success is no accident

SUNJATA

i'm drowning in all these voices in the sea
and meeting all my vices in the ring

The woods and the Flood Heartless had been overrun by the void leading up to the Festival of Lights, so there’s some semblance of amount that Sunjata can relate to that fact. “Yeah…” He says, recalling how much the fae didn’t tend to prefer visitors in their woods. At least the Greatwood has been a bit kinder these past few years, no longer twisting people around to their demise unless they’d earned it.

He latches onto the question of birthdays, though, filing it away for later (for absolutely no reason whatsoever, obviously). “I get it. Mine’s toward the latter half of Leafchange.” Not that he really celebrates either aside from the occasional piece of blackberry pie – a tradition he can’t quite let go these days.

Sunjata takes a sip of his coffee again as Niki asks his question, not at all surprised by it even if the Abandoned tries to back track. He shakes his head, shooting that lopsided smile back over at him. “It’s kind of a long story.” He admits, before he decides he can probably give the cliff notes and let Niki pick apart which section he wanted more information about. “I’m not.. From Caido, originally. So I thought for a few years after I got here that I was free from my shitty father. Turns out, I wasn’t. I was ruling Torchline at the time and I started kind of seeing things? Anyway, thought I was going crazy.” He huffs at the memory. “Turns out I wasn’t and it was my dear old dad coming back into my life with a new type of lesson, as he put it. He kidnapped my husband at the time and the only way I could get my father to show himself was through a Trial. It’s kind of like a duel.” He isn’t sure if Niki is following or not, but he spins the wedding ring on his finger he’s never taken off since Nate’s demise, before his gaze flits up to the Abandoned with a slightly apologetic smile.

“So, he gave it to me in the fight before I was able to grab him and trick him into falling into the Arclight. I fell too, though, so it took me a while to get back to shore so it didn't heal as well as it could have. I washed up in the Fingers after, I think.” It's hard to remember sometimes, recalling that it was Vai that had healed him, but in bits and pieces of memories that were strung along like a polaroid flip book he only gets the stills from.

He shrugs eventually, glancing back down at the coffee to listen for any probing questions Niki might have – finding himself surprisingly willing to answer them. It was almost refreshing in a way, to have someone that didn’t know about his history.

so step inside, i ain't afraid to bleed
there ain't a casket strong enough for me

NIKI

"Ah, so you get the benefit of all of Ludo's trickery wrapped into your birthday celebrations?" Niki raises his eyebrows, also subconsciously committing that to memory. "Funny - I would have said you were born in Flowerbirth. Because of all the rain." Not that he puts a great deal of weight into superstitions, but living in the Greatwood and possessing a penchant for necromancy, he doesn't dismiss them entirely either.

As Sunjata says it's a long story the boy is ready to tell him not to worry about it, but then the other man is already starting to speak and Niki sinks back a bit in his seat, fingers clasped gently around his mug to listen. Nodding - he's heard that quite a few of Caido's demigods these days were not originally from here, though it has been long enough, he thinks, that the regions have claimed them completely as their own - his head tilts a fraction to the side to hear the mention of his father.

"This is the same man who broke your wing?" He remembers him explaining, that first night they'd met, about the scar that ran through it, Niki's brows knotting as he puts that puzzle piece together with the rest of the explanation. "A duel between father and son sounds vicious. I grew up in an orphanage, so I can only speculate." he remarks, before shaking the thoughts away. "I am sorry that you have to bear the marks from that time. And about your... your husband."

The hesitation is more out of realisation that said husband must not be in the picture for him to have recently parted ways with his fiance, but Niki can't help to catch on it nevertheless.

stay your pretty eyes on course
keep the memories of who i was before

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

SUNJATA

i'm drowning in all these voices in the sea
and meeting all my vices in the ring

Laughing lightly, the Heartless shakes his head softly. “Well, where I’m from, it flooded a lot in Leafchange too.” He murmurs, because they didn’t really have four seasons there. It was three at best, and the rain season took up the vast majority of the time. “But yeah, I get the Ludo trickery. Which is funny, because I’ve never actually met it.” His brows pinch together slightly with the thought, how much he’d warred himself away from meeting it just in case it decided to take on a face from his past he wasn’t ready to see yet.

It descends further from there, down toward the mention of his casual little lore drop about his father with the scar on his face. Perhaps a touch surprised and charmed that Niki recalled the scar on his wing and was able to put two and two together, having admittedly forgotten a decent portion of that night given the whole void-nightmares he saw. “Yeah.” He confirms easily, his smile slanting a little softer.

