[Tethers] Work in Progress
Feb. 1st, 2020 07:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22Title: Work in Progress
Universe: Tethers, Pre-Canon
Characters: Celeste Stiel, Tyrael Ashborne
Rated: K+
Desc: Celeste has been searching her entire life, and she’s still not sure what it is she’s trying to find.
She's eleven, knobby-kneed and awkward, her hair a short poof around her head, her face streaked with dirt, her pinky toe broken, and she's missing a tooth.
Auntie and Uncle sit her down, they tell her that if she wants to, now is the time. She should choose a god to serve, or let one choose her. She can wait another year, if she wants, but the longer she waits, the harder it'll be.
"I want to serve Cyrillus," Celeste tells them, with the innocence of a child who has no idea how cruel the gods can be. "Just like Tyrael."
Auntie and Uncle look at each other.
Behind her, Tyrael snorts. "You can't," he says, thirteen years old and a know-it-all. He's already getting broad in the shoulder, and tall, taller even than his father. "Cyrillus already picked me, and he's not gonna pick anyone else."
"Tyrael, hush," Uncle says.
"Go play with Junie," Auntie says.
Tyrael scowls and glowers, and thinks to protest, but Uncle lifts his chin and narrows his eyes, and Tyrael sighs like he's been given some great burden.
"Fine," he says, and stomps out of the room, because he's thirteen and Celeste is his cousin-little sister, and as much as he loves her, he kind of hates her a little.
Celeste crosses her arms and pouts. "Why wouldn't Cyrillus want me?"
"Tyrael is being rude," Auntie says.
"But that doesn't mean he's wrong," Uncle says, and he frowns, forehead drawing down, shifting in his chair like he does when he has a secret. "You can try, Celeste. We won't stop you from trying. Cyrillus isn't usually open to worshippers. We were all surprised when he accepted Tyrael."
And proud, Celeste knows, even though Uncle doesn't say it. They're proud of their only son. Their eyes shine when they look at him. Celeste doesn't know if their eyes ever shine quite the same way when they look at her. She's not theirs, not really. She knew it, before they told her, she knew it.
"There are others," Auntie says, and her voice is gentle, soothing, like it often is when she pulls Celeste and Tyrael apart, from yelling and fighting and scrapping as young children do. "There are so many others, Celeste. If you want to serve, I know there are gods eager to take your promise."
Uncle pats her on the shoulder. "But remember, you also don't have to. It's your choice, whether you serve or choose another path. If you want to be a... a baker or a blacksmith or a scholar... you can do any of it. We'll support you."
“I want to serve,” Celeste insists, and she sounds like a spoiled child, she knows. But Tyrael serves, and so she wants to as well. Anything her big cousin-brother can do, Celeste can do, too.
Auntie folds Celeste into a hug, and she inhales the green-soil scent of her. Auntie always smells like growing things because that’s what she does, she works in the garden, planting and weeding and offering prayers to Viridia while begging for guidance. She doesn’t serve, not like Tyrael, but it’s service of a kind.
“Then we’ll support you,” Auntie says, and she kisses Celeste’s forehead and cups her cheeks with calloused palms and says, “and we’ll be proud of whomever you choose.” Her big brown eyes are bright and sincere, and Celeste looks into them, and wonders if her mother is looking back, if Auntie looks anything like her sister.
“Okay,” Celeste says, and Uncle hugs her, too, his shoulders broad, his arms rippling with muscle from years upon years spent working the land, also in service to the Viridia.
“Ignore Tyrael,” Uncle says. “He’ll get over himself soon enough.”
~
She’s twenty-seven, sitting on a horse, riding a pace behind her cousin, the sharp lines of his shoulders reflecting the determination he’s wearing on his brow. He keeps looking back, over his pauldron, toward Alduin, and it’s not because he’s checking to make sure she’s there. It’s because Cyrillus gave him a quest, and he has taken it, but he doesn’t want to. Not really.
He wants to stay in his comfortable bed with Elias.
Cyrillus could have chosen Celeste, eager and hungry for adventure, but he’d picked Tyrael, and he’s as happy Celeste joined him on the quest, as he’s annoyed she invited herself along.
Uncle was wrong, Celeste thinks as she shifts her weight, thighs already offering a protest which only worsen as the day drags on.
Tyrael still hasn’t gotten over himself.
~
Celeste goes to the contemplation garden first thing in the morning, before anyone else in the family wakes up, before the sun has woke, when the sky is becoming a gradient of light, and the birds sing, and dew kisses the trees. She creeps through the village, heads southeast along the muddy roads, until she steps through the flower-draped archway into the carefully culvitated garden.
She's washed her face and put on her prettiest dress and pinned flowers in her hair. She was too nervous to eat, only managing a few sips of water for her tangled knot of a belly. She’s barefoot, to better feel the earth beneath her, and the mud squelches between her toes.
She finds a willow, the branches dipping low, so low the ends touch the ground and make a curtain of leaf and twig around her. She sits lotus, with her back to the trunk of the tree, and she tries to meditate like Auntie taught her.
She calls for Cyrillus first, because the hope is nestled in her heart, and she's as stubborn as she is determined. If Tyrael can do it, so can she. He's not any more pious or dedicated or special than she is. He still leaves his dirty clothes on the floor and splashes in mud puddles and picks his nose when he thinks no one is looking.
"I promise," Celeste says, deep in her heart of hearts. "I promise to be the best cleric or paladin or whatever you want. I'll give you everything."
She waits.
For a sign. A whisper.
Tyrael said Cyrillus hadn't spoken to him, but he'd felt it, deep in his chest, and when he slept that night, it was when Cyrillus came to him. He'd still walked out of the contemplation gardens knowing he was chosen though.
He'd walked out shining brightly inside, so bright Celeste had to shield her eyes, though no one else could see it. Celeste knew better than to ask why. There're a lot of things she can see no one else can.
Celeste closes her eyes. She waits.
