Shine a light through an open door

Though he had hidden it well, Ronin's letter last season had shaken Hadama. He had contained his prayers to those of hope and healing for his goddess, seeking nothing more than her recovery from what she had survived.

But in spite of his deep and quiet faith he still found himself worn down and weary from the constant vigilance and scouring of Void-touched flora and fauna from Torchline and elsewhere and the rebuilding of the damage caused by Starfall. He helped where he could, but he struggled to reach out and ask for help for himself. Sohalia had become someone he had once shared some of the burdens of leadership with, but of late she had stopped replying to his letters...

It was selfish, he knew, but he missed his goddess, and he needed to refresh his heart and soul in her celestial light. The shrine in Halo was far from the Citadel, unlikely to be interrupted, and accessible to him thanks to the risen waters. Nor had he heard of any aquatic Void creatures in Halo (yet). Here, at the frozen altar on the Sea of Glass and beneath a waxing moon, he could let down his guard and make his offering: a single rose crafted from precious metals. The petals were delicate white gold foil, attached to a stem of verdigris-green copper. Several thorns of red gold dotted the stem, a reminder that just because something was beautiful it did not mean it was not dangerous.

He held his StArmour armlet to his heart as he bowed his head, but in his mind was the choice that Safrin had given him before she had gone to lonely battle among the distant stars.

Welcome home, Safrin. May we speak?

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Regional Score bonus: +1 in all shrine visits, drops, PQ+s, KQs, etc. (You must post this at the bottom of any post where a +1 should be included)

Safrin "Aren't the stars beautiful, here? Something about the cold, I think..." Despite the cold she'd mentioned, at Safrin's arrival the air grew heavy with heat and perfumed with the scent of honeysuckle and the sea. Appearing from a small puff of air that solidified into her seated form, Safrin drew her knees close to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins. Despite her resplendent beauty, just now in her weakened state, she looked painfully mortal. "Hello Hadama." She greeted, smiling softly at her King before reaching out to pluck up his offering. Twisting it in the light so that the thorns glinted, Safrin sighed softly. "You're a long way from Torchline's shores." She noted slightly, eyebrows raised to invite the King to tell her of his travels if he wished.

A more glib man might have found a compliment to the goddess's beauty dancing from his tongue. Hadama simply gazed upon Safrin, drinking in her light and delicate beauty as she eclipsed even the stars in his eyes, and he could no more tear his eyes away from her to look to the sky above than he could tear his own heart from his chest.

"Safrin..." he prayed, and for the first time in seasons drew a honeysuckle breath without tightness in his chest. If she had not regained her full strength, still she was whole enough to answer him.

It was enough.

Her smile washed over him like a cleansing tide and the mermanta was buoyed upon it, the tension easing from the corners of his eyes. He smiled in return, a small curve of the corners of his mouth, but it changed the planes of his face, chasing away the stern set to his jaw and shedding years from his brow.

"Yes," he acknowledged with a single small nod. "I have traveled much since Starfall." And even before then, thanks to his aquaportation. But in the last season he had indeed exercised his ability to the utmost. "Gathering allies among the other leaders and regions. Strengthening ties. Requesting aid." Halo, Stormbreak, and King's End had all sent what they could. He had met with Deimos, Evie, Sunjata, and Sohalia. His letter to the Hollowed Grounds had gone unanswered... though other citizens had offered help in the face of Danta's silence on the matter.

And Phoebe was missing, neither he nor Noah able to find out where she had gone.

"It is... difficult... to relax in Torchline," he admitted after several moments of stillness. "The new island is... a weight on my thoughts." And he had no wish for his prayers to be disturbed by voidshell tumseas or enshadowed delphinids. "Is it what you fought?"

Safrin Starfall. The Island. The goddess sighs. "Not just yours." Safrin clarifies with a slight tilt of her head as she runs her fingers along the glass stem of the flower in her hand. "On all those who live in Torchline and to some extent, everyone else in Caido." Smoothing down a small section of her dress with one hand, the goddess shakes her head. "No, not precisely. What I encountered was a single entity, though it's mind was made up of many. It had no real form."

Emerald eyes followed the trail of perfect, pale fingers along the rose's stem before the King lowered his head in a nod at his goddess's words. If there were those who weren't affected yet... well. It was only a matter of time, it seemed to him. The void-touched plants and animals were everywhere now, and every day he feared that another report would come of a person with an unhealing wound. The elder gods had their own, larger concerns, and couldn't heal everyone...

But the worst had not yet come to pass. And Safrin had returned, radiant still in spite of the toll her battles had taken on her. Hadama raised his head again and straightened his spine, returning his gaze to his lady to hear her words. They were hard for him to envision; how to give a shape to something formless? But a many-minded entity...

"Yes," he said slowly, thinking of how certain schools of fish, though made of many, acted as one. Imperfect analogy, since they were both physical and vulnerable to attack, but it was the closest his limited mortal experience could come.

Though the news of this 'Dahlia' being was that she was physical, indeed. And therefore, perhaps, she shared some of the vulnerabilities of mortals. Or at least demigods. Few as those vulnerabilities were.

