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0ssuary · 6 years

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(Content warning: This text contains discussions of sex and post traumatic stress, and nongraphic descriptions of past child sex abuse/sexual assault.)

Rho’ki watches a sliver of the Green Moon sink into the ocean, waiting outside the auxiliary shrine of the God of Passion. The sun is setting, sending golden rays out over the horizon and rooftops down the hill, but they stand now in the shadow of the temple, all dulled colors and cool breeze. The summer’s heat has started to break and the temperate sigh of the coming rainy season always makes them feel nostalgic for something they can’t quite remember. They sit on a stone bench in the walled courtyard surrounding the shrine, both hands on the top of their cane, chin rested over their hands. They don’t mind waiting for Feana, enjoying some time to themself after a day teaching sign classes and helping in the temple’s kitchen. They enjoy the work, but it makes moments of solitude precious, and now, especially, it’s good to have a beat between temple life and their time with Feana.

When they see him coming up the road, a familiar bird flutters in their chest, making them smile. Even nervousness can’t dampen the airy feeling of joy he instills. They stand and walk to meet him as he’s jogging up the steps to the courtyard, leaning to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Sorry I’m late,” he offers, slipping his hand into Rho’ki’s, the other holding his offerings: a bowl made from the dried rind of a melon, filled with uncooked grains and fragrant seed pods.

Rho’ki shrugs. “It’s alright, I needed a little time alone.”

They move together towards the shrine. “Busy day?” Feana asks, squeezing their hand. Rho’ki hums and nods. They slip their shoes off at the bottom step of the shrine and walk inside.

The round stone structure is large and open, with columns and a low wall around the perimeter. Long reems of coral fabric hang from the domed ceiling, sectioning off the shrine into nooks between the columns, providing discretion and creating a more closed atmosphere than the other shrines of the same architecture. At the center sits the altar, surrounded by plush cushions and a worn, woven rug. Feana finds some space for his offering bowl among the jumble of other gifts while Rho’ki carefully places a woven crown of wildflowers and summer wheat on the simplistic idol, a domed, short column carved and polished from a single piece of glimmering grey stone. A few candles light the flashes of blue and green inside the translucent layers of quartz, like the marbled shimmer of the inside of a mollusc shell. Rho’ki swings their bag off one shoulder and pulls out a small metal flask of blessed oil, a blend they had made themself, and draws a circle with two lines radiating out on either side onto the stone. There are other symbols like it drawn in pastes of crushed flower petals and chalk, even makeup or perfumes. Offerings presented, Feana helps Rho’ki to kneel at the altar and they both clasp their hands in prayer, singing a short hymn of gratitude before shuffling off between the hanging fabric, finding an empty nook and sitting along the low wall.

There aren’t many others at the shrine, their voices masked under the windchimes in each alcove and the babble of the fountains encircling the shrine from the courtyard. Rho’ki sets their cane and bag on the stone floor and they turn towards one another on the wall, shy smiles moving together in a kiss, Feana stretching upwards toward Rho’ki with a leg tucked under himself for balance. Their arms circle around him and he slides his hands to the small of their back, clasping them there. It feels so good to kiss them, a rush and a soothing lull all at once. The kiss drags on and on, slow and wet, until somewhere across the shrine, they hear a sharp moan of pleasure, and break apart in a hushed laugh.

Rho’ki rests their brow against Feana’s, a hand coming up to squeeze affectionately at the back of his neck, and their smile fades. “We need to talk.”

Feana frowns and shifts back, tucking his hands into his lap to keep them to himself.

“I brought you here because I need to talk about last night.”

Feana’s frown deepens. “We don’t have to, I--”

“We do. You need to understand some things, to know why I reacted that way.” Their eyes are downcast and as the courtyard darkens, it’s difficult for Feana to read their face. They have one leg tucked up against their thigh, picking at the hem of their pants. It’s hard to get the words out and the longer the silence drags on, the more scared they are to say them. They clumsily start to try, focused on the flat stone between them and not on Feana, unable to look up at him. “When I was in Qores, the temple there… it wasn’t safe. Things happened to me and the others in training, we--” Their voice cracks and they clear their throat, trying to press on. “We were taught that certain things were normal and part of the temple path and I--”

They can’t say it. It dies in their throat and they’re crying, they cry a lot anymore, but they can’t say it, don’t know how to push it out of themself. I was raped. My body was used as a tool. I was taught that this was my worth. I didn’t belong to myself.

They feel sucked down suddenly into a no-place, their mind trying to crowd out the anxiety and the hurt, to shield them from remembering or feeling any of it. Feana’s hand over theirs brings them back but they can’t move or speak, lips pressed into a tight, trembling line and holding themself together just enough that they don’t start sobbing. His touch is an anchor.

“Rho’ki, you don’t have to say it. I already know.” He sounds ashamed and it confuses Rho’ki, makes them feel defensive and afraid. They make a few noises that aren’t quite words, not understanding. Feana takes his hand back and hangs his head. “I’m sorry… I got so worried about what could make you feel so miserable, I couldn’t help myself from looking into it. I asked around, I found some old news postings… I know.”

Rho’ki feels frozen, afraid, unsure how to process this. They had been dreading telling Feana what had happened, something about his knowing felt terrifying, and they liked having some space together where their trauma wasn’t a silent guest. Everyone at the temple knew. Especially when Rho’ki had first returned, it always hung between the words of every conversation or interaction they had. People pitied them, felt horrified by what had been done to them. They felt like they were seen only as the product of their pain and not a person that pain had been inflicted upon, unable to escape it when everyone around them knew about the worst thing that had ever happened to them. It was nice to be with Feana and keep it in the dark, to be with him without the delicate phrasing or sad smiles, to have him see them without the looming shadow of the abuse distorting his view. Rho’ki can’t come up with anything worthwhile to say and Feana gets anxious in the silence.

“As soon as I knew, I felt awful, I was so… I should have waited for you to tell me when you were ready for me to know. I’m so, so sorry.” He chews his lip. “Are you… are you angry?”

Rho’ki wipes at the tears streaked down their face, frustrated, but shakes their head. He knows, but he doesn’t know. He had learned broad things, the basics, it had been a public outrage in Qores to learn that the cult had infiltrated the temple’s clergy so thoroughly, had victimized so many people, most of them children. It hadn’t been kept quiet, but it had at least been reported with discretion and the sensational details had remained only in whispers, not in print. He knows, but not really. Not what it was like, not how they were manipulated so much that they still question everything they learned in that temple. Not how detached they were from their own body, how easy it became to switch their mind off when it was their turn to be a vessel of pleasure, an offering, a thing to be used. He won’t ever know the worst of it, the things that still feel lodged like splinters of ice under their skin, that intrude into their thoughts whenever they please to kick up dust and hurt. He knows, but he only knows just enough, and that’s fine with them.

“I’m not mad. I wish you didn’t know, ever, but this is so much easier. I don’t know if I could have actually said it. It’s hard enough for me to talk about when I have to.” Vamman Khi had all but ordered them recently to see a counsellor with the municipal medical center, someone with more expertise than anyone at the temple could provide. They like their counsellor, feel that they can trust her and that she is helping, but there is no way to make pulling apart the tangled mess of their experiences an easy or painless task. It is necessary, like cleaning a raw and tender wound, but it is difficult and exhausting.

Feana reaches out for them again, pulling their hand away from picking at a loose thread on their hem. “I’m sorry about last night. I don’t want to rush you or make you uncomfortable--”

Rho’ki cuts him off. “You didn’t. I was very comfortable, I was--I thought I was ready. I wanted you to touch me, I just didn’t know… it was as if my body reacted like it didn’t feel safe? I don’t know… everything was fine and then it wasn’t. You didn’t do anything wrong.” In hindsight, they should have been suspicious Feana at least assumed something close to the truth. It had been over half a year since they’d first kissed and last night had been the first time things had turned sexual. They’d kissed each other until their lips were bruised plenty of times, but it had always stopped before anything became too heated. In fact, it was Rho’ki who had initiated taking it further, tugging Feana out of his clothes. When they were both nude and pressed against each other, Rho’ki hadn’t felt nervous but excited, safe and engaged in the moment. Feana asked if he could touch them and they had agreed, and at first it was fine. It was good, his hands roaming them as he kissed them dizzy. His touch migrated between their thighs, pushing them apart, and when he had first cupped his hand against them, Rho’ki felt like they were on fire, pushing up into his touch. His finger has started to explore over them, then along and between their folds, and they were panting and moaning softly in his ear until the very tips of his fingers experimentally pressed inside, and a heavy wall fell around them. Everything slammed shut and they were overcome with panic.

