Ranver sits back from the last of his transcriptions and rubs his bleary eyes. Blinking rapidly he opens them and studies the cramped confines of his room. A room of his own. A very fine thing, that, for a scrub like him. Well, it was his for as long as he served the Temple. Sister Anhela had impressed upon him the importance of 'staying out of trouble' and 'keeping his nose clean.'
*tap* *tap* *tap*
Wait. Did I just...? No, probably just a gust of wind. Some parchment or other shifting.
Sister Anhela had gone to some lengths to snatch him from punishment over a year gone now. She sometimes said she'd seen a spark in young Ranver. And several times since said it 'must have been something in her eye.' He'd been required to shadow her for months. And after that, lacking any other direction of his own, and to tell it true, rather enjoying the work and his mentor's company, stayed on.
*tap* *tap* *tap*
Wait. There it is again. Sounds like bone on wood. Where'd it come from?
Then, last mid-winter, Sister Anhela has put his name forward for investiture. The shrinking clergy were disinclined to grant Sister Anhela the privilege. Couldn't the young man be put to good work for a greater cause? Sister Anhela had only barely resisted the urge to respond to the slight on her small, but vital, domain for fear it would spoil her slim chances at collaring Ranver for once and all.
Ranver had been pursued by other holy orders, puzzled at the sudden attention. But he was certain that he owed his allegiance to Sister Anhela. And increasingly to the Goddess, whose tenets and teachings resonated with the straight-talking young man.
In the end, the church granted Sister Anhela her request. Months of rigorous preparation and study had followed. Catchechism, rites, rituals, prayers, history, traditions. The amount of information boggled the mind. But he had managed to hang on to all of it somehow. And then, at the Spring solstice, feeling quite unprepared for sure, Ranver had been secluded. For fasting, meditation, reflection and purification. He had know way to know, but for the rhythms of his body how much time passed. And then his body even became confused. He prayed and contemplated. And then... the ceremony.
*tap* *tap* *tap*
Whatever it is, it's tapping on the shutter. That's what's making that noise.
Sister Anhela had promised to let him see some texts she promised he would find 'linguistically challenging' if he finished everything before the solstice. He had almost made it. It was close, but high sun had come and gone and he had missed her deadline by a hair's breadth.
Still, Ranver didn't like to leave things undone and had spent the rest of his day scratching like mad, translating the last of a stack of mind-numbingly boring ship's logs they'd uncovered in a folio of cracked, dusty leather. It had been woefully misfiled in the Archives. Sister Anhela had rather expanded Ranver's considerable vocabulary when she discovered them. The old bag was full of wonderful surprises.
*tap* *tap* *tap*
And that fluttering... wings? Is it... is it a bird?
Ranver cocks his head, quizzically...
*CAW*
The young priest scrambles to his feet and opens the shutters. Looking back, it wasn't the smartest move, what with the rain and the crazed bird and the dripping and the freshly completed translations spread across his desk.
The young man's eyes widen as he takes in the birds' strange message.
The words take a moment to register. He'd never been summoned by His Eminence before. Never. Sister Anhela! The bird batters its way back in to the room and shakes Ranver out of his momentary paralysis. He looks at its pathetic, put-upon, rain-soaked body. Mind whirling, he rushes to his desk and uncovers the remains of a snack from earlier in the day and puts the plate up on the shelf near the bird. "Thanks," he mutters disractedly at as he hastily dons his chain shirt. Violence! But why summon me? Unless it is Sister... No. No... I have to hurry.
He throws a cloak over his shoulders, blows out his lamp and heads out. He stops abruptly in the doorway and looks at the confusion of papers the wind let in. In a moment of inspiration he loops his prayer beads over the shutter handles, enough to keep them mostly closed, but with enough room for the crow to leave when it must. The leather thong stretches taut, growing dark with rain, the beads glistening. He winces and sketeches a holy symbol, praying an brief entreaty at his goddess for the slight. He kisses his fingertips, touches his brow and the beads and is gone... into the night and the rain.
---
The door to Gullafar's bangs open and Ranver stumbles in, panting and... armored? Armed even. His short hair is plastered to his face and his eyes are wide and afraid. They register relief as he spots a table of his friends and acquaintances, "Quick, to..." he pauses, gasping for breath, "...to the Sailor's..." more gasping, "Hope. High... Priest. Trouble!"
After he's managed to spit that out, he looks at who is actually assembled... Damn, I'd hoped Zarathas would be here.
