psd is BISHOP by waatsoned.

The first time it happened, she thought she was having a seizure. The next time, she’d considered it a fluke — but she couldn’t explain every time after that. Couldn’t explain to the hungry-handed cowboys at the rodeo that touching her always resulted in more than just a bottomless pit of teenage desire; snapping off her pearls in a sweaty hay bale, rough hand sliding over soft skin — it happened, then— the bleeding. The eyes, white as calfskin, milky and wide, looked back at the sandy-haired cowboy.Her head tilted like she was sure divinity would pour clean out of her ears. He ran. She cried. It wouldn’t be the last time either of those things happened.Augustine Joan Dunne’s parents burned to death on a cool fall day. She had told them, begged and cried and stomped her spurred boots, that something was coming. “A burning bush,” she cried, her mother, Ilene, holding her strange girl close to her chest, rocking her side to side, “somethin’ bad’s gonna happen, Mama, you — the house, we need to leave,”“Nothing,” her father started, reaching for his cane — and his wretched pride never let him use it in mixed company, couldn’t fathom letting anyone see John Ulysses Dunne need anything other than God’s grace — “’s gonna happen, Tiny, y’understand? You just get a little mixed up is all,” he places his hand over her mother’s, the pair rubbing her flanneled back, “you just get a little mixed up, honey.”And Augustine sniffled, tears rolling down her round cheeks, her hazel eyes fixed on her blue-eyed father, “I love you, Daddy,”“I know you do, Tiny. I love you, too. Nothing’s gonna happen, alright? Now, why don’t you go wash up, I’ll help Mama with dinner,”“No, no — ’s okay, I can do it,”“Go wash up, Augustine,” her mother wiped her cheeks, “do you want me to come up with you?”Augustine nods, her hand sliding to her mother’s.“Okay. Let’s go up — John,” she calls over her shoulder, walking her daughter up the stairs, “maybe we order a pizza tonight.”John gives a single grunt in response, and Augustine hears him shuffle back to his recliner; the faint beeping of the landline following her up the stairs.

The flowers died on Monday.That didn’t matter much to Augustine, not much mattered to Augustine anymore — not since The Boy died. Damned as she knew she was, bitter and brief as their affair had been, she couldn’t convince herself to leave bed long enough to water the flowers that he’d left her before his passing.The flowers died on Monday, and The Boy had been dead for two weeks at least. The days blurred together, dissolving into one long stretch of time that held neither meaning nor consequence. Without the structure that his horrors gave her time, she didn’t know what to do with herself. Who would come around at noon to drag her to lunch? Who would knock on her door at midnight, wasted and violent? Who would leave at first light to harass His cabin?Who would water the flowers?

The Basics.
Name: Augustine Joan Dunne.
Height: 6'0.
Status: Mortal.
Abilities.
Fate Seeing: Augustine can see fates.
Fate Weaving: Augustine can create fates.
Divine Resemblance: Augustine looks exactly like Cassandra of Troy. Yes, that Cassandra.
Hero Proclamation: Augustine can declare someone a hero.
Divine Visions: Gods can send Augustine a vision if they so choose.
Minor Time Manipulation: As Augustine can see fates, she can see the past, present, and future.
Vision Transmission: Augustine can transmit visions to others via physical touch.
Divine Protection: Augustine has some level of divine protection; opponents falling on their swords, forgetting what they came for when they arrive at her cabin — she doesn’t understand it, but she’s grateful!
Creation of Prophesies: Augustine can create prophecies. She doesn’t do so often.
Battle Prowess: Augustine has far above-average battle prowess for a mortal, a facet of her divine protection.
Expedited Healing: If Augustine is mortally wounded, the Fates will intervene to ensure she heals far faster than the average mortal.

