northclifflogs | CLOSED | the light we cast creates a bridge

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CLOSED | the light we cast creates a bridge

WHO: Tuo, Dain, Vervain, and an existential crisis or two
WHAT: Following directly on the heels of this thread, Vervain has to face some facts about himself. Tuo and Dain try to help.
WHEN: See above.
WHERE: Tuo's wagon outside the village walls.
NOTES: This is bound to be an emotionally Intense thread, but no immediate warnings yet. Will update as needed. Anyway want some appropriate mood music? edit: cw for suicidal ideation

In the weeks since Tuo's unfortunate encounter with the duke's soldiers, he has grown adept at picking his way through the village streets in such a way as to avoid their comings and goings completely. It is more difficult to do this with Vervain Gardener in tow, but not impossible, and so he takes each step carefully as he guides his friend away from the vicarage, through the street, and out towards where Tuo's wagon is tethered in the snow.

"Here we are," he says at last once they have arrived, and keeps hold of Vervain's arm as he leans up the steps to slip the key into the lock, twist it, and push the door open. "Careful," he says to his friend, "there are five steps," and provides the guidance necessary to help him indoors.

Vervain can't see the artful evidence of Tuo's heresy engraved onto the wall panels within the wagon, nor see the warmth and colour imbued to all surfaces of its interior. But it is warm from a wood burning stove, and smells of fragrant tea and spices, and most importantly, it is safe.

"Shall I take your cloak?" Tuo offers gently.

(From a perch further within the wagon, a magpie croaks in irritation that his nap has been interrupted.)

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Ver's been silent and mournful--as it their destination were a funeral, not Tuo's gladly painted wagon--through the whole walk. He is at least easy to maneuver in this state, halting when his friend does and accepting directions without complaint--or, more worryingly, his usual thanks.

Presented at last with the steps to Tuo's wagon, he takes them at the same leaden plod he used to reach them, each seeming to take something out of him. The cozy warmth awaiting him once he's inside--and the homey, comforting scents--at least go some way toward reviving him from his stupor.

He has his hands knotted in the hems of his cloak by the time Tuo asks for it, and looks momentarily--helplessly--like a child asked to give up a beloved pet. "I," he starts, stops. "Can I keep it?"

Pause. "Just for now." Another pause, longer, made agonizing by how utterly disjointed Ver feels. "...Thank you. For this."

"Of course. Of course, keep it--I shall need to put another log on the fire anyway."

He guides Vervain towards one of the low chairs near the table in the centre of the wagon, and does not step away from him until he is sure that his friend can get himself settled without difficulty. Then it is away with him to the stove, where he adds another log and gets the kettle going.

Tuo is oddly quiet while he works, and every so often steals a backwards look at his friend, grateful that Vervain cannot see his expression. There are many words of comfort and reassurance that come to him, but somehow he doubts they would bring much comfort to such a devout follower of the Path of Light. "Do you take milk or honey?" he asks instead. "With your tea."

There's little enough comfort in the Path of Light itself for a man in Ver's situation; it wasn't made to offer any to the Profane.

He takes the chair, huddling beneath his cloak as if it could shield him from the doom hanging over him. It can't, of course; he's gone too far in his (as he now recognizes it) stubborn unwillingness to pay attention to the gods' portents. And now a Shepherd's come, and whatever time left to him was up... So it remained only to do the last right thing he could, in hopes his soul wasn't forfeit.

It is very kind of Shepherd Dain, he thinks, to allow him that and not punish him instead. Hopefully the gods would smile on him for it.

"...Honey. Please." The bees would need seeing to. He'd never impose on a Shepherd but Tuo might be able to find a home for them, or someone else who could.

His throat tightens suddenly; he puts his head down on the table, shock-born stoicism abruptly giving way to silent and tearless sobbing.

There comes from the stove the sound shifting crockery, gentle footfalls across wooden floorboards, the shifting of fabric as a body comes closer. Then the warm, fragrant scent of spiced tea, as a cup is placed on the table.

"Vervain," Tuo says gently, undemanding, and slips his arm around his friend's shoulders again. In the privacy of his home, he feels fewer reservations about coaxing the young man into a supportive embrace, encouraging him with a squeeze to his shoulders to cry, to free his grief and pain into the air in a space where no one will judge or condemn him for it. Softly, he reminds him, "I'm here. You are not alone."

