outsiders, the way they kneel and ask for gifts of the gods, and he can not understand. Words are too powerful, too strong, to be wasted on begging. His prayers are simple and heartfelt and he offers them to Hyne with his blood.
Holding his hand over the dancing flames he waits. He holds his hand there until the skin blisters and cracks, the blood burning in his veins, heart throbbing in time the world around him and finally crimson spills forth to fall on the fire. He has nothing else to sacrifice. “I give all that I am and give thanks unto you, great mother of our race. May you find peace.”
It’s simple, even for a slave’s prayer, but there is nothing else he can find to say to the goddess.
He takes his hand back from the fire before the scent of burning flesh can awaken his companions, and stares at it. His master had forbidden him from prayer many years ago, as a slave had no soul and could not be heard anyway, but the urge has never left him. It is perhaps because, the gift of the goddess runs so strongly within him.
These Outsiders, Seifer and the sorcerer and whatever the Silver King is like, they do not believe the same way the Outlanders do. They have passed Temples to different gods and given prayers to both Odin and Thor. They ask for wisdom and strength and he doesn’t know why. Have not the gods shown them the way? Have they not grown up with the teachings of the Vanir and Easier? Did Baldur cry when Loki refused to weep for him? All the tears in the world, from even the stones themselves could not make up for the tricksters dry eyes.
He watches the fire long into the night, hand hidden in the folds of his robe, and ponders the origin of thought and memory. As the sun begins it’s ascent into the sky a pair of eagles pass overhead, shadows trailing over ground.
He imagines what they must see from up there, the spread of humanity through the wilderness of the world, the icy peaks of the mountain halls, the blanket of blue that covers the ocean from horizon to horizon, and the curling smoke from a single small fire on the road.
Odin. Odin the wanderer. Odin the war king of the gods, the wisest of and most feared. Odin to whom the Outsiders prayed, and yet they did not learn? Thought and memory. To be wise is to wander, and to drink of the wine of the earth as well as its vinegar. Poetry came from the heart and gave joy but also expressed the sadness and suffering that plagued the mind. Had not Odin gained his wisdom by sacrifice?
Swallow your tears children, swallow your tears.
Baldur perhaps could teach them. Peace comes only after war. In order to create one must destroy; in order to replenish and give joy, one must know the pain of having lost. The clans fought and bled and died and the Outsiders called them ignorant and barbarous. But he looked at the Outsiders and was blind. For the Outlands, battle was prayer as much as sacrifice and Church offerings. Tyr was war. Odin was war. The gods embodied war and through war the world was born and in war the world would end.
Maybe the Outsiders had forgotten where they came from. Maybe they had spent so long away from the roots of Yggdrasil that they had lost sight of its meanings and truths. That was why they sought Odin so hard, the wisest god of all. They had lost their own wisdom.
Hyne had never allowed her children to forget. They who drank of her and chocked on her salty blood were bound to their bones to the ways of her. Even if he had never heard the stories, even if he had never heard the name of Hyne, he would know her in his dreams, carved into his mind through the gift of his mother. The Outlanders raised their children on salt and earth. They swallowed their tears and shed their blood and they remembered. Like Tyr who feeds the devouring wolf and lies to chain him down, they’ve willingly given of their flesh, for what the Outsiders call foolishness.
Huginn and Muninn may fly over the Outlands, and Fenrir may break his chain and drag them all to Ragnarok, and the Outlanders will smile as the world returns to Fire and Ice. Angrboda’s children hold no secrets for the drinkers of sorrow. They’ve lived in Aegir’s shadow and sent too many to wed his daughters to fear the end of days.
He does not know why he thinks these things. He does not know why he dreams of Tyr and Freyr and Loki. He is not a dreamer, to know the ways of night visions, and he is not of the Church to know the gods anymore than any other child of the Vanir. Perhaps the gods are trying to tell him something, and perhaps he has gone to the silent madness. He does not know, his heart has gone to ice.
