It is the night that Arianna has come to him, come into his keep and feted with his housemates. It is late into the night now, and she lay in his bed, with her hand over his heart, and her head tipped into his shoulder. The slow rhythmic pattern of her breathing tells him that she is sleeping, that the bruises and aches of her body are mending; that she feels safe and guarded pressed in beside him.
Outside, the world is blanketed with snow. It is hard to believe that Spring dawns with the next morning. The blizzard will rage for several days, burying the first signs of the coming season with a vengeance only Winter can muster. Yet, in Silas's home there is the smell of growing things, verdant and fecund: fertile. It is difficult to sleep, with the pull of the suntides tugging at his blood, shifting the cadence of his veins and arteries to something that thrums; beats; hammers out a tympanic call to some familiar beat.
The wind picks up and rattles the windows of his lofted room. He can hear the glass stretch and sigh in its panes. Dark shadows cut across the moonlight that streams in through the windows. The storm calls; Spring calls.
[Silas]
It is the night that Arianna has come to him, and Silas wants little more than to lay here and sleep with her in his arms, but even after exhausting her he finds himself pulsing with an energy that has more to do with the changing of the seasons than anything else. He is gentle, careful, when he kisses Arianna's forehead and pulls his arm from under her, the better to pace[prowl] the room. He is nude at first, but it only takes a few more moments to pull on some form of covering; in this case, it's a kilt and some boots and to move in near-silence down the stairs and out the door.
This house that he shares with the bros is far enough from the city center for a back yard firepit - which is no Beltane bonfire, but will do in a pinch. It's also far enough for some light hunting; not deer, perhaps, not game fowl, but the occasional brace of rabbit finds its way to the table for Tony to figure out what to do with, or to his friend at the coffee shop, or somewhere. One imagines that selling small game to high end restaurants is as good a way to supplement one's income as any. So clad just enough for modern decency's sake, Silas slips out into the snow to light a small fire (to danceweave a design around it, following the alignment of the stars). It flares, just so, with the ebb and flow of his resonance, and then! Well, then he stills, more silent than one would think a human capable of being. Were he some other sort of animal, his ears might swivel towards the sound he's heard . . . but he is human, so his head turns, followed by his body, and Silas stalks.
He has his quarry, and will hunt it. This is the time for such things - the time for birth and sacrifice, for marriage of earth and sky.
[The Hunt]
It is cold in the snow, but the chill gives way wherever it touches his skin, kisses the golden warmth of him, comes to near the sun. It melts and pulls back, so that his footfalls leave a wider wake than otherwise. And this is not The Hunt of lengthening nights and coming Winter; this is The Hunt of lengthening days and coming Summer. He can feel the echoes of talons at the end of each long finger, brutal things that rend and tear; he can feel the shape of hooves for feet, that clip and clomph on rocks buried beneath the snow; but beyond all of this, he can feel the soaring expanse of wings, anchored to his scapulae, overlaying his arms; the flutter of feathers; the rush of the wind. His quarry soars also, cavorts and spirals overhead. His trek leads him to the far end of the yard, through a small, low gate, bent and nearly broken at the perimeter. A thing that wasn't there this evening, and won't be there again in the morning.
His Aunt has trained him about things like this; undoubtedly he is prepared.
There is no path in the field of snow beyond the low gate. It is pristine and unmarked. It is not currently snowing and clouds have broken up enough to let through whispers of the sky beyond. The near-full moon above brightens everything to a blue-white blindness where it cuts between the clouds; she is argent and luminous. The night is still, yet thrums with the same energy that has drawn him out of bed, away from the side of the woman he loves (beyond all reason). It tugs him forward. Across what will be a small creek when it thaw, hidden under several inches of snow now. Around the low mound of an outcropping of granite. Sometimes he feels closer to it, his quarry, this flightling, fledgling thing; sometimes he feels he grasps the sense of it only darkly, slipping through his fingers, a scent that will not resolve.
