marlowemuses | The lonely become either thoughtful or empty

The lonely become either thoughtful or empty

There had bee no other options. Someone had to guard the relics the Angel had given them. The Cup and Sword were too powerful to be left in mortal hands even those that had been blessed by the Angel. That power was too tempting no matter how noble Nephilim might be. There would always be someone, some group of someones, who would be seduced by the possibilities that those gifts represented.

Even centuries after the decision had been made, Alec wasn't sure why he had been chosen for this particular duty. His parabatai had been a better warrior. His sister was far more clever. But the Angel had chosen him. Perhaps because he was better able to accept the isolation of his divine task. His siblings would have been driven mad by loneliness after the first few decades.

There were times when Alec wondered if he would eventually succumb to insanity, but he had the books that he eventually became guardian of and the cats that somehow crept between worlds to keep him company. They weren't exactly cats, of course. They were built more like predators than pets, eyes glowing with flames instead of the usual nocturnal glow. No matter how frightening they looked, they were Alec's friends and they helped Alec protect the items the Angel had left in his care.

It was the cats that warned him that something was wrong at the gates. The largest of them howled a warning, hissing as she faced the gate. The rest of the pride ran to her as Alec sprinted for the gates. Something - Someone - was attacking. He felt the temple shiver its warning through him and he knew that no matter how impossible it seemed, someone had crossed the threshold between worlds.

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"You can't leave here?" Adam asked. Persephone nuzzled at his hand, so he patted and scritched at her accordingly, learning how to pet a cat relative to how she responded. He wasn't very familiar with interacting with animals, never having had any of his own, but he liked befriending the cat. "You're alone here? For how long?"

It seemed strange to him knowing that this guardian was meant to keep solitary watch over the gate. Adam still didn't know why. It seemed to him that the powerful and dangerous parts of the ley line were on the other side of the gate.

Standing again and leaving Persephone, Adam moved a little closer to Alec, amused by the happy kitten against his chest. "So I'm your priestess, but neither of us knows what that means?"

"No, I can't." He tried not to think about it. Usually he didn't. There were enough distractions to keep Alec busy most of the time. Thousands of books. Glimpses of the mortal world. The gardens and the cats... it was lonely but he'd learned how to live with the solitude.

Watching Persephone teach Adam the spots that she preferred to have petted, he decided that he could trust the new priestess with some of the story of the temple. He'd omit the details related to the Cup and Sword until he was sure that he was meant to allow the priestess access to those relics. "How long? Do you mean how long I've been here or how long I must stay here?" Alec didn't really want to answer either question, but he would if it would help Adam understand the temple and Alec's connection to it.

When Adam stepped closer, Alec automatically took a step back, slightly disorientated by having someone who was bigger than a cat near him. Giving himself a mental shake, he forced himself to remain in one place, focusing on the feeling of Emily's fur against his fingers as he tried to get used to Adam's presence. "There might be an answer somewhere in the temple, but I don't have one. Or I forgot it. Sometimes... things blur together and it takes time to focus on them again."

"Okay," Adam said. It seemed achingly lonely that Alec had been here so long that time and reality blurred for him, and that seemed concerning. Adam looked around, wanting some clue or obvious path but seeing nothing.

"I can't stay for more than a couple hours," he said, since he was still tied to the passage of time and his mortal responsibilities and he figured Alec should be made aware of things like that. "I have work tonight."

Alec didn't seem to know where they were supposed to begin, and Adam didn't want to invite himself into parts of the temple that Alec wasn't ready to offer, so he just hunched his shoulders defensively, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and eyed Alec to see what Alec thought should be done next.

"A few hours is more than I expected." Alec hadn't really thought that Adam would want to stay. He might be the priestess, but if someone could leave, why wouldn't they? The priestess wasn't tied to the temple the way Alec was. "I -" He wanted to say that he appreciated the company but he didn't know how to say it without sounding like he resented his duty. He didn't. He'd made his choice but it was lonely.

