(no subject)

[thewidewideworld]

{from here}

Sinric opens the door to his room, letting the wrap slip from his shoulder as he moves to fold it up. There's a little catch in his breathing and a happy sigh as he sets it down on his bed. "I go away for years and yet, I come back and nothing has changed. Even the scent."

Comments

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric opens the door to the common space, pleased to find it just as it was before passing through to the bathroom.

"I have missed this." He confesses, slipping off his tunic and trousers before kneeling to run the water.

Old scars have faded but new ones have taken their places. There are a series of short, sharp lines in his shoulder that might be recognisable as writing of Japan but even those have begun to fade.

[athelstanthescribe]

Athelstan follows him in and stops, eyes caught by the angular lines - clearly they mean something, even if he doesn't recognise them as writing.

"Is that like a tattoo? On your shoulder?"

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric reaches back to touch the angled scars. "It was meant as a mark of ownership of sorts. But the one who put it there realised the cruelty of what he had done and had a master of the art add more lines to change the meaning of the word. It reads as sun borne now."

[athelstanthescribe]

"The man who wanted to keep you?" he guesses, because who else could it have been?

[thewidewideworld]

"Yes." Sinric looks back down at the water, not meeting Athelstan's eye. "In the end we agreed on a year and a day but he wanted to make a point that I was his to do with as he pleased until that time ended."

[athelstanthescribe]

"But he came to care for you?" he asks gently.

[thewidewideworld]

"He did. He came to understand that pleasure shared was far more powerful than pleasure taken. He was... young when he took me but matured greatly in that year."

[athelstanthescribe]

Athelstan nods.

"And you would know very well how to teach him his error."

[thewidewideworld]

"To coax out the better qualities in him, yes. I can't say it was a pleasant experience but he will be a better leader to his people for it."

He adds a drop or two of scented oil and slips into the bath, letting the water swirl around him.

[athelstanthescribe]

"At least you have the better memories from later in the year, as well."

He slides into the water in turn.

[thewidewideworld]

"I can't say I ever grew to love him. Not truly. But his company became more welcome." Even if there were things Sinric could never forgive. Carving his name into Sinric's flesh being one of them.

[athelstanthescribe]

"Better than nothing." He reaches to brush fingers over Sinric's shoulder. "And now you are sun-borne."

[thewidewideworld]

The memory of pain is still disquieting but Athelstan's touch doesn't cause his skin to crawl as others might. He leans into the touch a little, glad to feel Athelstan's hands on him again.

"It was remade under the light of the dawn, on the closest most point man may come to the sun's birth. The first scar might have been terrible but the remaking was... a transcendent experience."

[athelstanthescribe]

"You should remember that, and let it wash away the other", he advises.

[thewidewideworld]

He nods and pushes his hair back, half covering the scar. "It is a part of who I am. The good and the bad. Just as this is part of who I am." He touches the tattoo at his pelvis.

[athelstanthescribe]

Athelstan nods.

"Though that is just for the three of us."

[thewidewideworld]

"For me, the meaning has grown deeper. The line they form is the path I travel. Past, present and future. The circle of fate that leads me to somewhere you and Ragnar are waiting for me."

[athelstanthescribe]

"Two different places. Remember that I want to see you again in our world."

[thewidewideworld]

"We will know each other there. Somehow."

He lets the water swirl around him. "The teaching of the Buddha, which I spend much of my time in Nippon studying, say that all life is circles."

"Rather than dying and going to heaven or hell, they say that one is reborn into a new life - better or worse depending on how one acted in the life before. That there is no damnation, only reincarnation. That one may learn and learn to be a better person. And that the highest state one can achieve is Nirvana, a perfect state of oneness and peace."

He smiles, realising how evangelistic he sounds. "Their teaching resonated with me greatly."

[athelstanthescribe]

Athelstan listens, leaning back and closing his eyes.

"They believe all souls can achieve perfection?"

[thewidewideworld]

"They do. They believe the beasts and bugs are men and women who did wrong and were set back to a state of nature to learn to be pure again. That is why the monks of Buddha eat no meat and are careful to do no harm even to the smallest creatures."

[athelstanthescribe]

"But the beasts of the earth are neither pure nor impure. They simply are what they are, committing no sin."

[thewidewideworld]

"Just so - they see purity as a cleanness of spirit - without cruelty, without avarice."

{ooc: must run. Thanks for this. Catch up with you later.}

[athelstanthescribe]

"Ah - so by living a life as an animal, they can forget the faults of man?"

[thewidewideworld]

"And as men, through meditation, they seek to understand and remember that life. To seek a higher plan of being."

He sighs and lets his head fall back, letting his hair trail in the water. "The peace and hope of it is... seductive."