Everyting Fades [Santa/Mana]

How long had it been since she'd been....whole?

All in one place?

She had grown to be aware of the others. And after everything that had happened, with Ajora having to rely on Santa to fill in the shift in the world. The awakening of Aina. For the first time in a very long time, Santa was....aware of everything that was happening within her own soul. Looking the other two in the eyes. Verdada. Ajora. The three of them each gathered in the void of Garganta. A place made solid by Santa's reiryoku for the moment, platforms overgrown with her bone, locking it in place as her Garden formed a small platform for the three of them to meet. Her cathedral had become a personal place. And the idea of bringing someone else to the place while Mazda slept there.... no. That place would be for Santa alone to visit now and then. Nobody else. Perhaps at some point she would find another valley of screams to settle on. But for now, she didn't care.

All that mattered, was that she had a place to find answers without being disturbed. For all three of them.

Verdada gently opened her hand, and found that piece of Mana that had been entrusted to her. Pouring her reiryoku into it. And sighing sadly. The woman felt so faint now. She was almost a little worried that it wouldn't work. But even if it only worked partially, it would still be enough for them.

"Mana." The name came gently from Santa's lips. Wondering if it was akin to Mazda.

Calling out to the once-Queen and seeking her audience.

The three watched as Mana emerged from her slumber. Santa in particular focused, watching with.....furrowed brows as the demon queen came to become solid before them. The laughter having no impression on the woman's own facial expression as she watched Mana shift from tiremd to coy. The gentle grasp of her hand and the press of lips seeming to have a lacking effect on the woman as she regarded the ghost before her.

"I've summoned you to ask you some questions. Sorry to bother you, but ....there are things I need to know. I've never understood any of this. I've torn myself to pieces...trying to stay sane..." Her eyes tiredly drifted up to glance at Ajora and Verdada, a sigh escaping her before she looked back to Mana herself. With no affect of majesty or titles. Simply put: she looked to Mana as the mother of two of her friends.

"The world is ..... stable as it is. According to Santa, FAR more stable. The work of the late Divine Sun himself. I cannot imagine such a thing happened without your consent and knowledge." Ajora noted. Her voice as calm and calculating as ever. But Mana would feel that placid disaffectedness inside of her. Between the three of them, Ajora was the lest emotionally involved. It felt more a sincere curiosity than anything. And beneath that: a burning insatiable NEED for knowledge.

"And you also know more about Algos and Calypso than you've let on. Maybe not about the nature of their deaths. But .... as dear as they were to us. It's important to know who they were. What they were. You're connected. There's no way someone capable of leaving a piece of yourself with us for contact would not have done the same for your family." Verdada added. Her voice as saturated with conviction as the others.

"The world is more stable. The warm sun has risen over the realms. But that does not mean that sun will never set. I want to make the world a better place. But first I need to understand it better. Which....I understand is a lot to ask. Which is why for now....just the Actions of Mazda... and what you can share about your daughters will suffice." She noted softly. So much more ...tactile. Articulate, than Mana would have otherwise known her. Surely she had known Santa through Algos? Or maybe she hadn't. But all the same, the three pieces of Santa were all looking to the Queen with gentle expectation. There was no rush, after all. They had all the time in the world for now.

Santa made a face at that, and for a brief moment, insult soured the woman's expression, before Ajora cleared her throat and gently waved a hand in response to the assertion. "Not in the slightest. It is simply that our memories of Calypso and Algos were limited. However dear we held Calypso... ours was a very brief encounter. And while perhaps not as brief, well. I didn't have to look very far to understand that Santa's understanding of Algos was incredibly limited. Who she was. The Things she had done. However soft and rosy Santa;s memories of her were, there are things that need understanding. And unfortunately, against my hopes, Aina has retained Algos's memories. Which means that her past, to some degree, will still haunt her. Santa and, especially, Verdada, both wish to understand just what sort of past haunts Algos." She explained calmly enough.

A pause at that. "If only it were so simple. Calypso was a danava, was she not? Beings such as they never truly rest. Calling her truly gone, would be a little overzealous." Ajora pointed out. Causing an ...alarmed look on Santa's face. Who clearly was not aware of whatever she was talking about. But it was Verdada who kept the subject moving.

"If you don't mind. We want to know ....what their lives were like. Even Algos.... we only saw her in her final moments. We've no idea what led up to those things. We don't know why Calypso was a hermit out in the forest. Nor why the world held such vile eyes when it looked to Algos. Simply put we ....want some context." She explained.

Santa shot a venomous look in Ajora's direction, causing the woman to fall silent before the three of them turned to listen to Mana's words. And .... it was ..... perturbing. As Mana continued to explain the ends to which she'd struggled to make children, so much fell into place. The beatings. Killing off siblings. And the distress was incredibly clear on Santa's face. Ajora listened with a calmness that she always did. But perhaps the most surprising, was from neither of them. She wasn't even the first? The notion that Mana had 'Failed' in creating a daughter. It was dizzying. That this...Neoveta had to die. And then Algea had to die as well?! Santa frowned, but understood that this was .....demon. That this was the cruelty of power and standing. And in the pit of her soul, she felt sorrow that Algos had to be born to such a situation.

