Fantasy DARK ASCENSION . † heartstringss & syntra

[heartstringss]

DARK ASCENSION:
an original story
by
heartstringss & Syntra
​

 

[Syntra]

Most of all, the man groveling at her feet resembled a locust-- he was was small and thin, with his brown eyes entirely too big for his head. And the position he found himself in, with his hands clasped as if in prayer? Very insect-like as well, Cizrna thought. (A pathetic worm, soon to be crushed under her boot. What was his name, even? He had said it at some point, she was sure, but she hadn't bothered to etch it into her memory. Her mind, after all, didn't exist to be stained with such filth.)

"P-please," he sobbed, "don't do this. I will tell you anything. Anything you need to know, my lady."

"Lady, huh?" Cizrna chuckled. The sound was pleasant, like the the toll of a bell or perhaps the gurgle of a waterfall, but the cracking that followed shortly after? You know, when she stepped on his hand, and his fingers shattered? Oh, that was something straight out of the realm of nightmares. "I'm no lady, my friend. Ladies love their sweet, sweet little lies, you see, while I happen to despise them. Do you understand what I'm getting at?" she batted her eyelashes in a manner that might have been considered charming, or cute, even, had she still not been standing on his freaking hand. Yeah, that tended to change one's perspective! (Especially if you also happened to be wearing boots lined with steel, just like Cizrna was. Armor wasn't something she utilized often, mostly because the reduced maneuverability wasn't really worth it, but this little touch? Always great for interrogations, really. Nothing like a heavy boot in a motherfucker's face first thing in the morning!)

"Yes! Yes, I-- I understand!"

"Just to clarify," the mercenary smiled sweetly, revealing a row of perfect teeth, "it means that if you lie to me, I will find you. It matters not how well you hide, really. I have a lot of free time, many friends in the right places, and a very developed ability to hold grudges. So, in conclusion, I will nail your lying tongue on my wall as a trophy if you try me. Understood?"

That seemed to push the man over the edge-- the only sounds that came out of his mouth were sobs, and he was shaking like grass in the wind. (Which, good. People were always more honest if you broke them first, and Cizrna wasn't taking any chances with this contract. Oh no, no, no. If the gods themselves demanded this swan song of hers, this one last dance, then they would get it. Because, if her life could be spared in return? She'd burn people, cities, countries-- the entire world could burn for all she cared, the rotten thing it was.)

"Very well," she knelt and caressed her chin, almost gently. The gentleness in her touch evaporated, though, the second Cizrna grabbed it and made him face her. "The bastards who worship Marein. Where can I find them?"

***

When entrusting this task to her, Allfather had said that the cult of Marein was sinful. That they spat in the face of the Divine Phoenix, and seduced the righteous children of fire into following their wicked ways. For all of that, and many other transgressions, they needed to be purged. And Cizrna's opinion? Oh, she didn't give a single flying fuck, actually. Sinful this, sinful that-- even her grandmother, who had never left the village she had been born in, probably had a few sins under her belt, and thus deserved the holy touch of Cleansing Fire. So, no, she didn't really take this seriously. It was entirely possible that the cultists didn't deserve to die-- that their only crime was believing the Divine Phoenix had been reborn six times, not seven times, and for some reason, that was a grand heresy. (Blah, blah, blah, sacred numbers, blah, blah, blah, the holy doctrine. Look, if you want to understand, go ask someone who didn't repeatedly fall asleep during Ministrations!)

...that, however, didn't mean that Cizrna didn't take her job seriously. Oh no, those were two separate things. You could still kill without believing in your cause, you see? (And her sword-- her sword thirsted for blood, alright. For blood, and the sweet symphony composed of screams.)

The entrance was exactly where the man had said it would be-- in a well, old and dry and decrepit. An underground settlement? Not gonna lie, it really seems they have a lot to hide. The darkness it was shrouded in was deep, much like anthracite, but Cizrna dared not light a fire. No, that would be like knocking on their door, and they didn't really need to know she was there. (Fair combat? Pffft! A concept invented by those who didn't value their lives enough. Corpses could keep their honor if they yearned for it so deeply, but they couldn't make her join them!)

Eventually, her eyes got used to the darkness, and... it seemed to be an old mine, actually? An old mine filled with houses, tiny and practically glued to one another. They'd seen better days, Cizrna thought, and--

"By Marein! Who are you? What are you doing here?"

So much for stealth, I suppose.

"Why, a mere visitor," Cizrna smiled, and unsheathed her sword. "And I bring you the gift of death. Aren't you happy?"

***

Ugh. Why does blood cling to clothes so much? It was obvious she would never be able to clean this shirt, and Cizrna liked it, dammit. Well, at least she hadn't met much resistance? Or rather, the resistance had been great, but resisting with your bare hands didn't mean much. Not when your opponent had steel, anyway. (Did they not understand what guards were for, or did they perhaps think their faith was greater than the sword? ...if that was the case, they deserved everything they'd gotten and more.)

Cizrna walked, walked and walked, her boots making a soft 'cling' sound with every step, till she reached what seemed to be a chapel-- a good place for storing holy relics, she guessed, and a holy relic was exactly what she was supposed to procure. "Hello?" the mercenary called into the emptiness. 'Hello, hello, hello,' an echo responded. "Is anyone there?" Because, uhhh... Cizrna kinda realized she didn't know what Marein's Vessel looked like, actually, which could be a problem. So, hopefully she'd be able to find someone nice and helpful? Someone whose throat she could threaten to slit, maybe? Yes, that sounded like a plan.

 

[heartstringss]

'When you go in, make sure that you keep to the shadows, child. They will fear you more if they cannot see you. Do you understand?'

'But why must they fear me at all, Father?'

'Because you are Holy and they are full of Sin; therefore, it is your job to Cleanse them, see?'

''Cleanse them'? Do you mean… But if I touch them, won't that kill them?'

'Yes… but you must remember there is nothing to fear in Death, child. Death is the natural way of things, the most perfect ending, the sweetest escape of all. Death cleanses the soul. You have a gift, child; a gift given to you by Marein himself, and thus you must remember to use it wisely. You shall go in, read them for all their worth, and at long last when you are done, then you will release them -- release them so that then they shall be Free of Sin. Make no mistake -- this alone is your purpose in our world; there is no other.'

'Yes, Father…'

¤ ¤ ¤​

A mere child. That is what she was when they first started using her for their own means and purposes -- a child. It is difficult for her to try to recollect the actual age she was when it began; no matter how far back she tries to go, the entire timeline consists of nothing but tragedy, or at least she can remember nothing else. There has been no brief interlude of happiness, no chance for peace or solitude, no calm before the storm. (Instead, the storm just rages on as if it owns her entire life. It does this always, and in a way, it almost begs the question: did it? Perhaps. After all, the list was long enough already -- what was one more name to add into its fabric?)

Chains rattle across the floor (perhaps existing only in her mind) as she picks her way through the dark on her path up to the subject. He sits square in the center of the room, momentarily gagged but still whimpering pathetically, so pathetically it's difficult for her to convince herself he's truly earned this. His hands are bound behind him, the ropes so tight she can see the fabric cutting into his skin. The bindings cut off the circulation to his fingers, turning them various shades of black and purple in a way that's sure to cause permanent damage (which is only a concern if he were to live through this in this first place, which of course she knows he isn't, as she wouldn't be here if he were).

She's sick already with their cruelty, with the splatters of blood smeared across his chest showing that he'd been beaten before her arrival; with the quality of his breath, so tight and ragged, strained as if he might have been operating with at least one or two broken ribs. His face is a mottled display of bruises but she can only see it from a side view. When she steps forward and places her hand gingerly onto his shoulder, he swivels his head around in alarm, but cast into the shadows he cannot see his attacker, and perhaps that is for the best because what happens next? It might be better the less you know, anyway.

Or at least that's what she thinks is the best course of action, although no matter how hard she tries to get away with doing her work faced away, they always want her to approach the subjects directly now. A certain step has been added to the ritual since she has come of age, now that she's technically old enough to understand its worth. While she understands the weight it holds, she wants nothing more than to fight it, to at least go back to the old way when she'd been just a child and they'd only made her do the killings from behind. These were prisoners, they reasoned, as if one could simply ignore that they were also human beings with thoughts and feelings, lives outside of Marein with their very own worth and purpose. Not that she understood the meaning of a life outside of Marein in the first place -- while she's never experienced it herself, on some level, suppose she does know the surface exists in some way or another; otherwise, where were these men coming from in the first place?

Traitors of the faith, they said. It matters not where they originate, what they've done beyond their greatest sin. She need not dwell on their humanity, Father says, nor on the emotion they will likely try to provoke in her in their final moments. She must only focus on her task, on the Readings and the Judgments; on the Delivery Free from Sin; on the Kiss.

The Kiss of Death, to be exact. (Perhaps they've taken it a touch too literally, no? After all, she was partly human herself too... wasn't this a bit too cruel towards her just as well as them? And yet this was the way it always had been, the way it always would be, the way it was meant to be. Purpose, purpose, purpose. There was no other; her entire life she had been reduced to only this. More a creature of immaculate worth for her lineage with Marein than a living being for the part of her that was human; even still, she was also more an object or a tool than a Goddess, really.)

She tries to hold back all emotion as she works her hand over this man's bare shoulder, feeling goosebumps raise all along his skin beneath the cold, so cold, touch of her own. She trails her fingers from point to point, across one shoulder over to the next, and when she steps around to face his front, she can tell by the look in his eyes her touch is already having an effect.

He clearly hadn't expected her to be a woman, but when she kneels down and places her lips to his forehead, holding that one point of contact an uncomfortably long thirty seconds or more, it's not pleasure that he feels. No, no, no. Instead, it's an emotional anguish remarkably deeper than anything he's ever felt before, physical torment that could rival any beating, perhaps even the Fires of Hell themselves. She is Death: beautiful but cold, both sweet and dangerous at the very same time. [/SIZE]

¤ ¤ ¤​

They leave her be once she's finished up her task, once the corpse has been hauled away and there is nothing more to do. She retires to her chambers as soon as possible, requesting a servant to help her draw a bath. The feel of the man's skin growing colder as the life drained from his body clings to both her memory and her skin, and while she can't do much to remedy her tortured soul, she can do a little about her skin.

The servant woman does not help her undress. There were ways that she could, if she truly wanted to -- however, it is clear she does not, and beyond that, she is also not allowed. Instead, she keeps to the far side of the room, watching the little goddess with eyes that don't abstain from harshness, from wariness, from pure hatred, even.

She does her best to block it out, but it seems instead that everything cuts into her soul; it digs down into her marrow and buries itself deep inside her bones, making a home out of her skeleton. If one looked close, it was fairly easy to read her emotions. Etched into the pinched lines of her face, pooled within the wetness of her eyes, she is not nearly as strong as she should be; even as a deity, she is not immune to judgment, to worry, to sadness and doubt, depression and anger. She is not the same solid rock as Marein; where she had every right to be a pious fool same as the cultists, instead she was far, far too sensitive. Call it the human in her, maybe.

Tears drip down her face but she ignores them, stripping off the last article of clothing before she steps forward and begins to work herself into the scalding hot water of her bath. It burns in a way that isn't good, but she doesn't mind. Let it hurt, let it burn, hell, let it scar for all she cares. Pain is nothing new; just because they couldn't touch her didn't mean there weren't still ways to punish her, it just meant the punishments had to be more carefully orchestrated, her wounds mostly self-inflicted.

If she could dip her head underneath the water and let herself drown and knew she'd truly die, she'd do it in a heartbeat. A life like this was hardly a life at all; she is tired of being an object, tired of hurting, tired of being their executioner. Any other life is unperceivable. Escape is unobtainable. She will live here the entire rest of her days, perhaps even rot here, if that were even possible in the first.

¤ ¤ ¤​

She doesn't sleep. Instead, she retires to the 'safety' of her quarters (ironically enough, a room built into a secret area at the far back of the chapel), taking with her only her broken pride and her depression. Padding on bare feet along the cold dusty floor, she barely even notices the chill separate from that of her own skin. She's layered up same as always, cloaked in fabric topped with furs, but still she shivers underneath. Her breath fogs the air before her but that's hardly anything new either; she's used to everything by now, the conditions of her home familiar, though far from a comfort. (If one could even call it a home.)

Once she's back inside her room, she collects her stack of books from the floor nearest the small cot deemed as her bed. Sitting down atop the thin mattress, she digs her spine into cement as she leans back against the wall, letting the firmness of the pressure act as punishment all its own. A shaky sigh slips past her lips; her long dark hair is still slightly damp, pale eyes flickering across the titles of different tomes on medicinal herbs, plant classification, Latin, and runes. It's all she has inside the space -- a small lantern, her books, and her mattress. There is nothing else; not even her clothes reside within the same room. If she were to wish to change, she would have to call upon a servant. If she wished for food, water, an extra blanket… Who knew a deity could be just as much a prisoner as the greatest scum of the earth?

She loses track of time reading, letting her mind wander with the absorption of text. Though she's never seen hardly any of the plants within her books, these are things she can find comfort in. She revels in the peace and quiet, in the absence of all expectation; in the absence of worship and the fear that comes with it. It's better this way -- alone -- even if it's lonely. Some people just weren't meant to exist among others; she was one of those people.

That is, until a voice travels through the dark from the close-by still-empty blackness of the chapel. Her head snaps up with the echo, startled at the sound of a voice she does not recognize. The words are odd, inspiring feelings that whoever's out there, they do not belong.

She knows what she should do, that she should stay quiet, keep to the shadows, and try to make herself scarce as possible. Instead, curiosity overwhelms her. It's that same morbid curiosity which inspires her to set her books aside, rise from her bed and wander over to the doorway so that she can peek outside and see the intruder. 'Is anyone there?' they ask, the person's voice making it clear they are a woman. They don't even try to hide themselves -- they want to be found, almost seem to hope for it. This is very much a trap, and yet, even as she can recognize that easily, still the little goddess ends up hopelessly snared within.

She steps out into the open, trailing to the front room of the chapel so that she can better see the mercenary through the dark. When she reaches the altar, one of the only spaces in the room with any light (namely, the light of dozens, possibly even hundreds of candles collected at the feet of Marein's statue), she stops. She is careful to maintain her distance, keeping a good 15-20 feet between her and the mercenary. Looking through the dark at the woman stranger with their sword and their heavy metal boots and the blood splattered across their chest, she feels the urge to fold her arms protectively across herself, but instead she keeps them down at her sides.

"Who are you?" She calls eventually, when she can at long last muster up her voice. It is hoarse from a severe lack of use, however, it echoes through the empty quiet of the chapel easily enough. Soft-spoken as she is, her words are phrased with an air of authority. She cares not for the sword or the blood. She only cares for the intrusion to her peace. "You do not belong here. What is it you want?"

 

[Syntra]

As Cizrna walked through the chapel and took the scenery in, all those columns and statuettes and symbols painted in what had to be blood, only one word came to her mind: a cesspool. A cursed fucking cesspool, just like the Allfather had claimed! (A metaphorical one, mind you, because the real deal? Unpleasant as it was, it actually served a meaningful purpose. The filth had to be stored somewhere, you see, and in providing the space for that, cesspools ensured that people didn't get sick. This place, though? Oh, it was the exact opposite, Cizrna knew. Filth spread from it, from the pages of depraved tomes these freaks worshiped so fervently, and seeped into the outside world. A source of corruption, much like mold growing on otherwise good bread.)

Hmmm. Perhaps fire is exactly what this place needs, after all! That should teach those degenerates a lesson. A very valuable lesson, too-- one revolving around the benefits of, you know, not being a bunch of creepy bastards. (A good rule of thumb, though a surprising number of people failed to grasp it. Cizrna liked killing those, actually, because the utter lack of self-awareness made for a fine spectacle. The way they hurled threats at her when she was the one with a sword in her hand? Comedy gold, really-- almost like a bug trying to duel an elephant, except way funnier. At least insects didn't tend to suffer from delusions of grandeur! 'Chosen by the gods,' pffft. As if. ...watching them slowly realize that, no, no mystical power would come to save them, was possibly her favorite part. The fear in their eyes, shortly before they got intimately familiar with her blade? Such memories made it all worth it, almost.)

