Toxic Love: The Exalt Oracle

[beleos]

NOTHING GOES OFF WITHOUT A HITCH

You feel it, the moment that the Exalt oracle opens its eyes, like something that rips through your body from head to toe, something that feel like fire, wild. It sears into your veins, like acid and fire, something that triggers something that makes you want to run, or perhaps turn and face something head on. Before you can find what sets you off – if you could find it. Bearers know what this sensation is, it is different but the same at its core. The emotions, the feelings it sparks are different – but in the end, you know it for what it is: An Oracle.

Kenos groans from the awakening, like a part of a whole sparks to life, and though you do not know what it is that they want yet, you understand and know their existence down to your core. That feeling to attack or defend, perhaps even flee, does not leave you, but instead it fills your veins, you feel it thrumming, pulsing, like the beat of a heart – if one has one. With the sense of awakening, bearers know the shape of what comes next, they will be asked to act, to do. You do not know how it will happen, or what the Exalt will ask of you, but the knowledge that it will happen is borne from experience, not from the Oracle itself.

As you begin to move, to… look, you are not long for this day, it clouds your mind, a hazy, drowsy feeling takes over, the encroaching dark that threatens to swarm, crowding from the sides, taking over your vision – until… it fully takes over, and Bearers are put into a deep slumber.

---

When bearers awaken, it’s difficult to make sense of what your sleepy eyes see. Structures begin to swim into view, and they like tall figures looking down upon you. It’s difficult to tell what they are at first, but as you wake up, you begin to see, they are not people, or creatures, but long spore-like stalks. Some have ribbed overgrowths that you can see, and some end in growths that ripple and hang over, but have no “cap”. They tower over the bearers, like towering spires and buildings, on all sides, as if they were trapped in a ring of them. As bearers look around them they will notice tall green spires around them as well, and it takes a moment for things to really settle in. Mushrooms. Blades of grass. The springy moss about them is almost as tall as they are, low to the ground. There are pebbles that appear as boulders, and the thunderous steps nearby indicate an insect or arachnid walking by, far larger than you. There is a stillness to this space, like a held breath, and as the bearers awake, and regard one another, and then to the center of the circle is – a small effigy in the center.

It is here, the Exalt Oracle, and you feel compelled to regard it, before you are given a pang down to your core. It compels you – pleads, asks, begs, and demands, all in one – for what it wishes for. Precious mementos and precious items that they are missing. They have been lost, and they are somewhere within the Liosachán. It beseeches the bearers to return its items, and begs they be returned here to the circle. There are no words, but there is a pleading sensation, a feeling that these items are treasured by this Oracle.

You feel at your sides, your pockets, and find one item on your person, a weapon, a companion, whatever it is you would bring with you to the conflict, shrunk down to a tiny size with you.

Stay steadfast, bearers, and capture the flag Oracle!

SURVIVAL OF THE SMALLEST ( DAYS 1 - 5 )

Unlike the still, stale apocalypse that had been the setting of the Iconoclast Oracle, the greenhouse is lush and vibrant with activity.

The Effigy present within yearns to be reunited with what belongs to it, fixated upon the five items lost within the greenhouse. The swell of its longing fills all Shardbearers, urging them to take action, claim the items and present all five to it to attain victory for that Faction.

Over a period of ten days, Shardbearers of both factions will have to navigate environmental dangers, and the normal procession of time, as the greenhouse is going about its daily routine. Workers plod around like towering goliaths, weeding and watering and pruning the greenhouse's contents. The Liosachán's native population of fae begin to take notice of the newcomers in their midst, emerging from grassy mounds hidden in the natural landscape to spy and pry about the newness surrounding them.

Naturally curious, and equally dangerous, the fae of the Liosachán are Highstorm natives. They range in cool coloration, from soft violet-greys to deep stormy blues, and wear clothes fashioned from of goods pilfered from the pockets of workers, dropped on the ground or handcrafted from the environment itself. Wielding bits of copper tightly wound into blades and spears, they are a ferocious and cunning little people who seek to trick, trap and toy with Shardbearers. Direct violence is anathema to them, but violence that happens as a result of falling to one of their ploys is a badge of honor.

DAY ONE - THREE. The Effigy initially urges Shardbearers to build bases of operation for defense and practicality, as surviving ten days without supporting one another is a surefire way to meet a grisly, tiny little end. Resources must be gathered: gather food and water, prepare shelter, establish unity and organization and prepare to set off into the wilds soon.

