kenoscomm | locked to meridian + ota

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locked to meridian + ota

[Hayame had plenty to say about this disgraceful farce the moment she had regained consciousness... But she waited. She waited, so that her emotions would be as locked down and as under control as she could manage. Until only harsh anger and the burn of judgement come through- at least, for now.

First, she addresses only Meridian.]

I hope you are proud of yourself.

Those of you who have been too weak to commit properly to this cause, content to let those with drive and will do the winning of Oracles on your and your world's behalf.

Those of you who claim allegiance to Meridian but have been content to play "neutral" and hide like a weak little bug in the shadow of those more powerful than you.

Those of you who could not draw a single line in the sand and loved playing friend or whore too much to break off relations with people working to ensure that the lives of everyone in your world are snuffed out permanently.

Those of you who have refused to shatter the shards of our enemies, whining about the sanctity of a soul, even though that is the only way to kill someone properly in this twisted world.

Mourn that sun goddess for the power she possessed that our faction has lost. Mourn the kindness she showed you, if you so wish. But I will impart a lesson unto you- If someone is kind to everyone, then their kindness means absolutely nothing. That empty-headed fool of a woman had her shard shattered by the very man whose shard she protected, after I and another killed him in the labyrinth of the Harbinger Oracle trial. If she had given that foul thing back to us so that I might crush it beneath my hoof, then she would be alive today.

That is what kindness of that nature will reap you. A disgraceful public execution at the hands of a wizened, corpse-gnawing gaki barely managing the veneer of a man.

If you wish to dedicate yourself further to the actual cause you claim to serve, or if you wish to train and empower yourself, I will gladly help you. It would be my honor.

But if your plan is to continue living the sort of shameful existence that helped allow for the assassination of Springstar's Tribune at his own godsdamned home, then either purge yourself of that treacherous weakness... or I will try to find the time in my days to do it for you.

[Maybe this is where she could stop, take a breath... But she does not. The rest, cold and hateful and roiling with anger, is said to everyone, Zenite and Unharmonized alike.]

To all those who still claim allegiance to Zenith... I will not waste breath trying to convince you of anything at all, let alone now, after what your faction has wrought upon countless innocents. Whether you are a poor thing who would abandon every life in your world simply because you were treated badly, whether you are a pathetic thing who cannot muster the will to hope for anything but that sacred bitch on high and a committee of degenerates making a new world for you to exist in, or whether you are a sick thing who delights in watching worlds burn and people die... I, Hayame of Echigo, do not care, and I will not show mercy to one any more than the other.

Unlike, it seems, the many dishonorable among you, I say this to you plainly and clearly.

I will disable you if I see you step foot in Springstar.

I will hunt down your cornerstones and smash them to pieces.

And I will kill you if you put yourself between me and the possibility of returning to my world and my duty.

... Ah, yes. To those of you who have still not chosen a side, even after seeing what has occurred this moon... My advice to you is to stay Unharmonized, to pick up a hoe, and to go tend crops in Alenroux. You obviously lack the determination required for this conflict... and the people require food. Go on.

If you need a recommendation for a farmer looking for labor, I know plenty. Do you fancy turnips, or buckwheat?

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[ The private side is what Fane picks. It’s easier for him, in a way, because he’s just more accustomed to favor a small few over the masses. He’s a scholar and a researcher. The problems of the many are never something he’s concerned himself with. So, because Hayame is someone he favors, that’s just… easier than facing the larger consequences of his words. As he will. ]

No— It is noble. [ …Perhaps, just a little bit, it must be ekes in through his Communion. ] I know the struggle well. Sometimes truth battles against what is comfortable. I…

[ He pauses. It’s just a bit too long and a bit too personal, and the sense of what’s missing fills in through Communion. His words aren’t clear, but the feeling is—His similar experience is what had led to his skeletal state. ]

Well. I understand it, is my point. The path of truth is not an easy one to tread, but it is the one that matters above all.

