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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Aug 10, 2020 9:10:33 GMT -8
/Lekalis/
"You would be surprised; Lord's are often the loneliest men in their realm." Habitually, he intones to wink, but with both eyes shut he simply cocks a brow as he takes the bucket back with a small humming thanks before seeing to scrubbing down her offered robes; setting aside the brush and other tools for the time as he does so.
"And... here; the esteemed Lord of Baths, in an estate full of adventurer's who come and go quick as rain?" Lekalis clucked his tongue,
"You're only my third paying customer in months." He struggles to keep a song in his defeated tone as he sniffs and finds the Vestal's garb easy to clean, with its straightforward structure.
"This is dark place, Toustain; filled with dark and terrible things. I knew more friends and company and stories when I was bloodier, darker, than I do now." Lekalis sighed as he quickly shuffled the robe through his fingers, feeling for dirt and grime, before flicking it flush and rummaging through one of the drawn drawers of soaps to find a pleasant odor; deftly bringing assorted phials labeled in curt words to his nostrils, before popping them, sniffing, and setting them aside.
All t'ill he found one of good cinnamon that matched the image of Toustain in his mind. He dabbed a dollop on the robes and saw to working the substance into the robes with a quickly growing aroma.
"It does amuse me; it seems this Estate works in opposites. The Good and Bright come, and flicker and wane. While the Bad and Dark come, and grow bright and blinding." Lekalis mused listlessly as his hands worked in practiced patterns. Even without eyes, he found it easy to see.
"Sometimes, at least. There's plenty dead on both ends but-- I mention this because you seem to be waning, flickering, a bit... no?" He inquired and paused, by impulse, to look up at Toustain though his eyes were shut and he chuckled to himself before settling back to washing her robes.
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Post by rosallora on Aug 10, 2020 9:26:40 GMT -8
[Toustain]
She feels herself sinking further into the tub as he spoke. "...Maybe I am." The admission makes her feel smaller. The water rises around her, a certain warmth emanating from the bottom of the basin. Strange. She closes her eyes herself, for a moment, and the sentiment sinks in. "I don't want to. I want to be strong. Like Harina, or Ser Roland. Even Ser Roard, when he was alive, if he wasn't of the faith, he had a strength that you couldn't help but admire. His body was failing him..." she moves her hand in the water. "The... I've never seen someone last that long, sir, not with. With as far as the condition was, he never should have lasted as long as he did. It was a stubbornness to keep living. He had such a bright flame inside of him, one that he used for others." She moves the damp hand over her chest, pressing against her sternum. "If I let the light go out then I'm doing him a disservice, even in death. I want my flame to be..."
She sniffs. "Cinnamon?" She turns a bit, resting her hands on the lip of the tub and looking at him as he washes her clothes.
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Aug 10, 2020 9:36:51 GMT -8
/Lekalis/
He had been listening intently, her words familiar and moving; in the deep murksome recesses of his mind, memories stirred as his hands stilled. Only to be roused at the mention of cinnamon and the rather disconnected tone of words.
"O-oh, yes! Of course." Lekalis chuckled and found his tune again, "A personal favorite, from an old name far away from here. Your complexion and hair remind me of it." He explained as he swept up the small bottle containing the mixture of fluid and spice, before he set it back in the drawer.
"It should keep on your clothes for a few weeks. If all you do is shuffle about the Abbey." Lekalis teased, "Which I doubt will be the case."
"What was that, though? About your flame, a disservice to let it go out..?" He led on as he gingerly dragged and soaked the last of the robe with the fading mixture; standing and flicking it flush once again before draping it over the stool to dry.
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Post by rosallora on Aug 10, 2020 9:49:11 GMT -8
[Toustain]
Cinnamon... she used it occasionally in her cooking. It wasn't the easiest to come by. Best for the wintertime, dropped into a pot with apples and mead. Now that, that brings some good memories to the forefront of her mind. And it makes her long, quietly, for those dark and chilled evenings. Was that strange? To want for the dark, so that there would be reasons to warm against it?
