Heal what has been hurt

Maybe one day she would look back on this conversation and see what he saw now, recognize the same pitfalls she had so happily jumped into for what they were, and share his regret. But she wouldn't agree that it would have been better for her to remain as the timid, lonely creature the had been. Innocent, sure, but also ignorant and dependent, with no belief in her own ability to accomplish anything. Would he really prefer her as the wide eyed follower who would have done anything just to be accepted, and who would have been content merely to exist in the shadow of others, for nothing more than a few smiles?

But for now Maea was relieved that they simply could agree to disagree on the matter, and non-interference was good enough that she smiled gratefully. Perhaps everything wouldn't be exactly as before... but enough would, and for that too she was grateful.

Leaving those matters behind, Maea finally returned focus to the Voice. She raised the cup to get lips, blowing on the steaming brew without really daring a sip yet and gathered up her reluctant thoughts, marshalled them like so many errant sheep.

"It was the same night as the barrier fell" she began, tone and face growing distant and serious as she recalled the awful night. "Emmett had brought me to the infirmary and after Vai had healed me I tried to sleep. But I had nightmares.... about being down there."

Dreams of dark tunnels, hissing things stalking har from the shadows and of bleeding silver ichor, as she became what she feared the most.

"I went to the shrine to light candles, thinking that it would be safe there, that nothing bad could appear at a shrine. But then, she showed up. She looked... real. Solid, physical, not like the illusion I'd seen once before."

Maea went on to describe the conversation in as much detail as she could remember. She held back nothing, not her own accusations or bitterness nor the reponses of the entity.

"I asked what she intended to do now, and if the Old gods would try to stop her again. 'I have spent a long time caged here, I will not let that happen again. Not to me, nor my children' is what she replied, and there was something in her tone that... It was almost menacing, and the air in the room got so tense I feared I would be electrified on the spot."

Maea shuddered, then pressed on; the worst part came tumbling out of her before she could change her mind about retelling the vision the Voive had induced, and even though she held the hot mug her hands felt cold, icy with dread and renewed revulsion.

"I asked her to tell me what she had done to earn the ire of the gods. And... in a way, I think she showed some of the truth. She showed me... the process of making an Ascended. She took us to a room so white it hurt the eyes, and in a table was a person. It... it was me, Jigano. And she... opened me up, right before my eyes while the me on the table was still awake and she removed the organs. The lungs, the intestines, I could see the heart beatas it was replaced by... something. The blood was drained and something else put in its place, clear and shimmering... But then, something went wrong. Because I am an Abandoned, and the magic, the spark rejected the changes. I saw how my body began to thrash, break, and the skin began to melt off the flesh..."

The trembling became more pronounced as she relived the memory, and what little color she had drained from the face as she spoke. It was as though she could still hear the chipper voice comment in her ear still, conversing easily as she took Maea apart like some complex puzzle. It had been so meticulous, so cold and unfeeling...

"In the end, I couldn't accept the need for it, or understand... And she told me to remember that. If I ever felt sure that I knew what was happening, to remember that moment and know that I did not. And then she left."

One by one the instants meant little. A warning, an explanation, a kind advice... except none of it had been kind, or meaningless. Put together and framed by Maea's suggestion that the Old Gods might try to trap the Voice again, it felt like a clear message.

Don't get involved. Don't meddle. Don't go against her or the Ascended, or that vision of Maea dying in excruciating agony might become reality.

Jigano took his time while Maea gathered her thoughts, preparing a fresh sheet of paper and sharpening a writing stick so that when she began he was able to take notes in a quick, clean manner. A brow raised at the oddly out-of-place assumption that ‘nothing bad could appear at a shrine’ – there had been many for whom that hadn’t been the case, even in his short tenure on Caido, but he didn’t interrupt and was rewarded with a bit of information that had him frowning, pencil scratching swiftly across the page. Safrin had warned them, yes… a warning given too little, too late, it seemed, and not one Maea had been interested in heeding, nor the others who had dived headlong into the Spire that night. There was, perhaps, a certain irony in that but it was one he didn’t have time to dwell on as she continued.

He nodded at hearing that the entity that had once been an Acquired would not be caged – it made perfect sense, and he suspected there were many even among the non-Ascended who would agree with her. Certainly among the Outlanders! And even if she was deserving of her imprisonment, the lorekeeper could still empathize with her desire to be free.

”Yes,” he murmured distractedly as he wrote. ”Isla told me something similar of her own re-making into an Ascended. Though, without the failure of the process at the end.” He glanced up in concern when she paused, noting her pale color and distress, and his expression softened. ”Take your time,” he said gently. ”As much as you need.” He waited patiently for her to gather her strength and courage again, keeping an eye on her as he underlined or adjusted his notes thoughtfully.

”You couldn’t understand… what would drive someone to become Ascended?” he sought to clarify, frowning slightly as he tried to understand what she was saying, and what the Voice had been trying to convey. "But you are Abandoned, as she once was. Surely that would make it easier for you to Ascend than a ‘spark’less Accepted?”