The Seeds of Unrest: the Iconoclast Oracle

[beleos]

RUNNING OUT THE CLOCK

The situation is bleak.

The Blight - and the massive labyrinth of roots tearing both cities asunder, spreading deadly flowers wherever they penetrate - have progressed to a point beyond catastrophe. People are dying in rapid numbers. Bearers are having difficulty keeping up with the spread of infection - even among one another. The collapse of Kenos seems inevitable; a cure will not come in time. You can do nothing but watch as each new day brings further disaster, ticking down the seconds until it all falls apart.

And then, you feel something seize your Shard. As if physical fingers have wrapped around it, as if it is being clutched through you by invisible hands, you feel invaded. You feel wronged. But before you can panic, a voice enters your mind through Communion.

“Excuse the dramatics, but there isn’t much time for pleasantries. The Trees are about to hit the point of no return. But there's still work to be done. The Tree of Life will take you where you can find it: the Oracle and the creature causing all this mess. Fix this when you find them. However you'd like.”

Have you heard Aetos’ voice before? Perhaps it is the first time; perhaps it is familiar to you. Either way, the last thing you will remember is a confusing jumble: a spell of immense and incredible power, one utilizing the Tree’s strength to shelter you. The sensation of every cell in your body coming alive, yet seeming to break apart and render you into billions and billions of tiny pieces, all hovering in different times and places across all the different iterations, timelines, and realities in which you have ever existed. A voice that speaks not through words asking your forgiveness, unspeakably sad.

And then, there is nothing.

AWAKENING

Your eyes open, gritty with the feeling of a long, deep slumber.

Perhaps it takes a moment to shake off the heavy veil of exhaustion, to recollect what you were doing before you fell into this state of hibernation - but as soon as you do, you feel an immediate sense of foreboding around you. It is thick in the air, oppressive and pervasive, and you aren’t left long to wonder at its source. You lay beneath the branches of the Tree of Life, but as your bleary eyes focus… you see it. The Tree is all but bereft of life. Its bark has withered down to gnarled wood, the soft lichen dried up, and the grass that should be alive beneath you is long dead and gone. There is not so much as a single leaf on its decaying branches.

It has been this way for a long, long time... you realize this with a feeling of intense dread as you see it - the beautiful expanse of stars, of the cosmos, of universes scattered like starlight above the tree's boughs, gone. In its place hangs a sickly, ominously low-hanging, and dying sun ready to sing the end of everything.

You can't help but wonder how long Kenos has been in this state, but a sense of gratitude fills you as you realize that the Tree expended the last of its energies to protect you, the Bearers, during your state of rest. Had Aetos worked with the tree to see you sent here?

The next question comes quickly: how much time do you have left…? And can you find the Oracle before that time expires?

ABANDON HOPE (DAYS 1 & 2)

The cornerstones are still active and will take you to whichever city you wish to see.

Highstorm and Springstar sit like empty monuments to the cities that were once filled with life - yet the first thing you will notice is they are strangely absent the signs of the Tree’s overgrown roots, the Blight, the catastrophic damage that you can recall all too easily. Instead, each city sits as those they were summarily abandoned overnight, leaving nothing but their shells behind. There is a stillness in the air that is unnatural and unsettling. Despite the lack of any sign of the citizens of either city, you cannot help but feel… watched.

Something terrible happened here. Best you find the Oracle before something terrible finds you, instead.

The burning of a dying sun beats down on you wherever you go, unbearable heat sending waves off the aged cobblestone streets. Perhaps it is your instinct to seek refuge in the shade - but linger too long about the shadows and that feeling of eyes on your back, of being unable to breathe, of your world closing in around you will grow untenable and drive you back into the light. If you hope to explore the ghostly shell of your city in search of the Oracle - or to sate your curiosity, some problem-solving might be in order.

And while you acclimate yourself to your circumstances, you cannot help but note you feel wrong inside, somehow…

EXPLORATION

• If your characters choose to explore previously unreachable areas, please use THIS TOPLEVEL to report when they get there in the thread! We will get back to you with what is discoverable in that location.
• The following areas are off limits for exploration: below Yima’s Manor; below the Church of Heliopolis; Alenroux; Kowloon.
• The Great Trees of both Highstorm and Springstar are in a similar state to the Tree of Life and will not respond to Communion.
• Generally speaking, items will be of poor quality. Most will look as though they’ve aged thousands of years. Others will be in half-decent shape, but sparingly so. Oddly enough, it doesn’t seem like the whole city has aged at the same rate, so especially diligent rummagers can find worthwhile supplies. Please consider this should be rare and don’t go overboard!

NOTES

Here are some prompt reminders - see the full thing at the OOC Summary!

• Characters will have a diluted connection to the Zenith or Meridian.
• There will be periods powers are weakened or non-functional during days 1-2 (up to player discretion).
• The sunlight results in scorching; the shadows cause claustrophobia and fear while outdoors.