Her stomach growls. The sun rises. The air warms, dew turning to a low mist that eventually evaporates as the sun climbs in the sky. Midday comes and goes.
Celeste doesn’t move.
She waits. And waits.
The sun sets. Her stomach aches and clenches in a pit of emptiness. Her throat hurts because she keeps swallowing nothing over the lump in her throat. She clutches her knees, and feels a hitch in her breathing, a heat in her eyes.
The color leeches from the sky, blue taking over for oranges and pinks, until it darkens to purple and then night. Stars pop out one by one, until the clouds roll in, the air taking on the scent of lightning and thunder. Any other time, it would make her smile with anticipation. There’s few things she enjoys more than dancing in the rain.
The silence, however.
The silence quells any joy she might have managed.
“Fine,” Celeste says, and maybe that’s where she fails, when the words comes out sharp and hurt and disappointed and furious. “Fine. Have it your way.”
She scrubs at her eyes, wiping away tears that never fell, and gets to her feet. She stomps home, and only calms her movements when she gets to the front door. The windows are dark. The whole house is dark. It’s late night, the moon shrouded by clouds, and if she’s got any luck left in her, no one will notice her come creeping in.
She forgets the creaky floorboard in the hallway, though, and the moment she bears her weight on it, the wood betrays her. Celeste sighs and rolls her eyes, shoulders sinking with defeat.
Tyrael’s door opens. He must’ve been waiting up for her, waiting to hear about her failure, and gloat.
“How’d it go?” he asks, fighting off a yawn, scratching at his bare stomach as he rubs at his eyes with his knuckles.
All at once, the anger rises up within her, trying to claw out of her throat and onto her tongue, and she wants to throw it all at Tyrael. She wants to blame him.
“Don’t worry,” she says instead, using her sweetest, gentlest voice. She gathers herself and moves past, toes dragging, to her own room. “You don’t gotta share him.”
Cyrillus doesn’t want her. He only wants Tyrael. Surprise, surprise.
“I could’ve told you that,” Tyrael says, in that snotty tone she hates so much, because he’s older and bigger and smarter and stronger and everything Celeste is two steps behind. “You know, you don’t gotta follow my footsteps, right? You can pick a different god.”
That’s not the point. Tyrael never gets the point.
Celeste huffs and pushes open her door, which squeaks noisily, as if waking up Tyrael wasn’t bad enough. The whole house is against her. She freezes, hopes Auntie and Uncle don’t wake up, but she must have some luck left, because no sound comes from their room down the hall.
Thank the gods.
Fuck Cyrillus. But thank the gods.
She pushes into her room.
“Celeste.”
She pauses, but doesn’t look back at her cousin. “What?”
“Good luck tomorrow,” Tyrael says, and a few seconds later, there’s a quiet click as he closes his door, and the silence of the hallway wraps around her.
She goes to sleep.
~
She’s fifteen, and she’s dressed in the finest swathes of fabric brought from as far as Khamil. The colors are supposed to bring out her eyes, and her skin tones. They’re jewel shades -- dark blues and purples and pearlescent greens.
Auntie lined her eyes with kohl and brushed shimmery pink on her cheeks and braided flowers into her hair to try and tame the wild poof of it. She kisses Celeste on the cheek and tells her she’s beautiful, and Uncle bows to her like she’s a genteel lady and offers her an elbow, if she wants an escort to the dance.
Tyrael is supposed to escort her, like he did all the years before, but this year, he’s officially taken the vow to Cyrillus, and he’s neck-deep in his training, and everyone’s seen him sneaking around with Dreamsworn’s boy. They’re inseparable these days -- Tyrael and Elias -- and they don’t have room, nor do they want, Celeste loitering around.
It’s fine. She doesn’t want to listen to their sickly-sweet cooing of romance either.
“I can go on my own,” Celeste says, though her hands shake, and her heart pounds, and the urge to run wobbles in her knees.
She holds her head high, however. She can’t let it show.
“If you’re sure,” Auntie says, skeptical, but she squeezes Celeste’s hands anyway. “All right then. Have fun.”
She’s going to try. She has high hopes. She has a beautiful dress, the weather is wonderful, and everyone is going to be in high spirits.
She makes her way to the grove with anxiety and anticipation rising inside of her in equal measures. She hears the music and laughter long before she arrives, and when she steps into the clearing, it takes her breath away. Long tables are piled with food and drink. Arcane lights dip and bob, illuminating the space for dancing.
Celeste fidgets, tangles her fingers, and tells herself to keep her shoulders straight, and she strides forward, joining her peers, joining the party.
She taps her feet. She sways in time with the music. She nibbles from the tables piled high with foods, but the twisting knot in her belly leaves her without much of an appetite. She clutches the same mug of cider all night, barely sips from it.
She holds up the wall. It’s a very sturdy wall. She keeps it even sturdier.
It’s a strange sensation, to feel as if she belongs to something, and yet is apart from it. Tyrael and Elias are tucked in a corner, laughing and nuzzling each other and generally being disgusting about how much they like each other.
Celeste’s peers break off into pairs and trios and groups. Sometimes, they’ll wander by to exchange a few words. Paltry stuff. Nothing important.
Ionos compliments her dress, and for a moment, Celeste’s face burns with pride and embarrassment, and she thinks -- there it is. A chance! She can do this. If Ionos won’t ask her, then she’ll ask Ionos herself.
She opens her mouth.
Lucia sweeps in, resplendent in shades of white and blue, her dress glittering in the starlight and beads bright in her hair. She giggles and asks Ionos to dance, and Ionos blushes and agrees, and they go off together, twirling and swirling with the other dancers, a riot of spinning color.
Celeste’s stomach churns. She thinks she might be sick. Yes, that must be it. She’s caught ill. She needs to rest.
It’s as good a reason as any.
She dumps her mug into the barrel of dirtied dishware and slips into the night. She goes home, the train of her dress dragging in the dirt, until she picks it up and drapes it over her arm. She plucks at the fabric and wonders, maybe it was too loose? Maybe it hadn’t fit right? Maybe she doesn’t shine brightly enough.
