a_clockwork_melody | Phase 2 - Of Hymns & Religion

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Phase 2 - Of Hymns & Religion

♪ BGM: The Other Side of Memories

"You sing beautifully."

Lyner!?

"Do you sing like this often?"

...I'm not that good at singing, so I have to practice...

"You're being too hard on yourself. You were great."

You don't have to lie to me... My Songs don't help anybody. I'm not like Claire... People need her... And I always get in the way... I'm nothing but trouble.

"... So you and Miss Claire grew up together?"

...Yes. Unlike me, Claire can do anything she wants. Just like the concert today... People can count on her when they need her. I joined the Church and tried my best to become a candidate for the Holy Maidens. But, as a Class-D Reyvateil, I couldn't even find a partner. So when the Bishop ordered me to join the Singing Hill mission, it made me so happy. I actually felt like someone needed me.

"But I do need you, Aurica. At the Singing Hill, when I was about to fall...you saved me with your Song Magic."

...

"Don't act like this. You never got in my way..."

...Why are you so nice to me?

"... Huh? Me? Nice? ...I'm just a normal guy..."

No, you are...

"..."

...You're really kind.

[A.) Action / The Church of Salvation:

♪ BGM: Pulse ~Elemia Arrange~

Aurica found out at some point that there was a church in Mayfield, and that their main day of doing things was on Sunday. Curiously, she decides to get dressed and head there on the first Sunday she's here. Unfortunately, it seems she missed the Mass already, not that she knows what that's about. After admiring both the exterior and interior for a little, she'll move to sit on one of the pews and rest her head on her thumbs, both hands clasped in some manner of prayer.

Though, if she's not doing that, chances are she'll be checking out the whole place, observing with wonderment. Or maybe just sitting on the steps outside.]

[B.) Action / 458 Stone Street / Housemates:

♪ BGM: Malta Living

"Uhm..what kind of religion do you have back where you're from?"]

[C.) Action / Outside & Inside 458 Stone Street:

She'll be outside in her usual Mayfield attire, or indoors doing some housework. She'll then close her eyes and begin to sing in a hushed sort of voice:

Amakami o, kakemau, tama sasayaki yueba,
       (If the spiritual murmurings that soar through the heavens were connected,)

Kanmuribi furimichite, nanihito yuki orinase;
       (the crown of fire would completely descend and interweave the happiness of everyone;)

Samidare no, aimi o, tada nagaruru koe wa,
       (The voice that merely drifts in the indigo sea of an early summer rain,)

Utsuroi sakanagi o~boroge na furusato no ne;
       (is the changing, reversed, and faint sound of your birthplace;)

Kanade narifuku gaia, sora ni hibiki ainaseba
       (If the gaias that we are playing resonated together in the skies,)

Tobekaku, inori no uta matoite;
       (they would be clad in the soaring song of a prayer;)


Yasuragi no oka, namida no garasu, kioku no hako omoi no hi,
       (The hill of peace, the glass of tears, the box of memories, the monument of feelings,)

Hitoe ikue no, utsurou kiito, tamashii no ne musubitsunagu;
       (the single and multiple blank silk threads that tie and connect the roots of the souls;)

Tayutau, mu no umi, shourei no kazaiki,
       (The swaying ocean of nothingness, the breath of wind of the spirits,)

Tokeyuu, mandara ni, utai no miko are.
       (The dissolving and tying mandala, and in there, the singing priestesses.)

After that, she'll either go back to whatever she was doing or sing something else. Unless of course she's interrupted or otherwise distracted.]

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That's...terrible. I'm sorry for you, even if I had nothing to do with it.

[She regarded him in wonder then.] But to say galaxy..? You mean worlds beyond just one? I can't imagine a life like that. It must be vast..

[Her mind pushed the suit back into view. There was something, she just couldn't place it.]

I understand that the Astartes are made for battle and wars, but you seem...different. Somehow. [A breath escapes her, sort of like a half-chuckle, though more in self-exasperation. Gene...]

You feel more...than just a, thing, bred for only one thing. I think that's what I meant to say.

[ He shrugs his shoulders, and smiles a little. ]

Your words are kind but you need not say them. And yes... life is vast. Vaster than we as humans can comprehend. We are dwarfed by the cosmos, and only the Emperor and his twenty sons had a chance of grasping it.

[ He gets an almost-sad look when she says that he feels like more than just a thing, and explains. ]

All Astartes begin as mortal men, before our enhancements into post-human warriors. And I have been told that among the Legiones Astartes, i was the most human of them all. I don't know if this is true, and a part of me wonders if this is a failing. [ He looks down at the Reyvateil. ] But as a general rule, I tend to have more mortal friends than the rest of the Space Marines do.

