Gimme the smoke, gimme the heat

// Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars //

"Appreciate the help," he says over his shoulder to Sohalia as they walk to Safrin's shrine. He'd have preferred to go alone, but Sohalia is helping him sort through the threads he's woven, that and Safrin scares him a little bit on a good day, and he's pretty certain this is a bad day. If Safrin's been paying attention (which, do the Gods watch you pee?), she's not gonna be the most welcoming to him right now. 

He's trying to change that though, and who better to help provide comfort to Caly than her mother's touch?

His hands are stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie as he strolls towards the dais, some of the evening chill already starting to sweep in as a storm drops the pressure with it's distant emergence on the horizon line. He draws in a breath as he stares down at the flower-wreathed shrine, and steadily he kneels before it. Using the sleeve of his sweatshirt he brushes off the front of the shrine where the debris of life gather in a layer of dust and grime. He shakes it off before his hand pokes back through, and from his front pocket he slides out a bottle of Viniq Shimmery Liqueur. It's a deep violet and shimmers with the slightest movement, a blend of vodka, moscato, and fruit. Alongside it he places a glass flute etched with golden whirls, one white rose placed inside. 

His offerings complete, he dips his head and lets loose another deep sigh. "Safrin," he says gently, "can you help me make something nice for her?" A better birthday present than all the ones he'd provided. "A kite, like from our date, but one a bit more helpful than fun?"

---

Sohalia will be posting as a rolling buddy! Can he use both his rolls for the season if he fails? If both fail can he spend MP for a quest pls?

With so many spirits around you, you attract the attention of the gods when visiting a shrine. Roll with advantage when praying at a shrine. (In order to use this, make sure to note the ability at the bottom of your shrine post).

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). Residents cannot be cursed at shrines in this region.

Kaisel is questing w/ Safrin for a kite, w/ a smiling cartoon sun image, that can lift you up several feet or forward so you can zip around to safety and across gaps and stuff.

Kaisel

// I could really use a wish right now //

Cheer up and dry your damp eyes and tell me when it rains
And I'll blend up that rainbow above you and shoot it through your veins

Sohalia followed along in Kai's footsteps, picking her way carefully through the long, dry grasses that clutched at her ankles. "Don't mention it," she said, cheerful in spite of the tangled webs that Kai had woven, and that Soh had somehow managed to get herself caught in. Safrin was, after all, one of the more intimidating deities of Caido - at least in Soh's opinion. She'd never quite been able to shake Sunjata's warning to her about the goddess, but she'd also worked with Safrin before as the Heart of Stormbreak, so her experience was admittedly pretty good, all things considered.

As Kai placed his offerings upon the shrine, Soh pulled out her own: a sketch of the night sky above Halo, complete with not only stars, but also the aurora that lit the heavens of the northern region. Beside it, Soh lay a stargazer lily - one of her favorite flowers, but a symbol, too, that she hoped for Kai to be able to look upon Safrin and all her glory to mend what he had broken.

Please, Safrin, she prayed silently. He really wants to fix this. Please help him. After all, if anyone knew how badly the poor dragoon needed the help, it would be Safrin, whose daughter Kai had hurt.

---

With so many favoured in one place, fickle spirits tend to leave you alone. You cannot be cursed when visiting a shrine by a spirit. (In order to use this, make sure to note the ability at the bottom of each shrine post).

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)

the Luminary

'Cause your heart has a lack of colour and we should've known
That we'd grow up sooner or later 'cause we wasted all our free time alone

code stolen from sky who stole it from odd

Safrin

Starlight stretches across the shrine like a held breath, drawn tight and shimmering, and then—

She appears.

Not soft. Not warm. Not the radiant goddess who smiles and coos and offers kisses like blessings. Tonight, Safrin is moonlight on glass. Aloof, perfect, and burning with a contained fury that makes the air feel thinner with every second. She stands barefoot amid the flowers, arms folded across her chest, violet silks cascading like nightfall over sharp constellations. The wind gathers in reverent silence, brushing strands of dark hair from her face as she levels her gaze on Kaisel.

"Her, hmm?" she echoes coolly, voice low and unmistakably unimpressed. No fire—yet—but the embers gleam in her eyes, restrained only by a threadbare mercy. For a moment she says nothing else, just watches him with the weight of the stars themselves. "So you've come to me to help fix things?" she says slowly, tone like a knife too elegant to be crude. " You want my help making something special—for my daughter you couldn’t even name, whose heart you crumpled like paper at her own birthday?"

She glances briefly at the sketch Sohalia has offered, her expression unreadable, before her gaze cuts back to Kaisel like a lash.

"You know what she might like?" she says, a curl of sarcasm undercutting the celestial poise. "If you didn’t accept quests that keep you in constant contact with the girl who made her feel lesser. If you’d thought—just once—before leaping."

