Oblations

[Avis]

Surrounded by flickering candle flames, Avis waited. She sat in the middle of her room, the floor having been cleared of belongings, her possessions stored in the corner and shrouded in black cloth. White chalk markings filled the expanse of concrete around her, atlantean glyphs arrayed in concentric circles that flowed outward like ripples across a pond. She sat in the middle of it all upon her heels in the pose the Japanese called seiza and Yogi's called vajrasana. A piece of steel sat in front of her, white and black paint forcing the reflections of the flames to the bare, sharpened edges of the metal square. To Avis' eyes, the metal resembled nothing but a weapon, but she knew that to the one she was waiting for, the paint marking it resembled the ace of spades. The Ace of Swords.

Silently, she contemplated the dance of light and shadow over the steel weapon. The exchange of dark and bright and saw within it the flickering of another opposition. Another relationship of presence and absence. Negation and creation. It was that which she truly dwelt upon.

Dwelt upon, and waited...

Her ritual partner would be there soon. Her heatbeat rose when her mind drifted towards thoughts of him, and the task she had to ask of him, but with grim focus she quieted those thoughts and returned to the matter which sat submerged in the deep of her mind.

[Star]

In the dark. Dark.

"Hello?"

Oooh. Dim lights? Candles?

...and ...Sigils.

oh

Time to box up all those other thoughts, and set them aside. Clearly, the sigils meant business and not Business. Or The Business. Whatever that still meant, anyway. But someone's wearing socks. Looks like they were going to be business socks. It's that love of socks that makes disappearing socks a Big Deal.

"Hey." Padded feet approached; slowly, carefully. It only takes a toe or three stubbed in a theater to slow your roll. Stopping at the edge, the lean form sank. It would have been graceful, if not for the awkward knee pop that sounded super gross filling the wide open space. "What's up?"

"Actually. Wait, before I forget, because this just totally reminded me. Are, uh," a hand cartwheeled outward, "Are we still, like, uh. Living in different rooms because we like it? Like that? Orrrrr because no one wanted to say anything in case the other one would be all I-Need-My-Space-Don't-Be-Like-That? And, just so you know, I'm only asking because, like, at some point I figure one of the others is going to ask why they have a crappy little room. Oh. And also. Are, ummm, are we good with this?" The hand raised, showing a faintly glowing sliver around one finger. "Or did you want aaaaaa... uh, ceremony."

Dancing candles reflected off of genuinely curious eyes, even if the darkness made the mop cast some Seriously Sinister shadows.

"And this isn't me asking like, these are what I want but I'm going to make them sound like questions, this is straight up I don't know but figured it out to be out there just in case there was something you wanted."

Because We're new at This but We talk.

[Avis]

A light smile appeared across the Warlock's lips once Star spoke, his voice drawing her from the shadowed vale of contemplation. It was impossible to remain fixed upon the same patterns when a new luminescence arose and its rays cast unforeseen tapestries of shade down from the sharp peaks and jutting crags which rose from her psyche.

"Step inside the circle," Avis prodded, gesturing with her chin. "Have a seat."

She waited until he'd settled comfortably. Pain had flared in her own legs, resurgent and insistent now that she'd emerged back to full awareness, but she ignored the voices of the flesh. Eventually her legs would numb themselves into quiet. For now, there were other voices to listen to.

"And this is the ceremony," she added, quiet amusement edging into her smile. "We can discuss moving in together afterward, if you want, but there's other things about our future that I need to talk about. See, I've come to realize that I need to make a transformation. A transition. I just need you to help me do that. To help me choose which transition I'm going to make, either to be reborn into a new life, or to go back to a walking death.

"But wait," she added, a pale hand rising, "before you decide. You need to know that I've already been one of the walking dead. I've made a habit of killing myself. Of practicing suicide. I did it not just to taste what it felt like to die, but to free myself from the bindings of life. Asp helped me do it, though she never realized. Twice, she killed me. Sunk a weapon into my flesh until my life spilled out, and twice she brought me back. I used the memory of those moments to relive them again. To die everyday. It was one of the reasons why I liked her, actually."

The smile flickered and fell away.

"So I've been dead. What we have between us, though, has resurrected me again. That's also brought back old bindings. Old fears. That's why I need to change again."

Avis let silence fall. Waited to here what thoughts came to Star. What lights would rise, what shadows would fall.

[Star]

A Ceremony.

Legs splayed outward from the chosen seating position, forming a V that extended to frame the Warlock. Khakis rode up slightly, exposing white socks. It's not the serious or even graceful position that she's assumed, but that'll make your knees and ankles hurt. And sitting cross-legged is just no fun with long legs.

Silent contemplation was given to the words; silent, but not expressionless. Eyebrows, eyes, and lips did a subdued dance as the words explained and revealed. Eyes tracked the risen hand and further down along the scars, then narrowed in a surge of protective anger that was wholly ridiculous but no less felt for it's absurdity. He hadn't thought about the blond bodybuilder in forever, but was also reminded and struck by how odd it seemed that they had woven together, but We never had. The thought was tossed like two-seven off suit.

"You've changed me, too." It's an admission. Or maybe a commiseration. Not in the same way, but changes that required Decisions. The words are soft and quiet, a mixture of understanding, wonder, and a hint of fear.

It's scary to give more than a cursory shit about something, someone, when you haven't for a long time. True story, yo.

"It sounds...," the words came hesitantly after a silence only broken by their breathing. "It sounds like you don't need me to help you decide? But to help you with your decision. And." Brows furrowed and the mop bobbed. Angels and resurrection. "You know I will. But, tell me what this change means? And, I can kind of... guess... your old fears."

Loss.

"But I want you to tell me. Them."

