((M rating because Faith is having a very bad trip, and this post will dip into some very big themes of Paranoia, identity crisis, loss of faith, addiction, drug abuse and hallucinations. Take care of yourself and avoid reading if any of those themes are bad for you, there will always be other threads. <3))

Faith should have known where she was, of that she was sure. That was the only thing she was sure of. She should have known where she was, and she didn't. That only added to her distress. Faith was absolutely not doing well. She'd dreamed after her visit with the statue and since then? Since then she'd gone back to floundering. It had been so long since what had been, by her estimation, her last true vision. There were still things she heard or saw but they had been fleeting, insubstantial and largely unhelpful. Honestly it left Faith feeling very untethered. Her whole life she'd known who she was, what she experienced and what it meant. It had been an integral part of who she was! Could she really have been blamed for turning to what she had? It had been mushrooms that had first given her the feeling of reconnecting with her visions. Or at least that's what it had felt like... But it hadn't been enough, she needed more, something stronger.

And so it went. Most days Faith chose to avoid sobriety because if she did then she'd have to grapple with too many things, feeling like she was loosing herself... Loosing her faith ironically enough. Was the fallen god abandoning her? Was he angry at her? Had the voices and the visions ever actually meant anything? Things she didn't want to spend any amount of her day dealing with. And soon enough it wasn't just her seeking relief that kept her coming back, she needed the feelings, the sights and sounds being high gave her.

Normally.

Today? Today was different, everything was wrong! Faith didn't quite have the faculties to understand exactly what had happened, but whatever she'd been expecting from this trip... This wasn't it. Faith stumbled, bumping into one of the Willows as she did so. She screwed her eyes shut and grit her teeth against the noise! It was so loud! Hundreds if not thousands of voices all speaking over eachother at once, sounding like they were right next to her. Loud, confusing and unintelligible. The voices subsided for a moment and  Faith took what moment of peace she'd get to keep herself moving. Pontifex! That was who she needed but she'd managed to get herself all turned around and had no idea where she was. It didn't help she could swear she could see the trees shifting around. Like they were getting up and walking away. Never the ones immediately around her but in the distance, tall shapes moving on spider like roots. She needed Pontifex, he'd know how to fix this, how to help her. If only she could remember where she was... Faith was sure this was the right place she just couldn't grasp the memory of where she needed to be. Faith was absolutely certain she should know where she was.

She was wrong.

Faith had no reason to know this place, leaving her stumbling around as she braced against the rolling onslaught of voices and the shifting moving landscape that she was growing more and more convinced was doing that on purpose, to keep her trapped here!

"Faith"

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The vibrantly marked wolf had been in Iele's sights for some time. As the fae stumbled about, knocking into trees and stumbling over her own paws, the chocolate and cream woman followed at a distance. She wasn't sure yet if the other fae was rabid or suffering from some illness, so until she was sure, she would simply follow. And why follow? Something about the smoke dipped fae pulled her in, as though the strings of fate had been tied around both of their throats. Iele could almost see the trail of burning red light stretching between them. The earthen fae came from an old world with old beliefs, so this wasn't as shocking to her as it should have been.

After a particularly bad stumble, Iele finally moved forward. She'd watched long enough and had decided that the woman wasn't rabid. Sick, she may be, but the brown woman would risk sickness. If the other bumped into too many more trees, she was going to take out an eye or something.

"Stand still," low, soothing tones stretched between them. "Let me come to you and keep you safe." El was already moving towards the woman, making sure that she came upon her from the front rather than from behind. It wouldn't do to spook her. As she came face to face with the other woman, El reached out one cream dipped paw, resting it on the darker fae's shoulder to let her know that she was in fact real. "Come with me," she instructed softly before taking a step away. She watched to see if the woman would follow and was there to catch her if she fell.

"Iele"

The pain she ought to be feeling, the bruises she was quickly collecting, was just barely a low dull throbbing. Like a different version of her was the one who was feeling it. The world continued to change around her in a way that left her off balance. Things suddenly jumping out in front of her or the ground tearing itself open with no warning, right where she'd been about to step. A small pup darted out in front of her, a form that was familiar in a sense and yet she couldn't place where she'd seen them before. Faith practically tripped over herself as she struggled not to kick the child. The cacophony of voices deafening her for a moment to the world around her. Then a voice, one she could actually make out reached out to her. Faith lifted her dual toned gaze to see a speckled woman approaching her. Faith was less sure than she'd ever been if she was experiencing the physical world, getting a vision or if it was something else entirely. But she'd made out words and though they'd struggled to be processed in her confused mind she had heard them. Faith chose to believe if the woman wasn't really there that the woman was a vision, her god extending his hand to help her.