But it wasn't her who spoke up.

Mana. Or ...the ghost of Mana. Or whatever she was, would suddenly feel hands LATCH onto her shoulders, if they were able, and with a sudden, frantic effort, be lifted off the ground. By Verdada. "THAT was your greatest failing?!" The woman's voice was wracked with incredulity and anger. Santa had clearly been perturbed, but she had her mind tempered by life as a hollow. But Verdada, she who had been born entirely purposed around the protection of Algos and Aina. To hear what the woman had gone through even at first. It was enraging.

"What vile joke is this? You created daughters not out of love or nature, but as a BACK-UP?! And you let the word 'Mother' be soiled in your ashen mouth! What did you think would happen?! WHY would you do it? You have so much power, you could have made her from something GOOD. Or just let her turn out as she may. But you MADE her out of Grief and suffering?! INTENTIONALLY?!" Her voice was ....shrill. Incensed. Furious! She had known that Algos had been tainted by a great many things. But hearing what had been at her very core... it made her stomach turn.

"Why did you do this? Why did you ALLOW this? You say you KILLED Algea. You called Neoveta a FAILURE, AFTER you made whatever life she had a living hell. And yet suddenly you now CARE for what has happened to Algos? WHY? What twist of fate made you Suddenly care about these creatures you've spawned from your twisted flesh?!" She demanded. Wanting.....something. Because this was clearly beyond her comprehension. How could a woman who had done such vicious cruel things claim to love them?

It was simply no contest. The force of a mountain behind the hand that was Mana was more than Verdada' s frail frame was frankly capable of handling. Even as an extension of Santa, the woman's body was simply not up to task, and rather than actually applying much force on Verdada's body as a whole, Mana's hand in it's sudden vicious ire, simply plowed clean through the woman's navel like paper. The soft crunch and a wet noise as 'The force of a mountain' would find flesh that frankly had no business taking such a blow augmented by the woman's power, and a corresponding wet splash of viscera hit the floor. Clean through. So much force, in fact, that the rest of Verdada's body hardly felt the impact, and thus Verdada would narrow her eyes. She should have been paralyzed, probably very critically injured. Were it not for the fact...that she was not a person. She was an extension of Santa's power, and just as quickly as she'd been injured, her flesh filled back in just as rampantly.

But she wasn't going to invite a more....concerted effort to punish her. And so for just an instant, those hands clenched with a strength that could shred a train in half... and then just firmly set the woman down on the ground, blood running down the length of her chin even as she continued to glare at Mana.

"I understand more and more just what you are. And none of it makes me feel any better about you calling yourself a Mother." Verdada responded with poorly-bound contempt as she stepped back. Santa lowered her hand, having raised it in preparation to force Verdada to heel her aggression. A sigh escaping her, but Ajora beat her to the punch in speaking up. "I apologize for her disrespect. Verdada was created .... for a number of reasons. But chief among them was the safeguarding of Algos's remains. And subsequently: Aina. It is not easy for her to hear about the ...unpleasantries regarding Algos's uprbinging. After all, you would not want Aina to have a guardian who did not care deeply for her, would you?" She ventured calmly enough.

Verdada seems unimpressed, and only narrowed her eyes further when Mana began to speak about Neoveta. And then toward .... the ....dizzying complex that was the pair of them. And this time... BOTH Santa and Verdada seemed taken aback when Mana spoke about this secondary party. Or what they had presumed to be one. For just a brief moment, Verdada almost seemed like she was going to snap again, but Santa preemptively pushed her back.

"Mana.... could you...elaborate on that? You say ...Algea is alive. ....Separately from...Aina?" She asked. Trying to sus out if the woman was saying that in ADDITION to Algos taking on the new life of Aina, there was some other girl now loose on the world. Or......if perhaps Algos was truly dead and gone. And that it was Algea that now inhabited Aina's body?

Ajora simply seemed to take all of this in stride, content in allowing Santa and Verdada ask their questions. But asfor her, she had much different concerns to voice. But she said nothing. She thought about the last moments she'd shared with Algos. She remembered the last moments she'd shared with Calypso.

Speaking with Algos..... of the pain she was in..... and her ..insistence on clinging to what she was.

And....showing Calypso....the screaming .....sheer horrible truth in the sky. Giving her a glimpse...into why Ajora had set all of this in motion in the first place. Why Santa ever existed. She did not have to look up. She knew she wouldn't see the stars. But she'd know they were still there. And she could not help but think to herself. What REALLY was the extent of the woman they were speaking to? Mana was the closest thing there could likely be to a God on this realm. Mazda had also fufilled that role. But in the aching...itching back of her mind, she knew that neither of them was capable of what she REALLY wanted. She waited.....patiently.... for Mana to finish speaking in regards to Algos. All the while.... the question burned in her mind.

What had Mana and Mazda sacrificed so much for? What had TWO godlike creatures done with all of their might?