[She listens to him, trying to take it all in, knowing that for the first time she is thinking beyond a single world as she looks on in wonder.

Her face appears more sympathetic as she listens further, almost empathic.]

It suits you...you're gentle, and kind. I don't think of it as a failing. Especially when I know for myself that our true power as humans come from within.

...May I call you Garvi?

If you wish to do so, I shall not stop you.

[ Normally only Tarik calls him Garvi. That... feels strange to him, slightly. And so... he has an awkwardly quiet moment after that. ]

...

[Aurica decides to break the silence, as much as it felt alright to just let it be, as she wondered, wanting to know about Garviel more.]

You mentioned the Imperial Truth earlier. Is that your own religion?

The imperial truth is the absence of religion. It is the ascendancy of reason and secular humanism. We do right because it is moral, not because a god tells us to do it.

There are no gods, only those that would deceive us... daemons, or voices in the warp.

Science and truth are what guide us, what we put our faith in as we bring the light of knowledge to the darkest corners of the universe.

[When it came right down to it, her people were worshiping mortal beings, not goddesses. Some even tried to trick her and others, taking advantage of their good will. But she knew in the end that, regardless of what it made her before and after, what held up the Church of El Elemia was beyond the concepts of gods.

Still, she didn't quite know how to convey that to people without it being a problem, yet. Her encounter with the boy earlier told her as much. However, it opened her to the idea that there would be different takes on the subject, no matter who she would talk to.]

There's so much I want to say, but I don't know where to begin...

I really admire that concept, of doing what's right simply because it is. Radolf back home always saw that the people's needs would come first, regardless of how we believed things.

[ Garviel shrugs, simply letting her talk about what she wishes, but he does interject a question, as well as a comment. ]

Radolf sounds like a man with a good view of things. He was your friend then?

He was...is. Back home. He's like an uncle to me, taking care of me..

[..in the Church, is what she wanted to say, but she was trying to avoid allusion to that for now. Maybe this would be her way of breaking it in.]

My best friend Claire took care of me as I grew up, but eventually I joined up with Radolf, and we helped people wherever we were asked ... well, his group did. I tended to come along, but I had no real partner myself for a time. I couldn't really do much of anything, so one wasn't chosen for me...until Lyner came into my life, anyway. [At his mention, her eyes shifted down, her heartache reminded of him once more.]

Ah... Lyner was your lover then? [ Garviel is getting better at reading teenage girls, considering his partner. In this case it's a guess, but probably a good one. ]

[Her eyes shifted back up, but only to open wide as she felt taken aback, face reddening at an impressive rate. Obviously Aurica was taking the meaning pretty far.]

...W--W-W-W-What?! No! [She covered her cheeks with her hands, looking away.] What--what would make you think that?

[She had half a mind to slap him from embarrassment, but this was someone she just met, and she refrained due to the new-found bond they had with each other.]

Nothing in particular.... but young girls of your apparent age seem to think about boys a lot in this way, or so I have noticed.

I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. We Astartes do not do such things, and as such we're not very shy about them. We just ask questions because it is alien to us.

So he was your friend and partner?

[Aurica didn't really hear the beginning of what Garviel had to say, as her timid but questioning stance mellowed out into her imagining a happy, quiet life with Lyner...and maybe some 'love' aside. Well, whoever told you about it was pretty on the mark at least for this girl, Garvi.

Her attention snapped back into focus when he said he didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable. She listened throughout the rest of it, with a now-understanding complacency.]

I see...and yes, he was.

♪ BGM: Pulse (http://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=h-g9LdIdMbQ) (R) (http://www.youtuberepeat.com/watch/?v=h-g9LdIdMbQ)

[The girl focused into her mind again the statue of the Songstress & her Guardian, recalling the legend word-for-word.]

"Since as long as anyone can remember, there was a guardian who protected a songstress, as long as she continued to sing.

No matter what happened, the guardian always sacrificed himself to protect her.

When she trusted him completely, she formed an unbreakable bond with him, and a wind that healed the world began to blow."

... This was a Legend of Elemia, of which there are many statues of in our world, where I'm from. I've always been interested in the past of our world, and I guess you could say it were these things that we believed in as a religion of sorts. We lived our lives trying to emulate the Legends' values and make them become true.

He, Lyner, was my Guardian, and I was his Songstress. He's saved me so many times, I would give my life to him.

[Her face saddened, gradually, as her hands clasped together in front of her neck and rested her head on them.]

...I miss him terribly so.

Edited 2011-09-23 08:02 (UTC)

[ He looks disgusted by the idea of religion for a moment, scowling. ]

I see... well, I can understand some of the nature of your bond, I suppose. I too have a partner here, in fact. Though we are... not the sorts to heal a world. I provide the blades, and she provides the psyker abilities.