Thought and memory.
The image of feathers drifts through his mind and he fancies that within the dying embers he can see the image of eagles flying.
This whole trip has been one long joy ride from Hel’s land. He feels more like a bandit than a lord and traveling at Tseng’s insane pace has left him weary in more ways than the flesh. He dreams of rest.
Seifer takes care of the birds and hopes they reach a decent watering hole to fill the skins sometime today.
The trip will be over soon enough. He looks forward to a good bath and a change of clothes, maybe even a shave. These last few days his icicle of a riding companion has been even colder then normal. The slave no longer watches the scenery, he simply sits and breathes, eyes focused on something only he can see.
No matter what Seifer says he gets no response. No twitch of an almost smile, no little huff of frustration, not even a flutter of lashes to show he’s been heard. It’s beginning to frighten him down in his gut, this living death. The princess still does his thing, still gives Tseng his damned predictions and cooks and answers direct questions, but otherwise he’s gone, lost in whatever it is that he sees in his mind.
Seifer grew up watching the noble children so he has a good idea of what Tseng is planning and doing, but an idea is about as far as he gets. Seifer’s a bastard son of a low ranked noble. Galetha isn’t Acadia, so there will be differences in law and he doesn’t know the names of the high houses so he’s relying on Tseng to keep them out of prison.
Tseng of course is about as friendly as a swamp snake. Seifer had seen the things, huge and spitting venom the length of a man. Why anyone would go live in a place where *those* were around he could only guess.
He gave the Seer a sad look, taking in the dark eyes and palled skin, the too thin form huddled next to the fire. Tossing a scornful glare at the sleeping Tseng he went ahead and started getting their meager gear together, watching for anything that could be a potential breakfast. The bronze chalice was the last thing to be packed away and he hesitated over it. Tseng would want to have another reading, but if he let the man sleep a bit longer and went hunting, the sun would be far enough up that pressing on would be more important than finding out nothing had changed over the night.
Just as he was decided to put the hated thing in the saddle pack an odd noise caught his attention.
The fire had died to coals and he was startled to turn and find them crackling and spiting. The slave was doing something funny.
“Princess? What’s going on? Decide to put that thing out of its misery…”
Blood. Red blood on white robes and splattered in smoking, stinking droplets over the coal bed, bits of charred skin and muscle flaking onto the ground and Seifer desperately wanted to go back, to pretend this was a really bad dream.
“Shit, gods Princess are you out of your ever loving mind! Tseng! Get up you fuck! Sleepy time is over, shit, we need water, the stream was two hours back, the skins are almost empty, gods what were you thinking?!” He grabbed one of the water skins and semi clean rag he used to clean his sword and started cleaning away the wound, wincing as more blood flowed and stained the ground, the flesh raw beneath his hands.
“Princess if you wanted steak you could have said something, I’d rather eat the birds than you and self cannibalism is a really damned fucked up way to go.”
“Seifer? What the hell did you do?”
Tseng was struggling to sit up, sleep crusting his eyes but his tongue was as sharp as ever it seemed.
“I was asleep while the Princess decided to fricassee himself, why didn’t you at least *smell* something? Shit, I’m sorry if this hurts, damn but you did a good job this time darling.”
The Seer says nothing, eyes watching the ministrations over his hand as though he were a million miles away and Seifer thinks that he is. He’s somewhere else, somewhere that doesn’t let him feel pain, somewhere that kills you while you live and he sees visions of Hel in the slave’s eyes. It sends ice through his heart cause he’s no Hermod and Loki is an ass and anyway, things were supposed to be getting better not worse.
“I’ll make a potion, damn; I’ll have to make it while we ride. There isn’t time to mix things… Damnit!” Tseng paces and after muttering to himself seems to come to some kind of decision but Seifer is too worried about wrapping the charred fingers and palm to worry about Tseng’s issues. At least, he is until the Wutain shoves him a bit and grabs the Seer’s hand roughly. Before Seifer can deck the bastard a soft green light dances over the injury and flesh starts mending itself at incredible speed.