“I’m sorry.” He says softly of the mention of the orphanage – not just because Sunjata can’t imagine, but he wonders what it was like to completely go without. He’d had his own problems with his family, sure, but he at least had them. And his mother had been the only good thing, aside from his sister, to come out of his whole upbringing. And now they both were gone, too. And given the whole ritual and tradition his previous world had, he’s grateful they didn’t have more children else they would have faced the fate of the orphanage too.

As for his husband, his smile grows a little more somber. “And thanks. He made it out unscathed for a while there after. At least, until the war happened. He didn’t make it out of that one.” Shrugging casually and sipping the coffee to give him a reason to shut up, he swallows it down with a heavy sigh. “But, that’s life I guess.”

so step inside, i ain't afraid to bleed
there ain't a casket strong enough for me

NIKI

"Ah, I see," Niki says with a nod. "I suppose we get our fair share of storms here during Leafchange too." Setting down his mostly empty coffee mug, his eyebrows raise a bit to hear that the demigod hasn't met Mort's herald. "Never?" he says, unable not to sound surprised. "I have never met any of the gods, in truth. Other than a glimpse of them at the Festival of Lights, or back at the masquerade last year." It isn't the same as actually speaking with one though.

Shrugging away the apology, it's with a surprising ease that Niki offers the other man a smile. "No need," he assures him. "I was very young when I arrived there. I do not really remember my parents to miss them." And the orphanage had been fine enough, at least by the standards of those who had raised the children.

The mood doesn't lift for long, though, Niki's expression growing just as sombre as Sunjata continues, fingers fidgeting with the ring on his hand. "Even so, I am sorry for your loss. It might be life, but that does not make it easy." Catching himself, he scoffs out a dry laugh. "Spoken like a true undertaker's apprentice, no?"

stay your pretty eyes on course
keep the memories of who i was before

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

SUNJATA

i'm drowning in all these voices in the sea
and meeting all my vices in the ring

“Not as much as back home, thankfully. Everyone would’ve drowned probably.” He lets the soft laugh slip from his lips, moving past it to hear the surprise that leaves the necromancer’s lips. Nodding to that, because something about Ludo in particular spooked the shit out of him, Sunjata can understand why Niki wouldn’t have sought out the gods on their own. He’d been around Abandoned’s enough to know that it wasn’t very likely they’d get an answer anyway. “Is it something you want to do?” He asks curiously, not haing thought about it as of late given that he’s a demigod. But even still, the urge to talk about his god in particular is there as it always is beneath the pretty exterior Frey had helped keep in place.

His apology to the orphanage comment shrugged off, and for that answer Sunjata can’t help but to nod with a hint of understanding. Perhaps that makes it better – to never know what you’ve lost, so it can’t hurt the way his does. A father that hated him and a mother who’d given her life purely for Sunjata’s happiness. It’s a strange mix, one that he finds he tends to try nad seek out in others despite his best intentions.

He notes the fidgeting and he subconsciously mirrors it with the twist of his wedding ring, aiming to make the mood a bit brighter. “Whoever said life was easy is a liar, I’m pretty sure.” He agrees with a wry smile, one he aims lopsided toward Niki. “Are you happy being an undertaker’s apprentice?” He asks suddenly, as if it’s never really occurred to him whether it was something the abandoned chose or something he was forced into continuing.

so step inside, i ain't afraid to bleed
there ain't a casket strong enough for me

NIKI

"I certainly would have," Niki says with a dark smile, nodding at his leg brace. "This might be shocking to learn, but I am not a great swimmer." That being the understatement of the century. As for meeting the gods, he frowns thoughtfully at that, neither nodding nor shaking his head as he considers. "I... do not know," he admits. "I follow Mort, though that is probably not much of a surprise." Given his magic and his upbringing, he means. "But I do not know that I would have anything to say that a god would find interesting."

Scoffing, he grabs up his mug to finish his coffee, raising it in a toast to Sunjata's comment. Life is a lot of things, but easy? Not in his experience, or in the experience of any of those he's met. "Ah, I am not one any more. Old habits just die hard," he explains of his (former) apprenticeship. "I think I told you. The man I was apprenticed to who owned this place passed away before I could complete my training. So now I tinker and make trinket boxes, among other things."

stay your pretty eyes on course
keep the memories of who i was before

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

SUNJATA

i'm drowning in all these voices in the sea
and meeting all my vices in the ring

Finding the humor in the dark smile as his gaze drops to the leg brace, it gives Sunjata a moment to let his smile quirk playfully. “No?” He asks, surprised and a touch sarcastic. He hadn’t been a good swimmer to start with either, especially not once he’d broken his leg in his youth. But since then, he’d managed to learn well despite it – though some of it does help in having water magic. If nothing else he can figure out how to get himself from point A to point B.