Safrin lets the silence hang just long enough before her hand lifts, and stars begin to flicker around her fingers.

"Barring that.."  A snap of her fingers, and the starlight flares. "Here’s your quest, Kaisel." Her tone is a silken blade. "Leap a 30ft gap. Sit beneath the sun and think of Calypso. Not yourself. Not anyone else. Her. How much she means to you. How you will never humiliate her again." The stars above pulse once, as if punctuating each word. "You’ll source the materials for your kite. The fabric must be in her favourite colours. And lastly.." Her eyes narrow. "You will go one full day without speaking a word unless you have triple-thought every one. No stammering, no excuses, no fumbling into things you should have known better than to say."

She steps forward, the dais blooming with soft starlight under her feet. And still, her gaze stays locked to his.

"Do that, and maybe I’ll believe you’re worthy of making her smile again."

---

Kaisel has been given a quest! He must
1. Jump across a 30ft gap
2. Sit beneath the sun and think only of Caly, how much she means to him, and how he'll never embarrass her the way he did ever again
3. Source the materials needed for the kite, the colours of which have to be Caly's favourite ones
4. Finish a thread where he cannot speak unless he's triple-thought about the words coming out of his mouth .

OR

Abandon his quest with Frey right now and immediately get his kite.

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

// Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars //

Her presence is apparent in the way silence is when you're used to noise. It unsettles in a manner that slides against you steadily, a wrong chord humming displeasingly after something that otherwise could have been lovely. He expected it, but feeling it, the unfavorable weight of her attention, it just might be too heavy.

He sucks in a breath and holds it as the first slip of her voice creeps in like frost on a window. He keeps his head bowed with the line of failure he's aware he's drawn, Safrin's feet the only thing he dares to look at. The pause after her first words is long enough that he begins to wonder if she's waiting for his gaze, or maybe just the better angle for his throat. He tilts it up slightly, his exhale finally loosing though it does little to smooth any tension. She continues though, so he pauses, a wince crinkling the edge of his features at the way she describes the party. She isn't wrong, which is by far the worst part of it all. For someone who only ever aims to please, the sting of disappointment cuts deep. Safrin's, sure, but especially Caly's. It's not what she deserves from him, and he's confident he can give her more, that he can fix this.

"What do you mean, lesser?" he asks suddenly, eyes finally finding Safrin's with a flash of shock. He’d thought she was angry, jealous, embarrassed. At him, at a friendship that hadn’t managed to stay harmless, at the mess he made of her party—all reasons he’d turned over again and again in his mind since that night. All of them bad, all of them earned. This though, lesser? The word knocks the breath from his chest like a fall he didn’t brace for. He could take the blade of Safrin’s fury, but not that. Not the thought that he made Calypso doubt her own shine.

His fingers curl against the hem of his hoodie like he's trying to hold himself still, to keep from unraveling right there in front of her. His head is still racing, even as the stars flicker with outrage and words sink in with a bite that begs him to flinch. He's just replaying her party over and over again now, trying to recall each shadowed portion of her face, the way she withdrew, curled in, closed up.

Kaisel

// I could really use a wish right now //

Safrin

Safrin’s silence sharpens. Not the expectant hush of a patient goddess, but the heavy stillness of the stars before they collapse. "Yes, lesser," she repeats, voice ice and starlight. "Because that’s how you made her feel." Her arms remain folded, but there’s a shift—barely a breath, the lift of her chin, the crackle of restrained anger in the light around her. "You parade through life like your desire to do good acts as an armour for the hurt you cause."

She takes a single step forward, the earth beneath her bare feet blooming faintly with night-blooms that vanish just as fast. Her tone softens—dangerously. "You think yourself sweet? Loyal? A man of promises. But you fall apart the moment you’re asked to hold more than one at a time. The moment you have to do something hard." Her gaze pins him like a butterfly to velvet. "It is naive to try and be so much to everyone. Selfish, even. You only offer disappointment by offering pieces of yourself to those around you. No one wants crumbs, not least of all when they can see others have been given a bigger slice."

Her hand lifts. Not to touch—he hasn’t earned that—but to gesture, and with it comes the weight of something more. "You want to be with my daughter? Then add this to your quest." The stars around her ripple like a tide coming in. "You will promise her that you'll put her first, both alone and behind closed doors, regardless of which ones those may be." Her eyes narrow, sharp as fractured crystal. "That should clear up any outstanding promises you've already made. Calypso does not come second. You want her heart? You earn it. And then you protect it."

The stars dim slightly, as if to give weight to her final words.

