your mind's made of lead and your heart's made of steel

More tan now than before after endless days in Hak Etme aiding Colt, and a little clearer-minded for it too, Hotaru swallows her trepidation and visits Frey. It's as simple as waking up with the dawn, curating her offering, and leaving. No need for notes on counters anymore. It's a painful sort of freedom.

Andraste glides overhead, her youthful sentiments a tangle of uncertainty tinged with shame and confusion. Hotaru soothes her when she can - when she can think of anything but the road ahead and the face that will soon meet her - and that seems to be enough.

The bite of the wind is colder out on the Rainbow Road. Deepfrost is right around the corner now. The fruits available for her offering had been limited because of it, late-season things that tremble in the glass-blown bowl she places on the altar. Figs with dark flesh that contrast against the brighter shades of persimmons nestled against them. No cream this time, but spiced apple butter instead. A bountiful harvest fitting for the departure of Leafchange.

Andraste lands and sits on the shrine, watching her. Providing space with a wisdom that does not match her years. Hotaru's inhale shakes audibly as she prays, eyes stubbornly wide open. It will hurt her beyond belief, but she bitterly refuses to cover her eyes the way Sunjata had for so long, as if it may prove that she's handling this - that she isn't as fucked up as she feels. "Frey? I'd like to fix something of yours that I broke, if I can."

In technicality if not in spirit.

- - -

Demigods will automatically receive an answer from their herald at a shrine with a 1% chance of speaking with a Big God. Demigods made by Big Gods may pray to them 1x per year with guaranteed success. Include this at the bottom of all shrine posts.

The Valkyrie

think I'm addicted to a certain kind of misery

Frey

Heat arrives before Frey does. It rolls in slow and low across the Rainbow Road, turning the air thick enough to taste, sweetened at the edges by fruit and mineral-warmed stone until every breath seems to drag satin over the back of the tongue. The cold retreats as if shamed by it, Deepfrost’s teeth blunted beneath the sudden bloom of something humid and wanton, lust made weather and arousal given weight enough to press against the skin. Colour seems to deepen around the shrine, the reds growing wet-dark, the golds molten, the violets bruised and lovely, while the offerings gleam as if touched by candlelight from within.

Frey appears as they always do, entirely unadorned and utterly unconcerned with it, their body shaped by whatever Hotaru’s desire knows before her mind has the chance to dress it in manners. There is nothing coy in the way they arrive, nothing performative in the ease of their nakedness; they are simply there, beautiful in the dangerous, intimate way hunger is beautiful when it has never once apologized for being hungry. For a moment their attention rests not on Hotaru, but on Andraste, and one elegant finger extends to stroke along the young dragon with slow, indulgent affection, as if even shame and uncertainty are things best answered first by touch.

Only then do they lower themselves before Hotaru, kneeling with the liquid grace of something divine choosing to make itself close enough to be breathed in. Their hand drifts toward the glass-blown bowl, and when they select one of the persimmons, they do not peel it, do not make it neat, do not pretend there is any virtue in denying the skin before reaching the sweetness beneath. Their teeth break through with a soft, obscene give, tearing into the bright flesh until juice gathers slick and golden at their mouth. Frey lets it bead there for a moment, their head tilting as their tongue, unhurried and shameless, catches the droplet from their lip.

"Oh?" they murmur, the single syllable warm enough to feel like fingers beneath the jaw, their smile curving with lazy interest as they look at her. "And what is it you think you’ve broken?"

Ru’s bare shoulders relax backward, head drawn subconsciously with the same line of motion as her eyelids flutter and the tension under her skin finally gives way. When Frey appears, Sunjata’s face is perfectly recreated - and then distorts immediately. It makes Ru’s entire body freeze up, startled for a moment. As Frey reaches to Andraste and is met with identical relaxation of coiled muscle as her bonded, Ru tries to make heads and tails of it.

What she desires most is not concrete, not static. Her heart’s desire is Sunjata, but in this moment she wants to be spared the image of him more than she wants to see him. And Frey’s form will always reflect someone’s greatest desire. Hotaru is so taken aback by the simplicity of it all that she can’t help a hoarse laugh. She doesn’t so much as dare to blink, enchanted by the way Frey’s features shift subtly, like the glitter of sunlight on water or the haze of heat that turns deserts into oasis pools. None of the faces or features familiar. It is blessed freedom, indulgence of her greatest desire regardless of the rightness or propriety. A defining tenet of Frey’s theology that Ru has always resonated with.

Like a cornered dog who has finally caught the scent of their owner and relaxed their hackles, Hotaru leans into the metaphysical touch that curls under her chin in precisely the same tame, fawning manner. Her hands blindly reach to find Frey’s naked thighs to brace upon.

“Mm. I suppose I should rephrase - I don’t think I broke it, or at least don’t know how I could have - but it was in my possession when it did.” Hotaru would not care to fix something even if she directly broke it between her palms were it not one of the few people she loved on this earth. “Sunjata’s heart - can I repair it for him?” No matter what he chooses to do with it thereafter.

