When the Fire Works (14) : Innovation is expected in Destiny City, so seasonal commodities are always expected to sell well. This year, the hot new summer item includes some chemically enhanced logs: carefully modified with environmental and health-safe chemicals, these logs are guaranteed to burn bright, burn long, and burn beautifully. It’s not just a pretty flame: each individual log has several rings that will light up like a sparkler when the flame hits. Larger logs will even pop off small, colorful fireworks for several hours while they burn. Though the lightshow is beautiful, it’s also calm. The logs have a pleasant, earthy smell, and unlike the sounds of normal fireworks, these simply sound like a crackling fire. There’s something curiously nostalgic about these fires; they are able to elicit a sort of childlike whimsy, if only you let them. If not, it’s still pretty.
This was Cernunnos second summer in Destiny City, so the second time he got to witness the strangeness that the inhabitants got up to as they celebrated their Star Festival. At least this time he was in the park by choice rather than necessity, having learned that all manner of interesting things could be found here if he wandered about… rather than trying to find the best places to hide and shelter from the weather, while also scavenging whatever food he could find. Full and comfortably housed, it was a much more enjoyable experience.
The pale boy had already stumbled upon a few couples doing… well, the things that couples did in the dark when they thought there was no one watching. Interesting, for a time, but quickly boring. The “porn” he could find on the “internet” was much clearer and easier to see, and often more… artfully arranged. In between those, he’d found some eggs that were weirdly empty, a weirdly many-legged thing that moved too fast, and a strange little stone… sculpture thing that he’d looked over and eventually left untouched as he moved on. It had felt too… something, to disturb.
Which left him still searching for something interesting. Preferably, something that did not involve getting accosted by one of the people who reeked of Chaos, as Hati and Asmo had explained it to him. He didn’t want to have to run for his life tonight, when it had all been going so well.
Passing from the gently manicured parks to the rougher areas on the outskirts of the city, Cernunnos kept his ears perked for sounds beyond the normal night life and traffic he’d grown used to hearing. He wasn’t sure how long he’d wandered, half heartedly looking for more of those glowing bugs he’d seen last year, before he saw a glow through the trees and caught the crackle of something… burning? Someone had a fire going?
Curiosity drew him forward like a siren, padding quietly, if inexpertly, through the undergrowth towards it. What he found, when he finally got close enough to get an unobstructed view, was one of those “campsites” he’d heard about, where official people had set up a safe place for people to “camp”. Or live outside, as he had, though he wasn’t sure what the appeal of it was, considering. In the dug out and rock-lined pit, a fire blazed, sending off strange sparks. The sight was fascinating, enough to catch his full attention for a moment before realizing a fire would have a maker, and it was likely he wasn’t alone here.
It was quiet here, and quiet in a way he missed.
To say it was truly quiet wouldn't have quite been accurate; Ibirapitá could hear the chatter in the distance, the excitement from other campsites, the way the bugs buzzed and the fire sparked and the stars sparkled above. But it wasn't noisy in the way the city was, wasn't loud in the way the rushing waters were, wasn't bone chilling the way the rot was.
It just … was. And it was in the way that Ibirapitá missed having in his life, in his world, in his … his husband, and his best friend, and those that gathered around them for stories around fires much like these.
This fire was a bit different with the way it sparkled like magic and dancing lights. It wasn't considered normal, but nothing in this city was. Arguably, what he saw in front of him as the fire sparked once more was closer to what he'd expected of his home than the strange place he had ended up. There was a comfort in that, too, albeit a hollow one. It was familiar, magical, and also too far gone from what it deserves to be part of.
Ibirapitá lifted an apple from the basket he had brought, letting his fingers graze over the grooves.
He didn't bite it.
His gaze drifted upward as he did notice someone come just a bit closer than he had been expecting. Ah. A guest. Ibirapitá tried to sit a bit straighter, but pulling him out of his malaise would require more will than he had. Instead, he offered a small nod, looking back to the fire.
This was where he would remain, for now.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2025 5:02 pm
Oh! There was someone at the fire.
Cernunnos hadn’t noticed the figure at first, absorbed in the colorful display, but he’d caught the movement from the corner of his eye, alarms going off in his head. He froze for a moment, poised, before that figure nodded and turned back to their fire. His fire?
Some of the tension leeched out of the senshi as he eyed the stranger, long ears perking forward. Belatedly, he opened up that inner sense Hati had taught him about, and felt someone similar to the other senshi he had met. Well, at least it wasn’t one of the Chaos people, and that aura of power did much to put him at ease now. A stranger, but also an ally, but… way out here, in the middle of nowhere, all alone? How curious.