So, yes, Cizrna decided fire would be a fitting epilogue here. Before that, however? She had to obtain the Vessel, whatever it was. (Blah, blah, blah, something about it needing to be cleansed. The Allfather had said much of it, but Cizrna hadn't bothered to actually listen-- mostly because an excursion into the world of theology wasn't something she was interested in, and yet that was exactly where he had taken her, with his endless stream of random theories. It would have been fascinating to a scholar, Cizrna supposed, but why had he fed it to her? So that she could smile and nod and marvel at his wisdom? Amazing. Actual instructions would have been more useful, but hey, it wasn't like she was the expert here! Maybe the Divine Phoenix himself would descend from the heavens, and pull the answers to her questions out of his shining, fiery ass.)

To her absolute lack of surprise, though, that didn't happen. Instead, Cizrna... noticed someone hiding in the darkness of the chapel? A figure, thin and tiny. Emaciated, almost. A woman, the mercenary realized, and that was the moment something else dawned upon her-- that all those fucks she had killed had been men, men and more men. No woman in sight, if you didn't count this one. Curious, wasn't it? ...actually, no, it wasn't. Cizrna had come to eradicate this fucking cult, not to study its demographics. What did it matter to her? The girl would probably end up dead, anyway, and that would be a kinder fate than what life had had in store for her. (Because, a lone woman in such wonderful, wonderful company? Yeah, Cizrna had no illusions regarding what, exactly, they had wanted from her. Bastards, all of them.)

"Hey there, little dove," the mercenary smiled as she unsheathed her blade. (Intimidation went a long way, you see? It unlocked people's mouths, and their hearts as well. And if this didn't work...? Well, her sword would prove to be a better key.) "As I said to your friends, whom I've slaughtered like the pigs they were, I'm a visitor. Whether the visit will be pleasant or not, though? That mostly depends on you," Cizrna shrugged and took a few more steps forward. It seemed she had no intention of stopping, either-- soon enough, she would be standing directly in front of the girl. "Now, be a dear and tell me where the Vessel of Marein is. It's too dangerous to be left in the hands of someone as pretty as you are, anyway."

 

[heartstringss]

Hey there, little dove.

'Such an odd greeting,' the woman thinks, peering out from the shadows as the other smiles and then in the next breath unsheaths a sword. Pale eyes flicker between the woman's face and the blade held by her side, unsure which she was supposed to fear the most. Her words are daunting, though the claim that all her 'friends' had been murdered pinches her brow with confusion more than it does concern. She almost can't help but tilt her head, thinking to herself, 'What friends?', although she's plenty smart enough to recognize the mercenary must mean the followers of Marein. This woman was not one of those, clearly; otherwise, surely she would have known not to hold a blade to her, of all people, let alone approach a Goddess of Death without even the vaguest hint of caution.

She barely hears her words explaining the reason for her visit, drowned as they are by the alarm bells going off inside her head.

"St-stop," the goddess whispers, backing up until she unintentionally backs herself into a wall. When the woman comes closer and shows no signs of stopping, she speaks louder, her voice cracking under the pressure, "Stay away!" She does not want to be responsible for this woman's death, even if she might have earned it by murdering her people. (Even just calling them 'her people' in her head felt wrong... She was just as much a prisoner, just as much a hostage as her mother had been -- the only difference with her was that they had orchestrated her birth, that she had Marein's blood inside of her too. Therefore, she retained a good deal of his power, a power that was dangerous just as much as it was a gift. Call it an inheritance, if you will. Or if you wanted to be more like the cultists, call it a responsibility.)

"There is no Vessel of Marein," she answers to the woman's last demands, trembling from her place backed into the wall. "He is Death; he cannot be contained into a single object or a single p-- person. You are mistaken in your thinking; clearly, someone has taken you for a fool."

There was no Vessel, at least not in the context that this woman meant. Then again, perhaps that's exactly what she was, though she'd never considered the implication much herself. It felt more an insult than a fact, really -- Marein had never visited her, she had never been specifically chosen. Her mother had, yes, but not her -- instead, she had been cast aside unwanted, the God of the Underworld not even waiting around long enough to witness her birth. Would he have been proud, if he had? Would he have been proud of the way that she, as a newborn, had killed her very own mother on her way out of her womb? How she had shed her blood all over the earth, forced her to tears the very instant she lit her eyes upon her? Would that have made him happy? Would that have made him proud? It sure had his followers, at least...

(She had never even been gifted a name, not by her mother or her father, and therefore not by the cultists either. 'That is the way it was meant to be,' they likely would have reasoned had she asked, though she never had because she'd never thought to in the first place. She knew no other way, and therefore hardly even realized how odd it truly was.)

"You are foolish to come here without all the facts, especially-- especially to come here," she emphasized, gesturing around to clarify she meant the chapel. Her place. "It is not safe for you here; if you want to live, you should leave." But it was a little late for that now, wasn't it? She was already far too close, the healthy flush to her skin slowly fading away to a pale, ghastly white. She didn't have to only touch her for her powers to work, after all. Everything around her wilted too, hence the state of the chapel itself.

 

[Syntra]

Blah, blah, blah, Death personified, blah, blah, blah, nothing is as you think it is. Seriously? Like, did she have 'please, talk to me about your god' written on her forehead? Cizrna didn't believe that was the case, but hey, maybe she was mistaken. Everyone else certainly seemed to operate under that premise! First, the Allfather with his endless theology lessons, and then this-- this girl. This girl, who apparently didn't know what was good for her. (Perhaps Cizrna was too old-fashioned, but wasn't it kinda sorta basic decency to yield when a lady threatened you with a sword? Since, you know, by not doing so, you basically forced her to slit your throat! Which, rude. Had the mercenary wanted her blood, she would have drawn it without this-- this spectacle. So, viewed through these lenses, she was actually the victim here-- a poor, poor hired killer, manipulated into doing her actual job. ...geez. Did people hate being alive, or something? Really, humanity was the stupidest species alive. Even rabbits, empty-headed as they were, didn't walk into a trap this willingly! Not that this was actually a trap, mind you-- no, the girl basically handed her a knife and asked her to cut her goddamn artery.)

Fine, fine. One last attempt at diplomacy. It's not like I have anything to lose here, anyway.

"Listen," Cizrna sighed, exasperated, "I don't even wanna be here. Not sure if you're aware, but I have better things to do than pretend I'm interested in your wacky beliefs." ...like watching the grass grow, for example. That could fill her soul with wonder and respect for new life-- theoretically, at least. It hadn't happened so far, but you never knew with these things, right? Maybe, maybe the Divine Phoenix would finally smile at her, and her frozen heart would melt! ...haha, yeah, right. Still, it seemed more likely than Cizrna being spiritually enriched by the people who worshiped death and yet sucked at actual killing, which only really illustrated just how absurd this whole affair was. (What a bunch of idiots! None of them had known what death was like, really. If anything, they should be thankful to her-- for allowing them to get close to their beloved god in the most intimate of ways.) "So, just let me know where the Vessel is and I'll be on my merry way. I'm feeling merciful today, too, so I'll let that lie slide. As long as you cooperate, alright?"

The offer was reasonable, was it not? Reasonable and generous as well, given the circumstances. Except that, for some reason, the girl didn't feel like doing that-- and she spat in her face in an, uh, pretty interesting way as well.

At first, Cizrna didn't even notice the cold. And, really, why should she? Complaining of cold when you were underground, far from the gentle touch of sunlight, would be like wondering why the hell beer got you drunk. No, some amount of discomfort was expected here. 'Some' was the key word here, though, and when the cold started to spread? When it traveled from her fingertips right to her heart, as if a spider wove a web of ice around it? Yeah, that was the moment Cizrna understood that this wasn't normal. Far from it. By the Phoenix, what is...? Oh. Oh, indeed! It didn't take a sage's wisdom to realize that someone was doing this-- since magical bullshittery, no matter how complex, didn't tend to trigger itself on its own. It wasn't like-- like rain, or the changing of seasons. No, the intent was the entire goddamn point. And since the girl was the only other person standing in this stupid chapel? Connecting the dots wasn't an arduous process, either. Not when there were only two of them!

"Oh, you treacherous snake," Cizrna snarled, her anger exploding. Not many things could get her genuinely angry, but this kind of betrayal? Oh, it made her see red. "This is what I get in exchange for my kindness, huh? Dark magic? Don't think that I can't tell what you're doing, wench!" Cizrna moved like a wolf, and just like the predator, she knew exactly how to corner her victim-- within seconds, she was standing in front of the girl, whose only escape route was now being cut off by the wall. And her blade? That blade ended up pressed against her neck, the coldness practically searing.

"Wanna know what it's like to bleed to death, little one?" the mercenary smiled sweetly. (The cold continued to spread, to the point her fingers grew numb, but it mattered not-- the fury would keep her warm enough, thank you very much.) "Because I can make you find out. And I will do it, too, if you don't behave yourself!"

 

[heartstringss]

This was not going well. It was clear that neither one of them was getting the reaction that they wanted, the mercenary with her answers and the goddess with her solitude and desire to not be responsible for any more unnecessary death. Breathing out a shaky sigh, she squeezes her eyes shut with the other’s warning, trying to calm herself when she feels her emotions begin to spiral out of control. Her heart was hammering in her chest so hard it physically ached, and as for the woman before her? Well, regardless of her warning she was still behaving like a total fool, unfortunately not even seeming to notice the effects her too-close presence was having on her own body until… until after it was already too late.

She can tell when the deathly chill first begins to take its hold on the other’s spirit, the timing of her powers being remarkably fast but still relatively predictable (for the most part). Certain factors like the status of a person’s health, weight and body mass, even state of mind could alter the timeline a little, but no matter how long it took to get there, the end result was always more or less the same. See, Death was inevitable: it could not be avoided or delayed; if it was your time, the best thing to do was to accept it graciously as possible, for the longer and harder that you fought, only the more painful it would end up being in the end.

…And that was the biggest drawback, wasn’t it? That is, unless she erected careful distance between herself and all the rest of the world and everyone respected her desire to keep that distance as much as possible, there was simply no other way she knew how to control her powers. No one had ever trained her how to — after all, it wasn’t like she’d had her father around growing up to guide her, and the cult that she’d been raised in (though highly fanatical as they were) still probably didn’t know much more about how it worked than she did. To them, she was only Death — a child, even a personal pet, but still just an Essence all the same.

(Could it even be tamed, if she’d had someone to teach her how to in the first place? In all honesty, she wasn’t entirely sure herself. It didn’t feel like something that could be restrained; the raw power had always just run rampant in her soul, often controlling her more than she was able to control it. Oh, how she wished she could turn it off. If she could, perhaps what happened next with the mercenary could’ve been avoided. Perhaps, though it seemed most unlikely at the moment.)

The anger that exploded out of the woman was fiery-hot, a raging inferno that could not be easily tamed itself any more than the goddess's own chilling cold. It was near enough to rip the breath right from her lungs, suddenly struggling to catch her breath with the level of intensity of panic that rose from deep within. The accusations of treachery and dark magic lashed out like insults (and were clearly meant to be), the words drawing a deep frown across the goddess’s mouth as she didn't take to being accused of such things very well herself. However, before she could even so much as formulate a response, the woman bolted into action. Within seconds, she had closed what little bit of distance was left between their bodies, trapping her against the wall with her sword pressed firmly to her throat.

Her breath whooshed out of her with the impact against the cement wall, the only thing that softened the blow being the heavy furs wrapped around her shoulders. Other than shock, her only reaction was outright fear. She should’ve fought back, should’ve ran and hid when she’d still had the chance, but it didn’t matter what she should have done — clearly, it was too late to turn back now. (In all truth, fighting back hadn’t even occurred to her as an option. Because although submission had not necessarily been beaten into her over the past 24-odd years of her life, there were plenty of other ways the cultists had managed to chain and force her into subservience. They had left their mark regardless of their inability to touch her, and with the goddess’s knowing no other way of life, this being the only one she’d ever lived herself, not a single one of their methods did she even necessarily recognize as abuse. It was sad, yes. A pitiful life she had lived for sure.)

The more she struggled against the sword, the more the blade ended up pressing tighter against her skin, its sharpness drawing a thin line of blood across her throat. It was almost comforting, the fact that with one little push this woman might’ve been able to end her life or at the very least could’ve forced her to her knees and sedated her a little while. She wasn’t panicking for the threat of death, not even with as painful as the mercenary made bleeding out sound — no, no, Death would have been a gift, truly. Not for the same reason that the others worshipped it, though — for her, personally, it would have been a gift to just not have to suffer any longer… And to no longer cause so much suffering herself.

Much like the suffering that was happening right in front of her this very moment. The woman was pale as a sheet now, whether she realized it or not, and her eyes? Standing so close that she could smell the flavor of her breath turning dank and rotten too, perhaps the broken blood vessels in her eyes was what stood out the very most of all her slowly-changing features. See, the thing this woman didn’t understand was that it wasn’t she who needed to worry about their life coming to an end... And yet, even with the murder of her ‘friends’, even with the disrespect, even with the threat of violence and all the accusations she had thrown her way… this woman still had not done a single thing that, by her standards, warranted her necessarily needing to die.

However, trying to reason with her clearly just wasn’t going to be enough.

It was a split-second decision that she chose to reach up and grab the sword, not by its hilt but rather by its blade, shoving the woman away from her with as much strength behind her hands as she could possibly manage. It didn’t even take that much, really, as she was far weaker than she looked; not in general, clearly, but rather in her current state. All it took was one little push for her to free herself, the woman toppling over and falling back onto the ground. As she fell, she took the sword along with her, the blade slicing out of her hands as it exited her grip. In the shock of pain that followed, she hardly even realized what had happened until at last she looked down and saw the blood leaking out from around her fingers. Though, even with the sheer amount of blood and how deep and painful the new cuts were, there were far worse things she had felt in her life. Alas, a cut was nothing compared to a burn, and burns… burns she had experienced far, far more often.

“You should go,” the goddess warned again, backing up to safety just as soon as she was able. And the farther she moved away, the more she erected that necessary distance? In turn, the more color returned back to the mercenary’s cheeks, her life-force slowly leaking back into her. (The fact she hadn't touched her directly was the only thing that had spared her life. For now.) ”Whoever sent you here has sent you on a suicide mission. I do not-- I do not think you understand and in all honesty, I am not sure I can explain it to you. See, this is not dark magic, this is— I… I am—” the child of Marein, she finished only in her mind, fists clenching painfully tight around her cuts.

As that thought flitted through her brain, in turn, a new realization struck as well:

’I am the Vessel that you seek.'

The words landed something like a hammer driving the final nail straight into her heart. Whoever had sent this mercenary to collect her, she did not even care to know their name — it was what they might have wanted to do with her that scared her more than that.

”If you wish to live, you need to leave this place and never look back. You must understand, I am not trying to threaten you, I am trying to save your life. Enough people have died because of me already. Please, I am begging you.”

 

[Syntra]

In her life, Cizrna had seen many things-- many wonders, even, if that was the label you wanted to use. (The difference between a wonder and a horror? Often, it was just a matter of perspective. An enchanted sword that could sever one's head without touching one's neck was undoubtedly a wonder... until, of course, it happened to be your neck that was being targeted. Funny how these things worked, really! Oh, humanity, thy name was hypocrisy.) So, yeah, the mercenary was no blushing maiden. She knew where to cut to increase the likelihood of the target never taking another breath again, and she also knew how to make a tight-lipped man speak. The art of handling corpses? Cizrna was well-versed in that as well. She knew how to neutralize sorceries, and how to deflect dark curses, and also how to concoct a poison that would be undetected by most. Magical creatures? It didn't fucking matter how long its claws were, or that its fangs were venomous-- she'd kill it, eventually, provided the reward was tempting enough. Despite the wealth of experience, however, Cizrna had never experienced anything quite like this.

