kenoslogs | 2023 catch-all

Entry tags:

2023 catch-all

Who: Liem & various
What: Catch-all for non-event threads
Where: Various
When: Throughout the rest of 2023
Warnings: Will be in headers as appropriate

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[In a glossy, dimly lit bar nestled into one of Highstorm's niche little entertainment districts, Liem sits by himself in a quiet booth, tucked away in one of the establishment's many private little nooks. The spot is a popular venue for vampires, who visit the place for the drinks, the company, and of course the occasional bite to "eat," but he hasn't visited to slake his thirst for blood. Instead, he broods over a small collection of empty drink glasses, his posture still erect as ever but his expression vague and distant, as though he is seeing something other than the darkened bar around him.

Those who are familiar with the man may note something strange about him — aside from the strangeness of finding Liem in a bar meant for vampires, drinking by himself. He has always been pale, but he looks more so than usual, right down to bleached and fading colours in his hair and clothes. His eyes are dull and unblinking, like two stones; his hair, perfectly coiffed, does not move even slightly when he turns his head to speak to a passing server. He looks like an exquisite artwork, a sculpture worn and left bereft by the passage of years. His movements are slow, but mechanical, propelled only by the ghost of past habits and the weight of his desolation.

If you draw near, he will turn his face toward you (his shoulders don't move a single iota) with a look that is heavy with exhaustion, but as hard and cold as any he's worn since arriving at Kenos.

(Hairline fractures spider over his skin in the low light. The tip of one of his ears is missing, and the edge of it looks as rough and unyielding as shorn stone.)]

What do you want?

( since arriving in kenos and being taken to springstar under dextera's wing, makoto has spent precious little time in highstorm. even when he had been Unharmonized prior to the Oracle's ordeal, he had mostly wandered through either the perilously overcrowded streets of springstar or maneuvered and cavorted through the subterranean labyrinth of kowloon, indulging in occasional wanderlust to the satisfaction of personal curiosity. highstorm is so different, stark and still and somber in comparison to the bustle and verve he had experienced on the other island. he still isn't sure if it's to his liking or not. he supposes it does more closely match the atmosphere that the upper social circles of Hell had embodied, a meticulous and incredibly dangerous political landscape which only appeared cordial and placid on the surface to those not prepared for it — those that would be overwhelmed, subsumed, and ultimately devoured by it, just as any unprepared soldier with shaking hands might be upon a foreign and inhospitable battlefield.

yes, he enjoyed the vigor of springstar and the vice of kowloon, but they were not so far away in truth, so perhaps he should appreciate highstorm for its unique qualities and charms as well. he simply had to find them to do so. that is what brings makoto to this bar this evening, drawn in like a fly to honey with what he personally thought was a delightful concept for an establishment. there were similar places in kowloon, though perhaps slid more to the "seedier" side of the spectrum; all remind him of Hell, of places which had very nearly felt like home for the comfort and familiarity they had ended up giving him over years.

makoto drifts with self-assured confidence through the bar, spreading his attention and conversation among many different partners, though he always manages to fan the flames of either to a certain point of fever pitch before — he makes some sort of teasing comment or sly excuse to disengage, leaving for the next. this is characteristic of him, a tried and true method that he had used not only in the brothel, not only in banquet halls and ballrooms of demonic aristocracy, but when he had traveled to Earth to contract with humans. there had been no more efficient way to enrapture and exhaust the soul to the point where it was ready to give in to him at the slightest provocation, bursting into flame and ash and bone and the gold dust that was the object of interest for any demon plying their trade.

and he would have to admit. doing this sort of thing is fun, in addition. he personally doesn't intend to allow anyone's teeth to find his flesh — he would, of course, far prefer the opposite, but he wouldn't be so easily-satisfied as to stop at just blood. he's... not sure if that sort of thing would be welcomed or frowned upon here, so he's thinking he will err on the side of caution.

makoto spots liem, of course, because the man stands out. there are plenty of dark and brooding figures in this bar, but all the others have a very different local atmosphere about them, inviting with the sense of mystique and danger. liem's is a still, dull, and dour aura — an only slightly animate corpse rather than a creature of the night out for good time and a spot of fun. so, of course, makoto approaches him, sliding into the seat across from him and regarding him with the half-lidded eyes and sly smile of some sort of predatory cat. though his pale eyes remain riveted on liem's own dark, unblinking gaze, he absorbs all of the details of his countenance, his demeanor, his mien... ah, poor thing. just looking at him gives makoto a childish sort of impulse which he could only describe as half-way adjacent to wanting to play with one's food. ) What I want is to observe what I believe to be a marvel. Look here — a miniature rain cloud, manifested in the middle of this bar before me!