[She is not mad at that. ... She is grateful he even expressed support at all. Pathetic as it was, she often felt terribly alone in her willingness to do what needed doing, in castigating those that needed it, and that wasn't going to stop her from doing it, but-

... It was nice. Having even just a quick show of public support. Now private is fine.]

... You- ?

[She begins to ask before it seems... No, he does not wish to talk about it? The sensation is strange... If he does not, she provides a cover, a,]

Many of the shard-bearers here seem allergic to seeing the bare truths of what war means, or think that we should coat our words in flowery tongue to not offend the delicate sensibilities of those dragging our efforts down. I have never understood it.

[ Ah, well. She asks after it, however delicately. He doesn't miss the irony in that followed so immediately by her shunning delicacy, but he does appreciate it. It's something meant for allies and friends, not enemies, after all. ]

...It is how I ended up as I am, essentially. [ He makes a difficult noise, just because he doesn't like to refer to it this way, but. ] Undead. Or appearing to be. The full measure of it is a long story, but the short version is that I would not be silent about the truth of my world before my king. He rewarded me by purging me of my Source and throwing me into a tomb to quite literally rot.

[ He's flippant and derisive in his tone, but there's just a pang of the truth before he quickly clamps down on it. Fear. Being bound and powerless, watching a heavy stone being set into place over him and blocking out all light. It's not a death sentence. It's crueler than that, because he will not die. But that flicker is all he allows. ]

...So, nor do I. I know little of war, since that did not plague my people. But I cannot stand to see truth ignored because it's inconvenient.

[She provided him the cover of continuing after almost asking properly so that he need not say if he did not wish... But she takes his answer as consent to listen and inquire more.]

... Are you, or are you not?

[That seems. Peculiar. And its not like. She was not confused by the whole skeleton thing, but.

More pressingly related to his story...]

It seems your king was nothing near an honorable man. There was no one who heeded you?

I am not. My people are not afflicted by mortality. So, while I certainly look like the mortal dead, I never died. My flesh simply ceased to be.

[ There's enough that could be drawn by implication, but this is Fane, so. He just makes it blunt, even if the explanation is dismissive and sarcastic. ]

Spend a few eons without nourishment and I am sure your flesh would all rot away too.

[ ...But, still. There's a kernel of pain there that's deep. He'd managed to use the last of his magic to fall into a slumber so that he could keep his sanity. It had been a wise choice. Yet he'd never forget the first time he'd seen his new face—or lack of it.

It's not something he wants to dwell on. So, he turns to her other question. His spiteful anger is a better thing to hold onto than his feeling of disconnect from his own body. ]

There were. The Lords saw the value of my research and were ready to support me. [ A lie that he didn't know. They'd betrayed him. ] But our King is not like the Kings of mortal men. As Cyrus's death proves, mortality is too tumultuous. Our king reigned eternal, and so there is no question to his will.

[ Bitterly, he adds: ]

A fine system when he is not a tyrant.

[... That's fucked up. And, she can only imagine... a disturbing feeling for him, not just those who know it. She can only imagine it as something akin to if she went to sleep captured and woke up with her arms flensed from her shoulders, made into an Armless.

And that... She would rather die. So Fane-

... Seems not to wish to discuss it.]

A single King, for all of time?

[That... alright, they said the Emperor was the descendant of the Sun Goddess, but he still died...]

I cannot claim to understand the lives of your people. I told you of mine.

[That she did not... actually know how long they could live. Even if she had not said why, the fact that all she had known were fellow slaves, the elderly abandoned as useless during the hunts, it was still... Something a little less than humans.

So "eternity"...]

But... it seems difficult for me to imagine. Even if the lords of my land constantly warred over successions and sons, it somehow does not seem as if one leader forever is a solution, either...

[ The way that she phrases it plucks at a heartstring, and though it’s little more than a flicker, it’s sad. But in that, there’s some understanding too. At least, he thinks so. With the way she’d talked about her people and her time here… Fane does pause before he answers, and when he does, his voice is softer and without his usual acerbic edge. ]

…No. No, I do not think anyone can.

