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

[redsoil]

[ — is that, then, why he calls to her among the roots?

A plaintive sound, the wordless shrill of a hunting bird far overhead, that pours the image of his location directly into their bond. They may not be of the same aspect, but there is something forged and tightly woven between the two of them, one that allows him to test her mental boundary and peer into it like a child poking holes in the shoji dividers of a wealthy man's home. If they are to be friends — if he is to ask she accept him — then, he must reveal to her where he is. When he needs. When stability begins to fail him and the cold shiver of Zenith's energy threatens to darken him, to leave him as pure as an unblooded blade awaiting use.

Zenith will take the edges from him, and leave him sleek and deadly. It will serve his goals, perfectly well. That is the threat of it. But, he has promised Hayame, promised Liem. He has even promised the Lady Yima, that he will fight his own desires, the nature of his soul; the Lady exists in his heart, patient and loving, where Hayame has probably perceived her. But their promise is simple. She will wait ( Anubis will wait ) and has encouraged him to fight on. Hayame's heart is a flinching thing, but is also encourages him in his times of exceptional weakness. ]

Hayame, [ he hopes she will come. ] Why is your mind a mountain?

[warmare]

[She had been so sure that she would not leave their shared Communion without Set's blood on her hands, and instead... she leaves it one another's. He vexes her so. She hates what he did still. And yet somehow... she had been told she was a friend. Told somewhere in their minds, where they cannot truly lie to one another, and she could not accuse him of deceit.

And so something has changed.

When the call comes, she hears it with the same ear she had once let him slice from her skull to offer the dryad. She turns to it... and much as if she was on a hunt, her sharp senses seem to spot a bird wheeling in the sky, marking where she ought to go...

Where she goes, turning her hooves onto the path through the roots towards the beacon she has been called to. But along the way... Why is it a mountain? "Why should it not be a mountain?", she thinks to ask, or perhaps a "What does it matter if it is a mountain"-]

I do not know.

[Yet, that is not entirely true. A beat later,]

They feel more free. The mountains.

[Not like the stable she'd been bred and raised in. That village in the mountain forests, that place where she had begun to form the barest hint of a thought that she might could have a different future... But that village was doomed because of her. She cannot imagine it green and warm anymore. In her mind, everything has grown so cold and treacherous. Only the deep caves were capable of sustaining light and fire now.]

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.

[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.]

[redsoil]

— Oh, I did? I did.

[ The Hall of Mirrors? When was that, where was that? Oh. Right. Right, the Scorching Isles. It feels so long ago now that he had laid claim to portions of that forgotten land, before being so thoroughly robbed of what he was owed. Someone had suggested commanded he let it go, sunk cost fallacy sunk cost fallacy sunk cost fallacy ( save what you can, destroy the rest; you are not a blessed hero ), and he could still feel their skin tearing under his teeth. The taste of blood makes him sick to the stomach.

( Men gather before him, gleaming eyes and sour mouths. Don't worry. She hasn't been dead for long, so her ib should still be fresh. / Don't you want the souls of women and children? / Our mission, the very reason we exist, is to help you consume souls. ) Hayame can never know. Hayame can never know these things about him; he does not, he would not! but others thought he would. The opinion of others had always informed how they looked upon him.

What will he see, when he looks up to her? Contempt? Pity? ]

I d, do not want to become trapped in my own mind.

[ She is not here for him to burden himself upon her, but the opposite.

He does not have to think of his own painfully, vibrantly 'human' existence if he can be of aid to her. Stripped of his divinity, it makes everything more disorienting. He fears things he should not fear, he is concerned for things that otherwise would have no hold upon him, he feels pain that ought not to affect him in the least. It is insanity, to him. ( The impression of it may feel like a jinba upon her own hooves, standing upon ice with no land in sight. Of treading water, of a crack running through her bow while endless enemies continue to surround her. ) ]

Sit, and talk with me. [ Though, the uptick at the end makes a mild command into a question. ] Or, rest. It is hard to find rest here, when one must worry about someone forcing themselves upon you.

[warmare]

[He did.