For Shardbearers demonstrating particular selflessness, favoring the protection and defense of another, the Effigy responds warmly from the third day onward — rewarding them with a sign of their dutiful nature towards others in the form of fairy wings, the form of which are unique to the Shardbearer themselves.

DAY FOUR. The sudden thunderous sound of a storm begins. No, not a storm, the tumble and crash of water pouring down upon the greenhouse — the workers of the Liosachán perform their routines faithfully, after all. In watering the garden, the danger of the environment threatens to overtake Shardbearers and their work alike. Drops of water fall, their size equal or larger than even the tallest of characters, and trickles of water muddy the ground in the form of raging rapids.

The security of Meridian and Zenith's camps is even called into question, because as simple as the act of watering a garden is, it is a nightmarish situation for such itty bitty Bearers to be in!

DAY FIVE. By day five, the fae of the Liosachán no longer lurk and linger in the corner of one's eye. They make themselves known, having prepared a banquet below one of the mushrooms, within sight of the Effigy. A table draped in spider-silk lace awaits any Bearer who comes near enough, the sagging piece of driftwood polished to a gleam with golden sap, leaving it waterproofed and pretty to behold. A handful of corks serve as seating, with most of the fae draping themselves across scraps of cotton as though they are simply at a picnic.

They invitingly wave to Shardbearers, chattering brightly in their foreign, lilting tongue, waving tiny sandwiches and little clay pots full of jams and honeys, brandishing sugared berries that they bite into with gusto, staining their arms and faces in swathes of blue and red. They clearly are welcoming to whomever comes upon them, urging them to avail themselves to the bounty they have prepared. Perhaps some characters know better than to eat the food of the fae, recalling legends and lore about the mystical properties and implicit bargains made in becoming a guest. Perhaps some have no idea, and are simply hungry enough to dig in!

UNWILLING TEN-ANTS ( DAYS SIX - EIGHT )

The scuttling, scrabbling feet of ants crawling over surfaces, winding their way through this grassy playground, has become normal. Their feet thunder as they go about their business, and it seems to be a normal cadence to life here in the underbrush, in the greenhouse. It is normal, and it is has become nothing to really concern oneself with. They are ants, after all, what do they do, but work? Endlessly, continuously.

That is, until the heavy, loud sounds of their feet draw closer to whatever place that the bearers have found to camp in. Whether solitary or as a group, these workers are no longer content to simply ignore the bearers, but they are a curiosity, perhaps even a bother. You have disrupted their lifestyle. The sleepy pattern of obtain food, return ot the hive, and back out again now has obstacles. Now there are not simply the fairies, who live their own lives and existences, a part of the ecosystem, but now there are these tiny bearers. Fighting, working together, arguing and disagreeing.

You are disruptive to their way of life.

The ants have come to collect on this due, and some bearers that are vulnerable, or perhaps merely caught, are taken away, your weight so light compared to the rest of their burdens that they carry. The strength of these ants is overwhelming, incredible at this size, and try as you might, if you are caught in their strong mandibles, you cannot escape. An ant, after all, carries 1000 times their weight with those powerful jaws. You, bearer, are nothing to them.

They squirrel away the bearers within their hill, a complicated network of tunnels, junctions, and large spaces. Down within, where the air becomes stifling, and stale. The ants guard their pray, and you get the distinct sense that they see you not as people, not even as enemies, but as prey. You will be food – perhaps to the eggs that are gathered within this room, where you can see the stirring of new life, just beneath the surface. You may not have very long to live, if these little larvae get their mouths on you.

Or perhaps, your friends will save you? Once it is discovered that bearers are missing, the trail of ant prints on the ground is apparent – they are not stealthy creatures – and the feet lead from the locations of several kidnapped bearers toward the grainy ant hill that lies not far away. The hill itself swarms with life, with worker ants all over the surface, scuttling about, looking for the next meal for te colony. Or perhaps for more bearers to bring back for their young.

It will be dangerous, bearers, to save your friends. Should you choose to do so, you will be kicking the anthill, and the ants will protect what is theirs. Even if they just took it. Those bearers belong to them, now! Rescuers will find not only your average worker ant, ready to defend, but winged male ants will attack from above, and deeper, within the nest, near where the bearers are kept, lies the strongest ant in the colony: The Queen. Staggeringly large, strong, and vicious, when her subjects begin dying. She will do everything in her power to protect her colony, and that includes killing bearers, if need be. Or trying, at least.

