In time you'll find, I've got baggage too

Maea

give me shelter, or show me heart

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Maea told him softly, when he apologized. On the contrary, he had done everything right, given her choice, given her the power to decide her own fate, make up her own mind.

Just like he had listened, she did too, and nodded that she did remember he had been an enforcer. And now she was told what that meant, what he had been fighting against. It earned him a tight squeeze of a hug. She wanted to tell him he succeeded in his mission to be a good man. Maea wouldn't be with him if he weren't. There were many shades of scumbag, and he wore none of them. Mistakes, oh yes, and perhaps some would say certain patterns would never cease to repeat themselves - once a cheat, always a cheat - and that she was a fool to stick to a man like that. But what did they know, who only saw pieces of the puzzle, and never cared to look at the whole picture?

But he went on, to talk about Phoebe and the marriage, and this time she knew his reasons for wanting to accommodate the woman. A tangled knot of misunderstandings and differing needs had tied them together, the ghost of a child never born to haunt them both, and in the end... it was severed, along with the marriage vows.

"I've never taken you for anything but honest," Maea said, when he grew quiet again. "Nor have you ever offered me more than you were willing to live up to. The only time I ever felt betrayed was with that ring, and even then... you never said anything. Didn't promise anything... I'm the one who painted it up to mean more than it probably did, when you took it off."

Rubbing the back of her neck, in a gesture picked up from the man beside her, Maea shrugged. Or meant to, but it became more a tightening of the shoulders, a hunching beneath undefined feelings of guilt. "If I ever made you feel like I was forcing you to do anything... I'm sorry. It was never my intention. Quite the opposite, in fact."

watch me fall apart
and I'll be yours to keep

SUNJATA

the flood

but is this what you want? what you wanted?
do you need love? am i enough for you?

She listens to him all the same, as she always does, and it endears her even more to him. And when his statement is done, the hidden words beneath it all, the meanings of why he had felt obligated to help her when things wouldn’t work in the end regardless… Well, she picks up the slack that he trails off of. “She knew when I took it off because of the enchantment, but I always took it off to wash dishes or what not at the bar.” A shrug to that. “Anything more than that… Like Nate, for instance. Perhaps I should have told her that my doctor was Ascended.” An exhale, a purse of his lips. His hands tail from being folded atop his knees to resting on the sides of his thigh, ghosting over the gunshot wound there as he regards her again.

“You haven’t.” He offers her. “I think… Well, if we’re being honest on this rock today…” He trails off with a quiet chuckle. “Literally all my life was spent being forced to do this, to do that, of not being good enough and being told that I wasn’t. And when I had something of mine, it always got taken away.” Lusea, twice now, the bar even, in a sense of how Phoebe had destroyed it before he’d put it back together.

“That’s usually what drives me away.” He looks to her then, seeing how she takes it. “I get stubborn on things, but I like to think I’m accommodating too. It’s just hard to have a bite of a cookie and never end up getting the rest of it. So when you do, you just, hold onto it for as long as you can.” A terrible analogy, but Sunjata had never been particularly good with words to begin with.

in time you'll find i've got my baggage too

Maea

give me shelter, or show me heart

It was a confessional rock. Lonesome, the crown of a reef in the middle of the Arclight ocean. No one would be here again. The ocean would keep their secrets, just like the river had. For his honesty, his unwavering trust that she would keep them just as safe, Maea loved him all the more.

As always she listened to the end before reflecting, before offering her thoughts. Never criticizing or demanding that he change anything of what he was thinking, just offering her own view up for consideration.

"Perhaps... this is rather horrible of me," she mused, pulling a leg up to rest her chin against the knee. "But... I'm rather glad things turned out the way they did? Not only because I'm sitting here now thanks to all of it, but... I would have hated to see you trapped in that promise any longer. The things it did to you for just the few weeks it lasted... I'm afraid any longer would have destroyed you." She raised a hand to his hair, touched the back of his head and combed through his hair with soft fingers. Caring, affectionate. If he let her, she would pull him down to her, to wrap him into a hug, let his head rest against her shoulder.