There is something dark and chaotic in the communion between them, something he will not allow her to see, and Hayame... does not pry. Perhaps she could. The way the borders between minds and hearts blurred here beneath the Great Tree it likely would have been somewhat easy to force her way in... but she will not. Just as she had only traded for Meridian's energy back, she will not brook with manipulating the mind of anyone- even if they were an enemy. She would kill them... she has killed them. There are shards on her person that do not belong to her. But she will not manipulate a person like that, dishonorable and cowardly. Let alone... a "friend".]

You will not be trapped or forced when I am here.

[She is possibly the most powerful shard-bearer now, in this place where magics and powers have become unreliable and they had only their bodies and their physical capabilities to rely on. Even if she isn't confident in anything but that, even if she has no idea what is going on... she speaks as if she is completely sure, because she knows only success or failure... and this cannot be a failure. What is she, if it is? Meridian has lost once before, and she is supposed to stomach another? Set may not view things so black and white... but she does.

There is no one else in this tunnel but them. The only good thing about this infuriating bleed of communion is that it was easier to tell where people were... and they are alone (for now). That allows her to slowly lumber down to her belly beside the bruised god, tired herself but unable to easily admit it. She wants to rest, (she wants to return home), but it as he said. It was hard to relax when an enemy might try and slip into your mind at any moment.

But here it is just them now. There is silence as she arranges herself, heavy and thick, but... he wishes her to talk?]

- Why did you fight so pointlessly with Amos Burton?

[They had argued over the man not too long past. She had heard the chaotic impressions of the discussion over the Blighted creature in the roots... but she had ignored the specifics as much as she was able, interested in far different matters. ... Was it really over a demented river otter?]

[redsoil]

I suppose you would see it as pointless.

[ The response is bitter, a little defensive. Of course she would; while Hayame begrudges him for dallying with those she calls 'enemies', he begrudges her a little for bothering with men like that one. The resounding, acrid thing that he feels when he thinks of Amos is akin to someone utterly revolted by a substance, so much so that he must either step away from it — or remove it from existence. ( It probably is not a great feeling for Hayame, as close to the man as she is. But, it echoes the hatred she feels for Sebastian, to a slightly lesser degree — one tinged with bitterness, and more frustration than anything else. ) ]

I cannot stand him. He is the antithesis of what it means to be human — no curiosity, no wonder, no questions that he wishes to have asked. He throws away his right to choose, and yields everything he is and could be, just to be a mindless extension of someone else's will.

[ A shudder rips through him. Nausea builds in his throat.

As Hayame rests besides him, he thinks to go to her and draw her into his arms. To hold her across him, and stroke her hair. But. She is close to the man she asks him about, and he expects her to take offense to his anger; he cannot understand Amos, and the two of them willfully ignore the terrible, horrible thing waiting below the surface that could bring them to empathize with one another. ]

He pretends to want to be alive, but purposefully turns away from everything that would make him so.

[ The past. Pain. Anguish. Grief. He just, throws them away and pretends like he wants to actually be a good person. ]

[warmare]

If you did not kill each other, it is a little pointless. Come now.

[That is what she means by "pointless", reacting to that bitter, defensive tone she hears in his voice that sounds so much like her own. The Zenith was still at their numbers, and Meridian was still at theirs. Nothing had been resolved to do with that talking animal. All that had happened was two men had scratched, bit, and punched each other until they both walked away bruised and limping.

But she does not defend Amos Burton, even though she had reacted so viciously to the suggestion that she kill him just because she demanded Set put down the two rabid dogs he'd brought into Meridian's fold. The things Set says about the man... are not exactly wrong. What she hated most about that man... is something that the war god says more eloquently than she ever could. The way he was so willing to cede everything to Yima without question, the way his trust was unshakable in someone who should be doubted and examined...

His hand, though, had been gentle and warm when it had pressed to her cheek that day, when she had first discovered that she had more in common than she'd ever thought to had with a human. The impression of it seeps into Communion whether she likes it or not- how important it had been that someone heard what she'd been and simply understood it. His eyes had been like her eyes, when she had found him pinned beneath the weight of his icy doppelganger, saying that. ... They had feared the same things, when they had been small and weak. She still had feared them, grown and strong, because those were the threats a jinba mare lived under. Amos had become free, in some ways... but she never had.

