[ As effects start to appear as the result of their actions at the Tree of Life, Hayame could be forgiven for at first not realizing that she and Sebastian were now tethered. His own emotions run at such a cool level that there's rarely anything to pick up at all. Other than a pang of alarm and pain that strikes at her neck as well, it fades away so quickly that it might seem like a fluke.
That, however, is likely not Sebastian's experience. Similarly because of how cold his own emotions run, Hayame's normal amount is probably near overwhelming for him. He attempts to put up with it for a while, but eventually, Hayame will be treated to the very smooth and unimpressed sound of a certain demon's voice popping in to Communion. ]
You know, I did consider us even. This latest development is rather unkind.
[ He doesn't actually think it's any intention of hers, though. He really is just complaining for the sake of complaining, since they might as well get this unpleasantness over with. ]
[Hayame has a lot more things to worry about than a demon in her head- As ridiculous as that sentence would sound to her if posed.
Once upon a time, she had been cold as ice and hard as stone. It had been an act, yes, but she'd been very good at it. She'd had to be, if she ever wanted to be sold as a warrior. The temperamental, the rebellious, the hard-to-handle were made into Armless, broken to the saddle, or consigned to the breeding stalls. And it had been easy to present that facade when she'd been in control, when she'd understand how the world worked.
In Horos... In Kenos... She hasn't been in control of a single thing, and that included her emotions. At first, she doesn't even notice the demon's presence in her head, after she'd purged his taste from her stomach and throat. Over time, though... She realizes it might not be her going insane. And when a sickly familiar voice is let into her head uninvited-]
Get out- !
[... It's to the mental equivalent of slappy hands and a door slam. If only that worked in communion with those a dryad had bound together.]
[there is a long, cold reception after childe sends that communion message. almost as if the person on the other side has three different deadbolts on the door. even if they want to open up, it takes time. and she doesn’t, actually, but finally-]
Who the hell are you?
[the few people she knows also know better her opinion on this unnatural method of communication]
[ Hayame is full of surprises, Kaeya thinks to himself. He didn't expect her to agree to his request for archery lessons after some deliberation. If anything, he figures she would have said no and asked him to think of something else, but the fact that she agreed and she went and helped him pick out the proper equipment — well, perhaps she isn't so difficult to get along with after all.
Or so he likes to believe.
When the day of his first lesson arrives, he remains a diligent student, listening to her tips and tricks. His posture is proper, his grip is strong, and his aim — even with one eye — is true and accurate. Years of learning how to fight with a disadvantage like this have taught him to accommodate properly, but he'll always miss having someone else cover his blindside. Alas, all he can do nowadays is rely on himself, and that's why he's learning to be better.
He is currently collecting the arrows from the target when he tosses a harmless question down Hayame's way. They're on break so he figures it would be nice to kick up some small chatter. ]
So— how am I doing?
[ Is there room for improvement? She's been a fair teacher thus far, so he knows he can expect her words to be valuable. ]
[Kaeya Alberich wasn’t the first man to ask her for archery lessons… but he was the first one to do so who seemed serious enough about it while also being wise enough not to make the request until she was in his debt.
And in all honesty… he was not the most irritating student. For all his silver tongue could wag, he seemed willing to focus when it mattered. She could not instruct him on the longbow, her preferred weapon, it would be far too big, but the shortbow she’d selected for him at the armsdealer near the leatherworker’s was working smoothly enough…
And once she sends him to retrieve the last round of arrows she declares a short break. Pulling a small flask from the belt around her “waist” where… basically everything she owned was hanging, she takes a swig… and pauses to consider his question, one brow arched slightly.]
Far better than my last pupils.
[Another swig.]
… but they were colts under nine summers old, so do not let that compliment go to your head.
[As much as Claude enjoys poking his nose into other peoples' business, in this case, it was more that he stumbled across someone's business than he'd been actively looking for it. Things have been pretty miserable for Meridian across the board, and for some reason he hasn't quite been able to pin down, Claude's been feeling even worse than most. He has a heavy cloak drawn around his shoulders to ward off a chill that doesn't seem to have much to do with the climate at all and seems to come and go at random, and he has a gnawing feeling of being alone that he'd rather not dwell on.
That is, until he has a new and jarring sensation of someone with a Shard nearby. He wonders if he's just imagining things, but another clue to tip him off is a pair of harried-looking stablehands complaining of a half-horse woman who seems to be spooking the horses. If she's a Shardbearer, Claude has a good hunch of who it is, so he asks the pair which stable she's apparently barged her way into and taken over.
How should he do this? Maybe Hayame is there because she wants to be left alone. Still, she'd been open to talking to him before, so he has to try. He approaches, aaand... knocks on the stable door like a totally polite and normal visitor. Nothing weird about this, nope.]
Knock knock. Anyone home?
[The punchline to this knock knock joke might be that this is a prank and he really is just bothering a poor horse... Time to find out.]
[Hayame has not really left the stall in the eastern Springstar stable that she called "home" since she had left the tree upon their return to Kenos proper, slinking out in shame before most of the shard-bearers came to. The sensation of failure had been overwhelming, her own personal feelings compounded by the force of it coursing through Meridian in the wake of the loss. Whether she felt any personal responsibility or not, whether she had won her own battles or not... "they" had been defeated.
In her own world, she had used a waterfall. But there is nothing of that height to throw herself off in this place, and even if she did... she would not die. Even if she slit her own belly open, she would not die. She would become a shard, reduced to the arrowhead-shaped chunk of obsidian now buried in her chest, the one that made her so sick she couldn't crush it underhoof herself.
So she wastes away alone, snarling at any of the grooms or the owners of the various mounts in the other stalls who try to speak to or bother her. Her mane and tail grow dry and brittle, no matter the oil she tries to comb through it. Her hooves begin to crack and ache with pain when she puts her weight upon them, and so she goes down... and stays down, a wretched, one-eyed dun nag on wood shaving bedding.
When someone knocks on the stable door, calling out... she doesn't bother paying attention to the voice, or who it belongs to, doesn't try to sense them either. She just assumes its the grooms again. They'd been gossiping, wondering about whether to call a doctor, if she was colicing like some fucking horse, talking of attempting to evict her-
So she doesn't answer.
But if he lets himself in to the stables... the shard-bearer in her visitor's senses seems to be in the last stall on the right. There is only a half-door on the twelve by twelve enclosure, nothing like privacy, just a jinba on her side with her back to the outside world.]
[ It's been a long time since Gray spent so much time working in isolation. She isn't completely alone; her ever-present companion Add is still tucked under her cloak, a ready sounding board and pest whenever things feel too quiet. But for the most part she falls into a semi-meditative state as she focuses on her task of surveying Alenroux, exercising her feeble brain to its utmost. It feels almost like doing homework at the Clock Tower, her attempting valiantly to apply knowledge beyond her depth for the sake of the assignment.