It leads him onward until the ring of houses that make up his subdivision are reduced to children's playthings on the horizon; a string of faery lights streaming out of unblocked windows, of steepled roofs covered in a blanketing of snow. His breath curls up, steamclouds in the frozen night. His trail of footsteps leads back, broadening to a dark smear-trail as the warmth bleeds out of them, widens, into a trail of breadcrumbs to lead him home. Or to lead something back to his home on a Hunt of its own; where he Star sleeps, protected only by his hounds; where his housemates Sleep, unaware of the monsters and gods in their midst.
Equally far from him, but just now in the circle of his vision, is a low berm, a rising up with an opening perched low against the snow line. It's notable because the overhang shadows the ground there from the snow; also for the sense of firelight, a warm glow in counterpoint to the silver of the moonlight all around him. The pull leads this way, toward the opening in the mound of earth beneath the snow; his Hunt compels him onward. Beckons him into this low place. Below the ground.
[Silas]
It is cold in the snow, but the heat, the aggressive life of Silas drives it away from his skin, away from the places where his feet touch. He is a son of Spring and Summer, of long days and sowing of fields. He can feel the time coming, can feel it pulling him forward and onward. He cantersfliesruns towards the gate, and pauses only to look back at the trail he's left, so easily followed to his hearth and home, to people for whom he cares very much (and yes, to the woman he loves [beyond all reason]). His Aunt has trained him about things like this, though, and he is prepared - there's little he can do about his prints, but he can make sure that he's more interesting to anything that might follow than those he's left behind might be.
And so, with the subdivision and house behind him, there remains little to do but continue forward. There is a berm with a threshold, and firelight inside, and though Silas doesn't think he'll find game there - he may find a quarry of some sort. The trail of steps, browngreen smudged through the white snow, continues across the field to the berm, where he pauses outside the door to, perhaps incongruously, knock at the jamb before stepping into the firelight's glow and taking in what he finds there.
Silas is, as always, a Hunter. Surely there will be some sort of prey.
[The Hunt]
The jamb, as it were, is a decaying dolmen to the left, another to the right, and a crossbeam that has weathered and faded to silvered wood. He knocks and the vibration of it dislodges dust, and clods from above. It shakes snow from the outcropping to feather-float down around him. The air is humid, damp and ripe and heavy with the scent of earth. It is warmer than the snow, but chill cool around his ankles. The light of the fire is buried within; its flicker-flames reflect off the earthen walls, their shadows of shadows reach up to him. The way slopes downward until it turns a corner, sharply, and disappears from view.
The cadence of The Hunt is stronger here. He feels beneath his feet and in his bones; he feels it like has has been made the tympani, stretched thin like a membrane; that every part of him might vibrate with it. And the cadence here is revelry, above the beat there is a thin and threading melody, like string humming just beyond his threshold of hearing, a calling pulling him deep into the earth, singing through his blood and veins. On the floor, etched into the dirt and almost covered by debris, is the outline of a five petaled flower; it is wreathed in oak leaves; it is worn down to nothing more than mere suggestion.
[Silas]
Silas' feet trace (dance) around the outline of the flower; it is a geometric pattern, and an old one at that. In other words, it's a suggestion that Silas is, on some level, compelled to follow. And then, of course, it's down and in, deeper - to be born out of the other end of the tunnel, perhaps. But there is music, and there is a path to [dance] walk, and there is Mystery and Magic.
Of course Silas goes.
Deeper and further in.
[The Hunt]
The path turns frequently, but always to the left. To the left and down, to the left and down again, as the air gets warmer and thicker and more humid. Until is damp, and the walls almost seem to glisten with it, and the light from the fire is sharper, and the smoke carries up to him, and the scent of burning things is mixed with herbs, and the richness of deep hearts-blood, and the strains of melody he thought he heard resolving into the baying voices of creatures in labour, birthing foals and kids and offspring conceived on the night of the last great Hunt. Children conceived between the Great Rite of Belatine and the crowning of the God and Goddess at Litha. This is the work of Spring, the heavy thing; the terrifying passage of delivery. The closer he gets to the fire light, the slicker the floor is. It is not damp with water alone, but with the smear of blood and afterbirth, with the consequence of fertility magicks: there is new life here, but also the scent of death. Not all mothers make it; not all foals rise onto their feet.
