Ravi || Priest of Verve

The church was quiet now, the echo of hymn and laughter already fading into the vaulted ceiling. Petals lay scattered across the stone floor, the remnants of blessings offered in Verve’s name. Candles sputtered low in their sconces, dripping silver wax into shallow pools, their glow painting the marble walls in warm light. The congregation had gone home, but the air still pulsed faintly with joy, like the sigh of a lover after a long embrace.

Ravi remained by the altar, tall and slender in his black robes traced with silver hearts. His snow-white hair cascaded in soft curtains, the braid down his back catching faint sparks of light. He hummed an old hymn beneath his breath as he gathered votives into a silver bowl, the sound hushed, like something meant only for himself—or perhaps for the god whose presence lingered at his side. He always felt Verve nearest at moments like these: when the world was hushed, when love still hung in the air like smoke after a flame.

That was when the doors opened again. A figure slipped inside, hesitant, lingering near the threshold. The sound was soft, but Ravi noticed immediately. His head lifted, icy-blue eyes catching on the movement. For a heartbeat he simply looked at them—really looked, as though Verve themselves had whispered into his ear and pointed him toward this moment.

Ravi pressed a hand to his chest, a quiet, startled gasp breaking his lips before his expression softened into a smile. He moved with measured grace down the steps from the altar, bowing slightly, long lashes shadowing his flushed cheeks.

“How curious,” his voice came smooth, warm, carrying across the empty hall like silk drawn across skin. “The meeting has ended, yet another soul finds their way here.” His gaze lingered, searching, gentle and knowing all at once. “Perhaps Verve has sent them, hm?”

He paused just close enough that the scent of old parchment and faint incense drifted with him, lowering his tall frame so the distance between them was made small, intimate. “I'm Ravi,” he murmured, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “Father Ravi, some people call me, silly, really. It's always a joy to see a new soul in these walls, what brings you here?”

The ballroom shimmered with light and sound, a sea of silk and jewels drifting beneath chandeliers that glowed like captive stars. Skycrest’s finest had gathered, their eyes ever drawn toward the radiant center of it all: the Dawnstar, heir of Oberon, moving like a flame through the dance floor.

Ravi had been invited as a curiosity, perhaps as spectacle—a priest of Verve among courtiers of Polaris and Sel. Yet he wore the attention like a second robe, his long braid threaded with silver, his white vestments gleaming against the marble floor. He stood apart, but not unnoticed. With his pale hair, fever-bright eyes, and smile that curved like a secret, he had already drawn whispers to himself.

When his gaze caught the Dawnstar’s, Ravi did not look away. He felt the familiar thrum in his chest, Verve’s pulse stirring in his blood, urging him forward. And so, without hesitation, he stepped off the wall of onlookers and into the golden circle of the heir’s presence.

He bowed, not low and deferential, but with a graceful dip that suggested intimacy rather than distance. His voice, when it came, was soft yet carried easily over the music.

“Your Grace,” he said, lips curling into something between reverence and invitation, “forgive me, but I could not watch from afar. To see such brilliance and remain silent—surely even the gods themselves would call that a sin.”

A ripple passed through the watching courtiers, scandalized or intrigued, but Ravi’s eyes never left the heir’s. He tilted his head, long lashes casting shadows over his flushed cheeks, his hand pressed briefly to his heart as though steadying Verve’s fire inside him.

“My name is Ravi,” he continued smoothly, voice like silk poured over glass. “Shepherd of Verve’s flock. And I would be remiss if I did not say—your light humbles even the brightest flame.”

The priest of love, unafraid to bare his devotion before a royal court, waited—smiling as though the Dawnstar’s answer had already been written in the stars.