I think it's more likely that VV would simply background the attempt, honestly.
Yeah, probably. But my was is much more funny. Speaking of...
feauxen, Mr. C, and the voices in my head collectively present to you:
Three Omakes in a Trenchcoat
Geass Guessing, Magentic Madness, and Capital Carnivore
Words for the word god, OMAKES FOR THE OMAKE THRONE!!!
I said shut it, Terrence, now is not the time! People are watching us. Some of whom can hear you.
Oh...sorry.
(edit recommendations are appreciated)
Geass (mis)Guessing
"So...now what?" I asked, morbidly curious just how much of what I'd just witnessed was planned and how much was panicked improvisation. My current guess was a 30%/70% split, but I've been wrong about these idiots before, and I'll probably be wrong again. And with their privacy field up they'd probably feel safe enough to share their actual thoughts on the situation, even though I hadn't shared Joy's reassurances that they didn't have to worry about more sophisticated methods of eavesdropping than intercepting
sound waves of all things. Honestly, how did amateurs like this get so powerful in the first place?
Yes, I'm beginning to think that there's both much more and much less to these fools than meets the eye, Joy agreed. So at least she was still on my side. That was reassuring, after the madness I'd just witnessed.
"We...foil a bunch of assassination attempts while you very, very slowly go through official channels to acquire proper courtly attire," Sunflower said, somehow managing to make the statement sound like a question.
Shades help us, these idiots really
didn't have a plan, did they? I mentally revised my estimate to 10%/90%, with the sneaking suspicion that I was still being a little too generous. Despite the impressive dissembling they'd done, after all, it had still been me doing most of the real talking, and that was saying something about how horrible at politics they had to be.
"And then what, you just waltz up into the throne room and act
surprised when they blow it to hell and back to get rid of all their problems in one fell swoop?" I asked with what could generously be called sarcasm.
The increasingly familiar shocked looks this rather obvious result of their plans proved that my optimism about their capabilities was, as seemed to be the norm ever since they'd stopped working against me,
completely unfounded.
"Honestly, what has Majestic Magentism even been
teaching you in your spare time? Underwater basket weaving?"
Crimson twitched. "Mostly how to fight people like you and not die, actually," she said. "She won't even get into deeper magical theory because all our combat skills are 'wholly inadequate and completely unsatisfactory,' the damn slave driver."
I huffed out a laugh, mostly by accident. Nothing was funny about that statement. "Well she was right about one thing, at least. If it weren't for how maddeningly often you all get freakishly lucky I'd probably have killed all of you dozens of times over."
Crimson twitched again, but this time it was to rejoin her sisters of battle in staring at be with an expression of pure, mind-blown shock.
"What, did you think that you'd failed to kill me because you were
just that good or some such rot? Don't make me laugh. I'm starting to suspect that I've been enjoying the same kind of good fortune that keeps saving your sorry hides time and again, but that all that did is level the playing field and let me hold you off when I was constantly outnumbered long enough for backup to arrive. If I'd been as incompetent as my predecessors, I'm sure I would have been sucking rainbows and hugging trees just like you lot by now."
Fully half of the former Rainbows twitched at that declaration, and I was growing progressively less sure what to make of all this shock and disbelief pointed my way. Was there something about me that just screamed, 'I don't know what I'm talking about' or something? No, if that was the case and they could spot such a thing then they'd never have fallen in line with Magentism in the first place.
"You...really were...trying to kill us? All this time?" Crimson asked with unusual hesitation, even for her. She'd never seemed quite capable of getting through a coherent sentence in the past, but this was almost as bad as
Azure.
You did just declare that you formerly intended to violently murder them, you know, Joy pointed out.
Most people would be alarmed by that.
I'm aware. But still, she's never been timid
before, just scatterbrained and...odd. I'm starting to worry that something about this whole scheme, or maybe even one of the nobles, is effecting her somehow, and not in a good way.
I'll take a closer look then, I suppose, as long as nothing interrupts me again.
I think we can safely say, at this point, that there are no more
hidden spiritual entities of unknown origin, I mused hopefully. Honestly, I was finding just about anything possible to believe right now, but that possibility remained remote.