Faith stood where she was, watching the woman and swaying slightly, feeling a slight lifting in her chest. She hadn't been abandoned, the Fallen God had found her! Unfortunately for the very real earthen woman, Faith wasn't totally unused to feeling physical contact during the strongest of her visions, but it did help to force Faith back into her body some. Like Iele's touch alone had wrangled her spirit back where it belonged. Faith gave a silent nod, she'd follow the smaller woman off a cliff if that's where she led. Faith was so desperate for any help she would chase any glimmer of hope she was given. Faith slowly stumbled her way after the other woman. She wasn't exactly stable in her movements but keeping her gaze fixed on the other woman helped some, even as she still caught noises echoing in her own head and movement from the corners of her eyes. But she would keep her gaze affixed to the woman who she was very much convinced was a sign sent from her god to lead her from hell.

"Faith"

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It was evident by the glazed over look in the glowing fae's eyes that she was under the influence of... something. She didn't seem to be in bad shape or anything, but the woman's lack of control and consciousness gave her the potential to end up that way. It would be safer if she came with Iele and slept it off.

Slowly and with great care as to the other woman's well being, Iele led the other beneath the thick fronds of an old willow. Fireflies went off here and there, illuminating the makeshift cave of greenery. The mottled woman helped her companion to sit in a natural divot in the land. The roots of the willow, old and worn smooth, created a decent sized nest around the divot. That would be their bed until morning.

Iele tucked herself into the root nest beside the other woman, getting her self comfortable. She then brought her gaze to search that of the other woman once more. A kind smile lifted the corners of almond shaped mint eyes. "I am called Iele," she spoke softly to the larger fae. "What should I call you?"

"Iele"

Faith would remember precious few of the moments between the start of her trip and the moment she'd awaken the next day, coming only in flashes during the long hard days of withdrawal that were sure to follow. But in this moment it was nearly blissful to follow the woman. Saved, she'd been saved. Abandoned no more. She was easily guided to the divot in the ground that would be their small nest for the night, she held none of the grace she once would have much too out of it for that. She wasn't too high that she couldn't register the feeling of the woman next to her, not even drugs could totally drown out just how much of a lesbian she was and despite herself, despite being like 80% sure the woman would prove herself to be one of her visions in due time, Faith felt heat flood her face. If this woman was real Faith was gonna have a hell of a time in the morning dealing with that.

Iele, Faith couldn't remember if any of her visions had ever given her a name before. A few had but it was rare enough that a sober Faith should have felt alarm bells ringing but hallucinations sometimes felt like they did those sorts of things too even if it was just her misremembering. Either way Faith hoped to remember that name for later, but she wasn't naive enough to think she would. "Faith." She responded, her voice high and reedy in a way it normally wasn't. "Once Faith Abraxas, now Fallen." In more ways than one. As she spoke Faith idly drew in a patch of dirt in front of her. It was a sigil, or more than that. Elements of her own sigil were there but it was bisected by another completely new sigil she'd never seen before. What compelled her to draw it she did not know but focusing on it seemed to help the roaring voices sound more distant, kept the ground from breaking apart in front of her or shifting to much before her eyes.

"Faith"

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Thankfully the woman followed and soon the pair were nestled down within the roots of the willow. Outside of the protective curtain of branches and leaves, the sounds of the world continued. Within the trees protection, it seemed oddly more quiet. Iele was not shy and she worked herself closer to the inebriated woman for warmth and comfort. It was going to be a long night of watching.

Once Iele asked for the fae's name, which was given, Faith began scrawling on the soft dirt beneath the canopy. The woman spoke further, stating that she had once had a different name. Iele's minted eyes watched the mark being drawn on the ground with interest, but she said nothing about it, allowing the woman to work without distraction. When it seemed as though her drawing was complete, Iele's soft voice probed, "Why are you Fallen?" It seemed an ominous moniker to accept.


"Iele"

Exhaustion was slowly rolling over Faith, she was starting to feel the bumps and scrapes she'd suffered and her body had been dealing with them this whole time. Sleep would not be too far off at this point. Feeling satisfied with the intersecting sigil's she'd drawn Faith struggled through the murk of her mind to answer the question her angel had asked. "Like the true god cast down by his lessers, my mother and siblings had been cast out of our home and holy place, by heathens bearing the true god Abraxas' name but not honouring him." She still hated much of her family for that. Her aunt had been a coward. It had been obvious her aunt cared not a wit for their faith, her father's faith and yet she'd fought for and won the name of the god she besmirched. Bitch.

"So like God before us we are now Fallen." It should have been concerning to Faith that a servant of Abraxas hadn't known this. Hadn't watched his most faithful as they followed in his pawsteps. But that was something a more sober Faith would have worried about and while sleep was tugging at her she certainly wasn't sober yet. Faith put her head on her paws, letting herself give in to the exhaustion.

"Faith"

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