tampered | log; ongoing

log; ongoing

When; Afternoon of Saturday, 06 September
Rating; PG probably
Characters; Rain [

silk_for_calde]
Summary; Silk and Rain meet for lunch and a chat about theology, mythology, and other fun stuff.
Log;

The weather was lovely, and Silk had chosen a table outside the small café they'd decided to meet at. He had arrived a little early for their lunch date, and watched the passerby keenly, hoping he'd be able to pick Rain out of the crowd. It was more likely, though, that she would find him; in the stark, unadorned black outfit he wore, he looked just a little out of place among the colorful denizens of the City.
The blond augur sipped a cup of coffee as he waited. He was looking forward to their conversation; Rain seemed genuinely interested in his gods, and he was no less excited by the prospect of learning about the deities of other whorls.

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Rain approached the cafe a little nervously, hoping that Silk would be there and that he wouldn't decide she was too odd to share his stories with.

His eye lighted on a nervous-looking young woman who seemed as though she might be searching for someone-- for him, perhaps. Smiling, Silk stood, waving to catch her attention.

"Rain..?" he ventured, feeling a little silly. The Network was so strange; you could come to know people without ever seeing them. Hopefully he wasn't making a fool of himself, and this actually was her.

Rain's face lit up. "Yes! It's me. Are you Silk?"

"I am." He gestured to the empty seat across from him, waiting to resume his own place until she sat. "It's a pleasure to really meet you, Rain. I'm not quite accustomed to not seeing people when I speak with them."

"I've kind of gotten used to it here," she admitted, perching on the edge of the seat like a nervous sparrow. "Sometimes it's easier when people can't see you."

He considered this for a moment. "I suppose it could be... Especially if you are shy," he replied, smiling warmly, trying to put her a little more at ease. "But it's so unlike anything in my whorl. The closest we have are glasses, and when you speak to someone in a glass you can still see their face." He paused again. "Or, at least, a face; the monitor will enhance your appearance, as they say, if you ask it to."

"Oh, you can do that here!" Rain said, smiling. "The video thing where people can see. I don't do that, though. Just the writing or sometimes voice if my hands are busy and I need to let someone know something."

"Truly? They can change the way you look?" She thought about that. "It might be funny to play, but I don't think I'd like it for reals."

"Most people don't, though. I've been learning to-- type? But I find it easier to speak to the glass." He shrugged a little. "The video- when there is a picture to accompany the sound- is more like the glasses at home."
Silk sipped at his coffee, and belatedly thought to push the menu gently towards Rain, in case she wanted something. "The glasses have what we call monitors in them. They are faces, gray faces, who operate the glass; you ask them to connect you to whomever you wish to speak with. They will also alter your image if you like, so the portrait displayed to the person on the other end changes. Mostly, people use it to make themselves more attractive, I think, though I imagine it could be useful for disguising oneself. I have never tried, the few times I've used a glass; truth be told, I find the alterations a little unsettling."

Rain absently took the menu, checking to see if they had tea and smiling when she saw that they did.

"I agree. I think it would be most disconcerting to see someone or yourself not as they are."

The augur nodded. "I had it demonstrated for me, once, and I did not recognize my own face." He laughed, now, at the memory.

"But this is a bit of a digression; I promised I would tell you something about the gods, though I am at a loss as to where I should begin." He stroked his cheek thoughtfully. "Unless you'd like to tell me about your whorl, first; whatever you prefer." He smiled again, leaning on the table.

"Oh, please tell me a story," she asked quickly. "I would like to know about this Outsider who cares so for everyone!"

Silk smiled and nodded, fingers still tracing circles on his cheek. "I sometimes feel, here, that he is the only god I am justified to speak about. There are sixty-three gods, as I think I have said, in the Chrasmologic Writings. Of these, the Nine are the most important. Pas, who built the whorl; Echidna, his consort; and their seven children, for whom the days are named. The Outsider, on the other hand, is considered a minor god; very minor, in some respects, as not much is written about him."
His hands had fallen to wrap around his cup, and as he spoke, the augur stared at the table. Now, he lifted his eyes to meet Rain's.
"And yet, in another way, he is much greater; for while the Nine live in the whorl, they live only in the whorl. The Outsider is limitless; he lives in the whorl and beyond it, and I think he must live in every whorl..." His expression had become serious, but now a smile broke out. "Does any of this make sense? It's difficult to explain when I hardly understand it myself," he confessed.

"Oh, it does," she said. "And I like that. I like that he's not the biggest of them all because sometimes it seems the smaller ones pay more attention to the little people - the ones that maybe no one else cares very much about."

He smiled. "We believe that all the gods love us; love the good and the bad, the poor and the rich, the old and the young. I still believe that, although I've seen a great deal of suffering in the whorl. And yet-- when I say the Outsider loves everyone, I know he does, in a different way." He shifted his weight, posture straightening slightly.
"Before I came here... The Ph- Friday before I arrived, I was enlightened. By the Outsider."
He waited, half expecting her to laugh at him; tall and young, with disheveled hair, he knew he didn't look like enlightenment material.

Rain was not one to laugh at anyone's beliefs, nor did she find it unlikely that a God would speak to someone so kind. All of the legends and myths were full of tales of the gods and the ancestors speaking to what seemed to be the most unlikely of people.

"What did he tell you?" she asked, intently.

"So many things," he answered wistfully, the smile widening. "It was as though time stopped, and though he had been with me for my whole life, for the first time I could hear him, speaking in so many voices. He showed me hundreds, thousands of things, within the whorl and outside it, only a few of which I understand even now. But most of all he charged me with a task, a holy duty-- to save my manteion. Our taxes were in arrears, and the manteion was to be sold; had been sold already, in fact, although I did not know it at the time."

"What did you do?" she asked, completely caught up in his tale.

He looked a bit embarassed, rubbing again at his cheek. "When I learned it had been sold, I decided I would get back the deed no matter what. I went to the home of the man who purchased it, intending to steal my manteion back if I had to. I ended up getting caught; I broke my ankle jumping out a window and was not able to outrun his guards. He offered to sell back the deed for a considerable amount of money, much more than I had, more than I could get. Since then... Well," he stopped himself, laughing in a bewildered way. "The days that followed were interesting, to say the least. I haven't managed it yet; I ended up here, instead."

"Gosh," she said quietly. "You've had a really tough time, huh? I hope you can get back to fix things."

He continued to smile, though his concern was evident. "I hope so, too; I still have so much to do." He let his hand fall to the table once more. "I have had help, though; a number of good men and women have aided me, as have the gods; I cannot complain about my lot. As difficult as it has been, I do take joy in my task. It's... indescribable. How it feels to be given a purpose by a god."

"I can only imagine," she said softly. "It must be awing and frightening and amazing all at once."

"It was. Maytera Marble asked me whether I didn't feel incomprehensibly small, when he spoke to me, since he is endless... And I did in a way; but in another sense, being spoken to directly-- you can't help but feel... elevated. And the one thing I understood best, I think, is that the Outsider does truly love me. Not only me; Blood, too, who bought my manteion. And Maytera Marble, and all the people in the quarter, and all the rich men on the Palatine. And everyone in the whorl. And in this whorl; because, if he is everywhere, he must be here as well."

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log; ongoing

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