![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
open | a merry meri mingle
Who: Meridians new & old!
What: Cookout mingle
Where: Alenroux
When: Mid-March, after Vander's rescue
Warnings: Potentially alcohol consumption and violence, for the rowdy
PREPARATION:
THE EVENT:
What: Cookout mingle
Where: Alenroux
When: Mid-March, after Vander's rescue
Warnings: Potentially alcohol consumption and violence, for the rowdy
After the initiation of Springstar's invasion plans for Alenroux, tensions among the Meridian-aligned might be a bit strained. The move comes as a surprise even for many of the shard-bearers within the faction itself, to say nothing of those whose livelihoods depend on the farms here. It's not yet clear what Highstorm's response will be, but one will certainly be coming; when that happens, someone is going to come out on the bottom, and their blood will be at least partially on Meridian's hands.
At times like this, the importance of maintaining morale can't be understated. A call goes out to the newest generation of those harmonized with Meridian's light: it's time to have a party!
PREPARATION:
Those who can are invited to help with the set-up. There are drinks to procure, foodstuffs to acquire and prepare, canopies to erect for shade, entertainments to organize. It's not meant to be a grand affair — the gathering is private, intended to foster camaraderie among the shard-bearers after long days and nights of work — but it will be a comfortable one, with edibles and enjoyments to offer to those taking solace in the company of their fellows.
It takes one of Alenroux's long days to make all the necessary arrangements — and then, late the following morning, after the night's monsters have slunk back into the woods, things are made ready. All that's left is for the guests to arrive.
THE EVENT:
Spring is still in the midst of taking hold over Alenroux, so a tall bonfire at the centre of the gathering place offers a toasty place to linger and chat throughout the day. Hot drinks and a variety of fire-roasted foods are on offer, including an entire deer helpfully supplied and prepared by Liem. Logs and stumps provide simple seating, and nearby canopies provide shade around the tables of food and drink. A little further away, sturdy tents provide more private gathering places for those wishing for a break from the hubbub.
And there will be hubbub. To break the ice between unfamiliar faces, a variety of contests have been set up over the course of the gathering. These range from simple arm-wrestling competitions, to three-legged races, to friendly sparring matches for those so-inclined. Gathered Meris are encouraged to spectate and bet amongst themselves on contest outcomes — and better yet, to volunteer to participate themselves during the next round.
For those who have already had a chance to relax and let off some steam, the gathering is a perfect opportunity to get to know one's fellow sect-mates a little better, and to reaffirm why Meridian called to them in the first place. Those gathered are encouraged to take the chance to tell a few tales about the place they came from, and to share the visions inside their Sunbeam with those from other worlds. A favourite place, a cherished person, an unkept promise, even an old enemy: all could be worth revisiting for a moment with new comrades in arms.
no subject
To think I might one day be relying in battle on the support of a shard-bearer so weak-willed that they were swayed by free meat and jovial company.
[How pathetic that seemed to her, here, in this place that might become a battlefield soon enough. But she cannot say he is wrong, so she says only that before her gaze drifts down, unable to respond quickly or confidently to the next words. Her thumb rubs over the sunbeam bead in her palm, even though she has ceased feeding it with the pulse of Meridian that brings it to life.
Tending to Discord...]
I am sure many people make of it a shameless thing.
[It seems easy to, when they are told that touch is the method by which it must be done, and therefore the more intimate that touch was, the quicker and better the cleansing likely went. Most people, though, in this world... they were already shameless, and didn't she know it? He would have plenty of people who did not hesitate at all to offer him relief or try to encourage him to take it. So why is she the one who-]
But you will have to do something about it sooner or later. And the longer you wait, the worse it will be. You will not merely be sporting a savage's beard.
[She isn't even sure who she is saying this for. He probably knows it already, she's just preaching to the air-]
It can be done with something not so different than... dancing, if you take the time for it.
no subject
But to some extent, submitting to purification means submitting to being seen, to being known. And it has been a long, long time since he has trusted anyone to know him better than was absolutely necessary.]
Yes… you are not wrong.
[His fingers find the fabric of his jacket collar; twitch it a bit more even on his shoulders, compulsively.]
I wasn't referring to intimate touch, though. Rather… being tended by someone. That, I'm unused to.
