Fantasy DARK ASCENSION . † heartstringss & syntra

[Syntra]

Cizrna watched and watched and watched because, well... what else was there for her to do, really? Draw her sword and behead the bastard? Oh no, this guy was Caelia's dragon to slay-- a skeleton from her closet, and one that she had only abandoned recently, too. Stealing that kill from her would have been far, far too cruel even for the mercenary! (Besides, wasn't there a lovely irony to be found in this set-up? A crazed cultist, killed by the weapon he had himself forged. Poetic justice, really, if Cizrna was the kind of person to use those words-- which she very much wasn't, so she stuck with the good old 'serves you right, fucker' instead. Nice and efficient, you see? Unlike the bards and singers who always chased after new words, each more pretentious than the one before it.) The smug expression on her face didn't change, even as he raved on and on about some seal and a horrible fate that was awaiting both of them-- like, nice try, but the mercenary kind of thought it was a severe case of projection. He was the one who was dying, not them! And while the mercenary didn't doubt that she'd die on a battlefield, bleeding and tortured, she was sure of one thing-- this death, no matter when it came for her, would be still better than what this snake got. It would be worthy of her, for those who lived by the sword should die by the sword as well. Such was the natural cycle of things, wasn't it? Give and take, push and pull. (That, and only that, was the Truth of this world. The Divine Phoenix and his lackeys? A bunch of fairytale-like bullshit, covered in gold paint so that idiots from 3000 miles radius would be attracted to it.)

And when it was done? When the last drops of the man's life finally escaped his body, and the great father was no more? Cizrna wanted to move on, but, uhhh, it kind of looked as if Caelia had other plans. Plans that involved puking and... what was it? (Her soul leaving her mortal shell, Cizrna would say, if she believed in souls in the first place. But, oh! How well she knew the empty, dead-eyed stare the girl gave her now, and the shaking. She just hadn't expected to witness such symptoms there, from the Daughter of Death-- mostly because those were the reactions of someone who had stained their hands with blood for the very first time. ...could it be that the girl didn't consider the previous victims to be human at all? That, to her, they were just flesh and bones to throw to Marein, that hungry fucking dog who never seemed to have enough? Perhaps! Contradictory philosophy was the cornerstone of pretty much every cult, and it wouldn't shock Cizrna if she were to discover they'd filled her head with all kind of poison-- such as the classic 'only we are people, actually' nonsense.)

The flames of curiosity were ignited in her chest once again, and she almost, almost asked her-- asked whether all those people she had killed before had meant nothing to her, and if she thought herself to be innocent. If she had loved the priest so well, despite all the things he had probably done to her. Still, something stopped her at the last second, and so Cizrna stood there in stunned silence. (...what was it? Sympathy? No, impossible. Sympathy was an emotion you offered to friends, not to puppets you were leading to their funeral pyre. Plus, Cizrna didn't engage in such foolishness anymore! Her heart was black and hardened-- made of obsidian, in fact, and everyone knew obsidian couldn't feel. As such, it simply must have been something else.)

Even so, the mercenary felt that she had to comfort Caelia in some way. It wasn't that she cared about all the wounds this act must have opened-- no, not at all. This was about practicality, thank you very much! The nature of their journey would require them to cooperate often, you see, and it could be dangerous if Caelia slipped too deep into her grim thoughts. Dangerous for both of them, potentially, which meant that... yes. Yes, Cizrna had to pull her out of this abyss before it consumed her, whether she liked it or not.

"Good job," she finally said, her tone just a little bit awkward. "I... get it that you must feel conflicted, but seriously, good fucking job. Regardless of your feelings, you just made the world a better place than it was a few seconds ago. Just... think of all the people you saved by doing this, if you need to feel better. Or would you have preferred being chained in that chapel instead, and used over and over and over? The bastard got what was coming to him, I say. And, uh," the mercenary shifted her weight on the other leg awkwardly, "thanks for not turning against me, I guess. I would have had to kill you, which I wouldn't have enjoyed." Boom, there it was! The truth, or something dangerously close to it-- because Cizrna, indeed, wouldn't have liked having to snap the neck of this strange, sad little dove. (...a good thing her hand wouldn't light the pyre, then. That way, she could pretend to be innocent, right? Right!)

 

[heartstringss]

The priest had cursed her, she was certain, to a great many slow, painful deaths, starting first with poison-- the price she would have to pay for turning on him, surely. She can still taste the bitter acid on her tongue, still smell his rotting flesh from nearly half a dozen yards away where his corpse remains. An expression of pure anguish etches itself across her face. She rakes her fingers through her hair, letting her nails dig into her scalp. Lost inside her own head, she no longer sees the mercenary—she hardly acknowledges her presence, let alone hears a single word she says. (...not that she has even said anything to her since last asking if she wanted her to bury the corpse for her, that is. It matters not that the woman has fallen into silence, for the storm inside her head still rages on and on and on. It is all too loud and she is drowning in the overwhelm.)

Guilt was such a funny, funny thing. Considering the severity of her reaction, it sure made perfect sense why Cizrna might’ve wondered whether she hadn’t ever viewed any of her previous victims’ lives nearly as precious as the priest’s... In truth, she wore all those previous deaths as a stain upon her soul too, but none of the others had been anywhere near as close and familiar to her as the priest had been. (In fact, most of them had been pure strangers, only brought into her life with one purpose behind their visit: for her to cast judgment in regards to the severity of their sins, Cleanse them, and then promptly release them into Marein's care.) Simply put, she’d never taken a life quite like this before-- never before had she taken a life for her own selfish purposes, nor taken anyone’s life without first casting judgment on their sin. No previous kill was in any way comparable, nor as personal, as this.

Cizrna might have freed her from the chains of servitude, dragged her from her prison, but only she had been able to take out her own master. (After all, Cizrna had tried and failed, had she not? There was no doubt the priest should have been long-dead with the state of all his injuries-- yet, somehow, he had hung on. Like a stubborn root burrowed several feet deep into the earth, only brutal force had been enough to pry him loose and dislodge him so that he could be cast aside like the pesky weed he was. Why, why, why? ...was it possible this was exactly how Fate had planned the event to unfold? Was it possible that the priest's life could only be taken by her hand, or someone else’s like it (perhaps her father’s), and that it could not be taken by anybody else's, not even his very own? Perhaps. Honestly, how the hell would she know? After all, she was no more privy to the Fate's musings than anyone else, surprisingly, not even with her coveted godhood.)

Just when she’s beginning to realize she’s sat stewing in her own shit far too long and that she needs to get up and get a move on, the mercenary chooses to speak. [Caelia] lifts her head, looking the woman over with dangerously narrowed eyelids as she… congratulates her on the kill? It’s a bitter pill sitting on her tongue, being told that she has done a good job in taking out the priest and that, regardless of her own feelings on the matter, she has certainly made the world a better place in doing so, too. She wants to spit the pill out, kick it into the snow and watch it dissolve, but she doesn’t. Instead, she simply stares at the mercenary, listening to her reasoning and trying to see the logic through it all. If she removed her own personal feelings towards the priest’s death, she could see the mercenary was right — yes, if she hadn’t killed him, the world certainly would have suffered more, and… oh, but such a beautiful world it was. (Not only that, but she herself would have continued to suffer too, and regardless of how justified her guilt was, she didn’t want to suffer any longer. Had she not suffered enough? Did she not deserve a chance to live and see the world, too, simply for the life and purpose she’d been born into? No, no… there was more to this, surely. She could not let herself be blinded by defeat.)

As for choosing to spare the mercenary’s life… she’d almost forgotten she had made that choice, that the priest had given her an order and she had simply refused, as if, by some miracle, autonomy had been gained in her mere breaching of the surface. Now she ducks her head, a small bit of red staining across her cheeks as the other woman admits she wouldn’t have enjoyed having to kill her if she had chosen to turn against her. (It didn’t make much sense considering everything else the mercenary has said and claimed up to this point, the blade she’d even held to her throat at one point earlier in the night—but she doesn’t argue. She doesn’t argue anything, in fact, no matter how much some of it worries her, because, at this point, she simply doesn’t have the mental strength to even try.)

While her head is already downturned, her attention shifts to the snow-castle, seemingly half-finished by the mercenary in all the time she’d spent talking with the priest before the other had taken notice of the situation. She smiles slightly, slowly shakes her head and bites her lip as the thoughts continue to swirl in her mind. It’s a long beat of silence before she does finally speak, figuring, even if she’s tired, she still owes the mercenary some kind of response, at least. “…he raised me, you know,” she explains, softly, still staring at the snow-castle in favor of the priest’s corpse or, now, even the mercenary herself. “He was more a father to me than my actual father has ever been… This place, all these people, they have been my only family all my life. This is all I’ve ever known.”

She shakes her head, unsure what she’s even trying to say here. (Is she trying to justify her sorrow, her guilt, or something else entirely? Her entire existence, perhaps? It's unclear.) If she’s crying, she doesn’t let the mercenary see. Instead, she ducks away to focus her attention on standing up, carefully brushing the snow from her knees and then beginning to re-wrap her exposed hand as best as possible. Her breath feels unbearably tight in her chest still, but the nausea is fading, and that at least provides some comfort. Finally, she draws in a deep breath and looks back to the priest’s corpse. He is truly gone this time. No more life stirs within him—no more rage, either. No matter how much she wants to look away, she forces herself to keep on watching, and to decide what she wants to do with him next as well.

“Technically, the bodies are supposed to return back to the earth,” she answers vaguely, still looking to the priest and not at Cizrna. “I think there was a crypt somewhere underground, but I would not ask for you to take him there—I do not know where it is located, and I do not have the key. He probably does, on his person, but… I am not going to ask for you to dig it out, either. Actually, I would not recommend touching him at all. He is-- he might be poison, to you. To your kind. I have no idea what he’s done to cause it, but I suspect he’s somehow altered his own timeline. He shouldn’t even be alive. He is… beyond rotten. And he has laid a curse, so that might only make it more dangerous, too.”

When she looks back to the mercenary, her face speaks what she cannot: the apprehension is clear, but so too is the message she is trying to get at here — simply put, they would have to leave him to the crows.

 

[Syntra]

...family, huh. What a stupid, stupid girl! Did she not know that family was there to raise you up instead of tearing you down? That they were meant to shield you from the wolves, rather than fatten you up so that you couldn't run? (That was what they'd done to her, you see. That, and so many other things as well. Caelia didn't realize, but how the fuck could she? Those who had been born blind didn't miss colors, either. Not when darkness was all they'd ever known, and Caelia... well, Caelia's eyes were only used to that, too-- to looking and fucking seeing nothing, for there was nothing to see. Having to wake up every day only to be plunged into a goddamn living nightmare, again and again and again... What was that like? Doesn't matter. The only kind of light you are going to show her will come from the funeral pyre, so why do you care? Hypocrite.)

...no, she didn't really care. Cizrna's mind was just doing what minds were designed to do-- wondering and wandering, and exploring all these paths she would never (be allowed to) take. So, yeah. This meant nothing, just like all the other detours in her life had meant nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing! In fact, Cizrna should remain silent. Letting the girl inside of her heart would help nobody, least of all Caelia, for a venomous trap was all it was-- a trap full of teeth, and spikes, and rotten, rotten things. Staying away, the mercenary thought, will be a mercy. ...and yet, yet her mouth opened, practically against her will. "Family is just a word," she heard herself say, for a reason she couldn't grasp. (Kind of like the Holy Rapture the Allfather described so often, when the Divine Phoenix supposedly seized his mouth and spoke with his tongue. Were some gods speaking through her, too? Or demons? To Cizrna, the line seemed dangerously, dangerously thin.) "A pretty little word invented by those with pretty little lives. It means fuck all, unless you decide it does. They may have raised you," the mercenary shrugged, "but if they weaned you on poison, why should you care? I say, pay them back in kind."