“You will. Never. Speak. Of That.” Tseng’s growl cuts through his panicking mind and the Freeman nods dumbly for a moment before looking back at the cause of all the commotion.
The Seer is looking at the sky, eyes focused on a pair of hunting eagles. Whatever has happened or not happened in the last few moments, the gray eyed man doesn’t seem to notice.
“You. What the hell were you doing?” Seifer feels like an intruder, an observer of something that he’s not sure he wants to see.
Gray eyes lock with furious black and for a moment there is complete silence.
“Praying.”
The word is a whisper of sound, almost lost in the tension. There is no emotion, no guilt, no pain, no wonder; it is simply a word. A word that makes no sense, except in a dark and somewhat twisted way.
Time moves on and Tseng waits but the Seer doesn’t say anything more. There isn’t anything he can say. Seifer feels like a stone has settled in his stomach. Somewhere Loki is laughing.
Warning, gratuitous use of religion and the fucking up there of. Seph, if you have any issues with this chapter I take artistic liscense and say fix it your self.
He sits and starts to pen a letter, because it’s been years since he’s seen the face of the man who he gave his hands to, and there won’t be time to catch up on it all when they meet again. They could spend a month talking and it won’t be long enough. But that’s alright, the important things are still unspoken and will remain that way, silently understood. Still, he wonders what he should say.
It’s night and he’s writing by firelight, Seifer having dropped off after tending the chocobo’s and picking at dinner. The slave is tending the fire, staring into the flames with silent solemnity.
Tseng wonders if he’s praying in his strange Outland way.
Without conscious decision he picks up the quill and begins to write. The Outlanders are by far the strangest people I have ever met on my travels. It’s not just that their laws are different, or their traditions, or even, the way they fight with each other in barbarous bloody combat. The very fundamentals of religion and belief are different. In every Temple I’ve ever seen, no matter what nation or deity it is dedicated to, there is a special respect for Odin and his ravens. The wisest god rules over all others and is given the respect of a high place and a beautiful iconage when present.
But not in the Outlands. The Temples there are called Churches, and all of the Outlands, though seeming to worship the same gods, place not Odin in the highest regard, but Hyne. And collectively this is called the Church of Hyne. Though the priests and priestesses are both left and right hand, no Avatars are recorded. There are those I think take the calling, but always it is a woman, and they are named The Daughter of Hyne. A strange thing in these times, to take the title of a child of a god.
They do not seem to see this though. They see no folly in calling a vessel of a god’s power the child of that god. Goddess I should say. I… get very confused on this matter of belief. Even the prayers to the gods are different, the Outlanders do not pray *for* things. I have heard many a soul remark to me that to petition the gods for aid is to ask the salt to leave the sea. I don’t quite understand the meaning of this phrase. On the surface it seems that they believe asking the gods for blessings is simply foolish, but the deeper meaning, of which I know there is, eludes me.
The slave set another dry branch on the fire and something in his eyes made Tseng pause. It wasn’t an emotion so much as a lack of one. The Seer had no expression, no emotion; it was like his whole being was emptied out into the flames and given back as ashes on the wind.
It was disquieting, and he returned his attention to the letter.
Hyne is the sister of Kvasir, born out tears from all the gods. Where Kvasir was slain and turned to mead, she turned herself to a salty spring. Odin drank of both of them, but only Kvasir’s mead was beloved for it’s properties. Why then do these Outlanders give such honor to his sister, a god of little import in our own Temples?
The story goes that Hyne, knowing what had befallen her brother, turned herself into the salty spring to smite the dwarves who sought her power as well. In order to be blessed of Hyne and receive the gift of waters knowledge one had to choke down the acrid brine that she created. I know you know this, but somehow getting it out on paper helps to order my mind, so I hope I don’t bore you too much with common knowledge.
