Toxic Love: The Exalt Oracle

[beleos]

NOTHING GOES OFF WITHOUT A HITCH

You feel it, the moment that the Exalt oracle opens its eyes, like something that rips through your body from head to toe, something that feel like fire, wild. It sears into your veins, like acid and fire, something that triggers something that makes you want to run, or perhaps turn and face something head on. Before you can find what sets you off – if you could find it. Bearers know what this sensation is, it is different but the same at its core. The emotions, the feelings it sparks are different – but in the end, you know it for what it is: An Oracle.

Kenos groans from the awakening, like a part of a whole sparks to life, and though you do not know what it is that they want yet, you understand and know their existence down to your core. That feeling to attack or defend, perhaps even flee, does not leave you, but instead it fills your veins, you feel it thrumming, pulsing, like the beat of a heart – if one has one. With the sense of awakening, bearers know the shape of what comes next, they will be asked to act, to do. You do not know how it will happen, or what the Exalt will ask of you, but the knowledge that it will happen is borne from experience, not from the Oracle itself.

As you begin to move, to… look, you are not long for this day, it clouds your mind, a hazy, drowsy feeling takes over, the encroaching dark that threatens to swarm, crowding from the sides, taking over your vision – until… it fully takes over, and Bearers are put into a deep slumber.

---

When bearers awaken, it’s difficult to make sense of what your sleepy eyes see. Structures begin to swim into view, and they like tall figures looking down upon you. It’s difficult to tell what they are at first, but as you wake up, you begin to see, they are not people, or creatures, but long spore-like stalks. Some have ribbed overgrowths that you can see, and some end in growths that ripple and hang over, but have no “cap”. They tower over the bearers, like towering spires and buildings, on all sides, as if they were trapped in a ring of them. As bearers look around them they will notice tall green spires around them as well, and it takes a moment for things to really settle in. Mushrooms. Blades of grass. The springy moss about them is almost as tall as they are, low to the ground. There are pebbles that appear as boulders, and the thunderous steps nearby indicate an insect or arachnid walking by, far larger than you. There is a stillness to this space, like a held breath, and as the bearers awake, and regard one another, and then to the center of the circle is – a small effigy in the center.

It is here, the Exalt Oracle, and you feel compelled to regard it, before you are given a pang down to your core. It compels you – pleads, asks, begs, and demands, all in one – for what it wishes for. Precious mementos and precious items that they are missing. They have been lost, and they are somewhere within the Liosachán. It beseeches the bearers to return its items, and begs they be returned here to the circle. There are no words, but there is a pleading sensation, a feeling that these items are treasured by this Oracle.

You feel at your sides, your pockets, and find one item on your person, a weapon, a companion, whatever it is you would bring with you to the conflict, shrunk down to a tiny size with you.

Stay steadfast, bearers, and capture the flag Oracle!

SURVIVAL OF THE SMALLEST ( DAYS 1 - 5 )

Unlike the still, stale apocalypse that had been the setting of the Iconoclast Oracle, the greenhouse is lush and vibrant with activity.

The Effigy present within yearns to be reunited with what belongs to it, fixated upon the five items lost within the greenhouse. The swell of its longing fills all Shardbearers, urging them to take action, claim the items and present all five to it to attain victory for that Faction.

Over a period of ten days, Shardbearers of both factions will have to navigate environmental dangers, and the normal procession of time, as the greenhouse is going about its daily routine. Workers plod around like towering goliaths, weeding and watering and pruning the greenhouse's contents. The Liosachán's native population of fae begin to take notice of the newcomers in their midst, emerging from grassy mounds hidden in the natural landscape to spy and pry about the newness surrounding them.

Naturally curious, and equally dangerous, the fae of the Liosachán are Highstorm natives. They range in cool coloration, from soft violet-greys to deep stormy blues, and wear clothes fashioned from of goods pilfered from the pockets of workers, dropped on the ground or handcrafted from the environment itself. Wielding bits of copper tightly wound into blades and spears, they are a ferocious and cunning little people who seek to trick, trap and toy with Shardbearers. Direct violence is anathema to them, but violence that happens as a result of falling to one of their ploys is a badge of honor.

DAY ONE - THREE. The Effigy initially urges Shardbearers to build bases of operation for defense and practicality, as surviving ten days without supporting one another is a surefire way to meet a grisly, tiny little end. Resources must be gathered: gather food and water, prepare shelter, establish unity and organization and prepare to set off into the wilds soon.

For Shardbearers demonstrating particular selflessness, favoring the protection and defense of another, the Effigy responds warmly from the third day onward — rewarding them with a sign of their dutiful nature towards others in the form of fairy wings, the form of which are unique to the Shardbearer themselves.

DAY FOUR. The sudden thunderous sound of a storm begins. No, not a storm, the tumble and crash of water pouring down upon the greenhouse — the workers of the Liosachán perform their routines faithfully, after all. In watering the garden, the danger of the environment threatens to overtake Shardbearers and their work alike. Drops of water fall, their size equal or larger than even the tallest of characters, and trickles of water muddy the ground in the form of raging rapids.

The security of Meridian and Zenith's camps is even called into question, because as simple as the act of watering a garden is, it is a nightmarish situation for such itty bitty Bearers to be in!

DAY FIVE. By day five, the fae of the Liosachán no longer lurk and linger in the corner of one's eye. They make themselves known, having prepared a banquet below one of the mushrooms, within sight of the Effigy. A table draped in spider-silk lace awaits any Bearer who comes near enough, the sagging piece of driftwood polished to a gleam with golden sap, leaving it waterproofed and pretty to behold. A handful of corks serve as seating, with most of the fae draping themselves across scraps of cotton as though they are simply at a picnic.

They invitingly wave to Shardbearers, chattering brightly in their foreign, lilting tongue, waving tiny sandwiches and little clay pots full of jams and honeys, brandishing sugared berries that they bite into with gusto, staining their arms and faces in swathes of blue and red. They clearly are welcoming to whomever comes upon them, urging them to avail themselves to the bounty they have prepared. Perhaps some characters know better than to eat the food of the fae, recalling legends and lore about the mystical properties and implicit bargains made in becoming a guest. Perhaps some have no idea, and are simply hungry enough to dig in!