"Why do you have to work? If you're the priestess you should be given tributes for your service." That was how it had worked in the past. Those who tended the temples were given the resources they would need or there were tithes to help the priestess maintain the sacred places.

Noticing how uncomfortable Adam seemed, Alec forced a smile as he gestured toward the gate, causing Emily to grumble. "You can go, if you want. I don't mind if you don't want to stay." He would mind, but not because of duty. It would be for selfish reasons. No matter how much the idea of company appealed to him, he wouldn't demand that Adam stayed. "You might be bound to the ley line but this isn't a duty that you chose."

"Changing times," Adam answered. "No tributes. No one but you--and my mentor--recognizes me as a priestess. If I were to advertise my connection with the ley line, I'd make myself a target for people who want to manipulate it and me."

He was a little puzzled by how lightly Alec seemed to dismiss him, after all the effort Adam had gone to in order to get here and get Alec to talk to him. "I want to stay. I don't know anything about my 'duty' here. If you have information about my role, I'd be grateful for it."

"The Angel must have recognized you, even if I'd been given the impression that a woman would find the way here." Or Alec had made that assumption since there weren't male priestesses when he was brought to the temples. There were specific roles that couldn't be changed. Silent Brothers were always male and still were. Iron Sisters were always female. "Most beings probably wouldn't believe you if you did say you were connected to the ley line."

Alec tried not to be too hopeful about Adam staying. He didn't know how lonely it was or how spooky the temple and gardens could be. Emily began to squirm and set her down with the other cats. "We could try to figure out your duties. There's information here, but it might be difficult to find. If you aren't supposed to know certain things, the temple will keep you from reading it."

Adam kept his own opinions regarding the danger of being connected to the ley line. One of his friends had already been murdered over it, as he'd said, so he felt skeptical about trusting to the safety of Alec's suggestion that most people wouldn't believe his connection to the ley line. Those who did would surely be trebly dangerous.

"If it wants me to cooperate with whatever these duties might be, then it should probably not keep me from reading that," Adam pointed out. He folded his arms over his chest, because he still didn't know where to go or what to do, and he hadn't exactly been invited to explore. When he'd advanced, Alec had responded defensively. Adam was stuck.

Alec arched an eyebrow at Adam's comment. The temple had always been welcoming to him, but there were areas that Alec knew he wasn't able to access. "The temple will decide what you should learn and when." Just as it had for Alec. He wasn't sure if Adam was patient enough to wait for the temple to release its secrets. Probably not. Adam was mortal and couldn't wait decades or centuries for the temple to decide when he was ready to learn its secrets.

His shoulders sagged briefly at the thought. Adam might be the priestess, but Alec knew he shouldn't get used to the idea of someone visiting him regularly. Even if he did, Adam wasn't like Alec. Eventually he'd be gone just like Izzy, Jace, and Max.

Shaking off the thought, he glanced down at the cats, surprised to find Persephone watching him. When she had his attention, she weaved between his legs then moved to Adam, butting her head against his shin. "Uh - Do you want me to show you around? That would be the right thing to do?" It'd been so long since he'd been around anyone other than the cats, he wasn't certain what was polite. The Priestess belonged to the temple just as much as Alec did. He could go wherever he wished whether Alec wanted him to or not. "Or if you don't want me to - Persephone likes you. She'd keep you company."

"That'd be the polite thing to do," Adam confirmed. He wasn't much for telling other people how they should act, but the temple guardian clearly was struggling to understand the problem. "I'd rather have the talking guide, though I don't mind if your friends come too. I need to know where to start looking for whatever duties I'm supposed to have."

Twice now Alec had implied that Adam might not want his company, which Adam didn't understand. Usually it was the other way around, people implying they didn't want Adam's company.

Looking away briefly, Alec tried to hide his flush. Of course it would be polite. He knew that... kind of. It seemed right but he didn't really know how to deal with someone being in his space. It was a relief to finally not be alone but it was also strange. He felt almost jittery around Adam, something that he couldn't remember feeling before. "Do you want to go straight to the library or do you want to see the rest of the temple?"

