i don't belong among the angels

stay your pretty eyes on course

"Your whole country," Niki echoes, glancing from the sprawling marble to the rich wood grain and then to the gloomy downpour outside. The library is an exercise in extravagance, it's true, especially compared to the little reading nooks where he has spent his time, but when glancing at the rain, it also seems strangely cozy. "Do you miss it?" he asks before he can stop himself. "Outlanders are a rarity nowadays, but I always imagined it would be very strange, to be uprooted from one world and dropped into another.".

Not another city, or even another country.

A different world entirely.

Perhaps that's why he keeps his thoughts localised to only one piece of furniture, giving a humble little shrug in response to Sunjata's compliment. "Thank you," he replies automatically, before easing himself down into the chair and carefully propping a heel on the footstool. "I do not know why, but I expected to fall right through it," he admits, laughing under his breath. "And this is all because of Frey?"

Niki

I guess I never really faced my fears before

so is there any treason in the tricky little price I pay?

i can't open up to you

He nods to the question of it being his whole country, a small smile on his face that feels more geared toward nostalgia rather than anything else about the place. At the question, though – he realizes it’s been a long time since anyone’s asked him that. And years ago, he might have vehemently denied any love for the place that had birthed him, made him, at least halfway so.

He sits in the seat as he contemplates his answer, snorting softly when he does give it. “Parts of it. A lot of things were easier there.” Transportation, the ease of having everything all in one place if you needed it. “I also miss the culture of the underbelly of it. It was really different from how I grew up.” He catches himself before he can get on a tangent, turning slightly to look at Niki once he sits – and notes that he very carefully does so.

Laughing softly, he nods his head and the smile remains on his face. “Yeah. I was looking for a way to make this place unique and honestly? Felt like the best choice given everything I’ve seen elsewhere.” The Silk Houses and Halenani, specifically, were ones that Sunjata had visited in his past before making this one.

me and my friends are lonely

i always figured i'd be the one to die alone

SUNJATA

stay your pretty eyes on course

"Easier?" Niki echoes, endlessly curious and unable to help himself. "Did they also have magically changing rooms in Korofi?" he wonders, a faint smile on his lips. Born and raised in the Greatwood and only very recently introduced to things like floating cities and skyships and magical guildhalls, the necromancer can't imagine things being easier still than how they are right now. At least for him, anyway.

Gazing once again at the archways and endless stacks of books, he finds himself nodding gently. "You said underbelly, so I imagine it was a lot different to this?" he says, wondering at the way the darker parts of Korofi might look based on the gloom he can see from the windows. And if the library grows a little darker from his musings, he pretends not to notice.

"Well I think you have certainly succeeded. I have never been anywhere like this before," he agrees. It doesn't mean much coming from someone like Niki, he knows - there are a plethora of places he hasn't been - but he's sincere in his compliments.

Niki

I guess I never really faced my fears before

so is there any treason in the tricky little price I pay?

i can't open up to you

“No, no. That was much harder there.” Sunjata says with a quiet nostalgic laugh. “We didn’t have gods. We had saints that we believed in, but nothing concrete.” In fact, he’d been named after one of them, but none had actually ever shown up – if they had, Sunjata imagines perhaps his father might not have had so much influence if there was something godly enough and willing to help keep such terrible things from happening to people.

Settling a little more into the chair, Sunjata looks back to Niki when he mentions the underbelly, before his head tilts to look at the window displaying the better parts of Korofi that could be seen from his mansion of a home and the library they sit in which was within it. “Extremely different. We had a lot of poverty. Like.. A lot of it.” His nose wrinkles as he sighs quietly. “My father was nobility, though, so I didn’t really experience it until I was older.” He’d experienced the lack of things elsewhere in his childhood – the disinterest, the unattachment, the abuse, but at least he’d never had to wonder where home was. It was always there, whether or not he was able to stay in his threadbare room or wherever else Shaju chose to punish him for the night.

Shaking his head from those thoughts, the rain does pour heavier outside as if he’d subconsciously added more dreariness to it. “I don’t think many have.” He admits, looking back over to Niki with a brighter smile, shaking himself of the rest of the somber vibe he’d encased himself with. “It does look pretty though, especially at sunset during a break in the rain.”

me and my friends are lonely

i always figured i'd be the one to die alone

SUNJATA

stay your pretty eyes on course

"Oh?" Niki finds himself sitting up a bit at that, curiosity taking over before he can help it. "How were things easier, then?" Sunjata will have to forgive him his ignorance he supposes; having been born and raised under the shadow of very real gods with very real magical influence, of course Niki can barely fathom what might step in to take their place. Especially given all of the poverty Sunjata has just mentioned.

