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 Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2013 9:19 am
 Most of the refugees were settled in one way or another now, and Akakios decided he was due for a break. Really, he had no idea how the others could put up with so many people at one time - it definitively wore him out, not physically but mentally.
If he had known his uncle had hightailed it much sooner for a similar reason, he probably would have been amused.
He had decided to take over one of the teahouses for the afternoon while his lovers were busy elsewhere, and all he really needed was something to write in, and a cup of steaming coffee to make him settle. The writing started soon enough after that fact.
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Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2013 10:58 am
Alva had managed to escape the rather crowded apartments of the Spirit Guide. She had been used to sharing small spaces with people, but those people had been her family, not a bunch of strangers. After wandering the halls a little she found herself out in the gardens. Again like nothing she had seen before. In the wilds of the borderlands people had no time, nor the climate for recreational gardening.
She probably looked as though she had wandered out of the market or the camps, still wearing the worn clothes she had arrived in, dark trousers tucked into leather boots, a light woolen shirt and her unruly red hair pulled back out of her face. She still carried her sword on her belt, it was part of her really.
She had been quite happy wandering at her leisure when the goddess within her perked up. She had sensed something.
Go to the tea house.She directed, Alva had nothing better to do than obey her.
"Why?"
There is someone in there, someone familiar.
She could feel the mana in him, it was of the underworld, of the dead. The Spirit Guide possessed it and his children, the girls of a lesser degree to the young boy.
Alva stepped up into the tea house and studied the person, no, god inside. He had interesting colour hair and markings. Woad perhaps?
"Hello." She said, feeling a bit awkward as she entered.
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Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2013 6:24 pm
The sound of a foreign voice would drag him out of his text in mid-stroke. Still, he would finish the neat-looking letter before resting his quill on it's holster. No use being impolite, after all.
"Good morning." He would look up to the woman. There was that touch of divinity to her.... a host, perhaps. "Sit down, if you would like. Tea ?" He offered her. If coffee was more her thing, well, that would not be hard to see to either.
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Posted: Sun Jul 28, 2013 7:08 am
It was good he did not mention coffee, Alva would have not heard of such an exotic product. Tea she knew, not from imported leaves but more herbal brews, cammomile, blackberry, nettle. She smiled and took a seat. See this social thing was not so hard, though she knew she should be naturally wary, gods could be crueller than any mortal.
"Thank you, tea would be nice."
Within her Valyrmora was studying the young man, yes there was certainly something familiar about him, though his domain was anyones guess, not entirely Underworld, there was another, perhaps more dominant hint of mana there.
Maybe the three little ones were not Ankou and his lady's only children.
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Posted: Sun Jul 28, 2013 5:08 pm
It was a simple enough task to simply pull the kettle toward the fire with his mana - only his hand had moved at all.
Gods could indeed be quite cruel, but he certainly had no reason to be so at this moment. "Are you new here ?" He asked, peering at her though the veil that covered most of his face. There was something... almost familiar about her, but he could not quite put his finger on what.
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Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 1:38 pm
Alva nodded and watched as he moved the kettle as if by magic.
"Yes. I am Alva Hrith of the boarderlands. I was brought here by the Spirit Guide." She studied him for a moment, trying to see beyond the veil, it seemed strange to her, that a male ... if he was should wear one. "I've been chosen to be a ... host?" That was the word people seemed to use a lot. "To help the rebirth of a goddess."
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Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 10:52 pm
The name did cause an eyebrow to rise. Akakios was indeed familiar with the Spirit Guide, but not quite in the way Valyrmora expected. The idea of his uncle handling a new host was... vaguely entertaining, to be honest.
Not that he was a shining star with such things, either. "So I see... Which one, if you do not mind me asking ?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 9:15 am
"Valyrmora, Underworld." She said innocently, having no idea the weight that the domain seemed to carry with it. The Spirit Guide had been apprehensive, though perhaps a little relieved that the goddess' rebirth would mean that he did not have to do all the work alone.
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Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 11:20 am
The what now ?
The abnormally long pause that followed that statement made it obvious that this had not been high on the list of things this young god expected to hear. "I... see." He eventually managed, quite aware that his discomfort was as obvious as a screeching siren, and yet unable to fold it away completely.
It made sense that Ankou had found her then... But did the goddess within realize exactly what situation she had been reborn into ? What kind of trail Nergal had left would be... interesting to fight against.
He was somewhat saved by the hissing of the kettle, and this time he rose to tend to it. Zooming boiling water across a room was not exactly the best idea to begin with. That, and it gave him an excuse not to look at Alva as he tried to gather himself again.
"I take it has not been too long, then ?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 11:59 am
The pair of them watched the expressions flit across the god's face. So Val's feelings had been correct, he was of the Underworld in some way, though the connection was still not there in Val's mind. The goddess watched with interest as silence fell for what seemed like a long time before he regained his composure. Could he have been an old enemy perhaps?
"Um a week maybe?" The days seemed to be blurring into each other. "What are you the god of?" She asked, might as well cut to the chase, he obviously recognised something as Val did.
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Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 12:16 pm
A week... Rather new then, indeed. Though they all began somewhere, in their own way.
"I am Lament." By the time he finally turned, he would have more or less steadied himself. He would bring the kettle and a cup to her to pour and enjoy as she wished.
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Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 12:46 pm
Lament, well that explained it then. To mourn with passion, a song perhaps to the dead. But there was something more there, much more, a deeper connection to her, Valyr could feel it.
Ask him, ask him if he is related to the Spirit Guide.
Alva breathed deeply and smiled as she accepted the tea.
"Are you one of Ankou's children?" She asked, feeling that was the best assumption the spirit guide seemed to have a nice family, she knew there was the other Underworld but that didn't seem likely and Valyrmora clearly didn't think so either.
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Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 11:47 pm
Him ? Ankou's child ? The notion was amusing in itself, though honestly it would be a superior option. The Spirit Guide might not have been father of the year, but he loved his children and that was honestly more than he could say from his own.
Really, Akakios had little want to bother with this conversation, but the goddess would learn of this elsewhere, if not here. And possibly not in a good way - he knew that well enough. Even now, people came to him looking for Nergal, and it made him cranky.
"No, though that would probably be an improvement at this point." Lament clearly was not happy about this, oh no. His features pulled into a frown, behind the veil. "Which is not to say we are not related. He is my paternal uncle."
That was the nicest possible way he could think to clue them in.
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Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 12:33 am
The god's mood changed quickly at the mention of a likely parent, the way the storms blew in across the heathland in Alva's home. Whatever was going through his mind clearly gave him some pain and his words confirmed it.
Within her, if Valyrmora could have fallen off her chair she would have, Nergal, with a child? Though there was a memory there, it flickered and then fizzled before she could recall it. She pushed herself to the front of her host's mind, a trick that came with practice it seemed.
"In which case I offer my condolencies." There was little love lost between the siblings, Val did not have many memories but what she did remember was arguing and disagreements as they faded. "Yet I am pleased to discover I have another nephew." The goddess liked children, and though this god was very much not a child anymore he was still a nephew, a relative.
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Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 9:24 am
That was not the reaction he expected, either, and it was clear that the wording made him curious. It seemed like there was little love lost in between them, as well. "At this point he might as well be a stranger to me. He left when I was about the same age at Ankou's children, and he started growing distant long before that." Not that long after they had been born, honestly.
"We were three, once, much like Ankou's children as well, but..." He stopped himself, but then sighed. This goddess deserved to know. "My brother ran off who knows where, and my sister does not waken." In fact, he had no idea where Lacrymosa was, now. It was as if she had outright vanished.
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