“See the future?” She retorted to his sarcasm. One didn’t have to see the future to predict his actions. “I don’t need to see the future to know that you will never give me either of those things. Besides that you have stated it thus far, you are predictable even if you think you are not.” Indeed, it was easy to follow the path of selfish decisions the God constantly made. He made them so often and so frequently it was a recognizable pattern by now. “I could understand asking for a compromise. But you are asking me to give up everything I’ve ever wanted. It would be like me asking you to give up your divinity. Having a family and husband is equally as important to me as your power is to you.”

Pausing, she inhaled, feeling herself sounding rather long-winded. What good was it doing her to continue to explain herself? He never understood or changed his opinion no matter what she said. All he ended up doing was chiding her or shutting her out again. “These things, I know, seem completely mortal to you. You don’t think they are that important and don’t think I should. But I do, and I won’t change myself.” No, she had tried that before and it never worked. It always caused much more harm than it did good.

Dimitre turned in his flourish, saying he was leaving as he always did when the conversation didn’t go the way he wished it. He said he couldn’t trust her and Rei found the notion ridiculous. He had told her in the beginning he would never blame her if she wanted to seek out a mate who could give her the things he couldn’t. Obviously he hadn’t meant those words. Then again he hadn’t meant many of the things he had said. “Trust me? I don’t care about your power and church. I hardly care about my own. Your notion is entirely ridiculous. I believe even you know that.”

Sighing, she listened to his accusation of her thoughts on his church. Of course she did not have a high respect for his faith and had said that. But in the end, she had made a promise to both Dimitre and Gabriel that she would follow the upbringing they wished for the children. No matter how much she disliked it, she would follow it. Rei loved the children and thought of them as her own but in the end, they were not truly hers and thus their raising was not ultimately her decision. “I made a promise Dimitre. And even then, no matter how much I love them both and think of them as my own, the right to choose their upbringing is still Gabriel’s.” She made no comment towards his mangy wolf retort as nothing would change Dimitre’s opinion of Kiba.

“I would never abandon those children and for you to insinuate it is an insult. You know I have always put my children first before anyone. Do not think this is any different.” All she could do was let her eyes narrow suspiciously at the cruel smile he gave her. It always seemed these meetings turned sour in the end. “Leave if you wish it. It is what you always do when things are not exactly to your liking and you can’t handle it.”

He laughed at her, cold and mocking and his entire demeanor changed. part of him cared about her and wanted her... but he saw his future if he ever decided to be with her. It would be the same way that Leirah and gabriel's relationship had been.

"Oh yes, you will not change. You will always think that you have suffered and suffered so much in your short, pathetic life... but you ask me to change. You ask Gabriel, a man whose occupation and very being you despise, to change. But no, never once for a moment do you ever believe you should accept people how they are." He was disgusted with her all at once, looking upon a woman whom he had trained and bedded, giving her the very confidence she had now. Before him, she had been a broken thing. How dare she speak to him in such a way.

"Because theyare completely mortal. What do you think is going to happen in the end, Rei? You are going to watch those precious mortal children grow up and then watch them age and die." He looked around her shrine, quiet for several moments. "Though I doubt it will come to that. Your very words are blasphemous and foolish. Eventually, the World Tree will grow tired of your incessant lack of divinity and will push you out. At that point, I imagine, you will die." His lips twitched upwards in a ghost of a smile. When that day came, he would still be standing tall and strong. Rei would regret refuting his wisdom, regret pushing him away.

"There is absolutely no reason why I would think you would honor that promise now. While I was bedding you, I knew you would never betray me. However, you are a woman who needs a man to give her any sense of self. Kiba dislikes me because you lust for me. You don't understand how far a man will go to keep a woman he wants." He approached her again but there was no warmth. If she expected him to be pleasant with her again, she was more of a fool than he had originally thought.

"You are a stupid girl, Rei, you really are. It amazes me every time you open your pretty mouth. From now on, Kiba is never to be here if Gabriel is- you have done enough damage to him. As for the children, they are not to meet him. You want a husband? A father for future children? You can have that under the cover of night then. If I find out that he has been near them, then you will pay for it. You gave me your word and I will hold you to it." He felt rage boiling up inside of him. Maybe coming here to speak to her, to wonder about her, had been a mistake. Just a long line of mistakes with her. those children would have been better off in his church.

And yet, his wife had been right. She was always right. He hated it.

"What else would you wish me to stay for? Tea? Insults? More of your incessant, childish tantrums? No thank you, my darling. And things are not to my liking for a reason. I only hope that eventually you see the mistakes you have made, Rei, and learn from them. Don't ever tell me I am wrong on this because you are a little girl compared to the years I have lived."