“I thought that too, before. I was accepted when I arrived. Between Safrin at the time and Frey now, I found that they don’t mind listening to my bullshit.” And he’d gone through the great debate to be something more, unable to choose at the time between Attuned and Ascended. Eventually, though, the attuned had won out, and when he’d originally thought he was going to meet with Frey to have them change him entirely, it was Safrin that had answered with a kiss and a macaw shift to burrow into his skin.

Quietly grateful for the conversation, lest he might dwell on the subject of Safrin amongst everything else that’s happened currently, he latches onto the comment and the reminder that the man he’d apprenticed under had passed, Sunjata’s lips quirk a bit more playful. “Like raising up dead things?” He suggests to the comment of among other things, but his initial question still remains. “Are you happy doing that? The tinkering and other things?”

so step inside, i ain't afraid to bleed
there ain't a casket strong enough for me

NIKI

"I know," Niki says with an exaggerated raise of his brows, smirking and rolling his empty mug between his hands. "And you say that, but you became a living, breathing demigod. Of course they were interested in what you had to say." Sunjata is still clearly a league above Niki and the other mortals who scurry along the earth, at least in the necromancer's mind.

Not expecting the casual reference to a magic he keeps hidden from all but a select few people, Niki lets out a laugh that dares to sound a touch boyish. "Like raising up dead things," he agrees. "Perhaps if I continue to practice I can persuade that bear to take a walk home with me. Then I will not have to get lost in the woods to find suitable bones to raise."

Is he happy, though? That's a loaded question, and one that Niki really hasn't ever considered enough to decide if he likes the answer. "I..." he trails off, tilting his head. "I am not... unhappy," he says slowly. "Since the woods opened back up, I have been given the opportunity to meet more people than I thought I ever would. I have travelled to other regions, I have made a friend or two." But none of that really answers the question, he knows, and so he takes the coward's way out and fires it back at Sunjata.

"Are you happy, with your work with Frey?"

stay your pretty eyes on course
keep the memories of who i was before

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

SUNJATA

i'm drowning in all these voices in the sea
and meeting all my vices in the ring

Sunjata lets the warm laugh leave him, sipping the dregs of his coffee left in his own mug before he sits back a little more comfortably, stretching out his long legs to let his grey gaze take in the necromancer with amusement. “Yeah but I wasn’t.” He points out, shooting Niki with far more playfulness than before. “I was just a guy that hardly wanted to talk to the gods at first.” Maybe that sounds similar, huh Niki?

He hears Niki’s laugh though, and a part of him wants to try and draw it out of him more – seeing him liven up like this. “Ooh. There’s an idea.” And, if nothing else, Sunjata imagines nobody else would fuck with Niki if he had that half skeletal bear at his side. Not that he thinks it’s something Niki has to deal with on the regular here in the Greatwood, but you never know.

He lets the necromancer consider his question, though, and answer in a way he doesn’t entirely expect even though it still slightly makes sense he’d answer that way. “That is nice.” He agrees, knowing full well Niki hasn’t answered the question a second time. But this time, he shoots it back over and Sunjata nods. “Oh, very much so.” He answers nearly immediately.

“Frey is… everything, really. They’ve helped me through my highs and my lows, been considerate and caring and never asked more of me that they knew I couldn't give.” It was different than Safrin by a longshot and for that, he’s quietly grateful. “I owe them a lot.” Comes the other comment, one twisting the mood back toward something a little softer before he remembers he’s trying to bring the mood back up. “Though it never hurts that most of my demigod duties are done in my usual day to day.” Sure that the abandoned is wise enough to catch onto what Sunjata’s saying, he does go so far as to wink at him.

so step inside, i ain't afraid to bleed
there ain't a casket strong enough for me

NIKI

It isn't that Niki disbelieves Sunjata - on the contrary, he finds the other man to be surprisingly sincere in almost all of their conversations thus far - but it's hard to imagine the person he's describing. "What changed your mind?" he wonders with a curious tilt of his head. "Did you need their help with something, or...?" Or maybe interest had just gotten the better of him. He's known of a few people in his time that have run into heralds that way.

It is an idea - one that the necromancer is already planning to put into action, if he's honest, though he already suspects it will take multiple trips to get the bear anywhere close to home, if his magical endurance is anything to go by. But then he's (in his opinion) slyly avoided the truth of Sunjata's question and sent it volleying back to him, so he at least has the courtesy to listen.