Instead of approaching directly, Cernunnos shifted around through the brush to the other side of the fire, angling to where the fire light fell more fully on the man across from him and thus gave a far better view of who he was dealing with. It certainly seemed like a normal man, though there was something odd about him that Cernunnos couldn’t quite put his finger on. Well, normal for Earth standards, anyway. He was far too… richy colored for the people of his own world, far more in-line with the people from this one. And no horns, at least that he could see.
“I didn’t expect to find someone all the way out here all by themselves.” Cernunnos said as he eased himself around a tree, head cocked curiously. He slid cautiously closer, watching the other man with dark, two-toned eyes. “What are you doing? Having a little, mmm… picnic? As the people around here would say.”
He was actually rather proud that he remembered that word.
Even if Ibirapitá wasn't quite as obviously alien, it was hard to miss that Cernunnos himself was. The horns made him stand out, for one, and the ears for another. If Ibirapitá could pull himself to a millennia ago, he might have mistaken him for a faun of some variety. As it was, alien was the easiest assumption. As alien as Ibirapitá was to this world, he imagined.
Humans seemed to be very … rigid, as far as their appearance and variety had reached. That was something Ibirapitá had learned relatively quickly. Mayhaps it was because they were the only people that had survived that they had become something of a baseline standard. There were very few differences that felt so specific to areas in the way that they had on Ibirapitá, or on several of the other worlds he had familiarized himself with.
Abzu had appeared to have enough fun with them. … Unfortunately.
The fellow other world alien was a welcome distraction from that line of thought. “I believe you could call it that.” A picnic sounded considerably brighter than this was intended to be, but the other alien didn't have that context. “There is food and a place to sit.” There weren't stories, people, celebrations, smiles, animals… there were flowers, he supposed.
There was the smell of crackling firewood.
“I wanted some distance from my housekeeper. Out here feels more natural, I reckon.”
”Oh, a housekeeper? I’m jealous.” Cernunnos said as he padded to the fire and settled in a crouch beside it, his chin in his hands and elbows on his knees. He watched the other man as he spoke, noting the air of melancholy about him. How curious.
“My friends are always ‘I’m not your housekeeper, Wisteria! You don’t pay me to pick up after you.’ Or ‘I’m not your mother, Wisteria, I’m not going to cook for you! I don’t even have horns’.” He mimicked a high, feminine voice as he spoke, an impish grin inviting the other into the joke. Asmo would probably punch him if she ever heard him talk about her like this, but it was all in service to lightening the mood.
“I know they’re not. But when you’re in a strange land and you’ve never cooked before in your life, you get kinda tired of your awful attempts at it.” The only thing he managed that was any sort of good was the simple stuff, like the peanut spread with the jelly on sliced bread, or raw vegetables that didn’t take any prep. And those got old pretty quickly when you were used to things that were a tad more complicated. The stuff you could put in the microwave was okay, but you had to make sure you put in the right numbers and not forget about it. He’d tried the oven once, but the blackened results of that had put him off further attempts.
“It is quiet out here… or was before I showed up. I guess if you’d rather be alone, I could leave you to it… I just thought it might be nice to talk to someone.”
Perhaps housekeeper had not been the right word to refer to Abzu, but it had felt right enough. Innkeeper, the term he used to use, did not feel as correct anymore. It made the function Michelangelo decided to take in his life too basic, missing the depths of the fact he had done things like reserving a wing of his estate for Dorian himself. It included assisting in making sure Dorian had people to help who would not say anything about his alien appearance.
That did mean, though, that Cernunnos had the right idea. Dorian did have people who prepped food for him, even if he didn't enjoy much. The high mocking voice drew the faintest edges of a smile from Ibirapitá’s countenance, but nothing more. “Cooking with these ingredients of Earth is … strange. The flavour profiles are hard to find properly.” He worried over the inside of his lip as he turned over a piece of fruit in his hand. “It would be difficult for someone who did know how to cook.”
That would be Dorian's position if he did not consider that of those he had been close to, Dorian was never the best. His food preferences functioned, and sometimes even shined, but were otherwise exceedingly normal. The problem with normalcy was when the world's ingredients fell to rot, there was no way to mask it.
