long road out to recovery

"It's alright. I...I'm just lucky that I have a way to get Remi's attention. I was alone, at first." Sam hugged himself, his mind immediately providing him with plenty of pictures of what could have happened if he had stayed alone. Would his fluid have even stained the floorboards? He was glad to see Jigano sit down, relax. Still though, with the topic at hand he kept hugging his knees, not wanting to look his friend in the eyes. "Not...just me. But...a lot of it was me." The admission was still painful to make, especially after he had professed his innocence for so long. "She came to me in a vision, not long after we went to the Spire. She told me that we had spread the Blight. Me, and Wessex, and any other Ascended who went to the woods..." Hands pushing through his hair and a heavy sigh displayed Sam's anxiety at speaking at any length about this. "She said that it was...worth it. That she was doing something important - and I mean...maybe...maybe it will be worth it. But it would need to be really good." Wessex's words rang in his ears, and he shook his head. "I can't tell you any more than that." Samuel He took a step but then felt tired He said, I'll rest a little while But when he tried to walk again He wasn't a child

The bard was glad that Remi had been close enough to help, though he wasn't aware of the magical stones. He forced the snarl from his face as he tried not to think about what the intruder might have done without the alchemist's interference. Would they have stopped at threats alone? Or would they have tried to make an example of the gentle bookmaker, taking advantage of his meek personality, as Sam had hypothesized? But Sam was not so meek as he had once been. Jigano remembered the story of the ghosts inside the Spire, and he hoped that his friend would have found the strength to fight back as he had then.

He settled back into his chair, but the topic remained a sober and difficult one for them both to face - Sam moreso than him. He exhaled a shuddering breath, nodding slowly at the admission and secretly glad that it hadn't been all Sam's fault, at least. The Voice had likely misled all her children into doing her dirty work, though hearing that Wessex had been as much at fault earned a faint resumption of the growl. He remained otherwise silent, though, trying to let Sam finish without interruption when he was so clearly struggling to get the words out.

"Would anything have been worth it if Ronin and I and the others had died?" he asked quietly into the silence that followed Sam's admission that he was keeping secrets. "For that's what would have happened if the Old Gods hadn't interfered directly. If Arduinna hadn't sacrificed herself. If the very ones the Voice claims are her enemies hadn't stepped forward to clean up the mess she made." He shook his head, shoulders bowed with the weight of what the Voice had done, and what Sam's attacker had done, and all the world's problems coming back to roost on his shoulders again. "She used you, Sam. Used you to hurt the people you care about. And still you keep her secrets? What would she need to do to lose that unquestioning loyalty you give her? Is there anything?" A hypothetical, but an important one. Would Sam become a weapon she could wield with impunity, turned against those he had once called friend? It was a terrifying thought, and it wasn't just the blight still in his system that turned his blood to ice with dread.

Jigano's question, one that Sam had been struggling with himself, made him pause and chew at his lip. He knew more than anyone that The Voice's motivations currently seemed rather immoral. He had punished himself over and over with the thought that he had committed yet another unforgivable sin; that he had once again proven why he should not have ever left his home. "I don't know, Jigano. That's why I'm waiting." He finally said, though it seemed his interrogation wasn't over - more questions came, these ones more pointed. Sam shuffled uncomfortably in his chair and clasped his hands, considering the words over. It was nothing he hadn't thought himself at the dead of night. Finally, he shook his head. "It is not unquestioning. I have spent...so, so many nights not knowing if I have made a horrible mistake by trusting her. But, Jigano, she has also helped me before, in ways you don't know and can't understand." Sam looked up, meeting Jigano's eyes. "I owe it to her to wait this out and see if it works out to be worth it. If it doesn't, then...then I will have to consider my options. Not that I have many, as an Ascended. Most of the Gods won't talk to me and after all of this, plenty of people won't either." Samuel He took a step but then felt tired He said, I'll rest a little while But when he tried to walk again He wasn't a child

The bard looked at his friend soberly, blue eyes streaked with black and hands shaking where they rested on the table before him. To say that Sam's answer was insufficient would be something of an understatement, and his frown deepened. His jaw clenched at hearing that he 'couldn't understand' how the Voice had helped Sam, and his eyes narrowed. "You owe her nothing," he said softly. "Maybe you have forgotten, but I have not. I remember how much pain being an Ascended caused you. You said your family made you an Ascended because they wanted you to be stronger, not because it was something that you wanted. When we met, being an Ascended, being denied warmth and taste and touch, hurt you, and had done so for years."

