Fantasy Tethered ( ellarose & Syntra. )

[Syntra]

So, if the assassin understood it right? They were fucked, and not in the pleasant sense of the word. Completely, utterly fucked! (Already, Cyrra could see Father's stern face, shrouded in shadows. 'Cyrra Eiréal, why haven't you brought the witch yet? Me and the faithful ones are waiting. Ran is, too. Do you perhaps enjoy being a disappointment, or is it something you're just naturally good at? Please, do share your secrets.' And, by that point, Cyrra had no answer. Did she enjoy it? Did she? Was there some wicked parasite inside of her, feasting on others' misery? ...bullshit. All along, the real parasite had been her. Her, and nobody else! With the appetite of a fucking leech, she had... no, no matter. No matter, no point, no future. A grim motto, eh? The only one that made even a modicum of sense, in the context of Cyrra being herself. In the context of her fucking everything up, as if her touch alone was a goddamn curse. The assassin had started drinking from that bottle, so now she fucking had to finish it! Nobody liked other woman's leftovers, regardless of how appetizing they might have smelled. ...they were ruined. Ruined, like her. Heh!)

"Bastards," Cyrra mumbled, still trying to put the metaphorical pieces of puzzle together. They... did and didn't fit? Sort of. The general shapes seemed fine enough, but it still wasn't clear to her how literally anyone could have come up with the conclusion the pirate guy had. Ugh! Being constantly surrounded by idiots could be a confidence booster at times, but it definitely was the leading cause of the majority of Cyrra's headaches. (Was this her life now? Apparently. The gods had a plan for everyone, the assassin had been taught-- she just hadn't been aware that some of those plans were the equivalent of a fucking coin toss, performed above a bottomless abyss. They hadn't informed her that she would be one of those coins, either.)

"So, let me get this straight," she frowned. "These fuckers kidnapped Endymion for some reason, and then came up with the brilliant fucking idea that it was actually us who stole their precious relics. Marvelous. Might as well cut their own hands off and then blame us for losing their ability to write." A masterful reversal, if she did say so herself! The assassin would have been more than happy to wave them goodbye, forget about the fiend, and go on her merry way, but she had an inkling Faline wouldn't be so quick to agree to this. (Would it help if she pointed out the world was full of cats, many of them cuter than the sullen familiar? Cuter, and less inclined to spout bullshit? Ugh, stupid emotional connections! Had it not been for those, Cyrra would have been able to make her see... well, probably not the light, though something similar to it. Something that wasn't total bullshit? Call her a chronic optimist, but she could see it working out.)

"Of course that I believe you," the assassin offered her a bright smile, caressing Faline's cheek. (Soft. Too fucking soft, like a ripe peach hanging in the garden. ...peaches tasted nice, come to think of it. Faline did as well, from her brief experience, but what would it be like if she offered those lips to her willingly? If she pulled her closer, instead of recoiling in horror? A hypothetical fucking question to go with a hypothetical fucking dilemma, in a union as harmonious bread and butter. Nothing to fucking see here! Definitely not anything that wasn't, uh, seething hatred. Right. That was what she was feeling towards the witch, as she fucking should.)

"You'd never steal anything." That much, at least, was true. Thievery required both foresight and ambition, which were both traits you could associate with Faline about as much as you could associate roses with winter. For the local idiots: no, you couldn't fucking do that! "Y'know, I bet they brought it on themselves somehow. It seems to me that the artifacts just didn't want to spend a whole lotta time with Endymion. Makes sense, doesn't it? Maybe they were jealous of their power." ...yeah, and maybe Cyrra should stop spinning Faline-tier conspiracy theories. Before long, the witch's thought patterns would infect her, and what then? Descent into madness it was! (No, she couldn't. Not yet. The final gate was forbidden to her, for as long as she still had shit to do. And, speaking of that? This was actually some prime opportunity! 'Cause people loved to see patterns where there weren't any, especially when they formed a picture they liked. Heh! ...so, so starved were they for kindness that it fucking made her feel sick. Not that Cyrra related, of course.)

"Yes, the sea," she said, uncharacteristically soft. "You know, I think it's still glad to meet you. Too many people don't fucking respect it at all, so I bet it's the thought that counts. You'll just... get to know it bit by bit, wave by wave. There, better? You just look so sad, and I like it more when you aren't sad. Smiles suit you much better." Alright, where had that come from?! Cyrra was just... going to ignore that, and everything would be fine. "Once I teach you how to swim, I will show you how to speak to fish. They have their own secret language, kind of like the chickens do. Also, can I braid your hair?" The request bubbled past her lips automatically, like smoke rising to the sky, and immediately, Cyrra flushed. "You seem to be having a hard fucking time, and, um. My hair is so difficult to braid that I haven't done it all too often. Looks kind of fun."

 

[ellarose]

"...You do?" Faline breathed the words with mystified relief, unable to stare at anything but Cyrra's eyes as she caressed her cheek. (This was familiar. Hauntingly so. The stroke of a gentle hand before it harshened into a cruel pinch, a twist of flesh. There was a part of her that braced herself for that inevitable turn. But a moment passed. Then another. And it never happened. Internally, she had to remind herself that that gesture was the other Cyrra's doing. When she saw the kind smile that the real Cyrra was wearing, she chastised herself for tensing up in the first place. There the assassin was, believing in Faline! Faline owed it to her to believe in her, too. That was how friendship worked, wasn't it?) Instilled with newfound resolve, warmth spread beneath her skin and she stopped trembling. "Thank you, Cyrra. Everyone I've met thus far has accused me of crimes I did not commit... and I suppose granny did warn me the people outside would call me a witch. I was beginning to worry that she was correct. That no one would like me, let alone believe in me. But you do. You've proven that it's possible for even me to..." Her cheeks flushed naturally when she thought about it, sparks of anticipation skipping in her chest. Find a place in this world, perhaps? Find someone who would truly love Faline for Faline? Find love? It was incomprehensible, how overwhelming the sensation-- the desire to find love was in her chest. Rolling over her in waves where she could hardly express it with words. Faline had been alone for so long, she was resilient. But there was only so much faith that she could draw from her own heart before it ran thin. She reached for Cyrra's hand against her cheek and offered a warm smile of her own. "You've given me hope."

Bolstered with new resolve, Faline nodded encouragingly along with Cyrra's theory. "Well, Endymion is quite strong. A familiar must meet a certain standard, to be assigned to an heiress of Kairos blood." Of course, she had learned this piece of information from Endymion. And she believed in them wholeheartedly. The cat might be insulted by her worry, because of how fearsome they claimed to be... but she could not help but worry for her sweet kitty. Endymion was her oldest companion. "I would like to find a kitchen and bake Endymion apple tarts when we reunite. I think they would appreciate that." She tilted her head. "I could bake for you too, Cyrra! If-- if you want me to." Of course, she tried baking for granny and it never went well. Every year on her birthday, she tried making a new dessert to see if she could make something that the old woman would appreciate... and year after year, they ended up thrown and splattered all over the walls. Or all over Faline herself. (Then again, she never saw granny eat anything. Nothing other than...) Heh, well, it's not important! Granny ate in her room, when Faline was not around. That was all there was to it.

"Wave by wave..." Faline repeated softly, tilting her head to the side. She closed her eyes and focused on the rhythm of the waves again, trying not to think of the implications of what would happen if she were to get swallowed up beneath them. Floating, swaying. Maybe the sea would relate to her in a way that most humans could not. Many feared it, just as many feared witches. (And now, even she was a bit frightened of the sea. But she could learn and become comfortable with time. Just as Cyrra had done for her!) She opened her eyes again and broke into a lopsided grin when Cyrra complimented it. "Really? I like smiling, too! ...But I cannot help but get sad sometimes." She admitted contemplatively, watching her legs as she kicked them out in front of her and idly stacked her feet on top of each other. Or a lot of the times. It seemed dishonest to disregard it. "It's a part of me. It might be one of my oldest friends."

Faline's solemn disposition broke when she giggled. Chicken languages she could assuredly believe, but fish? "Is it not unwise to open my mouth under the water? What if I swallow it?" She shook her head incredulously. There was even places where she could draw a line, it seemed. "Unless they communicate with their minds? Why... if that is the case, I wonder what they sound like. Perhaps there is a fish prince out there as well?" Then she thought a little more about it. "Well, Tulu may as well be the king of the sea. And Tulu can speak, so..." Never mind. Faline had now convinced herself that fish could also speak. "My! You are so knowledgable about languages, Cyrra."

Braid her hair? Faline tugged lightly at her hair to remind herself that her hands were still tucked in her long raven waves. She had completely abandoned braiding it at some point as she chatted away. Oh.

"You want to braid it for me?" Faline repeated, dumbstruck. The question had been rather clear, but she had never been given such an offer before. Slowly, she released her hair and brought her hands into her lap instead. She remembered having her hair washed by granny's rough hands when she was a girl until she was old enough to do it herself. And then no one touched her hair. Except to pull on it, like that sailor had. "...You should know that there are myths about a witch's braid. Our power becomes volatile when it is unbraided." She explained with a conspiratorial little grin. Hm. That would explain why she was having trouble, wouldn't it? It would not do to braid her hair when her mind was as scattered as it was. "Do not fret. It is safe for you to braid. But you must clear your mind and set peaceful intentions as you do. All right?"

With that, Faline turned around to face the other way to allow Cyrra access. She gathered her hair over her shoulder so it cascaded over her back instead and bit her lip. Taking care of her hair was important to her, but now she found herself self conscious. It would not feel or smell weird, would it? What if the assassin did not like the smell of lavender? (She routinely tucked it under her pillow, even as they slept in inns. It calmed her mind before she slept.) Rather than think about herself any further, she decided to think of Cyrra's hair instead. "I quite like your hair. It reminds me of honey... and your curls are so lively!" She hummed, stacking her feet atop each other again. "They bounce around and spring back up when you tug on the ends. It looks lovely down, but I would be willing to take on the challenge of braiding it someday if you let me."

Faline kept stacking her feet, one boot over the other, and twiddled her thumbs in her lap. "We are at sea now, just like auntie said." She mused. "And sailing away from the capital. You were so excited about showing me the capital, too. Did you have some important business to take care of there, Cyrra?"

 

[Syntra]

…hope. Fucking hope, of all things. You know what hope was? An elusive, slippery feeling-- grasp it and it would disappear, embrace it and you’d be left with tears. Smoke and mirrors, disguised as something holy. (It was fitting, Cyrra supposed, that Faline would take that away from the conversation. If not me, someone else would have done this, the assassin tried to convince herself. It’s her fucking fault, for being so damn gullible. Blood had a smell to it, a smell that was both delicious and addictive, and all the metaphorical sharks in the water fucking sensed it! Oh, they did, the way the whelp herself sensed a danger she could jump headfirst into. …the girl had never stood a chance. Never, not for one damned second. She was a flower that had grown up in a glass house, and what was she without its protection? Fucking food for worms, destined to rot. That Cyrra happened to be the doom bringer in this scenario was the result of a coin toss, ruled by all the little patterns of randomness. By all accounts, she was blameless in this. An innocent! …except, why, did it feel so fucking bad? Why were her words hot coals, traveling down her stomach? The gods, Cyrra turned her eyes to the heavens, as she always did whenever things seemed a little too grey for her liking. They are testing me. Faline may have looked as if she had thought and feelings, but underneath it all, she was a witch, witch, witch! A creature born of filth, raised in filth, and belonging to filth, just like stars belonged to the fucking void. Still, she had to react to it somehow, didn’t she? Positively, to mirror the whelp’s own attitude. That’s right, it’s a goddamn performance. Wear the right face, say the right words, and you won’t be led astray.)

“That’s, um… a big fucking gift to give,” the assassin finally said, shaking off the awkwardness the same way snakes shed old skin. (Recite, recite, recite. Everyone fucking falls for the same lines, because people are the same. Interchangeable, like waves in a sea.) “You gave me something even better than that, though,” she smiled sweetly. “Your presence. See, before I met you, I think I was a little lonely. It’s hard to make friends when you travel from place to place, never stopping for long enough to remember the locals’ fucking names.” That wasn’t necessarily a lie. The assassin had never really bothered to unlock other people’s worthless hearts, though if she had? The Temple duties would have made it difficult. Impossible, almost, akin to a tree trying to strangle itself with its own fucking roots. (What the whelp couldn’t see, though, was that that was a blessing as well. A harsh one, yes, like an unpleasant truth whispered into your ear, but weren’t those the most valuable? The most precious? Loneliness was armor that shielded both you and the poor bastard who might have wanted to get close to you! …Cyrra knew, far more intimately than she would have liked. Ran did, as well.)

“Oh, I would love to taste those,” the assassin gave her yet another bright smile. “Although I’m sure that your apple tarts won’t be the sweetest thing you have to offer, Faline. Maybe I’ll get to sample that one day as well, hmm?” There, that should work nicely! Just enough spice to keep things interesting, but not nearly enough to scare her. After all, the whelp seemed to like her lies saccharine-flavored-- not passion per se, but fairytale-like, fluffy romance, with the climax being a chaste kiss at most. Heh! (Cyrra could give that to her. Cyrra could give her anything her little heart desired, because nothing, nothing about this was real! The weird warmth spreading through her chest, especially when the girl smiled? Uh, the satisfaction of vengeance! Right. The assassin just couldn’t wait to backstab her, and so her brain was releasing all those wonderful, wonderful endorphins. The answer was 100% believable, meaning there was no need to inspect it further. In fact, let’s change topics real quick.)

“There’s a trick to it,” Cyrra blurted out. “You have to ask the water not to invade your mouth first. Too many people are fucking rude, though, and don’t know how to plead properly. Fish manners are impeccable, though, and that’s how they manage to open their mouths without drowning.” …what? If she was the hostage of Faline’s ridiculousness, she was entitled to have some fun with it! “Also, what’s up with you and princes? Everyone fucking knows that the fish kingdom is ruled by a princess. Her older brother was supposed to claim the throne, but he fucked it up when he joined forces with humans. Haven’t you heard? The aftermath of the great humans vs. fish war was fucking brutal. Some people still can’t sleep at night because the very sight of fins sends them into panic. But, Faline, the most important thing: what will you do if another humans vs. fish war breaks out? The diplomacy is still kind of tense, and we need to prepare for the worst.””

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry. I think I can withstand the dangers of your hair. ” As she spoke, the assassin grabbed the hairbrush, and combed through Faline’s hair. (It was straight and soft-- different than hers, which only ever gave up after a long, drawn-out fucking battle.) “Smells nice,” spilled past her lips, before she could so much as think about it. Uh, awkward? It worked nicely in terms of the general narrative, though, and so the assassin let it go. “Has anyone ever told you that your hair is like silk?” she reached for a generic compliment, sure to please. Heh! Like fucking clockwork. Maybe, for better impact, she could also… uh, add something else, except that what Faline said next kind of eliminated all the thoughts she’d had. “My hair?” Cyrra asked, dumbstruck. “Alright, feel free to try. I’ve never gotten it to stay braided for longer than an hour, though. If you were to succeed, I’d fucking bow down to you.” Well, that, and privately? Privately, she also had to admit that the prospect of Faline’s hands in her hair was kind of nice. Shh, though!

Fucking inconvenient, that’s what it is, Cyrra frowned internally. “Eh, it’ll wait. The capital is gorgeous, though, and it’s a fucking shame I won’t be able to show it to you right now. Anyway, can you explain what’s up with Endymion? I… don’t really think I understand what the fuck is going on here. Can’t we just free them and ride off into the sunset?” Into the fucking capital, where they should be!

 

[ellarose]

"...So it is possible to feel lonely when you live among other people, too?" Faline observed solemnly. (When no one was inclined to be friends with her since leaving the cottage, she found herself fearing that this might be the case. That everyone already had someplace they belonged and there would be no room for her anywhere. No one had any Faline-shaped holes in their hearts.) So even Cyrra, who had seemingly grown up around other girls her own age and once stood in an arena of people could feel lonely. It was a perception she had never seen or experienced herself, thus she had to take the assassin's word for it. (And the concept made her so very sad that her eyes stung and she had to blink quickly to keep herself from crying. Because she'd felt lonely, too. So viscerally lonely that her heart broke anew every night she went to sleep knowing no one knew her or cared that she was crying. The universe, the millions of humans unaware of her existence, were all entirely indifferent to every thought and emotion that passed through her.) The confirmation of her fears might have been worrying, she supposed, had the other woman not admitted to the fact that she no longer felt lonely when she was in Faline's presence. Wasn't that a good thing? Did that not mean that those lonely days were over for the both of them? As long as they were together, then, they would not feel lonely anymore. And wasn't that a beautiful, hopeful thing?