THE RITUAL (DAYS 2+)

The place you started your journey to Kenos is also where it seems it will end. As soon as the first Bearer makes contact with the Iconoclast effigy, you are collectively drawn to the roots beneath the Tree - like a pang sent through your Shard. Your objective has been found. The Oracle awaits.

Trusting Aetos seems like a fool's errand, but you must put your hope in the Tree. What choice do you have left? It's time to find what lies at the end of this.

Bearers descend, your steps echoing in the dark, cavernous space. Once brimming with life and vitality, the roots are now dried and brittle like the bones of some ancient leviathan that died long ago. As you make their way deeper into the earth, the deadened roots twist, leading you to a vast chamber deep within it; the air here is thick with the smell of decay, and the faint glow of luminescent fungi and mosses barely illuminates the space.

To your left, the Bearers will notice what has drawn them here - and the object of their search.

An effigy sits on the ground between two darkened tunnels. The effigy is made of gnarled, dead branches woven together in a humanoid shape; its hollow, empty eyes are sightless, yet you cannot help but feel it is watching your every move. Branded on its forehead is the Iconoclast symbol carved into the rough wood.

Once all Bearers are present, the Ritual will begin. Your means of exit have been sealed off, and you are trapped, slowly deteriorating together…

NOTES

• Bearers will have access to the Ritual Chamber which is a very wide, open space with the effigy situated against the far wall from the entrance. Several smaller tunnels off-shoot from the Ritual Chamber. They all run to dead ends; some are very small or narrow. This may afford you meager privacy away from the group.
• Once a Bearer steps into the Chamber, they can no longer head back out the way they came. They’ll find themselves automatically walking back into the Chamber as if of their own volition.
• For brevity’s sake we won’t list them out again here, but the complete description of effects Bearers will experience days 2+ is available in the OOC Summary.
• The effigy is impervious to damage.
• It Is Watching You.
• In a dead-end root tunnel attached to the Iconoclast’s Chamber is the Blighted statue of an Otter that may be familiar to some… Please see THIS TOPLEVEL for more information!

THE PURGE (DAYS 5+)

The sap has festered in your veins for what feels like days. It’s impossible to tell how much time has passed; this place has no sunlight. The effigy watches as you remain trapped, huddled together around it, unable to leave as you find yourself sick with the affliction of the Meridian, Zenith - or both.

And then… something finally gives.

Though it does not move and speaks no words, you feel the effigy offering you guidance. Knowledge. Much like the Tree speaks to you in impressions and feelings, you are conveyed wisdom you did not have before: a way to take what you want and rid yourself of what you do not. A way to make your convictions known to all who would hear them. A way to be known. To write your path in blood, be it yours… or theirs.

When all is said and done, only one force - Zenith or Meridian - will gain its favor.

Show it who you are. Show it what resolve looks like to you - and what you are willing to do to attain it.

NOTES

Here are some prompt reminders - see the full thing at the OOC Summary!

• You can Purge your alignment through various methods: Trading, Corrupting, or using the Effigy itself.
• All characters will understand the end goal is for everyone to Harmonize; the alignment with the higher rate of Harmonized Bearers alive when time’s up wins the Oracle’s favor.

NOTES

• A reminder that the Harmonization tally will take place on Friday, the 19th and be open through Monday, the 29th. The results will be released on Wednesday, the 31st OOCly.
• Don’t forget to submit any deaths to the Death Tracker, with a gentle reminder characters will remain dead until the event conclusion!
• Reminder to fill out the SETTING POLL ASAP if you haven't already!
• Have some MUSIC if you'd like. LYRICS here!
• HAVE FUN!!

CODING

Comments

[erbe]

[Zenith may be the cool, calculated reassurance that Tohsaka needs — but not by choice. Not by her choice. She is the heir, the legacy, and the only Tohsaka left. She is her father's hopes, dreams, and the passing of his knowledge. If she cannot be what he raised her to be, then what right did she have being the one who was picked as inheritor over her sister?

Her sister who lost the Tohsaka name. Her sister given away to a family that would corrupt her very flesh with its teachings. Rin had to be the way she is for Sakura. Because if Rin wasn't worthy of living up to the Tohsaka name then Sakura had suffered, was abandoned and thrown away, for nothing.]

Thank you, Gamora.

[There is no affirmation or denial. Tohsaka first makes to confirm her shard is safe as-is before staring at Gamora's hand. She should, uh... shake it? The green skin has Rin doubting that's the case, but... one thing she really hates is not seeing people be rewarded for their efforts.

Rin shakes the lingering hand. The sealing of an unspoken contract. The end of a deal.]

[hauntedking]

[ For his part, Dimitri is intensely relieved to feel the Zenith ebb away, replaced entirely by the familiar warmth of Meridian and the sense of surety that comes with it. It's good. It's what he wants to be; that determination to find some way to fix all of this. To bring back the world he's left behind. He takes a long, slow breath, squeezing his hand tightly to try and stem the slow, sticky flow of blood.

Which is when it hits him of course. That great well of COmmunion and empathy. he can feel that eye on him. That great, staring thing that seems to want so much from him, that hungers for what he provides. It's a terrible, naked moment where he rocks back on his heels and cannot quite grasp what he looks at or feels - and it wipes away that moment of rock steady surety that had been there before. He blinks and lifts a hand to press his palm into his forehead, as if that might somehow wring an answer for this out of his own. ]

...what did you do?

[ It's muttered. Disbelieving. ]

What is this thing?

cw nail trauma

[redsoil]

In Egypt, the dunes gather to such heights that they resemble your mountains. The earth burns in the day, and freezes at night.

[ Is it any wonder, then, that the god of the desert straddles the line between Meridian and Zenith?

It is almost as if he can feel her coming, were he to press his cheek to the humid, sticky root floor of the caverns they are all trapped in. If he pushes his ear to the ground, he can hear the patter of her hooves and the strength of her body as she carves a path through the world. Coming, because he has asked. The shame fills him, acute and poignant, for even though they are now friends, there is something distinctively emasculating about calling for aid. Why? Because he is bursting with energy that he needs to shed?

He ought to call a Zenith loyalist to do such a thing. He resolves that he will not offload such moonlit energy upon her, in that moment; he does not need to shed it, he only needs her near while he recovers. Injury has left him addled, after all. The taste of his own blood between his teeth and the throbbing ache in his fingertips where he'd torn his nails clean from their beds while clawing at Amos Burton's fist clenched in his hair — he is tired. ]

If your mind remains free, nothing will tether you. You truly are a woman who will be peerless, Hayame.

I regret having to show you such a sight, [ as she is almost upon him, his bruised and fight-broken body. ]

But, you are the only one I could trust not to take advantage of such a situation.

can't wait to warn for little freak zone all the way down

[consolation]

Pagan god Set.

[He turns her own blade against her - a word, a moment of authenticity that feels now like it came from another soul entirely. It might as well have. That night was a single moment for a woman who doesn't know the difference between the chamber and the sky to pretend to be someone who knows how to want freedom.

The sky burned Caren when they were still aboveground. There's no sun in the claustrophobic purgatory trapping them, but she may very well still be burning. Meridian's brightness and hope have always scalded, but in this moment she can think of no reason to turn her eyes from the blinding brightness. Whatever the truth may be, world saved or reborn, she's guaranteed to meet the same end, until her body has served its purpose a final time. Was it not terrible, then, to not at least try and restore the world that hadn't taken her last drop? Was it not a shame that she had not witnessed its last suffering gasp for herself, when she could have another chance to do so?

When Set stalks to her, finding her in the middle of what might be prayer, she sees him for what is truly in him, trying to claw out and into the world. Because he was forced to be the diary of the dead, but he has always been a poorly leashed violence. His words cut her; the mockery is sweet. Caren lowers her hands, opening eyes that shine a single flat color.]

I didn't ask them for it. [By now he should know this about her. She is a pitcher with a hole in the base. Isn't that why he's here? If the other Zenith felt tainted by the pull of Meridian on their heart, she would always opt to bear it for them instead, even before she would trade more equitably with a Meri.] Are you out of women to ruin, with the brothels empty? Or...what? Is your idea of charity a fast death for me so I'm at your disposal?

[fishfearme]

Yes. It was Aetós.

[Byleth had only heard them speak the once - down in that Zoo when they went to rescue Vander - but they had a fairly good memory for voices and the like. Aetós was a difficult person to forget, anyways.]

Something like this is likely within the scope of their power, considering their experiments into the Timestream and other esoteric subjects. I'm not sure what they expect us to do, or how this benefits them... unless they too have survived into this dead world somehow...

oh im just gonna cw sadomasochism & mutual Meanness for this thread asap

[redsoil]

Why do you call me that? Here, I am the only god.

[ Well, apart from Quetzalcoatl. Jod is. Well, he doesn't know Jod that well, but he's kinda funky.

And Zhongli is retired, adn thus is an outlier and cannot be counted. ]

Then, they poured themselves into you and fled from it. How cowardly of them, not to properly face the things they willed themselves to ignore and abandon and instead make you into their lovely martyr. You are ripe, Caren.

[ The way he says it. As if she is a perfect fruit upon a branch, waiting to be plucked and taken between the teeth. As if he knows, that upon biting into her soft flesh, he will find something worm-infested and rotting below that delicate surface. She bows her head in prayer to her god, seeking — what? The word of someone who she sought to leave behind in an old, dead world? The word of someone who she wishes to have back, for some reason? What is it that she desires. Caren has always come to him and held him in his most wretched, gruesome moments; ones where he is dying agonizing deaths, the memories of the dead reenacted upon his own mind until his ego dies alongside them and allows them to shed their immortal agony and flee to a better life.

Is that not what he will do, for Meridian? ( For Zenith? if they so desire it of him. ) ]

Do not lie. The thought of me killing you in innumerable ways, only to suffer every last gasp and cry you would make is one that you find exciting. Besides, I am through ruining innocent women [ he never should have, but he did; he never harmed them in the ways other men did, but he allowed them to be used until they died, and then he, too —— ] and you are far from innocent. Little voyeur, peering in upon private moments.

[ Yikes. ]

How does it feel, hm? The message of the Meridian is hope, but I find the light bloodthirsty for salvation.

[sterngaze]

[Tired and out of sorts though he is, Liem returns the smile that Quetzalcoatl directs his way when she offers to help him collect clutter for his home. When he still lived back in Oppara, his home there looked very much like this one (though of course not so run down) — but it had been filled with little tokens he had collected over the years of his life; mementos of people he'd known and places he'd been. Every time he had to pick them up when he was in the midst of cleaning, every time he glanced their way while he was doing paperwork, it was a little reminder of things in his life that had brought him joy, despite the hardships in between.]

I'd welcome your assistance.

[It is an acknowledgement in response both to that first offer, and to her suggestion that she help cook. For the moment, Liem places her divinity out of his mind — well, no, he can't really do that. But he sets it aside a little bit, as he leads her further into the house and opens up another set of curtains to reveal a worn but still serviceable kitchen. Because, diverting as he finds it to cook by himself, Liem learned to cook at the insistence and determined instruction of a good friend, and despite the decades and worlds that have removed that person from his life, he still loves the simple pleasure of cooking with another person.]

Though — there's really nothing for it.

[He sets his bag of pilfered supplies down on the dusty countertop, fishes out some soap, and sets it down next to the sink. The faucet might not work, but he doesn't need it. Even at a fraction of his normal magical ability, he can still summon the water to rinse out the basin, and then once it's plugged, begin to fill the whole thing.]

We're going to need to do the dishes first. [Still in the midst of conjuring, he gestures towards a cupboard with his other hand. He has a few things gathered from the city, but they may as well take stock of what's available here as well.] Might you check to see if any of mine are still serviceable?

[oomfies]

[ No people can, or will, burst out — no one is particularly thrilled to get touched by the sun. Lottie discovered the unfortunate side effect of that when she stuck her arm out a bit too long (losing and re-growing your limbs tends to make the crazy, impulsive, side of you flourish to unreasonable degrees, when danger lurks at your every shadow). After he agrees, Lottie isn't quite sure what to do other than.. Let him make himself comfortable?

Really, if he's lost, that's the thing she should do. The thing she wants to do, because it's not like him staying here is a threat. In a way, it's a benefit — after the last time something supernatural happened to them Marc proved himself to be especially capable (read: levelheaded to Lottie's resigned insanity). She's about to unzip her bag and offer him.. Something, she doesn't know, she can't see half the shit in it really, until she hears— ]

Siesta?

[ She parrots. Then, after a pause .. Just bursts into laughter — then strained, painful, coughs. ]

How many siestas have you been to here??

[erbe]

[In truth Tohsaka should be suspicious of this. She should doubt and throw up her walls and arm herself with cold replies and prickly body language. And yet... yet she cannot bring herself to do so. Not when Quetz is so earnest and bubbly. And Rin can't even justify that she might be faking it because of the Communion bleed!

A little bit of petty frustration rolls over her, but ultimately:]

Yeah, just get it over with.

[Though she does make a face at those teeth. What does this god think she is?! A Shark?]

[warmare]

I had never seen sand. Or a dune.

[Maybe it still wouldn’t count, really, when she had not seen them out in the world and saw them only as conjured impression and enshrined memories of a god of war that had crept into part of her mind… But she would never have the chance to see the true thing. There was no chance to travel to the coast and see with her own eyes the wide ocean and bright sands there… not when she would die the day after she returned to her world. So she will take what she gets.

She will cleave her path through those gathered in the main ritual chamber, her aggressive stance and foul expression enough to avoid questions or hails, and she will find the right tunnel through the roots and enter, hooves echoing softly every now and then on harder patches of earth as she grows closer. She should correct him, she should admit that her mind wasn’t free… that even now she found herself falling back on the ways of the breeding stables or how she had always thought, because the shackles… they were familiar. Until a month before her arrival in Horos, they were all she’d ever known- like the fetters had been on her ankles so long that she’d started to think that the weight of them was just natural.

It is not so easily undone. But she says nothing to it. Instead, as she grows closer, as she comes to sense his presence with senses beyond just Communion—]

You came to me in the Hall of Mirrors.

[As much as she hates the reminder of her own weakness, how bruised and exhausted she had been then, unable to rise from the ice or do much more than shift to assist as he bandaged the cut across her chest… she reminds him. He could have taken advantage then… but he did not. So-]

Set.

[She can see him in the dark now, battered and bowed. Her voice sounds loud even though it is a whisper.]

What do you require of me?

[She is no healer. He knows that.]

[sterngaze]

[Mannerly as he was taught, Liem listens to Silco without interrupting, even though the other man has never seemed to care for such things, and even though the words that he strings together make no sense to one who has always locked his resentments away where no one would ever be subjected to them. He does not understand the venom with which Silco rejects the idea of his world's return, even in the same breath as he admits to loving the city he came from.]

You would see that which you hold dearest turned to dust, just to ensure its enemies never take another breath?

[His tone is not accusatory, but rather bewildered. Even if the man has been wronged, even if he hates parts of the world he left behind, this ruthless willingness to sacrifice the good along with it shocks him. Perhaps most of all because Silco claims not to care at all what might come after, in the world that Zenith promises. He only wants to see justice done — but what a cruel, pitiless justice it is.]

Why? For yourself? For the city? If resurrecting someone I hated was the price of bringing back someone I loved, I would still do it. You cut off your nose to spite your face.

[redsoil]

[ Perhaps Set is unbothered by Byleth's lack of affect, because several members of the Ennead ( Tefnut, Bastet, Sekhmet, himself, Horus, even Khnum —— ) wore masks that obscured their faces from sight. Certainly, their mouths were visible to articulate and express, but there was a marked elusiveness to their dealings because their personal marks of divinity obscured them. He has lived among masked gods, and while Set will never claim to be able to easily read someone — for too often, he has entrusted himself to the exterior presentation of self — he would never think that Byleth's lack of affect meant he was unfeeling.

To hear that not just one individual, but many, have told him otherwise offends him on Byleth's behalf. Set bristles with indignation, nose wrinkling as he hears what Byleth says. That he has been told he is heartless, without emotion. Emptied, and why? Because his heart has been bound to a goddess's own? ]

Do you actually wish that to be the way of things?

[ The question comes off a little aggressive, hot-tempered and testy. ]

You do not have to be perceived in such a way, whether your face remains flat as a wall or not. You can [ still escape such a fate ] tell them who you are, you know.

[muchalucha]

Well… I have Zenith, at least. You can trade some of your Meridian to me for that.

[ Trading their energies is both something easy to offer and something she hates, though not for the conventional reasons. Honestly here, when faced with the human element of things, she’s not so concerned with the Oracle. She sees someone hurting and she wants to help. It’s as simple as that, honestly. ]

But even besides that, you can always have my ear and my heart.

[ She can see that this is a wider problem, after all. Meridian and Zenith were fundamentally opposed, but there’s nothing tactical in how she wishes that Zenites could have the love and hope for their homes that she does. A new world was only new. It guaranteed nothing else, and she knew that better than anyone. So, she can’t help but fear that even if Zenites had their wish… They wouldn’t be happy in the world they created. It was a lesson that even gods had to learn. ]

When your heart hurts with the possibility of what could have been, I’ll listen if you want. It’s a painful thing, and I know it well.

[erbe]

[Tohsaka doesn't like it. The familiar sensation that settles under her skin. It makes Rin feel like a cat who has had its fur rubbed the wrong way. A familiarity like a bad taste in the mouth that you wish you could forget.]

Silence, huh? So you're inviting me to pour my heart out for you? Why don't you go first?

[Defensive and cagey as her eyes appraise Caren. An attempt to try and pinpoint the source of the oddly familiar feeling. A type of nostalgia that is nothing but unpleasant. The way the ritual takes Rin's features is more obvious than how it impacts some others, so even as she flicks a sakura petal Caren's way she's looking for signs of how it impacts the other girl.]

[zauneyete]

[ There are many things he could say in response. About how that path he offers is still one of complete and total destruction, of how he wants the world itself to burn without his daughter in it. His world would burn, for being one without the most precious thing in any universe to him. He will fight, harder than he'd fought for anything -- and Silco had spent his entire damned life fighting -- to see it through.

Though... Set is honest. he is honest with Silco, with what he will do, with how this will go. He is honest with him in a way that Silco almost believes -- and damn him for believing it for even a second, he thinks, but in communion, there is an earnestness that Silco is unused to, and does not know what to do with. he was a man betrayed, he was a man who wasn't allowed to trust, because the people he had in his youth had thrown him away with the refuse, like discarding an old plaything -- if discarding was also throwing it into the woodchipper, to make sure the temptation to play never came back -- and thus he is hesitant, that Set speaks of honesty, and control, and promises.

But he had seen so much of him, of the betrayal that Set had said he'd performed, of drowning his brother in the river Nile -- and how much of that was an act of revenge for his own betrayal. Silco knew that they were tied, in a way, for they had lived similar lives. There was a thread between them, that betrayal from brothers -- it was always like this, betrayal that scarred so deep, and only those of the same ilk could resonate, and soothe the raw, open wound -- it was the same as with --

Silco's lips tightened, a single eye closed, for only a moment. It's the incessant prattling, as he's trying to consider Set's words, his daughter's chattering/screaming/laughing, all of it happening at once, and Silco wants to turn his head, and tell her to stop, but he knows he won't see her -- but at the edge of his ever-open eye, he feels like he almost could. Like there's the ghost of her clawing at him, trying to convince him to take Set's offered hand, even if it would take him to a world where he is convinced she is dead.

He focused his ever open eye on Set, and with a voice more level than he felt, he finally said, ]

Then tell me, Set. What is it I will see? I want this control as much as you. When the Blight forced us to convene before, our secrets were laid bare, and you and I are both men of secrets.

[ A pause, and then: ] You share yours for me, and I will share with you, and there will be no surprises between us.

We are nothing but honest men to one another, aren't we?

[ Almost of its own accord, Silco's words come, but there is no fear in them. Set will not betray the secrets they share, because if he did, then his promise would be flayed before them, by the courtesy of Silco's revenge. He is not weak, anymore. He is not without power, here. He will fight, and he will dominate if he has to, and there is only one thing he has to protect in this land, and it is not here. ]

[warmare]

[The motions don’t stop. Maybe she is weak for taking comfort from such a thing, for being lonely enough that even that amount of touch sparks and warms her made-cold hearts and the stiff steel of her muscles, but… if she stops caressing him, if he stops holding her hands…

The bubble might burst. The tether of shared energy between them might finally snap. And she doesn’t want… she wishes…

Hayame doesn’t really remember how to smile. The corners of her lips feel strained, as if unused to such a position, trying to remember when the last time she had done it fully, properly, had been. When her brother had handed her the arrows he’d made before their last mission… ? Months and months and worlds ago. But the image Amos conjures up…

That village of orphans would have been like that, if she hadn’t come to it. If she hadn’t ruined everything. Those children would have grown up and had children of their own. They farmed the land, gathered from the forest, hunted in the mountains… it had been a simple life, but they could have been happy like that. If they’d been able to avoid the fires of war and the greed of humans intent on power… they’d have had parents, too. They wouldn’t have had to run and hide.

Hayame swallows. Her fingers slow on the rub along his cheekbone, but they don’t stop. The half-smile on her face grows a bit more like a real one, even if it’s bittersweet and full of knowing… this was just a dream. If she believes in this, she has to believe her own world is gone… and she can’t let herself do that.]

I can’t say I ever pictured you as a farmer.

[Her voice is quiet. Reflective. Doing him the service of trying to imagine it, even if it is a dream she cannot allow to happen. If it even could happen.]

I guess it’s not so hard to picture, though…

[A world full of… well, his just had humans, didn’t it. There wouldn’t be any place for people like her. It would be silly to even ask-]

I don’t suppose there would be a place for someone like me… ?

[A jinba or a warrior or a slave that tried to be free… she doesn’t say. She’s going to die in her own world where she belongs or a demon or someone else she’s made an enemy of will shatter her shard in this one. … It doesn’t matter.]

[vallt]

[jyn could laugh at the suggestion — and very nearly does. the idea that meridian, which had staged an entire occupation over a stretch of land filled with people simply minding their own business, could be an appealing option with which to align herself, is absolutely ridiculous. no option is good, but that one's the worst.

even if it isn't exactly something she'd needed a trip to figure out, having it confirmed with her own eyes hadn't hurt.

again, though, in the interest of what she's proposed, she keeps that impulse to laugh to herself. she keeps everything to herself (gold star!), save for a lift of her brow, and a flat:]

The last thing I want to do is come over to Meridian.

[from there, she doesn't waste any time in showing that she means to follow up. pushing her necklace to the side, she reaches under her shirt, pulling out a shard that appears something like quartz and holding it out in her palm.

with her other hand, she reaches for a knife — dulled by carvings she's made into the roots of the tree to keep her occupied in the worst of moments, but still sharp enough to get any job done. after slicing a thin line down her palm, she brandishes it in his direction. an offering.]

Ready when you are.

[erbe]

[His feelings? Hah! He should know better than to come near her after what she did in the dream. What if she did that again? Made him blow this whole chamber sky-high? Rid this ritual of its other contestants and leave this sopping wet dog of a man having to deal with her.

Unfortunately, even if she doesn't want to admit it, she knows herself too well. She wouldn't be able to go through with it. Instead she wishes she could pluck that beauty mark from his face and watch him cry about it. Rin shoves at him roughly and scoots away to put a little distance between them.]

We're not friends, and you know it. You're a Meridian so that's even worse.

oh boy here we go

[redsoil]

We are, surprisingly. [ Honest, to one another. ] How terrible, that it took what it did, to bring us together.

[ He will lose this moment, Set knows. Silco will purge himself of Meridian and return to Zenith, and there will be nothing gained or lost of them. Just secrets exposed. Vulnerable places, where he will be allowing Silco purchase. There is death. There is death of the body, death of the existence in this place, but Set knows — giving this to Silco, will mean the death of his soul if he so decides to utilize it. Those who know of the secret are Meridian alone, and the Lady Yima, who understands his grief and has already proven she will yield it against him ( he seeks to go north, because of her — ), they are those he tethers himself to.

Whom he hands his reins, both to urge them to pull on them when he falters, and to manipulate them with the image he presents. It is a true image, but one he would conspire and use all the same. And now, he thinks to give it to Silco. To Silco, engrossed in ruinous destruction, who will not care a whit for what Set gives him — it will not change a thing. Yet, they are so alike. They are so much alike, in betrayal and wrath and villainy, that he wonders if

maybe

they are

alike, in this: ] I have a son.

[ Simple. To the point. Less words than he has given to Hayame, or Voryn Dagoth, or Dextera. Even less than he had offered Lady Yima herself. I have a son, he tells Silco. ]

I promised him I would return home.

[ That is what others know.

But, for Silco? ] And I lost him, before I even came to Kenos.

[ Though Anubis was alive, grown and beautiful like his mother, his mind was gone. Erased. Turned against him, changed. His beloved son, whom he had done so much for — had so much done to him, forced upon him, whom he had misguidedly, mistakenly hurt, to protect him ( to protect himself, some laughing, mocking part of him scolds ). He was gone, his false father gone to him, and Set left with his ghost. ]

[zauneyete]

That is something that Lady Yima can do, but there is no guarantee that you will see them made manifest in this world.

[ Silco's fingers clench against his other hand again, not in response to the bond from Sebastian, but... ] Or you may find that their time here is fleeting. Do not waste the opportunity, if you find it; Or make peace with the fact that you will hold control over their shard made manifest, but little else.

[ There is no... comfort in that, Silco thinks. No guarantee. He'd thought there would be, Yima had mentioned it as if it was something that would happen -- and it had -- only to find that it slipped through his fingers nearly as quickly as sand. If he wished for their person, Silco thought, he would find himself disappointed. Or at the very least, should be prepared for the eventuality. ]

I do not care what this world promises me. [ He does. ] I have little to gain from a new world, filled with perfection. [ That is said with a sneer. ] It would be a world that caters to everyone within Zenith, and I have no interest in the world they will create.

[ No, that world would be without strife, without pain, without anything to make them strong. There would be no monsters, and no veneration for those that could take. Silco thinks it sounds like a world of coddling, simpering children, and he will not live to see it, regardless. He will, however, make sure to do what he does best -- burn everything down, and unleash chaos on it, in the form of the shard he holds so dear. ]

I want to destroy it all, and leave in my wake something that will make sure they never forget, that they could be ruined as well, at any time.

[sterngaze]

[For someone who has always struggled to build an identity of his own, from his days in the care of his uncle to his time as an acolyte and again to the years he'd spent roaming Taldor's roads and villages, the weight that Liem's father imposed upon his life was almost a familiar one. It was one more set of rules to follow, one more array of dangers to be mindful of and limitations to fit within. He is not like Set, made immutably for discord and trickery and violence; Liem is mortal, changeable, and in the hundred and more years that he has lived, he has meekly fit whatever shape was required of him to continue existing.

So it is that for Liem, the idea of being tamed, of being claimed, is one he regards with dread — not because it is anathema to him, but because of the terror that one day, for all his loathing and his denial, he will find that nothing in the world could be so natural or so inescapable.

He feels the violent tremor of Set's body against his, when he speaks. Notes — cannot help but note — the way the fall of his hair suddenly hides his face. And, though he had not been able to seek the shape of the other man's body against his, his other hand finds their joined ones to cover Set's. Clinging, to this man who understands without explanation the shape his fears take.]

It is lonely, [he agrees. Not that he wasn't lonely before, but… he had, eventually, found a sort of contentment in what fleeting connections he allowed himself, when he was not working. To have even that shattered, to be thrown back to the days of his youth because of his fear… that had been hard.]

He will be there, again, if I go back home. But even here… I don't know if I could be rid of him. Even before I ever met my father, I could not help but fear that I might be like him. He has always haunted me.

[It is strange to admit this so plainly. He has rarely spoken of Iago to anyone, even in a passing mention. But Set is already intimately familiar with his nature, his cravings and his self-revulsion. And more than that, Set is also, somehow, despite his divinity…]

That spectre is, I think, part of what makes accepting aid so difficult. Accepting it; expecting it. I am well used to being of service, but being cared for — that is hard.

[vallt]

[even on the best of days, her own mind is a mess, muddled and tangled; as the connection between them amplifies, that tangle becomes worse than she's ever known. only it's — familiar in some ways, in many ways, what she's getting. it's a reflection. it's....

into the shared communion, first, comes the cold fear of a young child who's lost her parents — who's forever lost any approximation of home. fear becomes resentment, becomes bitterness, becomes stashing away all connection to a coward, a traitor of a father to the point that any reference to it had felt like a violation.

