Tidal Florette - A Painted Soul I

Kaiya - 15

Life out on the sea offers a dreadful amount of time to in one's own mind. Kaiya knows it's only been hours since setting off from Irusu, but it feels as though she's been on this balcony for days. She did take a moment to lock her door and grab a bottle of wine off the shelf. The empty remains rolling across the balcony floor as the ship climbs and falls through the sea.

Although no one has tried to disturb her, she doesn't want Inei getting any ideas of consummation tonight. For that matter, if he thinks that's ever happening... Her hand wanders to her side reflexively looking to grasp a blade, failing to find one she notices the nervous reaction. Fuck... Ukiyo's going to stay with me, isn't it?... She pats around her waist, panic sets in when she realizes the katana isn't there at all. Where the fuck? Thinking back she remembers dropping it. After I... Oh Yumi... Her heart twists in her chest and she rushes to the bannister leaving her stomach as empty as the wine bottle she nearly tripped over. Leaned over the edge, she half considers throwing herself off, if I left her to drown then I should too...

The ship lurches, pulling her back onto the balcony. This time the bottle catches her foot and she falls to the deck, barely catching herself from hitting her head. No, no, I can't just let myself tumble off the ass of a boat. I have... so much more wine in this cabin... I can just keep drinking until it's all gone, take my poisoned corpse back home to bury me, then no one will resist calling my tale "Kaiya Winedo, Dumbass Extraordinaire". Least then no one will ever use that pig's name with mine.

Pulling herself off the floor back into the chair, she groans from the soreness in her hip from tripping. Why the hell did I listen to him at all? You're a fully educated woman, there must be more to this than bending to some conniving asshole's murder scheme...

She thinks back to how she felt when the blade revealed that purple glow in her eyes. I know it's possible he tricked me, or I assume it is at the very least, but somehow I just know with all my heart that it came from Yumi. I could feel it, like she was right there with me, a part of me. If she's really practicing night god rituals and cursed me, then I know I did the right thing... But would she really have done it on purpose?

Kaiya thinks through the last few years with Yumi, all the times she'd rant for an hour straight how she doesn't understand people who worship gods and how the gods must just be like us with lives filled with stories and feelings and beliefs too. Kaiya usually kept quiet, although she herself has never been that involved with the Ignited Temple's rituals; upholding her family's devotion to Aelionos is the one promise to her father she never wants to break.

She's watched Botan drink himself into a stupor, going off on his own rants of the importance of loyalty and the beauty of her mother's service in Aelionos' name before her passing. She never really talked to Yumi about that, just kept quiet out of fear of losing Yumi if she really understood her need to keep that commitment. But she spoke the same about the night gods too... Maybe a little frustrated about them being forbidden... But that's not really evidence they were witches.

Kaiya strains to remember a time Yumi spoke with her about her eyes glowing like they do sometimes. She told me she reads people closely for her paintings... That it's something every Painted Soul has so they can carry out their traditions. And she wasn't sure why they'd glow when we'd get intimate in any way... It was too cute to worry about... I thought it was mostly just superstitious and metaphorical... But maybe she was playing dumb and it did more than read people?

She knows there's no instance where she's experienced the ability to read someone, so it's not like the technique was passed between them. Settling back into the chair she considers grabbing another bottle, but the world already feels like it's spinning and risking another trip doesn't seem worth further inebriation.