It was not uncommon for affections to be shared between the mortal and the Goddess when night chased both the pilgrims and crows back to slumber; gentle caresses, chaste kisses, sometimes a glint of long-faded desires to warm the coldest nights; such were formed most of these loving gestures. Their closeness was usually brief and without great consequence, much unlike the fires they would ignite in the past - time had worn away this flame, though not the love that birthed it.

And although it was unnatural for the old cleric to make these advances, there was something that night about the way the moonlight colored her skin, the way the night breeze made her now-mortal shiver ever so slightly. Perhaps it was this realization, the vulnerability of her exposed shoulderblades where the moon drew soft shadows, or even pity - whatever it was that drove him to do so, he kneeled behind the bared Goddess, letting bold hands take hold of her waist. She turned slightly to face her servant, blue rays dancing on her neck and parted lips; but she could not find his gaze. To act upon his desires shamed the pardoner, and the kiss he placed at the nape of her neck told of this conflict between righteousness and want.

It was nothing new to the Goddess of Sin, whom knew better than any of the workings of men’s hearts. Encouragingly, she wrapped her cold fingers around his, calloused and bony, and dragged them upwards from her waist and across her chest to her collarbones. This earned her a second kiss, and a third also, across her pale neck and her spine. She felt the soft caress of his hair when the cleric rested his forehead on her shoulder, teasing streaks stroking her skin.

Were his concerns so apparent, so obvious? Were the tremors of his heart so loud? The pardoner's eyes were for a moment wide as he turned to the goddess. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words - or rather the absence of words - made a knot of his throat.

Could her icy eyes truly see his very soul?

Worry crawled over him like a shiver beneath the skin, a hot nest of shame and confusion in his chest. She spoke frequently of love, and though Oswald knew that he would give his flesh and soul for her, the very thought of such feelings returned shocked him. What could gods know of love? Of the warmth that fills one's soul when their beloved is near, of the shivers when skin brushes against skin, of passions ignited deep within one's flesh?

Perhaps the goddess' mortal body, a temporary restriction of her power, allowed her a glimpse of human desire - this he could accept. But love was much more than flesh; in her immortal life Velka had met a thousand souls, and she would live to meet a thousand more. That he could be an object of her affections, a companion for what - in her timeless wintry eyes - would be no more than blink, a brief instant of respite... That too, he could accept.

But in his thoughts always something whispered that he, in time, would be forgotten. Replaced.

" Of course." A half-hearted response.

This nagging worm oft chewed at the pardoner's confidence on moodier days. Perhaps she saw it crawling between his heart and lung, its glutinous body poking between ribs as it wriggled.

In his heart of hearts he knew Velka spoke not of strategies of war. But he ignored this truth, and hid instead in willing delusion. He was, after all, the last free pardoner. In this way, he was her right arm, exacting her will - and at once her protégé, her secret last resort.

"And thou art to me as the sky to the earth, and as wind to the sea."

[ ⚜ ] — “Indeed. Was it the accent that gave me away, or the armor?”

Thinly veiled humor laces his words as the knight gives a bow with his head. And who was this woman, exactly?

“ Let us be rusty with language of a man’s together, mine dearest. ”

“ I art as rusty with this dialect as mine own scythe. “

“ And allow me to furnish thine mind with the information that that thing is rusted as FUCK my dude “

   the breadth of many years seemed manifest and culpable as it was with the eldest sister that yuria would return , a sense of refuge flourishing that was unheard of in her past travels , welling an old familiarity that felt neglected within her breast . troubled ? no , she would deny it forthwith . but gloom followed her and her countenance beneath her helm is tightly grim even as she steps into sanctity , into a respite that seemed unknown elsewhere . her arms were folded , mien ambivalently ponderous . that was , until velka’s arrival was manifest , yuria frankly regarding her with a somber clarity enunciating her voice .