The girl was cold. Not cold like people sometimes were, or even lizards and other cold-blooded creatures-- no, that comparison didn't fucking hold a candle to whatever the hell she had going on. Ice didn't exactly work, either. Ice was cold, no way around it, but it also wasn't as... invasive, for a lack of a better word? Because, while holding an icicle in your bare hand didn't tend to be pleasant, it also didn't make you feel like-- like this. As if it touched your very soul, if you believed in these things. Touched it and sapped the heat stored within, like some bizarre parasite. (...a mouth, that was what Cizrna saw. A toothless, tongue-less orifice that was nonetheless hungry, and always wanted more, more, more. Some strange, primal kind of emptiness. It wanted her as well, she knew because it beckoned her to come closer, and, shit, her legs walked to it on their own, which-- damn. Why was it suddenly so difficult to stand upright? Why, why, why? And, more importantly, why did this feel sort of familiar?)

Cizrna wavered, and had to lean against the wall. It... wasn't the best tactic if you wanted to frighten someone, the mercenary supposed, but what was she supposed to do? Collapse? Yeah, right, that would have gained her the girl's respect! Nah, it was better to gather her strength and-- ooof. Suddenly, there were hands all over her body-- they didn't explore anything, mind you, but they sent her backwards, and without the wall to support her, Cizrna landed right on her ass. On its own, it wasn't that shocking. In her current state, a collision with a butterfly would have done the same. When the sword left her hand, though? Alright, that did disturb her. (The blade was her best friend-- her only friend, in fact. The one who had never turned its back on her, no matter how deep in shit she had stood. Its hilt had been crafted for her and her hand specifically, and you know what its weight felt like? Like a promise. ...the very same promise she had given to her, in the flickering light of candles. The promise that she'd return, someday, and pay off all of her debts. Now, though? It was gone, gone, gone!)

...snatched by the girl, to be precise. By the girl, who apparently held no love for her own fingers. Cizrna tilted her head aside as she watched the blood drip down, her eyebrow raised. Just, what? First dark magic, then this? "Hey, what the fuck," she said, her voice low and dangerous. "Pay attention next time, little dove. You wanna lose a limb, or something?" Only the Divine Phoenix himself knew why, exactly, she was giving the witch advice now-- probably the combination of feeling light-headed from the cold and shocked by the display, really. (What kind of madwoman would do this to her own fucking hands? And so thoughtlessly, too? The girl had grabbed the sword with all the caution usually reserved for plucking flowers-- well, not even that, really, because some of those had thorns. Again, Cizrna had seen a lot, but not this. Never this!)

Then she gave her more useless warnings, blah, blah, blah, and... huh. The warmth returned back to her, as if it had never left in the first place. (That feeling was familiar, too. How come she knew it, though? Where, exactly, had Cizrna felt this before? On a battlefield, she realized. After narrowly escaping death. And, shit, did that put things into a new perspective! Because if the warmth meant avoiding death, then the cold was...)

Death. Death itself. Her oldest fucking companion, if you didn't count the sword. Oh, how could she have forgotten?

Stunned by the revelation, Cizrna didn't make the effort to try and collect herself from the floor. Instead, she just stared at the girl, who was becoming more and more suspicious with each passing second. "You are what?" the mercenary asked, sharp and direct. "I'm not leaving, mind you. Your concern is touching, but you can save it for someone who cares. A suicide mission or not, this is my job, and only amateurs leave those unfinished." Amateurs who didn't hate the prospect of sending their loved ones to the death row, which she kind of did. Very, very much.

Laboriously, the mercenary stood up-- lifting the sword consumed almost all of her energy, but hey, at least she had her weapon now! Which was distinctly better than not having it. "I'm going to ask you again. Who are you, little dove?" ...somehow, Cizrna had her suspicions, but she decided to ignore those for now. "And how do you do that little trick of yours, if it isn't dark magic? I'm not an expert, you see, but it does look pretty dark to me. Deadly, even."

 

[heartstringss]

Nothing was working. She wanted to scream, cry, lash out, find some way to MAKE this woman obey her words. She could have done it, too—after all, she did have magic at her disposal (at her very fingertips, in fact); she just didn’t like to use it. She didn’t dare give in to her frustration, no matter how much it was beginning to overwhelm her. It wouldn’t have been acceptable behavior any other time, so it was only natural — even if perhaps only because of fear — that she’d come to the conclusion it certainly wouldn’t have been acceptable behavior now, either. She might have knocked the mercenary down a peg or two, but that didn’t mean the woman couldn’t still find some way to hurt her, if she wanted to badly enough—if she were foolish enough to continue putting her life in danger, that is. And to think it was all for... for what? A job? A little bit of pride?

Stupid.

Stupid, stupid, stupid human.

Then again, it’s not like the woman knew why it was such a big deal that she leave immediately and not look back. If she wasn’t willing to talk about the true nature of the danger she presented, how would any outsider ever be able to understand? The problem was, she’d never done anything like this before—never tried to save somebody’s life so hard she was going to the lengths of putting herself in danger too; she had never dealt with an outsider quite so stubborn to have their own way, either. Let alone she’d never dealt with someone who hadn’t been dragged in from the outside specifically to meet their end (with her); someone who had, in fact, walked into the chapel all their very own. Everyone she’d ever met already knew exactly who she was, and those who didn’t — well, they found out soon enough, didn’t they? Typically with her hands upon their faces, or her lips upon their skin, as the most precious part of them was sapped away and repurposed into new… new what? New life? New understanding? Sweet, blissful nothingness? There were a lot of things one could call it. To some it was a comfort, to others it was the ultimate unknown.

To her, all it was was Pain.

‘You are what?’ The woman asked, again taking a tone with her that made her blood boil with an odd blend of anger and pride—pride she still wasn’t sure where exactly it was coming from, except maybe from the elevated status she’d been raised to believe she had over a lifetime of others' worshipping. It was status she’d been blessed with as an Offspring of Marein, even as more than half her blood was also human, even as she was still a woman, too. These things made her powerful but they did not make her immune to needing correction every now and then, too—it was her humanity that made her weaker than Him; the womanhood that made her just as sinful as the very same souls they brought her to Undo.

She squeezed her eyes shut, lifted her arms up, and dug her hands into her hair. It smeared blood all throughout, but if she even noticed, she hardly seemed to care.

(She kept calling her 'little dove' and it was odd, so odd, the feeling that inspired—loneliness and hollowness and a little bit of something fluttery that didn’t quite make sense. She’d never had any sort of name before, and though at times that made it difficult for newcomers to figure out how to address her, it’d always been forbidden by the elders. ’If Marein wished for the child to have a name, He would have let the woman live long enough to give it one, or come forward and given it one Himself. Regardless, it is not ours to decide.’ Oh, how very, very much that had put her right into her place.)

Every word the mercenary spoke, every demand she made, was delivered as an intentional, very purposeful stab—and in a lot of ways it hurt more than she had perhaps even intended in the first place.

“Who am I?” The woman speaks, finally letting her hands drop from her hair to wipe the rest of the blood onto her furs, clearly caring very little for appearances. (When the wounds were clean and healed, her palms would reveal slash marks across both ways, not just the ones from the sword she had taken away, but also ones that were much older and much more purposefully given, too. It wasn’t the first time she had been cut across the palm, which was why, in the grand scheme of things, the other woman’s advice that she could have 'lost a limb, or something' hardly inspired a reaction. All the blood on the walls, the symbols drawn in what looked to be a mix of shaky runes and odd, foreign lettering? None of it would have made much sense to an outsider because the ritual was old, old, old—older than life itself. The blood was hers, and hers alone. Well, hers and her mother’s, for some of the oldest inscriptions that there were. Of course, it was all she had of her mother, and it was… blood. Blood, like the blood that flowed within her veins. Magic and ritual, oh, how they owned her.)

”It is dark, and it is deadly, yes, but no, it is not dark magic.” Every word she speaks is a regret; she should not be doing this, not at all. There was only one route that this path would lead them down, and it was pain, more pain than she could ever possibly stomach. It wasn’t a route either one of them needed to trek, not her or the other woman -- because just like the woman, even she could not ever possibly understand the true depth of all her own danger—and yet, even still, she carries on. (Why? Why does she give in? She doesn’t know herself, and yes, perhaps that was the most dangerous part of Revealing there was of all—more than anything else, the biggest worry was not knowing where it would lead her next.)

“You want to know who I am? Well, perhaps if you look inside, you will find you already know. Because the cold you feel if you risk getting too close to me again? That comes from me. It is— it is Death, make no mistake; so you have felt it now, and unless perhaps you wish to feel it a bit more intimately, that is why I am telling you that you should leave, abandon this job and just… just go.” Without thinking, she was digging her nails into her palms, carving new marks into the cuts already carved into her skin. Blood was leaking through her fingers once again, reopening the wounds before they’ve even had a chance to heal on their own. (Her own form of self-punishment, because Father was not here to deal His for her. Well, wherever He was. Dead, perhaps, with all the rest? Honestly, who knew.) “Unless perhaps you hope to inflict this upon somebody else — in which case, perhaps then you would not have slaughtered all my ‘friends’. Perhaps they would have just let you join them, had you simply asked.”

 

[Syntra]

Cizrna, indeed, did know. Knowing something and acknowledging it were two different things, however-- as different as stepping on someone's toes accidentally versus shattering them on purpose. It wasn't pleasant, you see? Few things about her profession were, at least if you took away the context and focused on the actions themselves, but... damn. Damn, damn, damn! The conditions of the contract had been clear. 'Slay the cultists,' the Allfather had said, which, fine. Not the most exciting assignment, but it was an honest job, alright? The fanatics had filled their heads with bullshit, and they had done so willingly. For that alone, they had deserved to die. Clearly, them going to their beloved Marein, or wherever the fuck these nutcases went, automatically made the world a better place. The total amount of bullshit in their dimension had decreased, you see? And less bullshit = more happiness, which was an equation so simple even a mercenary like her could understand. So far so good, then.

'Bring me the Vessel of Marein.' That, too, she had been okay with. Twisted fucks only ever worshiped twisted things, right? Chalices dripping with darkness, or pictures painted in blood, or books containing shit evil enough to make even the seasoned criminals blush. (Well, that, or alternatively, an object that was actually totally mundane. A candle that had cast a Marein-shaped shadow on the wall once, maybe, and the idiots had proceeded to convince themselves it was holy-- something along those lines.) Either way, it didn't actually matter, did it? It was a thing. An object, cold and unfeeling, and an object-- an object wouldn't mind being stuffed into her backpack. It wouldn't mind traveling across the country, nor would it care about being handed over to the Allfather. And if he decided to burn it, which, let's be honest, was probably exactly what he intended to do? Surprise, ladies and gentlemen! It wouldn't fucking cry over that, either, as it had no tear ducts to begin with.

The girl, though? Oh, she did have those. Along with a soul, feelings, pain receptors and other pesky things like that.

The girl who didn't even know her name and yet genuinely tried to help her, despite her barging in covered in her friends' blood. The girl who bore so many bruises one could easily mistake her for a warrior, yet her constitution told her otherwise. The girl who appeared to be innocent, somehow-- a single rose blooming among filth. The girl who apparently was the Vessel of Marein, dammit!

The snake. He has lied to me! Deceived me! Except that, no, he hadn't. For all of his grand speeches, the Allfather had never said anything about the nature of the Vessel-- which meant he had said nothing about her not being human, either. (Just another way of fucking lying, at least as far as Cizrna was concerned, but hey! In the Divine Phoenix's eyes, this was as pure as freshly fallen snow. No lie had stained his lips, right? It was her who had jumped to conclusions-- such as him not being an irredeemable piece of trash, good only for feeding the pyres he loved so much.)

...a sellsword, that was what she was. Did that mean she also had to sell her soul, though?

(Yes. Yes, yes, and thousand times yes. If it could save her, then the girl standing in front of her didn't matter. She was nothing-- an annoying bug on the ground, soon to be crushed. Hadn't Cizrna judged she would die, anyway? Alone, in this wretched underground settlement, her chances of surviving were close to nill. And if she found her way to the surface? The girl was a doe, a doe in a world was full of wolves, and sooner or later, they'd tear her apart nonetheless. Why, then, couldn't she feast on her corpse? What fucking difference did it make? A sword or claws, a poison or a pyre-- it all led to the same goddamn destination, anyway. Even without those fancy props, she'd end up there eventually! Wouldn't it actually be a form of kindness if her death was the coin through which life could be bought? Hmmm?)

So, yes, the mercenary made her decision. Don't look back.

That, indeed, seemed like a supremely bad idea, so she looked at the girl instead-- and regretted it almost immediately. "By the Phoenix, what are you doing? Are you that hungry for pain?" Because, yes, watching her hurt herself was... disconcerting, for whatever reason. (Even if Cizrna herself planned to give her to her executioner. How to convince her to go with her, though? Pain didn't scare the girl, obviously, and dragging her there was, uh, inadvisable, if Death itself seeped through her skin. Ah, shit! The Allfather should have hired an emissary, or some other professional noise-producer.)

"But, no, that's not what I'm hoping to do. If I want to kill someone, I prefer to do it myself, you see? It feels much more personal that way." ...a wonderful first impression, Cizrna supposed, but hey! It wasn't like she could sink even lower in the girl's eyes-- not when she had started out with threatening to murder her. No, it was safe to assume she thought of her as dirt already. "No, my goals are quite different." This time, the mercenary kept her distance-- she also sheathed her sword, hoping it would be interpreted as the olive branch it was. "Come with me, little dove. There's someone who wishes to see you, and I am to deliver you to him. Or would you prefer to stay here, among the fucking corpses?" Cizrna laughed, and her laughter cut like a knife. "You'll die. No food grows here, and nobody will bring it to you anymore. You can eat the flesh of your friends, but even that will rot in time, and then you'll be utterly alone. Would you starve first, I wonder, or would madness seize you before that? You can find out, or you can join me. I'll ensure your safety while we travel-- that I can promise to you. My name is Cizrna," the mercenary bowed, with her right hand placed over her heart. "And you, little one? What do they call you?"

 

[heartstringss]

Finally, something had sunk in. Or at least it felt like a success, watching the human woman stand silent (for once) and consider everything she'd told her. The goddess kept a close eye on the mercenary and her sword, indeed not wanting to miss a single second of this moment — but also still not trusting her enough to turn her back on her just yet. She was wrong about one thing, though. Even if she wasn't afraid of Death herself, even if she honestly wasn't sure she could truly die in the first place, she did not, in fact, particularly enjoy feeling pain. It was unpleasant, see? Only it was an unpleasant feeling she had become quite familiar with over the years, hence why it bothered her but she could still stomach it, barring she had no other choice. Here, she at least still had a bit of a choice.

(It was coming face-to-face with her own One True Maker that she feared most of all, really. Something about Marein and the cultists’ undying worship of Him only terrified her beyond belief — although she wasn’t fool enough to voice that fear out loud. After all, fear was ignorance, Father said, and ignorance would not be tolerated. Now that they were past her early adolescent years, she was expected to just Know things, and so the things she didn't know...? It would be seen as insolence, no doubt; as if she had only slacked off in her studies, not simply failed to be taught those things in the first place. (Then again, sometimes the explanations were just about the same as punishment or damn-near punishment enough in their own right. There were some things it was just far, far better for a person to stay ignorant on, really… Because, some of the things she knew? It was like a curse to know in a lot of ways, too. A curse that only made her feel like something of a killer — like that’s all she’d ever been right from the very, very beginning.))

‘By the Phoenix, what are you doing? Are you that hungry for pain?’

In all truth, she was so used to inflicting these types of injuries on herself she hardly even realized she was doing it half the time. When she had first begun digging her nails into her wounds, she had honed in on that very first ache and then forgotten all about it within seconds. Now she startled with the mercenary’s interruption, pale eyes gone wide as they flashed upward to catch the expression on the other woman’s face. Wordlessly, she followed her gaze down to her hands. When she caught sight of the blood pouring out from between her fingers, she lifted up her arms, opened her palms and examined the damage. Only a vague grimace followed, and then she put her arms back down at her sides. (Out of sight, out of mind.)