Granted, he doesn't expect it to be such a quick yes, and hearing the other man speak so candidly and so positively about his god has a soft smile touching to Niki's lips. "It sounds as though they picked well when they chose you," he says. But then Sunjata is looking at him - winking at him - and the heat that floods immediately into his cheeks is there entirely without his permission, Niki clearing his throat and glancing away. "I'm sure that does help," he agrees. "Is that your... duty, then, to Frey?" To sleep around in a brothel?

stay your pretty eyes on course
keep the memories of who i was before

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

SUNJATA

i'm drowning in all these voices in the sea
and meeting all my vices in the ring

The question is kind of a yes or no, truthfully. But Sunjata considers it for a moment, before realizing what truly had him go to the gods entirely. “I wanted to be more than I was?” It comes out like a question, like he’s not sure if that’s a good enough answer. “So Safrin attuned me and I pledged myself to her awhile back. Said I’d be her dagger if she needed one.” Which she took to heart, it seems.

It has him a bit more nostalgic again, though, despite how he tries to hide it. “But Frey offered me everything.” He adds a second after. In terms of Frey picking right, though, Sunjata can’t help but to agree — he thinks he’s done well as their demigod, and he imagines if he didn’t he would’ve heard from them long before now.

“I think so, too.” He agrees just before his comment lands and the dark flush that burns across Niki’s face is impossible to miss. It’s something he can’t help but to lean into, that charming roguish smile tilting on his face that he aims directly toward the necromancer. “It’s only part of it. Unfortunately, I’m not having too many takers lately but I haven’t spent a whole lot of time there either.” He shrugs a tattooed shoulder, like it doesn’t bother him that much even if it kind of did. He had moved back in there, after all. And it was still a coping mechanism.

so step inside, i ain't afraid to bleed
there ain't a casket strong enough for me

NIKI

Niki certainly might not look like it, but when it comes to ambition it appears that he and the demigod across from him speak very much the same language, and there's something quietly impressed in his slate blue eyes that goes beyond godly gifts and reputation. Some part of him that recognises himself, however small, in Sunjata. "It sounds like it was an easy choice between them," he agrees with a gentle nod. "Alas, I am not sure I would receive as warm a welcome." Abandoned are not as well-liked as Accepted, after all.

And if only the subject had kept to gods and ambition he might have been able to continue navigating the conversation with relative ease, but as Sunjata does his best to pin him with his gaze, Niki has found quite an interesting bit of loose thread on one of his sleeves to play with. "Not many takers?" he repeats a bit absently, scoffing out a laugh. "Are they blind or something?" It's a comment muttered under his breath before he can do anything about it, and what a terrible moment to remember those hEARs Sunjata has said he wears.

"I am sure Frey is pleased with your work regardless," he says eventually, rubbing at the back of his neck.

stay your pretty eyes on course
keep the memories of who i was before

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

SUNJATA

i'm drowning in all these voices in the sea
and meeting all my vices in the ring

It was an easy choice between the two gods at the time. And maybe he owes it to Safrin to visit and explain, in a way where it wasn’t life or death, in a way that he can tell her just how much she did mean to him, how much in the crevices of his now heartless self that she still had a bit of a hold on him. She was the mother of his only child, after all.

But those thoughts vanish away in favor of hearing that Niki’s thoughts fall alongside the fact he’s Abandoned. “It wouldn’t be the first time an Abandoned was favored.” He offers out in case it helps. He isn’t sure whether it does or doesn’t, or if it even matters when Niki makes his next comment and it sparks that charming Cheshire grin to bloom on his face.

Because yes, Niki, his hEAR did pick that up. “Maybe.” He answers, quietly charmed that Niki thinks so, and suddenly realizing perhaps that the man across from him isn’t straight with a comment like that. But he’s rubbing the back of his neck and Sunjata hums a little note of agreement. “I think so.” Before he pauses, his voice leaving him before he has a chance to think about how to word it more carefully. “Sorry if I’m misreading the room, but if you ever wanna take a load off and relax, I’m very available.”

so step inside, i ain't afraid to bleed
there ain't a casket strong enough for me

NIKI

"Perhaps not," Niki admits slowly, considering. "They say the Warden of Halo used to be an Abandoned, and he is quite heavily favoured by Safrin," he continues. He knows very little of the man other than that, but it proves Sunjata's point, that anyone can get cozy with the gods with the right amount of skill (and probably no shortage of luck, too).

Those thoughts barely have the chance to sink in for later consideration, of course, when Sunjata is smiling wickedly enough that Niki can sense it even with his attention pinned away from the other man's face. He's already fighting for his life to stifle the heat in his cheeks when the Flood makes it entirely worse, and gods help Niki for falling back on instinct, but he comes to the immediate conclusion that Frey's demigod must be making fun of him.

And that helps, at least, the bitterness in the back of his throat giving him time to stitch together his composure again, and when he exhales a sigh it sounds tired, if not a little more comfortable; this, at least, is familiar ground. "Do I not seem relaxed enough to you?" He asks primly, raising his eyebrows at Sunjata and glancing up at him at last.

stay your pretty eyes on course
keep the memories of who i was before

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!