"Your feelings may be complicated, Kaisel, but that does not absolve you. Complexity isn’t immunity. You are still accountable for what you say and do." She exhales slowly, and only then does a thread of her usual radiance return—a glimmer of beauty softened, not forgiveness. 

---

Kaisel has an additional aspect to his quest! If he wants to pursue Caly, he must
5. Tell her that he promises to always put her first.

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

// Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars //

Her words don’t land on him—they sink in, deeper, like cold through bone, winter settling in his chest. The stars that flicker around her feel less like light and more like shrapnel caught in the air—sharp, suspended reminders of all the harm he never meant to cause. Each truth she names cuts with purpose, deliberate and clean, no wasted edge. He takes them in unflinchingly. He’s always been able to take hits, especially when he thinks he deserves them. They hurt though, and he presses his teeth together until they ache, bracing against each splinter that drives under his skin. He doesn’t argue, because he gets it. That might be the worst part—how much of it is honest.

Her blade not only scores him, it pulls back each layer of good intention he's built up, like armor he wears to feel strong enough, good enough. Beneath it all, he realizes... he still isn't.

His gaze drops. Not in shame, at least not just, but in thought. He sifts through it, and as he's starting to gather up the shards and sit with them, Safrin speaks again. Another requirement, that he promise Caly comes first, always, unquestionably. That her heart become the axis he turns around. He grows very still.

Something in him… resists.

He doesn't do anything for a moment except draws in a slow breath. When he finally speaks, it's with the careful quiet of something thought about at least three times. "I didn’t come here to make a vow like that." His hands fist into his pockets, balling tight with concern he's trying not to show. Boundaries, isn't that what Sunjata told him? The warning makes a bit more sense now. "I came to build something thoughtful. Something that might help her. Something that might bring her joy. A kite, not a crown."

He looks up again, and though the fear is still there in his eyes—fear of her judgment, of failing again—there’s a flicker of resolve. "You’re right in a lot of ways," he admits, sincerity pulled tight through a clenched jaw. "But I don’t think you know what Caly wants. Not if this is how you think you'd help me fix things." He wanted her help making something better than he could on his own, because Caly deserved that. He'd come to her specifically because her touch would carry the most meaning for Caly.

What Caly wants... he thinks she wants something real, something honest. He cares about her, a lot. Enough to want to do it right—that's real. He doesn’t know yet if he loves her though, or if she loves him, they're still figuring it out, and that's real too. So no, he’s not going to nod and act like turning her into his one and only sun is the right call, just because it might be the easiest thing to do right now. And it does sound easy—to agree with Safrin, to pledge everything to Caly and call it fixed. It doesn’t feel honest though, or warm. Loving someone should feel like stepping into the sun, not whatever cold hell this is.

"So, no... I won’t make that promise. Not like this." It feels like stepping onto ice too fresh in the season, saying no to Safrin. This could very well be the moment that undoes everything he came here to mend. Still, he can't find it in him to say anything else, all her terrible love and fury aside, his punishments aside, this isn't what Caly would want. Of that, he is at least certain. "That doesn’t mean I’m walking away. I’m still going to make the kite. I’m going to find the colors she loves. I’m going to think about her—only her—when I sit in the sun. I'm going to build something real, even if it's all on my own."

Kaisel

// I could really use a wish right now //

Safrin

Safrin laughs, and it’s not cruel, not quite, but it gleams with the sharp edge of ice on a moonless tide—too cold, too still, too clean. "Oh, darling boy. I’m not here to help you fix your blunders." The stars around her burn a touch brighter, silvery white and biting. "I’m here for my daughter."

Her head tilts, too elegant to be mocking, though everything in her gaze says I see through you. I've heard every traitorous thought in your head. "You think I don’t know what Caly wants? I know the clench of her heart down to the breath she didn’t take, the moment you chose another before her the night you met. I know the sting felt at her birthday party better than you ever will. What she wants," Safrin says, stepping close enough for her starlight to make the shimmer in the Viniq bottle dance, "is to never feel like a second choice again."

Her voice lowers, velvet-wrapped venom. "Especially not to a girl you slept with after her, and are now determined to keep in constant contact with by visiting the god of sex."  She lets the silence stretch long enough to become a wound, then offers him a smile: cold and dazzling and unkind. "Another promise you're apparently determined to keep. But yes. Go on, build something ‘real,’ " she murmurs, voice like frost winding up his spine. "Alone, just as you say. If only you'd been so careful with your promises from the beginning, you'd not be here now."

Straightening, she turns from him without another word, her light already starting to dissolve into the dusk. "Leave me out of this, Kaisel. I won't lend you my name in some bid to win back my daughter’s favour when you still have other stars in your sky that you're in no hurry to remove."

Then, like a breath between waves, she’s gone.

---

Kaisel's quest has been revoked!

~FIN

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!