"With my leg, I'll be doing a bit more shuffling than usual," she admits. Then, back to the original thread. She lets out a soft sigh. "I don't want it to go out." The water was rising around her, reaching her hip, her stomach. The heat was spreading as well - this was... pleasant. She could see this becoming even moreso, given a few more minutes.
"A flame going out isn't the end of a person, though. It just means it needs to be re-lit. It's easiest to get that from someone else - a caring soul. Someone who believes in you." She smiles. There's a tint of sadness. "Ser Roard was that kind of person. I felt my flame was strong but if it wasn't, I'm sure that his would've lit mine a few times over. He had that way about him, you know? He thought people could be the best versions of themselves. That they could bloom brightly in shadowed places. I want to carry my flame - not just for him, but. I'll carry him with me." She remembers the glow of the torch in the cave, some Vesta-given blessing she didn't think herself deserving of.
"We kindle each other. Not just him and I, but. All of us. And cinnamon actually... it fits. I believe." She smiles. "Maybe you have me pinned. Face and hair and a want for warmth. Cinnamon is a warm smell."
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Aug 13, 2020 17:46:21 GMT -8
/Lekalis/
"You're still an enigma to me, trust me; The whole world's rife with shadowy places and flickering flames." Lekalis chuckled as he planted his hands on his hips then paused, a moment of imagining crossing his features as he put together the image of the bath and tinctures open and about; he cautiously guided himself to the phials and counted and felt his way to the oils and powders that might be better placed on scalp and skin.
"There's much of you I still doubt, much that leaves me pondering on your... true motivations, your beliefs..." He trailed off, "... What you expected to find in coming here, and why you don't just leave."
He sighed, punctually with a rolling shrug that put him behind Toustain; feeling the spot with his toes before testingly reaching down to find her shoulders with his little finger.
"You say these things about Roard; the kindness of his person, the strength of his soul... His thoughts and deeds. And I say they fit your name just as easily." He hummed and let his little finger glide to the base of her skull, just behind her ears.
"If you'd kindly tilt your head back so I might wash your hair?" Lekalis posed tangentially and politely as he shifted to draw the bucket over to rest against the basin behind and below her head...
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Post by rosallora on Aug 13, 2020 21:41:20 GMT -8
[Toustain]
She watches him as he moves, and yet the touch is still. A bit shocking. And it truly was silly, how it was, after all she was watching him, and he was using the finger that somehow seemed the least bit threatening (that was likely on purpose) and she wills herself not to think about it too much. This was part of the service. Her hair, being washed. And it would smell good, and feel good. That would be nice. Nice. Not guilt inducing. Nice.
She shifts back a bit and leans her head over the rim of the tub, doing dutifully as she was asked. Toustain closes her own eyes, not wanting to make herself dizzy by renegotiating where everything was in her head while tilted. "That's... very kind of you to say. As far as... well. my motivations and beliefs, I don't think I'm hiding anything." She moves her arms, then cringes quietly at how it moves her shoulders. She gets all of her hair out of the tub, as musty and tangled as it was. "I believe in the Light. I believe that everyone has light within them - a flame that burns with conviction. And it is my job as a vestal to rekindle extinguished flames, and tend flames that are lit. To help people find the flame in one another. To encourage kindness, and duty, determination. To understand the home as a special and sanctified place - that respite from the horrors of the outside world is important. That a warm meal is its own sacred rite.
"You know the English word - companion? It comes from my home tongue. French. Compaignon - one who you break bread with." There's a smile on her lips as she says it. "Pan is Latin for bread... cum, likewise, is together. That is the essence of it... our bread, together. We share... and we find something special in the sharing. Something that... goes beyond what we can express with words."
As for the staying... that was something else entirely. She'd rather stay here, in the warm comfort of this sentiment. She remembers the braided loaf she brought to the bathhouse some time ago in simple good faith. How nice it was, to be able to give.
