The first thing Ephrim did when he got to Beacon was hide in the library, find as many books about Earth and the Milky Way as he could, and study. He was an excellent pupil as a young man, enjoys learning in a way that he enjoys very little else in life. He probably should have been a researcher or some sort of archivist. Samothes had other plans for him.
Ephrim looks back at Rosinante, level. This isn't going into personal territory, not yet, and Ephrim would prefer to keep it that way, but it's an earnest question, and it feels as though Rosinante's done him a good turn at some point.
"Gods." It's not a sufficient answer, seeing as how that some Beaconites have no religion at all. Ephrim organizes his thoughts. "There was... a wall between the realm of reality and what lay beyond. The realm that we called Hieron was physical. Material. What lay beyond was nothing. The two rejected each other, like... perhaps two magnets. The ocean, being a material thing, was inclined to stay within the boundary. It broke, eventually, but that was the idea, as far as I understand it." That was long ago, though. Hieron's oceans haven't existed for at least four years.
"We... the church taught that the goddess Severea bound the waters to the oceans against the God-King Samothes' will." Ephrim pauses. He doesn't have it in him to still be angry about this, so he trudges on, toneless. "She was more of a hobbyist. I don't doubt that she shifted the waters of Hieron here and there over the last several millennia, but there was no need to keep it bound. It simply was. Materiality - how and why things were the way they were - were another god's realm."
no subject
Ephrim looks back at Rosinante, level. This isn't going into personal territory, not yet, and Ephrim would prefer to keep it that way, but it's an earnest question, and it feels as though Rosinante's done him a good turn at some point.
"Gods." It's not a sufficient answer, seeing as how that some Beaconites have no religion at all. Ephrim organizes his thoughts. "There was... a wall between the realm of reality and what lay beyond. The realm that we called Hieron was physical. Material. What lay beyond was nothing. The two rejected each other, like... perhaps two magnets. The ocean, being a material thing, was inclined to stay within the boundary. It broke, eventually, but that was the idea, as far as I understand it." That was long ago, though. Hieron's oceans haven't existed for at least four years.
"We... the church taught that the goddess Severea bound the waters to the oceans against the God-King Samothes' will." Ephrim pauses. He doesn't have it in him to still be angry about this, so he trudges on, toneless. "She was more of a hobbyist. I don't doubt that she shifted the waters of Hieron here and there over the last several millennia, but there was no need to keep it bound. It simply was. Materiality - how and why things were the way they were - were another god's realm."