"...obviously?" I replied, somewhat belatedly. "Attempting anything less would literally have been treason, and the court have ordered the deaths of at least as many 'incompetent' predecessors of mine as you've 'purified.' I might have been trying to stop you more because I didn't want to see you succeed than because I actually wanted you all dead, but you were also spouting lots of hateful rhetoric about how the vast majority of everyone I've ever met is an evil unthinking monster who needs to be brainwashed into thinking that
sunlight is good for them. What did you expect me to do, just sit there and take it?"
Crimson burbled something that might, in another life, have attempted to be a coherent attempt at communication. Fortunately for the eternally awkward
Rainbow Prism Princess-escort-or-whatever-they're-calling-themselves, Thyme spoke up in her place. "Well, I guess it's at least reassuring that you weren't holding back?"
Crimson let out something that sounded too similar to a choked sob for me to continue avoiding thinking about it.
"Okay, seriously, what is wrong with her?" I asked, and suddenly instead of ranging from shocked to vaguely baffled, the prismatic partners in crime all looked
sheepish.
This is one of those social things that I'm just supposed to get,
isn't it?
That seems like a reasonable assumption, yes. I certainly can't find anything wrong with her that couldn't be explained by excessive overuse of scrying magic. Well, that or whatever the seer's version of indigestion is, but I suspect we've just found out how the Rainbows always seemed to keep such impressively accurate tabs on our troops' movements.
Really? Well, at least she wasn't doing it anymore. Or...wouldn't be using it against us, at least. Presumably if it was still giving her problems she was still actively using whatever tracking spell she'd managed to tag us with-
Oh fuckdamnit, it was her
arrows. That made so much sense I was instantly angry at myself for not spotting it sooner. Though I suppose it had only ever really been a vague suspicion of tracking magic before, she must have spent quite a lot of effort balancing things between telling her friends where I was and not letting me or any of my soldiers catch on to the whole thing. As usual, an utterly unfathomable mix of competence and incompetence, because despite all that they'd
still never managed to pin me down.
"She's...uh...distracted," Sunflower said, neatly confirming our nascent theory before we even had to find a way to seek out proof. How nice of her.
"Yeah, sure. Just don't peep on me in the shower and we won't have any problems."
Crimson's face suddenly mimicking her namesake was
not reassuring at all, but I was going to ignore that can of worms until and unless I recieved proof that she wasn't just some wallflower who blushed ever time sex was mentioned.
Don't worry, I wouldn't ever let anyone peep on you, Joy said, and despite everything it really did help.
If she wants to view my own majesty, however, then more power to her. You can't be the only one to appreciate my awesome might forever, after all.
And just like that, the good feelings were gone.
Moondamnit, Joy!
"Yeeeeaaaaaahhh..." Topaz said, clearly about as enthusiastic about this digression as I was. "How about instead we talk about that whole exploding throne room thing. I assume you have some kind of plan for that?"
I rolled my eyes. "Of course I do. I wouldn't have entertained this little coup idea of yours if I didn't think it had a better chance of success than just continuing our painful grinding retreat until I was inevitably executed for failing to please the Court."
Aquamarine sighed. "Were you always this much of a downer, or is it just some kind of ingrained habit from years of oppression?"
Well, actually-
"Both," I said flatly, ignoring Joy's mild irritation at her disrupted attempt to bring up anecdotes from my childhood
again. "Life in the Umbral Empire isn't kind to orphans. Or citizens in general who aren't nobility. That's something you're probably going to want to look into, if we actually managed to take and hold the throne for any significant length of time."
"If?" Crimson whispered, but not quietly enough that she wasn't perfectly audible in the relatively small and quiet room.
"Yes,
if we aren't all just horribly killed by some heretofore unforeseen weapon that the nobles always pull out for situations exactly such as this one. I
did mention just how many of the people in Azure's position ended up dead, and just how long that usually takes, didn't I? Even with us all working together it's just the best of a lot of really, truly, absolutely terrible options. Either we keep fighting and I eventually either get killed for 'failing' or have to go on the run and somehow survive two different armies both wanting me dead, I somehow manage to turn your little parley attempt into a bloodbath and actually land a fatal blow on one of you which keeps the Court from ordering my death for having ideas above my station for at least another month, or I do something I've really wanted to do for quite a long time and try out this whole rebellion thing you all have been doing so poorly. But with someone
other than me taking all the worst risks, lots of powerful and reasonably competent backup, and the apparently novel idea of bringing along at least one poor fool who actually understands the first thing about how the Court is run." I pause for breath, wondering if I'd left anything out, but decide that summary was good enough. "After giving it some thought, the choice was obvious, even if I was under the apparently mistaken impression that you lot had an actual
plan beyond the half-baked idea to run off into the capital and just
hope that nothing went wrong despite the fact that you are now surrounded on all sides by enemies who want you dead or worse."