She was winning.That’s what Augustine remembers. She remembers the sword in her hand, the blood on her face — the hot sweat dripping down her face. Augustine Joan Dunne — mystic, prophetess, farmer’s daughter, cowboy, preacher’s son — was fighting a demi-god and winning.—“Hold your fists up like this, honey,” her father said, taking her darker wrists and positioning them in front of her head, “you gotta protect your head, alright?”Augustine, nine, nods, holding her hands the way her father instructed.“Don’t plant your feet, Tiny, you gotta stay light, huh? Gotta make sure they don’t know where you’re going — and don’t watch the face,” John asserts, tapping the side of her head when she drops her hands, encouraging her to pay attention, “watch the hands.”Augustine moves her feet, shifting her weight as her father instructs, looking up at his warm face, his moustache, his deep, blue eyes, his dirty blond hair, “Why’re you teaching me this, Daddy?”He shifts his weight, following Augustine around the makeshift ring in their backyard, “Because you’re … special, Tiny. And people like to take special things, especially in places like this where they’re hard to come by.” He pauses, looking up to the porch, Ilene drying her hands on her apron. John remembers, then, how his parents reacted when he brought Ilene home. Dark-skinned, Louisiana-born Ilene — how his father rolled his eyes. How his mother, Augustine’s grandmother, who had only recently come around to her existence, kissed her teeth and told him to find some nice, sensible girl to marry.John punched his father in the face that night, sending the old man reeling into his armchair. They were married a year later.—Winning. Proving herself wrong more than anything; Augustine used to feel like this all the time. Champion bull-rider, barrel racer, best-shot-in-town — Augustine could hunt better than every boy her age. Augustine was better than every boy her age.And she’d forgotten that, hadn’t she? How powerful she was?She could see something shift in Noah’s eyes when she landed that final blow: it had registered, then, that he was losing. To a mortal girl. Augustine doesn’t have to wonder which stung more, “mortal” or “girl,” it didn’t matter — Augustine was going to win.When that blow landed, when he sent his sword careening into her skull, the world stopped. Everything stopped.—
Blinking awake, the sun burning holes in her eyes, Augustine scrambles to find purchase, tripping over — oh. Oh.Long, white gown — slung elegantly over one shoulder, wrapped and tied over where her gash should be. Raising her hand to her head, a golden crown; leaves, wreathes, flowers. No thorns, she thinks, funny.Some garden — some beautiful, unkempt place. Wild and wonderful, a stream bubbling past her golden-sandal-clad feet. Augustine dips down, her hand skimming the surface.“Eden?” she wonders aloud, “Heaven?” A moment passes, “Daddy? Momma? Are you — are you here?”Movement in the thicket attracts her attention, and she crouches, catching a glimpse of a golden ankle in a sandal just like hers. She follows that line up the figure's muscular thighs, his outfit shorter than hers, before her eyes land on his face.“— Saint Augustine,” his voice begins, “I thought your Momma raised you better than this,” he approaches, twigs crunching under the impressive weight of him, “thought you knew better than to ignore a guest.”Red hair gives her away, and soon, the figure has her pinned down, the pair rolling around in the grass before he finds her wrist, pinning them on either side of her head.“Hey, baby,” he starts.Augustine’s lip quivers, her chest constricting around her heart; her boy. Her beautiful, dead boy.“This is a trick,” she warbles out, a tear rolling down her scar-free cheek, “— this is a trick, Birdie, m’just seeing things, it’s not — it can’t be,”He takes her hand, placing it over his chest. His broad, muscular, warm chest, “It’s real, Saint. It’s — they sent me here. To see you. To talk some sense into you.”Augustine wrestles her hands free, wrapping her arms around her lover. Her beautiful, dead, awful, monstrous lover, “You’re dead,” she whispers through her tears, “you’re dead, and I’m dead, and we — we can be together now, can’t we? I don’t — I don’t have to be alone anymore, Bird? I can stay here, with you?”Bird holds her to his chest, one arm pulling her upright so the pair can sit, his free hand running down her back, “You can’t stay, baby,” he kisses her temple, “you gotta go back. You’re not done — you still have so much left to do.”“No,” she sniffles, “m'not going; I’m not leaving you — not ever again, okay? We’re gonna — we’re gonna stay right here,”“Do you know why they sent me,” he starts, “me. To talk to you? To convince you to go home?”She pulls back, looking at him, shaking her head.“Because if they showed you your parents you’d never leave. Figured you’d still be so mad at me that you’d leave in a heartbeat,” he sighs, “but that’s not true, is it,” he smiles, “still got that stupid soft spot for me.”“Oh, fuck you,” she laughs, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.“You’d like that, huh? What’d you say — one more for old time's sake?”Augustine swats his shoulder, “God, you’re still such a frat boy. And isn’t that necrophilia? You’re dead,”“And you’re half dead. Don’t go getting morals on me now, baby, you’ll break my heart,”Her mouth falls open, “I’ve always had morals! You just didn’t notice until we fought!”Bird’s hands go up in mock surrender, “Fine, fine.”