The Valkyrie

think I'm addicted to a certain kind of misery

Frey

Frey regards her for a long, thoughtful moment, their gaze settling over Hotaru with an intimacy that does not need to pry when it can simply feel the shape of what she has brought them. One of their hands rises to comb through the wild spill of her hair, fingers moving with a slow, indulgent care that neither soothes nor absolves so much as acknowledges the ache of wanting to fix what love has had the misfortune to touch. Their mouth still shines faintly with the persimmon’s juice, and when they lick it from their lips, the gesture is unhurried, sensual, almost contemplative, as if sweetness and sorrow are both things to be tasted properly.

"Sunjata came to see me recently, you know," they say, one brow lifting with the kind of knowing that feels warm rather than cruel, their hand drifting down to cover one of hers where it rests against their bare thigh. "And we spoke of his heart only a little." Their thumb brushes over her knuckles, not trapping, not holding her still, simply laying divine warmth over mortal desperation. "When he asked me for something, sweet one, it was not to have it mended."

Their head tilts, and whatever face Hotaru’s desire has chosen for them shifts again in that subtle, merciful way, not landing anywhere sharp enough to wound her. Frey’s gaze remains adoring despite the refusal tucked inside it, soft with understanding and bright with the unashamed certainty of a god who knows the body, yes, but also knows the strange and stubborn ways a heart can learn itself through pain. "This may be a moment of growth for him," they murmur, their free hand lifting to stroke Hotaru’s cheek, the touch tender enough to bruise without pressure. "Not of weakening, not of being made smaller by what has happened, but of becoming stronger because of it. A heart is not always broken because it hurts, darling. Sometimes it hurts because it is being asked to hold a shape it has never had to make before."

Their thumb traces lightly beneath her cheekbone, warm as breath, patient as the tide. "And I do not think you should take that chance away from him, however good your intentions are."

Her eyes flutter as Frey's hands comb through her hair, resisting the urge even as it spills over her so she might keep her gaze upon her herald. Frey's touch is a balm that soothes burns that run wider and deeper than Hotaru had thought them to, leeching the pain like aloe on sun-scorched skin. With that relief comes the curve of her body toward the herald, a flower to the sun.

Frey's voice is an ambiguous croon that floats each word like dandelion fluff against her skin, the weight of their answers - and all the emotions they inspire - gentler than spiders silk. How can she possibly doubt when faced with this soft wisdom? How could her loyalty ever waver, even when denied her greatest, aching desires?

(Somewhere in the past, a younger version of her paints her hands with her parents' blood to conceal their killer, choking on tears even as her loyalty - her trust in her goddess who bid her to do so - holds firm.

Some things never change.)

As Frey's hand cups her cheek - fingers soft now, when before Ru had sworn she felt callouses - the woman's eyes close and she tilts her face into Frey's palm. Her breath trembles out of her in the first outward sign of her inner turmoil; Frey is privy to it from the start, the Valkyrie's mind, body, and heart as clear as glass to them. A subtle furrow forms between blonde brows as she valiantly tries to sow the truth of it all into the ruined landscape of her heart.

"I want him to grow," she murmurs, lips brushing against Frey's palm with each syllable. Idly, she wonders if Frey's summoned form is as perfectly detailed as to have lifelines. If she tried to read them, what would they say? "More than anything. I love him - I want him to be..." happy? whole? healed? "...everything he can." Her eyes open, heterochromatic irises oddly saturated as the hues of the Rainbow Road dance upon them. "It hurts...to want that more than wanting him." A cruelly rare affliction of selflessness.

Her hand traces idle patterns on Frey's bare thigh as her eyes fall away under the cresting wave of shame. Scared to admit such weakness, afraid it conflicts with the values Frey cherished and had shared with her. Sighing, she lifts her eyes back to Frey's unfamiliar face, always brave enough to face her mistakes even when she believes she won't be able to bear it.

"And me? Am I meant to grow too? Because I'm trying...I really am." Even if it feels like she's just clinging to stability, keeping herself afloat and nothing more. "I thought maybe I could make a haven in Hak Etme. Find new ways to bring people pleasure and escape, try to find it myself in the process. But...well, it's all gone a bit sideways as far as I'm aware." Something she'll have to ask Flora about in the coming days, if the storm has spat out any definitive news. "You made me this for a reason. It took a backseat to my heart - and I'm so sorry, Frey." It's easier to regret the depths of her love for Sunjata when her heart is as weathered and broken as it is now, cradled in Frey's hands. "So I haven't known what else to do but try to focus on what you might want." It guides her sparse decisions as she tries to find her way, aimless and uninvested in the outcomes. Ru's own desires are impossible to actualize - Frey's have taken their place to fill the gap so it won't swallow her whole. Only now Hak Etme and its vague future feel so far away. Instead of trying to figure it out anew, she has turned to Frey, broken and biddable.

The Valkyrie

think I'm addicted to a certain kind of misery