LOCKED TO MERIDIAN

[leicesters]

[Claude's communion prescence has always been like a summer breeze; warm, easygoing, albeit difficult to read before it moves on. Now it has more of a brittle, bitter quality, like a looming dust-cloud he has to hold at a distance. There's no going back from this point when he knows things will only escalate from here, and so now seems like an important time to address his fellow Meri.]

The fight for the next Oracle will be on us soon. The Tribune may have been slain, but he entrusted the future of the worlds to us. Though he won't be able to help us see this through, we can still fight for him, and all the others we've lost along the way. We can fight for Springstar... and we can fight for Quetzalcoatl.

[There's a brief pause on this point. Her death deserves respect and acknowledgement, and she may not be the last to meet such a fate before the fighting is over.]

...We'll fight for your homes, too. After all, our worlds aren't that different, right? They might be flawed in their own ways, and there might even be some of you who would rather stay here when this is done. But every world and the life on it is precious, and it beats whatever phony world Yima and her followers come up with.

Speaking of Yima: I've discussed this with a few people already, but I suspect she's still alive. When the Blight almost destroyed Kenos, somehow she was still around. When I asked her about it, she said she wasn't bound by time like a normal person is. She can exist in different times and different places simultaneously; I don't know how it works, but maybe she even foresaw this attempt on her life before it even happened.

That said, it's just speculation, so we might as well play dumb and behave towards Zenith as if we're convinced she's dead for now. It'll be easier for us that way.

[Others have probably arrived at a similar conclusion, perhaps people among Zenith's ranks too, but it bears saying, particularly for those newly arrived to the conflict.]

Anyway, enough about her -- how about we use this opportunity for a little strategy get-together? We have a few new faces around, so feel free to introduce yourself and your capabilities.

For those of us who have been around longer, feel free to toss in an introduction too. More importantly, share what you know about Zenith and its current capabilities, in combat or otherwise. Any insight into their current thinking would be useful right now, too. What's their morale like? We know by now that some of them really hate our guts, and I wonder how much their desire for revenge is going to play into the next battle...

[He sounds casual, almost flippant, but there's a serious point in there he's sure he doesn't need to overstate: the more loyal Zenites are going to have some serious motivation in the next battle to get back at them, whether they believe Yima is gone or not.]

Let's not let our own judgement be clouded by revenge, even if we've sustained losses. We need to go into this with a clear head, looking toward the future.

Oh-- on that note, Hayame wants to speak with some of you about some further strategising either before or after the Oracle. Sorry that's a little vague, but I'm sure she'll talk to you about it properly when the time comes. For now, let's just focus on one thing at a time.

Comments

[redsoil]

That there was one thing he would always hold higher than his love for Yima.

[ Set knows better than to bank anything ( let alone everything ) on someone else ever again; he'd believed in Quetzalcoatl's promise to go home with him, and now all that was left of her was memory, and for Set to carry his grief to her people one day.

He's also uncomfortable, discussing... the way he could be viewed for such a decision, by Hayame. So, he locks down the conversation into a PRIVATE corner and tells her. ]

He knows about Anubis. He read of him.

Very Private

[warmare]

[Now that they are "alone", pulled aside into the space they share, where sun and sand mingle with rock and snow...]

Are you sworn to secrecy, on what it is?

[She wonders. If it was the same thing she sensed, in that tunnel in the Iconoclast Oracle when she had held his shard in her hand. When he had held hers, that day when the pollen was in the air, and she had weakly thought, even if he were a Zenite... finally, someone understood...

She'd had to throw it away, beneath that glowing sun. But still-

Amos knows about his son, he says. But so did other people, didn't they? Maybe they had not seen the depths of it, or the details, but just the level of knowing he existed? The sense of her furrows in confusion.]

- And?

[It's not like his respect could be won just by knowing he was a father... (She thinks of him that way. A father. Blood or deception or not.)]

[redsoil]

I am not, but. It is a complex thing to untangle, even to a friend's ears.

[ Slowly, Set finds his way to the edge of their join. To the place where desert sands become frosted mountain, and he sits there. Fingers finding the ends of his hair to comb at the ends. They're perfect, as ever. He feels off, hesitant, though. ]

Children are what Amos holds higher than anything else, even Yima. In essence, we agreed — I told him, that above all else, I was with Meridian because I truly believe Yima is a threat to my son. He promised to protect him from her.

[ It's hard, for some reason, to say this to Hayame. In a way, their relationship with Amos has nearly completely exchanged itself between them. ]

[warmare]

[... He sits. There is a moment when she stands, as if she plans just to loom over him until her demands are answered. But she sits- well, lays down. Her fingers itch to brush her violence into his hair in offering, like they always used, to but...

They find the ends of her own hair, instead. The ends are even, now, courtesy Yuri's styling, but... even with the growth of time and Discord the length is so paltry still, just barely past her shoulders. What is she supposed to do with this... ? What is their new method supposed to be... ?]

... He might do that.

[So it is the same. That sense will be obvious to Set. That Hayame knew he valued that most, if not how.]

Is he who you will entrust Anubis' shard, too, then? If Zenith wins.

[It fills her with hate, just saying those words. "If Zenith wins"-- Since that ceremony, that heat... the very idea makes her skin crawl, urging to reject it even as a possibility.]

[redsoil]

No. It takes a village, after all. There are two Zenites, but more Meridian whom know of him — you keep me steady.

[ Maybe it is a little nice, to be able to speak frankly with her. To be honest in a way he usually reserves for Liem, because he can discuss matters without — well, without feeling hard-pressed to ensure they are palatable. To her, or others! Not just her. ( Her opinion matters more though. ) ]

Anubis is my world, Hayame. I stand with Meridian because he believes in me; that I will atone, and come home to him. That we will start over. Do you understand how precarious those words are? If he had never asked me to come home... I would be with Zenith.

[ Interpreting his child's wish was what truly tethered him, and it feels liberating and horrifying to finally admit that to her. It almost feels like he'd built everything between them on a lie ( on unstable ground, just like his sands ). But, he is a devout Meridian. He has faltered but continued his path, always. ]

I wish I could find the words to explain "why" but, I have no reason to doubt Amos's sincerity toward my son's wellbeing.

[warmare]

[Hayame has been in this awful world long enough not to be fully shocked by those words- the idea that, if not for the hurt words of a child begging their father to come back to him, that Set would be her enemy, and it might be him she seeks to kill just as intently as that demon that had tortured her, or the madmen who urged on Zenith.

But it is still unsettling. Because without Set... She might not even be where she was, either. She would be... less hurt, perhaps, but more angry, still untouched and hating her sex, she might not even be-

It feels selfish to think only of how her life would be changed, but at the same time so presumptuous to imagine how his might be.]

... I do not need reminding.

[Anger or dismissal is not what is in those words, though. They are just sad. (And maybe a little scared.)]

...

He said he would shatter my shard for me, if Zenith won.

[He had said he would save a place for her in the new world. But the idea of it, the burn of Meridian surging through her... had burned out that tiny, tiny bit of betrayal that existed in the corner of her hearts. In its place, that was the only promise they could have now.]

I suppose I cannot chastise you for believing in that, while I believe him truthful about what he has told me.

[She never thought Amos was a liar. He was a lot of things. An honorless brute, a fool who believed that sacred bitch without question, but not necessarily a liar.]