Ibirapitá simply hadn't eaten for most of the last millennium. It wasn't like it had done anything-
“You can remain, if you wish.” Ibirapitá's brow knit as he pondered a further response. “I cannot promise to be an interesting conversational partner.”
That much held. Ibirapitá knew from the way he interacted with Abzu’s assortment of houseguests that he was not the most enthralling. He didn't particularly care one way or another. As a man doomed to a life he didn't quite ask for, Dorian wasn't exactly enthusiastic about it or any of the people that tried to speak with him.
He missed the things that made life feel easier.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2025 5:04 pm
It was a little sobering to be reminded about how weird Earth food was. How weird ALL of it was.
“So you’re not one of the Earth senshi, then? So I bet you understand how strange everything is and how much I just want to taste or smell or see something familiar again…” Cernunnos grouched, aware his voice got very near a whine. He shrugged it off immediately with a self-deprecating grin and spread his hands, head tilted. “I know being here is better than being where I came from, and that its all gone now anyway, but it doesn’t feel like it. Or stop me from wanting the stuff I’ve been used to all my life.”
“What world are you from? I’m reasonably sure it’s not mine. You’re pretty, but you’re missing some key features.” He gave a wiggle of his long ears, his smile irrepressible. “And considering everything here is alien to me… I find you plenty interesting.”
There was not a single thing about this world that was truly familiar to Wisteria. As he’d said, it didn’t even smell the same, and being inundated by unfamiliar things, every day, had been and still was kind of exhausting. He tried very hard not to constantly think about the things he missed and how he’d never have them again, or how alien this place was. At least out here, in the dark… he could kind of pretend it wasn’t AS strange.
“No, I'm not.”
Ibirapitá had not been on Earth terribly long in comparison to the many cycles he had been alone, but it was long enough to reinforce just deeply not of Earth he was. His world would never be the same again. His world would never be alive again. Not verdant like this. Not…
He sighed, lightly, trying his best to bury the malaise he felt in his bones.
“Earth is a balm on a wound,” it was the easiest way to describe it. “Comfortable because it is living and there are people. Still painful underneath because it is nothing the same.” To some degree, Ibirapitá would rather have the comforts of his world back. To the same point, though, he had made no effort to return. Viatrix showed him that button when she gave him his phone.
What was the point, though? All that remained were the angry waters and rotted trees that would never be alive again.
He used the apple corer that he had been given to make some pieces to eat slowly.
“Ibirapitá is where I'm from,” he replied, not quite reacting to being called pretty even if he agreed he was. All people on his world were, in his opinion. Or … had been, anyway. “You? Your softer appearance reminds me of other species, but none that I am.”
Other species? Ears pricked, Cernunnos considered that and wondered if any of them had been like his people. Unlikely, but there was always a chance.
“Ibirapita, hmm? Well, pleased to meet you.” He said as he touched his forehead, offering the greeting out of habit even if it wasn’t understood. It made him feel like himself to do it.
“I’m from Cernunnos. Do I look soft to you?” He asked with genuine curiosity, jumping to the new topic. He’d been called many things in his life, but not ‘soft’, even if it was true. Soft in many ways, if he was honest with himself. Beyond the physical, he was unused to fending for himself and he supposed that made him ‘soft’ in a non-physical way. On impulse, he rocked onto his feet and scooted around the fire to move closer to the other man, dropping into a crouch again beside him.
His dark eyes peered closely at him, head tilting one way and then the other.
“You don’t look particularly hard, yourself. Did you know you have flowers in your hair?” He hadn’t noticed those from across the fire, but he could see them up close now. His fingers itched to touch them, find out what they were like, if they were real and attached or not. He even lifted his hand, but paused, torn.
Some people didn’t like being touched and he had no idea how this stranger felt about it… but the desire was so strong. Once, he’d been allowed to do whatever he pleased… learning to restrain himself was proving onerous.
“You do.” Ibirapitá attempted a mirror of the greeting. It reminded him at least when he was years younger and was trying to be a diplomat to other worlds that would eventually simply disappear. “Softer features, malleable ears, thou nose,” he shrugged. “It suits the background thou has told me, I think, if,” a moment, before he pulled his speech into a different angle, “you're unused to things like cooking for yourself, though perhaps beyond that.” He wet his tongue with a sip of a drink he had brought with him. Nonalcoholic wine, at Michelangelo's insistence. The burn wasn't the same.
“Are all of Cernunnos like thee?”