It was stressful and embarrassing, they’d curled up in a ball in Feana’s bed and cried while he apologized over and over again and stroked their hair. Even now, their body didn’t fully belong to them, still conditioned to react to sex in the only way it knew how: detachment and fear. After the initial shock had subsided they had still wanted to stay, too exhausted by the episode to walk back to the temple and try to hide that they were upset. Feana had been so uncomfortable, so unsure of what to do or how to act around them. They should have known he understood what had happened.

He scoots a little closer now and rubs a thumb across their knuckles. “I got carried away and I should have taken more time and not rushed it.”

Rho’ki lets out a frustrated huff. “Are you listening? It’s not your fault. I got carried away, too, I was in the moment. It felt good to have you touch me. I’m angry I can’t just enjoy that.” They sit in an awkward silence for a moment where Rho’ki can tell that Feana wants to apologize again and is holding himself back. “I’ve considered seeing a healer.”

“Do you have someone in mind?”

Rho’ki thinks it’s an odd first reaction, but nods, not pointing it out. “Draea. I trust her.”

Feana bobs his head ambiguously. “She’s very pretty.”

Rho’ki blinks, struck by his tone. He’s trying to keep it hidden, but there’s jealousy in his voice. “Would that make you uncomfortable?” Their tone is flat and emotionless, almost challenging him to say yes.

Feana flounders, realizing the way it had sounded. “No! No. It’s surprising, I guess? But I’ll support you in whatever you think will help you. It’s your healing, I don’t get a say in it.”

Rho’ki offers one short nod, satisfied with his answer. “I know it seems strange, and it does still sit crooked for me. I think it will be difficult at first just because of how… familiar it will seem. It was hard for me in the beginning to even go to His shrines after the way they used Him to justify everything they did to me. But Draea is devout, and she’s kind, and I trust her to handle this in a prayerful, respectful way that focuses on my needs.” They reach out and lay each hand on Feana’s shoulders. “I might have not even sought this out if it weren’t for you, even if it would help me move past things. I’m doing this for me, but part of what I’m doing for me is trying to get myself to a place where I can be your lover, and not feel like my body is full of the memory of every awful thing they ever did to me.”

Feana frowns deeply. It makes him sick to think about it, he can’t even begin to imagine what it’s actually like for them. When he had found out, his first thought had been of when he’d last visited Rho’ki in Qores. They’d stayed by the river talking for hours, until the sun came up, and the Dova had come and found them and scolded Rho’ki, pulling them away by the arm back to the temple. He had felt guilty for getting them in trouble before, assuming they had been punished with chores, but now he fears that punishment had been so much worse, more horrible than he can comprehend. He feels like he should have known, somehow, should have been able to sense it, wonders if Rho’ki had been trying to hint at it and he had been too dense to pick it up. “You know, we don’t have to. Have sex, I mean. I want to, of course I want to.” He moves Rho’ki’s hands by the wrist from his shoulders down around his waist, leaning in and brushing their hair back behind their ears. “There’s so much I want to do with you and to you, but I don’t need that to love you. If you do this and come out of it realizing maybe sex isn’t something you really want, or that you just can’t push past it, you won’t lose me.”

Rho’ki rubs at the sides of his round belly and sighs. “Thank you.” They kiss the bridge of his nose. “But you’re still not listening. I want to have sex with you. I wanted to have sex with you last night. I want to be your lover, I want to feel you inside me, I want all of that. If I can’t, it will be a blow for me. I still carry around all their rules and control and this… ghost of all the times they touched me, and I want it gone. I feel so damaged and it isn’t fair and I just want to scrub it out of me, and if it isn’t something that will come clean, at least enough that I can have my body back as mine, to do what I want with it without clamming up or panicking or being afraid…” The tears are back and they hang their head, giving into the emotion and crying themself out when Feana nuzzles closer and squeezes them to him.

He quiets them softly and strokes their hair, waiting for it to pass. “Then I’ll pray for you. I’ll do whatever you need me to if it helps.” He feels Rho’ki nod, hiding their face in his shoulder. “You know, this is intimacy, too.”

Rho’ki pulls back, sitting up straight and wiping their eyes. “I know. I don’t take everything else for granted. Sex is a goal for me, something I want to reclaim, but it isn’t,” they gesticulate with their long hands uncertainly, trying to choose their words. “I don’t know. I don’t discount everything else. Like… this morning was so nice. Waking up next to you. I like that a lot.”

Feana smiles, wiping away a stray tear and cupping their cheek, pleased to feel them lean into his touch. “I do, too. I like having you near me as much as possible.” He leans in and wraps his arms around them, laying his head against their chest and hearing their heartbeat. They settle into an embrace, rocking each other gently, occasionally shifting into a kiss or caress, slow and meandering, comforting. From the center of the shrine, two young women’s voices have started up in a beautiful round, almost a call and response. They sing praises to the Shining Joy for the gift of touch, of pleasure, of senses and of others to sense. Under their song, the quiet, wet sounds of love-making mingle with the soft ringing of wind-chimes from somewhere else in the shrine. The atmosphere it creates is one that is fitting for the God of Passion’s energy, loving and free, celebratory and indulgent, kind and joyful. It is an energy Rho’ki has had to learn, to discover under all the lies that had been tied around this shining, jubilant god by a cult of selfish predators making themselves out to be devoted servants. It had nearly pushed Rho’ki away from the temple, altogether, but their faith didn’t die, and they have started to melt through the ice of disdain they had grown for Him, finally able to worship Him as he truly is, and not the warped image that had been used to justify their abuse.

When the singing ends, Rho’ki blurts out, “You need an altar.” Thinking about waking up with Feana had reminded them that they had had to go downstairs and get a prayer flag from the shop to make morning offerings to. Almost a year back in Handien and Feana still had not put together a designated space for the gods in his apartment, insisting that it felt like too important a task and every time he tried to tackle it, he became overwhelmed and diverted his energy to something else.

Feana laughs loudly and hugs Rho’ki tight. “I know, I know, okay." He pulls away and looks up at Rho’ki, all shadow in the dim light. “How about you come back with me, I’ll make you dinner, then you can help me set one up, hmm?”

Rho’ki smiles, the glint of it just barely visible. “Okay. Can I stay the night again?”

“Of course.”

Rho’ki gathers their things and they slip out of the shrine, padding quietly past the two young women embraced in silent prayer at the altar. Stepping out into the courtyard, the faint glow of the last few rays of daylight feel bright compared to the shaded nook, but to the east, the sky is full dark and streaked with stars. Feana lets Rho’ki use him for balance as they take the steps slowly down onto the street, strolling in no hurry towards Feana’s shop. They hold hands and Rho’ki thinks about what Feana had said about intimacy, that there are many different kinds.

Surely the kissing, which they like very much, is intimate, and embraces and holding hands, but so, too, is the way Feana helps them without forcing his way into it like some others do. He makes himself available if they need to steady themself or need a hand up, but doesn’t outright offer, which they appreciate. They cry together, about lots of things. They talk about the gods and their fears and wonder about what it might have been like if their parents hadn't died, if they would have remained close, if it would have changed anything. They cook for each other and say prayers together and like to sit in silence side by side and watch the sky. Rho’ki wears a woven bracelet Feana had made for them and Feana keeps a charm for peaceful dreams under his pillow that Rho’ki had imbued with their magick. All of these things are intimate, too, are love and maybe even ways of making love that are not sex, but still, they can’t let go of wanting something physical, to at least try.

They wonder often if maybe they aren’t wired for desire as strongly as most people, they suspect they probably aren’t, but they can’t know for sure what is innate and what is manifested from trauma, and they want to be able to explore sex and learn for themself in a way they were robbed of. They feel that they deserve that much.

When they’ve had some dinner and Feana is washing up, Rho’ki starts clearing off a small table for the altar. Feana feels intimidated by creating sacred space, doubts himself too much to engage, feeling silly singing prayers by himself in an empty room, so Rho’ki does it for him, is glad to be able to give him this space. They bless the wood with oils and kneel at it with their palms and brow pressed flat against the surface, eyes closed and humming a droning chant to churn up energy and pour it into the altar. They pray for it to be a space where Feana can find peace and feels welcome and comfortable to be with the gods. Sharing their magick with him is a form of intimacy, too, and it’s one they are more than happy to do, feeling sometimes that it is the only thing of any real value they have to offer. They understand the intimidation he had described, it can be daunting to come before the gods at times, but Rho’ki funnels their love for him into the altar to dispel any fear, weaving an energy that is warm and inviting, wanting to give him this gift, a retreat he can rest his mind in and feel safe.