His gaze tilts towards the window as the sound of rain grows heavier against their conversation, and for a moment the necromancer has the urge to go and watch at the window again. He nearly does in fact, and if not for his leg he might have done so easily; but Niki seems to to remember himself then, and opts instead to remain seated rather than go through the effort of getting out of the chair.

"I can imagine," he says instead, before recalling something suddenly - something he'd heard whilst he'd been arranging transport up to the House of Midnight. "I hope you do not think this is prying," he begins, "and please, feel free not to answer. It is just... people are calling you something different now, rather than the Flood?" He leaves the question softly open-ended, inviting Sunjata to pick it up or shut it down as he pleases.

Niki

I guess I never really faced my fears before

so is there any treason in the tricky little price I pay?

i can't open up to you

“Convenience, mostly.” He pauses, sure that what he says next probably won’t make any sense to Niki, but he tries anyway. “We had trains which were like self-powered wagons on tracks, cars you drove yourself to get places. Planes which were like mechanical versions of skyships.” He nods toward the window as he changes the view a bit – still raining, but this time it shows a street with the cars in question, lights bright along the street despite the downpour and a variety of skyscrapers littering the sky across the water, fogged and hidden from seeing their full height but still lit up brightly despite it like little beacons in the night. “Everything you needed was pretty much there or you could get there quickly.” He considers it for a moment before he looks back at Niki and smiles. “Maybe it wasn’t really easier but it was familiar?” Like how he might think Caido worked normally if he’d been born here, how magic and gods had made the impossible possible.

At the next question, though, his grey gaze focuses back on the necromancer – listening for the question that starts off in a way that has some amount of apprehension growing in his throat, a breath held there as he waits for something awful to be asked or said. And thankfully, his anxiety had made it out to be worse than what he’d originally thought, so the breath passes his lips in a soft sigh, a shake of his head, the smile still lingering even if it seems a little further away now.

“The Heartless. Yeah.” Wincing slightly, he rolls a shoulder in the shrug. “I uh.. I was engaged. And prior to that, she and I had a history that was a bit rocky so I thought maybe I’d take some initiative and not have her question where my love was.” It sounds stupid the longer he says it – like he’d hoped it’d work out differently than it always did for him, only to be surprised yet again that it didn’t work. “So I asked Frey to make a heart that had my romantic feelings in it and gave it to her.” This part does sound romantic, but Sunjata looks away from Niki back to the window, a hand lifting to run through his hair and through the few greys that have appeared over the years in the waves. “It… well.. It died. I broke off the engagement and eventually I’ll go and get it fixed, I just haven’t been in the right spot yet to do it.” He forces himself to look back at Niki, his hand falling to the back of his neck to rub at the muscle there, tugging at the tattoos on the sides of his neck in the process. “Word travels fast, though.”

me and my friends are lonely

i always figured i'd be the one to die alone

SUNJATA

stay your pretty eyes on course

Niki perks up at the mention of self-powered constructs, the idea of technological advancements both taboo (thanks, Voice) and profoundly intriguing to the necromancer, and as Sunjata changes the view outside once more he finds himself craning to see it better. "The buildings are so tall," he murmurs. "Like the floating parts of Torchline if they were constructed from the ground, but all the way up." Smiling to himself, he only manages to tear his gaze away when Sunjata speaks again.

"Is that not always the way?" He shrugs gently. "It is why so many people stay in bad circumstances, because they may be awful, but they are familiar. There is comfort in that."

And maybe that leads conveniently into the next topic, for better or worse; either way, Niki still winces as Sunjata says it out loud. The Heartless makes him sound like some ruthless conqueror or someone incapable of feeling. "It does, especially in King's End where you rule," he admits of word travelling fast. "I recall you telling me about your fiance, but I did not realise that your heart had died. That sounds..." Fascinating. "Difficult."

Niki

I guess I never really faced my fears before

so is there any treason in the tricky little price I pay?

i can't open up to you

“Yeah, exactly.” Sunjata says with a small crooked smile. “We called them skyscrapers.” Which is a bit self explanatory. They were tall enough to scrape the sky – to be the spot from which they could watch the world move on like ants from down below. It was invigorating as much as it was dreadful.