[Because she has not objected to his presence, Liem moves further into the tent, to perch on a small, makeshift bench that has been placed within for seating. He does not look like he's taking his ease; the tension living in him makes him appear ready to leap back up at a moment's notice.]
But perhaps I did myself a disservice after all, by not attending the masquerade. I understand it provided no shortage of opportunities for people to seek succour from one another.
no subject
It wasn’t succor from Discord that people were seeking at that debauched party.
[Maybe it happened as a side effect, she didn’t know- Didn’t you have to think about it consciously, at least partly? She’d always been… the one time she’d acquiesced to holding the Tribune’s hand.]
It was just a bunch of men turned beasts reveling in no one knowing their names.
[There is a level of disgust in her voice that is near violent and boiling, but it isn’t directed at Liem. It isn’t even really directed at others. But she doesn’t… if she says any more-
Her finger clench hard, too hard, around the sunbeam bead before she apologetically releases it, her brow furrowed as she runs her fingers over it to check for damage. No…]
… You are a good man.
[Despite how she’s just disparaged his new hair style.]
I am sure there are plenty of people who would be willing to tend to you if you let them.
[Either way. Just look at today. Hosting graciously, conversing easily, thinking conscientiously of his allies… (All the things she couldn’t or didn’t do.)]
no subject
He still doesn't know what to say to her assumption — that he is a good man, that his peers should be perfectly willing to reduce his Discord for him. The longer he lives and works in this place between worlds, the more he realizes that his reputation here isn't what keeps him from doing the things that might shame him. Like the others in Meridian, he cannot bring himself to leave the culture he came from behind him — and he cannot fathom being deserving of solace from himself.]
I've made it difficult for myself, [he admits. Maybe not in the same way that Hayame often does, with her abrasive words and her tight grip on her honour, but difficult all the same.]
Submitting to purification means being vulnerable, means allowing yourself to be known. And I have tried to avoid being known by anybody.
[He likes things best when his peers see only the parts of him that he wants them to know: the parts that he's curated for public viewing, that are civil and inoffensive. But he had come to know more of Manon than just his surface demeanour when he had worked to purify his shard. He had seen flashes of his life during times both happy and sad: things that had no bearing on the disaster that had led him to fall into Meridian's hands.
Liem gestures to the bead in Hayame's grasp.]
… Isn't that why you're in here, as well?
no subject
So she is forced to acquiesce. No. She did not like people prying into her business, and she did not like people acting as if they knew her life. She does, however... take her sunbeam bead and tuck it back into her shirt, safe between her breasts and against her shard. Thinking about them...]
Is that not only if you submit to... touching each other's shards?
[Knowing in that way, like deep Communion or those occasional strange dreams... It feels so intimate that she shudders without meaning to, the movement quaking down her long spine and leaving gooseflesh in its wake.]
You needn't. The Tribune cleansed by Discord by just holding my hand.
[Perhaps he did not know, or was simply mistaken because of how much was required to purify Manon... ?]
You are not so far gone as that, are you?
no subject
[Liem regards her contemplatively, watching Hayame tuck her Sunbeam back out of sight, and considers her assertion — that nothing more than a touch is required for Discord to be purified. That has not been his experience, but… perhaps that is simply because of the difference between them. He has never known Hayame to accept touch lightly, for companionship or pleasure. Perhaps if the act of touch itself, even one as mundane as a touch of hands, requires some amount of vulnerability, then that might be enough.
He, too, tends to avoid unnecessary contact with others — but there have been times when he's made exceptions to assuage his loneliness. Much, he expects, as some at the masquerade did as well. By comparison, a touch of his hand alone is a small thing.]
I have not found such a simple method to work efficiently, so it has been difficult to reduce my Discord significantly in… in the time others would wish to devote to it. Or that I would, for that matter.
[Surely nobody wants to sit with him for hours on end while his Discord slowly goes down from a chaste touching of fingers. But it is as he said before: neither does he wish to be known to others, of his faction or otherwise, in order to accomplish this thing.]
The last time I had it significantly reduced was with a person whom I was speaking with about my home.
no subject
To her, it just sounds like refuting her suggestions. Why wouldn’t it work the same way for him? It is difficult for her to believe without seeing, and if holding hands had been enough to reduced her Discord why could it not with him?
It just sounds like excuses. And she hates excuses.]
If you find my offer so repulsive, just say so.
