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[Exalted] Ain’t No Devil
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
And now I feel sorry for Ayano getting gaslight by her own family.
Also seriously we are becoming a meatsuit for Haphas the longer this goes on.
Also seriously we are becoming a meatsuit for Haphas the longer this goes on.
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
There's some absolutely wonderful turns of phrase and evocative imagery in this, but this is probably the passage that stuck with me the most. Just this lonely, bandaged up, burned kid patiently constructing an image of the Man He Wants To Be, the man he knows he'll never be. And sure it's just an image, it's just a painted playing piece, it's just an elaborately filigreed shell around a guy in the arena; but it's close. Close as he'll ever get and- man. There's this kinda beautifully tragic desire to belong lacing through a lot of Sky's narration. A desire to be valuable, a desire to be seen because that's basically how Shuzen runs his household. Either you're one of the actual family or you're just a prop to be pushed around; forgotten about if you have nothing to offer.
Like it's spread all throughout but this is really worth highlighting -and man as a tangent a solid kudos to Zerban because we've had all of three-ish separate moments with Shuzen and all of them have been absolute sledgehammers of a scene- exactly how Fucked Up the Tamura's are. All of them, literally all of them, are terrified of him. The undercurrent to Sky's thoughts is just this blind, reflexive, "don't make father mad, please don't make him mad" matched to a starving hunger for any scrap of affection or praise or just acknowledgement. Ayano is all rage, directed outwards and inwards and unable to reconcile itself with itself and the way her genuine convictions will never be brought to challenge the patriarch she must, at some level, despise (and Shuzen almost definitely knows and almost definitely doesn't care). Sho is completely broken to him, does what he's told when he's told without anything like direct protest, and the way he just ducks out when things heat up and the way the servants aren't surprised at all and are just keeping that porcelain perfect composure- man this whole dynamic, even right there in Shuzen's waiting room, definitely isn't New. Hideyoshi is the one we're just now getting a good look at and he's all intense friendliness and aggressive, in-your-face charisma, but he 100% gets his gaslighting from dad (the way he lies easily as breathing to both Ayano and Sky even though both of them know, on the unconscious to the real fucking obvious, that it Isn't Actually True but don't argue anyway).
It's a spread of pathologies basically. How people navigate around this freezing, ice-cold statue of a person that doesn't have a shred of empathy or mercy in his heart; how they survive having to share a house, a future, a life with him. Especially when he'll discard or abandon them without a blink of the eye if he thinks he has to. Ayano, of all people, has one of the more sane IC Dragonblooded reactions to "your brother's an Anathema now, play nice" but in the end even she swallows the utterly unthinkable. And that's the really, like, viscerally tragic and uneasy and deliberately uncomfortable angle to it all imo.
If Shuzen says down is up then that's how it is in Sekigahara. If he says the sky is orange and the sun is the moon then everyone just kinda hops too. Defying him is the real sin, and it's interesting to see, imo, how Sky and Harrower's own relationship plays into that. Since Creation's most caffeine crashed out anime villain seems to be consciously poking and prodding him along in Some direction. Trying to get him to think of himself as more of an Abyssal than Totally A Dragonblooded I Swear.
perfection 😩
But nah nah, I really like that the recurring games are actually a core component of Sky and Harrower's, like, their dialogue. The way they carved out a space for the two of them to talk to each other, exist around each other, for Sky to actually confide his feelings in Harrower. And how Harrower's actual willingness to explain the weird shit he's doing comes at Sky's perspective from a totally orthogonal direction, somehow trumping his own inability to not critfail every single social check.
Man the real question is: was anyone on great terms with Halphas? Because so far we're three for three on People Who Remember Halphas Actually/Who Halphas Has A Reflexive Reaction To and they're uh- Ligier, Harrower, and now Sky. And the general consensus seems to be: "mutually screaming Fuck You at each other down the reincarnations".
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While true, he is letting it happen. Moreover, he is not a good person. He is sympathetic, but he is letting the mortals he has a duty to die in order to give him a chance to look nice. That is pretty much exactly the opposite of what the virtues of his culture say he should be doing. Moreover, his reaction to soulsteel was basically "eh." What he needs is some lessons from Adorjan. That would help him be less of a tool.
- Location
- florida
Unilaterally deciding hes just the bad evil guy kind of undercuts the tragedy here.
will408914
(slouching towards bethlehem)
- Location
- California
I felt like his reaction to soulsteel was "I'm not 100% okay with this, but I'm not willing to push the issue."
Which is bad in an entirely different way, and one that's consistent with the way that his father has taught him to basically be a doormat.
He is a sympathetic bad person, but Creation would still be better off if he was dead and gone.
- Location
- Ireland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Jeez, like.
Man I just want to draw attention to this, because Hayate, sixteen years old, was already so traumatized and broken by the idea that he wouldn't be useful to Shuzen, wouldn't be Exalted like his family, that he tried slicing lightning twice at sixteen.
Jeez.
Not even a comforting word or a helpful squeeze of the shoulder, no one coming to see him except for the physician, and even that only for the bare necessities. Because he failed. Even Sho, who sent him the Gateway set, and Hideyoshi, who is aggressively friendly and caring later on, don't come to see him.
Poor guy.
I'll take these three together and kind of echo Ten here because wow, Shuzen really has just broken his entire family with the way he's raised them. Ayano is bone-deep terrified of him the moment he displays even a tiny bit of anger, Sky immediately swaps to appeasement and like, borderline meekness the moment Ayano gets violent when she's out of Shuzen's sight, and Hideyoshi practically steamrolls his way through everything with a "THIS IS FINE EVERYTHING'S FINE" shirt on him and doesn't let up for even a moment while basically refusing to accept reality because that's what Shuzen wants.