As for staying in bad circumstances because it was comfortable, it makes him wonder if maybe that’s why he’d stayed the same for so long. Why he didn’t want to change too much, because changing everything meant forgetting the little things that were good. And gods knew that Sunjata didn’t need any more trouble forgetting things these days. “Yeah, there definitely is.” It’s a wise thing to hear and something that’s made him consider his circumstance a little differently.

Maybe it wasn’t so much that his heart was dead that things had been off for a while. Maybe it was the fact that he’d put up with so much just because it was comfortable and he knew her and knew what to expect. Like when he’d told Isla he didn’t want to love anyone else again, didn’t think he could, because those that had rooted in his heart would always be there.

Maybe that was the comfort he sought at the time, only to end with the same result.

“It’s a little ironic, isn’t it?” Sunjata says with a snort, hiding the wince with the way he shakes his head and turns to look back at Niki. “Yeah, I didn’t know it at first either until I asked for it back. Realized it when I opened it.” Which had only cemented it. As for it dying and it being difficult or fascinating, pick your poison, Sunjata shrugs. “It is and it isn’t. It sucks to not feel anything but maybe that’s easier given my track record.” He realizes he’s turned the tone down again, jaw working for a moment before he decides to shift into something else drastically.

Melita and Iskra hadn’t wanted to see the heart, but maybe Niki would. “I have it if you want to see it?” He figures Niki might be more inclined to take a look given the funeral parlor he has.

me and my friends are lonely

i always figured i'd be the one to die alone

SUNJATA

stay your pretty eyes on course

"And did they?" Niki asks before he can stop himself, blue eyes lighting up with something openly interested. "Scrape the sky, I mean." Suddenly they seem less like buildings and more like eldritch creatures looming over the streets below, black doorways for mouths and dozens of flickering windows for eyes. And forgive a young necromancer for being excited at the idea, however briefly. Sunjata's old world is beginning to seem captivating in its gothic unrest and drumming rainfall, and it's a good thing there's talk of dead hearts to distract him, or Niki might have asked to see the underbelly in question.

Trying to fathom the irony in such a tragic story, he's soon abandons the train of thought to instead ponder over opening up a heart, and then the offer to be shown such a thing. Biting his tongue to stop his immediate agreement, Niki gently clears his throat and tries for a shrug that fails to hide his obvious intrigue. "Only if you are comfortable doing so," he says slowly. "...And you can really feel nothing at all?"

Niki

I guess I never really faced my fears before

so is there any treason in the tricky little price I pay?

i can't open up to you

“Most days, they did.” The buildings would always scrape the sky when the clouds were heavy enough, but when it came to the seasons of drought without a cloud in sight? They reached like sharp fingers searching for the means of life, a purpose. It’s all things that Sunjata keeps tied into his chest, swallowing it down as the conversation shifts, the thoughts melting into his mind with a bit more clarity that he never really thought he’d find.

Only for him to shift the conversation before it becomes too sad – he’d always done that, though. Focused instead on the comfort of others rather than tell his full story. It was easier that way. He couldn’t handle the pity that people often shared, because it began to lose its luster after the umpteenth time of being told just how awful it had to have been for him.

Luckily for Niki, the Heartless latches onto the idea of showing the heart, though. Perceptive enough to see his intrigue, it relaxes the tension brewing in his tattooed shoulders that he hasn’t fumbled this up yet. “I don’t mind.” He admits, mentally nudging Petronella to go and grab his bag of holding. The feline hops down from the table and bolts out the door once Sunjata’s stood up to open it for her, lingering enough to wait until she’s back but able to still answer the question he has. “Yeah, nothing romantic at least. Everyone I’ve ever loved is just.. It feels like a ghost of everything? Just people that aren’t here anymore that I remember loving so fuckin' fiercely. It's just empty.”

Petronella doesn’t take long, the bag dragged behind her as she races down the hall and runs back inside, hopping back up on the table to play with the lamp string more while Sunjata closes the door and plucks open the bag, reaching in to snag the box it sat in. Withdrawing it and setting the bag to the side, the demigod steps back over to Niki and scoots the navy chair a bit closer to the emerald one Niki sits in, handing him the box for him to open.

And once he does, he’ll see a relatively barren box, an organic heart that no longer beats – greyed by loss of everything that had kept it alive.

me and my friends are lonely

i always figured i'd be the one to die alone

SUNJATA

stay your pretty eyes on course

Sunjata has no idea of the dark imagery that now blooms to life behind Niki's eyes, all sharp stone fingers clawing at the clouds or tearing strips out of the endless blue, and he crushes down the mental pictures just in case, gods forbid, the magic in the room begins to recreate them. Instead he watches the Heartless cross to let Petronella outside, set aglow by the soft lamplight of the library, though it does highlight the weariness in his face, he realises.