The arm around Ver's shoulder absolutely shatters the young priest. He leans into his friend's embrace, weeping openly in dry hiccuping sobs. Tuo's utter kindness to an awful sinner like him is almost unbearable; here, Ver had put them all at risk of the gods' wrath and Tuo has still made space and comfort for him in his last hours.

If the punishment for unrepentant Profane must be death, this is at least a kinder way to do it.

"I'm s-sorry, Tuo, I'm so--I'm so, so sorry," he manages, between sobs. "Everyone could have been hurt b-because of me, you could have frozen..."

Easy to perceive now the gods' hand in the storms that had wracked the town--to say nothing of the griffon. Woe always followed the Profane.

(Listen, if Vervain thinks he's the sinner in the room, just wait and see.)

"I could have frozen because I let a bit of damp get into my stock of firewood," Tuo gently reminds him, and if there's a touch of reprimand in his tone, it's only to coax Vervain back from the brink of taking all of the world's suffering onto his shoulders. (Pot, kettle black--he'll deal with that thought later.) "You didn't bring a blizzard or a soldiering regiment into this village." More emphatically, he insists, "You are exactly the way the gods intended for you to be."

He shakes his head in abject denial, too far gone in his wretchedness to think anything is theologically off about the comfort Tuo's offering. The best he can parse is that they're the well-meant words of a friend, honest and kind but oh, so heartbreakingly far from how Vervain understands the truth.

"M, misery follows th--the Profane, for taking what isn't theirs," he says, miserable himself. "Th--they gave me so many chances, Tuo, and I--didn't-- listen--"

The sentence comes apart in weeping. Ver presses a hand to his mouth, biting down on a knuckle to silence himself.

This all could have been prevented if he had only listened.

In response, Tuo very gently takes hold of Vervain's hand and coaxes it down from his face before he can hurt himself. "Vervain? No." Though his arched eyebrows can't be seen, it's entirely possible Vervain can hear the archness in his voice. "Misery follows torment, of the sort we give to ourselves, and to others. Who among us is tormented more than the Profane?"

He reaches out for the teacup, collects it up, and gently presses it into Vervain's hand. "Drink some," he encourages, "before it gets cold. There's a bit of clove and anise in this blend, perfect for a cold day like this."

The door is unlocked. A little reckless, perhaps, but for once there isn't enough room in Dain's mind to entertain caution. Locking the door would imply there is something -- someone -- in the village Vervain needs to be afraid of.

"It's me," he announces himself as he opens the door. "I'm here."

The scene is better than he feared, and worse than he hoped. Dain cannot imagine what the young priest must be going through; he can still hardly believe it's possible for someone not to know. Bias on his part, perhaps, because that's what the church teaches. All Profane choose to sin. All Profane choose to indulge in the Vice. All Profane are weaker of will than those who choose to lead virtuous lives. How often can someone hear such lies before starting to believe some of them?

He closes the door behind him, and stands protectively in front of it. "I told Father Normand you've taken ill," he says. "Fortunately, it doesn't sound like there's anything which can't wait until tomorrow."

"Who among us is tormented more than the Profane?"

It is so bewildering a question that Vervain cannot make heads nor tails of what Tuo means by it. He lets his friend direct his hands, takes the tea and manages an obedient, stuttering drink of it.

"Shouldn't we be?" he asks, his voice small and defeated and swallowed up almost entirely in the sounds of Dain's arrival.

The surge of renewed shame to hear the Shepherd covering for him nearly makes him drop the cup in the urge to hide beneath his cloak once more. Yet--yet with Dain here, that means his time really is up, and he's got to be brave and decided in this one act at least. That's why Dain had revealed the truth so gently, wasn't it?

To give him the chance to do the right thing?

Vervain swallows hard and sets his tea down gently as he can. "Thank you, Shepherd. But I won't need 'til tomorrow to decide."

(There has frankly been enough tea spilt in this wagon already that one more stain on the wood will hardly make a difference. But there is some small distracted part of Tuo's mind that is grateful that the spices haven't been wasted.)

When the door opens, he turns a look of both immense relief and worry towards Dain, but before he can open his mouth to speak, Vervain goes first. And at his words Tuo's heart sinks, and he closes his eyes, his hands dropping into his lap.