She cannot defend Amos Burton in words with those truths, though, not just because he is a grown man who can defend himself, but because she had sworn to him never to reveal them. He nearly had, in that debate over Manon's shard... but she hadn't. She thought she wouldn't. Unlike him... she has honor. But that same honor, the dedication to it...]

... Perhaps you would not have been able to stand me, not so long ago.

[She had dedicated herself to the path of the obedient warrior. To survive and avoid being rendered Armless or made into a broodmare, she had been willing to obey and not ask questions, to simply dedicate herself to whoever purchased her and desperately prove her worth to them...

Shifting on the ground, she curls her forelegs in mimicry of how those with two legs might arrange themselves, creating a sort of dun-coated "lap" of powerful equine muscles that is empty and now made into an invitation with a pat of one hand.]

Here. Your hair needs tending.

[All of him needed tending. But she has no herbs, no healing magic, no doctoring skills. - His hair she can manage.]

[redsoil]

No, but I left a lasting impression.

[ Of his teeth, on Amos's flesh. It will definitely scar, Ari said. ♡

As Set does not seek to defend his choice of companions from her ( only his use of them ), he is relieve to know that Hayame does not leap to the defense of the man who had driven him to such wild combat. Set wields a multitude of styles, a flexible and frighteningly adaptive fighter whom cares not if he must engage in a battle that is unseemly — he and Amos had certainly traded their fair share of cheap and opportunistic blows. Long, long before they had finally fallen into calm. Satisfying their anger upon one another, and quickly turning their eyes askance. Willfully ignoring the thing between them that could bring them deeper understanding, because what they represent is anathema to the other.

But, not to Hayame. He knows she must find something in the man that suits her. He's definitely going to break her hearts, though. Mentally, Set cocks the shotgun in his nasty little hypocrite hands, in defense of his companion!! He cannot stand Amos. ]

It is worse in Communion, between he and I. I think that we are fine as long as we are not forced to interact within our minds.

[ He can hardly stand, physically exhausted and injured as he is, but stubborn as a mule. Hayame, he knows, is a woman who has stood for Meridian in her own way. It is a lonely, isolating way, but a way that she embodies without failure, without hesitation. ( She must be suffering, to have no one like her in that regard. ) Climbing to his feet, he drags his battered body to her — forcing himself steady, to not tremble or make sound as he draws himself into the cradle of her legs and leans himself into her. Without hesitation. Her body has never frightened him, nor given him any reason to pause in his regard of her as a woman, a warrior, or a friend. ]

I do not think you would have liked me, either.

[ Before. Long before.

He leans into her. Freely, closing his eyes with the trust of someone who knows she will not treat him unkindly. ]

It is a good thing we met now, then. This world causes us pain, but I cannot discount that without the circumstances, I would not have met you.

[warmare]

On all the shard-bearers who had to watch you two rolling around in the dirt like monkeys, maybe…

[A lasting impression… Tch! But though Hayame chastised and grumbles, it’s not as if her hearts are in it. She almost fought Amos herself in the midst of the Manon shard debate, she would have if it hadn’t been for Claude’s disrespectful interruption and the frustrating truth that no matter how much she wished to solve things simply by right or by smite that this accursed world and these complicated people refused to allow it.

She focuses instead on watching as Set rises and closes the scant distance between them to refold himself into the cradle of her “lap”. She’d asked him to move on purpose, to see how he moved, and it makes her lips purse to note how much he seems to be concealing. She can’t tell how bad it truly is, not when he’s being so stubborn, but she is a warrior herself… and one who would do the exact same thing rather than show weakness. She can read his cover for the effort required.

Ahh… If only they never had to deal with Communion or parlays of the mind. Her distaste of the medium has always been plain… and it has worsened over time, for every attempt she has made to engage the team at large using it seems to have only ended in condemnation or bickering. That, or in Voryn Dagoth crowing about his illustrious, slave-owning lineage while those who claimed to call her a friend stayed conspicuously silent.

Hayame loathes communion and what it reveals to her. So she doesn’t say anything at all. More damning silence.

