Sandrene's Confession

In the moments before confronting Sidax the Warbeast, Sandrene requests a private conversation with Stavroula over sending stones. Stavroula and the party are hiding in a house in an abandoned district of Aresgate as Sandrene's airship hovers above them, out of sight.

[SANDRENE]

"Hey there, short stack. How're you holding up over there? It's... been a while since we've gotten to chat one on one, hasn't it?"

[STAVROULA "STINKY" KYARI]

"Miss Sandrene!" Stinky pipes. The satyr pivots to face away from her companions and presses it into her cheek. "Hi! It has been! So many things have happened since the Fae Glen, too much to tell over stone in the short time we got, I think... but right now, we just finished putting Ghost into the mushroom-stuff. And Sidax called us to a rematch at the Arena, I think we are about to try fighting him head on."

[SANDRENE]

"Yeah, I gathered from all the talk of the prince duking it out with ol' Sid..." The half-elf chuckles before pivoting from her revisited tone of incredulity and light disapproval into one of intention. "That all certainly sounds like a lot and, as curious as I am to hear all the gritty details, what really interests me right now is how this small soul, born of humble beginnings in Fenside, is dealing with carrying what seems like the weight of all Feylin, if not Glade itself, on her tiny shoulders."

[STAVROULA "STINKY" KYARI]

A appreciable gap lingers between Sandrene's words and her reply. When she speaks again, a note of surprise carries through the connection. "Who? Me? I think, maybe, I didn't let myself think about it very much. Everything changed in a big way when we found that Coral Crown in those temple ruins. Ever since that time, crazy things have been happening one after another, and I just thought 'I need to do something about this'. And I'm not alone, I have my friends with me, and they're very strong."

"What about you, Miss Sandrene? You've walked into dangerous things many times too."

[SANDRENE]

Stunned silence, then another bout of laughter, this round feeling more genuine than the last, "Truly? You haven't felt scared over overwhelmed once? Not sure if that's bravery or something else. I swear, sometimes you remind me of my Meemi. You could be sisters. Well, if not for the obvious differences, and the fact that she already has some of her own..." There is a short but thick stillness, "That being said, now that I think on it they all turned out very different in their own ways. I suppose being adherent to a god who governs the line between life and death has its perks? Beyond what miracles you work on his behalf."

"Me? Oh… you know, I've had it pretty good up until I didn't. Sure, there were challenges here and there, but it was never something that couldn't be overcome by going back to the drawing board for a minute or two. Even when Sid turned on us Seekers and left us for dead, it wasn't without its silver linings—connections made, knowledge gained—an expensive lesson to be sure, but we didn't leave empty-handed. Danger is everywhere in this life, but the scariest thing I've had to do? That was making the decision whether to live a cushy, but false life as an aerial core arcanist, or defect knowing it meant never getting to settle down or the Closed Eye would catch up to me in time... but the sky raiders who came to be my crew helped me make that choice too. Unraveling the mysteries of the mage blight and magic disappearing from our world; the deepforged and their obelisks. Frig, even meeting you at the temple were all things set in motion by these ludicrous... brilliant... monkey-goblins."

Another moment stretches on before Sandrene, in a voice more fragile than the satyr's ever heard, asks, "Hey, Stinky... could I trouble you with taking my confession?"

[STAVROULA "STINKY" KYARI]

"I guess I'm not scared of dying." She admits with strange detachment, in response to the woman's reference to her attitude and vocation. "Maybe that's why I can focus when things get dangerous. I've always been like that. To tell you the truth, Miss Sandrene, when I was little I was confused when people cried at funerals. I kept thinking it was silly to be sad when you'll see them again eventually, that people would just feel better if they understood the Truth. I didn't understand until later, that it's the loss of a promise to make more memories together, that it's things left unsaid or undone, that it's loneliness that can't be filled up by something else. I never had anybody except Mother Kyari, I was just an orphan. Not very good at anything and not very smart, just a bit of a burden. I was taught to love the finish line. I didn't think about the rest of the race."

Stinky finds herself wandering away from the group, pacing a figure-eight beside the far wall as she allows the half-elf's thoughts to settle over her, only interjecting with an occasional sound of confirmation. Sandrene's question stops her in her tracks. The satyr comes to an abrupt halt in front of a window and leans into the glass, gazing heavenward as though she might catch a glimpse of an airship there. "Nobody's ever asked me before. It's no trouble. I'd be happy to, Miss Sandrene."

She spares a glance at her comrades as she slips away, letting herself out of the building and stepping out into the cobbled street. She clears her throat and adopts a more serious posture in her voice. "Mors veritas, veritas est absolutio. Let me hear your confession and let your heart be untroubled."