[ There’s grief there, though he holds it back. It’s a grief he’s struggled with since realizing his people were gone so thoroughly from the world, but he’s never given himself a chance to mourn that loss. It’s almost cruel that there were still just enough vestiges that he had hope that perhaps they were still there, somewhere. More still that they were indeed, but in what state? It’s not something he allows himself, lest his resolve falter. But— ]

I remember you said that jinba did not seem to be a people that frequented these worlds so much as humans. It seems to be the same for Eternals.

[ He pauses again, but this is just because of his own stubbornness. He struggles with being earnest, since it’s more comfortable to keep things at arm’s length with his sarcasm. It’d similarly be easy to just gloss over it and return to the topic of kings and why they’re horrible and useless. But that connection that he’d made is that maybe there was someone that understood how he felt… Somewhat, at least. ]

It’s a lonely thing. That’s- [ He pauses, half stumbles over the word awkwardly like he’s truly having to wrench it out of himself. ] We may not understand each others’ people, but perhaps we understand that.

[The space in Communion they share seems so, so vast all of a sudden. Like there was no one else for miles and miles around them, just two people of completely different worlds and races and creeds standing there staring at each other without a single other soul that could corroborate anything they said or experienced.

Different or not, though... Hayame does know about... how uncomfortable it can be to speak on things you wish could be kept private and unseen forever, hidden like a potential weakness. But it feels like Fane is doing that. And if it is private, just them here...]

... There is. A group of four-legged citizens of Springstar who meet in Alenroux on occasion to get away from the city.

I was invited by a young girl, when I first arrived here... and I have attended every month.

[It was not something she told people, usually. It had been over half a year since she accepted a lover and she only brought him and awkwardly introduced him around this very last gathering. Because to her, it implies... that it is a lonely thing, that she is lost, or perhaps homesick, things that are too vulnerable-]

But even though some of the attendees look as I do... None of them know the word "jinba". They are... they are "centaurs", or "plainsrunners", or "nymphs"... and they do not come from where I come from, nor do they know the things I know...

[And it's so... Every time she had gotten her hopes up that this time, perhaps this time-]

... So. Perhaps I do. Understand.

[ It’s even more than he expected, as it turns out. He’s quiet for a moment, just contemplating her words and what he wants to say in return. Some of their rationales and feelings are different, since Fane doesn’t consider his loneliness a weakness, exactly. He just doesn’t look at the world in the context of strength and weakness. He’s more likely to divide it by the learned and the ignorant, scholar that he is.

And every race both in Rivellon and Kenos both is ignorant, though this is a perception that he’s (very) slowly chipping away at. Yet, it comes from the same sentiment. Being in a world of people that look familiar, but they’re still wrong in some way. Lesser, he’d think, but truthfully it’s more that they feel like some kind of corrupted version of his people. ]

…Yes. I know what you mean perfectly well, actually. More than simply… rarity.

[ There’s a twist of dislike at the word, since he doesn’t like to describe himself as rare likely any more than Hayame does. Not in this way, at least. ]

It is how I always felt in Rivellon. The people of that world… They resemble my people. But they do not know them. No one has even heard of an Eternal, much less anything about us. It was like waking up in a world that is a shadow of the one I knew. All of my people gone and forgotten, simply like that.

[ That’s where the grief comes from, it’s clear. Fane sighs, since in part, he doesn’t even know why he’s sharing this. Maybe it’s just so someone knows. But Hayame has a better chance than anyone of understanding why it was a horrible thing to him, it seems. ]

…I hate that world. [ He admits it gently, like it’s a confession, and it does feel like one for Meridian. But his tone is firmer as he continues, lest Hayame have any doubt: ] And yet, it is the only hope I might still save my people from the cataclysm that befell them.