Good luck rescuing your friends, bearers!

IN SMALL PACKAGES ( DAYS NINE - TEN )

The day after the ant-pocalypse brings with it the brush of recognition — the Effigy has foreseen the likely victors, and calls to them to approach it once they have suitably recovered. It judges them the ones whom are most devoted to what binds them, loyal to memory and remembrance, and begins to clamor for them to restore to it what belongs rightfully. Thus begins a full day of resting, locating last-minute items, shoring up defenses and preparing for the sprint to the finish line.

Certainly your rivals will not allow you to simply walk to the Effigy unassailed and unchallenged.

Eat, rest, ensure your fellows are close and bolstered, for tomorrow begins the final rally.

On the morning of the tenth day, Meridian Shardbearers approach the Effigy with its five items in hand. In the midst of the mushroom ring, the Effigy stands as it had in the beginning — arms outstretched and back bowed skyward, gnarled fingers seeking contact with that which has been lost to it. It awaits, it strains, and even as it does, it requires one last test of ability. From the shadows of the towering mushrooms, the rasp of scale and soft hiss of a great beast descends upon the fae ring.

A gleaming garden snake, with glossy black and green stripes, blocks the way between approaching Shardbearers and the Effigy.

Between its bright eyes, pressed upon its brow is a scattering of brighter scales that appear to be in the shape of a delicate, three-leafed plant with spiraling patterns for leaves. It braces itself against the approach, and there is no doubt that to claim victory, the serpent must be subdued. Though Meridian approaches with victory in hand, they have not yet attained it — their rival faction and this beast remain in their way.

MISSING LINKS ( THROUGHOUT )

As the Effigy desires to be reunited with what belongs to it, the swell of its longing stirs something more within all present Shardbearers.

With that foreign longing arrives knowledge: beyond the five items prized by the Effigy itself, there are other lost things within the greenhouse. Like a compass, each Shardbearer's mind points them in direction after direction, urging them to seek and explore. Implicitly, the thrum of comprehension fills your mind: these are things that do not belong to you, per se, but seek to have your hands ferry them home.

Amidst tangled brush, hidden under doffed acorn cap, tucked away in the belly of a fae's glittering den, lost in the depths of a puddle of spilled water that seems an insurmountable lake now, folded secretly into the petals of a towering, skyscraper-like flower, there are three additional items hidden within the tumultuous landscape that each Shardbearer feels a draw towards. Things that belong to someone else, eager to be reunited with them, but subject to whim.

Upon locating and retrieving one, the Shardbearer is filled with a sense of information — they know who this item belongs to, and they will know that they have a choice. Bonds are fragile things after all, and they exist to be enforced or abused, in order to advance a goal or to deepen a connection. How will you treat someone's precious bond? How will they treat yours?

NOTES

Here are some prompts to set the scene and foundation of the Exalt Oracle! — The theme of this Oracle is a loose edition of capture the flag, where the Effigy's items can pass through multiple hands within the ten day allotment.

— For additional ideas and fun, it is known that several Shardbearers have concluded their efforts to fulfill the Greenwood Yards' sidequest request.

— All details of the Exalt Oracle can be found here, and questions for the mods can be submitted here.

CODING

Comments

[redsoil]

Take your book. Take it, and give me the shard.

[ If anything, the hysteria in his voice only grows. As they collide in a heap, he thrashes like an animal in a trap — ungainly and disturbed and lethal as ever, to writhe his body's weight over Liem's prone form and sit across his hips. Set's fingers curl toward Liem's throat, and choose painfully to grasp at his shoulders instead.

If only it was so easy as killing. If only Shardbearers would die like normal people, Set would accept his due. Instead, he has to think creatively of how to get whatever he'a owed out of situations like this one — where the choices made by two others have come to involve him. He'll finish it if he has to, he'll end this whole stupid world if he must!