UNWILLING TEN-ANTS ( DAYS SIX - EIGHT )

The scuttling, scrabbling feet of ants crawling over surfaces, winding their way through this grassy playground, has become normal. Their feet thunder as they go about their business, and it seems to be a normal cadence to life here in the underbrush, in the greenhouse. It is normal, and it is has become nothing to really concern oneself with. They are ants, after all, what do they do, but work? Endlessly, continuously.

That is, until the heavy, loud sounds of their feet draw closer to whatever place that the bearers have found to camp in. Whether solitary or as a group, these workers are no longer content to simply ignore the bearers, but they are a curiosity, perhaps even a bother. You have disrupted their lifestyle. The sleepy pattern of obtain food, return ot the hive, and back out again now has obstacles. Now there are not simply the fairies, who live their own lives and existences, a part of the ecosystem, but now there are these tiny bearers. Fighting, working together, arguing and disagreeing.

You are disruptive to their way of life.

The ants have come to collect on this due, and some bearers that are vulnerable, or perhaps merely caught, are taken away, your weight so light compared to the rest of their burdens that they carry. The strength of these ants is overwhelming, incredible at this size, and try as you might, if you are caught in their strong mandibles, you cannot escape. An ant, after all, carries 1000 times their weight with those powerful jaws. You, bearer, are nothing to them.

They squirrel away the bearers within their hill, a complicated network of tunnels, junctions, and large spaces. Down within, where the air becomes stifling, and stale. The ants guard their pray, and you get the distinct sense that they see you not as people, not even as enemies, but as prey. You will be food – perhaps to the eggs that are gathered within this room, where you can see the stirring of new life, just beneath the surface. You may not have very long to live, if these little larvae get their mouths on you.

Or perhaps, your friends will save you? Once it is discovered that bearers are missing, the trail of ant prints on the ground is apparent – they are not stealthy creatures – and the feet lead from the locations of several kidnapped bearers toward the grainy ant hill that lies not far away. The hill itself swarms with life, with worker ants all over the surface, scuttling about, looking for the next meal for te colony. Or perhaps for more bearers to bring back for their young.

It will be dangerous, bearers, to save your friends. Should you choose to do so, you will be kicking the anthill, and the ants will protect what is theirs. Even if they just took it. Those bearers belong to them, now! Rescuers will find not only your average worker ant, ready to defend, but winged male ants will attack from above, and deeper, within the nest, near where the bearers are kept, lies the strongest ant in the colony: The Queen. Staggeringly large, strong, and vicious, when her subjects begin dying. She will do everything in her power to protect her colony, and that includes killing bearers, if need be. Or trying, at least.

Good luck rescuing your friends, bearers!

IN SMALL PACKAGES ( DAYS NINE - TEN )

The day after the ant-pocalypse brings with it the brush of recognition — the Effigy has foreseen the likely victors, and calls to them to approach it once they have suitably recovered. It judges them the ones whom are most devoted to what binds them, loyal to memory and remembrance, and begins to clamor for them to restore to it what belongs rightfully. Thus begins a full day of resting, locating last-minute items, shoring up defenses and preparing for the sprint to the finish line.

Certainly your rivals will not allow you to simply walk to the Effigy unassailed and unchallenged.

Eat, rest, ensure your fellows are close and bolstered, for tomorrow begins the final rally.

On the morning of the tenth day, Meridian Shardbearers approach the Effigy with its five items in hand. In the midst of the mushroom ring, the Effigy stands as it had in the beginning — arms outstretched and back bowed skyward, gnarled fingers seeking contact with that which has been lost to it. It awaits, it strains, and even as it does, it requires one last test of ability. From the shadows of the towering mushrooms, the rasp of scale and soft hiss of a great beast descends upon the fae ring.

A gleaming garden snake, with glossy black and green stripes, blocks the way between approaching Shardbearers and the Effigy.

Between its bright eyes, pressed upon its brow is a scattering of brighter scales that appear to be in the shape of a delicate, three-leafed plant with spiraling patterns for leaves. It braces itself against the approach, and there is no doubt that to claim victory, the serpent must be subdued. Though Meridian approaches with victory in hand, they have not yet attained it — their rival faction and this beast remain in their way.

MISSING LINKS ( THROUGHOUT )

As the Effigy desires to be reunited with what belongs to it, the swell of its longing stirs something more within all present Shardbearers.

With that foreign longing arrives knowledge: beyond the five items prized by the Effigy itself, there are other lost things within the greenhouse. Like a compass, each Shardbearer's mind points them in direction after direction, urging them to seek and explore. Implicitly, the thrum of comprehension fills your mind: these are things that do not belong to you, per se, but seek to have your hands ferry them home.

Amidst tangled brush, hidden under doffed acorn cap, tucked away in the belly of a fae's glittering den, lost in the depths of a puddle of spilled water that seems an insurmountable lake now, folded secretly into the petals of a towering, skyscraper-like flower, there are three additional items hidden within the tumultuous landscape that each Shardbearer feels a draw towards. Things that belong to someone else, eager to be reunited with them, but subject to whim.

Upon locating and retrieving one, the Shardbearer is filled with a sense of information — they know who this item belongs to, and they will know that they have a choice. Bonds are fragile things after all, and they exist to be enforced or abused, in order to advance a goal or to deepen a connection. How will you treat someone's precious bond? How will they treat yours?

NOTES

Here are some prompts to set the scene and foundation of the Exalt Oracle! — The theme of this Oracle is a loose edition of capture the flag, where the Effigy's items can pass through multiple hands within the ten day allotment.

— For additional ideas and fun, it is known that several Shardbearers have concluded their efforts to fulfill the Greenwood Yards' sidequest request.

— All details of the Exalt Oracle can be found here, and questions for the mods can be submitted here.

CODING

Comments

[sterngaze]

[As Hayame continues to stare at him, Liem’s mouth and the skin around his eyes tighten slightly: masked irritation, or perhaps hurt, unspoken in the face of her obvious horror and disgust. He watches a bead of dark crimson blood slide down her cheek, and knows from the feel of dampness on his skin that his own face must be wet with Amos’s blood, smearing his lips and dripping down his chin. He hadn’t had the time to be neat about it, and besides, there really wasn’t any way to avoid a little mess when biting into such a major vein.

He knows perfectly well that Hayame is no stranger to gore, but as expected, this is too much for her. Too deviant, no matter the circumstances.