Her hands gather Set’s hair, careful to the point that it’s almost odd how she avoids brushing against his flesh. Not only is he bruised but the skin of his shoulders, back, and chest is lewd and bare and warm as always, and she- the vibrant red strands and how they shift will have to signal the movements of her fingers.]

… As if meeting me offsets any of this?

[No one has ever been glad to make Hayame’s acquaintance, she’s pretty sure. Call it a hunch. With a nip into her bottom lip, sharp and unsettled and cornered and desperate for what she had to do in order to claim that godsdamned Oracle—

She begins carefully untangling the mess that Set’s long hair had become in his brawl with Amos, gathering strands to cover for the patch ripped out in the struggle, looking… no, decidedly not looking for a streak of black as if to confirm whether she’d just imagined it or not.

Or maybe it was faded already. Dun forelegs shift just slightly, fetlocks curling and brushing hooves along his thighs.]

[redsoil]

[ The injuries he sustains now will be worsened, in time. Another round of combat awaits him, and the illness he will accrue from acting in antithesis to his desire — but, for now, he holds his aches and pains at bay and marches to her with his head held high. To flinch and act an invalid before her would be the greatest of insults, both to his pride as a man and god, as well as a show of how undeserving he is of her prayers. To her, he can be nothing less than something unstoppable, something indomitable.

In the cradle of her legs, he sits. His skin warm, but the energy within him dark. Zenith wars strongly for purchase, seeking to find the point within him that will draw him in — against her, Meridian's light takes courage, and continues to resist with its kitten teeth and claws. While naturally a warm body, it is obvious in the purposeful drape of his limb and loll of his head into her hands, that she is warmer still. Below her hands, his hair is heavy and dense; a sheet of red, pure red, root to ragged ends, but along the left of his head, away from the torn patch he had clawed apart, her fingers will find the weight of his sunbeam.

It is woven into a lock of hair by string and metal charm, warm and kept close to the same ear he had sacrificed to her and the Dryad. Easy to hide behind the curtain of his hair, easy to tuck behind his ear to keep it from swinging wildly while he is in motion. It is that streak, the one bound irrevocably to the idea of his world, that is black as night. The proof of the hold that she has on him, manifest as the red in her own hair. Small acts of fealty and promise, made true by the magic of the world.

He leans back into her, lifting his chin in order to find her face, her expression. Battered hands rise, stretching the line of him into a sinuous strip of trembling, pain-ripe skin. He takes her face into his palms, fingers light along the edge of her jaw. ]

Yes, [ he smiles, despite the split in his lip. ] That you frustrate and dazzle me are not mutually exclusive, nothing about you is something I would desire at the expense of the rest of you.

[warmare]

[She'd thought that Matsukaze's mane was the reddest she would ever see. The Red Tiger of the Mountains, he had been called, when he was just rumors of a jinba so terribly strong that her stable master had grown obsessed with capturing him no matter the cost. It had seemed like fire, burning like a torch in the night, somehow untarnished and bright even when the man had been beaten and bruised...

But Set's is redder. Long, elegant fingers marked with callouses and little scars smooth through the tresses until they encounter the snags earned in his scuffle, and then carefully they untangle them. One, two, three... Along the way, (not that she'd been looking, she hadn't), she finds the strand of black... and gently tucks it back behind his ear. Four, five... But she stops when he begins to shift, arching into her, and despite her intent not to lay hands on his skin... the movement drags her fingertips over his neck, brushing against his shoulder.

How does he smile, even in moments like this? She doesn't even know if she remembers how to do it. The muscles in her jaw tense beneath his touch as if she might almost attempt it... but her lips don't curve. She doesn't understand it at all, even with his declaration of "friendship"... how he can accept all of her. How he can accept all of everyone, even her enemies? She despises it so much, she longs for someone who will take her side and tell her that she is right, that they choose her... and yet, she cannot make herself let go of how good it feels- the way she looks reflected in his eyes.

Maybe that was the true power of a god.

Despite her lingering anger, she tilts her head slightly into the brush of his fingers, pulling her own away from his skin. But she tells herself it is only because she needs to reach down into the pouch at her waist, pulling out... the comb he might recognize from that night at the Edge of the World, before everything had gotten so... so-]

My hair.

[His hands are closer now.]

Unbind it, or you will not receive your offerings.

[redsoil]

[ Before, at the World's End, she had done it herself. Her hair had been in such an intricate style, aloft like a black butterfly — as she had taken it down, piece by piece, it had been like a waterfall. Now, she is as bedraggled as the rest of them. He can find a stray lock of it falling upon her throat as he reaches up higher, toward the crown of her head. ]

Bend down a little more, to me.

[ Envelop him, more like. Should Hayame bow her head and torso any closer, she will likely surround him — her head leaning over his shoulder. But, like that, he will be able to find the binding that holds her sleek, dark hair in its high tail and pick it apart. He will loose her hair over his own body like a curtain, huffing out a little breath to blow aside a lock that drifts over his face as she does.

With his own fingers, he seeks that long strand of red among her own natural coloration. The mark he had tucked into her soul, in their Communion following the Dryad's demand — riding on the wave of sympathetic magic to unite some distant corner of their minds, and to truly evoke some reflection within one another. Proof of purchase, most ironically. Not in monetary value, but in influence. He cannot find the words to say, cannot promise her that he will be better — he just hopes, in carding his fingers through her hair and holding the line of her unsmiling cheek, she can understand he wishes to be more. ]

[warmare]

[She bends down a little more, to him.

Her remaining eye closes as his fingers seek out and find the simple binding on the high tail she wears her hair in, releasing it over their bodies in thick, dark waves that have lost the usual pleasing scent of camellia oil to the scorch of dying suns and the damp of root dirt. With her mane released... it is easy to find that ruby streak amidst the jet as she slowly presses her cheek into the hold of his palm.

For a moment, she doesn't say anything. She doesn't do anything. Her breath is warm on his shoulder, along his throat when she tips her head. It's quiet where they are, and it almost quiets the chaotic press and swell of communion bleed-through that has dogged them all since this damned ritual began.

But eventually she moves again, setting the lacquered wooden comb at the base of her skull and dragging it through her hair on the opposite side of Set's hand. Her mane is long, kept long for years by a stable master that preferred his mares to be able to wear the fashionable styles of a lady, as if they were ladies and not chattel. It takes time. When she finally pulls the instrument free... then she has to straighten up slightly, just enough to find the top of his head and begin to comb down, comb her worship into him.]

I give you the demon Sebastian Michaelis, whose eye I took in exchange for mine.

[It wouldn't stay gone, and she hates that, just like he hadn't stayed dead in the dryad wood, but at least it would be a reminder of her paid debt so long as they were trapped in this place. If she were lucky, the rusty spearblade she'd used to stab it out will have left an infection.

Another strand of black, another strand of red.]

I offer you the poorly named "King Undying", who betrayed Meridian only as long as he had a head.

[For all his boasts, his skull had cracked and splattered in her grip just as easily as any human's did. The sound of the comb is soft, her touch gentle and smooth... but when it comes to the next...]

I give you Liem Talbott, who betrayed [me, he betrayed me-] Meridian.

[Liem, had been so weak in the mind that he had put the dagger to his own chest and asked her to help him finish the job. But she wouldn't do it for him. She refused to let him shame himself by being unable to even end his own life. She'd made him bleed himself before she snapped his neck and ended his suffering.

All of the violence she has waged since the roots had claimed them. It is his now.]

1/2

[redsoil]

[ No matter how difficult it is, to hold Hayame in his life, it is moments such as this that he looks back upon when he feels they are too impossible for one another. The moments where she yields her hardened heart into the palm of his hand, and quiets against him. A warrior, and a god of war, finding a simple and painful solace in one another's company. The red streak of hair remains soft against his skin, forefinger and thumb rolling it like a worry stone.

She delivers him names, the acts of violence attributed to them and he knows, he will repay her in full for her devotion. It is why he remains besides her, until such a time that he cracks open the prison that the Ennead had placed around his divinity and truly comes to embody all that he is, was and will be — suddenly, violently and all over the place. Hayame will be first, he knows. He will give her anything she commands of his might, because he cannot give her what she asks of his person. To empower her, protect her, and assist her.

Sebastian's name, he receives with a hum of laughter. A pleased sound meant for her, this time, because he does not care that her hatred of the demon could rob him of anything. She is owed whatever she desires, but it is Sebastian's cunning that he wishes to prepare her for. His cruelty.