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Post by black379 on Aug 21, 2020 10:00:46 GMT -8
[Andy] They don't respond immediately, tossed as they are into a horrible recursion of the events that took place here mere hours before. The fletching of their bolt, still visible in the corpse's chest, even if only as charred remains of speckled feathers lying on the rent breastplate, is a powerful touchstone for their execution. The leper roars, tearing his armor apart, the vestal watches, the inquisitor fires. The dull thud of the body, marred by the snapping of firewood as he fell echoes. The doctor said something. "What?" They blink once, twice, coming back to themselves. "Oh. Yes, of course." A quick motion, and the clasps holding their cloak at their shoulders come loose. They quickly wrap their hands in the material, the excess stretched between as a sort of makeshift sling in which they place the body's legs. Grasping on, they struggle and lift with all of their might, what little they have to offer anyway.
Adeney dusted his gloves off on his apron. He hoped he wouldn't have to burn them too. No, probably a thorough washing would suffice.
While Andy grabbed the corpse's legs, Adeney hauled the crispy torso from the still warm pile of ash. Neither of the two were really fit to carry Roard's cumbersome body all the way back to the sanitarium, though they managed to move him out of the firepit, at least.
After a moment of struggling with the body, the doctor lost his grip. He panted with exhaustion and rested with his hands on his knees. He looked about for a tarp they might be able to drag Roard behind them on, or even a cart.
"Hff... We could burn him here. Though the sanitarium's furnace would be better."
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Sept 5, 2020 8:04:33 GMT -8
/Lekalis/
"That's a terribly beautiful prose, I can see why you kept to your teachings..." Lekalis mused humbly, truly taken aback by her adherence and philosophy. Not entirely an unprecedented line of thought to the Once Lord; his own tutelage across the globe had shown him a great many faiths of similar respect and beauty... though they were hidden gems of a forgotten age, it seemed. "... You speak of it so easily, so confidently; it's not something everyone can do. You say you fear your strength waning, and I say you just needed a bath, a bed... and maybe a glass of wine."
Lekalis offered a light laugh as he soaked Toustain's hair and began to wring out the water, t'ill it was damp enough to let the oils soak into her scalp and the fats to bond with her strands. The odor was pungent at first, as the compound in his palms budded with small bubbles and pallid streaks, though it began to tame itself once again as he began to rinse her hair once again. "It is not easy to watch someone's life leave them, drop by drop..." His tone, for all its tired cheer, sobered into a grave remembrance,
"... I have lost many friends, and all of my family. Anyone who's... flame-" He intoned the word meaningfully; in the way a man bitten by a shark would dip his toe into a sea...
"-Who's flame would not wane from such a terrible malady would not be strong... they would be mad." Lekalis sighed in quiet solemnity as he finished a few coaxing strokes through Toast's hair to embed the suds as best he could before he took a breath and let the back of his hands rest on her shoulders, bowing his head down for a moment to collect himself.
"You're no fading flame for mourning, for weeping... You simply must... find your kindling again." The only struggle came from playing into the vernacular of words that had once lashed and rued his existence, and he shrugged as he gently squeezed Toustaine's shoulders. "That should be your hair done, I shall get the oils and odors for your body and leave you to that; do not dry your hair just yet, let it breathe. Let yourself breathe..." He instructed as he scooted his stool back over to the shelves underneath the basin and opened one, before quietly navigating his way thru the phials...
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Post by rosallora on Sept 5, 2020 8:42:48 GMT -8
[Toustain]
His words wash over her much the same as the water did - warm, soothing. She finds herself looking at the water, slightly transparent with the oils and soap mixed in little eddies over the surface, and then her eyes close as he speaks. And they are the same: two people feeling in the dark.