The more attention she pays to the job, the less time she has to dwell on the intense bouts of loneliness that strike her when she stops to rest, the kind of loneliness she used to feel when she still lived in her hometown. It's an unpleasant reminder, both of what it was like back then and of how much she's lost between then and now. Sometimes she can feel the sea of tombstones around her, then real and now imagined, filling the vast, stretching landscapes of the island.
Gray sits quietly by herself with those thoughts settled like a mist on her as she cooks lunch by the fire she's started for herself. She's become familiar enough to the farmers around the Cornerstones of Alenroux that they'll share or sell an ear of corn or a freshly fallen apple with her as she passes through, little tokens of luck for the little girl always hiking out on her own. The fresh produce suits her well, and often she'll make a simple meal of fruit and roasted vegetables to tide her over 'til evening.
She's munching on a roasted corn cob when she detects movement. There aren't many people in this neck of the woods, away from the farmlands and daytime villages, so she immediately puts a pause on lunch so that she can sharpen her senses for clues as to what's coming. Passing animal or nefarious highway bandit(s), which will it be?? ]
[When the Tribune had come to the stall in the eastern stables that Hayame called a residence (not a "home", nowhere in this world was her home), asking her to assist a certain General Zaman in training their troops in archery... Hayame had seized the chance she saw to do something concrete. Something that made sense, that she could understand, after days spent wallowing in defeat after the Scorching Isles unable to place what mistakes had been made and what could be done to ensure they wouldn't be made again.
Training she knew how to do. Had her groom not put a bow in her hand when she'd been but a yearling the second she grew strong enough to hold one? Had her food, shelter, and price not been determined by her results at it? She knows how to succeed at making a warrior, both as the one being molded and the one doing the shouting. (Matsukaze had told her to teach as she'd wish she'd been taught, not how he had... but that lesson is far from her, worlds away, and Hayame is so... angry.)
Which might explain why a a man with six arms and a simian woman come wandering into Gray's territory, neither particularly silent or hidden as they discuss (half-whine about) why "that woman" has brought them out to Alenroux. And when they find a different woman having lunch in the forest... they pause at the edge of the clearing, confused. Both are dressed as hunters and carry bows, with no identifying marks of allegiance anywhere... but Gray might possibly recognize them from the Springstar military headquarters.
They don't seem to recognize her, though. One of the six-armed man's hands moves to scratch at the back of his head awkwardly, looking at the woman he's with, who's hand-like feet shuffle, her mouth opens to ask What're ye doin' out all the ways here- ? before,]
The both of you are dead now.
[Hayame's voice rings out from behind them, where the larger and heavier woman had actually managed to conceal her presence somewhat well, the sound of her hooves muffled by soil and not stone, her passage through trees disguised as passing animal.]
If that woman were a monster, you would be its food. Does that please you to know?
[Both of the Springstar recruits look... real awkward. What are they even supposed to say to that? Is this gray-haired woman just going to sit there while they get a dressing down?! Is Hayame even going to greet Gray at all? IN A MINUTE, SHE IS BUSY.]
[ Wherever Hayame stays, she will hear a soft knock against the frame of the door -- stall -- whatever. ]
Hayame, are you well?
[ Her tone is... hesitant. Almost soft. She had been looking to talk to her for days, but she had wanted the Jinba to have the grace of time. She was not so adept as Catherine was, at changing the very nature of people, but she also knew that if Hayame had done what she so desperately wanted to do, it would have... there would have been consequences. Dire ones.
Now, she wants to make sure the woman is well -- and perhaps mend the small fractures in their foundation. ]
[Hayame does not like this stable. It reeks of some sort of riding creatures from worlds that are not her own, and the stink of it fouls up her sensitive nose. But the stall she had leased had been destroyed by the Blight roots, and she had to return from Alenroux intermittently to touch base with the general. It would do until she could find an excuse to leave Springstar as permanently as she could.
Akua was not who she'd expected to come to call. Honestly, she hadn't expected a single person. She hadn't told anyone where she was residing now... but it is easier to track down a jinba living in a stable than it is most people in this city.]
...
[Hayame is in the middle of changing, shrugging a spare robe on over her viciously bound breasts with a flash of muscular back and bare arms, flicking her long mane out of the way of the fabric. For a moment, she does not acknowledge the other woman, as if she is contemplating pretending that she didn't hear anything even though... the stall only has four foot tall walls and no privacy.
But she does turn around eventually, hooves half-buried in sawdust shavings and fingers occupied with tying her robe.]
Akua. Can I help you?
[That's not an answer. There are marks all up and down her right arm that look like scratches from fingernails, but other than that... she at least seems to be physically hale.]
[Some time after they're returned to Springstar, Claude sends Hayame a brief Communion. He's expecting to be disregarded, so he keeps it completely impersonal, using text and keeping it to the point.]
[She knows who the message is from, she can sense it. Claude von Riegan. Khalid. Whatever name was more real.
- But she cannot read his words. She cannot read any words beyond her name, her brother's name, the basic characters for the cardinal directions, and numbers. Just enough for her stable master to advertise that she could be given simple messages by hawk and raise her sale price correspondingly. A lack that was just expected, in her world, but one that in this one had gradually become a source of mild shame, a weakness that needed to be covered.
She almost breaks and responds to ask him what it says. But if she asks, then he will respond, he might wish to meet her, he could talk about what had transpired between them that last day in the roots, and Hayame...
Does the Communion equivalent of leaving him on "read".]
[She is so tired of Communion. She hates arguing with these people who don't understand her, who refuse to agree with her no matter how much logic she lays before them. She doesn't even know why she keeps bothering wading into Meridian's talks, when she is destined to be outnumbered and dismissed-
Claude was there. She heard him. She just didn't respond, didn't get close-
But after, when she is alone... She almost reaches out to find him.
Almost.
Instead, she tightens her grip on her bow and heads into the depths of Alenroux to hunt until she is exhausted.]
[It is cold in the night woods of Alenroux. Cold enough that even with her higher base body temperature Hayame can feel it, even if it’s nothing compared to chill that could actually sicken her, nothing compared to the snows of Mt. Tsurugi or the ice of the Scorched Isles.
She finds only paltry prey. Only small monsters the like anyone (well) could take care of. A tanuki-like creature that looks too straggly to make good meat.
Something does wheel ahead, though, temporarily blotting out the moon.
For a moment, she thinks it might be Claude abroad the back of that dragon-like mount of his. She even thinks that perhaps he-
When she looks up, though, the shape is wrong.
She condemns herself for the weakness and turns her eyes back to the wood.]