He's really screwed up the entire family quite awfully and turned all their relations massively toxic even before Sky came back as an Abyssal.
Again something Ten already mentioned but I do really like that like, Harrower and Sky's relationship isn't some training from hell horrible mean teacher student thing. Harrower genuinely seems invested in Sky more than just as another Abyssal and framing their conversations with the games they're playing together works nicely and it's honestly just sorta cute, especially since Sky's had the passion for Gateway for over a decade at this point and Harrower finally let him play with someone else.
I do like this part. I wonder if this is really Sky getting more comfortable with being a Deathlord or just folding when he's challenged on anything by a figure of authority.
Worth noting is that Raim and Halphas are both Earls in the Ars Goetia IRL, and while Halphas "builds towers and fills them with ammunition and weapons", Raim instead steals treasures from the houses of kings and destroys what men build as well as their dignity.Wikipedia said:
Naturally I don't expect it'll be 1:1 stuff but given how some of Halphas matches up with the Ars Goetia Halphas's stuff, I'm very interested in seeing how things develop for Sky.
Overall an absolutely stellar update with a much needed look at Sky from his own POV and I absolutely loved every moment of it.
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
Be fair, would you like Mister "I am the Best My weapons Ended the Primordial War suck my dick yall you arent even worthy to serve as kindlings for my hammer" Halphas?
Like even among the First Age Solars he seems to have not given a fuck.
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- Location
- my house
I just. I really love the parallels between this scene and the one where Ayano has the gods in front of her. It's clear what she learned from her esteemed father.
I believe this should be shuffling.
- Location
- Austria
It is very interesting how Sky is a partial foil for Jiro, or at least one aspect of him.
The big motivation (although not the key motivation for Jiro) for both is deep desire to belong, created by, well, not belonging their entire lives. They both were treated like utter shit for things outside their control, they both want recognition and respect in reaction to that.
The big differences in the two, are, well....first, frankly, is just that Shuzen is a way better manipulator. If Jiro got into his claws before Exaltation and Shuzen got a year or three of personal touch in their relationship, I can see Jiro becoming as fucked up as Sky in his own way.
Second - formed by the first, I suppose - is, in a word, fear. Or bravery, rather. Jiro is not unafraid of not belonging, but he does not give a shit. When faced with a choice between someone liking him and doing what he thinks is right, he has the will to do what's right*. Sky...hasn't. It's pretty much plain-text that the reason he did not voice issues with soulsteel sword is that Harrower was a closest thing to a friend he had in years, or likely his entire life. His choice, as he felt it, I suspect, was between Harrower and, loneliness.
I suppose it is in a way a fun little social commentary on how often the thing that pushes people, step by step, down the slippery slope, is purely that they fell in with a wrong crowd who made them feel like they belonged, and they were afraid to lose that.
*(Well, probably - with Sky being his foil, I imagine Jiro will get his Soulsteel Sword moment soon enough)
The big motivation (although not the key motivation for Jiro) for both is deep desire to belong, created by, well, not belonging their entire lives. They both were treated like utter shit for things outside their control, they both want recognition and respect in reaction to that.
The big differences in the two, are, well....first, frankly, is just that Shuzen is a way better manipulator. If Jiro got into his claws before Exaltation and Shuzen got a year or three of personal touch in their relationship, I can see Jiro becoming as fucked up as Sky in his own way.
Second - formed by the first, I suppose - is, in a word, fear. Or bravery, rather. Jiro is not unafraid of not belonging, but he does not give a shit. When faced with a choice between someone liking him and doing what he thinks is right, he has the will to do what's right*. Sky...hasn't. It's pretty much plain-text that the reason he did not voice issues with soulsteel sword is that Harrower was a closest thing to a friend he had in years, or likely his entire life. His choice, as he felt it, I suspect, was between Harrower and, loneliness.
I suppose it is in a way a fun little social commentary on how often the thing that pushes people, step by step, down the slippery slope, is purely that they fell in with a wrong crowd who made them feel like they belonged, and they were afraid to lose that.
*(Well, probably - with Sky being his foil, I imagine Jiro will get his Soulsteel Sword moment soon enough)
zang269 Omake
- Location
- Vermont
Alright, so a long time ago, I asked Zerbaan about Kevastis for the purposes of an omake I had planned. Now, I obviously didn't end up writing that, but here's something entirely different I wrote with no relation whatsoever. A little something about the shadow in the rotten estate, which probably isn't all that accurate.
*******************
It's quiet, here. It's just you, in this old, rotten, piece of shit house you can't fix and you can't leave and fuck if that doesn't sum up the shit you've been through-
But it's alright. You're used to this, sort of, not really but you can handle it for now and that's all you can really ask for. And besides, you can make tea whenever you feel like it.
You aren't… entirely sure where you get the leaves, but the ritual of making it is familiar, and…
You choose when you make it. You decide, instead of waiting for tradition, or orders, for someone else to drag you along with their problems and their idiocy, no half-abandoned plan you're stuck with, no. You can sit here, and sip your tea as casual as you please, and enjoy the flavor. It tastes like spite, and petty revenge, and brutal payback. It tastes terrible, but it's satisfying like finishing a days work, and you could drink it forever. You just might, given there's nothing else to do here, really, and as far as you can tell there's no one else to bother you.
*******************
There's a moving abomination, a beast of metal and jade so big it has more seating than your entire home, and it feels like a wonder from the shogunate roaring down a tunnel, but you couldn't possibly drag your attention back to it because he's here.
