#33 - Dry Weeping

Scorching, flaming, blaming, charred up the ass, ash hole.  Everything just went grey and when I came to myself once more I found that I was in the bed, naked, buried in feathers, hands wrapped in warm towels and someone massaging my feet. 

I thought it was a dream at first and just groaned with pleasure.   “Ah, you’re awake,” my little brother… no, HIS little brother said.  He was the one working on my feet with beeswax that was almost hot.  “You really shouldn’t do that, Ahri, before you know how to petition the Goddess.  You could lose fingers and toes that way.”

“Arnziel.”  I tugged at my foot in his hand and he didn’t let go immediately.

“Wait.  I’ll wrap your feet up or you’ll get wax all over the bed.”  He whipped a Rigan hard cotton towel around my foot and then a fuzzy one, so, as I struggled up onto my elbows I realized all four of my limbs were similarly swaddled.

I stared down at the wads of white at the ends of my limbs.  “I was outside.  Heylia took me outside.”

“Ah.” He nodded as if that made any kind of sense.  “Then she came and got me, so that you wouldn’t hurt yourself.  Harsh teacher that cat.  But she doesn’t hurt any of her kittens.”

He looked like Arnziel.  He sounded like Arnziel, but here he wasn’t the twitching little fop who would scream in shock if you suggested he wear shoes without satin stockings or puce with chartreuse.  He wasn’t a habitual drunk either; you could see it.  His eyes were clear, not yellowed.  His skin was clear, he didn’t stink like a drunk sweating the noisome mess out of his skin every day.  He wore Aeono’s yellow robe, with the flames embroidered all over it, as if he was comfortable wearing it.  My little brother always wore religious robes like they were about to set him on fire, itching at him.

He just sat, watching me, calm as Rutaçyen.  I voiced my horrid suspicion. “You train with HER too, don’t you?”

Arnziel just laughed.  “No, shadow brother.  I fence well enough to honour Aeono.  I’m not a hot spur, or a hot shot like you and your shadow.”

“You have carbines, here?” I addressed his ‘hot-shot’ comment.  “I’ve only seen archaic swords and bare-handed.  Do you have cannon?  Do you even NEED cannon?”

“Yes,” he said.  “Aeono provides.  Ahrimaz only used cannon once in the Unification war and that was to bring down the Cylak’s passes, to force the man to fight or surrender.  Mostly the Riga… from Riga Feren… mount two pounders on their deep sea ships to protect them from ravening packs of  Tauzahn (I translated that in my head, ‘Thousand Teeth’ or ‘Teeth Teeth Teeth’)

“How very enlightened of you.”  I started prying at the edges of the cooling wax towels, wanting my hands free.  “I used my cannon to bring down the Yhom’s Singing Palace.”  He blinked and looked sad.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It still sings when the wind blows,” I said shortly.  “Which is always up there. Only now it sings grief.  You can’t make it shut up, even when it’s in pieces.”

“I’m hoping that my brother will be able to help or save your brother in that world,” he said quietly.  “I’ve been having prophetic dreams about him.”

“Yes and what’s this about you being a priest?  I mean a REAL priest?”  He took hold of the wax on my hands and the towels, peeled them off in a single, smooth block.  I rubbed my fingers together, feeling the slick waxiness that I wiped on the cloth he gave me before moving back down to free my feet.  He shrugged.  “I am a priest.  Aeono spoke to me –“ I cut him off.

“—Let me guess, when you were around nine?”

“Yes, in fact.  I was hearing God so loudly around that time I was setting things on fire.”

“Oh Scorch.”  A corner of his mouth quirked.

“Scorch indeed.”  He bundled the hardened towels into a basket  before settling down cross legged on the floor next to me and I suddenly felt like we were illicitly sharing a late night snack on my bed, like two little boys.  “Limyé was saying that you think you are weeping all the time.”

“I have been,” I snapped.  “My face is always wet here.  I’m surprised my face isn’t raw.”  The internal ocean storm of my tears threw waves at my barricades, hissing, breaking, driven high by all these people poking at me.

“That’s interesting,” he said and unfolded one of his long, lanky arms up, reaching to snag the tea pot to pour.  “From our perspective you’ve been dry weeping.  We haven’t seen you shed a single tear.”