Auntie and Uncle ask her how it went.
She lies, and tells them she had fun. She smiles and tells them the food was amazing, and the drink was better. But she’s tired, that’s how it is, so she left early to get some rest. No, no, she’s fine. They don’t need to trouble themselves over her, but Tyrael will probably be late, Celeste saw him with Elias.
She winks. Auntie and Uncle chuckle, and they hug her, and they whisper how proud they are, how happy they are for her. They send her off to bed.
Celeste strips out of her gown, her fingers lingering on the fabric. She’d fallen in love with it the first time Priya showed her the swathe, even if she did have to special order it.
She’s fifteen, and she grew into her gangly knees and then some. She thought the fluffy fabric and the shimmer of it, could hide how much she’s gained. She thought it could trick her into feeling more than she is.
She’d been wrong.
Celeste stuffs the dress into the bottom of her trunk and goes to bed.
~
It’s beyond sunrise when she wakes, and she’s still eleven. She hasn’t aged overnight.
She dresses in comfortable clothes, worn at the knees, the shirt a little small but still her favorite. She fights off a yawn as she scratches her side where a spider must have bitten her yesterday. Her hair is wild and untamed. There are crusties in the corners of her eyes, and she keeps rubbing at them.
She drags her feet downstairs, Tyrael and Auntie gone for the day, but Uncle nudging a plate of cinnamon rolls toward her. They’re cold now, the icing hardened. They’re still delicious, and Celeste eats them slowly, savoring every bite.
She’s not delaying the inevitable. Or maybe she is.
“Good luck,” Uncle tells her as she slips off the stool and into a damp, humid mid-morning. He’s guessed her lack of connection by her quiet demeanor. Or perhaps he already knew.
“Thanks,” Celeste tosses over her shoulder, but she doesn’t feel any hope at all.
She returns to the contemplation garden. She finds a different spot this time, avoiding trees and foliage. She sits on the shore of the small pond instead, in the sunlight, where she can watch the lilypads float on the calm surface, and the occasional insect buzzes noisily.
She closes her eyes, and she concentrates.
“I promise,” she thinks, with all of her heart. “I promise to serve, to offer value, to give thanks and to spread your name. Someone. Anyone.”
She doesn’t have anyone particular in mind this time. She doesn’t want to risk rejection. Surely someone desires another acolyte. If all she’s left is Viridia, then Celeste will take her. She takes everyone.
Silence.
There’s a dragonfly noisily making its way from one side of the pond to the other. A cricket chirps in the woods. Footfalls along the path suggest other hopeful come to contemplate, or perhaps those already promised, returning to their contemplative roots.
The day drags on. Celeste’s neck gets itchy. Sweat trickles down her back. The sun rises higher, relentless in its heat.
Once, she swears she hears a whisper, the voice not anything she recognizes. “We can’t,” it says. “Not this one. No one should. Not this one.”
But as soon as she hears it, the voice is gone again, taken by the wind, and Celeste is left to her silence.
Please, Celeste begs, on the verge of tears. She can’t take another rejection. She can’t.
DON’T CRY.
Her eyes snap open. The voice had all the volume in her head, but she swears it whispered into her ears as well, outside of her as well as within.
I WILL HAVE YOU. IF YOU’LL HAVE ME.
Celeste licks her lips, clenches her fingers around her knees. She cocks her head, searching the gardens, dusk somehow brighter, for all that she’d had her eyes closed. Fireflies have begun to wander in, dancing over the surface of the pond.
“Who…” Celeste pauses, takes a deep breath, struggles to remember the words of the offer Auntie and Uncle had taught her. “Who might I serve?”
A tiny splash catches her ears. She zeroes in on it, sees a spreading ripple in the pond right before her. A light gleams beneath the surface, slightly brighter than the fireflies. She crawls forward, without really knowing why, as the surface ripples again, a face taking shape in the disturbance.
To call it a face is being generous, Celeste knows. There are eyes and a mouth and a nose, but they aren’t any species Celeste can recognize. They are entirely androgynous features, at once hideous and beautiful, and her breath catches in her throat. She doesn’t recognize the being.
“I am Berenthas,” the voice says, the mouth-shaped opening moving, but the sound less coming from the water than it was within her head.
Celeste recognizes the name, of course. Berenthas had been among the old gods in the temple’s teachings. It was long thought Berenthas was in hibernation after the Dispossession, when the gods removed their physical presence from the mortal plane.
Many thought Berenthas wasn’t only in hibernation, but dead.
“I am alive, though weakened,” Berenthas says, and his mouth ripples in a smile, happiness breaking across his face like the sun peering through gaps in storm clouds. “I have need of someone like you, Celeste. A work in progress.”
Celeste tilts her head. “What do you mean?”
She feels a touch on the crown of her head, stroking her fluffy hair like Auntie does when Celeste has one of her nightmares. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“Uncle tells me that all the time.” Celeste rolls her eyes. “It’s what adults say when they don’t want to take the time to explain something.” She huffs, and then her eyes go wide when she realizes who she’s speaking to.
Her face fills with heat, and she bows her head. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry, Berenthas. It’s up to you if you don’t want to answer me, I mean.”
A soft, tired chuckle floats through the air. A touch on the underside of her chin lifts her head once more.
“We will be friends, Celeste,” Berenthas says and the voice softens, turns playful, almost child-like. “None of that now. We will learn together, yes?”
Celeste manages a smile, hope bubbling up inside of her. In the water, where her reflection should be, Berenthas’ mouth widens into a smile. The ripple coalesces, forming a visage more recognizable, a mane of kelp-like hair, features humanoid but with gills and a spattering of fish-like scales.
“I’ll learn,” Celeste says. “I promise.”
“I believe you.”
There’s a touch to her forehead, fleeting and cold compared to the lingering heat of the afternoon. A cooling flush spreads through her body like a breeze on winter’s afternoon.
