Dazed and Confused

ALISTAIR Alistair stepped into the shrine slowly. His mask humming with the minute workings of the gears that worked along the visage. Gear-like eyes with small lenses hissed as they zoomed in and out, attempting to focus on particular points of the shrine. He continued to observe, stepping casually around the various offerings that had come and gone before removing his mask and taking a deep breath of the air around him which held a mix of dew and incense. "I'm from a world of little faith. Truth is, there was never much to put your faith into." Fingers gently moved his mask between them as he took a seat near the offerings. "I'm not sure what to believe anymore. You put your faith in the wrong people and you find yourself questioning everything. I come with no intention to ask anything of you, no motivation. Perhaps, simply conversation, and forgiveness for my doubts." Alistair grinned and shook his head. "I've seen enough to believe you exist...that much I'm certain. That spire, the barrier around us...no man could create such things. Is there even a purpose to them?" He asked as if they gods were present as he spoke, though he wasn't certain. They were under no obligation to respond of course. Though in truth Alistair needed to see for himself there was something more to this world than what his eyes saw. Alistair reached into his pocket and pulled out a grey, nearly translucent stone that he had sanded down and given a smooth finish to. It was carved in the shape of an owl. A smile touching his stubbled lips as he rolled the stone figure between his thumb and index finger before presenting the offering. "A gift for you..." He'd present the small, though genuine offering before taking his seat once more.

"No man could create such things." A disembodied voice tittered gently. "You are quite right about that sweet one." The air around Alistair would shimmer slightly as if stardust from the heavens was suddenly falling around him, illuminated by some ethereal unseen light source. Before the accepted the goddess would suddenly appear, plucked from whatever twilit plane she spent her time in to make her presence known. With unparalleled beauty and a cosmic stare that seemed to invite lingering gazes, the ruby-lipped deity appeared seated on a pillar of marble. Slowly the owl carving rose into the air, gliding towards her long fingers which plucked it gently. A smile tugged at her full lips, and her gaze flashed towards Alistair with a galactic sparkle. "How beautiful. And made by your own hands. Very impressive sweet one." Twisting the carving slightly, Safrin suddenly released it from her grasp, but it did not fall. Instead the wings which had been craved into the stone were freed, and the owl hovered on silently beating wings between the two of them. Safrin The devil is not as black as he is painted

ALISTAIR Alistair had frozen in the presence of such otherworldly grace and beauty. His lips would move but words did not follow...rather embarrassing really considering this was what equated to a first impression with an actual superior entity. Having no ability to form words, the young man knelt down on one knee before Safrin, bowing his head to her. "There's an intimacy in knowing something was created for you. Not purchased or found, but created with nothing but an idea to please you, and two hands. Gracious Divinity, beauty beyond measure and mortal words...I ask but your name...and of one other question, if I may." Alistair turned his dark, soft eyes upward looking to the owl figure he had carved and to goddess before him. "The barrier, The spire...what is their purpose? Is it meant to protect or contain?"

The goddess smiled sweetly. "No need for that." She mused gently. Much as she liked seeing the accepted prostrating himself before her, she'd much rather gaze into his eyes than the back of his head. "The face of a commoner but the tongue of a king." She chuckled as Alistair continued, her radiantly cosmic gaze brightening. The light around the pair continued to dim until it appeared twilight had swaddled them in shades of blue and black, with Safrin appearing like a radiant star. "I am called Safrin." She replied simply, a demure smile upon her painted and full lips. As he asked permission to inquire more, the goddess made a rolling gesture with one of her hands: go on. As he asked of the spire and the barrier, Safrin inhaled gently before levelling the man with a devastatingly beautiful gaze. "Both." The deity replied after a moment, her head tilting slightly as her lashes fluttered. Safrin The devil is not as black as he is painted

ALISTAIR "Safrin " Alistair repeated softly with a smile as his dark eyes bathed in her radiance. "It is said those given such a name are those of immeasurable beauty, unyielding willpower, and courage of their convictions." Alistair was well versed, while not in the studies of gods or spirits, in other meaningful areas such as dialects, though he wasn't sure if translations and definitions carried over...though the accuracy here was startling. "Even still, such words serve you no justice..." As she continued and responded simply, though more meaningful than he could have hoped about the barrier, Alistair nodded. "I've seen no creatures to warrant such protection, only ourselves...humanity. You say both, was it made to protect us from ourselves? What happened here, were we the cause of it? If these are answers you can not speak, I will understand. I just..." Alistair took a breath and shook his head before his eyes found the goddess' once more. Nearly losing his words as he found himself almost lost in her beauty once more. "...I'm just trying to understand. I've seen the best of humanity, and its worst. We're capable of many great and terrible things...If that is the purpose, I couldn't fault its conception." Alistair looked to the owl figure, than to Safrin and smiled as he exhaled his concerns away. "I have never met a deity before...I apologize if I seem eager. You must be asked a great many things, but really people who only speak to you, not with you. I imagine that can become frustrating..." Alistair seemed more at ease as he began to walk closer to Safrin, cautiously as to not offend her. "Are you happy with things as they are?" Alistair asked, unsure if it was proper to ask a god how they felt, or if anyone ever really took the time to. "Or is there something that can be done to please you."