Well, they have little time to waste on such concerns. When Hayame lets her actions answer his question for her, gripping the girth behind her forelegs and throwing herself into a canter, Liem takes only a brief moment to speak a word of magic, gesturing with his free hand to shape the spell. Then he too is running, his much lighter steps carrying him in her wake, catching up to her in a way that no two-legged man should be able to manage.

And they dash off through the undergrowth, leaving the bloodied body of Amos Burton behind them.]

cw: vomit

[warmare]

[Hayame has killed people. She has cut off their heads and displayed them in the marketplace of Venera. She has seen dead bodies, rotting on the side of the road. She has seen wild jinba brought into the stables with infection raging in what was left of their arms, and she has seen yearlings lashed to the flensing post to be made Armless in front of frightened stable-bred jinba who needed to learn who the masters truly were.

But there were things that could still affect her. Things that had nothing to do battle, with the violence necessary for victory and honor that she has trained herself all her life to ignore. Things like that spooky little black colt butchering humans in his hut and smiling as he offered her a freshly cut slice of human liver with blood smeared about his mouth. Things like the feel of ropes, binding, heats, burning, grooms jeering, a stallion pawing at the earth. Things like Liem swallowing hot, fresh blood gushing from a man's neck.

Hayame runs. She almost forgets how much it hurts to run, how each step jars her shoulder and sends pain lancing up her neck and down into her ribs. The path they had decided to take on their retreat is a meandering one, designed to throw off pursuit and not lead directly back to the Meridian camp. She remembers it with no problem, she leads them to land covered with moss so thick it obscures the distinct hoofprints she tends to leave behind, they forge a "river" of garden run off...

But Amos' Fear spell still follows her. The bite of the bit in the corners of her mouth, the feel of being exposed and unable to cover her shameful state with a trussed-up tail, the humiliating fear sparked by the scent of male in her nostrils, the unwelcome, dominating weight upon her body, forelegs grasping, squeezing-

Her legs falter. She stumbles over something, a rock, a root, she doesn't see it, she doesn't care-

Hayame jerkingly slows her pace in a sudden turn, her right hand slipping weakly from the clutch in the girth and hanging uselessly from her shoulder as she braces her weight on the left, panting far heavier than a woman in her peak physical condition should be over a run, sweat lathered on her dun coat and cold on her skin. She is pale, and Liem still smells like Amos' blood, and though she looks over to the man to make sure he is still there... His eyes are still red.

And Hayame has enough food left in her first stomach that it suddenly comes up, and her hand isn't enough to stop it, beginning to retch noisily against the tree trunk.]

[sterngaze]

[Perhaps it is the red eyes, burning against that backdrop of black, that finally unsettle the contents of Hayame’s first stomach. Perhaps it is that, when she looks back at Liem after their hurry through the winding trail they’d plotted for their retreat, his chin is still dark with streaks of drying blood, but the skin around his mouth has been licked clean. Perhaps the smell invading her keen nose is too much for her with the constant jarring of her injured shoulder.

Either way, Liem stops when she does, watching with a small frown as she retches against the huge trunk of a garden tree. Glancing down at himself, he is greeted by spots and stains of the blood that had trickled down onto his (admittedly already ruined) clothing as they’d made their escape. He must be a mess, but still, Hayame’s obvious disgust makes resentment prickle at the back of his throat. He welcomes it; he’d rather feel that than the hurt.]

We’re far enough, for now.

[He speaks coolly as he leans down to tuck the leaf-wrapped wing into the moss, hiding it amongst the spongy greenery. With his hands free, he scoops up some dew clinging to a lush frond and uses it to bathe his face.]

We should reseat your shoulder. How did it get dislocated?

[Amos was a strong man, but even so, he wouldn’t expect him to be able to cause Hayame such an injury. But, perhaps it had happened during their fall to earth, when she snatched him out of the air.]

[warmare]

[It's all of it. It's his red eyes, his blood-crusted face, the lack of blood on his lips, the stench... and it is Amos' spell still haunting, clinging, wormed into her mind to remind her that anyone... anyone with magic could just make her live the horrors she'd spent her whole life trying to avoid.

She does not empty the contents of her first stomach cleanly. It's a messy, wretched affair, noisy and cyclical. Each time she thinks it might be done something else sets her off- the scent of blood or the scent of her own vomit, and she's gagging again, first expelling chunks of berry, nut, and flower petal and then mouthfuls of stomach acid. When she has none of that left it's just dry, her throat burning, her entire body seizing with the effort to try and expel something else, each expulsion accompanied by a trembling hitch of her tail.

But as sick as she feels, her previous meals have moved through her mid-track and into her second stomach, and she has no physical capacity to vomit up those contents. She's left sweating and shivering from the exertion, panting heavily and pressing her forehead against the tree trunk as she struggles to think, to come up with some answer for it all. His eyes... his eyes had always been queer, that pale blue on black, it isn't the fact that they were red that was wrong, it was that they became red like he'd sucked the color of Amos' blood into his body in a way that stained the entire thing-]

Amos had... had a spell...

[And in her confusion, she simply answers him. Like she wasn't reeling, like she wasn't a minute away from shouts and accusations and the stab of betrayal sinking in-]

It made me... it reached into my mind for something...

[She can't say it. How could she say it, those humiliating, disgusting things. If it were to a friend, perhaps, but to a man who she'd just found out she did not know at all- ?]

Something sick...

[She tries to pull a makeshift flask from her sash, to get it open and drink to clear the vile taste from her mouth.]

I was helpless...

[In the vision. In reality. Helpless to stop the grooms from jeering, the stallion from mounting, Amos from taking advantage of her fear and-

Ah.

The berries from her meal had made the vomit between her front hooves red.]

[sterngaze]

[The cool dispassion with which Liem regards Hayame on the tail end of her episode ill befits the patient, conscientious man who had grown close to her over the past year. As she shivers and leans sweatily against the tree, he rises to his feet, but instead of approaching to help her with her flask, to open it for her so she needn’t struggle to do it one-handed… He simply watches.

That way, he needn’t contend with her flinching back from his aid like it comes from the hands of a demon.]

But you broke free of it. You made him fear.

[With Set’s aid, though he doesn’t know entirely how. But he had seen clearly enough how panicked Amos had been as he ambushed the man mid-struggle. He was not acting with the same military focus that he’d had when he first swooped upon them with that energy weapon of his.