We have sworn an oath to one another to fight the evil here, until the end.

[ he touches the breastplate of his armor, recalling the insides, where the words of their oath are engraved. ]

[The displeasure was noticed easily by Aurica, and she looked worried again. Does he think badly of me now...? Suddenly this didn't feel like it was going too well.

She still didn't quite know how to talk about it, how she felt of what she was a part of back home. With what had happened though, in her adventure, could she even really call it a religion anymore?]

I'm sorry, I guess religion was a bad word to use after all...it was the easiest way I could explain it. We just... adopted ideas that we thought were good for people to abide and live by for the sake of one another, really.

[Her eyes pleaded with the Astartes, seeking for any sort of acceptance.]

I belive the word you are looking for is Philosophy.... but what about it makes it not a religion, Aurica? It certainly has the legendary nature of one. [ This is about as politely as he can think to word it. </small.]

... [It looked like there was no way out of explaining it fully. She took a deep breath as she put together what she could remember of the whole ordeal.]

Things are a lot different in our reality. Monsters harass us at every turn, people need help wherever they are, and we go to make things better. It sounds a lot like how it is with your partner. Lyner was my sword, and I was his shield, protecting him from harm while he protected me...though I used fire and the other elements to further our cause often as well.

But yes, I think philosophy is a better way to look at it. Even if we look up to exemplary people, it's just those morals we follow. Well, at least, we can't really call it a religion anymore. [Here goes...] I'll admit, we used to believe in things like goddesses, but... they weren't what we thought they were.

In the past, we found writing that proclaimed the utopia of an earlier age, where everything was happier and peaceful. It was made possible because of three beings that could shape the world to their will and soothe it, as well as use destructive powers. We considered people like me to be their descendants, but we still treated them as the Trio Goddesses of Elemia.

We found out over time that they weren't really divine, and they were created by humans. We also found out it was because of one of them that some disasters happened in the first place. It really shook our beliefs. so of course we stopped thinking like that. Now that we know all this, we've stopped looking back to the past, and we're doing what we can to create a better future for everyone.

Such is the way of things. Adhere to their code, but don't ascribe to them divinity. If they led you to a righteous path, that is the important part. Truth and knowledge, and acting in a moral way are more important than faith without reason.

[ Garviel nods at the comment about a better future. ] The future of humanity is indeed what is important. I bleed now so that future generations will know peace and happiness.

[Bleed..? Aurica flinched at the thought, the idea of him sacrificing himself like that scratching at her heart.

Still, she felt relieved hearing him and smiled, even if it was because things changed as they did.]

Mh... what is your partner like? [The smile shifted to a sympathetic smirk.] I hope she doesn't let you spill your blood too much.

She is an exemplar of the best in humanity. Good, kind, and just. I fight by her side because of her skill, and morality. She has saved my life, and I have saved hers.

She is a young lady, of your age, roughly. I have a hard time with the ages of mortals. I myself am well over the century mark, and as such, have some difficulty in judging these things.

[ he smiles back at her briefly, and shakes his head. ]

I am Legiones Astartes, if I was not fighting, I might well be failing in my duty to serve the Emperor and Humanity. Well, my duty here, at least.

[~~This is totally an accurate description of the tsuntsun~~]

I see...I'd like to meet her someday. She sounds like a nice person.

[She closes her eyes, thinking of the peace she had just helped restore to her world a few days ago.]

I wish there was a way to have it so there isn't any fighting, but I'm just a dreamer, after all. [Her eyes open as she continues, a small frown mixed in her smile.] Especially in this town...I've heard it isn't the nicest thing.

She is. I could introduce you two, if you like.

[ he shakes his head. ]

No, that is the dream of all humanity, from the Emperor to every las-man who follows him. It is even the dream of the Astartes.

[ Okay, it's his dream. Abaddon and such would probably cry if he suggested it. }

[Her smile greatens from that.] I'm glad. You remind me a lot of Radolf, really.

[Suddenly she begins to look around, her thoughts of looking for others shifting to his own reason for being here. She refocuses on Garviel after that brief moment.]

I'm sorry, I feel like I've kept you. Were you still looking for someone?

I was perhaps looking for someone else, but only to have someone to talk to. You have been very helpful in that regard.

[ He reaches up to touch his forehead, just above his sinuses in a peculiarly human gesture. ]

Am I keeping you, at this point?

[She doesn't know what to make of it, but since it's Garviel, she assumes it a friendly gesture at any rate.]

Ah, no... I'll probably be here for a while. This place reminds me so much of back home. [Even if it isn't the same thing...]

Phase 2 - Of Hymns & Religion

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Edited because I forgot the BGM at 4am x_o

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