Of the two Gods to whom Cera still clung, only one was close enough to his heart to warrant forgiveness. Yet he hesitated each and every time his heart bid him to return to the fires he had once tended faithfully. Was the Sun God as disappointed in Cera as the Earth God was? Cera had only done as his Sultan had bid, he had never...never even suspected...his anger had simmered into naught but ash, leaving behind a hollowed out shell of the beautiful being he had once been. When was the last time he'd truly been whole? Before the scar on his chest? Before he was even born? He was a machine, moving on mechanic, jerking movements and gears that clunked and stuck in place. He was passive, dismissive, on the outside. But on the inside, he was a soldier at war, breaking down walls of his own design in his agony. A screaming drunkard smashing bottles against the room he was trapped inside, begging for death, for salvation. Did he even deserve to be saved? Did his Gods, in all their forgiveness, think he could be saved?

After Sikeax, he had wandered away, mind clouded. After Mesec, he had taken heart in the pleasant burning of Hector's touch against his thigh. Though hours had passed since that moment, Cera held it in his heart, using it as fuel to keep moving. There seemed to be no motive, no purpose, but he did so nonetheless. What other choice did he have? Death, certainly, but Ilaria was only just keeping him from the brink of that. Of all the times his knees had broken and buckled, of all the years of pain and betrayal and heartbreak, Cera had stood up and continued on. He had walked on shards of glass, on lava and spikes of ice to continue forward. The soldier inside him had hefted his gear, wiped the blood from his eyes and tried to pretend it was sweat rather than tears that clung to his weathered, battered cheeks.

Perhaps he had taken one bullet too many.

The ocean, he mused to himself, was perhaps the kindest grave. One where his kin could not find him, could not agonize over the sight of his corpse as he had over Hototo's. As they all had over the deaths that had plagued Helovia. Staring blankly across the glittering surface of the sea, he wondered whether his Lord could forgive him.

Whether he could forgive himself.

@[Gaucho]

Post Mesec joining, prior to Ampere spar