Crimson whimpered, her face flushing once more despite the fact that our conversation had returned to safe, non-provocative waters. That probably wasn't a good sign, though Azure honestly wasn't much better and hadn't been ever since the lot of them had gotten sidetracked by the fact that apparently their enemies were genuinely trying to kill them. Much as I still thought that she had no place on a battlefield or
especially on a throne, I was beginning to really pity that girl. I just hoped she would get over whatever vulnerability to peer pressure she had that caused her to go along with this mad scheme before long, because at this rate she'd barely even make a half-decent figurehead.
"Right..." Thyme said, "so what actually is your plan, then? Because it doesn't sound like you thought this was nearly as hopeless an endeavor as you've been making this out to be, not if you put that much thought into it and still decided to...well, to defect. Or whatever it is you're doing. Does it still count as defection if you're following all the laws of the Empire?"
"Technically," I said, "precedent would suggest that yes, it does. But only if the candidate I'm supporting fails in their bid for the throne. As for my plan? Well, let's just say I have an ace or two up my sleeve. The infuriating good fortune that all of you seem to enjoy every time you're in danger will keep the worst of the assassination attempts at bay, Azure can either make a show of force by accepting the inevitable challenges to horrendously fixed duels and winning despite the increasingly blatant cheating that will no doubt occur or just defer the responsibility of actually fighting to myself or one of you because 'fighting such a bore is beneath her' and by the time the Court has figured out what to do about us at least half of them will be pushing up roses. The other half won't fall in line, exactly, and there's still the Empress herself to worry about because there's no way she's going down without a fight, but proving your strength
and willingness to play the endless backstabby games of the court both at the same time is, to my knowledge, not something that any past avatar has tried yet. So in the end, it might not even matter that you're not a real Avatar; do everything right and the nobles might just support you regardless of all your real or perceived failings. They've certainly elevated much worse wastes of space, so there's even precedent." None of those had been elevated to the position of Crown Prince or Princess, admittedly, to say nothing of the laughable idea that they would have made
Empress with a temperament like Azure's or planning skills like apparently all of them suffered from, but still. Failing upward was practically an unspoken tradition at this point. It's what had gotten me where I was, after all.
You didn't fail. You proved your worth so many times that the ungrateful nobles couldn't help but acknowledge you.
And yet, I was still hopeless at anything remotely tactical and only properly excelled in a fight. In a fair world I would have been Gray's ace, not the other way around.
Crimson choked on thin air, which would have been notable enough to investigate thoroughly given all the oddities piling up around her lately had two much more attention-grabbing things not demanded my immediate attention. First, someone knocked politely on the door. I only noticed because I'd snaked a tendril of shadow to keep a metaphorical eye on the outside world when
the Rainbows Prism put up their little isolation barrier, but I still wasn't expecting company so it probably heralded nothing good.
Also, and probably much more significantly, something or more likely some
one impacted the city's wards with enough force that I could feel the umbra shuddering nearly a mile from the outer barriers.
Great, Majestic Magentism is back. I'm sure that
won't cause any problems at all, I thought to myself with no small hint of irony, because just by showing up she had no doubt already caused a pretty major problem. I'd need to leave these girls here to go confront her if I wanted any hope of getting a straight answer out of her on why in Nacht's sake she hadn't tried something like this earlier when I
knew she'd been pardoned for her crimes by past Emperors and Empresses, but I also couldn't leave these six girls alone in the capital without something inevitably exploding.
...hmm. Maybe that second option was the less bad of the two options, actually. At this point in the process, functionally all of the captiol was enemy territory, so breaking a few things wouldn't cause any problems that wouldn't just come up as an inevitable part of our (hopefully) successful coup d'état later on down the line. Still, why was it always a dilemma with these girls. Fight them and prevent atrocities or don't fight them and side with the morally worse of two warring factions. Side with them and possibly get killed for daring to even try or don't help them and
don't reform the absolutely terrible place where you live. Leave them to cause trouble or take them with me and
end up in trouble.