He hissed as he looked away, fingers digging into the top of the table but remaining clawless for the moment. "She did not give your senses back to you, Sam. Remi and I talked about how to help you, and it was Remi who begged her to allow that patch that lets you retain some of what you had lost. Remi who made that patch, not her. Remi who loved you."

He looked back to the bookmaker and there was a fierceness in his eyes, too controlled to be feral but intense and sharp. "It was not Remi's choice to forget you, Sam, or to forget the love you shared. But it was the Voice's choice to agree to take your memories of being loved from you. To prey upon your first heartbreak and turn it to her advantage. Tell me that feeling as though she is the only one who loves you, who wants you, who understands you doesn't serve her purpose precisely by isolating you from your mortal friends and family and making you dependent on her and her alone, so that you will forgive her everything? So that you will hurt the people who care about you at her behest?" He shook his head slowly. "Trust goes both ways, Sam. If she doesn't trust you enough to tell you why she would have hurt and killed the people you cared for, and used you as the tool to do it, why should you trust her?"

"And I was miserable." Sam insisted back to Jigano, finding himself growing a little frustrated. Everyone else seemed very keen to tell him what his relationship to his own race and Goddess should be; when really very few people in Caido had actually met the Voice themselves or walked even a while in an Ascended's shoes. "I can't hate all I am and turn my back on it, because that's just the same as hating myself for anything else." But Jigano, as he always did, continued to speak and he had some good points. He always did. Sam pushed his hands into his hair and sighed. Talk of Remi that 'loved him' hurt, though it did also contribute to the frustration. Not only was he being told who to worship, but his romantic life judged and appraised. "Jigano, I...I don't know that I entirely trust the Voice." Sam admitted, looking up with a desperately honest shrug. "But I don't trust you, either, when you are so quick to speak poorly of her. You've never given me a chance to tell you how happy shes made me, or what she's done for me." It was a surprise to hear the rather adversial words come from his mouth, but he could not find regret them. "She took away my stammer, and don't you dare tell me that was a part of me I should have kept, because it made me feel embarrassed and stupid everywhere I went. She took away my memories because I asked her to." He crossed his arms and shook his head. "There's no point in me saying all this. I...I don't...I don't want to fight with you, Jigano, not when you've just come back, and I am happy to see you here. I just...I wish someone would try to understand why the Ascended might like The Voice instead of going right to attacking, right away. Just once." Samuel He took a step but then felt tired He said, I'll rest a little while But when he tried to walk again He wasn't a child

Jigano sighed, but there was frustration in it and blighted anger that continued to seethe far too close to the surface for comfort. "No, you shouldn't hate yourself, Sam. You've made the best of what you are, and I'm proud of you for that. But that doesn't mean you have to follow the one who made you that way! And for all that you say you don't follow her blindly... your actions and your words have been fairly clearly the opposite." Because he remembered how staunchly Sam defended the Voice at Remi's wedding, too. That he continued to defend her after what she had done, all for a few bribes which, though they had great meaning to Sam, were clearly less gifts than ways to bind him to the Voice and buy his loyalty in a world without coin. Memories he had asked to be taken... or had he? Had she just convinced him that he had wanted that? The book he had found about Ascended abilities included one that altered memories...

The bookmaker might not have wanted a fight, but the blight within Jigano was aching for one, and though he tried to rein it back it still slipped through in the raw emotion in his voice: frustration, fear for his friend, anger at his goddess. "Sam, I didn't immediately attack her. When I was still new here I went to her Shrines, I tried to speak with her... she wanted nothing to do with me. For all the pretty words she may have told you about wanting to build a better world 'for everyone' the only ones that I've ever heard her speak to with anything resembling warmth are her Ascended, and perhaps some of the Accepted she has hoped to convert to her cult. I even helped Bastien get some bauble she desired, back before she broke trust with me." His jaw clenched and he forced himself to take a steadying breath before he continued. "I gave her chances, and I gave her help, and what did it get me, Sam? She used her damned blight to tear open my soul and take my mind from me! She attacked me first, and people that I care for. Remember that. She turned the blight on your friends and used you to do it, so I wish you would understand why I don't trust her anymore!" He turned Sam's phrasing back on the bookmaker, knowing it was harsh but desperate to get through to his friend.

He exhaled sharply, forcing his voice to lower back to a normal conversational level, though it shook with intensity. "Remember this, Sam: that she turned her weapon against all those who weren't Ascended. That it was the Old Gods who saved your friends and family. This time she didn't ask you to directly kill, but your actions may have resulted in deaths all the same. Next time, if she explicitly tells you to take a life for her sake, without explaining why... will you?" Isuma chirruped worriedly, looking between the two men as if her heart were breaking for them both. Jigano rose with a swallowed snarl and went to the bag he had brought, forcefully tearing it open and pulling out a handful of snow moss to clench in his trembling hands.

