[X] Sesus Yoneera
[X] Plan Interesting
[X] Plan Interesting
Beneath a Hundred Ringing Bells [Exalted Shonen Quest]
- Thread starter Kymme
- Start date
- Fantasy
- Location
- St. Petersburg
[x] Sesus Yoneera
[x] Plan Fast and Furious
-[x] A jaunty Tepet with a lute and a ferocious temper.
-[x] A flowery Cynis with hook swords and a heart of gold.
-[x] Literally Mnemon Tehou, furious that you ran off.
It would make sense for our rival to be right on our heels.
[x] Plan Fast and Furious
-[x] A jaunty Tepet with a lute and a ferocious temper.
-[x] A flowery Cynis with hook swords and a heart of gold.
-[x] Literally Mnemon Tehou, furious that you ran off.
It would make sense for our rival to be right on our heels.
- Location
- France
[X] Sesus Yoneera
- Location
- Portugal
[x]Seus Yoneera
Gonna echo the feeling that Karin sounds hella rad, but Yoneera seems much more engaging to have as Rin's mother right now.
[x]Plan Interesting
A shounen crew definitely needs a good balance of quirks, and both armored hot-headed cavalryman and DYNAST COOK sound like a lot of fun.
Gonna echo the feeling that Karin sounds hella rad, but Yoneera seems much more engaging to have as Rin's mother right now.
[x]Plan Interesting
A shounen crew definitely needs a good balance of quirks, and both armored hot-headed cavalryman and DYNAST COOK sound like a lot of fun.
- Location
- Burgundian Netherlands
[X] Plan Well Dressed
Pass for Tehou in our squad. This needs to be our posse, showing his shittier team up at every opportunity.
Also someone who thought it'd be a good idea to take his entire pantry and portable kitchen to boot camp is someone who really doesn't want to be here, or thinks this'll be a cakewalk. Eresa is already one of the former, we hardly need more dead weight.
Pass for Tehou in our squad. This needs to be our posse, showing his shittier team up at every opportunity.
Also someone who thought it'd be a good idea to take his entire pantry and portable kitchen to boot camp is someone who really doesn't want to be here, or thinks this'll be a cakewalk. Eresa is already one of the former, we hardly need more dead weight.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Sesus Karin
Come on super mom!
[X] Plan Shounen Weirdos + Rival
[X] A Cathak scion in full military regalia (minus one horse).
[X] A Peleps gourmand who brought their entire kitchen and pantry.
[X] Literally Mnemon Tehou, furious that you ran off.
I will do anything to get that gourmand on our squad. Anything!
But this squad creates the maximum amount of weird and interesting background characters + internal tension and inter-character drama for later choices and scenes!
Come on super mom!
[X] Plan Shounen Weirdos + Rival
[X] A Cathak scion in full military regalia (minus one horse).
[X] A Peleps gourmand who brought their entire kitchen and pantry.
[X] Literally Mnemon Tehou, furious that you ran off.
I will do anything to get that gourmand on our squad. Anything!
But this squad creates the maximum amount of weird and interesting background characters + internal tension and inter-character drama for later choices and scenes!
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- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Sesus Yoneera
[X] Plan 'This was a military academy, right?'
[X] Plan 'This was a military academy, right?'
Arrival at the House 2
- Location
- The North
You wait with Eresa. Shadows creep higher up the walls of the bailey as the sun sinks lower and lower in the West. The rain and clouds have abated and blue fills the gap of sky overhead.
The House of Bells is ringing.
It is a gentle sound at first, echoing in the gaps between the long stone buildings, but soon the cacophony crests like a wave and the air is filled with sound heavy enough to feel. It hums inside your chest like a second pulse, presses against your ears and eyes like warm, soft water.
The ringing dies down, carrying on in echoing cascades for almost a minute. Beside you Eresa whistles, impressed. "Y'think that happens every night? Seems like overkill to me."
A part of you wants to agree. In primary school an evening chime signaled the end of free hours and called the students to dinner. If this is the House of Bells' version of that practice, then it certainly puts your previous institution to shame. Perhaps the sheer magnitude of the call serves a purpose all its own, reaching out across the entire campus and keeping everyone on the same schedule. Today, it'll serve as a powerful indicator to the cadets currently pushing through the forests and swamps and plains - that the House of Bells is here, and it's waiting for them. All it asks is their haste.
You cast a glance over at 'Six Feathers,' the instructor who received you so rudely. He's not a particularly assuming figure. The topknot and the cut of his cloak make him seem somewhat antiquated, and his long bare wrists and sharp, open neckline accentuate his willowy form. The way he purses his lips to a point while he reads completes his birdlike air. His impassive eyes flick towards you and you turn your attention elsewhere.
Eresa is sitting now, legs folded and back against the barracks wall. His pack drapes around him, partially disassembled as he rummages through it. He fishes out a book and lays it in his lap. Pasiap and the Dragon-Horse. Eresa traces his hand up a horsehair bookmark and splits the book open. You crane your head over, touching your chin to your shoulder to peek at the writing. The prose is simple, vaguely historical accounts of the early Shogunate. You spot Pasiap's name - the book treats him as a character, but doesn't ascribe him any great mystical significance. You'd think he was just another Dragon-Blooded, wise and strong and brave, instead of a transcendent elemental bodhisattva. It's…
You're about to say something to Eresa when you hear the shouting. Someone is charging up the earthen causeway to the gates. They blast into sight with a triumphant cry and you recognize them - they're the fully-armored Cathak child who nearly trampled you with their horse. They've arrived, horseless, but still just as fully armored as before. The Cathak mons shines on the long rectangular flag affixed to his back, and metal plates curling from their helmet form the High Realm character for comet. Tongues of fire lick out from mesh-covered eyeholes.
"Yes! Haha!" The young man's manic laugh continues as he unstraps his helmet and rests it in the crook of his arm. Beneath his ominous buglike helm the Cathak boy is wide-eyed and sharp-toothed, blond hair streaked with black. He shakes what seems like an entire chimney's worth of soot from his helmet, laughter never ceasing.
The young man turns with his entire chest, scanning the courtyard. He stomps over to Six Feathers and slams his free hand down on the table. "Cadet Cathak Furian, reporting!"
Six Feathers sets down his book and cracks open the ledger-tome. "Cathak? You're cadet number eighteen." The instructor gives Furian the same instructions he gave you, and the bright-eyed young man accepts each and every one with a nod and an emphatic 'yes sir!' Once the instructor is finished Furian steps back and bows to him, before turning on his heel and walking straight up to you.
Furian offers you a plunging bow, deep enough that his polearm and the flagpole mounted on his back scrape against the wall over your head. "Hello! I've been informed that we have been assigned to the same unit! As your Fangmate it is only proper that I apologize to you for…" He pauses for a moment, maintaining his stiff bow. "...nearly trampling you with my horse. I am terribly sorry." His animated and even voice nearly masks his imposing Daoshin accent, all rolled rs and hissing fs. From the way he talks you'd figure that he's hiding the battle-worn body of a lifelong legionnaire under that armor.