[… Had she made an offer??? Hayame certainly seems to think that she has, simply by bringing up verbally the state of his condition and speaking bluntly (by her attempts at “polite” standards) of the ways she knew to heal it.]
There are other tents. Perhaps in one of them you will find someone with more appealing hands or ears.
no subject
Hayame is an honest woman — honest to a fault. She is not to blame for thinking him a good man.]
I did not say as much because I did not mean it.
[His voice is firm as he clasps his hands — ungloved for now, given their leisurely activities — in his lap. He does not rise from his place on the bench, despite her obvious offer for him to leave.]
Hayame, you are mistaken. I am not a good man — only a necessary one. I will tell you why if you wish to know, but it will bring me no joy. I value your opinion greatly, and I am loath to have you think ill of me.
no subject
What else did she have?
One person after another she has demanded simple answers from. Would they do this, or not? Would they come, or would they go? Would they stay and let her help them with their Discord, or would they go to someone else? She wanted it to be black and white, yes or no, easy to understand...
She's so tired of games. She wants to believe him when he says he values her opinion (greatly), but-]
If you value my opinion so much, why are you in such haste to tell me I am wrong?
[To her, he is a good person. He's so annoyingly "good" that he organized this damn gathering for the sake of Meridian goodwill and morale, when someone like her would have rather forced them to patrol and simply work instead.]
no subject
The look that he aims at Hayame now, however, is stubborn. She asks why he insists on disagreeing with the opinion he supposedly cares for, but he is not simply intent on being contrary. It would be the easiest thing in the world to go on showing only his most civil, helpful face to his fellows in Kenos, but he didn't join Meridian to build a nice, rosy life for himself there. He swore to return his world and his patron to life, and he intends to follow through, whatever it takes.
And if returning his world to life means waging war on those who wish to leave their own worlds behind, he cannot be overly concerned with appearances.]
Because I wish to be truthful with you.
[Hayame does not know the Liem Talbott who acts worse than the beasts she'd scorned at the masquerade, indulging a desire for flesh and blood that went beyond the hungers of human men. She does not know the Liem Talbott who has delivered troublesome repeat offenders in Oppara anonymously to the foreign slave galleys in its harbours, or who ensured that a heretic in his custody would die rather than reach prison. She has judged him without knowing him, not fully — and surely she would think differently about him with that knowledge. Any just and sensible person would.
Unclasping his hands, he lifts one to hold it, palm-up, in front of him: a silent invitation, should she wish to accept it from a man who has decided to be so frustratingly difficult.]
I owe it to you, of all people, to be so.
no subject
That word felt so pointless sometimes. What was the truth, in this world where people from countless worlds and cultures gathered together? Anyone could say anything, and you would have to just believe them or doubt everyone... Hayame had started cynical and remained so.
But Liem had seen glimpses of her life, in that space in the stars before their birth into Horos. They had always been uneven in the manner of "truth"... but she had never insisted on correcting it, because if she had her way, then he wouldn't know any of those things. So how could she demand anything in return? She didn't even want to demand it now, but he is trying to shove it down her throat...
And his hand is out, his expression serious. Far more serious than it ought to be- or rather, how she thinks that most people would view what is happening here now. She hesitates... and then she must rebuke herself for it, because she is the one who made the offer in the first place, even if he hadn't noticed.]
I just offered my hand to soothe your Discord, I did not demand anything while or in turn.
[Just so they were clear. She is not asking him to tell her anything he did not wish to.
But she is... moving to take his hand.]
no subject
Nonetheless. When you next burn with Discord, you know how you may find me.
[Their bond works both ways, after all. But that's just another reason he needs to be forthright. It doesn't sit well with him, to imagine Hayame seeking his assistance out of misplaced trust.
He clasps her hand like a man unused to casually holding someone else's simply for companionship; rather, his gentle hold is much like the light grasp of a gentleman first taking a lady's hand when being introduced in polite society, before lifting it to grace her knuckles with a kiss. It is a hold fit to be seen in public, though they have some measure of privacy within the thin walls of the tent. And it is, at least by Liem's standards, not a terribly intimate thing at all — especially without even a kiss of greeting.
But he still notices how warm her fingers are in his, and how callused. He puts his other hand atop them, just for good measure.]