Hungry for pain? Yes, in this particular instance, she certainly was. This woman was a criminal, an enemy of Marein, clearly, and rather than pity, she should have detested her, or at the very least turned her in. Instead, she was standing here trying to reason with her, and that alone she knew was grounds for punishment. (If she had taken Judgment all upon herself, Father might have even been more proud. After all, the woman had admitted to her crimes all her very own, and slaughtering their people—? Delivering so many to Marein ahead of their time—? Yes, while Death itself was nothing to be feared within their views, there was a certain rite of passage one must follow, and the way this woman had taken things into her own hands was exactly the kind of thing that would have had her brought before Marein for Judgment any other day of the week. She should have known exactly what to do, and yet she didn’t (or rather, perhaps it was more that she couldn’t). Just the same as Father always said, she was far too sympathetic towards the sinners.)

While the woman spoke of her intentions and her goals, the goddess kept her distance, backing herself up nearer to the altar so that she could be closest to the candlelight again. While the flame didn’t exude a whole lot of warmth, it was enough to provide at least a small amount of comfort, and with so very little comfort to go around she often clung to whatever scraps she could. Because in a place like this, not even multiple layers of linens and furs were quite enough to keep her warm. (Then again, it didn’t help that the cold she struggled with went quite a bit deeper than surface-only...)

Her eyes did not stray from the mercenary’s face, not even for a tiny fraction of a second — every move she made was examined under the utmost scrutiny; every facial expression, every barest twitch. When the woman drew up her sword, the goddess’s shoulders tensed with the expectation of more conflict — only to fall back down a second later when the mercenary chose to put the sword away instead. Where, at first, the other’s words had her expression softening with a glimmer of hope, that didn’t last long before her skepticism returned in full force with the shift back towards more impending doom. The cutting laughter, in particular, threw her off, and the words that followed… She certainly couldn’t deny the truth behind the mercenary’s judgments — there simply was no way she could survive with all the rest of the congregation dead, not unless she wanted to resort to actions less than humane (and even technically non-human as she was, cannibalism was still far, far beneath her). However, something still just didn’t feel right.

What was the point of safety ensured during travel if the end result remained only guaranteed pain and suffering? The mercenary had threatened to kill her once, so how was she possibly supposed to trust her now? There were too many unknowns in this equation, though one thing at least was clear: her fate would be the same no matter which path she chose in the end; it would not change, no matter how hard she might’ve tried to fight it. The woman was right: she could either stay at the Temple and tempt whether or not she would truly starve to death first or possibly go insane long before that, or go with her and face… whatever Unknown came next.

“You came here demanding the Vessel of Marein like you thought it was an object, not knowing to expect a person instead… Who is it that wants to meet me?” She asked guardedly, finally speaking up but still not moving any closer. The sad thing was, even asking the woman who had sent for her, she knew she wouldn’t recognize any names she might be given. Her worldview was limited, far smaller than average — more limited than even the lowest-level ranked of all the servants. She’d never been outside, she’d never even seen outside. But then, that almost made it more tempting. At least she could experience something new before she might die or suffer for all eternity. At least she’d be away from all of this, even if whatever came next could very well have been just the same, or possibly even worse. Really, how much choice did she have? Had she ever had any choice to begin with, even?

When the mercenary bowed before her, she watched quietly, still guarded but relaxing, slowly but surely, the more she accepted her fate and the fact that it was entirely out of her own hands. ”Cizrna,” she echoed back the other’s name, her voice soft and warm, no longer holding any of the same sharpness from before. When asked her own name, she looked away, pale eyes arcing across the temple to the hidden passageway of her room. A flurry of emotions crossed her face — apprehension, hurt, longing being among the easiest to identify. She looked like something of a bird preparing for flight. ”I am the daughter of Marein,” she answered softly. Her gaze wandered across the inscriptions painted along the walls, so very little she could decipher even though it had been her own hand to draw the majority of it. (She didn’t even know her mother’s name — there was nothing she could claim, and that thought alone was near enough to break her.) She shut her eyes, shaking her head lightly as she finally tied the noose 'round her own neck (or at least that's what it felt like she was doing). ”That is all they call me here.”

 

[Syntra]

The girl was observing her, Cizrna knew, though why? What were her intentions? Was she watching her with the eyes of a doe, terrified of the wolf that stood before her, or as something else entirely? As a predator in her own right, ready to tear her throat out? Because the lines between the two concepts were so, so blurry. (The girl may have been Death itself, in a way, but Cizrna? Oh, Cizrna was the same. The edge of her sword had brought the sweet end to so many, after all, that the two were practically sisters-- sisters bonded through pain, through suffering. Two sides of the same coin, really. It was... kind of exciting, actually? Meeting her counterpart, here in this den of sin. How very, very appropriate!) So, much like the other woman, Cizrna was diligent in her observations. The Vessel did seem innocent, sure, but what if she wasn't? Every rose had its thorns, and perhaps-- perhaps this creature was just playing with her, much like cats played with mice before devouring them. Wouldn't it be oh so easy for her to do, with her deathly touch? Depending on how quickly it spread through the blood stream, a single caress could be enough to end her. No, this girl wasn't to be underestimated. Wasn't, wasn't, wasn't! She had likely grown up here, in this cold, godforsaken place-- surrounded by freaks and monsters and abominations so terrible they might as well have resided in fucking nightmares. How, then, could she be anything but a nightmare herself? Pearls couldn't be found in a cesspool! Everyone knew, even the romantic fools who wasted their times looking for pretty words-- no poet in existence, after all, had ever composed a poem about rare flowers blooming amidst shit. It just wasn't a thing that happened.

(...and, hey, wasn't it simpler to condemn her like this? Because acknowledging that the situation might not have been as black and white, as clear-cut as Cizrna would have liked it to be, could lead to, uh, consequences. Consequences that would be very much undesirable, such as her possibly empathizing with the girl. Now, the mercenary couldn't have that, could she? Empathy, friendship, and other pesky, pesky things like that only ever got in the way-- they obscured the truth, kind of like wool over one's eyes. And the nature of that truth? That, in the end, her targets were just meat. Less than meat, actually, because most people wouldn't eat their neighbors! Every cow, every pig had greater value than the useless sacks of blood Cizrna butchered for a living, and the sooner she recognized that, the easier this would be for everyone involved. No, really. Wouldn't the poor bastards only be more distressed if the woman who slit their throat appeared friendly at first? If she talked to them, as if their garbage opinions mattered? Oh no, no, no. Keeping her distance was a form of mercy, too.)

Not letting go of that thought, Cizrna did keep her distance-- both the physical one as well as the emotional. "The Allfather. I don't know his actual name, mind you, but I don't think anyone does. It burned away." (Some wacky ritual, at least as far Cizrna as knew. Him, and all the men before him, just couldn't make do with their own names-- that could have implied, you see, that they weren't all that different from Pia the Innkeeper or Sevyn the Blacksmith. Nobody in their right mind would think that, of course, but what if? So, in order to 'merge with the souls of their predecessors,' as they said, they burned their names in the Holy Crucible. Somehow, that was supposed to feed them to the Phoenix as well, though as for how that happened... Cizrna's guess was as good as anyone else's.)

"He is the first messenger of the Divine Phoenix. And, yes, he hasn't told me everything I needed to know," mildly speaking, "but he did tell me to bring you to him. Had he wanted you dead, he would have specified it." That was true enough, Cizrna supposed, though with one caveat-- more than likely, he wanted the girl alive only so he could kill her later in a more spectacular manner. Yay, right? There wasn't anything the unwashed masses loved more, really, than a good old execution. Flames could make people dance in such funny ways! (...a further proof that most of them didn't deserve to breathe.)

"As such, it is my duty to ensure you'll get to the Capital in one piece," Cizrna continued, reciting her promise with the same level of passion she usually used for her prayers. When the storm of emotions broke out on the girl's face, however? Oh, that sparked her interest, alright. Why did such a simple question tease such a strong reaction out of her? Was she not used to people not knowing her name? The cultists must have worshiped her, surely, and so perhaps the girl thought herself as famous as the Divine Phoenix himself. Hah, such arrogance! How foolish, how vainglorious, how--

Oh. Oh, Cizrna thought, her eyes widening, she doesn't have one.

The thought made her strangely sad, like seeing a three-legged dog would-- everyone, even the filthiest beggar, had a name. The Allfather had at least had it at some point, before he had discarded it for his ambitions. This girl, though? Marein's daughter? Her father's name, or rather, its mangled version, was all they had given to her. ...disgusting, truly.

Don't, Cizrna. Just, fucking don't. Don't you know what they say about names?

Well, duh. Of course she did! 'Don't name that which you don't wish to bind to yourself.'

And yet, despite knowing better, the mercenary could feel herself opening her mouth. "Around here? Nobody calls you like that anymore, little dove. They're dead, all of them. I will certainly not use that ridiculous title, either-- too much of a mouthful for me. Hmm, let's see... From now on, I will call you Caelia." ...Caelia. By the Phoenix, why had that name left her lips? It should have been buried, buried and cremated, but for some reason, it had risen from the grave, and-- no. The cat was out of the bag, which meant it was too late to stuff it back. Caelia, then. Alright. Alright, why not! Cizrna could handle another Caelia in her life, thank you very much. "No need to see it as yours, but know that when I use it, it means I'm referring to you. Well then, Caelia. Have you made your decision? What will it be, huh? Life or death?" Cizrna smiled her sharp, cruel smile.

 

[heartstringss]

The Allfather.

Unlike most names this woman could have mentioned, the goddess did, in fact, recognize that one. Or at least she recognized its importance — because while it was, of course, entirely too true that matters of politics did not fall into her area of expertise, even sheltered and isolated as she was, she had still managed to overhear a few of the priests' sermons warning against all the corruption and sin associated with the Divine Phoenix and his followers — even isolated, really, one could assume she should at least still have known the basics, right? In fact, she knew a little more than 'just the basics' in a few of her own ways — as if she needed a reminder how she had felt the Flame of Unholy Life lick her own skin as punishment a great many times in the past, and even had the scars to prove it. More than that, she had laid witness to a few of her subjects breaking down to beg their merciful God to spare them a time or two before too — as if prayer alone might have somehow been able to save them from the Death standing right before their very eyes.

Perhaps she should have been more afraid, especially knowing that, as a child of Marein, whatever reason someone associated with the Divine Phoenix might have wanted to meet her couldn't possibly be for good… but she wasn't afraid, was she? No, if anything she was just tired — almost too tired for comparisons, even, though certainly at least too tired to care. (If she was only going to die or suffer some way or another anyway, then she at least wanted out of this underground prison as her last request for mercy—please please please. And beyond that? Well, whatever happens happens, right?)

Again and again, the mercenary kept calling her 'little dove' by means of how to address her without a name… Every time, the goddess's eyes skirt across the room to find her through the dark the exact same way, her expression nearly twice as much perplexed as it was strangely fascinated with the woman's brave and reckless casualness. 'Are doves not supposed to be beautiful, and innocent, and pure?', she wonders curiously. If the woman thought her full of sin and all-too-deserving of the sharp edge of her sword, what sense did it make to keep calling her a 'dove', then? ...People were so strange. Such fickle, fickle creatures humans were.

Insults seem to be the only thing capable of leaving the other woman's mouth, she thinks, and the way that makes the goddess feel is a slow crawl of vague annoyance rising to meet the most righteous of her angers, until she gets to the very last part, and then… her heart plummets in her chest, landing upon the floor with a heavy crash, or at least that's what it feels like, for what Cizrna does next doesn't only shock her—it shatters her entire foundation. It rocks her all the way to her core.

A name. Where no one else has ever bothered to give her one before, this woman… this Cizrna has walked into her life and, in less than an hour of knowing her, changed the entire course of her future for her. (Maybe the change wasn't even something necessarily for the good, but how much did that even matter? Still, it was a change she knew she needed, somehow, for the stagnation of what her life had long since become was overwhelming, and now… now, perhaps at least there was hope. Hope for something possibly a little real-er than this, maybe—because yes, even if the way it was now her future only held a chance for even more and more pain and suffering, it also held a pretty huge possibility for finally finding out some answers. Answers to questions she didn't even know had plagued her all her life—answers to questions bigger than even just herself.)

'Caelia.'

It's a beautiful name, really, but it doesn't feel like home. She hasn't had it spoken to her every day of her sad, miserable existence; it hadn't come from her mother or her father as names were supposed to, not even from any part of the only 'family' she had ever known. Things said out loud sometimes felt more real, but in all truth, she isn't sure how much she even wants to make it real. The way the woman uses it so easily, though... as if it had been hers somehow all along and she just hadn't known it yet — that felt like home, oddly enough.

Caelia. Far better than 'Marein's daughter', she supposes, yes… Take it or leave it, is what Cizrna essentially tells her, and for now — well, for now she simply places it upon the shelf. Something for later, maybe. There were pressing matters to attend to now, anyway.

Pale eyes trail to the woman's face, absorbing everything about her. A serpent, that's what this woman was. Beautiful and tempting, but still an incredibly dangerous, venomous creature. 'Leave it be. Do not touch it, do not go nearer unless you must.' And yet, she simply couldn't resist: Life or death, which would it be? Flipping a coin might have been more difficult here, funnily enough.

"Life," she answers hoarsely, her mouth feeling the exact same kind of dry it did whenever Father brought the torches into the room and laid them out around her. As if every bit of breathable oxygen had been sucked from the air around her, and now she was only floating farther and deeper and farther still in that strange, vast vacuum of space that had been left behind. "I am... not sure how well one could say I am suited for it, but for now, yes, I suppose I will choose life." Life that could still inevitably lead to death was still life lived regardless, if for once she had a choice. "Still, you must-- you must keep your distance from me, if you wish for life yourself as well. I cannot control this, and so that is why I am alone down here, you see? A companion, even just a travel companion, is not something I have ever had before."

 

[Syntra]

Life, she said, and oh, wasn't that funny? Hilarious, even? There was more than just a hint of irony baked into the statement, with her supposedly being Marein's daughter-- with Death itself coursing through her veins, cold like ice. Did he perceive it as betrayal? (...perhaps not, now that she thought of it. It wasn't as if the Divine Phoenix's eternal foe had breathed life into a corpse, after all. No, he had chosen a girl-- a pretty one, too, like a flower in bloom. Was it a cruel joke, or a statement of sorts? 'Life only ever leads to the gates of death, so get used to it, mortal worms'? Cizrna had no idea, and she also didn't care. Only scholars wasted their time trying to understand the incomprehensible--you know, the same people who lazed around for days, supposedly investigating the universe's greatest mysteries, while honest folks bruised their hands bloody so that their educated mouths wouldn't starve. And the kicker? Cizrna couldn't remember one of those old men ever providing an answer to, well, anything really. No, they just sat around on their fancy cushions and formulated theories that were based on absolutely fucking nothing, balancing between guesses and actual lies. Leeches, that was what they were! Leeches feeding on the rotting corpse of their ugly, ugly system, and-- yeah, she wasn't like them. Not even remotely. Abstractness was for dreamers who chased after phantoms, after ghosts of actual thoughts, not for her. Cizrna, you see, communicated in deeds, and deeds would always carry greater weight. So, in other words? Snap out of this, Cizrna! There's no fucking point to-- to looking for a meaning where there is none.)

"Very well, then. Come with me, Caelia." The girl hadn't actually said whether she had accepted the name, but frankly? Cizrna didn't care about that, either. She wasn't a princess locked in an ivory tower, and the mercenary sure as hell wasn't her knight in shining armor-- so, obviously, her feelings mattered very little. (...would you form an emotional attachment to a sheep you led to slaughter, after all? Would you stroke its head, and whisper sweet nothings into its ears? No, of course not! Cizrna didn't particularly enjoy hurting herself, so a certain distance had to be kept here-- walls had to be erected around her heart, high and insurmountable. She is dead already, the mercenary told herself, her voice firm. That she's still breathing is a fucking formality. The girl belongs to the abyss, and returning her there is the kindest thing anyone can do for her.) Because, among the living, Caelia would always be an oddity-- a thing to be ogled, both by the lowest of beggars and highest of lords. Was that any life at all? Being locked in a cage, as if she was an exotic bird? Realistically, that was the best outcome she could hope for, and... well. Fire wasn't pleasant, obviously, but at least death came for you swiftly on the pyre. In a cage, though? She would die again and again and again, with every fucking sunrise, till there was nothing left of her at all.