The flowers were noticed, and it was enough to distract from Cernunnos coming closer to where he sat. Ibirapitá's lips turned slightly upward at that. He did know he had flowers, but he supposed it was different now. Even small flowers were an idle Wonder to people who didn't actually grow the verdance on their own. “I do. Not as many as I used to, but I do.” He was fairly sure the exposure to Earth summer was causing at least small flowers to bloom.
That was at least his presumption. Before he had arrived on Earth his flowers had primarily turned to Vines, and there was nothing to speak of beyond a green that didn't want to turn into anything else. The flowers were different, but he couldn't come up with the reason why other than the fact that the different environment might have caused his body to think that perhaps something like his world was returning.
It wasn't quite right, but in the crackling of the fire it could at least feel like something.
“Ibirapitáns of my background naturally grew flowers in their vines. They could sprout from your hair, the ground,” he shifted where he sat, “anywhere connected, really. It was beautiful. Soft, in that way.”
Ibirapitá didn't feel soft at all after a millennium of loneliness and cycles preparing for it, but he could understand the physical impression.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2025 5:06 pm
The lifted hand redirected and came to settle on Cernunnos’ nose instead, feeling the broad, flat shape of it. So different from everyone here that he’d ever met… another reminder he was somewhere strange.
“Everyone’s noses are so… big, here.” He said in an absent tone before giving himself a shake. “I suppose most of my people are like me, but I guess I don’t really know. I saw a lot of people, but I did not… travel, much, to see other places on my world. Mostly people came to me and sometimes they brought off worlders along. But of those I saw, most had my ears and horns and nose, and similar colors… And tail, which I guess is also kind of unusual here.”
It was interesting to imagine this man with more flowers in his hair. He could see him with more flowers than hair, and that was an amusing thing. Just a bright bouquet, with his face in the middle.
“Of your background? Did other people grow other things, or nothing? Do you only grow flowers? Can you feel them? Are they… part of you, or just growing on you? Do they do anything? Are they…” He paused then, mid-thought, suddenly unsure if the question ‘are they how you breed, like how a flower does?’ would be taken amiss or not. Did his kind sprout seeds and plant them to grow children?
“If they’re… private, you don’t have to tell me, of course. I’ve just always been overly curious for my own good. Or so I was told.”
The concept of people primarily coming to him was familiar, at least. That had been the case for him when he had been living on his home world, when people were alive, because he was their guardian. It was a bit of a different concept than what it sounded like though for Cernunnos, considering that not only people came to him, Ibirapitá also spent a lot of time going to other people.
Ibirapitá touched his own nose, before noting with faint amusement, “I supposen this would seem unusually large.” His nose had always seemed quite average to him, but considering how flat the other’s nose was…
Quite faunlike.
“Tails are very unusual. Abzu has mentioned that humans can grow tails, but it's a mutation, so very unexpected. I don't think there's a mutation where they could grow vines, not that I've seen or … read, on this big global connected thing they call the internet.” Ibirapitá bit his bottom lip, wet it, and moved to another apple. The apple tasted good, at least, and the fire crackled nicely.
Of all the questions though, the flowers were likely the easiest thing to answer. Talking about the people that had been lost to a millennium ago was something that felt right to him. It made him feel a bit misty, a bit heady and off-balance, but he would ignore that part. “I can feel them. The flowers are part of me, just as much as any other part is part of me. They are part of how we resonate with the growth and the grounds around us.”
He leaned forward to run his hands over uncharred grass, fresh under his hands. As much as he missed his own, this felt … nice. Ibirapitá clutched some in his hands. “We primarily grow flowers. The varieties could have changed based on thou family line, part of what thee had as lineage. It echoed how thee properly resonated with the plants around thee too.
“For myself? I was a shielder. Medicinal assistance.”
That was certainly news to him. If they could, why didn’t they? The humans here always felt…half finished, like someone had forgotten to stick pieces on when they were made. They should have tails, in his opinion.
It was hard not to notice how the stranger liked to bite his lip as he talked. It reminded Cernunnos of someone he’d known before everything had gone crazy, bringing a bittersweet note to things. Sitting here, sharing memories… sharing things that were gone now. No wonder Ibirapita was so melancholy… Cernunnos knew he could end up right there with him if he let himself. Which he wouldn’t! Because that was no fun at all and served no purpose, right?
Instead, he copied the other by pressing his palms to the ground and splaying his fingers, wiggling them to feel the grass between the digits. Dug his fingertips in until he could feel the dirt under his nails.
