i came and sat in your pew

WESSEX

It’s easier to find Kiada than it is Elide. Knowing what she knows Wessex makes the assumption that the woman is probably living with Chulane. And she vaguely remembers the way to Chulane’s place, her feet carrying her there almost on their own, murky, blurry memories guiding her instincts. The snow throws her off, but she eventually manages to find the building.

She probably should have called ahead, but, well, what’s the fun in that? You know, other than never getting forgiveness for that expedition to the Climb. An element of surprise means the can't run away. Except Kiada isn’t like that... the Wraith likes to think that this is a conversation needed on both ends. For different reasons.

A knock on the door announces her arrival and the blonde Queen steps back a bit, leaning back on her toes and waiting to see if anyone’s home.

there was a time that we were kind, but now
don't write me, you're not fooling anyone

KIADA

You think I'll be the night sky,
so that you can be the star?

She’s home, fiddling with a few things there and there as she always did, readjusting her notes and plans for the Ningo farm as well as sharpening weapons for more training when she hears the knock on the door. A quick glance around to land on what she and Chulane had planned for the day assures her that there’s nothing she should be expecting. No deliveries, no… Visitors. So it’s with due caution that she approaches the door, a knife in hand that’s hidden by the wood of the door as she cracks it open to peer at who sits on the other side.

Perhaps she’s a bit on edge. Who could blame her? There’s a sigh that leaves her as she opens the door further, realizing it’s Wessex, unable to entirely look at the woman. After all, the last time she’d seen Wessex had been the day she died. She’s still coming to terms with it all, who could blame her? “Hey Wessex.” She says softly, perhaps a bit defeated, gesturing to allow her to come into the home with the knife she’d held in her hand that she planned on using for whomever had come to attack her.

“Are we… Leaving now?” She asks through a confused, almost dull tone, closing the door behind the Wraith and leads her toward the kitchen seating area.

i'll swallow you whole.

WESSEX

“Kiada,” the older woman replies, not quite as softly, but softened by the tone of the greeting. She can’t miss the refusal to look her in the eyes, the way the young woman sounds so… disappointed to see her.

Well, it’s not like the two of them were terribly close. And she had died while on a mission led by the Wraith. It’s understandable - a punishment she’ll bear with full acceptance. Except for violence; she eyes the knife briefly and makes a quick decision about what she would do if necessary, but - ah, no need. Good.

Following Kiada into the house, Wessex stays a ways away from her if at all possible, trying to give her whatever space she needs to process whatever it is she’s feeling. It sounds confusing. The question she asks is confusing, and the demigod finds herself looking back at Kia with knitted brows. “Leaving… for where?”

there was a time that we were kind, but now
don't write me, you're not fooling anyone

KIADA

You think I'll be the night sky,
so that you can be the star?

The knife is put away, the Wraith allowed in, and Kiada shutting the door tight behind her. She guides the Queen to the kitchen, before she takes a seat, her question aired with a bit of apprehension, dark brows furrowing together in confusion as she asks where they were leaving to. Her head tilts, having evidently misjudged the idea of Wessex’s visit. “For the Grounds.” She says as if it’s the only thing that makes sense to her.

But perhaps there needs to be more explanation. “Don’t we have to go to the Grounds for LongNight?” She asks, carefully watching Wessex’s face for a reaction, a response. She still doesn’t want to go, but there’s a stronger part of that keeps telling her that she simply won’t get the choice, that it’s the cards that have been dealt, and that she simply needs to deal with it.

And so she is. She’s dealing. And coping.

i'll swallow you whole.

WESSEX

Ah, of course. A stupid question on the Wraith’s part, but the realization slowly dawns on her that very few people know the mechanics of her teleportation - and why should they? Of course Kiada must be thinking that.

“Oh,” Wessex says aloud. “Right. As far as I know, that’s what the Voice said. Everyone must help. But I don’t know how you’ll get there.” A pathetically helpless shrug accompanies the admission. “My teleportation doesn’t work that way. It’s too far to bring a person with me, and I don’t know a physical path between Halo and the Grounds.” The Draig Cordillera, she thinks is in the mountains beyond Halo? And are those the mountains she sees beyond King’s End? Like hell she’s making a pitstop in the Draig any time soon.

“I actually came to check on you.” Trying to make herself as soft and gentle as she can (no easy feat, and it’s up to Kiada if she achieves it), Wessex’s head tilts a little to one side as she tries to catch the young woman’s eyes.

there was a time that we were kind, but now
don't write me, you're not fooling anyone

KIADA

You think I'll be the night sky,
so that you can be the star?

