For a long time she listened, the warmth between them unchanged. There was something beautiful in the way he spoke about his memories, where most spoke of painful things as burdens to be discarded Gekirin spoke of them as pieces of himself. They were wounds, but wounds that had shaped him. When she was younger, she would have thought him foolish. Back then she had seen suffering as unnecessary, a fire one could simply step away from. The lotus had offered simple answers to difficult questions, rest, comfort and oblivion wrapped in sweetness. She, like many had accepted those gifts eagerly and for a long time never regretted it.

You know, she murmured at last, there was a time when I would have argued with you a faint smile touched her maw. I would have told you memories are overrated, that grief serves no purpose and keeping it when you have the chance to let it go is little more than stubbornness her amusement deepened at this, I was very convincing too, entire islands agreed with me the joke was aimed more at herself than anything else.

But the older I become, the more I realize forgetting takes things you never intended to lose. her eyes drifted downward for a moment. It never stops at the pain, it takes the joy too, the people, and the lessons, there are faces I can no longer remember for the first time since they'd met, there was a trace of melancholy beneath her words.

As for the gods... she began, tilting her head. I wouldn't call myself divine. I simply happened to live in a world where the line between mortal and divine was thinner than most people would like. she mused, but curiosity drew her away from them.

But what of your pantheon, Gekirin? Were they apart of your upbringing, stories your mother told you?

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