Circling around, he comes to stand on her injured side, though some distance away yet, well beyond the stain left by the contents of her stomach.]

Come away from there, and I will help you regain the use of your arm.

[warmare]

[Maybe... maybe this isn't Liem after all. Hadn't she told him over the campfire not a night before this raid that she had caught a Zenite (that pathetic, perverted, irreverent brat who had wronged her, wronged Set, now wronged Liem-), stealing his form to invade their camp? When asked how she had known it was not him, when she had claimed that it looked and sounded and smelled exactly like him...

Had she not averted her halved gaze with slight embarrassment to need admit that even though it was because... because of many things, like the way Gen had pronounced her name and his posture... it was primarily because he had been cruel to her. That she had extended her hand to touch him in concern and he had rebuffed her. The fact that she had confirmed it by pretending to confirm an appointment that night for her to read with him, that "Liem" had failed the test by giving any answer except "since when did you learn to read?"... That had just been the nail in the coffin.

And now she's staring at red sick up splashed on the mossy ground between her dirty hooves and Liem is... Perhaps this was all a trick, perhaps he had been ambushed himself when retrieving the Wing and this was a spy ready to follow her to Meridian's camp and take all of the objects they had gathered for victory...]

Ah. I did.

[She did. She'd shredded that spell to pieces, she'd struck fear into his heart with her own powers, with the newly gained blessing of a war god that she could use to cloak herself in power and unfathomable menace, so why- ? Why did she still want to be sick, feeling herself choking on her own tongue, the saliva she couldn't stop ripping down her chin, the bit cutting into the soft flesh at the corners of her mouth? Why could she not erase that disgusting helplessness even though she'd come out the victor-]

He should have known it would... [That it would be... that it would be that, and-] ... He cast it anyway...

[No. She would have... but Liem, technically, had struck the last blow. Liem, his teeth sharp and blood welling up around them, his throat bobbing with swallow after swallow... But there's no time. She cannot do this here, she cannot let herself demand answers now, they must... they had to get the Oracle object to safety, she couldn't fight like this-

A sudden curse bursts out of her as her long struggle with the water flask ending in the damn thing falling unopened from her shaky, non-dominant hand and rolling slightly away. Hayame suddenly jerks a hoof to kick dirt and rotting plant matter over her vomit, burying it in case they were followed before she turns to Liem, goes to him for his assistance in resetting the right arm hanging limp and twitching from her injured shoulder.

But she isn't looking at him like an ally or a healer or a friend.

She looks at him like a monster traitor.]

[sterngaze]

[Ah— She isn’t able to open that flask after all. Liem watches it slip from her fumbling fingers and bounce away, and perhaps he feels just a little vindication about that when she turns to him with that scathing look burning in her single eye. Whatever aid he might usually offer her, he cannot imagine lending it in the face of that look, which he is more familiar with than he ever cared to be. He had offered his aid for years to the people wearing such a look, even so — but of late, he has not found within himself the charity necessary to overlook such slights.

Yet, he still says,]

You will need to kneel if I am to aid you.

[Because they must still take the faerie wing back to camp, and because there will be other trials even once they reach it. Hayame will be a poorer ally, to him and to every other Meri, without the use of her dominant arm. And she is much too tall for him to manipulate that joint properly from where he stands.

It is probably best to keep talking, he thinks. Hayame still looks unwell, regardless of that harrowed stare she aims his way. And he does not want to talk about himself.]

I did not know he had such magic. Are you surprised that he would wield it against you? I would not have assumed anything was beneath him on the battlefield.

[He knows little enough about Amos, but he still recalls snatches of their conversation on the beach, so long ago, another world away: Someone better than any of us... that's who you follow, right? ... I'm not exactly a good person, so most people are better than me.

A man like that doesn’t care about his own honour, when he’s fighting for a cause. That kind of mindset belongs to someone who would do whatever dirty work was necessary to secure victory.

He knows that intimately enough, himself.]

[warmare]

[She should do what she'd managed to do at the Zenith camp. She should shove it all done in favor of the mission. She should keep talking about Amos, not Liem, she should save that for their own territory, for a better moment. Hayame knows that. She should just kneel and find something to bite down on so that she wouldn't let out more than a grunt when he shoved her shoulder back into the socket.

But she can't answer Liem's question and honestly tell him why a part of her was surprised that man would wield that spell in particular against her, even though Liem was right in saying that surely Amos was the type who would use any and every method without shame in order to secure a victory. She can't because unlike Amos... She had honor.

And in the icy halls of the Scorching Isles... She had promised that she would not reveal the similarity in their upbringings that they'd discovered. He'd seemed to agree to the same. A mutual destruction pact. One where she kept getting betrayed, time after time, and yet she couldn't stand to let go because without him... she would be alone again, with no one else who understood that part of her. Not that way.]

You did not know...

[Not being able to answer smoothly, having to consider her reaction... makes her consider everything else. Makes her legs lock up and refuse to bring her to Liem's side, fully. Prevents her from going down on her knees to kneel and bring her shoulder into proper, leveraged reach. Stops everything.]

You did not know?

[She means to ask about Amos, but it comes out far different than she intends, even though she is very aware his words had been meant as nothing more than commentary, a distraction. How, how could she have known Liem longer than she'd known Matsukaze, and yet still-

Her one eye finally locks on to his... mouth. Her pupil contracts.]

- You reek of blood.

[And not in the way one did after battle.]

[sterngaze]

[Does he actually expect her to kneel before him, with her gaze trained on him with that fierce horror? Perhaps not. He's familiar enough with that look to know better than to expect trust from someone wearing it — but still, if someone is going to break the pretence of normalcy, he'd rather it not be him.

He is stone-faced as she throws her indictment at him, as if the words don't sting at all. If he focuses enough on his resentment (built up over decades upon decades — long before she'd ever been born), he can pretend not to feel anything else.]

At least look me in the eye if you've a mind to insult me.

[Because it clearly wasn't meant as a compliment. Yes, he smells of Zenite blood — the blood of the man who had wronged Hayame, perhaps even betrayed her, and injured her while she was vulnerable. How vile, how filthy, for him to stain his teeth instead of his blade with that blood. How degenerate of him to drink it instead of spilling it on the ground.

And she speaks of knowing? As if this was something a sane person would ever speak of to anyone.]

You know full well why I never breathed a word of this to you before.

[warmare]

[She doesn't balk to kneel because she fears to lumber down into a more vulnerable position for a jinba, who moved quickest when already on all four hooves. She does not come to a stop at a slight distance from him because she fears his teeth will sink next into her own neck. But the motivation behind her actions does not change the state of her physical reaction and how it can be interpreted. Does not change the fact that the action of drinking blood was one she cannot see as anything but disgusting. Who would not? It is blood, not wine, it seems at first thought to be no different from eating human flesh as one would devour rabbit or pheasant.

Liem had not smiled. But when she looks him in the eyes as he demands, his face still reminds her of Mikuni's blood-stained one, twisted by an almost eerily innocent and welcoming smile as he held out the human liver in his hands in offer. There is horror that is not entirely fresh in her eye.]

I do?

[Already he declares as if she should understand why he had betrayed her confidence, her trust, as if she should somehow forgive it as sensible and logical, but sense and logic have nothing to do with what she had felt when she saw him bite into Amos' neck. Washing away the relief at being "saved" (though she would contend she already had him on the back foot, she'd have finished it herself-) had been such an overwhelming shock, as if she'd been stabbed in the back when her guard was down. Because-]

You- You know everything about me, and I do not know you drink blood?

["Everything"... was an exaggeration, perhaps, but. Thanks to the way they had met in Kenos, Liem Talbott knew more of her past than maybe any single other shard-bearer in existence. He knew things she had never said to others, that she hesitated to share even with those who claimed they wished to know her, to be her friends. He'd-]

You called me your friend-

[That day in Alenroux, when they had come to an Accord. She remembers everything about that moment, because so few... so few people called her by that title. So why, then... How many times must she feel this awful twist of the knife in her hearts, all at the hands of those she has tried to take a chance on, to let close when she knows better, when she'd always known that to have such ties was nothing but a vulnerability, something that would weaken her and dull her edge. Claude, who had smiled and called her a friend for months before she found out that he'd been concealing his rank, even his name. Set, who had desperately pressed that word into her being and claimed they needed each other before he took his own life without a single word of warning, leaving her unsure if he had vanished or simply grown bored of her. And now Liem, too- ?]

You called me your friend, and you have been a banpire this entire time?

[No, that's not right, is it. His smell... she'd recognized it only recently on someone else, she just... Hadn't wanted to believe it. She'd dismissed what she sensed because it couldn't be true, because Liem... Liem would not lie to her about something so intrinsic. About being a-]

A dhampir?!

[sterngaze]

[With each word Hayame flings at him, Liem’s expression only becomes more shuttered, more stubbornly closed off. He is not ready to accept the blame for this — not when revulsion still shines so nakedly in her one remaining eye, even with Amos’s body left behind them and Liem’s face washed clean of blood. It’s him; it’s always been him, no matter how civilized he acted for the benefit of those around him who thought of his habits with disgust and fear. There had been some who were able to ignore it, but for most others — it didn’t matter what he did or said, or how properly he conducted himself. They were unable to look past the stain that they knew was there.]

Yes, how dare I. How dare I deceive you by keeping from you what was never any of your business.

[Because yes — he had not hidden his eyes or his ears or his pallor from her; he had told her that he wasn’t human, from a land where most other people were. But she had never asked him what he was, and he had never volunteered it. So it was deception, in a way, to let her know him without ever confessing the truth, and to let her think that he was just a strange-looking man, just as many of the people in Kenos and in Horos before looked strange.

But was she owed that truth? Was she owed the knowledge of what he did in the privacy of his own home, or someone else’s? Did he need to confess to her a litany of every sin he’d ever committed, so she might judge them all for herself before deciding whether she could continue to know him? Should he wear a brand on his forehead, to display his degeneracy to everyone who might cross paths with him even for a moment?

It had been bad enough that everyone who saw his face back in Taldor had known something was wrong with him. He had not wanted to volunteer for the same judgment here, too.]

How inconsiderate of me, to not reveal my inhumanity to you sooner, that you might have looked at me back then as you are now.

[warmare]

[Hayame barely knows what a vampire is. Such creatures did not exist in her own world, and the closest stories she could compare them to were all of youkai spirits or demons. She only knew the basics as she’d been told them- that they were creatures who were “undead”, that they killed humans and feasted on their blood, and that they were evil. Dhampirs, she only knows as “half vampire”, and she still hasn’t been able to wrap her head around how that works if vampires are dead, the answer given to her by Meridian’s dhampir-living-openly having been unsatisfactory in that regard.

The fact remains that Hayame had known Liem wasn’t human. That hadn’t bothered her at all. She hadn’t even bothered to ask what his kind was called, because on the surface he certainly didn’t seem to place any emphasis on it. Unlike the elf slaver, he didn’t constantly crow about his illustrious lineage and superior race, unlike the demon and the gods, he didn’t act contrary and then simply wave it away by claiming the truth of being a being beyond mortal bounds. Liem Talbott acted as human as anyone. But-]

It’s my business if the people I think I care about are eating people behind my back!

[Her voice jumps an octave and breaks at the crescendo, unable to remain frozen and half lunging with an accusatory point of finger (on her non-dominant hand, the other still hanging twitchy and limp), hooves ripping up moss beneath her in frustration and shock, all beginning to spill out in a messy, ill-timed burst.]

I do not want to hear a single word about the burden of being seen as inhuman from you, Liem Talbott! Not when you are talking to the one woman in this entire accursed group who has never been able to pretend to belong!

[… Was it pretending? Did she even want to? She doesn’t know, but she’s disgusted and scared and more importantly, her confidence has been betrayed (as far as she sees it), and the words rip out of her, long-held resentment over her own treatment leaking in. She turns from him with a whip-like crack of her tail, she makes an angry circle as if in attempt to calm down before she speaks again, but the next time she sees his face-]

Who knows? Who has known about this while I have been ignorantly standing by your side?

[sterngaze]

[The angry lash of her words draws a sharp scoff from Liem, his lips pulling back to reveal those monstrous teeth, still bearing hints here and there of Amos’s blood. This is why he had not told her. This is why he had said nothing — because he had not wished to be put on trial for the crime of simply existing, as though what he was was enough to presume his guilt.]

Do you even wish to belong?

[He snaps it, impatient.]

You could seek the company of others like you if you wished — those from other worlds and other lands. They would accept you, if you let them.