Kiada has no idea the boundaries Ascended upgrades have, aside from her own. She’d grown too used to attuned shifts that lingered under her skin, to have a part of her that activated without knowing the full potential of them until tested, was something that she’d admittedly not done a lot of yet. But her confusion is evident, remaining when Wessex explains, a tilt of her head that would have once been avian in nature simply seems stagnant and even – robotic to an extent. “Oh.” She puts it simply, brows furrowing and her gaze dropping to the lines in the table, tracing them as she tries to figure out if that meant that the Ascended here would even be going at all if that were the case.

Or if she’d be stolen away yet again.

She can’t help but to purse her lips slightly as Wessex informs her that she’d come to check in on her, the Harpy’s head lifting and letting her iceberg gaze focus on the Queen, trying to hear the softness of the tones in her voice for what it was, but failing to get very far. “I’ve been dead for three seasons.” She says matter-of-factly, her tone flat. “And everything has changed.” Though what did she expect? Everything to stop when her heart did?

There’s a sigh that leaves her, a foreign feeling despite how much she wishes it calmed her. “I don’t want to go to LongNight in the Grounds. You know… I had a quest, before I died, to kill the monster in the Grounds that held my ex-boyfriend’s soul. Jigano and I tried and we couldn’t. It was too strong, it had… Tar that coated my wings and everything. And it told me that the only way it would be fair would be to give them the amount of upgrades I felt were equivalent to his soul.” Her gaze lifts to Wessex then, a hidden steel within them, of how much she hated it. “That’ll be… Three years since then, this coming LongNight. I never did it. I couldn’t ask that of anyone nor could I come up with a price for his soul.” Her fingers tap along her leg.

“So I guess to answer the question, I’m not fine.” She’s angry, she’s upset, she’s just now trying to get used to being alive and yet completely different again.

i'll swallow you whole.

WESSEX

To some extent, this is expected. One does not simply return from the dead untraumatized, not after dying the way Kiada had. The rest of that fateful paty is gone in some way or another; Hotaru and Loren are missing, Amalia is now Kiada’s enemy and lives in Stormbreak - the only one left to come and maybe talk it through with her is Wessex. The least ideal choice, but no one ever said the Wraith doesn’t step up to the plate when she has to.

She listens quietly, still and observant under what is not quite an assault, but certainly not exactly a friendly conversation either. She can hear the anger and pain in Kiada’s voice - see it when she meets her gaze - as she seems to oscillate between flat numbness and righteous frustration.

“I didn’t expect you to be okay,” Wessex replies after a moment. “I wouldn’t expect anybody to be okay - except for maybe Edy - and that’s only because I think she’s just happy to be back and able to fuck anything and everything.” She grins a little only because the contrast is so stark, and well, probably true. She’s heard Edy’s dick is a sight to behold.

All joking aside, the Wraith remembers her story well. She also remembers volunteering to help Kiada take care of that monster, a task she hadn’t agreed to lightly. “I remember. I said I’d help you defeat it.” And here she is, being presented with an opportunity to do the exact thing she wanted to do - only she doesn’t have to do it alone. She has far more now than Jigano don’t even get her started about that selfish fuck could ever offer her, even with his fucking lantern and magic and shifts. “I stand by that promise.”

“And it’s okay to not want to go back. To be mad about it. The situation sucks for everyone who didn’t vote to do this.” It might even feel like an expected debt, like they have to do this because The Voice brought them back. It’s not how Wessex wants to think of it either, but the reality is that they’re all getting a quick introduction into the meaning of the Ascended family, that they made a choice and this is what it means to be an Ascended now. “Talk to me,” she urges, trying to coax the young woman’s fears out of her. “Tell me what else you’re thinking and let me see if I can help with anything.”

there was a time that we were kind, but now
don't write me, you're not fooling anyone

KIADA

You think I'll be the night sky,
so that you can be the star?

Kiada doesn’t recall ever meeting Edrei, so the jest goes over her head – it doesn’t alleviate the feeling in her gut, that frustration swirling with upset that has barbs choking on her throat, has her tongue sharpened and honed. Unblinking eyes focus on the Queen when she tells her that she didn’t expect the Harpy to be okay. And that’s good. Because she isn’t okay. And she recalls the offer that the Queen had made to help the monster that held Ru’in’s soul, but that was pointless now too. She couldn’t bring it back to Ludo, not without getting struck down.

So what was the point, then?

She tells her it’s okay to not want to go back, she brings up a vote that has Kiada’s eyes narrowing. The offer to talk makes Kiada not want to say anything, but Wessex was here, and she was offering to listen, and Kiada’s got seasons of pent up frustration and upset that she can’t keep her mouth shut entirely.