Sam was not someone made for prolonged arguments; they reminded him too much of growing up - besides, with someone like Jigano who was so much better at saying just what he wanted, he ended up feeling very stupid indeed. Stupid little Sam, who couldn't defend himself. He stayed silent as Jigano spoke, resisting the urge to curl up and hug his knees. Instead he fiddled with the cuff of his shirt. He did flinch, though, when Jigano grasped onto the moss. It felt like if it wasn't the moss, it would be him. Was this still the Blight..? "...No, I won't." Sam finally quietly said, certain but under his breath, as if scared any words at all would make things worse. There were things he could point out. That The Blight had been more of a side-effect than an explicit attempt to kill (he thought so, anyway), that he trusted Wessex, who seemed to have no problems following their Lady. But he didn't say those things; Sam was looking desperately for a way to please Jigano and end this conversation, with all it's difficult turns and hard truths. There really wasn't a nice way, though. With a heavy sigh he shook his head. "You see the position I'm in. If I leave The Voice, who I still believe has good intentions, swear against her...well. She has control over my body and my mind...I don't know how far it stretches. And she has helped me. And..." He took a breath, trying to work out the best way to phrase his words. "Remi...and you....are both very ready to yell at me at the moment. It makes it hard to not want to go to The Voice. She's kind to me and patient and...she's really not as bad as you think." Looking up, he tilted his head. "On the other hand, if I went entirely to the Voice and swore off my non-Ascended friends, I'd be miserable. I would miss all of you and besides, the Voice has never asked me to do that. But it seems any kind of inbetween measure isn't working, because everyone is angry I dare to even speak to the Goddess that made me. Who else am I going to go to? The Old Gods? They tried to kill me last year." His voice was low, his eyes darting to meet Jigano's for only microseconds at a time. Really, he would love for Jigano to give him a solution. A real solution, instead of just casting off his Goddess, but he doubted anyone in the Hollowed Grounds was unbiased enough for that now. Samuel He took a step but then felt tired He said, I'll rest a little while But when he tried to walk again He wasn't a child

He did see the position Sam was in. Thanks to the Voice's blight he knew exactly what it was to feel like a hostage in his own body. Put that way - with Sam as a frightened captive rather than a willing participant, he could feel a great deal more sympathy towards what his friend was going through.

Except, of course, that everything Sam had said and done before this had indicated otherwise... and he seemed to truly believe that the goddess that had tried to kill his friends – or at least, had been willing to let them die by her hand - had 'good' intentions.

"Remi and I both had people we cared deeply for nearly die, Sam," Jigano said, his voice deceptively soft though the growl still underlay it. "I nearly died, sacrificed to your goddess's ambitions. Worse than death, she would have seen our souls held captive, our minds twisted, and our bodies used to attack the people we loved most..." His eyes widened a fraction as he looked at his friend in dawning connection. Sam had been asked to kill for her as well… and had done so before, placing the goddess’s freedom above even the soul of his beloved mentor. Something the bookmaker seemed to have forgotten… or been made to forget.

”Of course she’s kind and patient with you,” he said, the growl fading to despair. ”You do all that she asks of you without question or concern for consequences, and then even in your guilt you make her excuses for her so that she does not even have to justify the pain she has caused you. Don’t you see? In the same breath you tell me that she controls your mind and body you also say you don’t doubt her. If her intentions are so good, then why does she keep you on such a short leash?” He looked down to the crushed snow moss in his hands and sighed, dropping it back in the bag and reaching in to grab a fresh handful before going to work on the windows.

”If you could go to the Old Gods… if there was a way to become un-Ascended… would you take it?” The words were low, twisting in his gut as he considered the price such a transformation might come at… at how dismissive Ludo was of his ties to the Ascended and Abandoned in his life… at the punishment the gods could meet out for his meddling and his temerity…

But for Sam, not quite family but far more than a friend, he would be willing to try.