When the passage opens he stands within a low, circular room, with a domed roof that slants lower and lower until it meets the floor at the edge. The fire stands in the center of it, burning but never consuming the wood set there as fuel. The floor is clean, though it still squish-squicks beneath his feet like blood. The air is thick with smoke, but smells of vitae instead. In warrens and hollows carved into the margins of the low walls, small game hides from him, watching with the pinprick lights of wary eyes, guarding their young. Shaped from earth, built low and wide and nearer to the fire, there is a berth, a shallow bed, upon which dried rushes and old hay was piled, atop which a soiled blanket lies. He has come too late to bear witness to the birth of this year's God-child, but His caul remains; His mother-blood is spilled across the blanket. It does not feel quite right; as if some things did not go easily this year. On the wall and at the edges of the platform of the bed are bloody handprints; grasping things; echoes of the Mother-goddess and her pain.
There is still the sense of revelry, threaded through this grim and violent place; the almost giddy, cavorting, careless sounds of life unfurling, new and bright and heedless of its own boundaries; incautious of the cost it incurs, the consequence it reaps. The deeper things in him will understand it; celebration being a vital thing. Here too, harder to notice at first, are the first seeking shoots of new green growth. They cluster in the bloody places; they displace death to speak of new beginnings.
[Silas]
Birth, creation, is a violent act. It tears things apart and restitches them into new patterns, sometimes stronger and sometimes not. And sometimes, neither mare nor foal rises from the blood, shit, and mud. These are things that Silas knows; they are things that he has taken into himself, that he more-than-knows. And so, he pauses at the caul and paints a small design on his flesh with the the hard fought mother-blood. It's an anointment, of sorts.
Silas has ever been stronger in the use of remains than perhaps his Aunt would like.
Over what is left, the Bonisagean whispers a prayer, a benediction, and then he moves forward. There is revelry, and it is death and life and lifeanddeath, and still it pulls him. He can taste the wine, can smell the sweat-soaked bodies that dance as if they can't help it . . . and maybe they can't. No god of fertility and life and light can exist without their opposites, after all. And where Silas steps? Those green shoots that seek light are encouraged. And those that have already reached a significant height begin to bud behind him.
Now, even more than before, he is pleased with his choice of kilt. He only wishes he'd left the boots behind with his shirt and the rest - it would do him good to be in contact with the earth, he thinks. Even the boiled leather soles of these boots is too much. Soon, he may have to find a place to leave them.
[The Hunt]
He is anointed with the mother's blood, with the blood of the sacrifice, and he can feel the story of it is it worms into his veins. He knows the flicker of firelight; he feels the call of the Wyld; he feels it as she succumbs to the great right, the union of the God and Goddess. The feels also, the way her belly swell and her gait shifts. He feels the life within her as if it were within himself; feels it become gravid and cumbersome; feels himself become vulnerable and laid low with it. It is all right there, under his skin; he is the God and the Goddess; he is The Hunt and The Hunted. It pulls him farther from himself; it calls his echoes forward.
His senses are sharpened; his humanity is dulled.
He presses onward. At the other side of the low round room is another opening. This path is dark and leads generally upward as he follows it. The air begins as warm and humid, feral and fecund, and then it thins and cools as the path draws onward. The humidity condenses, becomes cold against his skin. There is the crack and roll of thunder, lightning only barely glimpsed at a distance, only the barest echoes of a tunnel's end at the edges of his vision. There is the smell of ozone, and then rush of runoff at his feet. Above the ground it is raining; it is raining and it melts the snow; it is raining and it melts the snow and the snowmelt and the rain becomes a river that roars down this narrow hallway of the earth. He can press his hands into the walls on either side of him to steady himself to keep from being swept away by the current that rages and swirls and flows.
The round room will fill with water. The rabbits and their broods will drown; the fire will spurt and gutter. The mother's blood will be wiped clean. The green things watered, and if the water persists then they too will drown. He is still Hunting, but there is an urgency to it now, a true challenge to his survival. The current is strong and the current is swift and the floor here is not any more certain or less slick than it had been on the way in. It is up to his knees now. The hem of his kilt is damp.