Another phrase I have heard in the Outlands is this, “Swallow your tears and drink like Gods.”
It vexes me a bit that I can not decipher the riddle of these confusing people. On the outset I had certain biases against them, as I suppose most do. They are rude, crude, violent, barbarous and strange, but not as bad as I feared. They are still people, not in fact, intelligent animals, and it seems to me that it should be simpler to know how they think and work because they are not as advanced as the rest of the civilized world.
He paused, unsure how much he could actually say without breaching confidence. He didn’t doubt that the letter would get to his employer. What he doubted was the safety and security that would keep the letter strictly between the King and Diamond.
Again he found himself studying the Seer. Wrapped in heavy white cotton robes, kneeling in the dirt, hair greasy and with bruise like circles under his eyes, he managed an almost ethereal grace, doing nothing more than tending a meager fire. The bronze collar and cuffs gleamed in the flickering light. Tseng wondered, for the first time in his life, how heavy the weight of a collar was. It sat there, hanging from a pale neck, a dead weight in the night that dug into the skin and left raised red bumps where it touched, and yet, the Seer never seemed to notice. Didn’t it chafe? Didn’t it rub and ache after a while?
Gray eyes watched visions in the flames and whatever they saw there, it failed to move him.
You might be surprised to know that I have been ruminating on this for quite some time. Many things have come to me over my travels, many questions and theories and philosophies. I miss our talks on the nature of man and purpose of life.
I have in my company, one who could answer many of my ponderings on the Outlanders, but I find I do not want to speak to him. Not because he is a slave, but because there is something within him that I can not define. I enjoy puzzles most times, but one that lives and breaths and stares me in the eye… I do not know where his power comes from, if he is blessed by his goddess or if he has tasted the tears of the earth, but I can’t bear to trust him. Like a wolf caged since birth, never knowing how to hunt, one taste of blood could turn the tame beast feral I feel. A stupid superstition, he is practically harmless, but my blood turns cold under his icy gaze.
You must be laughing at me. I wish I could hear it.
The darkness deepens around us and I must find my way to sleep so that in the morn I may ride closer to you and our King. I will set my quill aside for now and tell you more tomorrow of my travels. Good night.
He sets the pen down within its case; the tip wiped clean carefully, and rolls the parchment up. The letter and the others like it lie within a special box he spells closed each night.
As he prepares for an uneasy slumber he finds himself thinking on Odin and his ravens, drinking the wisdom of the Vanir through the blood and bone of their children.
He watches the sorcerer fall into dreams and stokes the fire a little higher. The flames captivate him. There is mystery to fire, a power and beauty he can not even hope to touch. Fire cleanses, it takes all that exists, both for good and ill, and turns it to crystal ash. He has been thinking, listening to the wind as it tells him it’s tales of sorrow and joy, and finally he prays.
He has seen the prayers of these Outsiders, the way they kneel and ask for gifts of the gods, and he can not understand. Words are too powerful, too strong, to be wasted on begging. His prayers are simple and heartfelt and he offers them to Hyne with his blood.
Holding his hand over the dancing flames he waits. He holds his hand there until the skin blisters and cracks, the blood burning in his veins, heart throbbing in time the world around him and finally crimson spills forth to fall on the fire. He has nothing else to sacrifice. “I give all that I am and give thanks unto you, great mother of our race. May you find peace.”
It’s simple, even for a slave’s prayer, but there is nothing else he can find to say to the goddess.
He takes his hand back from the fire before the scent of burning flesh can awaken his companions, and stares at it. His master had forbidden him from prayer many years ago, as a slave had no soul and could not be heard anyway, but the urge has never left him. It is perhaps because, the gift of the goddess runs so strongly within him.
