Sunlit Skies Snuff Sparking Cinders [Arcadia, Cyrus]

It had been hard to adjust but Arcadia felt much better, to really call it Arcadia though would be a lie. Did it bother her that she served as little more than a warden of some impure being? Yes. Greatly so.

There was a matter that stood in her mind, her lord's disdain of Kouroush. Well, not disdain but his insistence on his worthlessness. A useless vessel. Now Arcadia of the Clear Skies did wonder about that. So she walked into Cyrus' room, explicitly different. Her walk was different, her posture was different and her eyes were different while looking at him.

"Hmm."

It was time to study.

The moment that Arcadia entered his room, Cyrus knew very well that she had changed. He could feel the presence of another divine spark, even if he no longer considered it a part of himself. He doubted, quite deeply, that this was a good thing.

"Good morning, Arcadia. I must thank you again for bringing me here, though I am a bit saddened that I have not been able to visit you since our return. I suppose I must simply continue recovering, hm?"

All that he could do for now was simply speak with her as he always would. Perhaps it was nothing, perhaps he was worrying too deeply. But he had already begun to worry about the consequences of this decision, of what his divinity might do freed of any mortal obligation. Would it keep those promises Cyrus had made? He did not know.

"That's alright. I'm also recovering, so don't you worry yourself."

She tilted herhead thoughtfully. He would surely know, there was no point pretending to be 'her', it'd only be cruel to deceive the poor delusional man with a saviour-complex that was no longer a saviour. Her figure moved closer while she looked closer at him like she was studying something like a rock or a plant rather than a person. Just looking for what it was about him.

"Your recovery is important. Kouroush, why are you taking so long to heal though?"

It was entirely insensitive and devoid of much sympathy whereas that understanding and instinctual compassion befitting a mother was overridden.

"If you require help in your recovery, then I will get it for you. You're as much my equal under the Sun as I am your's."

There it was. Arcadia would not have spoken to him in such a way. She would not have referred to him by such a name. Every bit of Cyrus' heart ached, knowing this, and he thought for a moment that he should simply tell her to leave, to get away from his sight. But that would do nothing beyond worsen an already terrible situation.

"I am recovering as quickly as I am able. Any faster and I suspect my body might simply give up, fall apart from the strain. I cannot take such a risk, not when there is so much I still must yet do."

And so much more always being put upon him. To hear her refer to him as his equal... It was something he knew she never would have said. Cyrus did not know the scope of the divinity put upon her, but he knew that it had been much. He lacked the capacity to fix such a thing, but he would not for long. Not if he could manage it.

There was a resigned sigh of disappointment at his response. There was no patience with the Clear Skies. Issues and problems were like clouds, there was a reason she referred to the old self as cloudy when she was littered with flaws and problems; even more so for the masculine self which was not only cloudy but restless like a storm. Cyrus' weakness was like that, a cloud.

"Very well. It's not my place to judge the flame's decisions."

Then there was the other issue that stood out.

"You're dissatisfied with me. I cannot fathom why, no. I think I do understand, you need others clouded by issues and problems so you can ignore your own glaring weaknesses and continue to live for the sake of others. Am I right? You like me more when I am weak and littered with problems so you can save me. Right?"

"I had thought that it was not your place to judge my decisions."

Cyrus laughed humorlessly as he spoke, simply looking toward Arcadia with what could only be described as a hollow gaze. He could not bring himself to give her his fullest attention now, now when he knew that she existed in a state such as this. Not when she had been overtaken by the divinity he had lost.

"While your analysis of my person is quite thorough, I will leave the question of whether it is correct or not unanswered. If we are indeed equals, and it is not your place to judge me, then I should think it would be irrelevant to you."

He did not wish to speak to her. He hated it, to hear such words come from her lips, spoken in her voice. Arcadia would never have spoken to him in this manner. She would have judged more harshly, prodded him toward whatever she perceived as glory and power. This? This was all subservience.

"I'm sorry. It was just my intention to try and understand you a bit better, I didn't mean to judge you. I had every intention to only analyse more thoroughly without emotions clouding my judgement. Such is a different perspective and the new understandings it can bring."

Arcadia's gaze stayed on him while she approached him and sat down next to him on the bed. The faintest ghost of a familiar gesture in the way she reached up and caressed his cheek though without any of the warmth or affection that she had carried in the past.

"I asked though because I was curious, a saviour which cannot save. Why do you persist? Do you believe I am in need of saving or did you feel something else for me? I am not the Cloudy Skies that you so adore to live underneath and do not believe in playing coy with my words. I said we are equals and yet you don't see me as such. If I am willing to speak with you as one, should you not be willing to speak with me as one?"

In another situation, Cyrus knew he likely would have cried. The feeling of her hand on his cheek was so simultaneously welcome and yet foreign that he hated it with every fiber of his being. He had not hated anything, anyone, in a long while now. But he could feel hate coursing through every inch of his body, through every vein like fire. He hated what his divinity had done to her.

"You are not the Arcadia that I have known and loved. Whether or not I believe you need be saved is irrelevant."

What more could he say to her? He did not care to speak to her when she existed like this. She was not the Arcadia that he cared for, the one who had accompanied him on this journey. This was an Arcadia born anew through means he never would have dared to enact.

"I still have within me the capacity to serve as a savior, as all men do. I have made promises that I will not break."

"Is that so? May I ask you another question then?"

She persisted regardless of how he felt about it. Her words would be said regardless of whether he wanted them to or not.

"If I were to relinquish the clarity I have given to my clouded self, what would you do? I think you fail to comprehend how much of my being despises you. You walked the razor's edge of a woman's love and a man's hatred with what you've done to me. How much of myself did I give up to you? The only thing you have ever done for me was promise to restore my seat of power."

Sneering in triumph was pointless as she was not here to antagonise him but there were no reservations in trying to provide clarity on the situation and help him understand her own suffering and misery that never got voiced because for a goddess to share her pain with anyone would betray her own ideal image.

"When have you ever given something up something tangible for me or anyone for that matter? You built yourself on everyone's else's suffering with promises."

What would he do? What could he do now? But to hear her speak so plainly about his efforts, about all that he had done--

"I threw away my own humanity for the sake of all others. And, when the time came, I gave away even the power that I had sought. What am I now but empty, neither man nor divine? And yet, here you stand before me, speaking as if I have done nothing at all."

Cyrus knew he had been goaded, and he could hear the voice of the Arcadia who had once been mocking him in the back of his mind. He would hear it again, that much he knew for certain. He longed for it, in fact.

"What good is meaningless sacrifice? You think I ought destroy myself further in order to claim I have done more? My every action has been for your benefit, and the benefit of my people. If you seek sacrifice, seek it from one who now has the power to enact something by it."