...is that red jade? You quirk an eyebrow and quickly survey his armor. His torso is enclosed by a boxlike cuirass of lamellar plates bound together with thick black cording. Magic radiates from the suit, balmy against your skin. The last bits of moisture clinging to your robes quickly evaporates. Battle armor like this isn't terribly unexpected - Cathak is a military House just like yours, and it would be totally remiss to not give its scions every tool they need to succeed, but to fully enclose one of their untested youths in a legion commission's worth of fire-in-stone is irresponsible. Either Cathak is swimming in artifacts, or -
Furian coughs into his hand, politely imploring you to say something. His poise is admirable, but he's beginning to strain against the weight of his armor. A thought comes to you: this young man is the eighteenth cadet to arrive, out of one hundred and forty First Years. He lost his horse, at some point, and on foot managed to haul himself and his entire panoply to the House of Bells at least two hours before sunset. He's far from untested.
You match his bow, hands on the front of your thighs. "I accept your apology, Cathak Furian." Straightening, you introduce yourself. "It pleases me to meet you officially. My name is Sesus Rineera."
Furian lugs himself upright, crossing his arms over his chest. He beams and you take a better look at his face. Furian is the picture of a boyish youth, from his thick black eyebrows to his rosy cheeks and wide smile, filled with childish delight. He reminds you of your male classmates in the first years of Primary School, before the looming spectre of Exaltation turned them to viciousness and pride. A smile creeps across your lips as you cast your memories back to those days.
You make small talk with Furian for a while.
---------
The nineteenth arrival strides through the House of Bells' open gates flanked by two giant, blue-grey bubbles. He's clad in a thin tunic over a high-belted skirt that girds his loins, leaving his long, athletic legs exposed. His clothing is simple in design but incredibly vibrant in color, deep blues and blacks accented with bright white stitching. The straight black hair that drapes down his back like sways with every step as he crosses the yard to Instructor Six Feathers. The boy introduces himself as Peleps Sesshuo. His accent is Radimeli, smooth and relaxed, the kind of accent an actor might use to distinguish a 'dashing swashbuckler' from a 'murderous pirate.'
Sesshuo's… entire deal isn't the kind of thing that gets you swooning, but you can tell by the way Cathak Furian's gauntleted fingers drum on his helmet that it's having some effect. His ruddy complexion might hide the red rising in his face, but he can't do anything to hide that nervous warmth. Before they learn any of Hesiesh's temperance, Fire Aspects are pretty much open books.
Sesshuo doesn't introduce himself immediately. Once he's done checking in with the Instructor he finds a clear patch of the bailey. His two bubbles float along with him like well-trained dogs, and he coaxes them closer to the ground. He dismisses them with a 'pop' and in their places sit two stacks of boxes and… pots and pans? Looking closer you see what looks like the contents of an entire household's kitchen and larder gathered into two neat piles.
You watch, bewildered, as Sesshuo fastidiously picks through his equipment. The audacity of bringing along this much gear, and the apparent ease with which he did so, has you reeling. Can he afford to be so impractical? Where are his weapons, his other equipment? You've heard countless stories of the brutality of the House of Bells, but you've never heard of them starving cadets.
Having completed his once-over, Sesshuo stands up and holds his hands out to his two piles of supplies. The blue-gray bubbles reappear, enveloping the supplies before rising into the air. Sesshuo rubs his hands together, clearly pleased with himself, and then turns and regards Eresa, Furian, and you with a handsome smile. Furian averts his eyes, turning away and holding one of his red gauntlets over his face like a horse-blinder.
"Something the matter, Furian?" You say, mock-innocent.
"Oh, nothing!" Furian's grin never wavers, but his eyes are pleading. "Feeling a little hot all the sudden, you know?"
"You Cathaks are prone to burning up, aren't you?" You say, putting a hand on Furian's shoulder and pulling yourself past him. "What's that old saying about our Houses? Cathak is the fire…" You turn your back to him and make your way to Sesshuo. "And Sesus is the smoke."
You drift across the bailey towards Sesshuo, who sees you coming and meets you halfway. His eyes flick down to your robes and peasant sandals and the smug look he gives you fills your mouth with cotton. It's every bit of dismissive, slightly-amused scorn you dreaded when you stepped out of your carriage with Eresa at the hunting lodge. It's the condescension of a superior approached by an inferior.
You gulp it down and look him in the eye.
"My name is Sesus Rineera, and it looks like we're going to be Fangmates here." All his gaze demands is your composure. "You're Peleps Sesshuo. I'm pleased to meet you."
"Well met, Sesus Rineera." Sesshuo says, accent dragging out the long vowel of your name.
The two of you blink at each other, the silence after your initial greeting growing longer and longer.
"What's your favorite dish?" Sesshuo asks.
"Pardon?"
"Your favorite dish." His eyes glint with curious light. "You're from Chanos, I'm sure. Up there they've got a thousand different salmon dishes. Are you fond of lox? I've heard they're often served on flatbread in those cold northern ports. Or is beef more to your liking? I've heard that the fresh steaks they cook in Juche are to die for. In the Imperial City there is a breed of tamed boar called six-tusks. They say the rib-meat, smoked for a day and a night, melts from breath alone. In Voice-of-the-Tides Prefecture--"
Sesshuo continues to extoll the delicacies of the Blessed Isle. Head-cheese rendered from the skulls of ox-dragons, soft snakemeat from lake-encircling pythons, seasoned lotus-seeds grown on holy lakes. He paces around you, and his bubbles follow in his wake. You spot your reflection in one of the opaque bubbles, and you don't like what you see. Black hair mussed, face haggard, robes stained by dried mud and sweat. Outermost robe stitched with the characters of a child's first attempt at a poem. An embarrassment.
"--incredibly delicious. Or-" Sesshuo flicks his eyes down to your robe and grins wryly. "-is deer more to your liking?"
He's talking about your robe. Of course he is. He's testing your composure. Taking the measure of your will.
He won't find you wanting.
You laugh. "I've had many wonderful meals in my life, Peleps Sesshuo, but my favorites have always been the ones I hunted myself." You readjust your bow and quiver.
Sesshuo smiles. You think you passed his test, whatever it was.
You introduce Sesshuo to Eresa and Furian. The boys seem to defer to you somewhat - either picking up on the dynamic between yourself and Eresa or simply deferring to you because of your natural womanly authority. You don't really care which.
And then the ground begins to rumble and the twentieth cadet arrives.
She walks straight in, stiff-legged and blank-faced. Her dark skin and hair contrasts with the long white tabard and robe she wears, adorned on the front with the blue mons of House Ledaal. Her eyes are dark, nearly black, but flash with streaks of white like light catching on the facets of a jewel. She props a massive double-bitted axe across her shoulders like a porter's yoke and carries a small satchel loosely in her right hand.
She steps into the bailey and immediately turns to face Instructor Six Feathers. "Brace yourself."
The Ledaal girl takes a half step to the left just as nearly twenty young Dragon-Blooded burst into the bailey, pushing and shoving, each ablaze with the fires of Essence. The conflux of power creates a multicolored explosion that washes through the air and breaks against the stone walls like water against cliffs. You've seen worse in primary school. The explosion washes over you harmlessly, for the anima of a Dragon cannot harm their kin.
You do take a step towards your 'Fangmates,' making to usher them away from the pack of rampaging cadets. Even now cadets twenty-one through forty-five are still fighting one another, jostling for position or making claims about who arrived before whom.
