[The prayer garden, while not so busy as the chapel, sees its greatest use around times of observance: dawn, dusk, the sun's apex. Less so the daylight hours in between, and less still in the dark. Occasionally, Leander comes at sundown to sit quietly by himself, content as a witness to any others in their observance. Tonight he comes in the dark.
The night wind coming off the sea, it barely reaches this little patch of green amid the stone—enough to move the leaves, to set thick flowers bobbing on their stems. A cooling sigh against the skin. It moves his shirt across his back, again and again, both balm and bother to the dull pain still lingering there. The blister he'd pierced, the jet of boiling fluid—more lymph than magma, to his good fortune. Less stone to harden on the flesh. It's already flaked off, but the skin is fresh and pink where it stuck, and so every brush of cloth or bunching of muscle comes with a twinge. This he bears in appreciative silence.
He is silent, too, while he watches the shape of another mage move through the garden. At first seated outside the sparse torchlight, he stirs when Marcus leaves his view, stealing just a few steps through the darkness to follow him with his eyes.]
the night after the abomination;
The night wind coming off the sea, it barely reaches this little patch of green amid the stone—enough to move the leaves, to set thick flowers bobbing on their stems. A cooling sigh against the skin. It moves his shirt across his back, again and again, both balm and bother to the dull pain still lingering there. The blister he'd pierced, the jet of boiling fluid—more lymph than magma, to his good fortune. Less stone to harden on the flesh. It's already flaked off, but the skin is fresh and pink where it stuck, and so every brush of cloth or bunching of muscle comes with a twinge. This he bears in appreciative silence.
He is silent, too, while he watches the shape of another mage move through the garden. At first seated outside the sparse torchlight, he stirs when Marcus leaves his view, stealing just a few steps through the darkness to follow him with his eyes.]