"Right," I said, absolutely 100% expecting them to ignore my sensible advice but deciding to say it anyway just for the hell of it, "stay here and don't leave this room. Someone's attacking the city wards and while it's probably your erstwhile mentor, I don't want to take the risk that it's an attempt to distract us or otherwise draw us into an unfavorable position. I'm the best at blending in, so I'll go investigate while you sit here and try to think up a better plan than 'don't die, acquire clothes, something something, the throne is ours.' Okay? Okay."
And without bothering to see if they'd listened to me, I strode out the door without wasting time or breath on anything else.
Was that a financial officer who'd been knocking? I didn't have time for that, so I ignored his faux-delighted greeting and imprecations as I imbued my body with umbra and dashed off down the corridor. I had a fathomably ancient probable foreign agent to interrogate, and for once she probably didn't have even the slightest bit of backup. There was no way in hell I was going to let this opportunity pass me by.
---
Magentic Madness
Two days. She had been gone. FOR TWO FUCKING DAYS! How her erstwhile allies had managed to go rogue in that time, Magenta didn't know, but she was going to get them back on-side with the power of love and
exceptionally forceful justice or so help her all the gods and goddesses would feel her
rage. It had been a while since she'd had proper cause to let loose instead of playing the long game like any proper guerilla resistance must and right now she was only a few measly inches from crossing that line in a way that
everyone would regret. That uppity little umbral captain most of all.
Oh, speak of the devil and she shall appear, there she was. And she looked...as serious as ever, how boring. At least her predecessors had the charisma necessary to properly gloat, this one was all duty and vigilance and dull as a post. Which, in a kingdom full of stuck-in-the-mud shadowy architecture that had gone out of style when her grandmother was a wee young lass, was
really saying something.
"MAGENTIC {FORCE!"} The ancient magical girl cried, and with a great heaving
yank of aether the advancing dark magical girl was suddenly flying toward her outstretched mace, right past all the pesky little wards she'd no doubt been planning to hide behind. The look of shock on her face was
priceless.
Much less priceless, unfortunately, was the practiced way in which she twisted herself midair, landed with one foot on the spiked head of the mace
(damn those combat boots of hers) and swung her rapier right across Magenta's eyeline. Magenta dodged, of course. The blow barely had the reach to hit her, so she only had to tilt her head. But the way the damnable woman managed to make the move look almost practiced nearly made her blood boil. Why couldn't
her girls fight like that? They'd have sacked the capital by now if they would just focus on their
studies instead of asking so many inane questions about every topic under the sun. The crimson one was even trying to learn magical theory. Without first having the faintest idea how aether even functioned. How she expected to find success like that, Magenta couldn't say, but it drove her positively insane how painfully carefree the children could be sometimes.
A pulse of umbra shattered her magentic force and the infuriating captain flipped dramatically off the head of her mace before alighting on the side of the massive dome that was the war-wards of the capital, sticking there like the
stupid little insect she was-
"PEACE, you damnable fool, I came here to talk,
for once."
Magenta tripped over her own feet as she went to leap after the Umbral Captain. She's come to what? After capturing her girls under false pretenses?
"Talk to the mace, abomination," Magenta commanded, throwing said implement of violence at her enemy and using her power to guide it toward its target.
The mace exploded, the fragments flying out into the air before being absorbed into the ether in an unprecedented flex of aetheric understanding that the mere captain before her should absolutely not have been capable of. No wonder she'd managed to enchant her girls so easily, she was probably a noble in disguise or something. The Empire must really be desperate, if they were sending someone like that to quell the rebellion.
"I SAID STOP FUCKING FIGHTING ME, YOU ANCIENT TRAITOR FROM BEYOND THE STARS!!!"
...what had she just called her? Also, what was that she was doing with her voice?
"Now, since I clearly have your attention, I thought I'd inform you that your girls went willingly and haven't been harmed." Hah. As if. "And your precious Azure has decided to claim that she's an avatar of a goddess called Days Dawn at Midnight even though any such entity is most certainly not strong enough to back up such claims. All I've actually done to them so far is help them get past the honeyed lies of the court lackeys while we found lodging. So...congratulations, I guess, your rebellion is officially entering its final stages. Now tell me, who is backing you and what are their motives."
WHAT?!
