Reaching out

Alexis sat in comfortable silence with the kind tinkerer for a while, simply sharing company.

Alas her thoughts were anything but quiet. They kept turning and turning, refusing to settle and rest. So she finally gave up and stood, putting a hand on Ekero’s shoulder in a friendly manner, thanking him again and letting him know she would take a little walk.

She slipped by her friends, each of them much to engrossed in their respective conversations to mind her departure and just set one foot before the other, without a destination in mind.

The nightly breeze felt cool on her skin and reminded her that winter was drawing near yet again. Had a year really already almost past since she came here? It didn’t feel that way…

She walked a bit longer, finding herself alone among the fields that fed the little trading village. The sky was very clear and she could see quite far, even to the peaks of Fang. Alexis gazed at their rugged silhouette for a while, deciding to just find a place to sit down.

Doing just that, she felt the hammer head’s weight against her midriff. She had not even made a conscious decision to bring it along. By now that seemed to be as natural as bringing her weapons, which was still a bit disturbing.

Sitting cross-legged, she pulled the package from her side and placed it in her lap, looking at the ever-shifting surface with a frown. It was infuriatingly frustrating how out of her depth she felt with that thing and its supposed role.

Tarmen’s frustration with what little they had to work with had only echoed within herself. She felt completely disoriented.
Fosia had claimed that he would try to guide her steps. But… where to, exactly?
To the shaft? He hadn’t been able to give all that much guidance in that regard, given it took her crashing into that black robe to realise where it had gotten to.
And, as Tarmen quite rightfully questioned, what after that?
Would that ‘destined wielder’ reveal themselves then? Fosia should already know who that was, shouldn’t he? Why the secrecy?
…She realized there was another reason it might be important she knew that particular information. One she felt was only fair to let him know if he didn’t already.

Alexis shook her head, aggravated.
She… wanted to speak to the fire god about all those things, see if she could get some answers. Even though she had a hunch she didn’t really know the decisive questions.

But how should she go about that? Should she try with the hammer head again? That had worked once, at least, though she had been more or less invited then.

She supposed she would just try and see what happened.
…
Trying to speak to a god. Did this constitute as … praying? Huh. That felt so very weird.
It wasn’t that she never prayed. The bizarreness was more connected to actually hoping for an answer.

Because on that she had given up long ago, when her mother wasted away with sickness.
Only the Bean Nighe* had ever shown any sympathy for her passing, even if it may have only been in a dream.
And while she wasn’t bitter, as one might assume, at least not anymore, she had given up on hoping for divine aid. Maybe the gods didn’t hear them, or only a chosen few. Maybe they heard, but couldn’t speak back. Maybe they heard, but wouldn’t.
In any case it seemed ill advised to earnestly hope for an answer to one’s prayers.

And yet here she was, hoping for just that. From a god she didn’t even know existed not too long ago.

Alexis shook her head at herself. Really, she should have become accustomed by now to the strange mess Arcadia had made out of her life, but she wasn’t.
Anyways.

She carefully placed her hands on the hammer head und tried to focus, softly speaking, both in a whisper and in her thoughts:

”Fosia. Are you there? I want to talk to you.”

*Bean Nighe A creature of folklore that might appear as a beautiful maiden or an old crone. It is said one might encounter her washing the clothes of a next of kin that is soon to die