Perhaps auntie had known what she was doing, surrendering her magic to Cyrra. Perhaps the tether was forged between them because it sensed deep down that they were two lonely souls that needed someone in this big, wide world. Had they gone their separate ways when they intended to, they would have never discovered this bond between them. It sounded very much like a story in one of Faline's books. Magic often saw and intuitively understood things that they themselves could not. (Then again, that narrative didn't account for all of auntie's warnings. But Cyrra had changed since they first met. By getting to know Faline, her perspective on witches had shifted. Weren't humans fascinating in that they were capable of changing their minds with time? With every caring word, with every smile, even a bitter cheesecake assassin could be persuaded to like a witch.) While she could dwell on the subject for a while to be sure, the mention of Cyrra trying sweeter things than even her apple tarts befuddled her.

"Something sweeter than my apple tarts? There's nothing sweeter than my apple tarts, Cyrra." Faline said matter-of-factly. She did not understand what exactly Cyrra was referring to, although it sounded as if she was referring to something that she ought to know about. "...Oh. You do not intend to eat me, do you?" She giggled, deciding that that had to be it. After all, she recalled the way the assassin accused her of plotting such a thing soon after they met. She figured she had only been joking, of course... and then the alligator had said that Faline's flesh would be sweeter because she took the time out of her day to help those kittens. (Hm. She wondered then if Natos had taken care of that group of tricksters who attempted to eat her. Many who tried were not fortunate enough to live another day.) Cyrra was very likely kidding, referring to past experiences they shared together. How fun! She had never had 'inside jokes' with anyone, with the exception of Endymion. Oh. Poor, poor Endymion. "I do not think I would taste very good. Unlike you, I am not a piece of cheesecake."

Then, of course, Cyrra brought up the incredibly important, incredibly serious affairs of human and fish relations. The etiquette, the fact that there was indeed a fish princess (Faline imagined that she was very beautiful, with flowing fins and incandescent rainbow scales!) and the fact that tensions were so high were outright startling. Faline furrowed her brow, considering her stance on this issue with the gravity and seriousness it entailed. (Which was indeed a lot.) "Well... I do not know. It depends what they are fighting about. It simply wouldn't do to take a side without first understanding the root of the problem." She nodded sagely, her eyes bright with enthusiasm. "My! You are truly knowledgable about these things, Cyrra. I would love to meet the fish princess someday. I’m sure she is very charming. And I wonder how her brother came to join the humans! Perhaps he grew a set of legs so that he could walk upon the land? ...How terrible, though, for two siblings to live apart that way! My heart breaks for them.”

In truth, Faline had seen such creatures in the other realm with fish heads and human legs. (Although they, unlike the fish Cyrra spoke of, were not very polite.) Perhaps they were followers of the banished fish prince?

Nice? Like silk? Faline curled her toes in her boots. "Ah... well, no one has ever said anything about my hair. Ever." Unless she counted granny, who used to complain whenever she had to yank a brush through Faline's hair when she was still too young to brush it herself. Aside from commenting on the messy state it was in when she came in after doing her outdoor chores, the old bat had never described it in general. And certainly not with such kind words. "You are the first." Just like Cyrra was her first hug, as well as her first... ah, kiss. She reached subconsciously to tug on her braid and her cheeks turned pink when she realized belatedly that she couldn't do that. Because for once, someone else was occupied with braiding it. (And Cyrra's fingers felt so nice in it, too. The sensation was soft on her scalp, unlike anything she had ever felt before. Gentle, relaxing, lulling. She would be content if her hair took several hours to braid instead of just a few minutes.) She listened when the assassin spoke of her own hair. Fortunately for her, braiding was one skill that Faline was quite confident in. This was a task she could and would accomplish, for the other woman's sake!

"All right. Then I will make you bow after you finish with my hair." Faline assured, sounding rather imperious with all her confidence. This demeanor faltered slightly when the topic of Endymion was brought up. She stopped stacking her feet and brought her legs to her chest, slumping her shoulders.

"Our bond has always been strong... and this has never happened to us before. All I know is there is some type of interference. Endymion would know how to explain it.” Unfortunately, though, Endymion could not grace them with their presence to do so. Faline sighed. “Do you remember when they changed into an umbrella in the glass forest? This is similar in that their essence is tethered to this ship. Since I am not the one who cast this spell, it seems I cannot break it so easily. Nothing can be done until we uncover the identity of the catnapper.” Thoughtfully, she rocked back and forth. “Surely we can investigate further as we perform our duties on the ship. I have never done such a thing before, but I believe I might be quite good at it! Perhaps if I found some good hiding places, I could listen in on some important conversations? Then in no time we shall figure out what to do and be on our way back to the capital. Us, Atropos and Endymion too.” Because none of them deserved to be forgotten or left behind. Faline wouldn’t hear of it!

 

[Syntra]

The conversation flowed like a river, and, just like with rivers, you never really got the impression that it was coming to a lull. You know, 'cause the stream was still strong and everything? Except, instead of it continuing, it spilled into a sea and took on a life of its own. (Cyrra didn't remember the last time she'd gotten so tangled up in an exchange. Had she ever? The Temple had taught them to be frugal with words-- each syllable was a contribution, a gift to the gods, and only one who didn't value their time would fill their ears with nonsense. Best not do it, lest their wrath would be great. Eh, no matter! Everything she'd said to Faline was a snare, designed to snap her pretty little neck. And that she happened to enjoy it? Just a fucking side effect, thank you for your concern! ...it meant nothing. Nothing at all. Thoughts were formless little things, stuck in your head till you allowed them to seep into the outside world. That didn't necessarily have to happen. In the privacy of her own mind, Cyrra could think anything she wished-- what mattered was the firmness of her hand, and the sharpness of her blade. The way she wielded it, too. The choice of her target most especially, and since it remained pointed at Faline's fucking heart? No, she hadn't betrayed her mission! She hadn't betrayed Ran, sleeping her waking dream in the depths of catacombs. Wait for me, the assassin thought, remembering the endless pillars, her empty eyes, the thorns growing from her pale, soft flesh. (Messengers, Father had called them. The desire to fucking stab him had never been stronger in Cyrra's heart, but... well, you know. When you were a mosquito, you couldn't hurt an elephant.) Wait for me, and I'll free you from your curse. Promise.

The days on the ship, which Cyrra learned was called Dragon's Breath, passed in the blink of an eye as well. Sleeping in in the morning? Yeah, the assassin fucking wished! Always, it was 'mop the floor' or 'stitch the sails' or 'go help the navigator find his way out of his ass.' Tolorro, the captain, never passed up the opportunity to relegate whatever fucking odd job there was to do to her, as if it wasn't a tremendous waste of her skills. Why didn't the fucker have anyone to assassinate?! That he didn't hold a grudge deep enough for it to materialize in murder only proved just how irrelevant he was, pffft. (Gods smiled upon those willing to take matters into their own hands, you see? With blood, you showered the seeds of their devotion, and with blood, you let them grow. Cowards got to reap no such benefits! ...cowards reaped nothing but their own tears, glistening like diamonds in their eyes. Again, personal fucking experience.)

Faline wasn't allowed to remain idle, either. From what Cyrra knew, the whelp spent most of her time in the kitchen, either cooking, or baking, or taking care of whatever unholy business there was to take care of in there. (Keeping the fire alive, maybe? Bringing human sacrifices to the god of flavor? The assassin may not have known how this shit worked, but she didn't doubt that the job had its shady side as well. Everything fucking did! ...especially when it came to fire, greedy and hot and so, so hungry. She of all people was aware what it entailed, to keep that fucking thing fed.)

"You looking forward to it, eh?" the captain grinned as he stared in his binoculars, seeing... something. (Look, Cyrra wasn't fucking clairvoyant. How was she supposed to know when he was acting all mysterious, as if he was hiding a gift behind his back?! Except that, you know, what they were going to receive was a big, steaming pile of shit. Fate never handed her anything else, so Cyrra was pretty fucking confident in making that assumption. The only question that remained? The exact flavor of the shit they'd be forced to ingest! Would it be nice and firm, diarrhea-like, or something in between? The assassin could only spin the heel of (mis)fortune, and hope for the best.)

"To Ynares, I mean. We're going to reach the eastern shore soon. Ever been there?" Tolorro looked upon the aquamarine waves, swaying gently around the ship. (The sun was drowning in them on the horizon, coloring everything in warm shades of orange. Cyrra had to admit to herself that it looked kind of nice, even if whether something was or wasn't nice was fucking worthless as an observation. The world didn't exist to be aesthetically pleasing, you know? ...it did so to grind you down, to ashes, to dust, to fragments so small they wouldn't be visible to the naked fucking eye. The Great Mortar, they called it in the sacred texts.) "'Cause my friend-shaped compass says that that's where we need to go if we want to get what you stole from me."

"For the last fucking time," the assassin growled, "we haven't stolen anything. Do I look like I have to steal from the personification of a garbage bin? Get real, man! Faline, tell the idiot just how wrong he is."

And, had it been one of the usual days, it surely would have devolved into another pointless argument. Except it very much wasn't, you know? Because, in its own way, the sea was hungry as well.

The waves shivered, as if something scary touched them from within, and then the air was filled with singing, with warmth, with longing. (Could a voice caress you? Cyrra hadn't fucking thought so, but the way it pressed against her mind did feel exactly like that. With gentle fingers, it was combing through her hair, touching the scar beneath her eye, kissing the pain away, and, ah, wasn't it easier to just go to sleep? Her limbs were heavy, as if lead had been poured into her veins, and--)

"Yes, go to sleep," a female voice giggled. "All of you, worthless trash." From the depths, an island of bones rose, with a rotting corpse bound to it. (Once, she might have been beautiful, but time had eroded that-- time, and the might of the sea. What remained was a memory, twisted beyond recognition.) "If you won't return my hair, then you can... Hm." Her cold gaze landed on Faline, who very much wasn't asleep. Unlike, you know, the rest of the crew! The rest of the crew and Cyrra, who seemed on the verge of keeling over. "Why won't you obey, little one?" she frowned, as if the very sight of Faline caused her great offense. "Do you perhaps have my hair? Are you the one, eh?! Return it, and return it now!"

Maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise when giant scissors materialized in the air, rusty and covered in blood. The blades snapped threateningly, reaching for Faline...!

 

[ellarose]

Faline befriended the ship's cook, Alf, rather quickly. He was a big man and who had a friendlier face when compared with most of the other crew members. When he'd given her the tour of the ship's kitchen and pantry it became apparent right away that he liked to go on long-winded tangents. (He spoke even more than Faline herself did, which was truly saying something.) Considering his new assistant encouraged this with her endless curiosity and questions, it was really only a matter of time before the man began sharing his life stories, triumphs and exploits with her as she rolled her sleeves up and ran back and forth to scrub the floors down. (When she mentioned her own love for songs, he began to teach her various sea shanties-- little ditties about wives waiting back on the shore and getting drunk.) It was only a matter of time before she began to notice the ingredients he was using and swept in with her own expertise-- 'add a little more salt' or 'try using some garlic with that instead'-- and each time her tips elicited a positive response from the crew, he allowed her to advise his recipes more and more until eventually he trusted her to make a few unique dishes of her own. And while her reasons for being on this ship did not particularly pleasing-- it was rewarding in a way she had never experienced before to have people eat her food and actually respond to it. For once she was not cooking meals for one, but meals for a whole entire group! And they all seemed quite enthusiastic to have new dishes to try. Her actions meant something, because the crew cared about them, and this only motivated her to work even harder. 'I'll be out of a job at this rate, Faline.' Alf had said one evening as they cleaned the dishes. But he'd been smiling as he said it, so it was clear that her expertise didn't particularly threaten him. In his own words, they'd only assigned him the role of cook because the other crew members couldn't differentiate a soup ladle from a spatula. Alf seemed to enjoy her cooking more than anyone. He was constantly hovering around her at the stove, asking to sample her food. (And also made it his job to shoo away crew members who wanted to speak with her or watch her in the kitchen, for reasons she did not quite understand.) At the end of each day, he told her 'good work', and she would trudge off to the room she shared with Cyrra to pass out. It was exhausting work, but deep down she found she was strangely content with this life.

Then one afternoon, Faline found herself on the deck instead of cooped away in the kitchen-- because apparently they were headed to port soon and her 'services would be needed elsewhere', according to the captain. Curiously, she would hovered towards the railing and back again to Cyrra's side again, wanting to approach it to peer further out but still feeling rather wary of the ocean waves sloshing at the sides of the ship. She was so preoccupied with humming one of the new sea shanties she'd learned and searching through the sea mist for the brand new shore they were approaching that she didn't hear the entirety of Cyrra and Tolorro's conversation.

"Oh. Tell him what?" Faline blinked and stopped humming when she heard Cyrra say her name, tilting her head to the side. When she considered how conversations between the assassin and the ship captain usually went, she supposed she could wager a guess. "...That he is full of fucking bullshit?"

Along with the sea shanties, Faline had learned many exciting new words over the last couple of days.

Before they could get chewed out for any of this, everyone became very sleepy all at once. Everyone except for Faline, that is. How curious! She checked the sky inquisitively. It was not dark, nor had they passed the alcohol around. (...Those were usually the times when the crew members began to blink their heavy eyes and slump their shoulders the way they were now.) Even Cyrra was beginning to fall asleep! Before she could ask if this was planned-- if perhaps it was part of the etiquette to sleep or pretend to sleep before approaching the shore-- she noticed the source of the voice calling out to her, as well as the island of bones in the distance. Oh. Well, then.

"...Obey? Well, I suppose I can go to sleep if you want me to." Faline flustered, squeezing her eyes shut and willing herself to sleep the way everyone else was. However, she quickly discovered that she could not just will herself to sleep standing there. She peeked her eyes open. "No, actually. It seems I cannot sleep now. I'm sorry. I probably will not become tired for another couple of hours at least." She tried to wear a pleasant smile. "I know! I could make you something to eat. We could talk until the sun goes down, and then..."

Faline's smile fell when the woman threw a false accusation at her. Her hair? Goodness gracious! Everyone seemed to think that she was in possession of their most precious belongings when she was not. How could she have lived her life as a thief, after all, when she spent all of her days until recently locked in a cottage away from other people? She furrowed her brow and opened her mouth to deny this accusation when the scissors appeared, prompting her to close it without another sound. Really, now?

"Snip, snip!" Faline stared at the rusty, snapping scissors as if they offended her more than anything else. Clicking the side of her locket, she took herself back to moment before the scissors appeared and, with much ease and grace, she stepped to the side so that when the scissors appeared, they proceeded to snap through the air where she had once been instead of at her. The corpse gasped at this and tried again. Again, and again, and again with the same results. To anyone living in the present moment, Faline seemed to teleport all across the deck of the ship as the scissors chased her around. The woman groaned with frustration, clearly becoming impatient with her failed attempts. "Wh-- What the hell!?"

"I do not have your hair." Faline said scoldingly, as if speaking to a misbehaving child. "Please stop this nonsense. Perhaps we could talk about this instead? For instance, when did you lose your hair? Retracing your steps may help you relocate it!"

The woman screamed with frustration and the waves beneath the ship began to sway violently instead, sending Faline tumbling down onto the deck. A spray of water drenched her and her heart began to thump violently. She was sliding towards the railing. "If you can't sleep, then drown!"

The ship rocked violently again, throwing Faline into the air. Just as this happened, she clicked on her locket again and took herself and the ship even further back in time. Cyrra and Tolorro were arguing again, as they were before the island of bones appeared. She collapsed at the assassin's side and gripped tightly onto her arm for support from the whiplash.

"...We are in grave danger! You're taking us to magic island that will make you want to sleep. We must either turn around or go around it before that happens." Faline gazed meaningfully at the captain. "Unless you have any hair to spare?" (Ah, a rhyme! She could write a song about this one day... ah, but now is simply not the time!)

 

[Syntra]

Time.

As the assassin wavered between reality and dreams, like a coin which couldn’t decide on which side it should fall, it suddenly occurred to her-- for all the fancy fucking terminology, time was like water. Yes, water! (It flowed, for one. You never entered the same river twice, either. You could return to the same-ish river, though, couldn’t you? And just as easily, you could turn around to swim back, against the currents, against all the odds. Well, at least if your name happened to be Faline fucking Kairos.) Scissors? Were those… giant scissors? Not the most eloquent of reactions, but the assassin didn’t need to write a fucking poem to describe what she had seen with her own two eyes! And that something was certified bullshit, without doubt. Dangerous certified bullshit that had probably crawled from the very depths of hell, if her past experiences signified anything.

