Gyrfalcon's Keep That's when you can't give up the fight

Not far from the temple, the high priestess summons their newest, @Velaryon. 

I trust you have had time to settle? She inquires politely upon his arrival.

A plain rule Asvoria always seems to follow: never rush, or you'll scare them away. Humorous, but oftentimes true. If one feels too rushed, they may lose interest or find themselves too intimidated to stick around.

With their desperate need of fighting souls, it would be a foolish move to let this one leave too quickly.

a summons rises in the air for him.

velaryon cuts a path through the damp earth towards the place he has come to know is called the 'temple'. upon arrival, he sees the highpriestess and dips his head to her.

in recognition for her rank; religious connotations put aside.

yes. velaryon speaks truthfully.

He speaks.

Then I shall not wait to place you. She answered decidedly, knowing she could not afford wasting a single body among them.

Where is it you might see yourself? A guardian, mayhaps? For Solveig had suggested this before.

she speaks of placement within the ranks and follows it by a question.

what did he see himself as?

so many things, the leviathan wishes to answer.

he takes a moment of quieted breaths to consider before speaking, guardian is acceptable.

As the assumption had been made, this man chose to be guardian. Something the Keep so desperately needed.

Then guardian you shall be, She agrees, a light dip of her head to follow.

But that is not all. As Solveig seems to hold faith in you... perhaps even fondness— For this had not gone unnoticed. —I will give you a choice. You may either choose to remain here as guardian to the keep and all who walk it as a whole, or become sacred protector to our temple. It is there you will ensure that none enter that the gods do not allow, as well as defend the privacy of all priests, priestesses, and their pupils. As of now, there is only myself and my pupil. But your work will be just as necessary.

Which would he decide upon, she wondered?

rusalka, a testament to the stereotypical manspecies, finds a soft swell of surprise at her words: particularly the ones that solveig appeared to hold a potential fondness for him. he might argue, brooding as he is, that it was simply because the intensity of their trip to this keep: and the fact that he'd not fought to give into his own desires.

an unfair assumption, but one that the cairn was stubbornly willing to cling to.

a choice is presented to him, and rusalka mulls it over.

guard the borders or guard her sacred temple.

the only temple he personally prayed to was the one of his own whims: largely revolving around the sea, but it was in it's own way very much apart of his life, apart of his creation, apart of his very dna.

would your gods spurn a protector of your temple that does not believe? or was a protector just that: a protector without strings. without religious expectations?

her answer, though the question was presented in an overly important manner, would matter in what he ultimately chose.

He had asked a question of her that she had thought of many times prior. Her answer would always be the same.

So long as you do not speak ill of our ways, our gods, or wish destruction and chaos within the walls of our temple, you will not be turned away.

What he chose to believe was at no fault. How could they behave as if it were so?

the lack of religious expectations of a protector of the temple is ...relieving. rusalka might not pin himself as a man of religion, but the closest he had ever came was his sort of worship and reverence for the sea.

and that was the closest he was ever wont to come.

then i will stand guard of the temple. border guards, he assumes, would be more common and easier to find.