"I'm also glad you don't think I've forced you into anything. And I promise," she said solemnly, with only the barest hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, "that I will never steal your cookies from you. At least not once you've licked them."

watch me fall apart
and I'll be yours to keep

SUNJATA

the flood

but is this what you want? what you wanted?
do you need love? am i enough for you?

A brow raises as she mentions that her thoughts might be horrible of her, but he listens to her regardless – hearing the fears aloud that he harbored deep within. And it brings another level of the place those dark thoughts had often lead, that the way the marriage had gone had been… Terrible, miserable, destroying. “It would have.” He agrees quietly, leaning into the touch at the back of his hair, combing through. She pulls him down to her to hug him, and he pulls her close as well as he thinks on it. “She wanted to change me into the perfect person for her, and I would have never gotten there. She didn’t know about the Advocates. She knew about my past but only the Trials and… Well, she met Lusea so.” A shrug, a soft exhale.

And when she speaks again, he rests his head along the top of her own,  snorting at her comment about the cookies before he shakes his head, messing up her hair a small amount. “I’ll share them if you’re not greedy.” He teases her – but the meaning behind it is truthful. He’d always find a way to share, to benefit the both of them, when it didn’t become suffocating, threatening, awful to be around. And Phoebe had known before hand that it would make him miserable to do it.

He hopes that if he ever starts to show her that he’s miserable, that he’s unhappy, that she’d listen to him instead of pretending it’s all his fault and that he should be better about it. A hand lifts, then to her chin, and he withdraws his head to try and search her gaze to see what she might be thinking, his own gaze a storming mix of emotions much like the one departing the sea.

in time you'll find i've got my baggage too

Maea

give me shelter, or show me heart

She held him close, stroked his hair, and wondered what it was about this man that had not been enough for Phoebe. What it was the woman had felt the need to change. His drinking? The amount of cigarettes he smoked in a day? The incessant need for freedom, restlessly needing to know what was beyond the next hill? Maea supposed they could be terrifying things all in their own ways. Probably she was hosting her own little campaigns against his bad habits - especially the smoking - but it was a quiet battle, more a teasing, prodding suggestion that she would prefer it if he cut back... mostly for his own sake. And because her clothes smelled. But to force him into some mold? That Maea could not understand.

When he lifted her chin, gazed at her like he was looking for answers, Maea smiled at him. Understood what he meant, somewhat. "Thank you. And if you need them, I'll give you all my cookies," she told him, taking the analogy and running off with it. "And then I'll make more. And your teeth will probably fall out, because they will be awful, but you can have as many as you want." Because that was how she was. Either nothing or everything. She couldn't love by half, give only half, take only a little. Maea wanted all of him, and was ready to give him all of her - had done so, already, with reckless abandon - and she would keep giving until there was nothing left. And then still keep trying, as long as there was breath in her.

"If anything... I'm mostly afraid that I won't be enough for you," she breathed, in the confession of a lifetime. And perhaps he might know what she was thinking of, when her eyes flitted down to his neck, to his wrists, to the scars of old passion that littered his skin. There were things she was not prepared to offer, or give up, or share... and she was very much afraid to become a stick in the mud, boring and constricting for it.

watch me fall apart
and I'll be yours to keep

SUNJATA

the flood

but is this what you want? what you wanted?
do you need love? am i enough for you?

She smiles at him, and he offers her a small smile back as he listens. Soon enough, the analogy is running away, and it sparks a brighter smile from him, toothy and white in comparison. He makes a quiet show of thinking about how awful it might be, before he runs his tongue along his teeth, partially shifting those canines to a sharper point. “Mhm, well, it’s a good thing they look nice right now.” He teases her, smile ending in a small smirk.

But her confession occurs, and the smile falters, and he contemplates what it is that he needs – what he wants for the first time in what seems like… Well, ever. “You are.” He says at first, quick enough to keep her from wondering whether or not he’s finding her faults. Because he isn’t – and really, the only issues that lie between them are simply just things unsaid, having not been brought up yet. But he does notice her gaze as it flits to his scars, and his thumb strokes her chin gently from where it rests.

