>>6310639Your breath ragged, you feel your chest tighten—
The Stilladìa stands. She glances at the cameo, still spinning, but she does not move to get it.
Do you even care anymore?
It’s hers.
She made it.
You were just the courier.
And it hasn’t pulled her back at all.
Did Ansàrra think it would be enough to make her fall in tears on her knees and beg for forgiveness? If anything it has only made her angrier.
“I am also happy and proud when people use my gifts to reach their ends.”
“What ends? Death and destruction? So proud,” you retort in a whisper.
“That is not up to me.” A pause. “I desire to level the playing field. It is far from a clean job, to make a Goddess obsolete.”
“Well, congratulations. You proved your point. Now you can go die in a ditch, or against the Seven… I do not care. I do not… I do not care,” you lie.
You promised to yourself you would help Willow. That you would protect your friends!
You trusted in Ansàrra—and right after you put all you had in Her hands, She leaves you… has Master imprisoned, Rubida and Soralisa separated.
All to give this stupid thing back to someone who doesn’t even want it.
Master was wrong to put his trust in you.
So very wrong.
“I used to run through the vineyards,” you mutter. You are so tired.
The Moon, the world, the Worm.
It’s all so confusing.
<span class="mu-i">Think with your own head[/i.]
The Trial of Gold.
Being used and discarded like that… like it happened to Bragia?
What happened to turn her like this?
She spoke of a betrayal… was what happened on the shores a betrayal?
You want… to go back.
No idea how.
“Smelled like dry earth and sweet grapes. Ripe for the harvest. The scent of home,” you add. You want to go back to those times.
To when the world still made sense and your silver hair was just a quirk of your birth, not a sign of heresy.
A bitter pulse spreads through you at the thought. You did everything for Ansàrra. For the Maduans. To protect their inane lives, their peace, their stolid lives: you toiled, you climbed on the glass hill for them! You stained your shirt red for them!
The Sun-Birther may have Her reasons, but Astoria… she only did all this for self-gain!
Like merchant filth—
“Smoke,” comes Lithala’s voice. “The amber smell of firewood and lacquer.” A pause. You raise your watery gaze to meet her glowing one. A corner of her mouth twitches. “And the comforting scent of fresh linen.”
Your lower lips twitches. That sounds like…
“Is—Is that what you smell when…”
“When Ansàrra is with me,” she breathes through her nose. Once again, she does not breathe in. “I only have to bow my head, and I can come back home.” She chuckles. “It would be so simple.”
[cont.]</span>