You sit across from him for an instant, a fraction of a second, and then you're gone. You thought it would be simple, to look him in the eye and speak your mind, after so, so long being quiet, waiting for the right moment and never finding it, of time stretching onward, and you can't even remember if it's years or days or months you've been waiting anymore. Instead you tumble through the remnants of a wall in your shitty, broken house and you're shaking, gasping and choking like all your anger and disappointment and fear are wrapped around your throat like a noose. You love him and you're terrified he'll hate you and you despise how broken he is, all fucking ragged edges and hate, too goddamn angry to let anything slide, and it's your fucking fault for staying with him you selfish piece of-
You drag yourself further into the house, trying to work out the problem with your lungs, and rub the wetness off your face. Tea. You were making tea, before this. Tea always helps.
************************************
A moment later, and your hands are still shaking. Your take a sip of your tea, ignoring the burn, and try to lose yourself in the taste of revenge, defeat, failure, and disappointment. You're almost, almost calm. As close as you can remember being, when he shows up.
You hide, immediately. He's here. It pulses in your head, and you love him, and you hate him, he left this behind, he couldn't bear the burden, and that's not fair and you know it, but he's finally forced the issue and you still-
He sees the pot of tea, and he tries to draw a blade that isn't there. You freeze, because whether you hated him or loved him or just wanted to see him again, you never thought he would throw the first punch. With what you did to him, you don't know why. You've seen him, angry and breaking apart for his whole life, why shouldn't he want a pound of flesh in return?
You need to get away, before he sees you. Maybe if you're fast enough, he won't notice. You dash towards the bedroom, and he notices, because of course he does how stupid would he have to be to not, and you push yourself against the walls and the ceiling and hide like you have, so many times in the past. He looks in, hand sinking into the doorway-
It hits you, that his arm is brass, and not a stump. That it isn't the missing, crushing absence that would have killed him as surely as a missing heart, given time. He can fight again, and you can't do anything but stare at the thing that stops him from becoming you. He hears something, and talks to himself, and marches off to that garish, overcompensating tower. You can't tell if you're relieved that he'll keep on surviving, or disappointed he'll leave you alone like this. Eventually, you settle on hating yourself for letting him fall that far, and disgusted you would drag him down further, and you think you walk over to the pot of tea. Your cup is still in your hand, you vaguely notice, has been the entire time, and you take a sip. It tastes like pain and determination, before it turns to burning, golden fire in your mouth and you scream in hate and pain and rage. When you come back to yourself the cup is shattered, bits sticking out of a support beam where the tea melts through rotten wood like acid. You look out at the tower where a golden glow is fading away, and a snarl rips its way out of you, feral and angry as any noise you've ever heard.
Tea is the only thing you have. It's-
the only moment of peace or pride you still have and-
Who
WHO DARES
*******************************************************
(You will sit down, and swallow this black, burning rage, poisoning yourself like a coward and a worm.)
(You will make excuses, and let the world grind you into dust, the way he never would.)
(You think if one of you got to have a life, he would be the one to deserve it.)
*******************
It's quiet, here. It's just you, in this old, rotten, piece of shit house you can't fix and you can't leave and fuck if that doesn't sum up the shit you've been through-
But it's alright. You're used to this, sort of, not really but you can handle it for now and that's all you can really ask for. And besides, you can make tea whenever you feel like it.
You aren't… entirely sure where you get the leaves, but the ritual of making it is familiar, and…
You choose when you make it. You decide, instead of waiting for tradition, or orders, for someone else to drag you along with their problems and their idiocy, no half-abandoned plan you're stuck with, no. You can sit here, and sip your tea as casual as you please, and enjoy the flavor. It tastes like spite, and petty revenge, and brutal payback. It tastes terrible, but it's satisfying like finishing a days work, and you could drink it forever. You just might, given there's nothing else to do here, really, and as far as you can tell there's no one else to bother you.
*******************
There's a moving abomination, a beast of metal and jade so big it has more seating than your entire home, and it feels like a wonder from the shogunate roaring down a tunnel, but you couldn't possibly drag your attention back to it because he's here.
You sit across from him for an instant, a fraction of a second, and then you're gone. You thought it would be simple, to look him in the eye and speak your mind, after so, so long being quiet, waiting for the right moment and never finding it, of time stretching onward, and you can't even remember if it's years or days or months you've been waiting anymore. Instead you tumble through the remnants of a wall in your shitty, broken house and you're shaking, gasping and choking like all your anger and disappointment and fear are wrapped around your throat like a noose. You love him and you're terrified he'll hate you and you despise how broken he is, all fucking ragged edges and hate, too goddamn angry to let anything slide, and it's your fucking fault for staying with him you selfish piece of-
You drag yourself further into the house, trying to work out the problem with your lungs, and rub the wetness off your face. Tea. You were making tea, before this. Tea always helps.
************************************
A moment later, and your hands are still shaking. Your take a sip of your tea, ignoring the burn, and try to lose yourself in the taste of revenge, defeat, failure, and disappointment. You're almost, almost calm. As close as you can remember being, when he shows up.
You hide, immediately. He's here. It pulses in your head, and you love him, and you hate him, he left this behind, he couldn't bear the burden, and that's not fair and you know it, but he's finally forced the issue and you still-
He sees the pot of tea, and he tries to draw a blade that isn't there. You freeze, because whether you hated him or loved him or just wanted to see him again, you never thought he would throw the first punch. With what you did to him, you don't know why. You've seen him, angry and breaking apart for his whole life, why shouldn't he want a pound of flesh in return?
