Anger shivers through Kahl; he feels like sea ice, ever-cracking.
"If you spoke in the language of truth, your tongue would split your head," Kahl breathes, a quiet whisper that rolls out of him like - like light shining behind the world, casting sharp shadows that betray the true shapes of all things. The Godstongue Kahl speaks - the one the scriveners crib a few dead static words from, to make every scrap of mortal magic in that world go - is the langue of making what is real.
He can feel the thin pressure of the Narrenschiff, the box around him that will not let itself be interfered with, but within it, they are all only matter and energy and process and soul, and all things ordered and dissolving can be dissolved and re-ordered, re-described, re-named, if named in the Godstongue. But he says nothing that is not already true, so it takes no power from him, to force the world into the shape he has spoken.
Asmodeus is hurting Zerxus at every moment. But Kahl does not say that in the Godstongue, lest he curse them both, and bind the strength of his speech to the fact of it.
And then he is not speaking the universe anymore, and the edges of him no longer picked out in silhouette; he is not a mad child who has gone from prison to prison to prison, a vengeance that will be forever unsatisfied, all his tragedy and erratic strangeness illuminated in the harshness of truth shining from his own mouth. He is only a scrawny red-headed teenager again, with no trappings of visible power apart from his life-green poison eyes.
"But I know what you meant," he mutters in common, looking away.
He's still paying attention, of course. Asmodeus's word means nothing to him at all. But he will accept it as a sign of intent for the next minute, the next seconds, even if it is only intent to bring harm in a different way than the ones Kahl has forbidden. And Kahl doesn't want to be looking with his regular eyes if they're going to kiss or something.
Re: Narrenschiff, Day One
"If you spoke in the language of truth, your tongue would split your head," Kahl breathes, a quiet whisper that rolls out of him like - like light shining behind the world, casting sharp shadows that betray the true shapes of all things. The Godstongue Kahl speaks - the one the scriveners crib a few dead static words from, to make every scrap of mortal magic in that world go - is the langue of making what is real.
He can feel the thin pressure of the Narrenschiff, the box around him that will not let itself be interfered with, but within it, they are all only matter and energy and process and soul, and all things ordered and dissolving can be dissolved and re-ordered, re-described, re-named, if named in the Godstongue. But he says nothing that is not already true, so it takes no power from him, to force the world into the shape he has spoken.
Asmodeus is hurting Zerxus at every moment. But Kahl does not say that in the Godstongue, lest he curse them both, and bind the strength of his speech to the fact of it.
And then he is not speaking the universe anymore, and the edges of him no longer picked out in silhouette; he is not a mad child who has gone from prison to prison to prison, a vengeance that will be forever unsatisfied, all his tragedy and erratic strangeness illuminated in the harshness of truth shining from his own mouth. He is only a scrawny red-headed teenager again, with no trappings of visible power apart from his life-green poison eyes.
"But I know what you meant," he mutters in common, looking away.
He's still paying attention, of course. Asmodeus's word means nothing to him at all. But he will accept it as a sign of intent for the next minute, the next seconds, even if it is only intent to bring harm in a different way than the ones Kahl has forbidden. And Kahl doesn't want to be looking with his regular eyes if they're going to kiss or something.