“You were a doctor?” He asked, watching his own fingers as he knelt there. He could feel the warmth of the fire on one side, the cool of the night on the other. Hear the crackle of the burning log and see the sparks it gave off.
“I was not a doctor. I was… maybe priest is a good word? But not really because I didn’t worship anything. People came to me, I gave them my gift and they left. I don’t think my people grew things like that, and I know humans don’t. I don’t think they really did anything special like that, other than me, and that’s only because I’m the senshi.” Might have been neat, if they had.
“Were you a shielder, or whatever, because of your family? Like the kind of flowers you grow, you inherited it?”
“Aye. Very unusual. Abzu has mentioned that most things of that regard are removed surgically.” Ibirapitá knit his brows. Personally, he didn't quite understand why, but of course, he never had a tail either, and his particular species never had. If it was an unexpected and potentially harmful mutation, it was likely better to rid oneself of it.
Still, though…
Ibirapitá figured that it ultimately didn't matter. These people would grow and mutate and pass on, just as his did, eventually. Hopefully, it was long after he chose to live on this world. His eyes lifted from his fingers to look at how Cernunnos was copying his behaviours. Smart. Feeling the grass between his fingers was a good way to ground himself, even against logic.
For it felt so logical for none of this to think of mattering.
“Not quite. T’was a guardian, not a doctor. I simply had medicinal capabilities in my floral line, and they could be used that way.” Ibirapita’s fingers finally rose back out of the grass to touch where there was the occasional bloom in his hair. He knew what they were called, in his native language.
There was no point in sharing that information for the language was only alive in him. “I do believe priest would be the closest word in this … Pidgin language. If you could bestow gifts and people believed they worked,” Ibirapitá's laughter felt distant, “was likely. For myself, I did not inherit my position, truly. My flowers assisted it.”
His head tilted.
“When my world was alive, I received the position I did due to the soul I held. Ibirapitá's magic long showed that they were to protect the world and its inhabitants. Twas the next in line.”
In the end, perhaps, he had been the most useless of them all.
The fire's dancing lights and shadows made him look both stately and grave all at once.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2025 5:09 pm
Cernunnos was silent for a little while, both listening and thinking. The past was like a weight that pressed down on him, forever a reminder of what was gone and what he’d never have again. Ibirapita seemed the same. If this place hadn’t been so… weird, maybe he wouldn’t have felt so… homesick? What had even been there to miss? Not the thousands of pilgrims who only wanted his gift. Not the faceless priests who served him. There had been a few that he’d actually known but… were they what he missed? Had it been his temple, or his possessions? Or just… knowing his place and his purpose, being able to recognize the food he put in his mouth? Being certain that tomorrow would be just like today?
“The gift works.” He said finally, sliding a sidelong glance at the other man. He worked his fingers in the soil absently, restless. “I can show you.”
It didn’t matter any more that the gift he bestowed had been sacred. It didn’t matter that people had come from miles away, traveled for weeks or even months to reach him… no one was around who even knew about it, let alone wanted to receive it. And how many times had he been forced to use it to save himself? Too many. It had taken the shine and gilt off of it… made it almost ordinary. He still got a bit of a shivery feeling though… using it alone, like this.
“Its not some woo-woo pretend magic thing, its real.” Taking his hands off the ground, Cernunnos scooted closer and offered them to Ibirapita, dirt still smudging his palms and fingertips.
“Yours still works?” It was honestly a moment of surprise. Nothing about the fact that he had been able to grow plants around him was still true. His world did not respond to him, and neither did the ground here. It felt like he had lost everything that connected him to being a guardian. He had even lost most of the levels that he had gained when he was a senshi of a thriving world.
His outfit was what he wore as a child.
To hear that something still worked for someone drew curiosity, drew wonder. Ibirapitá wanted to know as much as a part of him burned in jealousy at the concept. Though what was he jealous of, truly? This man had lost just as much as him, in a different way, at a different temperature in a fire they couldn't wish to see. Mayhaps it didn't matter what the source of his envy was.
The gift, whatever Cernunnos’ ancient long gone people had trekked to find, was being offered to him with open hands.
He took hold of the offered hands in his own grubby fingers and leaned closer, eyes intent on the other. The touch was not, really, necessary. He didn’t actually need to even be in touch range, but it felt right, to connect this way.