"Oh?" She mused. Here the word had always just meant her. Any connotation originated in the goddess, any tangential meaning was at its core still a reflection of her. "In a way...perhaps in the beginning, long before, we might have thought it was yourselves we were protecting you from. But as your hubris grew and some of you claimed to be more—" Tsking the deity shook her head with clear displeasure. "Now it is the outside world that is protected from what remains locked within. " As he prodded her towards answers of history, the being sighed wearily. "What happened was there was a war. And beings more powerful than I put an end to it the only way they knew how. By cutting off the source of the conflict from the rest of the world." Tilting her head as the mortal man loftily tried to position himself as one of those who might speak with her, rather than at her, she silently wondered how it was someone with no self-proclaimed experience in these waters, was suddenly so eager to go for a swim. "Happy?" Safrin asked, genuine surprise wrinkling across her features like a rock leaving ripples as it was skipped across a pond. Her eyes ancient and knowing narrowed for just a moment as she considered. "In the embrace of eternity, happiness is not for me what it is for you. Things here are contained. As they are meant to be." Many did in fact ask the goddess what they could do to please her. After all, supplicating before a powerful being who'd been rumored to give out boons and her affection to those she valued and adored only made sense. Did she ever feel that they were simply here for her? Of course not. Naivety was not a luxury for a being such as she. Still... "I enjoy hearing my name spoken again. The dusty pages of history books are no place for me." She said simply, a sweet smile playing on her painted lips. Safrin The devil is not as black as he is painted

ALISTAIR "Safrin..." Alistair called, being that the goddess enjoyed hearing her name from the lips of the faithful. He smiled as he straightened out and appeared to be walking toward her. As he neared the goddess his hand would stretch out slowly toward her face. Not that he would even suspect he'd alarm an all-powerful being. It was more as a sign of his intent. "May I touch you Safrin? I've...never held the presence of a being beyond realms, with beauty beyond words. I, simply want to assure myself this isn't a dream of some kind, perfect as it would be to never wake from such a dream." Had the goddess allowed his hand would gently rest against her face, his thumb running in a soft caress along her cheek as Alistair would smile at the sensation that came from such contact. "I've waited a long time to believe in something true." His eyes would close, had his hand been left to rest against her cheek he would bask in the warmth it radiated. "To be born in a world absent of anything to call your own, even a name...I wanted to believe there was something there, a cause for that. Everything, everyone I have invested my faith in, is gone. I was content to believe I was meant to be alone...to place my faith soley in myself, where it would truly matter...Yet you arrive, and in you I see beauty, and hope." Had she allowed it, Alistair would lean over and press a kiss onto the goddess' cheek. "I'm not perfect, there are times where I will be tested...but know that I will forever be thankful to you. For answering me, blessing me with your presence." Alistair looked to the owl figure and back to Safrin and smiled. "His name is Bubo..." Alistair said with a soft chuckle of recollection. "A creation, and a friend I knew long ago. May you find him as endearing a companion as I had." Bubo was a creation of bronze and gears, built by his adopted father to keep the lonesome son Alistair would become. His nose often lost in books, of adventures much like he was living out now. It lacked the gears and the bronze, but the smoothed stone was carved to retain all the charm of its large eyes and puffy cheeks.