“Eh?” the captain tilted his head aside, his expression about as concerned as if Faline had announced to him that they’d just run out of brussels sprouts in the kitchen. (Which, in case you didn’t know, wasn’t all that much. Tolorro hated those with the passion of a thousand burning suns, and Cyrra was willing to bet that he considered eating them worse than most conventional kinds of torture. Note to self: do not forget this. Might come in handy when you're ready to take our vengeance regarding all the bullshit he's put us through. ...the pesky 'us' again, huh. Well, nevermind! Not like messy emotions would backfire on her on anything. Cyrra was an assassin, you see, and to her, deception was what what the needle was to a seamstress.) “Hair? Go to sleep, Faline. I bet it’s the seasickness finally getting to ya. It can spin your head like nothing else, y’know? They don’t call it the siren’s song for nothing, and--”

“Shut the fuck up,” Cyrra recommended to him, drawing her blade. (A few sailors around her grabbed their own weapons, though they did little else. Were they getting ready to fight by her side, or just thinking really hard about whether they wanted to get on a trained Temple assassin’s bad side? To make sure that they’d make an informed fucking decision, Cyrra gave each of them a death glare. Heh! The way some of them stumbled would have been funny, had it not been for the tiiiiny fact that they were about to become casualties in some bitch’s quest for a fucking wig. Ugh! What was with up the demons, anyway? The assassin could kinda sorta understand had they wanted gold or power, but it was always weird shit like 'a Faline of their own' or 'hair'. What was next, worlds being destroyed over a grain of sand? At this point, Cyrra wouldn't have been too shocked.) “Are you that eager to end up on the sea bottom? You can always just say so, and I’ll execute you faster than that monstrosity ever could. Might even carve something into your fucking body as a bonus, too. What do you think about ‘really should have listened to the time witch I kidnapped specifically for advice?' A bit of a mouthful to be sure, but Cyrra believed sincerely in the power of precise fucking wording! And, you know, she wasn't all too eager to be forcefed a sleeping potion again. "Now, listen to someone who knows better for once in your miserable life and--"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk!" The woman from before laughed, and a chill ran down the assassin's spine. (Her inner alarm? Going the fuck off, that much was certain. If it could, it would probably jump out of her chest to save itself, but it and her kind of were a package deal.) "I tried to be all nice about it, and this is what I get? All I have ever wanted was to get my hair back. I was even willing to forgive you lot, despite everything you've done to me."

And, judging by the way all the color drained from Tolorro's face? Yeeeah, Cyrra could bet her right arm that the fucker knew what she was talking about.

"Got anything to say about this, pal?" she growled, ignoring the way the ship began to tremble, like a child awaiting their punishment. (Had to be just her imagination, right? Right?! The alternative was too fucking scary, and so Cyrra did what she did best and chose to not think about it. Heh! The gods favored the ones who... uh, didn't see the dark clouds gathering above their heads? 'Cause ignorance was the wine of the blessed or something.)

"W-what? No! I'd never," the captain protested, confirming every single one of her suspicions in the process. Cyrra Eiréal knew what a lying motherfucker looked like, and he was checking every single one of the flags! (Shifty eyes: check. Scratching his head all the time? Check. Blushing furiously? Check, check, and fucking check! 'Liar' may as well have been written on his big forehead, and it still would have been way more ambiguous.)

"Don't fuck with me," she hissed. "I swear, Tolorro, if you don't spill the-- ahhh!"

That was the moment the ship was lifted from the water, hanging by what seemed to be a strand of copper hair. (It was fastened somewhere in the sky, going on, on and on, beyond their consciousness. Again, Cyrra didn't think about the technicalities of this too much, but mostly because she was trying not to get thrown off the deck this time. Oof! In her mad scramble, she embraced Faline around her waist with one hand, and one of the pillars with other. Shit, shit, shit! The ship was turning around, spinning, almost, and bodies were flying in all directions like some morbid rag dolls. And, the ones that fell? The ocean swallowed them, turning worryingly red in the process.)

The corpse-woman observed it all from her bone throne, giggling to herself as if this was the funniest joke she'd ever heard. "My, my, my, is this satisfying to watch! Now that I think of it, though? You two," meaning Cyrra and Faline, "weren't involved. It is sad that you need to die with them, I suppose. Consider it a lesson on choosing your friends more carefully! Unless," her rotten lips stretched further, "you'd be willing to do me a favor. All I want is for you to strangle the captain with your hair. Do it for me, please?"

 

[ellarose]

Faline reached for her locket as gravity began to pull her down, down, down towards a sea that would swallow her down, down, down. (And cause her to drown, drown, drown. Yes, these thoughts were indeed passing through her head in song-form. It was the most she could do to keep herself from panicking. Songs made everything exponentially better! Even near-death scenarios such as this.) However, it swiftly became apparent that turning time back wasn't necessary so long as Cyrra was at her side. She gave a little yip and blushed as she leaned into the assassin's hold, clinging onto her tightly in return. Even as they were whipped around in circles like a sailboat caught in one of those tiny whirlpools she used to stir into her evening tea, the other woman's arm around her waist was firm and unwavering. Dependably strong, she wasn't going to let her fall into the raging sea that was prepared to swallow her up at any moment. The feeling of safety that came with that realization threw a warm, comforting blanket over her shoulders even amidst all the chaos. (It was truly marvelous, how far had they come since the day that Cyrra tossed her into that pond! Touching enough to bring a tear to her eye had she allowed herself the time to think of it in any more depth.) Faline was truly impressed... and there was something else. Something else bubbling in the pit of her stomach that she didn't have a name for. Her touch just... did something to her. Something almost visceral enough to distract her from the sea itself. Almost.

Faline had never trembled this violently from fright before. Far too much was happening around them at once. Sailors were dying. Water was rushing and spraying all around them. All over them. (...That might have been part of it. She might have also been shivering because she was drenched from head to foot now and the air was fierce as it whipped at her skin, turning it to ice. In that respect, at least Cyrra's touch brought some heat with it as well.) Pressing her face against the assassin's shoulder, she waited for the world to stop spinning (or, alternatively, to wait for herself to adjust to it) before she tried to focus on what was occurring around them again.

"...Our friends?" Faline echoed the woman's words incredulously, blinking dizzily when the world stopped spinning within her head. "But they are not our friends. We've been taken aboard this ship against our wills. You've clearly met these men before and you do not hear us assuming who you do and do not consider your friends." No one seemed inclined to ask questions out in the world. They were all content to draw their own conclusions and run with them as fact, it seemed.

"Well. If that is the case, you should have no reservations about strangling the captain here." The woman considered, her grin wide as ever. "Kill him and you two shall go free. It's as simple as that."

"My hair is made for brushing and braiding. It is not an instrument for murder!" Faline insisted matter-of-factly. The crew mostly kept their hair short and Cyrra's was not long enough to accomplish such a task. Faline's hair was long, yes, and perhaps feasibly long enough to strangle a man... but she did not want her silky, innocent hair to be accused of murder in the near future. (Cyrra might not think it is nice anymore if she used it for such a thing! Then again... perhaps the assassin would like it better for that? No, no, no! She could not strangle the captain with her hair!) "There must be some other way." That was when she noticed the hair holding the ship aloft, coming in an endless cascade from the skies. Hm. Why did she insist she needed hair when the had a mechanism like that at her disposal?

"Th-- that's right! Faline's too sweet to kill--" The captain was floundering at the implications. (Too sweet to kill, perhaps, but not so sweet that she was incapable of stealing from them. Funny how the narrative changed when it suited him, hm?) "Wait, where're you going--!?"

Faline followed her whims without explaining, as she so often did, making her way towards the mast and setting her expression into a determined little glare as she began to climb up, up, up. The ship shook and tried to throw her off but she held tight. Gravity itself seemed inclined to do her favors whenever she was perilously close to falling, setting her in a direction that would help her restore her balance again-- as if Endymion was looking out for her in some way through their magical tether to the ship. 'Thank you, my friend!'

Eventually, Faline made it up to the place where the copper strands of hair were tied to the ship. Biting her lip, she gripped tightly to the mast with one hand and shimmied her hand into her dress pocket for the knife she carried with her aboard the ship. Stretching her arm above her as high as it could go, she began to saw through the copper hair.

"What do you think you're doing!?" The woman shrieked. The winds whipped at Faline harder yet but she held on tightly. She was not sure where exactly she was going with this, but she knew that it was important. They needed hair, did they not? And not her hair, but... this hair. The magical sky hair.

Naturally, the ship dropped the moment the hair was severed. This threw Faline high into the air, clutching onto a long strand of copper hair, and then plummeting down, down, down towards the deck below! Down, down, down to die, die, die unless...!

 

[Syntra]

The rest of the crew might have been shocked at Faline's insistence to throw herself into the metaphorical pit full of rusty spikes, but Cyrra? Nah. Cyrra's entire fucking world would have shattered had literally anything else happened-- more than likely, it would have pointed to the very fabric of the universe being unraveled. Faline, and reasonable? Pfft! Didn't belong in the same fucking sentence, unless 'not' was sandwiched right in the middle. (No, the assassin wasn't afraid for her. The way her heart sped up when she realized just how fragile the whelp's body was, and that the impact would be enough to break her spine? The equivalent of a messenger boy worrying that he'd ruin an expensive fucking delivery. Right! No feelings involved, because Cyrra wouldn't have allowed herself to put that kind of blindfold over her own eyes. For all she cared, Faline might burn in the most cursed part of hellfi-- Oh, shit, shit, shit!!!)

The ship dropped, much like her own stomach, and Cyrra could swear that like half of the fuckers on the deck were just forced to say 'bye, bye' to their contact with the solid ground beneath their feet. To their miserable lives as well, most likely. Did that matter to the assassin, though? No! With single-minded devotion, she thought of... well, Faline. (Faline, who was fucking annoying. Faline, whose words sometimes made her laugh. Faline, who had promised to braid her hair and still fucking hadn't! Cyrra Eiréal was not one to take promises lightly, you know? A promise was a chain, and through it, the girl was bound to her. Letting her die now would have been like... uh, like purchasing beer and pouring it down the drain? Yeah, that was fucking it. Uh huh. What do you mean, 'you shouldn't hide your feelings behind cheap metaphors?' Fuck right off, man.)

Before she could even begin to string together a coherent thought, her legs moved. They moved on their own, with the kind of despair only ever induced by the proximity of death. Cyrra could feel it, could hear its ominous laughter as well, and-- C'mon, faster! Just a little bit! Her lungs were on fire, but still, still the assassin pushed forward. (Wouldn't it be poetic fucking justice here? You know, if Faline died because she ran out of time. Ordinarily, that might have been worth a chuckle, but Cyrra just wanted to make the eternal clock stop, to silence that annoying fucking tick tock, tick tock, tick tock! ...please, she thought, consumed with sudden horror, don't take her away from me yet. Not her, too.)

--oof. Fucking oof! The strength of that impact? It hurt, and if her arms were to fall off in that goddamn instant, Cyrra wouldn't question it too much. (She was here, though. Safe and sound, for now, and wrapped in her embrace.) "Fucking hell, Faline," the assassin cursed. "What, ya got a Faline-shaped homunculus at your disposal? 'Cause I remember you promising me to braid my hair, and you act as if you've got a stand-in for that lined up. Well, you fucking don't! So, don't you dare to die on me before you do it, alright?" ...that was, um, an impressive fucking speech. Every day, Cyrra's acting skills were getting better and better! 'Cause that was all it was, obviously.

"Cyrra! Cyrra, help!" And, when she looked up from Faline's face? The assassin could see Tolorro tied to a column, with the same copper hair holding him in place. What the...? It was true that the gods did revel in their bizarre punishments, but it almost felt like they were trying to win some fucking award here. You know, an award for the funniest death? The assassin would have been on board, kind of, had it not interfered with her own plans.

"I swear I didn't know," the captain wailed, sounding more pathetic than Cyrra thought possible. "How was I supposed to? I bought the amulet because they told me I had to, for... for smooth sailing. Protection." Oooh, now the puzzle pieces were falling in place! They sure as fuck were, and no, she did not like the resulting picture.

"And, let me guess, you pathetic piece of shit. Her hair just happened to be in it, huh?"

"I didn't know!" Yes, and she hadn't known that Ran would become Julian's fucking bride. Did the world care, though? Did the consequences stop in their tracks because, boo hoo, the wittle man had no idea? No, because that wasn't how shit worked. Wasn't, wasn't, wasn't, and pretending otherwise was just smearing honey over your shit-crusted lips and acting like it tasted sweet! Which it didn't, in case you were interested.

"Where is it? Tell me right now, or I swear I will fucking end you myself!"

"I have no idea!" the captain cried. "It got lost, and--"

"Now, now. You've had more than enough time to talk it out, don't you think?" the woman smiled. "Alright, let's change the rules a little. Cyrra, I have something you might be interested in. A... precious souvenir, if I do say so myself." The corpse then bent its neck, with a loud crack, and, shit was something lodged inside? A... a hilt, attached to a painfully familiar obsidian blade. 'Cyrra,' the sword whispered, its words crawling in her ear. 'Cyrra, take me. You know you want to. You need to, for it is your fate. There's no way you can't, is there?' And, as if she was hypnotized, the assassin walked forward, forward, forward...

 

[ellarose]

Faline blinked up bewilderedly at Cyrra when she found herself nestled safely in her embrace. Everything happened so quickly she hardly processed the fall itself, the moment between losing her grip on the mast and landing in the other woman's arms. (Strong arms, it was worth noting for future reference. Perhaps there would one day come an instance where she would need to compose a song about Cyrra on the spot? It was best to list these qualities now so that she had inspiration to draw from. Anyway, she quite liked the feeling of them wrapped around her now.) However, it became quickly apparent to her that she had made Cyrra quite upset. A Faline homunculus? Oh. She supposed she could have died. It hadn't really occurred to her. (Or it did in the sing-song voice that narrated her life, but not quite in feeling. She was quite accustomed to falling... in the other realm, that was. Every now and then she needed to remind herself that she was not in the other realm, but in the mortal realm. The realm where the probability of a platform of clouds cushioning her fall was particularly rare-- if non-existent. Hadn't she learned anything from the times she'd fallen from the trees around the cottage? She was such a silly goose!) "Oh. Well there are indeed many other Falines." Faline noted matter-of-factly, "Although most of them are dead now. Did I ever tell you about the guillotine room, Cyrra? Many Falines died in there, right in front of my eyes! Most of them were ninnies who did not understand the concept of vegetable soup, but..."

Oh. This about the braiding all along? Well, Faline was indeed a masterful hair braider. And she had promised, hadn't she? She supposed that she understood why the assassin would be upset about something like that. Hair. Braid. Hm...

"You really ought to follow your own advice, Cyrra. Why, when we first met you jumped out of a window!" Faline mentioned absentmindedly as she examined the copper strand of hair she'd cut. "Come to think of it... now we have both caught each other! That's a nice thought, isn't it Cyrra?" It said a lot, didn't it? They could rely on each other!

Faline smiled as she thought about this and began dividing the long, copper strand of hair into sections. Then she proceeded to braid it while the captain called for Cyrra's attention. (Since Tolorro had called for the assassin and not for Faline, she did not figure it was her business to eavesdrop on their conversation. Rather she continued to braid the copper hair. The threads were guiding her along as they always did and Cyrra's words were a vital hint, she just knew it! In her experience, the assassin was a particularly skilled prophet.) It's only when she heard the loud craaaack of the woman's neck and vaugely noticed Cyrra walking towards the railing that she paid attention to her surroundings again.

"Cyrra? Are you planning on going for a swi--" Faline's heart leapt in her chest as she considered the implications of Cyrra landing in the water the same way those sailors did. (...The red in the water was not paint.) Seeing the hilt of the cursed sword only accelerated her heartbeat. (Suddenly the red she saw were the roses appearing over her new white dress. Those weren't paint, either. And to think that the assassin was the one who told her not to chose flashy colors for herself... why would she cover her in red, then? Why would she sink the sword in her heart at all?) Rubbing her eyes with the heels of her palms, Faline realized that the strand of hair that she braided had begun to glow. Oh?

Faline focused on the braid and really focused, watching as the silver threads of time attached themselves to the braid and branched out, creating a network of webs across the ship. If this was anything like before, she supposed she would need Cyrra to see and pick out which thread they needed to follow. That would surely take them where they needed to go next! (No, she was going to follow the threads and leave her companion there. Not when she was getting perilously close to the water and that horrid sword!)

Faline's expression furrowed into one of unadulterated determination. She unlaced one of her boots and lobbed it at the back of Cyrra's head in effort to get her attention. "Cyrra, snap out of it this instant!" She chastised. "I have not braided your hair yet, have I? Get back here you silly goose!"