A hand reached outward, palm up; a perch for the pale, scarred one that had just fluttered between them.

[Avis]

At first, their flesh didn't meet. This wasn't about their flesh, after all. This was about what dwelled within their minds. But...a touch could mean just as much, or more, as a word. Wasn't Star's hand, hanging between them, as much a request as one that would come from his lips?

Eventually, Avis relented and let her hand join his.

"I'm not sure I can really articulate those fears," she began, turning their hands over. "It goes beyond losing you. It's...entrenched deeper than that. It's also about what I might become as our relationship continues. So much of what I know about...this," she explained, giving a brief squeeze, "is based in the Lie. So I'm worried about regressing. That's why I either need to be re-created, or reanimated. So one version you wont have met, even if is born from you. The other will be the same Avis that you already know, but not tied down by any concerns to preserve what is."

[Star]

"You know it sounds super ominous when you say it like that?"

Like, the total opposite of reassuring.

Sometimes, it's surprising. How small her hands were? Because sometimes they seemed so large. Just ask Bonnie. But see them now? Words can agree, actions can be in harmony, but a touch is a connection. Sometimes it can mean less, sometimes it can mean more.

"Just because, you know. The same Avis I already know, she...," words trailed off and brows knit. "She is the one I know. The one I, uh, you know. Fell for. And love."

But there have been peeks, right? Laughter, in the wind.

"But we change. We will change. And that's part of it, part of being with someone. I think. Even if we're not, hmmmm, changing now or later because of one another? Understanding that they'll change, learning, and, ummm, accepting that. I mean, aren't we both slowly... shaping? Molding? Refining? Our Souls." There's a slow nod, and long exhale. Because this? This doesn't have to be based in the Lie. "So we change together. Even if," the mop shook slightly, "If one of us is changing to love the other's change."

Or they wouldn't. But that would be Not Good. Slowly, features smoothed. Brows lowered and unwrinkled, and eyes looked for the reflections of flames in the fen water shadowed by lank darkness.

"So, I choose the phoenix."

[Avis]

"Then I need to begin by telling you who's really going to be dying," Avis replied grimly, releasing Star's hand so that she could grasp the sharpened metal card that sat between them with one hand and replace it with a small, unlit brazier with the other.

"Before I chose the shadow name Avis," the Warlock continued, "I was known as Daisy Ashworth. That is my True Name, and that's the person that has been reincarnated. Drawn out of sleep by the warmth of the familiar. By love, and by family. But she can't stay. She was weaned on weakness, and believes in too much that is false. So, light the brazier," Daisy said, nodding to a pack of matches that sat to their side. "Together, we'll cremate her and set her back to sleep in peace. And, from the smoke, a new me will emerge. One that I'm going to call Akasha. A name that means the Sky, and more than that, the record of all ideas."

Fitting, she thought, since her shadowname currently referred to only one idea.

[Star]

Daisy Ashworth.

Once upon a time? It'd been A Question. Only because a gesture was made, and never reciprocated. It wasn't A Big Deal, but it had been A Question... until it wasn't. Some people re-invent themselves over and over; daily, even. Some? Only once.

Daisy Ashworth died a long time ago.

There's two sides to the card. Something sad, and painful, swelling deep below. To look at someone you know, someone you love, and know that part of them had died until nothing was left but the shadows of memories? And that those memories had been stirred until they intolerable. But that's someone else -- the other side of the card. Daisy would have lived a Lie and never Listened.

But they say ignorance is bliss and it still asks the question: Would Daisy have had a good, happy life?

A slow, serious nod answers the request and artful fingers draw out a match as carefully as they'd ever dealt from the bottom of a deck or rolled a coin. A scratch, flare, hiss, and pungent odor of sulfur dioxide stung committed an assault on the senses of sight and smell as the match was struck.

"Akasha."

The match went to the brazier, lighting the fire that would snuff out the second life they'd taken together.

"Tell me about the 'sky' part?"

[Avis]

"The sky," Avis began, presenting her left arm over the flaming brazier, "is an expanse of air. It is vast, seemingly without limit, a place whose emptiness speaks of possibility. And, the wind that the fills the sky brings motion and change, it speaks of freedom and release, as though one's body might open up and become one with the immenseness folding over the world."

Slowly, she set he razor edge of the card against her flesh and began to draw it slowly towards her elbow, though the cut was made far from the vein.

"It's strength," she said, a grimace appearing as scarlet began to spill out, "but strength through elevation and vastness. It's not harsh, or crushing. It's simply beyond what can be touched."

[Star]

The sky.

In some ways, it's wonderful; in others, terrifying. Some Angels? See the sky as a tapestry to weave weather upon or draw lightning from. Not this one. Lay on you back with nothing else in your field of view to give perspective, and it's an endless expanse.

Sometimes, it could even feel like falling.

"What..."

Someone wasn't paying attention to the card that wasn't a card. Too late. Eyes popped and a little start jostled through the lanky body as the cut began. Okay, that was unexpected. Which is kind of weird, right? Because scars. But, still. That was legit unexpected. When the flames first caught, he'd imagined maybe writing her old name on a piece of paper, and burning it.

But that wouldn't be Av... Akasha.

"Okay, sorry, you kind of caught me by surprise with that." The rivulet almost looked black in the dim lights and flickering flame-light. "I like it. The sky thing. It'll take some getting used to, but understanding the meaning will help. I think."

What about Tempest. Tempest would be a great s'name.

Except...

...nobody said anything about s'names.

"Is this, this ceremony," a hand wheeled out, "Is this something you read about? Or just how you wanted to do it. Like, this felt right."

As the first drop fell and hissed, nostrils twitched at the sudden earthy-burnt smell.