Then Instructor Six Feathers stands and raises his hands towards the crowd. "Children," he intones, each syllable crashing from his lips like a dragon's roar, "arrange yourselves in an orderly fashion." Twinning antlers of green essence spin from his brow and light flashes in the palm of his outstretched hands. The ground shudders and suddenly the thin and yellow grass of the yard rises in great green coils. The jostling cadets are seized by their ankles and dragged across the bailey, deposited in five neat rows of five.
Six Feather's eyes, bright green with reptilian slits, rotate to look at the Ledaal girl. "You. Get over here." He swings his left hand around and the cloying once-grass pulls her along the ground up to his table. Then the light dissipates, the antlers uncoil, and the grass returns to normal. The atmosphere of the bailey, charged with verdant essence, begins to relax.
You let out your breath with a sigh. Such power! You can scarcely imagine what other feats of manipulation a full-blown Instructor might be capable of, when roused to action.
The cadets, manhandled as they were, remain silent and orderly, casting glances sidelong at the other cadets in their rows.
"Well, looks like this place filled up quickly!" Cathak Furian beams across the crowd.
"I suppose so," Eresa says, arms folded. "I didn't really expect to beat the bottleneck, you know? It's strange."
"Nonsense!" Sesshuo steps between them, casting his arms about Eresa and Furian's shoulders. "You arrived before Furian and I, didn't you? Don't downplay your achievement."
Eresa acquiesces with a shrug.
You turn to face the approaching Ledaal cadet, offering her a short bow which she returns. "You're Sesus Rineera, aren't you?" She asks flatly.
"I am she." She knows you? You certainly don't know her. Eyes like her's cannot be forgotten easily. "I hadn't expected my reputation to precede me."
"My cousin, Ledaal Torein Minel, was a classmate of yours. He's attending the Cloister of Wisdom, but he informed me with certainty that you'd be here."
"Ah, I see." Minel? That burly know-it-all? You remember him as a vague collection of trivia about the history of the Immaculate Order, all proper grammar and honorifics and awkward references to his favorite passages of the Texts. You recall the particular fondness he held for the story of the Empress and the Mouth of Peace, of their meeting in the Garden of Eyes and how the Empress only bowed once in her life and bluh bluh bluh.
This is his cousin? They look nothing alike. Minel was pale as chalk, with white eyes and hair. He was tall and broad-chested, while this Ledaal girl is shorter than you.
She extends her hand in a much more informal greeting, still flat-voiced and stiff. "I am Ledaal Adrienne Kashel. It's good to meet you."
You take her hand and shake it. Her skin is smooth like polished marble. "I'm glad to have you as a Fangmate, Ledaal Kashel." You say, projecting your best aura of authority and confidence.
-----
You and your motley Fang are guided by Instructor Six Feathers to head into the First Year barracks building - a sweeping four-storied hall opening on an internal courtyard nearly twice the size of the bailey you'd previously occupied. Your Fang is introduced to your assigned servant: a young Wan woman named Rime Creek. She shows the five of you to your chambers, and what you see leaves you all aghast.
In Primary School you'd had an entire room of yourself, large enough to fit a comfortable bed and all the necessary accommodations of a growing Dynastic youth. The yawning, doorless portal you and your four Fangmates are confronted with opens to reveal a small chamber with five high shelves, one for each of you. A small cot is tucked into one corner, and one wall is dominated by a large wash basin with an internal drain, along with several pegs from which five tin buckets hang. On the bottom of each shelf sits a legionnaire's kit, and legionnaire's fatigues and armor sit on small racks on the middle shelves. Another doorless portal punctuates the far wall, and the room on the other side contains five cots: four stacked in bunks and one free-standing bed, under a shuttered window.
Sesshuo breaks the stunned silence. "I call one of the top bunks!" He sweeps past you all, picking a shelf at random and coaxing his bubbles to drop their cargo there, and leaps up into one of the bunks.
Of course a Peleps would try to seem adventurous.
"There must be some kind of mistake." You step forward, looking around the accommodations. There are no doors. Why are there no doors?
Cathak Furian steps forward cautiously. "These are definitely barracks. They're very similar to the Myion-style they use back home! How fascinating!"
Eresa totally deflates. "I'll take the other top bunk." He steps around Furian and carefully places his pack down on one of the free shelves.
One by one your companions settle in, with Rime Creek patiently answering their questions. You are left alone with your thoughts, taking in these sparse accommodations. Your stomach grumbles and your body is heavy and sluggish. You find the last empty shelf and place your things down on its second shelf. You look down at your clothes and wonder if you ought to throw on a legionnaire dressing-gown right now and consign these useless silks to sitting on a shelf for seven years, but those thoughts drip like water from your mind.
Your Fangmates left you the cot by the window. You sit down, back facing the shutters, and close your eyes.
The House of Bells is ringing.
It is a gentle sound at first, echoing in the gaps between the long stone buildings, but soon the cacophony crests like a wave and the air is filled with sound heavy enough to feel. It hums inside your chest like a second pulse, presses against your ears and eyes like warm, soft water.
The ringing dies down, carrying on in echoing cascades for almost a minute. Beside you Eresa whistles, impressed. "Y'think that happens every night? Seems like overkill to me."
A part of you wants to agree. In primary school an evening chime signaled the end of free hours and called the students to dinner. If this is the House of Bells' version of that practice, then it certainly puts your previous institution to shame. Perhaps the sheer magnitude of the call serves a purpose all its own, reaching out across the entire campus and keeping everyone on the same schedule. Today, it'll serve as a powerful indicator to the cadets currently pushing through the forests and swamps and plains - that the House of Bells is here, and it's waiting for them. All it asks is their haste.
You cast a glance over at 'Six Feathers,' the instructor who received you so rudely. He's not a particularly assuming figure. The topknot and the cut of his cloak make him seem somewhat antiquated, and his long bare wrists and sharp, open neckline accentuate his willowy form. The way he purses his lips to a point while he reads completes his birdlike air. His impassive eyes flick towards you and you turn your attention elsewhere.
Eresa is sitting now, legs folded and back against the barracks wall. His pack drapes around him, partially disassembled as he rummages through it. He fishes out a book and lays it in his lap. Pasiap and the Dragon-Horse. Eresa traces his hand up a horsehair bookmark and splits the book open. You crane your head over, touching your chin to your shoulder to peek at the writing. The prose is simple, vaguely historical accounts of the early Shogunate. You spot Pasiap's name - the book treats him as a character, but doesn't ascribe him any great mystical significance. You'd think he was just another Dragon-Blooded, wise and strong and brave, instead of a transcendent elemental bodhisattva. It's…
Piety said:
You're about to say something to Eresa when you hear the shouting. Someone is charging up the earthen causeway to the gates. They blast into sight with a triumphant cry and you recognize them - they're the fully-armored Cathak child who nearly trampled you with their horse. They've arrived, horseless, but still just as fully armored as before. The Cathak mons shines on the long rectangular flag affixed to his back, and metal plates curling from their helmet form the High Realm character for comet. Tongues of fire lick out from mesh-covered eyeholes.
"Yes! Haha!" The young man's manic laugh continues as he unstraps his helmet and rests it in the crook of his arm. Beneath his ominous buglike helm the Cathak boy is wide-eyed and sharp-toothed, blond hair streaked with black. He shakes what seems like an entire chimney's worth of soot from his helmet, laughter never ceasing.
The young man turns with his entire chest, scanning the courtyard. He stomps over to Six Feathers and slams his free hand down on the table. "Cadet Cathak Furian, reporting!"