[But Springstar’s centaurs are not her people. They are not jinba. She sets herself apart from them because of her own choice — because she is not one of them. And in that very same way, Liem is not one of the many human people to inhabit Kenos, though he looks like them in many ways.

But the difference between them is that Hayame has her own heritage to be proud of, and to return to if they succeed in finding a way back home. Liem does not. Liem has only ever lived among humans, though he is not one of them — but unlike Hayame, who looks half-woman and half-mare, but is related to neither… Liem truly is half-human. He looks like them because both of his parents were human, once upon a time. His sister was human. And in a kinder world, a world in which his father had never been hunted as prey and raised into something foul, perhaps he would have been born as one too.]

I told Set — because he is beyond such concerns. The wickedness and depravity of men are well familiar to him. But, [he adds, tightly,] I should point out that he never accused me of eating people.

[warmare]

[Does she even wish to belong? With as hurt and offended as Hayame already looks, it is almost impossible to look more so… but she is. He should know how stupid it even is to act as if the other “centaurs” were her people when they weren’t, they just looked like they could be, some of them, but they had different languages, different cultures, different gods, different homeworlds-

And it didn’t even matter if they would accept her. She is a shard-bearer of this generation, and her fate is tightly bound to the others of the same. None of which were like her. Not even close. She tries to curl her hands into fists but strain crosses her features, she should have held it together long enough for him to help her with her shoulder-]

You ate his blood! Do you think one eye is not enough to see you gulp it down?

[That is that Liem wants to argue? The semantics of the word “eating”? Perhaps she should have said “drink”, technically, but the result was the same. Blood was in his stomach, blood he had intentionally swallowed. Blood like the stain around Mikuni’s mouth, on his hand when he’d held out the freshly cut piece of liver to her and said it’s fresh.

She’s going to be sick again. Does he think invoking Set like that means anything at all? That saying “he is beyond such concerns” as if it were a good thing (instead of just a thing) meant—]

Anyone can tell Set anything.

[Wickedness and depravity, he says- so he admits it? The god was bizarre in his reactions, accepting of seemingly everything, even that which caused his “friends” pain and anguish, while simultaneously deciding what seems to Hayame at random what petty little weaklings he would actually “care” for in defiance of these rules, so it truly does not impress her to know that Set knew and she did not. That Set was trusted and she was not, when at least she would have-

If he’d told her, if he’d explained it, and not-]

But I didn’t ask who you told. I asked who knows.

[She is not so incensed that the difference in the wording escapes her.]

How many, Liem?

[Was she disgusted by him, or was she jealous?]

[sterngaze]

[Yes: anyone can tell Set anything. If they are willing to accept that he might use it against them later, should they get in his way. He is a ruthless god, beyond the qualms and limitations of mortal morality, but for that very reason, he is at least a bastion against shame. For all that Set has forced his way heedlessly into Liem’s private life, seen him at his most piteous and discomposed, Liem has never for even a single moment felt that he failed to measure up in the god’s eyes.

Even though Hayame has only one eye with which to regard him, she manages the feat quite adroitly.]

I am not going to tell you.

[He says it as coolly and dispassionately as Gen might have imagined he would: all tightly-controlled poise, devoid of the warmth of companionship. He does not try to make Hayame understand because he does not want to make her understand. He does not want to coax and cajole and smooth her ruffled feathers to lead her gently to his side. She should understand on her own, and if she does not, he won’t debase himself by pleading with her to see things his way.]

Whose body touches my lips and why is not your business, just as I would not ask such a thing of you. And if there are others who know what I am for other reasons, that is not your business either.

[She truly does sound like a jealous lover, demanding answers after finding out he’s strayed from her side.]

In any case, I doubt Amos will feel the need to keep such a thing secret. Any number of Zenith’s shard-bearers will know before long.

[warmare]

Wh-

[If his goal was to unsettle her or make her even more uncomfortable than she already was... Liem was succeeding. That phrasing he chooses, whose body touches my lips, is so sexual in and of itself, and paired with the implication that comes with others knowing for other reasons... Hayame half recoils in knee-jerk disgust, her tail rising stiff and shocked.]

I am not asking about your bedroom-

[Is she? Is he saying that she is, when she just saw him bite into a man's jugular in the midst of battle and bleed him out pale and unconscious on the ground? When she saw him swallow mouthful after mouthful of blood that had to be steaming body hot, had to taste of iron- ? How can he act as if she was prying into his life to wish to know what he was capable of and then speak so dispassionately about all of Zenith knowing what she had not?

She didn't-

(Why? Why, when she had tried so hard to trust him with things she did not trust anyone else with, when she had told him things she had not told anyone else- ? Give it back. She wants him to give back every vulnerable moment, every weakness she has ever shared with him thinking that they were both doing it-)]

How long were you going to play me for a fool, Liem Talbott? Until every other shard-bearer knew and I stood at your side saved from the knowledge only as long as you don't want to touch your lips to me?

[The imagery blurs with the vision Amos had forced into her head. The scramble of forelegs on her withers, the bite of a stallion's teeth into the back of her neck, a lingering equine instinct to force a mare still before the spill, and Hayame... looks like she's going to vomit again.

Instead, she bites down on her bottom lip so fiercely that she nearly makes herself bleed, suddenly looking around them with a pinprick black iris. A tree, she needs... something hard, something solid-]

[sterngaze]

Then you should not pry into matters you don’t wish to hear about, [he snaps.

She had not been asking about whom he took to his bedroom. She had not been asking whom he had attacked and bitten like a beast. She had not asked whom he’d had to tell out of necessity, who had simply guessed, and who had found out by accident. She had not been asking about anything specific — except for information about a part of his life that she did not understand, and was only asking about now out of outrage and disgust.]

Are we not at war? Should I be hobbling myself for propriety’s sake while I wear this week-old suit [— It’s not even made to be worn outdoors like this! Ridiculous! —] and pretend we’re not all fighting tooth and nail to claw out a Meridian victory?

[Blood had healed him after Gen had sicced Set on him like a hunting hound on a rabbit. Blood had given him the strength to make it out of that damn anthill no matter how many of those insects he’d needed to get past. Blood helped him remain a proper threat despite needing to preserve his ever-dwindling supply of crossbow bolts. It is idiotic to shrink from such things now — especially so while her arm is still dislocated.]

If I’d had my way, almost every single person on that list you demanded would have remained ignorant forever.

[warmare]

I wish to hear about you!

[Hayame snarls the answer out nearly as viciously as she’d demanded that Amos stop playing with gravity and fight her like a man, snapping about with a violent twist and a click of teeth, canines just as sharp as his was, stained with berry-laced vomit that could almost look like diluted blood in certain lights.

She knew what blood tasted like. She had ripped the throat out of the demon that had taken her eyeball in Achamoth, in the dryad’s hold beneath the tree roots, lifeblood and flesh filling her mouth and wet on her tongue, but she had not swallowed, it was revenge, it was desperate, violent war-]

If you call me your friend, if you make me think that is what we are, then I expect to hear about you! I do not care about the names on your fucking “list”, I care that you have one!

[And that she… was not on it. That she found out like this instead of any other calm or quiet moment he could have told her, face to face, with all the words she might need to understand. She doesn’t know if he needs to drink it or if it is for pleasure or power, she doesn’t know if he was born this way or made, she doesn’t know if it’s painful or not, she doesn’t know anything and—- Is he seriously complaining about his dirty clothing in a time like this?]

You liar-

[By omission, yes, but that technicality feels so petty now, when the secret was so foul and so intrinsic. Hayame bites back another betrayed demand, any further insults… and finds what she’s looking for, slamming her injured side into a thick plant stalk, struggling with a whimper to get the right angle and the proper purchase with her legs to try and reduce her dislocated shoulder herself.]

[sterngaze]

[There is a part of Liem, when he hears I expect to hear about you!, that makes anger flare hot in his gut, bitter like bile. That he is not even allowed the freedom to decide which parts of himself he’d like to be known by, that Hayame would recoil from what he was only to lash out at him for not revealing it to her sooner, closes burning around his throat and tugs harsh at his limbs.

It is not her secret to know. What was to be his reward, for sharing this piece of himself with her sooner? At best, she would have done him the favour of pretending he’d never mentioned it at all. Her anger at his silence, now that she knows of it, is arrogant and unwelcome.

He starts to hiss,] Is that the price of your friendship, then—?

[But her restless hooves take her to the trunk of a sturdy plant, and as she slams her injured shoulder into it, shock jolts his train of thought unpleasantly elsewhere.]

Stop!

[He darts to her side, trying to get between her and the stalk despite the futility of such a doomed effort. Even with the strength of a large and powerful man instead of a small and lithe one, he cannot expect to manhandle a full-grown jinba anywhere she does not wish to go.]

Stop that! You’ll only make it worse.

[warmare]

[It is too much, too suddenly, and even if she were forcibly made to be still and to answer... Hayame would not be able to identify what made her angrier between instinctive disgust, the jealousy of not being among those who had apparently known, and the betrayal of what she thought friendship was supposed to be. Was it truly all about what he was, that he was some sort of half-dead being that fed on lifeblood from the vein of living, sentient creatures? Perhaps she was burning with envy and upset over the simple fact that she had told him so much of herself only to find he was telling such things to others, not her? Could it be the fact that she had mistakenly thought them closer than that, and now felt like an utter fool to find out she hadn't known something so intrinsic about him this entire time? (Would she even have been able to accept what he was, if he had told her plainly and openly, like she seems to claim he should have? She doesn't know, now she'll never have the chance to know, and-)

It was all of it, all at once, when she had already been forced to live through her worst, most humiliating fear just moments before.]

You are the one who made us friends! It was you!

[If not for him saying it, for Set saying it, for Akua saying it, for Amos saying it... She never would have had the courage or the gall to label their relationships that way. Hayame was not meant to have friends, they were weaknesses, they would never understand her, she had been a fool to even think they trusted each other in the first place-

And though he tells her to stop, that she'll make it worse, at first she doesn't listen at all. She pushes past his attempts to pull her back and slams up against the plant stalk again, shaking the entire thing with the force of the blow, her cry of pain muffled only by clenched teeth. She tries to push the dislocated shoulder joint back into place through brute force, grinding bone against bone but it just-

It just-]

I never should have believed you... I never should have believed any of you!

[Her forehead is the next thing to slam into the stalk and her sharp teeth grit, biting out words like pathetic replacements for weapons, lashing out... but for a brief moment, it seems she had stopped. Whether it was because she had actually listened to him or it was just too painful to continue without first catching her breath...

The subtle scent of salt is suddenly in the air.]

[sterngaze]

[Liem may be a wicked man, and he may be angry with Hayame, but his efforts to pry her from the side of that firm green stalk do not lessen, regardless of their obvious futility. She will tear something if she continues this, cause some rupture that neither of them are in any position to mend. He has never been in possession of magic that could heal others, not to any significant degree, and while she may have grudgingly learned the use of some spells after the failure of the previous Oracle contest, it’s clear enough that none of them could be used to fix her arm.]

Hayame, don’t do this. It’s not the time or place.

[He doesn’t know how safe they are out here. For all he knows, someone from the Zenith camp could still be tracking them down. Some over-sized creature could stumble upon them, hungry for an easy meal. This is probably the worst possible situation for them to be occupied with a fight, especially given the state of her shoulder.

Since throwing his weight against her equine shoulder is doing next to nothing, Liem reaches out to grab her hands instead, treating the limp dominant one with deliberate caution. His regard of her one remaining eye is steadfast.]

We’re not doing anything here but hurting each other. If you won’t let me relocate your arm, at least come back to camp with me so someone else can.

[warmare]

[Liem is not wrong. Hayame knows he isn't. They might have Zenites on their tails, this wasn't a particularly defensible position, but... it just came out, both her sick and her shock, her usual fine control and iron clamp on her emotions disrupted by Fear and finding out a man she has known over a year has been drinking blood behind her back the entire time. (Isn't that what that meant?) She can't stop herself easily now that she'd begun, the scent of vomit and blood is still pricking in the back of her nose, and the salt now in the air, she can't...

She can't let him see her cry. She can't cry, never mind that she already almost had before she'd shredded Amos' spell, the helplessness and the humiliation threatening to overwhelm her. Despite all she's said to him and accused him of, Liem takes her hands, gentle and careful with her injury, but the second his fingers close and it feels like holding-]

Don't touch me-

[Hayame jerks away from him as if burned, even if it hurts. She looks like she's going to be sick again, the hand she could easily move flying to her mouth to try and stop it, heaving into a gag that she swallows once, twice, three times before the reaction settles back down. Was she that disgusted with the monster that had taken the place of a friend in her eyes? (... But if it was something born of pure disgust with what he was, if it was not wanting a blood-sucking creature to lay hands on her, then surely it would come out angrier, with more snarl and bite? Instead, it is almost like begging, pleading in a shameful whimper the words she hadn't been able to get out in the vision Amos had forced into her head because the bit had filled her mouth.)

