Give Praise, For He Has No Equal [Mazda, Liltotto]

There is surely no further time for delay, no further need to idle. So spoke Ahura Mazda, voice of the sun. There was much to be done, and he knew quite deeply that there was no opportunity for others to stop him. Yes, he knew that his form might well be seared away if he caught too much undesirable attention, but he was not some weak creature. Such small pieces of himself were not the same as the whole of his being.

And, frankly, he would sooner have to begin his plan anew in trying to enact it, than to continue to act as though he were some weak-willed child. Carrying himself off on the winds, to find the one being that he considered his true equal, Mazda looked to Liltotto as she watched the sea. Of course, he did not typically choose to interfere in her life, or in the lives of others as a whole, unless there was something pertinent at hand.

This was, of course, something quite pertinent.

"Liltotto. There is no longer time to idle about, and I have every intention of beginning my plans in earnest. You, as the one creature who shares my existence, and who will surely feel the ripples of my efforts, ought to know what is to come."

He, of course, assumed that she would listen. But he still would have quite preferred that she acknowledge him before he spoke.

Barefoot, sitting in the exposed sands, and watching the sea in silent contemplation was what Liltotto was up to, and would be interrupted in doing. She didn't even bring her phone to listen to any music, only letting the sounds of the ocean bring her comfort as she contemplated of how to even approach one of the few things that struck fear in her. Occasionally, a fork would stab into some leftover meat in a glass container, being gradually devoured to keep her hunger at bay until the air shifted.

Her heart dropped far below, stomach tightening as she needn't hear his voice to know he had appeared.

How fitting - Him coming to her before she's prepared for it, rather than vice versa. By no means was the woman the coward she thought herself to be at times, but speaking to something such as Mazda would take most some mental preparation.

"..Good evening to you, as well." Her words were strained, not fully facing him but certainly acknowledging his presence, as if averting her gaze from the blaze of a sun, "And what would that be, exactly?"

"To correct the realms. I know not whether you have sensed it as I can, seen it as I have, but I know that they are weakened. The peace I have sought is impossible if I do not put forward my very best efforts."

Mazda looked out at the ocean before them, his gaze almost wistful in nature. Despite all of the godly distance that he maintained, there was something nearly human in those eyes as they studied the waves. He found the ocean beautiful, almost as lovely as those waters which had brought him into the world.

"I will replace the Soul King. There is no further time to waste in that endeavor."

Her eyes scanned the sands, the occasional sand scurrier pipping up and out from the loose earth, only to return to it soon after. Her feet shifted in the sand softly in a subtle display of the anxiety she held in her heart, still simmering down from his sudden presence. She knew that he knew where she, and likely everyone else, was at any time, and could arrive whenever he wished - it simply was always going to occur like this, she'd reason to herself to cease her panic.

"Well, yeah," She'd breathe out softly, "That is what happens if you carelessly rip tons of power to and fro across different spaces with little regard to the effects doing so would have to those separations..."

In an odd way, something about what she said felt wrong on an instinctive level, wrong like, something shouldn't be like that? She couldn't place it very well... And to that comment asking her if she could feel it was another wave of irksome feeling, like she could and has been but also.. Hasn't? She shook it off - it was probably her nerves talking, she had to stay cool.

But that last statement from Mazda made that idea very hard to maintain.

Completely dropping her aversion, she'd look directly at him with shock, "..You're joking. You have to be kidding."

Her voice heightened a little, "The Soul King, you?"

It wasn't that she didn't think he couldn't, it was that she was afraid he could, and whatever that could mean past that point.

"There's.. No, no way, you made it sound like you just wanted to kick the Shinigami a few pegs, do better for who deserved it, not.." The last few weeks of thought and fester came bubbling up in her tone, "This doesn't make sense, nothing makes sense - Why do you have to go that far? Aren't you already all powerful and crap? Aren't you already a piece of him, it, whatever it is, whatever that means anymore?!"

Her hands balled into fists to hide the trembling well of feeling expressing in her hands, "Why do you have to be at the very top of everything? Will you never feel content? Will it never be satisfactory enough to truly act until everything is beneath you?"