Six Feathers sets down his book and cracks open the ledger-tome. "Cathak? You're cadet number eighteen." The instructor gives Furian the same instructions he gave you, and the bright-eyed young man accepts each and every one with a nod and an emphatic 'yes sir!' Once the instructor is finished Furian steps back and bows to him, before turning on his heel and walking straight up to you.
Furian offers you a plunging bow, deep enough that his polearm and the flagpole mounted on his back scrape against the wall over your head. "Hello! I've been informed that we have been assigned to the same unit! As your Fangmate it is only proper that I apologize to you for…" He pauses for a moment, maintaining his stiff bow. "...nearly trampling you with my horse. I am terribly sorry." His animated and even voice nearly masks his imposing Daoshin accent, all rolled rs and hissing fs. From the way he talks you'd figure that he's hiding the battle-worn body of a lifelong legionnaire under that armor.
...is that red jade? You quirk an eyebrow and quickly survey his armor. His torso is enclosed by a boxlike cuirass of lamellar plates bound together with thick black cording. Magic radiates from the suit, balmy against your skin. The last bits of moisture clinging to your robes quickly evaporates. Battle armor like this isn't terribly unexpected - Cathak is a military House just like yours, and it would be totally remiss to not give its scions every tool they need to succeed, but to fully enclose one of their untested youths in a legion commission's worth of fire-in-stone is irresponsible. Either Cathak is swimming in artifacts, or -
Furian coughs into his hand, politely imploring you to say something. His poise is admirable, but he's beginning to strain against the weight of his armor. A thought comes to you: this young man is the eighteenth cadet to arrive, out of one hundred and forty First Years. He lost his horse, at some point, and on foot managed to haul himself and his entire panoply to the House of Bells at least two hours before sunset. He's far from untested.
You match his bow, hands on the front of your thighs. "I accept your apology, Cathak Furian." Straightening, you introduce yourself. "It pleases me to meet you officially. My name is Sesus Rineera."
Furian lugs himself upright, crossing his arms over his chest. He beams and you take a better look at his face. Furian is the picture of a boyish youth, from his thick black eyebrows to his rosy cheeks and wide smile, filled with childish delight. He reminds you of your male classmates in the first years of Primary School, before the looming spectre of Exaltation turned them to viciousness and pride. A smile creeps across your lips as you cast your memories back to those days.
You make small talk with Furian for a while.
---------
The nineteenth arrival strides through the House of Bells' open gates flanked by two giant, blue-grey bubbles. He's clad in a thin tunic over a high-belted skirt that girds his loins, leaving his long, athletic legs exposed. His clothing is simple in design but incredibly vibrant in color, deep blues and blacks accented with bright white stitching. The straight black hair that drapes down his back like sways with every step as he crosses the yard to Instructor Six Feathers. The boy introduces himself as Peleps Sesshuo. His accent is Radimeli, smooth and relaxed, the kind of accent an actor might use to distinguish a 'dashing swashbuckler' from a 'murderous pirate.'
Sesshuo's… entire deal isn't the kind of thing that gets you swooning, but you can tell by the way Cathak Furian's gauntleted fingers drum on his helmet that it's having some effect. His ruddy complexion might hide the red rising in his face, but he can't do anything to hide that nervous warmth. Before they learn any of Hesiesh's temperance, Fire Aspects are pretty much open books.
Sesshuo doesn't introduce himself immediately. Once he's done checking in with the Instructor he finds a clear patch of the bailey. His two bubbles float along with him like well-trained dogs, and he coaxes them closer to the ground. He dismisses them with a 'pop' and in their places sit two stacks of boxes and… pots and pans? Looking closer you see what looks like the contents of an entire household's kitchen and larder gathered into two neat piles.
You watch, bewildered, as Sesshuo fastidiously picks through his equipment. The audacity of bringing along this much gear, and the apparent ease with which he did so, has you reeling. Can he afford to be so impractical? Where are his weapons, his other equipment? You've heard countless stories of the brutality of the House of Bells, but you've never heard of them starving cadets.
Having completed his once-over, Sesshuo stands up and holds his hands out to his two piles of supplies. The blue-gray bubbles reappear, enveloping the supplies before rising into the air. Sesshuo rubs his hands together, clearly pleased with himself, and then turns and regards Eresa, Furian, and you with a handsome smile. Furian averts his eyes, turning away and holding one of his red gauntlets over his face like a horse-blinder.
"Something the matter, Furian?" You say, mock-innocent.
"Oh, nothing!" Furian's grin never wavers, but his eyes are pleading. "Feeling a little hot all the sudden, you know?"
"You Cathaks are prone to burning up, aren't you?" You say, putting a hand on Furian's shoulder and pulling yourself past him. "What's that old saying about our Houses? Cathak is the fire…" You turn your back to him and make your way to Sesshuo. "And Sesus is the smoke."
You drift across the bailey towards Sesshuo, who sees you coming and meets you halfway. His eyes flick down to your robes and peasant sandals and the smug look he gives you fills your mouth with cotton. It's every bit of dismissive, slightly-amused scorn you dreaded when you stepped out of your carriage with Eresa at the hunting lodge. It's the condescension of a superior approached by an inferior.
You gulp it down and look him in the eye.
"My name is Sesus Rineera, and it looks like we're going to be Fangmates here." All his gaze demands is your composure. "You're Peleps Sesshuo. I'm pleased to meet you."
"Well met, Sesus Rineera." Sesshuo says, accent dragging out the long vowel of your name.
The two of you blink at each other, the silence after your initial greeting growing longer and longer.
"What's your favorite dish?" Sesshuo asks.
"Pardon?"
"Your favorite dish." His eyes glint with curious light. "You're from Chanos, I'm sure. Up there they've got a thousand different salmon dishes. Are you fond of lox? I've heard they're often served on flatbread in those cold northern ports. Or is beef more to your liking? I've heard that the fresh steaks they cook in Juche are to die for. In the Imperial City there is a breed of tamed boar called six-tusks. They say the rib-meat, smoked for a day and a night, melts from breath alone. In Voice-of-the-Tides Prefecture--"
Sesshuo continues to extoll the delicacies of the Blessed Isle. Head-cheese rendered from the skulls of ox-dragons, soft snakemeat from lake-encircling pythons, seasoned lotus-seeds grown on holy lakes. He paces around you, and his bubbles follow in his wake. You spot your reflection in one of the opaque bubbles, and you don't like what you see. Black hair mussed, face haggard, robes stained by dried mud and sweat. Outermost robe stitched with the characters of a child's first attempt at a poem. An embarrassment.
"--incredibly delicious. Or-" Sesshuo flicks his eyes down to your robe and grins wryly. "-is deer more to your liking?"
He's talking about your robe. Of course he is. He's testing your composure. Taking the measure of your will.
He won't find you wanting.
You laugh. "I've had many wonderful meals in my life, Peleps Sesshuo, but my favorites have always been the ones I hunted myself." You readjust your bow and quiver.
Sesshuo smiles. You think you passed his test, whatever it was.
You introduce Sesshuo to Eresa and Furian. The boys seem to defer to you somewhat - either picking up on the dynamic between yourself and Eresa or simply deferring to you because of your natural womanly authority. You don't really care which.
And then the ground begins to rumble and the twentieth cadet arrives.
