Characters: Peleps Maruko, Peleps Sadako, Mnemon Koal, Cynis Chu, Cynis Hrath, Sarinzan Kodai

Two sinners seek repentence under the Grey Falls of Greyfalls.  In the end, only one remains.

(A special thanks to all the people who contributed to our little scene.  You will be /recc’d/.  My apologies to Sadako as it was not my intention to ignore her.)

-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-<* Greyfalls: The Grey Falls *>-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=

         Brilliant arcs of rainbow color are thrown from the flashing spray of the Grey Falls, a heavy mist descending on the rocky hills that brace either side of the plunging waters. Narrow ledges ladder the mountainside, broadening as they descend into wider shelves of earth and lush greenery. Much remains wild on the mountainside, though little clearings here and there show the legacies of celebrations and picnics during peaceful times. Little exists to quarrel with such pacific seeming; the falls serve well to swallow any inconvenient bodies.

         As the hillsides descend towards the city below, they broaden into dense tangles of greenery, lush and verdant. The hunting is good even close to the city, and as the traveller works north around the mountains the game grows more abundant still. Yet even in this satrapy of the Realm, the shadows of the Eastern forest hide more than game animals, and now and then a hunter goes out and does not return again.

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     The roar of the Fall! It echoes like an angry god, like the thrashing of the Elemental Dragons!  The force of the Falls! Enough to pound flat worked steel, to smash the strongest armor! Two figures stand beneath the Falls- at the edge of the mist, each of them bent but unbroken. Chu has his head bent, hands clasped at his forehead. His robe is pushed down, gathered around his waist- he's also flushed deep green, a sign of the Charms he must be using to maintain himself under the pressure.

     Peleps Maruko sits at the edge of the falls, deep in meditation - or maybe just thought, it's hard to tell. A daughter of Daana'd, she is at home by the falls, and the spray has gotten her pretty thoroughly wet, but she doesn't seem to notice particularly.

         Peleps Sadako observes this and seems -wholly unimpressed-, as she strolls up. "This what the Order is calling repentance these days?" she quips to her cousin. "I do this for fun at least once a week. Gotta leave the Isle to get a real sense of suffering, I suppose."

     Sarinzan Kodai strolls up, looking at the two under the falls. His essence spider, Haquim, is next to him. Perhaps he's done hiding? Either way, he isn't hiding right now.

          Hrath takes long strides acrss the stones, to under the falls, wearing just pants and slowly works through several postures to calm his spirit, and then takes a meditative position next to Koal. "It is good that you came, I am glad that you are here to repent for your missdeads, allow me to join you, its allways good to feel power of the dragons to calm ones spirit.

     Cynis Chu steps out from the falls. It's full on night, now, and he walked in at mid-day. He gazes cooly at Hrath, as he walks towards the shore. "Brother," he says, voice the very tone of civility. He curls his hands several times, working some feeling back into them.

     Mnemon Koal nods to Hrath, tranquility radiating from his soft grey eyes through the mist as the water tumbles around him...although he is higher and too the side from Chu nearer the rocky shoreline...one of the few rocky shorelines in the Greyfalls provinces. "Greetings Brother Hrath, I welcome you."

          "It is good to see you in good health Chu after that affair with Deled, but I would expect no less from you" he says without moving, his voice even has a slight ring of compassion, if only the slightest. He continues to meditate on recent days events, using the force of the waterfall to strengthen his body.

     Peleps Maruko opens her eyes as the pair exits the waterfall, and smiles at Chu. "I'm glad to see you're back to your old self again, Brother - or is it Chu now?"

         Sadako turns to regard the essence spider. "Hey, you!" she calls in the same tone with which one might address a cute-fuzzy animal, "Haven't seen you since that quorum. Still as cute and hairy as ever, I see." Then she nods at the two, her smile cheeky, her braids bouncing. "Hey guys!" Apparently her insult wasn't given too seriously, more like her brand of humor.

     Cynis Chu smiles wanly at Maruko. "For the moment, it's just Chu. But Sister Cloud Hands has written the Paragon of Sextes Jyles, and believes I will be brought back in from the cold soon enough." He fairly collapses next to her, sitting heavily, then laying back in the grass. "And Lady Sadako, if you can better endure that pressure, then I bow to your stamina. Sower of grass, my legs feel like they're on fire."

     Peleps Sadako can't help herself, and fires back, "You're the Cynis, stamina's supposed to be your department."

    Cynis Chu chuckles slightly at that, looking up the sky through the fog of the falls. "I was never very well fitted to my House."

     Sarinzan Kodai smirks, and he and Haquim make their way over to Sadako and Chu. They both bow, nearly simultaneously. "Thank you, Lady Sadako. We have indeed been scarce since then. I have been training, and Haquim has been making things out of his webbing." He smiles at Haquim and fingers his clothes.

     Mnemon Koal remains passive, resisting the urge to correct Sadako and state that his endurance is probably far greater than Chu's...at least if pure size had anything to do with it. Koal let's Pasiap pour through him and closes his eyes in prayer, letting his real senses go where no eyes can follow. Regardless of what they say, this is a conversation between monks, and things are not as they seem when a spiritual level is involved. He listens quietly as if trying to hear their very souls in their words, for such is the path of enlightenment for him.

     Peleps Maruko laughs at Sadako, slapping the back of her hand in a friendly manner. "Still," she says, "with possibly only a short time free of the Order, I'm surprised you're not making up for lost time." She winks quickly at Chu before returning to a seated position.

     "Hey, I feel you there," Sadako replies to Chu, nodding to Kodai as he explains where he's been. "Nice threads, then," she compliments, before looking back at the falls. "Wait, free of the Order? Did you actually quit over... everything?"