This is right, this thing I'm doing. It is, it is, it is. I just know it.

(Why did her own thoughts ring so hollow to her, then? Like a fucking mantra, meant to obscure rather than reveal?)

"Pathetic," Cizrna kicked one of the corpses that got in her way, a cruel fire shining in her eyes. "The cult of Marein, pffft. Let me guess: did they choose this weird god to worship because they actually wanted to die? Their fighting skills sure as hell made it look like that. They were begging for the sweet release of death, and kept throwing themselves in front of my sword. Tell me, Caelia, is that the way your people approach battle? As a communion with Marein?" And, yes, Cizrna didn't have to be this insensitive about it, but hey! Needless malice distracted her from the seeds of doubt planted in the back of her head, and if she ignored them hard enough, they wouldn't be able to grow. All living things required sustenance, right? Without it, they would shrivel and die and... and Cizrna would be able to look at her own reflection in the mirror again. So, again, no dilemma here! Just a matter of self-control.

"Here, Caelia," the mercenary pointed at the handles carved into the stone. "Climb, and pray to your beloved father that you won't fall. I'd hate for you to break your pretty little neck!" ...hating it was all she could do for the girl, though, because catching her would be kinda, uh, counterproductive. I wonder, would the Allfather be content with her corpse? Vague instructions, after all, could be a double edged sword! While the subtext was quite clear to het, it was true that hadn't specified that he needed Caelia alive, and the contract was sacred. The Divine Phoenix himself had blessed it, via his Smoke of Discernment. Not even the Allfather could shit all over it, Cizrna knew, so-- oh. Alright, the girl had crawled out of the well somehow, which, good! It meant she could abandon this particular line of thought, at least. (...also, what an expectation-defying feat. With her arms thin like a pair of twigs, Cizrna had half-expected her to fall to her doom, but no, apparently. The little dove hang on to life with a ferociousness usually found in wolves, and almost against her will, she felt just a little bit impressed. So this is what choosing life truly means, huh?)

"Good job, Caelia," Cizrna said, in a tone that could almost be read as friendly, as she pulled herself up as well. "Now we just need to--" Something cold and wet landed on her face, though, and it stopped the words in her throat. Snowflakes. Snowflakes, thousands of them, painting the land in white. They fell on her lips, too, like a lover's kisses, and Cizrna opened her mouth in wonder. Just, what? True winter hadn't come in ages! Not since the Divine Phoenix had blessed them with the Eternal Summer, anyway. As if it wasn't enough, lights were dancing across the sky as well-- blue and green and everything in between, all the shades you could imagine. (The children of the stars, perhaps?) "What," Cizrna finally managed to say, trying and failing to hide her amazement, "what is this? Have you done this with your magic, little dove? If so, then stop. We don't need to draw attentiom to ourselves."

 

[heartstringss]

Going with the mercenary should have been easy. After all, wasn’t it her life that was at stake here—her very future, even, if one could truly believe she still had one left to live at all? (Why, then, did she instead find herself hesitating, completely unwilling to leave the shadow of her father’s altar? Why did she find herself continually glancing back across her shoulder, wanting almost nothing more than to run back to her room, hunker down inside her bed, and never leave again? What good would that do, knowing she might only die there; that she would, at the very least, only be damning herself for all the rest of eternity if she only refused to leave? Because of course, the mercenary wasn’t wrong—left to fend all for herself, she would surely rot away inside that room, with no one left to feed her, no one left to care for her… nothing except the corpses that she might've been forced to feast on if she lingered for too long. No, no, no, she couldn't possibly be this foolish. ...Could she?)


In the end, she really only had one choice, didn't she? Looking back to her room one last time, she finds herself longing. Longing not for space itself, it seemed, but rather for the security of its familiarity and privacy it had afforded her across all the years. She can’t go back there—this, of course, she knows, and yet, still she hesitates just a moment longer. Finally nodding, she turns away to follow the mercenary out of the chapel.

Before they can get too far away from the chapel, however, she stops. Turning sharply on her heel back the opposite direction — so sharply that she almost trips over her own two feet and has to catch herself along the wall — she’s out of breath when she finds herself drawn back towards the room again.

"Wait," she calls after the mercenary, stopping her before she can continue too far without her. "Please, wait here. I will be right back."

Without any further explanation, she takes off back to the chapel, back into her room where she collects her books from the floor beside her bed and slips into a pair of boots, though taking with her absolutely nothing else. (Not that there was even anything else she could take with her, having so few possessions to begin with... The books, however, she honestly can't believe she'd almost forgotten in the first place, as they were all she had left of her mother—and the only personal possessions the priests had allowed her to keep inside her chambers. They were how she had taught herself to read, even, at least the little that she could, and what had gotten her through so many painful, sleepless nights when she had struggled most of all in her dealings with the Spirits of the Dead. The way she cherished them so highly, one might have assumed they were her only friends, too—and perhaps they were, sad as that was. Even as inanimate objects.)

Returning to Cizrna's side a couple of minutes later with the books tucked underneath her arm, she gives a brief nod of her head to show that she is ready, allowing the mercenary to once again lead her from the room.

Had she expected it to be simple? In a way, she had. Leaving the temple and the priests behind, all the servants who had practically raised and cared for her since birth—her entire world, everything she'd ever known… Oh, how she had wished for it to be simple. Like she might only need to blink her eyes once and they would all be gone, the past a mere memory she needn’t return to unless she wished. Instead, it was the exact opposite of simple, wasn't it? Because when they happened upon the corpses, oh, how her heart wrenched inside her chest at the sight of all those mangled, bloody bodies. Looking upon their eyes — some frozen wide with terror, others appearing almost solemn, peaceful, properly at rest — she could remember how they had looked upon her once too when they had still been living. How deeply she had been praised, worshipped, like the holiest of all holy things (but also just as much feared and reviled, perhaps as if she were the truest devil of them all).

Witnessing the mercenary's undue cruelty inspires complicated feelings in the goddess. How roughly she kicks the first corpse that dares to exist within her path, as if the soul which had once occupied the body were so far beneath herself that, even alive, she would have only spit upon them in passing then, too... The complete lack of respect for the dead nearly ignites a fire in the little goddess, a small spark shooting into her chest, hands balling into fists at her sides — it sparks brighter, stronger, almost catching flame...

(...but then it dies, doesn’t it? Oh, how it always, always seemed to die.)

Instead, she kneels down beside the corpse, only half listening as the other woman speaks behind her. Her voice is a low buzz at the back of her mind, something of a nuisance meanwhile her hands waver overtop a face she's only dreamed of touching all her life. Her breath is shaky, lips trembling just the same as her hands. Finally, she brings them down and shuts the corpse’s eyes as gently as possible. The body does not rot any further with her touch. The soul is already gone.

Once she’s back onto her feet, she turns to address the mercenary with an expression of mixed disapproval and guardedness. “These dead are not our warriors,” she informs the woman, her voice soft, almost forlorn. “These are our elders, our servants, our priests… The most vulnerable and the most devoted—the sick, the poor, the weak.

“While I cannot speak for all my people, I do believe I can say this: if anyone of these people truly threw themselves before your sword, it would not have been an act of suicide; it would have because no matter what the circumstances were, they were not afraid of meeting Death. After all, why would they be? Here, we do not fear Death. Instead, we greet Him as a friend with open arms, as He comes bringing only everlasting peace and a promise of no more pain or suffering. Do you think your people can honestly say the same, or do they only run the opposite direction as fast as their two feet can take them? Hm?”

When they finally reached the mine’s exit, of course, it was incredibly appropriate that therein lay the most impossible-seeming feat of all. Looking high into the ceiling, pale eyes stung with the faint glimmer of moonlight that shone down through the dark from way up above. She raised a hand to shield her face, looking over to the mercenary with her lips pursed, dissatisfied not with the feat before her, but rather with the woman’s seemingly endless cruelty. Still, she did not argue one single bit, handing her books to the woman for her to put into her backpack and then reaching for the stone handles carved into the wall.

Heaving herself up onto the wall itself was… honestly, a lot more difficult than she had originally expected it to be. Sweat breaking out across her forehead just as soon as she made the first pull up, her hands were burning where stone cut into her wounds, and my god, how did it hurt. Even still, she gritted her teeth around the discomfort, refusing to give up, and hauled herself a little higher. Her feet grasping for purchase all along the wall, damn-near breathless, she almost gave up right then and there — until, at long last, she finally found the bottom rung of the ladder and dug the toes of her boots into the foothold, finally something to brace herself against.

It took minutes, what felt instead like hours, before she reached the top, so far fatigued she could barely hold herself up straight. Her hands were blistered, now, the blood dripping over her palms coursing between her fingers, dripping onto the ground, but she hardly cared — hardly even noticed, really — because, the world above…?

Oh, it was magnificent.

… So what if her eyes were burning, her teeth chattering, her body shaking from the cold so hard it hurt to even breathe or move? Looking out across the wide expanse of earth, there was only the night sky up above that she could see. Cloaked in black with spots of white scattered all throughout, and lights — lights of every color she could possibly imagine, faintly swirling, breathtakingly gorgeous, so close and yet so far away at once.

As if the light held in the sky wasn’t nearly breathtaking enough, there was also all the white. Tiny, speckled bits of cold coming down from the sky, so small and fragile that they disappeared one amongst the other seamlessly as if... as if the whole was bigger than the individual, perhaps, in this particular picture. They fell and landed on her clothes, dotting all along her hair and face, and when she reached to touch it, she was surprised to find it… wet? Wet, and also colder than she’d truly imagined in the first place, for when she knelt down and dug her fingers into the fluff, her fingers froze near-instantly, and she cried out, stunned, as a new sort of numbness spread all throughout her body.

She was so enamored with the beauty of the world around her, she almost completely forgot about the mercenary ‘till the first time that she spoke.

Still crouched down upon the earth, small hands dug back into the cold with her shoulders and hair so heavily dusted with snow it made her look like something of a stone angel… and of course, she looked much less a grown woman than she did a child at that moment too, her pale eyes wide as discs, full of wonder and amazement. For once, she didn’t look quite so afraid—no longer the wounded animal of before, she didn’t look anything, really, except… well, except perhaps the most alive she ever had before.

“Magic?” she echoed faintly to the other’s accusation, tilting her head like a confused puppy with the words. Drawing herself up onto her feet, she rubbed cold hands onto the front of her furs to rid them of the ice crystals clinging to her skin (though it did very little for the searing cold that seeped down to the very marrow of her bones, much like the Touch of Death itself). “What do you mean? I-- I am not doing this,” she spun around to take another look around. A smile dragged across her face, slow and steady, revealing a row of neat white teeth and dimples in either sides of her cheeks. It was easy to get distracted when everything around was just so… so new! “The world is so beautiful! So this is what I have been missing all along?”

 

[Syntra]

"You are... not?" Cizrna repeated, rather uselessly. Of course, Caelia could have been trying to deceive her-- Marein himself had sired the girl, which could only mean she was about as trustworthy as a bunch of thugs in a dark alley. Blood was thicker than water, you know? Clearly, treachery must have been her first language, and lies coursed through her veins. Oh yes, filthy fucking lies! Was she, after all, supposed to think this a mere coincidence? The sudden appearance of snow, conveniently linked to the realm of the Dead, the second the Death's daughter emerged out of the well? Yeah, right. A piece of advice for you, my friend-- coincidences didn't fucking exist. Not on this scale, anyway. Whether you got home safely from your drunken escapade, without attracting the attention of unsavory folks? Alright, that could be considered be a coin toss. Similarly, whether you were able to buy fresh fish at the local market often came down to mere luck. Signs of the fucking apocalypse, though? Gods didn't just hand those out willy nilly! Even Cizrna, who couldn't be described as, uh, the most pious woman under the sun, recognized that-- mostly because the Divine Phoenix and his lackeys were a bunch of lazy, good-for-nothing bastards. (The Allfather said they 'held themselves back in their wisdom,' but like, from what? From making this shit world a slightly better place? Well, thanks for nothing! Cizrna had never wanted a better life or anything silly like that, anyway. No, having to carve her own path with her sword was a dream come true. The screams that sometimes haunted her in the middle of the night, when the sky was black and her thoughts even blacker? Oh, she loved those. Praise to the Divine Phoenix, truly, for guiding her on this blessed journey. ...if, by 'guidance,' you could refer to silence, endless and overwhelming. The same kind of silence that came from the mouth of a corpse, really.)

So, what did it mean when something actually prompted this lot to act, huh? Cizrna had no idea, but it couldn't have been good. None of the possible explanations could be interpreted as anything even remotely pleasant-- not even by a chronic optimist, which she fucking wasn't. So, let's look at the options, shall we? Either the girl was lying, or she wasn't. Logic allowed no other outcomes, so one of the two had to be true. Now, if she was lying? That meant her shady magic was to blame, and no spellcaster in the recorded history had ever cast spells just for the hell of it. No, there must have been some underlying purpose to spending this much energy. And with a display this flashy-- well, Cizrna had her suspicions, alright. Wouldn't it be terribly convenient, for example, if her armed friends appeared to save her? The ones who could wield weapons, unlike the useless sheep she had slaughtered in the village? ...that wouldn't be good, mildly fucking speaking. In fact, it would be enough to ruin Cizrna's day!

But, alright, let's consider the option that she wasn't lying. If that was the case, then the gods truly were communicating something-- something deeply, deeply ominous, most likely, as announcing good news just wasn't their style. (You know what was their style, however? Remaining annoyingly vague, to the point you had no idea what they were warning you about until it was too late. Which, again, thanks for fucking nothing! ...Cizrna had to wonder, really, whether this was genuine incompetence or willful cruelty. Not that the difference between 'oopsie' and 'haha, suffer, mortal worm!' amounted to much, but hey, principles, right? Knowing whether they served jesters or butchers, at least, would have been nice.)

Either way, they shouldn't linger in this place. The snow was a bad omen, and in her dark leather, Cizrna would make for a good target. Cold was a cruel mistress, too, with its kisses that felt like bites. So, no need to tempt fate, right?

Except that then she turned around, and there was Caelia playing in the snow, and-- well, something in the mercenary broke. (For a second, Cizrna saw a different scenery altogether. Caelia turned into the other Caelia, seamlessly, and... damn, she was there as well. Herself, or rather, her younger version-- the one whose hands hadn't been stained with blood just yet. Instead of that, those hands were building a castle. Air tasted sweet then, though not as sweet as the kiss the other girl had planted on her cheek, after which she... No, Cizrna shook her head. It's not true. Not anymore. With that line of thought, the spell was broken-- the old Caelia vanished out of her reach, with the reality re-establishing itself in front of her very eyes.)

...the emptiness stayed, though. That pesky, pesky emptiness.

Cizrna cleared her throat, as if that could possibly make it go away. (It couldn't, if course it couldn't, and ...wait. Had the girl just implied she had spent her entire life in that village, possibly locked in the chapel? Disgusting. Even livestock had greater freedom! Truly, her blade had been too good for those sad caricatures of human beings-- too swift, and thus too kind. Oh, how she would have loved to pay more attention to them now! They could have had so much fun together, had Cizrna known just how full of shit they had been.)