The implication, of course, didn't escape the mercenary-- the voiceless statement that the priest did not, in fact, deserve burial. Very well, then! (Rot was all he had been, so it was only fitting that it should claim him now, too. Should your shell not reflect what you were, deep inside? The Divine Phoenix loved Truth, Cizrna heard, and now the Allfather got to embrace his! A happy end, even for such a wicked soul. Ah, praise him, praise him!) "C'mon," Cizrna said, quietly. "We need to move. Snow may be pretty, but it can be deadly as well-- you do not want to be buried under it, trust me. Not unless you want warmth to be stolen from your body. Night is about to fall, too. We need to find a place to sleep." We, we, we-- the pronoun felt strange on her tongue, heavier than the usual I, and Cizrna... by the Phoenix, Cizrna almost choked on it. This, of course, meant nothing, too. Just a matter of convenience, really. Like, how was she supposed to speak? 'I and I alone, but you may tag along if you are so inclined, I guess'? No, way too unwieldy. 'We' was easier, and thus her mouth had adopted it. ...abandoning it, Cizrna wagered, would be just as simple. You just had to follow the silver thread of reality, you know? And when the flames consumed her, you see, there would be no doubt that she was alone once again-- alone, alone, alone, with the guilt perched on her shoulders being her only company. (Even now, it sat there. It sat there, and sank its claws into her flesh, and-- No. No, you have your purpose. You have your purpose, and that is all that matters. Your arms aren't large enough to embrace anything else.)

They walked and walked and walked, mostly in silence. There wasn't anything to talk about, you see? The snow covered most of the soil, too, so Cizrna couldn't even show Caelia all the wonders she'd never seen-- which, mind you, the mercenary didn't even want. No, that would be just silly. For all intents and purposes, the girl was luggage! A boulder attached to her hip, which she had to drag forward, forward, forward, endlessly. (A boulder that could kill her, too, and quite easily. A heartbeat worth of carelessness would be enough-- oh yes, yes, Cizrna shouldn't forget about that. ...shouldn't forget that, regardless of appearances, the girl was poison as well. Death and decay, and all things wrong with this world.)

As if reflecting her thoughts, the weather grew worse by the second, too-- icy winds blew, threatening to tear their clothes off their backs, and, oh was it hard to walk with her feet sinking into the snow with every fucking step! Still, with her usual stubbornness, Cizrna marched onwards. She marched, even if the world dissolved into dull whiteness, and-- oh. Was that...?

"Caelia," she shouted at her companion, "see? A cave. There, right in front of you. We'll... we'll spend the night there."

And so, soon enough, the two found themselves huddled in the cavern, safe from the winds at least. ...not safe from the cold, though. Not safe from that at all. "Caelia," the mercenary said, her voice firm, "help me. We need to look whether there's something in this cave that can be used as kindling. Do you know how fire is made?"

 

[heartstringss]

Though she doesn't respond, Cizrna's words do have an impact-- it starts as an all-too-familiar ache of loneliness, a phantom pain she's grown so accustomed to ignoring over time she hardly even notices its presence anymore. As she replays the mercenary's words through her mind, she begins to develop a sense she might be more an outsider than she'd originally thought. Will she ever know what it's like to truly belong among a people? To exist not just as a secret weapon; not just as a treasured prize… to exist not even as a goddess but as an actual human being, someone with autonomy and purpose; someone with hopes and dreams they could one day pursue; goals they could one day accomplish. (After all, the fact that half her parentage had been human meant that so too was half her soul -- so, this being half-human, she still deserved a little peace, did she not? ...or had peace gone extinct for everyone now, and all was left was chaos?)

This very moment, more than anything else, [Caelia] finds herself wishing she could fade away, that she could lie down and simply melt into the snow, even disappear completely. However, she can’t, can she? No, not when she still has a sense of duty to uphold, more demands to follow through on. (But they aren’t demands that are coming from the mercenary, are they? No, they are more like coming from within her very own soul-- demands which, in this particular case, require setting aside her own emotions and carrying on as best she can; as she always has, for all emotion and weakness has ever granted her in the past is pain, pain, and more pain than she can handle.) Therefore, when the mercenary instructs her to follow from the camp, she doesn't argue -- instead, her reaction is nearly grateful. Grateful for the distraction from her pain; grateful for a chance to separate from her past and leave it all behind. She goes along willingly, falling into step behind the mercenary although still held back a safe, careful distance for consideration of the effect of her essence.

Even if she knows that she is likely being led to her own death, she is not afraid-- indeed, she has made peace with that fact already. It was the reading of her sins that scared her more (...the reading of her sins-- was this common practice in all religions or was it just her own? She had no idea how other religions worked, how this Allfather might’ve seen things, but she didn’t dare ask either-- not when she was too afraid the answer would be no, and that there could be something Worse instead). Above all else, the goddess knew that she was not entirely blamelessly for her sins just because she had been born into this life. Though she had been born and raised a monster, that did not mean she could not have still fought back-- surely, she could have broken from her chains anytime and chosen to revolt; could have easily killed the priest and found some way to escape a lot sooner. She simply hadn’t ever been brave enough to try, had she? ...regardless of bravery, she also hadn’t ever thought herself truly deserving of that freedom. If her own sins must soon be judged, she had more than earned the Fate that was coming to her. She was not blameless; was not innocent; was not a victim, in her own mind. She was still a monster-- yes, more a monster than a girl, more a monster than a goddess, even now. (Especially now. That, too, contributed to how she knew she would always be an outsider. She was an outsider in her own mind, so she would remain one always, lest that too changed.)

Ducking her head against the icy winds, [Caelia] reaches for the hood against her back and pulls it overtop her head. She tucks her hair into the inside of her coat, then her hands into her pockets. Even concealed beneath layers of heavy furs and fabric, even taking these few small protective measures, her body still shakes and trembles like a leaf, for she is too thin, not yet accustomed to the outside world-- not yet accustomed to the wind, specifically. Down below the earth, there hadn’t been much wind-- the occasional draft, yes, but nothing quite like this. Same as the mercenary had said the snow would, the wind also sneaks beneath her clothing and tries to steal her warmth away; it sweeps her about the earth, dragging her under, nearly toppling her to the ground numerous times along their journey. She struggles with every step, the deeper the snow gets. Her lungs ache and her cheeks are frozen, wind-chapped, teeth chattering. However, she is just as stubborn as the mercenary, even if for different reasons-- the difficulty feels perfectly justified, the pain something she had likely earned. The world was still beautiful even dangerous and buried beneath the snow.

Her sense of wonder, at least, could not be squashed. As much as it hurt, she still looks up from time to time to drink in the world as much as possible. How the ice and snow weigh down the trees, making their bodies look like they are hunched over weeping. How the colors in the sky reflect against all that white, turning the whole world into an image more beautiful than anything else she’d ever seen before. It steals more of her breath away than even the icy chill does, and she nearly forgets all her other worries-- the life she’s had to leave behind, the priest, all the others Cizrna had killed. Herself, too. She nearly forgets herself in her own inability to form coherent thought against the cold; if not for the fact her heart was still beating -- hammering, really, for she could feel it crashing against her ribs, likely trying to break free from its own prison -- she might have thought herself inside a dreamworld instead. (Or perhaps she’d died already, and was just unable to remember how she’d gotten here.)

She startles from her mind when an echo reaches her ears-- a name, one she’d nearly forgotten the purpose of its attachment to herself. Her head sweeps up, eyes searching through the haze of snow to find the holder of that voice, for the two had dissolved into silence for so long she’d nearly forgotten about the mercenary, too. She’d been following her blindly this long, trailing in her footsteps like a child, as if led by an invisible thread or… or a leash. Now, the slack loosens and their purpose returns to the forefront of her mind. A cave. They must find someplace to sleep, the woman had told her earlier. She looks to the cave before her without a hint of worry for its darkness, giving a small nod as she follows the mercenary into its wide, gaping maw.

The wind retreats, but the cold does not. Of course, [Caelia] knows well that just because you move into a shelter does not mean the cold cannot still reach you, and what is a cave if not an extension of the underground? She huddles into herself inside the dark, wanting nothing more than to burrow deep into some blankets. (She could move closer to the mercenary to steal some of her warmth, but only if she wanted to steal her life, too. The thought, in all honestly, does not even occur to her.) Pale eyes lift to the woman when she speaks the name -- her name, or the one she had given to her, anyway -- a second time. A task. She tilts her head with the request for help -- not so much a request as it is a demand, really -- and skirts her eyes across the cave as she follows the direction to find kindling.

Fire… Yes, she knows what fire is, but as for how to make it for herself, no-- she has only watched and had others make it for her. (Had it prepared for her before a ritual, on a hot poker or a small staff doused in grease and wrapped in cloth, by which it could be extended out for her to grab before she was instructed to…)

She shakes her thoughts away, brow scrunching as she looks to the woman and utters a simple “No.” But she does know what kindling is, and how important fire is for a variety of different reasons, not all ritualistic, such as to harness warmth and create a source of light. It takes a few minutes of searching around the cave, but she does eventually manage to find something that she thinks will work. A few small nests that have been left behind, now long-forgotten and completely bare of life. She stares a moment, wondering what type of animal they might have belonged to. Only when a hard shiver rocks her body does she retreat from her own mind and return to the present. She calls the mercenary to her, “Here, there is something,” not bothering to disturb it or take it over to her, because, quite frankly, she isn’t sure she wants to even touch it. Life had blossomed in one of these nests, most likely, and even if it wasn’t anymore, she was still Death.

Though the thought still scares her somewhat, she looks to the mercenary and asks, “Will you show me how to make a fire?”

 

[Syntra]

By the Phoenix, what was she doing? The question had been following Cizrna since she'd learned that the precious Vessel the Allfather coveted so was a human-- a human made of blood and flesh and bone, just like the mercenary was. (Of darkness, too, but again, weren't they sisters in that regard as well? Oh, they were, they were. Except for the most important thing, of course! And what, pray tell, was it? That they'd forced it on the girl-- cut her roots when she'd been to young to truly feel the loss, really, and then stuck her in a flower pot. ...with blood they'd watered her, blood and tears, and soon, she had grown into the shape they'd wanted her to be. Cizrna, on the other hand? The sword had called to her, so she'd answered the call. It just pleased her, you see? To hold the steel in her hand and feel that, for a few fucking seconds, she had some amount of control over it all. ...if others had to bleed for her to grasp that feeling, then so be it. No, really. Most of them were fucking parasites, anyway-- mindless and disgusting, a blight upon this land. Letting them die with purpose, then, was a gift.)

Oh, yes. By this time, the mercenary realized she wasn't better than Caelia. So what if she was a full-blooded human? If anything, that counted against her-- the worst bastards Cizrna had ever known had been human, so yeah, the whole 'spark of the Divine Phoenix' bullshit didn't really hold up. What was more, she could also see some... uhh, disturbing parallels. (The kind of parallels that made her want to say 'I know what that is like' or, even more dangerously, 'I want to know what that is like,' which, no. No, no, no, and thousand times no! The girl was dead already. The corpse was warm, yes, and blood still coursed through her veins, but by death she'd been claimed, long before she had crawled out of her mother's womb. The cultists had never allowed her to live, either, and now... now she was marching to her own funeral pyre, like a fucking sheep to slaughter. Perhaps her father dearest was calling her? 'Cause, honestly, Cizrna saw no other reason for a behavior this self-defying. 'Take me,' it screamed. 'Take me and use me, and I'll thank you for it.' Anyway, there was no point in drawing these parallels-- parallels ran close, you see, which they weren't. Weren't, weren't, weren't! Weren't and would never be, because Cizrna had had enough of disappointment. ...long enough to last her for a lifetime, really.)

So, all in all, the mercenary knew what to do here. A fire had to be lit, so that was to be her first course of action. Explanations, however? Those weren't instrumental to its birth. Not at all. In the ideal fucking scenario, Cizrna would make the fire, quietly, and then go to sleep. Less messy that way, you know?

...the issue was, though, that non-messy solutions seemed to elude her. (They had been for a while, since she'd first tasted ashes on her lips. Since the hot steel had branded her palms with its searing kiss, and the first Caelia-- No. Don't go there. You fucking know where thinking gets you, don't you?)