“I don’t think I ask for much. I just want to be heard, thought of.” He muses for a moment, shifting a small amount to focus on her more fully. “I want someone who can fight for herself despite how much it’ll worry me when she does it.” He lists it off, giving her a knowing look with a small hidden smile. “Who can think for herself. Who won’t beg me for children or to stop being me because it better suits who she wants me to be.” Because changing the little things is hard enough, let alone changing all of him. “Someone who’ll support me when I want to do things that are important to me…”

He tilts his head to her, blinking slowly to see if she connects the dots. He’s sure she does.

in time you'll find i've got my baggage too

Maea

give me shelter, or show me heart

Her smile widened as he showed off his fangs, sharp and feline and dangerously beautiful, just like him. A good thing indeed, because if he actually tried her cookies... she could make no promises they would remain intact.

He answered her quite seriously though, assuring that she was enough, and perhaps that soothed the worry somewhat, but in the end... only time could really prove it to her. Seeing it for herself, experiencing it. But she listened all the same as he told her of his wants, his needs... and she blinked, eyes widening slightly, at the ways it just described her. The things she did, what she'd said she longed for and wanted. Her own freedom, her own power... The way he said it, Maea thought he painted her out as some rather remarkable person, able to do all those right things. How curious, when she didn't feel half that capable and understanding.

Sighing, she leaned her head into his hand, as he stroked her cheek. Her throat felt a little tight, and there was a touch of red on her face that could not be explained by the sun alone. How very difficult it could be, to accept love when it was offered this bluntly. How very easy it would be, to wave his words off, and not take them seriously. But Maea did. Tried her best to just absorb it, and let his words warm the cold, small, angsty places of her soul.

"Well..." she said, a little shakily. "No. I don't... think that is asking for a lot either." She touched his cheek, brushed a finger over his lips, clearly moved by what he said. "Tell me about your important things? You have the bar, and the Advocates, and now the boxing ring. And the house. Melita. What else?" She did not list herself, because... well, he already had, on his own. And she did not want to be that greedy.

watch me fall apart
and I'll be yours to keep

SUNJATA

the flood

but is this what you want? what you wanted?
do you need love? am i enough for you?

She leans her head into his hand and he smiles lightly with the touch, curling his fingertips into her hair as he continues the idle strokes upon her cheek. And with it, he focuses on her when she begins to speak, smile fading slightly, awaiting what she thinks. And instead, it’s met with a brush to his cheek, fingertips dancing against his lips that he aims to place a soft kiss to, as he considers the question.

“Well… That’s mostly it. I suppose being better at the friendships I do have.” He focuses on her but his gaze grows somewhat distant, a filter over those storm clouds of his eyes. “There’s you. There’s Loren. There’s Ronin. Teaching Melita Korofi.” He hums before shaking his head. “Safrin… Whatever she might need me to do again. Perhaps learn more to make less mistakes.” He sighs quietly, before shrugging and lifting his free hand to rest along her arm gently.

“What’s important to you?” He asks quietly instead, a distraction.

in time you'll find i've got my baggage too

Maea

give me shelter, or show me heart

Rather pleased with herself to find she knew most of his plans, most of his goals and dreams, Maea listened with interest to his counting up friendships and relations. Rather surprised to find Ronin so high on the list... she hadn't known they were close. Though perhaps she should, given the Dark Star had been invited to help with the boxing ring. His kiss to her fingers lingered on the tips of them, lingering there as she lowered them to rest on his shoulder, a light but strangely possessive grip. Like she planned to hold on forever, more or less.

"I think the only way to learn not to make mistakes is to actually make them... unfortunately." She grimaced a little, knowing it wasn't good advice. "Or actually stop and listen to what other people say before jumping into things... but I'm not very good at that part either."

His hand was warm on her arm, and Maea shifted where she sat. Realized she was colder than she thought. She tried to place herself on his lap, sitting sideways so she could rest her head against his shoulder and leech whatever warmth she could from him.

"My important things..." she mused, gazing out over the horizon. "Like for you, my friends. You. Jigano and Loren, and Amun. Ludo... and the Loreseeker's Guild. I want to learn as much as I can from the Academy, and then go back there, to do some real good." Pausing, she chewed her lip, thought of the things that were close to her thoughts these days. What worried her, what she burned for.

"I would... like to patch things up with Amalia, somehow," she admitted, quietly. "I just don't know if she actually wants to.