She can't let him see her pale with the potent mix of fear and instinctive disgust either. Hayame turns away from him with her whole body, still pressing her hand over her mouth so tightly that she nearly cut her own palm on a tooth. She's quaking, though it's difficult to tell if it's because she's afraid (and of what?) or trying not to lose to nausea. Blood, being bound, Liem drinking blood, forelegs scrabbling on her withers-

But it's not the time or place. It's not, it's not, she can't let Meridian fail again, she won't be able to stand it, they had to get the Wing back, she couldn't allow it to be lost again because she can't hold it together. She bites into her lip so hard that she nearly draws blood herself, focusing, locking it all back down until she can whisper harshly through her fingers.]

- Do it.

[She forces herself to be still, to let her dislocated shoulder just hang from her body, bruising and swelling already appearing on her skin as she turns her face away to try and keep hiding it.]

Just do it, then-

[As if somehow defeated, she forces herself to go down to her knees like he’d asked her to go in order to put her shoulder in better reach. She does it, but-

Her tail is held stiff and quivering. Her teeth seem like they might crack.]

[sterngaze]

[When Hayame snatches her hands away (one side more easily than the other), when she snarls at him like a cornered animal and tries not to gag again on her own fear, he almost leaves here there and then. His hands fall to his sides, his mouth twists briefly in a suggestion of swallowed displeasure, and he very nearly turns away to retrieve their stolen wing and simply go back to camp with it on his own. She can find her own way, if she is so sickened by his mere presence. The Meridian camp is still quite some distance yet, but she is not some weakling human, unable to journey with such a simple injury.

Even if people will talk if he arrives before her, leaving her to arrive injured on her own. Even if he had promised himself, after his return to Meridian, that he would be a better friend to her than he had been in the past.

But he is so angry. He has been angry since the faerie banquet, in a way he can’t remember being for years and years, before he’d stamped out those parts of himself to make himself palatable to the humans he’d tried to pretend he was one of. He doesn’t want to be the bigger person anymore. He doesn’t want to forgive. He wants to wound everyone who ever took him for granted, to deny them the things they thought they were owed, make them understand just how cruel he is capable of being, until no one ever dares to hurt him again.

And he cannot. He cannot burn down everything just to suit himself, no matter how much he wishes he could. He still has a job to do, even now.]

Try to relax, as much as you can.

[He instructs clinically as he comes to standby Hayame’s shoulder. He has to touch her with those pale, cool hands of his, but she’ll simply need to endure it. If she retches again, she’ll tense up too much.

He does not grasp her upper arm, or her shoulder or back. Instead, he wraps both hands around her leather-covered wrist, and slowly, steadily— he pulls. Keeping the arm straight beside her, lifting the angle as he goes, he continues until he’s pulling it firmly, straight out to the side, level with her shoulder.

He’s never actually done this himself before— but he’s seen it done a few times, enough to know how the procedure is meant to go. He just needs to let the bone settle back into place, which hopefully it should still be able to do, assuming Hayame hasn’t abused it too badly.]

[warmare]

[She doesn't remember until his hands touch them and his fingers curl around the golden falcon. That she's wearing the bracers he'd gifted her when she thought they were friends. How stupid she feels now, in this moment, that she had put so much thought into how to thank him, that she had flustered and shied like some sort of stupid woman when he'd said they looked handsome on her.

Hayame cannot relax.

But she tries not to fight him, to let him do whatever he thinks will fix this and return her to something closer to full fighting strength. For Meridian. For being able to return home. Her other hand stays clasped over her mouth, not just for nausea, but because she does not want him (anyone) to hear what she sounds like in pain. The whimpering is swallowed, muffled as he pulls her arm slowly upward and the bone grates on bone, wrenched muscle and tendons spasming and struggling to return to their natural positions. She growls to try and cover a whine, her flanks clenching and fetlocks curling, tensing the closer he gets to pulling her arm even, but then-

Her shoulder pops back into place with a last flare of pain that then dies into throbbing aches. Her arm twitches. She's sweating.

... What if she just stays there, on her belly on the "forest" floor near her own sick and the lingering scent of Amos' blood? For a moment... she considers it. Just giving up. If she hadn't known such an essential, intrinsic thing about Liem of all people... ? Fear and paranoia worm their way into her hearts in the wake of the wounds Amos' spell had left on them. Set and Akua had seemed to admit the worst of their crimes, but could there be more? Claude... Claude had lied about his own name, about being a king, he was still lying to almost everyone else about it... and she thought he might not be hiding anything else?

She is staring at the ground, but she isn't seeing it. If she lets herself focus, she will look at Liem and she will demand to know once more why he had hid this from her. She will try to interrogate him over just what the hell he was, how much blood he'd been drinking. She... finally drops her hand from her mouth, braces herself on a knee instead.]

Go.

[You liar, you blood-drinking liar, helping her with her shoulder now as if he could trick her into thinking he was the same Liem she had trusted an hour before.]

... I will guard the rear this time.

[They just had to make it back to camp with what they had stolen back. After that...

After that...]

[sterngaze]

[It’s for the best that Hayame muffles the sound of her pain against her hand, covers it with growls to prevent the process of reseating her arm to burn itself even more deeply into Liem’s memory. If there is any chance that he might take pleasure in the sounds of her suffering, that he might gain satisfaction from it after the way she’d spurned him — he doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to know now, and he especially won’t want to recall it later, after the Oracle trial has passed.

So when the joint clicks back into place, he does breathe a small sigh of relief, even as he holds the arm steady for just another moment to encourage the joint to remain where it is, lest it slip right back out of place again.

But, when she tells him to go… he lets the limb sink down again. He has no wish to remain at her side when he isn’t wanted. He steps away, makes his way back to the portion of moss where he’d hidden the leaf-wrapped wing, and pulls it carefully free. Their prize; the cause of all these difficulties.

And with only a brief glance back at Hayame, he trots away once again, heading in the direction of Meridian’s camp.]