"That sounds confusing," he admits of the other man's description of what he's lost and what he can't really feel about it. "Like part of a story you cannot place. Though I suppose it could be worse..." Not that Niki has any experience at all with that sort of thing. In fact it's only that he thinks this is the first time he's heard Sunjata openly swear that makes him think so.

But Petronella is back before he can speak more about it, and before Niki can so much as properly sit up, Sunjata is drawing his chair closer and handing him a curious box. Realising that this is what he'd meant by opening it, the necromancer wastes little time in doing just that, if not carefully and meticulously, as is his way.

Staring at the heart within feels like peeking at a secret he ought not to know, in truth, though it's with a scientist's eye that he lifts the box up to examine it closer, before setting it down again. "It almost appears petrified," he says softly. "Like stone." Setting the box back in his lap, he feels the strange surge of his cold magic thrum through him, begging him to try and use it on the withered thing inside the box, and he promptly - and suddenly - closes the lid as if to stop himself.

Niki

I guess I never really faced my fears before

so is there any treason in the tricky little price I pay?

i can't open up to you

“It could be.” Worse, that is. Even though Sunjata can’t imagine a way it would be – after everything he’d strived to be in his life. Everything he’d wanted to do and become, how his life had shaped him into being someone that always gave himself away piece by piece like those that took from him might stay. It leaves a hollow shell of a demigod best known for sex, a coping mechanism to make sure he can at least feel something else other than his bones rattling against the nothingness.

He settles in front of Niki, the box handed over, and his steel gaze is a bit more like a storm cloud as he watches Niki open the box. “It’s hard and cold.” He agrees, petrification probably the best description for the mummified thing in the box. It’s reminiscent of a fish that’d been forgotten about, left to become bones at the bottom of the tank without anything else to come by and put it out of its misery the rest of the way.

“The rest of my heart is fine. Still beating. But feels less full, if that makes sense?” He asks, reaching up to rub at the side of his neck where a scar follows his main artery – one of the oldest ones on his body that’s visible only when in close proximity – pressing in briefly like he’s testing it just to make sure he can still feel it beat.

me and my friends are lonely

i always figured i'd be the one to die alone

SUNJATA

stay your pretty eyes on course

"Which is strange, because that is not how you are at all," Niki remarks before he can help himself, resting a hand atop the closed lid of the box as if he can radiate some of the warmth from his palm down into it. But of course that isn't the way things work, even with the magic of Caido swirling all around them, and he sighs as he refocuses on Sunjata. "Mm, I suppose it is like living only most of the way," he says - or guesses, rather. "But you said you can fix it, if you wanted to?"

Blue eyes flick up, watching Sunjata's hand sweep against his neck and the faint, pale scar there, and for a moment the necromancer nearly finds himself asking about it. Such has been their conversation so far - Niki peppering the demigod with questions to sate his curiosity - but of all things, he is not one to openly ask about another person's scars, and he bites the inside of his cheek as if to remind himself of where he is.

"I can see why you have been keeping your focus on your work," he says instead with a wry smile.

Niki

I guess I never really faced my fears before

so is there any treason in the tricky little price I pay?

i can't open up to you

In the times that Sunjata has known Niki, the comments that slip out before he has a chance to think about them have always caused some kind of shyness of Sunjata acknowledging them. So its to a silent hum, the flare of a smile that breaks across the cloud that’s his face to hear that despite how dead and lifeless his heart is, how bad things in his life tended to happen, he didn’t reflect it. So he chooses to answer the second half of the comment, rather than acknowledge of tell him thank you for the compliment that he selfishly does feel like he needs lately. “Yeah. At least, I assume so? Frey made it so I think I could go back to them and ask.” He murmurs, considering for a moment what his life might mean if they say they couldn’t do anything about it.

That’s a thought to dwell on later when sleep doesn’t come again.

“I’ve been trying to.” He says, flashing a wry smile back to Niki before he straightens up again to take the box back if the necromancer doesn’t want to hold onto it much longer now that the inspection is complete. “But even that’s been a challenge lately with the heat and everything.” Longheat pounds and radiates heat just outside the door, but in here? The stone cacophony of the library from Sunjata’s world, it’s perhaps the most comfortable environment they could find themselves in at the present moment.

me and my friends are lonely

i always figured i'd be the one to die alone

SUNJATA