A mortal with the gall to try and touch a god? As Alistair hand reached out, he would find that it seemed to strike some invisible sort of barrier. Not quite solid, but he certainly wouldn’t have the strength to press his hand through. He might be an accepted and thus possessing of a heightened status in her mind, but still the goddess demanded respect. And then, shockingly, he gave it. Safrin’s arms spread wide and Alistair would feel almost a tugging as if a small vacuum had been created around her, pulling him close. Briefly thoughts of smiting him where he stood, placing his head on a spike or otherwise disposing of him in a public way came to her mind, but he had surprised her. She had expected him to, as many men would, to simply reach out and touch. To view her beauty and interpret it as something beautiful but fragile. But he had asked, and she could feel his sincerity and would reward it. The feeling of her skin would be indescribable. A close description, were he to try and describe it later, would be like the sensation of a perfectly exhausted body watching a sun set. Or perhaps the exestentiel understanding that comes with observing the stars and realizing how small one really is. Her beauty and the softness of her skin was perhaps the least interesting thing about the experience. As her lashes fluttered gently, untold secrets whispered in her eyelashes and as her painted lips coiled in a smile, the world would seem so easy and bright in her presence and with her understanding. “You have believed in that which was true before. Those truths have merely changed.” She soft softly. Then with a delicate laugh, she pulled his hand away from her cheek and held it between her own. “Beauty and hope? Perhaps in time you will find I am capable of inspiring much more.” She whispered as if merely to herself, tracing the lines on his palm with a fingertip devoid of the whorls that would normally make fingerprints. “And who do you believe is testing you darling one?” She asked, curious. Did he think them? Fate? A higher power? Himself? As he leaned forward, the goddess endured. Though normally she would not permit herself to be kissed like this by a mortal, Alistair had earned himself this with his earlier actions. As his lips pressed against hers, again he’d be filled with that temporary and uncanny sense of purpose and place in the world; his body invigorated and his mind soothed and honed to something ready for whatever he might set it to. “Bubo..” She mused, tasting the word on her tongue. The owl fluttered as attention was focused on it once more. The stone wings fluttered soundlessly as it glided to sit gently on her shoulder, peering down at its crafter with wide and star-sparkly eyes. Safrin The devil is not as black as he is painted

ALISTAIR The mere presence of the goddess proved enough to ease every concern. Though he wondered if or when she left would he return to feeling lost, without a place or purpose. To feel such insecurities was considered weak. At least that's how Alistair felt, though when Safrin asked just who was testing the young man he thought a moment. "I'm testing myself. Constantly. I trusted someone, some time ago. She was broken, lost without a place...much like myself. I try to be hopeful, I try to believe in the best of people. That deep down, even the darkest depths will soon shed light. It seemed we found a place with each other..." He recalled the day he found Ashetta smoldering in a field. He and Mimora finding this naked girl, who appeared as surprised to be found as they were finding her. The time he went to check on her and how the day never ceased to end. The sting of her sudden abandonment still lingered, though the longer he thought of it the less he was surprised. She did, after all, leave Jasper...who was Alistair to think he would fall any differently? It was foolish to think she'd drop such bad habits...he only assumed it would be a continuous pattern of abandonment until only she remained in an island, isolated by all the bridges she had burned. "...I was a fool investing so much in someone who viewed me as so little. I test myself. I have this inability to shut off this great empathy I feel for others. It has cost me almost everything, with little or nothing to show for it. I'm am, in this world, as alone as I had arrived in the former." Alistair than turned and watched as Bubo found a perch on Safrin's shoulder, tilting his head curiously that the stone figure had animated itself, before realizing nothing should surprise him about this world. He was speaking to a goddess, everything else was merely icing on the cake. A grinned at the stone owl. "I should give up, I should become something...someone bitter, angry...but I can't. For better or worse my selflessness is my burden." It's just who he was. While Alistair found some measure of good in selfish ways of appeasing his desires with Rexanna and the freedom she allowed in their random encounters, deep down Alistair was still humble and selfless as he ever was. "Is it possible to remove a curse from a god?" Alistair would ask, curious if there was an alternative to the curse Frey had passed onto Rexanna, as she described it. "There is a god a friend had spoken of...Frey. Who has passed on a curse taking the voice of a young woman who can only speak in a manner that would lure others in with sensual intent. She doesn't strike me as someone who wouldn't be bothered by it otherwise, but if there was a way to restore her freedom...if there is an alternative to break the curse given to her, I would be indebted to you Safrin."

Safrin listened, and as Alistair spoke the world seemed to slow. This sort of mortal fumbling for love and abandonment was not something a cosmic being such as herself could empathize with, but her understanding was no less overwhelming for her galactic perspective on things. "For everything there is a season darling." She whispered, her breath like the primordial soup of the universe. As the man breathed it into his lungs he would feel as content as he ever had. "I could remember all traces of her from your mind...but even her transgressions have proved your victories and made you who you are now, a man with the nerve to touch a god." Her lips quirked slightly Selflessness...Safrin shook her head slightly. "You mortals are so quick to place yourselves in boxes, giving your destiny a name based on your past actions. You are not what you have done, Alistair. You are not your past. All life is transmutable." She would know after all. His latter question however made her pause and narrow her eyes slightly. A curse? Now just who was going about offering up curses? She knew some of the genies and djinn could make some unsavory deals, but a curse? At the mention of Frey's name, Safrin's jaw set and her expression turned stony. She might have known. "There are...ways.." The goddess said, pulling back from Alistair and crossing her arms in an extremely dissatisfied fashion. "None of which are currently available. Not from within this sphere." Tapping a finger against her arm, the deity sighed. "It is not in Frey's nature to simply curse...I assume there is some requirement given to your friend?" Though she could not break what Frey had done, perhaps she could help with the completion of whatever it was her counterpart had asked. Safrin The devil is not as black as he is painted