[Training] no one told you to breathe

SUNJATA

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

A smirk crosses his face as soon as he’s wiping away some of the dried blood, inspecting the cut and offering a small amount of approval to how sharp she’s kept the blades. But then he’s taking a deep sip of his own glass of water, moving to sit along a barstool that’s beside another – settling so his healing body might have a chance at recovering a bit more without him standing. “Ooh.” He contemplates with a hum of a laugh. “Find some fancy ones from another place we haven’t been to yet. I bet they’ll have a great story.” He sets the glass along the table, offering her another grin.

But of course, he hears the implications in her words, in what she’s telling him. A ‘you too’ that means so much more. “I will.” He reaffirms to her with a quiet laugh. “The plans now are just… Well, the wedding’s been moved to Longheat. Hotaru has to help Wessex with rescuing a deity I guess.” He rests an elbow on the top of the table, cradling the side of his head in it as he focuses on his niece. “I was supposed to go with, but I’m giving it a pass all things considered.” Perhaps that might be a boon enough for her, to realize he could say no.

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

MELITA

“Exactly!” The beam of her Cheshire grin was a radiant thing, when it wasn’t demonstrative of the savage, nefarious, emboldened reaches of her spirit. Maybe a weapon from everywhere she visited – a visual representation of arms, defenses, and sagacity mustered, melded, molded within time. It put another hope and vitality into her breath, a little hum in her throat as she sipped her water.

His affirmation caused another quirk of her brow, but she didn’t fight it, didn’t break apart the repose this time. His plans sounded simple, when they knew they’d likely be anything but, given circumstances, weights, and the world they lived within. Perhaps it was nice to dream of stretched out seasons where nothing monumental, scarring, or damaging happened, fleeting, tenuous, meant to be tangible.

But then there was other information notched and loaded, causing the slightest narrowing of her eyes. She figured Hotaru capable enough, and she’d yet to clearly get herself into as much hot water as Sunjata, but the other particulars stood out. Namely Wessex, rescuing a deity, and for once, her uncle opting out of danger. Maybe some brain cells were finally kicking in. “Rescuing a deity? What other ones are there?”

help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts

SUNJATA

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

Her question ignites something that he isn’t sure he can fully answer. Not without learning more from Wessex, but what he can offer is exactly what the demigod has told him previously. “Seasonal deities, I believe.” He rumbles, a thoughtful look crossing his face while he considers it, the explanation. He half turns in his chair, keeping his head propped by a hand as he lets his steel gaze linger along Melita’s face. “So, Halo has the Eirachi, right? The Deepfrost goddess.” He muses, pausing a beat to let her answer if she wishes to.

“There’s another one, trapped somewhere warm with lava and heat. She needed help getting them free. Not sure what else it entails.” He leans forward then, pulling his hand away from his face to take a sip of his drink. “I'm not sure how many more there are out there.” Would this one, given the warmth and heat of the new place, be their Longheat equivalent? He doesn’t know, won’t be there to find out. And so he lets the information linger in the air, for her to pick and pull away at it as she pleases.

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

MELITA

“Seasonal deities,” she mused and repeated, sipping more water, considering it as she swished it along her teeth and cheeks. How many more heralds and cosmic beings were there? Were they all ensconced, trapped, underneath some greater plain, some tidal wave of coiled powers? Why had they been smothered and hidden the entire time? Some portion of her dreaded the outcome, mainly due to Kaos and all the other unraveled multitudes that came from the false paragon’s actions. Another remained insatiably curious, a little envious of the upcoming adventure – but then again, she’d have her own soon enough.

One deity, if they were segmented into such elements, surrounded by lava and heat contorted up her alley – a small measure of sorrow clenched over her heart, for the loss of their beloved Sun God, no longer amidst the Dragon’s Throat (no one was). “Well, if we’re going by seasons, then it’d be four total, right?” She wrinkled her nose in jest, before her fingers starting on the edges of her cup. “A Longheat herald sounds wonderful.”

help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts

SUNJATA

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

Sunjata, prior to arriving here, hadn’t had any encounters with gods. His only ones so far in this world had been a brief recognition of Ludo when he’d followed Melita as a macaw. Then there was Frey, and he’d had far more than enough of that deity to last what he hopes is the rest of his life all things considered. But Safrin, Safrin was the one that had made him, changed him, fixed him when he was falling apart. He doesn’t imagine he’d be so easily swayed to someone else, even if the seasonal gods appeared to be just as powerful.