She'd grunt almost angrily, "If you're so powerful and great and crap, why can't you just wave your hand, speak out, whatever, and just fix it? Why do you have to be at the very top to help anything?"

Were it any other creature in all creation, it was entirely likely that Mazda would simply have spoken Liltotto out of existence for the way that she spoke to him. Even now, there was a certain degree of distaste that made itself apparent in his gaze, the narrowing of his eyes and the turning of his lips ever so slightly downward.

"I am a piece of that ultimate creator. My words are his words, and what I speak is made law. But this world still remains under his hand, even now. I might certainly speak peace into this world, but that is shortsighted, short term. Even with everything that I am, the words I speak are only temporary measures. Do you think, Liltotto, that I consider this ideal?"

While Mazda's voice carried with it all of its typical bombast, all its authority and confidence, there was an undeniable degree of what could only ever be called desperation in it. For he knew, all too well, that to separate himself from the world in such a way was not his ideal. That to become a sequestered, distant god was everything he was against.

"To become the Soul King is to sell away my ideals. I am a god of the people. I love my subjects with all my heart, and to see them live their lives joyously is all that I could ever ask. Do you think it pleases me, to know that this is the only way I might ever achieve the power that is necessary to save them?"

Liltotto was entirely wordless as the being spoke, expressing his visible disapproval of her words and demeanor as he did so. Her expression only seemed to shift from one set of emotions to another, her thoughts entirely shifted. If he was telling the truth, which she did not perceive him as the deceptive kind, she couldn't amount the decision to pride or esteem - it sounded far more.. Sacrificial, than anything she would imagine.

But those words of his, of being a piece of that creator, only made that bubbling well trapped inside of her boil over once again.

"..No, no I don't think you find this situation ideal," She'd reply softly, what faint shimmer her eyes possessed merely being the signs of watering, taken by silence for a moment.

"..I'm a piece of him, too. Isn't that why you were drawn to me in the first place?" Her voice sounded drained speaking that reality out, "Whatever that means for me. I'm nothing like you, yet here I am, whatever i'm meant to be."

Her gaze was low as she spoke, a sick feeling washing over her, "I tried being human, but I lost everything. I tried being alone, but having nothing was also painful. And now i'm.. Just doing whatever right now until I figure something new out. Working for the Vandenreich, keeping friends company, keeping myself occupied... Days feel like minutes counting down til it's all nothing but sand again."

Finally, a tear rolled down her face - a rarity for her, "If you're all that, then what even am I? Was I an accident? Was I born to suffer alone, walking for eternity? I just feel so wrong, misplaced, and it's driving me crazy. I'm so sick of everything slipping away from me, but there isn't an end to it."

She'd let out a labored breath, "..Even if you scare and worry me, you're the only one in this world who's like me. And.. I honestly have no idea how to feel about any of this."

"Yes, you and I are kindred spirits in that respect."

Mazda could certainly tell that Liltotto had no desire to be like him, that the idea of being anything similar was nothing she might have cared for. He did not begrudge her that, whether or not he was particularly fond of her distaste for him.

"Even I, the Lord of Wisdom, do not know why it is that those such as you and I are here in the world as we are. Why we have been cut away from the Soul King, why our existence is our own. But there is no time for us to wonder such things, when the world demands so much of us both. You, Liltotto, are far more human than I. In a way, it is admirable. Perhaps even enviable. For the sun oversees all things, witnesses all life and nurtures it. But it must maintain its distance, for to come even an inch closer would scorch all creation to dust."

From his perspective, such a distant life was anything but ideal. No, Mazda certainly did not think ill of his own existence, but the distance that would be made by this action would surely be a curse. One that, whether he wished it or not, would be his to bear.

"Your existence is one that can walk among the people. You are able to know them, to touch them in ways that I never might. I am a god, but you are human. Neither superior nor inferior. Simply another aspect of creation."

He reached out to wipe the tear that had fallen away. In truth, Mazda would have preferred something more intimate, more comforting, but this was the one person in all existence that he did not assume to know, or to understand.

