You Can't Go Back Again [Reida, Arcadia]

"Grew up in a good Christian house. Most people I knew had that kinda upbringin', so it ain't too surprisin' or anything. My parents taught me right, took me to church on Sunday, all that."

Then again, Reida couldn't really say she'd been much of an active member of her church community, but she'd always been a little too busy with militia work and the like for that. She at least made sure the kids got to church on Sunday when she had 'em, though.

"So I guess you could say I've always been this way. Got baptized n' all that when I was about thirteen."

Frankly, she wouldn't have been remotely insulted if Arcadia didn't drink the coffee. Reida wasn't the sort to impose on people like that.

"I see, well that's nice."

Arcadia looked off to the ocean for a moment, Reida's words left a lot to consider about the people of this world. It seemed right to learn of these denizens if she would live here with Cyrus. What was her life like? The memories and experiences which she had were more like fantastical fairy tales if she were to share them but they were her memories and so those hundreds of thousands of years were real to her.

If she thought about it critically, the unshakeable faith she had in her own existence was no doubt similar to Reida's faith in a higher power. I have faith, therefore it is real.

"There's a lot to you all that's so different."

"Ain't that the truth?"

Reida entirely agreed with that assessment, at least. She'd grown up fairly insular, relative to a lot of other people. Seemed like a lot of the other people in the Vandenreich had traveled the world, seen sights. Her? She'd barely even left her little corner of the South before the war pushed her to. Sure, she got all over the place now, but it was strange to see all these folks from such different lives.

"Vandenreich's full'a people that I'd never've even dreamed existed. World as a whole's like that too, I guess. Sometimes it ain't easy to figure it out, but I figure I oughta try. Only right, yeah?"

"Of course, it's important to explore new avenues lest you deprive yourself of potential joys and necessary pains. Though we may not like them when happen, to be unable to overcome or accept them deepen our turmoil and fester. Consuming us in the process without intervention from self or another power."

She mused and redirected her attention back to Reida from the water that turned into a horizon. For what reason was this the place that the Vandenreich gathered. An idle thought of her own about the strange creation of an island in the seas. Secluded from the rest of the world.

"Think so? Guess I can't argue with that. Good book says life's a test and all that."

Reida didn't necessarily expect Arcadia to understand the bible reference, given the rest of their conversation, but even so, she did agree with that sentiment. She didn't like everything that'd gone wrong. Matter of fact, she hated it every day. But could she look at where she was right now and give it all up to go back in time?

Well, that was a tough question, wasn't it?

"Ain't used to all this water, if I'm bein' real honest. Grew up kinda near the ocean, but nothin' like all this. What about you?"

She wasn't really even fishing for an answer, really. It was just the natural way of conversation.

What a surprising question, it was such a small thing but it was dawning on her how little anyone asked of her or talked to her really. Everything about how she feels or her history was given to her beloved and no one else, she had to idly wonder if that's why she had become smitten with him in the first place.

The only other person who had proved himself equal in her eyes and the only person that she would lay bare her entire being for.

"I can't say an environment makes me uncomfortable necessarily, I found your world strange for a brief time like the familiar feeling of my mother that is nonexistent here. Walking along the Earth felt the same and yet alien at the same time to me. Demons and your kind are not so different either but with stark contrast in constitution and cultures."

She leaned back a little bit more which made the long golden veil sway, the garnet eyes were cloudy with thoughtfulness and yet she quickly focused on Reida again to dispel them. Her mind wouldn't be swayed or clouded, the confidence of a person that parted the world's obstacles before them rather than walk through them.

The idea of being compared to demons certainly sent a faint tinge of irritation through Reida, and her hands tensed as a fairly obvious sign of that. But, at the same time, she knew that was true. It wasn't like every demon was the reason things had happened the way they did. She knew that. There were plenty of good ones around the Vandenreich, and Reida made a habit of reminding herself of that.

"Guess that makes sense. Difference between here n' the arctic must not be as big as the difference between Earth n' some whole other realm, huh? Probably pretty rough, bein' out of place like that. Sometimes even this city's a little hard to figure out."

Reida knew perfectly well that she, too, was something of an outsider here in the City of Lights. For all the talk of accepting everyone, she still knew her own powers, her own existence, were pretty at odds with all the Quincy who lived here. They were a pretty beaten down people as it was, she didn't really blame them.

"The Grandmaster's good at makin' people feel welcome, though. I don't really get what's happened with him lately, but it ain't my business. Tell him I hope he's feelin' better."

Don't push it. She'd refrain from commenting after Arcadia's eyes had flicked to Reida's visible reaction at the comparison, the kind that if she were a more self-critical individual would recognise as the same kind of reaction that she had whenever Mazda came to mind. She hated that she missed him, he had left a hole for nothing to fill where the satisfaction of tearing apart the devil that she had given birth to should be.

"I suppose it should. I can't say it feels that different, as I grew older it became much less frequent for me to immerse myself with my subjects and devout followers. The greater faith in a figure, the harder it becomes to share experiences with those that do. Perhaps that is why your God does not engage with you, they do not know how to have the same experiences as you do."

Arcadia mused, still a little curious about this supposed creator of the human world. Perhaps she should see what Cyrus had to say on the matter at a later time but until then it would have to be food for thought.

"I shall pass it onto him. He appreciates everyone that follows him and the faith that they place in him, he labours so that is not for naught."

It did make her wonder though, just what did his followers think of him? Positively? Reida seemed to be quite content and supportive of him.

"Hm... Maybe. Ain't ever really thought about it that way. God's supposed to know everything, but I guess if ya know everything, bein' a normal person ain't really relatable, huh?"

Arcadia's point made sense to Reida. Or, well, the way Reida had interpreted it made sense to her. Honestly, she had a pretty solid suspicion that she wouldn't ever fully understand someone like Arcadia, but she'd be lying if she said she found the woman unlikeable.

"Ya said you're only here 'cause he is, and I guess I'm kinda in the same boat. I probably woulda left if he hadn't always been out n' about. That sorta...guess you'd call it empathy? Seemed like he was always worried about us. I only talked to him once, when I first joined. My power's not too friendly for other Quincy, so I was expectin' him to tell me I'd need to go. But he just said we'd work around it, n' I've been here since."

Omniscient too, huh? Arcadia was only left with more questions now but perhaps that was because she was coloured by a pantheon. Regardless though she was not here to debate or learn about Reida's faith despite the fact she found it enjoyable to ponder, she was trying to learn about her.

"Power's a difficult thing much like anything the absence or excess of it creates dissonance that leads to problem."

She refrained from asking the details of her power for a couple of reasons, she did not find it more interesting than Reida's character and the characteristics of a person's power were not necessarily a credit to them.

"I see though if I may ask then, are you happy here?"

For someone that had spoken about her grief and woes of the past, Arcadia wondered about that. She seemed conflicting in a way, she spoke of her joys and what she got out of her current situation but the danava was not blind to everything else.

The way that she looked when she had realised how her introduction came off, the way that she had recoiled at the comparison to demons. Was she truly dealing with her own pain or had she just buried it and hoped it would disappear on its own?