[She cannot look up at him when she bows so low, her pride wounded and warring with the undefinable fear that his sudden and unexplained absence had left her with, forcing her to confront how weak she might truly be in some ways in these foreign lands, surrounded by so many things she has never known and so many people with whom she feels she cannot connect to or accept. Where he had always been, sometimes strong and sometimes faint, an endless desert beneath an overbearingly hot sun or just the hint of sand and dry wind... There had been nothing. Just nothing. No god, no "friend", no patron, no Meridian ally, no frustratingly chaotic force, just... nothing. He was supposed to go back to his rightful world some day, like she was, they were both supposed to survive now-
Hayame has given him offerings before, her violence combed into his hair and made a part of him, proof that even in this land far from his Egypt that he was a god with proper worshipers, faith, and prayers... But she had never thrown her dignity at his feet like this before, bared her needs like this, (except that night, those needs-). She does not want to look and potentially see something she cannot stomach on his face.
But suddenly there are hands, hands on her hands, and once he says he will, will... Her halved gaze raises, fingers unconsciously seizing on his. (Dead, he'd been dead-)
The veils part. Veils she had not even known existed. The scents in the air change. The surroundings change. Everything changes as she is drawn in deeper, somewhere secret, somewhere precious, and somehow, despite the fact that a war room should seem like a contained, finite space... what she sees when everything solidifies is so vast and so powerful that Hayame cannot take it all in. She is so achingly and undeniably mortal in that moment, confronted with a breadth of knowledge and perfectly remembered voices, incidents, whispers, schemes, and strategies that if she'd ever doubted he was a god those doubts would have been crushed underfoot beneath the weight of everything Set has collected.
He calls her star to him, and it lights up in his hand, a ball of fire striving so desperately to burn bright or burn out. For a moment, she cannot tell if she is laying on the ground staring up at him or shining between is fingers. Connected as they are by communion, her own knowledge bleeds slightly into the lines and tethers, other stars in his constructed sky winking, darkening, and twinkling in turns. Leaks of everyone she had disgraced herself to searching for him when she feared him dead, Akua... Byleth... Liem... all humming in the night. People she had suspected could have a hand in it, Sebastian, Silco, people she now blamed for it, John Gaius, flickering. Claude growing brighter and warmer, where she'd taken her comfort after finding the cocoon at the Tree. Humbled at first by the divinity she'd been sunk into, she cannot form words. She doesn't even realize that in her attempt to take it all in, to somehow be equal to it, her eyepatch has faded away and her mind's version of herself has two eyes again with which to strive to see and understand. The Church... the Beyond... She has no contacts there, she does not know if she can serve his causes there, but before she can ask him more something he says...]
Soon to be... ?
[He had promised her his favor, that day so many moons ago now, when he had first dyed part of her inky black hair red and sworn to stand at her side and go to the wretched ends with her for as long as he was able. She had just assumed that... that she was already blessed, perhaps in some way she simply did not understand or could not sense, so what...
What did that mean? If he wants her interest, her direct questions... He will receive them.]
no subject
Hayame has given him offerings before, her violence combed into his hair and made a part of him, proof that even in this land far from his Egypt that he was a god with proper worshipers, faith, and prayers... But she had never thrown her dignity at his feet like this before, bared her needs like this, (except that night, those needs-). She does not want to look and potentially see something she cannot stomach on his face.
But suddenly there are hands, hands on her hands, and once he says he will, will... Her halved gaze raises, fingers unconsciously seizing on his. (Dead, he'd been dead-)
The veils part. Veils she had not even known existed. The scents in the air change. The surroundings change. Everything changes as she is drawn in deeper, somewhere secret, somewhere precious, and somehow, despite the fact that a war room should seem like a contained, finite space... what she sees when everything solidifies is so vast and so powerful that Hayame cannot take it all in. She is so achingly and undeniably mortal in that moment, confronted with a breadth of knowledge and perfectly remembered voices, incidents, whispers, schemes, and strategies that if she'd ever doubted he was a god those doubts would have been crushed underfoot beneath the weight of everything Set has collected.
He calls her star to him, and it lights up in his hand, a ball of fire striving so desperately to burn bright or burn out. For a moment, she cannot tell if she is laying on the ground staring up at him or shining between is fingers. Connected as they are by communion, her own knowledge bleeds slightly into the lines and tethers, other stars in his constructed sky winking, darkening, and twinkling in turns. Leaks of everyone she had disgraced herself to searching for him when she feared him dead, Akua... Byleth... Liem... all humming in the night. People she had suspected could have a hand in it, Sebastian, Silco, people she now blamed for it, John Gaius, flickering. Claude growing brighter and warmer, where she'd taken her comfort after finding the cocoon at the Tree. Humbled at first by the divinity she'd been sunk into, she cannot form words. She doesn't even realize that in her attempt to take it all in, to somehow be equal to it, her eyepatch has faded away and her mind's version of herself has two eyes again with which to strive to see and understand. The Church... the Beyond... She has no contacts there, she does not know if she can serve his causes there, but before she can ask him more something he says...]
Soon to be... ?
[He had promised her his favor, that day so many moons ago now, when he had first dyed part of her inky black hair red and sworn to stand at her side and go to the wretched ends with her for as long as he was able. She had just assumed that... that she was already blessed, perhaps in some way she simply did not understand or could not sense, so what...
What did that mean? If he wants her interest, her direct questions... He will receive them.]