The "King Undying" he does not recognize, but a flicker of identity — the face, before she crushed his skull — allows him to. John Gaius, whom had joined them. Who had soon been lost. How terrible, that even he could not hold out until an endgame.

Liem Talbott is the name that causes him the most unmistakable, agonizing grief. A wealth of it that he strangles at the origin, so as not to deliver it to Hayame, whom had been the one to end his life — ]

[redsoil]

[ — and instead, he receives that name too, as his due.

( He should have been there, he thinks. To scourge the lingering doubts, and preserve Liem's heart. If only he had been there, to fight his demons with him and make good on all the things he had pushed upon him in the church, would Liem have believed more in him than anything else?

Would Hayame have been spared? )

Set does not flinch, nor yield any thought to her apart from that self-same gratitude he had given her at the Masquerade. The soft, perpetually-stunned acceptance of devotions he asked her to give him, but finds each one novel and precious all the same; he is a forgotten god, and she is a useless warrior. Together, they keep one another alive in some capacity, clinging by their fingertips to some sort of insane rite. And so, he reaches for her hand. For the one that holds the brush,

and he takes it down to his own. To hold her palm over the cool-warm threat of the energies within him, to reveal to her the location of his Shard, born right over his own heart below golden collar and the flow of his hair. He resolves himself to purge it, for her. To yield it to someone, because though he desires Zenith, though he is perfect for it, and every inch of his pragmatism demands he embrace it, he will always fight. He must fight for people like Hayame, like Liem. ]

I accept, Hayame. The burden of your violence upon you is ours, and I acknowledge the pain it has caused you. In this, I share in the burden of violence done unto yourself.

[ While he would seek his Harmonized energy, to slowly attend to the Discord she feels — he cannot, like this. He will, though. He will later, when they are shut of the place and back in their proper time. When the Oracle is obtained... and he can find her, into whatever miserable place she goes to isolate herself, for the things she does in the name of victory. ]

[warmare]

[She doesn't need him to share the burden. She doesn't give him her violences because she cannot live with them, or because she is too weak to carry on by herself. At least, that is what she would always vehemently claim was her position. She gives them to him because he had asked for them, because one gave a god one was worshiping offerings, and Set is not a deity who would be won over with fresh crops, rice wine, and salt.

Does she say it, though? Another argument, another desperate, vicious attempt to convince the people around her that she is a warrior to be feared and respected?

She is tired. Does she not also get to be tired, even though she will never allow herself to use such a thing as an excuse for falling to Zenith's tempting sway? If they are alone, if they cannot be seen or barely sensed here in the depths of the dirt and root as far apart from the other shard-bearers as they could physically get... Hayame lets go of the comb and allows it to fall into his lap where he sits in hers, freeing her hand to splay over Set's shard, pressing her fingers heedlessly to the jagged edges as if she might mold herself inwards and somehow begin to understand him from within.

She wants to rip the cool threads of Zenith from him, drag him back away from the precipice she had to refuse herself permission to approach for fear she might throw herself off into the abyss below. But she can't- she has already fully Harmonized again, and now her shard is growing rife not with Zenith but with Discord, fueled by the violence she has wreaked on her own faction- or rather, former members of her own faction. ... More importantly, from killing Liem Talbott.

Perhaps it is good that Set hides his thoughts from her in that moment that she admits to what she had done. What if he had been there? She had been there. She had tried to scourge the lingering doubts, to preserve Liem's heart. She had tried to make Liem believe in her. ... And he hadn't. She wasn't enough. No matter how strong she tried to make herself, no matter how strong a blade she tried to forge her hearts into... She had failed. She kept failing. Meridian was going to fail, because she can only make up for so much and-

Hayame lets her head bow over him further, crimson and onyx strands of hair mingling like peeks of bubbling lava beneath hardened black volcanic rock. She finds a place in the crook of his shoulder to rest, allowing her eye to slip closed with a slow, heavy exhale as she pulls him closer, her own shard (and Liem's, tucked between her breasts) pressed up against his back.

In the end, her mouth remains closed. She already said what she needed to say.

Let them rest.]