"I don't think she meant for that to happen..." Sam mumbled quietly, but he knew it sounded weak. Really, Jigano was not telling him much he had not already considered; he was not at all new to questioning the morals of The Voice. The rational side of him was not as convinced as Jigano of her malice, but was closer than the emotional side, which needed the mother figure she represented desperately; who needed to feel like he'd found something to belong to. Hearing Jigano use his own phrase made him regret saying it at all, especially as he wasn't sure if it was true. "It's not...she doesn't make us do things. It's...complicated. Bastien is Ascended but he doesn't...seem to come along on any of our tasks." Something he actually rather disapproved of, but in this case it was beneficial to his argument. "Maybe you should talk to him about why he chooses to follow the Voice." Sam felt like the artist was probably more confident than he was, even if he was wrong. The question drew another sigh from him, because he knew what Jigano wanted to hear and a year ago he would have provided an ethusiastic yes. Now, though? With his invisibility and his Ascended family, his relationship with The Voice? The way he could use his bites to become more intimate? He wasn't sure. "I...I mean, it's hard to consider, because the Old Gods just wouldn't do that. But...I don't know. It would depend on...on what they would make me, and if The Voice would be angry enough to do anything about it, I suppose. Jigano...I...I know you don't like this part of me, and I'm sorry about that, b-but I don't think it's going to change as easily as you want it to." Samuel He took a step but then felt tired He said, I'll rest a little while But when he tried to walk again He wasn't a child

”Did she tell you that, or is that another excuse you're making for her?” Jigano asked, not bothering to hide the bitterness in his voice. The blight made him less patient, but also more honest; in better times he might have tried to soften the words, to hide the bitterness and the pain he felt at what was seeming more and more like Sam’s betrayal of his unAscended friends in favor of his goddess, no matter the words he used to try and pretend otherwise.

Actions spoke louder than words, after all, but an apology still would have been nice. Sam might have hurt him by accident, but the pain, the weakness, the fear and anger, losing his mind and hurting his friends under the blight’s control… those were very real. The bookmaker had contributed to putting Jigano through that nightmare, one of the worst he could have ever imagined, and all the redhead had done was defend the Voice’s – and by extension, his own – part in it.

And it hurt.

”Bastien followed Safrin and Frey at one point too,” the bard returned, some of the sharpness still in his voice, though it was giving way to despair, for he knew he could not change his friend's mind by now if he hadn't already. ”He followed whoever gave him the shiniest baubles and sweetest words. And as you have said, the Voice’s tongue practically drips with honey for her tools. For all we know he is still following the Voice’s orders, they’re just different from the ones she gives you.” Sam was strong and could turn invisible; if she could command his loyalty to overcome his natural timidity there was a great deal of damage she could convince him to do alongside Wessex. Despite his physique, Bastien’s talents seemed to lie elsewhere, however. Jigano wasn’t sure what the artist’s abilities entailed, but from what he knew and had heard of the man he suspected it had more to do with manipulation than brute force. He seemed more likely to be the Voice’s PR man, rather than her bruiser.

He pushed snow moss into place with shaking fingers, trying not to dwell on whose fault those tremors were. Trying to focus on all the good things Sam had done for him, that they had done together. He wanted to save his friend.

But… his friend did not want to be saved, and Jigano exhaled a shaky sigh. ”That you’re Ascended? No Sam, that part doesn’t bother me. It’s this unhealthy devotion to a goddess who treats you like a lapdog and uses you like a tool that bothers me. I do not know if the Old Gods wouldn’t help, if given the opportunity… from what I have heard of Mort, at least, I think he would be willing to try, even if Safrin and Vi wouldn’t. But they can’t or won’t do so with someone unwilling.” As only made sense with the faith and divinity he was familiar with. ”And I never said it would be easy.” Still… still. He wanted to find a way to ask.

He had to, for the sake of their friendship. Sam had changed his mind once before. He could do so again, and when he did Jigano wanted to have an answer ready for him.

"She told me that." He insisted. He thought so, anyway. Recently with everything going on, his memory was struggling to keep up and besides, he would probably lie to defend The Voice as much as he could at the moment. Jigano's words on Bastien were true, from what Sam was aware, and he regretted bringing up the man's name as an example. Though he was rather sure Bastien was very much not following the Voice's orders; he had not come to any of their meetings or to their quests, had not helped in fights. He seemed to want to be Ascended because it looked cool and let him stay with his wife. "Clearly me being Ascended does bother you, because you're telling me to ask the Gods to change that. To be Ascended means following the Voice. Otherwise...I learnt there wasn't really a point." It was odd to consider. He hadn't been not-Ascended since he was16. Going back on his Ascension seemed to mean going back on his development. To go back to the scared child... These thoughts made him a little more unguarded and reminded him of another fear. "..A-also, I'm scared of what The Voice might do to me if I asked another God to change me." Samuel He took a step but then felt tired He said, I'll rest a little while But when he tried to walk again He wasn't a child

Was Samuel telling the truth? Jigano hoped so. He didn't think that Sam would lie to him. Or at least... not without being told to by the Voice. Then again, his desire to protect her was strong enough that he just might, and the bard hated that he would even have to consider that option.