 

[Syntra]

The sword. The sword. Cyrra Eiréal did not love swords, mind you-- they were a knight’s weapon, a lord’s weapon, and everything fucking flowed from that. You ever heard of an aristocrat trying to conceal their presence, huh? Shit, the assassin would bet her right hand that they’d fucking die before allowing themselves to slip into the obscurity! The death’s merciless hand would plunge them exactly there, as it did to the lowers of farmers, but before that happened… well, they insisted on swallowing their precious placebo pills every fucking day. The sword was an extension of their mindset. As an instrument, it was big, shiny and loud, basically screaming at anyone who was willing to listen: ‘attention, commoners, someone important arrived!’ Nah, not the best choice for stealth. An assassin who lived in the darkness would benefit from a quieter companion, such as her beloved daggers. Still, though, fucking still… wasn’t this sword a beauty? Did it not sing to her, compel her to come closer, ask her to grasp it in her hand? ‘Yes, yes, Cyrra,’ something within the sword laughed. ‘Come. Accept your destiny. There is not point in trying to rewrite a story that has already been written, and told so many times. You do want to kill her, don’t you? The witch. The wicked, wicked witch, who has stolen everything from you.’ Ah. Ah, yeah. Fucking hell, of course she did! That they were able to talk without trying to kill each other was a testament to her patience, not anything deeper. She’d just been lonely, okay?! At that point, the assassin could have also had an engaging conversation with a fucking tree, and, no, it didn’t mean she wanted to marry it. Closer, closer, closer… just a little closer! Soon enough, her fingers would wrap around the hilt. She’d get to own the sword, and be owned by it, and-- fucking ouch!

Cyrra snapped out of the trance, looking around like a bear that had just awakened from long, long winter slumber. What the fuck?! What had just happened? (Men were still screaming around them, still dying. The waves were breaking against the hull of their ship, the droplets falling on her lips and letting her taste the salt. She could taste blood as well, Cyrra was sure of it, though where had it come from? Where, where, where? …maybe not from this fucking timeline. That, or perhaps she’d bitten the inside of her mouth.)

“Drat!” the corpse woman screamed. “That wasn’t very nice of you, Faline. Why don’t you get your own Cyrra? This one was so, so close to breaking! I don’t know about you, but I believe it is fairly rude to intentionally destroy the fruit of one’s hard work. What would you feel like if I poured vomit into your goulash?” …yeah, so all of the demons they’d dealt with so far were fucking deranged, but what was new? To the assassin, it was a moment as ‘duh’-worthy as finding out that wounds fucking bled. Ugh, how she would have loved to teach her that villainous monologues were a waste of breath! Ideally with the tip of her dagger, working its way up, up, up, past her vital organs. (Except that, see, corpses didn’t usually mind when you savaged them further. Fucking hell, was there no other way? No other way but to look for that thread, staining her hand with magic in the process? They’re fucking stained already, the assassin figured. Might as well do something good with the card I’ve been dealt. …maybe, maybe the gods would look at the results, not her methods, and smile at her. The assassin doubted it, but it was nice to be able to hang onto that possibility.)

And, the thing was, Cyrra could see. She could and couldn’t, like a fata morgana on the periphery of her vision, except that it was real, real, real, much more than she would have liked. The assassin outstretched her hand--

Wind wrapped itself around Faline, both sharp and comforting. And, when she came to her senses once again? Desert, desert as far the eye could see, the sands red and yellow and orange and everything in between. Even the cacti seemed dry, not green, but a deathly shade of grey. The sun was scorching, crawling under her skin and burning her from the inside, and…

“My, my,” a traveler wrapped in silks grabbed Faline by the wrist. (Where had he come from? Because he certainly hadn’t been there just a few seconds ago! The lack of the footprints in the ever-changing sand pointed to that conclusion, too.)

“It seems to me that you are quite an unlucky young lady. Cursed, maybe. Would you perhaps like to buy an amulet? It is made of dryad hair, and will always lead you exactly where you want. See, it is said that each dryad is bound to her forest.” Quizzically, he tilted his head aside. “Are you, too, searching for a forest?”

 

[ellarose]

"What? Cyrra is not a piece of fruit!" Faline defended, placing her hands on her hips. If the assassin was any food at all, then she was a piece of cheesecake. And speaking of food... she brought a hand to her mouth, paling at the mental image that woman's vile words created. Goodness, how disgusting! Even as a make-believe scenario, she was quite upset at the example she had chosen to use. "And that would be very unkind! My. The concept of using vomit as a cooking ingredient in any manner at all is positively vile." She was preoccupied with this detail for a moment, feeling that she was going to be quite sick if she thought about it for any longer. Why must the woman paint such horrifying images in her mind? "I would never do anything so horrible."

Faline shook the thought off, knowing that she needed to think of anything else if she didn't want to get any more upset about this, peering down at the braid in her hands and the thread connecting the entire network together. She observed carefully as Cyrra reached for one and...

The world morphed around her and she found herself standing in an endless sea... of sand? Faline's eyes widened with fascination. Wow! It was very dry and very hot. Nothing like the ocean that she'd been standing on just moments before. The colors were brilliant and warm, the sand scorched through the stocking on her one, shoeless foot. Ouch! (It was too bad... she was looking forward to taking her first steps on the sand when she met the sea for the first time. Feeling the softness against her feet, between her toes. This sand burned her skin as if it intended to bite her for daring to walk atop it.) It seemed nothing about her first trip to the sea was going as she had dreamed. Oh well... perhaps one day she would still get to enjoy a calming shore at sunset as she had always hoped. It wasn't like the sea itself had been drained of all its water and would be unavailable from that point onward. (Although that was almost how it had seemed, given the water that surrounded her was indeed replaced with desert sand.)

Having thrown one of her boots at Cyrra, Faline found she wobbled around as she walked because of that imbalance.

"Unlucky." Faline repeated the word as if she couldn't understand it, blinking with surprise as she gazed down at the man's hand clasped around her wrist. "Am I?" Well, she supposed none of her dreams going according to plan could be considered quite unlucky. As well as the conundrum she found herself in now. (But she had a friend. She was at sea, on an adventure. Perhaps she should consider herself lucky for what she does have rather than labeling herself as unfortunate for what she does not?) Cursed. Hm. Could the Kairos magic be considered a curse? Sometimes she came dangerously close to considering that... but it also led her to Cyrra, did it not? And they'd been getting along quite well! The assassin had just admitted that she did not want Faline to die. She had never had someone care so much about whether she lived or died before. (With the exception of Endymion, of course. Poor Endymion. They were still attached to the ship, wherever it was, and undoubtedly upset because of it. The cat did not like the water.) Some said the same of black cats.

"Oh. No, I am not looking for a forest. I am looking for my other boot!" Faline admitted. The amulet was important, she supposed, but it seemed silly to take it when she was not searching for a forest. Either way, she would not be able to search for anything while wobbling around the way she was. "Have you seen it, sir? No?" She tilted her own head, then. "How curious. It seems you possess no footprints at all! That is rather unlucky. Are you perhaps unable to make a mark on the world?"

"...What?" The man appeared rather confounded for a moment as Faline gave him a light, sympathetic pat on the back of the hand.

Before he could gather his wits together, Faline was already wandering off to search through the endless sands for her other boot.

"W-wait! Wait, young lady! Where are you going!?" The man scrambled to catch up with her, clearly unused to being frazzled this way. It seemed that the participant in his usual narrative wasn't sticking to the script. (To be fair, they had not given her any such script-- or even cue cards to read off of.) "The amulet will take you where you need to go! It will, ah, even show you where your boot is." He rubbed his fingers together. "If you pay up, it's all yours."

"An amulet that helps one find missing shoes." Faline pondered, cupping her cheek in her hand. "...And yet I thought a dryad's hair would only guide one to her forest? Unless my boot is in the forest."

"Yes! Yes, that's precisely where it is." The man nodded quickly, fervently.

"Unless you've stolen it. After all, how else would you know that? It is not very nice to steal, you know!" Faline frowned scoldingly. Then she realized that one question essentially unwrapped a package filled with even more questions. "For you to possess the dryad's hair, would that not imply that you already know where the forest is? I do hope that you are not selling something you have stolen from someone else. Do you intend to sell my stolen boot as well?"

"I--" The man was at a loss, no doubt attempting to puzzle out in his head how he got here or how Faline even came to that conclusion in the first place. Once again, she began wandering ( sort of running-- or more accurately, hobbling) away from him as fast as she could. "Young lady! Get back here!"

"Please stay away from me!" Faline shouted behind her when she realized the man was chasing her through the sand. Unfortunately, it did not seem that he was receptive to good manners. Oh, if only she had her other boot! Determinedly, she grabbed for her locket and silvery threads unspooled when she clicked the side. Instinctually, she followed the one that would guide her to her boot... and gradually, gradually, gradually, the sand cleared out to reveal a forest of tall trees standing off in the distance. She spoke to herself, as she often did when she found herself standing all alone. If only Cyrra was there with her! "The dryad's forest? Poor thing. She, too, is a victim of theft... is she not?"

 

[Syntra]

The Whispering Forest, the place was called. How did Faline know? Maybe the dryad’s thoughts had leaked into her mind, maybe the trees themselves had told her, or maybe the knowledge just sort of… permeated everything, here in this world made of dreams. Was that so strange to consider, after all? When ideas served as foundation stones, surely parts of them had been chipped away-- chipped away and lying around, for anyone to pick up on. Memory fragments, or something like that. Hmm. What was she even looking for, though? The dryad? The lost boot? Both, or perhaps something else entirely? (Everything, everything about the forest was aggressively alive. The shade of green was similar to nothing she’d ever seen before, as if all the previous instances of it had been just a cheap replica of the real thing, and, really, it was overwhelming! …it also felt as if the trees were touching her mind, with their ice-cold fingers and sharp branches. They weren’t really doing that, as they continued to sway innocently in the wind, but the sensation was somehow there. Oh well? Probably nothing to worry about.)

“Miss! Miss, get back here!” the villain from before shouted. The echo carried his voice far and wide, and it was hard to tell whether he stood next to her or a world away-- sounds behaved strangely here, almost like a prey in the presence of something big and scary. Cautious, in other words. “This is all a grave misunderstanding. Only my amulet can protect you from the terrible curse! Don’t you know that you are going to lose your limbs if you don’t wear it? You’ve only been able to keep them so far because the time threads sensed that you were going to buy it one day! Really, you could say that you’ve already pre-brought it. Paying for a service you’ve been using is only fair, wouldn’t you agree?” …time threads? Pre-bought it? This man knew more than he was letting on, and the way he drip-fed her the information suggested he was either catastrophically incompetent or very intentional about what he was revealing.

‘What a loudmouth,’ one of the trees… uh, rolled its eyes? Or whatever the equivalent of eye-rolling for plants was, because there was that distinctly ‘ugh’ feeling about the movement. ‘I wouldn’t listen to a word of what he’s saying, miss. I’m just a tree, of course, but, to me, he smells like a liar. Liars never last for long here, nuh uh.‘

‘On the contrary, I’d say that liars have the longest shelf life,’ a bush opposed. ‘Do you remember the squirrel who lied about the hazelnuts she, and I’m quoting her now, ‘didn’t steal’? Because I do, and she was the one to survive the winter. Not her poor relatives.’

‘Bah. Must you ruin everything? This was supposed to be a moment of teaching, not one of moral rot. I want you to know that if this sweet little thing starts lying because of you, it will be her fault.’

The bush appeared to be full of doubts now. ‘Will it, really? Humans always lie, my friend. It’s in their nature. Isn’t that so, little one?’ the thing turned to Faline, as much as it could perform such a movement. ‘I bet that you, too, lie with every breath that you take. After all, had that not been the case, your kin wouldn’t have been able to deceive our guardian.’ Their guardian? Their guardian, meaning the dryad? All the trees were casting accusatory glares at her now, as if she was personally responsible for whatever unfortunate fate that had befallen her. ‘She’s gone, you know,’ a tiny daisy growing near her feet complained. ‘She’s gone, and without her, this forest will surely turn into a wasteland.’ (Was that what the desert was? A glimpse into the future, painted with a color completely different from green? It seemed so very distant now, and yet, yet the two worlds were connected, via something far more intimate than even the umbilical cord. ‘Causality,’ Atropos would have named it. A roll of the dice, a single yes or no question, from which everything unfolded.)

‘Don’t cry, child, ’someone soothed the poor little flower. ‘We just need to get a new guardian, is all. Someone who suitable for the job, with the right talents. And, yes, with hair strong enough to bear the burden.’ …oh. Was this the point when they would look at Faline, conclude she was theirs, and try to imprison her? Because this was getting really old really fast. Demons and the assorted supernaturals should really learn that it wasn’t polite to--

Ping!

“What the fuck?!” Cyrra complained as something pulled her through the memory barrier, right into the embrace of one of the trees. (It resembled the scene shortly after they’d managed to weaken the tether, with the branches burrowing their way into her flesh. The assassin wasn’t too excited to relive that scene, but here they fucking were! …not that anyone had ever asked her what she wanted, of course. At least that aspect wasn’t fucking new.) “Let go of me, you wooden piece of shit,” she shouted, trying to wiggle her way free. “Do I look like I want to join your family of creepy plant fucks? ‘Cause I don’t!”

‘No can do,’ the forest replied, in whispers and grunts and screams, and the assassin winced painfully. The sound crept into her ears, sharp like a dagger, and-- ‘You’re going to become our new dryad, whether you like it or not. Someone has to do it, and you only have yourself to blame. Unless, of course, you’d like to help us look for our old one instead?’ For some reason, everyone was looking at Faline now, with a curious mix of resentment and hope in their not-eyes. ‘By that, we mean you. None of us is stupid enough to let go of our replacement before we manage to ensure that we will get what we are owed, of course. And, I have to say, a star-touched fox isn’t half-bad dryad material.’

 

[ellarose]

"Aw, Cyrra! The tree is giving you a big hug. It seems that you are being welcomed into their family." Faline wore a toothy smile and clasped her hands together delightedly. How lucky for her! The concept of being accepted into a family was indeed a warm one. (The idea of being wanted by anyone at all... ah, wouldn't it be nice?) All of the trees in the world seemed quite inclined to hold the assassin as well. She had never seen a tree hug anyone before she met Cyrra. How special she was, to be a favorite of the trees! They had certainly never held her, granny, or any of the chickens before. (It was probably for the best that none of the trees around the cottage had tried to grab the chickens. That might have startled the poor dears so!) It seemed the roses in that circus before were also rather inclined to hold onto her up in such a way as well. Plants truly did love the assassin. Wasn't that sweet? However, as the other woman expressed her distaste for the hug and the whispers in the forest vowed that they would not let her go, Faline's smile collapsed into a frown. Oh. They meant to hold her against her will, then? (...That might make Cyrra feel the way she had felt, living in the cottage. On the surface, a beautiful forest would offer one nothing to complain about, but in actuality... no. There was no point in examining it. She simply didn't wish that feeling upon anyone. Least of all her new friend!) "Now, now. That is quite enough! You know an unwilling dryad will bring your forest nothing but misfortune." She wagged a finger scoldingly, like a mother chastising her naughty children. "It would be truly stupid to force her to stay when she is calling all of you 'creepy plant fucks'. That kind of energy will cause everything to wither faster, will it not? For a dryad who constantly wishes for your demise will end you all."

Indeed. The undeniable 'fuck you' energy that Cyrra was giving off was not befitting of a forest that needed nourishment and nurturing to grow. The trees, bushes, and flowers quickly began consulting each other on this risk. Their murmuring voices warbled together into a symphony of sounds that they couldn't latch onto or even begin to understand as they spoke amongst themselves. (Goodness! It was unhelpful to be shut out of the conversation this way, considering that there was no way to defend or interject when she could not possibly know where their thoughts were at.) The forest was being terribly rude about all of this.

'...We must listen to this sensible young lady, for she is correct. This 'new dryad' you have chosen willy nilly will curse us and inevitably bring the forest to ruin.' An old, wise tree spoke. Its branches rustled, softer on her ears than all the others, as they turned towards Faline. 'Her instincts do not lead her astray.'

'But-- but she is--!' The tree that spoke before whined in protest, offendedly drawing its branches inward. (The sound scraped, it hurt, just like the others. Unlike the old tree, who was for some reason a kinder presence than all of the rest.)

'Our forest will be forever tainted if we sink to the level of those humans who stole our dryad away.' The old tree continued in a gravely voice. 'And if I recall correctly, she called you a 'wooden piece of shit'. Do you want to hold onto someone who speaks to you in such a vulgar manner?'

'Ahem. But she is close to you, time witch. We will hold her here until you find our dryad.' The other tree sniffed pompously and tried to regain its composure. 'Manners can always be taught.'