     Cynis Chu laughs again, shaking his head. "No, I didn't quit," he replies. "However, the 'Master of the Hunt'," the title is spoken with an... unusal degree of heat, from the normally mild monk, "-wrote to the Paragon of Sextes Jyles, describing... what I'd done. It was sufficent for my name to be struck from the rolls." His smiles, wanly, at Maruko. "And the thought has crossed my mind, but I suspect it may make any hope I have for re-admission more difficult."

          "Koal, do not fear, we all fail the dragons from time to time" Hrath says as he opens his eyes and stares at the people on the bank with a menacing glare "But you have shown the will to repent and after all you did have good intentions in all this and that is not to be ignored. Despite many peoples scewed sense of what the order is, we are here to help people, all in our own fashion, and your willingness to help the families of the deceased is not to be ingored but respected, all you need is some guidance.

     Peleps Maruko smiles, with a little more evidence of mixed feelings on her face this time. "Well," she says quietly, "I hope you don't blame me for holding out hope that you might yet change your mind."

     "You didn't DO anything wrong!" Sadako protests with a degree of heat herself, folding her arms, perplexed and angry. "Other than in his name... I swear, I still need my date with that bastard, he shames my House so. Still," and she brightens up slightly, "Now you can party with Ruko and me! If you want, we could take you on a nice long bender. It's the Sextes Jyles thing to do, you don't even need to feel unDragonish about it!" Hrath, meanwhile, is summarily ignored.

     Sarinzan Kodai smiles at the compliment. "Thank you. They are a bit of an improvment over my old silks, and the added benefit of protection is quite a benefit too. If you aren't unwilling, may I accompany you on your 'bender'? I haven't had good fun in ages."

     Cynis Chu snerks at the comments, then gets a considered look on his face. "Actually," he says, looking up at the sky. "Actually, postulants generally discouraged from abiding by the vows and constraints of higher coil monks," he says softly, then sits up. "A bender, you said?"

     Mnemon Koal listens with all his soul, and his perceptions are indeed acute. So acute that perhaps Hrath's deepness is being lost in the rolling emotions of the others, like a river being drowned by the sea. If so, no evidence is present and Koal remains in prayer, perhaps waiting for a passage on how Daana'd sealed the gates of the Underworld for a /reason/.

          Hrath says, "Brother Chu, would you so easily abandon your vows, yes you may have lost your title, but is that all your vows meant to you, did you simply take them to be part of the order? I don’t believe that, I know you are a good person, don’t throw everything you have worked for away so carelessly, after all the order is not about ranks and letters, but about the virtues and principles we uphold. After all what does a simple rank have to do with serving the dragons?" he says loudly over the noise of the falls and then closes his eyes once more " I am sorry Koal, I am here to help you, forgive my interruption, now where were we?"

     Cynis Chu sits at up Hrath's statement, a frown sourly twisting across his face. "Brother," he says cooly, once again, "I will point out that the Order rejected me, because of what I did. I am free of my vows at the moment. And if you had held true to the spirit of the texts, in addition to the hollow words that bear that spirit like flesh bears a soul, then perhaps we would be in the same situation and your advice could be taken more seriously."

     Sadako demonstrates by bending over backwards and crawling through her legs at about triple-average-contortionist speed. "Sure, a BENDer," she repeats, dancing in between Chu's line-of-sight to Hrath. "Peleps Manor is pretty well stocked, and You-Know-Who is still under house arrest, I think. You've had a horrible few weeks, you deserve to be treated well. Everyone's welcome! Interested, mister?" she calls over towards the silent Koal, to whom she has never actually been introduced. Still, his heritage as a Dragon-Blooded is ample justification for an invite, in her book.

     Mnemon Koal answers calmly without hesitation, "We were following the passages of Daana'd, before she closed the gates and told the spirits of the living world that they must live in a court like unto the Immaculate Dragons themselves. I'm afraid I still don't know what those passages mean, although I know the lesson you wish to teach.

     Peleps Maruko reaches out a hand to Chu. "Believe me, there is life outside the Cloister. It took me years to figure that out, but it remains true."

     Hrath looks over at Koal and then closes his eyes again "Indeed, if that is the case I have nothing else to teach you, if you know the lesson that is all you need, do not delve to deeply into meaning if the lesson is to know the spirit of the texts is in the lesson not the meaning if you will." he says matter of factly and then he looks at Chu.  "I am disappointed that you would give up so easily, does Sextes Jyles not simply challenge us to make us stronger in faith?  Would you so easily fail this test of faith?" he says with a slight bit of disdain.

         Finally Sadako can't take it anymore, and looks Hrath right in the eyes, standing up to her full, if not hugely impressive, height and bulk. "Listen, Hrath, considering that your interpretation of the texts seems to be wholly devoted to looking down on others, he's doing you a public service by giving you a target. I'm delighted to join him in doing so." Shaking her head mournfully, she turns back to the others. "C'mon, let's get outta here."

     Cynis Chu hms, sitting up and taking Maruko's hand, the frown fading into a smile for a moment, before Hrath's words strike his back. He half-turns, and there is /real/ anger in his eyes. Maruko can feel his hand tighten, and his eyes start to glow faintly. He opens his mouth to respond, before Sadako pre-empts him, and he nods tightly, walking away from the falls and struggling into a still very soaked robe.

     Hrath opens his mouth as if to say something and then closes it again and gives a sigh "As you will" he mutters.

     Peleps Maruko squeezes Chu's hand lightly, giving him a look of thanks for not rising to the bait. "The breath of Daana'd washes away unwise words," she murmurs, "and leaves us the better for our loss."