Banishing her thoughts felt like the safest path to walk, in truth, except that that made her tongue loose. "Very well," she heard herself say, despite her last shreds of reason shouting 'no' at the top of their lungs. "In times of old, people used stones for making fires. You'd take two, like this," the mercenary grabbed the rocks lying near her feet, "and you'd smash them together. Again and again and again!" As if to spite her, though, the stones remained cold in her hands-- cold and lifeless, the exact opposite of the life-giving flame. "Eh," Cizrna shrugged before dropping them, entirely unbothered. "I've never actually done that before. Just heard of it, really. It's supposed to be tedious, so be glad we don't have to do that. If you do it right, sparks fly from the stones, and you let them land on the kindling. Then you blow on it, gently, for air makes fire stronger. Not too much, though! Otherwise, you'll fuck it up. It's like... I don't know. Like water and people. You do need water to live, but too much of it and you'll drown. Now, fire can drown both in air and water! Too much ground kills it as well, in fact, so if you look at it from that angle, it's the weakest element of them all." Not one day had passed and Cizrna was already engaging in what could only be described as heresy, in front of her soon-to-be-vengeful prisoner. Good fucking job! Still, the girl was ignorant, so perhaps she wouldn't notice. (...ugh. Was that the kind of defense she'd been reduced to? Pathetic.)

Turning around, the mercenary reached for her backpack and began to look for something-- something she found for quickly, judging by her reaction. "Ah, there it is! This," Cizrna presented the tiny item to Caelia, "is a lighter. One of the Divine Phoenix's gifts, to repel the forces of darkness. That is what the Allfather claims, anyway. There's always a small fire inside, so you just need to help it grow. And this," she smirked and raised a bottle into the air, "is enkrrshah. Fire water. Good for making things burn faster, and for when your spirits are low. Do you wish to taste it? That is the only way for you to truly understand what liquid fire is." ...because, hey, wouldn't watching her choke on hard liquor be oh so funny? (C'mon, don't judge. Even mercenaries felt the need to laugh from time to time!)

 

[heartstringss]

Each time the mercenary smashed the rocks together, the noise echoed something powerful. In the dark and heavy quiet of that cave, it echoed loud enough to make her ears ring, and it took every ounce of willpower that she had to refrain from reaching up to cover them; to refrain from showing weakness. Still, she flinched with every startle, her heart a timid, frightened animal inside her chest. When no fire came out of the stones, she looked to the mercenary and furrowed her brow, confused. Watching with interest as she finally dropped the stones onto the ground, she tilted her head aside when the woman began to speak, listening, as any good student would, with her entire heart.

It didn’t surprise her that the stones had turned up useless—how you were supposed to make fire like that hardly made any sense to her! (The idea of sparks flying from a bit of rock? Nonsense, surely. And so brutal, too, when all she could remember of the fires being made before it had always been rather simple—a spectacle, but never anything quite so grand.)

The concept of rocks being able to create sparks that could turn into fire might have escaped her, but the irony of Cizrna’s judgment of that same fire being the weakest element, however, did not. (It wasn’t the supposed heresy that alarmed her most about that comment, though. No, it was the fact that, in her experience, fire had always been represented as anything but weak—Hell, it even represented life in these peoples’ religion, did it not? But on a more personal level, it had taken from her so, so much as well. She had felt it lick her skin numerous times in Punishment; she had scars to show for all its strength, and nightmares to back those up as well. Fire was not weak—however, by Cizrna’s definition, the air, ground, and water were all stronger. Someone as learned on the outside world as this must know for a fact, of course… So, what a revelation that was. A radical concept, to think that all she’d needed to do when she’d been instructed to burn herself anytime she hadn’t wanted to, she could have simply... blown and the flame would have gone out. Or doused it in a bucket of water. Or ground it into the earth. So simple. So… so stupid.)

It was easy to get caught up in that voice of negativity, but the lesson held before her? Ah, that was far, far more important in her mind! This fire-building was something she had never been allowed to learn before, and, in a way, it felt like disobedience that she was even pushing for it now. She couldn’t help but feel excited, learning something new, even something as dangerous as this. So, when the mercenary withdrew the tiny lighter from her bag, she reached out and took it, gingerly, turning the object over in her hands to inspect it closer. Whether Cizrna had meant for her to take it was lost on her, in that moment—overwhelmed with curiosity for something she had never seen before and amazed for the magic of the object’s purpose, she simply acted. She hesitated more, however, when the mercenary withdrew the bottle that she called something odd, some word in a language that she didn’t recognize, which she then clarified as… firewater.

(Fire. Water. Two very opposite things, which, by Cizrna’s own definition, repelled each other. How could they possibly be combined as one?)

And when the mercenary tempted her to taste it—? Her eyes widened, head shaking as she remembered all the ways she’d experienced a fire in the past, this being not even the very first time she would have felt it from the inside-out. But her alarm lasted merely a second, as the woman explained to her that tasting it would be the only way for her to truly understand what liquid fire was, and… surely, it couldn’t hurt her any worse than all the fire of the past had done already, right? (Not to mention, Vanity was one of the greatest Sins, was it not? And was it not also vain to think you were immune to needing to be punished for your sins—that you were immune to sin at all, simply because of your status? Even Marein’s own daughter had sinned, had she not? For killing the priest, perhaps the Pyre would be her Punishment, now, and any pain that came before was merely judgment. Had she not earned whatever pain might’ve come of tasting this firewater, stupid as it seemed?)

Was she self-sacrificing? Yes. But hadn’t she also been doing that her entire life already? …Besides, the mercenary had said it would be good for making things burn faster. Perhaps that would come in handy when she eventually reached her end-destination.

Handing the lighter back to the mercenary, [Caelia] reached out, wordlessly, and took the bottle with the funny name she didn’t know how to say herself. (It was heavy in her hands, but not an unexpected kind of heavy. There was liquid in here, of course, and she could hear it slosh about, just like water in a mug. Just like water, she reminded herself, as she lifted the bottle to her lips and…) not quite knowing what to expect, already preparing for the worst, she took only the smallest of sips, but still gagged regardless. The flame erupted in her mouth before she could even think to spit it out, lighting her tastebuds on fire the longer she held it in. She could feel some of the liquid coursing down the back of her throat, and it reminded her of a different fire, one she’d been inflicted via magic; an old, forgotten long-buried memory of her past she wished to re-bury at once. Her eyes stung with tears as she cringed through the pain. Unthinking, she spit the liquid right back into the bottle and passed it off to the mercenary, then turned around and walked away.

To the farthest wall of the cave, she paced, her head buried in her hands. With her back turned from the other woman, she rubbed her tongue on the outside of her sleeve, as if trying to scrub free the poison, the memory, and the fire all at once. If only she had real water to wash her mouth clean, too

Disgusting. Cruel. That is what it was. (And yet, she could remember observing servants during suppertime sneaking sips from bottles just before they tossed a splash into the fire, too. Was that stuff the same as this? How could anyone not be disgusted, appalled, enraged tasting a flavor as bitter as that?)

“How could that possibly lift your spirits?” she asked as she turned back around, now staring at the woman, somewhat wounded. Skeptically, she continued, “Your people are quite odd if this is what makes you happy. Pray tell, is that something your Divine Phoenix might have sanctioned, too?”

 

[Syntra]

Briefly, Cizrna considered warning the girl-- mostly because that which most people called 'conscience' awakened from its winter slumber for some reason, and was now screaming inside of her head. ('You cannot start with enkrrshah!' it shouted.'It's fucking used as a rite of passage. What kind of heartless wench would give this to a woman who has never... oh.' Was it a bad sign when your own conscience gave up on you? Because, yes, those last remnants of tact that were still alive in Cizrna's blackened heart realized that she was exactly that kind of heartless wench-- and, upon that realization, promptly retreated. Ah, bless the Divine Phoenix! Preaching this sanctimonious, the mercenary was sure, would have turned her into the likes of the Allfather eventually, and this world did not need more people following that pattern. ...in fact, it would benefit from this breed being eradicated entirely, but you know what they said about radical beliefs. If you had to have them, at least keep your lips shut! Unless you enjoyed having a flaming sword thrust down your throat, that was.)

So, yes, Cizrna remained silent. In order not to raise any suspicions, she began stacking the nests on top of one another-- you know, building a bonfire and not doing anything shady at all! Nuh uh. Only a fool plagued by paranoia would ever accuse her, the ever-dutiful firekeeper, of having... uhh, ulterior motives in this scenario. And if she ever glanced at Caelia, in a manner that was perhaps a little bit too expectant? Merely a play of the shadows! Caverns were full of them, you see, and the human eye could imagine such funny things from time to time. Come on, little dove. Deliver, deliver! Would there be the coughing fit Cizrna expected, or had Caelia been made of sterner stuff? If Marein himself had truly sired her, then she was touched by Death, and only the Phoenix knew whether such things even affected her. (...wouldn't it be hilarious, in a way? Caelia, the Daughter of Death, destroyed by booze. Cheap booze, too, because the mercenary had never really bothered to buy from fancy sellers. Like, why should she spend her life savings on a single bottle when its much more affordable sister would destroy her just the same? And, as long as it chased all the thoughts away from her head, Cizrna didn't give a flying fuck about how wonderful the grapes had been, or how long it had ripened in some fucking barrel. Booze was booze, end of.)

Finally, the bottle touched Caelia's lips, and... pffft! Alright, alright. Cizrna had thought the men from her village to be insufferable braggarts, but she had to give them one thing-- the phrase 'this shit would kill a god' turned out to be much more literal than any of them might have anticipated. Not that it had been their doing, mind you, but still!

To her credit, the mercenary tried not to laugh. 'Tried,' though, was the key word there-- despite her valiant efforts and all the cheek biting she engaged in, a chuckle burst past her lips, lively like a mountain stream. (How strange coming from her, truly. It was unnatural, almost like watching a grown wolf reveal its belly to pilgrims who passed by and whine when they didn't stop to pet it. Utterly, utterly confusing!) The mercenary regained the control of their impulses quickly, however-- within the blink of an eye, in truth, so this had all the markings of a short, meaningless episode. One that was easy to forget, you see? ...or would have been, really, had Caelia not spat into the fucking bottle. Just, what. What, what, what! Who even did that?! Had monkeys raised her, or something? Now, Cizrna hadn't considered the cultists to be a good influence in any sense of that word, but they at least could have fucking taught her how to drink like a human being. Did that violate the precious, precious principles of their deranged god as well? Like, did Marein yearn not only for the human flesh, but also for the death of manners?

If Cizrna looked scandalized, then it only seemed that way because it happened to be true. Yes, entirely! She opened her mouth in hopes of providing an answer-- once, twice, thrice, but nope, nothing would come out. In that moment, the mercenary might as well have been a fish, or its cousin at least. Still, when Caelia asked her questions? It dawned on her just how truly clueless the girl was. Clueless enough, it seemed, for Cizrna to be able to plant any thought in her mind, and see it grow!

"Yes," the mercenary finally said, "it does lift your spirits. You need to persevere, however. Does Marein teach you that bliss is free, Caelia? Because it isn't. You must walk through fire, drink more and more and more, in other words, and only then can you know true happiness. But," she sighed dramatically, "you ruined it. Oh well. The fault is mine, for I should have told you not to do such a thing. Nevermind. Can you bring me my sword? I will have to ask you to cut off one of my fingers," Cizrna continued, with the lightness usually reserved for discussing a seller's wares. "I need to perform a cleaning ritual, and fire demands flesh. Fire water, as you surely understand, is no different in that regard. Or would you like to volunteer instead? One of us has to do it, otherwise we'll freeze to death here."

 

[heartstringss]

Was the goddess aware that she was being watched? Yes, even through the dark, she could certainly sense the other woman's gaze upon her face and, when she turned, her back. There was a heavy weight of expectation that she could sense too, something which her mind felt far too delicate to handle the strain. However, she didn't think much of trying to decipher the other's motives because, in all truth, this was nothing new. Over the years, she had grown accustomed to being observed in everything she did. No matter where she went — be it the temple, the chapel, the dining hall, even the bathroom, embarrassing as that was — she had been required to have a stationed guard or servant somewhere nearby at all times. (Perhaps it should have made her feel like a princess, but instead, it only made her feel like a prisoner. Imagine being a grown woman having to ask someone for accompaniment to the bathroom, or else you couldn't go. Imagine having to ask permission anytime you wished to change your clothes, permission when you wished to eat. At least she hadn't had to ask permission when she wished to speak. At least when she was alone inside her bedroom or the chapel, she had been able to come and go as she pleased.)

So yeah, this whole, uh, being watched thing? Sure, that was nothing new to the goddess, but being laughed at? ...that was.