A large part of him wanted to prove that his magic was real and it did what his people believed it did. He wasn’t some charlatan, throwing powder into the air and claiming it was magic because it sparkled… he wasn’t an empty figure head surrounded by made-up tails of powers that only existed because people thought they did. He was real. He’d done something important, once. Even if he was nothing more than some lost boy now, one among a hundred others…
“Don’t be afraid.” Cernunnos said as he watched Ibirapita, earnest and focused. “Just let it happen. It doesn’t last very long.”
That was about all the warning he could give the man. No one else had really needed it, but it seemed.. Appropriate, just to give it now.
“Be Free.” He commanded, setting the magic loose.
Sailor Scout Attack: Be Free.
Cernunnos reaches towards those around him and commands them to 'Be Free'. This AoE can affect anyone within ten feet of them, and lasts roughly 15 seconds. Their mind is immediately released from all mental/emotional/behavioral restraints to allow them to act and think freely. This will affect different characters differently, depending on their basic nature. In effect, they are unrestrained from societal expectations, biases, prejudices, shame, fear, anger, and/or responsibility/duty (at player discretion), to think clearly without the interference of outside forces/emotions. This may result in confusion, sudden decision paralysis, or just no longer having a reason to attack/fight as they are released from whatever was driving them. This may not stop people from fighting, even though they are no longer bound to their reason for doing so, if its simply part of their inherent nature. He can use this up to three times.
There were elements of the wording that Cernunnos chose that could have leaned into the impression that this magic was a trick. Don't be afraid, to ease him. It's real, in case Ibirapitá was uncertain. It doesn't last very long, so it could be missed. On the other hand, Ibirapitá could strongly understand the urge to insist that it was real. After all, didn't they both lose so much already? Weren't they both trapped in these lower forms with this lower magic?
Ibirapitá's magic simply did not work at all. It was a wonder that the magic of the senshi of Cernunnos did.
And it seemed that something happened, when Cernunnos freed his magic with a simple incantation. There was a release of a pressure valve in his mind, one that was expecting him to still be tied to … something else. Something other. For some reason, reminding himself of that had become more difficult under the lack of illusion in his mind.
Ibirapitá looked down at his dirt-laden fingernails as if they would provide an explanation for the sudden ease in his breaths.
As much as they could for his life in the dirt they did not provide much explanation for the magic in his mind other than whatever Cernunnos possessed did do something. It didn't make him afraid, but it did make him increasingly curious. It was almost to an uncomfortable degree as the effect faded off and he remembered, then, all the things that still weighed on him, that he was still tied to.
The glow in his eyes had intensified nevertheless.
“Fascinating. Thou magic appears to release some sort of inhibition.”
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2025 5:13 pm
A strange feeling of peace washed over Cernunnos and for a handful of moments, he wondered why he’d been so homesick since he’d arrived here. Yes, everything was different, but they would never be quite the same again… why did he dwell on that so hard? It would be easier to just embrace it, take it in and make it part of himself. He had no ties any more, and that gave him more freedom than he’d ever had in his whole life…
“My… my sphere of influence is Freedom.” He managed to get out as the clarity faded, leaving him flustered. He’d never experienced his own magic before… that had been it, hadn’t it? He hadn’t had many instances to cast it since arriving here, and a few of them had not gone well… maybe this was another manifestation of that?
And he felt exhausted suddenly. A little heart sick, still.
“I should… probably go.” Cernunnos said awkwardly, his soft ears dropping back into his hair. Realizing belatedly that he still held Ibirapita’s hands, he released them, but he was caught by the look on the other man’s face… and his eyes. Were his eyes glowing? It was fascinating and unnerving at the same time.
“May you accept only what fetters you choose...” He murmured by rote, a habit of years and countless casting of this same magic.
Freedom.
That explained the magic, Ibirapitá supposed. His mind had briefly pushed aside everything that was weighing on his back, but only briefly. A part of him hungered for more of that relief, a way a part of him still hungered from the lack of ropes and anchors that had encapsulated his time in the bottle.
He had to ignore that, right? He could almost hear Abzu in his ear, pulling the drink away, pulling the relief away, putting the inhibitions back in their proper place- “Mine is Shade, if thou are curious.” -but this was so much cleaner, and without complication, and it was a pleasantry that he oft didn't feel.
Ibirapitá swallowed.
The glow in his eyes dimmed as he glanced back toward the fire, lowering his hands as Cernunnos released them. The faun was dismissing himself from the fire, it seemed. Perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps Dorian needed some time in his thoughts.
“Aye. I do appreciate the magic thou possess.” Ibirapitá offered the ghost of a smile. “Gramercy.”