First, he returns the precious thing he found and carried, to Liem. In the wake of the other's laying hands upon that book, Set's mind surges and teems. It isn't Communion that connects them, but some other strange force that tears open the veil behind which what he cannot articulate is hidden. ( The small face contorts and cries, beautiful and miserable as Anubis pleads for his father to return to him. / Set feels his own divine flesh tear under the snagging, vicious thorns that entwine around him as he fights and thrashes and screams Anubis's name, hands reaching desperate for the tetrad of small clay jars while a tall, broad-shouldered man lays a hand upon his back and whispers fatally to him: What is it that you can do to save him? / Gen's furious mind curls up, more recent and devastatingly devout in his own desires — Set demands, then pleads a reminder, and finally his heart begins to cool. The last petals of Yima's gift are gone, and his mind fragments without them to calm the storm. )

The ringing cry, the animal howl within him is singular and despairing: My son, my son, my son — ]

Liem, please. Please, we are friends — do not ask me abandon the space in my heart that belongs to you to do this. I will. I will have to.

[sterngaze]

[The angular, alien look of Liem’s face in the garden’s shadows presents little of pity or comfort. It is a face that seems designed for sullenness and suspicion and hauteur, and indeed it had met Gen’s demands and entreaties both with equal coolness, unmoved by the desperate frenzy of his fear and rage.

But then, Gen had not needed any external pressure to make Liem the target of his anger, and he had not seemed to recall that any friendship might ever have existed between them. Under those circumstances, it had been easy to treat him with disdain.

Had Set committed some wrong against him, to have been used as the instrument of his greed and his impatience? Or had he simply been unlucky enough to have leverage against him fall into Gen’s hands? By the roiling within Set’s mind, it was closer to the latter. Even as the god settles heavily, threateningly atop him, condemnation makes a scowl pass over Liem’s face.]

Gen…

[That is too far, even for him. He had not known that such depths of mania and obsession existed within the boy, that he would set alight his own existing bonds rather than relinquish control over this one precious memory.

The arm clutching the bundle against his chest tightens… and the rest of Liem’s body goes limp. When he opens his mouth again, what comes out is — a word, foreign and incomprehensible, but perhaps familiar enough to be recognizable. After all, Set had had cause to hear it spoken before, beneath the castle in the Scorching Isles.]

The bag at my hip, Set. Reach within.

[He does not dare relinquish his grasp on the precious book between them, and he prefers not to return his dagger to its sheath when it is still wet with Set’s blood. But it does not matter. Now that the password has been spoken, the opening of the fist-sized leather pouch no-longer leads to a mundane little pocket.

Anyone can reach within to access the secret space — large enough for a man’s arm to disappear within past the elbow — and grope around the bottom to find… no, not that little travel journal, not those spare pens from Xanadu or the emergency coinpurse, but a shard, obvious in its crystalline solidity.]

[redsoil]

[ He won't cry, not again. Even though he feels the prickle of heat behind his eyes and the constriction within his throat, he refuses to relinquish himself to the humiliation of crying before Liem after bloodying him for a second time. Instead, he hovers over him like a string wound too tight, fragmenting strand by strand, resolve weakening as Liem's expression changes not at all. He swallows heavily, readying himself to abandon brutish violence in favor of precise torment —

Liem yields.

The half-sob, half-sigh that escapes Set means he will not shatter. He doesn't have to close the door on the parts of him that care for Liem, to be able to hurt him thoroughly. He could, he could open and close that door as necessary, and it might not even register as a self-inflicted wound upon his own heart, as he does it. It means he can drop his head down to Liem's shoulder, his poised weight dispersing into a heap of lean muscle and gratitude. He's not sorry. But, he does owe Liem for the abuse heaped on him.

He lifts himself back up, momentarily, and reaches into the little satchel to locate the shard. ]

I should shatter it before his eyes.

[ He murmurs it, holding the miserable little lump of soul before his gaze. ]

He'll destroy my child, if I do. All but one part of my child's soul exists in Kenos... I might as well have enough to make a shard, at this rate.

[ The ka is all that eludes Set. Anubis's empty shell of a body remains in the timestream, but the other five aspects are in Kenos. He looks down to Liem, quickly fastening the shard into a section of hair that also bears his sunbeam. Glowing warm as Ra's radiance, woven safe behind his ear with thread and metal decoration ( a black streak of hair hides there, as well ), it is the shape of his world — and he has not looked into it. ]

Liem. Will... fulfilling your need give you strength? I cannot heal, not like Isis.