He leans back in his seat then, propping a leg up on the footrest as he considers her question. “{say]One would think, yeah.” He muses with a huff of a laugh. “How much do you wanna bet it has a short temper?” There’s a crooked smirk that crosses his face with that, his gaze sliding over toward her with a conspirator’s glint within them.

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

MELITA

Melita had always been enamored with the sun, with molten potential and infernal partakings, the collection and assortment of fire, embers, cinders, power, and prestige curling into conflagrations. She’d wanted to be the latter, all twisting, contorting, distorting eaves and ribbons of danger and treachery, a seditious spread, and had stared at their beloved Sun God with wide-eyed wonder at everything he’d ever encompassed. He’d been gone for a long time, sacrificing himself amongst and amidst the mess, the disaster, the toil of the world – but to hear of something cloaked in summer, made her smile impish, sipping from her water daintily in thought. Now she had Ludo, or Ludo had her, or none of it at all – and she should’ve shrugged it all away. “That sounds cliché.” The youth laughed, one hand reaching down to scratch at the top of Fangorn’s head.

Ignoring the fact that she had a short temper and fuse.

help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts

SUNJATA

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

There’s a rogue smile that crosses his face at her retort, aimed to be amusing and ridiculous all the same, pleased when he sees that it works. “Of course it does.” He replies a bit wryly, but there’s some amusement that still peeks through. Especially when he turns to her, his hand lifting to tug at a stray lock of red curls, a dark brow raising in his playful defiance. “Sounds like someone else I know.” He rumbles, before he turns back to his glass of water, to the pitcher, filling his glass again and then her own.

He sets the pitcher back down on the countertop, lifting his glass again to take a deep drink from it, before he’s focusing on Melita again and the bar that surrounds them. “What do you think about it?” He questions, tilting his glass a bit, fingers tapping along the side of it.

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

MELITA

His words conjured a snort. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She stuck her tongue out, vastly immature, but a string of curses didn’t end up following; so perhaps Sunjata’s luck held. She obviously did; a child born in the desert, in the ethers of fire and molten heat, beholden to infernos and dragon wings, had always been entangled with shorter fuses and an increased propensity towards armaments. Insatiable and curious, avaricious and rampant, a fervent display of irreverence and wonder. Capable of great compassion, but also treachery, violence, and vehemence, prone to justice and vengeance at the sizzle, the spark, of something untoward. “You say it like it’s a bad thing.” She sneered a little, an open snicker, before resuming sipping her water.

But her uncle’s question confused her, brows furrowing together, swallowing down the liquid, then holding the cup in her hands, placing it along her thighs. “About more gods?” More beings? More heralds?

help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts

SUNJATA

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

“Of course you don’t.” He hums, voice dripping with sarcasm as he focuses on his niece and her audacity to stick her tongue out at him. A small laugh slips from him, however, as she sneers a bit, sipping from her water after igniting a wide grin to spread across his face. “It’s not.” He offers with another quiet huff of laughter, shaking his head and tearing his gaze away from her to look about the rest of the bar. “I’d say it’s a family trait.” And in a way, it was, at least from Sunjata’s experiences with Korofi.

Tempers were often quite short, but it was something he was consistently trying to work on.

As for the question of more gods, he nods his head as he sets the glass along the countertop again. “Yeah. If there’s more, ones for each season, what does that mean overall? Does it matter? Do they interact with the heralds at all?” Such musings were likely just spurred on, blurted out without much thought to them, but there’s nothing he’d want to take back.

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

MELITA

Melita knew exactly what he meant by family traits: not her mother’s blood, gentle and compassionate, not her sister’s inherent generosity or mellifluous grace. She’d been stung by her father’s inclusion, favoring predilections and cinders, ashes and embers, turning to insolence, vengeance, and flames, twisting her armaments before her as threats unhinged and unfurled. You can’t destroy me she would’ve howled into the void – even though it’d taken almost everything else of hers – too feral, too wild, too savage, too determined.