She gropes meaninglessly at memories that aren't fully there. Loving touch. Gentle hands. She could fabricate, couldn't she, if she tried hard enough? But instead she doesn't, she lets go, she wants to just sink into this feeling and submerge in the heat radiating out from the bottom of the tub. The Lord's hands wrest the knots from her hair, and alight on her shoulders. She has the urge - reach out, touch, connect - but he's gone before she can, a soft chill covering her skin where his fingers once did. It was better this way, she thinks. Some things are better not done.
Toustain does as she's told: perhaps because she's good at that, and perhaps because it seemed a good suggestion. Breathe. She rests the back of her skull against the tub, eyes closed, her hands folded over the slight mound of her stomach. She wishes she could comfort him. He has lost Roard as much as she had - he would hold ceremony for him, witness him as so many wished to be witnessed. It was a deep kindness, and didn't come without meaning. Her brow furrows as she tries to think through it, the legitimacy, but then that dissipates.
No. No thoughts, now.
The water stings and soothes the marks on her back, still feeling so fresh. The cool-warm of the tub felt good against them, even if pressure was its own kind of discomfort. Her fingers and toes, all intact, her breath even. It doesn't stutter. Her eyes were sore with tears but the steam helped, it wisped over her skin and seemed to lift away some of that worry, that fear, that sorrow.
"...You stoke it too," she says, gently, quietly, feeling how little space the words took up in the room. "Somewhere like here... someone like you. You're a Lord but you act so humbly - you'd wash my hair and pick a soap that you think would be like me. There's thought and care in your actions. I have, I have no doubt that you have suffered, seen some terrible things, that your flame has flickered, sometimes waned, with those awful events..." she rests her forearms on the edge of the tub, watching him. "But even in these simple actions, there's a gentle stoking of flame. Light is small, sometimes. It doesn't seem to go very far, it seems to get swallowed by an endless night, but. Just talking with you, I can feel that candle-flame glow. Sometimes we don't have much. Sometimes we have so little we feel as if we have nothing to give. But you obviously give of yourself, in quiet, everyday ways. You share your soft flame. It's... a privilege to be within your glow, even for a short time."
No, he was not a bonfire. Not a torch held aloft, not a triumphant blaze. Sometimes all you could keep was a solitary candle. A flickering bit of fire that you cupped with your palm, at risk of burning yourself, but you kept it fiercely, stubbornly.
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Sept 12, 2020 6:07:01 GMT -8
/Lekalis/
It was... peculiar to listen to Toustain; she lacked the gruff of most of those he'd come to know in the Hamlet. Lacked the cynicism of those that held a lighter tone... There was an honesty he still didn't trust, but it was comforting all the same and demanded pause as he lost track of the reagents he needed to acquire.
"I..." He began but only chuckled as he shook his head and held a small smile, seeing to finding the oil again by counting off the phials before finding it, and the flaking block of flour and fats that would help bond the two.
"... Thank you. A Lord is a servant to the people, a fact and mantle I'm proud to bear." Lekalis explained with a small shrug as he looked about in futility, before extending the phial out to poke and clink against the surroundings before he found the bucket and offered a small "ah"
"... I... think I forgot to remove the brush and sponge." He laughed awkwardly and shook his head, "I'll go fetch another from the other room. And check on Courcy."
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Post by rosallora on Sept 12, 2020 6:21:38 GMT -8
[Toustain]
She nods her assent, chin resting on her arms as she watches him move about. "Mm- yes. Maybe she's done with her drying..." She slips her hands back into the tub and settles herself. The water was certainly warming, and she'd be making quite the mistake if she didn't enjoy it while she could. "I hope she's feeling alright." There's a semi-distant quality to her voice, the sentence said out of some instinctual twinge. It could've been anyone in the other room and the sentiment would've been the same.
Toustain rolls onto her side, using her hands as a cushion to keep her head out of the water as she closes her eyes for the interim.
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Sept 17, 2020 16:30:47 GMT -8
"Mmm! Oh I'm sure she's absolutely miserable, inconsolable, really." Lekalis mused in jest as he huffed and pushed himself up and moved to the door confidently... then paused near the door itself, his hand reaching out and feeling the doorframe with a confidence that made it hard to determine if he truly needed to guide himself then or if something else held him there.