"From whom will she receive those lessons? Because you are terribly rude!" Faline was having none of it, her cheeks flushing a light pink as frustration bubbled to the surface. (Her words were sharp, sharp enough that they rivaled the cutting sharpness of the forest. Suddenly, they stilled to a complete, shocked silence.) "I would have helped had you only asked kindly. Instead, you've all called me a liar before giving me a chance to speak..." Throwing accusations at her, just like everyone else. Her eyes burned and became quite watery at the thought. (Why? What about her told people she did not deserve a chance to speak before they formed their disagreeable opinions of her? The plants did not like her for being human... and the humans did not like her for being a witch.) Blinking quickly, she gestured a hand towards the tree holding Cyrra. "And kidnapped my first human friend!"

Standing among trees that towered so high, Faline felt very small. She crumpled down into a little heap on the ground, unable to hold herself upright anymore, burying her face in her skirt. Oh, bother. There she went. Crying yet again. But she could not help it when it rose up inside of her with such force. The weight of the worry she'd been carrying with her over the last couple of days was soul-crushing. (Was this a feeling she would have to accustom herself to as well? Watching as all of her friends were ripped away from her, because she was 'guilty' of crimes she did not commit? First Endymion... and now Cyrra.) She did not want to go alone. She was always alone, always, always...

The forest was hushed into a chastised silence so great that for a moment, only the sound of Faline's sniffles could be heard.

"I will need my boot back if I am to walk. I know you have it." Faline began quietly. She scrubbed her tearstained cheeks with the back of her hands and brought herself back up to stand. (Crying would not solve anything... but it did feel better to let it out than press it down.) "And you must let Cyrra go, for she and only she can help me to find your true dryad." Her voice and glare both steeled over with an unshakable insistence. "We are bound by a tether that is stronger than your shitty roots. Had you only reached a little further, you would have found your old dryad, you silly fucking tree!"

 

[Syntra]

Uh, a question. Had Faline studied the art of misunderstanding obvious fucking cues, or was she a goddamn prodigy? Because this level of ignorance felt almost deliberate-- you know, like repeatedly stepping on someone’s toe and muttering the most insincere ‘sorry, sorry’ while laughing under your breath. The disconnect was so fucking brutal that Cyrra almost felt impressed! (And, yes, part of her did want to strangle her. That part was entirely fucking justified, and not just because witches deserved death in general, but because the whelp’s continued survival spat on every single natural law in existence. Still, though? A bigger, more sinister part of her found that she couldn’t be that mad with her. Not truly, anyway. Faline was Faline, and she just… worked like this, for the lack of a better word. Nothing that she did was done to spite her, the assassin had come to realize-- worms were feasting on her brain whether she was there to witness it or not. Was it fucking annoying? Yeah, to be sure! But so was rain, or the sun shining too fucking hard, and getting all worked up over that did you no favors. …and, no, the fact that her fucking antics could be sort of cute sometimes did absolutely nothing to influence her here.) “Faline,” the assassin growled, “maybe you haven’t fucking noticed, but it’s not a good thing when other people try to keep you. Or demons, or trees, or other assorted fucks. Ownership means they can do whatever the hell they want with you! Kind of like, when you own your dress, you also get to burn it. That’s the fucking message here.” …um, why the hell was she wasting her breath on explaining elementary concepts to her?! Cyrra Eiréal was an assassin, a shadow striking fear into the hearts of witches, not a… not a teacher. Fucking hell. All that magic must have eroded her survival instincts to a sorry heap of dust, sitting in the corner and remembering their good old glory days.

Cyrra half-expected for Faline to bend all the logic so that it was somehow a good thing, but… no, that wasn’t what happened. The whelp, um, defended her? Not that an assassin like herself needed any defending, especially not from someone who couldn’t tell the difference between having a sack pulled over her head and genuine fucking night! (…except it was nice, she had to admit. Nice, in that luxuriously unnecessary way. Nobody would argue that you’d drop dead without a featherbed, right? Didn’t change a fucking thing about the fact that sleeping on it was nicer than sleeping on rocks, though. Don’t get her wrong, Cyrra was thankful for all the suffering! She really, really was, because the gods only bothered to temper steel that showed promise. It was no coincidence that tears were water, you see? Because, if you wanted to nourish your skills, you had to water everything with them. This was about… uh, the variety? Yes! The assassin just wanted to remind herself what she was giving up in order to let the lessons sink in that much deeper. Heh!)

“That’s right,” Cyrra growled, pushing her thought processes into the background. “I’ll curse the fuck out of you, and woodworms will eat you alive. You looking forward to that, huh? Ever wondered what that is like? The good news is that you don’t need to stretch your piss poor imagination thin, ‘cause you will find out pretty soon.”

“Eeek!” a small sapling shivered, and what the assassin almost, almost felt bad. You know, before remembering that this entire situation was those unhinged fucks’ fault? Yeah, hard to feel sympathy after that! So, instead of empathizing, the assassin started making really obnoxious chewing sounds with her mouth.

“Om nom nom, fuckers!”

“Knock it off, will you?” Never before had Cyrra Eiréal thought that a pine tree could sound this hostile, but you learned something new every day, she guessed. “You are scaring the children!”

“Good, the little bastards should be afraid. I swear, if you don’t let me go right now, I will spend the rest of my life burning down every fucking forest I come across!” Not the best argument in favor of her release, the assassin realized, but, you know, too late. Stupid diplomacy, stupid words and even stupider consequences of her own actions! If they pressured her into this dryad shit for real, she would-- uh. Hellooo, did the gods reset the world by accident? Because what Faline said not only made sense, but it also worked. With shame written into their wooden features, the tree set her down on the ground, and a bush handed her the missing boot. Wow. (Also, strangely enough? Seeing the whelp cry pierced her heart like an arrow. Not because she cared or anything, but because, uh, the sound was annoying? Yeah, it had to be that!)

“C’mon, don’t cry,” the assassin wiped the tears away clumsily, in a gesture that was becoming eerily familiar. “I’m here, see? Thanks to you. No need to make a new fucking river. Nothing would live in it, anyway, ‘cause saline water is poison to the local fish.“ (…how did she know? Cyrra couldn’t remember, but the knowledge floated to the surface like a bloated fucking corpse.)

“Are you fucking proud of yourself?” she turned to the local flora, who were very much trying to pretend not to be home. (Hint: not that easy to pull off with roots literally tying you to one place.) “Congratulations, you’ve made her cry! What’s your next big accomplishment, hm? Going to steal a kid’s candy and laugh in their fucking face? Oh, right, I forgot. You can’t even do that because your shitty fucking branches can’t move without the wind! Let’s go, Faline. We’ll look for their precious dryad.”

A single golden strand fell from the sky, and Cyrra? Cyrra grabbed it, purely by instinct. (Images flashed through her mind, chaotic and violent. The dryad, yes, but also a storm of leaves; the ground stained with blood; grass wrapping around the woman’s ankles and pulling her down, down, down, somewhere into oblivion. Oh, fuck. What the hell was that about?)

“I think there’s more to this fucking story than meets the eye,” Cyrra bit her lip. “Because I’m pretty sure that I just witnessed the stupid forest kill her. Kill her, and bury her alive. I think it happened somewhere around… here,” she pointed in the middle of a fairy circle, composed of bright red mushrooms. (Bright red like rubies, yes, but also blood.) “You think we should dig her up? They say the dead can’t speak, but I know how to make them tell tales.” Perhaps a sound plan, but given that a pack of fucking wolves just emerged from behind the trees? Wolves that were growling menacingly, their crimson eyes full of bloodlust? Yeah, not their first fucking priority!

 

[ellarose]

"Well..." Faline sniffled and gazed up at Cyrra as she swept the tears from her cheeks, attempting to put her best smile on. (It was better when she smiled, right? Cyrra said she preferred that, anyway. She'd even said she was beautiful when she smiled. No one had ever told her that before and every time she remembered her heart pranced around like a baby deer.) "I would not want to poison the poor fish. Ah... Cyrra, do the fish sleep with the fishes when they die as well? Or does that expression only apply to humans?" She tilted her head, her brow furrowing as she considered it seriously. It seemed to her that phrase would make the most sense when regarding fish instead of humans, unless said human died in a shipwreck. (Ah. They were indeed still on a ship themselves, were they not? A ship in peril of being wrecked at any moment, if they did not break the dryad's spell soon.) Still. The subject of fish was indeed a dire one that still required their utmost focus for various reasons! "I truly hope I haven't cried enough to kill the fish princess. I would not want the conflicts between fish and humans to worsen all because of me..." Ah, the concept of contributing to their problems brought her such woe and heartache! The assassin had brought a great many important matters regarding the fish to her attention. Goodness gracious, there were a great many important matters for them to keep track of these days! (Ah, she had it. Perhaps the fish slept with the birds when they died? She'd heard that sea birds could scoop them right from the water into their mouthes! It was true that was not the fate of every fish... but not all humans died in the sea, either. By that logic, such reasoning made a great deal of sense to Faline. The humans went below, into the sea... and the fish went above, into the stomachs of hungry birds. Ah. She did love birds a great deal. Would this make her a sworn enemy of the fish? And what was their relation to the kingdom of chickens? There was truly so much she still needed to learn about all of it!) Lost in these thoughts, she blinked when she noticed Cyrra was in the middle of scolding the flowers for making her cry.

Oh. Was... was Cyrra upset on her behalf? Faline did not derive any joy from seeing Cyrra upset, of course, but... the fact that she did not like that they made her cry did make her sort of happy.

Faline clumsily wobbled on one foot, instinctually gripping onto Cyrra's shoulder for balance as she more or less wrestled with herself to tug on her misplaced boot. Ah. There! Right where it belonged. The universe no longer felt topsy turvy beneath her now that her heels were perfectly balanced upon the ground. (It helped, holding onto Cyrra as well. She was very convenient to have around when it came to reclaiming her balance.) "Indeed. I can focus now that I have my boot! Cyrra, have I introduced you to my boots before? The right is named Left and the left is named Right." She nodded sagely. Her seven year old self had thought she was very clever for coming up with those tricky, tricky names. (Yes, she named everything she possessed. What else was she to do, after all, when she had no one other than herself to talk to most of the time?) In truth, she was still trying to think of a fitting name for her new dress. Naming her belongings had been pushed to the back of her mind ever since her whirlwind life on the ship began.

The golden strand fell from the clouds and it became apparent once again that Faline had other priorities to attend to. Namely finding the dryad and not dying in a shipwreck. Ah, yes! Of course. That was important, wasn't it? Determinedly, she followed Cyrra's lead and... whoosh! She pressed down on her skirts to keep them from billowing out too much as the wind swept them into a clearing. When she noticed the fairy circle, a peculiar tingling sensation spread through her veins. How curious.

"The forest did?" Faline frowned when Cyrra revealed the information she'd received. Buried alive. Oh. Oh no, no, no. Her mismatched eyes, large and sad, welled up once again. 'Don't cry, you ninny! You'll hurt the fishes. You'll start a war!' "My, that's awful. It takes quite a lot of work to bury someone properly. I only know because I buried granny... and granny was dead. Because only the dead ought to be buried! Why would they go to such lengths to... to..." She shook her head, her shoulders slumping heavily. The forest was very rude. Did that mean it was a murderer, though? (What about that man, then? The man who stole her boot and attempted to sell the amulet to her? What was his part in all of this? And what of the desert it would become without the dryad?) Gosh. Regardless of the correct answers, they had been pulled into many sad stories lately. Even the beautiful, celestial world within Doodle Doo's castle had taken them on a road that was painful for poor Cyrra. "No. You mustn't enter the fairy circle, Cyrra. Those who venture inside of them never come back out. Oftentimes they are forced to dance until they die. But perhaps with the tether and the threads of time..."

Hm. Come to think of it, that little mushroom fellow that had taken them there looked very much like the ones that made up the fairy circle now. "The mushrooms might keep me safe. They are dear friends of my family, after all." Faline stroked the magical chicken feather in her pocket, the one that had granted her wings when she needed them. 'I do not want to leave Cyrra alone with the forest, though. It might hurt her again in my absence...' She thought about the chickens, about the great powers they possessed. Perhaps they would hear her plea now? 'I will help the dryad. In return, will you send someone to protect her while I am away?'

That was when it happened. Faline gasped, bringing her hands to her mouth in awe. Her wish... by some miracle, it was answered immediately!

"Sweet doggies!" Faline squealed delightedly at the sight of them, the dears. Yes! A whole pack of the sweetest doggies she'd ever seen (the only doggies she'd ever seen) appeared before them, with the most beautiful red eyes. She had never met a dog before and oh boy did they live up to her expectations! They were indeed adorable. "Look, Cyrra! They've come to help us!" She ran into the adorably ferocious pack and immediately dropped to her knees to cuddle with them. How could she not!? They seemed to soften considerably as she gave them scritches and affectionate strokes behind the ears-- many attempted to paw their way to her so they might receive pets and cuddles as well. "I wish I could pet all of you at once, truly, but I only have two hands!" She struggled to speak through her giggles. Hehe. It tickled when they nuzzled against her! "Isn't this wonderful? Come help me, Cyrra! I cannot pet all of them at once. We must make sure to thank them properly before I enter the fairy circle."

 

[Syntra]

The old Cyrra would have told Faline to shut the fuck up. She would have wrapped her words in barbed wire so that they cut right into her flesh-- so that she fucking remembered, in vivid colors, what she was and wasn't supposed to do. The thing about the old Cyrra, though? That version of her self was knocked the fuck out, her limp body lying in some forgotten corner of her mind. "Don't you worry your pretty little head, Faline. The fish princess wears... uhh, protective gear. Right. After all the assassination attempts, she basically lives in a cage made of swords. The swords cut the tears in half, and that makes them less poisonous." Did it make any fucking sense? No. Did Cyrra care, though? Also no! Great things could be achieved, the assassin had learned, if only you threw all your caution to the wind. (The main fucking trick? Simple! You just had to stop giving a shit about, like, the concept of consequences in general. And given that Faline would still end up in Father's clutches... no, it didn't matter how tangled her trajectory ended up being. At all. The poisoned wine had been poured into her glass, and now she had to drink it. Why not sweeten it a little for her, then? Gotta mask the foul taste somehow.) "Besides, the fish alchemists will be fucking overjoyed. The last I heard of them, they were trying to find a way to turn human tears into pearls. So, in small dosages, I think crying is fine. Maybe."

People touching her was usually bad news, and so the assassin did flinch a bit-- don't fucking say that you wouldn't, when physical contact had historically been a prelude to hair pulling, or kicking, or cutting, cutting, cutting, as if some fucked up law demanded her sins to be recorded on her skin. Still, this was just... Faline. Faline, whose hands only ever gripped a knife when she meant to cut one of those ridiculously good apple tarts. Faline, who couldn't fucking hurt her even if she wanted to. Who knew this sort of shit could be safe, too? A weight was lifted off Cyrra's shoulders, and she allowed the other woman to lean against her as much as she liked. (Ran, her brain supplied. Ran used to do this, too. The memory was buried under layers of dust, dust and blood and things too cursed to touch, and yet, yet her hand fucking gravitated towards it! Should have gotten chopped it off, the assassin thought. Then that whole arena incident would have ended differently. She would have been here, and I... Eh, no matter. Would haves and should haves were just dead ends-- roads untaken, colored golden with some of that sweet, sweet wishful thinking. Of course they looked like the goddamn paradise! Everything did, once you took the taint of reality away.)

"I don't know," the assassin admitted, thankful for the distraction. Better to let her brain run these simulations than to get stuck in memories, wasn't it? Here, at least, she could get closer to the truth. (With Ran, the only thing Cyrra could get closer to was her own destruction. Not that she didn't deserve it, but... nevermind. Never-fucking-mind, because thinking about it was a one-way ticket straight to hell.) "But you've met those fuckers, too. You can bet your ass they did it for some stupid reason that only made sense in their stupid, wooden heads. Maybe they wanted to keep her forever? And forgot that, in order for her to guard them, she'd have to remain alive. Then they decided to play the victims, because that's what these bastards always fucking default to. Boo hoo, feel sorry for me due to my own shitty choices! Dammit." Cyrra kicked the nearest stone, as if the poor thing was personally responsible for the ship (probably) getting wrecked, the forest turning into the desert, and her life being this fucked up in general. It was a lot of blame to be laid at the feet of something that didn't even have feet, certainly. "I wish we could just leave them to their fucking fate. Ten golden coins says that it's their own goddamn fault. Who do they even think we are, their personal errand girls? Fuck this charity bullshit, I'm telling you!" And, yes, Cyrra may have been a little bitter, but she also believed those were the appropriate levels of bitterness to be wallowing in. Assassins were meant to kill, god fucking dammit! Not solve every pseudo-diplomatic supernatural conflict that reared its ugly head on the same continent. It did feel like a scam, but Cyrra had--

Oh. Wolves. Of course it fucking had to be wolves. How not? Everything in this world was calibrated to fuck with Cyrra specifically, so this shouldn't even have registered as a surprise. Just one of these fun, fun perks that came with being her!

