[ PERMANENT. ] a (k)atch-all log for kenos

[dawnlord]

WHO: Set ( redsoil ), Bondrewd ( dawnlord ), Drizzt ( twohand ), et. al
WHAT: i actually can't stand month-by-month logs so i'm gonna crush my boys into one perma-log for anything outside of events
WHERE & WHEN: Listed in comment headers, or under the cut.
WARNINGS: General warnings for violence, vulgarity and unethical science. Will update/comment with warnings!


I struggle so hard w/ month-by-month logs, so y'all have to deal with my weird organization...

— [MARCH | SET] GOT NO SHAME, GOT NO PRIDE

Comments

[redsoil]

[ Hilariously, if Set is asked a direct question — he tends to supply a direct answer. ]

I could function perfectly well, with Zenith.

[ Cassian?? he keeps a single promise, tethering him to the rank of Meridian. There is not an inch of Set willing to concede himself to the other side of things, even if he is well-suited for it. Even if he would be satisfied with that path; he'd much rather straddle the line, and give his all in this war, just like everyone else. Anything less would be foolish, and humiliatingly pathetic of him.

He draws Cassian up, with the tug of soft sand, until he can bring him over the railing and

immediately place both of his hands to the man's chest,

spinning with him so that he can shove Cassian bodily back onto the lounge chair ( the bed, essentially ). It's a brisk and untelegraphed motion, with Set's deeply neutral expression hardly shifting in the slightest. Which usually means he's either completely without bloodthirst, or about to commit crimes. ]

And I know what Zenite Discord looks like, you brat. It is one of the exact things I warned you about, when you joined — tranquility, and apathy. That is what they will do to you, and you will eventually welcome it. Just like the Empire asks of their followers. Blind apathy, and a distance from your hurting heart so it may use you better.

[ He picks the most INCENDIARY words, because he knows of the Empire through Cassian now. He will continue to liken it to the unification of hearts and minds under Zenith's banner, too. ]

I died by my own hand, to further my understanding of this world. What I saw was worth it, so I have no regrets. I am not made for such fragility, unlike men of your nature.

[diversionist]

[ his hands go up to set's forearms on reflex, but the god has the advantages of more grounded footing and plain surprise. cassian does stumble backwards onto the chair, forced to let go so he can instead catch himself against it instead of landing on his back. he's already knocked literally off-balance, but it's nothing to what set says after that; and to that he comes up snarling, braced on his elbows, alight with the rage set knows so well. ]

You don't know anything.

[ oh, set thinks he's done something for zenith? (you might as well be a stormtrooper.) he calls this fragility, tranquility, he calls this reminiscent of the empire? cassian's heart had beat hard in his chest at the climb, and it doesn't slow now, hot beneath his chill skin. it feels a counterpoint to the cord around his throat, knocked askew and visible at his collar, that leads down to the small pouch resting against his chest. his sister's shard, impossible to let go of, yet heavy as a condemnation.

(she wouldn't recognize him now; he wouldn't want her to.)

his anger is, as always, as restrained as it is hot. for all that he bites off every syllable, he doesn't raise his voice. ]

What, you think, [ with a scornful breath of a laugh, ] that because you've seen a few things, a couple of memories, that you know me? That you know the Empire? [ a brief shake of his head: no. ] I've done nothing for Zenith.

[ plucking at the mysteries within springstar doesn't serve zenith. following the questions of previous bearers doesn't serve zenith. refusing to murder the aggravating, powerful, composed god in front of him — doesn't serve zenith.]

[redsoil]

I did not say you did something in Zenith's name. I said I know what Zenite Discord looks like - it takes a different shape than Meridian's. You could have gotten it by any means.

[ Cassian, he thinks, needs to listen to what people say a little more.

He did claim that Cassian's state precludes him to apathy, though. That it draws him from the person he wishes to be, and more into a creature that could be bent to someone's will. Set has been there — full of Discord and driven to excess, to bountiful creation and searing, scalding heat. He tends to run hard into Discord, because he is the only ( to his knowledge ) Meridian Shardbearer to utilize his spellwork so consistently and constantly. He feeds the crops in Alenroux, after all.

He reaches out.

Touches his fingers to the pouch around Cassian's throat, before dropping them to the back of one of those fists he might just bring to bear. The surge of Meridian's force within him seems to bite at whatever Discord lingers in Cassian's shard, a thousand hot mouths descending upon it. The brief flicker of what it might have felt like to lie in a green, beautiful field under the soft light of the sun. Of turning one's face to the warmth of a star and just barely feeling it through the reinforced glass of a starship's front windows. ]

I said the Empire you showed me would be glad to see you languish like this. That holding fast to what you have done will serve those who wish you stagnating under its weight — by your tone... you did something for us.

[ Meridian, he means. Testing the waters further. Humans hate being wrong. Even an incorrect claim often yields a correction, and with it: truth. ]

[diversionist]

[ he seems to hear, rather than think: a poor showing, captain andor. it sounds like general draven. it sounds like luthen. it sounds like mon mothma.

it sounds like failure. a failure to hear, a failure to keep his composure, a failure to keep himself from this conversation altogether. a spy is nothing without his control. and he is nothing, nothing, nothing. drowning in distance, in freezing zenite apathy, really is better than this.

but the war god doesn't allow him that. that's unsurprising; war isn't merciful. war doesn't care what can and can't be borne. it never has, and it never will. cassian andor has sacrificed everything he can give, to war, and it's never been enough.

set reaches for the shard around his neck, and cassian swallows, but moves on before he does more than twitch his fingers in response. (he's very aware, for a moment, of the blaster at his thigh.) then that hand finds his own, and it's like the eruption of a sunburst: burning away at the margins of his discord, relieving the dissonance, bringing impressions of warm, peaceful days he never had. you did something for us.

he jerks away backwards, breaking the contact. ]

Don't touch me.

[ is growled in warning. but more the warning of a wounded animal, than of a predator. ]

[redsoil]

[ Cassian jerks back, and to his credit, he does not come to blows following it.

Set has never been a merciful person, nor one that comprehends that boundaries need to be considered. Especially once he has his mind fixated on an outcome. Cassian does not want to ( cannot bear? ) to be touched right now, and so the war god draws his hand back, draws himself back. Without injury done to his person, or offense taken. Instead, he takes a step away from the place where he has cast Cassian Andor, and reaches into the depths of green foliage and clay pottery upon a handsome metal shelf nearby.

He rummages around, and comes up with a small, hefty potted plant. In this, the god's mind must be absolutely alien ( though to him, the flow of his thoughts is as sensible and natural as any other's! ), because when he comes back, it is to lob the weight of the pot toward Cassian. It is a sprouting, lush thing with narrow leaves. An aromatic thing, sweet and tangy like fresh lemon. ]

Catch.

[diversionist]

[ what the absolute fuck.

which is to say: set withdraws, and cassian pulls himself upright. still sitting; there's little point to standing, quite yet, and he doesn't feel contrary enough to stand just because he'd been made to sit. and because something shivers just under his skin, hard enough that he'd fear it visible, were he to rely on his own legs. the appearance of weakness, even the possibility of it, so difficult to bear — even here, with no one but the god to see.

not that there's time to dwell on that. his head comes up when he hears the word, and he lifts his hands on reflex more than anything else. his fingers curl around the pot, holding it steadily, even as he looks down at the plant with a puzzled look. it does smell lovely. it does look lovely. it makes absolutely no sense to throw it about like a nuna during a ball game.

he looks back up at set after a moment, lifting an eyebrow. ]

[redsoil]

[ Moments after he lobs the plant into Cassian's awaiting hands, the war god returns to the space he had also cast the man. He hikes a knee onto the edge of the lounge and reaches in to find a few leaves that are ailing and pluck them free, grinding them between his pale fingers until they are stained green and the scent of citrus is stronger for it. ]

Do you know what the difference is, between gods and men?

[ Chances are, Cassian does not. He doesn't have gods in his world. The question is a little more rhetorical then, a segue into a greater topic of conversation. Set settles his hip at the end of the lounge, and points out a few more spots within the plant's lush growth for him to pick the dead and dying leaves free from. A silent command to get to work. ]

Men were given freedom of will and choice, while gods were given power. Men choose their paths in life, but are not always privy to the greater picture — they see two paths, and think those are the only routes they can take. If they do not take one, they are bound forever to the other.

[ He pauses. ]

They do not see that all their paths are woven together. That they can never go so far, that they cannot find another way. And a god, has the perspective to know that on their behalf.

[diversionist]

[ there is another life, where they have this conversation when cassian is in a different frame of mind.

in that life, cassian does not only lift his other eyebrow at the question, but says something like, are you going to make me guess? and there's some subtle, but real, humor to it; not unlike his recent question whether set will ever let him forget about his status as a god. he doesn't have an answer, of course. if there are gods in his galaxy — and some believe there are — then there are none that have ever mattered to him. none that ever reached out to protect him or the people he loved. none that ever bestirred themselves to care about the atrocities of the empire, or the republic that preceded it.

perhaps surprisingly, cassian does slowly move to brush his fingers through the leaves, twisting off the leaves that are brittle and off-color. neither exactly familiar work, nor unfamiliar work. easier to keep his hands busy, his eyes on the plant, than to look at the war god.

— no god has ever sat beside him, and spoken of hope.

he knows that's what this is, of course. he has never drowned so deep that he didn't know hope when he saw it; or jyn would've never had the effect on him that she does. (that she does — he hadn't left because that waned, only because the brightness hurt too much.) he shouldn't listen to this any more than he'd allowed set to try soothing his discord. he shouldn't, but

does cassian sleep, these days? he's tired. ]

And what do you see?

[redsoil]

[ Cassian's hands begin to move, and to Set — that confirms whatever it is he thinks in that fathomless, strange mind of his. What he sees is both all-encompassing and simple, without any sense of hypocrisy between the two; he thinks of his siblings and the relationships they had cultivated with mortal lives, the way they had bothered to, when each one of them knew that life was short, and to him? More often insignificant, than grand. ]

Someone who wants to do something else, but might always become involved in what he knows he's good at. Who needs to learn he is capable of both.

[ The sense of Cassian Andor is a creature so bent into a shape, that the simple act of unbending himself from it is impossible without the aid of other hands. He is brittle metal and will lose parts of himself as he works, but enough of him will be left that he can see his intentions take the form he'd rather they take — and were humans not deeply enamored with the romanticism of making the attempt, of doing their best? ]

If you are only good for one path, how is it that you learn to care for something new so readily?

[ And he reaches for Cassian's hand, to lift it from the plant and show him the green stains upon his own fingers. To let the scent of lemon rise from his own palms and catch him, fresh and clean. ]

[diversionist]

[ set speaks, and the sound is like rain pattering against transparisteel. quiet, inevitable, impossible to ignore. like all cassian need do is cross the room and open the window, to find himself flecked by warm summer raindrops and cleansed of what ails him. like it could really be that simple.

it speaks to set's power, that he can even imagine it. that he almost believes it, for a flickering half-second.

cassian doesn't flinch away from the touch this time, hand boneless in the god's grip as it's lifted into view. green-stained, fragrant, almost beautiful. fingers belonging to a different man, different life; someone who grows and cultivates and makes things better. someone who hasn't pulled the trigger so many times he couldn't possibly count. who is always paying for his hopes with blood.

he wants to say, this isn't caring. it's just something to do with his hands. it's just following an order, and maybe set has seen enough to know how good he is at that. he wants to say, you're mistaken. but he asks himself whether he would drop this pot, let the stoneware shatter, the soil scatter, the citrusy plant die. if he wanted to make his point, he would, and he would say, see? this is what i am. it had worked with jyn.

(do not play world-weary and heartless with me, cassian. it will not work.)

he swallows, answers slowly. ]

Meridians always ask why I don't want to go home. [ his voice holds none of the bitterness it had when he'd said something like this to quetzacoatl in front of the iconoclast oracle. he lifts his eyes to set's face, now. ] Did you think it was because of the Empire?

[ a brief shake of his head. the bluish-white crystal set into his palm gleams in the light of springstar's suns. ]

It's because I can't. Nobody survives the Death Star.

[ it is the closest he's ever come, in kenos, to saying aloud what happened to him and jyn on scarif. he's sure he doesn't have to elaborate; set saw the monstrous abomination during their trade. the planet-killer. set is sure to understand the deadly light that had swallowed him and jyn and the others whole, burnt them to stardust. ]

Tell me, [ he says, then, ] what path is left in front of me.

[ he is dead, no matter what the magic of kenos has wrought. all of this time is borrowed, bonus, extra. but he has no future, not really. only to maximize the use he makes of this time, before his shard shatters, or returns to the swirls of space-time yima had pulled it from, and his fate is returned to what it was. ]

[redsoil]

[ The thing is,

were Cassian to make such a request ( demand / plea ) of someone else, they might balk at dictating his future. They might counter-balance what they wish to say with talk of choosing freely, of deciding for oneself. Certainly, Set prefers that people live their lives and chase their goals with conviction — as he, personally, has been thoroughly disabused of his own will, his own faith in himself and his divinity. Where once he might have reminded Cassian of his freedom to choose, to develop, he will not now — he must speak with authority, as if his way is the only way, or he will falter.

He will appear an imposter, and not the audacious, boundless thing that he was made to be. ]

The one where you live, and the Empire falls.

[ Effortlessly, he delivers such a hope to Cassian Andor. ]

You never had to go back there in the first place, Cassian. That is not the promise any of us make to any one of you. [ Zenites, he means. ] What new world Zenith thinks they can offer you, will never match the truth of the millions of other realities where you and Jyn Erso live.

[ By his tone, he is not asking him to convert. It is not a demand that he reconsider his decision, where he has gone or what he has done, only that he is a little silly, for thinking any Meridian worth their salt would concede to letting him perish in any world. That they would not risk it all to save him, save Jyn. To give them hope and a future. To allow them to squander their work, their faith, because they would rather ensure an Empire dies on their watch, than trust the people of their reality to find a way. ]

More immediately, the one where you tell me what you did and I show you that you will always have a way back, through me.

[ it'll be fucking messy, chaotic, perhaps sloppy but — well. set's not exactly a benevolent god ]

[diversionist]

[ set had once lifted a hand to cassian's face, and spoken a blessing in an old language. bound as they'd been by communion, cassian had understood it — or he'd understood the meaning, at least. he hadn't been able to bring himself to answer then, any more than he can now.

the one where you live.

he does want the empire to fall, more than he's ever wanted anything. he does want jyn to live. there'd been a catch, till recently — he wants jyn to live, but she needs him, may need him, may not let it go one way. he's less sure now. and without that...how long has it been since, untethered, cassian andor has wanted to live? the truth is that it wasn't the war or the rebellion that snatched that out of his hands. it wasn't the empire. his last hope had died a half decade or so ago, but the first had curdled before he'd turned ten.

what would it mean to know peace? what would it mean to live? the unadorned truth is that he has no idea. he couldn't even begin to imagine. it has been too late for him for such a long, long time.

almost as impossible is tell me what you did. even the quietest of inquiries had earned john and him serious warnings. he doesn't like the notion of some strange shadowy council, but he likes less how long its shadow of influence stretches, that to speak of them in a place like kowloon courts danger. he likes still less that set had been on the list. and at the end of the letter:

i'll be watching.

does the risk, the possible surveillance, frighten him? no. as set had said, he knows he's good at this. he's lived and breathed this for so long that the clean air of living beyond the shadows had been suffocating. so he falls back on old habits; he doesn't have any other choice, even as he's shown his own greened fingertips, even as this god offers him hope and offers him help. ]

Through you, [ he echoes, slow. the god's hand feels scalding against his own chilled skin. ] What would you do?

[ what could he do? it's as much refusal to outright say as an honest question. ]

[redsoil]

[ When Cassian remains silent on the matter of what he has done, Set does not so much relent as he does fixated harder upon it. The silent weight of his scrutiny like claws, raking thoughtfully across Cassian's mind. Like he might start digging, a man possessed and hungry for knowledge, even if it bloodies someone he is considerate towards in the process.

Whatever he has done ( is doing ), it seems it is important for him to remain silent about it. And so, the brief and silent thing between them becomes a weighted thing, stones stacked one atop another across Cassian's legs, while the god curls his mind and soul into those green-stained fingers and passes a mote of warmth into his palm. The delicate re-taking of purification. A small balm, unconditional even in the face of Cassian's silence.

He brings the man's fingers into the plant again, to show him the texture of an adult leaf, compared to a juvenile. How to test a stem for good health, little things that Set knows of from listening to the god of fertile land and life, that he never thought would matter to him. The god of arid, dead lands. ]

Right now, I can assure you that you are no lesser today than you were yesterday when you sought to be someone different. One familiar act does not unmake your potential, these days.

[ Men are the sum of parts, complex and strange. Men are capable of change, even subsumed as they are in lightless places where they cannot see a way out. ]

To tell you that perhaps we are here, together, to continue saving one another from falling.

[diversionist]

[ what a fitting thing it is for the god of arid, dead lands, to make a believer out of a dead man, who'd been forced to make his heart a wasteland.

cassian expects the scrutiny, of course. who wouldn't want to know? and he knows how to bear up under it without a flicker, even when the source is a creature like set. he's been doing this for years; he's been in the crosshairs of much more malicious entities. it's not that he doubts set's power or capacity for brutality so much as that he knows that the desert god doesn't desire his suffering, his death, taking everything vital inside of him and twisting it irreparably, dispassionately, for the sake of a status quo. i said i would kill you, not desecrate you. and so, it is safe to say: he's known worse.

he doesn't expect the pulse of purification. cassian expresses himself quietly, and the only tell is the brief catch in his breathing. but he doesn't refuse it this time. he doesn't pull away from the healing energy; he doesn't move to retake his hand. his eyes fall back to the plant as his hand is drawn there, makes a soft hum of understanding as he begins to parse the information he's being given. it comes easily. cassian had been born in a green, blooming place, even if the planet had entered its death throes not long after. in another life, in another galaxy, maybe both he and kenari would've survived.

but in this one, he listens, now pliable and biddable under set's ministrations. he listens. he takes the sentiments, whole and untarnished, and he places them somewhere visible, somewhere that he can revisit them. he can't believe them now, really, but he might be able to. one day, he might. it's harder to dismiss set's assertion in his potential than jyn's, funnily; but the god has had a deep look inside of him that jyn has not. she only saw the last of his days with the rebellion, the failed mission to terminate galen erso, the desperate grasp to stop the death star. she wasn't there for days and years before that, every scrap of his humanity ripped out from inside him and traded for the rebellion's benefit. no one in kenos was either, of course, but some of them had seen fragments of memories. set surely has no illusions about how far he has gone, would go, for a cause.

he's always feared jyn saw him as better than he is, would let go once she understood the truth. and maybe, in some ways, that's what's happened. what will happen if his actions come to light. but after what they've been through, he no longer fears set's judgment.

and so, cassian andor does not speak. he doesn't argue, refute, belittle. his answer is the absence of pushback, to what's said, to what he's directed to do with this little plant. ]

[redsoil]

[ That is all that needs to happen, in this moment. That Cassian listens, truly and completely, and does not walk out the door and deposit the words of a god into the garbage, to forget and ignore them. No greater power did a human have, than to willfully turn their eyes from a god, to close their ears, to carry on under their own power and ability. Like this, he can take Cassian's jaw metaphorically in hand and reveal to him the branching routes that could carry him from the path he thinks he must always walk, the one he thinks is the only one left to him.

He can show him that each step he takes, there will always be one more dismount waiting for him. He only needs to shift slightly, and if he cannot find the strength in himself to turn in a new direction, there is a hand waiting to snag him by the crook of his elbow and drag him that way. Only able to drag him, because he trusts he will not be dragged into greater darkness. It is a messy little thing between them, but Set places confidence in his and Cassian's connection — that Cassian is more protector than monster, and Set can be strong enough to be what he was made to be.

Meridian's energy tucks itself into the palm of Cassian's hand, without urgency or force. The blooming light of creation, the heat of scouring, scourging destruction — Set envisions his connection to the light less like a gentle goodness, and more akin to his own grandmother. Powerful, brutal, the scourging force that speaks to wildfires and skin-searing energy. He crisps the ends of Cassian's fingers, albeit metaphorically. The sting of a light burn settling there as he draws back.

There is a feeling, that he can soothe some of his Discord, but that Cassian will not relinquish all of it readily. ]

I can claim these things for you, because you have placed your important pieces into my hands.

[ The Empire, Cassian's name, Cassian's Melshi, and now, the knowledge that he did not survive. That he cannot trust his world to be capable of rising and fighting in his absence, and so everyone fighting hard and hoping must perish to ensure it. Set will use those pieces as weapons, he will wield them, but never to break Cassian down — only to try to keep him walking a hard, new path.

]

Whatever you did, thank you. You did it, it was hard. You are alive to atone, like me.

[ He'll be the one to say the words that nobody said to him, after he returned from the Tree. With a tired smile, and the scent of lemon in the air. ]

[diversionist]

[ thank you. you did it, it was hard.

words that no one said to cassian either, before now. not after any of his alliance missions, not even the ones where he was the only survivor by the skin of his teeth; not the off-books missions draven could only entrust to him and a handful of others. not when he uncovered critical information about this or that thing. not when he learned about the pilot and the death star and repaid his informant with death; not when he led the mission to scarif, with jyn, on a desperate gamble to keep the rebellion alive. and not before, either, days and years in ferrix, in surviving one imperial prison or another, working the black market to spit in the eye of the empire he hated so much. not when he was a child and entrusted with the well-being of another child, a burden so crucial to the fabric of who he is, that he sought it out again from yima.

it's such a simple thing to say, to be told. jyn was the first person in years to look at him and see something he didn't recognize, something brighter. with things between them shattered, he had no reason to believe anyone else ever would. especially now. and yet, set does not give up on him. cassian really doesn't know what it would take to make that happen, and that's a strange feeling. he doesn't withold now for fear of judgment, but for a desire to protect. carrying the danger on his own shoulders, instead of risking the war god's safety. cassian doesn't expect him ever to find out about the list; there are some things that don't need to be known.

the glow of meridian scalds his hand, pure and unyielding, but he doesn't turn away. he softens, lets himself sag until he's leaning against set, buries his face in that shoulder under the curtain of ferociously red hair. and he softens, too, his mental defenses; opens himself so the deep freeze of his discord can swirl and spiderweb like the crackling of so much ice, out where set can see it. do what you will, is the sense that conveys, as close to direct permission as he'll give. set doesn't have to do anything — cassian will not ask for the help — but if he wants to draw the discord like poison from a wound, a drop or a deluge, cassian will not stop him. ]

[redsoil]

[ Atonement is the path he had said he would walk, and the rest of the Ennead — for all their hatred of him, for all their desire to see him erased like a blemish from the face of history — had agreed to allow him to serve that penance. Nephthys had wanted him to connect with humanity, to find a way to feel unity in his heart towards them... and he cannot deny that he has begun to feel it. There are some people in Kenos who he feels deeper within him than others, and some who he finds himself circling — drawn in by gravity.

Cassian is one of the people with a unique gravity, whom will either suffer or be saved. There is not much that Set can do, beyond support him towards one of those ends and know that in the end, it is the human who has the right to choose their fate. Quetzalcoatl hoped for their happiness, and Set? Set simply hoped to witness their conviction, and where it would lead. If in the process he could rattle their minds and hearts, for better or worse, he would ensure he was content merely with that.

After all, he was an evil god. Stripped of old honor, old service, faithfully-kept duty and protectiveness until naught was left to his name but followers who enslaved and killed and abused, madness in the hearts of men was his lot now. To prick Cassian with his warmth and know he might be instilling such madness, too? Well. Perhaps it is how they will keep one another from falling, no matter if their happiness or misery is writ into stone.

Cassian yields against him, stone given to the patient battering of wind that will carry it away piece by piece and transform it into sand. The dark waves of his hair tickling the underside of his chin as he turns his face into the scent of him, into the scent of gunfire and blood and the lemon verbena in his hands. He is mindful of the plant, as he curls his knees under himself and settles his weight into the line of Cassian's own form. Their position similar to the one he found himself in below the Tree, where his head was on Cassian's shoulder.

And he pushes the fingers of his soul into the ice, until he can take a handful of it and snap it up in a fist, warming chunks in his own palms until cold, fresh water pours between his fingers to join the sea again. Even as he works, there is the sense that he can only do so much, because his own body is an ache, his attention fragmented when he no longer has to hone it so intently. Even the god is tired, wrung out in the wake of his revival. ]

Good boy.

[ Maybe the kindness of a war god is madness in and of itself.

After all, Set does not operate outside of his domains ( and thus is not risking his erasure ), if he is inspiring a man ready to kill his heart to survive to yield to a disorder of the soul in lieu of personal peace. ]

[diversionist]

[ cassian is quiet — cassian is so often quiet — and that's a good habit for a spy, isn't it? blend in a crowd, fade into the background, don't say more than needs to be said, allow other people to press their assumptions onto you. skills that have served him all his life, the need to hide and go unseen. but he isn't hiding now, nor could he be said to be anything but seen, under the pitiless gaze of a war god.

pitiless, perhaps, but kind. and maybe it's easy, in some ways, for a man like cassian andor to accept this gentle care. war, conflict, chaos — the oldest friends he's ever had, the only thing he's ever known, companions who have been truer and realer than anyone in his life. hadn't he said to vash the stampede, we aren't all so lucky as to be born in peaceful times? had he met an embodiment of peace, he wouldn't know the first thing about how to speak to them. how to understand them.

so he's quiet, and he's still, as set does his work. shudders out a breath as the dissonance starts to melt away, warmth leaching back into his fingertips, igniting in his shard. the purification is a kind of pain, but it's one he finds himself welcoming. punishment is so much easier than atonement, isn't it. the difference between the two is the presence of hope, and that's a difficult thing to hold onto. ridiculous that he has real faith in set's ability to atone, knowing what he does of the tyrant's past, and none in his own. but neither of them are unfamiliar with contradictions.

he's still, and he's quiet, but he does speak up, as set works. soft, but audible to the god at this range. ]

I'd appreciate a warning, the next time you plan on doing something like that.

[ speaking of contradictions. his grip on the plant remains steady, for all that he's half-collapsed onto set, and he doesn't look up when he says that. he can feel the strain in set; and he hasn't forgotten the explanation for why he's unwell. it's not fair, to refuse to explain himself and then demand set give him forewarning in the future. but neither of them are fair people. ]

I won't stop you, [ he explains, or clarifies. ] from doing what you have to. But. [ he breathes out again, maybe a little easier than the first time. it's not impossible for him to lie under these conditions; he can always find it in him to speak a necessary lie. he chooses not to. ] It matters to me.

[redsoil]

[ Contradictions were natural, in an complex entity; in a human, in a god. Hypocrisy was born of a refusal to acknowledge one's own warring nature, being willfully ignorant of those opposing things within oneself, and pretending like they were better for one, than the other. A human had so much more room to be anything, do anything, become anything, that witnessing one setting aside their right to choose in favor of being ruled on a soul-level by the desires of another was anathema to an entity that had no such freedom; it is a fate he does not want for Cassian.

He'd rather force the man to struggle and suffer until he dies, than become another blank pawn. ]

No promises. [ He murmurs, voice the soft rasp of loose eddies caught in the wind, whipping past the eternal spine of reality, tearing microscopic pieces of it free. Little by little, patiently wearing it down to nothing, until all that was left of fortitude and passion was the unknowable, invisible remains of it all. A desert, the last thing that would ever exist in a world, at its ending. ]

But, I will try. I believed in what I did, I was not — wrong.

[ A noise of faint frustration escapes him. Why could no one simply look at his gaze, the set of his jaw and know — he was not being foolish and stupid, but doing what he had the right and responsibility to do? It feels like a festering wound, an exhausting burden — even for a god, to not be acknowledged. To not be able to look into the eyes of someone and witness their admiration, their yearning adoration or subservience or fear without having to scrape for it.

Set's strength slips a little, his hand kicking out to support the list of his body as the exhaustion continues to creep on him. His own discord is startlingly low, despite that he had turned upon his own body and perished — and below the thin veil of linen he's wrapped around himself, the dark striations ( the mark of the Oracle? ) are long and broad, stretching the length of his spine. Extending along his ribs and curving toward his breastbone. Signs of self-harm, in the highest degree. ]

Besides, I have to punish you a little, for being so free with your secrets that I thought we were co-conspirators — only to withhold them now. You can stay a while, if you like. Take the plant when you go, it makes good tea.

[ All said lightly, with something tired and reaching its limits as he lifts his eyes and smirks. Right before he guides his weight down to the sun-warms lounge and curls into himself a little, diligently working at unknotting Cassian's Discord even as he drifts out hazily. ]

You know how to care for it. You never forgot how, you savior of children's toys.

[diversionist]

[ no promises earns a flicker of humor, here and gone. like: that's fair. but the frustration catches cassian by surprise. he opens his eyes and begins to lift his head even before set's exhaustion makes itself manifest. but set goes on, before he can answer, and is met, when he looks up, with a rueful little smile. he'd be tempted to assuage potential hurt feelings over the secret-keeping, if set didn't move past that so easily with the casual gifting of this precious little plant. didn't anticipate the first protest that rises to his lips, and swat it away like it's nothing. cassian can't imagine that this little plant won't be dead in a month, but it's set's to give and his to watch over, now. he'll make an honest effort. of course he will.

set lays down on the lounge, now looking more the invalid he'd claimed to be, and cassian doesn't stir. you can stay a while, was the offer, and he can feel his discord draining even for set's apparent exhaustion. tempting, too, to protest the god spending strength like this; but that's more likely to cause offense than do any good. and so,

instead, cassian lifts his eyes to the suns-bright sky, and it hurts less than it had an hour ago. the truth is that there are more things he never forgot how to do, old memories and mannerisms that have slowly resurfaced in kenos. he leans his weight back, carefully balances the pot one-handed against his lap, and reaches for set with his free hand. his hand cups to the god's head, and he strokes his hair with circular, soothing motions. as if set were more child awakened by a nightmare than an unknowably vast creature, god of places cassian has never seen. his palms are rough, hands calloused by years of fights, but his touch is gentle. ]

I know you weren't wrong, [ he finally answers. ] You would know, if I thought you were.

[ that flicker-flash of humor, again. cassian andor doesn't struggle with expressing himself when he thinks something is idiotic, they both know this. ]

If you say it was worth it, I trust you. [ and he does. he still trusts john gaius, for his initial anger at hearing about this. conspirators, indeed. ] But there is nothing I would trade your life for.

[ the zenith said to the meridian: contradictions. but even as he says those words, he finds them some of the truest he's ever spoken. that's why he's upset to hear what happened to set. that's one reason he chose the person he did, from that godforsaken list. that's why he can't tell set anything now. but maybe, here on this sunlit terrace, they can leave aside contradictions for the time being. they can take some comfort, some rest, that they both so desperately need. ]

[redsoil]

[ Dangerous as it is, to begin to return to his needed rest in the company of someone who belongs to a faction that opposes his goal — Cassian is a protector, who vowed to heed his anxieties and defend him from someone who might even be undeserving of his mistrust. There is an ache deep inside of him, old phantom pains that emulate the violent death he had caused himself in the hopes of reaching deep into the soul of the world to make a connection impossible to any other save for himself and John Gaius in tandem.

So, when he feels Cassian's hand begin to stroke through his hair, and hears those words accompanying them — the sigh he breathes is one of relief. Because he can tell him now: ] I sent you and Jyn, and Gen, to Zenith. I gave you what you needed, and I lost — we lost because of me.

[ It has been a weight upon him, since that time. Three bodies and hearts to the count. Three who turned the tide against Meridian, and won Zenith the Oracle. No matter those who were Corrupted and forced to Zenith, no matter that he betrayed his own word and tore two Zenites to the side of light. He was why they lost, he knows. Set looks up, through bruise-darkening eyes and winds his hand around Cassian's knee. Claws pricking briefly at the muscle bunching there. ]

To know, I still have a hold on your heart... helps, with the shame. And the failure.

[

A lighting-fast smile, before his brow wrinkles under the strain of being awake. Before he tucks his face against Cassian's hip and wars with his need to rest. Why? Why must he be so tired, he will miss out on so many things like this. ]

You trust me, as I believe in you. Whether you cannot say or will not say what you did, you must know I do.

[ And if he tires quickly after that, falling still and feverish into a needed nap — well, the faint animal-rumble ( the purr ) that betrays him at the touch of Cassian's hand will be unknown to him. ]

🎀

[diversionist]

[ cassian keeps his hand moving, even at that surprising confession. it had never occurred to him to think that set would blame himself for meridian's loss. he'd realized, of course, that his harmonization — and jyn's — contributed to zenith's win. but "winning" had factored so little into why either of them did it. they'd had no choice, under the roots, but to pick a side. zenith had made sense — he'd needed zenith — and, just as important, it'd helped people. he'd taken that silvered, moonlit corruption tormenting set, and vash, and quetzacoatl, and had drowned himself in it. he'd been able to send the three of them back to meridian, where they belonged. cassian, please. that it had earned zenith the oracle had been incidental, accidental.

and why would he dwell on it? what was done was done. jyn had never given a damn about the factions at all. and gen...cassian only knows bits of gen, encountered an awful turning point in his unhappy childhood, but enough to worry him. enough to leave him unsurprised that the boy had wanted zenith, instead of a restoration of the world that had failed him so profoundly. and it is not a surprise, that set had sent a few of them on their way to the other side, despite everything. but it is confirmation: following his own convictions just as surely as he urges them to do.

he could say, it wasn't your fault. he could say, don't blame yourself. he could take the promise of faith in him, that he believes despite all the reasons he shouldn't, and confess. he could, but he does none of those things. ]

I owe you one.

[ he murmurs, finally, as sleep claims the god. cassian keeps stroking set's hair long after his breath evens out, and his own hand tires. he stays, and keeps a vigil over set's slumber.

and when set wakes — he will be alone. but he'll also be swathed in yet another light blanket, fetched from inside. the plant he'd gifted cassian is nowhere in sight; and in arm's reach is a covered, still-warm bowl of soup. ]