((Dex + Ath! Don't get swept away and drown, Hunter!))
[Silas]
Silas' senses are sharpened and his humanity is dulled; he hears the rush of water before he finds himself in it, and is prepared. His feet (or hooves, or talons) find purchase where others might not as he struggles his way up the tunnel. There is challenge, and there is need of so many varieties that somewhere the more humanly-conscious parts are probably quite glad that they've been shoved back in favor of some older, colder part of the Hermetic's brain.
He can do nothing for the rabbits or plants in the cavern now, even if he wanted to. Everything he is says keep going, now rising - he's been to depths, now it's time to rise towards the light. All there is to do is climb, with hands pressed to walls, pulling him upwards. It is spring, or nearly so, and even as he takes root, he reaches for the sun. It is the way of things.
And yes, somewhere in his consciousness, he wants to get back to Arianna. There is celebration to be had at the end of rebirth. There is life to (symbolically) create. The time for new things is here, and whatever Silas and Arianna are to each other? That, too, is taking root and reaching for light.
Hunter @ 6:37AM
Dex + Ath, spending WP (this makes 4 left)
[The Hunt]
The water rises, until his boots are filled with it; until his kilt is water-logged and hangs heavily, dripping, wet wool plastered against his legs, the smell of lanolin to him. The climb is harrowing; at times he feels he will be swept away with the current, turn not into a stag or bird but forced rather into a lesser form: fish, perhaps, or frog or simple little water fowl. There are times when his heel fails to connect firmly with the floor below and for a moment he might fear, fear rising up in him; fear is an element of being reborn; not all go smoothly through the trials of it. It goes like this, for longer than he thinks it must, until the light that come from the end of the tunnel is stronger, until the scent of ozone and rain overtakes the smell of wet wool and fur and hair.
There is mud on his face now, dark stripes of it, like woad or warpaint. The tattoo of mother's blood remains, but its margins are eroded. The marks he made are left unclear, chipped away at. When he breaches the entrance and steps out into the night, the air is cold up against him. It bites down on his unprotected skin; it is unforgiving. Even his natural warmth is not enough to drive out the cold; not on its own.
Silas finds himself just beyond the boundary of a clearing, with a carpet of newborn grass, ringed in pale rock and that ring is broken in five places with the semblance of five, five-petaled flowers. The path that birthed him shallows out, but only after steepening precariously, and the last bit up must be climbed, breath held and arms employed, all efforts given to simply triumphing over the storm. Within the clearing, some magic keeps the storm at bay. Away from it, and back into the darkness, he can only see the extent of the storm when lightning flashes violently across the sky. It pours and seethes and drenches. He cannot see the faery lights of home. He cannot feel the pull of his Star, out this far away from her. Perhaps that means to him that they are not in the same place; that they are not, in fact, together.
Maybe that would be a convenient thing to feel, given as the clearing is anything but clear. There is a fire at its center, yet another that burns and does not consume. It is warm and inviting; it too speaks of revelry. Arrayed around the fire are tables and low benches; the tables studded with ruby-filled glasses, shining in the firelight; little goblets of fire that call back to the greater one, fire for drinking so that the warmth of one's belly might also call out to revelry. The Host here, is a race of tall and slender things. There are three women, beautiful, clad only in the length of their hair, dancing by the firelight. Hands together, turn, then hands apart. It is an old dance, but the beat of it matches the cadence of The Hunt that is thrumming in his skin: remember, Silas as an instrument? A membrane? A shallowing? They are rowan-haired, and raven-haired, and something pale as flax-haired too. At the next turn of their dance, the closest one shifts to face him, to extend one long and over-pale arm toward him, to beckon him not with fingertips or with smiles but with the shining intensity of her eyes, with the way the fire casts halos in her hair, with the curve of her hips and the shadows below her bust. He feels the pull of it, and once he breaks the boundary of the circle he will smell the sweet wine and hear the pipes.