"Stop it," the mercenary heard herself say. "Do you wish to lose your fingers? Snow can be cruel, Caelia. If you let it get too close to you, it will seep under your skin, and it will stay there. Your flesh will blacken and fall off your bones." ...melodramatic, perhaps, but not untrue. "Wait." With that, the mercenary dropped her backpack on the ground, and pulled out a white shirt. Her sword made a short work of it-- soon, it was reduced to a few strips of fabric, its old form unrecognizable now. "Come here, Caelia. I need you to wrap it around your hands. If they stay covered, you won't get hurt. Your skin can't show at all, do you understand? Do it right, otherwise--" What, exactly? 'Otherwise I will abandon you?' Not likely, and the girl knew that. No, no, no. Threats had to be at least somewhat plausible for them to work, and Cizrna's pool of options was somewhat limited here. How did you threaten someone you were supposed to protect? Someone who could kill you with a single touch, too? "--otherwise I won't show you how to build a castle from snow," the mercenary blurted out. Which, what?

 

[heartstringss]

Stop it.

She was half-way to crouching down into the snow again when the mercenary ordered her to stop. The words landing something like a slap upon her ear, the goddess’s smile faltered, and with her eyes downcast, hands folded out in front of her, she turned to face the other woman. While it was clear she didn’t enjoy being given orders (especially orders to stop doing something that she was enjoying), following them was simple—so simple, in fact, that one could have very well assumed them to have caused a kind of switch to flip inside her brain.

It was the role of an obedient child that she filled now, even as she listened to Cizrna explain the dangers of the snow and grew to understand that her obedience wasn’t something even necessarily appropriate for the moment. (In a way, yes, but not at all how she had originally suspected. Here, with Cizrna, her willingness to obey the other woman’s authority was only appropriate in the context that, of the two of them, Cizrna was the most learned on the world above. By her definition, even the most beautiful parts of it were a lot more dangerous than the goddess had been able to recognize all her very own—and perhaps that realization made her realize something else, too… something that tasted far too bitter to enjoy the flavor, but couldn’t possibly be ignored. All at once, it became blindingly obvious for the woman that if she had, instead, truly been on her own, it was very unlikely she would have survived any longer up here than she had been expected to even below the earth.)

…Did she wish to lose her fingers? No, of course not. She wrinkled her nose with distaste as she listened to the mercenary’s exceedingly graphic description of what the cold might’ve done to her fingers if she let it get too close. While she listened, her attention fell to her hands, observing how they shook; how they’d turned paler then pale, even, with the steep drop in temperature once she’d plunged them deep into the snow. How now her knuckles and her joints were even a little red, her fingertips shriveled, the cuts across her palms throbbing with a sort of dull ache—an ache that she had only bothered to ignore up ’til the point Cizrna forced her to reconsider. Of course, she had been cold before but never quite like this. It was a different kind of cold to the one she had experienced underground, because at least she had been familiar with that kind of cold—this, however, went much deeper than skin-deep. Much like the snow itself, it seeped underneath her flesh and buried itself all the way into the bone. The air wasn’t quite so still, and so instead of simply lingering like it had below, this cold stole—it grasped and pried the very breath from out her lungs; it pulled and pulled, and took and took and never once implied a willingness to let up, never even a willingness to give anything back.

And yet, she didn’t feel afraid. There had been worse things in her life, and so the cold had never been much of a concern before. It felt like home, really—home, in the sense that cold was all she’d ever known; home, in the sense that it was what she had been made for, even. Would Cizrna ever understand that? She truly doubted that she would.

When the mercenary dropped her backpack onto the ground, the goddess startled, looking up, watching as she dug inside and pulled out something— a shirt? She watched as Cizrna withdrew her sword from its scabbard and began to cut the fabric into strips, her brow pinched with confusion. She didn’t understand what the woman was doing until she beckoned her forward and began to explain how and why she needed her to wrap her hands, and she was able to make sense of the strips as bandages. However, instead of coming closer, she held back, then even began to shrink a little further away. Her pale eyes mirrored concern as she looked to the mercenary and shook her head. “It is not safe—” she began, thinking of the dangers her presence would present to the other woman if she drew even the slightest bit closer than she had already been.

But the more Cizrna spoke, the more the ice wrapped around her heart began to thaw, and she eventually had to admit to herself she was no longer sure of the other woman’s intentions with her. Hadn’t she just threatened to kill her hardly an hour ago? Hadn’t she been laughing at her very own slaughter of her people—calling them weak, and more or less deserving of the brutal deaths that she had given them? Hadn’t she just been making jokes about her falling in their climb up to the surface, about her breaking her neck on the way down and not even hinting at a desire to save her if she slipped? Yet now she was expressing desire for her to wish to keep herself more safe—desire for her to wrap her hands so that they wouldn’t freeze, so that she wouldn’t get hurt. It was odd, wasn’t it? To think the mercenary might have even possibly had her best interests at heart.

She looked again back down to her hands, observing how the sleeves of her fur coat didn’t stretch quite far enough to cover them entirely; how she had literally nothing on her person to wrap them with herself, and there were still the open wounds as well. She sighed, knowing that she had no other choice but to obey this one of the mercenary’s orders too. ‘Do it right, otherwise—’ …otherwise what? She tilted her head, looking back to the mercenary with a curious sort of expression. (She’d already tried to attack her once, and how that had gone? Well, it certainly hadn’t worked in the mercenary’s favor, had it?)

‘—otherwise I won’t show you how to build a castle from the snow.’

“…What?” It was the very last thing she had expected to hear coming from the woman’s mouth. ”What do you mean, ‘build a castle from the snow’?” She truly didn’t understand, and that confusion was reflected rather clear in her expression, on top of an overwhelming curiosity as she did, finally, move to step forward and took the strips of fabric from the mercenary’s hands. She didn’t linger any longer than she absolutely had to, being exceedingly careful not to touch the woman’s skin when she reached out and grasped the barest edges of the fabric. Just as soon as she had them in her hands, she swept herself a couple meters away then turned back to face the other, watching for any signs in her appearance and demeanor she might have been feeling faint again, or any sort of weak at all. Once she’d determined that she seemed okay enough, she turned her attention to her hands and the task laid out before her.

A curious question escaped her mouth, “I thought castles were supposed to be large enough to reach up to the heavens—how could we possibly have enough time to build one?” Let alone the snow didn’t seem a firm enough building material—it’d flaked between her very fingers, and it was so, so fine, and wet! What sense did that make at all?

As she wound the fabric tight around her hands, it should have been clear that caring for her own first aid was something that she understood quite well—how to fashion gloves out of a few meager strips of fabric cut from a t-shirt, however, certainly was not. As a matter of fact, she’d never had to wrap her entire hand before, and so she wasn’t quite sure how to include her fingers and still make the wrapping functional in the process. While she worked, her brow furrowed with the high degree of concentration, and it was easy to see she was growing frustrated the more she struggled to figure it out. Eventually, she let out a huff, the bandages left unknotted where the last scraps of fabric dangled around her wrists like ribbons. She was frustrated because she couldn’t get it to work the way she thought it needed to, and because Cizrna had said that if she didn’t do it right, she wouldn’t teach her how to build the castle from the snow. “…What am I doing wrong here?”

 

[Syntra]

This time, it was Cizrna's turn to stare. Had Caelia never even heard of castles built out of snow? It kind of made sense, she supposed, since the cultists likely wouldn't see it necessary to fill her head with that kind of knowledge-- not when they could, you know, preach to her about death and darkness and the futility of existence, or something. (That, in Cizrna's experience, was what these people did. The dominant narrative went roughly like this: 'Booo hooo, do you feel the crushing weight of being alive? Terrible, right? Well, you're in luck, my friend, because I actually happen to have the perfect recipe for coping with it! You only need to give up independent thought and do exactly what I tell you. And, oh, also kiss my feet from time to time!' In such a world, there was no place for anything even remotely resembling fun-- mostly because if the followers woke up from their worship-induced malaise, they might discover that not participating in all those bullshit rituals actually felt good. So, yes, Cizrna could understand their motivations, practically speaking. She didn't even resent them for operating like this-- would you, after all, hate a wolf for being a wolf? For devouring sheep, as it was meant to? And these sheep were so fucking stupid, so simple-minded, that they offered themselves to the predator on a silver platter, basically pleading to have their throats ripped out.)

No, the mercenary had very little sympathy for these people. They had spun their fate out of their own ignorance, and so they had no right to whine about it. Hardly something to cry about, right? (Cizrna, too, had made own bed. Lovingly, she had picked the bedsheets-- the same bedsheets she had also stained with blood, to the point it was dripping, dripping, dripping on the floor. Even now, she could hear it. Plop, plop, plop, it went on, always, somewhere in the back of her mind. So fucking what, though? The mercenary had to lie there, she knew, and so did the sheep. Running from your own decisions never worked out.)

...this girl, though. This girl, who had been born in a hellhole and fed nightmares. This girl, who had about as much control over her own life as moths did over being attracted to fire. This girl, who was an innocent. How did she deserve any of this? (She didn't, Cizrna knew. You didn't have to be some fucking scholar to see that simple truth-- just like you didn't have to be a scholar to see that she was dragging her to her funeral pyre, even if it hadn't been lit yet. Was that what the Divine Phoenix desired? Some random girl's death, just for the circumstances of her birth? ...did the smell of burnt flesh please him, perhaps? Because humans were meat, much like cows and pigs and sheep. Meat for the grinder.)

"Yes, a castle," Cizrna nodded, suppressing her grim thoughts. (Dwelling in them wouldn't solve anything, anyway. What was conscience good for if you wouldn't act on it? A compass that couldn't be followed was fucking worthless, so she smashed it against the wall. ...the castle, however. This small thing Cizrna could do for her-- as a compensation of sorts, maybe.) "Just a small one. Not for people to live in, but... to make them happy, I guess. Dunno why it works that way, though it does. Maybe because people like building things? You look at it and go: Hmm, I made this. Fills you with some sense of pride, I suppose." ...was she seriously explaining to the girl why snow castles were a thing? Like, what set of life decisions had led her to this point? Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Almost as stupid as the girl herself, apparently because 'wrap this fabric around your hands' was not a complex command. How did she manage to walk and breathe at the same time again? And the worst thing was that the mercenary couldn't even help in any meaningful way! "C'mon, don't tell me you can't figure this shit out. But alright, look at me. You gotta... grab the fabric with the hand you want wrapped, you know? Like this," Cizrna said as she performed the action with her own hand. "Then you take the loose end with your other hand, and you wrap it around. And again, and again. There, see? Now it's too short for me to continue, so I... kinda tuck it beneath the wrapped part. That way, it'll last for a while. Understood, Caelia?" She certainly hoped she did, because not comprehending these instructions would mean the girl had worms for brain. Like, was there even a way to make this simple? Did Caelia expect her to draw a diagram? Too bad, then, since Cizrna hadn't thought to bring a quill!

Impatient, the mercenary kneeled on the ground. With her own hands wrapped in the remains of her shirt, she scooped up some snow, and began to squeeze it together. "Normally, castles are made out of stone. But, the thing is, you can make stones out of snow, you know? If you try hard enough, that is. The strength from your hands will be transferred to it, and it will remember the shape you want it to have. Here, look," Cizrna opened her palm, and, indeed, there it was-- a snowball, nice and firm. "Try it as well."

 

[heartstringss]

The way the girl’s head tilted to the side and her eyebrows scrunched up while listening to the mercenary explain the purpose of a castle built from snow, it was clear she didn’t wholly understand the point, though she nodded dutifully along just the same as if she did. (Therefore, that also made it rather sad, didn’t it? Oh yes, so very, very sad, how truly unfortunate a soul she was. How dreadful the tale of the poor cursed child born unto the underground -- a rotten-core goddess now free to spread her rotten-core filth all across the earth! Feel you shame or pity, no one’s feelings could have possibly been more conflicting than her very own.)

Stupid. Ah yes, how incredibly stupid she felt not understanding something that, to the human stood before her, seemed so very simple it might have even been mundane. While it wasn’t so much her not understanding the castle as it was the issue of the bandages that inspired the most feelings of worthlessness deep within, her feeling overwhelmed, especially forced into such an unfamiliar (new) situation, came far, far too naturally to withstand. With the mercenary’s tone dripping pure, unfettered annoyance, she dropped her eyes straight to the ground-- if not only for a fraction of a second, and then she looked back up. Unable to handle the swelling of her chest as it filled with two parts embarrassment and one part shame, she obeyed regardless, watching not the mercenary’s face but rather her hands as she wound the fabric ‘round and ‘round and then simply tucked it… underneath itself?

While she watched, she repeated the directions with her own hands too, all the while choosing to ignore the detail of how visibly they shook. She’d been trying so hard to wrap the fabric like a bandage she hadn’t thought to wind it around her hands like the swaddling of a blanket instead. Now she shook her head, feeling foolish as she finished tucking the two ends of the fabric underneath themselves. Having wasted so much of the other's precious time that she hardly seemed to want to tolerate her presence anymore, she almost spoke up to tell her she didn't have to show her have to build the snow castle and they could just move on instead, but the mercenary was already kneeling down before she got the chance. (On the other hand, having her hands wrapped like they were did make her feel a little safer now, and they were even warmer.)

Despite her initial insecurity, returning to the snow was perhaps the most excited she had felt in years-- you could see the tension literally seep out of her skin when she knelt down to scoop a handful just like Cizrna had shown. Thoroughly enraptured with her being able to touch something that felt so fragile in her palms and yet not hurt it one single bit, she cupped her hands around the snow and pressed in tightly, marveling at the shape it took, the newfound solidness of form. She turned the ball over in her hands, held it up to show the mercenary and, amazingly enough, felt a grin of pure, unfiltered joy break across her face, her childlike wonder all but wild and completely unrestrained.

"A sense of pride is right," she decided, and then decided she wants more, "There is not much that I can touch or be near without disturbing the flow of life and death. I think I like the snow already." And yet, Cizrna had made it seem like it was rare. "...Please, continue."

 

[Syntra]

Alright, so. Why the hell did the girl look as if Cizrna had personally murdered her beloved puppy? The only thing she had done was to show her how to make the fabric obey, dammit, and... okay, also slaughter everyone she had ever known in cold blood, technically. Still, the cultists had barely counted as people, you know? They had been mosquitos wearing human skin, tiny and insignificant--instead of buzzing, they had dwelled in chants, yes, but if you let them, they'd bleed you dry all the same. (Sycophants, that was what they were. Sycophants rolling around in shit, and thinking it to be gold. And, truly, wasn't granting them death the ultimate kindness? In her endless wisdom, Cizrna had merely allowed them to get closer to their beloved god-- closer than they had ever gotten, actually, back when they had been the ones wielding the blade. Oh, they should be thanking her!) Besides, it wasn't like Caelia appeared to mourn them, anyway. No, the goddess had left her bloody chapel with remarkable ease, almost as if she hadn't spent her entire life there. (...Cizrna could only assume the memories binding her to that place weren't, uh, pleasant. Judging by the scars on her hands? Yeah, the mercenary sincerely doubted they worshiped the girl in a way that would make sense to anyone but them and their sick minds. Although, come to think of it... Hmmm. The effigies of the Divine Phoenix were also burnt as offerings, weren't they? Perhaps the gods, in their desire to separate themselves from the filthy humans, desired to have their flesh sculpted in this way-- to be destroyed, murdered, really, and then reborn again. A mockery of their mortality, as impressive as it was cruel.)

And so, suppressing her own sense of guilt over what had transpired between them, the mercenary looked up. "Did you enjoy it?" she asked, casually. (Her hands never once stopped working, even if Cizrna no longer seemed to be paying attention to the snow-- they moved automatically, as if they had a will of their own, and produced one perfect building block after another.) "Being hurt like this, I mean." Not wanting to say the words, she just... gestured to the girl's hands, and hoped Caelia would get what she was referring to. (The scars, obviously. You know, the ones that were so numerous they resembled a chronicle? A chronicle of every punishment she had ever received-- of every time a blade had been pressed into her soft flesh, cold and merciless.) "Since I doubt they actually would have been able to hurt you had you not agreed to it. So, do you like the way it feels?" With every breath she took, there was a cloud of strange, fog-like substance released into the air-- the essence of the Divine Phoenix, as the Allfather claimed. ('It is steam, my child. Steam, for there is fire inside of you. The fire protects you from the dark spirits, much like it also protects you from freezing to death. Make sure to feed the flames with your faith.' And, frankly? That seemed like fucking bullshit to Cizrna, mostly because her flames had gone out ages ago. ...back when it became blindingly, staggeringly obvious that the bastards didn't care. The Divine Phoenix, and his equally divine menagerie? They all looked down on them from their heavenly thrones, and laughed and laughed and laughed. It was all fun and games, you see? At least when the noose wasn't wrapped around your neck, squeezing the last drops of oxygen out of your lungs. Just like the unwashed masses loved their executions, the gods must have enjoyed watching humans squirm, Cizrna was sure. Hadn't they created them to their liking, after all?)