“— I hated you, y’know. When you died. For leaving me there with them — you know they don’t like me, Blue. They never have,” Augustine huffs, drawing her knees into her chest.“Seems like they like you now, Saint. Seems like they love you,” he shifts, pressing his palms into the flower bed, leaning his weight back, “how’d you end up here, anyway?”“I got in a fight.”His brows furrow, “Since when do you get in fights?”“— A duel, actually. I entered a duelling bracket, and I won the first round, thank you, but then,” she sighs, “sword to the head. I blacked out; I don’t remember anything else.”Bird considers, shifting forward to brush Augustine’s hair away from either side of her head, examining — he finds a golden scar under a mess of red curls, running a single finger over the jagged line, “Were you winning?”Augustine smiles, “I was kicking his ass. Then I think he realized it, y’know? He was losing to some puny mortal girl, and he,” she huffs, “he wasn’t holding back, y’know? Before. But I think it pissed him off that I had nothing but skill and sheer determination — mortal convictions — and he couldn’t take it.”“— Yeah, I get it,” he sighs, cupping her face, “you’re still so stubborn, Tiny.”“I wasn’t, for a little while — when you left, I wasn’t anything other than heartbroken. I was — I felt hollow. But I don’t anymore, I can live without you, I think — and that’s why this,” she points to him, “sucks so badly.”“I didn’t want you to live without me,” he asserts, “I wanted us to get married. I want you to have my baby, Tiny,”“You didn’t want me to go to college, Bird, you wanted me barefoot and pregnant before I was twenty.”“Because we knew, August! Because we knew how little time I had — I wanted to make the most of it, and you left me! You left me there!”Augustine rises, “I left you there because you were a cruel, entitled dickbag who only got out of bed to harass campers and hang out with your yes-men!”“— And you were an insane virgin who cut stigmata and starved herself after we had sex for the first time! We weren’t perfect, Tiny — but we loved each other!”Her eyes closed, huffing, “They sent you here because I love you and hate you equal amounts. You know that, right?”He rises, “No fucking shit, August,” the boy sighs, taking a step closer to the prophetess, “go home, baby. Go enter tournaments and lose, go teach kids how to read, go do whatever it is you fill your days with now that I’m gone.”“— I’m glad you’re dead,” she spits, “I’m glad you died. I’m glad you’re not around anymore; I’m glad my world doesn’t revolve around you anymore.”“No, you’re not. I gave your stupid, mortal life meaning. I gave you a reason to live, Augustine,” he spits, “who else could do that after your parents died? Who else could put you back together?”“I could!” she shouts, “I could! And I did you awful, wretched, dead boy; I learned how to fight! I learned! I’m glad you’re dead, Bird, and I’m glad you get to stay that way.”“You’re still such a bitch, y’know that?”“Yup. And you’re still dead.”—
Slow, staggered blinking. Her fingertips, foreign; where the tops of her hands once held self-inflicted stigmata wounds, no scarring remains. Only the golden thread that wraps around her index finger and crawls up towards her collarbones.The headlights burn her eyes, the feeding tube in her throat aches, and she’s got the worst headache she’s ever had — you’re still such a bitch, you know that? — hot tears stinging her eyes — and you’re still dead — her head turning to find her helmet by her bedside, the right side inverted from the sword. Augustine reaches for it, her fingers sliding into where the metal bends. Proof.Metamorphosis.

Snow underfoot, squishing into dead grass underfoot. Augustine had done this once, two years ago — love-drunk and sin-stuffed, she was sure that the Holy House would turn her wretched flesh to ashes the second she breached the entrance.Augustine was wrong. She considers that a privilege, a divine gift — what a beautiful thing, she thinks, to be mortal and wrong. What a wonder. What a gift.Tumbling into a packed pew, she sits, she listens; she likes this sermon, she’s heard it before. The pastor asks, divine conviction and salt-and-pepper beard, are we not our brother’s keeper? She nods, red-haired and solemn; she is her brother's keeper. She is her brother's weaver. Augustine digs around in her pockets for something to drop in the collections pot; an older woman places a hand on her knee, “’S the thought that counts, huh, honey? Look,” she takes a crisp twenty out of her pocketbook, winking at the mystic before she drops it in, “they’ll never know the difference.”“Thank you, ma’am.”“You’re welcome,” she pauses, waiting.“Augustine.”The older woman smiles, pleased with Augustine’s ability to understand her place in the exchange; “Augustine,” she repeats, “what a beautiful name.”“— Thank you, ma’am. My mama chose it.”“She’s got good taste,” she winks, tapping Augustine’s knee again before returning to the sermon.Her chest tightens, the sounds of the choir singing overwhelming her; nothing bad has ever happened to Augustine in Church. People have hurt her. Gods have cursed her and cured her — but this place, this room with its dusty pews and feverish devotion — Church has held her hand when no one could. God's Amazing Grace has kissed her face and lulled her to sleep.