[She'd felt it brewing for days, but it was an inconvenient timing, and she did not want to admit that her seasonal heat had come again. Ever since the masquerade at the World's Edge, when she had tried and failed to be rid of her purity... they had been more difficult to bear. Knowing now that if she just gave in, that if she just let someone touch her-
But those failures had been shameful and humiliating, and she is in no rush to repeat them. To admit her needs, to beg to be treated as a woman so that she might find relief... the idea makes her sick.
Does she blame her heightened Discord for how much heavier this month's feels? Her shard is so hot, it's been hot since the ritual, hotter with each kill, and it mixes with her body's breeding season so easily that she isn't sure which part of her is overheating. She makes excuses to remove herself from the presence of the military, the scent of them too annoying to deal with and her tail too eager to lift and betray her, quitting the civilized part of the island to spend her hours standing in the cold waters of a river, burning as she shivered.
At the World's Edge, after her shames... Claude had been... No, she reminds herself. "Khalid" had been-
On that mattress on his floor, her Blight finally treated and the both of them left exhausted, his body had been so close to hers- far closer than she ever had imagined she would willingly invite another. His hands had been gentle on hers, his forehead a solid, steady presence between her shoulders, and she-
Suppresses the thoughts with a grit of her teeth when she feels her tail twitch, wading deeper into the river until the water could carry the thoughts and the urges they summoned away with the current.]
[After his talk with Byleth, Claude realised he had made a very poor assumption. Namely, that Hayame, a jinba who had evidently only ever known poor treatment at the hands of a human master, and who was accustomed to living in a stall like the average warhorse, was capable of reading his message.
Now that he thought about it, had he ever seen her read, or write, or carry evidence in her scant possessions that she owned books? He didn't think so. For many of the people of his world, reading was a luxury mostly afforded to the nobility or the clergy, though it was common amongst the mercantile classes of Leicester, or Almyran traders and scholars, too. Ordinary people, like labourers and farmhands... Less so.
It was hard to imagine for someone like him who lived practically half his life with a nose buried in a book, though, and so it had slipped his mind completely. Surely she holds that against him as further evidence they're too wildly different for him to ever understand her, especially now he had told her he was a king, and seemingly blinded by the privilege of his station.
He won't address that directly, though, and risk wounding her pride further with more assumptions. Instead, he just sends her a brief communion. Thoughts, this time, not text.]
It's me again. You don't have to respond, but I just want you to know that... I'm sorry for hurting you. I told you I wouldn't regret what I did, but that's something I do regret. It was never my intention, and I acted thoughtlessly.
[He can already feel something stick in his throat, though he hopes it isn't obvious across the connection, tenuous as it is. He should wrap this up quickly and reiterate what she (probably) couldn't read before.]
I hope you're staying safe. And... Whatever happens, don't forget that I'm always on your side. If you need help, you can reach out any time.
Hayame hadn't been expecting it. She wasn't prepared for it. If she was... if she had been, she surely would have blocked out the reach of his communion, she could have kept a better hold on her emotions, the thoughts roiling in her head.
... But she wants to actually know what he says this time. She listens. The sense of her presence is there, even though she tries to hide it.
He says a lot of things in such a short amount of time. Maybe she shouldn't be surprised at that, when he had such a clever tongue, and had been using it for all sorts of discussions on amongst the shard-bearers. He's sorry. He regrets hurting her- When... When had she ever said she was hurt by it? She wasn't that sort of woman, she wasn't hurt-
And he was on her side. Always on her side.
Was that even something she could believe was true? Every single person in Kenos who has called her "friend" or professed to care for her has betrayed her, time and time again, with no indication they would ever stop or change. Whether it was cavorting with her enemies, abandoning the faction they had joined side by side, or using weaknesses shared in confidence to discredit her in public for their factions' respective goals... How was she supposed to believe in "friendship"? In "care"? In... in- in what he had offered her beneath the roots?
She doesn't know what to say. How can she even talk to him now, when her heat is addling her head and turning her thoughts shameful? How can she even go to him, now, when doing so might make it seem like she was only caving in because he had given her a little apology or because her body was craving company? Her presence in communion is growing hot- and not from anger. From Discord, her shard burning up from within, from breeding season pulsing needily in her veins, neither of which she can hide long or very well. But Claude is a Stargazer. He cannot cleanse her Discord. He is a human. He cannot- he would not want-
Hayame flees like a coward and pretends it is for his benefit, her presence snuffed out in a wanton, jumbled flutter.]
[ — the point where Communion violently begins is born from the sense of intimate connection developed between two individuals.
It is very obviously a burning, bright thing from Set, whose mind scatters into the corners of those he has forged some sort of companionship with — for duty, for responsibility, for fun, for solemn vow. What arrives is the briefest sense of rising disorientation, woven through with a burst of wrath and grief so white-hot that it might char flesh from bone within seconds, shot through with rapture and the whiplash of love. It rises like a dying, murderous sun ( like Meridian ) — stifling and acute and suffocating — only to be tempered within seconds, by the cool, crisp wash of the dark sea ( like Zenith ), tempered and soothed with all edges laid flat once more.
The Communion plunges into quiet and calm, like a great, purring beast, and ends as abruptly as it began. ]
[Hayame is in... her house. The one Liem Talbott had built for her in Alenroux, that she had been unable to refuse any longer once they had reached an Accord and brought him back to Meridian. She is... rearranging furniture, attempting to create... a "home". It feels so foreign and domestic that she thinks she may not even be herself anymore, that something strange has changed within her, but...
Something else hits her. Something from a familiar source, flaring in the corner of her mind and in the space of a second growing to be a wildfire that spread through every crevice and cranny in a sudden burst of emotion and confusing tumble of sensations. Rage, loss, love, burning, cooling... and then nothing.
She presses her hand to her one remaining eye, stumbling slightly and catching her heavy weight on the corner of the table. Set. He had told her (he had, like he promised) that he was going into the Beyond, searching for the temple Liem had seen there, deep in its mysteries and mists, so was this... ?
Once she is stable her gaze turns immediately inward... and she is there, where they always meet in this way, at the border where sand and snow mix. Unlike the last time, there is no storm brewing on the peaks or winds whipping at her hair. She knew he had gone somewhere unknown, somewhere dangerous, and yet the assault of emotion had not included... pain, per se. Not something that made her feel as if he were under attack, even if she was suspicious of that Zenith touch, so-
Hayame folds her long dun limbs and moves to her belly, reaching down to cup handfuls of sand into her palms. Reaching out as she watched grains of it slowly shift and drain between her fingers.]
Set.
[Was it a cry for help? It felt far more unintentional than that, but... She is there, waiting to hear more, to know if the mission to the Beyond had ended in failure or success, if this was something else overwhelming and powerful in its own right-]
[ Very suddenly, there’s a sense of Communion touching your character’s mind. However, it’s as if they connect with the mind of a shared Aspect, as they’re not able to block out the brief, but sharp memory that comes to them. ]
The Shard-Bearer holds back their sobs as their back bows over the simmering pot. They’d wanted to make Oma’s dish, just as she’d taught when they were little, but no matter how they try, they can’t remember all of the steps.