Such a sharp, clear, joyful sound it was, the mercenary’s laugh. It was surprising coming from a woman [Caelia] had already determined to be quite brutal, someone who seemed so unafraid of violence no matter what the cost upon her soul. Had she heard much laughter living with the commune? In all truth, she hardly remembered any at all... (Crying had been common, as well as anger, but with the degree of seriousness the father had applied to all his teachings, there was hardly enough space leftover for true joy, let alone any of this manner of flamboyance.) Though she didn't notice the other stifling her laughter, she could sense the electric charge that was building in the air, and it inspired her to look up even as the fire was burning in her mouth. The shock on the other woman's face when she spit back into the bottle? She didn't think much of it, though she knew perhaps she should have been more embarrassed with herself. Alas, there were far more important things to worry about. Like, uh, you know... her mouth being on fire, and the painful memories that dredged up with its familiarity.

Lifting her spirits was the exact opposite of what the booze had done, though being told that she only needed to drink more of it if she wished for true joy made not a single ounce of sense either. (She really was far too gullible, though it was clearly far from choice. She had been raised this way, entirely at the mercy of the father's teachings. How was she supposed to know better? When she had been told all her life the people above were nothing but a bunch of sinners and traitors; that their people were all that was left of Marein’s following, and therefore all that was left of what was holy.) So, being the daughter of the God of Death, of course, it made sense she'd never experienced being pranked! Fortunately (or perhaps, unfortunately) for Cizrna, that meant she did take every word the woman said as fact. These were the ways of the world above which she was learning now, so if a cleansing is what the other said must be done, then a cleansing was exactly what they must do... Cutting off one of the woman's fingers, though? How could she possibly do that, when she couldn't dare get close unless she wished to risk the woman's entire life too? No, no... clearly, if volunteering was an option, that was the only option that she had.

She stared at the woman blankly while she listened to her speak, feeling shameful that she was the one at fault for having ruined the firewater. Though she wasn't the least bit surprised to learn that fire demanded flesh (as so too did the blade demand blood, and had she not supplied that all her life?), what she hadn't expected was the degree of severity to the wrongness of her actions. She swallowed when the other instructed they would have to cut off one of her fingers to feed to the fire. However, she was not looking to the mercenary's hand when the woman instructed her to get her blade, rather, she was looking to her own; for she was already thinking of offering to volunteer before the woman had even suggested it an option. After all, she did not wish to freeze to death. (I mean, she did not wish to burn either, but if she had to choose between the two... Well, she honestly would have preferred neither. Was that really such a sin, to want to live? (...yes. Truly, was it not ironic that a woman belonging to a cult that spoke so highly of not fearing death, was also secretly terrified of dying -- perhaps because she was afraid of her true father? (Of course, these were feelings she had been forced to bury all her life, and which she would continue to bury for all the rest of it, for exploring them had certainly never been an option in the past and surely would not be one in the future either.))

She doesn't say much, simply nodding as she turns away to get the woman's sword. It is not the first time she has had to participate in a cleansing ritual, not even the very first time she has had to make some kind of morbid sacrifice for one. Her blood had been drained from her for years, burns and scars inflicted all over her skin beneath her clothing-- really, what was she supposed to grieve for a single finger when she had been a receptacle for this type of violence all her life?

She would have gone through with it too, had the blade not been so heavy.

"I cannot lift this," she admitted guilty, straining with the sword a moment. Alas, she could only drag it-- which, even then, broke sweat all across her brow with the effort. The scraping of the steel along the stone floor of the cavern, though? Indeed, this also created sparks all along the way, as one could only assume it might have aided in sharpening the blade as well -- but ah, such an awful, awful sound it made! Try as she might, her hands were aching as she grasped the hilt and pulled with all her strength. When she reached the mercenary, she dropped the sword at her feet, stopping a moment to unwrap one of her hands, the non-dominant one. Her face was set in a gravely serious, stonelike expression, her hands not even trembling as she bent down to the cavern floor. She placed one palm flat upon the ground and positioned the blade above her pinky, the least important of all her fingers, she figured. She knew it needed to be a single strong, decisive cut if she wished to make it all the way through the bone with as little pain as possible. Her resolve wavered, however, when the blade kissed upon her skin, the goddess pausing a moment to watch as a thin line of blood seeped from the tiniest of cuts, draining down into the earth almost prophetically slow. Finally, she gave a sharp intake of breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and--

 

[Syntra]

Hahaha... haha... ha... wait, what? If you needed an accurate summary of Cizrna's thoughts, that was roughly it-- and, the longer this prank went on, the more she was leaning towards the 'wait, what' territory. Now, at the beginning? At the beginning, the mercenary believed that Caelia simply caught up on it being a joke. (Only one whose brain had been devoured by parasites would believe, after all, that fire water demanded your flesh. Just, pffft! What would it do with it? As far as Cizrna was concerned, alcohol had about as much agency as the human filth addicted to it-- so, next to fucking none. Caelia may have spent most of her life in catacombs, but even she couldn't be this stupid, right? That was one of those common sense things, such as being aware that fire was hot or that bleeding like a stuck pig translated to death. Surely, surely the girl wasn't entirely empty-headed! The mercenary had seen her in the company of books, you see, and books were the greatest cure to idiocy known to mankind. The knowledge contained in their pages was a potent thing-- potent enough that wars had been waged for rare tomes, and different wars were won with the information obtained from said rare tomes. Therefore, Caelia couldn't be clueless. Not to this fucking extent, anyway! No, Cizrna wasn't going to underestimate her. Even the most beautiful roses had thorns, as the priest had learned, and she wouldn't fall victim to the oldest trick ever. Innocent doe eyes, as well as feigned fright, sure as hell wouldn't work on her!)

...still, she had to admit Caelia was a decent actor. The way she sighed heavily, as if the weight of the entire world rested upon her shoulders? Believable. How she walked towards the sword, with barely noticeable hesitation in her step? Very, very believable. No. No way. The girl is just trying to prank me back, Cizrna reasoned. (Which, haha, tough luck! Lying happened to be a part of her job description, so yes, she had no problem sitting there, stone-faced, and pretending that the fire water indeed had secret cannibalistic tendencies. More ridiculous lies had left her lips-- such as, you know, her supposedly believing that the Divine Phoenix did anything beyond sitting on his fiery ass. And given the fact that they hadn't burned her at the pyre yet? Cizrna was justified in thinking she had done a fucking good job of it!) "Hurry up," she recommended to the girl, with her eyes still glued to the bonfire. "Fire water doesn't like waiting. The longer you take, the more contaminated it shall become. More and more, the substances are bleeding into one another, and... well. If you don't hurry up, my dear Caelia, a single finger won't save us anymore. I assume you don't want me to have to chop off you entire hand, do you? That would be such a terrible, terrible shame." Now, that had to seal this as a joke! You could only stretch the reality for so long before you spread it too thin, and even dimwits could see your words for the bullshit they were-- which, according to Cizrna, must have happened ages ago here. (Substances bleeding into one another, pffft. A silly robe and a pointy hat was all it would take for someone to mistake her for an alchemist, really! Except that those men actually believed their own nonsense, for one reason or another. ...or did they? Perhaps they were in for the long con and merely fed their patrons the delusions they wanted to hear, which would immediately earn them more respect in Cizrna's book. Before a proof for that was presented to her, however? Privately, the mercenary used their existence to support her thesis that, yes, there was such a thing as poisoning your mind with education, indeed. After a certain point, it was as if they'd split your skull open and filled it with spoiled porridge!)

If nothing else, Cizrna had to admit that Caelia had great endurance. The career of a shieldmaiden still seemed unlikely for her to pursue, mainly because shieldmaidens had to do more than just drag their swords along the floor, but her heart? Her heart was in the fucking right place. I wonder how far this will go, the mercenary thought lazily, before gazing inside of the bottle. (Was it truly ruined? As in, ruined for drinking? Lighting a fire with it shouldn't be a problem, that much Cizrna didn't doubt at least, but getting shitfaced... Hmmm. Did she want to risk ingesting Caelia's saliva? Death lurked within her touch, and so there was no guarantee it didn't also hide elsewhere. You know, such as in her bodily fluids! Ugh. Fine, fine, no alcohol today, then. A mental note: make someone else drink this later, for research purposes.)

Any minute now, the farce had to end. Yeah, yeah, Caelia's dedication was impressive, but there wasn't much space left for her to maneuver in, and... and.... The mercenary's eyes widened. Before she could recognize what was happening on a conscious level, her body moved on its own-- moved to knock the sword away from the girl's hand, to be precise. With a loud 'clang,' the blade fell on the floor and spun in wild circles. And Cizrna? Oh, Cizrna's face darkened with anger. "By the Phoenix, what are you doing?" she demanded to know. "If I told you to slit your own wrists because the blood gets turned into cherry juice under the full moon, would you do that, too? Just, how fucking ridiculous can you be, Caelia?"

 

[heartstringss]

Being told she needs to hurry up, [Caelia] ducks her head, too far ashamed with her own weakness to meet the other’s eye. (Oddly enough, a brief flash of anger sears through her chest along with the shame, too. Why did every one of Cizrna’s words have to be a slap upon the face? Was it not enough that she was giving a piece of herself to save the integrity of their fire after recognizing the mistake that she had made—did she really deserve all this abuse, too?) Her eyes skirt along the cavern floor, watching the sparks jump off the blade as it drags along the stone. A phantom pang goes through her hand prematurely of its severing, causing her to wonder: did the body know beforehand what was coming for it now? That the blade would soon take her finger from her—or, as Cizrna had warned, if she didn’t hurry fast enough, the potential of her entire hand? A morbid curiosity: After it was gone, what would become of the finger's sensation? Would she still feel its pain, even as it burned inside the fire?

She doesn’t look back to the mercenary, not even when she stops before the bonfire, kneels down, and begins to unwrap the bidding on her hand. (Truth be told, she’s a little scared of what she might see if she dared to look the woman head-on. Could she handle any more failure and disappointment? Any more criticism? She didn't think she could.) So, as for her not looking? Yeah, that’s exactly how she fails to register the truth of what's transpired. Because she isn’t paying attention to anything beyond her breathing, the feel and sound of her heart beating in her chest, and the importance of the cleanness of her cut, she entirely misses the moment when Cizrna's face transforms from indifference to shock to anger.

Shock flows through her when the mercenary stomps over and the sword is kicked away. Suddenly, her hands are empty, and the intense calm she had fought so hard for-- that is gone now too. Though she is briefly distracted watching the sword spin in place, as soon as the mercenary speaks (her voice raised and practically dripping with anger), the goddess's head flashes up and, slowly, she begins to stand. (Her initial worry isn't the other woman's anger, though, but rather the fact she stands too close. She backs away not because she is afraid, but because this is her core-most instinct. "...what? I am doing what you told me needed done. You said--" Before she can continue, the woman interrupts and understanding begins to sink in. Hurt flashes across her face with the cruelness of her words, head dipping as she passes a palm over her wrists, deeply uncomfortable with the other's implication.

"So you lied to me," she spoke slowly, evenly, outlining the truth of the matter as Cizrna's meaning became clearer though the reason for her anger remained a mystery still. "Is that what you are saying, that you lied about the cleansing? Why-- why would you do that?" she pinches the bridge of her nose between two fingers, eyes screwing shut as she thinks about the seriousness of this offense, what it could have cost her. She huffs, somehow still slightly more disappointed with herself for her blindness than she is the mercenary for her lies. Until, that is, the woman asks her last question. "EYE am ridiculous?" she echoes, clearly offended with the claim. "Me, for trusting your word? ...you know what, perhaps that is true. But at least I do not lie, especially not with matters of life and death. You-- you-- you are a cold, reckless woman, and you blame me. You blame me, when you could have just lit the fire and-- and we could already be warm. Why would you lie?"