“I take your commitment, Celeste, and if you still want me, I will have your pledge when you come of age,” Berenthas says. “For now, go with comfort. You have been chosen.”
Celeste smiles and the water ripples again, until all she can see is her own reflection, and the dance of the fireflies over the pond. The crickets start up a song, the cicada joining in earnest.
“Thank you,” Celeste whispers, and she stands, her knees shaking, her body vibrating, the urge to dance flowing through her.
She doesn’t bother to hold back, dancing in place, hands pumping in the air, no music to be heard, her celebration internal because no sound but that of nature is allowed in the contemplation garden.
She’s been chosen!
~
She’s twenty, and others have heard Berenthas’ call as well. Only a handful, but it’s enough. Celeste stands ahead of them, the first to be summoned, their sister-leader in Berenthas’ service.
She asks him for a quest. He tells her he has none, but maybe someday. He tells her to be patient. He says she has a beautiful destiny around her.
He’s the only one who’s ever called her beautiful outside the bonds of family.
Celeste restores his temple herself, accepting help from the other acolytes when they offer, but it’s weird. Berenthas speaks to her in the rain, in the pond, in the lake, in the rain barrels and the dish water. He only speaks to the others in their dreams.
Sometimes, she hears the whispers. The way they watch her when she passes and immediately start murmuring amongst themselves.
They wonder if she’s been called by Berenthas at all, or if something darker has disguised itself. She’s impressionable, they whisper. She’s desperate and weird, and wouldn’t it be just like Celeste, to pretend Berenthas called her when he didn’t?
Celeste ignores them. She knows the warmth of Berenthas in her heart. It’s different than Tyrael’s bond with Cyrillus. Tyrael is almost afraid of his god, and Celeste is glad now that Cyrillus had denied her.
Cyrillus is unfriendly and unwelcoming, and he doesn’t ask much of Tyrael, save haunting dreams and vague threats of a future quest. Tyrael won’t say it, but Celeste can see it in his eyes. He doesn’t want the quest. He wants to stay in Alduin and marry Elias and adopt a half-dozen children and build a life with his half-elf boyfriend.
Tyrael wants a lot of things Cyrillus probably isn’t going to let him have.
Celeste doesn’t like Cyrillus very much. She thinks Berenthas doesn’t either, but he’s much more vague when he talks about Cyrillus. He won’t say it outright, but Celeste has a sense about these things.
“I’ll go with him,” Celeste tells Berenthas as she does the dishes and catches a glimpse of kelp-like hair and watery-blue eyes. “Whenever Cyrillus sends him on his quest. I’m going to go with him unless you have a quest for me instead.”
‘No quest,’ Berenthas says. He’s much less vocal than he’d been when he first made the offer, but that’s all right. It’s better than complete silence.
Celeste sighs and scrubs the sauce pan, old remnants of whatever Tyrael had cooked sticking to the bottom of it. The stench of burnt vegetables still clings to the air and her robes.
They’d had sandwiches for dinner. Celeste hopes Auntie and Uncle come back soon, because if she has to rely on Tyrael elbowing her out of the kitchen and cooking because he’s older, they’re both going to starve.
Elias spoils him too much.
“Then I guess I’ll go with Tyrael,” Celeste says. She frowns at the pan, glaring at a stubborn piece of burnt… whatever it was. Potato maybe? “But you know, if you change your mind…”
The water ripples, suds giving way to kelp and scales. ‘I will call on you first. We will change together,’ Berenthas promises.
Celeste believes him.
~
She’s twenty-eight, and they’ve stopped in Eagland for the night, their horses desperately needing the rest, and Tyrael complaining of an ache in his behind. Celeste’s thighs are agony, and she thinks her own buttocks are protesting, too, but she swallows the complaints because they don’t need two voices whining.
Celeste, after all, has been the one to look forward to adventure.
She pays the stablehand to care for their mounts. She’s the one to usher Tyrael into the shabby tavern, the worn sign creaking on rusted chains, the interior warm and well-used. Hearth-fire thickens the air, the tables are crowded, but Celeste finds an unoccupied one to shove Tyrael toward.
A server comes along to offer them food and drink, and while Tyrael wrinkles his nose, Celeste orders meals enough for both of them, and the house ale for herself and a glass of wine for Tyrael. Their server offers a crooked smile at Celeste, especially when she hands over more coin than is required, and rushes off to prepare their order. Tyrael mutters something about having eaten the last of Uncle’s cinnamon rolls this morning, and how he should have savored them.
It’s like having a child, honestly.
“This is your quest,” she reminds him.
But Tyrael fidgets with a piece of paper he’s drawn from his pack. She leans into his space, and reads Elias’ name printed at the top before he jerks it out of view.
“It’s only been a few days,” she says, exasperated. “You can’t miss him that much.”
Tyrael scowls, because he hates being called out on his feelings, even though he acts soppy and in love every time he gets within five paces of Elias. “This place reeks,” he says instead, and turns his nose up, like he’s some prince forced to slum with the plebes, rather than the son of a farmer and a gardner.
Celeste has no idea where he gets it from.
The barmaid returns with their meals and their drink, and Celeste tips her well because Tyrael is being an unfriendly grump who scowls at the wooden bowl full of stew. It smells edible, lumps of root vegetables chasing chunks of what might be deer meat around a thick, gravy-like sauce. Her ale helps wash it down.
Tyrael picks out the choicest pieces and sips at his wine, but leaves most of it untouched. Celeste can’t tell if it’s because he’s heartsick or because he’s so damn spoiled. Maybe a bit of both.
He retires first, swapping the key from Celeste before she can convince him to stay downstairs and soak in the atmosphere.
Celeste lingers.
She sips her ale, decides to be brave and orders a second one. Chatter rises and falls around her. She picks out a few phrases, bits and pieces, but there’s nothing of interest.
It’s so different from Alduin.
‘We can remake ourselves,’ Berenthas had said, and this might not be his quest, but Celeste thinks, it can be.