You need to get away, before he sees you. Maybe if you're fast enough, he won't notice. You dash towards the bedroom, and he notices, because of course he does how stupid would he have to be to not, and you push yourself against the walls and the ceiling and hide like you have, so many times in the past. He looks in, hand sinking into the doorway-
It hits you, that his arm is brass, and not a stump. That it isn't the missing, crushing absence that would have killed him as surely as a missing heart, given time. He can fight again, and you can't do anything but stare at the thing that stops him from becoming you. He hears something, and talks to himself, and marches off to that garish, overcompensating tower. You can't tell if you're relieved that he'll keep on surviving, or disappointed he'll leave you alone like this. Eventually, you settle on hating yourself for letting him fall that far, and disgusted you would drag him down further, and you think you walk over to the pot of tea. Your cup is still in your hand, you vaguely notice, has been the entire time, and you take a sip. It tastes like pain and determination, before it turns to burning, golden fire in your mouth and you scream in hate and pain and rage. When you come back to yourself the cup is shattered, bits sticking out of a support beam where the tea melts through rotten wood like acid. You look out at the tower where a golden glow is fading away, and a snarl rips its way out of you, feral and angry as any noise you've ever heard.
Tea is the only thing you have. It's-
the only moment of peace or pride you still have and-
Who
WHO DARES
*******************************************************
(You will sit down, and swallow this black, burning rage, poisoning yourself like a coward and a worm.)
(You will make excuses, and let the world grind you into dust, the way he never would.)
(You think if one of you got to have a life, he would be the one to deserve it.)
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Chapter Thirty-Eight: Back To Hell
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
There's different scenery this time through Cecelyne's endless desert, and that's the nicest thing you can say about it. It's a creeping, grasping, choking jungle of silver-boughed trees and argent vines, steel-bladed undergrowth sprouting from every available inch. It's even a beachfront, a long strip of silver sand leading to a toxic green ocean fed by acid rivers. A horizon of vile green and pitch black - perfect Hell colours.
<World-body of a Yozi ain't 'xactly required t' work rationally,> Sidir explains. <An' Kimbery has 'er fingers in just about every body o' water you'd care t' name so she's got a habit of turnin' up here sometimes too.>
"Good to know," you grunt. You're not exactly in a talkative mood - still got most of a sucking gut wound to manage, Yanxiu's healing water and your armour probably the only reason said guts are still inside your body.
<Look jus'... take it easy, alright? S'gonna take five days no matter how fast y'move so go slow as y'need.>
"Yeah, and Iudicavisse fucking hates me," you reply. "Is Cecelyne even gonna let me 'take it easy'?"
<Mean... full-fledged Yozi ain't much fer personal action but- I guess there's the- if you're talkin' about a chance I'd- mn.>
Sidir wisely lets himself trail off rather than keep digging the pit any deeper. You take a long, deep breath and crick your neck.
"Figured. Let's get this shit-fight moving."
You take the first of many painful, shuffling steps in your five-day journey.
Marching mode comes in handy again. Your breath wheezes painfully in your lungs and your stomach hurts worse than any campaign-trail hunger-pangs you've ever had to endure but it's just a question of degrees. You're Exalted now, with Malfeas running in your veins. You adjust. The first day is nothing but that - one foot in front of the other, gloved hand cradling your stomach, brass hand dangling loose by your side. Near complete silence in your head as Daji recovers and Sidir, probably, looks after them. You'd say something about the time alone being a refreshing change of pace but it's not. Just like the pain, it's something you endure. You're just grateful when you reach the end of the day (whatever a 'day' is in this skyless place) without having to leap an acid river. You readily slump against a tree trunk, wrapping your cloak of semi-solid blood around yourself like a grisly blanket and cradling your sword close as you sink easily into a dead sleep.
The second day's tougher. The forest grows thicker, the vegetation denser and more difficult to force your way through. It's slow going, sweaty work, and when it finally lets up it's just replaced with a clearing full of massive otherworldly flowers releasing visible clouds of glittering blue fumes into the air. You don't need to be an expert to figure out that won't be healthy to breathe, but the strange flowerbed stretches out like a fortification in either direction as far as you can see and turning back probably isn't an option. Luckily Sidir has your back. The moment you ask him for help your suit shifts, the collar going liquid and flowing up over your jaw, lacing together over your nose and mouth in a mask that looks like it always belonged there, flawless and seamless. Your breath hisses through the filters hidden in its organic contours, yet the air comes easier somehow.
<Know you're not gonna stop goin' in insane places like the Underworld, so I figured I'd work on some insurance,> the demon mutters. <Made it t'breathe the energies'a death but it should work fine for all kinds'a things too.>
Sure enough, when you stride through the field of flowers your cautious breaths draw in nothing more dangerous than the faint scent of mint. Your lips curl into a crooked smile beneath the mask as you limp your way along. Guy thinks of everything, doesn't he? Probably what makes him such a jangling bag of nerves all the time, but it's useful sometimes. Once you're through you look down and notice something else - there are markings spreading through the once uniform darkness like harsh, confident brush strokes of quicksilver on a tar-black canvas. Lines broad and slender run down your throat and torso, framing your chest and navel in circular patterns before forking off to your shoulders and hips. They run down your limbs in angular designs, splitting off into sub-channels at your calves and forearm only to rejoin in circles at your feet and hand. They even seem to glow faintly. You peel the mask away from your face with a soft sucking sound, the once-solid material melting down into ink and rejoining the neck of your armour.
"Looks good," you say. "Still trying to pretty it up for me?"
Sidir mumbles something indistinct about the changing ratio of moonsilver to shadows because of optimising the flow of necrotic whatever the fuck but you can tell you hit the nail on the head. You snort. He wants to keep being weird about it, that's fine. You don't have any complaints with the work-in-progress. You keep moving.