 

[Syntra]

In her life, Cizrna had seen many things. She'd seen depraved bastards claim honor, as if they could wash their hands in it, and pretend it had been theirs all along. She had seen priests speak of integrity, and yet sell indulgences-- those small pouches full of holy ash that could, when smeared on your face, grant you Safe Passage under the Phoenix's winds. (How convenient, right? No need to care about following those ridiculous commands anymore! Not if your pockets were heavy with gold, anyway. In that case, you could buy the Phoenix's mercy in the same way you could buy a pint of ale, of perhaps new boots. Glory to the temple, glory to the temple, indeed!) Even more absurdly, the mercenary had also seen blood being spilled in the name of peace-- because, duh, there was no better way to send that fucking message than to slaughter everyone who dared to oppose you. How very... hmmm, educational. (Not that she cared, of course. Oh no, no, no. To her, their miserable lives were worth less than horse shit! Literally, as you could use horse shit to feed the earth, and it would pay you back tenfold via bountiful harvest. Those people, on the other hand? Just more hungry mouths to fill, and more empty heads for the Allfather to preach to. The less of them existed, Cizrna thought, the better for everyone. Including them, too! Poor, poor victims of their own idiocy, as blind as newborn kittens.)

So, the point? Absurdity wasn't a new friend to the mercenary. On the contrary, it was one of her most faithful companions-- throughout her life it had followed her, to the point it may as well have replaced her own shadow, and showed her the world in all its distorted colors. It didn't even bother Cizrna anymore! In fact, she had learned to find no small amount of joy in the games the Divine Phoenix played with all of them, for, if nothing else, the bastard at least had a pretty good sense of humor. (The kind of distance he kept from all of them, the mercenary assumed, helped him set up some truly epic pranks. Like, you know, her entire goddamn life? Yeah, that sort of thing. So hilarious that she almost felt like throwing up, in truth! ...throwing up, and occasionally slitting her own wrists as well.)

Despite all of her experiences with various shades of surrealism, however? Cizrna still couldn't help but stare as Caelia accused her of being a liar of all things. "Lying? Me?" the mercenary asked, disbelief written in her eyes. (Just, how dared she! She hadn't even lied to her that much yet, alright, and it offended her that the girl thought her machinations would be revealed so easily in the first place. Besides, what kind of fool would consider jokes to be lies? A rare brand of one, Cizrna was sure, but it seemed like she had a talent for meeting some rare people.) "Does your head contain nothing at all?" she asked, her tone harsh. "Riddle me this, Caelia: according to your precious morality system, are actors liars as well? Because they, too, tell things that aren't fucking true."

...still, the mercenary had to admit her companion had a point. Not a large one, mind you, but not all of her complaints were completely unjustified-- had it not been for this pathetic attempt at a joke, they could have been warming their hands above a fire already. Fine, fiiiine. It's not like we're freezing to death here, though. Without further ado, Cizrna poured some of the alcohol on the dry branches. (If you didn't know her, you might come to the conclusion that she was avoiding looking at Caelia, too, but, pffft. That would have implied some degree of guilt, you see, and that was an emotion she just didn't do. ...no, her heart had turned to stone ages ago. Stones didn't weep, either, so she considered it a good fucking choice.) And once the twigs were wet? A single click of the lighter was all it took, really, before the fire came alive. "There," Cizrna whispered. "Warm yourself. C'mon."

(Such a stupid, stupid girl. Just!!! Jokes were jokes, not some insidious traps for her to fall into. How could she not understand something this... this... oh. Oh, indeed, for a memory flashed through her mind-- the memory of the chapel, so isolated from the outside world. All those old men, too, who had likely thought humor to be an insult. Had Caelia truly not experienced joking around before? Pangs of guilt gnawed at her stomach, way more intense than before, and--)

"Look," Cizrna huffed, with her gaze still glued on the fire, "I'm sorry, alright? I didn't mean to lie. I just said a joke. You know, it was so absurd that I thought you couldn't possibly take it seriously-- so, it wasn't meant to deceive you. That's how these things work! You say something stupid, and everyone recognizes it as stupid, and then you laugh at it together since it's, duh, stupid. I guess you didn't get to do it much, though. Fine, fine. You may prank me in return. Or, you know, ask me whatever. I promise I shall answer truthfully, as compensation." ...why was she doing this, anyway? It wasn't as if she owed anything to the girl! The words had left her mouth already, however, and so it was too late to take them back. Oh well.

 

[heartstringss]

Being insulted by the mercenary — a woman she did not, technically, have to lead or follow if she didn’t wish — stirs strange feelings in the goddess. For starters, it makes her blood boil. (Like she was being cooked from the inside-out, perhaps; a pot of water balanced over a flame, left too long, forgotten, and threatening to overflow. She could feel her skin tingle as the heat rippled outward from her breast in waves; could feel as electricity, too, crackled off of her and singed the air around her body. Even if the boiling was not literal, it did at least feel that way, given how incredibly hot her skin was. Oh, how sharp and piercing her gaze was, too—how did that saying go? ’If looks could kill.’ Could was subjective, though, for whether the mercenary realized it or not, she was in the presence of someone who could, indeed, kill with looks alone if the desire happened to be strong enough.)

Secondly to the blood boiling, this being so blatantly disrespected incurs, in the goddess, something akin to rage. (Rage, for the goddess, is actually surprisingly rare. See, she had grown up timid—too timid, in fact, to even know how to stand up for herself the very first place. Or perhaps that wasn’t entirely true—after all, one could certainly argue the desire was there, even if the opportunity itself was lacking. She had practiced it some with the mercenary upon first meeting, had she not? Standing up for herself, asking her to leave, even when no one else was around to do it—because the woman had slaughtered them all already.)

What she was supposed to do with these feelings, however, is a total mystery. (After all, what was the point of rage if one did not wish to give in to it? If you did not wish to kill, or injure, or maim all those who had ever wronged you—if all you wanted was security and peace, and to be treated with respect. Asking for those things, however, seemed so foolish; especially when the mercenary seemed to take her for a fool already. She would only laugh, she figured. Laugh and laugh and laugh, and call her an idiot—again—for she had done that once already, without even any mercy.)

So, indeed, she smothers her very own rage, wrapping her hand around its mouth and pressing down upon its nostrils, ’til at long last its body goes limp inside of her and she can breathe easy once again. She smothers all of her feelings, in fact, except for one: that desire for respect. This, it seems, is far too powerful to be squashed. This, it seems, has a mind all its very own.

“Do not speak to me that way,” she says, her voice low and stern, nearly warning. (However, one certainly cannot miss how she avoids the mercenary’s eye when she says it, too—there is no real threat behind her words; no either/or; no grand ultimatum. It is a request just as much as it is a warning. ‘Do not swear at me,’ she begs. ‘Do not call me an idiot, or treat me like a fool, simply for not knowing any better.’ More quietly, perhaps: ‘do not act like them.’)

Why she thought the mercenary would afford her the decency of respect, at least, when she also planned to kill her, she did not know. Perhaps she really was a fool after all.

When the woman moved forward to finish the fire, only then did the goddess turn back her way. Watching, ever the attentive student, as she poured a splash of alcohol onto the branches, then clicked one end of the lighter—and just like that, flames erupted from the nests! (She’d seen fires built before, but never been shown how to make one herself—this moment was important to her, see, and so she knew that she would have to protect it. Even if the mercenary had nearly tainted it herself, nestled away inside her heart, there, at least it would be safe.)

Warmth spread outward from the new bonfire. Like a moth, she hovered closer towards the flame, not even needing the mercenary’s direction to prompt herself to do so. She looked to her, once, without words. A silent ‘thank you.’ Finally, she lowered herself to the ground and sat, legs crossed, bundled safely in her furs. With the flame providing new light, she began to carefully re-wrap her hand. Even safe from the snow, she did not wish to leave her skin exposed.

Her eyes returned to the fire once she finished, watching as a few lone sparks shot off the twigs and died upon the cold, hard ground. (Watching anything and everything, really, except for her companion where she sat across the way, sullen and guilty by her own side of the fire.) Even when Cizrna began to speak, telling her to look, [Caelia] did not look up. She stared into those deep glowing embers ever so intently, for so long that when she finally did grace the other with her full, undivided attention, it wasn’t easy. Spots of bright, glowing white hovered in her field of vision like an image burned into the back of her irises. She could barely see the mercenary through the flame. (Ironic, considering the impression of something burning would likely be the last thing she experienced before she died as well.)

When the woman apologized, however? Why, she certainly saw her clearly, then! A single blink and ah, yes, there she was—and so small, too, although the goddess was sure that had to be imagined. Especially when, in reality, Cizrna was so much larger, stronger, and fiercer than she herself could ever be. She who could barely lift a sword… She who was weak in all ways except for heart.

A joke… Well, then, this was interesting. (Did she know what a joke was? Why, yes, of course. But as for being able to identify one, being able to discern between what was humor and what was fact—sadly, no. Just as Cizrna had guessed, the chapel had been isolated, so very, very lonely, and there had not been any other children there with her as she was growing up. Speech was not normally so deceptive, either. No one had spoken to her in riddles, lest they were the riddles of prayer, those texts which had been shrouded in mystery, outlining sin, and always, always, always casting light on shame. Life at the convent had been no laughing matter, truly. More a prison, really, even without the bars.)

The goddess was silent for a long time, absorbing the mercenary’s explanation and processing her apology. Really, she didn’t know how else to react. Should she thank her? Apologize? Perhaps absolve her of her guilt, if she so desired? None of these reactions felt appropriate for the situation, so instead, she remained quiet, a simple nod the only response she gave before she turned her eyes down to her lap, then again back to the fire. She had no interest in pranking the mercenary, truly, but the offer of complete honesty to whatever question she might ask did, in a sense, have a slight edge of appeal. Ah, there were so many, many questions she could ask! So many things that she had wondered about the surface all her life—about the people who lived up there, and why they did the things they did. (Especially those things that got them branded enemies of Marein, taken prisoner of war, and brought before her to be Cleansed.)

No questions of the Divine Phoenix, or of Marein, or the surface and its life above came to her then, though. So many curiosities that she held, so many things she wished to know and see and learn and love, yet none of those curiosities were quite as alluring as the life of the woman sat before her. This strange, strange woman who had walked into her home and murdered dozens, who seemed so wholly devoted to acting out the will of one God, even if it meant sacrificing the life of yet another. (Yet she had saved her, too, had she not? Indeed, she had shown her mercy with the priest, mercy with her blade, and even mercy for her ignorance despite how it had frightened and alarmed her.) How had she escaped the clutches of Marein all her life? As much as she had sinned, no doubt this woman would have ended up before her, one day. Alas, a single touch across her skin, and she’d be dead-- cold and buried in the ground just like all the rest.

“What led you here?” She asks, surprising even herself when she finally breaks the silence before she’s even fully sorted out all her own thoughts. (Is the flush upon her skin an effect from the fire, or perhaps a side of her own embarrassment? Only her avoidant gaze reveals the truth.) “Here, to this life, where you have committed so much… sin. Do you not have children? A husband? A home to care for? The father always said—” (Ah, but wait, what was lie and what was truth? She flushes further with this realization, burying her hands into her lap (and then her eyes there, too.)) “The father always said we see so many men being brought in from outside because all their wives have their own duties—child-rearing, namely, for He says the people of the surface seek their meaning out of life, and so it is by their doing that humanity multiplies and suffers, so far past the point this planet can sustain. Leeching off the fruits of labor from the women, meanwhile, all their men go off to commit more sin, spreading disease and lies, raging wars and whatnot.” She swallows, throat dry, and finally chances a glance at the woman once again. “So, I am curious, why are you… here?”

 

[Syntra]

Quietly, flames were crackling in the background-- their voice was barely louder than whisper, truth be told, but oh, did they resonate in Cizrna's ears! ('Fire accentuates that which is important,' the Allfather had said during one of his lessons. 'In its wisdom, it burns away filth, and allows purity to be seen. Do you understand, my child?' She had said 'yes' then, mostly to get him to leave her the fuck alone, but no, the mercenary hadn't understood. Or rather, she had understood it to be a steaming pile of bullshit! 'Fire reveals,' pffft, right. Fire burned, mindlessly, because it couldn't do anything else-- it didn't sow corn, didn't brew beer, and sure as fuck didn't care about what people thought of it. It was just... kinda there, you know? It was there, and every second of its existence had to be bought by the death of something else. Never once in her life had Cizrna connected it to an experience she'd call eye-opening, or perhaps mysterious-- except, perhaps, for this very moment. Ah, how curious it was! The way Caelia's words sounded more loud, more pronounced, against the dying screams of the nests.)

'What led you here?' she asked.