"And... I want to travel. Find out more about these darn portals, so I can make up my mind on whether to hate them or not. On one hand, I want to help open them, but on the other... well. You know what I think... and you saw Amun's response to my note. We've talked it out before, and I just don't know."

Maea knew she was going off on a tangent, not really sticking to the topic at hand, and she bit her lip to keep from ranting on. Didn't want to chew this subject all over again when there was nothing more to add... leastways not on her part.

watch me fall apart
and I'll be yours to keep

SUNJATA

the flood

but is this what you want? what you wanted?
do you need love? am i enough for you?

Her touch to his shoulder is gentle but possessive enough that he smiles against the feeling, finding it fade as she continues to speak. And he gives her all the attention he has, watching her face grimace, hearing the advice she has to give – something within him knowing the truth to it, but rebelling from it all the same. And so he only offers a small nod, before she’s moving closer and he realizes how cold she’s gotten.

So he moves to better fit her, shifting his legs out from beneath him to try and wrap her up within him, to place his head along her shoulder with her back to his chest, legs close if not touching both sides of her own as he wraps his arms around her to hold her tight to him while he listens. A nod granted for each of the friends listed, finding no surprise within them. But the continuation of the Loreseeker’s Guild keeps his interest.

At least, until she comments about Amalia and a muscle feathers in his jaw at the thought. “Well, she certainly doesn’t with me.” He offers unhelpfully, quieting to listen to the mention of portals and opening them, of deciding whether or not. And he had seen Amun’s response to it – something that he had also agreed with. It fell into the lines of ‘why should we fight a war we weren’t asked to’ sort of scenario, should it come to that point.

All in all, he takes a deep breath before looking out over the crashing waves again as the sun begins to sink lower. “I have a confession.” He rumbles quietly, planning to keep it a secret but… Well, she’d find out soon enough, he’s sure. “I’ve been working with the Ascended to open more…” His arms loosen around her should she want to face him fully or slip out of his grip. “And I know the risks, I was victim to one of them already… But I want the world, I don’t want to be caged again.”

in time you'll find i've got my baggage too

Maea

give me shelter, or show me heart

He accommodated her quiet request and wrapped her up within his embrace, arms and legs and all. Maea was very glad for once that she was so short, because she fit very snugly against his chest, slight enough of built that she easily fit beneath his chin. He was warm, and she sighed contentedly in his grip, very pleasantly tight as she listed off her important things. Sunjata's comment on Amalia did not surprise her, really, considering the circumstances of their last encounter, and she stroked his arm soothingly, understanding. Perhaps, as Amun said, there were some people you just weren't meant to get along with.

As she finished however, and Sunjata spoke up, Maea stilled in his arms. Did not turn or pull away... but there was a surprised hitch to her breath when he revealed he had already taken a stance on the matter. Was helping the Ascended already.

It... took some thinking to get used to. But was she really surprised? "So... that's why you wanted more information on Halo," she mused, mind working quickly to piece together clues given during their conversations in the past. Maea reached for his arms, to pull them back around herself; actually not as upset as she could have been. Would have been, had she not already been half convinced by her adopted brother. "To find the portal... only, the Ascended found it quickly enough anyway. And now... Who are you in contact with?"

Continuing to think, to consider, she recalled the way he had read her note, without saying anything. How he had listened to the vision, heard her concerns... "Do you think I'm wrong, to worry about this? About the consequences... when we really don't know the reasons why she was locked up?" she asked him, voice unusually small.

watch me fall apart
and I'll be yours to keep

SUNJATA

the flood

but is this what you want? what you wanted?
do you need love? am i enough for you?

She stills in his arms as he reveals his information to her, the tasks of what he’s been doing behind it all – another honest note despite how much he had planned to keep it a secret. Even the comment that Safrin hadn’t mentioned anything to him about it seemed innocent enough, without the context around it that the woman in his arms now had. “Yes.” He answers simply to her initial thought. “I made a deal before Torchline opened, to open portals with them to find the ocean.” Little did he know that the ocean would be the next one. “But I ultimately agreed to help them open all of them.” His voice is quieter here, and he looks up toward the stars as if Safrin could hear him, shying away from his goddess in the small amounts he could.

