The Crucible. [Bidaum/Inami]

Listening to the outburst, the hatred and disgust that lay in his tone, Inami didn’t stop him. Her lips curved into the faintest of smiles as she heart the words of how death was an encounter that could cause change. It was an emotion that she knew well, afterall, when she had awoken in the australian war arc, with only a rudimentary understanding of herself, was that not akin to dying and starting again? The cursed cycle of remembrance and forgetting, that she had danced upon, like dancing upon the head of a pin, over and over, time and time again. She had decided for herself that she’d only continue moving forward from now on, and that was why right now, as she heard what bid’daum said about how this wasn’t starting over, but instead how it was a chance to change, that was a statement that resonated within her very soul.

For a moment, the whimsy and glee that adorned her face was wiped away by a stunned neutrality. The queen of chaya, whose face had been confident and alluring, whimsical and carefree had shifted from a faux smile of playfulness, was carefully blank. For a moment her mind was blank, and she uttered the words blankly to herself.

”Change you say?”

Then it was as if a fire was lit within her. The queen's neutral expression was truly aglow, her tawny lips pulled taut, blossoming into a pearly white smile that was the beacon of her emotions. Her heteromatic eyes were a mismatched tapestry of amethyst and amber, one that sparkled with realization. Much like how this was a moment of change for Bid’daum, this was a moment of her life where she too could change. Much had been lost to her, but it was time to begin anew, to put aside the sorrow and the pain and forge ahead into the unknown.

”Yes, you may be right, but this is not just a chance for you to change.”

Inami glanced down at the hand that lay clasped within her own. She felt the faint calluses that adorned them, and the smoothness that lay beyond. The warmth and hope that lay within that touch was not from the physical action, but rather the symbolic binding that came with it. Inami had long since shut herself off to the world, and beyond a few people who had forced themselves upon her life, she had not opened up to another, nor had she sought partnership.

”This is also a chance for me as well Bid’daum. “

Her words held a candidacy that normally was hidden within the satire, the whimsicality, and the aloofness. What rang true right now was her honesty.

” I believe that sometimes it requires failure to truly rise above.”

Inami’s eyes shifted as she glanced at the train that wound across the realm in front of them. Her eyes held a glimmer of interest as she studied it’s shifting churning motions, mulling over the words she herself was saying as she said them, reveling in the sense of release and rightness that came from releasing control. A release that came from embracing her deitific roots.

”Bid’daum, I have failed. I failed to save my sister, I’ve failed my lover, and I’ve failed my family. “

Maybe it was Bid’daums candidacy that drew this out of her. Seeing a man who was willing to change, and was not afraid to admit it. Maybe it was because she wished Bid’daum to know that this was a mutual partnership.

”But I am tired of failing. So hopefully this partnership turns out to be eventful.”