They traveled to her skull home, Hiru looking up at it with something akin to alarm. ‘You live here?’ he asked, worry in his voice, ‘in your own corpse?!’ Alene looked at him, trying to decide how to explain it. She knew now that she had made the choice to sacrifice herself, that her massive corpse was the result of Veridia’s gruesome experiment, and that must be what Hiru thought when he looked at the bones. Of the horrors of the past.
But to her it represented something else. It didn’t feel like a completely morbid choice, but rather like she was taking some ownership over her death, staking her claim to her body. And even before she had known about her past, the bones had always felt like home. ‘It’s…a part of me.’ She said, ‘it feels right to make it my home.’ He didn’t seem to understand, but she wasn’t inclined to say more on the subject, it felt too vulnerable to talk about with him. Though he may have known Una, he was virtually a stranger to her.
They sat inside, around the same small fire pit that she had sat with Ceit so long ago. She missed her. With Ceit she had been so content, even when she was a stranger being around her had felt so natural. With Hiru they had so much history, but at the same time they were strangers. It felt as if everything she might talk about with him was either too distant for someone that shared so much with her or too close to reveal to someone she had only just met.
The small fish god’s cracked shell dangled from a string in the ceiling, its opal case glittering in the fire light. She had hung it there so that she wouldn’t forget the little fish god, and to remind herself of the choice she had made. Of what she had chosen to become. She wondered now, though, if she had really needed to eat him. Would just finding her soul shard have been enough to recondense her? She shook off the thought. She had made her decision and there was no way to change it now, no way to undo what she had done. She would have to live with it. Because apparently death for a god was an uncertain, unassured thing.
From Hiru’s account, Veris had promised that the ritual destroying the inhabitants of the city would help reconstitute her, though he claimed it had all been a trick by Veris to form him as a demi-god. Alene wondered however, if Veris had been so untruthful, had the sacrifice of so many previously human demi-gods given her soul the strength to regenerate? It didn’t seem like something to bring up with him, his relationship with Veris seemed tenuous, even from just the few interactions between them she had seen.
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She offered Hiru some of her fruit stache. He smiled at it, ‘you still love fruit, huh?’ he said, reaching an arm to take the mango from her hand, running a razor sharp nail down its skin and peeling it back to reveal the fruity flesh beneath. She smiled, glad that he could see something familiar from his friend in her.
She peeled her own fruit. It felt good to be able to interact with the tangible world without having to worry about her body slipping through it. When she had only been mostly condensed the fruit juice would trickle under her ghostly flesh, creating an uncomfortable sticky feeling. It had been annoying to wash out, she would often have to take a full body dip just to get rid of the sensation. But now she was whole, complete, and though the juice still left her hands tacky, everything she interacted with stayed outside of her form. It was such a relief. It felt like progress.
She took a big bite of the exposed fruit flesh. Unlike Sym she tried to keep the juices from running down her chin. The reminder of her missing friend brought a frown to her face. ‘...do you think Sym will come back?’ Hiru looked up at her, his eyes tortured and full of flames, reflected from their fire. ‘I don’t know. Sym…she’s always had a strong sense of right and wrong. I knew when I sacrificed the city that she probably wouldn’t have approved. But I couldn’t let them get away with what they did.’ He looked down at his hands, holding the seed in his palm, turning it over and over. He looked up, ‘I’m surprised she didn’t hold the death of the other god against you, you said you ate another god, right?’
Alene nodded, ‘yes, a small fish god. He was how I recovered enough materiality in order to explore the underwater catacombs.’ She pointed to the delicate fins on her neck. She was unsure whether or not they would fade away. She had originally been a bird god who had taken a human form from the consumption of human remains, was her body dependent on what she ate? The rules were unclear to her. But being a fish suited her just fine. She liked being able to swim with Sym…if she was ever able to do that again.
‘I can’t believe you were above me this whole time,’ Hiru sighed, looking into the flames again. ‘I…I should have come up. Veris kept trying to get me to come out of the caves, but it hurt too much to see, well everything. To see the city without people in it and to see your corpse. I was just so…ashamed. I suppose I could have left the area entirely, but it felt wrong to. I couldn’t move on. I was just… stuck.’ He shrugged helplessly.
Alene listened quietly, nodding. She couldn’t leave either. She was just as stuck as he was. She paused. Was she stuck now? Now that she was whole, would she be able to leave the city limits?! Next time Ceit came around would she be able to go with her?! She tried to tamper excitement. There was no assurance it would work, and regardless, Hiru needed her right now.