It's likely that only Dain will notice the markers of fury in his body language, in how tautly he holds himself still, but their source shouldn't be a mystery. Tuo cares for Vervain a great deal, and to hear how deeply church indoctrination has convinced him that the only path forward for him now is death, well--

"Let me take your coat, Shepherd." Tuo abruptly unfolds himself from where he's seated and walks over to Dain--and very discreetly takes hold of his hand, squeezing once. He lowers his voice to a whisper so soft it's hardly audible at all: "Do something, anything. Please."

Dain looks at Vervain, startled. Won't need until tomorrow...? The tension in the wagon increases, painting the statement as something more ominous than it sounds, and because nearly all of that tension is sourced from Tuo's quiet fury it cannot be what Dain's first guess would have been. Tuo has little issue with the choice to travel, even or especially if it puts someone on the run from the church.

"Do something, anything. Please."

Dain absently strokes the inside of Tuo's hand with his thumb. He's not unaware of that need for reassurance, but for the moment, his attention is entirely on Vervain. "Right," he says slowly. "And if I may ask... the decision to do what, exactly?"

His coat stays on his shoulders, forgotten.

It's one single, solitary advantage of Vervain's mutilated blindness that even crying himself to exhaustion won't leave him snotty and congested. He sounds (he thinks) exactly as serious and steady as he'd always hoped to, facing the inevitability of death.

(But he is so, so afraid, even if he is equally certain this is the only way.)

"I'm going to climb the pilgrimage path after Theobald's men." The sudden, eerie calm that seizes him when he says it surely means this is the right choice. "If the cold doesn't take me, I expect the griffon will. Hopefully that's enough for them--enough for the gods.

"Tuo," and now he has to breathe very deeply, to not start crying again, "if you ever get back to 'Thwaite, will you tell Gram I died on pilgrimage? And...and find someone to look after my bees, if that's not too much to ask."

At Vervain's last request, Tuo visibly flinches as though struck, and reaches up a hand to cover his mouth. His eyes are very wide with horror, before he shakes his head and steps away from Dain's side.

"I shall do no such thing," he insists, his voice unsteady, "because if you insist on going, then I shall go with you. To make sure that you make it back down the mountain again, hale and whole."

This is a terrible idea.

"No one is going anywhere."

Dain, genuinely stern, is a sight he usually reserves for those who have presented him with no other option. The soldiers, for example. Certain colleagues back in Cliffside. But the turn this conversation has taken is startling enough, frightening enough, that it cuts right through any measured response he might have had. The church isn't going to kill anyone today, not if he has anything whatsoever to say about it.

He hesitates a moment, like he has to adjust to his own severity; but then he goes on. "I meant what I said before, Vervain." If, indeed, he ever did say it -- he can't quite remember. "I'm not here to kill you, and I won't let anyone else kill you either. Even if that means locking you in this wagon until you start to see sense. So help me, I will lock you both in here until the snow melts."

A pause. A breath. Dain steps over to sit down, and puts his hand over one of Vervain's. "There is no version of this world," he says, much more gently, "that is made better for the absence of you in it. You didn't become a priest to give up the moment you're faced with the flaws of humanity, and you cannot make yourself the sole exception."

"Tuo, you can't--"

The anguish in Ver's voice is that of a soul stripped raw; he looks as if he'd start crying again when Dain's rebuke cuts him short. He catches his lower lip between his teeth against a sob, hearing only the tone of the Shepherd's voice at first and knowing, knowing he's done the wrong thing and only made it worse for himself...

Bewilderment replaces despair on his face as Dain's actual words begin to penetrate, his expression wonderful in its utter confusion. "Shepherd," he stammers, voice plaintive now, "I don't understand--I'm Profane, that's not a flaw, it's...it's, it's--this is the only way the gods can forgive me for it."

Right?

Dain intercedes, and Tuo presses his lips into a thin line, adopting silence. He is not surprised by Dain's words, or his tone--and mercifully, he doesn't argue. Instead he stands by quietly as Dain speaks to Vervain, his expression only softening when his young friend's anguish and confusion manifests itself in his expression, his voice.

(How is there anything of the gods, anything divine, in this kind of pointless torment?)

"The gods don't demand that you change who you are." He says the words with incredible gentleness, stepping forward to touch his friend's shoulder. "Only that you don't hurt anyone with your gifts. And you haven't hurt anyone, Vervain."

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CLOSED | the light we cast creates a bridge

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cw for some suicidality here 8[

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