For her, and for Berenthas, they’ll both find what they’re looking for.
***
Universe: Tethers, Pre-Canon
Characters: Celeste Stiel, Tyrael Ashborne
Rated: K+
Desc: Celeste has been searching her entire life, and she’s still not sure what it is she’s trying to find.
She's eleven, knobby-kneed and awkward, her hair a short poof around her head, her face streaked with dirt, her pinky toe broken, and she's missing a tooth.
Auntie and Uncle sit her down, they tell her that if she wants to, now is the time. She should choose a god to serve, or let one choose her. She can wait another year, if she wants, but the longer she waits, the harder it'll be.
"I want to serve Cyrillus," Celeste tells them, with the innocence of a child who has no idea how cruel the gods can be. "Just like Tyrael."
Auntie and Uncle look at each other.
Behind her, Tyrael snorts. "You can't," he says, thirteen years old and a know-it-all. He's already getting broad in the shoulder, and tall, taller even than his father. "Cyrillus already picked me, and he's not gonna pick anyone else."
"Tyrael, hush," Uncle says.
"Go play with Junie," Auntie says.
Tyrael scowls and glowers, and thinks to protest, but Uncle lifts his chin and narrows his eyes, and Tyrael sighs like he's been given some great burden.
"Fine," he says, and stomps out of the room, because he's thirteen and Celeste is his cousin-little sister, and as much as he loves her, he kind of hates her a little.
Celeste crosses her arms and pouts. "Why wouldn't Cyrillus want me?"
"Tyrael is being rude," Auntie says.
"But that doesn't mean he's wrong," Uncle says, and he frowns, forehead drawing down, shifting in his chair like he does when he has a secret. "You can try, Celeste. We won't stop you from trying. Cyrillus isn't usually open to worshippers. We were all surprised when he accepted Tyrael."
And proud, Celeste knows, even though Uncle doesn't say it. They're proud of their only son. Their eyes shine when they look at him. Celeste doesn't know if their eyes ever shine quite the same way when they look at her. She's not theirs, not really. She knew it, before they told her, she knew it.
"There are others," Auntie says, and her voice is gentle, soothing, like it often is when she pulls Celeste and Tyrael apart, from yelling and fighting and scrapping as young children do. "There are so many others, Celeste. If you want to serve, I know there are gods eager to take your promise."
Uncle pats her on the shoulder. "But remember, you also don't have to. It's your choice, whether you serve or choose another path. If you want to be a... a baker or a blacksmith or a scholar... you can do any of it. We'll support you."
“I want to serve,” Celeste insists, and she sounds like a spoiled child, she knows. But Tyrael serves, and so she wants to as well. Anything her big cousin-brother can do, Celeste can do, too.
Auntie folds Celeste into a hug, and she inhales the green-soil scent of her. Auntie always smells like growing things because that’s what she does, she works in the garden, planting and weeding and offering prayers to Viridia while begging for guidance. She doesn’t serve, not like Tyrael, but it’s service of a kind.
“Then we’ll support you,” Auntie says, and she kisses Celeste’s forehead and cups her cheeks with calloused palms and says, “and we’ll be proud of whomever you choose.” Her big brown eyes are bright and sincere, and Celeste looks into them, and wonders if her mother is looking back, if Auntie looks anything like her sister.
“Okay,” Celeste says, and Uncle hugs her, too, his shoulders broad, his arms rippling with muscle from years upon years spent working the land, also in service to the Viridia.
“Ignore Tyrael,” Uncle says. “He’ll get over himself soon enough.”
She’s twenty-seven, sitting on a horse, riding a pace behind her cousin, the sharp lines of his shoulders reflecting the determination he’s wearing on his brow. He keeps looking back, over his pauldron, toward Alduin, and it’s not because he’s checking to make sure she’s there. It’s because Cyrillus gave him a quest, and he has taken it, but he doesn’t want to. Not really.
He wants to stay in his comfortable bed with Elias.
Cyrillus could have chosen Celeste, eager and hungry for adventure, but he’d picked Tyrael, and he’s as happy Celeste joined him on the quest, as he’s annoyed she invited herself along.
Uncle was wrong, Celeste thinks as she shifts her weight, thighs already offering a protest which only worsen as the day drags on.
Tyrael still hasn’t gotten over himself.
Celeste goes to the contemplation garden first thing in the morning, before anyone else in the family wakes up, before the sun has woke, when the sky is becoming a gradient of light, and the birds sing, and dew kisses the trees. She creeps through the village, heads southeast along the muddy roads, until she steps through the flower-draped archway into the carefully culvitated garden.
She's washed her face and put on her prettiest dress and pinned flowers in her hair. She was too nervous to eat, only managing a few sips of water for her tangled knot of a belly. She’s barefoot, to better feel the earth beneath her, and the mud squelches between her toes.
She finds a willow, the branches dipping low, so low the ends touch the ground and make a curtain of leaf and twig around her. She sits lotus, with her back to the trunk of the tree, and she tries to meditate like Auntie taught her.
She calls for Cyrillus first, because the hope is nestled in her heart, and she's as stubborn as she is determined. If Tyrael can do it, so can she. He's not any more pious or dedicated or special than she is. He still leaves his dirty clothes on the floor and splashes in mud puddles and picks his nose when he thinks no one is looking.
"I promise," Celeste says, deep in her heart of hearts. "I promise to be the best cleric or paladin or whatever you want. I'll give you everything."
She waits.
For a sign. A whisper.
Tyrael said Cyrillus hadn't spoken to him, but he'd felt it, deep in his chest, and when he slept that night, it was when Cyrillus came to him. He'd still walked out of the contemplation gardens knowing he was chosen though.
He'd walked out shining brightly inside, so bright Celeste had to shield her eyes, though no one else could see it. Celeste knew better than to ask why. There're a lot of things she can see no one else can.
Celeste closes her eyes. She waits.
Her stomach growls. The sun rises. The air warms, dew turning to a low mist that eventually evaporates as the sun climbs in the sky. Midday comes and goes.