(Just four words, seemingly so innocent, and yet, yet every single one of them felt like an arrow in her heart. ...was Caelia a more experienced archer than she had thought her to be? Perhaps Cizrna had underestimated the girl, and was now reaping the rotten, rotten fruits of this foolishness. Yeah, right. As if a chick who didn't fucking recognize a joke could pull of something like that! No, the mercenary thought, her targeting her weak points must have been a coincidence. Nothing more, and nothing less! The ideal response, then? Why, any wounded animal possessed that knowledge-- conceal, conceal, and conceal, so that the predators wouldn't know where to aim next. Simple, really. Whether it meant hiding in leaves or drowning the truth in pretty words, that mattered not, as the principle remained the same. At the end of the day, self-preservation was your reward!)

...so, what would it look like in practice? Some part of her wanted to launch into a long speech about following her sacred duty-- about her kissing the Phoenix's fiery ass with such fervor it had led to her embarking on a journey to end Death once and for all, or some grandiose nonsense like that. Wouldn't it be a nice, inconspicuous method of drawing her attention away? Smoke and mirrors at its finest, truly. The joke almost slipped past her lips, too, except that then Cizrna remembered her promise, which... damn. Damn, damn, damn! No outright lies, then. (Just half-lies, wrapped in a cloak of almost-truth. When Caelia inevitably got lost in all those subtleties, just as easily as you overlooked a snake in tall grass, whose fault would it be, huh? Not hers, that was for certain. Like, you couldn't expect her to clarify every goddamn sentence! That wasn't how speaking worked-- if everyone sounded like a textbook, they'd never fucking get anywhere.)

"It isn't as fascinating as you seem to think," the mercenary began, folding her hands in her lap. "I just followed..." Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Husband? Children? Sinning? What? Cizrna's left eye twitched, in that 'I can't believe what I'm hearing' way, even though she, in fact, could. (So that was what the old bastards had filled her head with, yeah? She could almost hear the lectures-- drawn-out sermons full of large words, ideal for masking the fact that they were empty. Just false promises of a false god, sitting on a throne of shit. And actually buying into such promises? That was like drinking cheap wine that contained no alcohol, yet somehow managed to summon the worst headache ever! ...because, oh, Caelia was in for a migraine, alright. Perhaps for a slap or two as well, actually, depending on how faithfully she had swallowed the priest's nonsense. That little 'no lies' rule? It ensured that certain... hmm, earth-shattering knowledge was heading her way.)

"So, once again-- it actually isn't that interesting. I just followed the money. The Allfather offered to pay me handsomely, and so I accepted. You know, the usual mercenary shit. It's always something in exchange for something else, Caelia. The Allfather knew I was good, too, so he wanted me to do it. Me, and nobody else. That's the story." A part of it, anyway. "I also don't think anyone searches for any grand meaning in their existence. People just live and happen to have children because they find pleasure in it. Like, they have enough shit to worry about in place of losing their sleep over the concept of pissing off some god they've never heard about." Tactful as usual, wasn't she? And Cizrna hadn't even gotten to the best fucking part yet! ...soon, though. Very soon.

"Now, pray tell, why would I have a husband? Does every woman need one in your world, little dove?" The mercenary leaned a little bit closer, as if she wished to tell her companion a treasured secret. "'Cause that, Caelia, would be a sad fucking world. A mockery of the real thing, indeed. Kissing a man isn't what I dream of at all. No, I'd rather take my blade and kill, and carve a place for myself in this realm. It is the more dignified way of living-- both for myself and the poor sod who would ask for my hand in marriage, really. Claiming a woman's lips, however? Much sweeter. Heavenly, in truth. Yes," Cizrna nodded, as if it was the most normal thing you could possibly discuss, "if I am ever to give my heart to another, it will be a fellow woman. Not that that is likely to happen, mind you. Love is for idiots," just like she had once been, "and I do not intend to fall under its spell. She would have to be real fucking exceptional to catch my eye for longer than a single night."

 

[heartstringss]

’It isn't as fascinating as you seem to think,’ the mercenary began, as the goddess listened and watched with open ears, open eyes, and an equally open heart. ‘Not fascinating’? Ah, but that just wasn’t true-- everything about this world was fascinating! The beauty of its landscape and that its people had such freedom, for starters, even still living underneath the watchful eye of the Divine Phoenix and his followers. That they could wander the countryside of their own free will and go wherever they wanted for whatever purpose that they wished… that a woman could carry a blade, all without a single man to govern what she did or did not do with it. Cizrna could have killed her already if she wished, and not a single man would have been able to stop her. Even if she was branded a traitor for denying the Allfather his precious captive, even if it would have meant sacrificing wages too, she could have run and still been free.

It almost begged the question: who would know-- or better yet, who would stop her-- if she chose to kill the mercenary and flee with her life instead? ...how long before another would come searching for her? Yet, how would they know just what to look for-- how would they learn she was a person rather than a thing, as the mercenary herself had expected, if that same mercenary was dead? (More importantly, how long before she, too, might (inevitably) succumb to death? Could she take care of herself without another there to guide her, teach her right from wrong, and make sure that she was fed? Without Cizrna’s direction, she might have lost her hands already. The father, too, could have brought about her end had she not been brave enough to stand against him, and refused to return to the convent where she would have surely starved or succumbed to madness long before another came to save her.) Curious as it was, of course, the goddess knew better than to even try. She needed the mercenary, just the same as the mercenary needed her.

Leaning forward as the woman began to speak again, [Caelia] listened, intent as ever, and so too did she practically hang on every single word. So different was this world from the one she had grown up in-- so different were its people, their customs, their God and his beliefs. (Would the father call it sacrilegious for her to want to learn more of their ways? Likely yes, but could you really blame a person being curious? After all, this was why she had been allowed her books in the convent, was it not? Because they were her mother’s, and because both of them had been curious of the world above, and because even a man knew curiosity could not be tamed if you did not at least cater to it some. ‘She might know plants,’ they would argue, ‘but that does not change she cannot touch them.’ ‘She might know language but that does not change she cannot speak it.’)

Did the woman seem annoyed, for a brief moment there, with something she had said? If she was, truth be told, [Caelia] hardly noticed. In fact, one might say she was too busy staring at the woman's mouth to even notice the detail with her eyes... Her mouth, which spun stories too fantastical to be believed as true-- stories which made the goddess want to laugh, or cry, for the number of lies she had been told throughout her life was truly overwhelming, and she simply could not bear it anymore. That a woman did not need a man, or a husband, or to bear children if she did not wish, seemed far too good to be true.

Only when the mercenary leaned forward did [Caelia] at once lean back and look up to her eyes, as if this challenge shocked her (because, in truth, it did). Needless to say, she was not prepared for what the woman told her next… for the implication that a woman could love another woman; that they could even give their hearts to one another and be married, and that was all perfectly fine and good and normal in her books.

’Claiming a woman’s lips, however?’ Did these words strike a blush across her cheeks, or was that just the warmth from the fire heating up her skin? The goddess looked away, as if ashamed, pursing her lips and turning her eyes back to the fire. However, the more Cizrna spoke, the less she came to doubt the sincerity of her words. The way she spoke of kissing other women, for example? How she’d called it “sweet” and “heavenly”? Ah, she was speaking from experience, clearly-- or from more experience than [Caelia] had, at least. Perhaps even from the deepest recesses of her heart, for this was softness unlike any [Caelia] had seen from the woman prior, and in a way, that only made it that much harder to deny.

Despite her curiosities, the hard truth of the matter was, [Caelia] did not know what it was like to be loved, or kissed, or held. She did not know which one was better-- kissing a man or kissing a woman-- or what it was like to kiss at all, for that matter. In all truth, she might never know... She might never know, for kisses received from her lips only resulted in a certain death that one could not escape, which would then surely lead to bitterness, and love could not survive in bitterness or death, she was certain, for it hadn’t with her mother either.

[Caelia] was silent for a long moment while she absorbed this information, still not looking at the mercenary. Instead, she continued to stare into the fire, even reaching out a moment to pluck a branch free from the nests and bring it closer. She shoved the burning end into the ground to smother out the flames, then used her wrapped fingertips to strip the bark away, just for something to distract her mind. Judging by the pinch upon her brow, it was clear she might have been struggling, for she did not know just what to think or say, or even how to feel. No one had ever told her it was okay to love a woman, though there were times she remembered that she had, when she was still young and did not yet think know she was unloveable. (Women who were maternal, and soft, and didn’t treat her like an “other”... men who had been like that too, before they’d learned they were supposed to fear her regardless of her beauty. Before her power had become her only purpose, and all other freedoms had been stripped away. Before the other children had been segregated or inevitably died in sickness.)

Tearing the branch to shreds, she creates a small pile of scrap inside her lap, hardly even caring that she might receive a splinter if she were not careful. “Why love a woman if you cannot conceive together?” she asks when her curiosity finally overwhelms her and she cannot contain her thoughts any longer. Voice low and a touch concerned, she continues on, “How-- how does that even work? You cannot-- um-- your bodies…” she trails off, blushing, remembering what the father had once taught her about how a man and woman fit themselves together in order to make a baby. (Something else that she would never experience, for she could not get that close. That, at least, she did not mind.)

“You have kissed a woman before, you say?” she asks, changing the subject when her own discomfort grows too heavy. “You call it sweet… heavenly… What is the difference between that and kissing a man? Have you ever--?” she looks up, briefly, then away again. “...ever, um, kissed a man?”

 

[Syntra]

Perhaps naively, Cizrna expected the conversation to die off pretty soon afterwards. Like, what else was there to say? Men didn't interest her, women did. End of the fucking story! Even someone as sheltered as Caelia must have understood that statement just fine-- if she, say, grasped that there were people who liked apples and people who liked pears, then this couldn't possibly seem too strange. (Her tongue still discerned tastes, right? The truth of that was too visceral to deny, so the cultists likely hadn't even tried to claim that it wasn't a thing. Lying, you see, was a balancing act-- one careless step, and whoops! Downwards and downwards you tumbled, right into the bottomless fucking pit. You'd likely never crawl out of it, either. How could you, after all? Trust was a fragile thing, and shattering meant that you had to glue it back together, piece by goddamn piece. That, however, demanded traits like 'patience' or 'humility,' which, pffft! Peak comedy, indeed. Had they bothered with such things, the mercenary thought, they never would have sought out a god such as Marein in the first place-- this ugly, twisted thing that condemned those who didn't bow to him. In rot it thrived, and its followers did, too! ...no, no, rebuilding surely was beneath them. Caelia must have been aware of these fundamental truths, then, and with that as a basis, she could accept Cizrna's truth as well. Just, it was the same fucking principle! Something as simple as liking and disliking certain things, really, so she didn't see it causing trouble.)

As seemed to be the tradition when it came to this girl, though? She was wrong. So fucking wrong, in fact, that if she wanted to, the mercenary could bottle the sensation into a pretty little flask and sell it! (Some ridiculous alchemist would probably buy it, too. 'Blessed by the Phoenix's wisdom' her ass, really-- if the god's touch manifested itself via burning the host's brain to a crisp, Cizrna would rather reject that fucking honor. You know, so that more worthy servants could be chosen instead!)

...anyway.

'Why love a woman when you cannot conceive together?' Caelia asked, her eyes big and innocent, and Cizrna gulped. (Absurdly, she coud feel her cheeks heating up. ...not that it meant anything, of course. The fire grew in intensity, you see, so it was only natural that it would warm the blood flowing through her veins as well! The relationship between Caelia's words and her current state was imaginary, thank you very much, and Cizrna would gladly cut out the tongues of those who had the nerve to claim otherwise. ...how to even answer that question, though? Just!!! Stupid, that was what it was. Stupid and absurd. Way too fucking personal, too, and the cocktail of confusion suddenly got too hot-- downright searing, actually, when it spilled inside of her stomach.) "I..." she looked away, no longer able to bear the intensity of her gaze. "I mean, why not? Or rather, how do you fucking defend yourself from such a feeling? My heart wants what it wants. When it sets its sights on a woman, I desire her, and I care not for anything else. Not having children is..." shameful, "...something I don't mind," the mercenary shrugged, deciding it wasn't even a lie. (With a child at her hip, her wings would have been clipped-- a baby demanded time, you know, and it wasn't satisfied with mere weeks. Oh no, no, no. Like a demonic fucking parasite, it would have carved whole years off her life!) "Besides, there are better things you can get from a woman. Better than... better than a child." By the Phoenix, if her face got any hotter now, you could boil water on it! "And, no, you don't need a man's parts. There are, uh, different ways... Different ways, indeed, that are also better. Everything about it is better. It just feels better, alright?" (Better, better, better. Why the fuck had her entire vocabulary shrunk to that word?! Not that it didn't serve her well, but perhaps should would have liked to sound more convincing, and less like a pathetic fucking idiot.)

