Dazed and Confused

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."