HEARTFORGE - sensitIV (Session 4)

[idolpro]

You are in the heart of a massive forge. In front of you are tools, and your objective is clear - to use them to channel the strength of your heart and create.

What are you creating? Who can say. Only you - and only you'll know if - and when, it's good enough. The stories before you are not yours right now, but you'll make them yours soon enough.

And you will survive.

Comments

double: event 3

[forgottenmercy]

The life of a shrine maiden, when you are not doing the necessary rituals and rites, is a quiet, lonely one. The last sacred maiden had not been so lonely, you vaguely remember seeing her spending more time in the village than you did, but she was noticeably older than you when she took up the office, and less gifted - and less set apart. You spend most of your time studying, meditating, and praying, alone in either your room or in the garden of the shrine, sitting by the pond and watching the koi swim. You used to, when you were younger, go walking in the village sometimes, just so you could see your old friends, but nothing was the same, nothing is the same. Almost everyone (even the shrine priestesses, in their own way) puts you on a pedestal, venerates you, because your prayers to the gods, your ability to please them, sustains the village, keeps everyone alive, and that distance hurt at first, ached, until it stopped hurting, stopped aching, until you stopped longing for friendship, for companionship, and breathed in the loneliness and the silence until they become part of you. Dutiful, devoted, (not happy, but your happiness does not matter), beautiful, and silent, unless you are singing and dancing for the gods. You don't see a life outside this, nor do you want it, unless you can do more somehow to help your village, your home.

You're in your room, now, rereading one of the few books the shrine owns, when you hear voices, outside: the familiar voice of the high priestess, and a deep voice that is unfamiliar, though he (?) speaks with the accent of the domain capital. You turn a page: you can't hear what they are actually discussing, and it likely does not concern you anyway, until one of the junior priestesses, who is at least five years older than you, bows and enters your room, nervously apologizes for disturbing you. You aren't needed, at least not yet, but you should know that the replacement for the old administrator has arrived, and that he will probably ask to meet you at some point, preferably before the next major ritual.

(Which is soon: less than a week away.)

You expect her to leave, now that she's brought you the news, but she stops, for a moment, and asks if you wish to see the new administrator. Not talk to him, if you do not wish to, but just see him. You aren't very curious, but she's standing by the window: your room has a small real glass window, priceless beyond measure, and usually covered. After a moment, you allow her to uncover the window, and you look out into the garden, where the high priestess and a very tall, broad-shouldered man with long, tied-back pale hair are standing. He's young for his position, not yet thirty, which you hadn't expected - but then again, the last administrator, whose funeral you had danced at, had been an old woman who had not served in her position very long.

He glances away from the high priestess for a moment, gaze settling curiously on something - and you realize that he's seen you, through the window. You don't need to ask the priestess to cover the window: she does it before you can even ask, and retreats once you thank her, politely. Once she is gone, closing the screen behind her, familiar, comforting silence settles back over your room: years ago, you'd learned not to mind being alone.

(It's better this way.)


Notes:
Hades is in the memory, as the new administrator.

Re: double: event 3

[bondsofsuffering]

[Ugh he's so annoyed just seeing Hades and protective of Persephone.]

Re: double: event 3

[sancrimony]

[ he's seen it before so he's familiar with the emotions here but he is just quietly digesting it again anyway ]