Yes, the pipes, played by a man who perches on a stand of rock within the circle, legs spread wide and the glory of him on display. He wears a crown of thorns and brambles, twisted very much to look like horns, and plays the pipes with a master's tongue. Beside him is a short, stout bottle of something. Around him are devotees of all imaginable genders; rapt, yet draped easily amongst one another. They, too, bid Silas welcome, but with the sort of lazy looking over of shoulders, attention cast only momentarily away from the tumble of others, the press of music.
There is music and dancing. There is food and wine to sate him. There is warmth to push the cold from his bones, and welcome of another sort to help him bury himself in Spring. Here, the older things in him, and the press of mother's blood into his skin, and the lowered inhibitions of his will conspire to pull him into revelry. This, his quarry, well Hunted, shall also be his reward, should he lay down his chase for only a moment. Should he lay down and give himself over to the revelry of Spring?
[Silas]
[The Tunnel]
There are moments of near panic.
There are times that Silas' feet, so sure on solid ground, scrabble for purchase.
It goes like this, for longer than he thinks it must, a fight for light and air and life, and then! Oh, then it's there, the smell of storm and growing things and the sound of music and crackle of fire, and Silas feels a sense of home, a sense of belonging. This is not, of course, to be confused with a sense of comfort; bacchanals are not meant to be such, and if one finds them so one is almost certainly not fully grasping the situation in which one has found oneself. There is dancing, and perhaps there are red shoes of the sort that cause the inability to stop dancing; Silas is descended from at least one who is rumored to have had Fae ties, after all. There is food and drink, and if he partakes here it would be far from the first time he did so while in questionable company.
Silas makes his way towards the center of the clearing - dances his way there, really. He takes a partner for a few steps here and there, with little regard for gender. The trio, yes, they garner his attention . . . and yes, he dances with them. Perhaps kisses and teases (or, more likely, is teased) as well - but is, now, mindful of the finger on which his ring resides. He does not dwell on it, nor does he hurry from the fruits of his achievement before he's enjoyed them thoroughly.
[The Hunt]
It's on his skin and under it, the call to more carnal celebrations. He has the taste of sweet wine on his lips and the warmth of risen bread in his stomach. There are hands here to tease and touch and tempt. And some things seem natural: laying his kilt atop a rock beside the fire that he make shake the chill of it. Setting his boots beside the same that they may dry and his feet might dance more freely. There is scented oil, to mask the smell of muck and damp wool and struggle that has surrounded him and if the trio applies it perhaps more liberally and with more devotion than is strictly required, well, then, that would be part of his due as Hunter and Celebrant, now wouldn't it?
And mindful as he is about the ring upon his finger, no one else here seems to notice it. The circle is a place outside of places, in a time outside of time. There are arguments to be made here for it standing outside of other oaths and circles as well; arguments his body is making to his mind; arguments seconded by his Avatar; secured and vouched for by the God of Hunts. And the one with raven-locks, she almost has the look of Her at conclave all those years ago. The eyes are wrong: silvered and without the touch of green. It a thought that grips him as she... grips him in a very forward way.
There are no secret places to lay one's claim upon another here. The bacchanal is not a private sort of thing. There are tumbles of bodies, shining and writhing; the energy of the place has turned toward such things as he was dancing. There, the thorn-crowned King has a young one in his lap, hands wandering and expressions lost to lust and ecstasy. The trio dances close to him, their bodies touch and tease and tempt him. Their hands and mouths wander. The sweep of their hair ghosts in light touches and the smell of them tangles into one scent in his mind. It is compelling; it is inviting.
[Silas]
They eyes are wrong as she grips him so forwardly and this is the first time Silas has hesitated since this began; there's a thin gold band, heavy on his most significant of fingers, and he knows what he must do. There are kisses that linger, first - not only on faces, as he collects his things. Had the ring not been moved, this would go very differently, of course!
The Hunter - a stag, a wolf - doesn't bother completely re-covering himself for the run back home. He hasn't the patience for that, and so wool trails behind him. Feet are bare. He is as the Gods made him, and silentfleet of foot when he enters the house. Perhaps his hounds wake when their master returns; perhaps they even know something of what happened. It seems unlikely that the hounds of someone such as he would be completely oblivious to who, and what, he is.