"There things are about feelings," Cizrna finally said. "About sensations. You just gotta follow what your heart tells you and then it'll feel good. It's a compass, so don't fucking toss it away just because someone else doesn't approve of the direction it's pointing towards." ...wow. When had this devolved into her giving Caelia advice about her non-existent love life? Given that her touch equaled to death sentence, the mercenary somewhat doubted that there were those who'd try to win her hand in marriage. Nah, not how this worked! Beautiful as she was, the girl was also poison, and few drank poison willingly. "What do you think love is, even?" Cizrna raised her eyebrow. Because her earlier statement had contained some, uh, interesting implications. (Implications that fell in place rather easily-- just more pieces of the grey, dreadful mosaic Caelia dared to call her life. ...to her, it seemed more like extended death. You know how convicts gasped for air shortly before the noose crushed their necks? Well, the girl's entire existence sorta resembled that moment, except that it lasted for ages.) "Let me guess: an evil instrument of the evil humans who make more evil humans, in evil ways? Was that what they told you?"

By that point in time, the nature of Caelia's next question didn't even shock her. (Impertinence and that girl? Went together about as well as ale and hangover, indeed.) "No," Cizrna shook her head. "I've been kissed by a man, though. It was terrible. Made me feel nothing at all, aside from disgust. If I had to compare it to something, it was like... like..." Suddenly at a loss of words, the mercenary turned around and buried her nails into the wall. (The sound it produced? Unsettling, to the point of raising one's hairs.) "Like this. Just, wrong. My heart told me to push him away, so I did. When the right person kisses you, though? You fucking want them closer, and... and you wanna make them feel good, I guess. That's the point. Have you never felt like this? Hasn't there been anyone who awakened these urges for you?" ...since Cizrna couldn't imagine that being true.

 

[heartstringss]

'…I mean, why not?’

[Caelia] went quiet with the other woman’s questions, her gaze falling to the cave floor in the exact same instant that she felt her ears begin to burn beneath her hair. Ah, so that’s what it was about then, huh? ...a matter of the heart? How fickle those could be, though.

Although she pretended not to care from time to time, [Caelia] liked to think she already knew everything there was to know about the human heart. ...like how it felt with darkness twisted up inside of it, and exactly how deep it ached when it was full of only sorrow and regret. Indeed, she knew the heaviness of guilt just as well as she knew the fragileness of an overburdened heart, and how quickly you could make a grown man crumble if you pulled out and lay bare all his deepest, darkest secrets for the rest of the world to judge. Cizrna might have known what it was like to stab a man straight through the heart or drain him of every last drop of blood inside his veins or rip him limb from limb, but what she likely didn't know was how it felt to carry another person's grief inside of her everywhere she went like some kind of living, breathing record. How their memories stained like a scar upon her soul, the faint tremble of their last breaths a whispery echo in her ear each night before she finally went to bed. What was love in the grand scheme of things except a pipe-dream for fools and children who hadn't yet met fear? Yes, Cizrna had basically said that too, had she not?

When the woman explains that chasing desire relies most on trusting feeling and sensation, [Caelia] falters for a second, her heart thumping so hard inside her chest it aches. Her gaze drags upward, pale eyes locking with the mercenary's darker green. Her fingers still inside her lap as well, and for a moment you can even see them tremble-- that is, until she tucks them safely in-between her thighs and drops her eyes back to her lap. How ironic that Cizrna was giving her, of all people, advice on love and telling her to trust her heart. ...had she forgotten what it felt like to be close to her already-- the effect her presence had of slowly sapping away her life-force and turning all her insides to disease and rot? Did she need to be reminded that [Caelia] could not control her powers-- had she forgotten that already, too? "I cannot trust desire for feeling or sensation," the goddess murmurs darkly. Picking up the stick and returning her attention back to its destruction, she strips another long, thin swatch of bark away as she continues, "...not as long as it remains that everything I touch succumbs to rot. I am not a body made for love... unless the goal is suicide or murder. It-- it would be foolish for me to even dream."

(...Marriage? No, there had certainly never been anyone to ask her hand in marriage either, especially considering the convent hadn't much believed in marriage anyway. (The only procreation that really happened there was what was needed for producing soldiers, and since women were much rarer in their numbers... needless to say, the children were then, too.))

"What do I think love is...?" she echoes, brow pinched as she considers the thought same as one might a puzzle or a math problem. (Her expression, though mostly blank, also reveals a brief hint of amusement when Cizrna throws out her own assumption of what the cultists might've taught her. Really, she's not even that far from the truth.) "I-- I guess I don't really know... Father never spoke of love much. Even my mother, she, um... She--" clearing her throat when the words seem to lodge themselves inside her throat and refuse to budge, [Caelia] shakes her head and decides instead to change directions. "I don't really have my own opinion because it isn't, um-- there isn't much point for me to get attached to things like that."

When the mercenary turns and rakes her nails along the wall, [Caelia] lets out a short cry with the awful screeching that resumes and quickly reaches up to clasp her hands over her ears. (She lowers them a second later when the screeching stops, but not without first glaring at the woman too. However, she can't stay mad for long when, in the next moment, Cizrna continues. Her words catch [Caelia]'s attention so completely that the offense against her ears damn-near disappears completely. She imagines the scenario, what it must be like to kiss someone and truly want to pull them closer. ...were there times she had imagined this before? Certainly, though had she ever chased those urges? No, no, thousand times no! She couldn't -- wouldn't -- ever inflict that type of pain upon another person! After all, what with the impending death that would proceed, there simply was no point. It would only hurt her more to have to watch them die then, too.)

She's caught off-guard, not expecting when the woman next asks after her own experiences. Pink spreads over her cheeks as she hastily looks away, unsure where her mind had even wandered in the seconds lost to her imagination. She's quiet for a long moment as she debates whether or not to tell the truth about this something that she's never spoken aloud before... slowly, almost regretfully, she begins to shake her head. She avoids the mercenary's gaze in turn, afraid that she might read her for a liar if she sees too much of her soul inside her eyes. "...like I said, there isn't much point for me to get attached to things like that."

 

[Syntra]

"Hmmm... I suppose not," Cizrna agreed as she studied Caelia's face, her own expression uncharacteristically serious. (Thoughtful, almost. Had it not been the mercenary, whose heart was cold and cruel, one might even be inclined to use the word 'melancholic'! ...it distinctly was her, though, so surely, reading so much into the random movements of her facial muscles would have been akin to thinking birds could compose poetry. Laughable, really! Laughable and preposterous, which was the most delicious of combinations.) With a stick, Cizrna poked the burning remains, and watched the flames paint pretty pictures in front of her eyes. (A kiss of death, huh? She had heard the phrase, once or twice, though she suspected it was a fancy fucking metaphor. It kind of had to be-- people rarely spoke of that which did not relate to them in some way at least, and Caelia's condition was so unique that the saying couldn't possibly refer to her. ...so, what was it like, hmmm? To know that, instead of pleasure, your touch could only bring death. That you were cursed, really, and gods themselves resented your very existence. How did you even live with yourself like this? Forced into the role of the outcast, one to be used for kindling! Well, well, well, some voice in her head whispered, don't pretend you don't know, silly. Except that, you see, you've chosen your own banishment. That makes you seven times more damned, and ten times more stupid.) "Yes, of course that touch would be out of question for you. My bad. Though we're not that different, you know? With you, it's more literal, but..." Remember Cizrna's conviction? The one about not getting close to the girl, and just doing her goddamn job? It was hard to say why, but along with the nests, it was going up in flames.

"My touch is a little bit cursed, too, I think," she admitted after a while. "I've lived too close to death, so it made a home of my heart. Once, a local witch has warned us of demons that cannot enter your home till you yourself invite them, and hey, perhaps this is similar. The Phoenix himself knows I invited it, just as he knows that I've been a gracious host!" Too gracious, maybe. Self-sacrificing, even, considering who exactly she had presented to it-- on a silver fucking platter, too. (No. Just... no. Don't think of her. There is a time and place for collapsing in tears, and this sure as hell isn't it. Focus on that which is in front of you. Walk. Walk, you fool! ...and that her feet were covered in blisters? Pffft. Her hands had been, too, before they'd grown used to wielding steel! And just look how strong they were now-- strong enough, indeed, to break her own fucking spine. To rend families asunder.) "You must know this, as a daughter of Marein. Tell me, Caelia, is death contagious? Do you think that, by wrapping yourself in it, you can also bring it with you wherever you go? That you can infect others, as if you were carrying a sickness in your body?"

...the topic was far too gloomy for what they'd been discussing earlier, though, and Cizrna wasn't about to let the conversation wander there. Not entirely, at the very least! Still, still she could return back to love somehow-- and, with the snowflakes dancing their wild dance just outside of the cave, they might just benefit from something to warm their blood. "But, Caelia," the mercenary chuckled, "love isn't all about touches. I mean, there certainly were women I yearned to touch, and yet I didn't get to. There was no need to confirm that with my own hands, for my heart knew it regardless. And, true, perhaps it does make no fucking sense for you to pursue such things, but... well. The heart is a silly creature, is it not? Always, it wants things it cannot have! Are you going to claim that, back when you were locked in that depraved chapel, you never once dreamed of sunlight? Of all that you could see outside, were you not bound by your duty?" Because, yeah, Cizrna wasn't ever going to believe that. The way Caelia's eyes had widened when the stars had drowned the sky in colors, in yellow and blue and green? Those had been the eyes of someone who yearned for more than had been given to her-- someone who, after years of surviving on bread and water, wanted to taste all the flavors there were.

"It's the same with love. Love doesn't fucking ask you whether, pretty please, it could enter your life-- it barges inside, and takes you by storm. You just..." How to describe it? "I dunno. It's different for everyone, but I guess you think of that person a lot. You want to make them happy. You... hmmm... want their attention. Has that never happened to you?" The innocence in her smile morphed to wickedness then-- the expression that said 'you fell right into my trap, girl.' (Did Caelia truly think she wouldn't notice? A mercenary had to know how to look with her eyes, and oh, had she spotted some interesting things underneath her hesitation.) "I think it has. You look like someone who knows what I'm talking about, at least. Love is fire, you know, and it has ignited your cheeks already. Well? Who was it?" And then, encouraged by some mad impulse, Cizrna smirked. "I won't laugh at you if it's me, I promise. Maidens just cannot help but fall for me-- I suppose that I am far too dashing for my own good. I mean, I do understand that. I've seen myself in the fucking mirror, after all!"

 

[heartstringss]

From behind the curtain of her hair, Caelia remains quiet and listens to the mercenary, deep in thought. (An entire world of curiosity and wonder erupts inside her now; a million thoughts chased around the confines of her mind. How strong the mercenary's hands must have been to lift her sword without a single hint of outward struggle... how soft her lips... how sharp her eyes. (Had there been women like this inside the convent, perhaps she could've learned a thing or two more useful from them... like how to defend herself in times of need; how not to buckle under pressure; how to reason; how to barter; how to fight.)) 'Not that different,' huh? (Oh, but how could they possibly have anything in common, a goddess and a mortal from two such very different walks of life?) ...the more she thought about it, though, the more Caelia realized just how much they truly were alike. Such lonesome, tortured creatures, both with an unquenchable thirst for blood and violence. Her heart ached for the woman, then, and what might have led her to that life. That their similarities existed only in the darkness of their hearts—all that pain inflicted unto others; all that death? ...of all the ways they could have possibly come to relate to one another, the least she'd hoped was that.