[SANDRENE]

The satyr's invocation is received with a slow draw of breath followed up by an even longer exhale, laced with both the half-elf's nerves and her appreciation. "Loss of a promise, huh…" she trails off thoughtfully, almost whispering now."You know, I can't say I've ever been more afraid of losing my own life more than when what happened, well... happened with Zilch. I'm convinced I came pretty close then, there was a whole mess of things happening in my head that just plain didn't make a lick of sense, not at the time anyway. I wonder if, looking back, those visions... could they have been 'the truth' as you so put it? I glimpsed it again a few months ago when I was dreaming as Tully."

A crack, then the hiss of magical flame can be heard as she takes a drag off what's presumably the last of her remaining pipeleaf, "Annie told me that can happen with things... you aren't remembering on purpose. Could Tully's brother have seen it, as well?" Another deep breath in, another out, "To be perfectly honest, I can't say I have the same unshakable faith that you do in a grander plan, seeing as I don't think I was ever a proper part of my maker's own so much as a loose end... perhaps that's what drove me to not only desert my people, but their way of life and thinking as a whole. In some ways I've been little more than an overgrown child acting out, I recognize, but being aware of that fact wasn't going to stop me from doing what I did, not even when a mirror was held up to me in the form of a boorish, headstrong, troublemaker. An orphan to the generation that aged out whom I made my first apprentice, and later my first mate, thinking it would keep her in line. It didn't, but with time the crying 'pon the aft at night stopped… and then she had to go and surprise me by becoming more of a leader than I ever was."

Her voice chokes up towards the end, and after taking another toke to steady herself, she finally resolves to cease her meandering about the point, "It's all my fault, Stavroula. All of it. I took that broken and naïve boy into the mage blight, knowing it'd awaken something in him, and then I went back there again, to the scene of my crime and stole a fruit from the tree Ida planted there to fix my mistake. Swallowed it, pit and all, thinking it would... I don't know, purify me? Make me young again, maybe. Then I ran away again, into Tully, and now," she's sobbing audibly at this point, "Rahal is gone, down to her soul, all because I couldn't face the mess I made."

She is overcome for what feels like several minutes of weeping before her whimpers become few and far in between. At last she speaks up, in a low voice, "There were signs, too, of Sid's betrayal. Obvious ones. He never let anyone else carry his bags, and when he'd slink off to pray to his Goddess his words, which were ordinarily so... grandiloquent, came off as a bit too informal when he was sure nobody was listening, if you catch my drift. I could have stopped him, but we really— I really wanted to see a friend behind that warrior of valor veneer we'd tease him about. I owe Karma and Tor more than they know."

[STAVROULA "STINKY" KYARI]

Stinky peers straight up at the crack of sky visible from the narrow alleyway, a strip of semi-overcast sky. The satyr is frozen but for flexing the fist holding the carved sending stone, curling and uncurling her fingers around its contours. The half-elf strikes such a heroic figure in her mind that hearing her sob so openly feels surreal.

"Miss Sandrene, I know I'm taking your confession right now, but I need to say something. I don't think you have anything to say sorry for. The things you talked about aren't your fault, and I'm completely sure Zilch, Tully and Rahal all feel that way too. Zilch was so sad at first but he's doing good now. Tully was a fae with a borrowed body, he knew exactly how it would end the moment he was born. Rahal saved everybody because she was the only one who could. She could've only learned bravery like that from you."

"And I don't think you need to ask forgiveness for Sid, either." That seems to snap her into the present moment. She looks around, alert again. "This whole... thing, who could have known? People cheat and use each other and steal and stuff all the time. He was always a bad person, but nobody expects an ordinary man to tame a god and try to re-shape the world. And because you are a good person, you will be hurt like people like him. I know this because it's happened to me a lot. It's our fate."

[SANDRENE]

Sandrene scoffs at first, not at the nun herself, but at the mere suggestion that she could be absolved of responsibility. She wants to argue, and even opens her mouth to do just that, but her better judgment tells her there'd no convincing her otherwise, "Stinky…" whether her staccato breathing is a cry or a laugh, of that not even she is sure, "You're really too kind. Now I'm certain there is no plan because there isn't any way I deserve a friend like you."

"I think I've cracked it. You and Meemi, you each have something few others have: a certain glow, a warmth that provide comfort to the people around you, it just so happens that yours is like the sun on a spring day and hers... well, that depends on what she's set fire to. Even at her worst it's a reminder that a little discord is to be expected and can be laughed off... erm, with time." Her tone indicates she recalled something less-than-pleasant in that moment.

"Despite all that was wrong with that whole situation back there in the woods, it was nice to play house with the girls for a little while."

[STAVROULA "STINKY" KYARI]

She manages a small but genuine laugh at that, chuckling before trailing off into a sigh. "Yeah, I can imagine it. Every time there's some disaster there's some nice parts to it as well. And don't talk about the gremlings like it's in the past, Miss Sandrene! Nina and Meemi are still gonna depend on you, y'know."

"Then…" She clears her throat. "With my intercession, Lord Denizen, Master of Endings, grants you absolution. May you be as peaceful as the eternally resting and as still as the grave. May his light shine through you and illuminate the Truth that lies within."