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[Exalted] The Last Daughter -- Dragon-Blooded Sorcery School Quest

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Calico J said:
Also, at this rate, it's kind of looking like we're going to have to make an example out of someone. Ambraea was quite right in pointing out political pull can't block a sword. We may need to lean on that reality a little.
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possibly. there do seem to be enough people stupid enough to look at Ambraea, the central pillar of a growing hearth of three soon to be five sorceresses, and delude themselves that your average great house isn't going to value her and her Hearthmates regard and willingness to lend them a hand more than a single uppity Cynis.
 
though the biggest problem is how much this indicates Ambraea's self worth and lifestyle are tied up in her connection to her mother and the struggle ahead of her to adapt to a realm without an empress.
 
Gazetteer said:
There are a few scattered groans from the students. One fifth year boy, Cynis Mana, pointedly, gives a long, dutiful laugh from where he's sitting a safe distance away on a fallen log. The movement sends up trailing embers from skin that seems to faintly glow from a fire within his body. It's a little desperate, you think, but Cara is uncommonly beautiful, delicate for an Earth Aspect, with the kind of figure that draws the eye, even concealed as it is beneath the Heptagram's unisex school uniform...

...Cara looks back to you, her smile showing an uncouth amount of teeth. "My lady Ambraea, you are very imperious for a woman who doesn't have so much as a house name." You don't know why you thought she was pretty, before — the asymmetry of her Aspect Markings just serve to make her features look crooked, and her hair is a very drab shade of brown.
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I laughed and woke up my cat.

I'm loving the dawning realization for Ambraea that her mom's authority is what she's mostly been relying on this entire time.

[X] The uncertainty of the future you've worked toward all your life

[X] Your inability to protect or preserve anything without social standing

Both of these seem like things Ambraea would be fretting about the most, either sweating about the unknown future or about how to control her future in a way she's never had to before.
 
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Looks like I'm the outlier here, but...

[X] The uncertainty of the future you've worked toward all your life

Ambraea has always treated eventually getting her own Great House as kind of a given - she was directly called on it by one of her teachers - and imo she's always held herself as though she already has that authority. The road in front of her has gotten a LOT murkier very suddenly.
 
Uuuuuuugggggh I am sooo pissed off with myself now this was posted literally minutes after I went to bed! Oh well I get to enjoy it now

Gazetteer said:
"Well, this doesn't seem very friendly at all!"

Heads turn to look at L'nessa, seeming almost to drift her way into the midst of the scene. She looks at Cara, raising her eyebrows. "I'm so sorry, I have only arrived a short time ago, I must be misunderstanding — surely, you're not trying to pick a fight with Ambraea, of all people, over something as silly as her asking you to move a quarter mile away."

"She didn't ask," Cara says, tearing her eyes away from your sword to regard L'nessa, "she commanded."

"Oh, dear," L'nessa says. "That does change things. However, I wonder if you've quite thought this through — you do recall that Ambraea fought and killed a Solar Anathema over the summer, yes? That she is even now holding the daiklave she used to do so? If you are attempting to bait her into doing something regrettable, you're doing an impressive job at it, but I think we both know that if she wanted to, she would snap you like a twig. My dear, 'pretty and empty-headed' is an attractive trait in a pleasure slave, not a Dynastic lady attempting to train as a sorcerer."

This draws shocked laughter from several of the crowd. With a strange sort of sinking feeling, you can see students taking heed of L'nessa's presence in a way that they simply hadn't for yours.

Cara stares daggers at L'nessa, face noticeably paling with outrage. "You..."

"... will apologise?" L'nessa asks. "Well, ordinarily yes, but that doesn't seem to be the custom with this little gathering. Perhaps you would like to be a little more sensible, toward my poor, abused aunt?"
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View: https://media1.giphy.com/media/JCAZQKoMefkoX6TyTb/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952sohn876rl0oy6zyfy63zzac0rksi1nn2lykphsbf&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g

Randino Treviani said:
Or this. social standing is very important in the Realm, it's true, but Ambraea's social status is not what kept her alive against Yoxien or Beacon, not entirely, and she isn't helpless. sure, fighting back will have more consequences, but neither do the typical protections of social status mean as much.
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Actually, this is *why* I buy it. To me the vote is less about "which of these is the worst harsh reality" and more about what is the hardest part for her to cope with. Ambraea has always had a clear picture of herself and what she wants to accomplish, so uncertainty is uncharacteristic even under such a heavy disadvantage. She's also (thanks in part to our voting tendencies) no stranger to keeping promises to her loved ones she probably shouldn't, even at (especially at) a cost to herself. And any rough spots and stuck cogs she encountered along the way she lubed by... throwing her weight around, whether her personal puissance or her inherent hierarchical standing.

But the social scene has always been her soft underbelly, the environ she feels more uncomfortable about, which gels the worst with her tendencies and personality, as we just saw (Even if not in the same extent and way as Amiti). Finding out she is kept from fulfilling or even acting on the prospects she staked her very identity and personal bonds on unless she makes the correct connections, says the right things to the right people and is aware of all the potential factors on each decision? And that what she achieves may be taken away if the social horse she's betting on ends up losing the race? That's gonna grate.

[X] Your inability to protect or preserve anything without social standing
 
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[ ] Your inability to protect or preserve anything without social standing

[x] Promises that you've made to those closest to you that you may no longer be able to keep

I see these as very closely related, but the former as more of a subset of the latter.
 
[ ] Your inability to protect or preserve anything without social standing

Less sure about the promises if only because I'm both unfamiliar with the setting and not paying enough attention to this story to be sure what those promises are…
But yeah this feels more pressing, I think? Our social flipped from 'backed by the Empress as her Daughter' to 'Earth Caste too big for her own boots'.
 
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