She walks straight in, stiff-legged and blank-faced. Her dark skin and hair contrasts with the long white tabard and robe she wears, adorned on the front with the blue mons of House Ledaal. Her eyes are dark, nearly black, but flash with streaks of white like light catching on the facets of a jewel. She props a massive double-bitted axe across her shoulders like a porter's yoke and carries a small satchel loosely in her right hand.
She steps into the bailey and immediately turns to face Instructor Six Feathers. "Brace yourself."
The Ledaal girl takes a half step to the left just as nearly twenty young Dragon-Blooded burst into the bailey, pushing and shoving, each ablaze with the fires of Essence. The conflux of power creates a multicolored explosion that washes through the air and breaks against the stone walls like water against cliffs. You've seen worse in primary school. The explosion washes over you harmlessly, for the anima of a Dragon cannot harm their kin.
You do take a step towards your 'Fangmates,' making to usher them away from the pack of rampaging cadets. Even now cadets twenty-one through forty-five are still fighting one another, jostling for position or making claims about who arrived before whom.
Then Instructor Six Feathers stands and raises his hands towards the crowd. "Children," he intones, each syllable crashing from his lips like a dragon's roar, "arrange yourselves in an orderly fashion." Twinning antlers of green essence spin from his brow and light flashes in the palm of his outstretched hands. The ground shudders and suddenly the thin and yellow grass of the yard rises in great green coils. The jostling cadets are seized by their ankles and dragged across the bailey, deposited in five neat rows of five.
Six Feather's eyes, bright green with reptilian slits, rotate to look at the Ledaal girl. "You. Get over here." He swings his left hand around and the cloying once-grass pulls her along the ground up to his table. Then the light dissipates, the antlers uncoil, and the grass returns to normal. The atmosphere of the bailey, charged with verdant essence, begins to relax.
You let out your breath with a sigh. Such power! You can scarcely imagine what other feats of manipulation a full-blown Instructor might be capable of, when roused to action.
The cadets, manhandled as they were, remain silent and orderly, casting glances sidelong at the other cadets in their rows.
"Well, looks like this place filled up quickly!" Cathak Furian beams across the crowd.
"I suppose so," Eresa says, arms folded. "I didn't really expect to beat the bottleneck, you know? It's strange."
"Nonsense!" Sesshuo steps between them, casting his arms about Eresa and Furian's shoulders. "You arrived before Furian and I, didn't you? Don't downplay your achievement."
Eresa acquiesces with a shrug.
You turn to face the approaching Ledaal cadet, offering her a short bow which she returns. "You're Sesus Rineera, aren't you?" She asks flatly.
"I am she." She knows you? You certainly don't know her. Eyes like her's cannot be forgotten easily. "I hadn't expected my reputation to precede me."
"My cousin, Ledaal Torein Minel, was a classmate of yours. He's attending the Cloister of Wisdom, but he informed me with certainty that you'd be here."
"Ah, I see." Minel? That burly know-it-all? You remember him as a vague collection of trivia about the history of the Immaculate Order, all proper grammar and honorifics and awkward references to his favorite passages of the Texts. You recall the particular fondness he held for the story of the Empress and the Mouth of Peace, of their meeting in the Garden of Eyes and how the Empress only bowed once in her life and bluh bluh bluh.
This is his cousin? They look nothing alike. Minel was pale as chalk, with white eyes and hair. He was tall and broad-chested, while this Ledaal girl is shorter than you.
She extends her hand in a much more informal greeting, still flat-voiced and stiff. "I am Ledaal Adrienne Kashel. It's good to meet you."
You take her hand and shake it. Her skin is smooth like polished marble. "I'm glad to have you as a Fangmate, Ledaal Kashel." You say, projecting your best aura of authority and confidence.
-----
You and your motley Fang are guided by Instructor Six Feathers to head into the First Year barracks building - a sweeping four-storied hall opening on an internal courtyard nearly twice the size of the bailey you'd previously occupied. Your Fang is introduced to your assigned servant: a young Wan woman named Rime Creek. She shows the five of you to your chambers, and what you see leaves you all aghast.
In Primary School you'd had an entire room of yourself, large enough to fit a comfortable bed and all the necessary accommodations of a growing Dynastic youth. The yawning, doorless portal you and your four Fangmates are confronted with opens to reveal a small chamber with five high shelves, one for each of you. A small cot is tucked into one corner, and one wall is dominated by a large wash basin with an internal drain, along with several pegs from which five tin buckets hang. On the bottom of each shelf sits a legionnaire's kit, and legionnaire's fatigues and armor sit on small racks on the middle shelves. Another doorless portal punctuates the far wall, and the room on the other side contains five cots: four stacked in bunks and one free-standing bed, under a shuttered window.
Sesshuo breaks the stunned silence. "I call one of the top bunks!" He sweeps past you all, picking a shelf at random and coaxing his bubbles to drop their cargo there, and leaps up into one of the bunks.
Of course a Peleps would try to seem adventurous.
"There must be some kind of mistake." You step forward, looking around the accommodations. There are no doors. Why are there no doors?
Cathak Furian steps forward cautiously. "These are definitely barracks. They're very similar to the Myion-style they use back home! How fascinating!"
Eresa totally deflates. "I'll take the other top bunk." He steps around Furian and carefully places his pack down on one of the free shelves.
One by one your companions settle in, with Rime Creek patiently answering their questions. You are left alone with your thoughts, taking in these sparse accommodations. Your stomach grumbles and your body is heavy and sluggish. You find the last empty shelf and place your things down on its second shelf. You look down at your clothes and wonder if you ought to throw on a legionnaire dressing-gown right now and consign these useless silks to sitting on a shelf for seven years, but those thoughts drip like water from your mind.
Your Fangmates left you the cot by the window. You sit down, back facing the shutters, and close your eyes.
Cooling Down said:
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- Location
- France
[X] ...fascinating. You imagine any really devout Immaculate would click their tongue in disapproval of this 'interpretation' of Pasiap, but you don't really care. It's not really The Five Dragons you care about - it's the living godhood of the Dragon-Blooded, which they've held since time immemorial and the Age of the Anathema. The Immaculate Dragons, splendid as they are, were just Dragon-Blooded like you. This book's portrayal is a fascinating departure.
[X] ...insulting. Pasiap, Mela, Hesiesh, Daana'd, and Sextes Jylis weren't historical figures - they were living incarnations of the Elemental Dragons, gods in physical form that every Dragon-Blooded should seek to emulate. It is their existence and eminence that lends the Dragon-Blooded Host their power and their station. It is through their Perfected Hierarchy that the Exalted can achieve their heights of glory. This book's portrayal is an insulting sacrilege.
[X] Peleps Sesshuo.
[X] Peleps Sesshuo.
- Location
- Probably at sea
[X] ...insulting.
I can't really explain my choice here, except that it's the opposite of what I'd usually pick. Because that element of the Immaculate Faith is, you know, factually wrong, I wouldn't naturally gravitate towards a super-pious Dragonblooded normally. So, this option seems more interesting to me.
[X] Ledaal Kashel.
We already made some good inroads with Eresa, and we should get to know the rest of our Fangmates. Furian seems friendly enough that we'll probably grow close to him whether we specifically seek him out or not. Sesshuo... seems a little more standoffish and arrogant, and I'd prefer to scope him out a bit more first. Kashel seems introverted enough that reaching out would be necessary, but open enough that it'll be worth the effort. Also, we already have a connection!...sort of. Enough for her to mention, at least. Yes, I think this will get us the most results out of the options.