So she looks down at the table, shakes her head, offering a quiet unamused laugh. “A vote, you said? How many people voted for it that are dead now? How many of us came back to replace them who probably don’t want to be conscripted into a fight with the monsters that we don’t want? We just got back.” Her hands fall into her lap, fingers fiddling with one another. “How many people who voted to fight actually still want to? Or are they doing it because they were told to?” Her head shakes again. “I get… What, a few weeks of time with Chulane again before I’m whisked off to the Grounds? What if I don’t come back again? After all, my own mother died last year. I don’t want to do this.”

i'll swallow you whole.

WESSEX

Ah, there it is. Chulane. A reasonable fear. A more-than-reasonable reason to not want to come. She has her thoughts about Kiada’s thought processes but does her best to remind herself that the young woman is coming to terms with many things and none of them are insignificant.

She nods, indicating that she’s heard it at understands. “Have you talked to the Voice at all about this? How you feel and your - very reasonable - fears?” If she could, she'd leave Kiada and Elide here, she'd pack Azrael and Bastien and Sam off to Torchline. She'd recruit other fighters, not just the Ascended.

Wessex knows, of course, that Kiada hasn’t talked to anyone from the Grounds who’d voted to do it (when would she have done so?) Who’d sat in two meetings and said yes, over and over again. Who were warned of the consequence and the options and still opted to take out the evil the Voice had let loose. Not just for themselves, but for everyone whose lost someone at LongNight.

But until Kiada is ready to have that kind of conversation, until she’s ready to move past her own feelings and consider the bigger pictures in motion, the Wraith will keep that part to herself. She'll also keep her mouth shut about how Rexanna was killed by Safrin and Deimos, not the Monsters. Something tells her that wouldn't go over very well right now.

there was a time that we were kind, but now
don't write me, you're not fooling anyone

KIADA

You think I'll be the night sky,
so that you can be the star?

Has she talked to the Voice about it? No. What good would it do? She’d been burned time and time again by gods, by promises that they were different, and in the end they were all the same. And what would she have to bring becoming newly Ascended? She was new, unseen aside from when she stepped back through the veil with the rest of them. She wouldn’t be listened to. The Voice could promise her time and time again that it would be different this time, but it was Kiada’s trust that was hard to capture. No longer was she the fiery girl that broke through the crowd to face Kisamoa and scream her pain and anger to him.

Instead, she has become ash. Floating on the winds of change without any idea where she was headed.

“I haven’t. Who knows if she’ll even answer me.” She says simply, the tone of her voice flat enough that she can hear Auni trot in to settle by her feet — the Luxere having outgrown its wariness of her return, even if the creature wasn’t bonded to her any longer. Just another reason to feel alone and like the world had moved on. Absentmindedly, she reaches down to scratch between his ears.

She takes a breath she doesn’t need, letting her gaze lift again to Wessex. “How many of us that have come back want to fight, though? How many people’s minds may have changed? I don’t know when you held the last vote but I do know that I’m still trying to get used to this body and this Ascension, let alone mentally. What about us?”

i'll swallow you whole.

WESSEX

“Kiada,” Wessex chides gently against the flat refusal to believe the Voice would answer her. “She’s like any other God with her tendency to answer or not. You’re Ascended. You chose to be, just like any one of us who did before dying. There’s no difference. Why wouldn’t she answer you?” How could she ever feel the Voice’s love for them if she didn’t actually go to a shrine and pray?

Wessex doesn’t know Kiada’s past lol or her trust issues with deities and the world at large. But she can imagine there’s something else going on - more than meets the eye. More than they could fix in an afternoon.

She doesn’t have an answer to some of her questions, and what she does have is unlikely to pacify Kiada. It’s unlikely anything the Wraith says here will help, other than giving in to her demands, and well, she couldn’t - wouldn’t - do that. “We voted in Flowerbirth, and no one’s said anything in the year since then. You, and everyone else who came back were unexpected - fuck, do you think I would have missed something like that?” She shakes her head. No, she wouldn’t have missed it for the world. But she did. “Still, no one spoke up all season.” Not a peep. No note. No hey can I speak to you in private? No what the fuck are you doing?

She sighs. “So here we are, right before LongNight and I’m not stupid, I know people are scared. I’m doing all I can to help everyone prepare.” Literally, there’s no way she could do more. “Getting rid of the Monsters has been a goal for a couple of years, and while I’m not trying to minimize how difficult this is - I don’t think it’s fair to all of a sudden change our plans.”

there was a time that we were kind, but now
don't write me, you're not fooling anyone

KIADA

You think I'll be the night sky,
so that you can be the star?

