Sunlit Skies Snuff Sparking Cinders [Arcadia, Cyrus]

It had been hard to adjust but Arcadia felt much better, to really call it Arcadia though would be a lie. Did it bother her that she served as little more than a warden of some impure being? Yes. Greatly so.

There was a matter that stood in her mind, her lord's disdain of Kouroush. Well, not disdain but his insistence on his worthlessness. A useless vessel. Now Arcadia of the Clear Skies did wonder about that. So she walked into Cyrus' room, explicitly different. Her walk was different, her posture was different and her eyes were different while looking at him.

"Hmm."

It was time to study.

"That's alright. I'm also recovering, so don't you worry yourself."

She tilted herhead thoughtfully. He would surely know, there was no point pretending to be 'her', it'd only be cruel to deceive the poor delusional man with a saviour-complex that was no longer a saviour. Her figure moved closer while she looked closer at him like she was studying something like a rock or a plant rather than a person. Just looking for what it was about him.

"Your recovery is important. Kouroush, why are you taking so long to heal though?"

It was entirely insensitive and devoid of much sympathy whereas that understanding and instinctual compassion befitting a mother was overridden.

"If you require help in your recovery, then I will get it for you. You're as much my equal under the Sun as I am your's."

There was a resigned sigh of disappointment at his response. There was no patience with the Clear Skies. Issues and problems were like clouds, there was a reason she referred to the old self as cloudy when she was littered with flaws and problems; even more so for the masculine self which was not only cloudy but restless like a storm. Cyrus' weakness was like that, a cloud.

"Very well. It's not my place to judge the flame's decisions."

Then there was the other issue that stood out.

"You're dissatisfied with me. I cannot fathom why, no. I think I do understand, you need others clouded by issues and problems so you can ignore your own glaring weaknesses and continue to live for the sake of others. Am I right? You like me more when I am weak and littered with problems so you can save me. Right?"

"I'm sorry. It was just my intention to try and understand you a bit better, I didn't mean to judge you. I had every intention to only analyse more thoroughly without emotions clouding my judgement. Such is a different perspective and the new understandings it can bring."

Arcadia's gaze stayed on him while she approached him and sat down next to him on the bed. The faintest ghost of a familiar gesture in the way she reached up and caressed his cheek though without any of the warmth or affection that she had carried in the past.

"I asked though because I was curious, a saviour which cannot save. Why do you persist? Do you believe I am in need of saving or did you feel something else for me? I am not the Cloudy Skies that you so adore to live underneath and do not believe in playing coy with my words. I said we are equals and yet you don't see me as such. If I am willing to speak with you as one, should you not be willing to speak with me as one?"

"Is that so? May I ask you another question then?"

She persisted regardless of how he felt about it. Her words would be said regardless of whether he wanted them to or not.

"If I were to relinquish the clarity I have given to my clouded self, what would you do? I think you fail to comprehend how much of my being despises you. You walked the razor's edge of a woman's love and a man's hatred with what you've done to me. How much of myself did I give up to you? The only thing you have ever done for me was promise to restore my seat of power."

Sneering in triumph was pointless as she was not here to antagonise him but there were no reservations in trying to provide clarity on the situation and help him understand her own suffering and misery that never got voiced because for a goddess to share her pain with anyone would betray her own ideal image.

"When have you ever given something up something tangible for me or anyone for that matter? You built yourself on everyone's else's suffering with promises."