[ ooc note — Just to avoid OOC confusion/misinterpretation, the details included in this memory are random and are not necessarily interconnected or plot meaningful beyond a surface level. However, your character is free to interpret this random memory however they’d like! This event will also be touched on somewhat during today’s NPC Communion Post. ]
[ After he revives, Fane… has a bit of a crisis, honestly. However. That’s all personal and has to do with his own odd state of undeath. Once he realizes that he’s not alone, Fane is quick to flee. He doesn’t want to be around others while he goes through this, but…
As he flees, he thinks about what had happened before his death. And in that, he finds something else he can focus on besides himself. Besides his daughter and being tricked—
So, with a little urgency in the space of Communion, Fane reaches out to Hayame. As was the case in Commmunion before, his presence isn’t the skeleton. He refuses to think of himself that way when there’s another option. ]
Hayame? I—
[ He reaches out reflexively, but once he has, he’s also not sure what to say. This was something to help distract himself too, so he stammer’s uncertainly, then sighs. ]
Thank you. That- I can only barely explain what happened, but thank you for destroying that foul thing that had taken me over.
[Hayame had hesitated, when it came to planting Fane’s shard in the dirt at the great tree. Other people had shared tales of shard-bearers becoming possessed, of the abyssal black taking on the shapes of their compatriots… but had that truly been what happened to this man? There had been… blackness, yes, in the end, as he dissipated, but…
What did she know? She wasn’t a magician, she did not know this man (skeleton) well enough to say definitively that the way he acted towards her in the labyrinth was against his nature. Even if he had seemed to agree with her stance on Meridian, on traitors…
People have seemed a lot of things, to her, since she had been ripped from her world.
But in the end… she had put it in the ground. And now-]
Fane.
[The voice comes as if from a distance- as if she were a skittish mare holding herself apart until she had passed judgement on whether approaching again was wise.]
… Is that your accounting, then? That you were possessed?
[She thinks she would be insulted to be asked the same question. But she must ask it, and she expects it to be understood why, no matter the impugning of an honor.]
[On the shortest day of the year—or the longest, by Springstar’s calendar—Liem makes his rounds to play Santa himself, though without the red-and-white costume. For the past few months, his regular visits to Springstar’s community centre have been in service of crafting handmade solstice gifts for the people in his life. This time, unlike last winter, he’s prepared.
Some of the items he brings are simply handed over without fuss: a couple pleasantly spiced bars of hand-mixed soap, and a jar of soup mix with a brief recipe tied around it. (Perhaps she and Claude might like to make it together? Either way, Liem will gladly let her know what the directions say. It’s basically just “dump everything in a few cups of water; heat.”)
The last item he delivers, with a bit more care, is a slim, hand-bound book. The pages within are penned in Liem’s crisp, elegant hand; it’s an alphabet book, with Kenos’s complete alphabet at the front, and individual letters within, accompanied by small illustrated examples for pronunciation. (For A, apple and crane, and so on.) The entire back portion of the book is blank, so it can be used for practice or note-taking. There is also a space on the very first page for her to write her name.]
Following Meridian's victory, their claiming of the Harbinger Oracle, Set reaches out to Hayame — not in Communion, but by turning up in her yard. Long before he knocks on her door ( or, heaven forbid, sneaks in through a crack in her window ), he is out by the small saplings they had planted. Not too long ago, but long enough that he can review them for health and growth. Crouched in the dirt, his fingers slip down along the sapling's trunk and in, towards the roots, and warm Meridian-aligned spellwork gleams in rivers across his hair, down his arms.
One of his favored spells, that of Plant Growth, used passionately on Alenroux and within the Greenwood Yards, to forever make himself quite the commodity when it comes to agriculture. It's a spell he shouldn't be allowed to have, considering his nature, but also considering he's currently the only god of Egypt here, he must keep up the duties of his kin. Even... even Osiris.
Eventually, he'll lift his head, as if to find her face in the window or her figure standing in her doorway. Maybe she's even come out to him, but he wants to find her with his eyes. With the hesitant softness of his smile, as he rises and brushes dirt from his fingers and palms and says: ] Hello Hayame.
I wanted to invite you out with me, today. For — fun. Drinks, a little sightseeing, maybe anything else that strikes our fancy?
[ he's never sounded more nervous, and his voice isn't even quivering ]
SLAMS IN jfc this is so long just read the bottom half
[When Hayame had first moved to Alenroux... She had done so not just to be in a place that felt more comfortable and natural to a frontier jinba from Japan's medieval period, but also to avoid living in a city where she felt like an outcast. Then (perhaps still now), very few members of Meridian were as uncompromising or unforgiving as she. Her willingness to condemn those within their own ranks that she found lacking and actions she found traitorous had hardly earned her friends, particularly in earlier days where so many shard-bearers seemed reluctant to commit more fully to their faction or the Oracle conflict... and even amongst Springstar citizens, with Oracles lost to Zenith, they had all not been particularly celebrated.
Now, though... She has been bestowed the title of Decurion, like Liem Talbott had before her. After their successful claim on the Exalt Oracle, she had distinguished herself in the competition for the Harbinger. And thanks to the mysterious broadcast that revealed every single moment of what had happened in that labyrinth... She had become known to Springstar in a way she never imagined possible nor ever would have allowed. Being shown slaying a prominent Zenite, good, being shown fighting through the compulsions of the various magicked rooms in the maze, fine, being seen willing to kill Meridians if they were possessed or acting against their faction, sure, even that she might have been able to deal with, but...
They had also seen her kissing the man who she had hidden a relationship with for nearly half a year, even though part of why she had concealed it was fears for what it might do to their respective reputations. They had seen her nearly overcome by the desires of hunger in that room that crashed against the hungers of a sorceress, heavy and consuming. They had seen the tender moments shared between her and her war god, the admission of why cutting the beautiful, flowing mane from her head had been a sacrifice worth granting in the name of victory. And instead of turning against her, condemning her for weakness, or thinking of her as some perverse woman...
Springstar had embraced her. And she had run from it, at first, a being trained to crave and need praise but one who had never received it on anything compared to that scale. Over time she had begun to accept that... things had been seen, and there was no taking it back. That somehow... people felt endeared to her, or grateful, somehow, even though they didn't actually know her, and with Claude's coaching... She has tried to present the image of a woman that thought she belonged in that shining spotlight. (She was trying, anyway. It did not come naturally, and she still had nowhere near perfected it.)