These Outsiders, Seifer and the sorcerer and whatever the Silver King is like, they do not believe the same way the Outlanders do. They have passed Temples to different gods and given prayers to both Odin and Thor. They ask for wisdom and strength and he doesn’t know why. Have not the gods shown them the way? Have they not grown up with the teachings of the Vanir and Easier? Did Baldur cry when Loki refused to weep for him? All the tears in the world, from even the stones themselves could not make up for the tricksters dry eyes.
He watches the fire long into the night, hand hidden in the folds of his robe, and ponders the origin of thought and memory. As the sun begins it’s ascent into the sky a pair of eagles pass overhead, shadows trailing over ground.
He imagines what they must see from up there, the spread of humanity through the wilderness of the world, the icy peaks of the mountain halls, the blanket of blue that covers the ocean from horizon to horizon, and the curling smoke from a single small fire on the road.
Odin. Odin the wanderer. Odin the war king of the gods, the wisest of and most feared. Odin to whom the Outsiders prayed, and yet they did not learn? Thought and memory. To be wise is to wander, and to drink of the wine of the earth as well as its vinegar. Poetry came from the heart and gave joy but also expressed the sadness and suffering that plagued the mind. Had not Odin gained his wisdom by sacrifice?
Swallow your tears children, swallow your tears.
Baldur perhaps could teach them. Peace comes only after war. In order to create one must destroy; in order to replenish and give joy, one must know the pain of having lost. The clans fought and bled and died and the Outsiders called them ignorant and barbarous. But he looked at the Outsiders and was blind. For the Outlands, battle was prayer as much as sacrifice and Church offerings. Tyr was war. Odin was war. The gods embodied war and through war the world was born and in war the world would end.
Maybe the Outsiders had forgotten where they came from. Maybe they had spent so long away from the roots of Yggdrasil that they had lost sight of its meanings and truths. That was why they sought Odin so hard, the wisest god of all. They had lost their own wisdom.
Hyne had never allowed her children to forget. They who drank of her and chocked on her salty blood were bound to their bones to the ways of her. Even if he had never heard the stories, even if he had never heard the name of Hyne, he would know her in his dreams, carved into his mind through the gift of his mother. The Outlanders raised their children on salt and earth. They swallowed their tears and shed their blood and they remembered. Like Tyr who feeds the devouring wolf and lies to chain him down, they’ve willingly given of their flesh, for what the Outsiders call foolishness.
Huginn and Muninn may fly over the Outlands, and Fenrir may break his chain and drag them all to Ragnarok, and the Outlanders will smile as the world returns to Fire and Ice. Angrboda’s children hold no secrets for the drinkers of sorrow. They’ve lived in Aegir’s shadow and sent too many to wed his daughters to fear the end of days.
He does not know why he thinks these things. He does not know why he dreams of Tyr and Freyr and Loki. He is not a dreamer, to know the ways of night visions, and he is not of the Church to know the gods anymore than any other child of the Vanir. Perhaps the gods are trying to tell him something, and perhaps he has gone to the silent madness. He does not know, his heart has gone to ice.
Thought and memory.
The image of feathers drifts through his mind and he fancies that within the dying embers he can see the image of eagles flying.
This whole trip has been one long joy ride from Hel’s land. He feels more like a bandit than a lord and traveling at Tseng’s insane pace has left him weary in more ways than the flesh. He dreams of rest.
Seifer takes care of the birds and hopes they reach a decent watering hole to fill the skins sometime today.
The trip will be over soon enough. He looks forward to a good bath and a change of clothes, maybe even a shave. These last few days his icicle of a riding companion has been even colder then normal. The slave no longer watches the scenery, he simply sits and breathes, eyes focused on something only he can see.
No matter what Seifer says he gets no response. No twitch of an almost smile, no little huff of frustration, not even a flutter of lashes to show he’s been heard. It’s beginning to frighten him down in his gut, this living death. The princess still does his thing, still gives Tseng his damned predictions and cooks and answers direct questions, but otherwise he’s gone, lost in whatever it is that he sees in his mind.