The blood froze in the assassin's veins, and if Faline looked closely? She could see that Cyrra was trembling, like a butterfly caught in a snowstorm. (Like someone anticipating doom. These teeth were sharp, she knew, and there was nothing, nothing she could do to prevent them from tearing into her flesh! ...begging didn't help. Running didn't, either. The more you ran, the greater fun those beasts seemed to have, and-- and--)

--and then Faline cuddled them. What. Cyrra's eyebrows shot up somewhere into the fucking stratosphere as she watched the girl not only not be turned into those bastards' dinner, but enjoy herself. What was it about her that made her so fucking appealing to all the monsters under the sun? Misplaced parental affection? The official doctrine did say that witches were equal to animals in morality, but this interpretation struck her like a little bit of a stretch. "H-how do you do it?" the assassin stammered out, still keeping her distance. "Not get murdered, I mean. These things are fucking murder machines, and I would know something about that. What's your secret?"

 

[ellarose]

"...How do I do what?" Faline asked a touch absentmindedly as she brushed her fingers behind one of the dog's chins. Their ruby eyes squinted into pleased little slits before closing altogether. One of them curled up by her legs as if content to nap there, warmed by the side of her thigh. She smiled gently at the sight of its tummy moving up and down in a soothing rhythm. (She'd never met dogs before-- let alone this many at once. When she read of them curled up on porches, though, she did find that she envied them at times. Wouldn't it be nice, after all, to laze away in the sun and not have to wonder what life could be? To quiet all of the thoughts in her head and just be? Possessing a great deal of thoughts-- and often all too many of them-- she could find a hundred different ways to make herself very sad when it really need not be all that complicated. Oftentimes she aspired to just be. It could be easier when she was alone to do just that. With people around assessing her character with hasty accusations, the early dissonance between when Cyrra pulled or pushed her away... it did make things quite confusing for her.) Now, though, she'd allowed herself to cry and her heart was at peace after the storm. If only for a moment. Her heart was always warmest around animals, it was as if it was wearing a thick quilt covered in bluebirds and cross stitched hearts. Most of her monster comrades had sharp teeth, but they did not bother her so much. Most of them did not bite her. Which was a very fortunate thing, as she would likely be dead right now if they had. (After all... she had a pair of hands with opposable thumbs, which were capable of a great many things, and she did not use them to harm anyone either. Assuming someone was a murderer just because they possessed a pair of hands was indeed a hasty and rather bewildering judgement to make! Although it seemed that humans did love drawing their conclusions and making their accusations before knowing the true nature of that which was standing right before them. She had read somewhere that dogs were a very good judge of character. So perhaps it made perfect sense why they had taken to her so quickly. They could see Faline for Faline before most humans could, with their complicated thoughts about witches clouding their sight. The dogs understood from her calmness and poise that she would use her hands for pets and affection and nothing more.)

Murder machines...? Mismatched eyes flickering with confusion, Faline raised them to look up at Cyrra. Then she observed the dogs around her-- now playing amongst themselves and nuzzling up against her. Then she looked back and Cyrra. Blinked once and then tilted her head. Nope. She was not dead yet. Hm. She had been in more danger standing on the ship in the heart of a storm than she was in this moment.

"...Just like you knew something about witches like me? I have not eaten you yet, just as these doggies have not eaten me." Faline teased, hoping to ease some of her concerns. Cyrra was proving that with time, even humans with their complicated thoughts could put certain assumptions to rest and move forward with a whole new perspective. In that moment, she found she understood the dogs. "These doggies are not machines, Cyrra. They have heartbeats, just like me and you." One of them made itself at home in her lap and she hugged it close. "That is not to say that you are wrong. They can be trained to kill, I suppose. Just as humans can be trained to kill. But one experience is not enough to account for every doggie you will ever meet! It is not in their nature to be cruel unless they feel threatened... or so I've heard." Natos told her much of big dogs and wolves-- the fairytales that turned them to villains increased the humans violence towards them. Oftentimes the creatures preferred to keep to themselves and only struck while protecting their pack. Because of the evil reputation given to them by fiction, they were often treated as evil in the real life as well. As she has been learning quickly, the same could indeed be said about witches.

The forest around them croaked, almost like the sounds of a ship's old floorboards in distress. It seems that the ship and the vision they inhabit are intermingling. To Faline, the sound indicates the ticking of a clock, counting down the seconds they have left. While she can always make more time, she knows she must be a little more careful. (Should she use too much, the spiders might come back. They might assess that she must be isolated once again until they can find her a proper mentor to replace auntie. But now that auntie is dead... perhaps they never will. Perhaps she will be alone for the rest of her days and--) Ah. She must stop before she thinks herself into a frenzy. Just be, just be. Just like the doggies.

Faline brought herself to her feet, once more thankful to have her boots on properly so that she could walk steadily forward, and gently took Cyrra's hands in her own. She considered guiding the assassin towards the dogs, but thought better of it as she sensed her fear in the tremor of her hands. She was afraid. Just as Faline had been afraid of the water aboard the ship. And so she did not force her to move a step from where she stood. She reached into her pocket for the chicken feather and pressed it into her palm.

"I know that these dogs are not here to harm you, Cyrra. Do you know why?" Faline beamed. "This is a magical feather. It grants wishes, just like you do! I just made a wish that someone might be around to keep you safe while I am investigating the fairy circle. The plants in these forests do love snatching you up... and I was worried." Indeed! She tapped her temple. "I made the wish inside of my mind, which is why you could not hear it. You must have been awfully surprised when the doggies showed up! But they are here to protect you from the mean forest."

Another loud creak followed by a craaaack sounded. Faline pursed her lips, her heart fluttering. Although she could not see it, she could sense that water was creeping closer... hungering to pull her beneath the surface. Hurry, you ninny!

"...In the mortal realm, a chicken feather is just a chicken feather. Right now, I believe we are in a space between the realms. As I said the other night, wishes work in threes. There is one wish left. I want you to have it. If you are frightened, you may use it however you like." Faline's words gushed out, much like water might through a crack. (They were still on a sinking ship in the mortal realm. That has not changed. Right now, they exist in two places at once. A strange phenomenon indeed-- but one to be dwelled on later. Fear pulsed through her blood like a second heartbeat.) "Remember that Atropos is there for you as well! If you need support, your familiar is always there. Usually. I-- I do miss Endymion, ever so much. I need..." Not the time, Faline! They would figure out how to spare Endymion. They were there, on the ship that was being harmed as they spoke. The sooner they settled this, the sooner she would spare them from harm.

"Anyway. The doggies sense when you are nervous. If you fill your head with thoughts that you will not hurt them, they will not hurt you either. They only bite if they sense they have reason to bite." Faline nodded sagely. Then she stood on her tiptoes and, possessed by the spirit of adventure perhaps, clumsily attempted to kiss Cyrra's forehead. (She fumbled it up and awkwardly reached the spot between her eyelid and eyebrow instead.) "Ah-- ha. Oops-- I-- silly Faline-- no, no. I must go! There is not much time left. I am going to enter the fairy circle now! Be safe, Cyrra."

Faline gave an awkward little salute before stepping within the circle. A whoosh of air rustled her skirts and raven hair before she disappeared altogether. And in her place? The obsidian sword rested on the ground before the assassin.

'You missed your chance. She is gone... for now.' A voice spoke, as if rustling around in the grass. (The words 'this time' echoed, over and over again.) The 'doggies' were restless in response to the sound of this voice... taking to whining and backing away to keep their distance. Whatever foul power was embedded in that blade seemed to set their insides aflame. 'Wouldn't you love to cover this blade in the witch's blood? Well... there is always next time, Cyrra Eiréal. Remember that.'

***​

Faline wandered through a heavenly archway draped with canopies of endless golden hair. The ground was made of fluffy white clouds (although not the kind she would fall through-- merely the type that resembled pillows that might spring her into the air if she bounced around) and despite the way the scenery glowed, it was somehow melancholic. (Like an ending. The end of a road, the blazing, golden light of sunset at the finale before the curtains closed into an endless night. At least until the storybook was opened again, where it would begin the same way and end once more in an endless cycle.) For some reason, in this particular setting, she had been reverted into her younger self. So small that she would not be able to see over the top of kitchen counters without the assistance of a bucket or an apple crate. Perhaps she was five years old? Maybe six? With that in mind, the fairy circle might have become a portal to the past. At the end of the archway, she discovered a version of the girl tied to that island of bones, crying.

"Would you like some company?" Faline asked politely. She sat across from her anyways, crossing her legs. She did not have anywhere else to go. This was the end of the archway. Unless she turned back... but that would not solve anything. When she did not receive an answer right away, she tried making a funny face, but the girl would not look up from her hands. Perhaps she was invisible? That was nothing new, truly...

"You would not understand. I was different and so they, they..." The girl hiccuped at last, squinting through tears. "They told me I was special. That I could help them... and I wanted to help them. I didn't know that meant the forest would eat me. I-- I didn't... didn't know!"

Faline stared back at her with two brown eyes. Blinking past the tears, the girl looked particularly shocked at this sight. She stared at Faline, her gaze boring in like she was truly seeing her.

"Oh. But you..." The girl reached out gently, gradually growing older as she did, turning from a child into a woman. Faline, curiously enough, did the same. Briefly, the woman brushed her thumb over one of Faline's eyes. She shut it to avoid being poked in the eye... and after the woman's thumb passed over it and she opened it again, the eye in question turned blue. "I see. You were so young. So young that you could not have understood the full extent of your sacrifice."

"I might not understand..." Faline began softly. Whatever the woman saw, she did not see it. She did not understand what the woman was saying. Perhaps she couldn't. "But I am here."

"No, but you would. It is only because you don't remember..." The woman shook her head and sighed sadly. Her tears had completely dried. "Perhaps one day you will. You have carried this your whole life and you do not even realize it."

"Would you like me to find your amulet? I am sure it is on the ship somewhere." Faline tilted her head. "Or perhaps I could give you a lock of my hair to hold onto? It might not be as strong as Cyrra's, but..."

"That was a lie, fabricated by the forest. My spirit is about to fade, Faline. They convinced me to look for a replacement. I was manipulated to to its bidding, I acted out because I was so furious about what happened to me..." The woman smiled bitterly. "I didn't realize they turned me into the very thing I despised. They turned me into a force that would unthinkingly hurt girls who were just like me. Girls who just want to help. I don't want to hurt you... and so I think it is time for me to move on."

"I'm sorry for what happened to you." Faline said earnestly. It was hard to say more than that. She was not sure what to make of the things she did not or could not remember. This talk of the things she had sacrificed. But somehow, whatever the woman had seen convinced her that she needed to spare Faline now.

"Bury the amulet on the soil when your feet next touch land. I will rest easily then... and the artifact you are searching for should appear." The woman caressed Faline's cheek. "And Faline, one more thing. I must warn you about--"

An obsidian blade cut through the vision in a flash, shattering it to pieces before the woman could finish her warning. In a clap like thunder and lightning, Faline blinked and found herself drenched aboard the ship once more. The waves had finally calmed and settled beneath them. The destruction was still evident, everyone was tired and sopping wet. The captain, who had been tied up, was now lying on the deck and massaging his sore arms. The hair that held them hostage had all but disappeared. The island of bones, along with the corpse tied to it, had vanished.

Faline stood on wobbly legs, approaching Cyrra. She offered her her hand to help her up to her feet.

"Are you okay?" She asked carefully, her cheeks turning pink from the cold. (Or perhaps from the memory that she had, ah, tried to kiss her when they last spoke.) "...I know what we must do now. Will you help me convince the captain to find the amulet?"

 

[Syntra]

"Well... there is always next time, Cyrra Eiréal. Remember that."

Was there, though? Was there ever? The sword was reaching for her, as much as she'd been reaching for it, and she couldn't tell the difference between all the timelines anymore-- couldn't even tell if there had been any in the first fucking place. (The wolves, howling at the moon. Faline's reassuring presence, with the ghost of Ran standing behind her. Faline's... lips? Her lips on her fucking eye? The assassin wanted to snort with laughter, but for some bizarre motherfucking reason, scarlet bloomed all over her cheeks instead. "A-ah," she remembered herself saying, which, good job. Great fucking job, even! In the whelp's eyes, she must have looked like... what, exactly? And did it matter? She fucking wanted to seduce her. People were all the same-- slaves to their instincts, to their desires, to their fleeting pleasures, just the way the gods planned. To truly tie Faline to herself, she... she had to give her something nobody else could. Leave her handprint in her mind, and seal it with a kiss. That was how it fucking worked, y'know? You gave, gave, and gave, everything that you had, and received some breadcrumbs in exchange. The economics of greed, it was called. No, nobody cared for anyone beyond what they could provide. Faline, though... Fucking Faline! There she went, with her stupid smile and her stupid questions, thinking she was too good for the worldview Cyrra had built so painstakingly. Brick after brick, she'd erected that fucking wall-- closed herself off, 'cause there was nothing worth seeing anyway. No man was an island, yes, but a woman sure as fuck could be a fortress! ...only one person had ever managed to scale it. One, out of hundreds. Given that she'd broken her back during the inevitable fall, Cyrra would think that she was doing the whelp a kindness.

"What kind of kindness? You'll still kill her. You always do, because she's a witch and you're not. Or are you, Cyrra Eiréal?" No, no, no, hell no! When the assassin glanced downwards, her hands that were glowing-- a silent condemnation to be sure, but one that cut deeper than swords, deeper than anything anyone might have put in words. (The proof, right there for everyone to see. What would Father think? Her brothers, her sisters? Faithfully, she'd served, but a dog with rabies was always fucking put down, no matter how many rabbits he'd brought to his master. Forgiveness was not an easy currency to get a hold of. Downright impossible, when your hands were slick with blood.)

The wolves circled her, watching her with a strange flash of emotion that almost appeared to be pity. Cyrra shivered, thinking something about tethers and connections and fate, and not quite managing to put her finger on it. What the fuck was this? How had her life devolved into something so... so... ugh, where were the words when she needed them?! Words, and certainties, and everything that made living more than a fucking coin toss? (The gods had abandoned her. There was no way around it, the assassin knew. As a knife in the darkness, she'd been useful-- a sophisticated tool, tempered by the fires of the sacred rites. What was that good for when the blade had been devoured by rust, though? No, you didn't fucking keep those things for sentimental reasons. You just... threw them away. Had them melted in the same fire in which they'd been born, so something glorious could rise from the heat anew. Except, see, she couldn't do that! Her form was too fragile, and she had to work with what she had, and--)

And then-- then it was gone. All of it. (Her heart was beating wildly in her chest, thump, thump, thump, and, inexplicably, her eyes were moist. Probably the seawater? It had to be, 'cause the alternative was far too horrifying to contemplate. Cyrra Eiréal, the grand assassin of the Temple, did not fucking cry! ...then again, she'd been doing a lot of unCyrra things recently. Such as, for example, biting her lip nervously when Faline spoke up. Looking at her sideways, as if she couldn't withstand the full intensity of her gaze. The whelp had kissed her! And it was bothering her because it was a bad fucking kiss. Her lips had been right there, and still, still she'd gone for an eye? Fucking unforgivable! That was the root behind this confusion, not... uh, things that didn't need to be mentioned. Right. Cyrra Eiréal's heart burned in anger, for it knew nothing else! ...not since Ran. Ran had taught her why, exactly, it was a good idea to forget that nonsense entirely. Feelings? Pfft! Those were for people who could fucking afford them, and assassins did not belong to that group. Not even remotely.) "...Yeah. Thanks. For everything."

***

The amulet, as it turned out, was hiding under some poor man's mattress. An accident, he'd claimed-- it must have fallen down there during a game of cards, and they'd just failed to notice. If you asked Cyrra, it sounded about as believable as the local drunkard claiming that, nooo, the fancy bottle of wine disappearing on its own wasn't his doing! ...while you could still the alcohol from his breath, of course. That, and if you looked under his pillow? The empty bottle would probably be there, glinting innocently in the morning sun.

Tolorro, foolish as he was, seemed to share the same sentiment. "Throw him to the sharks!" the man hollered, beside himself with anger. "I can't believe this guy's idiocy almost got all of us killed. How many times do I have to tell you bastards that you can't touch the things you don't understand?"

"But, captain, I swear--!"

"A little too late for promises, mate."

