#deceitfulheart

✧ ▌A C C E P T I N G

@deceitfulheart // hoo boy, do I love these two together. This verse is so interesting (getting a bit of a sassier Jellal seeing as there is no CS and he’s always alone) and I love how much they love to hate each other. It’s oddly satisfying watching them pick each other apart and ignore their more, ahem, questionable feelings towards one another.

Ari is so sweet OOC and I always really love talking to her! Hopefully we’ll get to plot and RP more once I get settled into a place, because we have so much potential for development with this ship.

Also, just Ari’s Ulti in general is so great? Like, she’s so well thought out and her motivations just feel so authentic to her original characterization in the series.

sherry was used to being called sweet. dangerous was a word that was not used as often, but it was surely the word that described her better. this alone mollified her as she set down her drink and raised an eyebrow at the other goddess that had sat down on the other side of the table. compared to nearly everyone else, sherry had never paid much attention to xavia and her parents. from her position, oxys and rixa were nearly boring — they knew what they had in one another and knew better than to seek this  ( a partner capable of near unconditional love )  in someone else’s arms. if xavia herself had ever had a lover, it had not been dramatic enough to attract arden’s attention.

despite what some seemed to think, she only paid attention to her fellow gods’ love lives when it was important. otherwise, she showed them the courtesy of  intentionally  not caring about it. this was a bigger mercy than most of them seemed to realise, but what else was she ever to expect from people who tended to nearly agree with the way mortals saw her — all tender and sweet, gentle as a summer breeze.

“ hello, ” she greeted as she took a bite of her cake. “ dear, as you can see, i am on my coffee break. so unless spending time with me is your goal here, in which case you’d be welcome, tell me what you want? ”

unlike most, sherry had never seen much use in sugary phrases. as a goddess, she was powerful enough to be blunt with even the most powerful of her brethren. some, like sors, seemed to prefer this over the caution others employed, but sherry did not do it for anyone’s benefit. her bluntness served no other purpose but genuine self-expression. if her status as a goddess who could  really  ruin anyone’s day, no matter if divine or mortal, had one benefit, it was that she did not have to pretend to be someone she was not.

( and if someone thought it fitting to call her a bitch, they would quickly be reminded that her ears were trained to hear even the softest whisper of a heart that longed for her gentle blessing. )

xavia, she decided, was no porcellain doll she had to treat with the kind of gentleness that required effort. the other goddess did not have the reputation of being overly merciful either, but which goddess but eleos  did  have that reputation anyway?  surely not vindicta.  grinning slightly at this joke, a joke no one but her would ever hear, sherry tilted her head. usually, she could guess why someone had sought her out. usually, it was the same story — i know you made me fall in love! take it away! — but sometimes, people surprised her … though that had not happened in a long time.

then, xavia did have a reputation for stirring things up, so this might just be worth the fact that as long as she waited for the other to speak, her coffee was growing cold. should the other goddess indeed have something worthy of sherry’s limited time, this would be a small sacrifice.

ur did not know what to say. this was something that tended to happen where her daughter was involved — old, somewhat misplaced guilt was a hard habit to kick. it did not matter how many times ur reminded herself that she had not known, that there had been no way for her to just guess what had happened. she had put her faith in a profession that  should  have been deserving of this trust, and it had been exploited. no, more than that. it had not just been her trust that had been abused, her desperation and the last hopes she had had at the time had been turned against her as well.

and although ur was a forgiving woman, this was something she could not forgive, much less forget. she had been used — and there was little she hated quite as much as being a pawn in a game she did not even know was being played. just thinking about it made her hands shake all over again. memories were not kind when one had a past like hers.

“ what happened was not right, ” she finally said, hands clenched to fists in her pockets. “ it was not right to do it to you because you were just a child. it is not right to harm children like that. ”

but it had also not been right to do it to ur or anyone else. then, she had lost so much already and when they had taken even more from her, she had shattered. there was a limit to how much she could take, how much pain she could endure before she fell apart. but she would not make this about herself. at the end of the day, she had been an adult. she had been supposed to be able to handle bad things. ultear had been a  tiny  girl — such cruelty should never have happened to her or any other child.

humanity had gotten too good at war, this was something cassida and  silver  deinos could agree on. it was not what they had wanted, it was something they could barely stand to look at, but it was the painful reality they had to live with. and painful it was. for cassida, there was a constant buzz of anger that begged to be released in her blood. and it was ugly anger, anger that would manifest as violence if she would allow it. she would not. not as long as she had any say in the matter.

it went without saying that cassida knew what it was like when every fibre of one's being seemed to be aflame, but her daughter, she figured, would not want her empathy. there was too much of both deinos and cassida in xavia for the younger goddess to take particularly well to something that could be read as pity. it was another thing cassida could not blame her daughter for, not when she had a past of snapping at well-meaning people who had just wanted to express their sympathy.

“ i see, ” she said instead, quietly and calmly. she usually tried not to provoke xavia, not to add fuel to the fire, but it was not easy. too many things could offend the other, too many things cassida would never think of in advance. it was like walking on ice, never knowing if it would carry her weight or if it would break under her feet. “ sors and cyrus might know something to make it more bearable? ”

It wasn't often that Ead left his private lounge in favour of Fortune's main gambling hall, but the presence of another deity that wasn't one of his siblings called for...additional hospitality.

Her face wasn't an unfamiliar one. She was not only a member of the divine community, but a fellow citizen of Vegas, too.

❖  ▎ACCEPTING

His brow creased with frustration. Would this woman ever stop speaking in riddles?

“What’s for show?” He barked, irritation leaking into his words.