But though she was spending more time in Springstar these days, a considerable change from the month and some she had spent avoiding it after a certain demon had suddenly appeared on its streets and taken her drugged body to Kowloon below... she continued to return to Alenroux to live, whether things had changed or not. She feels more... home, here. (Even though she had never imagined anywhere in Kenos could feel remotely like that.)
Set is one of the few people she had made privy to the nearest Cornerstone to her residence, but that did not mean she had been expecting company. Naira, the large white wyvern, slumbered contentedly in the sun near the rear of the house, having turned some of the grassy surroundings to a sandy pit with her preference for dirt baths. The weather was fair, and so Hayame had been doing various chores- there are sheets and articles of clothing drying on a line and fluttering in the occasional breeze, the pomegranate saplings Set inspects show signs of recent watering (as does the young persimmon tree nearby), there are peeled fruits and salted meats strung along the side of the house to start preserving. If one did not know better... It was a rather domestic scene.
And the Hayame that appears in the doorway does not look that much like the warrior she had always insisted was all she was or could ever be. Her shorn-short hair is pinned up in a tiny bun tied with a colorful ribbon, and she wears a half-apron hanging down over her equine chest, the pockets stuffed with gardening, sewing, and leatherworking tools. An empty hamper is balanced between one arm and her dun shoulder. But to suddenly see that man crouched in her "garden"- ?]
Set, what-
["What has brought you here today?", perhaps, or "what has happened", but he carries on in his greeting with the answer to that aborted question... and leaves Hayame blinking in confusion. Blinking with two eyes, these days, even if the sickly green one is still hidden behind her usual eyepatch for fear that she might betray someone she cared for or something valuable to Meridian to whoever was watching through it. He wanted to- ?]
Fun?
[And drinks? And sight-seeing? And whatever struck their fancy? Caught off-guard and somewhat unused to such invitations from people, let alone accepting them, she looks between her home and the god out front, conflicted because her culture dictated she invite him in, at least find some tea and sweets to offer, but... Maybe something had happened? He seemed strangely... nervous? Her brow furrows slightly and she begins to look... almost embarrassed.]
I have to take in the washing.
[Ugh, it sounds so much like a farmwife that she almost cringes to imagine a war god hearing his warrior say such a thing, but. Belatedly... she realizes how it might sound. That instead of spending time with him, she would rather- Wait, no, that is not quite it-]
[Usually, receiving communion from Liem is a rather muted affair: cool and dark and quiet, but for what he sends intentionally through. An empty space, cleared of clutter. Today, though, there is a feeling of tension underlying the connection, like coiled, motionless wire ready to explode into motion.]
Hayame? ... Did you see the message Sebastian Michaelis made a little while ago?
[There is tension in Hayame’s as well, the source of which she did not think needed clarifying. Though she usually had the demon “blocked”, the force of his words this time had pushed through it, and she…]
I did.
[She doesn’t ask “why”, because it is him. He will explain, immediately.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lmao,
That, however, is likely not Sebastian's experience. Similarly because of how cold his own emotions run, Hayame's normal amount is probably near overwhelming for him. He attempts to put up with it for a while, but eventually, Hayame will be treated to the very smooth and unimpressed sound of a certain demon's voice popping in to Communion. ]
You know, I did consider us even. This latest development is rather unkind.
[ He doesn't actually think it's any intention of hers, though. He really is just complaining for the sake of complaining, since they might as well get this unpleasantness over with. ]
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Once upon a time, she had been cold as ice and hard as stone. It had been an act, yes, but she'd been very good at it. She'd had to be, if she ever wanted to be sold as a warrior. The temperamental, the rebellious, the hard-to-handle were made into Armless, broken to the saddle, or consigned to the breeding stalls. And it had been easy to present that facade when she'd been in control, when she'd understand how the world worked.
In Horos... In Kenos... She hasn't been in control of a single thing, and that included her emotions. At first, she doesn't even notice the demon's presence in her head, after she'd purged his taste from her stomach and throat. Over time, though... She realizes it might not be her going insane. And when a sickly familiar voice is let into her head uninvited-]
Get out- !
[... It's to the mental equivalent of slappy hands and a door slam. If only that worked in communion with those a dryad had bound together.]
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cw: suicidal ideation 1/2
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about a week or so after speaking to liem.
Miss Hayame, can I have a moment of your time?
[ that's the communion message she'll get if she answers his communion link request.
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Who the hell are you?
[the few people she knows also know better her opinion on this unnatural method of communication]
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ᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ▸ before the conflict.
Or so he likes to believe.
When the day of his first lesson arrives, he remains a diligent student, listening to her tips and tricks. His posture is proper, his grip is strong, and his aim — even with one eye — is true and accurate. Years of learning how to fight with a disadvantage like this have taught him to accommodate properly, but he'll always miss having someone else cover his blindside. Alas, all he can do nowadays is rely on himself, and that's why he's learning to be better.
He is currently collecting the arrows from the target when he tosses a harmless question down Hayame's way. They're on break so he figures it would be nice to kick up some small chatter. ]
So— how am I doing?
[ Is there room for improvement? She's been a fair teacher thus far, so he knows he can expect her words to be valuable. ]
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And in all honesty… he was not the most irritating student. For all his silver tongue could wag, he seemed willing to focus when it mattered. She could not instruct him on the longbow, her preferred weapon, it would be far too big, but the shortbow she’d selected for him at the armsdealer near the leatherworker’s was working smoothly enough…
And once she sends him to retrieve the last round of arrows she declares a short break. Pulling a small flask from the belt around her “waist” where… basically everything she owned was hanging, she takes a swig… and pauses to consider his question, one brow arched slightly.]
Far better than my last pupils.
[Another swig.]
… but they were colts under nine summers old, so do not let that compliment go to your head.
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post-scorching isle event
That is, until he has a new and jarring sensation of someone with a Shard nearby. He wonders if he's just imagining things, but another clue to tip him off is a pair of harried-looking stablehands complaining of a half-horse woman who seems to be spooking the horses. If she's a Shardbearer, Claude has a good hunch of who it is, so he asks the pair which stable she's apparently barged her way into and taken over.
How should he do this? Maybe Hayame is there because she wants to be left alone. Still, she'd been open to talking to him before, so he has to try. He approaches, aaand... knocks on the stable door like a totally polite and normal visitor. Nothing weird about this, nope.]
Knock knock. Anyone home?
[The punchline to this knock knock joke might be that this is a prank and he really is just bothering a poor horse... Time to find out.]
cw: suicidal ideation
In her own world, she had used a waterfall. But there is nothing of that height to throw herself off in this place, and even if she did... she would not die. Even if she slit her own belly open, she would not die. She would become a shard, reduced to the arrowhead-shaped chunk of obsidian now buried in her chest, the one that made her so sick she couldn't crush it underhoof herself.
