+- The First Age (https://thefirstage.org/forums)
+-- Forum: Middle Moscow (https://thefirstage.org/forums/forum-33.html)
+--- Forum: Greater Moscow (https://thefirstage.org/forums/forum-14.html)
+--- Thread: Winter Gardens (Sanctuary) (/thread-1940.html)
Pages:
1
2
RE: Winter Gardens (Sanctuary) - Calliope - 02-26-2026
Cali was quiet while he spoke, giving him the room to express himself however he chose. She’d asked about his own emotions because she imagined that always feeling everyone else’s might somehow make his own feel smaller, and it felt important to see the person beneath whatever abilities might make them different. Anton seemed almost regal in bearing though, and if there was a burden, it was one he clearly balanced. He gave a sense of being very self-contained, skill through necessity though it might be, but still: a man very in tune with himself.
“Do you always avoid contact?” she asked when he raised his hands to indicate the gloves. Cali was usually a tactile person, generous and warm with touch without thinking. It wasn’t going to be an issue whilst they sat in the frozen gardens, bundled against the cold. Her hands were laced on her lap, half buried in the folds of her coat and robes, and she had not sat overbearingly close. But she would remember to be careful in future now she knew it might be intrusive to him.
She smiled while he meandered his way through his journey here. Cali spent most of her youth in a similar state of searching – yearning for something she could not name or describe, only feel in her chest. It wasn’t until she met Quillon that she finally found a direction which truly resonated inside, and she still couldn’t put words to the rightness. It was spiritual for her, something she did not need to understand with facts or reason. Not many understood that, least of all her father. It simply wasn’t the way the world was built – she’d honestly lost count of the times she had been dismissed as an airy dreamer, though one only had to see her on the podium to realise that what she actually was was passionate. Cali didn’t mind. She didn’t crave being understood.
Her head tilted when Anton went off on what initially felt like a strange tangent, but she didn’t interrupt. He was an opera singer, and perhaps a story was the easiest way for him to express himself. His voice was pleasant to listen to, and she sat rapt until its conclusion. Not because it was a myth she hadn’t heard before, but because she was considering why he was sharing it in answer to her question. When he revealed what he had experienced in the Chamber of Echoes she did not dismiss it. Her own experiences had been… unusual, and they plagued her almost as much as the memory of Samiel himself. It was a push-pull kind of sensation – terror and delight interwoven, so that she was almost torn between seeking him out again and fearing that moment. She hadn’t considered the possibility of it being tied to memory, and rather than seeming silly it actually sent a shiver under her skin. Something to meditate on later. For now she held the idea curiously, and they were talking about Anton anyway.
She took some time to digest what he’d shared. Though she’d dropped out in order to join the Brotherhood, she’d been studying theology at MSU prior, and with the Sanctuary's library at her fingertips her desire to learn had continued to be sated. The ritual of the soundbath often unlocked profound and moving experience, and perhaps that’s all it was – the brain was a complex marvel after all, and consciousness was only the shallow end of its possibility. Cali did not truly know what she believed, but she didn’t dismiss reincarnation either. And that was clearly the direction Anton was hinting at. A single soul. A continuing story.
“Then you’re looking for her, perhaps. Or what was once lost in a moment of doubt at least. Orpheus lost his faith, and you are looking for yours. Literally or figuratively, the story continues through you.”