[sterngaze]

[Heaviness lies like thick fog over Liem as Set drapes himself atop him. The aches riddling his fragile mortal body seem layered atop each other, making him one big, throbbing wound, but for a brief moment he leans his face against Set’s hair, surrendering some of his meagre remaining scraps of pride for a moment’s comfort amongst the cacophony of complaints his physical form now offers him.]

I told him I would return it safely, and still he went to such lengths…

[And he hadn’t simply come after Liem himself, or enlisted the aid of an ally. He had used Set instead, had held Set’s child hostage just as he had accused Liem with such outrage of doing himself. A vicious circle of pain.

Because he thought Liem would change his mind, and never give it back? Because he couldn’t stomach waiting even a few days to receive it on Liem’s terms? He doesn’t know. Just as he hadn’t known that any piece of Anubis’s soul could be here, in Kenos, when Set still intended to return to him in his own world.

At another time, he might have felt shame in drinking Set’s blood, after having just inflicted pain and injury upon him. He will mend with or without it, in time — but the god surely does not intend to linger to watch him recuperate, and his regeneration will take some time to rebuild his strength on its own.

And, for better or for worse, shame has eluded him ever since his supper with the garden’s faeries.]

It will.

[Perhaps not immediately, but soon enough. Liem frowns up at Set, his expression severe in contemplation despite his throbbing face.]

Do you think he will return what he has, if you give that to him?

[He had not suspected Gen would threaten a child to begin with. He has learned many things today.]

[redsoil]

At least you know now, where to best strike in the end.

[ Such tactics as targeting the innocent are ones that Set does not find himself incapable of, he is an evil god and thoroughly capable of targeting the innocent. He also knows how to bide his time, how to prepare for what such a thing would mean. This proves to him where the greatest weakness of Zenith lies — not in their ties to Yima, but in their ties to their past. It is why he lingers in Meridian, and would not claim Anubis's shard ( Horus's shard ) until the bitter end, to prevent such a perfect vulnerability.

He rakes his fingers over the sides of Liem's chest, tangling his claws into the folds of the man's clothing; a gesture of yearning, hopeful reconciliation. He won't apologize, nor ask for Liem's regrets — war is war, and Set is made just as vulnerable by his own loved one. As any Zenite would be, for does he not call to the dark, cool places even as he fights to hold fast to the light? ]

No, I do not think he will. But, the way I view what he is doing is... wholly different, I feel, than most will. Where most will view a hostage situation — I view a threat to my child and an insult to what we mean to one another, in the same breath. He only had to ask me to aid him. He must be punished for what he did, but that is my right.

[ He leans down, closer and closer still, to stroke his fingers higher across Liem's chest and across his jaw. To trace the strong line of his nose and stern brow, and tangle in his hair. All claw and manic trembling, as he tightens his thighs around the man's hips. ]

You were not wrong, to do what you did. I am glad you are willing to go that far.

[sterngaze]

[Over their encounter, Liem’s impression of the tie between Set and Gen has flexed and warped with confusion: a constantly-shifting notion born of incomplete information. Set has come to retrieve the shard belonging to Gen. Gen has the jars containing the soul of Set’s son. Gen has not just endangered Anubis, but wronged Set, betrayed some bond between the two of them. As ever, Liem can only grasp a part of some vast, greater whole when it comes to the god. But he believes that he begins to understand.

The continued occupation of his hands is an ongoing inconvenience. Liem reaches to one side, stabs that dark, slim dagger into a broad green stalk, so that he can wrap that arm freely around the man leaning over him. In all his restless, obsessive motion, Set feels as though he might shake apart at any moment, explode into violence seemingly at odds with his rapt attention for Liem’s person. Somehow he still craves that attention, despite the way he instinctively flinches at each brush of Set’s hands over his battered and bloodied body.]

Then I will leave his punishment to you — as long as he is made to regret his decision.

[He says this as though he doesn’t know that Gen’s own instability, his own fear and rage, had driven him to such extremes. It doesn’t matter; he cast the first stone. Perhaps Liem is the less forgiving one in this situation, because he had demanded that the boy learn his lesson even when Gen had finally curbed his temper. But then, Liem’s lesson would only have been an exercise in patience. Given how things have escalated, he doubts Set will be so lenient.

He isn’t expecting the praise he receives, for his failed gambit that only ended up hurting the both of them — all three of them, if he’s considering Set’s attachment to Gen as well. He feels undeserving of it, even if only because of his clumsy execution.

