[ PERMANENT. ] a (k)atch-all log for kenos

[dawnlord]

WHO: Set ( redsoil ), Bondrewd ( dawnlord ), Drizzt ( twohand ), et. al
WHAT: i actually can't stand month-by-month logs so i'm gonna crush my boys into one perma-log for anything outside of events
WHERE & WHEN: Listed in comment headers, or under the cut.
WARNINGS: General warnings for violence, vulgarity and unethical science. Will update/comment with warnings!


I struggle so hard w/ month-by-month logs, so y'all have to deal with my weird organization...

— [MARCH | SET] GOT NO SHAME, GOT NO PRIDE

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[redsoil]

[ 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.

[intervener]

[ the Vash seated in front of a god stirring life between their entwined fingers and the god lifting him from the very sands of their shared desert -- one that defines both of them, yet belongs to neither -- feels much like having been split into two pieces, existing in two spaces simultaneously, those experiences ultimately folding into one. this could (should) be a daunting experience to a mortal mind attempting to comprehend something as enormous, as infinite, as boundless and unknowable as a god -- and any human of Vash's world would surely feel fear bubbling upward at being held at the behest of such a being.

the red stain among the grains of sand slipping from Set's hand sits in that palm among the desert - the desert that is part of Set, a part of his godhood, of his lands and home and things precious to him. Vash isn't afraid; there is an unspoken and intrinsic trust as a finger beckons and green eyes wander to behold the breathtaking sight of an impossibility in the deserts of Vash's planet. Set doesn't know it -- how special Vash finds this gift, how remarkable and infinitely priceless a creation he'd brought forth in a single touch.

the Vash of Alenroux surrounded by greenery watches the gentle, fragile sproutlings in Set's hands with the same kind of wonder.

and after a moment of almost faraway, dreamy admiration, in a way that seems second nature to him, the hands of a man beneath clear blue skies and baking sun reach out to touch those of a deity encompassing each grain of that sand, the hot breeze upon one's skin. at the same time, a pair of gloved hands cradle Set's around the fertile earth. beneath burning sun, among the sands -- beneath gentle sunshine, surrounded by the thick scent of nature, the Plant closes his eyes and leans his forehead into -- against -- Set('s), eyes closed. ]

We don't need 'better gods,' and you don't need weapons. [ Set has too many; he turns his thoughts into them, and the person he buries those weapons into most is none other than himself. spills hot smears of red, soaks the sands with them, over and over and over again in an attempt to kill what cannot die. ]

But if you decide this is what you want to do--

[ the soft, warm trickle of life burgeons further, blooms like a flower unfurling, as if Set is a conduit to more than the Meridian's life-giving properties. ]

--then do it. You can.

[redsoil]

[ ( Yes, they do. Meridian deserves a proper god, someone real, not an imposter masquerading among them; they deserve someone like Isis, plagued by her own temper but adoring of others. A woman who would break her own world for vengeance with one hand, and be bastion and blade to defend the vulnerable and weak without mercy for their oppressors. Meridian deserves Horus, calculating and calm, who would take them by hand and lead with youthful vigor, bridging gaps and distances between so many hearts. Instead, they have Set. )

He finds Vash among the sands, so easily. Like they call to one another across realms, despite the opposition of their Aspects, they feel — fated? in a sense. Is he drawn to Vash because of the scent of sand on him, the burning heat of the sun scalding the back of his head and his shoulders, stooped low under some invisible weight? Is it because he is paranoid, perhaps? Because he cannot parse anything from Vash, not sentiment or emotion, but he still speaks so kindly as if he feels all that is around him.

In their minds, he tucks Vash into the oasis. ( — a memory blossoms; the haggard stumbling of someone lost, tongue dry in their mouth, throat closed, unable to cry or do anything more than slowly, painfully wither in the heat; the thundering of feet and hooves in the sand, of wheels turning and churning, the animal-cry of great chimeras that rush across the land; the snagging of their arm, by the brutal hand of a man in the mask of some unknown animal, wind in their hair and world thrust beyond that which their mind can comprehend; to be dropped into a small realm of green, of warm waters they can drink their fill of, the chariot and its god vanishing just as quickly into the horizon. )

In Alenroux, he looks between them and folds his mind back into itself. He leaves Vash with the oasis, though. And remains folded against him, his brow leaning into the Plant's own. ]

— keep it, [ the thing between them in the dirt, some errant crop he's encouraged to grow — eggplant, maybe? ]

I decided my path long before I came here, so. Do not fret too hard.

[intervener]

[ this impossibility nestled among the endless dunes and rocky crags of the desert is a surreal reminder that Vash is far and away from home, however much the sand and wind and skies are familiar. he is in Kenos; he is among those who are beyond his understanding, far, far from their homes - just as far as Vash is from his own.

here sits this small patch of life that blooms where growth is impossible, a bright, brilliant smudge of green on an otherwise empty horizon.

Vash's eyes remain closed where he is still against Set, the gentle feeling of life weaved to feed another, which will in turn feed more. it is a beautiful cycle. ]

Whatever you chose, it was before you came here. Everything's different.

[ he repeats himself, gently and patiently, lacking the edge of judgment. it is a truth; Set's circumstances are different. the one who haunts his footsteps, too, is different. ]

I won't hold anything against you, no matter what you do. The only thing I won't sit back and allow is for you to betray yourself.

[ because that man lingering in his shadow... he isn't here. and yet, he might as well be. Vash can imagine the sickening prospect of that fear, the remembered pain of unhealed wounds re-opened, paralyzing Set, even forcing him at his own throat before he is a danger to any other. a many-toothed maw opening to clamp down hard on the pulse of redemption, bleeding him until all he has left is to wallow in the crimson river of his own regrets. ]

[redsoil]

[ Lightly, Set presses the pad of his finger to Vash's mouth.

The universal sign to hush now, delivered by someone both maddeningly audacious and deeply fragile. There is a wealth of otherness to Set, at any given time; a mind that does not work quite like anyone else's, foreign in the way it considers things and concludes others. There is a patch of greenery, of tamarisk surrounded by small succulents, slender palm trees that cast shade across the arid ground muddied at the center by the groundwater that has found its way to the surface. Dug up, perhaps, by countless hands that had worked to enlarge the hole. The scent of marjoram and licorice in the air, the darting figures of omnivorous bustards flashing throughout the foliage and sands. ]

Nothing is different.

[ It cannot be, or he will have less reason to remain with Meridian. ]

I have simply traveled further than ever before, and need but turn back on my path to return home.

[ Though he straddles the line between Meridian and Zenith, his belief in Meridian's ability to accomplish what they say they are able to is without question. He has seen the rise and fall of worlds, the decimation and recreation of life. His own family laying their hands upon their realm to shape, reshape and perfect it; some part of him instinctively knows that the weight of his world remains tethered to reality. He just — knows it is. Even if he would persist, without Egypt, he just knows something would be different if it were truly gone.

Eventually, he will go home to that place. To the man that Vash knows he fears ( and loves, shamefully ), and the punishment that awaits him. For now, he can wrap himself in delusion and partake in that fleeting, fragile thing known to some as 'friendship'. ]

So, nothing is different. But, I will concede that — many things are new.