┄┄⌇⋆.* Augustine hangs back after the sermon has ended, milling about the picked-over doughnuts and stale coffee. Her friends at Camp wouldn’t understand, she thinks. They understand Christ, she’s sure some of them do, but staring at her distorted reflection in the black coffee, she’s not sure they could fathom this. The inherent tranquillity in devotion; Augustine could make a fuss about crowns of thorns and cannibalism — side wounds and parables — but this she kept to herself. Her wet boot against the worn-out carpet, the smell of Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds floating throughout the pews, lace fans and big hats; this belonged to her. These stale donuts are God's grace, too.The older woman comes up to her by the exit, a man about her age on her arm, the two walking in almost perfect lockstep, “Augustine?” she starts.The prophetess turns, her fingers mere inches from a chocolate-dipped, “Yes, ma’am?”“— I wanted you to meet my nephew, Malcolm.”Augustine’s eyes rise from her shoes, tugged upward towards Malcom’s face. Malcom’s beautiful face. Dark, striking features — broad nose, big, curly hair, green wool sweater, cream button-down beneath. Polished shoes that Augustine could see her measly reflection. She’d borrowed a dress from a friend, ran a comb through her hair and threw it into a braid — the Carhartt jacket, worn and faded, around her shoulders with J.U.D embroidered over one of the pockets.“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Augustine,” he extends his hand, and she smiles softly, knowing what happens if she takes it. He drops it back to his side, cool as anything, “My Grandma says you’ve been coming here alone,” a nudge to his side, “— would you like to come to breakfast with us?”“I — oh, I, uh,” she looks down, looks up, “sure. I’d like that.”┄┄⌇⋆.* It seems as though Malcom’s grandmother, Marjorie, knew every member of their congregation. Sprawled over two tables and three booths, a flurry of skin tones, ages — Augustine pressed against Malcom one such booth, elbowing each other as they ate their pancakes.“Do your folks live in New York?” he asks.“— My folks moved on,” she replies, “almost three years ago now.”He chokes on his blueberry stack, a sip of coffee to wash it down, “That’s — I’m sorry, Augustine.”She shrugs, “They went on to glory. I’m sure they’re looking down on me now, my mama scolding me for wearing my daddy’s jacket to church.”Malcom laughs, “Well if it’s any consolation, I think it’s a cool jacket.”Augustine smiles, nudging him with her shoulder, “Aw, you’re just saying that. M’sure I could sell it to some hipster and make a killing, though. Put myself through university no problem,”“— Where do you go to school?”“NYU. I study — theology. Minoring in Classics. Do you go to school?” she asks, taking a tentative bite of her chocolate chip pancakes.“Rutgers,” he pauses, “you’re quite a ways from home, Augustine. You come all the way to Jersey to go to Church?”“— Haven’t found a church I like in the city. This one has a certain appeal,” she adds, poking at her stack, “what do you study?”“English. I minor in Latin,”“Ah. So we’re both gonna be baristas.”Malcom laughs at that; deep, full, rich laughter. The way her father laughed, the way her mother laughed — the laugh of a mortal. She thinks there might be no sweeter sound. “Oh, yeah. I’ll call out and make you work all my opening shifts.”“Jokes on you, I don’t mind opening. It’s closing that’ll kill ya,” Malcom nudges her, albeit a bit too hard, sending her — now cold — cup of coffee tipping into her lap.“— Oh, shit,” he starts, scrambling for napkins and pressing them into her thighs — her stupid, awful, bare thighs — sending her face into a redness that rivals her hair.He looks up at her, sorry, confused, and she looks back, then at his hands. With the eyes of a caught child, he yanks his hands back, resting them atop their table, leaving her to wipe her legs in peace.“— I’m so, so sorry, Augustine, I — I shouldn’t, I’m,”She giggles, dropping the wet heap of napkins on the table before her, “No biggie. It’s my fault — I think leaving my cup that close to the edge counts as hubris. If anything, this was a parable about the follies of modern architecture.”He pauses, watching her. His eyes scan her face, the red curls that frame her full cheeks, the way her green eyes seem to glimmer in the early afternoon light — something tugs at his heart. Something settles within him, something new. Something strange.“What,” she replies, looking back up at him, content that her dress was as clean as it would get, “something on my face?”“— Are you coming back next Sunday?”Brows pinch, then soften, “God willing.”“We should do this again next weekend.”She considers him, then — considers what befriending a mortal man could do to her. Naturally, their hands could never touch. Movie nights at her place? Out of the question. Meeting her other friends? Not likely.Augustine has a couple of friends at school, nothing notable, but maybe it’d be nice, she thinks. Maybe this is what the Gods feel — a perverse pull towards mortals, no matter the cost.“— I’d like that.”