When they are satisfied with it, they sit up and begin to assemble the altar from the pieces left packed away, spreading out a beautifully embroidered cloth and lovingly placing each idol. They arrange each item thoughtfully and with care, putting together a quick mix of herbs to burn as a first offering, something of a house-warming for the gods.

Feana comes to sit with them and puts out a small offering of rose water and cooked rice leftover from dinner. “Oh! It feels very nice, thank you so much.”

Rho’ki smiles and kisses his cheek. “Of course. Do you think you’ll use it?”

Feana pulls a face, like he’s been caught. “I will! I’ll try… it’s not that I don’t want to, when I finally get around to it, it always feels like what I needed, it’s just… it feels so big in my head, and sometimes when I’m going through the motions, that’s all it feels like. Sometimes I think I’m doing it wrong.”

“There’s no wrong. Going through the motions is part of it, it builds up a memory of it so you can cultivate a deeper, spiritual space that corresponds to it. But, you know you’re not supposed to always get some kind of divine epiphany, right? Sometimes it’s just about showing up. It’s a practice.”

Feana is looking at them strangely, in a way Rho’ki can’t read. It makes them blush, uncertain what he’s thinking. “You’re going to be a very good priest, you know that?”

They feel their blush darken, heat flooding across their cheeks, and they laugh it off nervously. “I hope so.”

Feana squeezes their arm gently. “You will be. I know it.” They share something wordless and strong, a brief wisp that they both turn away from shyly, facing the altar. “Do we get to sing now?” Feana asks, reaching for the brass prayer bell.

Rho’ki nods and puts the wordless thing away to examine later, a strange moment that had felt familiar and certain in a way they don’t have a vocabulary for. There have been little flashes of it here and there over the last few months together, each a little different, and Rho’ki suspects they are like puzzle pieces that will fit together into something coherent. So far there is nothing to make of them, but it does seem similar to the happy bird in their chest whenever they are with Feana, the swell of joy that surges up when he smiles at them. Whatever it is, it is a very good feeling.

Feana dips his fingers into the rose water and flicks droplets of it onto each idol, ringing the bell and beginning to sing. It’s an older prayer, more of a folk hymn than the temple songs Rho’ki is used to, but his voice carries it beautifully. Rho’ki only hums along for the first round and then begins to pick up the words, their voice under his, finding harmonies. They are too focused on the gods to realize it now, but when they are waiting to fall asleep later, stretched out beside Feana in his soft bed, they realize that the wordless thing feels like when their voices pair together perfectly, melding into a strong harmony, making something new altogether. They theorize that the wordless thing is their energy finding a harmony, vibrating in sync. They try not to settle on any premature conclusions, but the moment they think it, it feels right. They hope it’s right. If they can’t be his lover, they can always still share this, and their soul is the only thing they feel Qores didn’t truly tarnish. They still have that, and rather than keep it guarded, they are overjoyed to share it with Feana. He is the one person they have always felt safe with, and perhaps their strongest faith is in knowing that that much will never change.

#fiction #writing #prose #queer romance #nonbinary character #queer characters #world building #witch fiction #witchcraft #nsfw

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0ssuary · 6 years

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Ossuary is a witch-scifi thriller following Rho’ki, an agender priest whose primary temple duties are funerary rites. They prepare the dead for interment and move the eventual skeletal remains into the temple ossuary. Though their world has advanced technologies, ubiquitous in the distant city-states, Rho’ki’s village, where they live with their partner, is something of a cultural conservation effort–one of a remaining few–limiting their assimilation with the outside world and living closely to the traditional ways of their ancestors. All is nearly idyllic until Rho’ki finds a small, unidentifiable device among the bones of a passed-on soul, a device no one was ever meant to find, and that dangerous people want back…

Rho’ki’s fingers and the tip of their nose are numb. The morning had been calm and crisp, but the last stretch of winter has dug its heels in and the afternoon had turned to blustery, the evening bitterly cold. The short days don’t help much. The sun had just begun to bob over the horizon as Rho’ki climbed the temple steps, and it had been gone again for several hours before they were leaving for home again. It’s not weather Handein is prepared for. A thick mantle of silver clouds has been creeping slowly out of the distance from over the forests and the elders say it looks like snow. If it is, it will be the first in the region in almost three decades.

Today had been an interment day. Rho’ki and a group of other priests and dedicants had pulled carts out to the burial caves and returned with a few dozen bodies, decayed to little more than bones, removing the remains from their shrouds and transferring them to the temple ossuary behind the towering idol of the Death Goddess, passing the empty shrouds on to Her priests. Walking in the dark across the rolling fields between town and home, Rho’ki can see the fire up on the ridge at Her secondary shrine, the shadow of robed figures passing in front of the flame as they burn the shrouds and herbs under the full Grey Moon. The Pale and Green Moons are only slivers, but the Grey Moon is plenty enough to see by, and they know the way well, though the journey feels longer tonight. The cold has persisted all day and they want to be inside, wrapped in blankets, huddled around a heater. Even once they had returned to the temple from the burial caves, the temple was hardly warmer. There were heaters moved inside the main sanctuary, but they had been prioritized to the two babies being born in the shrine of the Creatrix, and there is so much space to heat, they were largely ineffective outside of a tight radius from them. Rho'ki had settled for bundling up, keeping on leggings, a hooded pullover, and thick socks under their usual vestments. Though technically not disrespectful so long as they were still without shoes, it felt wrong somehow. Rho'ki had lived their whole life with the temple’s flagstones under their bare feet. They are ready for this cold weather to break.

Cresting the last hill, Rho’ki sees their small house with a light on in the front window and a pillar of smoke rising from the hearth’s chimney.

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0ssuary · 6 years

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Hello dear moonbeams, it’s time for a broad Character Overview:

(Content warning: This text includes nongraphic mention of child sex abuse/sexual assault and trauma.)

Rho’ki and Feana are part of a generation of orphans from an earthquake and subsequent tsunami that killed thousands in their region. Rho’ki was about three or four, Feana was six. Their parents had been friends and they stuck together when they were taken in by the temple and were fostered out together like siblings, living with a few different families in Handien. Rho’ki’s always had a crush on Feana that they kept to themself, looking up to him as a kid. They’ve always been extremely close, and kept in touch as pen pals when Rho’ki decided they wanted to train as a priest and were sent to another temple in the nearby city-state of Qores, much more modern and densely populated than Handein. (This practice of training priests away from their home temple is common and meant to keep the individual temple cultures across the region more uniform with one another.) They were only twelve, which is young to make the decision, but they come from a line of priests and dedicants and were trusted to know what they wanted.

Feana showed a talent for embroidery, a traditional craft used as a form of storytelling in their culture, and was fostered by a master embroiderer, taken on as her apprentice after Rho’ki left for Qores. He had some serious separation anxiety without them for a while, but he was shoved into the role of Charming Storefront Boy during his apprenticeship and it forced him to come out of his shell. He traveled a lot with his mentor, meeting people that would one day be his clients when she either retired or passed away, and got to visit Rho’ki a couple of times in Qores. Their correspondence dwindled for a while after Rho’ki’s injury and return to Handien. Feana was away in another city after his mentor passed away, managing her shop there and finishing the training of the two seamstresses that would run it, but when he finally returned home and he and Rho’ki saw each other again for the first time in years, the connection was still there and snapped back into place, stronger than ever. He didn’t learn what had happened to Rho’ki in Qores until after they had been together a while, and he still wonders if there was something he should have noticed, should have sensed, that might have ended the abuse sooner.

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0ssuary · 6 years

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(Content warning: This text contains drug use, descriptions of psychedelic experience, hallucinations, a graphic (enthusiastically consensual) sex scene, and brief allusion to Rho'ki's past trauma/sexual assault.)

Rho’ki had nearly forgotten that they were waiting for the effects of the tea to creep in, sitting on a blanket in the grass with Feana stretched out on his stomach reading beside them. It’s their third day in a row home together, a rare treat, and the beautiful weather is perfect for an afternoon indulging with chaamut, spirit-eyes tea. All the chores had been finished over the two days prior, laundry done and house thoroughly cleaned, garden weeded and house plants watered, both of them caught up on some work that inevitably follows them home. Today, they could truly rest, do absolutely nothing if they felt like it.