So she wastes away alone, snarling at any of the grooms or the owners of the various mounts in the other stalls who try to speak to or bother her. Her mane and tail grow dry and brittle, no matter the oil she tries to comb through it. Her hooves begin to crack and ache with pain when she puts her weight upon them, and so she goes down... and stays down, a wretched, one-eyed dun nag on wood shaving bedding.
When someone knocks on the stable door, calling out... she doesn't bother paying attention to the voice, or who it belongs to, doesn't try to sense them either. She just assumes its the grooms again. They'd been gossiping, wondering about whether to call a doctor, if she was colicing like some fucking horse, talking of attempting to evict her-
So she doesn't answer.
But if he lets himself in to the stables... the shard-bearer in her visitor's senses seems to be in the last stall on the right. There is only a half-door on the twelve by twelve enclosure, nothing like privacy, just a jinba on her side with her back to the outside world.]
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action — alenroux
The more attention she pays to the job, the less time she has to dwell on the intense bouts of loneliness that strike her when she stops to rest, the kind of loneliness she used to feel when she still lived in her hometown. It's an unpleasant reminder, both of what it was like back then and of how much she's lost between then and now. Sometimes she can feel the sea of tombstones around her, then real and now imagined, filling the vast, stretching landscapes of the island.
Gray sits quietly by herself with those thoughts settled like a mist on her as she cooks lunch by the fire she's started for herself. She's become familiar enough to the farmers around the Cornerstones of Alenroux that they'll share or sell an ear of corn or a freshly fallen apple with her as she passes through, little tokens of luck for the little girl always hiking out on her own. The fresh produce suits her well, and often she'll make a simple meal of fruit and roasted vegetables to tide her over 'til evening.
She's munching on a roasted corn cob when she detects movement. There aren't many people in this neck of the woods, away from the farmlands and daytime villages, so she immediately puts a pause on lunch so that she can sharpen her senses for clues as to what's coming. Passing animal or nefarious highway bandit(s), which will it be?? ]
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Training she knew how to do. Had her groom not put a bow in her hand when she'd been but a yearling the second she grew strong enough to hold one? Had her food, shelter, and price not been determined by her results at it? She knows how to succeed at making a warrior, both as the one being molded and the one doing the shouting. (Matsukaze had told her to teach as she'd wish she'd been taught, not how he had... but that lesson is far from her, worlds away, and Hayame is so... angry.)
Which might explain why a a man with six arms and a simian woman come wandering into Gray's territory, neither particularly silent or hidden as they discuss (half-whine about) why "that woman" has brought them out to Alenroux. And when they find a different woman having lunch in the forest... they pause at the edge of the clearing, confused. Both are dressed as hunters and carry bows, with no identifying marks of allegiance anywhere... but Gray might possibly recognize them from the Springstar military headquarters.
They don't seem to recognize her, though. One of the six-armed man's hands moves to scratch at the back of his head awkwardly, looking at the woman he's with, who's hand-like feet shuffle, her mouth opens to ask What're ye doin' out all the ways here- ? before,]
The both of you are dead now.
[Hayame's voice rings out from behind them, where the larger and heavier woman had actually managed to conceal her presence somewhat well, the sound of her hooves muffled by soil and not stone, her passage through trees disguised as passing animal.]
If that woman were a monster, you would be its food. Does that please you to know?
[Both of the Springstar recruits look... real awkward. What are they even supposed to say to that? Is this gray-haired woman just going to sit there while they get a dressing down?! Is Hayame even going to greet Gray at all? IN A MINUTE, SHE IS BUSY.]
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omg sorry i missed this
no worries!
<3
now i'm the sinner
shame shame shame
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!!!
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action........
Hayame, are you well?
[ Her tone is... hesitant. Almost soft. She had been looking to talk to her for days, but she had wanted the Jinba to have the grace of time. She was not so adept as Catherine was, at changing the very nature of people, but she also knew that if Hayame had done what she so desperately wanted to do, it would have... there would have been consequences. Dire ones.
Now, she wants to make sure the woman is well -- and perhaps mend the small fractures in their foundation. ]
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Akua was not who she'd expected to come to call. Honestly, she hadn't expected a single person. She hadn't told anyone where she was residing now... but it is easier to track down a jinba living in a stable than it is most people in this city.]
...
[Hayame is in the middle of changing, shrugging a spare robe on over her viciously bound breasts with a flash of muscular back and bare arms, flicking her long mane out of the way of the fabric. For a moment, she does not acknowledge the other woman, as if she is contemplating pretending that she didn't hear anything even though... the stall only has four foot tall walls and no privacy.
But she does turn around eventually, hooves half-buried in sawdust shavings and fingers occupied with tying her robe.]
Akua. Can I help you?
[That's not an answer. There are marks all up and down her right arm that look like scratches from fingernails, but other than that... she at least seems to be physically hale.]
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communion
Hayame? It's Khalid. Did you make it back safely?
If you ever need help, I'll be there.
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- But she cannot read his words. She cannot read any words beyond her name, her brother's name, the basic characters for the cardinal directions, and numbers. Just enough for her stable master to advertise that she could be given simple messages by hawk and raise her sale price correspondingly. A lack that was just expected, in her world, but one that in this one had gradually become a source of mild shame, a weakness that needed to be covered.
She almost breaks and responds to ask him what it says. But if she asks, then he will respond, he might wish to meet her, he could talk about what had transpired between them that last day in the roots, and Hayame...
Does the Communion equivalent of leaving him on "read".]
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Claude was there. She heard him. She just didn't respond, didn't get close-
But after, when she is alone... She almost reaches out to find him.
Almost.
Instead, she tightens her grip on her bow and heads into the depths of Alenroux to hunt until she is exhausted.]
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She finds only paltry prey. Only small monsters the like anyone (well) could take care of. A tanuki-like creature that looks too straggly to make good meat.
Something does wheel ahead, though, temporarily blotting out the moon.
For a moment, she thinks it might be Claude abroad the back of that dragon-like mount of his. She even thinks that perhaps he-
When she looks up, though, the shape is wrong.
She condemns herself for the weakness and turns her eyes back to the wood.]
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But those failures had been shameful and humiliating, and she is in no rush to repeat them. To admit her needs, to beg to be treated as a woman so that she might find relief... the idea makes her sick.
Does she blame her heightened Discord for how much heavier this month's feels? Her shard is so hot, it's been hot since the ritual, hotter with each kill, and it mixes with her body's breeding season so easily that she isn't sure which part of her is overheating. She makes excuses to remove herself from the presence of the military, the scent of them too annoying to deal with and her tail too eager to lift and betray her, quitting the civilized part of the island to spend her hours standing in the cold waters of a river, burning as she shivered.