The third day sees you leave the jungle. You'd be happy if it weren't replaced with a wide open, colourless mesa under a void-sky where you could be attacked in any direction at any time. Which you are. No sooner have you started to find your rhythm than a gaggle of whooping, screaming demons with massive sapphires embedded in their flesh and bone like some kind of crystalline fungus come charging in on equally infested war-beasts to ambush you.
You almost feel sorry for them. Almost. They don't seem to get that just because you're hobbling along wishing you were dead doesn't mean you're defenceless. Your caste mark flares and the first wave are scythed down like the morning harvest courtesy of your cloak. Another project of Sidir's that he's completed, and much less confidently handed Daji the reins to for their good behaviour in the temple. The worm-tendrils become worm heads, spraying out highly focused streams of blood that cut like swords. When the barrage ends (and Daji's cheering subsides) the cloak that reforms at your shoulders is a wispy little thing badly in need of nourishment. Thankfully your assailants provide, and as their blood feeds the cloak, their flesh and bone feeds the corona shroud that deflects the hail of crossbow bolts fired at you in retaliation. Ugh. You still feel like shit, you don't wanna have to swing your sword around. You drive your brass fist into your gloved palm - you'll make do.
It doesn't take long. Soon there's only one demon left, the rest of the raiding party lying broken and bleeding in the dust all around you, their mounts wandering off to who knows where. The sole survivor just keeps on backing away and you keep on walking towards him at an unhurried lope. You'd say something funny about the moments when you end a conversation only to find out you're headed in the same direction, but you get the feeling it wouldn't land. Instead you block a wild sickle-swing with your left arm, a crust of brass and black stone growing in an instant to deflect the blow like a piece of plate armour, and sock it in the face with the right. You can't decide whether its head bursts or shatters. Probably both. Whatever's left crunches under your heel as you keep walking.
On the fourth day you find the old, familiar silver desert returning. The hills turn to dunes and what little vegetation there was begins to fade. You spy an oasis within walking distance, the water murky green and thick as oil, the many varied shapes of demons wrapped in desert-wear huddled by its side. You don't bother. You don't want the company or the disgusting Kimbery water. Instead you talk to Daji, voluntarily for once, and they don't even say anything that makes your wounds burn afresh. Maybe it's because you have a shared hate-sink in the conversation.
Hayate Tamura. Calls himself the Promised Prince of the Empty Sky now, according to Harrower. Ayano's correspondence still calls him Hayate, and that's the nicest thing you could say about it. She wrote about him a whole lot in the short time between his resurrection and her death, alternately begging Hideyoshi to see reason and kill the undead abomination and accusing Sho of masterminding the entire scheme with his well-connected, heretical ways. Daji even found multiple drafts of a letter to the Mouth of Peace she never got to send, trying and trying again to find a way to phrase her anguish that did not flout her father's will on the matter. Either way, it doesn't take Daji's grand insights to figure out that Ayano wanted to throttle her little brother with every fibre of her being. Maybe if you'd left it long enough she would've done your job for you?
No. If even someone like her was too scared of Shuzen to speak of it openly, even to the Mouth of Peace, there's no chance for anybody else. If Hayate's going down it's the direct way, by your hand. That's fine by you. The little turd's begging for a tiebreaker when you get back to Creation. Which just leaves one last loose end.
"So, uh... you feeling any better?" you ask. "After the, uh, combining thing?"
<Oh, yeah. Sidir wouldn't stop telling me how stupid and reckless I was but we both know he's just jealous I got to be so close to you.>
<'ey, don't even joke about that,> comes Sidir's disapproving rumble almost immediately.
"What was it like?" you ask.
<What're you asking me for, I wasn't any more in control than you were!> Daji protests. <How'd it make you feel?>
"Like..." you trail off, lapsing into silence broken only by the squeaking crunch of sand under your feet, and neither of the voices in your head interrupt it. You're grateful for the time to think. "... s'probably gonna sound weird but I think it was... happy? I dunno. Unfamiliar but really, really strong."
<Oh my gods you defective fencepost of a human being you are not telling me you forgot what feeling happy feels like.>
"Alright then smartass, tell me how your half felt about it!"
<It-> Daji pauses. <Promise not to laugh at me.>
"Sure."
<I felt all...> you get the feeling they're flexing in the soulscape <big? Strong. I felt strong and confident and like everything made sense at once. And... I felt like I understood you more. Which doesn't make sense because I already know you back-to-front, you're a one-page pamphlet of a person, but still.>
You snort.
<You promised you wouldn't laugh!>
"Oh and you believed me? I thought I was a one-page pamphlet."
Daji makes a noise like exactly what they are, a fox whining for attention. It takes you a few moments more to realise you're grinning. Fuck's the matter with you? One temporary soul-merge with one of your inner demons and you're acting all weird.
"I uh..." you scratch the back of your head, searching for the end of a sentence you started with no clear goal in mind. "Look if we managed to do that there's probably a whole spectrum of less insane shit for us to try in between. So. If you're up for it. Let's try figuring that out at some point in the next while."
<Sounds like a good plan to me.>
<Look I got no intention'a bein' the bad guy here, but ain'tcha forgettin' somethin'?> Sidir chimes in. <Half the reason we're back is t'get Lilunu takin' a look at the soul situation, right?>
"Yeah? What's your point?"
<I'm just sayin' maybe don't go makin' plans when you got no idea if Daji'll even be around after she fixes this->
<I'm not something to get 'fixed',> Daji snaps. <I'm part of Jiro and I belong here.>
<I didn't mean it like that!> Sidir protests. <I jus' meant- maybe you're gettin' a lil' ahead of yourselves all stampedin' ahead with this thing we don't know what it is an' I...>
He trails off.
"And what?"
<Didn't mean nothin' by it,> the demon mutters. <Forget it, jus' ramblin'. I got some stuff I gotta do anyway.>
"Sidir, come on." A pause. "Sidir?"
Sidir says nothing. He stays quiet the rest of the day.
You see Malfeas the moment you crest the first dune on the fifth day - it's so indescribably massive that you couldn't possibly do otherwise. It dwarfs every mountain you've ever seen, makes the castle in your soul look like a piddly little diorama, makes sure you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you will take an entire day just to get to it and you'll damn well like it. You give a groan of effort and stretch, feeling out the limits of your still-healing injury and aching muscles. You're functional, the little warmup on Day 3 proved that, but nowhere close to peak yet. It's irritating. Every day the wound Sky gave you lingers the harder the needle inside your head scratches a vow for revenge on the inside of your skull. Scratch-scratch-scratch, vibrating through every bone in your body. You tell it to be quieter, at least until you've hit the baths in your mansion and made yourself feel human again.
It's an easy march to the edge and you find a way in quickly, just one crack in the incomprehensible vastness of the Demon City so small it might as well be one of his pores. That is if pores were brass-plated on the inside with carved reliefs depicting the fall of the Primordials running all along the passageway. The floor slowly twists to the right as you walk, imperceptible in the moment but when you look back halfway through you see that you've somehow ended up on the ceiling relative to where you came in - it'd probably be a lot more impressive if you didn't skullfuck gravity as a matter of course now. Instead you shrug and keep walking.
The inside is another story. You know you've seen it before but getting slapped in the face with the full enormity of Malfeas' interior again is enough to take your breath away. Before you know it you're craning your neck all the way up, your eyes scanning the endless city blocks and boulevards stretching out and up and around you in all directions along the inner walls of the gargantuan sphere that is Hell. The green sun blazes in the core, bright enough to make you squint irritably but not enough to look away, only enough to obscure the far side of the layer with the help of some lingering clouds. You think Sidir told you something about how every layer looks like this, not just the literal innermost one, something something Yozi world bodies don't gotta make sense. It's the noise that hits you next. The trek here was so quiet that the crowded-market-on-festival-day cacophany is like an assault in its own right, and it only gets louder once the demons milling about the massive, ornate exit notice that an Infernal just showed up. You're mobbed by demons of every shape and size in an instant, excitedly showing you their wares and asking you what you've been up to, begging you to swear them into your service, so on and so on until you can't help but recoil and shield your stomach. You firmly push your adoring fans out of the way with your free hand, mouth set in a grim slash as you pick a direction and start walking, determined to find somewhere remotely quiet to think and-
"Well well well. Look who we have here."
There's a pregnant pause, like the entire crowd is holding its breath and turning around to see who spoke. Not a one of them like what they see. They scatter as quick as they arrived, leaving you standing alone in an empty and suddenly far quieter plaza. The speaker stands a few strides from you, talons click-click-clicking on the rough-hewn street of black stone below.
It's a gang of demons, at least a dozen, maybe more. Primarily kevastis like Sidir but you see some others - a pair of blood apes, a couple of wolfman-looking ones with feathers instead of fur, even some neomah. But for all the variety in their hiring practices, you know a gang when you see one. Even if Sidir hadn't let it slip you'd recognise those piercings, those tattoos, a couple of the kevastis even have cracks full of molten brass like him. Every one of them is unique, but every one of them's marked up their bodies down to the last speck of space. Most of them are scarred-up, too. All of them shuffling around, slowly moving to encircle you. The kevastis that spoke, a big bastard with a giant jagged gash down his face that took out one of his eyes and a mandible, looks right at home.
"(Sidir, who are these guys?)"
The silence that follows is so yawning and cavernous that you could slip and fall into it. You barely suppress the urge to whip your head around like your coadjutor is just standing an arm's length behind you ready to be shaken conscious again. Instead you keep your eyes fixed on the gang. Instead you straighten up, square your shoulders, and hiss "(Sidir)" out the corner of your mouth one more time.
<I don't know what's wrong with him, he's just freezing up!> Daji exclaims from somewhere in the depths of your soul, grunting and straining as they presumably try to shove the statue-demon out of the rut he's fallen in.
"Coadjutor trouble?" the scar-faced demon asks with what you assume is the kevastis equivalento of a shit-eating grin. "Let's see... that gaudy arm, that borderline heretical cloak, and that ridiculous excuse for armour? I know Sidir's work when I see it."
"Yeah and who asked you, fuckpipe?" you retort.
"You mean he hasn't told you yet?" He puts his lower hands on his hips, folding his upper arms confidently. "Either that or you got a shitload of nerve to come walking in here with that coward in your head. Y'see the thing you don't seem to grasp, Sidir-" he raises his voice to be heard by a demon that only exists in the depths of your fractured soul "-is that serving the Unquestionable's will only gets you so far. It won't protect you forever."
"(any luck?)" you mutter through gritted teeth, barely moving your lips.
<Oh fuck it, I'm taking over!> There's the briefest of pauses as Daji takes whatever command position that Sidir usually occupies, and you can almost sense them peering through your eyes at the gang arrayed before you. <I know what it looks like but I think they're just trying to scare us.>
"(you think?)"
<It's been twelve seconds, Dad, give me a break here. They can tell you're still injured, how well I don't know. But they absolutely, definitely won't throw the first punch. Maybe.>
"(thanks.)"
The scar-faced kevastis spreads all four arms in an impatient gesture, awaiting your retort. You ball your hands into fists. This is exactly what you didn't need right now - the only way your day could get any worse is if Ligier or fucking Iudicavisse jumped out of a hole in the ground for good measure. But like it or not you're suddenly hip-deep in Sidir's mess and Sidir's left the building, so it falls to you to figure this out.
[ ] Ignore them. Shoulder through the crowd and walk to the Conventicle. You don't have time for these assholes and they're too chickenshit to do anything about it.
[ ] Confront them. The scar-face guy thinks he can talk shit to you like that and walk away? Nah, you'll get up in his face and give as good as you get. Either he backs down, or he makes things real simple.
[ ] Punch him. See how smart that mouth is when you snap off the other mandible with your fucking fist.
<World-body of a Yozi ain't 'xactly required t' work rationally,> Sidir explains. <An' Kimbery has 'er fingers in just about every body o' water you'd care t' name so she's got a habit of turnin' up here sometimes too.>
"Good to know," you grunt. You're not exactly in a talkative mood - still got most of a sucking gut wound to manage, Yanxiu's healing water and your armour probably the only reason said guts are still inside your body.
<Look jus'... take it easy, alright? S'gonna take five days no matter how fast y'move so go slow as y'need.>
"Yeah, and Iudicavisse fucking hates me," you reply. "Is Cecelyne even gonna let me 'take it easy'?"
<Mean... full-fledged Yozi ain't much fer personal action but- I guess there's the- if you're talkin' about a chance I'd- mn.>
Sidir wisely lets himself trail off rather than keep digging the pit any deeper. You take a long, deep breath and crick your neck.
"Figured. Let's get this shit-fight moving."
You take the first of many painful, shuffling steps in your five-day journey.
Marching mode comes in handy again. Your breath wheezes painfully in your lungs and your stomach hurts worse than any campaign-trail hunger-pangs you've ever had to endure but it's just a question of degrees. You're Exalted now, with Malfeas running in your veins. You adjust. The first day is nothing but that - one foot in front of the other, gloved hand cradling your stomach, brass hand dangling loose by your side. Near complete silence in your head as Daji recovers and Sidir, probably, looks after them. You'd say something about the time alone being a refreshing change of pace but it's not. Just like the pain, it's something you endure. You're just grateful when you reach the end of the day (whatever a 'day' is in this skyless place) without having to leap an acid river. You readily slump against a tree trunk, wrapping your cloak of semi-solid blood around yourself like a grisly blanket and cradling your sword close as you sink easily into a dead sleep.
The second day's tougher. The forest grows thicker, the vegetation denser and more difficult to force your way through. It's slow going, sweaty work, and when it finally lets up it's just replaced with a clearing full of massive otherworldly flowers releasing visible clouds of glittering blue fumes into the air. You don't need to be an expert to figure out that won't be healthy to breathe, but the strange flowerbed stretches out like a fortification in either direction as far as you can see and turning back probably isn't an option. Luckily Sidir has your back. The moment you ask him for help your suit shifts, the collar going liquid and flowing up over your jaw, lacing together over your nose and mouth in a mask that looks like it always belonged there, flawless and seamless. Your breath hisses through the filters hidden in its organic contours, yet the air comes easier somehow.
<Know you're not gonna stop goin' in insane places like the Underworld, so I figured I'd work on some insurance,> the demon mutters. <Made it t'breathe the energies'a death but it should work fine for all kinds'a things too.>
Sure enough, when you stride through the field of flowers your cautious breaths draw in nothing more dangerous than the faint scent of mint. Your lips curl into a crooked smile beneath the mask as you limp your way along. Guy thinks of everything, doesn't he? Probably what makes him such a jangling bag of nerves all the time, but it's useful sometimes. Once you're through you look down and notice something else - there are markings spreading through the once uniform darkness like harsh, confident brush strokes of quicksilver on a tar-black canvas. Lines broad and slender run down your throat and torso, framing your chest and navel in circular patterns before forking off to your shoulders and hips. They run down your limbs in angular designs, splitting off into sub-channels at your calves and forearm only to rejoin in circles at your feet and hand. They even seem to glow faintly. You peel the mask away from your face with a soft sucking sound, the once-solid material melting down into ink and rejoining the neck of your armour.
"Looks good," you say. "Still trying to pretty it up for me?"
Sidir mumbles something indistinct about the changing ratio of moonsilver to shadows because of optimising the flow of necrotic whatever the fuck but you can tell you hit the nail on the head. You snort. He wants to keep being weird about it, that's fine. You don't have any complaints with the work-in-progress. You keep moving.
The third day sees you leave the jungle. You'd be happy if it weren't replaced with a wide open, colourless mesa under a void-sky where you could be attacked in any direction at any time. Which you are. No sooner have you started to find your rhythm than a gaggle of whooping, screaming demons with massive sapphires embedded in their flesh and bone like some kind of crystalline fungus come charging in on equally infested war-beasts to ambush you.
You almost feel sorry for them. Almost. They don't seem to get that just because you're hobbling along wishing you were dead doesn't mean you're defenceless. Your caste mark flares and the first wave are scythed down like the morning harvest courtesy of your cloak. Another project of Sidir's that he's completed, and much less confidently handed Daji the reins to for their good behaviour in the temple. The worm-tendrils become worm heads, spraying out highly focused streams of blood that cut like swords. When the barrage ends (and Daji's cheering subsides) the cloak that reforms at your shoulders is a wispy little thing badly in need of nourishment. Thankfully your assailants provide, and as their blood feeds the cloak, their flesh and bone feeds the corona shroud that deflects the hail of crossbow bolts fired at you in retaliation. Ugh. You still feel like shit, you don't wanna have to swing your sword around. You drive your brass fist into your gloved palm - you'll make do.