Feana had voiced the winning suggestion, but Rho’ki had already been thinking it and needed no convincing. They had packed a picnic basket and brewed a batch of the tea--a psychedelic made from the dried leaves of a sacred plant--and drank one dose together at their altar, putting the other in a jar in the picnic basket before walking out into the fields around their home, settling on a hilltop to snack and read and draw while they waited for the first dose to take effect. The warm sun, bursting in and out from behind dancing clouds, had lulled them both into a relaxed, drowsy one-mindedness, Feana absorbed in his book and Rho’ki in their sketching, and it isn’t until Rho’ki finally looks up that they realize the tea is well into them, now. The hilltop feels like it’s nearly in the clouds, their little house looking much farther off in the distance at the edge of the forest, which now has a sense of looming up over them, as if curving out, the branches reaching up and over, the edges of Rho’ki’s perception bending as if they were looking at the world through a sphere of crystal.

They set their sketchbook aside to let the paint dry and look over at Feana, reaching to rub the back of his leg to get his attention. The soft fabric of his drawstring skirt is almost hot to the touch, sun-baked, a fascinating sensation under the tea’s sensory adjustments. He has his curls tucked up into a colorful scarf and the natural dyes seem surreally bright now against his dark skin, the flowers in the field around them intensely saturated. Feana rolls onto his side, tucking a bookmark between the pages of the worn library copy of a translated Iryanan romance. Rho’ki watches him adjust, his face going slack and his eyes unfocused for a moment as he realizes he missed the slow onset of the spirit-eyes coming over him and is now solidly in it. “Oh.”

Rho’ki snickers softly. “Mmhmm. It’s time for the second dose.” Feana sits up, his bare belly hanging over the waist of his skirt, and pulls the jar of tea from the picnic basket while Rho’ki prepares some incense and dried flower buds in a stone bowl to burn. They shift a little closer together on the blanket and sing a prayer, their voices striking phantom notes in between the harmony, Rho’ki’s deep and wavering, Feana’s a clear, keening tone above it. They share the tea back and forth in small sips until it’s gone and eat a little to take the bitter taste out of their mouths and settle their stomachs. They had brought flatbreads stuffed with fresh greens from their garden and pickled vegetables gifted to them from a friend who had had a bountiful harvest, a thermos of lemonade Feana had made fresh that morning, sweet ripe berries and wild grapes foraged from the forest, hard crackers from an Iryanan merchant, and a spread made from nuts ground into a smooth paste, flavored brightly with citrus and fresh herbs. Rho’ki has a time of it trying to scoop up some of the spread onto a cracker, their fingers not quite cooperating as the tea advances from their senses out into their nervous system. It isn’t debilitating, they won't be left rocking and hugging their knees and drooling like the strong, transformative doses administered at the temple, but it can make them clumsy.

Once they’ve eaten their fill, they have the forethought to pack away most of their things before the second dose hits them full-on. Feana has started to feel like a weak seismic quake is rolling through the ground beneath him, a typical sensation for him with chaamut. He leans his head against Rho’ki’s shoulder and kisses the circle of bare brown skin, tracing his finger around the edges of it, inked black, sitting in silence with them and watching the last of the incense smoke curl up into the still air. In the distance, far out over the forests where the ancient trees loom high above the rest, the clouds are dark and low, the haze of rain pulled like a veil across part of the horizon. A strong breeze comes in off the trees and it smells like wet foliage and ozone. Rho’ki shivers, tipping their head back as the wind picks up strands of their hair. There isn’t nearly enough skin exposed to the air for how intensely they are beginning to feel each sensation, and they rectify this by tugging off their simple slip, leaving them nude and feeling much more free. They close their eyes and feel the breeze across their bare skin, sensing in it the rain and sky and the essence of spring, psychic boundaries dissolving and letting them briefly, even if only as a vivid thought experiment, experience being at once themself and the field and the breeze.

Feana lies back on the blanket and watches the sky, Rho’ki stretching out next to him and lacing their fingers with his. It feels like rolling on top of ocean waves and the sky ripples in sync with the pulsing rhythm. Feana scoots closer and they move to curl around one another, their heads tilted together as they look up at the clouds, sinking into the experience. Neither can be sure, but they are given the sense that the tea is affecting them both in the same way, gifting them with the same visions and sensations. The clouds melt together and shift into shapes and patterns. The sun breaking through them, less and less, cuts crystal daggers and lines. It isn’t as vivid or surreal as a temple experience, they both know it’s not real, can observe it without being at mercy to it, riding above the deeper, more shadowy aspects of the plant’s sacred healing, aglow with euphoria. The sky becomes desaturated and monochromatic as more clouds move in from the west, a grey curtain pulled across the sun, but colors skitter across this wispy, shifting canvas from their peripheral vision, catching sight of the red of the mountains, the green of the forest, small meteorites of yellows and violets from the flowers swaying in the breeze around them.

Rho’ki becomes briefly untethered from time and place, something they have learned to relax into with chaamut, watching the clouds and feeling the air around them, smelling flowers and the slow approach of rain, feeling the ground beneath them and their own breath, bobbing freely through the experience as they tip into the point where it is easy to let go of things like thinking or worrying or analyzing. They watch the sky shift and they are the sky, are the waving bright petals in the wind, growing stronger, are the whooshing rustle of leaves from the forest, are the point of warmth between their palm and Feana’s, are Feana, are his breath flowing in and out. Their consciousness interrupts to worry quietly that it will rain soon, that they should be preparing themselves to gather their things and go back to the house, but a presence they are familiar with now, the spirit of the sacred plant, itself, assures them there’s a little more time. The rain is in no hurry.

Trusting it, they start to melt back into the untethered state when Feana shifts and kisses them just below their eye. A shockwave of warmth moves through them from the contact point all the way down to their toes, and they imagine the energy of it continuing on like a heat shimmer out of the soles of their feet and across the field. They move together and kiss and as Rho’ki’s eyes slip shut, they remember every kiss they’ve ever shared all at once. Comforting, passionate, brief pecks goodbye at the front door or slow, groggy kisses in the morning, each one special and stored away somewhere deep in them, in the endless place full of their love for him, bottomless and overflowing all at once. Their attention shifts back to this kiss, tugging Feana close with a hand against the middle of his back. He tastes like lemonade and wild grapes and his mouth is the softest, warmest thing they can imagine in this moment. He presses closer and pulls Rho’ki on top of him, his arms looping around their waist. The pulsing, wave-roll sensation that had been the ground beneath them is now him, his warmth, the rise and fall of his breath, and Rho’ki syncs to its rhythm, their long body stretched out over Feana’s, kissing him as if he were the feet of a deity’s idol, adoring and worshipful.

The rolling euphoric warmth begins to glow hotter, their hearts pounding faster, louder. It’s almost like a ringing in their ears, growing stronger and more intense until Rho'ki sits up suddenly and announces, “The rain is coming.” The words had come straight from the ether and out of their mouth, bypassing thought, and they take it for truth, climbing off Feana and getting shakily to their feet, not bothering to put their slip back on. Feana grabs the basket and blanket and has to force himself to focus to check that they aren’t leaving anything behind before they start back down the hill towards home. It’s a short walk, but in a state that wants to drag each moment out into an entire universe of experience, it feels like a proper journey. Feana keeps close to Rho’ki, who grips their cane hard, in no particular amount of pain but feeling like their head is very far above their clumsy, slow feet, distracted by how in their mind now, walking through the grass and feeling it beneath them, against their skin, is wading through a pool of natural energy, vividly aware of the spirit of the hills and its plants. For Feana, the trailing colors are distracting and disorienting, both of them taking it very slow, careful and purposeful.

When they pass the flowering tree at the start of the path to their door, a few warning drops have begun to fall, soft paps against dry dirt, a metallic smell wafting up off the ground, different from the wet forest wind. Anything that might be damaged by the rain is safe inside the basket, and they make it to the door just as the clouds’ bottom falls out, a sheet of water hitting the roof in a loud sputter as they shuffle inside.

Feana puts the basket in the kitchen, but Rho’ki continues straight through the house and out the back door into the garden, standing in the rain. It reminds them of the ritual cleansing they had been given during their ordination, and a rush of emotion swells up in them. That cleansing had been so significant, the highlight of one of the most important events of their life. As they’d stood nude in the temple, gripping a staff for balance, shivering as they were lightly beaten by five other priests with bundles of holy herbs, soaked from head to toe in blessed sea water, they had been overcome with the sudden and acute knowledge of truly being cleansed, of being cleared out and unshackled from years of pain and feelings of worthlessness, of horrible memories and the fear that they were forever tainted, scarred soul-deep by what had been done to them, and freed from the weight of the blame they had put on themself for it, unable to understand why something so terrible would ever happen and left to conclude that somehow, they had deserved it, that it had been their fault. There was so much pain there, so hated but familiar, that for a time the cleansing had almost felt like bereavement, but it was an incredible, life-saving gift. In one ritual gesture, a crack had formed at the bottom of their dark, fetid well of trauma, and it had finally begun to drain out.