Celeste doesn’t move.
She waits. And waits.
The sun sets. Her stomach aches and clenches in a pit of emptiness. Her throat hurts because she keeps swallowing nothing over the lump in her throat. She clutches her knees, and feels a hitch in her breathing, a heat in her eyes.
The color leeches from the sky, blue taking over for oranges and pinks, until it darkens to purple and then night. Stars pop out one by one, until the clouds roll in, the air taking on the scent of lightning and thunder. Any other time, it would make her smile with anticipation. There’s few things she enjoys more than dancing in the rain.
The silence, however.
The silence quells any joy she might have managed.
“Fine,” Celeste says, and maybe that’s where she fails, when the words comes out sharp and hurt and disappointed and furious. “Fine. Have it your way.”
She scrubs at her eyes, wiping away tears that never fell, and gets to her feet. She stomps home, and only calms her movements when she gets to the front door. The windows are dark. The whole house is dark. It’s late night, the moon shrouded by clouds, and if she’s got any luck left in her, no one will notice her come creeping in.
She forgets the creaky floorboard in the hallway, though, and the moment she bears her weight on it, the wood betrays her. Celeste sighs and rolls her eyes, shoulders sinking with defeat.
Tyrael’s door opens. He must’ve been waiting up for her, waiting to hear about her failure, and gloat.
“How’d it go?” he asks, fighting off a yawn, scratching at his bare stomach as he rubs at his eyes with his knuckles.
All at once, the anger rises up within her, trying to claw out of her throat and onto her tongue, and she wants to throw it all at Tyrael. She wants to blame him.
“Don’t worry,” she says instead, using her sweetest, gentlest voice. She gathers herself and moves past, toes dragging, to her own room. “You don’t gotta share him.”
Cyrillus doesn’t want her. He only wants Tyrael. Surprise, surprise.
“I could’ve told you that,” Tyrael says, in that snotty tone she hates so much, because he’s older and bigger and smarter and stronger and everything Celeste is two steps behind. “You know, you don’t gotta follow my footsteps, right? You can pick a different god.”
That’s not the point. Tyrael never gets the point.
Celeste huffs and pushes open her door, which squeaks noisily, as if waking up Tyrael wasn’t bad enough. The whole house is against her. She freezes, hopes Auntie and Uncle don’t wake up, but she must have some luck left, because no sound comes from their room down the hall.
Thank the gods.
Fuck Cyrillus. But thank the gods.
She pushes into her room.
“Celeste.”
She pauses, but doesn’t look back at her cousin. “What?”
“Good luck tomorrow,” Tyrael says, and a few seconds later, there’s a quiet click as he closes his door, and the silence of the hallway wraps around her.
She goes to sleep.
She’s fifteen, and she’s dressed in the finest swathes of fabric brought from as far as Khamil. The colors are supposed to bring out her eyes, and her skin tones. They’re jewel shades -- dark blues and purples and pearlescent greens.
Auntie lined her eyes with kohl and brushed shimmery pink on her cheeks and braided flowers into her hair to try and tame the wild poof of it. She kisses Celeste on the cheek and tells her she’s beautiful, and Uncle bows to her like she’s a genteel lady and offers her an elbow, if she wants an escort to the dance.
Tyrael is supposed to escort her, like he did all the years before, but this year, he’s officially taken the vow to Cyrillus, and he’s neck-deep in his training, and everyone’s seen him sneaking around with Dreamsworn’s boy. They’re inseparable these days -- Tyrael and Elias -- and they don’t have room, nor do they want, Celeste loitering around.
It’s fine. She doesn’t want to listen to their sickly-sweet cooing of romance either.
“I can go on my own,” Celeste says, though her hands shake, and her heart pounds, and the urge to run wobbles in her knees.
She holds her head high, however. She can’t let it show.
“If you’re sure,” Auntie says, skeptical, but she squeezes Celeste’s hands anyway. “All right then. Have fun.”
She’s going to try. She has high hopes. She has a beautiful dress, the weather is wonderful, and everyone is going to be in high spirits.
She makes her way to the grove with anxiety and anticipation rising inside of her in equal measures. She hears the music and laughter long before she arrives, and when she steps into the clearing, it takes her breath away. Long tables are piled with food and drink. Arcane lights dip and bob, illuminating the space for dancing.
Celeste fidgets, tangles her fingers, and tells herself to keep her shoulders straight, and she strides forward, joining her peers, joining the party.
She taps her feet. She sways in time with the music. She nibbles from the tables piled high with foods, but the twisting knot in her belly leaves her without much of an appetite. She clutches the same mug of cider all night, barely sips from it.
She holds up the wall. It’s a very sturdy wall. She keeps it even sturdier.
It’s a strange sensation, to feel as if she belongs to something, and yet is apart from it. Tyrael and Elias are tucked in a corner, laughing and nuzzling each other and generally being disgusting about how much they like each other.
Celeste’s peers break off into pairs and trios and groups. Sometimes, they’ll wander by to exchange a few words. Paltry stuff. Nothing important.
Ionos compliments her dress, and for a moment, Celeste’s face burns with pride and embarrassment, and she thinks -- there it is. A chance! She can do this. If Ionos won’t ask her, then she’ll ask Ionos herself.
She opens her mouth.
Lucia sweeps in, resplendent in shades of white and blue, her dress glittering in the starlight and beads bright in her hair. She giggles and asks Ionos to dance, and Ionos blushes and agrees, and they go off together, twirling and swirling with the other dancers, a riot of spinning color.
Celeste’s stomach churns. She thinks she might be sick. Yes, that must be it. She’s caught ill. She needs to rest.
It’s as good a reason as any.
She dumps her mug into the barrel of dirtied dishware and slips into the night. She goes home, the train of her dress dragging in the dirt, until she picks it up and drapes it over her arm. She plucks at the fabric and wonders, maybe it was too loose? Maybe it hadn’t fit right? Maybe she doesn’t shine brightly enough.