It's up the stairs, then, and to his Star in his bed. Kilt and boots are dropped in a puddle on the floor, and with leaves still in his hair he slides in beside Arianna. Lips find hers and are hungry; perhaps she can taste the remnants of Faerie food and wine on his lips and tongue when she registers their presence. But he is not content with lips and tongue for long - soon, soon, there are hands on hips, and fingers in deeper places. Soon, his mouth is on her chest, her breasts. Silas is insistent, he is demanding.
It is Spring.
Roll: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1 [WP]
[The Hunt]
The water rises, until his boots are filled with it; until his kilt is water-logged and hangs heavily, dripping, wet wool plastered against his legs, the smell of lanolin to him. The climb is harrowing; at times he feels he will be swept away with the current, turn not into a stag or bird but forced rather into a lesser form: fish, perhaps, or frog or simple little water fowl. There are times when his heel fails to connect firmly with the floor below and for a moment he might fear, fear rising up in him; fear is an element of being reborn; not all go smoothly through the trials of it. It goes like this, for longer than he thinks it must, until the light that come from the end of the tunnel is stronger, until the scent of ozone and rain overtakes the smell of wet wool and fur and hair.
There is mud on his face now, dark stripes of it, like woad or warpaint. The tattoo of mother's blood remains, but its margins are eroded. The marks he made are left unclear, chipped away at. When he breaches the entrance and steps out into the night, the air is cold up against him. It bites down on his unprotected skin; it is unforgiving. Even his natural warmth is not enough to drive out the cold; not on its own.
Silas finds himself just beyond the boundary of a clearing, with a carpet of newborn grass, ringed in pale rock and that ring is broken in five places with the semblance of five, five-petaled flowers. The path that birthed him shallows out, but only after steepening precariously, and the last bit up must be climbed, breath held and arms employed, all efforts given to simply triumphing over the storm. Within the clearing, some magic keeps the storm at bay. Away from it, and back into the darkness, he can only see the extent of the storm when lightning flashes violently across the sky. It pours and seethes and drenches. He cannot see the faery lights of home. He cannot feel the pull of his Star, out this far away from her. Perhaps that means to him that they are not in the same place; that they are not, in fact, together.
Maybe that would be a convenient thing to feel, given as the clearing is anything but clear. There is a fire at its center, yet another that burns and does not consume. It is warm and inviting; it too speaks of revelry. Arrayed around the fire are tables and low benches; the tables studded with ruby-filled glasses, shining in the firelight; little goblets of fire that call back to the greater one, fire for drinking so that the warmth of one's belly might also call out to revelry. The Host here, is a race of tall and slender things. There are three women, beautiful, clad only in the length of their hair, dancing by the firelight. Hands together, turn, then hands apart. It is an old dance, but the beat of it matches the cadence of The Hunt that is thrumming in his skin: remember, Silas as an instrument? A membrane? A shallowing? They are rowan-haired, and raven-haired, and something pale as flax-haired too. At the next turn of their dance, the closest one shifts to face him, to extend one long and over-pale arm toward him, to beckon him not with fingertips or with smiles but with the shining intensity of her eyes, with the way the fire casts halos in her hair, with the curve of her hips and the shadows below her bust. He feels the pull of it, and once he breaks the boundary of the circle he will smell the sweet wine and hear the pipes.
Yes, the pipes, played by a man who perches on a stand of rock within the circle, legs spread wide and the glory of him on display. He wears a crown of thorns and brambles, twisted very much to look like horns, and plays the pipes with a master's tongue. Beside him is a short, stout bottle of something. Around him are devotees of all imaginable genders; rapt, yet draped easily amongst one another. They, too, bid Silas welcome, but with the sort of lazy looking over of shoulders, attention cast only momentarily away from the tumble of others, the press of music.