Without speaking, Caelia reaches up to push her hair back from her eyes. She examines the woman closer, hesitating a moment before she reaches out, extending her hand over one knee. With her palm faced towards the earth, she spreads her fingers towards the mercenary and draws a breath to calm her nerves then carefully shuts her eyes. Releasing the breath a short while later, she clears her mind and focuses her ears to listen. (The woman's heartbeat rises in her ears, strong and steady like a war march. When she listens closer, she can hear the thick rush of blood pulsing through her veins as well, and her lungs, pulling each breath in and then slowly releasing it back out... all things which fed life into her body, and none of which held any imprint of a shadow like that a curse or sickness might inflict onto them.) A few seconds pass before she lowers her hand and reopens her eyes, looking back to Cizrna now with a firm, decisive shake of her head. "No need to worry, you are not sick, nor are you afflicted by anything that should make you feel that way. Actually, your health is, um--" she clears her throat, reaching up to scratch her nose. (Was this a breach of privacy? It sure felt like one, at least.) "Your health is rather good. Your heart and blood are clear, but your brain…" Ah, she hadn't technically been able to listen in on that one. "...you allow your mind to take on too much burden, by the sounds of it. Perhaps you do carry too much with you, but I think more likely it is pain than death."

As Cizrna turned the conversation back to love, Caelia looked away then, her hands returning to her lap. "I have dreamt of the surface all my life, yes, but… father never would have let me come here on my own." She dug her fingers into the earth, tracing meaningless lines and shapes inside the dirt. The longer she sat in silence, lines slowly broke across her forehead too, a worried brow to match her worried mind. Finally, shaking her head, she released a sigh and looked back up. "See, to come up to the surface for someone like me requires purpose, one which I have only ever failed to meet in father's eyes. Now with my sole purpose belonging to this God of yours… perhaps I might as well begin living every day like it's my last."

And then there was the matter of love again, huh? (Ah yes, of course Cizrna would have noticed—what a fool she was to think she wouldn't! While she had been too busy playing sheep, somehow, she had forgotten her companion was a wolf.) Before the color had even had a chance to fully drain out of her face, already she could feel her cheeks begin to warm a second time. Her eyes widened too as she stared across the fire at the mercenary, nearly mirroring a deer in headlights trapped inside the wickedness of Cizrna's smile. "I don't-- um." Was there even any point to lying anymore? Clearly, she was not anywhere near as good a liar as she'd thought.

Being pushed for further details, Caelia eventually collapsed under the pressure. "...fine! There was somebody once, okay? A-- a boy that I liked… when I was very young. But he, um… he died, because he didn't know well enough to stay away. And then I wasn't allowed near any more other children after that." But even with the separation, nearly all the other children had eventually died in sickness anyway. After all, that's what happened when you were born underground in a rotting wasteland where all the air was stale, food and medicine were scarce, and you were not allowed to go out into the sun. "I-- I have felt things before… the vaguest stirrings of desire. Things like you've described, and I have wanted... both." Both men and women, she means but doesn't clarify, instead looking away just as she says it. "If love is just for idiots, perhaps I am one too. I'll never know what it is like to fall asleep and feel safe in another person's arms; to kiss and hold and be held without the threat of very real, actual death looming in my every touch as well. Only another fool would chase that." She blinks hard, surprised to find her eyes are wet. Shaking her head to Cizrna as she swipes the tears from the corners of her eyes, Caelia sighs, suddenly much more tired than she's felt in ages. "You know… you are quite exhausting. I can't imagine what it must be like to love you." A tiny smile lifts the corners of her lips-- the return of a jest, perhaps? "Honestly, those poor maidens."

 

[Syntra]

What-- what was she doing? Was the girl trying to curse her, perhaps? The movements definitely looked magical in nature, if not at least wrapped in some sort of power, and Cizrna... at this point, Cizrna didn't know what to expect of her. Everything about Caelia was a goddamn mystery! ('Weak willed,' that was how she would have described her in the beginning. 'Flavorless' as well, perhaps, and most likely 'foolish.' Like a marionette that could only ever follow her strings, Caelia had marched where her precious Father had led her-- reluctantly, yes, but marched she had, which was all that truly mattered. Despite warm blood coursing through her veins, the girl was dead already! Dead, just like all those idiots whose lives consisted of kissing other people's shoes and shuddering in fear of a god whose face they hadn't even fucking glimpsed. ...if those bastards had ever had souls in the first place, they'd withered long before they'd reached adulthood. With their own banality, they'd fucking smothered it! Instead of feeding the fire in her hearts, they'd quenched it with their tears, and to the mercenary, Caelia had been the same. Had been, yes. In other words, not anymore. The way she had defied the priest's will, you see, and took her own life into her hands? Cizrna wasn't much of a believer, but if she had to look for the Phoenix's legacy somewhere... well, she would have said it had lived in Caelia's eyes, when she had risen from her own ashes the same way he supposedly had. So, clearly, such a woman shouldn't fucking be underestimated! Who knew what kind of intentions did she harbor behind the shy looks, and the soft curve of her smile? ...her smile, huh. Nobody had ever gotten to kiss it away, nor to draw her closer to see what would make her gasp, which... which was interesting, alright. For reasons.)

And, for different reasons altogether, Cizrna decided not to show Caelia her doubts. (It was kinda like dealing with dogs, you see? Dogs could sense your fear, oh yes, they could, and once you allowed them to get under your skin, you were fucked. A dead woman walking, essentially. Now, the daughter of death would probably be a bit more complicated than a common bitch, the mercenary thought, but following the universal rule about not tipping one's hand couldn't hurt, right?) Except that such complex strategies weren't needed, apparently. No, instead of plotting her demise, Caelia seemed to be... evaluating her health? What??? With her eyes wide like saucers, Cizrna looked up.

"I know that my body is strong, Caelia. All my life, I've relied on it. I mean, I'm pretty sure that if there were tendencies for it to break easily, I would have noticed." Was there the faintest hint of sharpness in her voice, like the tip of a knife hidden beneath silk? Why, yes! The girl's observation hadn't summoned it, though-- or not that one, at the very least. ('You carry too much with you,' she had proclaimed, and Cizrna wasn't so blind as to not see that it had likely been said with empathy, but oh, that stung. Much worse than contempt would have, actually! Since compassion, you see, was like a branding iron. Once a person found it in their heart, and applied it to you? Forever, you bore that fucking stain-- that stain which robbed you of your dignity, robbed you of your glamor. No sword could make you look terrifying enough again, as they'd just flip through their memories, and see you for the pathetic little worm that you were. ...which, no. For all intents and purposes, Caelia was her prisoner! She was allowed to admire her, Cizrna guessed, but not to perceive her as a creature worth of pity.)

(Not that the mercenary deserved it, mind you. Pity was to be reserved for war orphans, widows and those who fell victim to an illness-- not to those who had chosen a path, and then fucking walked it. Her choices had doomed her, indeed, but they were also hers. Wasn't that a great privilege on its own? Once the cleansing fire licked her skin, Cizrna would at least know it did so for reasons that belonged to her, not some bastard trying to use her.)

So, moving on. Yes, yes, onwards, to a much safer topic! ...or not. When Caelia spoke of the Phoenix supposedly owning her very life, and then contrasted it with her desires? Guilt clutched at her heart, for with her mind's eye, Cizrna could only see fire, fire, fire-- flames higher than she was, shooting high enough to devour the sky, and a quiet 'please,' spoken by someone she had and hadn't known. (Had and hadn't loved, really.) "Hmm, yes, I could tell," the mercenary chuckled, trying her best to hide her discomfort. (It would disappear if she ignored it hard enough, right? Right?) "Desire seems to be at home in your eyes, you know? Whenever I look at you, you seem to be longing for something-- from that, the transition to someone is natural. You want, Caelia. That makes you different from the fools who locked you up, I think, for those only yearned for the sweet embrace of death." Yeah, yeah, the part about her not getting to touch the object of her affection was sad, but so what? The mercenary had been right, dammit, and she wouldn't allow something as pathetic as reality to sour her victory. "I'm just sharing my experiences, mind you. There are thousands ways to love a person, and some of them, I'm sure, don't require touch-- so, perhaps you shall fall for someone who shall be happy to gaze upon you. You are pretty enough for that, I'd wager." ...alright, why was she feeding her empty hopes, again? The girl was probably choking on them as it was!

"Pfft," Cizrna pursed her lips when her companion called her exhausting, "this only goes to show how little you understand these things. Love is supposed to leave you breathless, Caelia. Have you ever felt as if you just couldn't take the bullshit that your life threw at you anymore, and that you were about to burst? Well, it's... similar, but instead of exasperation, you feel like that due to pleasure. And, of course," she licked her lips before flashing her a wicked smile, "since I've fucking mastered the art of being exhausting in general, I can exhaust my lovers in that way as well." ...well, theoretically. Nobody had complained, at the very least, and Cizrna could merely hope that they only hadn't done that because they were, you know, dead. "Shall I show you?" she offered to the girl, in a fit of madness. "I mean, I cannot touch you, but I am sure I can make you feel good with my words, too. There's nothing like a good demonstration, after all."

 

[heartstringss]

The sharpness in the woman's tone, that blade she holds in secret, certainly does not go unnoticed. Caelia blinks, tapping a finger on her knee while she thinks and absorbs it all. ...she'd crossed a line, hadn't she? A breach of privacy, yes, that's exactly what it was. Surely she had no right reading into the other woman's health like that, especially without asking her permission first. She hadn't meant to offend, of course, but that didn't change the fact she had, and, well... it was too late to take it back now, wasn't it? Chewing on her lip, Caelia surveys the woman's aura a second time, eventually nodding when she deduces that, even as annoyed as the mercenary seems, at least it's not the type of anger that forces her to lash out and then retreat. Otherwise, she would have ignored her after, right? Instead, she simply changes the subject... and they move on.

Ah, but the way this conversation flows... Caelia feels something like a fist clench inside her stomach, eyes averting when the other mentions desire and just how clearly it has made a home inside her eyes. (Of course, she wanted, yes, but just because a person wanted something did not necessarily mean that they could have it. Caelia had learned how to make do with nothing, really. She wasn't the type of person who took the things they wanted. Nor was she the type who made demands and then refused to settle. All throughout her life, she had been forced to make sacrifices-- always giving more than she received, even when she hardly had anything left. In return, she had rarely been given any more than scraps, but she had never once complained. She'd learned a long, long time ago that complaining rarely got you anywhere, and that children... were better seen and not heard.

The woman's next words come as a bit of a shock, and, unsure how to gauge sincerity, she falters. "Ah, I... I sincerely doubt that." Where was the benefit in a relationship you could only express your love from afar? For Caelia, at least, that would never be enough. Besides, all this hope was pointless. She was fit to die, was she not? Or fit to become a prisoner, at least-- another tool or weapon for somebody else's cause. She strongly doubted love would have any part of her future. There would only be death, death, and more death.

With her head still ducked, Caelia peeks up through her eyelashes and the curtain of her bangs to look at Cizrna when she begins to speak on breathless love. Why does it suddenly feel like her heart is pounding right against her ribcage, fit to burst right through her chest at any second? If it wouldn't look so strange, she might have tried to gauge her own health, now. Could she be getting sick? Had she come down with an illness? She'd never been sick before, so she had no way of knowing for certain, but something didn't feel right. She sighed, watching as the mercenary's tongue swiped out and moved over her lips, stomach clenching further in the process. Her eyes flash with curiosity, taking in that wicked smile, listening closely to every word she says. She was excited to learn the truth, yes, and hear more of Cizrna's experiences... but this felt sinful. Was this type of openness common on the surface? Underground, the priests had rarely spoken on love like this-- they had spoken of sex, yes, and of creation... but never love. Not even her mother and father's relationship had been presented through that type of lens. It was an arrangement-- a contract-- simple as that.

All this talk of exhausting lovers, truthfully, was too much. Her heart pitter-pattered in her chest, soft and fluttery as the movement of her eyelashes brushing against her cheeks. When she finally spoke again, her mouth was dry. She hadn't expected to be offered any sort of demonstration, and what all that might entail... well, it terrified her, honestly. Perhaps it hurt too much, the other's dangling pleasure right before her like this-- so close and yet still so very, very far from reach. "I'm not too sure that would be wise," she said quietly, still unsure but not quite arguing, either. Though she tried to look up numerous times, direct eye contact felt impossible with how intense the heat was on her face. Eventually, she gave up. "But I can't deny I am... a bit curious what you mean."