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- Touch of Light
- Fingers of apricot coloured light penetrated the smog rising from the pale cobblestones of Festival lane. The young Lay Priest Ithron Sari’thal glided silently through the streets of Stratholme. His off-white hood was drawn over his silken copper hair and pointed ears to soften the dim roar of human life. He was established and complacent in the peaceful Temple of Light. Here his senses were invaded by the dust and smoke of lantern fires stinging his light blue eyes and the heavy scent of fish and salt blowing from the port.
- He was raised in this human settlement. Yet a simple walk tasked to him by the clerics to clear his mind after a day of intensive study felt like a chore which he privately resented.
- Passing ‘Aaren’s Flowers’ the Elf felt a pang of relief intaking the spiced scent of bouquets. There were begonias, peonies and orchids with colours iridescently gleaming against the sunlight while all elaborately intertwined in a tidiness that satisfied him as he unwittingly envisaged his native forests of Eversong. He quickly dismissed the nostalgia. Flowers were but a purposeless frivolity useless in his devout path.
- Further down the path The Stone Crow Tavern faded into sight behind a swirl of billowing smoke. It was cast in shadow against the draping blue cloths hanging between the roofs above him. The absence of light seemed fitting as to Ithron this place was a depraved den of intoxication, lust and indulgence.
- A gust of wind unhooded the High Elf, plunging him into sight of three familiar and notorious Tavern goers.
- “Oi knife ears!”
- The voice was hoarse and bitter, unmistakably that of Gordon Quibb, the Butcher's son.
- Ithron froze.
- “Oh come in pretty elf! Let me cut that pretty hair of yours! I can’t promise not to miss your ears!”
- Peggy Moss had a shrill voice, she was a docker that spent more time in Fras Siabi’s Premium Tobacco store than she did the harbour.
- “Let him go back to the Temple, he doesn’t belong here.” listless and slurred was the voice of Antony Web’s; typical for a unrespected Priest who could not grasp tenacity and prefered a glass of port over prayer.
- For all his indignant thoughts the teenage Priest fell silent, watching the scene unfold as Quibb approached him with an empty whiskey bottle in hand and a shirt stained with pigs blood.
- He was smirking but he’d lost a few teeth. His beard was unkempt and his features unusually hardened for a young man.
- “You don’t belong here -knife ears-. Your kind don’t belong here at all. I’ve seen you, high and mighty because your forests are magic and your clothes are girlish. Why didn’t you -stay- there. We don’t want your weak and willowy kind in our streets. All you’re good for is breaking like stale bread.”
- The Priest buried his fists against his thighs. Against the the hotness burning in his cheeks he inhaled and schooled his face to a composed impassivity as he stared up at the boy a head taller than he.
- “I have as much right to train by the Light as you do to poison your body, Quibb.” he spoke softly.
- Priest Antony raised his head, smirking defiantly though his gaze was tired,
- “Training by the Light entails calling on it effectively -boy-, you’ve been a Lay Priest longer than any. Your lifespan isn’t so respectable when you’re incapable for so long.”
- Ithron swallowed hard, he would not talk back to a Priest, no matter how big a mistake his ordination had been.
- “Gordon either smash his head in or fetch me a candle to light these erbs’!”
- Peggy shrieked out like a bird. Antony Web made no objections either way.
- Ithron heard a familiar voice from the other side of the street.
- Quibb raised the empty bottle, ready to strike.
- The glass combusted in holy flame. It provoked an incomprehensible bark of profanities from Quibb then shattered into an encasing shell of golden heat that collapsed the shards inanimate to the cobbles.
- Priest Thae’lahn Dewhaze emerged heroic from the shadows, his High Elven eyes pierced the now dark and desolate street as he put a hand on Ithron’s shoulder. The Lay Priest felt his aura, his Light so endearing and divine. His face was pale yet radiant with the candour of youth and to Ithron his elven beauty was unflawed like the flowers he had so admired and envied.
- He looked to the hand on his shoulder, hoping it would remain.
- Thae’lahn’s voice was cool yet powerfully resounding in its Thalassian accented Common.
- “Master Quibb, a pleasant evening to you. I wonder does Mister Quibb know you’re here? It would be a shame if we had had to inform him that his son was threatening the Priesthood. Especially when one considers only last week we cured his cows of disease -just- before he was ready to sell their meat publicly.”
- Gordon Quibb fumbled awkwardly, stepping back then rushing away with a wet glint in his eye and mildly burnt hand.
- “And what of you Miss Moss? Was it not the Church who personally plucked you out of that brothel to elevate you out of that salacious lifestyle and into a steady docker job? I’d hate to tell the foreman we made the wrong decision.”
- The docker retreated back into the tavern, her eyes on the floor. Thae’lahn’s chastising gaze shot to Antony.
- “-Priest- Web, anything to say for yourself? Or is the only vow you’ve ever upheld that of silence.Your life belongs to the church, not this place. Get out of my sight before I notify the Bishop of your behaviour.”
- Web departed sullenly in a walk of shame into The Stone Crow Tavern
- “Don’t be put off by malicious bullies, Ithron. It’s true we High Elves may teeter toward the light slower and less vigorously than the humans, but when it comes to us it is not only more elegant but bolder and more responsive as -we- have the Sunwell to sustain our faith.”
- The evening faded into a lilac sky as Ithron was escorted back to his Temple chambers, Thae’lahn’s arm remained protectively around the shorter elf’s shoulders as they departed. They found Ithron’s room, a simple yet impressively well kempt place bathed in moonlight from the circled stain glass window overlooking the monastery gardens.
- “Pray with me?” Ithron dared suggest.
- “Of course.”
- They knelt together beside the desk. Thae’lahn started them off, his eloquent pleas whispered into the walls and captivating Ithron as he gazed upon the older Priest, admiring the way his delicate hands raised toward the beam of pearly light and his voice abounding in passion.
- “....we ask upon the Light to grant Ithron the clarity and wisdom to further prove himself worthy of your incandescent grace.”
- In that surreal moment Thae’lahn Dewhaze emblazoned everything Ithron knew and adored in the Light.
- Ithron’s eyes opened with exquisite wonder as an unfamiliar warmth permeated his hands. Thae’lahn’s voice continued calling out trustingly into the night as Ithron stared with awe, his red lips agape. Despite his outward shock, Ithron had never experienced such a transcendent calm fill his mind. Ithron found the sensation was inexpressible. For all the poems and preaches he had exhaustedly analysed they could not match this physical touch of Light. For all his labours and commitments he was not worthy of this force that began to stir and infuse his being.
- It manifested. Faint at first.
- A miniature spark fizzling in and out of existence.
- Thae’lahn guided Ithron’s elbow to lift his arm toward the window before the Light blossomed. A misted cloud of pale gold coalesced in honeyed circlet around his fingers. It became resilient and unwavering.
- Ithron knelt and watched, undeserving, yet embracing his new found power.
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