Because for all her warmth and tenderness, she still would’ve liked to burn cities down.

“I only react that way to those who deserve it.” An imperial, joking air came over on her face, a lift of her chin in rudimentary defiance, a mocking gesture that she was holier-than-thou, when it’d never be the case. She simply wouldn’t let the world take over her; seditious and irreverent to the embittered end.

Gods and deities shifted topics though, and she found herself staring at her water, while immersing some faction of thoughts. “What would they have control over? Do they take portions the heralds don’t have to?” Or the Big Gods? “What do we need them for?” A shrug for each inquiry in return; because she didn’t know. Could only muse, could only speculate, could only wonder.

help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts

SUNJATA

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

“Based on my experiences, those who deserve it outnumber those that don’t.” He comments, shooting her an easy grin. No judgements on his end, having felt as though he’d been on that receiving end more than once and not intending to keep the track record of that.

But the conversation shifts to talk of deities and gods, of seasons and what their purpose is. There’s a slight frown that crosses his face as he tries to think of what they’d be in charge of. “Not sure.” Pausing to take a sip of his water, he continues. “Rumor has it the Deepfrost one is huge about bargains and will retaliate if they’re broken.” His mind flickers back to Wessex and the information given of Halo’s tough Deepfrost.

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

MELITA

Melita was no stranger to vengeance, to justice, to revenge. It bit, tore, and snapped along her veins, viper intentions in her blood, seditious spread of irreverence and revolution brewing, brimming, simmering just below the surface. Too much fire, too many experiences where the world cracked, frayed, and nothing happened but derision and catastrophe. Her grin matched his then, a little marked in conspiracy, in devil-may-care platitudes, eyes roaming over the boxing ring and its assortments, thoughts instantly churning to those like Kiada, like Loren (tentative truces, perhaps), to everything else notched in the fortitudes of her unrest. "I agree."

Bargaining with deities drew her smile away; she’d long since forgotten what she’d given and granted to Ludo (a memory; something that no longer haunted amidst the calamity of plenty others). It reminded her too much of Kisamoa, sickly sweet promises dyed in lies, coaxing kingdoms, other cosmic beings, to his resurrection, to his eventual desecration and devastation of the sovereigns they’d loved, the people they’d cherished. “No thanks,” she grumbled.

help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts

SUNJATA

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

A hum of a laugh is given back toward Melita, and naught much else. The laugh is an easy agreement, knowing full well that the girl would much rather harbor those instincts of fire and fury, though whether it was because she wanted to keep those that had burned her once far from being close once again, is hard to say.

It’s easier to focus on the bargaining with gods, of all of those things. And while Sunjata wasn’t versed in gods prior to the arrival in Caido, he agrees with her once again. “Yeah…” He trails off with a small snort, a shake of his head, a slight click of his tongue as he considers it. “I’m not much one for that either.” Safrin was something else, she’d made him Attuned, made him strong, and so he’d always find the need to thank her for that. He can’t see himself straying to make bargains with anyone else.

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

MELITA

“Kisamoa did that with Kiada,” and whoever else the false paragon managed to snag. Tricked, deceived, permitted powers to wane and grow in return for favors, while the rest of them were massacred, destroyed, and decimated. Her features drew into harsh lines, furrowed brows, fingers clutching her glass harder. Her voice didn’t wobble though, stern and strong, because she’d related these over and over again in her mind, in her memories, in her contempt. “And before I was born,” meaning she’d heard the stories from elsewhere, her mother, and legends passed along, “the Goddess of the Moon manipulated another into murdering several others.” Her eyes didn’t go to him, for she wasn’t implying Safrin was the same – she’d met the herald – but noted them all with an air of caution. Maybe she should’ve swung it back upon herself too. Maybe it would signify nothing – different gods, different beings, different methods.

But then she recalled how Ludo had asked Roana to go slay an Ascended, and her heart lurched.

help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts