kenoslogs | open | a merry meri mingle

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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

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.

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[... It is easy, perhaps, to note that Hayame hides herself away. It is not everyone, however, that would dare say it to her face. That defensive snarl of an almost retort comes too quickly to her face, her shoulders tighten and rise, but in the end... she swallows it. It would only prove his point, like how she'd been disgraced by Amos at the shard debates, by that churl of an elf at the Meridian introduction...

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, but…

[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.

[To her credit (if one was assigning credit), Hayame does listen to everything he says first. Her lips thin, her brow furrows, and in the absence of her sunbeam bead to hold now she simply presses her fingers into her own hand, rubbing too harshly at a palm and the inner curl of knuckles, but… she stays silent.

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.

[Liem's response to the sudden sharpness of Hayame's words is, initially, surprise. Had she made an offer for him to refuse? He hadn't thought so. Or maybe he'd suspected as much, but wanted to talk her out of it, as he always tried to when someone he knew started to extend their hand to him.

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.

[Since the debates... No, perhaps, since the masquerade... Hayame has been tense, sharp and even more inclined to lashing out to defend herself against... something. She had thanked Liem for his instruction on how to dance, (though she had commented slightly bitterly that she had not ended up needing it), but beyond that... she threw herself only into Meridian's occupation.

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.]

[Usually, the face that Liem wears for the world is an accommodating one, mild-mannered and courteous. There are always multiple ways to reach a given conclusion, and he's well used to being flexible.

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.

[... Truthful.

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.]

[Of course Hayame didn't demand anything to soothe the Discord that has built up in his bones, making his shard pulse with heat and his skin warmer than usual when she touches it. Of course she had offered without expecting payment — that is why he feels he must give her something, why he cannot simply accept her offer and say nothing at all.]

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?

[It is not as if Hayame knows how to hold a hand any better. Liem makes his offer and takes her hand and all her effort must be put into not flushing or puttering- stupid, when she had made the offer to him without any change to her naturally stern and cold expression. But the idea of her coming to him to ask for help, of going to any man for help that would involve intimacy, is somehow different.

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.]

[With another shard-bearer, one more comfortable with intimacy both physical and emotional, perhaps Liem wouldn't feel compelled to speak anything aloud to let his Discord bleed from him. Just physical intimacy alone might be enough, if it was in the form of an embrace, if he could find someone to let him tuck his face against their neck while they ran their fingers through his hair. He can't entertain even the thought of it without his cheeks warming, so that… that would certainly be enough. It would be a vulnerable enough act to pierce whatever threshold needed to be perforated to let the Discord flow out.

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.

[Hayame knew what it was never to measure up to the standards laid out by humans, by the race that decided by numbers and overall power what "society" was going to be. What it meant to never be able to pass as human in a world where only humans had power, and everything else... was just a beast. But Liem's world hadn't seemed like that. Or at least, it hadn't seemed quite as bad. After all, he himself was obviously not quite human... but he was a priest of... whatever kind. Something respected enough.

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.]

[Liem pauses, surprised, when Hayame interrupts him to — twine their fingers together, pressing her palm against his in a way that seems so much more intimate than the careful way he'd been holding her hand previously. It's a grip that really only suits one hand, and his other falls reluctantly away as he glances from their linked hands up to her face.

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.

[She is warm. Slightly warmer than a human, even, considering the higher base body temperature of her kind. It is strange, she thinks, that he seems so cool in comparison, but... he has always been sickly pale. That his blood is sluggish seems to match it somehow.

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'.]

Priest is not my job, [he tells her, politely pretending not to notice the way she avoids his gaze at being thanked.] It is a title I… finessed later in life, during years when I was transferred away from my home temple. Against the wishes of the clergy there.

[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.

[Not his job, but a title he was able to procure for himself by virtue of transfer. At first, it makes sense. Acolytes and monks of any temple were at the mercy of their superiors, and Hayame knows some must not obtain their ranks without skillfully arranging for appointments elsewhere, waiting for the deaths of their high priests, or even leaving to found their own temples. That was how it worked.

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?]

[He has to admit that it is better, less nerve-wracking, to tell Hayame the truth about his role while her hand is clasped so tight and warm around his. The closeness helps to bleed off some of the sting, just as he supposes it's meant to bleed off the chaos of Discord muddying his shard.]

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.

[Hayame should likely feel ashamed for how much trouble she has focusing on Liem's words just because they are touching like they are. But there is no changing that she is overly focused on it. Is she sweating? Are her palms too hot? Is her grip too tight?

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...]

[When Liem explains more to Hayame about his role in Abadar's church, when she asks him if he wants her to tell him that he isn't a good man — he has to think about it. Is that what he's been trying to get her to do? To admit that she was wrong and agree that he isn't a good person after all? His eyebrows draw together as he regards her, frowning up (and up, and up) at her from his seat on the rough wooden bench.]

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.

[Even if he had wanted her to... Hayame would have refused. She has refused so much in her life that it likely would have been easy to do, even if he insisted. She does not have... she did not think she had friends. Amos had told her that friends did the things they did... and then he had betrayed her trust and the things she'd told him in confidence for the sake of that damned woman Yima and her goals. Set had called her his friend when trying to introduce her to the false vision of his child, but that... that had likely just been something one said to children to reassure them.

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.]

Am I?

[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.]

[She wishes he wasn't looking at her. Her own gaze almost slips away, but she doesn't want to be a coward, either. It wavers, though, in the moment, her grey eyes roiling like storm clouds despite her attempt to be cold. It had once been so easy to be cold and calm.]

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?

[Even in his effort to convince Hayame that he didn't truly deserve to be called a good man, Liem hadn't been willing to be completely honest with her — about why the priests would never approve of him no matter how human he acted, and why he had been convinced to take on such a soul-staining job for his church when he was still just a young man. Because what use did a vampire's get have in worrying over the purity of his soul? Yet he hadn't spoken of that to her, because while Hayame might forgive him for committing low deeds in his Lord's name…

She is a sensible woman, with a healthy horror of the unnatural. Surely she would not forgive him that.

But although he did not speak it, he does know what it is to be saddled with a mark that cannot be washed away. He understands the struggle of finding a way to keep living in its shadow.]

Hayame…

[He does not relent in his quiet, steady regard of her, of her shame and her turmoil. Gently, he squeezes her hand.]

Forgiveness will not erase what you have done — and you do not need it to be a good person. You are not the property of your old master any longer; it is up to you to decide what to do with that freedom.

Becoming a good person isn't something that happens once you've finally atoned; it's something you need to do on your own first, while you're seeking redemption. And that means that you can be a good person and still be guilty of wrongs.

[How shameful it is, that a squeeze of a hand can almost feel like a comfort. For a moment, Hayame imagines what it might be like to be a woman who is so uncomplicated that this reassurance was all she needed. What would it be like, to be so foolish and gullible as to believe a gentle touch and a quiet, steady voice?

There is a moment when she doesn't say anything. Hayame almost looks away, because the words are bubbling up in her throat but they are so pathetic she can barely stand it and yet-

And yet she cannot help but think of the hundred slights, the hundred insults, the hundred dismissals she has borne since her arrival in Kenos. In Meridian, the place she was supposed to feel surrounded by allies, it sometimes felt as if she were no better off than she would be in Highstorm. When she dared to Communion, she was always shown up, misunderstood, or misinterpreted, and-]

If I am such a good person, how is it that only you think so?

[She'd meant to sound more accusatory.]

Is that true?

[Liem's question carries neither skepticism nor judgement — only open, patient inquiry. He has noticed that Hayame seems hostile with many of those he's seen her speak with in other venues, particularly those that allow Meridian and Zenith to mingle freely. But although her temper does not only show itself in the presence of Meridian's enemies, he had not thought the arguments she had in public were the sum of Hayame's interactions with other people on Kenos. He is still not sure he believes that.]

You said that your brother looked up to you, and he must have known you very well. Better than almost anyone you have known here, surely.

[That may be just one person, but surely there were more, both here and back in her own home. What of the red-haired jinba she had known in her own country, whom he'd seen in those flashes of memory between worlds? What of the centaurs who welcomed her to their gatherings in Alenroux? What of the other shard-bearers she has come to know here — do truly none of them think well of her?]

Those here who would judge you harshly — do you value their insights? Do you always think their opinions of you fair and well-founded?

[Is it true? Hayame does not say it, but the look she flashes Liem then is one that asks him... if it were not true, would she not be outside of this tent, mingling with her fellows like the rest? Would she not be smiling and laughing like an idiot outside with people she was ignorantly proud to call her allies instead of preparing defenses or patrolling the woodland? Would they not be gathered around her, like how they flocked to her enemies and fawned over them despite their foul ways?

She had done her part, and still... Still she felt this way. And surely that was not by fault of her own.]

What those of my world think of me means nothing here.

[She is not comforted in her darkness by thinking of Yubari. Of Matsukaze. Instead, she was tormented.]

And whether I value the opinion of those I despise matters not either. Others value them, and whether they are fair or not the one with the silver tongue will always be believed-

[Her hold on his hand becomes unpleasantly tight without her noticing, her brow furrowing with pent-up rage... and certain incidents bubbling to the forefront of her mind, dark and lurking in the corners of their communion-like touch.]

open | a merry meri mingle

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