[closed] Clarity and Light

[corpse_soldier]

CHARACTERS: One Etrepa Seven and Carlisle Longinmouth
LOCATION: Atop the shouting rock.
WARNINGS: Theological hair-splitting.
SUMMARY: An interfaith discussion, as promised.
NOTES:After the fires.



For a while, there's not a whole lot of time for social engagements. In the wake of the fires and the assault from the wilds, there's a great deal of work to do: repairing structures, treating injuries, cleaning up the mutated carcasses. One Etrepa enjoys this time, the certainty of benefit that comes from rebuilding. It's so much less complicated than justice and all its justifications.

But she has other interests, quirks particular to her decade, and eventually, inevitably, un:longinface receives a private message. Concise and cordial, it follows up on Etrepa's earlier inquiry regarding Carlisle's faith, her suggestion of a meeting and a more in-depth discussion. No reference is made to the larger context, the deeply contentious discussion of fundamental rights. Instead, there is a promise of tea, and of reasonable strength and temperature, should she arrive in a timely fashion.


Once again, Etrepa has brought her set atop the shouting rock. With a gloved hand she lifts the lid of the flask, releasing a waft of steam for just long enough to examine its color before covering it up once more. Her uniform is two full shades lighter than it once was, thanks to the sun and the rain, but it is clean and as crisp as a heated river stone can make it. The cloud cover is thick enough to provide some relief, but not so thick as to threaten rain. The omens looked favorable today. She has faith she'll come.

Comments

[tongueamok]

Given the catastrophe that happened with the fires and his own sins, the message requesting a meeting comes as a surprise to Carlisle -- he'd nearly forgotten about the conversation over the network about whether or not interrogating and punishing someone was the proper course for a supposed criminal. There's no indication they'll be speaking of that, though there is the promise of tea.

Well... he does like tea.

And so he makes his way to the Shouting Rock, carrying his badger-pelt bag with him. Though most of his injuries from the chaos were healed by his own magic, there are a few notable marks -- namely the sizable bruise on his face -- that remain. Magic can't help the soreness of his body, though -- he'd drained himself thoroughly trying to heal Algidus, and it shows in his stiff, slow approach to the meeting.

"You called?" he asks, his flat tone reflecting his exhaustion.

[corpse_soldier]

The rock takes a little doing to scale, something of an unintentional unkindness to the aching cleric, but promise of an aromatic brew lies at the end of the brief trial. Despite her habitual lack of affect, Etrepa marshals a well-composed smile onto her face when she sees Carlisle approaching, a synthetic expression which - while micromuscularly accurate - always looks a little out of place.

"Citizen," she says, rising to her feet and favoring Carlisle with a bow, "I'm pleased you could make it. Please, be seated." A gloved hand indicates the other end of a clean woven mat.

"Despite our correspondence, I don't believe we were properly introduced. I am One Etrepa Seven-" the pretense of proper humanity is one she's abandoned, now that she knows she's hardly the most exotic being in the camp, now that she knows that what she is and that means is not understood here - "and how might I address you, citizen?"

[tongueamok]

While he doesn't appreciate the climb up the rock, Carlisle knows well enough his condition couldn't have been expected; after all, even he hadn't realized how much healing he'd be doing in the course of a single day.

Returning her bow with only the barest of his own (she would just have to forgive his poor manners, he notes inwardly), he introduces himself. "Carlisle Longinmouth. Just Carlisle, please." Anything but human or citizen or any other impersonal address.

Despite his grievances regarding his soreness, he does take note of his host's unusual name, as well as her odd smile -- he assumes the former is due to a title, and the latter is due to inexperience with the expression. He eases himself into a seat on the mat, doing his best not to just collapse in the most unbecoming fashion possible.

[corpse_soldier]

Even this slight sign of courtesy is novel to Etrepa. Carlisle's bow is more courteous regard than she received from most of her officers. Tea, too, is a luxury in which she has never partaken, despite having brewed well over a million times. Now she pours them both a cup, taking her own delicately by the rim with gloved fingers.

"You spoke of your faith. You are a priest?"

[tongueamok]

"A cleric, actually," he corrects, though there was little difference between the two where he came from. With a deep breath, he inhales the steam from his cup as he holds it before him, closing his eyes as he takes in the scent. It's been some time since he had a proper cup of tea, and he can't help but smile just a hair as he takes a moment to enjoy it.