At the World's Edge, after her shames... Claude had been... No, she reminds herself. "Khalid" had been-
On that mattress on his floor, her Blight finally treated and the both of them left exhausted, his body had been so close to hers- far closer than she ever had imagined she would willingly invite another. His hands had been gentle on hers, his forehead a solid, steady presence between her shoulders, and she-
Suppresses the thoughts with a grit of her teeth when she feels her tail twitch, wading deeper into the river until the water could carry the thoughts and the urges they summoned away with the current.]
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Now that he thought about it, had he ever seen her read, or write, or carry evidence in her scant possessions that she owned books? He didn't think so. For many of the people of his world, reading was a luxury mostly afforded to the nobility or the clergy, though it was common amongst the mercantile classes of Leicester, or Almyran traders and scholars, too. Ordinary people, like labourers and farmhands... Less so.
It was hard to imagine for someone like him who lived practically half his life with a nose buried in a book, though, and so it had slipped his mind completely. Surely she holds that against him as further evidence they're too wildly different for him to ever understand her, especially now he had told her he was a king, and seemingly blinded by the privilege of his station.
He won't address that directly, though, and risk wounding her pride further with more assumptions. Instead, he just sends her a brief communion. Thoughts, this time, not text.]
It's me again. You don't have to respond, but I just want you to know that... I'm sorry for hurting you. I told you I wouldn't regret what I did, but that's something I do regret. It was never my intention, and I acted thoughtlessly.
[He can already feel something stick in his throat, though he hopes it isn't obvious across the connection, tenuous as it is. He should wrap this up quickly and reiterate what she (probably) couldn't read before.]
I hope you're staying safe. And... Whatever happens, don't forget that I'm always on your side. If you need help, you can reach out any time.
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Khalid.Hayame hadn't been expecting it. She wasn't prepared for it. If she was... if she had been, she surely would have blocked out the reach of his communion, she could have kept a better hold on her emotions, the thoughts roiling in her head.
... But she wants to actually know what he says this time. She listens. The sense of her presence is there, even though she tries to hide it.
He says a lot of things in such a short amount of time. Maybe she shouldn't be surprised at that, when he had such a clever tongue, and had been using it for all sorts of discussions on amongst the shard-bearers. He's sorry. He regrets hurting her- When... When had she ever said she was hurt by it? She wasn't that sort of woman, she wasn't hurt-
And he was on her side. Always on her side.
Was that even something she could believe was true? Every single person in Kenos who has called her "friend" or professed to care for her has betrayed her, time and time again, with no indication they would ever stop or change. Whether it was cavorting with her enemies, abandoning the faction they had joined side by side, or using weaknesses shared in confidence to discredit her in public for their factions' respective goals... How was she supposed to believe in "friendship"? In "care"? In... in- in what he had offered her beneath the roots?
She doesn't know what to say. How can she even talk to him now, when her heat is addling her head and turning her thoughts shameful? How can she even go to him, now, when doing so might make it seem like she was only caving in because he had given her a little apology or because her body was craving company? Her presence in communion is growing hot- and not from anger. From Discord, her shard burning up from within, from breeding season pulsing needily in her veins, neither of which she can hide long or very well. But Claude is a Stargazer. He cannot cleanse her Discord. He is a human. He cannot- he would not want-
Hayame flees like a coward and pretends it is for his benefit, her presence snuffed out in a wanton, jumbled flutter.]
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BACKDATED TO LATE WARQU, PRE-BEACH.
It is very obviously a burning, bright thing from Set, whose mind scatters into the corners of those he has forged some sort of companionship with — for duty, for responsibility, for fun, for solemn vow. What arrives is the briefest sense of rising disorientation, woven through with a burst of wrath and grief so white-hot that it might char flesh from bone within seconds, shot through with rapture and the whiplash of love. It rises like a dying, murderous sun ( like Meridian ) — stifling and acute and suffocating — only to be tempered within seconds, by the cool, crisp wash of the dark sea ( like Zenith ), tempered and soothed with all edges laid flat once more.
The Communion plunges into quiet and calm, like a great, purring beast, and ends as abruptly as it began. ]
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Something else hits her. Something from a familiar source, flaring in the corner of her mind and in the space of a second growing to be a wildfire that spread through every crevice and cranny in a sudden burst of emotion and confusing tumble of sensations. Rage, loss, love, burning, cooling... and then nothing.
She presses her hand to her one remaining eye, stumbling slightly and catching her heavy weight on the corner of the table. Set. He had told her (he had, like he promised) that he was going into the Beyond, searching for the temple Liem had seen there, deep in its mysteries and mists, so was this... ?
Once she is stable her gaze turns immediately inward... and she is there, where they always meet in this way, at the border where sand and snow mix. Unlike the last time, there is no storm brewing on the peaks or winds whipping at her hair. She knew he had gone somewhere unknown, somewhere dangerous, and yet the assault of emotion had not included... pain, per se. Not something that made her feel as if he were under attack, even if she was suspicious of that Zenith touch, so-
Hayame folds her long dun limbs and moves to her belly, reaching down to cup handfuls of sand into her palms. Reaching out as she watched grains of it slowly shift and drain between her fingers.]
Set.
[Was it a cry for help? It felt far more unintentional than that, but... She is there, waiting to hear more, to know if the mission to the Beyond had ended in failure or success, if this was something else overwhelming and powerful in its own right-]
I am here.
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a memory—
The Shard-Bearer holds back their sobs as their back bows over the simmering pot. They’d wanted to make Oma’s dish, just as she’d taught when they were little, but no matter how they try, they can’t remember all of the steps.
[ ooc note — Just to avoid OOC confusion/misinterpretation, the details included in this memory are random and are not necessarily interconnected or plot meaningful beyond a surface level. However, your character is free to interpret this random memory however they’d like! This event will also be touched on somewhat during today’s NPC Communion Post. ]
whenever people revive, he’s ditching them
As he flees, he thinks about what had happened before his death. And in that, he finds something else he can focus on besides himself. Besides his daughter and being tricked—
So, with a little urgency in the space of Communion, Fane reaches out to Hayame. As was the case in Commmunion before, his presence isn’t the skeleton. He refuses to think of himself that way when there’s another option. ]
Hayame? I—
[ He reaches out reflexively, but once he has, he’s also not sure what to say. This was something to help distract himself too, so he stammer’s uncertainly, then sighs. ]
Thank you. That- I can only barely explain what happened, but thank you for destroying that foul thing that had taken me over.
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What did she know? She wasn’t a magician, she did not know this man (skeleton) well enough to say definitively that the way he acted towards her in the labyrinth was against his nature. Even if he had seemed to agree with her stance on Meridian, on traitors…
People have seemed a lot of things, to her, since she had been ripped from her world.
But in the end… she had put it in the ground. And now-]
Fane.