Auntie and Uncle ask her how it went.
She lies, and tells them she had fun. She smiles and tells them the food was amazing, and the drink was better. But she’s tired, that’s how it is, so she left early to get some rest. No, no, she’s fine. They don’t need to trouble themselves over her, but Tyrael will probably be late, Celeste saw him with Elias.
She winks. Auntie and Uncle chuckle, and they hug her, and they whisper how proud they are, how happy they are for her. They send her off to bed.
Celeste strips out of her gown, her fingers lingering on the fabric. She’d fallen in love with it the first time Priya showed her the swathe, even if she did have to special order it.
She’s fifteen, and she grew into her gangly knees and then some. She thought the fluffy fabric and the shimmer of it, could hide how much she’s gained. She thought it could trick her into feeling more than she is.
She’d been wrong.
Celeste stuffs the dress into the bottom of her trunk and goes to bed.
It’s beyond sunrise when she wakes, and she’s still eleven. She hasn’t aged overnight.
She dresses in comfortable clothes, worn at the knees, the shirt a little small but still her favorite. She fights off a yawn as she scratches her side where a spider must have bitten her yesterday. Her hair is wild and untamed. There are crusties in the corners of her eyes, and she keeps rubbing at them.
She drags her feet downstairs, Tyrael and Auntie gone for the day, but Uncle nudging a plate of cinnamon rolls toward her. They’re cold now, the icing hardened. They’re still delicious, and Celeste eats them slowly, savoring every bite.
She’s not delaying the inevitable. Or maybe she is.
“Good luck,” Uncle tells her as she slips off the stool and into a damp, humid mid-morning. He’s guessed her lack of connection by her quiet demeanor. Or perhaps he already knew.
“Thanks,” Celeste tosses over her shoulder, but she doesn’t feel any hope at all.
She returns to the contemplation garden. She finds a different spot this time, avoiding trees and foliage. She sits on the shore of the small pond instead, in the sunlight, where she can watch the lilypads float on the calm surface, and the occasional insect buzzes noisily.
She closes her eyes, and she concentrates.
“I promise,” she thinks, with all of her heart. “I promise to serve, to offer value, to give thanks and to spread your name. Someone. Anyone.”
She doesn’t have anyone particular in mind this time. She doesn’t want to risk rejection. Surely someone desires another acolyte. If all she’s left is Viridia, then Celeste will take her. She takes everyone.
Silence.
There’s a dragonfly noisily making its way from one side of the pond to the other. A cricket chirps in the woods. Footfalls along the path suggest other hopeful come to contemplate, or perhaps those already promised, returning to their contemplative roots.
The day drags on. Celeste’s neck gets itchy. Sweat trickles down her back. The sun rises higher, relentless in its heat.
Once, she swears she hears a whisper, the voice not anything she recognizes. “We can’t,” it says. “Not this one. No one should. Not this one.”
But as soon as she hears it, the voice is gone again, taken by the wind, and Celeste is left to her silence.
Please, Celeste begs, on the verge of tears. She can’t take another rejection. She can’t.
DON’T CRY.
Her eyes snap open. The voice had all the volume in her head, but she swears it whispered into her ears as well, outside of her as well as within.
I WILL HAVE YOU. IF YOU’LL HAVE ME.
Celeste licks her lips, clenches her fingers around her knees. She cocks her head, searching the gardens, dusk somehow brighter, for all that she’d had her eyes closed. Fireflies have begun to wander in, dancing over the surface of the pond.
“Who…” Celeste pauses, takes a deep breath, struggles to remember the words of the offer Auntie and Uncle had taught her. “Who might I serve?”
A tiny splash catches her ears. She zeroes in on it, sees a spreading ripple in the pond right before her. A light gleams beneath the surface, slightly brighter than the fireflies. She crawls forward, without really knowing why, as the surface ripples again, a face taking shape in the disturbance.
To call it a face is being generous, Celeste knows. There are eyes and a mouth and a nose, but they aren’t any species Celeste can recognize. They are entirely androgynous features, at once hideous and beautiful, and her breath catches in her throat. She doesn’t recognize the being.
“I am Berenthas,” the voice says, the mouth-shaped opening moving, but the sound less coming from the water than it was within her head.
Celeste recognizes the name, of course. Berenthas had been among the old gods in the temple’s teachings. It was long thought Berenthas was in hibernation after the Dispossession, when the gods removed their physical presence from the mortal plane.
Many thought Berenthas wasn’t only in hibernation, but dead.
“I am alive, though weakened,” Berenthas says, and his mouth ripples in a smile, happiness breaking across his face like the sun peering through gaps in storm clouds. “I have need of someone like you, Celeste. A work in progress.”
Celeste tilts her head. “What do you mean?”
She feels a touch on the crown of her head, stroking her fluffy hair like Auntie does when Celeste has one of her nightmares. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“Uncle tells me that all the time.” Celeste rolls her eyes. “It’s what adults say when they don’t want to take the time to explain something.” She huffs, and then her eyes go wide when she realizes who she’s speaking to.
Her face fills with heat, and she bows her head. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry, Berenthas. It’s up to you if you don’t want to answer me, I mean.”
A soft, tired chuckle floats through the air. A touch on the underside of her chin lifts her head once more.
“We will be friends, Celeste,” Berenthas says and the voice softens, turns playful, almost child-like. “None of that now. We will learn together, yes?”
Celeste manages a smile, hope bubbling up inside of her. In the water, where her reflection should be, Berenthas’ mouth widens into a smile. The ripple coalesces, forming a visage more recognizable, a mane of kelp-like hair, features humanoid but with gills and a spattering of fish-like scales.
“I’ll learn,” Celeste says. “I promise.”
“I believe you.”
There’s a touch to her forehead, fleeting and cold compared to the lingering heat of the afternoon. A cooling flush spreads through her body like a breeze on winter’s afternoon.
