[SE] Closer than eternity

A letter had been sent for Noah, requesting a time and place to meet and talk. The mermanta was in need of advice and perspectives, and he sought those of his powerful friend when it was convenient for the Sentinel.

The place may have surprised him, but he hid it well. His expression was stoic when he Aquaported into the Oasis within the Hollowed Grounds, his Academy training saving him from the effects of Deepfrost's chill on waters that bore the first signs of delicate ice forming on the banks.

He swam closer to the shore, looking around with curiosity at the bare-branched trees and light dusting of first snow that powdered the ground already, whiter than the purest sand. " Noah ," he greeted, his voice a low, comfortable rumble as he found a flat rock that jutted out into the lake to rest his arms on. "Are you and your family well?"

Grateful for the ravens’ preternatural abilities to direct letters to exactly where they needed them to go, Noah sought the meeting place he and Hadama had agreed upon. His Sentinel’s coat wrapped around him, though it was not done up the front. The wind whipped around him as he rode atop his companion, his other taken off to hunt for his family. Despite the inherit comings of winter, with the evidence in the whisper of frost and ice, Noah felt this to be a moderate day. Used to living in a land of perpetual snow and ice, this transition from fall to winter was what Halovians would consider warm.

It didn’t take him too long to find where Hadama wanted them to meet, and letting Vi’dore’s hooves carry him it didn’t take him long to get there. The unicorn cantered gracefully and powerfully, his breath great puffs of clouds. He slowed carefully as the floating mer came into view. Once stopped, Noah dismounted and made his way over to a comfortable spot to sit while he and Hadama talked.

”As well as anyone could be away from their home.” Noah said, extending his hand to shake the merking’s in greeting. ”The Hollowed Grounds are as untamed as the wilds these days, so we’re being careful. How is Torchline?”

He reached up to clasp Noah's arm, and though curiosity shone in emerald eyes he waited to indulge it, considering Noah's question. "Well," he assured him. "Quiet. Unusually so, but..." He shrugged. "It is better than the alternative." It was almost too quiet, and though Hadama was inclined to enjoy it while it lasted he was pragmatic enough to know that it was likely only the calm before a storm. The longer Apopo was quiet, the more spectacular its eruptions, after all.

Only then did he look up to his friend, head tilted in question. "What brings you to the Hollowed Grounds?" He had not expected the Sentinel to leave Halo, but assumptions were so often proved wrong that he held the thought close and instead waited to learn what new happenings in his friend's life had caused it to change so swiftly.

Noah nodded in agreement. Quiet, even if unusual, was better than chaos. Noah knew Torchline to be a place with a healthy underbelly, though, so he suspected that even in times of peace and prosperity there were goings on that the royals and advisors and other government entities knew nothing about. "I am glad for that." He said anyways, leaning back then to rest near the water's edge.

"Vi." Noah answered simply. He was sure that he didn't need to elaborate, but he would if asked. Little did Noah know, in this meeting with Hadama, that this charge would become something greater than what Noah understood it to be now. He didn't know yet the ire that his god felt at interpreting Noah's actions, or lack there of, over the last year. "I'm glad your letter reached me here. What is it you wanted to talk about?"

Vi? Emerald eyes gleamed with curiosity, but perhaps that could be indulged afterwards. For now, the mermanta flicked his tail in the water and gathered his thoughts.

The Oasis was a peaceful place, well-suited for contemplation and the sort of meditation that Safrin had tasked him with. He had no idea what it had looked like before the War, but now the open waters and many islands of the Hollowed Grounds reminded him of a chillier Torchline, and the similarities helped him relax into the questions he wished to pose his friend.

"Vi," he answered, a twinkle in his eye as he deliberately mirrored Noah's answer before elaborating further. "And what it means to you to be a demigod. Your experiences, and what it is like."

Noah's curiosity manifested in a humming noise in his throat as he leaned back slightly, forearms wrapping around his knees and hands clasping together. "My experiences as a demigod." He started, sucking his teeth as he drew in the thoughts and the memories. "Vi chose me to be his light, before the onset of the Second War. My first task was the elimination of the Ascended and the Voice." His head tilted some to the side. "After the war was done, I was tasked with the same dedication to peace as I had to Vi's desires. I'm here now to help this land. The Voice's shadow still looms here."

Noah rocked back slightly. "Though...it has taken me a year, and the insight of others, to pick my family up and move them here." But everything Noah said would compare not to the experience he was soon to have at the hands of his deity.

Hadama was in no rush, and he relaxed comfortably against his chosen rock as Noah thought through his question. His friend's quiet hum turned to words soon enough, and the mermanta tilted his head as he listened, absorbing every word with contemplative intensity. This was a far more warlike story than Phoebe had related to him, or even Ronin, but soon enough the geas turned from genocide to peace.

Even so, that first task gave the mermanta serious pause, and his brow furrowed as he considered the implications and consequences of such an undertaking.

Then, too, there was the necessity of Noah moving from his home to a strange land, to help a people not his own. Hadama nodded slowly to show that he was listening, though he was quiet for some time thereafter as he thought through the answers before he spoke again. "Do you have any regrets about becoming a demigod?" he asked next, and slowly. "Or anything you would change?"