He’s surprised when she reaches to pull his arms back around her, and his chin finds the top of her head, wrapping his arms tightly around her torso to keep her close to his. “Wessex, mostly.” A quiet rumble, eyes closing as he tilts his head atop her own. “Her and I went hunting in Halo before the dragon trip.” He offers with a small shrug. It had been a couple of days after he’d met with Maea and they’d gone trapping and hunting for Ningo’s, and she’d tied him up to that tree and found out about the dragon scars.

If only they knew.

Her voice grows quieter then, smaller than before, and he squeezes her lightly. “I think you’re right to worry about it.” He offers. “But at the same time, what did happen so long ago that made generations being trapped a reasonable alternative? To live and die over and over again in the barrier when it surely couldn’t sustain itself for as long as it had?” She should know that best, having been one of those families. If the world had been open, would LongNight have occurred the way it had? If it didn’t happen anywhere else, like the Greatwood’s silence… Would it have meant they could have left and still be alive?

There were so many unanswered questions, and gods that seemed less than keen to talk about it.

in time you'll find i've got my baggage too

Maea

give me shelter, or show me heart

All of the portals. And Wessex. Maea couldn't help the small grimace from crossing her face at the mention of the name, and wasn't sure if he would pick up on it or not. Her silence, the lack of comment, was perhaps loud enough in itself to suggest the Wraith did not thrill her.

"Has anyone thought to ask?" she countered, and touched his wrist to show she wasn't intending to argue, just offer her thoughts. Using the same answer as the first time they spoke of portals, when she had suggested finding out more of the storms, to find an alternative. Now they knew it wouldn't be an option... but that did not really excuse this forging ahead without at least trying to find answers to these questions.

"I just... can't imagine that the Old Gods would do something so drastic, of such dire consequences, without very good reason. They even locked their Herolds in with us, to ensure the barrier stayed up. It didn't work in the end, but...

"Don't you find it unsettling? Three hundred years and thousands of lives... and they thought it a reasonable price to pay. I can't help but think that the threat she posed must have been a risk to all of Caido, for them to do such a thing. Not just one, but all the Three."

She shook her head, unsure how to phrase herself better. "I do agree, wholeheartedly, that being caged back up again is not an option. I don't want that either. I want to see the world, too, Sunjata, I just don't think it should be opened up to her without asking more questions. From all of them."

watch me fall apart
and I'll be yours to keep

SUNJATA

the flood

but is this what you want? what you wanted?
do you need love? am i enough for you?

He does notice the silence, but leaves it for the sound of the waves crashing against the rock. Especially as she questions if anyone’s asked… And really, no. They hadn’t. Because of blights and other pressing matters, of portals being opened in the Greatwood when the one in the Spire had been there all along, ending in the ability of the Ascended to explore it. He doesn’t really care, at the end of the day, but it is a shame that his friends wouldn’t be able to enjoy the forests the way the rest of them could.

But they had destroyed a sacred tree, after all.

“I’m not so sure Safrin is the one to ask, otherwise I would.” He says quietly, squeezing her again to show that he hasn’t taken her counter the wrong way. “She mentioned the Temple had been sacked before and when I questioned if it happened a lot, she only said ‘not by one of mine’.” A rise and fall of his shoulders. “And when the shrine was being created, all the pieces were there. Soil for Ludo, a piece of dead coral for Safrin, and Coffee for… Frey. But at the end as it was coming together, the Voice added her own electricity from wherever she was.” There’s a shudder that courses through his spine, close enough she could likely feel the twitch within his body at it. “I’ve never seen such a face on Safrin.” It was clear that it seemed a sore subject, and he wasn’t sure how to bring it up.

He makes it a point to try it, at least.

And when she continues, he almost winces at the way she uses his name – his full name, not shortened like most did, nor with a usual hum like she usually held. This was a serious manner, a serious matter, and his jaw clenches slightly with the thought of it. “I can try to find out more from Safrin.” He assures her quietly, shifting his leg a small amount to cross over one of her own, reaching down briefly with a hand to rub along the gunshot scar before he sighs quietly. “There are other gods too, not the heralds nor the big three. Have you heard of them?” He asks, wondering if she'd learned anything from her Halo adventures.

in time you'll find i've got my baggage too