But his thoughts swam swiftly back to the one who sat before him amid the crystalline peace of the icy Sea. "Is there a way to help you recover?" For though there was much that might be learned of their new enemies from one who had fought them on their own turf, Hadama's concern was first for the one who had faced them alone and far from her home.

And paid the price for it.

Safrin Glancing overhead at the stars and observing the way their light appeared a frosty blue from such a distance, Safrin sighs. Longing for the chromatic depths of Vi's embrace and the slumber she might find among the stars, instead she is here where she is needed. "Be my light where I cannot shine." Safrin replies, meeting her King's gaze. and offering him an even smile. "For all the weariness Torchine might bring you now, you cannot run from that which weighs on you. Not with who you are to our people and what your presence means. I need time to heal and alas my wounds are not so straightforwardly healed as your co-rulers were."

As much as Torchline's troubles weighed on his shoulders, Hadama would not shift them elsewhere without far better reason than mere mortal weariness. They were his people, his pride, and his strength. He held to hope in the face of the darkness, determined that they would survive this as they had the Voice, and that peace would return to the shores of his home once more.

When Safrin smiled upon him, Hadama met her gaze and felt renewed. The problems they faced were not lessened, but knowing that his goddess held him in her thoughts was as bracing as any healing tonic, and he drew in a deep breath laden with honeysuckle and petrichor.

"As long as I live." As long as she would have him. He promised, solemn but with an undercurrent of quiet joy. "I will be your light. I have spoken to some of the demigods. To Noah and Ronin. And to Sunjata," he added, acknowledging the old wounds there, but not shying away from the bad that had come with the good. "And I have made my choice."

You, he said, with all the calm, solid certainty in his steadfast heart, the telepathic bond singing with his decision. Always you.

Safrin Weary eyes suddenly darken with intensity as the conversation changes from something polite and procedural to that which Safrin covets above all else. Love. Fealty. Noah's name draws a small smile from her lips; the Foresake bound to her by extension of Vi, but it's a relationship she treasures just the same. Ronin. The man she'd met in the Glade and whose golden tongue and blue eyes had won her favour time and time again. And... Deimos' name is the one she'd expected to hear next, the one she and Hadama had spoken of when last they broached this subject. With eyes as dark as the empty and gaping pockets of space, Safrin straightens, her fingers snapping the stem of the delicate rose. "Do not be so clever, Tidebreaker, that you find yourself in waters best left untread." She murmured coldly, before letting the broken shards of glass fall from her fingers to reach out for one of Hadama's. "Fully mine? Or would you keep a part of yourself as your own?" If the Tidebreaker hadn't spoken to Deimos on this subject, he'd not know, perhaps, the distinction the goddess offered.

The rose snapped, and Safrin's voice with it. It gave Hadama pause and he bowed his head in quiet acceptance. Whatever his reasons, her disapproval was clear. He had learned of consequences, and of the dangers of pledging his fealty to her if his loyalties were divided.

But his loyalty was to her and to Torchline, no other, and he was her King there.

"Fully yours," he confirmed gravely, unaware of the paths her thoughts now trod and the Warden's name within them. A man he had met only once, though the Sword's wife was his dearest friend. His intentions to seek out the man had shattered beneath the weight of Starfall and the tasks of rebuilding Torchline that had consumed him since; his personal ambitions set aside in favor of the welfare of his people. "However you would accept my service." As her demigod, or in whatever other capacity she would allow him to continue serving her.

Safrin "As I said before, I think it best to know what service you are inclined to offer. The path Ronin walks is as open to you as the one Deimos does." Glancing around, Safrin stares into the darkness where the Citadel sparkles like some long-forgotten and cast-away diamond in the snow. "You are in his lands, after all. Deimos' I mean. I thought perhaps meeting with him was the reason you called to me so far from our waters." Turning back, Safrin straightens somewhat. "As you have no doubt heard first hand from Sunjata, I do not take kindly on those who have a change of heart."

Hadama gave the goddess's words deep thought before nodding slowly. "Yes," he acceded to her requirement. It was a point well-made. Though he was certain in his own heart what he would choose, it would do no harm to learn what wisdom the Resurrected Sword could provide about his service to Safrin.

It was more important to his goddess than he had realized, and that was reason enough to pursue the meeting with Evie's husband.

He raised his eyes to meet hers as she turned back to him, then solemnly inclined his head at her warning. "Indeed." His own gaze drifted to the Citadel and its lights. Not so great a distance, perhaps, for one with legs. For Hadama, however, there was no simple way to call upon the Warden tonight. Messages would need to be sent and a time and location arranged that was reachable between land and sea.

"Thank you. For your patience," he rumbled quietly, knowing that it was unlikely he would be able to call on her again before Leafchange.

Safrin Smiling softly, Safrin brushed the last remaining shards of Hadama's offering from her fingertips and gown before rising and looking over her shoulder where the Citadel sparkled softly. "Go then." She whispered, before turning and extending her hand toward the Tidebreaker. Upon taking it, Hadama would find himself effortlessly pulled from the icy waters, bearing legs and fine leather trousers adorned with hand-stitched stars. "Meditate on your questions as you make your way. Find me again once you understand both paths offered to you." So saying, Safrin squeezed the merking's hand gently before disappearing in a whisper of starlight. ~FIN