#chantdeath

( I love them sm // always accepting ) SIDONY [ @chantdeath ] WROTE: a big smooch for the wife

IT ALL HAPPENED SO QUICKLY. One moment Sidony was pressing her lips to Cassandra's. The next Cassandra had pulled her into her lap and tangled them so close they were almost one skin. She would have slipped between Sidony's ribs smoother than any knife and lived there wrapped around her heart for all eternity. In this one way she could envy spirits: that they could become one so completely with another soul, no beginning and no end. Let that envy be a sin of which she'd never repent.

( the locked tomb // accepting ) SIDONY [ @chantdeath ] WROTE: ❝You see death as a mistake.❞

❝NO, IT IS THE CONSEQUENCE of a mistake. The Maker making us pay for His own ineptitude.❞ Blasphemy came easily. Johanna hadn't prayed since the day her family disowned her. She was no one's daughter and never would be again — not even His. If she ever set foot in a chantry again, like as not she'd set herself on fire just to see the Mothers faint. She knew the Chant only to bicker about it. Not because she was truly invested in challenging Andrastian doctrine but because it was an easy way to render most people incomprehensible with anger.

Not Sidony, though. She was instead being subjected to a rare moment of sincerity from Johanna. Brought on, no doubt, by a little too much from the bottle of cheap wine they shared. The scent of it perfumed her opening argument.

❝Threnodies five: 'And He knew He had wrought amiss. So the Maker turned from his firstborn and took from the Fade a measure of its living flesh and placed it apart from the Spirits'.❞ There was not an ounce of devotion to be found in the recitation, only smugness. ❝If He'd simply gotten it right the first time, He wouldn't have needed to create the Veil. No Veil, no death.❞

( circe // accepting ) SIDONY [ @chantdeath ] WROTE: ❝You threw me to the wolves, but it turns out I prefer them to you.❞

THAT STUNG, BUT CASSANDRA HAD earned it. It'd been decades since they were those young girls stealing moments of joy on the streets of the Grand Necropolis. Decades since they'd clumsily tattooed one another and sworn they'd never be apart. That tattoo was faded now. What lingered was the memory of pain.

Cassandra was ashamed to say she couldn't recall the cruel words she'd spat out before disappearing from Sidony's life. She'd been cruel to everyone then. Only her body had survived the massacre that claimed her brother. Her soul had been lost in the Void. When she looked back on those years, all she saw was darkness and rage. Even now it threatened to choke her.

Her mouth pulled down, with guilt clinging to one corner and heartbreak to another. ❝Is that why you left then? Nine years ago, when we recovered that artifact, you —❞ Sidony had left in a huff and with no explanation, but accusing her of that when Cassandra had done worse when they were young seemed hypocritical. ❝There wasn't much time for conversation, but I'd thought we were . . . getting along. Perhaps I misjudged. But, I've tortured myself every day since wondering what I did wrong and how I may make it right.❞