locked to meridian + ota

[warmare]

[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?

Comments

[warmare]

[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?]

[faceripper]

[ 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.

[warmare]

[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.