He hoped that Adam would want a real tour of the temple, but he had the feeling that Adam wanted to finish his task as soon as possible. "There's some areas that I can't go into, but you might be able to."

"I want to see everything you'll allow," Adam said. He kept his arms folded over his chest, feeling wary and unwelcome. Supposedly he belonged here, but he didn't feel that yet, and it was hard to believe that he ever would belong in a place like this. "Don't say that the temple chooses. If it decides not to let me in somewhere, fine. You choose what to show me."

Persephone kept winding around his legs and it was soothing, though Adam didn't know what to do about it. He squatted, patting at her carefully. When she seemed amenable to touch and kept pressing closer to him, he picked her up. The two of them squirmed for a moment, figuring out legs and arms and distribution of weight, but Adam caught on quickly enough to how she wanted to be held, and cradled her somewhat like Alec had done with the other cat. She head-butted him and Adam shyly laid his cheek against her forehead. Affection like this was alien to him, and he didn't have any experience handling cats.

"I don't understand." He was trying but he wasn't certain what the temple would allow. Doorways that he could normally use might disappear when Adam was with him. Or Adam might be allowed to visit places that Alec hadn't known existed. He knew that things appeared in the temple that hadn't been there when he'd first arrived. Time moved forward even if it seemed static in this part of reality and sometimes the Angel allowed let Alec pieces of the mortal world. "Why wouldn't I want to show you the areas that I'm allowed into? In some ways this place is more yours than mine."

Shifting from one foot to the other, he was careful not to step on soft paws or lashing tails. The cats seemed to be unfazed by whatever was going on. Alec wished he had that could be that calm. Emily separated from the pride and sat on his boot, forcing him to be still. Which centered him enough that he could watch Adam struggle with how to hold a cat instead of worrying over what he'd done wrong to annoy the temple priestess. Smiling when Persephone demanded attention, Alec rubbed the back of his neck, struggling for something to say that wouldn't sound rude. "I'm almost jealous. It took me weeks to convince her to let me hold her."

Adam smiled a little bit, because he kind of liked Alec jealous. It was better than the temple automaton who just reiterated that the temple would decide what it decided. Whatever that meant.

"Do you have a separate will from the temple or are you just its avatar?" Adam asked.

He didn't know how massive the temple was, and since he only had a couple of hours, he didn't know how much of the temple he would get to see. He glanced at his watch, but it was spinning pointlessly, which was what he'd come to expect for things related to the ley line. He'd just have to hope that his own judgement of time and the flow of time in this place would be enough to get him to work promptly. "Let's go," he said, starting to walk in a direction in order to prompt Alec to start this tour.

Did he have a separate will? Did Adam think he was... "I'm a person." He couldn't quite keep the offense out of his tone. No one remembered him but that didn't mean that he hadn't existed before he'd accepted his duty. It was tempting to use his 'separate will' to let Adam wander the temple on his own, but Alec couldn't quite deny himself the opportunity to be around someone who didn't have paws.

Gently removing Emily from his boot, he followed behind Adam, trying to ignore the strange emotions that had caught him off guard. He wasn't supposed to be offended by the priestess. Or hurt by the idea that he hadn't been been someone before he'd accepted the Angel's request. He was simply the guardian of the temple. Alec was like the cats, not someone important. The priestess chose what happened next. "You're heading toward the orchards."

"People can choose things," Adam pointed out, somewhere between a reprimand and a request. "I only have a couple of hours. Are you going to choose what I should see, or should I just wander?"

As Alec came along with him, Adam slowed his pace a little to fall into step beside him, looking over at Alec to see if the guardian wanted to show him anything in particular, or if he'd have to explore the temple at his own choosing.

"A choice is how I ended up here," he snapped, forgetting that he was supposed to defer to the priestess. The cats seemed to pause, waiting for Alec's reaction to see if Adam had turned into a threat. He didn't want them to attack, but he knew that if he didn't at least act civil, they would decide to run Adam off and through the gates.

Squaring his shoulders, he pushed aside all thoughts but those that were related to the temple and the priestess' work. It had been foolish to think that he was anything except a guard dog - or cat - to the priestess. "Follow me." After a beat, he added, "please" to at least seem civil. Turning away from the orchards, he headed toward the steps that would lead to the temple. "I'll show you the library and then you can decide what your duties will be."

Adam went with him, though it hurt a little that Alec seemed to want to be rid of him as quickly as possible. He supposed it made sense. He was an intruder here, and they'd established that Adam belonged here and had a right to be here. Alec wouldn't want to share what had been his alone for so long, and Adam wasn't particularly likeable.

He stayed quiet as they went, petting idly at Persephone and staring around at their surroundings. He'd never seen anything as magnificent as the temple, and every hallway seemed to open onto new wonders of towering columns and shining marble floors. Adam ached to belong here, though he still didn't believe it. Neither of them knew what it meant for Adam to be the priestess, and it seemed impossible that he could belong in this beautiful place.

Once Adam figured out what his duties were, he'd leave. Alec would be alone. He should be pleased by that but instead he kept dwelling on the things Adam had said. That he wasn't really a person, or the priestess didn't see him as one. Maybe after so long, Alec wasn't really human anymore. It wasn't something he'd really thought of before except in the context of his immortality.

He knew his family was gone. Maybe there were descendants somewhere of the family Alec had grown up with but he had no real connection to the world. Maybe the priestess could have been that link but it was obvious that Adam wanted to do his job and leave. Alec would help him complete his duties and then Adam could return to the mortal world and never think of the temple again.

Something dragged him from that expected future, catching his gaze when there shouldn't have been anything there but marble. His steps slowed when he reached an alcove that he didn't remember. Staring at the statue that he didn't recognize from the thousands of times he'd walked by this particular spot, he swallowed hard. Moving closer, he momentarily forgot that Adam was beside him, staring at the image of the goddess that he knew he would have recognized before. Athena. The goddess that Izzy always wanted him to tell her stories about.

Was the temple making things appear like it somehow did whenever Alec needed something or was this because of something else? "I - the temple likes you too. It's showing you its treasures."

“I wasn’t ever in any doubt about whether the temple liked me. I was invited.” Whether the temple guardian liked him was a much more dubious possibility. The temple had opened to Adam at a touch. The guardian had very nearly skewered him. And Adam was pretty sure he wasn’t making any progress at winning that guardian over. At this rate the knives were going to come out again.

He reached out to the statue, drawn to it, hesitated, and then remembered what Alec had said about permission. The temple wouldn’t let him see anything he wasn’t allowed to touch. Laying his palm on it, he felt a sense of serenity and power thrumming through the stone. “Αθήνα γλαυκῶπις,” he murmured, using the Homeric epithet because it was the one he knew.

“Is she real?” he asked, turning back to Alec. “Like your angel?”

Almost flinching at Adam's comment, Alec kept his head up, refusing to let his shoulders hunch the way they had whenever his parents had lectured him. By the Angel it'd been centuries since he'd thought of that. Time had softened his memories so he usually only remembered the kinder moments with his family.

He almost told Adam not to touch the artwork in front of them. The statue was too beautiful to be sullied by mortal or immortal hands, and then he reminded himself that he was no longer the caretaker of this place. He was the guard, nothing more. There were only two items that were his true responsibility.

"I hope she is, but I don't know. I haven't met her." His sister had believed Athena was real, but he couldn't mention her to Adam. Not to someone who reminded him of everything he'd given up and could never have. "I only met the Angel."

Adam noticed the way Alec seemed to get even tighter when Adam pointed out that Alec didn't like him. He didn't know how to make Alec like him, and everything he did only seemed to make it worse.

"I've only ever met a ley line," Adam joked weakly, giving Alec a faint smile.