There’s a chiding tone to Wessex’s voice that Kiada does not appreciate, her gaze narrowing, biting down on her tongue as she explains that the Voice would answer her. But how does she know? “I did choose to be like this. I didn’t choose to sign up for the battle that came along with being like this.” Her head tilts slightly as she watches the Queen, mulling over her words in a way that makes them make sense. “When I was young, I aligned myself with a god that promised so much to me. Happiness, power, the ability to thrive and protect my family. And do you know what happened?” She says this as easily as she can, her head lifting just a bit. “He killed all of the gods there, destroyed our world, and shoved us through a portal, slaughtering those that disagreed with him.”

Wessex could take it however she wanted.

Because the mention of voting in Flowerbirth – the season she had died in – does little for her. “Maybe they didn’t say anything because they didn’t think it was worth it. It’s still going to happen, so what’s the point? I’m only telling you because you asked me.” She snaps, unable to keep her tone from growing sharp, but she tries to steady herself again with her fingers in Auni’s fur, with her unnecessary breath she takes.

“Last time I did something for you, I died.” Alright, so perhaps she hasn’t steadied herself well enough to hold her tongue, but Kiada’s always been the one that held onto grievances, onto pain. After all, it had become all she’d known in her lives, in the worlds she bounced between – losing family and friends over and over again, companions twice now, her soul torn apart and rebuilt time and time again.

i'll swallow you whole.

WESSEX

“But you did,” Wessex replies quietly, wondering where Kiada sees these lines being drawn and where she sees herself falling. “Whether it’s this battle or the one against the Old Gods, part of being Ascended is that we’re an group who does things together.” One shoulder rises and falls - that’s the way it is. Kiada not wanting something doesn’t change that. Her hands come up to settle beneath her chin, perching her head atop them and considering the younger woman’s past.

Seems like a pretty traumatic experience. And maybe just the barest hint of an excuse for trust issues.

Her hackles almost rise when Kiada snaps at her - halted with the clenching of her jaw and a flash in her eyes. Unkindly or not, she’s starting to think it’s just an excuse to yell at someone who could take it, and quite honestly, Wessex is a bit tired of letting herself be that person. It rarely achieves what she wants it to achieve.

“And I’m telling you because you asked what about us? I want to keep everyone safe, but there will never be a time when we don’t have new brothers and sisters who would be at risk. We’re not disregarding you, we’ve made a commitment. What we’re doing is bigger than me. Bigger than us. It’s righting a wrong and it’s making what’s looking like the primary home of the Ascended safe for everyone to live in, all year round. It’s changing public perception.” Which, if she’s going to be an Ascended, she might quickly learn that not everyone is as friendly towards her as they were before. A lesson Wessex knows all too well and only half attributes to her basic personality.

Pausing after the last insult, the Wraith levels a gaze across the table and then slowly bobs her head up and down in acceptance of the accusation. “I deserve that. You did. And I’m sorry that happened to you, I really am. You can be mad at me all you want, for as long as you want for being focused on Tanau and not you and yes, I’ll take that. But don’t diminish your own power and ability to make choices for yourself.” She chose to come explore some place new, knowing full well what happens sometimes during expeditions. “Which is what you have in front of you,” Wessex continues, spreading her hands wide.” - A choice. The first of many. Whether to accept what we’re doing at LongNight and help yourself or not. Whether to take a leap of faith with the Voice and us or not. What to do with a second life. I was in your shoes once.”

And Kiada is starting out with a hell of a lot more than Wessex ever had.

there was a time that we were kind, but now
don't write me, you're not fooling anyone

KIADA

You think I'll be the night sky,
so that you can be the star?

She listens to Wessex, hearing her out, but between all of the things she’s feeling she finds it difficult to let them sink in. One thing Kiada was good at, a flaw of her person, is holding onto her rage and letting it consume her. To let that fiery side of her lash out when she can no longer hold it in, letting it fill that hollow cold void she’s become since she’s returned and found out what had all changed, what war loomed on the horizon, and the task she’s been brought back to accomplish with the rest of the Ascended.

She huffs a sigh she doesn’t need to. She wants to reply and yell and get it all off of her chest, but her fury is subsiding in turn for mental exhaustion – a side effect she’s learned from being unable to sleep and having to think over things time and time again until she’s thought it to death. It was exhausting. So she reaches up to rub at her temple, to pinch the bridge of her nose, exhaling the sigh slowly and internally grumbling about how much it didn’t relieve the stress she was under.

“I only want to be left alone. That’s all I wanted.” She says flatly, before she’s abruptly standing, unable to continue the conversation much longer. Unknowingly, she activates the armor plating along her chest, ignoring it as it locks into place above her arms, lightweight but decently strong as she moves toward the door. “I guess I’ll see you at LongNight.” That’s about as much of a ‘you should leave’ that the Harpy can muster.

And once Wessex does leave, Kiada shuts and locks the door behind her, to sink back into the seat at the table and stare at the wood grain until it’s all she can see.

- FIN

i'll swallow you whole.