Noah thought for a few quiet moments, though he didn't really need to. Perhaps, a few days from now, he would have a different answer, but the truth that fell from his lips was true on this day. "No." He said, though he tilted his head slightly. "There are things I would rather not do that Vi might have for me, but I gave up living in that right when I accepted his call on my life." Oh, Noah. The poor man didn't even know what was coming for him.

"It was hard for me to decide to move my family here. I didn't want to -- I don't want to. But I can't procrastinate this any more. Vi has asked me to do it, so I will." His conversation with Remi bounced through his mind, the words the other demigod spoke so real he could almost taste them on his own tongue. "It's not unlike leading a region, in some ways. I think as a man I will always fight with my own heart's desires." And his scope of the world was so little in comparison to his god's.

If there were not regrets there were still complexities to Noah's position that had their own unexpected weight, and Hadama nodded slowly as he tried to imagine the internal struggle that such tasks from one's deity might entail. It was just as sobering as the Sentinel's previous answers, but the demigod's stoic acceptance was not so different from Ronin's, and it was something the Tidebreaker admired.

"Indeed... I am grateful for your honesty." But was there more to being a demigod than thankless duty and endless tasks? Not that it truly mattered. Hadama had taken on leadership because it had needed to be done to ensure leadership in Torchline for the War, while Maeve was sent to battle and the Mer court bickered ceaselessly without making preparations. But the benefits certainly provided some solace after long days filled with record keeping or making hard judgments in the Court.

"What are the best things about being a demigod?" he asked next, hoping to bring their conversation back to a more pleasant place.

”Wielding more power than I ever would have as an attuned is not bad.” Noah chuckled, glacier eyes twinkling with some hint of a joke, but he wasn’t completely unserious in his statement. He shook his head just slightly, jaw cocking, ”Walking out on the tundra without the same fear and trepidation I did as an attuned is freeing.” These were just two small benefits, and even in the lightness of his tone and the glint in his eye, they were still significant. GRowing up in such a dangerous place, working such a dangerous profession — these were two things that were enhanced by Vi’s touch.

”Why do you ask such questions?” Noah asked before he stepped in to the more serious answers. His brows twitched together at the question. ”You are a very powerful mer, a formidable opponent which I know firsthand. Are you trying to…?” He tilted his head down, as if the gesture would finish the sentence for him.

A steely-haired head dipped in acknowledgment of having more power, emerald eyes meeting sapphire blue with a gleam of amused understanding for a kindred spirit. Two men who sought to stand between their people and the harsh cruelties of the world, to the best of their abilities.

Though Noah's abilities were decidedly more impressive, given what he had become. It was something the mer king had admired in his friend since their first training together, and now...

The question that was returned was inevitable, given the direction of things, and Hadama took a slow, deep breath. Feeling air fill his lungs in place of water gave him a feeling of lightness, of floating, rather than a sense of being grounded the way he'd heard a human friend describe it. Still, there was a quiet joy and a little lingering awe in the attuned bond as he tilted his head in confirmation of the question left hanging. "I asked Safrin to improve my armor," he began, reaching across his chest to touch the starry armlet around his left bicep. "Instead she told me to meditate on how I would serve her in the future. Either as Deimos does, as a mortal. Or as Ronin does, as a demigod."

Noah kept his voice in his throat and made a noise of understanding, followed quickly by a nod of his head. "And what do you think of that?" He asked, body growing as still as the Fangs. It was a great thing to consider, and there was certainly power in both places. But, there were also downfalls in both places. Safrin was not a goddess to be crossed, as he was certain Hadama knew, and dedicating oneself to her took a might that many in this world did not possess. Noah was a man that wanted always to do the right thing, to be good. He wasn't going to tell Hadama what to do, but if he had the opportunity to help shepherd a solution and decision for the mer, he certainly would.

He didn't answer at first. The mermanta grew as still as he could while floating in the water, his gaze going slightly unfocused as the weight of Noah's question settled about his shoulders. He'd spoken to a couple of other demigods before now, but Noah was the first to really ask his thoughts on what it meant to him.

There was a deep silence in the Bond before he finally found his voice, meeting Noah's piercing gaze once more. "It is... complicated," he admitted. "It is a great honor." Perhaps the greatest on all of Caido. "There has not been a demigod chosen from the Merfolk in living memory. Far longer than that, in truth. It would be a powerful symbol to my people....But the cost is significant, I am learning. As you say, to give up all choice in obedience... it is daunting." To say the least. Hadama drew another deep breath and released it slowly. "Deciding what I am willing to give up, and what I am not... it is a heavy question."

He tilted his head at his friend, solemn in his mien. "What is it that you could not live without?" No matter the price, or who asked it.

Noah nodded in both understanding and agreement with what Hadama contemplated. Being a demigod, or even devoting one’s life to a god or herald, was not something to consider lightly. It required more sacrifice than Noah was even able to fathom (though soon he would understand on a deeper level), but there was also loads and loads of blessings within the weight of responsibility.

Should one do the responsibilities, that was. looking at you future Noah

”Being a demigod means outliving those you love by many, many lifetimes.” he said, the corners of his lips pulling downwards. ”But I do not — could not — live without my wife. I pray daily that Vi holds her and keeps her with me for all my days.” His children, too, were high on that list. He wanted to believe that there was a benevolence with the gods and their chosen that kept the demigods loved ones in some protection, but he knew that wasn’t Lways the case. Nate had chosen the Voice and despite Sunjatas love for him there was so saving him.