Dropping his hand away from the statue, he continued along the way they were going. He admired his surroundings but also kept his attention half on Alec, wary of him. "You don't think I'm worthy," he said. He expected it would make Alec uncomfortable the way it made Aglionby boys uncomfortable that he'd earned his place at the school. The way he consistently proved he was smarter than them. Boys of privilege never took it well that a poor boy was smarter than they were.

"Hopefully ley lines are easier to be around than Angels." Alec relaxed slightly as he spoke, knowing that he had to try to keep some kind of politeness between them. He wasn't exactly sure what would happen if the priestess decided that Alec wasn't necessary for his work. So little of the situation had been explained to him. He had to protect the Cup and the Sword, but the temple had evolved over the centuries without Alec's role in those changes being explained.

As they headed toward the library, he stumbled to a stop when Adam mentioned his assumption about Alec's perception of the situation. Turning to the priestess, he tried to understand why Adam would say that after making it obvious that he knew that he was supposed to be at the temple.

"The gates let you in. The Angel chose you. You have to be worthy or you wouldn't be here." Adam might have been able to force his way to the temple, but the cats wouldn't have accepted him and Alec would have fulfilled his duty whether he wanted to take a life or not.

Emily trilled softly at him, sensing his mood. Picking her up again, he almost smiled as she settled on his shoulder. After he was sure she was stable, he began walking again, quicker than before so that he could avoid whatever Adam was going to say that would make the situation worse.

When he reached the tall double doors leading to the library, he looked up at the carving of the Angel near the top of the panels. There had to be a reason this was happening after so long. Alec just needed to be patient. Pulling open one of the doors, he held it open so Adam could step inside. "The library."

Adam's eyes flicked up toward Alec, almost shy, when Alec held the door for him. It meant a surprising amount to him. Adam was used to being either overlooked or disdained. People didn't hold doors for him.

"Thank you," he murmured, stepping into the library. He half stumbled at the sight of it. Shelves upon shelves of books, stretching up to a second level and spilling into side rooms, all of it as ornate and lofty as a cathedral. It felt sacred, more than anything else Adam had seen so far, and his heart clenched.

For a minute he couldn't do anything but stare, choked with awe and longing. He wanted to ask if he was really allowed here, if he could really come whenever he wanted, but his pride wouldn't permit the question. He'd been invited.

When he could finally manage to compose his thoughts again, he looked over at Alec, hesitant to ask for anything when it was clear that Alec didn't like him. "Any ideas on where to start?"

"You're welcome?" That shouldn't have sounded like a question, but Alec was so surprised that Adam thanked him that he wasn't sure how he should react. Adam acted like he belonged in the temple more than Alec did but he acted shy about Alec holding a door for him. Even with his centuries away from the mortal world, Alec knew basic manners. He hoped.

No matter how often Alec entered the library, he still felt awed by the beauty of the space and the knowledge that he had been placed in his care. Glancing over at Adam, he was surprised that the temple's priestess was reacting in a similar way. He remained silent, letting Adam get used to the grandeur around them and the gift that they had been given.

"Not really. I can tell you what books helped me when I first arrived here. There may be things in them that I missed or that I couldn't read." He flushed slightly as he admitted that, knowing that Adam would think that he was ignorant. "If something is beyond what I'm able to accept as reality, it's a blank page. Sometimes the words appear after I've learned enough to understand the subject." Looking away to focus on the elegant curves that decorated one of the shelves, he waited for Adam to comment on his inability to read some of the books or to dismiss him from the library.

Adam glanced over, startled by the way Alec was staring fixedly at a bit of carving on a shelf. It was uncomfortably familiar to him, the stance of awaiting criticism, though Adam wasn't used to seeing it outside of himself.

"I'd appreciate that," Adam said, studying Alec in profile, curious about the tension and defensiveness, impressed by his strength and power. "Does the temple do that to you, or is it because of ... what you are?"

Alec had mentioned a choice, so Adam assumed that there had been a time before the temple where he'd had an opportunity to read other books. He did not assume that Alec was human, not after their conversation about angels, gods, and time.

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