“I take your commitment, Celeste, and if you still want me, I will have your pledge when you come of age,” Berenthas says. “For now, go with comfort. You have been chosen.”
Celeste smiles and the water ripples again, until all she can see is her own reflection, and the dance of the fireflies over the pond. The crickets start up a song, the cicada joining in earnest.
“Thank you,” Celeste whispers, and she stands, her knees shaking, her body vibrating, the urge to dance flowing through her.
She doesn’t bother to hold back, dancing in place, hands pumping in the air, no music to be heard, her celebration internal because no sound but that of nature is allowed in the contemplation garden.
She’s been chosen!
She’s twenty, and others have heard Berenthas’ call as well. Only a handful, but it’s enough. Celeste stands ahead of them, the first to be summoned, their sister-leader in Berenthas’ service.
She asks him for a quest. He tells her he has none, but maybe someday. He tells her to be patient. He says she has a beautiful destiny around her.
He’s the only one who’s ever called her beautiful outside the bonds of family.
Celeste restores his temple herself, accepting help from the other acolytes when they offer, but it’s weird. Berenthas speaks to her in the rain, in the pond, in the lake, in the rain barrels and the dish water. He only speaks to the others in their dreams.
Sometimes, she hears the whispers. The way they watch her when she passes and immediately start murmuring amongst themselves.
They wonder if she’s been called by Berenthas at all, or if something darker has disguised itself. She’s impressionable, they whisper. She’s desperate and weird, and wouldn’t it be just like Celeste, to pretend Berenthas called her when he didn’t?
Celeste ignores them. She knows the warmth of Berenthas in her heart. It’s different than Tyrael’s bond with Cyrillus. Tyrael is almost afraid of his god, and Celeste is glad now that Cyrillus had denied her.
Cyrillus is unfriendly and unwelcoming, and he doesn’t ask much of Tyrael, save haunting dreams and vague threats of a future quest. Tyrael won’t say it, but Celeste can see it in his eyes. He doesn’t want the quest. He wants to stay in Alduin and marry Elias and adopt a half-dozen children and build a life with his half-elf boyfriend.
Tyrael wants a lot of things Cyrillus probably isn’t going to let him have.
Celeste doesn’t like Cyrillus very much. She thinks Berenthas doesn’t either, but he’s much more vague when he talks about Cyrillus. He won’t say it outright, but Celeste has a sense about these things.
“I’ll go with him,” Celeste tells Berenthas as she does the dishes and catches a glimpse of kelp-like hair and watery-blue eyes. “Whenever Cyrillus sends him on his quest. I’m going to go with him unless you have a quest for me instead.”
‘No quest,’ Berenthas says. He’s much less vocal than he’d been when he first made the offer, but that’s all right. It’s better than complete silence.
Celeste sighs and scrubs the sauce pan, old remnants of whatever Tyrael had cooked sticking to the bottom of it. The stench of burnt vegetables still clings to the air and her robes.
They’d had sandwiches for dinner. Celeste hopes Auntie and Uncle come back soon, because if she has to rely on Tyrael elbowing her out of the kitchen and cooking because he’s older, they’re both going to starve.
Elias spoils him too much.
“Then I guess I’ll go with Tyrael,” Celeste says. She frowns at the pan, glaring at a stubborn piece of burnt… whatever it was. Potato maybe? “But you know, if you change your mind…”
The water ripples, suds giving way to kelp and scales. ‘I will call on you first. We will change together,’ Berenthas promises.
Celeste believes him.
She’s twenty-eight, and they’ve stopped in Eagland for the night, their horses desperately needing the rest, and Tyrael complaining of an ache in his behind. Celeste’s thighs are agony, and she thinks her own buttocks are protesting, too, but she swallows the complaints because they don’t need two voices whining.
Celeste, after all, has been the one to look forward to adventure.
She pays the stablehand to care for their mounts. She’s the one to usher Tyrael into the shabby tavern, the worn sign creaking on rusted chains, the interior warm and well-used. Hearth-fire thickens the air, the tables are crowded, but Celeste finds an unoccupied one to shove Tyrael toward.
A server comes along to offer them food and drink, and while Tyrael wrinkles his nose, Celeste orders meals enough for both of them, and the house ale for herself and a glass of wine for Tyrael. Their server offers a crooked smile at Celeste, especially when she hands over more coin than is required, and rushes off to prepare their order. Tyrael mutters something about having eaten the last of Uncle’s cinnamon rolls this morning, and how he should have savored them.
It’s like having a child, honestly.
“This is your quest,” she reminds him.
But Tyrael fidgets with a piece of paper he’s drawn from his pack. She leans into his space, and reads Elias’ name printed at the top before he jerks it out of view.
“It’s only been a few days,” she says, exasperated. “You can’t miss him that much.”
Tyrael scowls, because he hates being called out on his feelings, even though he acts soppy and in love every time he gets within five paces of Elias. “This place reeks,” he says instead, and turns his nose up, like he’s some prince forced to slum with the plebes, rather than the son of a farmer and a gardner.
Celeste has no idea where he gets it from.
The barmaid returns with their meals and their drink, and Celeste tips her well because Tyrael is being an unfriendly grump who scowls at the wooden bowl full of stew. It smells edible, lumps of root vegetables chasing chunks of what might be deer meat around a thick, gravy-like sauce. Her ale helps wash it down.
Tyrael picks out the choicest pieces and sips at his wine, but leaves most of it untouched. Celeste can’t tell if it’s because he’s heartsick or because he’s so damn spoiled. Maybe a bit of both.
He retires first, swapping the key from Celeste before she can convince him to stay downstairs and soak in the atmosphere.
Celeste lingers.
She sips her ale, decides to be brave and orders a second one. Chatter rises and falls around her. She picks out a few phrases, bits and pieces, but there’s nothing of interest.
It’s so different from Alduin.
‘We can remake ourselves,’ Berenthas had said, and this might not be his quest, but Celeste thinks, it can be.
For her, and for Berenthas, they’ll both find what they’re looking for.
