it's fine to fake it 'till you make it
Nearby, Artemide’s wings spread, casting a light that feels impossibly shallow and thin as it spreads across Safrin’s form. Where once she was splendor and grace made into flesh, now she appears like some sun-faded imprint of herself. Her fingernails are broken, her palms deeply burned. Though she wears no clothes and has only vague features, there is something distinctly broken and hollow about her. This is no cocoon within which the goddess is growing her strength; this is a husk from which all life has already been sucked.
Fanning their wings, Artemide hoots. It’s a low sound of the sort that both men will feel like a dull itch in their bones. On silent wings the owl descends as if to land upon Safrin, but just as talons ought to have met flesh, instead the creature melds into the goddess, vanishing in a puff of moondust.
At the same moment, breath caught in Safrin’s lungs as form and feature returned to her, albeit weakly. Gasping, and sounding all the more breathless for it, Safrin opens her eyes, for a moment seeing nothing save for the cosmic horrors who had chased her here.
Fanning their wings, Artemide hoots. It’s a low sound of the sort that both men will feel like a dull itch in their bones. On silent wings the owl descends as if to land upon Safrin, but just as talons ought to have met flesh, instead the creature melds into the goddess, vanishing in a puff of moondust.
At the same moment, breath caught in Safrin’s lungs as form and feature returned to her, albeit weakly. Gasping, and sounding all the more breathless for it, Safrin opens her eyes, for a moment seeing nothing save for the cosmic horrors who had chased her here.
'till you do. 'till it's true.