Her weary gaze only seemed to sink further into that sea of despair that washed her mind that even he didn't know why they existed. The question of human existence was far less ambiguous to her than to that kind - there was no set path or destiny for humanity, they are born, they experience, and they die, and thus are set to repeat that cycle if nothing impedes it. But for her, her existence had a level of.. Wrongness to it, or at least that was what she described that feeling at the edge of her consciousness at times, that her birth was unnatural, this feeling only becoming far more apparent in recent weeks with that confirmation that she was a piece of a higher being, and not simply some strange human or spiritual entity.

Tired eyes would raise from the sand and look to him, clutching the earth as he spoke of her humanity, softly flinching as he wiped that tear away, but more would follow as she felt that sour feeling in her chest.

"Yeah, I am probably as close to human as something like us can get," She'd gently move to sit on her knees in the sand, "But can I really even call myself human? Do I really belong? Even in my closest moments, even reliving my life in the Vandenreich, I feel like an ill-fitting piece. No matter how much I force myself, I'm out of place."

Her hands never relaxed, remaining balled up and resting on her thighs as she spoke, "But i'm no deity, either. Even being alone for years was depressing. Being anything like that would just be more alienating, I couldn't do it no matter how much I delude myself into thinking it's the right thing. I just don't know a way that i'd feel happier..."

She'd shake her head softly, "Ugh, what's wrong with me... You come here dropping your plans for all, and all I got is blathering about all my dumb sad shit i've kept in my head all this time to you."

Why was she even bothering with this? Was she hoping he would understand? Was she hoping he would have an idea, or an answer? She felt such an ugly mix of fear and hope inside of her to this man. She felt so wary of him for all this time, in this unknown, but being right in front of him and none of her fears coming to term... Ugh, she couldn't put her finger on why.

"In that respect, you will never truly be one with them. I, too, know the necessity of that distance. Know that there is a degree of suffering in it. I know, when I make this plan into reality, that there is at least one soul I will leave behind who will miss me dearly."

After a moment, Mazda sat down next to Liltotto, an action that was, in fact, not one he nearly ever undertook. He had no need to rest, never slept and never required any respite. To sit down was to touch the Earth below, to become mortal in the eyes of others. However, there was none here but the one creature who understood his own existence. Maintaining that image was a fruitless endeavor.

"I am already fully aware that I am seen as a necessary evil. I know that there are few, if any, who believe in what it is that I have done. And I know that you, by comparison, are welcomed among the people with open arms. Do you think that the words of the people fall upon deaf ears? That I do not know that I am seen with fear, with hate?"

He continued to watch the sea, knowing fully that the waters he held dear did not care for him as he loved them.

"I do not mind hearing what it is that you feel most deeply. I understand that there are no others with whom you can share this."

Her gaze would lift, noticing the deity having taken a seat next to her, gaze lightening with a bit of surprise that he brought himself down to the level she was at. They would lower again, though her hands ceased their trembling, resting flat and open-palmed on her thighs, the rigidity of her body loosening.

His words made her reflect on her own experience amongst others. Despite not being human, she typically was greeted as if she were. None looked at her like some foul creature. Neutral looks from passerby's, kind exchanges from strangers, the beauty and ugliness of friends and family... Even if she wasn't human, she was seen as such, accepted as that.

A stare was pressed on Mazda as she was in such thought. He likely didn't have such experiences amongst people, his very presence was different, inhuman, even those unknowing of his true origins would be able to tell he wasn't of them. She could tell at the very least that Cyrus, the one he originally split from, did not view him highly. She hadn't any reference for how long or short he had walked the earth, but in a way, she felt a little sadness for him.

Even as accepting of it he was, it must have been lonely in that role, unable to properly connect with others on a human level. And now he was intent on fully separating himself...

"...I'm sorry," She'd finally speak, breaking the moment's silence, "...For thinking cruelly of you. I was letting my fear of the unseen guide my perception of you, and that wasn't right of me," A sad chuckle left her lips, "..Maybe I think more like a human than I originally anticipated."

There was no words once more for a moment, letting the sound of the softly crashing waves fill it again, before she'd spoke, "...Do you wish you could've been welcomed more readily? Does the fear and rejection hurt?"