Devotia Ch. 23: Faith

Callie exhales slowly. She can't possibly bring herself to say anything further. There's no way she could face any of them and inform them that this is what she was doing.

"I see," says the Magister.

- - -

"I can't possibly see why I ought to be the messenger," Cirene shudders. She'd made a significant show of dropping down into one of the lounge chairs in her atrium when Callie had delivered the news. Her blonde hair, ruffled from a similarly quick awakening, and the occasional sound of a nighttime guest moving about upstairs betrays the sudden disruption of her night. A trio of Paladins patrol the exterior of the home.

"I don't think I could convince anyone else."

"But you could me?" She grimaces. "This idea - I don't understand it at all. I can't. I won't. Callie - I just think that, well it's not so much that..." She sighs, quickly and heavily. "I'd rather like it if you didn't get yourself killed."

"Neither would I like to," she admits. "But my mind is made up."

Cirene's head rolls up to peer into her. The sweet pools of her eyes, soft and innocent and precious, betray a sort of horror. "She'll kill you."

"Something inside of me tells me she won't."

Cirene frowns. "How is it that you're suddenly the religious Devotia? Wasn't that always more Junivere's disposition?"

"I can't explain it, I just feel it. Yala is going to protect me, or use me, or... I'm not sure. But something is going to happen."

"And you're okay with that?" Cirene rises and takes Callie's palm into her hand. Her anxious fingers flitter along the backside of her palm, lightly tugging against her tendons and circling the soft skin. "You love your agency more than anything else. The whole point of everything you've done lately has been to secure your freedom. Now you're allowing a goddess to dictate what you must and must not do?"

Callie considers this for a moment. An automatic response comes quickly, only for her to dismiss it and force herself to consider it even further, under more scrutiny. A few long breaths pass before she can find herself saying, "I keep thinking of Rookwell, where I came from, and how much they would hate me for who, and what, I am now. But maybe that could be changed. I don't know how, or what it would take, but maybe the world could be different there. And then I wouldn't have had to flee everything just to be me.

"But this is Solva. And Solva also needs to change, and it won't just do it on its own - something has to make it change." She looks away, eyes finding the curling waves of marble underfoot and following them. "Gods, I've been such a coward my whole life, Cirene. Don't make that face, it's true. I've spent my whole life running from something, and maybe there were plenty of things I should have run from, but there's also been so many things I should have stayed and fought for.

Water wells up neatly behind her eyes, and something catches timidly in her throat. There's a buzzing in her chest of something important. "I... I'm just not fucking running again. This is my city. My city. My home. Everything I love is here. Everyone I love is here. And she's trying to take it away from me. I just want us all to be free to live and love - none of this other bullshit.

"I don't want to only serve the powerful - I want everyone to be blessed by the goddesses. I don't want to be under the thumb of the Magisters - I want to be free to follow my heart, my gut, and the guidance of the people I love and trust. Who know me. And I am not going to let Velena take it all away from me. Us.

"Maybe Rookwell could change. Maybe not. Maybe Solva can change. Maybe not. But I cannot stomach the idea that I didn't try." She turns back to Cirene, who almost seems frightened when Callie growls, "I'm a Devotia, dammit! I'll never have more power, more resources, more allies than I do now - and if I do nothing with that, if I let Velena take it all away without fighting back, I'll never be able to live with myself.

"I'm not running again. I refuse to be scared. Maybe Yala will protect me, maybe not. But I know that I am going to do whatever it takes." She exhales, bitter and determined. "This is the only way I can think to fight back. And I'm willing to pay the cost. If being a martyr is what it'll take to defeat her, to make this city what I want it to be, then I am ready."

Cirene's trembling hand is clammy against her palm. The woman seems so fragile beside her - or perhaps Callie just feels indestructible. But Cirene's face is wrought with pain.

"None of us want to lose you, Callie," her voice breaks softly. "None of us want to live in a Solva that doesn't have you."

And Callie doesn't know what to say, other than to let her feel the conviction in her heart, the passion in her voice, the finality of her decision. "I'm not running again. I need your help, and I think you're the only one who will understand me on this."

With tears now dancing along her lovely cheeks, with pain in her eyes, and a reverence of her being, Cirene slowly nods. Then, she drops down to her knees, head bowed deferentially.

"I am at your service, hal Devotia."