( and he's being generous in teasing you in this way, liem. there are far less flattering comparisons he could have drawn.

makoto doesn't remember him from horos. he doesn't remember how he had once attempted to bend him towards accepting the kenoma, how he had chased him and hayame through the streets of achamoth to halt his desertion. as such, he speaks to liem as if he were a stranger, and there is no recognition in his eyes — though perhaps he is just a very good actor, aggressively willing to let bygones be bygones.

his elbows resting on the table, he leans forward to rest his head in his hands, tone dropping to something conspiratorial and honey-sweet. ) Jokes aside, I believe we should be honest with one another. If you wanted to dull yourself with alcohol and glare holes into the walls, you could have done so plenty of other places. So why is it you choose to do it here?

[Liem's weeks in Zenith have been spent alternatingly between despairing contemplation and, more and more, work in Alenroux. Despite the resolution he thought he had already come to, to bring Abadar to Zenith's new world to shape and shepherd it, his free hours are filled increasingly with the same whirl of thoughts that had swept him up beneath the Tree of Life, in the Oracle's cavern. He mourns for the world he's left behind, wonders at its fate, wonders if abandoning it is kindness or cruelty. He thinks of the people he knows who had chosen to abandon Meridian for Zenith's darkness — and the people who still remain, now separate from and at odds with him.

These thoughts chase him day and night, until he can scarcely sleep and work is the only respite available to him. During Alenroux's days, he assists the farmers with their work and oversees the final efforts on the test home (Hayame's home…) near the edge of the forest. At night, he disappears into the woods to hunt whatever monsters end up within range of his bow.

Yet despite this, his beard has not yet made a reappearance. In fact, he bears no signs of work or weariness at all; his face is unlined and his eyes unshadowed, his posture straight, his hair coiffed, his clothes spotless and free of wrinkles. He is spectacularly without flaw, suspiciously so—

Except.

Except for the cracks — literal, hairline fractures — in his facade, spiderwebbing over marble skin, over his face and hands and throat, over the unyielding, sculpted shape of his perfect hair, over the pristine planes of his coat and gloves. (He doesn't need to worry about the heat, though summer is fast approaching. Beneath the stony barrier of his clothing, his shard is colder than ice.) Here and there, a fragile extremity has snapped and worn away completely: the tip of an ear, some of the detail of his hair, a piece of nose, a lapel, a button, a fingertip. And all over his body, the colour seems to have weathered and leeched away from him; not just his clothes, but the brown of his hair and even the startling black of his eyes. He exists in off-whites and pastels, looking exquisite and ready to crumble to dust at even the gentlest blow.

But of course, he does not; not yet. There is a reason that he cannot die yet, even if he isn't sure anymore what it is. He is reduced to the motions of his work, to fixing fences and organizing supplies and cataloguing damages and hunting down threats; reduced to working toward the mission, without remembering why. It is not an instrument's place to wonder anyway, or even to understand. He only needs to

keep

moving.]

[It is not as if Hayame does not know that Liem Talbott is in Alenroux.

She had quit Springstar for the more familiar sights of field and forest as soon as she could upon awakening, unable to bear seeing herself reflected in the countless eyes of Meridian citizens who knew that their faction had lost an Oracle for the second time. She had found no comfort or succor in the words of the Tribune that urged the shard-bearers to show strength to the people, to unite in their loss and somehow put it from mind. There had been no joy to take from being around her fellows when she blamed a majority of them for weakness that had contributed to failure. In duty she finds reason to put one hoof in front of the other, to bother waking, to not just slit her belly open so deep in the woods that hopefully no one ever finds her shard.

She had seen him. From a distance in the fields she had spotted his familiar silhouette and stood there staring until her trainees had awkwardly begun to discuss who was going to be the one to risk a finger tapping her, before she simply turned and walked away with clenched fists.

She had smelled him. In the deep of the woods, stalking monsters that would endanger the citizens who might one day elect to stay the night on the island, she had caught a whiff on the wind of his distinctive scent. For a moment, she had considered changing her prey and hunting him, stalking him through the trees and putting an arrow in his back to make him suffer for his betrayal… and then she had changed course instead.

But eventually, one night, when she walks past the near-completed home he had been building that she never actually considered would be hers, because jinba did not have homes…

He is there.

He is there and there is no pretending that she did not see him.]

You have a lot of nerve showing yourself in this place, traitor.

[But there is only ice and steel (the pain beneath) in her voice when she addresses him.]

[It is not that Liem fails to notice her approach. He is aware, in the periphery of his attention, of the muffled sound of hoofbeats approaching over packed dirt, familiar enough by now for him to guess immediately who they belong to. Despite that, however, Liem does not stop his circuit around the work site, does not look up from the list he's compiling until Hayame draws near enough to speak.

Only then does he pause, his motions somehow unnatural in their smoothness, his head gliding around to look at her in a way that is just slightly out of sync with his body. His eyes glow like gemstones in the warm glow of early evening.]

And why should that be?

[The stone mask of his face betrays none of the desolate resignation that had gripped him beneath the Tree of Life, when Zenith's energy had been poured into him until it drowned everything else. His question is light and crisp in the face of her steely regard, but his appearance suggests no particular emotion at all.]

Should I fear to visit my own property? It is my house, Hayame.

[Certainly she had never given him reason to think that she regarded it as hers, even if he was building it for her use. Even though he would have given it to her, if only she would have accepted it.]

[What a fool she was.

There had been a part of her that still thought he would sigh and try to convince her that this was a place for her. That he would regret what he had done. That the despair would still be tormenting him, and she could somehow leverage that hopelessness to pry Zenith out of him and prove to him that he had made a mistake, that he needed to come back... But he looks at her as if he is settled in his role, content with his choice, sure and unbothered (but off somehow, slightly)-

Her fingers curl tightly into fists, her anger surging hot despite her intent to remain cold.]

This property was given to a loyal Meridian. A man rewarded for his service to the Tribune and to Springstar.

[Or so she thought. She doesn't care that Cyrus had never cut Highstorm off from accessing the island of Alenroux. She had never considered it wise, to take such half-hearted possession of something, and now look how they felt they could just crawl back, like they never left-]

If that man is dead, then what the hell do you think you are doing here?

[ He probably shouldn't be here, to be honest.

The moment he walks through the door, he can tell that he doesn't fit the vibes of this place; the stink-eye given to him by the first server who greets him just seals the deal. But you know what? That guy can get fucked. He's already a little buzzed from a drink elsewhere, he's not in the mood to go walking much further at the moment, and he's never been the type to balk at a pointed stare thrown his way, so. Gen looks the server dead in the eye as he walks past and heads straight for one of the booths deeper in the establishment.

He almost walks straight by that table littered with empty glasses, and physically does a double-take before circling back a few paces once he realizes who's sitting there. ]

Liem? [ The lighting here is dim, but -- he looks fucked up, right? He's definitely looking fucked up. Not his clothes or his styling (as prissy and perfect as every), but those cracks in his skin. Gen squints at him for a moment before giving a low snort. ] Nothing? I'm just here for a drink. But since you're asking -- I won't say no if you're gonna buy me a drink.

[ Said as he plunks himself down on the seat opposite Liem, then casually flags down a passing waiter to order 'something strong.' Delightful! Although -- despite how casually obnoxious he's being, there's a pointed pause where Gen studies Liem for a moment longer before speaking up. ]

Didn't take you for the type to let yourself go so much. [ A slight nod towards those empty glasses; a pointy canine ear flicks. ] S'that how you have the energy to be so prim and proper all the time? Gotta vent once in a while?

Is that so?

[Although the mask of his expression hardly deviates at all, the words that slip free of Liem's mouth are edged with bitterness. Had he ever been a loyal Meridian shard-bearer, really? Was a loyal man swayed so easily into the arms of the enemy? He had always said, even from the beginning, that he'd joined Meridian for his own purposes. And yet, for some reason, she had insisted on seeing in him something more.

It doesn't matter. He'd burned that bridge when he failed to seek her out after returning from the Tree's embrace. She must have known what it meant — that he had chosen Zenith's promise over her, over her own need to return home. He could hardly blame her for wanting better from him ]

I am here to finish what I started. The work has not ceased to be important just because I harmonized with Zenith.

[Cetina must have seen that, when he'd returned to her office after the Oracle trial to finally deliver his report; why else would she give him that charter, when it wasn't even her job to reward him anymore? Even if he wasn't steadfast to Meridian's cause, he did still believe in the development of Alenroux. The work he did here was one of the only things he still had to actually care about.]

But if you find the sight of me so objectionable, then what, Hayame, are you doing here?

[Is that so?

Hayame hates how Liem sounds when he says that, questioning her declaration with that little condescending lilt as if implying he knew it to be incorrect, with bitterness in his tone as if he of the two of them had the right to be bitter. If she possessed nails and didn’t obsessively file them down to the quick to prevent them from snagging on her bowstrings, Hayame would be cutting into her own palm.]

Springstar might suffer the Zenites to continue treading here, but that does not mean that I will.

[Since Horos, since Kenos… she had learned to defy. Even as she shamefully yearned for the simplicity of obedience and service to a master, the thing she had been bred and raised for, the only thing that had once made sense…]

I left the Tree to eat and when I returned you had already slunk like a coward off to the dark of Highstorm and the embrace of their sacred bitch on high.

[She had been waiting there in the dirt for him to revive, just like she had the first time. He was supposed to come back fixed, he was supposed to come back how he’d been before she’d seen that pathetic “king undying” whispering in his ears. Instead, she had come back to an empty grave.]

Is it so strange that I would want to see for myself how terribly tired you must be?

[Not so much that he can’t work himself to the core in Alenroux, is it?

- Gods, she is so tired.]

[In a way, Gen's commitment to his crappy teenager routine is comforting to Liem, who dreads the idea of this particular image filtering back out to Kenos at large to affect his reputation. That's one of the reasons why he'd chosen this bar to get trashed in; he is pathologically incapable of caring about the opinions of the kind of "people" who would be regulars here, and certainly none of his social circles would include any of their ilk.

He had not been expecting to see anyone he knew here — certainly not Gen. But despite that, the lack of reaction goes a little way towards smoothing his ruffled feathers. He doesn't even object as the young man flags down a server and helps himself to a drink on Liem's dime.

With a level look aimed Gen's way, he asks,] Do you feel full of energy after spending a night deep in your cups?

[Because personally, Liem is expecting to feel like death warmed over tomorrow. Copious amounts of alcohol have never treated him kindly; frankly, he's surprised that he hasn't succeeded in making himself sick yet. But perhaps the recent regularity with which he's fallen into the habit of drinking blood has something to do with that.

As if to punctuate this question, he lifts a delicate handkerchief to his mouth — and coughs violently into it. When he takes the little square of fabric away, tiny red flowers cascade onto the tabletop. He brushes them aside with a hand.]

It's not a habit, [he says. He just… ended up here. But there is nothing tentative about his seat at the bar table, or the pull he takes from the stout glass in front of him.]

[If he is tired, it is of fielding the criticisms of someone who has only ever been willing to accept the parts of him that align conveniently with her own worldview. Someone who decided upon first meeting that he was someone to be relied upon — and then refused to see anything to the contrary as anything but a perversion of his real character, a corruption to be excised and scoured from him.

He cannot deny that the influence of Kenoma and Zenith both have had dramatic influences on his mind. And yet, what does it say about him, that he should react in this way when Hayame has only ever stood resolute in the face of the darkness? There are flaws in his soul, imperfections in which the forces of entropy and despair might find homes for themselves. If he has managed to win moments of surety and faith to display for her, it is only from between the storms of doubt that have wracked him since he was barely more than a boy.

How, then, is anyone meant to burn away those faults of his without setting the whole of him alight? He is tired of trying to earn the regard of people he cares for, only to disappoint them when they learn that he has failings and uglinesses that can't be easily ignored. He is tired of her anger being the price of his doubt.

Is it not enough, for once, for him to simply fail in his own eyes? Must she treat him as if the man who knew her simply died, to metamorphose into what now stands before her?]

If you are here to chase a Zenite off of Meridian-claimed land, then by all means, draw upon me.

[He spreads pale, crack-webbed hands, which remain empty but for a lightweight clipboard and a pen. His blade is still sheathed at his hip, his crossbow hanging un-drawn at his back.]

Will you be satisfied then, Hayame? If you avenge yourself on me for the wrong of leaving you behind, will it make you happy?

[Will she be satisfied?

Will taking his life, again, while he doesn't resist, again somehow mollify her anger? Will it fix what has been broken, what he he broken with his weakness and betrayal? He spreads his hands as if to dare her, to invite her to just attack him...

And it seems for a second that she will. She lunges, her hands lash out, but instead of aiming for his shard or landing a blow, they seize in the front of his clothing, hauling him up off his feet to dangle in the air as she pulls him in close, her breath hot, her canines bared. She'll tell him, she'll tell him exactly how happy she'd be to-]

No!

[The answer bursts out of her in a desperate, unexpected snap, the rest tumbling out as she shakes him in her grip, trying to make it make sense, force him to understand it, force him to listen-]

You think killing you could make me happy?

[She had carried his shard from the deep forests of Alenroux cradled against her breast. She had placed the other Shard she'd claimed in her pouch, but even after his betrayal she had kept Liem's there again, hoping this time that the Meridian power pulsing in her own shard against his might somehow bring him back right. But it hadn't, it hadn't at all, and now?]

You think I can be satisfied or find rest when the man who guided me to the light in Horos, the man who I swore to Meridian beside in Kenos, abandons me to fight alone? To fight against him?

[Her voice cracks, an she can not stop to repair it. Her hands quake with useless, impotent rage where they seize him, betraying her fear that he is lost for good, that he will simply turn disaffected, uncaring eyes on her and insist she simply kill him or leave him be. As if she could- ? As if she wanted to?]

Why-

[Why?]

If you tired of hoping, if you doubted, if you needed shelter-

[Had she not held his hand in that tent in Alenroux until his Discord eased? Had she not fought beside him? Had they not debated over joining Meridian before meeting Cyrus together? Had he not- Had she not cared, even though she'd never had the words for such things? If all of that was true-]

Why is my strength not enough for you, Liem Talbott?

[Liem does not so much as flinch as Hayame lunges for him, though his teeth clack together when she hauls him up before her face. He lets himself be lifted without so much as a wriggle, like a sleepwalker who has barely registered what is happening to him — except for the intensity of the jewel-like gaze now so close to her own, fixed unblinking on her fierce grey eyes. This close, his eyes take on an almost crystalline quality; his skin looks unusually glossy, like polished stone. The network of cracks is more visible now.

When his hands lift to grasp her own, they feel like flesh — but dry and brittle, and it is like being grabbed by a corpse, for how chill they are. Inch by inch, frustration overtakes the impassive look on Liem's face, causing tiny flakes to crack free from his frowning mouth and his furrowed brow.]

I didn't abandon my hope because I was tired of being strong.

[His scowl becomes a grimace, and the long, sharp fang exposed by his crumbling lips gleams silver.]

I tired because I had abandoned my hope.

[How was any person who succumbed to their grief meant to get back up in that same week, that same day, and fight for a cause that held no comfort for them? As soon as Zenith cemented its hold on him, what resolve he'd had to fight for anything at all had fled him completely. He could never care for the dream of building a new world, when he didn't believe hands like his could be trusted to build anything at all.

There was only one thing they could do — something he had always wished to do with these unworthy hands of his, the thing he'd devoted his life to since before he was even fully grown: He could fight to protect the people he cared about, so that they wouldn't have to fight for themselves.

If he couldn't do that, then what did he have left? He was a half-dead inquisitor of a dead god, left to hold vigil for all the people he couldn't save.

But he had managed to overlook something, drowned as he was in Zenith's unforgiving tide.]

Hayame.

[Under the weight of her rage and her fear, the stony resentment that he had been clinging to breaks, crumples in helpless misery. Is he supposed to lift his own hands against her, and fight to deny her hopes of going home? He hadn't realized that there were other people, living people, here in Kenos, that needed him beside them. He hadn't thought he had anyone left to fight for, but he was wrong — and he had cast them aside like garbage.]

Hayame, I—

[He grips her hands tighter; not a single tear manages to escape him, but the expression on his face becomes so wretchedly grieved that the cracks lining it multiply alarmingly.]

I'm so sorry, for asking of you what I did. [The words struggle out of him, increasingly unsteady as he drags them up from where they'd been sitting for weeks.] I should have… I should have let you help me.

[Is it Discord, that makes him look like that? This close, she can see the shine, the cracks... Is it what the ill effects of the faction energies did to Zenites? She knew what it looked like on Meris well enough, but this- What has he been doing in Highstorm? Has that Yima woman been forcing him to act unbecoming of his nature? Had he fallen into some sort of... of depravity, in the absence of Meridian? His hands... they had never been warm, not even when she had held them in that tent in finer days in Alenroux, but they are so cold now. It is sick, to see his skin flake away from his body along the lines of pale cracks in flesh.]

Liem-

[And when he clarifies the words he had said to her in the dark beneath the roots, words that had filled her with rage and helplessness to hear... her fists quake in his clothing and beneath his fingers. He was cracking, not just literally, he says he should have let her help, but she... What had swayed him to Zenith in the first place? What whispers had been the ones to reverberate in him and breed the doubts he held now- that his world was gone, that his god was gone... ?]

I do not know how to save anyone without killing or dying.

[So she had accepted his offer to help him via knife without more than a second thought. That was how problems were solved... Except he had come back with his hope still abandoned. Because she hadn't given him anything else. What could she? Her words had never been able to sway the people she tried to convert to Meridian's side... all the Unharmonized she'd spoken to had gone to Zenith, so how-]

But I want...

[She wants to bring him back. She forgets to put him back down on the ground, her hearts still pounding, her one remaining eye dilated sharply, fixated on him and the words... that she should have said weeks ago too.]

Come back.

[She wanted him to come back. Not kicking and screaming as she dragged him, not converted with sick whispers or corruption through his Shard. It didn't mean anything like that, it wouldn't stick like that-]

Just tell me how to help you come back!

[ Damn. Liem's really not in a good place, huh. Gen raises an eyebrow at the uncharacteristically sarcastic response he gets, then -- kneejerk, without really thinking -- responds with an equally dry: ]

Usually takes a bit more than that [ jerking his head towards the cups laid on the table ] to get me feeling shitty in the morning.

[ Oh, the benefits of being young, huge, and in possession of a healthier liver than he really deserves. (Let's not talk about his crispy lungs.)

Still, as shitty as he is, Gen isn't all mindless cruelty. And there's nothing particularly enticing about the prospects of kicking a guy when he's already down -- especially not when Liem is looking particularly pathetic today, between the alcohol and the sickly-anime-mom-coughs. Though he'd been fixing a long stare on Liem, Gen looks aside when the waiter brings him his drink (a nice, strong, but no-frills beer, Liem might be happy to note; nothing that'll break the bank for him) and takes a sip before leaning forward to place it on the table alongside Liem's many empties. It's at a deadpan when he asks -- ]

What's the occasion, then.

[ He can guess, of course. The days stuck in that miserable chamber hadn't treated anyone particularly kindly, and he knows Liem probably has his own demons he'd been forced to face down there. But he's never had much practice being frank, being gentle -- and so Gen prods, instead. Surely Liem will talk if he's poked hard enough. ]

Figured a guy like you would go someplace way more prissy. Someplace with the same vibe as those cooking classes of yours. Just wanted to try something different, hm? [ As if. ]

[There is something familiar about this young man with the strange red eyes. Liem can't quite pierce the fog that the last few drinks have filled his brain with in order to puzzle out what it is, but he's certain that he's seen him somewhere before — aside from beneath the Tree, that is. Perhaps he visited Kenos on a previous occasion, though if he had, Liem can't place when he'd have seen him.

That faint bemusement is the only thing that keeps him from telling the newcomer to get lost when he slides into Liem's booth to lean on the table across from him. Although he had been sitting alone, the "rain cloud" aura he's projecting should have informed the other man that he isn't interested in company, let alone the kind that comes with unasked-for cheek.]

You're a nosy young man, aren't you?

[Didn't anyone teach him that it's rude to accost strangers with unflattering metaphors when they're minding their own business, trying to quietly drink themselves blind? As if in defiance of this uninvited inquisitiveness, Liem takes a slow sip from the stout glass in front of him.]

I picked this place on a whim. [A rather grim one, and probably ill-conceived, but he's already here now.] It's clean, and it isn't crowded.

[Also, unlike his home, or more reputable establishments elsewhere, no one would ever think to look for Liem in a place like this. Even if anyone he knows would frequent this bar, which he suspects most never would, they certainly wouldn't know to find him here if they started to wonder where he'd disappeared to. Given that he knows at least a couple busybodies, he doesn't think the precaution is unwarranted.]

And what brings you here this evening, if not the search for unusual weather phenomena?

[Gen’s answer earns a faint noise of disgust from Liem. No — of course a few rounds of drinks don’t make a dent on a big, strapping young man like him. He recalls the disdain that Gen had for the cold as well, treating a walk in the snow like it was just pleasantly brisk, while Liem wrapped himself up like a mummy.

Well, that’s nothing new. If only one of them ends up with a brutal hangover tomorrow, it’s better if it ends up being Liem regardless. Despite his morose mood, he still wouldn’t wish that kind of misery on Gen when he knows he has enough going on already.

There’s a silent moment after Gen asks his question, as Liem regards his choice of drink with a blank, impassive look. Despite his prim posture and the almost statuesque look of his pale, fractured face, his eyes manage to hold a wealth of exhaustion in their gaze.]

Why would I go somewhere nice just to get drunk? [he says eventually.

If he goes somewhere nice, somewhere people he knows might actually want to go, someone might see him, might want to talk to him. He didn’t come here to chat with neighbourhood acquaintances; he came here to pickle his brain until he either came to some kind of decision or just lost the ability to care about how much of a mess his life was.

But he still isn’t nearly drunk enough to have hit either threshold.]

Nice people don’t come to a place like this. Unless they want to be drunk from — but that’s still a bit deviant, isn’t it.

[Said with all the brittle condescension of someone who has more than once spent his Saturday night getting fucked up in a dive bar, and then had to haul his hungover carcass to church bright and early the next morning.]

What are you doing here, Gen? I hope you didn’t come here with the same purpose that I did.

[Come back, she says. To her; to Meridian. Believe again that all isn't lost, that there's a point to seeking the good in what was instead of forsaking it for a new start somewhere yet to come. Give up on that ephemeral future of a paradise world. After all, regardless of which sect is victorious, the people of Kenos will have homes to go to in the end; but what of the countless souls left behind in the worlds of old?

Liem wants to come back. He doesn't want to give up on the people of his world or hers, or Set's, or Gen's, or anyone else's. He wants to save them — he just doesn't know if they really can. He doesn't know how to believe anymore.]

Hayame…

[Her name sighs quietly from between pale, dry lips and silver teeth. Hanging from her grip like this, he is like a marionette with no one attending its strings.]

Do you still intend to die when you return home? If Meridian allows you to return. Is that still your goal?

[Despite how powerful her harmonization has grown, stronger and more desperate in the wake of losing the Iconoclast... Hayame doesn't know for sure if they really can save their worlds and all the people in them. She doesn't know if they can ever return. These days, she fears they'll never even have the chance to find out, if Zenith keeps winning clash after clash over the Oracles... but every single doubt she has, it must be locked away and never allowed to see the light of day. She can't let those weaknesses affect her or show in her actions, she can't let herself believe it is impossible for an instant-

Or Zenith and despair might take her, too.]

It is not-

[She wants him to rouse, to fight her, to argue, to just... What did it matter if her fate was to die when she returned to her world? What possessed so many people to accost her fate these last weeks? She can hear the voices in the back of her mind even now. Claude trying to offer her a place in his world, to come to hers with enough power to prevent the disaster that required her life to circumvent. Set accusing her of being a warrior who only wanted to die without the courage to fight for a different outcome.]

It is not my goal.

[Her goal was to cleanse her dishonor, to make up for her mistake, to save the orphans of that village she had put in danger...]

It is the only way I can accomplish my goal...

[She had been relieved, when Matsukaze had grabbed her hand and pulled her from the raging waters she had chosen as the place of her suicide and his death. How ashamed she had felt, to be confronted with the truth... that she desired to live just as much as anyone. But to return to the life of a slave awaiting sale in the breeding stable, to exist as a traitor who abandoned the only people who had offered her freedom...

Did they all think that of her? Why... Why was he asking her this, now, of all times?]

[This had been the insistence that Hayame had given him months ago, upon their first meeting: that only her death could make right the wrongs she had caused. Back then, he had tried to tell her that in order to atone, she had to live — but perhaps it is still just the moment of her own self-sacrifice that she continues to live for now.]

The people I left behind have their own war to fight. They didn't stop, even though I left them — and though I didn't return, when they called.

[Is he talking about his colleagues in Taldor, or in Springstar? Is there even a difference?]

If I don't give them up for lost, if I go back home — my friends might still die. [Not his colleagues; his friends. Friends who he'd lived and worked and taken meals and bled with for months, and missed terribly in the year he'd been away.] There might be nothing I can do. I could return home only for it to be torn apart by war.

[Through the fog of apathy that has been weighing him down more and more over the last couple of weeks, Liem manages a spike of frustration that he would need to speak with Hayame this way — with her fists bunched in his coat, and his feet dangling off the ground. He cannot move like this, cannot go to her or move further away under his own power. And, he realizes… he wants to. He wants to be able to go or stay of his own volition; how else is she to trust that he even wishes to be there?

He releases her hands, slides his grip up her arms instead, gripping her tightly, pieces crumbling from his bare fingers where they split apart.]

Hayame… When you are fighting to return home, and trusting that it is still waiting for you — I need you to keep fighting for yourself, too. I need you to become someone who can return home and fight, and win, and survive. Because I… I cannot find hope in sending my friend to her death.

[ That first question is answered with a shrug. ]

You think I know anything about nice bars? [ The best his hometown had had was shitty little dive bars or family restaurants or grungy karaoke places. (And also, he was and still is technically underage.) Ergo, he has no idea why people would go to nice bars. ] You look like the type to go to those places. Figured you'd wanna get drunk there, too. Instead of a seedy place like this.

[ He's never been good at subtlety, and it's said loud enough to earn a stink-eye from one of the passing servers. Which Gen notices, but ignores, because right now he's talking to Liem.

Case in point, he maintains eye contact with Liem even as he sits forward to pick up his beer, taking a long swig, before putting the glass back down with a heavy thump. ]

For me -- what d'you think? It's a bar. I came here to get drunk.

[ 'Like you did,' being the implication. Then, after a pause -- the leather of his seat creaks when he leans forward to give Liem a toothy, shark-like grin. His words are slower when he adds at a drawl -- ]

Or, what. If you were hoping that's not it ... Were you hoping I came here to get drunk from? [ Those words are fringed with a laugh, because the thought of himself being a 'nice person' is hilarious. As if. ] I guess I am a bit of a deviant, if you wanna call it that.

[ The Liem he knows would probably act all nonplussed and a little flustered at this. He's looking forward to it. ]

[The people he left behind. She knew there were some, that there had to be some... Because Liem wasn't like her. He'd had a mentor, and his fellow priests, but more importantly... He well-mannered and amiable. He knew how to smile. He was social enough to plan things like that gathering in Alenroux. Someone as capable as Liem was had to have... comrades. Friends.

A month ago she would have claimed to know nothing about such things. Actually, does she even know anything about them now? Even though Set had suddenly thrown the word at her, Akua had attempted to explain why she should believe she cared for her, and Amos had casually used it despite the fact that they might need to kill each other for their factions... Hayame still doesn't really understand it. She's supposed to believe in it anyway? She's supposed to believe that despite how disloyal these people are, how viciously they disagree, how much they argue... that they can be friends?

He talks about the unsure future that would await him in his home, not knowing if he could save his friends or prevent a war, but... She wants to shake him. She wants to yell and condemn his weakness, insult him for not being able to take that chance when she was willing to bring back her world even knowing that death is likely the only way that she can save those who matter to her. She had promised Set she would try, and now Liem wants that promise, too? Liem wants-

- to call her his friend, also? His fingers, flaking, cracking, seize at her arms and Hayame startles, her pupil dilating sharply. As if she hadn't even realized she was still holding him up off the ground, she suddenly releases him, allowing him to drop the foot or so back to the ground.]

Why-

[Her now empty hands hover uselessly in the air until she suddenly curls her fingers into impotent fists, her short nails pressing into her palms with no bite.]

Can you not just hope for your own world? You have people who wish you would come back, who may survive if you return... Your god awaits you-

[The responsibility that he lays at her hooves looks so heavy. And despite how she had just claimed to be strong, demanded he should have relied on that strength rather than cave to the whispers of Zenith's hopelessness-]

Why would you stake your belief on something like that?

[She had demanded that he rely on her strength in this world... And he wanted to instead rely on her ability to hope and survive?]

( to tell the truth, telling makoto to get lost wouldn't have had the effect that liem might have hoped it would — perhaps that's one bad trait he's picked up from his demonic master, ever eager to continue to press on where he is distinctly not wanted, as if the irritation caused by that further intrusion is sweet enough to him to warrant it in the first place. no, he would likely have made the same decision he makes now, persisting in his seat and setting his attention solely on liem, curious as to why a Shard-Bearer would appear in such a place as this, solitary and dolorous as he is, and obstinately refusing to acknowledge what makoto believes to be an apparent enough truth when all factors are viewed in composite.

because he can cast doubts on makoto's intentions and defend his own as random and purposeless, but the demon very much doubts that's the case.

he replies to liem's sharp-tongued riposte with a sphinxlike smile and something mischievous alight in his pale, heavy-lidded eyes. )

I've been told as much. ( though the only person whose opinion mattered to him had praised him for his cleverness and initiative, so it had washed away all of the negative reinforcement he had received from other demons' vexation and the confrontation he had had with kieran that had nearly gone dramatically and violently awry for him. ) But I like to think of it as a professional curiosity.

( he hums noncommittally in response, though he finds the justifications paltry and thin — yes, highstorm might be smaller and less congested with people and structures as springstar is, but it's not like it's wanting for places where one might hide away and drink themselves to oblivion. he hasn't been living in the city that much longer than liem, but his initial explorations have proved that those particular specifications aren't that difficult to find... )

Well, ( he begins to reply, his smile growing a little wider in delight that the stranger would play along with him, even if it's just a little bit (and even if it's likely in sarcasm), ) like everyone else that has found themselves here this evening, I have chosen to do so purposefully. This place... Mm, let's just say that when it comes to the atmosphere and the clientele, there is no other place in Highstorm that reminds me more of home.

( that inhuman creatures can come here and be so honest and forthright with their desires, those that might be considered taboo or unseemly in different places or among different company... he, of course, would never be so free or mercenary with his own, but he is still enchanted regardless. )

You know, ( he continues, something low and purring in his honeyed tone of voice, ) for someone to come to a place such as this and sit alone, dark and brooding... it tends to come across in a certain way. Are you truly so surprised I joined you?

( this is like, vampire 101, liem, come on )

[Gen would probably be surprised to know the calibre of bar that Liem is most used to ending up at. Back home, he only tended to visit bars when he wanted to blow off some steam, and forget about all the parts of his life that were related to his sensible, respectable career at his fancy, important church. That meant that he intentionally chose the seediest, most hole-in-the-wall joints he could find, ones frequented by freaks and deviants who wouldn't bat an eye at the presence of someone with strange eyes and sharp teeth among them. He's far more used to bars like that than he is to the sort of clubs where upscale gentlemen might enjoy a classy evening drink.

But even so, when Gen suggests that he might be looking to join the local population of weirdos looking to get bitten, Liem rewards him with a faint scowl.]

Don't even suggest that.

[He takes another unhappy sip from the short glass of pale amber liquor in front of him. He doesn't want to think about some nasty vampire sinking their fangs into Gen just because he had too much to drink and didn't know any better.]

I saw you, you know. Answering Claude's question over communion, a couple weeks ago.

[The very definition of: "I saw her at the witches' sabbath." Girl, what were you doing at the witches' sabbath? (The Zenith-only witches' sabbath.) But suffice to say, he knows he isn't the only one with reasons to be getting trashed in a bar in Highstorm this month.]

Looks like we're both back where we started, aren't we?

[When Hayame releases him, lets him fall that brief distance back to earth, Liem's grip on her arms only tightens. Despite the warmth of the evening and the thickness of his layers, discord keeps him desperately cold as his fingers grasp her bare skin. If he could, if she would let him, he would curl himself around her like a cat finding a sunny patch of carpet, and lose himself for even just a moment in breathing the familiar scent of her: the scent of someone he's known for longer than he's been in this world.]

It is not belief.

[His gloved hands travel down her arms to her clenched fists, curling bare fingertips around them, worming them in to insinuate them into her grip. He did not leave Meridian because he was tired; but he is tired now, of looking at the people in his life and seeing them hurting, seeing that he has been the one to hurt them, and accepting that it has to be that way.]

I don't know whether Meridian is right, or whether Zenith is, or whether both of them are misleading us completely. None of us know what we will leave this place to find, in the end. I want to find out, but I can't keep making my decisions based on supposition. It will only cause me grief.

[Isn't that what happened when he'd let Zenith sway him? He had them persuade him that if they were truly right, then his duty should lead him there. But he still did not know. None of them did, and he suspects that none of them will, unless they are willing to tear apart the very premise of their place here in looking. And until that happens, and he still doesn't know, he has to make a choice, just as he had when he'd first joined Meridian.

But this time, if he is going to make a choice based solely on his own wants and his own convictions, he may as well go all the way.]

This is my bargain with you. I will stay true to Meridian, let it be my hope and my salvation — as long as it is yours, and Set's, and that of everyone else who stands at my side.

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2023 catch-all

for Makoto / Gen — bite bite bites

bite bite bite bite bite

for Hayame — a desperate need

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