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WHO: Mary Magdalene & Huitzilopotchli
WHEN: Tuesday evening
WHERE: His place
WHAT: It's a proper dinner date without touchings.
WARNINGS: ~~TOUCHINGS, says Mary~~ tba

Looking in the mirror, Mary thought her hair might be starting to go darker again, but it was hard to tell. She would have chalked it up to the change in her life that was the Aztec, but the shifts from red to brown across decades didn't usually need the influence of a war god, just ever-fluctuating human beliefs.

She had put on a blue dress but peeled it off again and thrown it onto the bed, changing for something far more casual and not in the Hummingbird's colour. Then she'd changed again and put on the dress she'd first seduced him in that night long ago and while she admired the way it made her look and the memories it brought up, that was all the wrong way to go. Another outfit thrown onto the bed before Mary finally settled on a red dress, one she considered alluring but not overtly seductive. Then she put on jewelry, and took it off, and put her hair up, then down, then up again.

Mary felt utterly frazzled by the time she was ready to leave her place. She spent money she didn't really have a took a taxi to Huitzilopotchli's area of the city, having him drop her a few blocks from his building so that she could use the short walk to calm herself.

She didn't know what tonight was going to be like, or what she was to expect (or what would be expected of her), and all of it made her heart tighten as she knocked on the door and waited.

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He shrugged, "She is you. Why would I turn away from that? I'll keep my distance. This other side of you isn't too pleased with me." She'd scorned him before. He expected nothing else this time.

"Thank you. Years of work for even that. But I have patience. I can wait. Do you remember where you grew up? Who taught you to be so open with your opinions?"

"I know she's me but..." Mary sighed. "To be completely honest? That part of me... it utterly terrifies me. I make jokes about it and roll my eyes but every time it's over I just start crying in relief. Because what if one day I never turn back to myself and I become her? I wouldn't even know about it. It's like she's lingering over me with this threat of annihilation." Mary shook her head and took a long drink from her glass. Then she gave a small self-conscious laugh. "I've never told anyone that before."

She cleared her throat, trying not to think about that idea of the Other Mary. "There's nothing written about my life before I met Jesus," Mary said, "but I sort of remember things. Although I don't know if 'remember' is right, because I don't know if I ever really lived. Sometimes I'm sure that I was born and lived and died, and other times I'm sure that it was only a story people made up to help themselves. Either way, I came from Magdala Nunayya, a town in the Middle East on the shores of the sea of Galilee. I don't remember any childhood nor do I remember any family I had. I think I had sisters, maybe. I don't know who taught me to speak out, I only know that while Jesus respected me for it and encouraged it, there were others of his close followers who hated that he'd let a woman walk with them." She shrugged.

"I know you never had a childhood," Mary said, "you were born as a warrior against your sister from the first moment, right?"

He listened to her before setting his hand over hers. "Change is inevitable. In death, life. When mortals said our prophecy foretold doom, I laughed. They did not understand. We all transform. I was afraid I would not be the same, all those years in that cave. I changed but did not chage. But I understand your fear. I won't share it."

He nodded, "I was created from feathers. Or my mother just desired a son. I don't think I was intended to fight my sister. I think she made that battle." He didn't like speaking of his sister. She'd betrayed him and their mother for her own pride. "She killed our mother. I took my revenge. Then I spend a while getting used to everything, all the while fighting my siblings. It's why I need the heart. In order to protect them, I must have power."

Mary gave him a small smile and squeezed his hand, his words didn't actually make a difference but that he understood that fear meant a lot.

"Were all of your siblings your enemies?" she asked. She could remember how uncomfortable he'd been their first night sleeping under the stars on the trek across Arizona.

"All of the Southern Stars. Yes."He'd fought against them so long, considering them anything but his enemies was foreign to him. Still. "I wish I could have had blood that did not hate me for my birth. But I made family. Tlaloc, the god of rain is all the brother I never had. I miss him." And he did. Tlaloc got him in ways many others did not.

"I hope that you find him again then," Mary said honestly. "There's no one in my pantheon that I consider like that, so I can only barely understand."