"I am a practitioner of the Clarity," he continues, clarifying his position before adding some context for someone he expected was completely foreign with his following. "Of the Camisou, rather. One of our two deities."

[corpse_soldier]

Etrepa purses her lips and blows the steam from atop her tea, banishing the vaporous lace for an instant before it begins to rise again. Waiting for tea to cool is a useful exercise in patience, something Etrepa sorely needs. While she wishes she could ask numerous questions simultaneously - and when One Etrepa still had her full decade, she might have been able to - she knows that with just the one segment, just this one mouth and single set of ears, she will have to take her time.

So- first things first:

"What is the nature of the Camisou? What rites do you, as her cleric, practice?"

[tongueamok]

"She is the goddess of the world beneath our feet," he replies, adding once he's had a second thought, "or of the world I come from, rather. She oversees life, and our return to the world upon death."

He sips his tea, giving it an approving nod. Not a bad flavor at all. "As for rites, I am the sole clergyman in my hometown, so I do whatever is required of me."

[corpse_soldier]

Life/death is a critical opposition, most proper for a divine sphere of influence. Such oppositional but self-positing pairs organize the Radchaai emanations, after one half of which Etrepa takes her name. This is soothing to hear, since - despite being unable to have any personal stake in spiritual matters - long years of habit make her seek congruence.

"So you contain the Camisou's influence to your specific world? She is, then, not responsible for, sovereign over or representative of this world on which we now stand?"

This belief is a little less congruent, a little more proper to an uncivilized faith, which doesn't by any means render its divine quality null and void. And this difference is also soothing. It makes this encounter that much more reminiscent of her countless encounters with foreign cultures over centuries of annexations.

"What is typically required of a cleric of the Camisou?"

[tongueamok]

He straightens his glasses, attempting to mask a somber look before answering. "No, it seems she is not responsible for this world. People from all walks have been brought here by the ship with a power I do not understand, but it seems there are many worlds and deities out there with which I am not familiar."

He takes another sip, pushing a few of his fingers under his glasses to rub at his eye. "As I am trapped here with seemingly no one else who follows my path, my duties are few currently. Back home, we are to do what she would have us do to keep the wheels turning, to keep others from straying to the darker arts for their needs. I oversaw weddings, funerals, the sick, the dying. If there was a gathering to be had celebrating either deity, I was required to be there. If two parties needed a neutral vantage to oversee a diplomatic discussion, I'd be called in, as most happened at the temple anyway. The clergy in the larger cities have subordinates they can assign to such tasks, but I live -- lived, rather -- in a smaller town, so it all fell to me."

He keeps talking once he's finished, interjecting a question of his own. "If I may -- why is it you are asking? What is it about my faith, or any faith, that so interests you?"

[corpse_soldier]

It has been so long. How was it One Etrepa's fascination with religion began? How long had Sword of Nathtas indulged this quirk in her Etrepa decade's inclinations? This recollection, at least, is not so far gone as some of the others. It is distinctly that of One Etrepa, and thus a more secure memory than most.

"I had a Captain with a spiritual inclination. She requested that I memorize and recite certain liturgies while she took tea and pondered the mysteries of the universe. I would not have otherwise; handling religious objects is a problematic proposition for me. But I found I enjoyed reading the texts, and other texts like it, and the knowledge was useful for coloring the interpretation of the daily omens- so I allowed it continue." Her, meaning Sword of Nathtas her. A self that is now, for all intents and purposes, dead.

"You might call it a habit, or an eccentricity."

It might also be considered a malfunction, but that was never One Etrepa's attitude, and Sword of Nathtas contrived some use from it, however irregular the interest might have been.

"I do have more practical reasons. It is improper that we have no temple, no place of formal recognition, no daily casting of omens. None, at least, that I am aware of." Etrepa will be the first to admit that her near-ceaseless perimeter patrols may have left her out of touch with some events in camp. "Our citizens require spiritual guidance as much as legitimate authority, perhaps more. They require a sense of community beyond that which privation and crisis provide. For that is the great benefit of religion, beyond - of course - discerning the will of the gods.

"I cannot give them this. I cannot even touch temple offerings. But you are a cleric. You have experience with precisely those duties a community most requires."

[tongueamok]

Carlisle is silent as he listens to her reasoning impassively -- the pursuit of study is one near and dear to his heart, but her suggested application is where he finally draws an expression, one woven in the knitting of his brow, in the tug of uncertainty at the corners of his mouth.

