he stumbled into faith and thought / rosemary

[ROSEMARY]

[align=center]SHE LOST HER VOICE DOWN BY THE RIVER, SCREAMING FOR COURAGE

Half-expecting a violent refusal, she watched him settle into a more comfortable position with no small amount of caution in her burnt orange eyes. When she felt satisfied that he accepted her offer without argument, the lithe feline moved towards his head with careful pawsteps. She rarely worked on correcting broken bones before, much less broken bones in someone with such a massive head (both literally and metaphorically) – hence her caution.

Her ears twitched as he started to speak, puzzled that he actually took her up on her offer to listen. With the amount of egotism in his mind – and this Mother’s outrage at having anyone else throw their opinion in there – she thought he might slink deep into his own thoughts. Allow his mind to fester further with his grotesque ideas and selfishness thoughtlessness. She spent a few seconds busily fussing with her satchel before she formed a coherent answer to him.

“To be fair… I doubt anyone anticipated that Roseblood superiority meant sacrificing sentient animals to gods,” she pointed out, deciding to take a neutral position. She tried to stay careful about her word choice; thus far, the pharaoh appeared unaware of her attempt to telepathically speak with him, and she felt compelled to keep it that way. While she sensed an unmistakably odd emotional reaction to her attempt at mind-touching with him, she wasn’t optimistic about revealing her willingness to barge into his mind like that.

After a slight pause, she tilted her head before she continued. “To be fair… you are in a position of high regard because the members of this group believe in you. Your power comes from the amount of people willing to die for you – by showing that you’re willing to kill people as loyal as that little lion for gods they don’t believe in… it is troubling. They have no reason to fear the aspects, because the aspects are nothing to them. But you, killing someone in the name of a concept they barely recognize, that makes a bold statement that you will not value their lives. If you do not value their lives, they can’t become devoted enough to die for you, can they?” Trying to explain to an egotistical maniac why he couldn’t simply do as he pleased without inviting getting sacrificed herself… well, she wasn’t sure how well she succeeded in that front.

With a sigh, she murmured, “I’m going to set your nose now, it will hurt… briefly, I promise.” Before she finished speaking the last word, she attempted to grab his nose and push it back into proper orientation. Of that, she had no doubt it would hurt. But after the brief flash of pain, she anticipated he’d feel much better.