There is music and dancing. There is food and wine to sate him. There is warmth to push the cold from his bones, and welcome of another sort to help him bury himself in Spring. Here, the older things in him, and the press of mother's blood into his skin, and the lowered inhibitions of his will conspire to pull him into revelry. This, his quarry, well Hunted, shall also be his reward, should he lay down his chase for only a moment. Should he lay down and give himself over to the revelry of Spring?
[Silas]
[The Tunnel]
There are moments of near panic.
There are times that Silas' feet, so sure on solid ground, scrabble for purchase.
It goes like this, for longer than he thinks it must, a fight for light and air and life, and then! Oh, then it's there, the smell of storm and growing things and the sound of music and crackle of fire, and Silas feels a sense of home, a sense of belonging. This is not, of course, to be confused with a sense of comfort; bacchanals are not meant to be such, and if one finds them so one is almost certainly not fully grasping the situation in which one has found oneself. There is dancing, and perhaps there are red shoes of the sort that cause the inability to stop dancing; Silas is descended from at least one who is rumored to have had Fae ties, after all. There is food and drink, and if he partakes here it would be far from the first time he did so while in questionable company.
Silas makes his way towards the center of the clearing - dances his way there, really. He takes a partner for a few steps here and there, with little regard for gender. The trio, yes, they garner his attention . . . and yes, he dances with them. Perhaps kisses and teases (or, more likely, is teased) as well - but is, now, mindful of the finger on which his ring resides. He does not dwell on it, nor does he hurry from the fruits of his achievement before he's enjoyed them thoroughly.
[The Hunt]
It's on his skin and under it, the call to more carnal celebrations. He has the taste of sweet wine on his lips and the warmth of risen bread in his stomach. There are hands here to tease and touch and tempt. And some things seem natural: laying his kilt atop a rock beside the fire that he make shake the chill of it. Setting his boots beside the same that they may dry and his feet might dance more freely. There is scented oil, to mask the smell of muck and damp wool and struggle that has surrounded him and if the trio applies it perhaps more liberally and with more devotion than is strictly required, well, then, that would be part of his due as Hunter and Celebrant, now wouldn't it?
And mindful as he is about the ring upon his finger, no one else here seems to notice it. The circle is a place outside of places, in a time outside of time. There are arguments to be made here for it standing outside of other oaths and circles as well; arguments his body is making to his mind; arguments seconded by his Avatar; secured and vouched for by the God of Hunts. And the one with raven-locks, she almost has the look of Her at conclave all those years ago. The eyes are wrong: silvered and without the touch of green. It a thought that grips him as she... grips him in a very forward way.
There are no secret places to lay one's claim upon another here. The bacchanal is not a private sort of thing. There are tumbles of bodies, shining and writhing; the energy of the place has turned toward such things as he was dancing. There, the thorn-crowned King has a young one in his lap, hands wandering and expressions lost to lust and ecstasy. The trio dances close to him, their bodies touch and tease and tempt him. Their hands and mouths wander. The sweep of their hair ghosts in light touches and the smell of them tangles into one scent in his mind. It is compelling; it is inviting.
[Silas]
They eyes are wrong as she grips him so forwardly and this is the first time Silas has hesitated since this began; there's a thin gold band, heavy on his most significant of fingers, and he knows what he must do. There are kisses that linger, first - not only on faces, as he collects his things. Had the ring not been moved, this would go very differently, of course!
The Hunter - a stag, a wolf - doesn't bother completely re-covering himself for the run back home. He hasn't the patience for that, and so wool trails behind him. Feet are bare. He is as the Gods made him, and silentfleet of foot when he enters the house. Perhaps his hounds wake when their master returns; perhaps they even know something of what happened. It seems unlikely that the hounds of someone such as he would be completely oblivious to who, and what, he is.
It's up the stairs, then, and to his Star in his bed. Kilt and boots are dropped in a puddle on the floor, and with leaves still in his hair he slides in beside Arianna. Lips find hers and are hungry; perhaps she can taste the remnants of Faerie food and wine on his lips and tongue when she registers their presence. But he is not content with lips and tongue for long - soon, soon, there are hands on hips, and fingers in deeper places. Soon, his mouth is on her chest, her breasts. Silas is insistent, he is demanding.
It is Spring.
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