That the Voice would lie to Sam was a given in Jigano's mind, after what her blight had done to him. She had lost all chances with him - not that she would ever care about such thing, not with him being both mortal and Attuned - but he would no longer champion her or try to stand neutral between her and the Old Gods. "Did she," was all he said, not quite a question, but too weary to be a statement with any energy behind it. Instead he worked steadily - or as steadily as his hands allowed - pushing the moss into the cracks he found while Isuma kept a golden eye on Sam.

The bookmaker... had a point. It wasn't one that Jigano wanted to admit to, but Samuel had changed since they had met. So had the bard. "Once," he said quietly, "you were Ascended without following the Voice. Your abilities, your strengths, your weaknesses... what you were didn't matter so much as who you were. But choosing to follow the Voice when she's hurt your friends... that is who you are, regardless of what your body is." He pushed away from the reading room, coming out to look Sam in the eyes. His own blue gaze was shadowed with the blight. "If that is who you are, then say it plainly. If you will follow her no matter what she asks of you, no matter how you hurt the people around you... at least be honest with us. And yourself."

He shook his head at Sam's fear in wonder, slumping back against a bookshelf, shaking his head slowly. "So you don't trust her after all?" he asked, bewildered at this change in tactics. "If she truly loves you, Sam, if she's as kind and forgiving as you say, why would she begrudge you the right - the choice - to follow your heart, even if it leads you away from her? Fear isn't the same as love or trust or loyalty. Fear is what Zariah used. Think on that, old friend. If you take nothing else from this conversation... think on that."

"I've already told you I don't follow her unquestionably. I've been torturing myself for weeks over if I can still trust her after the Blight. But...she's done a lot for me, and she says it'll be worth it, and I just want to see what it is she has to show. I...I owe her that much. I'm sorry." Sam tried to speak as firmly as he could, wanting to make it clear this was the end of the conversation as far as he was concerned. The fear, though; it wasn't really because he did or didn't trust the Voice. Sam was just scared of everything. Even of this conversation and the way it was going, the chance Jigano might not want to talk to him after...the idea terrified him. "Jigano, I respect you and I really, really do value your opinion. And I missed you deeply, and I'm so glad to see you back." Sam sighed and shook his head. "But for this, I need to find my own way through it. I...I only hope you don't turn your back on me for it - I hoped we could find a way to meet in the middle, maybe. Or just...let's both see what it is the Voice has to show." Samuel He took a step but then felt tired He said, I'll rest a little while But when he tried to walk again He wasn't a child

"But still you follow," Jigano said, voice still soft with the pain of Sam's betrayal. "You might question after the fact, but the next time she says 'come' you'll still go running to her like a loyal lapdog, won't you? And when she says 'Do this thing for me' or 'bathe your hands in blood for me' you will, won't you? Without stopping to ask why? And afterwards you might regret the consequences... but it won't stop you from making the same excuses of 'well, it'll be worth it, because she said so.' And never mind the cost in other lives, the pain and confusion of others at being sacrificed against their will for her ambitions." The bard pushed away from the bookshelf, moving over to the door of his office with the snowmoss and lingering there as shaking hands struggled to fit the key into the lock.

"I have seen what the Voice had to show me," he snarled, but softly, keeping his temper on a tighter leash now. "Darkness and rage is what she showed me, Sam. Losing control of my body and mind and attacking the people I love is what she showed me. Unending night and the enslavement of my soul was what she showed me, and it took the Old Gods to save me from the mess she made and didn't even try to fix. So tell me, old friend, where in all of this is the middle we can meet at? You will follow her through blood and fire even at the cost of the people who love you, and I? I am a victim of her ambitions." The key finally clicked and he pushed the door open, refusing to look back at the bookmaker. "And your idea of 'the middle' is to do what you wanted anyways, to let her have her way, with no thought to what it has cost me, and Ronin, and Remi, and all of those were Blighted or had a loved one who was blighted."

He pulled out another handful of snow moss and went to work once more, the movements shaking and mechanical as his voice went flat and exhausted. "I don't know who loosed the first arrows in the war three hundred years ago, Sam. But I know who did in this one." He shut his mouth with a click of teeth on teeth, biting back words that couldn't be unsaid.

But knowing that they were true anyways.