[Closed] I am done with my graceless heart, tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart

[unlucky7]

Who: Ginia and her gods
When: June 10th
Where: Tsubasa's temple, Chris's temple, Ebisu's temple
What: Ginia talks to her gods about her memories.
Warnings: Mentions/reference to abuse, PTSD, murder, child death; specifics in subject line.

(Prompts in the comments)

Comments

[chibisu]

Ebisu will always have some manner of work at his desk. He wouldn't be a god of trade, or at least a very good one, if he wasn't busy. The work will always be there one way or another, especially as the world grows and forges connections within itself.

These new shinki are much more ephemeral and unknown, in contrast, and he straightens up with immediate interest at the news. A tinge of worry crumples his brow as well, although it's a faint little gesture. "There's no need to worry. None of this requires my immediate attention." He wavers for a second, clearly thinking. "Did you...?"

[unlucky7]

"Remember more about myself? Yes."

Ginia finishes his sentence and finds herself at a loss at where to begin. Where is the beginning when all her memories begin in media res? When she can infer the context around things but can't confirm or press too much?

It was easier with Tsubasa and Chris. They understand the ways humans can be and what they can do, from personal or broader experiences. They're human. They fight as a part of their daily life. But maybe they're all excuses.

Ebisu's being as a god first and foremost has never bothered her, but now she falters.

"I mentioned once I remembered my birthday." The signs are halting as she grasps at the threads of her lives and tries to knot them together. "It was more than that. It was a few hours of memories, roughly a day. Faces, names. I share a birthday with eight others. January first. We're named alphabetically."

It's as suspect as it sounds. Ginia has always considered it so.

"My more recent memory is longer. About a week long. Some of the same people are in the memory, though we're older." How much, she isn't sure. Time is a fickle thing. Ginia pauses, hands balling as her words creep closer to a truth she hasn't wanted to face or admit to.

"We were tasked with assassinating someone." Ginia smiles, but it falters. "I suppose in hindsight it's obvious what I did in life. I came with a very specific set of skills and little else."

[chibisu]

Even removed from humanity as he is, being what he is, well. Ebisu still loves humans, still manages to absorb a great deal of information about them. So, inhuman as he may be, he knows enough to understand that the first scenario is already highly suspicious enough. The more details she gives, and it becomes very clear why that is.

A bond isn't necessary to tell that she's worried about this, and the young god surveys her carefully for a moment before sliding out of his seat. For once, there's no disaster in this process, or on the way to her, where he takes her hand.

What he says is simple. "You're still you."

[unlucky7]

Ginia watches him work his way over, remaining seated though her legs brace in case she needs to leap to catch him. She holds his hand as he takes it, though it flies from his grasp as she signs, "I don't know who I am!"

A heavy sigh escapes, anger, confusion, loss felt as she wrangles her feelings back together. There's nothing wrong with how she feels, she doesn't take them back, but she needs a calmer mind. The truth in his statement is not unknown either. She is not a single-minded assassin. That much is clear.

"I know I can do good. Be good. Bring happiness to others. I know I have plenty of admirable attributes." He hands shake a little as she repeats the truth others know about her, what she's trying to remember about herself.

"But I've killed people here because I thought it was what I was supposed to do. The right thing to do. Hurt countless others without a second thought. I wouldn't hesitate to protect you or anyone else here. Violence is in my nature, as much as I wish it wasn't."

[chibisu]

Patiently, he weathers through the storm of her emotions, both those that she signs to him and those which crackle through their connection. Even young as he is, in this incarnation if nothing else, this is not the first time he's waited alongside one of his shinki as their emotions have wracked them. As she begins to wind down, he sets his hand along the crook of her elbow- out of the way and yet still a touch.

"How do you know?" he asks again, another simple sentence that almost doesn't seem like the question it is. A second later, and he at least makes sure to add more to it. "You've only remembered that much, haven't you?"

[unlucky7]

"A shinki acts based off their core being. They may adjust their behavior depending on what people react, but at the start, all we have are our instincts." Not all that different from a newly reincarnated god. But where a god knows who they are, a shinki is malleable.

But her hands ball together as she thinks about the things she knows and the actions she's taken. She held back in the forest when Celestia asked her to. She changed her plans outside the compound at Aomi's quiet disapproval.

"I didn't kill my target. At least, I couldn't do it. She had a wife and a baby son. She was rarely away from him. I couldn't figure out how to make her death look natural without killing him too."

Ginia rubs her face as the argument with Erika and Beth replay in her mind. No, it was really only an argument with Erika, Beth didn't want anything to do with it. Maybe she'd already made a decision. Maybe she was letting the two of them argue it out. A ragged breath escapes and she peers at Ebisu from behind her fingers and smiles weakly as her hand falls away.

"I suppose children are my weak point. I killed a cultist for hurting children and feeling no remorse for his actions."