"I have only a personal shrine in my own abode, but it's improper for communal use. And while I do have experience in such duties, there are those who would not -- could not -- follow me, even back home. Not everyone holds gods in such high regard, and whether or not they do is something they must find within themselves."

Moreover, he had his own reasons for doubting himself as a leader of any sort, ones that had made themselves more known than ever only a days prior.

[corpse_soldier]

Etrepa knows there are faithless people here. One of the first individuals she met was an avowed atheist, something that disturbed Etrepa almost as much as the rampant nakedness of everyone's hands. But despite her other totalitarian inclinations, she's not interested in impressing faith upon those who don't want it.

"Nevertheless, there should be a place where those that would seek the gods could find them. Your personal shrine may not be sufficient, but we could circumscribe some space, set up icons, designate a place for offerings. If even a handful of citizens take solace from it, would it not be worth it?"

She takes her first sip from the cup. It's still a novel thing, the taste of tea. Making it feels right, drinking it feels transgressive. But she couldn't just sit here watching Carlisle drink by herself. That, she expects, would make her uncomfortable. Still- an ancillary does not drink tea.

Which brings her to the next key point:

"I need help in this task. It would be improper for me to handle anything in the temple myself. I require a citizen's hands."

[tongueamok]

He's pensive a moment, looking down at his cup and beyond it to his own, gloved hands. The digits of his gloves are fingerless -- his nails still have some of the black ink crusted under them, avoiding removal by hiding in the deepest crevices his skin can offer. It's on that ink that he focuses his eyes as his thinks.

"I suppose you have a point," he agrees. "There should be a place of sanctuary for those who seek it -- as much of one as this place can offer. But why can you not do this yourself? Why is it you cannot handle objects of religious value, despite being so interested in the topic? You're not some kind of an undead, are you?"

He leans back just a hair as he asks that last question, as though the added distance would somehow protect him should she lash out. Some undeads did not want to be found out, after all.

[corpse_soldier]

"That is a not unpopular misconception," Etrepa allows, in response to the question of her status as living, not, or something inbetween. It's remarkably near the mark; one popular slur used by the uncivilized is 'corpse soldier'. "Though I am not a monster or the bearer of a curse."

She sets down her tea. It feels wrong to pantomime proper humanity while confessing to lack it. Almost obscene. And while she's yet to see a pair of gloves besides her own that do have the decency to have actual fingers, Etrepa feels the need to maintain propriety acutely.

"I am an ancillary. I was part of a ship. I was a ship. This body was just one of many, the seventh segment of my Etrepa decade. It is all that remains."

The specific details of just what an ancillary is, it purpose, and how one is made are judiciously omitted. Etrepa already knows how sensitive the cleric can be; annexations and ancillary conversion - however necessary and ultimately beneficial - are not topics for the faint of heart.

"I am not human, not a citizen, and thus unfit to handle anything which requires ritual purity. But I am permitted to set foot in temples, and even to facilitate ceremonies. I am particularly experienced at interpreting omens."

She dips her head.

"I could learn to assist in your rites as well, if that would be permissible. I would only beg one small favor."

[tongueamok]

Her explanation doesn't seem to help Carlisle's nerves -- he just leans back even more, as though the thought she was an undead would have been preferable.

"So, er. You're some kind of..." There's a pause with his mouth agape as he thinks. "... Construct, then." That's the term he finally settles on for her. He can't fathom having been part of a ship (whether a ship as on the sea, or a ship like the Tranquility, he does not want to know), but the fact that she seems very human and somehow isn't unsettles him, and visibly so.

Still, he does try to be understanding. "I do not mind teaching my rites to, er... others who wish to learn, though what favor could you ask of me? Aside from this temple business."

[corpse_soldier]

Though she is not herself human, One Etrepa has spent most of her existence in close proximity with humans, was built to serve and watch over them. And while she sorely misses the ability to access their internal information - heart-rate, temperature, blood pressure, even micro-muscular movements - she doesn't require them to interpret Carlisle's reaction. Indeed, it is the first reaction to match her expectations of an uncivilized person learning of her nature.

"Human body," she clarifies, "machine mind. Though I'm afraid I am just a sliver of what I once was."

She takes another sip of tea, giving them both a moment before making a request she knows may not go down easy. The uncivilized can be cagey about augmenting or modifying their worship, though at the very least she knows Carlisle is not an exclusive monotheist.

"I would like there to be a part of the temple dedicated to Amaat. And I would ask that you perform her rites on occasion. Those I can teach you. Consider it an exchange."