[The voice comes as if from a distance- as if she were
a skittish mareholding herself apart until she had passed judgement on whether approaching again was wise.]… Is that your accounting, then? That you were possessed?
[She thinks she would be insulted to be asked the same question. But she must ask it, and she expects it to be understood why, no matter the impugning of an honor.]
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using the same icon twice... but my options are so limited... GRITS TEETH
i have been there... i feel ur pain... hold my hand...
one day i'll get an expression sheet commission but not yet 😔
one day!!!
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delivery
Some of the items he brings are simply handed over without fuss: a couple pleasantly spiced bars of hand-mixed soap, and a jar of soup mix with a brief recipe tied around it. (Perhaps she and Claude might like to make it together? Either way, Liem will gladly let her know what the directions say. It’s basically just “dump everything in a few cups of water; heat.”)
The last item he delivers, with a bit more care, is a slim, hand-bound book. The pages within are penned in Liem’s crisp, elegant hand; it’s an alphabet book, with Kenos’s complete alphabet at the front, and individual letters within, accompanied by small illustrated examples for pronunciation. (For A, apple and crane, and so on.) The entire back portion of the book is blank, so it can be used for practice or note-taking. There is also a space on the very first page for her to write her name.]
IT'S TIME
Following Meridian's victory, their claiming of the Harbinger Oracle, Set reaches out to Hayame — not in Communion, but by turning up in her yard. Long before he knocks on her door ( or, heaven forbid, sneaks in through a crack in her window ), he is out by the small saplings they had planted. Not too long ago, but long enough that he can review them for health and growth. Crouched in the dirt, his fingers slip down along the sapling's trunk and in, towards the roots, and warm Meridian-aligned spellwork gleams in rivers across his hair, down his arms.
One of his favored spells, that of Plant Growth, used passionately on Alenroux and within the Greenwood Yards, to forever make himself quite the commodity when it comes to agriculture. It's a spell he shouldn't be allowed to have, considering his nature, but also considering he's currently the only god of Egypt here, he must keep up the duties of his kin. Even... even Osiris.
Eventually, he'll lift his head, as if to find her face in the window or her figure standing in her doorway. Maybe she's even come out to him, but he wants to find her with his eyes. With the hesitant softness of his smile, as he rises and brushes dirt from his fingers and palms and says: ] Hello Hayame.
I wanted to invite you out with me, today. For — fun. Drinks, a little sightseeing, maybe anything else that strikes our fancy?
[ he's never sounded more nervous, and his voice isn't even quivering ]
SLAMS IN jfc this is so long just read the bottom half
Now, though... She has been bestowed the title of Decurion, like Liem Talbott had before her. After their successful claim on the Exalt Oracle, she had distinguished herself in the competition for the Harbinger. And thanks to the mysterious broadcast that revealed every single moment of what had happened in that labyrinth... She had become known to Springstar in a way she never imagined possible nor ever would have allowed. Being shown slaying a prominent Zenite, good, being shown fighting through the compulsions of the various magicked rooms in the maze, fine, being seen willing to kill Meridians if they were possessed or acting against their faction, sure, even that she might have been able to deal with, but...
They had also seen her kissing the man who she had hidden a relationship with for nearly half a year, even though part of why she had concealed it was fears for what it might do to their respective reputations. They had seen her nearly overcome by the desires of hunger in that room that crashed against the hungers of a sorceress, heavy and consuming. They had seen the tender moments shared between her and her war god, the admission of why cutting the beautiful, flowing mane from her head had been a sacrifice worth granting in the name of victory. And instead of turning against her, condemning her for weakness, or thinking of her as some perverse woman...
Springstar had embraced her. And she had run from it, at first, a being trained to crave and need praise but one who had never received it on anything compared to that scale. Over time she had begun to accept that... things had been seen, and there was no taking it back. That somehow... people felt endeared to her, or grateful, somehow, even though they didn't actually know her, and with Claude's coaching... She has tried to present the image of a woman that thought she belonged in that shining spotlight. (She was trying, anyway. It did not come naturally, and she still had nowhere near perfected it.)
But though she was spending more time in Springstar these days, a considerable change from the month and some she had spent avoiding it after a certain demon had suddenly appeared on its streets and taken her drugged body to Kowloon below... she continued to return to Alenroux to live, whether things had changed or not. She feels more... home, here. (Even though she had never imagined anywhere in Kenos could feel remotely like that.)
Set is one of the few people she had made privy to the nearest Cornerstone to her residence, but that did not mean she had been expecting company. Naira, the large white wyvern, slumbered contentedly in the sun near the rear of the house, having turned some of the grassy surroundings to a sandy pit with her preference for dirt baths. The weather was fair, and so Hayame had been doing various chores- there are sheets and articles of clothing drying on a line and fluttering in the occasional breeze, the pomegranate saplings Set inspects show signs of recent watering (as does the young persimmon tree nearby), there are peeled fruits and salted meats strung along the side of the house to start preserving. If one did not know better... It was a rather domestic scene.
And the Hayame that appears in the doorway does not look that much like the warrior she had always insisted was all she was or could ever be. Her shorn-short hair is pinned up in a tiny bun tied with a colorful ribbon, and she wears a half-apron hanging down over her equine chest, the pockets stuffed with gardening, sewing, and leatherworking tools. An empty hamper is balanced between one arm and her dun shoulder. But to suddenly see that man crouched in her "garden"- ?]
Set, what-
["What has brought you here today?", perhaps, or "what has happened", but he carries on in his greeting with the answer to that aborted question... and leaves Hayame blinking in confusion. Blinking with two eyes, these days, even if the sickly green one is still hidden behind her usual eyepatch for fear that she might betray someone she cared for or something valuable to Meridian to whoever was watching through it. He wanted to- ?]
Fun?
[And drinks? And sight-seeing? And whatever struck their fancy? Caught off-guard and somewhat unused to such invitations from people, let alone accepting them, she looks between her home and the god out front, conflicted because her culture dictated she invite him in, at least find some tea and sweets to offer, but... Maybe something had happened? He seemed strangely... nervous? Her brow furrows slightly and she begins to look... almost embarrassed.]
I have to take in the washing.
[Ugh, it sounds so much like a farmwife that she almost cringes to imagine a war god hearing his warrior say such a thing, but. Belatedly... she realizes how it might sound. That instead of spending time with him, she would rather- Wait, no, that is not quite it-]
... First.
[Then... She can go???]
HAMYAAAAAAAAAAAMS
SET 😭
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communion
Hayame? ... Did you see the message Sebastian Michaelis made a little while ago?
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[There is tension in Hayame’s as well, the source of which she did not think needed clarifying. Though she usually had the demon “blocked”, the force of his words this time had pushed through it, and she…]
I did.
[She doesn’t ask “why”, because it is him. He will explain, immediately.]
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