| Flawed Images |
| Summary: | Phin and Bennett commune in the chapel. |
| Date: | 19/05/2013 (OOC Date) |
| Related Logs: | None |
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| Chapel — Deck 3 — Battlestar Orion |
| The chapel is one of the few quiet places to be found on a battlestar. Even rarer still, it's one of the few places that doesn't look like it's part of a battlestar. Heavy blue curtains have been hung from the walls, obscuring the bulkheads. The lights are kept low, adding a certain mystery and gravitas to the space. The central altar is made of a pale grey wood, as are the several rows of pews which extend from it. Laid against the far right wall is a long, low table with several rows of simple white votive candles to be used as vigil lights. Centered among them is a brass plate for burnt offerings from supplicants. Several cushions rest on the floor before the table, where the faithful may kneel to offer their prayers to the Lords and Ladies of Kobol. On the left wall are several compartments which have been sectioned off for private use. |
| AWD #133 |
Bennett's head turns slightly, and possibly by pure instinct, as the motion of the hatch opening disturbs the flutes of heady smoke wisping from the votives before her. The raptor pilot's eyes are perhaps better adjusted to the dark, so she spots the cautiously entering jock immediately. A beat, two, then she drops her head again to return — presumably — to her introspection.
Phin picks up three votive candles, holding them a little awkwardly in one palm. He then turns to look at the altars. Not approaching them right away. Just looking at them. He finally notices Bennett, after she's looked up and as she's putting her head back down. "Oh. Butch. Hey." He sounds maybe a little surprised to see her here. "Sorry to interrupt." Not that he was, really, but he apologizes all the same.
"You're not," murmurs Bennett softly, voicing the obvious with a small smile that touches the corners of her lips. Her eyes briefly track the other pilot's hesitant movements, though she doesn't go so far as to stare. "Do you come here often?" The question's asked gently, like the tips of toes dipped into water to gauge its temperature.
Phin shrugs. Taking a moment to sort of slowly wind, in an almost pacing up, up to the altars. It's the one dedicated to Ares that he stops at first. "More lately. I avoided places like this for awhile. Kind of trying to figure out how I feel about them now. It kind of…it'd be easier not to believe, I think, but I can't quite make myself stick with it." He sounds more resigned to it than anything else. "You?"
Bennett's gaze shifts to Phin's right forearm for a long moment while he speaks, tracing from elbow to wrist, then back to his face by the time he says 'believe'. She laughs, an odd crack of sound in a sepulchral place like this. "Me too." Then, with a resigned breath of her own, she lifts something to her ear — silver, glinting in the candlelight — and loops it through the piercing. "Would you like to say a prayer together? To Ares. I think I know a few."
"Seems like we live in times made to pray to him," Phin says. This, too, he doesn't exactly sound happy about. He puts one of his candles on the god of War's altar and lights it. "Ares, He who glories in war." He notices her look at his arm, shrugging one shoulder. It makes the dolphin on his shoulder - a far jauntier tattoo than the scripture below it - kind of hop. "Sure. Yeah. Anyone you want is fine. I know most of them, and one's as good as another."
Bennett's only response to Phin's diffidence is a soft 'hm', and a rustle of movement as she shifts to become more comfortable. After a few seconds spent in pensive silence, she begins; her voice is melodic and sweet, not terribly fitting for an ode to the god of battles. "Ares, impetuous one who takes joy in strife, keen-bladed god, beloved of Aphrodite.."
Phin bows his head and, after she's started, recites along with her by rote. This is something plainly engraved on his brain, diffident about it or no. "Steadfast Ares, friend of those who struggle in vain, giver of might drawn from desperation, of skill born of muscle and bone, of devotion to one's comrades of proven worth, I honor you." His own voice is kept in a soft undertone. Less trumpeting, more something he feels he owes to say.
"Bold Ares," Soft gives way to something more passionate; a low thrum in her voice like the ship's engines heard in every massive bulkhead wall. "Fierce champion, unyielding foe, you who survives, I pray to you. Peerless Ares, in the single strike, the killing blow, we see you-"
"-In strength of will, in battle joined in faith or fear, in an unbroken spirit we know you. Grant me strength, son of of Zeus, guide my hand at need, my heart at impact. So say we all." Phin exhales as he finishes the prayer, taking a backward step away from the altar. A tilts his head to one side, watching Bennett. "Did you ever wonder…?" But he trails off, in asking whatever he was going to ask.
Bennett lifts her chin a fraction and echoes, "So say we all." The heat has left her voice, and only the drowsy warmth remains, melting into half a smile when Phin glances over at her. She blinks twice to clear her eyes, and shifts to her feet smoothly. "Did I ever wonder?" A quick little huff of air as she blows out one candle, and then the other, which had been placed in front of Dionysus' figure at the table; one still wafts jasmine, and the other elderberry, mingled with acrid smoke.
Phin glances over at Dionysus altar, then back at Bennett. "Did you ever wonder…and I don't mean any offense but…I mean. I used to think about this when I was coming up. Say it's all true. The gods made us. They've got plans for us all, for the whole universe." And he doesn't sound like he disbelieves. If anything, this is another matter he's resigned himself to. "And they build in things like madness, war. Impulses to lose it and kill each other. Do you ever wonder…why?"
Bennett's expression sobers a touch, though she does not take her eyes off Phin as he speaks his mind. A furrow forms briefly between her brows, then smoothes again. "I suppose.. I suppose I don't believe they do. Have plans for us all." She pauses, then steps away to retrieve her fatigue jacket from a nearby pew she'd slung it over. It's pulled on as she continues, "But if they did. And they made us as we are, flawed and broken and…" She glances back up at the viper jock. "We were made in their image, weren't we?" She, unlike Phin, does not sound resigned, convinced or even certain.
Phin lets out a soft "Heh." And nods. "Yeah. We are that. So say we all." He moves on, placing his second candle on the altar to Aurora. He digs another match out of his pockets to light it. "What do you think? If you don't mind my asking." He smiles a little ruefully. "If you don't believe in special destinies, I mean." Another soft "Heh." Whatever he thinks of the concept of predestination, he's aware it sounds very silly put like that.
"I think…" The word is left to hang for a few moments, as she watches Phin light his votives. She seems to be weighing two things, though it may not be clear just what those things are. "I think the gods are too busy with their own problems to worry about ours," she settles on, voice soft and a little sad. A breath, and an apologetic smile, cool fingers laid briefly on his arm. "I'm sorry. Enjoy the rest of your prayer, Doll." It's like she doesn't know his callsign is Dolly.
"No apologies, Butch." Phin doesn't mind variable uses of his callsign. "I asked. Been thinking about this stuff lately. I guess lots of people have, though. Times we live in, and stuff. He bows his head again to his altar and speaks, a little less by rote. Like these are words he hasn't quite memorized so perfectly he can call them up in a snap, "At the hour when bright-eyed Aurora comes up to light the eastern sky, and all the paths stand out and the fields glisten with dew…Not ye had the wakeful dawn put all the stars to flight from heaven, what time Aurora scatters the clouds in hurrying rout, and prepares the wide firmament for the return of the sun."
She remains a little while longer, quiet and yet not, for those of Dionysus tend to have a subtle energy about them even when still. And then, after a time, the warmth of her falls away and she slips off for the hatch, to permit him finish his devotion in solitude.