[big teej]

Lady and gentleman of the thread, I present to you Tylndyr's new eyes...

if there seems to be a huge shift in tone/verbage in the last paragraph I'm sorry, I wrote everything up to "I drank" this morning and just wrote the rest and popped it through spellchecker


enjoy.

Spoiler

Some things stay with you… even for one so long lived as I. Things of pain, of hope, of pleasure and joy, of grief…. For me, being rather young as my race measures time, I have thankfully encountered very few moments of pain that stay with me….. There are 2 events of my life that continue to dwell within my Reverie… and they are closely linked, very very close. My acceptance into the Priesthood of Kaela Mensha Kaine, the bloody handed God. And receiving my new eyes through Kaine’s blessing…..
Remembering the eyes comes far more often than the pride I felt at acceptance….“Initiate Tylyndyr!” My eyes open, they are blue, like the sky above our home… I have no surname; it is stripped from us as initiates and cast into the Cauldron of Kaine. We are instructed that once we enter the priesthood, we will be required to do great things that will earn us new names. I turn my head to see who has summoned me. It is one of the faceless retainers of Urial, high priest of this temple. “It is time?” I ask, knowing, and fearing, the answer. “It is” comes the voice behind the mask, it is the voice of a sepulcher, issued forth from a skull helmet made from bronze. I rise from my pallet and put on my robes, they were white once… though the closest they come to white is a few pink areas where blood rarely splatters, and the rest is a deep red and black of clotted gore. Once my time as an initiate is done I will throw these robes after my name. Into the Cauldron for Kaine’s glory…

The retainer leads me to the high alter, where the Temples Cauldron sits, smoking and bubbling, the blood within it never rotting. I cannot see them, but I know that every full-priest within the temple is present, watching from the shadows. With eyes like the greatest of augurs, searching my mind, body and soul for a flaw, a sin in my devotion to Kaine. Urial (I think it’s urial, though it could simply be another one of his retainers for all I know, with the mask the man wears.) Stands behind the altar, he carries a goblet carved from bone and skulls. “Initiate Tylyndyr, ye have been accepted into the fold of the priesthood of Kaine. “Saying this, he dips the goblet into the cauldron. “To enter the fold, ye must drink from the cup of Kaine’s fury and Kaine’s blessing… what say you?” To deny the cup is death… “I will drink from the vessel of Kaine’s wrath and Kaine’s bounty” I reply, as is custom.
The goblet is handed to me, filled almost to the brim, “drink then, initiate, and join us.” I take the goblet carefully; to spill a drop is to endure a fate worse than death. I look down into the crimson liquid within, bubbles swirl within the blood, a skull?! No… simply my imagination… I commend my soul to The Bloody Handed God, in the event that I am found wanting….

And drink…

Pain… lots of it, a molten, stabbing pain pushing into my eyes, running along my nerves and exploding into my brain! It feels as if liquid metal is being poured into the sockets of my skull, dissolving my eyes and seeping into my brain. Do I cry out? I don’t know? Did I fall to my knees? Perhaps, I have no recollection of doing so. Eventually, the pain recedes, I open my eyes… it is still dark within the chamber, it seems as if no time has passed, I stand holding the goblet – it has been drained dry as the bone as its made from – the only difference I can see is in the man before me, his armour… it shines, it’s like a mirror its polished so clear…. Surely it was covered up by his cloak earlier… this must be the case.
“Brother Tylyndyr” …hey that’s me…. “Brother Tylndyr, hast thou returned to us?” I open my eyes – they were closed? – And stare at the man before me in his armour. “I have dread lord.” I reply the priest gestures to his armour with one blackened gauntlet and states “look upon the mirrored surface of mine armour, and see what kaine has wrought.” I look into his armour, into the mirror that covers his chest… I see me, Tylndyr, initia- no, brother priest! Of Kaela Mensha Kaine. My robes are gone, I see them sinking into the blood in the cauldron. In their place I wear lamellar armour, the leather strips black with red highlights, the nails of polished brass… I look into my face, it stares back at me…. Where my sky blue eyes once looked out upon the world, now something different looks out upon the world… like two molten brass coins, my new eyes stare out upon the world…

…Oh the possibilities……..