(it especially had from the alliance's general draven; it's a shudder of a feeling that comes with his voice:

imagine if the imperial authorities had found out who you really were, jyn erso?)

and she feels —

trapped, as she often as — in the cave on lah'mu, in the bunker on tamsye prime after saw had left her behind, in the cargo holds of imperial freighters, in well more than one prison cell.... and trapped as she is right now, underground, with no unsealed exits.

muted anger from byleth serves to ignite her own, as easy as breathing. there's the sense that it's pushed her through her days and against nearly every person she's encountered; it's looked for fights everywhere, because that's what it means to survive under an empire. it's what's needed to take a chance against that empire, fueled a resolve that had driven her to act in spite of an alliance council unwilling to do so.

(her own voice: what chance do we have? the question is 'what choice'?)

but all fires burn out, eventually — and so, too, does jyn come to die, on the sands of scarif.

the residual warmth of the meridian within leaves her, transferring to byleth, and in its place —

zenith runs through her veins instead, cool and calm. peaceful, like what had come over her in her last moments; like cassian's voice in her ear (your father would've been proud of you, jyn), like the feeling of his arms around her as the blast had come closer.

like what had at the end, for the first time since she was a child, been a feeling of home.

it's that, his longing, her vague flickering memory, that lingers between them as the connection starts to pull back — different, but also the same.

and so are they, and their choices; different, but also the same.

when jyn casts a line into the silence, her voice is soft.]

Did that help?

IT'S TIME IT'S TIME

[zauneyete]

[ Silco's own hands, still on his knees. He does not find nervous energy in this moment, but his jaw clenches, his eyes do dance, try to draw to that presence he cannot see, but hear. His eye -- it does not hurt, why does it not hurt? -- and he could swear he sees her, the shadow of her, like quick movement at the corner of his vision. His vision turns away from this -- he has to ignore it, lest he give his weakness away -- or at least too early.

Set's words resonate with him, and his fingers tighten against his legs again, winding into the dirty cloth there, and his eyes dance again, this time to Set, and then away, because he knows now, that there is something that will motivate Set, just as much as there is something that motivates him. For all that he hates this world, and any other that exists, there would have been a chance -- an opportunity -- for Silco to choose Meridian, if he had not himself found --

He does not reach out to Set, as some would. He sits there, his fingers tightening in his pants because he is out of cigars and cannot smoke down here, there is no displacement activity to keep him active, and hide any of the small, subtle signs, that gave the man way. That showed that he understood that there are some things that would motivate men like him, and gods like Set, more than anything else.

He reached up, and ran a hand through his hair. ]

Is he dead? Entirely out of your reach?

[ He asks, his tone carefully neutral, but not terse. It does not hold compassion, but it is a question that is compassionate. Silco does not care about Set's child, of course, but he understands -- in the same way that -- ]

When I arrived in Horos -- [ He starts, carefully. His own careful care of this subject. There are only three people who know of this fact. One, was Yima, of course. He suspected there was little she did not know. The others were Sebastian -- or he suspected the demon had guessed by now -- and Kaeya -- whom had been subjected to the startling devotion Silco had to his daughter. He had never once admitted it himself.

To anyone, least of all an enemy. ] -- Before I awoke, in those moments before the dream of destruction took me...

[ He is meandering, and he knows it. ] I had... picked up my daughter's dying body. On the bridge to Piltover.

[ Is it really so shocking, that he hates them so furiously, and has no place to return to? ]

[gravings]

[ How casually he speaks to her as if nothing ever passed between them. To him, it probably didn't mean a thing. Even now she can't blame him for that. She's conscious of her place in the world as a country mouse, just one person among countless others.

But she can and will blame him for the absence of something important to her, and her grim expression remains. Whether he "stole" Add or she "left behind" Add doesn't really matter to her. Her brain isn't well wired for splitting hairs; she thinks sometimes that people revel too much in playtime with words.

In any case, she only left behind one thing of note, so she takes that for a confirmation. ]

Where is it?

[ "It," she says, trying to leave fewer clues that Add might be more than he seems. She doesn't know if he's chosen to speak with Silco, but if he's trying to lie low, then she'll try to make it easier for him. (She doesn't allow for a future in which she never gets Add back; she simply can't imagine it.) ]

[fireballer]

[yes... yes, venti had made new friends. or at least, diluc would hope so after all they went through together with dvalin and seeing the bard every night at his bar. diluc may not have admitted it back then, but now with mondstadt potentially gone, he can admit it without hesitation. if only it weren't too little too late.]

Ah- It has been quite a struggle, to be quite honest.

[he glances over at zhongli, the strange and curious ex-funeral parlor advisor. how does one even get a job like that, diluc wonders.]

The Zenith influence is persistent. I have to wonder if these thoughts are ones those of Zenith must live with everyday. They are so hopeless and desolate.