Hiru slept in Alene’s nest while she elected to sleep up on the top of the skull, watching the night sky. Neither particularly needed to sleep anymore, but it felt natural to do so, after such an intensive day. Alene wondered if Hiru’s preference for keeping human hours was residual from his humanity, if there were some habits that would stay with him, like her own nesting from the time she was a bird. Even when she didn’t know who she was she still had a nest. It was innate, comforting.
They had agreed to go to Hiru’s old house the next morning. Alene had suggested it, and Hiru had hesitantly agreed. He was clearly traumatized by the past, and Alene wasn’t sure how else to help him get closure. It had been a good first step, coming out of the caves, and she had been touched when he had agreed to stay in her skull home, despite how much pain seeing her corpse seemed to cause him. Perhaps staying in his old house would be better for him? She didn’t want to push him too fast, but she was hoping he would tell her when it was too much. She hadn't had a lot of practice reading social cues.
They set out early the next morning, Alene had stayed up most of the night before, watching as the stars passed overhead and listening to sounds of the forests around her. She had watched the fanged and cloven horse Xi’s constellation for a lot of it. Oongx’s had long since disappeared over the horizon, but seeing Xi’s still made her feel connected to Ceit. What would Ceit make of Hiru and Sym? What would they make of Ceit? She hoped she could introduce them one day. Who wouldn’t like Ceit? Even Novem had liked her, she thought, smiling, no matter how he had shown it.
This was the very first path she walked with Novem, she realized, as she and Hiru made their way past what had previously been the gate to Hiru’s gated community, now overgrown, blooming belladonna and jasmine vines winding up the gate itself and a rose of sharon tree growing up out of the guardhouse itself. She hadn’t seen him since he had given her the god to eat, but then, he didn’t seem interested in meeting other gods and their affiliates. Or maybe it was just the gods she had met. She wondered if he was afraid of her mother or Veris. She didn’t have a grasp on the hierarchy within gods, but it seemed likely there was one. He had certainly been more than strong enough to overpower the little fish god. She wondered where she fell on the god power spectrum.
Hiru’s house towered over them, carved marble columns now cracked and covered in moss and vines, vegetation bursting from every broken window. It had once been a grand house, and it still was, albeit now in a very different way.
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He led her through the open double front doors, briefly touching the orchid door knocker, his fingers lingering with nostalgia. Inside a grand staircase met them, Hiru paused, taking it in. He led her through the same path Novem had, so long ago, down the corridor with the floor length windows covered with morning glory and datura, and into the glass greenhouse.
‘Mother loved poisonous plants,’ he said, his finger tracing an oleander blossom. ‘I suppose she liked their deception. It suited her.’ He dropped his hand. ‘We met here. In this green house,’ he said, meeting Alene’s eyes. ‘Back when you were Una. Well,’ he waved his hand towards the back of the building, ‘back in my greenhouse, not the main one. You stopped coming, but for a while, when I was a child, we were friends.’ He turned back to the flowers, walking carefully, so as not to crush those on the floor. ‘I think that’s why I liked you so much when we met as adults, before I knew you were a god. You reminded me of my childhood friend, the one everyone told me was imaginary. Mother put together you were the same person before I did. But she was always like that, ten steps ahead of everyone else.’ He let out a short, harsh laugh.
He looked back at her sharply. ‘And you gave yourself up to her. You may as well have killed yourself.’ His eyes were sharp, but Alene could see the tears building. ‘Why would you do that?’ He whispered, his voice hoarse. Alene shook her head, she couldn’t speak for Una, was barely even the same person. ‘I…I’m sorry,’ she said, helplessly, unsure what else she could say, what else she could do for someone who had endured so much.
Hiru stepped towards her, tears trickling down but his eyes getting fiercer. ‘You know what she did with your body, afterwards? Before she radiated you for the whole city to have a piece. She cut you up, took all your organs for herself. She wasn’t some sort of saint, she didn’t do it for the betterment of the city, no matter what she told you. She was a selfish, opportunistic, avaristic person. So. You should never have believed that giving yourself up to her would fix anything.’
He stopped in front of her breathing heavily, before his face crumpled, his previous ferocity crumbling. He turned away, ‘I’m sorry, I know you don’t remember. I shouldn’t have taken out my anger on you,’ he said, his voice ragged. He shook his head, as if to shake off the previous emotion. ‘Come on, I’ll show you where I found your soul shard.’
She realized then the truth of what he had truly endured. He had been forced to make such an incredibly tortuous decision, caught between two choices that he abhorred, the genocide and annihilation of his home, or to live in a city corrupted by the death of his closest, oldest friend, the catalyst being his own mother. And then afterwards had been subjected to such a long period of loneliness, forced to live with that decision, trapped under it even, in a very literal way, the city above him bearing down with the weight of his biased judgment. Her heart broke.