It’s only for a split second, but standing in the rain transports them back to that moment, and when they return, they feel grounded and steady. The ringing in their ears, the rushing sense of overstimulation calms, and they are very still and peaceful, taking a moment to appreciate the serene shift before moving to stretch out on the flat wooden bench by the garden. Feana watches them from inside, taking down his hair and stepping out of the skirt, following them to the bench. Rho’ki lifts their legs to let him sit and them drapes them across his lap.

The heat of each other in contrast to the cool rain draws them together quickly, Rho’ki pulling him down over them. He can sense the more steady energy from them now and attunes to it, kissing them in small, unrushed brushes of lips, meandering across their jaw and down their throat, circling back up to their mouth. As lovely and pleasant as the slow pace is, the heightened sensation catches up to them soon enough. Slow kisses grow more passionate. The warmth of skin-on-skin glows brighter and the steady pulse starts again, this time radiating from the pelvis. Rho’ki has their legs wrapped around Feana’s hips and they can feel his arousal pressed against the back of their thigh, making them aware of their own. A surge of want shakes through them and they snake a hand down between them, wrapping it around him in a sure grip. Feana’s breath hitches and he angles his hips up into their strokes. His palms slide down Rho’ki’s ribs and over their hips, gently pushing their thighs apart and moving down caress them. He rubs in tight, firm circles that make Rho’ki whimper against his mouth. They touch each other and kiss harder and harder until they are shaking and panting. Feana suddenly pulls away and moves back, and Rho’ki isn’t prepared for the sharp spike of pleasure that shoots up through their core when his mouth seals around them and begins to suck, his tongue exploring expertly, knowing their body in intricate detail.

Rho’ki grips the sides of the bench and grinds their hips up into his mouth, each sensation so exaggerated that his touch feels almost burning hot, their arousal a buzzing, urgent tension already unstable, ready to release. The rain has died out to a thin drizzle and the floating, rolling sensation from before returns full-force. All they can do is hold on and moan, gasping as his tongue worms up inside them and they’re sure they aren’t climaxing, but the waves of pleasure are so intense and consuming that they are almost afraid of what climax will feel like. They’ve had sex under the veil of chaamut before, but it isn’t an experience that’s easy to acclimate to. Each time, it is just as powerful.

His weight is back over them and they hadn’t realized they were squeezing their eyes shut, opening them now and looking up into his dark face, reaching up to bury their fingers in his damp curls as he sinks his fingers into them, wet and aching. Rho’ki pulls his head down to kiss him, sucking at his tongue and nipping gently at his lips. When they can’t stand it a second longer, they reach down and grab him, guiding him to them. Feana chuckles breathlessly against their mouth and moves his hand up to brace himself, letting Rho’ki guide him inside, their kiss breaking in a harmonized moan as he sinks into their tight heat. Rho’ki’s breath is caught in their throat and they cling to him, trying to pull him deeper inside despite their body resisting. Feana rolls his hips and Rho’ki’s body pulses, a strong shudder raking up through them. He does it again and slips deeper inside and Rho’ki melts into the pleasure, set alight at every point of contact, from his mouth against their own to his hand against their side, his round belly pressing them down into the bench, his thick length pushing deeper inside them.

When he properly begins to thrust, their awareness is somewhere between completely dragged under a heavy wave of indistinct ecstacy, and hyper-focused on the way their body stretches around him, the texture of his skin, the slide of him in and out of them, squeezing past tight spots and persistently stimulating the intense trigger at their front wall. For all their usual lack of interest in sex, when the mood is right, their body is highly sensitive to stimulation and arousal. It can be overwhelming at times even without anything to enhance it, but their altered perception now turns the pleasure into a consuming, thought-erasing experience. There are tears streaming down their face as they climax, Feana kissing them away, whispering to them gently to check in and make sure they’re alright, and they beg him to continue, even as their body feels like it will rattle apart, spasms persisting long after the initial release.

They get lost in it for some time, but when Feana starts to falter, losing himself in it, the shift in him pulls Rho’ki back, stroking his face and cooing to him gently, beckoning him toward climax. They squeeze down around him and roll their hips, working with him to another orgasm as he thrusts desperately, the intensity surging quickly, almost painfully rough, and then breaking cleanly, floating down off the peak, a few slow thrusts milking the sensation as Rho’ki shudders and pulses around him, and he sinks all the way inside as they both ride it out. Feana relaxes over Rho’ki and stays there for a long while, head tucked into the crook of their neck. Rho’ki doesn’t mind, the weight of him over them is warm and comforting, their hands smoothing over his back in slow circles, kissing the top of his head and nuzzling into his hair. In the quiet afterglow, it is easy to feel how they are connected by so much more than flesh.

Before they can consider staying right here until the tea has worked its way through their system, the rain picks up, colder now, and they reluctantly pull apart. Feana picks Rho’ki’s cane up off the ground and hands it to them, and they walk to the bricked patio to extend the tarp over it, sheltering under it and wringing out their hair, drying off with a kitchen towel to avoid tracking much more water into the house. Rho’ki goes to the water closet to urinate and clean up, afterwards finding Feana in the bathroom, toweling off more thoroughly and putting on clean, comfortable clothes. They braid his hair for him and twist their own up into a bun, tying on a thin, loose robe. After drinking lots of water--the tea makes the body run hot, dehydrating it--they both migrate to the altar, settling onto some soft cushions.

It’s nearly dusk now and the altar nook is dark, Rho’ki lighting the candles to fill it with warm flickering light. The patterns on the tapestries hung on each wall dance in the light, shifting with spirit-eyes, but after the crescendo of climax, the effects now are dreamlike and mild. Feana rings the bell and they sing a prayer to bookend the experience before shifting into their usual evening ritual. Rho’ki lights incense and offers it to each idol, passing it to Feana for the two on his side of the altar. They burn a dried bundle of herbs and offer this, too, blessing each other with the smoke before setting it into a stone dish to smolder out, each kissing the flat black stone that represents the Void, setting it reverently back on its small bed of velvet and dried petals before bowing their heads in meditation.

The last remnants of the tea pull them under and they drift for an indeterminate amount of time, seeing shapes and colors and having thoughts bubble up, acknowledging them and making note, but letting them fade away. When Rho’ki feels ready to come back to the present, the house is totally dark beyond the altar’s candles and Feana is watching them. Before they can ask how long he’s been waiting for them, he smiles at them and rests a hand on their knee. “I love you.”

More than a decade of hearing it and it still sets free a happy bird in their heart. They lay a hand over his and smile back. “I know. Thank you. I love you, too.” They lean down to kiss him, lingering, then pull away. Feana gets up and turns on a light in the main room and Rho’ki extinguishes all the candles, veiling the altar for the night.

Feana puts on some quiet music and they sit together on the sofa to journal anything important from the experience. They’ll process it for a day or two and then share if needed, but for now, once all the urgent ideas are down, they put the journals away and start making dinner. The psychedelic effects are still present, but they feel faded and distant now, normalcy returning, setting in fully after they’ve eaten, physical sustenance helping to ground them back in their physical reality and bodies.

This type of freeform use of chaamut dances the line for Rho’ki’s disdain towards recreational use of the sacred plant. Usually, they take the tea with a set purpose, a plan for a structured experience, but over the years, they’ve grown more lenient, and giving the tea room to guide them where it needs to take them rather than where they think they need to be has its advantages. It can be difficult sometimes for them to justify simply enjoying themself, but there is value in sharing experiences like this with Feana, in bonding without a structured goal and letting the connection shine on its own.

Most of their journaled recounts for today had centered on this, revelling in nature and being with Feana with the heightened awareness and perception to really wade around in their connection to both. Many of the thoughts during meditation had been similar, too. How much they love him. Still feeling the phantom of him inside them. The calm it brings to know they are loved so deeply, can be so vulnerable but be made to feel so safe, the gratitude they carry for having him in their life. Thoughts that are important and good, but not particularly revelatory, and certainly not new.

There had been one stray thought, though, a sort of formless one, an impression more than words. A key with no door, that itself needs unlocking. The image of a comet or meteor. An ash-grey sky. It had felt unattached from any other thoughts or visions, unfamiliar from dreams or anything they might recognize, but they had written it down, just in case. Now and again, the most innocuous and nonsense psychic flotsam later proves itself relevant, the context gained after giving them meaning when Rho’ki revisits their old journal entries every few moons.