[Rarity. How she hates the word. She recalls that Zenite elf and his constant referring to her as "the last jinba"... and it makes her blood boil. Because he is wrong. She isn't the last. She cannot be the last. Because if, of all her kind in the world she was the one who survived... a woman who had done such despicable things to her own kind, stepping on those weaker to survive... one who had not been able to cleanse her dishonor, one who wouldn't even be able to bear the idea of trying to continue the species...

It would be too ironic and too horrible to contemplate.]

... I understand. Even if for you, it is time, and for I, it is space.

[Close enough to say that, at least, surely? But he says he hates that world, hates... and instead of rebuking him, like some might expect from a warrior who has just made such a scorching speech demanding loyalty and staunch belief...

Hayame... laughs. It's not a nice sound- she doesn't really know how to laugh right. It's short and jilted and in this moment, filled with disdain for Zenith and bitterness to boot, but. It was a laugh, that much was sure.]

... Do you not find it funny? How they would say we should be with Zenith if we despised our worlds so much? That if we resent them... We should just abandon them to burn or be devoured and devote ourselves to the creation of some new one, where things will be better?

[So maybe they understood each other on another point, as well.

She says it like it's the most nonsensical thing in the world, but. ... That they should do that, or... that things could get better?]

[ The understanding comes with a soft feeling. It’s a relief, in a way. It’s a part of everything about his new life that he’d just simply never had the time to consider until he got to Kenos. It was always so busy, so dangerous, and there was never time to think about what being in what felt like an alien world meant. Here? There was too much time. It’s why he threw himself into every project and opportunity offered to him. That was a better way to occupy his mind than simply feeling… alone.

So, it’s gentle, maybe even uncertain, since she didn’t seem to be one for touch, but it’s important to him all the same. It’s no more than the gentle touch of his hand on her arm as a physical gesture of that sad understanding. But here, it’s soft, warm fingers, not cold, unfeeling bone. Communion is the only place where he can make such a connection anymore.

Still, it’s brief. It feels like something he perhaps shouldn’t do, because it did feel somewhat intimate, even if that’s just a carryover from his own culture. ]

…In a way. It’s funny because I know they’ll fail even if they get the chance to try. The Lords of my people did, and even with all our knowledge, all our power and wisdom, Rivellon is… pitifully primitive. I cannot say I don’t understand the Zenites’ desire, but it’s a false hope. It cannot be better.

[ He says it with bitter certainty as he shakes his head. ]

…No. Drizzt’s perspective is the only one that makes sense to me. But I would still rather perish to try and save my people rather than consign them all to the Void with no attempt.

[There is too much time. She feels like a layabout if she does not fill the time she normally would have spent doing menial labor or simply surviving, serving. She fills the time with training, with sparring, with reading lessons, with learning magic of all things, and still, in some ways, at least when it came to culture or race, she never stops feeling-

Alone.

Enough so that... Even though Hayame was not one for touch, no, especially not in the "real" world... In Communion, in private, she is slightly more accepting. It is just... just her arm, that sense of touch, and so though he begins to pull back just as quickly-

Hayame moves to curl her fingers over the back of his and the attached wrist, surprised or perhaps not surprised that it feels like more than bone she holds in place where he had put it. Giving permission... for at least that much.]

No world they could create could be "good".

[Not, she thinks, when influenced by some of the madmen who called Zenith theirs.]

Even if they believe that some shadowy threat still remains to our worlds when they are brought back, and that should be some reason we not try... We just eliminate that threat. If we can bring back worlds, we can do that.

[Because all of it, Meridian and Zenith both, their goals are impossible fantasies to a woman from Echigo Province in Japan in the year 1590. And if she is going to believe in one impossible fantasy... it will be the one that returns her to where she- ... No, she might not belong there anymore. Not after all she has seen and learned and experienced and felt. But she had a duty there, whether she could ever feel at home or not, and to fulfill that duty...

Her fingers tighten slightly, holding his hand against the muscular bicep of an archer's arm as if it were that and not "holding his hand".]

And if we perish... You will not perish alone.

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