He...was calling Her Mother Sun again...
Niamh nearly choked on the wine when she took another sip, surprised that he'd used Her name again. Was he...accepting Her? Or...what? After all, proper name or not, if you called Her "Mother Sun" you were as good as calling Her your mother, your creator, which is what Niamh and the other faithful Solisi believed--that Mother Sun had created everything, the good, the bad...She had even created darkness. After all, it was light that cast shadows. Hmm...she'd have to tell Nexus more, though then again, it might irritate him; she still remembered their old conversation from weeks ago and how he had mocked her faith. So confusing. Quickly, Niamh swallowed the liquid down without coughing too much, and then she just held the wineskin between her hands, which didn't feel quite so icy anymore thanks to the torchlight.
"That's how?" she asked, looking past him toward the small crack beneath the door, almost longingly, before turning to watch him again incredulously. Jeez...he was good. She couldn't tell what position Mother Sun was at in the sky just by looking at light beneath a door! Weird as it was, it almost made her, well...jealous, and annoyed. Here a heathen could tell these things and she couldn't!
That uncomfortable feeling quickly passed, luckily, as Nexus went on to explain, well, to kind of explain. Niamh had no idea how he was planning to accomplish that or what kind of spells he could use, but she was interested. While normally the thought of magic would unnerve her (as the Solisi ability to control fire, heat, and light wasn't considered by them to be magic), and especially the thought of Nexus using his strings, at the same time she was curious and a little fascinated. Nexus seemed to have an ability to control light to some extent; after all, he'd lit that torch and controlled its brightness, something Niamh wasn't yet skilled enough to do. And something she also tried not to think much on, because that also made her a bit irritated.
Goddess...as much as she loathed him, his story had also stuck in her head, as well as those small similarities that she'd pointed out--dammit. That "Goddess" of his tortured him so much...she made him that way. She still wasn't convinced that it was an actual Goddess, but whatever entity it was, it was obviously bad and had him enslaved. If Nexus just abandoned that idol of his, he could be cleansed--and that would work well for the both of them, wouldn't it?
Crap, she was not feeling actual sympathy for the man just because he had shown her some random kindness by, well, healing her from wounds he had inflicted and treating her relatively well in a horrible situation that he was responsible for. It made <I>no sense! It was just...she didn't even know. It was best not to think about it.
Of course, that small bit of sympathy she felt would have probably evaporated back into pure hatred if she had known what was going on his head right about then, concerning strings and ribbons.
"Really? Hmm. That's good to know..." Niamh tilted her head and looked at the wineskin contemplatively. Only enough to dull the senses a bit, huh? Okay, that was a relief, then, because it didn't exactly taste bad and she really was thirsty after all that struggling and running and sweating the day before. She also hadn't drank anything since a few hours before she'd been captured and hauled off to the warehouse, yet if the amount in the wineskin had been enough to get her even a little drunk, she wouldn't have touched it at all. Reassured and completely unaware that Nexus couldn't get drunk and that the information he was relaying came from experienced drinkers, she continued to sip at it.
She'd have to ask Nexus for water or something later, when he wasn't so busy. But she was also reluctant to ask. That would probably mean him leaving for a bit, which either meant she'd be left behind and tied up to ensure she couldn't escape, or he'd take her with him as that "Tiama" thing. Ergh...
There was no time to worry about it, though, because soon enough she was thoroughly distracted as Nexus finally went to work.
Holy Mother...
Niamh didn't know how he managed to do it, but the room started to fill with light, and all seeming to come from that small crack at the door. But if she'd thought that was amazing, well, Nexus was soon going all out, hanging those strings from the ceiling like vines, a few on the floor, and all she could do was gape and watch, and for the first time since being taken captive she was completely without fear. Wonder replaced that, Mother Sun's light flooding the dingy warehouse, and the place started to look, well...a little surreal and far more alive with those silver vines projecting light everywhere. The room was no longer a dark, mysterious place where hidden dangers lurked, and the space suddenly didn't feel quite so confining. The walls were still there, yes, and that sense of being shut in was still there, but there was no longer all that suffocating darkness,
It didn't seem like a long time had passed, everything seemed to move so quickly, and her body was starting to feel warmer already. She waited patiently as he took his break before finishing up that final vine--and soon after her body was flooded with light, and she couldn't help but close her eyes in relief and even pleasure as warmth and strength coursed through her, a sense of completion filling what had once felt empty. Nothing was better than this, simply basking in sunlight--even if she wasn't outside. It was as close as she could get, and this light still came directly from Her.
After a moment she opened her eyes, shifted the blanket off her and shrugged off Nexus' coat, no longer needing them. It wasn't that she was hot; she just felt completely comfortable now, alive. Of course, the downside was that she was also full of energy and, well...she was forced to remain stationary. Oh well. Couldn't win them all, and she was grateful for what she got at this point.
Hell, she even managed a small grin over at Nexus as he sat down looking pretty beat. The sunlight had obviously brightened her spirits--though the half-empty wineskin that she held might have played some part in that, too. "Perfectly," she answered, still smiling, not even squinting in the light. "I don't know how you did that, Nexus...but...yeah, I'm not cold or anything anymore." She stretched a little, arms over her head, and drew in a deep breath. "Thank you, really."
As much as she may not have wanted to admit it...Nexus had done some elaborate work just to bring the sunlight in for her, to make her comfortable. He hadn't had to do it. He could have just been a sadistic bastard about it like he had been in the beginning. But instead he went through all that trouble...and...
It really was strange...
