[ In the midst of the stirring of Communion between them, he glimpses a desert that is both familiar and not. He can identify it by structure, he can feel the ghostly impression of hundreds upon thousands of grains of sand being lifted from the ground and poured through a scarred hand. He can feel each mote of earth as if it were the fullness of his body, being laced across scars and the grooves of palm and fingers, falling through the air to reconnect with the vast sprawl of the rest of him.
( I have stolen it from you, he had cried to the ghost looming in the dark corners of his mind; fingers at the nape of his neck, like the weight of a collar, a hand working itself to be held by his own. The red lands had prevailed, and the black lands had fallen under Set's dominion — arable lands now flourished at his touch. An impossibility that horrifies him, even as he utilizes that power. I create, now. Without you. Except, is Osiris not creating through him?
The mind of a god is a tangled thing, secure and unsure in a single dizzying swoop. )
Vash is a red thing, against tawny sands. As Set has always been, too. Red-upon-gold, a fleck of crimson stain — ever-wandering, outcast from people and kindred like, a vagrant existence. As Vash leads his hand, real and unreal, to the land, he slips his fingers into ( sand / soil ) and dips his palm low, hooking it as if to gather a palmful of earth into it. Among the fields of Alenroux, he brings Vash's hand with his own, buried in dark, freshly-watered soil that begins to prickle with Meridian's energy. A delicate green sprout emerging, a second, a third. A blossom springing to life.
In Communion, that hand scoops the man himself from the desert sands — a palmful of sand dune and solitary man-of-red, cradled easily in the hand of a being that knows itself to be infinite, bound into a uniformity of flesh and limitation of ability. He is the desert, sunlit and burning, inhospitable, and he could easily imagine himself as the boundless thing upon which Vash walks. So, as he grows something in reality, he reaches his other hand down and presses a finger to the horizon that Vash might look into. Spreads heat-haze and savagery at that boundary, beyond which the delicate, tenuous green-and-blue of an oasis would be found for the weary.
Once, he had been a god of oases for weary, lost humans. A wild creature that would toss them headlong into waters they desperately needed, abandon them under shade to cool them. That, in the end, is the place where he tucks the mental impression he holds of Vash. We're right here to stop him, Set barely hears, over the rushing sound of his own flinching heart. ]
— it is hard, [ he admits, ] to think that I could be first in anyone's mind or heart. You would never be held to that promise. I cannot ask people to not form their own opinions, or hold off on seeking their own conclusions. Even for me. It might prove safer, to turn from me in favor of better gods.
[ He would like to be something people could find themselves looking to, in hard times. It would not be so bad, to be the force that others placed their faith in, amidst the unsureness of the world. Perhaps that is in his nature, too. ]
Still. I am not strong enough on my own, to conquer my doubts. So, I hope you mean what you say, and hold my promises and vows against me like weapons.
no subject
( I have stolen it from you, he had cried to the ghost looming in the dark corners of his mind; fingers at the nape of his neck, like the weight of a collar, a hand working itself to be held by his own. The red lands had prevailed, and the black lands had fallen under Set's dominion — arable lands now flourished at his touch. An impossibility that horrifies him, even as he utilizes that power. I create, now. Without you. Except, is Osiris not creating through him?
The mind of a god is a tangled thing, secure and unsure in a single dizzying swoop. )
Vash is a red thing, against tawny sands. As Set has always been, too. Red-upon-gold, a fleck of crimson stain — ever-wandering, outcast from people and kindred like, a vagrant existence. As Vash leads his hand, real and unreal, to the land, he slips his fingers into ( sand / soil ) and dips his palm low, hooking it as if to gather a palmful of earth into it. Among the fields of Alenroux, he brings Vash's hand with his own, buried in dark, freshly-watered soil that begins to prickle with Meridian's energy. A delicate green sprout emerging, a second, a third. A blossom springing to life.
In Communion, that hand scoops the man himself from the desert sands — a palmful of sand dune and solitary man-of-red, cradled easily in the hand of a being that knows itself to be infinite, bound into a uniformity of flesh and limitation of ability. He is the desert, sunlit and burning, inhospitable, and he could easily imagine himself as the boundless thing upon which Vash walks. So, as he grows something in reality, he reaches his other hand down and presses a finger to the horizon that Vash might look into. Spreads heat-haze and savagery at that boundary, beyond which the delicate, tenuous green-and-blue of an oasis would be found for the weary.
Once, he had been a god of oases for weary, lost humans. A wild creature that would toss them headlong into waters they desperately needed, abandon them under shade to cool them. That, in the end, is the place where he tucks the mental impression he holds of Vash. We're right here to stop him, Set barely hears, over the rushing sound of his own flinching heart. ]
— it is hard, [ he admits, ] to think that I could be first in anyone's mind or heart. You would never be held to that promise. I cannot ask people to not form their own opinions, or hold off on seeking their own conclusions. Even for me. It might prove safer, to turn from me in favor of better gods.
[ He would like to be something people could find themselves looking to, in hard times. It would not be so bad, to be the force that others placed their faith in, amidst the unsureness of the world. Perhaps that is in his nature, too. ]
Still. I am not strong enough on my own, to conquer my doubts. So, I hope you mean what you say, and hold my promises and vows against me like weapons.