When they are in bed with Feana fast asleep beside them, tucked against their side, Rho’ki looks up at the stars through their skylight, holes in the clouds opening up to a scatter of distant suns. They wait in anticipation of the flash of a meteorite, but none comes, and they eventually give up and close their eyes to sleep. Drifting off, they think hazily once again of a key with no door, that itself needs unlocking. A key that is not a key. An ash-grey sky. Something falling from the stars.

Seven years ago, the few desert dwellers beyond the red mountains who had seen the bright flash cut across the sky had thought it was a shooting star. Beautiful and exciting, but only a brief flare of interest as it arced towards the remote heart of the desert, quickly forgotten. There was no reason to remember a meteor, even a bright and beautiful one. They hadn’t known that it was a key without a door, a remnant of an ash-grey sky.

#prose #writing #fiction #witch fiction #queer romance #queer characters #nonbinary character #nsfw #erotica #psychedelic use #witchcraft

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0ssuary · 6 years

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Hello starbrights, it's time for a little housekeeping. A few things: I've recently made a Twitter account to focus on writing, you can follow me @river_quinn if you'd like. Currently I'm participating in the #LGBTWIP challenge, so there's little extra morsels of Ossuary stuff there. Also, I'm going to try to get onto a more regular posting schedule, ideally once a week, likely on weekends. You're welcome to hold me to this! Lastly, I also have a ko-fi account, so if you feel so inclined, you can support my work there. I'm really grateful to everyone who's on board already, you're all wonderful! I'm glad this world is drumming up some interest, and if there's a story snippet or some world-building that's stuck with you, maybe reblog it?Your followers might like it, too, and it would really help me out to have my work be seen in wider circles. I had a longer piece planned for this weekend, but it turned into a bigger project than I'd originally intended, so you'll be seeing that next Saturday, most likely. For now, enjoy another myth (Rho'ki's favorite, the one they carry a talisman of told in stitched motifs on a small kerchief, embroidered by Feana), and a collection of short introductions of some minor characters I'm excited to flesh out.

When Yotri was young, all ocean and sky, the Mother of Creation thrust Her hands into the waters and drew up the land, letting it draw its first breath. She sculpted the mountains and carved out canyons, smoothed the plains and caressed into being the rolling hills. The God of Passion, Her Shining Light, cast golden rays down onto the soil and flowers sprang up to turn their faces to Him, moss and grass covering stone and dirt and blanketing the land. Together, They planted the world and began to birth small creatures into it. Inspired, the Creatrix bent down and kissed the ground, and a forest of saplings pushed their way up into the Light.

Slowly, they grew together, roots entwined, stretching upwards, and when they were thirsty the Mother sent them rain. When the sun shone too brightly, She shaded them with clouds. At night, they rested under glittering stars and watched the moons change, watched bright colorful plumes of star births blossoming in the dark Cosmos, and as the forest grew taller, it fell in love with the sky. They reached higher and higher towards the clouds and stars, feeling kissed by the rain, embraced by the wind, graced by the night's shimmering darkness, but no matter how high they reached, they could not touch the sky.

Crestfallen, the leaves began to droop and lose their color. The trunks and branches no longer swayed in the wind, only a cruel reminder of their unattainable love. Feeling their sadness, the Divine Lovers plucked out tufts from the clouds and made from them a flock of white birds. The birds could soar through the sky and roost in the trees, and the forest knew they were of the sky. The leaves became green again and flowers bloomed, bearing fruit. When the birds ate the forest's fruit, their white feathers turned into bright floral colors, and they carried the hues back up into the sky like a love note.

Mesmerized by the colors, the sky fell in love, too. It no longer needed the Mother's prompting to nourish the forest with rain, or cloak it in fog, or shade it with clouds. It did so out of adoration, showering its affection down onto leaves and branches, soaked up into the roots to help the trees grow taller and taller, never quite touching the sky, but coming ever closer so that they might admire one another, sending their love back and forth through rain and birds.

When the clouds break after a storm and are painted jewel- bright hues like a field of flowers, that is their love story.

minor characters

Vamman Khi - She is the temple mother and spiritual leader of Handien, a former head priestess of the Mother of Creation. She’s a portly trans woman in her late sixties that gives off intense high school art teacher vibes; commanding and intense when she needs to be, which is more often than she’d like, but soft and gentle and kind, with an exuberant streak that keeps spirits lifted. The younger priests and dedicants are like her children, and quite a few of them were orphans of Rho’ki’s generation that she looked after as a priestess; she’s watched them grow up and choose to remain with the temple and take their vows, and it makes her feel like a proud mom. She is the only person besides Feana who is allowed to hug Rho’ki without asking. It isn’t uncommon for priests to be nude in the temple (there’s significance to it in terms of vulnerability and celebrating the physical body as sacred creation, but it’s also very hot in Handien for most of the year), and Vamman Khi is nude almost always, whether she’s in the temple or not, leaving nothing about her body to the imagination. She is castrated, has breasts, and still has her penis, she’s fine with it. Being trans (or queer, for that matter) isn’t a big deal for Mahai folk, they recognize five main genders along a spectrum (and are open to more if a person does not feel they fit neatly within these) so Vamman’s body on display doesn’t raise so much as an eyebrow. She is beloved, especially by the devout, and a major influential power in the community, which she does not take lightly. Rho’ki and a lot of the other priests around their age or younger call her Mama.

Draea - A priestess of the God of Passion, Draea is from a large modern city on the other side of Mahai, but came to train in Handien and fell in love with the community, asking to stay. She had just been ordained when Rho’ki returned home and they had beds next to each other in the dormitories and quickly became friends. She is a cis woman, very petite with short cropped hair and traditional tattoos of her order on her forearms and hands. She is one of the priests who performs sacred healing and pleasure, which can range from cuddle sessions with talk therapy, to hands-on sex education, to sex in general. There are many different facets of the Passion Order and sex is not required of priests (it’s in fact a very strict and respected realm of practice with a huge emphasis on consent and awareness), but the God of Passion does tend to attract a lot of pan hyper-sexual extroverts into the order. Draea is quick-witted and assertive and a loyal friend. People who go into training for priesthood intending to dedicate themselves to the Passion God have a high turnover rate for not making it to ordination for a whole host of reasons, and those who make it to their vows are often the most devout of any of the priest orders. Draea deeply loves her god and sees her work as an important part of serving the community and spreading His joy. There’s a really delicate balance between treating sex and intimacy with respect and not trivializing it as a passing pleasure, but also not discounting that that pleasure is sacred and a gift to be enjoyed for what it is. Draea played a big part in helping Rho’ki let go of the resentment and distrust they had for the God of Passion and His followers and understanding what He is really about, rather than the warped ideas they had been manipulated with in the Qores temple.

Eridae - A young priestess-in-training, Eridae is shy and quiet and sweet and has become like a little shadow to Rho’ki. She is sixteen and trans and looks up to Rho’ki as an ideal of what a priest should be. Though she doesn’t feel called to They Who Is Between, her year studying Their realm is her favorite so far simply because it means getting to be taught by and work with Rho’ki. She comes to them for advice and guidance and wants to make them proud. She also has an enormous crush on a boy that sells bread in the market and is too shy to speak to him.

Moireina - Mahaji tradition is not closed only to Mahai folk, but it is uncommon for non-Mahai to follow their path, and rarer still for them to pursue priesthood. Moireina is Skanan, nonbinary, and a priestess of the Mother of Creation. She is disfigured (Crouzon syndrome) and deaf and the primary caretaker of the temple’s rooftop garden. There was some stigma both about her ethnicity/nationality and her appearance when she first came to Handien, but regulars of the temple got to know her quickly and she’s a favorite for spells involving luck and prosperity. She and Rho’ki often have lunch together in the temple cafeteria and trade herbs, seeds, and gardening tips. Because Handien’s temple is one of the oldest and largest in use, it is a minor tourist destination for non-Mahaji folk, and Moireina sometimes finds herself having to be the translator to tell curious Skanans admiring the architecture to take their damn shoes off and be respectful.

Dova Qersho - Qersho (his first name is irrelevant (dova is his title) because literally no one feels comfortable being informal enough with him to use it) is the elder priest of They Who Is Between. He’s trans and in his early eighties and is very no-nonsense. He walks with a cane and has slowly evolved in my mind to looking very much like Srila Prabhupada. In his old age, he leaves a lot of the presiding and counseling to the younger priests and focuses on the more mystical and esoteric parts of priesthood, though he is the one to give the final prayer at every tomb interment. He and Rho’ki have a great deal of respect for one another, Rho’ki is his chosen successor for dova after he has passed on, but their personalities are just similar enough that they clash and they don’t actually get along. They have virtually no personal relationship, only a working one, but for Rho’ki this is a benefit, as they never doubt if his faith in them is biased and knows it is based on merit, alone.