That was the first time Cyrra witnessed a death on the ship, but certainly not the last one. That, at least, she could fucking promise. (All of them were dead, even if they didn't realize it. The idiots were taunting death with each dumbass action they took, just like stupid kids sometimes poked snakes with sticks. The thing about snakes, though? They struck faster than most people expected, and that was a trait that they shared with death. It was fucking coming, for sure! ...and once they freed Endymion from the core, Cyrra was more than happy to assist with that.)

***

Tolorro, who had gotten far more intimate with the side-effects of dealing with demons than he would have liked, sent them off on their own. "It's your fault that the artifacts got lost in the first place," he said, in that despicable fucking 'I'm always right' tone. (The ship was resting in the port, and Cyrra could bet that the sailors would use this opportunity to get drunk off their asses. Well, good for them? She sincerely hoped that they enjoyed their pitiful existence to the fullest, 'cause it was soon coming to an abrupt, abrupt end. Heh! Courtesy of pissing of a Temple assassin, of course.) "Go and bring the lost artifact. Well, what are you waiting for?"

And, yes, the assassin did have to admit that there was no point to fucking around. Swallowing about ten different insults, she grabbed Faline's hand (what) and off they went. (Ah, good old earth! Never had she thought that not having the ground move under yout feet would be a fucking luxury, but it turned out that life's paths were, uh, mysterious.) "What were we supposed to do with the amulet, again?" Cyrra asked, blinking against the blue sky. Fuck, it was so bright that her eyes almost hurt! (Faline also looked criminally pretty in that sort of light, which was an observation that she chalked up to... uh, sleep deprivation. Right, that shit made you see things!) "I feel like I should be offended that they didn't fucking give me the manual, too. You think I was too scary for that dryad?" Cyrra gave Faline a thoughtful stare, almost as if she truly looked at her for the first time in her life. "Although you never fucking considered me scary, I'd say. Why? People usually have a different opinion about that. Are you not afraid of death?"

As they walked, the trees around whispered, their branches swaying in the wind, but... no, it was probably nothing. The orange sands of the desert, which she could almost see in the corner of her eye? Just the recently acquired paranoia, Cyrra would wager.

 

[ellarose]

Faline held tightly to Cyrra's hand and examined their new surroundings, wide-eyed as they stepped upon solid ground for the first time since setting sail. (Wow. The bark on the trees had a flaky texture she had never seen before-- they stretched tall in different shapes, they even had a different scent. There were patches of vibrantly colored star-shaped flowers, too, which she might have skipped over to examine a little bit closer had this been a small detour and not an important mission to help the dryad... and find the artifact, she supposed. But in truth, helping the dryad was marked as the first and most important priority in Faline's heart. It was undeniable that the artifact was also important, though, considering that was a piece of setting Endymion free from that ship as well.) These were the sorts of places she dreamed of exploring while she draped herself lazily in warm sunbeams around the cottage. It was truly a shame that their adventures were all so fast-paced that she seldom had the time to really get to know them. Each and every day brought with it new sights, smells, and sensations for her to appreciate. (Except for the stench of drunken pirates, who were far stinkier than her feet after a hot summer's day spent working in the garden.) One thing that remained constant through it all was Cyrra's presence at her side... and seeing as the other woman was a person, she also had new things to discuss with every passing day. Granny had never taken an interest in Faline-- and especially not enough to ask her questions. Every time she was addressed with one it ticked her with pure, unadulterated excitement. It was a reminder that someone cared that she existed. Someone saw her. Someone cared what she thought. The conversations they had were never just the same and always kept her standing on her tip-toes.

"We must bury it." Faline answered, confirming their current objective with a resolute nod. Then she tilted her head to the side as she considered her talk with the dryad as well as Cyrra's absence from it. The gold world shimmering between the realms might have been the space between life and death. It was very delicate... not a stable enough place for just anyone to return from without a hitch. "Oh. The dryad was very, very sad. I do not believe she wanted an audience to bear witness to her pain. I would not take it too personally." Thoughtfully, she rested her cheek in the palm of her hand and considered her memories of their conversation. A lot had been said, truly. "She seemed to regret everything she had done as well. She might have felt ashamed that she tried to force you to take her place when she herself knew just how terrible it was to be eaten by the forest. Perhaps she realized that hurting you would not stop her from hurting." Aside from that, however, much of what the dryad said had floated right over her head. Speaking of sacrifices that Faline herself would not understand or know of... as well as the warning that was cut abruptly before she could hear the full extent of it. (Time was a fine ally, though, and she believed that she would be all right if she was careful.) What she understood clearly were the instructions to bury the amulet, though, so that was precisely what she intended to do. Someone who suffered so very much deserved to rest at last!

Observing their surroundings, Faline looked around for a decent place to bury the amulet. This search halted when she blinked perplexedly at Cyrra's next question. The other woman's eyes bored into her, as if she was truly curious to hear her answer.

"No. I suppose not." Faline mused. Hm. She had never thought that Cyrra was particularly scary. She first met her as a corpse, in fact (although the assassin did not know that) and while she had threatened her with death or injury several times, she was still alive... and now they were holding hands. So she wasn't particularly worried. (Had anything gone wrong she could have saved herself easily, too. It was as simple as that. The Kairos magic gave her the ability to sidestep death if she sensed it drawing near. She was in a unique position when it came to death and her relationship to it. She could ask it to dance rather than run from it.) Besides, after all of those years, isolated because of the fear she might instill in others... well, it seemed rather silly to fear the people in the mortal realm who supposedly feared her. "...Granny always told me I was to remain hidden in the cottage because most people would be frightened of me. The way she said it made me believe I must have been the scariest monster in the world." She smiled as if this were a joke, even if those words had upset her younger self greatly. "And what does the scariest monster in the world really have to be afraid of?"

Faline stopped in a nice, shady spot encircled by lovely flowers. Ah! How nice. This might be an ideal spot for the amulet! Although she had more to say on the subject before she did so. Humming softly to herself, she clicked the side of her locket so that spools of silver thread unravelled all around them. "When I saw you for the very first time I did not see the end." She nodded at the threads all around them, shimmering with energy. "Instead, I saw various paths of untold potential." (...That was why she saved her, wasn't it? Because auntie had died and bestowed Cyrra with the Kairos magic. The magic needed to survive. That and it felt fateful, somehow.)

Reeling the threads back in, Faline proceeded to drop to her knees on the ground. She began digging a hole, briefly recalling the way she'd buried granny's corpse as she did so. (...Oh granny. She was not happy that she was dead, but she did not miss her either.) She had come so far since that day she buried her in the garden, hadn't she?

"Anyway, I will not believe that anyone is scary unless they scare me first." Faline pawed through fistfuls of dirt, shoveling deeper and deeper. "In truth, I hadn't t believed myself to be afraid of anything until I nearly drowned." She bit her lip contemplatively. (There was more than that, she supposed. Such as the concept of disappearing while knowing that no one ever knew her. But that no longer seemed relevant now that she had Cyrra in her life.) Oh. And there was something else. "Water and captivity... I suppose those are my worst fears." Cyrra could rest assured that her name was not listed among those things. Then she posed the question back at the other woman as if she were simply asking what her favorite food was. "What are your worst fears, Cyrra?"

 

[Syntra]

Bury it, huh? Like that dryad had been buried? Cyrra still hesitated to call the connection logic per se, but she could kinda sorta see where Faline was coming from. Progress! ...and, yeah, that was fucking scary on its own. A witch's mind was a cursed wasteland, and walking it should have been like an excursion to the world of nightmares. The worst thing that had ever fucking happened to her! Agreeing with her, or even understanding her, should have been terrifying, but... well, it wasn't. Faline, for all her strange powers, was about as frightening as a fucking kitten begging for milk. Yeah, not the image that struck fear into your enemies' hearts! Remember your teachings, some voice said. Don't you know how wicked those witches are? It's not fucking above them to try and wear a veil of innocence. And, yeah, but... this was Faline. Faline, who ate up every word of hers as if they were candy and not poison. Faline, who somehow saw something worthy within her, despite... despite everything. Despite the shadow of a guillotine's blade cast over her, and Cyrra's hand on the lever. (Shit, she wanted to throw up. She also wanted to turn around, forget her name and spend the rest of her life running, but obviously, that wasn't going to happen. The past had claws, you know? Claws that had sunk into her flesh years ago, and were now pulling, pulling, pulling, in all the directions where she didn't want to go. Heh! Not like anybody had ever asked her, anyway. You didn't fucking beg an assassin-- you commanded her.)

"...I suppose." Yeah, not wanting others to witness her pain was something Cyrra could get behind. That was why crying into one's pillow at night was such a time-honored tradition-- the feathers muffled the cries rather well, and the visual barrier was also pretty top-notch. Of course, not that she knew from experience! Cyrra Eiréal had never fucking cried in her life, and anyone claiming otherwise was a filthy liar. "She just chose a bad target. Hurting people can make you feel real fucking good, but you gotta aim that shit with care. It's like... when you've got an itch, you have to scratch that specific place. Scratching anything else won't help." ...so, was there a reason why she was giving Faline lessons on violence now? No? Then the assassin should probably cut that shit out, ugh! (Except that she'd kind of gotten used to the whole mentor-mentee dynamic. You'd have to torture her for hours to get her to admit it, but it was... sorta nice, y'know? Having someone who actually listened to her, instead of ordering her around. It was always 'Cyrra do this, Cyrra do that,' and never 'Cyrra, what's your opinion on that?' ...the reasons behind that were fucking sound, of course. Just like you wouldn't ask your knife about the meaning of your life, you wouldn't ask her about... uh, anything. Assassins were not meant to be seen, nor were they to be heard. And, hand in hand with that, they shouldn't think! 'Cause a thinking killer was a fucking inconvenience, no matter how you looked at it. A defective machine, with its cogs constantly getting stuck, and... and Cyrra knew better than anyone else what happened to those who didn't make the cut.)

Still, still the assassin knelt next to Faline, and stuck her hands in the soil. The sooner they got this shit over with, the sooner they could return, right? (The ground was wet and sweet-smelling, as if it had rained recently. Maybe it had. How often did it rain in the fucking desert, though? Uh... not too often, I'd guess. The only problem is that this isn't a fucking desert! Duh. One would have said the difference between 'forest' and 'desert' was quite dramatic, but, for some reason, those two concepts lived next to one another in her brain. She... could almost swear she saw the dunes against the lush green background? Whatever it fucking meant.) "The scariest monster?" Cyrra repeated the words, furrowing her brow. The phrase felt fucking weird on her tongue, akin to licking wood or something else that should never be licked, and it took a while to her to realize Faline was referring to herself here. Oh. "You're not a monster," she blurted out. "And, I dunno if you've noticed, but nobody is fucking afraid of you. I mean, have you seen anyone running away and screaming? Nah, not a single fucking soul. Your granny was full of shit." Oookay, where had that passion come from? Cyrra didn't know, and wasn't sure whether she wanted to at this point. Probably because she tried really, really hard to wrap her around her finger? (A fucking lie, the assassin knew, but she had embraced those for most of her life. Nothing new here, in that sense. In that comforting familiarity, she could wrap all those things that were new and terrifying, and pretend that... that they had never existed in the first place. Fucking brilliant, if you asked her!)

"Those fucking suck," she nodded easily, continuing to dig her hole. Just a little deeper...! And then, of course, Faline had to ask. For a moment, Cyrra froze-- it almost looked as if that question shattered something precious, and the echoes of that were still rippling through her soul. (Maybe they were.)

Well, what was she afraid of? What, what, what? (Ran. Ran, and everything she was and wasn't. Her own weakness, hiding beneath the armor of bravado she wore. Everything going to shit, the way it always fucking did.)

"A lot of things, I guess," the assassin licked her lips. (Her mouth felt dry, as if she'd been eating sand. Sand and ashes, and other desserts fit for one such as herself.) "But failure, mostly. You ever fucked up so hard that you ruined things not just for yourself, but also for everyone else? That's the kind of shit that keeps me awake at night." And then, as if that mattered... "Do you think we can always fix our mistakes?" she asked, almost shyly. Indeed, the words 'shyness' and 'Cyrra' didn't usually go well together, but for a brief time, their trajectories intersected-- like two stars colliding, like two blades clashing. "Without turning the time back, I mean. You can cheat, but most people fucking can't."

 

[ellarose]

You're not a monster. Faline's hands ceased to move in the soil for an instant as she took those words in. She peeked up at Cyrra bewilderedly, a faint touch of a rosy hue glowing across her cheeks, before she resumed her digging. (Although she was quite scattered enough that she wasn't sure if she was digging the proper way. She might have just been scooping dirt around left and right for all she knew.) A nervous giggle rattled out of her as a proper, coherent response to that sentiment escaped her entirely. The assassin answered that so automatically-- it was surprising. It was... nice that the other woman didn't see her that way, too. But what Cyrra believed was different than the the narrative she'd been told (and believed) her whole entire life. And while the sentiment reached and touched her heart... she wasn't quite sure if she felt it all the way down to her core. Because if she wasn't a monster then why go to the effort of hiding her away in the cottage for all of those years? For her-- her entire life! There must have been a reason for it. Considering it had kept Faline from living a life beyond it for so long she felt she had the right to know. She stared at the soil, remembering the way granny's body had looked in the ground. All the tentacles and slime, the scraggily limbs... it took a monster to know one, surely. People at least sensed that she was a witch and treated her as such, too. Perhaps Faline was a monster. She just hadn't given people-- hadn't given Cyrra-- any reasons to be afraid of her yet.

Because if Faline wasn't a monster that meant there had to be some other reason she was kept away from other people. One that she wasn't seeing... one she didn't know of or perhaps one she had forgotten a long time ago. 'You were so young. So young that you could not have understood the full extent of your sacrifice.' Her head throbbed. That was one part of her visit with the dryad that she hadn't summarized for Cyrra. Why should she concern herself with this when the dryad needed their help? When Endymion did? The past was in the past and now-- in the present-- Faline was free. There was no reason to dig through it the way she was digging through the dirt now. There was nothing she needed to bury in the hole it would have created. It would leave her with an unnecessary, gaping wound. The future was bright! She had a friend at long last. Why look back on a past that would put her heart in a vise?

Faline was definitely just pawing through the dirt without purpose for a few moments there. (Had Endymion been there, they would have told her to focus. The recognition of that fact stung her heart. Keep digging, you ninny!) Giving her head a little reprimanding shake, she continued digging the way she was supposed to as Cyrra answered her question. If anything, she could focus on the sound of the other woman's voice to distract from her thoughts. (Usually it would have been solely up to her, to build an entire universe for herself to daydream fun scenarios in when she needed an escape this way. Wasn't it wonderful to have someone to talk to? Wasn't the present something to appreciate?) As she listened, though, she confronted the familiar sting that told her she wouldn't understand what Cyrra was trying to tell her.

"Oh. Well..." Faline scratched her cheek hesitantly. (The scale of everything she had witnessed from Cyrra's past, the answer was understandable. But... she wasn't sure if she possessed the capability to understand-understand.) She gave a small, tight smile. "I have never had an 'everyone' in my life. Except for the chickens and ducks, I suppose. When granny beheaded them, I saved them right away. Which is... which I suppose is what you mean by cheating." Cheat. Something about the word twists the wrong way, although she presumes the assassin didn't mean it that way. (As if her magic gives her some kind of advantage. As if it hadn't been responsible for all of those years she spent depressingly alone.) She blinked hard. She wasn't going to cry again. (Like a ninny.) This was Cyrra, telling her about her worst fear. Besides, she had given her another question to mull over alongside everything else. Focus on that! She took a deep, steeling breath.

Faline didn't know. She did not have the life experience to know. This was an area that required a knowledge surrounding humankind... and she was only just starting to live her life among others. She supposed she feared not being enough to save Endymion. And she did not want to disappoint the dryad either. (She supposed she hadn't wanted to fail when making treats for granny's birthday year after year. Every year she did fail, though, to the point that she wasn't sure what it meant to succeed. Perhaps the repeated exposure did that to her?) Hm. It was a rather simple example, but... "It depends on the mistake." Her eyes lit up with excitement as she finally thought of an example she could relate to this conundrum with.

"When I first began making apple tarts, for instance, I could not cheat. Because I was still learning. And because I was learning I made all kinds of mistakes. I used to bake from midnight to sunrise." Heh. Even presently, Faline had a habit of daydreaming-- losing track of her numbers and adding too much flour to the point where the dough resembled a gooey, lumpy monster. Even though she knew how to make the apple tarts by heart, she knew what it meant to make mistakes. "Now I make less mistakes, because I never gave up trying to do better the next time. I just do whatever I did wrong differently the next time." She nodded sagely. Mistakes were learning experiences! That was why she did not 'cheat' when she tried to learn to climb the trees around the cottage, or while baking. "Granny might not have liked my apple tarts... but now I can share my successful apple tarts with you. You and my other future friends as well, surely."