Also, I was 1000% sure someone would call dibs on the single bed and we'd be asked whether to challenge for it or not. But apparently I don't have reading comprehension and we got it anyway! Hurrah!
I can't really explain my choice here, except that it's the opposite of what I'd usually pick. Because that element of the Immaculate Faith is, you know, factually wrong, I wouldn't naturally gravitate towards a super-pious Dragonblooded normally. So, this option seems more interesting to me.
[X] Ledaal Kashel.
We already made some good inroads with Eresa, and we should get to know the rest of our Fangmates. Furian seems friendly enough that we'll probably grow close to him whether we specifically seek him out or not. Sesshuo... seems a little more standoffish and arrogant, and I'd prefer to scope him out a bit more first. Kashel seems introverted enough that reaching out would be necessary, but open enough that it'll be worth the effort. Also, we already have a connection!...sort of. Enough for her to mention, at least. Yes, I think this will get us the most results out of the options.
Also, I was 1000% sure someone would call dibs on the single bed and we'd be asked whether to challenge for it or not. But apparently I don't have reading comprehension and we got it anyway! Hurrah!
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[X] ...fascinating. You imagine any really devout Immaculate would click their tongue in disapproval of this 'interpretation' of Pasiap, but you don't really care. It's not really The Five Dragons you care about - it's the living godhood of the Dragon-Blooded, which they've held since time immemorial and the Age of the Anathema. The Immaculate Dragons, splendid as they are, were just Dragon-Blooded like you. This book's portrayal is a fascinating departure.
[X] Ledaal Kashel.
[X] Ledaal Kashel.
- Location
- Classified
[X] ...insulting.
[X] Ledaal Kashel.
[X] Ledaal Kashel.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] ...insulting.
This should hopefully have some interesting consequences down the road.
[X] Ledaal Kashel.
This should hopefully have some interesting consequences down the road.
[X] Ledaal Kashel.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] ...fascinating.
[X] Peleps Sesshuo.
[X] Peleps Sesshuo.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
[x] ...insulting. Pasiap, Mela, Hesiesh, Daana'd, and Sextes Jylis weren't historical figures - they were living incarnations of the Elemental Dragons, gods in physical form that every Dragon-Blooded should seek to emulate. It is their existence and eminence that lends the Dragon-Blooded Host their power and their station. It is through their Perfected Hierarchy that the Exalted can achieve their heights of glory. This book's portrayal is an insulting sacrilege.
[x] Cathak Furian.
[x] Cathak Furian.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
One day, I'll see an SV Exalted quest vote not to be devoutly Immaculate.
(This isn't a complaint, I voted to get huffy about the book too)
(This isn't a complaint, I voted to get huffy about the book too)
The First Night 1
- Location
- The North
The gamey smell of roasting meat fills your nostrils and you will your eyes open. Dim moonlight fades in though the window that looms over your cot. Flickering lamplight shines from the portal opposite. You're alone and pained with hunger.
You stand and walk outside. Dull pain digs into your legs and abdomen like wounds freshly scabbed over, and your strides are slow. Exhaustion permeates you, body and soul. Your essence feels far away. Breathe in. Breathe out. The quiet sigh of wind and the cool breeze that wafts around you assures you know that the dragon-fire in your soul is dim, not distant. A night's rest will see it renewed.
The First Year barracks building is massive, four stories of high stone around a courtyard wide enough to hold a village. Your Fang's chambers (to the extent that they are chambers) are on the east-facing side of the barracks, one story up, and connected to a wide hallway which is open to the courtyard.
The view is… intimidating.
Here and there across the darkened courtyard are spots of light - cookfires burning in portable basins, presided over by kind servants and surrounded by cadets eager for a late-evening meal.
In the spaces between the lights, however, loom shadowy shapes - obstacle walls, fenced sparring arenas, trenches and pits and scaffolds and tall poles. Your mind fills quickly with the dark implications of these shapes. You anticipate grueling training, and the thought drives a spike of fear through you. You can see it now: hours spent scaling walls until your fingertips bleed, running until your sandals wear through and your feet harden into calloused lumps, sparring with wood and with steel until your bones are broken. To be bloodied and beaten and dragged through the mud. To be heated until your flesh melts and hard-eyed instructors mold you into a statue of bronze-in-flesh, a true Dragon.
All for the sake of your ambition. You wouldn't get this education anywhere else.
You lean back from the railing, relaxing your fingers and letting your hands slip down to your sides. Your Fangmates aren't here. You can't discern them in the pools of firelit faces below, but you know they must be down there.
Your belly rumbles and you glance down at it, like you would an impudent servant. How dare it interrupt your thoughts, now of all times?
You see only the faded stitching of your layered robes. They've dried, now, and hang stiffly down from your shoulders. The texture is rough against your skin and you suppress a wince. Appearances are everything, but rain aside what did your mother expect to happen? You pick a thorn from one sleeve and consider your options. These robes are too damaged to be of any practical use save as a mantle or colorful covering worn over something else. What to wear instead? You've brought no other clothes, so you'll have to make do with… with what the House of Bells has provided you.
There's nothing else for it, you suppose.
-----
You step out onto the courtyard with clad in a trim buttoned jacket and trousers, Imperial red made maroon by the dim light. You wear one of the thin sashes of your robes over your jacket as a belt. Presentable, if nothing else.
You navigate through the darkened courtyard, searching for any familiar face. The other cadets, eating in groups standing or sitting, glance up as you pass. You pause at one of the cookfires just long enough to take a bowl of vegetable broth swirling with noodles and pieces of sliced beef and then continue on. Hopefully you'll spy one of your Fangmates somewhere, approach them and strike up a conversation with them. It'll be helpful to develop a rapport with thesethree Dragonblooded and a Nellens four Dragonblooded, so you'll be able to excel as a Fang as quickly as possible. That's why you're doing this, no other reason. You remember your mothers' lessons well. At an early stage it's best to be proactive, to strike early and fast and control the conversation.
Ledaal Kashel finds you first, rising out of the darkness. She's not imposing; the fullness of her height reaches about your chin, but the silence of her movement is surprising.
"Good evening." She says, glimmering eyes piercing in the darkness. Are they glowing?
"H-hello," comes your stiff reply.
She asks if the two of you might eat together and you oblige her, feeling the momentum of the conversation shift away from you. The two of you find a secluded spot somewhat distant from the cookfires but close enough to not be in total darkness.
As you eat you take careful observation of Kashel. She's the picture of Dynastic decorum, from the restrained motions of her hands to the posture of her folded legs and upright back. She eats with her eyes closed. She could be a carved statue, the very form of a monk in meditation, even as she occupies herself with eating. Speaking of monks…
"Your cousin, Ledaal Minel..." You pause, deliberating how to broach the subject.
Kashel's chopsticks stop, leaving a curl of beef hanging an inch below her lips. "...yes?"
"He and I were never particularly close in Primary School. I'm curious as to why he'd tell you about me." You flutter about the edges of the subject, paying special attention to Kashel's reactions. She hasn't given you anything yet, but you're certain you'll be able to pry through her facade.
"I believe he... respected you. He said that you held strongly to the Philosophy, surprisingly so." She finishes her bite and brings her arm down, holding her chopsticks lightly between two fingers. "Perhaps he was grateful to be in the company of someone who took the Dragons as seriously as he did."