But he does not push the god away, does not reject his touch or his approval. He wants them too much. And so he only nuzzles closer, cautious of his tender, abused face, seeking the pulse at the other man’s neck.]

[redsoil]

[ Set's mind is a mess of contradictions that are natural and not at all at war. He is able to slice pieces of himself into incomprehensibly complex shapes in order to fit the strange uniqueness of each individual he meets; there is no mold, when it comes to how Set will act, react and decide upon his treatment of each soul. He dislikes the idea of 'mortals', as a principle, scorns them... and yet, still endeavors to hold each one before his eyes as someone to study, to engage with.

Maybe that is why, Liem continues to surprise him. The way he gouges his blade into the hosta they are still mildly confined in, in order to hold him. It hurts, cuts deeply. To think that someone he'd just brutalized could still find something in himself to do anything other than thrust him away, in rejection. Liem entrusts the decision to Set, and he feels something fragile grind within his chest, like the broken edges of bone rasping too-roughly against one another. Whittling it down so it won't ever be the same shape that it once was. A fragmentation, caused by some unknowing, delicate blow. ]

— thank you.

[ Gratitude is a messy thing, from Set. It is there, in the way his stomach clenches, the way his shoulders curve into a defensive hunch, knees digging into Liem's waist as he lowers himself further atop him. Set stretches like a cat, once he presses himself into the other man's hold, lengthening himself with driven purpose. As he lifts his chin at an angle, to bare the line of his throat, one hand breaks free of where he had found the point of Liem's ear, to reach behind his head and draw the curtain of red hair aside and over one shoulder. ]

[sterngaze]

[Set’s gratitude rings strangely in Liem’s ears as the god moves, shifts over him. What has he done to deserve it? Exercised restraint in the wake of his own hurtful decisions? Relinquished the right of vengeance into Set’s bloodied hands? Perhaps these are not small things to the god, but Liem could hardly say he’s given him a boon. The soul of his son is still at risk; he continues to pay the cost for what Liem and Gen began, even if Liem has ceased to resist him.

But still he seeks the assurance of that deliberate, un-gentle contact, and still he takes advantage of the bare stretch of Set’s throat to press his lips and then his teeth against the pulse beating there. To bite and taste him as he has on all those other, less fraught occasions before. (The pleasure of it still shivers through him, relentless. No matter the circumstances, he cannot deny the heady, full-body ecstasy that blooms in him when he drinks — especially from Set.)

That moment seems to stretch on, syrup-slow, until he finally drags his tongue over the god’s throat, and relaxes his one-armed embrace.]

Go. Find him.

[He tells him to go, as he has almost every time before. To find Gen. To find his son.

Liem will just… be here, in the hosta. Resting.]

[redsoil]

[ It's enough, for now. The situation will never be anything but fraught, now that he is involved in a situation that should have remained between Liem and Gen alone. There is no reason he has to believe that Gen will do what he says and return the jars — he's banking on him not, to be honest. But, he has to do what he is told. It is the greatest risk, to rely on the fragile bond between himself and Gen, and think into the future. His immediate desire is to take his child back. His future plans, however, require him to weigh the situation and outcomes wisely.

He's never been mentally sound, nor able to consider much outside of blind panic, when it comes to Anubis's life. All he needs, is enough give to find his footing again and find a way out. There is something to Liem, that soothes him right now. That he gives up the Shard to Set, for him. That he did not force Set to close the door upon their friendship to do what he had to do, selfish and desperate as it was. ( That he is just, a good man ready to do horrible things. Unlike Set, who is evil and ruinous. Liem is — he hurts, in a way that feels terribly good and wonderfully painful. )

As an old hand at what occurs when the other feeds from him, Set relaxes into the slide of teeth in his throat. He does not like being bitten, for reasons he cannot convey, but Liem has never slipped those fangs of his into him with anything but the utmost care. The cool pull of his mouth and the weight of those teeth ground him, weirdly enough. One hand strokes through Liem's hair, until finally he is done. Set rises after that, his throat slick with blood that will stopper quickly enough.

Quietly, he examines something about Liem Talbott. Before he leans in, and drags his tongue across the corner of his mouth and kisses him, lingeringly and soft. The long line of his gold earring flashes — is it one of the ones from his world, or is it the one that is etched in half a prayer, completed only by the one bequeathed unto Liem?

]

Be safe. [ He murmurs, before the warmth of him flows away, form given to sand. ]