Ah, what a wonderful thought! Faline was happy that she found a way to empathize, even if it might have been... well, simple. The concept of herself surrounded by friends was indeed a hopeful one, too. She hummed softly, finding herself rather cheerful now as she continued digging.

"Whenever I baked I used to daydream about learning my love's favorite treat so that I could make it perfectly for them." Faline admitted dreamily, not thinking to be even remotely embarrassed about this admission. She would wonder about the shade of their eyes and what their smile would look like. (Lately that hazy image has been taking on more of a tangible, familiar shape.) It was truly a shame that she could not peer far enough into her future to know the answer to those questions. If so, then she might have prepared herself to make the best possible treats she could for the person she loved! "Hmhm. I wonder what that might be?" She beamed at Cyrra. "I want to make them for all of my friends as well. And kindly old ladies... and children! And anyone who might need a reason to smile, really. What is your favorite treat, Cyrra?" Another important question to be sure. For various reasons.

 

[Syntra]

You know that feeling when you couldn’t help yourself, and asked a question that you didn’t fucking want answered? When the thoughts just sort of leaked into your speech, in the same way a careless painter contaminated his colors with an unwashed brush? For Cyrra, it was… sort of like that, really. Was and wasn’t, because, to an extent, she did want to know. The assassin just dreaded the inevitable ‘no,’ you see? (Because she could already hear it, echoing endlessly across the corridors of her fucked up life. No, no, no, Father whispered, as well as her brothers, as well as Ran, tied to that cruel contraption. Of fucking course! When you cut down a tree, you couldn’t put it the back on the stump, tie it in place, and hope that it would bear apples. Once the saw bit into the wood? It was fucking over. …for her, it had been over for a while now. Earlier, she had complained about corpses refusing to lie in their graves-- about them not knowing when to give up, and continuing on with this mechanical sort of stubbornness. Well, surprise, surprise! She had been the corpse all this time, in what had to be the biggest cosmic joke ever. The punchline would have made her laugh, if it wasn’t so fucking sad instead. And now… now Cyrra was apparently looking for reassurance from a woman who unironically thought that, yes, sheep were actually clouds. Really, just how low could she sink? Not only because she had asked in a moment of weakness, but because she hung on Faline’s lips, waiting for… for… what, even? Redemption? A pat on the ass? ‘Yes, Cyrra, be a good girl and all of your issues will magically solve themselves! Just believe in the power of love, friendship, and all the other delusional bullshit idiots buy into.’)

But, strangely enough? Faline, the queen of being divorced from reality, gave her an answer that seemed surprisingly grounded. Not a false path, leading to complacency, but something that rang of truth. (…which, of course, meant it was also a death sentence. A threat more definite than the sharp movement of a blade, just inches away from your fucking throat. Yeah, yeah, you could fuck up consequence-free when it came to pies, but Ran wasn’t a goddamn pie! Ran was… ah, fuck her if she even had any idea anymore. Come to think of it, though? Maybe that had always been true. Maybe the only thing that tied them together was the Temple, the shared fate, and the crushing sensation of always being alone, even in the sea of faces. Still, that didn’t mean it wasn’t enough. A chain was a chain, regardless of whether it was made of copper or gold, and Cyrra wasn’t going to cut it for… what? The promise of something better? Not even that? ‘Cause, in case you hadn’t noticed, Faline hadn’t promised her anything. Faline couldn’t fucking promise her anything, because her promises weren’t hers to give. Father, remember? she asked herself, trying to suppress, with all her might, one of the answers Faline had given her. You know, the one that revolved around her fears of captivity. Well, maybe he doesn’t want to keep her captive? The bastard might always be planning to kill her. And, besides, none of that was Cyrra’s fucking responsibility-- delivering her to the Temple was one thing, but controlling what happened afterwards was something entirely different. Might as well try to claim blame for the storms being too fierce, and destroying this year’s crop! …no, don’t fucking point out how the two were different. The assassin didn’t care to hear it. Didn’t, and wouldn’t.)

“Eh?” Cyrra raised her head, the stream of her thoughts interrupted by, uh, by all that. All that, seasoned by the spicy fucking implication that she might be… shit! Against her will, the assassin’s cheeks darkened. Get a hold of yourself! It’s not like this means anything. It can’t. Of course that it couldn’t, because they weren’t even playing the same goddamn game. Hell, they weren’t even sitting at the same table! …it was kind of nice to pretend that they did, though. If only for a few fleeting moments. “I don’t fucking know, Faline. Do I look like someone who has the time to sit around and stuff my face with candy?” Not that that was necessarily more time-consuming than, say, stuffing one’s face with bread, but… well, let’s just say it hadn’t really occurred to her. (Blah blah blah, pleasure is waste of time, blah blah blah, focus on your mission. The Temple did not go so far as to restrict what its disciples ate, but it was such a natural extension of the ideology that Cyrra had accepted it, without really caring to question anything. A dog used to its leash might be more willing to wear a muzzle as well, eh?) “Seems like you’ll have to bake me everything you know and then I can decide,” the assassin suggested, despite knowing damn well that she shouldn’t. The correct fucking answer would have been to pull away-- to say something non-committal, but universally charming, in an endless pursuit to occupy the shape of someone Faline wanted. The shape of someone fictional, in other words. Lately, though? Lately, it had been way too fucking easy to slip in the skin of someone that resembled herself. Dangerously easy, even. “Are you ready for a responsibility this fucking heavy, huh? Since you’ll get to take all of those first times.”

The hole they dug was deep enough for a small corpse by that point, and so Cyrra put the amulet inside. It only took a few moments for her to cover it with dirt, and then… fucking nothing. “Shit. Do we have to wait for it to sprout now? I mean, I’m not complaining. If Tolorro pops a vein in the process, then that’s one fewer fucker I’ll have to end.” So, the good news? The good news was that they did not, in fact, need to wait until the fucking spring. The buried amulet stirred, and something began to emerge from the ground-- the hilt of a cane, old and ornate, covered in ancient runes. It looked hot, even though Cyrra couldn’t explain why. Wait, could it be…?

Dread cut into her fucking bones, and, for a second, the assassin could swear that the tether burrowed in her chest shivered. Still, still she couldn’t take her eyes off the item, and maybe she didn’t want to! ‘Cause that was history coming alive as they watched-- history tempered in blood, fire, and tears.

“That’s Julian’s cane,” she said, glancing at her companion. (A strange mixture of apprehension and fascination shone in her eyes, and, if Faline looked carefully enough, she might notice that Cyrra’s hands were shaking.) “I fucking swear, it looks just like it did in the books. You know Julian? One of the first divines. The creator of the mankind as we now know it. Before he came, we were just beasts, blind in our idiocy. It is said that he used this fucking cane to whip the vice out of our ancestors. Thanks to it, he ruled for a thousand years. But,” the assassin gulped, “you aren’t supposed to touch it. Not unless you yourself are free of sin.”

 

[ellarose]

No favorite color, no favorite pasty. Faline wore a small, troubled frown as she thought of it. Goodness. That was quite sad to her. Could someone truly be so busy that they did not know even those simple things about themselves? Not that she would know from experience herself, she supposed. Aside from attending to her chores around the cottage, which often did leave her busy, she was alone and mostly left to her own devices. Left with her own thoughts. (Even while she attended to her chores she was able to daydream and consider such things. Surely she at least had a second to think of whether or not she preferred the blue shade of the skies above over the greens of grassy plains! Or whether she liked sweet or savory foods more? How in the world did she experience her life without even once recognizing what her own favorite things were? Did she see a stranger's face whenever she looked at herself in the mirror?) While they did not lead similar lives-- not even remotely-- she would have liked to believe that Cyrra would have recognized some facts about herself. That she would feel inclined to share those things with her. (Or perhaps she knew them and simply did not want to share? Although Faline could not imagine why. Unless...) She sighed softly at the concept of trying over and over again to get it right. It was just... familiar. Painfully so.

"Ah. I see..." Faline mused, deflating a little at the concept. Eager as she was to please, she had grown quite accustomed to having her earnest efforts cast aside like nothing. It'd happened enough times that, yes, she was a little bit tired. (She could not help but feel this way. Year after year she tried to make something that might make granny smile, that might make her-- well, perhaps not care. But at the very least see her in a kinder light! Needless to say, the new treats oftentimes ended up all over the floor or thrown in her face. Nothing improved.) Cyrra proved that she was not exactly like granny, though. So maybe the effort would actually be worth it this time around? At least it sounded like the assassin would be willing to try the foods she made, rather than pushing it all away with a twisting expression of disgust. "I suppose so. As long as you promise to try everything that I make."

Faline bolstered a smile. If they could compromise on that it would be just fine. (Just because the premise sounded similar did not mean it would end the same. Granny was granny and Cyrra was Cyrra. Even the pirates had tried her food and given her valuable feedback! It would be different this time. It would be... and everything would be fine.) She balled her dirtied hands in her lap as Cyrra finished burying the amulet.

"Perhaps I should sing to it? I used to sing to the flowers in the garden and I believe that truly--" Faline gave her input on the planting process-- but unfortunately could not get to the point of her suggestion (or sing a song) before an object emerged from the earth where they had buried the amulet. The hilt of a cane? Odd. (She felt rather strongly that it would look much better if the wood were carved like a flamingo. There was an illustration of such a cane in one of her old books and she thought it was charming! Internally, she could imagine Endymion sighing over her fascination with birds. Ah. She missed Endymion.) Hm. She wondered if she pulled it out if it would reveal itself to be umbrella, a magic staff, or perhaps there would be a flamingo attached to the other end? How exciting! That was when Cyrra began to explain, though, and the explanation was... not quite so fun. When she looked into the assassin's wide eyes, something in her chest quavered. She placed a hand over her heart.

"...No, I do not know Julian. I do not think that I care to meet him, either. He sounds quite unpleasant." Faline answered simply in spite of it all. (Although the name was indeed familiar, caught between figments of Cyrra's memories. Pieces that are threaded with the girl named Ran. The exceedingly cruel punishment. The blatant lie that was the Father's promise of eternity... for eternity did not exist.) She wondered how one who wielded such power as that and used it to harm others could be called divine... while many of her friends were not quite so cruel and were forced to wear the label of 'monsters'. There was something about it, about the concept of him, that revolted her. (And yes, that was indeed a new feeling for Faline.) For that reason she reached for the cane regardless of the 'rules' the assassin spoke of. "I am going to touch it now."

Faline had to, after all. For Endymion's sake. And so, without any amount of hesitation or fear, she did just that. Strangely enough? The hilt felt quite cold to her touch-- like ice. Like death. ('I may not be able to reach you now, Faline Kairos.' A voice warned, grating on her mind the same way the forest had in the dryad's vision. 'But someday I will.') Might this be what the dryad was warning her about? Either way, the bearer of the voice had no power over her in that moment. They were not strong enough. (Or at least not yet.) The desert scenery faded entirely away like water down a drain and a cleansing, heavy ran began to patter down from the skies above. Large droplets touched the plants and caused them to bob their heads all around them. "Rain! I love rain." She grinned. Then she considered the voice once again and her grin grew a touch smaller.

"It is a shame that this is what Tolorro wants. I rather hoped for a stick with a carving of a bird on one end!" Faline said, deciding to ignore the existence of the voice for now. (It was irrelevant, so long as it could not touch her.) She tilted the cane in her hands and pursed her lips. "I believe it would be better used for firewood... just to ensure it is not used to whip anyone else." Then she blinked inquisitively, glancing up at the assassin. "...Cyrra, tell me. Why is Julian considered divine when he is truly terrible?"

 

[Syntra]

Quite... unpleasant? Fucking hell, did Faline not understand she was talking about a god? Not a piece of pastry or a favorite color or anything stupid like that, but an actual deity. One of those who held the fate of humanity in their hands and spun it, with all the endless twists. Sure, Faline was Faline, but even her audacity had to have some limits? ...or not. Definitely fucking not, as Cyrra was learning by the day. (Didn't mean it wasn't jarring as hell, though. Back in the Temple... shit, had she talked that way, Father's displeasure would have been measured in lashes! Which, yes, Cyrra's hand did twitch as well. The blasphemy Faline was spewing could only damn them both, she knew, but... well, let's just say that the assassin had already damned herself a thousand times over. No point in blowing her cover right when Faline was beginning to trust her, eh? When catching a bird, you had to lure it with sweet promises and songs, instead of shaking your fist at it. Only when you held it in your hand could you snap its pretty little neck! ...that, and maybe, just maybe, she was also curious what the whelp actually thought. For reasons! Very, uh, normal reasons. You could call it witch research, because know your enemy and shit. Cyrra, considering another viewpoint? No fucking way.) "You aren't supposed to want to meet him," the assassin said, perplexed. "Julian is a divine, not your friend. That means that you don't fucking invite him for a cup of tea, you just... worship him. That's what gods are fucking for. Do you also hate your pastries because you can't talk to them? 'Cause that's the same goddamn thing. Different stuff, different purposes." The lesson could have gone on and on, really, if only because that was the one topic that Cyrra actually knew a lot about. They'd crammed it into her head with great fucking care, so yeah, she was going to flaunt it! ...except that then Faline proposed touching it.

"What?" the assassin's eyes widened, panic leaking into her tone. If Faline touched it, then... then... ah, fuck her if she knew! It wouldn't be nice, though. Considering the circumstances, it would be the exact opposite of nice, and Cyrra... Cyrra didn't want that for Faline. Not at all. ('Cause she needed to bring her to Father in one piece, obviously. Nothing too deep about it.) "Don't!" But, of course, trying to advise Faline after she'd already made up her mind was the equivalent of throwing rice at the wall and hoping it would stick. And, in case you knew little about rice? It fucking wouldn't! Cyrra could only watch with horror etched into her features as Faline grasped the hilt... and nothing fucking happened. Nothing apocalyptic, at least. There were no rivers of blood, no fire falling from the sky, no vultures, hungry for human flesh. Just... rain. What the fuck? What the actual fuck?! Faline couldn't be without sin. She was a fucking witch, with corruption flowing through her veins, and nothing, nothing could ever cleanse her. The Temple's teachings spoke clearly. They always did-- each word written on the pages of the holy book was sharp and precise, like a cut left behind by a blade. (...and, just like a cut, they were real. Lately, Cyrra kind of had had to remind herself of that. Life had thrown a lot of weird shit at her in the past month or so, and her main takeaway was that her faith was being tested. What else could it be? Gods always wanted that sweet, sweet reassurance-- they needed to know you were theirs, soul and blood and body. That they'd let her see things that didn't align with the official narrative was an attempt to get her to doubt the teachings, doubtlessly! ...it didn't fucking work, by the way. Not at all. Faline may have been kind of nice, and pretty as well, but that didn't mean that she also wasn't the worst person she'd ever met. Demons often shrouded themselves in sweetness, and... and, ah, maybe the whelp was secretly sneaky as fuck? Right, that had to be it! She'd picked the cane up using some arcane trick, Cyrra understood that now.) "How come that you can hold it like that?" she asked nonetheless. "You cast a spell on it, or what?" Curiously, the assassin reached for the cane. She had no intention of actually touching, but the moment she got a little closer? The air cooled down by several degrees, and the artifact hissed. "What the fuck," Cyrra whispered. "Does it actually like you? I mean, I guess it's easy to like you," what, "but it hasn't even known you for three fucking minutes. Why does everyone prefer you to me?"

"Well," Atropos chose this moment to materialize, wrapping themselves around her leg, "that would be because you're not the pleasant person to be around. Sorry, not sorry."

"Nobody fucking asked you," Cyrra snapped. "Do you always emerge when you are least needed, by the way? Certainly seems that way to me."

Faline, meanwhile, continued to spout opinions that would have gotten her fucking beheaded. Just!!! The assassin couldn't even wrap her mind around the depth of disrespect she was facing here, that was for certain. Maybe that was why she wasn't drawing her knives yet? "Lemme just give you a piece of advice: don't fucking speak that way in front of anyone else. People wouldn't appreciate it. And, knowing them, I think the disagreement would turn real bloody real fast." Sighing and suddenly appearing very, very tired, Cyrra rubbed her chin. "I don't... I don't know? Gods are gods because they are powerful. Whether they are nice or not doesn't even begin to enter into it. And, besides, it is not for us to tell what's in their minds. To ants, we're probably fucking evil because we step on some of them accidentally. It's, uh, kind of like that? They are so much smarter than us that we can't fucking comprehend their plans. That's why you gotta follow." With something that suspiciously resembled curiosity, the assassin glanced at Faline. "What do you believe in, anyway? Don't you have gods of your own? Witch gods, or time gods, or whatever?"