Seifer grew up watching the noble children so he has a good idea of what Tseng is planning and doing, but an idea is about as far as he gets. Seifer’s a bastard son of a low ranked noble. Galetha isn’t Acadia, so there will be differences in law and he doesn’t know the names of the high houses so he’s relying on Tseng to keep them out of prison.
Tseng of course is about as friendly as a swamp snake. Seifer had seen the things, huge and spitting venom the length of a man. Why anyone would go live in a place where *those* were around he could only guess.
He gave the Seer a sad look, taking in the dark eyes and palled skin, the too thin form huddled next to the fire. Tossing a scornful glare at the sleeping Tseng he went ahead and started getting their meager gear together, watching for anything that could be a potential breakfast. The bronze chalice was the last thing to be packed away and he hesitated over it. Tseng would want to have another reading, but if he let the man sleep a bit longer and went hunting, the sun would be far enough up that pressing on would be more important than finding out nothing had changed over the night.
Just as he was decided to put the hated thing in the saddle pack an odd noise caught his attention.
The fire had died to coals and he was startled to turn and find them crackling and spiting. The slave was doing something funny.
“Princess? What’s going on? Decide to put that thing out of its misery…”
Blood. Red blood on white robes and splattered in smoking, stinking droplets over the coal bed, bits of charred skin and muscle flaking onto the ground and Seifer desperately wanted to go back, to pretend this was a really bad dream.
“Shit, gods Princess are you out of your ever loving mind! Tseng! Get up you fuck! Sleepy time is over, shit, we need water, the stream was two hours back, the skins are almost empty, gods what were you thinking?!” He grabbed one of the water skins and semi clean rag he used to clean his sword and started cleaning away the wound, wincing as more blood flowed and stained the ground, the flesh raw beneath his hands.
“Princess if you wanted steak you could have said something, I’d rather eat the birds than you and self cannibalism is a really damned fucked up way to go.”
“Seifer? What the hell did you do?”
Tseng was struggling to sit up, sleep crusting his eyes but his tongue was as sharp as ever it seemed.
“I was asleep while the Princess decided to fricassee himself, why didn’t you at least *smell* something? Shit, I’m sorry if this hurts, damn but you did a good job this time darling.”
The Seer says nothing, eyes watching the ministrations over his hand as though he were a million miles away and Seifer thinks that he is. He’s somewhere else, somewhere that doesn’t let him feel pain, somewhere that kills you while you live and he sees visions of Hel in the slave’s eyes. It sends ice through his heart cause he’s no Hermod and Loki is an ass and anyway, things were supposed to be getting better not worse.
“I’ll make a potion, damn; I’ll have to make it while we ride. There isn’t time to mix things… Damnit!” Tseng paces and after muttering to himself seems to come to some kind of decision but Seifer is too worried about wrapping the charred fingers and palm to worry about Tseng’s issues. At least, he is until the Wutain shoves him a bit and grabs the Seer’s hand roughly. Before Seifer can deck the bastard a soft green light dances over the injury and flesh starts mending itself at incredible speed.
“You will. Never. Speak. Of That.” Tseng’s growl cuts through his panicking mind and the Freeman nods dumbly for a moment before looking back at the cause of all the commotion.
The Seer is looking at the sky, eyes focused on a pair of hunting eagles. Whatever has happened or not happened in the last few moments, the gray eyed man doesn’t seem to notice.
“You. What the hell were you doing?” Seifer feels like an intruder, an observer of something that he’s not sure he wants to see.
Gray eyes lock with furious black and for a moment there is complete silence.
“Praying.”
The word is a whisper of sound, almost lost in the tension. There is no emotion, no guilt, no pain, no wonder; it is simply a word. A word that makes no sense, except in a dark and somewhat twisted way.
Time moves on and Tseng waits but the Seer doesn’t say anything more. There isn’t anything he can say. Seifer feels like a stone has settled in his stomach. Somewhere Loki is laughing.