"No judgment here, though. I am just... wondering, I guess, because pain seems to be associated with godhood so intimately. Do you feel closer to your father when they hurt you? More god than human?" And, yes, something told her that her questions were inappropriate, but Cizrna didn't give a fuck. Like, what was she supposed to do? Pretend that she was the girl's knight in a shining armor and merely escorting her to her beloved? No, nothing about this has been even remotely appropriate from the very beginning, and wrapping herself in hypocrisy just wasn't her style. (Honesty, too, was one of the blades she liked to wield. Sometimes, it struck you harder than steel, you know? ...well, that, and Cizrna was also genuinely curious. It wasn't every day that she happened to meet a goddess, or at least someone who claimed to be one!)

"There. Do you see the blocks?" the mercenary continued, seamlessly, as if the weight of the previous topic didn't bother her at all. "They should all be the same size, roughly. We have enough of them for the next stage now, I think, so what do we do? We stack them upon one another. Every castle needs a wall, to fend off the potential enemies. You should think of a name, too, for those are important. If your castle doesn't have a name, it cannot be blessed by the Divine Phoenix's flames... or something. Honestly, I have never paid too much attention to that." And did that sort of thing even apply to castles made out of snow? One would have thought that snow would despise the touch of fire, so perhaps not.

"Bring more snow to me, Caelia. See the mound over there? Just grab it and move it closer to us, so that we don't have to stand up constantly. It's annoying." Because, yeah-- the snow supplies weren't endless, and their efforts resulted in whole patches of grass becoming visible in their vicinity. There certainly wasn't enough of it to build the fancy tower Cizrna had in mind!

 

[heartstringss]

She was hopeful, joyous, (practically starving for attention)… if only for a moment.

’Did you enjoy it?’ the other asked, and she wasn’t sure what the woman meant at first, not until she carried on and it became clearer, her gaze then falling to her hands. (Which, even wrapped inside the t-shirt, were still shaking; were still numb and tingly with the cold; still stinging with the cuts; still bleeding, just slightly, the fabric slowly changing colors as more blood seeped through. How she was even able to use them in the first place was amazing — clearly, she must have had quite an impressive pain tolerance; then again, honestly, this was nothing.) While she was, of course, much slower than Cizrna, her hands continued working on the snowballs, a small pile building by her side. She remained silent the entire time the other woman spoke, though a storm was brewing on the inside, its signs written clear upon her face. She packed the snow tighter, firmer, faster. Only when her fingers hit hard, frozen earth did she finally stop and look up to the mercenary.

“...Do you enjoy what you do?” she asked sharply, turning the woman’s questions back onto herself. “Do you enjoy hurting others, making people bleed—do you enjoy killing? Does it make you feel more powerful when you’ve got that much control over another person’s life? Does it, perhaps, make you feel more god than human yourself?”

Even if the woman wasn’t trying to be judgmental, it was hard for the goddess to accept that. She had never had someone ask her how she felt before; instead, it was always take, take, take. ...and when she had nothing left to give? Still they would drain her to the very last drop, and then would ask for more.

“...I never had much of a choice what happened to me,” she answered after a while (still bristling but softer, somehow). “I could say no — and I did, a lot, when I was younger — but it didn’t… it didn’t matter. They found ways to get it done; they have always found ways.”

“These were ritual,” she said, lifting her hands to show which scars she meant specifically (as if Cizrna had any idea at all about the others). “And I am not the only one who has them… Blood is life, you see, and so every year on the day of my birth, we give a blood offering to Marein. In doing so, we give up some of our own life-force to Him, so that He will know which of us remain faithful, and which of us do not. …we also say a prayer every year on the same day for my mother, to give thanks for her sacrifice when she brought me into the world. So that I may one day carry out my father’s work myself.” It was very matter-of-fact the way she spoke about her scars; there was no emotion in her voice, no personal opinion whether she believed that it was right or wrong what they had done to her. ...but the more she thought about Cizrna’s questions, the more that changed. Bitter words were bubbling up her throat, sour like acid on the back of her tongue. Eventually, she had to look away.

“I typically go someplace else, when they… when they require certain things from me.” When they required anything at all from her, really, but of course she doesn’t say that. “I do not enjoy it, but it is a responsibility. If I refuse, anymore, that just makes it worse. And then Father will get mad.” (Father. She’s not talking about her actual father, she’s talking about the one that raised her, the eldest priest. The man who taught her everything she knows, who put all the thoughts inside her head — his thoughts, not her own. It was an important distinction.)

She completely ignores the last question, the one about feeling closer to her father, perhaps more god than human, when they hurt her. (She knows what she’s supposed to feel, what the others expect her to feel, but what she truly felt was opposite. They were Forbidden feelings. Like leaving the chapel without permission; going to the surface; telling her story to an outsider. All of it was forbidden, and yet, here she was breaking every rule.)

When they return the conversation to the snow castle, she feels nearly grateful to the mercenary for the way in which she handles it. So seamlessly, as if it were only the weather they had been discussing. She shifts her attention to stacking the blocks of ice one on top of another, her head swirling with one troubling thought after another. A name… a name. It was almost laughable, wasn’t it?

“I am not good with names,” she answers quietly as she stands, moving over to the mound of snow to bring it closer. “Perhaps you should pick one. You will do it better.”

As soon as she stoops to the snow mound, though? Even stepping just a few feet closer, already she had begun to sense that there was something decidedly, um… not right about the area. There was a scent in the air, strong and faintly metallic, a heaviness that clung to her each and every breath. It burrowed underneath her clothing, sank into her skin, and yet still she knelt down anyway, choosing to ignore her instincts. What a terrible, terrible decision, too, because the moment that she dug her fingers into the earth? ...well, let’s just say it wasn’t only snow she touched.

There was something hard beneath the snow. A corpse? (No, a body. She could tell immediately, once she’d touched it, as there were still the barest traces of life clinging to its husk. A husk of a man… But not just any man.)

She fell back, gasping, when a gnarled hand reached from the snow. Charcoal-black fingers grasped into her coat sleeve, the body weakly pulling itself up. Her expression was one of horror, for she both recognized the man before her and yet didn’t at the exact same time. He was different, covered in blood and bruises, his body frozen like the earth, terrible gashes carved into his chest and all about his face. (…if she were Death personified, then he should have been dead. As much blood as he had lost and as gruesome as his injuries were, it was only the barest thread by which his life must have still been clinging. Injuries that were no doubt caused by a sword, at that.)

His eyes, cloudy with age and equally touched by Death, were entirely unseeing… but, when he locked his gaze with hers, she could see his very soul within them, they were that clear. (It was another sense, he’d always told her. ‘I can smell you. Hear you. I do not need to See.’)

“…Father?” she whispered, her voice shaking. With his hand upon her arm, she was too afraid to move.

 

[Syntra]

Well? Did it make her feel more god than human? Silence fell on them when Caelia asked her questions, silence so thick you could cut it with a knife, and amidst that snow-white paradise, it almost seemed as if time itself stopped. Subconsciously, Cizrna's hands ceased moving-- she, too, resembled a statue now more than anything else, carved out of ice. Her eyes, though? Oh, her eyes! They said so, so many things, each stranger than the one before it. ('No.' 'Yes.' Don't ask.' 'You know nothing, you stupid, stupid girl.' 'Would you like to find out, perhaps? To be kissed by my sword?' '...stop, please.') A storm captured in a looking glass, truly-- a storm fierce enough to break it, perhaps, judging by the look in her eyes. One heartbeat passed, and another one, and one more after that, and then? Then Cizrna began to laugh, so much that she shook. (The sound rippled out of her, wild and unrestrained. Was she happy? Hysteric? Something in between, maybe? Only the Divine Phoenix knew, and the fucker sure as well wasn't letting her see his notes. Still, it felt as if something poisonous was leaving her system with every giggle, and so Cizrna laughed, laughed and laughed.)

"No, Caelia," the mercenary said after she calmed down a bit, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, "it doesn't make me feel like a god. When I kill, I am more. More than all of them combined. They created this world, you see? At least that's what the Allfather says. They created it, and breathed souls into our then formless bodies, and they said to us: 'Go forth and live. Protect the flame that has been entrusted to you. Fight against our shared fate.' And, you know what I say to the gods every time my sword takes a life before its time? 'Go fuck yourself,' that's what. In that moment, I am more powerful than any god in existence." ...which was a textbook example of heresy, but so what? The Allfather wasn't here, and that which he didn't hear couldn't hurt his delicate sensibilities. "So, yes, I do enjoy it. It is my way of leaving my mark on the world. How could I not revel in it?" And all of that was true! In a way, at least. (...if she focused on that, Cizrna was sure, the doubts would dissolve. The principle was simple here-- mix two substances, pure and filthy, and you'd get nothing but filth. You couldn't taint something with purity, now could you? Oh no, no, no. Not how this worked! Two thirds of water plus one third of shit still equaled to fucking shit, and... and only a fool would try to change that. A noble knight, maybe, or a paladin with a deathwish, but not a goddamn mercenary. Mercenaries picked their battles wisely, you know? Wisely enough so that they could walk away with their head still attached to their neck, and with a fat pouch of gold in their pocket. Cizrna, of course, followed the same rule! ...for every other path ended in fucking tragedy.)

The girl continued to talk, however, and the mercenary listened with growing interest. Self-mutilation, huh? What a funny god this Marein is. By 'funny,' of course, Cizrna meant 'ridiculous,' because, really, was this necessary? Did he just enjoy theatrics for the sake of theatrics, and laughed as the mortals danced to his whims like little puppets? Oh, how pathetic. Could Marein even walk upright, or did his head bend under the weight of his own ego? "Oh?" Cizrna smiled, her eyes flashing dangerously. "He must be petty or weak, then. Either he knows not of your loyalty, and therefore his perspective is limited. Weak, in other words. Or he does know, and demands this meaningless little ritual from you for no reason at all. I mean, I cannot imagine him actually needing the blood, so why is he doing this? So that he can water his grotesque little garden in the Underworld? Does he grow his own corpses in there, in the same way we grow carrots? Do let me know, Caelia, because this is just fucking fascinating." Translation: stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid! What a waste of perfectly good hands. With wounds like this, so numerous and so carelessly inflicted, Caelia would never learn how to wield a sword-- would never learn how to do anything, really, that didn't involve sitting around and looking pretty. (Had that been purposeful as well? If so, they had locked her in a prison whose key not even Cizrna could find. ...not that it mattered, of course. Again, she wasn't the girl's fucking savior! No, her loyalty belonged to the Allfather, and that was the end of it. What happened to this monster wearing human skin didn't concern her. If she could, she could kill me, too. Such is her nature. The only reason she is not sucking life out of me in this very moment is that she'd fucking die without me, like a stray dog, and she knows.)

Her hands shook, probably due to the cold, which that prompted her to return to the half-built castle-- ironic, perhaps, but doing something with them would surely pour some warmth into her veins.

...which was why the drama that unfolded not so far from her flew right above her head.

Father sat up, probably using the last remains of his strength to do so-- that or the madness burning in his heart, whichever was stronger. (Maybe the two were synonyms? In his case, anyway.) His hand, as pale as the snow itself, then proceeded to clasp the hem of Caelia's shirt. And once he held it? He yanked her closer to himself, as if he yearned for the sweet embrace of Death. "Child," the man groaned, sounding like a corpse already. "You must return. Return where you belong, close to the domain of your Divine Father. You are... not ready. Not yet. Slay the heretic! Avenge your... your family. Do it! Now! I command you to obey, in His name. Please Him, as you always have."

 

[heartstringss]

With her gaze trained on the mercenary, always stubbornly attentive, [Caelia] doesn't miss a single beat of Cizrna's reaction, not her turning statuesque nor the odd display of conflicting emotions that flicker through her eyes. The eyes and what she sees within them pique her attention most of all — the flashes of anger, sadness, pride and indignation. (Just beyond that, perhaps a touch of regret…? Strange, strange, strange.) She knows that she should stop; that, judging by the mercenary’s previous behavior, she is only poking a very angry, unpredictable bear and practically offering herself up for sacrifice, and yet... she doesn’t. She doesn’t withdraw her comments or her anger because she's simply not afraid — in fact, nothing about this mercenary scares her, for she has seen far, far worse and dealt with far worse too.

There’s a storm brewing in the other woman’s eyes, a storm that seems dangerous — almost dangerous enough it could destroy her, if she were to let it loose. It is quiet for a long, eerie beat and in that moment, the goddess wonders whether or not the mercenary will allow her storm to overflow, or will she only continue to hold it back longer and longer until it died? (Is she ready for the waves that might overtake her; for the anger that could consume her all her very own, and what kind of harm it could bring to the other woman if it did?) …when the woman starts laughing, though? Oh, that certainly is a surprise. A surprise that truly sweeps her off her feet, the exact same as the sound of the woman’s laughter does, and the mirthless tears that flood from out her eyes. (What is this feeling that leaps into her chest? Something almost joyful, so it seems, though at the same time deeply uncomfortable. She’s not quite sure how to identify it, or if she even wants to in the first place.)

A madwoman, that is what Cizrna strikes her as this very moment. She stares at the blonde, eyes blank and expressionless, watching as the woman reaches to wipe the tears of laughter from her eyes. When she speaks, [Caelia] tilts her head in response to her first few words, a simple ‘no’ that doesn’t make much sense until the further explanation follows suit. Her lips purse as she listens to the mercenary’s answers, or perhaps more as she observes the other woman’s madness begin to solidify itself and tries her damnedest not to jump to the conclusion that she really has been mad this entire time. All the same, there is a certain Respect she feels as well — for the woman might be Mad, yes, but she is also Brave, and she might be Foolish, but she is also Right. (…then again, what was there to say of her soul? What would happen to it when she died; when her life was carried on from this life to the next—where would she end up? Would she pay for these sins with eternal damnation, or would she be all the stronger for it? Had she, truly, made herself more powerful than the gods? Could a person—a mere human—do that for themselves? …or were they only digging their own grave with their own shovel, and practically begging others to push them down inside?)

She’s not sure what to say on that—all she has is feelings, that deep respect and admiration coupled with the pity of what would happen to Cizrna if her decisions only damned her in the end. (After all, it was only a matter of time before she pissed off the wrong god, right? Even this very moment, she was, quite literally, toying with Death.)

Indeed, perhaps Cizrna was more foolish than she was smart, choosing to insult Marein in front of his very own daughter—not only that but also laughing in her face, throwing her words around like venom no matter where they might’ve landed. Honestly, [Caelia] was surprised the ground didn’t open up beneath her very feet and swallow her whole for all the things that she was saying. Though she desires nothing more than to free herself from the chains of Marein’s bloodline and wishes for little more than to be human and be able to live a normal life, she has no choice but to remain subservient. Like she’s told the other, she has never had a choice since the very, very beginning—just the same as her mother, she was, for she had never had a choice either.

(If there was anything that Caelia feared, above all else, it was her Fathers. The father priest and her father Marein—one whose control lied in her blood, the other in her mind. Hell, even trying to make a distinction between the two would have been just as simple as trying to separate water from oil after the two had already been combined. Both held the same power over her, even if one she had never met and only had spoken to her through the words which others had created for him. The blood ritual, too, she had no basis of information to lend to the other woman’s curiosities. It was a ritual she had obeyed since early childhood—one which had been demanded of her, whether she truly wanted to obey or not, and one which she knew close to nothing of its accuracy, nor the true nature of its importance. Only the father could answer those questions, for he alone had been the only one of Marein’s following to ever truly speak with the God of the Underworld, and… well, Cizrna had already killed him, hadn’t she? (Presumably, or else he would have likely surfaced by now.))

