[center][h2]Sleeping B(en)eauty[/h2][/center]

	Benea stood at the wide bow window of her room. Xavier had been kind enough to let her stay at his own massive home and to commandeer one of the rooms. The room itself was very fit to Benea's likings with almost all the trappings of her home back at the pristine palace. Her bed was ridiculously large, her walls thickly decorated, and the floors polished to such a marble shine she could see herself in them. Despite all of this, none of it fetched Benea’s eyes and instead she found herself staring outside at the purple night sky.

	The starry expanse blanketed the city, each speck of light reminding her of who had made it. Every memory put a stone in her stomach, until she was feeling nauseous with anxiety. So much had happened and none of it according to plan, she wasn’t sure if any of it was scavengable at this point and just the thought of that sent the blood from her face and made her feel light.

	In fact, since she dismissed herself from Xavior and sweet Monica earlier, she had been trying to nap — hoping sleep would help. Unfortunately, all napping did was give her terrible dreams, a nasty case of bed head, and wrinkled her slip to the point that she wasn’t sure even Jermane could straighten it out without the biggest hot iron available. But she had bigger things to worry about.

	She closed her eyes and let out a breath, only for it to come out as a shaky sigh. Benea felt cold, her arms wrapping around herself as she turned back to her enormous bed. Taking small, dread filled steps towards it, Benea eyed the biggest blanket the mattress had to offer and reached for it. Before her fingers could even wrap around the fabric, a hand gingerly wrapped around her arm, tugging her back away from it.

	The Goddess gently spun as the owner of the hand turned her around. She turned only to smack face first into Garravar’s chest, his arms folding behind her and embracing her. Benea froze, her hands held out, not knowing where to go as the god held her close. Tears began to well in Benea’s eyes and giving up, she leaned into the embrace but didn’t return it.

	“Do you forgive me?” Garravar’s voice came down from above.

	Benea hiccuped on a sob, “no.”

	“We can start over now, try again.”

	“You did this, Garravar,” Benea closed her eyes but didn’t pull away. “This is all your fault.”

	“You know it isn’t.”

	Now Benea pulled back so as to look up into the god’s eyes, the crystal blue pools as cool and calm as ever. Benea’s own were fiery with emotion and tears. “You certainly didn’t help! So many… You did this to us.”

	“I didn’t.” Garravar growled and let go of Benea. “You drove me to this, you drove it all into the ground. I gave you a choice-”

	“You gave me an impossible choice!” Benea hissed back.

	“It was one life!” Garravar retorted. “One life for all the others, you were greedy.”

	“I was compassionate!” 


	Garravar let out a loud laugh. “And look where that got you, where it got the other.”

	“You can’t blame me for your spear. Murder was your own choice.”

	Slapping his hands with every word, Garravar enunciated. “You left me no choice.”

	“There is always a choice…” Benea took a step back.

	“Olipha.” Garravar frowned.

	A pause.

	Pushing a hand through his hair, Garravar reset his stern look with a softer one. “It’s over. This isn’t the seventh anymore, this is a new one. We can make the choice again, I offer you the same deal. What’s the matter this time, the gods of this crucible are nothing like the ones of the seventh. They don’t even like you, have no purpose or love for you, and neither you should have for them. We don’t even need to sacrifice just one.”

	“You’re speaking nonsense.” Benea’s voice came out soft, a hollow horror echoing from her chest. “Please go away.”

	“It can be just us,” Garravar continued, starting to pace as he thought out loud. “No troubles, no worries, a perfect paradise. The crucible over, just you and me like we wanted.”

	Beana’s voice was barely audible. “I don’t want that anymore.”

	Turning to the goddess, Garravar arched a brow. “What do you want?”

	She simply shook her head. Benea's legs were shaking so much she walked backwards until the bed came up under her to catch her sit. Crossing her arms defensively, Benea looked away. ”I don’t know, I already messed everything up. Again.”

	“It wasn’t your fault,” Garravar defended. He bit his lip and turned to look out the window. “We have been given a second chance at this, my plan [i]will[/i] work, I just need you. I always needed you.”

	“Garravar, you killed me.”


	The words seemed to linger between the two for a while. Slowly the winter god’s expression changed to a dark and angry one. He grit his teeth and squinted his eyes and Benea could feel a tension rise. She went to speak but hesitated, the winter god’s fingers curled and uncurling, shards of ice trickling down onto the floor.

	“Think on it.” His voice finally came. “I’ll give you a second chance. We can end it all, or you can continue to play pretend and hurt everyone and everything.”

	Another long pause. “I won’t let you get in my way again.”

	Cracks formed over the winter god and them with a sharp break, he burst into a cloud of ice. The flakes dissipated and left the Calla Lily Goddess sitting on her bed, alone, with a pain in her heart.

[hider=summary] Benea can’t sleep and is a stressed mess about everything when Garravar himself shows up and threatens her life if she doesn’t go along with a secret plan of his. Also a lot of backstory is revealed here… so spoilers buuuuut [hider=spoilers]Benea is revealed to be Olipha, and this isn’t her first crucible. Garravar is her old lover and together they once had a plan on how to end the crucible but Olipha got in the way.[/hider][/hider]

[hider=might] 3 no spendie[/hider]