Hayame, [he says, once her hand is held between both of his.] Would you say that being a good warrior and being a good person are different things?
no subject
Still, she takes- or lets him take- her hand. She almost corrects him, tells him that this is not the way Cyrus had done it. The Tribune’s hand had been… warmer, for one, but more importantly he had completely intertwined their hands, lewdly sliding each finger in the spaces between the others, pressed their palms together…
She doesn’t, though. Not yet. Just because she’d offered didn’t mean she was ready. And Liem’s question that seems so irrelevant still demands her attention.]
No.
[The answer is easy. His hands are cooler, his callouses different from hers… but some are the same.]
To be a good warrior, one must also uphold the tenants of honor and loyalty outside of the battlefield.
[The dogma she had been raised on, that she had seized as a life raft to try and escape her circumstances. But she…]
- a good fighter can be any sort of man.
[She only called herself a warrior, these days. Not a good one.]
no subject
But even if he could find someone amenable to that kind of closeness, it would certainly not be the stern, prideful woman before him. He does not even think to suggest it.]
That's what I was taught, too. A man of god must reflect the values of the faith at all times, not just when he is wearing his church's colours.
[It's hard to display temperance when one is born from the blood of a creature that exemplifies violent indulgence. Even his very best had not been enough to satisfy his peers at Abadar's temple.
Probably Hayame knows this experience very well.]
You know the other members of my church were human. When I was being taught there, as a young man, I could not satisfy any of the priests that I was… pure of spirit. That I was sufficiently human to be one of them, and wouldn't disgrace them outside of the temple grounds. That is why I stopped being an acolyte, and learned the bow.
no subject
She was... not.
She had also just never asked... what he was exactly. She assumed it was some kind of elf, they had those pointy ears, apparently. But what did it matter here? He'd certainly never made an issue of it... and now he's trying to make some issue of what? What kind of priest he was?]
You're not holding our hands right.
[She interrupts suddenly, flushing slightly with embarrassment as she twists her wrist to try and mimic the way the Tribune had held hers when he cleansed her Discord, recreating each scandalous slip of fingers into spaces in between. Her movement is too slow but too fast, she can't decide, her palm already feels hot...
But there.
... He can continue talking now. She's listening.]
no subject
She is very warm, and even if the clasp makes her face a little pink… the touch is still nice.
Despite everything, he really is blessed to have colleagues like this, who will lend him a hand when needed, even when he hasn't asked.]
Thank you, Hayame.
[Belatedly, he recalls that he hadn't even said that, when it should have been the first thing out of his lips, as soon as she reached for his hand. Even if she might have regrets later, that doesn't excuse him from expressing gratitude now.]
What do you know, actually, about the life I left behind in Taldor? The one I'll go back to one day, if we succeed.
no subject
What she didn't expect, however... was being thanked.
People just did not say that. "Thank you, Hayame". She was a hard woman, a difficult woman... It wasn't like didn't know that. She rarely found herself in the position to be thanked, and even when she did, her demeanor or aloofness often led to the phrase getting lost. It can't be avoided here, in the tent, however, and it makes her expression... warmer, makes her gaze slip to the side as she responds.]
You are a priest of Abadar... What sort of god he is... That you had an uncle, and a sister...
[... It is not a lot. Not wanting others to pry into her own life... She had never been one to pry overly into others'.]
no subject
[He’d run a bit of a con on them. The priests in Oppara were too familiar with his reputation to support a proper education for him, one that would induct him into the priesthood. Everyone at the Cathedral of Coins knew the rumours surrounding him, and no matter how diligent he was, or how devout, they wouldn't tolerate his desire to be their equal in Abadar’s eyes.
But the city of Cassomir, near Taldor’s northwestern border, had fine banks where a man might be educated, and an Archbanker capable of elevating someone into the ranks of the priesthood. And when his superiors in Oppara had transferred him there, they had sung his praises rather than let their sister temples doubt the quality of the taxmaster their temple had produced, even if he wasn’t fully human.
So, despite the stain of dhampir writ plainly on his papers, he had become ordained there, in that city that smelled of salt and blackwood tar, and not even the haughty clerics of Oppara had dared to strip him of his rank without a good reason.]
The role through which I served my temple was called taxmaster. A taxmaster seeks out those who subvert Abadar’s will, such as thieves, conmen, and tax evaders, exacts what is owed and, if necessary, enacts judgement. And, if there are problems plaguing the church that have no tidy solutions, it is the taxmasters’ role to fix them.
no subject
She doesn’t understand at first why it was worth saying as if that meant he wasn’t a priest.