But he was done berating her. He would allow her to humiliate him no more. Gabriel, by Skylania's urging, was going to stay away for the moment as well.

"Oh, and I forgot to tell you. Gabriel will be taking a break from coming here. The stress you have inflicted upon him has begun to affect his time with his little ones. Even though you probably believe his sorry self should come anyhow, he does not wish them to sense the strife you have caused. I will be monitoring them from afar so I suggest you pull down your shrine shields for me in the meantime."

He laughed and she felt the very bonds of her sanity snapping within her. When she fought with him, it was akin to a wolf showing the other its underbelly. She let forth all the raw emotions and feelings she had. He always repaid her by mocking her and making her feel idiotic. “I have suffered. More than most? No, but I have suffered, whether or not my life has been short. And I never asked you to change. I asked you to attempt to compromise, which anyone that wasn’t some puppet would ask of you. And you mock me for that?” It wasn’t anger in her voice. It was the sharp sounds of breakage. She had been hurt as much as she could by him.

“And you mock me for wanting that when I have never mocked you for the things you have wanted most in your life. Those things are important to me and you’ve never tried to understand why, because you don’t care why they are important to me.” Rei exhaled and looked around. She didn’t want the power and she didn’t want the home. She didn’t want anything given to her if hell was all she was going to get for it. The very loose strains of her sanity barely held her back from telling him to take the children and everything else, that she didn’t want to be given his lashings over it anymore.

He insulted her, he called her stupid and questioned her integrity. She felt the last few strands snap and her sanity fell and gave way to a rush of things. First came violent tears that she did not wish to show. “Every time you speak to me like this I show you the very rawest parts of myself that I show to no one else and you respond by mocking me, by calling me stupid. I’ve been beating my head against a figurative stone wall to try and draw any damnable emotion from you besides lust and anger to see that maybe you have a semblance of a heart and all I’ve accomplished is hoping to the Gods I will pass out and not have to see you look at me with disgust or hear you speak to me like this.”

Rei felt badly about Gabriel and he only made her feel worse. How much she wished to just clutch her head and scream at him to stop over and over again until he finally stopped his torture. All she had ever wanted was to see a fraction of the emotion in him that she poured forth when she had been with him. It had never come and so her heart had sought comfort elsewhere.

The Avatar sunk, falling from her regal standing position to being crumpled like a little child on the floor. Perhaps she had gone insane. She felt her body trying to pull into itself. Rei resisted the urge to rock back and forth like the patients in asylums. While she was not weak, she could only take so much from men she viewed as authoritarian to her. “Please stop talking to me like that.”

"and I have been trying to tell you this entire time that I have bedded you, Rei. i am not a good man and I do not want to be one. I will never be Kiba. I will never give up everything just to touch you. There is no benefit in romance for divines," he said. "Yes, you want me to be a fount of absolute useless emotion that will accomplish me nothing. I love my wife, Rei, as much as I am able and she accepts me for who and what I am. She is thankful for what I give her. You, on the other hand, have spent almost every moment of your time with me that didn't include being in your bed trying to get something that I will not give you right now," he growled.

"If you are willing to wait for your children and another man, why would you never consider such a thing for me, hm? Because you don't really want it with me. You know as well as I do that I am a shoddy companion and an even worse paternal figure." He quieted because he was so afraid he would say something even worse than he already had. It did not hurt him to know that he was an emotionless bastard. Because of how he was it was nearly impossible for someone to hurt anything other than his pride. She could not break a heart that did not exist. She could not sadden a man that only knew lust and anger.

"You are pathetic, Rei. You have the potential to be a powerful, queenly woman but you threw it away because you want a man right now. You are a divine and your first loyalty is to your power. Not to children, not to that wolf and not to preserving some morality of family." He crouched down in front of her, his dark eyes cold, hard and unforgiving. Long ago, he used to speak to Skylania like this when she displeased him, knowing that eventually he would break her and she would see that there was security in him if only she would comply with his demands. He shook his head.

"Get your priorities in order, Rei, or you will end up with nothing to comfort you. Not the warm body of a man, not the smile of your children or your calming power." He stood up and then turned from her, unable to look at the figure of a woman who had been so dominant and needing in his arms. Let Kiba deal with her messes. He was tired of it.

"I mean everything I said, Rei. Keep him away from here." With that, the god walked from her, his form dissipating into the shadows of the shrine, leaving the room as cold as if nobody had been there to begin with.

He had no real intention of returning.