Handien is getting more populated by the minute in my head, but these five are currently the most prominent outside of Feana and Rho’ki. There will especially be a good deal more of Draea in backstory very soon!

#fiction #world building #writing #queer characters #trans characters #mythology #witch fiction #info dump

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0ssuary · 6 years

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🌄❄skana moodboard🌨🌲

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0ssuary · 6 years

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Hi, I hope you feel better soon! (I followed you from twitter, I'm @overlaured there). My inbox is open if you wanna chat, but if you want a prompt, what about... something fluffy and heartwarming... Your characters' ideal day off?

thank you, i’ll be okay, these moods just suck. it’s unfortunately a pretty regular spell where i feel high and low all at once. i’m restless and can’t sleep and want to create something, but don’t have the right kind of energy or focus to get anything done. :/ my mental health is pretty garbage in general, and i’ve been dealing with some intense back pain the last few days that’s zapped all my energy and short-lived good mood.

as far as the prompt: rho'ki and feana have a pretty regular day-off routine. whenever they’re both home together, they’ll spend the mornings doing their own thing (feana usually sleeps in while rho'ki sits outside and draws), then pack a lunch and take a long, leisurely walk into the forest. they’ll stop and eat and cuddle on a blanket, sometimes making love or napping for a while before heading back home. in the evening, they’ll have a light dinner and maybe share a bath, then read in bed.

if rho'ki is home on a day feana is working, they’ll usually spend it resting their leg and having a personal spiritual reflection day with lots of meditation and journaling and generally taking it easy in a mindful way. these days are pretty crucial to avoid burnout. being around grief all the time is exhausting and they have to recharge and refocus to keep from getting down.

#asks

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0ssuary · 6 years

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the mahaji creation myth

Before all things, there was only the Lady of Silence, She Who Is the Nothingness Which Contemplates Herself. For all time and no time, She existed in and as Her void, only existing, until one day, Her focus slipped. A thought formed inside Her mind, and She pushed it away. Out of that thought, the Mother of Creation formed, and began to make the Cosmos.

Out of Her love and exuberance for the beautiful things She was making--oceans and clouds and stars and moons, comets and galaxies, stones and wind--the God of Passion shone out from Her heart, a manifestation of Her joy and light, and together, the Creatrix and Loving Mother of All Things, and He Who Is Light, the Shining Joy, They populated the worlds with life: trees, fish, microbes, people, flowers, birds, all of it. They filled the endlessness with color and breath and beating hearts, rainstorms and star clusters, and soon, the worlds were becoming full.

From the depths of the Void, where the Lady of Silence kept Herself quiet and alone, the noise and rattle of the new creations broke Her from her meditation, again and again. In a moment of anger, She wished the noises would stop, and the Void reached through the Cosmos and touched a small red shrub. Its berries grew dark, and when eaten, they snuffed out life. The Mother of Creation and the God of Passion were laid bare with grief, devastated, searching the worlds to find the cause as their beloved lifeforms succumbed to something new, to Death. Each life’s end pulled the spirits into the Void, and gave form and power to this new force, Death. When the Creatrix and He Who Is Light finally found Her, Veiled and Pale and Terrible, They begged for mercy, but She gave Them none.

These things cannot go on, eternal, She said. Even the stars and planets will come to Me in their time. But I cannot stop Your creations. You can continue making life and new creatures, but I will always take them back into the Void with Me, where even You have come from, when I see fit.

The Divine Lovers accepted Her terms, and for some time, this arrangement was peaceful and balanced, but as life was birthed into the worlds more and more, so too did Death fill the Void with spirits. Again, the Lady of Silence’s contemplations were disturbed. This time, without anger, She wished instead for a barrier, for a place in between Life and Death and Herself. The space between the Cosmos and Her Void opened up, and from her breath, a guardian was born. They shepherded the souls into the space between, and calmed their screaming and sadness. They washed and cradled each spirit until they were silent and serene.

But new spirits continued coming into the Light, and eventually into Death, and soon even the space between was full. Having compassion the Goddess of Death lacked, They Who Is Between saw the Mother of Creation and God of Passion longing for Their lost spirits, and so for each new soul that entered Their domain, an old, quiet soul was returned, its spirit scattered into the Cosmos to become Creation again. The teeming worlds finally found their balance, and the Void was silent once more.

#writing #mythology #world building #magick #fiction #witch fiction

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0ssuary · 6 years

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⛰🌊irya moodboard🍃🗻

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0ssuary · 6 years

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I'm curious about the sign language priests use. Is it specific to the religion?

there are regional dialects and the sign used in temple has its own dialect, but the base language is universal. in fact, the sign language used within deaf communities originated from mahaji temple sign. the lady of silence is the supreme deity in their tradition, hence the vows of silence, and deafness, especially profound or stone deafness, is seen as a sacred blessing. about a quarter of dedicants and priests are deaf!

#asks

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0ssuary · 6 years

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🏜🌾handien district moodboard🏛🌸

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0ssuary · 6 years

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Working around Rho’ki’s vow of silence has made communication a challenge. Feana was always the more talkative of the two of them, and there are years of stories he never had time to put in their letters, so for most of their time together it’s been Rho’ki quietly nodding along and listening to him ramble. They don’t mind. They like his stories, and after so long apart, it’s a novelty just to have him in the flesh to listen to at all. They spend all their free time together, strolling the city, sitting on the steps of the temple looking out over the ocean, picnicing in the fields outside town, now dense with spring flowers. The innate connection they had had as children never went away, is somehow stronger now, and for the most part they get by with Rho’ki’s body language, the smattering of sign Feana remembers from growing up in the temple, and the occasional written note or clumsily typed out message on a communicator pad, but there are some things that require more finesse, more detail, more time. They require a voice, and Rho’ki has given theirs up for a few months more. They are managing, but it can make certain things tricky.

Like how Rho’ki had never told Feana about their injury; he’d been shocked to see them walking with a cane and even more horrified at the scars, and they’ve only given him the most minimal information when he prods about it, only worrying him more. Or like trying to talk about why, in the last year or two before Feana had come home, their letters had gotten more and more infrequent, and finally stopped altogether. Or like when Rho’ki had kissed him a few weeks ago. That much he hadn’t minded and until they had done it, he’d never seen the signs that Rho’ki had always carried a flame for him, but watching them hide behind their hair and blush, unable to stop smiling, he’d realized he was carrying his own. It feels right, but it still needs some talking through, some understanding. There is only so much they can convey with their current barriers.

They had planned to meet outside the temple cafeteria entrance this evening, and when Feana sees a petite young woman standing with Rho’ki, he’s confused, and then very relieved. She lays a hand over her heart, tattooed in red from her upper forearms down onto the backs of her hands, a sign of a priestess of the God of Passion, and bows politely to him, introducing herself as Draea. “Rho’ki has asked me to interpret.”

Feana had wanted to suggest an interpreter, but the things they need one for are personal and sensitive subjects. If Rho’ki has chosen someone they trust, however, he’s confident anything they discuss will stay private. They enter the cafeteria, noisy enough to feel like they won’t be overheard, but not crowded. In another hour or so after evening prayers, it will be packed full of so many people some will have to sit along the wall or stand to eat. The lunar triad is in a few days and the pilgrimage has already begun, droves of people streaming into the city. They find a table at the back corner of the room, Draea taking the seat at the end and Feana and Rho’ki sitting across from one another. There is an awkward silence for a moment and Rho’ki won't look up, shoulders hunched in and head tucked down. Feana opens his mouth to say… anything, just to break the tension, when Rho’ki lifts their hands and signs a short phrase. Draea translates directly. “This is hard for me.”

Feana’s brows draw down over the bridge of his nose. A buzzing ripple of anxiety rises in his stomach. “It’s okay. What’s on your mind?”

Another long pause. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about what happened. I was in the hospital for a long time and couldn’t write back, and then after…” Rho’ki stops and shrugs, pursing their mouth tightly. “I didn’t want you to worry about me, and I didn’t want you to know about it. There’s a lot. So much happened. Things I don’t like to think about and that make me uncomfortable to share and I’m still not ready to talk about them. I just need you to understand that I went through a nightmare, and it’s changed me and left me with a lot of mess.”

They still won't meet his eyes. The anxiety rattles harder in Feana’s chest. “I got the impression it was more than the accident...”

Rho’ki rubs the back of their neck, signs something quickly before going back to worried rubbing. “It wasn’t an accident.”

