Legend of Ransera

Finn nodded slowly, fingers plucking out a more ponderous, thoughtful song that didn't seem to diminish the interest of the spirits. Hilana had been the person he most connected to in Solunarium, especially early on. Knowing she was a good person had helped him digest the tenets of her religion, and he still respected her perspective at least as much as any priest, save perhaps Vrædyn Princeps, who was both Pontifex Maximus and an Empyreal Lord in his own right. Finn, common as dirt, a foreigner, plucked out of obscurity when his lover's royal identity was revealed, then under the scrutiny of an imprisoned God. Strange times, indeed.

"It makes more sense in Vastian than in Common," he said, a roundabout response to what she said. "Ambition has poor connotations in Common. Vastian public virtues, though: auctoritas, dignitas, gravitas, pietas. They have translations in Common, but those lack so much... I think in Vastian now, most of the time. I dream in Vastian. Solunarium has changed me. You can hear it in my music sometimes... cadences and themes."

He smiled and shook his head.

"This place makes one want to shine a light into dark corners, doesn't it?" His own posture was comfortable, as well. He could play like that for hours, and had. "I suppose Deus Aværys will be sated—eased—with my hunger for the means to spread my music and protect those I care about, not just power for its own sake. If I am wrong, I am certain He will let me know it."

Then, he set his lute down beside him so he could play with the wisps of light that were souls or celestial spirits or something else entirely. There were so many symphonies here blending into the chorus of light that it was difficult to distinguish one from the other, except for Hilana's as hers was familiar as any to him now.

In Solunarium, he often forgot he was a Mesmer. So many of the people he interacted with, at least in the political milieu, carried protections against it, what, in Vastian, was called the Rune of Command. It was more utile in his work as a Silver Sentinel, but he was growing more accustomed to relying upon his natural, mundane empathy most of the time. That was likely for the best. In any case, he knew Hilana well by now and she him.

Her lingering gaze made him flush slightly, whether she was thinking what he imagined or not. There were hungers that they had tacitly agreed were too dangerous to sate. Most of the time, it was out of thought and out of mind. That didn't mean it never came up.

He smiled and looked away, down at the living light dusting him with gold. Another hunger pang he felt here was a desire to let Aværys' grace flow into him; it made him glow with an inner light, but invoking it here might anger their absent host or the Rex Regum himself.

"Well," he said after a while, "is there time to stay or is it time to go?"

She was always so busy with her business, her pets, her own divine marching orders, and while he had cleared his schedule to ensure this journey into the light was successful, there were always things for him to do as well, whether for the Custodes Deorum, the Crown Prince, or his Divine Muse.

Even amid his hustle in Kalzasi, there had been time to just exist. Now that felt like a luxury denied him most of the time.

"Normally, I charge quite a bit for a private performance," he said with comically fake hauteur and a toss of his head. He laughed, and played for her while she produced her plethora of victuals and libations. The strangeness of the place had tricked his mind out of acknowledging his body, perhaps, because as soon as she mentioned lunch, his stomach began to growl. If only he could get it to harmonize with his voice.

"Life is a banquet," he sang, "and most poor suckers are starving..."

But soon enough, he set his lute aside and they were sharing a toast. "Ad lucem," he added. It seemed appropriate given where they were. Dæmon hadn't made an appearance, but Finn was quite sure he could have blocked their passage to the realm had he wished. And Aværys wasn't the God of Light, but the faith that had sprung up around him certainly treated him as a solar deity.

Religion was strange. Finn just tried to be respectful while focusing his efforts upon the personal relationship he had with his own divine patron.

"Thank you for this. Nobody has been so keen to see me fed since I was young and my father was in charge of the kitchen." He laughed as they enjoyed their repast. While he hadn't followed in his mother's footsteps and become a smith, he had some training in it and now he was as much a warrior as he was a bard. There were quite a few muscles to keep fed.

"I wasn't sure how long it would take so I cleared the day," he assured her. "You did give me an estimate, but you never know with magic. 'Tis as much art as it is science. And I am glad we have time to relax in a place like this. I wonder what the afterlife will look for those of us sworn to the Divine Twins."

Perhaps their souls would go to Wrædan for eventual rebirth, but it was entirely possible that they would be claimed by the jealous gods of the desert even after death.

A flippant, but good-hearted part of him wanted to reply with some reassurances that their picnics would continue in the afterlife, but he didn't know that. He couldn't know that. As personal a deity as Aværys had proven, as much a person as he still was, Finn was also now certain that he truly was more than that. The God understood the nature of things better then he ever would. If he was to spend eternity in Aværys' realm and Arvælyn in Varvara's, he could only hope they were conjoined realms. If Hilana's soul was meant to tread spiritual sands with her family until she was ready to ascend, then there must be a reason for that.

He glanced at a soul that had perched upon his knee much akin to how a butterfly might if this were a picnic in a meadow near where he had grown up. They were soul, but they weren't mind, not in the same way. Finn didn't know if he would lose his identity when he lost his body, whether he would evolve into something more purely spiritual.

Perhaps he ought to ask Aværys. There were sacraments the God himself was going to perform for him: marriage being one. It felt quite strange to have normal, albeit important, milestones of his life presided over by a foreign deity, but that was his reality now. He just hadn't had the time yet to consider all of the ramifications.

In order to make their afternoon (?) last, he ate slowly, pausing from time to time to brush off his hands and play a bit, idly. His fingers found simple things, then made them seem simple while becoming incredibly complex.

"And if I die today I'll be the happy phantom
And I'll go chasing the nuns out in the yard
And I'll run naked through the streets without my mask on
And I will never need umbrellas in the rain
I'll wake up in strawberry fields every day
And the atrocities of school I can forgive
The happy phantom has no right to bitch..."

The last was sung to the phantom on his knee, but then he smiled up at Hilana.

"I suppose we will have to compare notes when we finally kick it. Unless we find a way to live forever. Or as long as dragons and elves, anyway."

Hilana did have some inspired ideas!

Finn played as he considered. He didn't know whether Aværys would appreciate the Hunger and Ambition it might take to become a god, if Finn had the first idea how to do so, or whether he would see it as overstepping the natural order of things. As for draconic investiture, he would have to quietly look into that. He knew the legends, and he supposed the archives of the Custodes Deorum would provide more details, but again, Aværys had complicated views of dragons and he might also tempt the ire of Zalkyriax, who would be not only his father-in-law, but king. The platinum dragonflight embodied hierarchy, and he didn't know how they would feel about a brief-lived human seeking to climb that hierarchy with power inherently their own.

"I can't tell whether you are brilliant or brilliantly trying to get me killed," he said with a light laugh. Lest she take offense at that—he knew she still feared Arvælyn's estimation of her involvement in Finn's mortal danger—he winked. For a bard, he could sometimes put his foot directly in his mouth.

The afternoon continued with food, music, talk, laughter, and trying to decide what color scales they would look best in—blue or sapphire for Finn's eyes; either black or multicolored fairy scales for Hilana. The both of them enjoyed the respite in the realm of light, as well as the lightheartedness.

And as for what Hilana would do with that Light, only time would tell.