"Thank you for stopping by, and don't be a stranger, hmm?" He turned his head as if to see Toustain, by some habit of conversation before he slipped free of the room and shut the door quietly behind him.
There was hardly a moment of hesitation as his feet danced to the next door that held Courcy, only remembering to open his eyes as he opened the door there and strode in with dignity and grace.
"How have you been, Courcy? I've just settled with Toustain's hair, though I'd soiled the brush and sponge with blood... If you're willing, I could use some help." Lekalis offered with a small shrug as he crossed his arm and leant against the wall the bath itself was parallel to, cocking his crown to settle his gaze on her...
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Post by black379 on Sept 22, 2020 7:26:03 GMT -8
Courcy was where he had left her. She was leaned forward, resting her head on one hand and spaced out, staring blankly at the stack of her drying clothes. When she heard Lekalis return, Courcy sat up and looked back at him over her shoulder. A few strands of hair still stuck against her cheeks. She shrugged in response to something he said.
"What did you do to her?" The woman questioned as she swiveled about in the stool. She sported a bemused smirk, curious how Lekalis had bloodied his tools with the vestal. Courcy stood and approached him, the towel still draped across her shoulders to cover most of her upper body.
"How can I help?"
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Jan 15, 2021 6:01:22 GMT -8
/Lekalis/
The amusement sobered some; not wholly abandoning the fair mood but adopting something to impress a level of respect... or, perhaps, caution on the measure of the topic as he lowered his tone, not to a whisper but close enough to bring the conversation to something less exuberant.
"Lash marks, I'm familiar... of her own make." Lekalis spoke with confidence as he lowered his brow and glanced to the room beside, his smile finally abating to a half frown; it was a confident guess, he was much too familiar with the look of external forces applying such exercises, the design of those memories drew forth an impulse to quietly rub the back of his shoulder where only the phantoms of scars remained.
"If you'd bring that brush and sponge to Toustain's room, I'll go fetch a fresh pail of water from the room over." Lekalis proposed with a nod, waiting only briefly before assuming Courcy would abide and made his leave; slipping out of the room to politely jog over to the mentioned room.
The last two rooms of the row weren't unfinished, though he'd yet to properly put together the soaps and baubles required; the pail was covered by a cork-rimmed lid and gave a gentle pop as he examined its contents, gently stirring it with a finger before lidding it and hefting it up.
He almost forgot to close his eyes as he returned to Toustain's room, pail in hands, with a warm smile as he swiftly shuffled on in once more.
"And, just so..." he hummed as he set the pail down beside the basin of the Vestal and began to vaguely refamiliarize himself with the layout of the room, subtly, by toeing at the stool, the basin, etcetera.
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Post by black379 on Jan 16, 2021 20:21:50 GMT -8
Courcy stood unabashed, with her feet apart and a hand set on her hip. She watched his face, his eyes especially, but Lekalis hardly seemed to regard her at all. Why did she bother hoping?
"Oh. Fuck. Are they fresh?" The redhead grimaced at the thought. If her opinion of the abbeyfolk wasn't low enough, the sadism inflicted on even their own disciples didn't help. Courcy wasn't too keen to assist cleaning up a scarred vestal, but she could hardly argue as Lekalis already made his way back to tend to Toustain. She watched him go, and wished instead to waste the afternoon relaxing in the bath on her own.
Sighing loudly, if only for herself, Courcy shrugged off the dampened towel and returned to her clothes. She felt clean for the first time in a while. Once she was dressed and her boots laced up, she gathered the brush and sponge and moved into the other room.
The sight of Lekalis feeling for his place at the edge of the basin, with his eyes sealed to protect the holy woman's dignity, amused Courcy enough for her smirk to return. Shuffling up behind, she put a hand on the man's shoulder.
"Here to help." She didn't sound too enthusiastic.
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