"He respected me because of my faith? Do you really think that's the case?" you say incredulously, leaning a bit closer.
"I'm curious as to what the alternative might be." You have her full attention now.
"Why, you don't think it was because he fancied me?"
Kashel's gemstone eyes pop open in brief surprise, and with them fixed on you can't help but draw in a quick breath. "That is... possible. I'm unsure."
You tilt your head to the side, moving your eyes away from Kashel's face. "It seems more likely than my faith. Is piety a particularly rare trait?"
"For a Sesus, perhaps." Kashel takes another bite. "Your House is many things, but pious is not one of its… usual descriptors."
You grin at that. You've heard all the stories people tell of House Sesus, and you know that many of them are true: that they use brutal pragmatism to defeat their foes, that they employ unwashed thugs from every dark corner of the Blessed Isle and the Threshold, that they undermine their fellow Houses in any cutthroat way they can image. These stories don't faze you overmuch. After all, Sesus won't be your House forever.
"I suppose the children of Ledaal get to throw that word around like they own it, hm?" You say wryly.
"You suppose correctly." Kashel chirps back, and for the first time you think you see the ghost of a smile on her dark lips.
You finish your bowl, savoring the crack you opened in Kashel's facade far more than the beef and broth. It isn't difficult, considering the blandness. You're beginning to understand why Sesshuo might have brought his own spices from home.
You drink the last of the broth and then lower the bowl to your lap. Turning back to Kashel, you start again. "When you first told me you were Minel's cousin I nearly didn't believe you."
"Why would that be?" Kashel cracks open one eye.
"Well," you say, unsure of how to proceed now that you've brought it up. "You two look nothing alike. Are you first cousins, or more distant?"
For a moment Kashel's opens both eyes, but then she closes them and the moment is gone. "I would prefer not to discuss such things."
"I see," you say in courteous acknowledgement, maintaining a facade that masks the whirlwind of confusion in your head. A Dynast, a fellow Prince of the Earth, who won't discuss her family? You wrack your mind for any ignoble scions who bear the name of Kashel's lineage. Adrienne, it returns to you. You're unfamiliar with that name. When you compose a letter to your mother you'll make sure to mention Kashel among your Fangmates and ask your mother what she knows.
You notice Kashel's stillness. She's waiting for you to say something else.
"What do you think of our Fangmates?" You ask, turning your gaze away and allowing the rising tension to disperse.
Kashel sighs. "They're not soldiers."
"Does that disappoint you?" You say, gauging her tone.
"It does not impress me," she says and sighs again. "They seem like unfortunate fools, the three of them. They are not here of their own volition."
You take a moment to ponder her words. She's right, of course. Young Dynasts don't get to choose the Secondary School they attend; a choice of that magnitude is best left to House Matriarchs. Still, the House of Bells is incredibly prestigious, and to study the ways of combat here is a dream for young women and men across the Blessed Isle, Chosen or otherwise.
"You mean to say they don't want to be here? Or do you mean that they simply lacked the agency to make a choice?"
"Both, by my understanding."
"What gives you that impression?"
"The obeisance that they showed you means something. A hierarchy has already formed, and you sit at its summit." Kashel's eyes are open wide now, her empty bowl discarded. She's standing and the facets of her gemstone eyes glitter. "They recognize in you the agency they lack, and a desire they do not share."
Her presence is overpowering, her gravity pulling away your composure as the moon draws back the sea. You take a step back and find your voice.
"I don't understand."
"You chose this place." Kashel turns away, scanning the darkening courtyard.
Your gaze follows hers, eager to look anywhere else. The cookfires are going out one by one and students are moving back towards their barracks, chatting quietly among themselves. The other three members of your Fang are among them, somewhere.
"My cousin knew I'd find you here, in the House of Bells, because it was obvious to him that you would allow your family to enroll you nowhere else. I don't know with what authority, or what drive, but it's clear to me that you are different from the rest of us." There is a touch of awe in her voice, and a touch of something sharper. Envy? But Kashel's facade does not crack, and she does not linger to hear your reply.
Ledaal Kashel vanishes into the dim courtyard, leaving you alone. Your thoughts whirl in your head and you bring a hand to your brow. You hadn't expected Kashel to try and psychoanalyze you, but after Sesshuo you shouldn't have been surprised. You feel…
[ ] Embarrassed. Kashel caught you off-guard with her strange mannerisms and piercing questions and… eyes, and she cracked your practiced guard. You've shown weakness, however small, and all you have to show for it is a tiny piece of insight into Kashel. You need to know more, if only to better protect yourself from whatever Kashel might be planning.
[ ] Pensive. Kashel gave you a lot to think about. She seems to have a pretty accurate read on you, which is concerning, but her reads on your Fangmates are much more interesting. Sesshou, Furion, and Eresa all see in you something they don't see in themselves, and that's something you can use to your advantage.
You stand and walk outside. Dull pain digs into your legs and abdomen like wounds freshly scabbed over, and your strides are slow. Exhaustion permeates you, body and soul. Your essence feels far away. Breathe in. Breathe out. The quiet sigh of wind and the cool breeze that wafts around you assures you know that the dragon-fire in your soul is dim, not distant. A night's rest will see it renewed.
The First Year barracks building is massive, four stories of high stone around a courtyard wide enough to hold a village. Your Fang's chambers (to the extent that they are chambers) are on the east-facing side of the barracks, one story up, and connected to a wide hallway which is open to the courtyard.
The view is… intimidating.
Here and there across the darkened courtyard are spots of light - cookfires burning in portable basins, presided over by kind servants and surrounded by cadets eager for a late-evening meal.
In the spaces between the lights, however, loom shadowy shapes - obstacle walls, fenced sparring arenas, trenches and pits and scaffolds and tall poles. Your mind fills quickly with the dark implications of these shapes. You anticipate grueling training, and the thought drives a spike of fear through you. You can see it now: hours spent scaling walls until your fingertips bleed, running until your sandals wear through and your feet harden into calloused lumps, sparring with wood and with steel until your bones are broken. To be bloodied and beaten and dragged through the mud. To be heated until your flesh melts and hard-eyed instructors mold you into a statue of bronze-in-flesh, a true Dragon.
All for the sake of your ambition. You wouldn't get this education anywhere else.
You lean back from the railing, relaxing your fingers and letting your hands slip down to your sides. Your Fangmates aren't here. You can't discern them in the pools of firelit faces below, but you know they must be down there.
Your belly rumbles and you glance down at it, like you would an impudent servant. How dare it interrupt your thoughts, now of all times?
You see only the faded stitching of your layered robes. They've dried, now, and hang stiffly down from your shoulders. The texture is rough against your skin and you suppress a wince. Appearances are everything, but rain aside what did your mother expect to happen? You pick a thorn from one sleeve and consider your options. These robes are too damaged to be of any practical use save as a mantle or colorful covering worn over something else. What to wear instead? You've brought no other clothes, so you'll have to make do with… with what the House of Bells has provided you.
There's nothing else for it, you suppose.
-----
You step out onto the courtyard with clad in a trim buttoned jacket and trousers, Imperial red made maroon by the dim light. You wear one of the thin sashes of your robes over your jacket as a belt. Presentable, if nothing else.
You navigate through the darkened courtyard, searching for any familiar face. The other cadets, eating in groups standing or sitting, glance up as you pass. You pause at one of the cookfires just long enough to take a bowl of vegetable broth swirling with noodles and pieces of sliced beef and then continue on. Hopefully you'll spy one of your Fangmates somewhere, approach them and strike up a conversation with them. It'll be helpful to develop a rapport with these
Ledaal Kashel finds you first, rising out of the darkness. She's not imposing; the fullness of her height reaches about your chin, but the silence of her movement is surprising.
"Good evening." She says, glimmering eyes piercing in the darkness. Are they glowing?
"H-hello," comes your stiff reply.
She asks if the two of you might eat together and you oblige her, feeling the momentum of the conversation shift away from you. The two of you find a secluded spot somewhat distant from the cookfires but close enough to not be in total darkness.
As you eat you take careful observation of Kashel. She's the picture of Dynastic decorum, from the restrained motions of her hands to the posture of her folded legs and upright back. She eats with her eyes closed. She could be a carved statue, the very form of a monk in meditation, even as she occupies herself with eating. Speaking of monks…
"Your cousin, Ledaal Minel..." You pause, deliberating how to broach the subject.
Kashel's chopsticks stop, leaving a curl of beef hanging an inch below her lips. "...yes?"
"He and I were never particularly close in Primary School. I'm curious as to why he'd tell you about me." You flutter about the edges of the subject, paying special attention to Kashel's reactions. She hasn't given you anything yet, but you're certain you'll be able to pry through her facade.
"I believe he... respected you. He said that you held strongly to the Philosophy, surprisingly so." She finishes her bite and brings her arm down, holding her chopsticks lightly between two fingers. "Perhaps he was grateful to be in the company of someone who took the Dragons as seriously as he did."
"He respected me because of my faith? Do you really think that's the case?" you say incredulously, leaning a bit closer.
"I'm curious as to what the alternative might be." You have her full attention now.
"Why, you don't think it was because he fancied me?"
Kashel's gemstone eyes pop open in brief surprise, and with them fixed on you can't help but draw in a quick breath. "That is... possible. I'm unsure."
You tilt your head to the side, moving your eyes away from Kashel's face. "It seems more likely than my faith. Is piety a particularly rare trait?"
"For a Sesus, perhaps." Kashel takes another bite. "Your House is many things, but pious is not one of its… usual descriptors."
You grin at that. You've heard all the stories people tell of House Sesus, and you know that many of them are true: that they use brutal pragmatism to defeat their foes, that they employ unwashed thugs from every dark corner of the Blessed Isle and the Threshold, that they undermine their fellow Houses in any cutthroat way they can image. These stories don't faze you overmuch. After all, Sesus won't be your House forever.
"I suppose the children of Ledaal get to throw that word around like they own it, hm?" You say wryly.
"You suppose correctly." Kashel chirps back, and for the first time you think you see the ghost of a smile on her dark lips.
You finish your bowl, savoring the crack you opened in Kashel's facade far more than the beef and broth. It isn't difficult, considering the blandness. You're beginning to understand why Sesshuo might have brought his own spices from home.
You drink the last of the broth and then lower the bowl to your lap. Turning back to Kashel, you start again. "When you first told me you were Minel's cousin I nearly didn't believe you."
"Why would that be?" Kashel cracks open one eye.
"Well," you say, unsure of how to proceed now that you've brought it up. "You two look nothing alike. Are you first cousins, or more distant?"
For a moment Kashel's opens both eyes, but then she closes them and the moment is gone. "I would prefer not to discuss such things."
"I see," you say in courteous acknowledgement, maintaining a facade that masks the whirlwind of confusion in your head. A Dynast, a fellow Prince of the Earth, who won't discuss her family? You wrack your mind for any ignoble scions who bear the name of Kashel's lineage. Adrienne, it returns to you. You're unfamiliar with that name. When you compose a letter to your mother you'll make sure to mention Kashel among your Fangmates and ask your mother what she knows.
You notice Kashel's stillness. She's waiting for you to say something else.
"What do you think of our Fangmates?" You ask, turning your gaze away and allowing the rising tension to disperse.
Kashel sighs. "They're not soldiers."
"Does that disappoint you?" You say, gauging her tone.
"It does not impress me," she says and sighs again. "They seem like unfortunate fools, the three of them. They are not here of their own volition."
You take a moment to ponder her words. She's right, of course. Young Dynasts don't get to choose the Secondary School they attend; a choice of that magnitude is best left to House Matriarchs. Still, the House of Bells is incredibly prestigious, and to study the ways of combat here is a dream for young women and men across the Blessed Isle, Chosen or otherwise.
"You mean to say they don't want to be here? Or do you mean that they simply lacked the agency to make a choice?"
"Both, by my understanding."
"What gives you that impression?"
"The obeisance that they showed you means something. A hierarchy has already formed, and you sit at its summit." Kashel's eyes are open wide now, her empty bowl discarded. She's standing and the facets of her gemstone eyes glitter. "They recognize in you the agency they lack, and a desire they do not share."
Her presence is overpowering, her gravity pulling away your composure as the moon draws back the sea. You take a step back and find your voice.
"I don't understand."
"You chose this place." Kashel turns away, scanning the darkening courtyard.
Your gaze follows hers, eager to look anywhere else. The cookfires are going out one by one and students are moving back towards their barracks, chatting quietly among themselves. The other three members of your Fang are among them, somewhere.
"My cousin knew I'd find you here, in the House of Bells, because it was obvious to him that you would allow your family to enroll you nowhere else. I don't know with what authority, or what drive, but it's clear to me that you are different from the rest of us." There is a touch of awe in her voice, and a touch of something sharper. Envy? But Kashel's facade does not crack, and she does not linger to hear your reply.
Ledaal Kashel vanishes into the dim courtyard, leaving you alone. Your thoughts whirl in your head and you bring a hand to your brow. You hadn't expected Kashel to try and psychoanalyze you, but after Sesshuo you shouldn't have been surprised. You feel…
[ ] Embarrassed. Kashel caught you off-guard with her strange mannerisms and piercing questions and… eyes, and she cracked your practiced guard. You've shown weakness, however small, and all you have to show for it is a tiny piece of insight into Kashel. You need to know more, if only to better protect yourself from whatever Kashel might be planning.
[ ] Pensive. Kashel gave you a lot to think about. She seems to have a pretty accurate read on you, which is concerning, but her reads on your Fangmates are much more interesting. Sesshou, Furion, and Eresa all see in you something they don't see in themselves, and that's something you can use to your advantage.
[X] Pensive. Kashel gave you a lot to think about. She seems to have a pretty accurate read on you, which is concerning, but her reads on your Fangmates are much more interesting. Sesshou, Furion, and Eresa all see in you something they don't see in themselves, and that's something you can use to your advantage.
[X] Pensive. Kashel gave you a lot to think about. She seems to have a pretty accurate read on you, which is concerning, but her reads on your Fangmates are much more interesting. Sesshou, Furion, and Eresa all see in you something they don't see in themselves, and that's something you can use to your advantage.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
[x] Pensive. Kashel gave you a lot to think about. She seems to have a pretty accurate read on you, which is concerning, but her reads on your Fangmates are much more interesting. Sesshou, Furion, and Eresa all see in you something they don't see in themselves, and that's something you can use to your advantage.