He shrugged, knowing the slim chances of that. "It will or will not. I have hopes but not very good ones. We are old and often relegated to dusty books." He tilted his head, "I do not want to argue, but have you considered trusting them to have something like that?"

"I find it hard to trust the others of my religion," Mary admitted. "When I was alive there was a man I considered to be like a brother to me. He was one of the few following Jesus that treated me as though I belonged there. We would talk for hours into the night while the fire burned down to ashes beside us." She frowned. "But then... he betrayed us. He betrayed me."

With a sigh she reached for her drink. "I can't trust those that are created by the belief of my church, because I can't trust my church. It's a hateful despicable creation that twists love into hate and turns people against each other. So while some of them I care deeply about, but there will always be some level of distrust there."

He wasn't as knowledgeable of her pantheon as he'd like to be. He knew the ones who had burned his home, no more. "Who was he? But I understand not trusting those who betray."

"However that, sounds lonely. You are blaming people for what the church does to them. They are not made by it. I pay attention. Your kin, they don't exactly sound like they agree with what the church says. You are blaming them, for what something beyond their control does." He set his glass down, "this is not like me hating Cortez or my sister. They both tried to kill me. They both betrayed." He shook his head, "you cannot blame people for things outside of their control. Just because they were born and died during a time where they could not hear your martyr' god's words doesn't mean they are less. You are judging. I hear it's a bad thing."

This was slightly awkward. "His name is Judas," Mary said. "And, uh, I asked you kill him for me once, do you remember?"

"I don't blame them," Mary said, trying to work out how to make it more clear. She felt like she was making a mess of it all, which wasn't surprising. These weren't thoughts she had really articulated outloud before. "But there's a wariness, even with the ones who hate the church and the way it's run. They're good people - well, some of them are - even friends, but I can't help that deep down mistrust. Because we are what the church made us and not a single one of us is the same as we were at the beginning, or even a decade ago in some cases. Just like that other Mary is in me, there's other versions of them as well. Because our religion is so alive and has so many millions of people arguing over what it means and who God is... it makes me scared."

"And..." she added with a sigh, holding her glass tightly, "I realise right now I'm not making a very good case for any reason you'd want to be with me." Here she was talking about the changeable nature of Christians when she was hoping to find a way into his life.

"I remember," he'd felt oddly bad about that one and wasn't sure he'd do it again. He'd been too focused on impressing her and not knowing which was right, and what wrong.

"I think it would be best if you can accept that in yourself, then others. We make family Mary. Being alone is just that. Alone." He gave her a smile, "Perhaps I see more then what your church makes of you. Perhaps I like the challenge."

He shrugged. "Perhaps I just like you, difficulties aside. We are more then what life makes of us."

"Well, let's just blame Judas for my trust issues and leave it at that," Mary said with a tight smile. No, she knew it wasn't all him, but it was so easy to blame Judas for everything. "I'm working on the acceptance of myself. You actually help with that." It seemed somewhat strange to her, but there it was.

"A war god who enjoys a challenge," Mary teased lightly. "I'm shocked." Her smile warm. "And I like you too, but you already knew that."

"I am pleased I'm helping." He wasn't sure how, but he went with it. He'd tackle the rest of her issues later. He knew he had plenty himself.

"The world is shocked at it, really." He smirked, "and yes. But I like hearing it too."

She was glad he liked hearing it, that he was still interested in her. (She kept remembering that morning after Valentine's Day and tried to push it away.)

"This date of ours," Mary admitted, "is actually turning out a lot less awkward than I expected." She'd thought they would sit silently, unsure of anything to say. But even the spaces in conversation so far had only been while they considered their words.

He chuckled to that, "I do agree with you there. I would like to do this again if that's alright with you.

"Yes," Mary agreed with a bright grin. "More than alright with me." She wondered how long this 'dating' phase would last between them. Mary (being Mary) hoped it would be sooner not later that she was allowed to be physical with him again. That kiss a few days ago had only helped remind her how much she missed that.

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