kenoslogs | The Seeds of Unrest: the Iconoclast Oracle

The Seeds of Unrest: the Iconoclast Oracle

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[If the Tree died right now.

Hayame has refused to think of what would happen if this ritual failed and the Tree died. What would become of them? Would their shards shatter? Would they linger on in this dead land forever, unable to die but unable to return home? (Would she be left alone, the only jinba left alive in the universe, reviled by ally and enemy alike?)

Her stare almost wavers, but she saves it at the last moment. He declares something so grand, so entirely unbelievable, and she can't-]

Could you say the same with my hand upon your shard?

[When had she been able to trust words? Everything she'd believed her entire life had been a lie, a scheme to keep her obedient and loyal, and she had never... never imagined she would have a friend.

So she throws it out at his feet, assuming he won't be able to do it.]

I could. Here-- [He reaches to the nape of his neck, retrieves the gleaming golden shard, now with a drop of her own blood crystallised in the middle, and holds it out to her. Maybe it's because she held it once already without harming it, maybe it's because it carries that little piece of her within it now, but he feels more comfortable with her holding it than he did before.

There's always that reflexive fear-- what if she changes her mind? What if she betrays him? But for this to work, for him to get through to her at all, he knows he has to disregard that voice of doubt.]

Take it, and I'll say it again.

[... He sounds confident. He reaches for his shard so easily, so smoothly, that it catches Hayame off-guard. Something in her own shard throbs dully between her breasts, drops of blood calling to each other as he holds out the shard...

Surely it isn't going to happen. Once she has a hold of his shard, she will be able to expose him for a liar, well-meaning liar though it might be. Or perhaps... perhaps when she had been suffering from the Blight her mind had been too rattled to have sense, and perhaps this time when she holds it she will discover something lurking she did not before...

So why does she look almost terrified when she steps forward and reaches out to curl her fingers around his shard?]

[His breath catches when she takes his shard, but this time at least, her hand feels warm, not the blighted biting cold of before. He meets her gaze, his heart hammering in his chest, knowing one misstep here could ruin things between them for good. For once, he needs to be sincere.]

I consider you a friend, Hayame. I trust you with my life, and I admire you. You're strong, and principled, and you're willing to fight for what you believe in, and to save your people, even if it means you have to bear unimaginable burdens on your own. I do admire that, but I also worry. If anything happened to you, I...

[His gaze falters. He's worried for all their fates here (some more than others, truthfully), and no amount of his usual confidence and bluster is present to mask that any more. But in particular he's worried for Hayame, for what might happen if she makes too many enemies while they're trapped here or after, and they all descend on her like a pack of wolves to tear her apart and crush her shard for good. She is, after all, much better at burning bridges than building them.

He prefers the opposite. Maybe he can help her.

He meets her gaze again, and this time, ebbing over the current of worry and dread he feels: that gentle, growing warmth she would have become familiar with from their communion, ever since they traded blood. A wellspring of affection, if she dared to hold his shard long enough to acknowledge it.]

I care about you. So I'd like it if you thought of me as yours, too.

[Hayame has made a mistake.

All her life she has never allowed herself to rely on anyone. Even the half-brother who looked enough like their dam to look like her... she had spurned his aid and his affection for fear it would be seen as weakness. As a mare she had needed to be twice as cold, twice as strong, and twice as loyal as any stallion to earn any respect or prestige in the breeding stables... and any hint of receiving help or attention from another, particularly a man, invited only vindication that she was as weak as her sex was meant to be. She had striven to be a warrior in order not to be sold as a broodmare or a mount, and so she had never allowed herself to falter. She had made herself into a woman who could even deceive herself to thinking she preferred it that way.

But the taste of welcome she had received in that hidden village in the mountains, where she had gone from prisoner of war to something more... it had put cracks into everything she'd forced herself to believe... and then it had all been ripped from her when she'd been brought to Horos before she could even think on what it all meant. Before she could understand what it was to be a friend or a lover.

And now she's standing in a dirty tunnel in the dark clutching a golden, crescent-shaped shard that tells her beyond a doubt that the words Claude is saying are true. She's holding his godsdamned soul in her hand, and if there was an ounce of insincerity in him she would sense it... but she doesn't. Instead... it is affection in her hands, offering warmth an comfort if she'd just take it. But how-]

Why?

[He'd listed reasons, but she still can't understand it. It seemed like so much that she did for her personal honor or even for the sake of Meridian only served to alienate her further and further from the others, so why- ? Her fingers curl tightly around the shard in her hand, fighting the urge to throw it away from her in fear of the emotions that well up uncontrollably from where the gem touches her skin. She has two other shards on her person, and he doesn't even now. If he did, he wouldn't be saying these things, he'd be condemning her like she's sure the others will, but she has to do it because someone has to do it, and-

Something wet glistens at the bottom edge of the leather patch she wears over her left eye, the same one she had stabbed out of the demon under the watchful eyes of the Iconoclast effigy. The tears form more properly in her remaining one, beading shameful and hot in the corner and on her lashes, threatening to disgrace her by overflowing.]

What is wrong with you... ?

[It's the only answer that makes sense. Her brother, Matsukaze... she'd ruined everything for anyone who dared to care for her, and now this man-]

Oh-- [He realises, after a slight delay, that she's tearing up. He reaches up on reflex as if he wants to touch her cheek, below her good eye, but he falters. He doesn't have her acceptance, only, it seems, grief and confusion.]

A lot of things, probably? [He smiles weakly, a little joke at his own expense, his hand lowering back to his side.] But I don't think there's anything wrong with the way I feel. Or how you feel, for that matter. If you want to cry, then cry.

[No one else can see her here. They might notice through communion, sure, but there are so many other emotions swirling around the group like so much background noise, it might offer some scant privacy, too.]

[How pathetic it is, that she wishes his hand would bridge that scant gap and find her cheek. Just once... just once, someone had held her shoulders while she cried, and she misses... she misses those strong hands and comforting arms a universe away. Just once, when that strange pollen had been in the air, someone had held her hand and pressed another to her cheek, but no matter how many times she had mimicked the gesture with her own hands... it had never done anything again.

How weak it is, that the tears begin to spill.

To prevent herself from reaching for his hand, she curls hers over his shard and hugs it to her chest, her expression strained with still attempting to hold back tears. Her shoulders round, struggling for words, for anything that might make a world that someone wanted to be her friend make sense.]

You don't even... If you truly knew me- If you knew everything I have done-

[He would not call her a friend, then.

She ruins everything, even the things she wants most. Like how she forgets that there is someone else's shard tucked into her shirt- that now that she is holding Claude's shard so close to her breast, he will be able to sense just a single layer of cloth away.

It's Liem Talbott.]

[He keeps expecting some kind of angry dismissal, to be told to leave and to get away from her, but it doesn't come. Instead, she's crying in earnest, seeming to retreat into herself, and he steps closer, this time finding the courage to touch her shoulder, as if to coax her into an embrace in the same way she clutches his shard close to her.

Yet something gives him pause. The way she hugs his soul to her chest is paradoxically warm and chilling: with a jolt of realisation, he can feel that shard, so close to his own, and he's familiar enough with seeing him around in Meridian communions to know that it's Liem. He doesn't turn away from her in disgust, though.]

What happened?

[He's in no position to judge. He's commanded wars; armies have fought and died by his hand, and nations have fallen. One life, even the life of an ally, isn't something he can condemn with any moral high ground. But, he does want to know why she did it.]

[Hayame does not curl herself into the offer of an embrace. She almost doesn't even understand that it is one, because it is not something people offer her. Instead... she freezes, realizing that he has realized what she holds. Her pupil dilates, her fingers clutch tighter at his shard, the points of the crescent digging into her palms.

What happened? After a certain point it became a blur of reaching, gripping, snapping, but before that-]

He betrayed-

[Me. He betrayed me-]

He betrayed Meridian. He was going to count towards a Zenith victory, and we cannot fail again-

[She tries to say it as objective facts, just reasons why she'd had to fulfill her duty to try and assure Meridian was the one that came home with the Iconoclast oracle, unable to stomach another defeat like they had suffered at the Scorching Isles. He had seen her in that aftermath, she couldn't-]

That arrogant fool who took Aeteos' headquarters, he betrayed us, too-

[But Jod's shard isn't kept near her heart.]

[The way she's clutching at his shard is almost stifling, but Claude doesn't pull away or try to take it back. His touch drifts up to her jaw, to her cheek, finally, so he can brush away a few stray tears. He might not agree with it, doesn't think anyone deserves death simply for switching sides, but he can understand her reasoning. Why she's desperate.

If not for the Oracle, what's left to fight for here? The alternative is simply to give up.]

I get it. Really, I do. But you've done enough... You don't have to keep fighting.

[It's so warm. Not just his shard... but now, his fingers, where they reach up to her one remaining eye to brush at the shameful tears that wet her cheeks. It's such a useless thing, all it does is clear the way for more of them to disgrace her, and yet-

Sharp canines dig in to her bottom lip in a useless attempt to stop them, but she fails, just like she's failed at so much else. Why won't they stop? A warrior doesn't cry, she must look pathetic, like a woman-]

How?

[Stop fighting? She has broken one traitor and crushed another, and still... even if it removed them from a Zenith victory, they had already been removed from a Meridian one by their corruption. All she'd done is make it null. If it kept on like this--]

Who will do it if I do not? Zenith will win-

[Again. If they win more of the Oracles, they will try and remake the entire universe in their forsaken, collective image... and they won't try to save what still exists somewhere. It really will be gone, as Zenith preaches... all (partially) because of the weak-willed and the weak-bodied among Meridian that couldn't hold on to their principles.

All they had to do was stay in their faction, and they could not even do that?]

Even if we win the Oracle, what's the plan? The Tree is dying. We're...

[He moves his tearstained hand, touches some of the dead vines in her hair, green eyes studying her. Maybe she'll think him a traitor, too, for voicing such concerns, but he has to say them all the same. It's not as though he can hide all his doubts when she's holding him like this, besides.]

I hate to say it, but I don't know what will happen to us, win or lose. I just don't want you to torment yourself more than you already are. No one can carry that kind of burden.

I don't know what to do about the tree-

[The withered vines in her ebony hair rustle dry and sick. Her blood is like sap, she had seen it flowing slow and viscous when she'd bled herself to trade away the Zenith energies in her body. But what does she know about how to save a tree? Nothing, and so she only has what she does understand.

The stable master had used her to hunt down his escaped property, dead or alive. She knew how to pursue, to capture, to kill. She was-]

I am a warrior-

[She'd always just wanted to be a warrior, if she could just be that and be the best of the options available to a female jinba-]

It does not torment me at all to do what needs to be done-

[She's the one holding his shard, not the other way around. Even with those pathetic tears on her face, maybe it sounds like something he could believe.]

You're a person first, and a warrior second. A person with feelings... and limits.

[Both physical and mental. Maybe someday she wouldn't even need to be a warrior second, or third, or even at all.

She's too tall for him to embrace, so he does the next best thing he can think of, taking one of her hands so he can press the knuckles to his lips. His shard feels warmer still to the touch, comforting, though it's unclear whether the sensation is physical or from communion. Nonetheless, it feels like hanging on to a fallen star.]

Put down your burden, even if it's just for a little while. I'll be right here with you.

[She should give his shard back. It's too strong, it's too direct. All she'd wanted was to prove he was lying, to catch him exaggerating his trust in her for some reason she didn't understand, and instead... Her teeth dig in harshly to her bottom lip, nearly breaking the skin in her effort to hold back further tears, but now they have started...

His lips are warm on her knuckles. Her fingers curl in his hand. The empty eye socket stings with salt.]

Don't look...

[He will never look at her the same after this. He will see her for weak, for pitiable, when all she'd ever needed to be was strong... but Liem's betrayal (death) is fresh on her hands, the demon's true form that had assaulted her mind when she'd stabbed out his eye was haunting her, she doesn't know what to do to save the tree, even if she kills another and another will it even matter to secure a Meridian victory in the face of how many of their number seem to be defecting to Zenith- ?

Her voice breaks and her upper spine curls downward over his hand holding hers.]

Don't look at me...

[Please.]

[Her spine curves down and his arms move up to meet her, pulling her in to hold her close. (He held her once, already, though he had been sure she was asleep at the time.) Now he holds her as if he could take all that weight off her shoulders, as if he wasn't somehow smaller and weaker than she is.]

I can't see you if I do this, right? [A soft laugh, but he sounds choked, like there's something trapped in his throat. The enormity of this situation is too much for either of them, her own feelings threaten to overwhelm his, but at least he can offer her this much.]

[She hates this. Displaying weakness so openly, and not only weakness but such a womanly one... She had not cried in years and years and years before the doom of that village had broken her, and now-

She is so tired. She doesn't want to be the only one doing what needs to be done anymore. She can't fail again. She think this might be the end, the Tree might just never recover even if they do win the Oracle. Liem Talbott is dead. The demon was still alive- even though she had taken his eye to make them even, he-

For once, she does not curse Claude's laughter. His shard is still in her hand, and there is no condemnation or disgust or judgement... so she can be weak. She can curl into the hold of his arms and press her face into his shoulder, hiding the moment her bit-back crying turns to wretched, shameful weeping.]

That's it. I've got you.

[He murmurs softly, holding her as she cries, encouraging her to let it all out. How long has she held all of this back? Months, years? A decade? He doesn't know, but it feels like a dam bursting, and his only option is to let it wash over him. If things do end here, it's better than her going alone, with little more than the metaphorical blood on her hands and the shards to show for it.

He turns to press a gentle kiss to her temple. So long as she needs it, so long as she holds his shard close to her heart, he won't let her go.]

[At no point does Hayame stop hating herself for breaking down in front of someone else. If he had her shard in his hand, as she had his, that would be obvious... or perhaps it is. She can't raise her head, she can't stand to let him actually see her weeping with his eyes even though he can hear it plain as day, feel it as his shoulder grows damp. She wants to clutch at something, but she can't, it would be even weaker seeming that what she's already doing, and he-

Presses his lips to temple as if she was someone who deserved to be treated with affection and warmth, when she has tried so godsdamned hard to make herself instead into an instrument of cold revenge and unbreakable honor. Hadn't she taken the eye of the demon who had taken hers? Had she not killed the traitors to Meridian who had jeopardized their chaces at winning the Oracle? Had she not-]

Take it back--

[The words are wet with tears, but she chokes them out anyway, blindly groping for his hand to try and force his shard back into it. It's too much, to feel him at her chest so close to hers (and Liem's). She should never have asked for it in the first place. Their communions are already bleeding together, she needs him to condemn her for her weakness, nor feel him forgive it-]

Take it back...

[She can't even look at him, so when he realises what she's trying to do, he lifts his hand to take his shard back. There's a tightness in his chest even now, though, as though her anguish has become his own, and how can he not feel for that, behave as though he has any authority to admonish her for it? She's received rejection and condemnation enough not to need more. People die in war, whether that be former allies or, in some other world, old schoolmates. Conflict doesn't discriminate when it comes to personal feelings.

Still, his hand closes around his shard, and that almost feels like a rejection on its own, even as it's a relief for him to reach for his nape and affix that golden crescent back to its proper place. He had wanted to comfort her, but he wonders if he only succeeded in making things worse, tearing open a wound she would have found easier to deal with in silence.]

I'll take it, but you don't need to push me away. [He reaches for her cheek, brushing away tears with his thumb once more.] My feelings haven't changed.

[Even being that close to her own shard, being held by her, realising what she'd done. He accepts all of it.]

[That's the problem. People die in war. Hayame has watched people suffer and die her entire life. In the breeding stable, the number of yearlings had dwindled year by year until she, her brother, and only a handful reached adulthood intact ready to be sold to the highest bidder. How many had there even been? Toshifuji, a breeding stable yearling one season older who had broken her leg... Hayakusa, a captured mountain jinba who had bucked every groomsmen in the stable until they'd flensed off his arms... The new broodmare whose name she'd never learned, who had nearly kicked the stable master's shoulder to pieces rather than accept being hobbled for mounting...

They'd all died. Toshifuji's neck had been slit so deeply her head almost came off, Hayakusa's severed arms had grown infected, the broodmare's severed hooves had adorned the stable gates... and to not be among their number, she had always had to fight, to be strong, stronger than anyone. She'd put everything aside, locked it all down, and after a while... it hadn't phased her at all. So of course it would have been better if Claude had said nothing at all. Of course she would have preferred if he'd left that wound alone, so that she could deal with it in silence like she always had. She's killed by her own hand since Horos, in Kenos, because she was a warrior, and that is what warriors did, they take heads, they take shards, but she-

She wants to go home. She wants to die (doesn't she?). But she can't do it here, in this foreign land, she has to do it where her death will mean something, where her honor will be cleansed, and Claude...

Her tears are hot and wet on his fingers, staining her cheeks and leaking from beneath the leather eyepatch slipping slightly up her face. The crack in her voice is so pathetic that she wishes she hadn't said anything at all, but-]

You are a fool, Claude von Riegan-

[So why, then, now that her hands are empty of his shard... do they cling to the front of his clothes as if begging him not to stop trying to comfort her?]

I know.

[He says it softly. He knows he's a fool. Plenty of people have called him as much, or strange, or delusional, or naive, or softhearted. Yet he still can't find it in himself to leave her, not when she clings to him so and he can feel his touch awash in her tears. If he could do something, anything more for her in this moment, anything that could ease her suffering, he would, and the green eyes that study her are filled not with pity, but with grief. For her, for worlds they might never see again, here, at the end of all things. For everything they've lost, or for her, she might never have had.

Despite all that, she's treated his very soul itself with such care, accepted him despite her words, had let him in when she was at her most vulnerable. How could he not care for her in return? How can he ignore his growing affection for her, threatening to overcome all else? He guides her down gently to press his forehead to hers, a tight, heavy feeling squeezing at his chest. If he lets this moment pass by now, he might regret it in the little time they have left.

For once, his calculating mind switches off. He closes the gap between them both, capturing her mouth in a gentle kiss.]

[The least he could do would be to fight her on it, the best he could do would be to leave her and her insults behind... But he doesn't do any of it at all. He looks at her even though she wants nothing more than for him to look away, he sees her more clearly through the potent mix of reality and communion, their bond already enhanced by the Blight curing of the revious month, and she-

She doesn't push him away. She doesn't want to be alone, even as she craves to hide. Her fingers are white-knuckled and shaky where they grip his clothing, torn between shoving him and pulling him closer. She almost demands that he leave before he sees any more of this weak, raw weeping, her lips part to try to find the words, a soft hitch in her throat when-

She is kissing someone.

No, he is kissing her, she didn't start this, she wasn't that sort of woman, she barely wanted to be a woman at all-

Yet it's so against what she expected to happen that at first... she just kisses him back. (At least, that is how she will explain it to herself. It's an accident. She didn't mean to.) Her clutch on him tightens, her eye squeezes shut, her body craves anything in that moment that feels like comfort and acceptance no matter what her mind wants... and the words she'd been trying to say die temporarily in a useless sound between lips.]

[He had again been braced for rejection -- he always is, and it sticks in his throat and makes his heart quicken in that old fear -- but it doesn't come, at least not immediately. He feels her hold on his shirt tighten, and he leans up to deepen the kiss, even as he can taste the salt of her tears against her lips.

She doesn't want him to stop, or to leave.

So he doesn't, the hand on her cheek moving down to caress the line of her jaw, lips parting as an invitation. She could accept as much or as little from him as she wants, or needs, and in the moment, it feels right. Being here for her feels right. What that really means is something he'll worry about later.]

[She doesn't want him to stop, or to leave. For that moment, that is true. She doesn't want to spend the end of the world alone, there is a part of her long neglected and tied into knots that longs to know what it is to be allowed to be a woman, and so-

She kisses him. If she's kissing him he's not torturing her with kind words or sympathetic looks. If she's gasping for breath then she doesn't have to come up with words to say to him. If she's holding him close and tight then she can pretend that she's in control of this at all, that she has a proper grip on him, on reality-

His fingers slide along the line of her jaw, her muscles constrict, and as she tries to deepen the kiss her inexperience with the act undoes her. Her sharp canines click as she nips accidentally too sharp into his lip, and just that unexpected thing...

She draws back with a sharp inhale, one hand flying to her mouth as if she might could protect herself from further weakness, the other struggling and failing to strike him. She should slap him, hit him, why isn't she-]

What are you doing- ?

[In communion, the words come out differently, her experience with her sex flawed and dark and shameful enough to wonder Is that what you wanted?]

EXPLORATION

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cw: jinba is dark

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