"Oh don't give me that look, it was their idea. I was actually against it, until I realized that if the court is so incompetent that it actually works then they deserve every ounce of what's coming to them. Seven shaded months I've slaved away protecting their sorry asses and I've yet to see a single cent of it At this point I think they're just hoping I die at your hands and whatever jackrabbit personally manages my funds can make off with the gold."
"You are telling me that Accepting Azure, the least confrontational of my girls, agreed to play the part of avatar because she has a guardian spirit?" Disbelief positively dripped from Magenta's voice. The girl wasn't quite scared of her own shadow, but she would still never have agreed to such a thing. She was so shy that it was physically painful to watch in action, sometimes even around her fellow rainbows.
"Well it didn't seem much like it was her idea. Up until that spirit showed itself personally, she was practically a nervous wreck. Tried to hide it under an illusion, even, but I've seen enough out of her to never trust my eyes, so it lasted about as long as it took for me to remember who I was dealing with."
That...was remarkably plausible, actually. Oh dear, had her girls actually- "-but why?" Magenta demanded. If the world didn't start making sense forthwith then so help her goddesses, (Deli was such a darling) she was going to summon a dragon to wreck the place and she didn't care who got hurt. Even the Shaded Legions couldn't leash one fast enough to save the capital if she summoned it right on their doorstep.
"Honestly? We got to talking and realized that we're not so different. They hate the Court, I hate the Court. They wish the country was run differently and orphans never had to starve because sunlight is good for crops and bad for basically everything else, I was a starving orphan until I managed to fight my way past several nobles not worth their own weight in dirt to make it into the army. They have the force of arms and stupidly lucky good fortune to survive the snake pit that is the capital, I have the past experience with the politics of this Empire to actually get them past the door without immediatley getting killed by everything with eyes and ears. I suppose that last point is actually a significant difference between the bunch of us, but honestly it's the only one that's mattered so far so I'm willing to wait and see where this goes."
"You. Were a starving orphan."
"Umbra can substitute for a lot, if you know how to use it right. And don't put so much in your brain that it rots the place out, your girls might actually be right about that. But my brain was the one tool that never failed me, so I didn't see much need to upgrade that."
Magenta's thoughts crashed to a sudden, abrupt halt. "You upgraded yourself with umbra? And didn't turn into a monster like all of your ancestors?"
"My ancestors were clearly human, as evidenced by my lack of any useful inhuman traits to speak of so...no. I did not 'turn into a monster' like all of the poor misunderstood curse victims you're so eager to destroy the lives and livelihoods of."
"That...you...WHAT?!" Magenta is pretty sure she let out a little unformed aether with that last word, but she's honestly past caring.
"Has it really not occurred to you in the past
five hundred years that most folks who aren't human are happy that way? You're honestly going to tell me that you've never met a gargoyle bodyguard who enjoys breaking skulls and doesn't want to stop, a nimble pixie who would literally die if they turned human inside their own home, or a bearkin who enjoys the lack of clothing requirements their heritage comes with?"
Well...no to the first and third, but Magenta does feel a little silly for not thinking of that second one before now. She'd started campaigning for the mass-reversion of all changed individuals sometime in her second century and never seen a reason to stop when it kept attracting the disaffected and disenfranchised like flies to honey, but
that logistical nightmare was one that would probably haunt her nightmares for weeks before she found an adequate fix.
"Wow, I thought it was just the young ones with poor planning skills. No wonder your rebellion's failed to accomplish anything meaningful in the last several hundred years and only gained any actual ground once you had the force of actually dangerous numbers to work with."
"You take that back!"
"Make me."
"You-"
"Abomination? Evil underling? Filthy peasant? Try again, Majestic. I've heard worse insults, and they came from much better people than the perpetually failed revolutionary."
"You cannot
possibly-" be a peasant, she wanted to say, but the infuriating noble-in-disguise interrupted her again.
"-there is a
reason why no one with any sense joins your merry band of do-gooders, and it's because you can barely even keep yourself alive, nevermind merry mook number 10,372. How do you expect to gather an army with that kind of a reputation, magic?"
Well...it had worked, hadn't it? After, you know, several centuries...