A shrill sound leaves Feana before he can stop himself. “Someone did this to you?”

Rho’ki huffs in frustration, all air, careful not to vocalize. “It’s all one big thing, it’s… it’s complicated and I can’t talk about it.” They reach to move their cane closer, a nervous gesture, then sidestep the subject. “I still have all your letters.”

Feana smiles a little, trying to let it go and not press them, despite how this new bit of cryptic information has made his heart pound. “Me, too. I unpacked some more last night and found them actually.” Among the letters was the last photo they’d taken together, sitting along the river in Qores where they had stayed talking for hours. In the photo, Rho’ki rests their head against his shoulder and they are both smiling and look so young. Before that day, Feana hadn’t seen Rho’ki since they were still a child, but they had grown so much and he was taken back by how handsome they were. He’d expected a pretty, lithe girl but Rho’ki had matured into a boyish, ropey string bean, taller than him and with a voice that was deeper than his, cracking and squeaking awkwardly. The attraction had caught him off guard and he’d forgotten about it once their correspondence was back to only letters, but seeing the photo reminded him that maybe being with Rho’ki isn’t as out of the blue as it seems to him sometimes. Reading back through the letters, too, he should have seen this coming. All the same, it’s been a pleasant surprise.

This, though, the look of worry on Rho’ki’s face, how much he can see them struggling to open up and share whatever the weight is he’s noticed them carrying, this makes him nervous.

Rho’ki signs more, chewing their lip. “Having you here is so good for me. You motivate me to… be better. To do better. But I don’t get to hide with you. It’s hard.”

“I don’t understand.”

Rho’ki wrings their hands for a long while, stalling. “Talking about it is too much. I can’t, not yet, but the point is that there’s a lot I haven't told you and it’s left me with a lot of things to work through, and I’ve done a bad job of that.” Their hands are shaking now and they sign slower so Draea doesn’t miss anything. “Having you here again has made me so enormously happy. I’ve missed you so much and I’m still not over getting to see you all the time again. You… you mean a lot to me. And it’s so special and important to have you in my life, but…”

Feana is watching their face and a fist closes around his insides when he sees their jaw tense and tremble as they begin to cry. He can tell they’ve thought about these words over and over, have them practiced and hewn to convey exactly what they need to, and only as much as they can.

“The light you’ve brought into my life has illuminated how unhappy I’ve been until now. I’ve been hiding myself under devotion and tasks and isolating myself and trying to bury all my hurt, but being around you again has made the contrast so stark, and it’s difficult for me to see… how hopeless I’ve been. How much I’ve dreaded feeling anything. How much pain and sadness I’ve been drowning under. I ignored it for so long because facing it feels like I’m being ripped apart--” A sob leaves them, quiet enough Feana can barely hear it under the noise of the other people talking in the room. It’s the first real sound he’s heard them make in years. Tears are pouring down their face now and he’s close behind them, choked up and aching for them. “I’ve pushed it all aside and left it in the dark and as much joy as you’ve brought me, it’s made me have to face everything. I feel lost and scared and ashamed of letting it all collect like this until now it feels huge and horrible and impossible to deal with.”

They lay their hands on the table, still shaking, and hang their head, crying full on now and trying desperately not to make it obvious, to not make any more sound. Draea wipes at her eyes but keeps any thoughts she might have to herself, looking away tactfully when Feana reaches across the table and takes Rho’ki’s hands in his, leaning down to kiss the ball of their thumb and lay his cheek against their fingers for a moment. “I’m so sorry you feel this way. It breaks my heart to know you’re carrying this pain. I could see something wasn’t right, but, it’s been a long time, we’ve both changed. And it’s not something I could ask you about with limited means for you to answer.”

Rho’ki nods and squeezes his hands, flicking their eyes up briefly to meet his, then darting back to the table. They take their hands back to speak again. “I’ve decided not to pursue a dedicant path any longer. After I finish my vow, I’ll resume priest training.”

Feana nods. “That’s good, right? I didn’t understand why you’d changed your mind to begin with, you’ve always wanted to be a priest, Rho.”

They nod, shrugging one shoulder. “A dedicant’s life felt like something I could hide under. Throw all my energy into serving the gods and not have to work through my own pain. I made that decision for a lot of bad reasons, and, if I were a dedicant…” They stop again but this time Feana senses it’s something they are not nervous or hurt to speak about, but shy. “I couldn’t be with you.”

“Oh.” Feana can’t help himself but grin. “So that is what we’re doing, then.”

Rho’ki meets his eyes full on now, surprised. “Yes? Right?” Draea is showing her own thoughts on the matter here, fighting back a smile that betrays her, making its way into her voice.

Feana laughs softly. “Yeah, I think so. I know I’d like to be, if it wasn’t already the case.”

Rho’ki’s cheeks are still tracked with tears but they smile at this, nodding. “There’s so much I want to tell you, but I want it to be me saying them. I’m sorry I’m difficult right now.”

Feana shakes his head. “I can be patient. It will be nice to hear your voice again, though.” He reaches across the table to take their hand again. “You know, I don’t need to know everything to be there for you. Whatever you’re going through, if you need me, I want to help you. I don’t need to know why yet, I’m not going to put conditions on how I care for you.”

The tears are back and they sign a one-handed thank you. Feana gets up and moves to sit beside them, wrapping his arms around them and letting them tuck their long body against him, hiding their face in the crook of his shoulder.

Draea senses her usefulness is done, feeling like she’s imposing on a private moment now. “Do you still need me? I have to get ready for evening prayers.”

Rho’ki pulls away from Feana and wipes at their face, shaking their head and thanking her. She nods and tells them goodbye, leaving them alone. Rho’ki hugs Feana’s arm and lays their head on his shoulder for a while longer, soothed by his hand on their back, rubbing in slow circles. Touch feels invasive for them most of the time, can feel like an electric shock, buzzing and uncomfortable, but Feana’s has always been safe and warm, steadying. They enjoy it and let it calm them for as long as they can before sitting up and sign to him. Feana understands mostly by context.

“You have to go?” Rho’ki nods. They get up and walk out of the cafeteria, up into the main level of the temple, holding hands. Rho’ki leads Feana outside to the top of the long steps down into the city and they look at each other dumbly for a moment, feeling awkward after such a serious discussion. “Are you free after prayers?” Feana asks hopefully. Rho’ki shakes their head, patting their hip. “Oh. You have physical therapy after?” A nod. “What about tomorrow after morning service? Do you want to have breakfast together?”

Rho’ki thinks about it for a moment and then nods. Feana grins wide. “Great! We can get some fresh fruit from the market, and I can make you hotcakes.” Rho’ki smiles back at him and nods again. From inside the temple, bells ring to indicate the evening prayers will begin soon. Rho’ki gives Feana an apologetic look but he it waves it off, leaning in and putting a hand on their shoulder, prompting them to lean down to kiss him goodbye. Their hand rests at the small of his back and it’s a simple thing but it makes him feel full of air and light. He pulls away grinning even more. “Okay, I’ll see you in the morning.”

The walk down to the street and back to his shop leaves plenty of room for his thoughts to wander. They’re an imbalanced swirl of worry and giddiness. Rho’ki hurting turns his stomach, their pain mirrored in him. To know there’s only more of it for them to share leaves him with a tight knot of dread, but then he thinks about the hand on his back, about the kiss goodbye, about knowing that being with him is a priority for Rho’ki. It’s still new, it’s complicated and not without its hurdles, but part of him knows this isn’t fleeting. They’ve always been in each other’s lives, he can’t imagine that will ever change.

He makes hotcakes for dinner, wanting to perfect them for Rho’ki, and lets himself have a good cry once he’s in bed. He wants to talk to Rho’ki for hours and figure out what’s wrong and help them through it, but he knows that at the very least, that won’t happen for a few months longer, and that it’s likely unrealistic. Whatever it is, he can’t fix it for them. He’s seen pain like theirs before, felt small pangs of it, himself, and knows they are wounds that must be healed primarily by oneself. What he can do, though, is be a safe place for them to rest and recover and have some distance from the healing when it gets difficult. He can make them smile and feel cared for and doted over with food and kisses and hugs. He doesn’t want to ignore what they’re working through, but if they need some time to put it aside, he can be that space, and when they’re ready to open up, as much as he dreads to know, he’ll be there for that, too.

He had meant what he said. Caring for them is unconditional. It had been true as friends and his conviction in that is only stronger as this new bond grows between them. When they’re ready, they’ll let him know, and he’ll be waiting.

#fiction #writing #world building #queer romance #witch fiction #nonbinary character #queer characters #prose #backstory

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