She was shaking herself, unable to formulate a response to Cizrna’s harsh, unbelievably brutal boldness; was she right, she wondered? Was there, perhaps, no true basis for the necessity of their most sacred ritual? Questions she didn’t want to know the answer to, surely, for it made her own subservience and self-destruction all the more pointless.

Her head was spinning with her own questions, emotions bottling and set to overflow. She could feel her whole body shaking underneath the furs, no longer from the cold as much as it was everything else. She needed to get away, and if she had still been underground, she would have surely retired to her chambers (even if there was no lock upon her door, no real way in which she could have kept the others out). Here, though, she had no choice but to remain, and so she turned her attention to the snow-pile instead by way of distracting herself as best she could. Cowardly, that’s how she felt that very moment. She could have wiped this woman out in a single instant—should have, that’s what the others would have told her. She could have Judged her much more accurately now; could have sealed her fate with the sweetest kiss, just the same as she had all those others in her life Before. (The very life that Cizrna had stolen her away from… which was something she felt far too grateful for to truly give into the weight of expectation what she knew she should have done instead.)

Anyway, she didn’t get a chance to dwell on it too long, for the next moment was the moment in which her Father appeared, almost literally from nowhere, and immediately yanked her mind to Elsewhere.

She gasped when the man’s fist curled into her shirt, when he leaned himself up and yanked her closer to him, so close she could see the finest details of his age inscribed inside his face; smell the stench of Death wafting off of him in waves; feel the fury from inside his half-rotted corpse leaking out just the same as the blood that poured from out his wounds. His voice, too, sent chills down her spine, chills which ran deeper than the cold sank into her skin, colder than the ice beneath her feet, colder than the cursed blood that ran throughout her veins. She looked at him and could only shake her head furiously by way of a response, and though he couldn’t see her, his reaction was the same as if he could. He yanked her harder as he spoke, more brutal with her now than he had even been before—because before, he had never dared to touch her himself, either. He would get close, yes, closer than anyone else, perhaps… but never close as this.

“I cannot return or I will die there, father—there is no one left, there is... everyone is already dead.“ She squeezes her eyes shut as his stench wafts over her face. It was stronger than most that she had dealt with in the past, stronger than a three-day rotted corpse—stronger than a week-old rotted corpse, even.

“They will return for you, child,” Father spoke, his hands shaking as he held himself up using only her shirt as leverage.

“…who will, father? Who will return for me-- the soldiers? I will starve before anybody comes.”

“If it is your fate to starve and die, then so be it! Not even you have that Control—only Marein does, for you are his flesh and blood, and he has protected you this long already.”

“No!” she yelled, surprising even herself as she wrenched back and sent him tumbling away from her into the snow. “I want to live, father. Please, I want to live and see the world.”

“…And you think she will protect you, child? Do you not care what she has done, how she has slandered your father’s name and his image, and torn your family apart limb from limb? You will burn upon their pyre before you ever see the world, you foolish child!”

Fury blooms within her chest. Before she even knows what’s gotten into her, she’s already reaching for one hand to unwind the wrappings so that she can free her skin. “Probably,” she says, as she unfurls the fabric carefully, barely even flinching when the material catches on her cuts. “But if that is my fate, then, by your own words, ‘so be it,’ right? Besides, at least this will I have a chance.”

If he notices what she’s doing with her hands, he must not recognize the importance of it. He leans himself up to come closer, and the stench of death looms heavier than ever. His time grows thinner, and she can sense it; then again, he should have been gone already long ago, but somehow he is not, and that confuses her senses also. “The world is not ready for you, child,” he warns her heavily. “Nor are you for it.”

Not true. She is ready for the world—perhaps ready for the beauty of it only, but if there was a risk as well, hell, she’d take that too. “Then I suppose we will have to get ready, won’t we?” she answers calmly, almost too calmly, as she’s already made up her mind and nothing else can change it for her.

“You reek of death, father,” she continues, now reaching forward to draw him back to her, her own hand grasping into the front of his shirt now—still just cloth, of course, it affects him little more than to startle out a gasp with his surprise. (But for now, that’s all she wants: just that little bit of warning, a little bit of suspense. She’s never played with death quite like this before, and by god, was it intoxicating the effect it had upon her blood. Within seconds, it was like she’d gotten drunk ten times the legal limit.) “Death so strong it is almost as if you wear it like a perfume… Not sure I would call it rose, though. You know, I never thought much of that when we were all below, because of course, well, everything down there reeks of Death,” ‘because of me,’ she doesn’t say, because that isn’t the point. “Now I can see it clearly for what it really is, though—it is unnatural, is it not? …how many have you cheated death already, father?”

“…You don’t know what you are talking about, child. Release me, now!”

A funny thing happens, then, for rather than obey, instead she stands her ground firm and unrelenting. She draws her hand up his chest to his neck, the barest traces of skin lingering overtop of skin. A ghost of an embrace, but not quite touching yet. “I think I do, father. Actually, I think it is you who does not know what they are talking about anymore… If I was meant to die in the convent — if that was what my father had intended for me all along — then why would I have ever been allowed to leave in the first place? Would he not have found some way to chain me there? Had her kill me, too?” Was it not some kind of Fate that Cizrna had come to her, presenting her a choice to live or die? Whether she had been taken away to only die upon the pyre inevitably, there was still a certain Serenity in it too. This way, at least she stood a chance of freedom… for a little while.

Either way, it’s not a discussion that she really wants to have, because at this point his words mean nothing to her anyway—far less than the air she breathes, even farther less than the dirt beneath her feet. She is free, now, and nothing, not even this man who had held her in chains all her life, was going to take that away from her. “Anyway, perhaps it is time you finally rest now, father,” she says, and before he can say anything else, she trails her hand up to his face. It’s almost unbearable to touch him like this—make no mistake, it isn’t easy in the slightest bit—but with that gentle trace of fingers across the hard lines of his sunken cheeks, her intent is clearer than the grey within her eyes. “Sleep,” she whispers quieter as she feels the life begin to drain from within, the longer she holds that touch. She leans in, places the tiniest kiss upon his brow. Her fingers tremble, but she doesn’t waver. “Go with Him. He will Embrace you, surely, if you are still Pure.”

For the briefest moment, she wonders what Marein would think of this situation now—would he approve of the priest for trying to tempt her back into the convent, even if it only resulted in her death? …was that all he wanted from her, to live obediently for 24 years and then just— die?

She blinks hard to clear the thought from her mind. After all, why ask questions you would never know the answer to? It wouldn’t do you any good, so why worry yourself like that at all?

 

[Syntra]

Diligently, Cizrna continued to sculpt the castle. Not that its shape mattered, of course-- ultimately, nothing but having enough coins to be able to fill your belly did. (Rich folks had invented all those silly things like 'spirituality' or 'inner life,' Cizrna didn't doubt that. Rich folks, who were so fucking bored of choosing between five different kinds of meat every day that they had to convince themselves that there was more to life-- that they, too, struggled, from their silky fucking cushions. That they suffered more than you, actually, because ~spiritual pain~ trumped all else! So like, stop whining about silly issues such as, say, starvation, because those people were the true victims here. The poor, poor seekers on the path to enlightenment!) But, anyway. While the castle itself didn't mean shit, her own actions did-- the mercenary simply refused to half-ass anything, no matter how silly the task. Laziness was poison, you see? Poison that spread through your system, limb to limb, if you proved to be a suitable vessel. It always started with small things as well, whispering sweet these sweet lies into your ear. 'There is no need to try,' it cooed, 'so you may relax. Just this once! Rest your weary head, traveler.' In theory, the idea was sound, but in practice? Oh, it was never 'just this once'. Never, never, never! If you wavered once, you'd waver again, and before you knew it, you were a fucking slob who didn't even clean her sword after a slaughter. So, no, Cizrna had to remain diligent!

(...and maybe, maybe she also wanted to do it for the girl. She deserved something beautiful, you see? Something beautiful enough for it to match the horrors awaiting her, the flames of that pyre that would be lit beneath her feet. A castle made of snow wouldn't move the scales much, Cizrna knew, though what else was she supposed to do? Take on the Allfather for her? For this pitiful, fragile creature she had only known for a few heartbeats? ...what a pathetic, pathetic idea. A thought process worthy of a stray dog who had been fed for the first time in its miserable life, not of a mercenary! Caelia, of course, meant nothing to her. The guilt that clung to her skin, all sticky? That was an abstract thing, much like the weight you had to bear after stepping on a snail accidentally and hearing that disgusting crack from under your foot. It just... wasn't nice, you know? Hurting something just by existing in its general vicinity, and failing to be careful enough. That vague unpleasantness didn't mean, though, that you cared for the critter in question. No, not at all. The insect was just one out of many, faceless and insignificant, and what mattered was your error, not its sorry fate. Caelia was merely a proof of her weakness-- the flickering light of a candle that fell on her in just the right angle for her to see the strings connected to her limbs. The strings of a fucking puppet, which was exactly what she had turned into! One that danced to the Allfather's whims, too, and--)

Oh. Wait. Why was Caelia taking so long? Surely, scooping up some snow didn't require that much effort. Did she need instructions for how to do that properly as well, or something? What was next, asking her how to wipe her ass? Cizrna looked up, royally annoyed-- except that her expression shifted into something else the second it became apparent that... oh, by the Phoenix. Just how had the bastard survived? Wasn't clinging to life with such stubbornness a sin in their little fucked up family? It felt like it should be! With a steely whoosh, Cizrna's sword left its scabbard. (Quickly, the mercenary thought. Quickly, before it's too late. Could she hear him from this distance? No, of course not. At the same time, however, guessing what kind of seeds he was trying to plant in her mind wasn't especially difficult-- for some reason, she doubted they were discussing the weather. The old parasite was burrowing his way into her brain, Cizrna just knew! ...and the girl was malleable, much like clay. Under his touch, she'd be sculpted into a demon, a monster that would tear her throat out-- little wonder she hadn't done it yet, actually, given the reverence with which she had recited those lies they'd fed her. In a soft, pleasant voice, Caelia had sung them, sung them as if they'd been a serenade to her lover and not the most depraved, filthy nonsense Cizrna had ever heard, and-- and she knew she'd bend. A foregone fucking conclusion, that was what this was. She'd bend, like a local drunk who couldn't resist another pint of ale because the taste was all he could call home, after which... after which she'd come after her, no question. And how the fuck was she supposed to escort her to the capital, with her actively trying to kill her?! With a single touch being her death sentence, to top it off?)

No. No, the fucker needed to be squished, just like the bug he was!

(Caelia wasn't his anymore. The claws he was trying to sink into her? She'd pull them out, one by one, with hot fucking needles. You couldn't own human beings, dammit, and the consequences for trying-- oh, those had to be severe. Especially if the prison he wanted to put her in was made out of her own thoughts!)

To her surprise, however? Caelia seemed to be able to sever those chains on her own, and with remarkable ease. ...huh. Was the brief taste of freedom this addictive, this intoxicating? A single gulp, and you couldn't stop? How very delightful, for him to be slain by the weapon he had forged! No, not a weapon, the mercenary realized. A puppet who cut her own strings. In that moment, it struck her just how beautiful Caelia was-- heavenly, almost, with her dark her shining against the whiteness of the freshly fallen snow. An angel of revenge, or something cheesy like that. Or was it justice? The two concepts blended, blended and blended, until all she could see was a sea of grey.

...not the point, though. The point was that, despite her bindings, she was free. Free, in a way Cizrna herself never would be, and dammit, did the epiphany hurt. This girl!! This gutter rat, this damned existence who dwelled in rot, this-- this woman she wanted to resemble, at least a little bit. (So, so desperately.)

"How fucking fortunate," Cizrna revealed a row of perfect teeth as she smiled, "This must feel good, right? Your own precious daughter getting to send you off, I mean. Not all parents are blessed with such a good death-- in fact, I think you should thank her. Well?"

His old, ravaged body shook, as if the spirit that still resided there was eager to leave already, but despite that? The man opened his eyes, and pierced her with his look. "Unclean wench," he cursed, which was possibly the funniest thing Cizrna had ever heard in her entire life. "You, too, shall fall. You've been branded, and Marein is waiting. And you, child-- you will understand the depth of your folly. My death... is just the beginning. The seal will be released. Return where you belong, or face His wrath. Never will you know peace. Never, for you are His!" The last few words cost him a lot of effort, though-- he coughed them out rather than spoke them, and then? Then his eyes became glassy, in a way very familiar to Cizrna. With a soft 'thud,' he fell into the snow-- the snow that embraced the corpse, oh so eagerly. And just like that, it was over!

...was it, though? How did Caelia feel about it?

"Want me to bury him?" the mercenary heard herself say. (Why, though? Because she had botched the job, or out of some misplaced sense of kinship? No, Cizrna didn't want to think about that-- no more than she wanted to think about the other Caelia, and the way flames had caressed her skin. Didn't, didn't, didn't!) "We can leave him to the crows, but... I can do this for you, if you'd like."

 

[heartstringss]

As soon as she lifts her lips from the priest's skin, [Caelia] feels a cold sweat erupt across her forehead. Hardly a minute later, her legs buckle underneath her and she tumbles to the ground, crashing onto her knees where she then dissolves into a coughing fit so intense it bursts stars across her vision. Just when she begins to feel the world spin and the ground pull out from underneath her, she shuts her eyes and everything settles back the way it was. Still, she is overwhelmed by the scent of rotting flesh that is coming from the priest, and so she twists and gags, the surprise of nausea hitting her like a freight train as if all of this is coming entirely out of nowhere. Rather than release the dying man as she so desperately wishes to do, instead, she curls her hand tighter behind his head and cradles the back of his neck, refusing to let go until her task is complete.

She registers the sound of Cizrna's voice on the edge of her hearing, the tone of which she can identify as taunting although she is hardly able to discern the words themselves. When the priest turns his head to find the mercenary and spit his own venom right back at her, even his voice sounds a bit funny-- like noise traveling up from the bottom of a very deep, dark well, the words themselves are garbled and far away, fading faster and faster by the second. Only when he turns his attention back to her is she able to comprehend some of what he’s saying (or, at least she can understand more of the words themselves-- the meaning, however, remains to be unclear). His saying something about a ‘seal’ being released, for example? Yeah, she has absolutely no idea what he means by that. In her position, she has never heard anything about any sort of seal, nor anything of the priest’s, um, surely inevitable (...?) death setting any sort of dark plan in motion, like the way he’s implied it will just now.

As the last little bit of life finally leaves the priest’s body, the goddess removes her hand, watching the trajectory as his corpse falls back and lands upon the earth. The dull, lifeless thud by which it hits the snow is so unmistakably final, it echoes in her memory (...and will likely haunt her for the rest of her life).

When the mercenary turns to her and asks if she wishes her to bury the body or perhaps wants to leave him for the crows instead, [Caelia] turns and looks to the woman, her eyes wide with shock. (Again, hardly comprehending a single word she says.) Before she can come up with any sort of response, a surge of acid climbs the back of her throat, her hands clutching at her stomach as she doubles over and--

Without another word, she turns and stumbles off. She trips over her own two feet along the way, falling to her hands and knees upon the snow, where she then proceeds to, um-- well, more or less eject the already very minimal contents of her stomach. (It’s mostly acid, water, and a few partially digested bits of meat and stew, but the taste is awful, and as tears spring to her eyes, a whine crawls up the back of her throat, pitiful and helpless.) Her hands curl into fists shoved deep into the snow, her whole body shaking like a leaf. A long moment passes before the retching stops and her stomach begins to settle. When she is finally able to catch her breath, she sits back and wipes her mouth on the back of her hand. Still refusing to turn around, she is unsure whether it’s the mercenary or the priest’s corpse she is more afraid of facing. Maybe both... maybe neither one at all.