Oh no, the Umbral Captain (didn't this one's darkname start with a W? Something about a wretched warcaster that was painfully ironic because she didn't use obvious spells but was still horribly dangerous? No, that didn't sound quite right) might
actually have a point. That was unacceptable, and dangerous. They'd never bothered to send someone with actual common sense after her before, not even when they'd attempted the classic "pardon in one hand, hidden dagger in the other" gambit that had worked a grand total of
once. Stupid little idiot hadn't even bothered to enchant it, she'd gotten her revenge before the week was over.
"Shades save me from optimistic idiots without any common sense," the captain muttered, unintentionally funhouse-mirroring Magenta's own thoughts as she casually slid down the incredibly highly-charged mass of umbra that was the ward dome before gracefully landing in a crouch, presenting a small targeting profile as usual-aaaand she stood up to do nothing more than glare. What was with today? "Right, just tell me who you work for and I'll invite you through the wards like I invited all your little rays of Sunshine. At this point I kind of don't care, even if they're as bad as I've been assuming they can't possibly be worse than the idiots who already run the place."
"You...don't know about the compact of neutral nations? The outside world?" No one as competent as her could possibly be that ignorant. Right?
"What, you mean the rumors about some greater paradise that kicked us all out for being too wretched and evil? You mean that's not just propaganda?"
She...actually was that ignorant. Just where had the Empire found this girl?
Oh right. In an orphanage. The place where the unwanted went to die of starvation. Wait, was she actually a goddess's avatar and that was why she'd gone along with the hairbrained plan that the Rainbows had come up with in her absence?
...no, there was no way an Avatar of any self-respecting goddess would have gone this long without flaunting her power. Even Helga could never resist a few cheeky little flexes, and she was literally a Queen who should know better.
---
Capital Carnivore
or: What happens if they didn't stop fighting?
<<"Hidden arts, seventh edition, chapter one, page seven," Magenta incanted, frantically dodging between the freakishly accurate (as usual) swings of the latest Umbral Captain to think she could ge
t away with pissing off the
ancient magical girl.
[Fetch me a {GREATER DRAGON!}]">>
"Oh, shit," her opponent said in an unusually umbra-laden voice, but it was too late for regrets. The twisting eternities had already torn reality asunder, and a massive paw casually swiped the evil bitch right out of the air. Hah, try that on for size, Umbral Captain.
"Joy," a pained voice said from the crater the stubborn fool had made, "you have my permission to eat my enemies now."
With a great sucking roar, air suddenly rushed to fill in the gaps where there had previously been a dragon, a rift in the fabric of reality, and most of a capital city.
As Magenta watching on in numb shock at the idea of her enemy accomplishing in one fell swoop the task which had plagued her for centuries, she heard the (much louder now) voice of said enemy cry out.
"Goddamnit Joy, not again!"
Dear sweet mercies, she had done this before? How were they all still alive? Magestic Magentism looked upon her previously-recalcitrant enemy with newfound respect.
"What have you done?" she asked, utterly aghast at the sheer scale of what had just happened. How many civilians in the capital alone...?
"What you never could. I've devoured the Court, their lackeys, their lackey's lackeys (and so on) and everyone else in the capital who was more willing than not to casually go along with their atrocities. I estimate that within the year you'll have it all nice and reformed into an actually functioning society, as long as you ignore all that rhetoric you're so fond of spouting about how half the citizens aren't even people." "Wait, Joy, you actually left survivors? How the hell did you manage that?" "Extreme prejudice gives way surprisingly easy to extreme discretion, I've just learned." "...huh."
Oh motherfucking shitballs, she'd been fighting against an avatar for all this time? No wonder she was so hard to put down. Magenta was just gonna...just gonna sit down. Right here. In the comfy stretch of dirt that used to be an enchanted cobblestone road. And...think about things.
What was with this week?
(Show's over folks, it's all replies to the thread from here on out. You can go home now, unless you're that into reading every single word I write. Weirdoes.)
It was an old argument between us, but one that had long since exhausted all possibility of venom. Joy hadn't started with any inherent respect for mortal lives, and initially only cared about me; she'd refrained from risking massive collateral damage and loss of life because I'd asked her not to. In the years that we'd grown up together, seeing other mortals suffer alongside me did help her — or perhaps both of us — develop a sense of empathy, although she was still quick to condemn those who displeased her.
Something I noticed getting distracted from researching the character profiles for the above omakes: Joyful Devourer of Dark Destinies is apparently only as old as Eskarne, aka Versatile Violence. This is literally a baby goddess we have on our hands. No wonder all the previous avatars died, if that's their backup. They weren't weak gods/goddesses, they were just too immature to recognize courtly intrigue and play the game anything approaching correctly, so eventually they slipped up, someone found the chink in their metaphorical/metaphysical armor, and boom, no more uppity little (possibly
literal) kid sitting on the throne.
Also, I've just realized that Versatile Violence was ordered back to the capital before all this started. Genuinely ordered back, by an agent who probably told the capital to expect her. And she's going back all right, after being tacitly (and then blatantly) accused of treason.
And she's bringing her enemies with her.
This is going to be a sight to see.
'Nostalgia is making you misremember,' Joy deadpanned. 'Full healing of all but the most blatant injuries was standard for the noble kiddies, and the stupid lizard had been threatening to maim you for months.'
Another thing that's occurred to me; this is probably evidence of brainwashing that slipped past V.V. and Joy both, but missed Joy because she wasn't the target. So...that would explain a lot about how probably a good number of past avatars have died. The offer for the throne is a honeytrap to lure them out, they all fell for it, and then subtle mind magics were used to weaken them before the final blow was delivered in whatever fashion best suited the situation. It'd be more difficult to manage if the Avatar had some kind of mind magic of their own...but such an avatar would probably be
exceptionally vulnerable to sudden physical attacks, especially while they're still newly ascended to the throne and actively working to figure out the limits of their power.
Ah, right. The cheating little sh–
Though this theory
does require that the mind magic isn't just subtle, it's apparently designed to be subtle even after it breaks. Which, honestly, in an evil empire that's managed to survive its incompetence for implied centuries and possibly a lot longer, is probably par for the course. There's not a lot of other ways to squash the constant rebellions with the quality of life that magic offers, after all. Even constant forced hard labor (because of those food shortages the Rainbows mentioned) can't keep a peasant rebellion down
forever, after all, not with a figurehead like Magenta to rally around.
Though, given how long she's been trying and how competent her newly-summoned help is, it's quite possible that by the time she got her "unstoppable" reputation she was also a laughingstock that no self-respecting peasant would trust. So, there's that.
"In conclusion," Jenkins said, drawing me from aggravated reminiscence, "it's patently absurd to attempt to claim that the Captain is secretly some eighth member of the Rainbow Rebels. She did not pick her name, and her birth name isn't related to any color whatsoever, let alone some shade of purple."
"Unrelated" fun fact that I looked up on a whim: Eskarne as a name means
mercy. So uh...yeah. Versatile Violet's birth name was literally espousing her future merciful nature, and then she grew up to be the only thing keeping the Capital on the map in multiple ways all at the same time. That's
definitely just a coincidence. /s
Also, the site I looked it up on has color banners that change hue depending on which name you look up. Violet is dark purple, Azure is blue, Mercy is green for some reason...and
Eskarne is light purple. Make of that what you will, I'm not sure it actually means anything unless Alivaril used the same site to look for cool but obscure names.
I'm officially reading too much into things at this point, but is that a fucking
Fragmentation reference? Pyramid Scheme Upgrade, is that you?
...it's probably just garden-variety ascii art, isn't it? Not like Alivaril's untalented in that arena, not after all the work they did on said Upgrade.
Because one way to shore up a weak-ish claim to the position might be to claim the mantle of 'avatar'; after all, who might gainsay that?
Well, the court, for one. But before the assassinations start I suppose it's something that has to be taken on (HAH!) faith. As evidenced by a known illusion mage pulling this trick out of her hat and getting away with it because she 'came out' to an ambitious rebel instead of a backstabbing loyalist.
(Seriously, if VV had wanted her dead or even just been remotely loyal to the Empire, Azure would be SO dead right now.
Most commonly this took the form of becoming said fisherman's wife in the myths.
Well...that explains a lot of those mermaid myths, doesn't it. Sure, what must have
actually happened to inspire selkie myths is that one flirty (or just cagey) sailor didn't want to tell mom and pop where the girl came from, so his crew agreed to spin an old wive's tale and stick to it so religiously that no one could doubt them. Or at least, no one could prove it. But still, modern scientists going, "hmm, they must have been so horny that even a manatee looked sexy" is now 1000% more hilarious, in retrospect.