Even when he says the rest… she is trying not to notice how fast and embarrassingly skittish her pulses both feel where their hands push together. “Taxmaster” was a strange title, sure, but their palms…
But he’s looking at her like it warrants listening and she just… Fine, she can pretend they aren’t so intimately entwined…]
So you punish criminals.
[It wasn’t like the crimes he described were only crimes to a church… they were crimes to any magistrate or town official, too. So, what? He was more like a… policeman and occasional executioner?]
no subject
Essentially, yes. Do not mistake me; it is a necessary job. I take pride in doing it well.
But it is not necessary to be a good man to be a good taxmaster. In fact, it is hard to be both a good taxmaster and a good man.
[Sometimes, the solution to his church's problems involved measures that the church would not be pleased to have associated with them. Officially, it didn't condone these sorts of solutions — but failing to cover his tracks properly in the past had only ever earned him a slap on the wrist. He had not been so clumsy in many, many years, but he's sure that committing such a gaffe now would be all the excuse his temple needed to strip his rank as priest from him, and return him to being little more than the church's dog.]
An exemplary taxmaster eliminates threats to the faith without wavering, even if they must sin to do so.
no subject
But she is trying to listen. The problem is...]
Do you wish for me to tell you that you are not a good man?
[He's saying that he's killed people- she's pretty sure. That for his church he had eliminated threats in the shadows, but even so... Her expression grows darker, more contemplative, unsure of just how much of her own life had been broadcast in the space between Horus and their lost worlds. Liem had waited for her then, and not cast judgement, but.]
How is someone like myself supposed to do that?
[Judging others is never something Hayame has struggled with, even when it was hypocritical. But to Liem, who she had met under the most incredulous of circumstances... she extends exemption without realizing it. Someone like her, who had acted as an overseer to her own people, who had recaptured escaped jinba and consigned them to the fate of breeding stables and armless-ness that she herself feared most...]
no subject
No. You don't have to.
[Liem looks back down at their joined hands, tightly laced like they're bosom friends making a lifelong promise, and feels himself lose what panic-spurred determination he'd had. In truth, he doesn't wish for one of the few real companions he has to denounce him. It would be a sad thing for him to lose this, on top of everything else.]
I simply… didn't want your opinion of me to be rooted in ignorance.
[If she knows what kind of role he's fighting to return to back home, and she still wants to believe that he is a good person… even if he can't agree, he doesn't have the heart to object.]
You are not a bad person, Hayame.
no subject
But whatever Liem was... he had been the person who had guided her to the light in Horos. And for that, she refused to condemn him, no matter his insistence that in his own world his hands were not clean. Even the level of filth he seems to allude to, when compared to what she had done... Hayame's expression darkens. He says she is a good person, but even if she wanted to believe that...]
... Are you not the one who now speaks in ignorance?
[Her palm is sweaty. Clammy.]
no subject
[Liem regards her evenly, searching her expression as it grows darker. In contrast to her hand, his own is still cool and dry, clasping hers without reluctance despite the clamminess that threatens to overtake it. After all, no matter how difficult he may find it to take someone's hand, holding one is no hardship. Especially when it's hers.]
I know that since the very first moment we met, you have wanted to atone for the things you've done in your past. That's why you are so determined to return home, is it not?
[This does not sound like the wish of a bad person to him. Liem is so ready to judge himself because regardless of the gentleness he holds in his heart, and regardless of his love for peace, in the end, when he returns home, he intends to go back to devoting himself to a path paved with violence. But from what he knows of Hayame, all she wants is to burn the bridge between her and her old master.]
no subject
Wanting to atone is not the same thing as achieving it.
[He isn't wrong about how determined she is to return home. But she has never said in so many words that she wanted to return only to die. She has never said aloud what it was she had done in her own world that meant she had to die. And she didn't plan on saying it here, or saying it today, but he's here acting like he's the one between them who isn't good and-]
And there are some things that cannot be forgotten, even if death can cleanse the dishonor.
[Her fingers spasm where they are laced with his.]
Does your god forgive those who turn their backs on their own race? Does he forgive those who enslave them and consign them to the fate they themselves would rather die than suffer?
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)