It doesn't take long. Soon there's only one demon left, the rest of the raiding party lying broken and bleeding in the dust all around you, their mounts wandering off to who knows where. The sole survivor just keeps on backing away and you keep on walking towards him at an unhurried lope. You'd say something funny about the moments when you end a conversation only to find out you're headed in the same direction, but you get the feeling it wouldn't land. Instead you block a wild sickle-swing with your left arm, a crust of brass and black stone growing in an instant to deflect the blow like a piece of plate armour, and sock it in the face with the right. You can't decide whether its head bursts or shatters. Probably both. Whatever's left crunches under your heel as you keep walking.
On the fourth day you find the old, familiar silver desert returning. The hills turn to dunes and what little vegetation there was begins to fade. You spy an oasis within walking distance, the water murky green and thick as oil, the many varied shapes of demons wrapped in desert-wear huddled by its side. You don't bother. You don't want the company or the disgusting Kimbery water. Instead you talk to Daji, voluntarily for once, and they don't even say anything that makes your wounds burn afresh. Maybe it's because you have a shared hate-sink in the conversation.
Hayate Tamura. Calls himself the Promised Prince of the Empty Sky now, according to Harrower. Ayano's correspondence still calls him Hayate, and that's the nicest thing you could say about it. She wrote about him a whole lot in the short time between his resurrection and her death, alternately begging Hideyoshi to see reason and kill the undead abomination and accusing Sho of masterminding the entire scheme with his well-connected, heretical ways. Daji even found multiple drafts of a letter to the Mouth of Peace she never got to send, trying and trying again to find a way to phrase her anguish that did not flout her father's will on the matter. Either way, it doesn't take Daji's grand insights to figure out that Ayano wanted to throttle her little brother with every fibre of her being. Maybe if you'd left it long enough she would've done your job for you?
No. If even someone like her was too scared of Shuzen to speak of it openly, even to the Mouth of Peace, there's no chance for anybody else. If Hayate's going down it's the direct way, by your hand. That's fine by you. The little turd's begging for a tiebreaker when you get back to Creation. Which just leaves one last loose end.
"So, uh... you feeling any better?" you ask. "After the, uh, combining thing?"
<Oh, yeah. Sidir wouldn't stop telling me how stupid and reckless I was but we both know he's just jealous I got to be so close to you.>
<'ey, don't even joke about that,> comes Sidir's disapproving rumble almost immediately.
"What was it like?" you ask.
<What're you asking me for, I wasn't any more in control than you were!> Daji protests. <How'd it make you feel?>
"Like..." you trail off, lapsing into silence broken only by the squeaking crunch of sand under your feet, and neither of the voices in your head interrupt it. You're grateful for the time to think. "... s'probably gonna sound weird but I think it was... happy? I dunno. Unfamiliar but really, really strong."
<Oh my gods you defective fencepost of a human being you are not telling me you forgot what feeling happy feels like.>
"Alright then smartass, tell me how your half felt about it!"
<It-> Daji pauses. <Promise not to laugh at me.>
"Sure."
<I felt all...> you get the feeling they're flexing in the soulscape <big? Strong. I felt strong and confident and like everything made sense at once. And... I felt like I understood you more. Which doesn't make sense because I already know you back-to-front, you're a one-page pamphlet of a person, but still.>
You snort.
<You promised you wouldn't laugh!>
"Oh and you believed me? I thought I was a one-page pamphlet."
Daji makes a noise like exactly what they are, a fox whining for attention. It takes you a few moments more to realise you're grinning. Fuck's the matter with you? One temporary soul-merge with one of your inner demons and you're acting all weird.
"I uh..." you scratch the back of your head, searching for the end of a sentence you started with no clear goal in mind. "Look if we managed to do that there's probably a whole spectrum of less insane shit for us to try in between. So. If you're up for it. Let's try figuring that out at some point in the next while."
<Sounds like a good plan to me.>
<Look I got no intention'a bein' the bad guy here, but ain'tcha forgettin' somethin'?> Sidir chimes in. <Half the reason we're back is t'get Lilunu takin' a look at the soul situation, right?>
"Yeah? What's your point?"
<I'm just sayin' maybe don't go makin' plans when you got no idea if Daji'll even be around after she fixes this->
<I'm not something to get 'fixed',> Daji snaps. <I'm part of Jiro and I belong here.>
<I didn't mean it like that!> Sidir protests. <I jus' meant- maybe you're gettin' a lil' ahead of yourselves all stampedin' ahead with this thing we don't know what it is an' I...>
He trails off.
"And what?"
<Didn't mean nothin' by it,> the demon mutters. <Forget it, jus' ramblin'. I got some stuff I gotta do anyway.>
"Sidir, come on." A pause. "Sidir?"
Sidir says nothing. He stays quiet the rest of the day.
You see Malfeas the moment you crest the first dune on the fifth day - it's so indescribably massive that you couldn't possibly do otherwise. It dwarfs every mountain you've ever seen, makes the castle in your soul look like a piddly little diorama, makes sure you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you will take an entire day just to get to it and you'll damn well like it. You give a groan of effort and stretch, feeling out the limits of your still-healing injury and aching muscles. You're functional, the little warmup on Day 3 proved that, but nowhere close to peak yet. It's irritating. Every day the wound Sky gave you lingers the harder the needle inside your head scratches a vow for revenge on the inside of your skull. Scratch-scratch-scratch, vibrating through every bone in your body. You tell it to be quieter, at least until you've hit the baths in your mansion and made yourself feel human again.
It's an easy march to the edge and you find a way in quickly, just one crack in the incomprehensible vastness of the Demon City so small it might as well be one of his pores. That is if pores were brass-plated on the inside with carved reliefs depicting the fall of the Primordials running all along the passageway. The floor slowly twists to the right as you walk, imperceptible in the moment but when you look back halfway through you see that you've somehow ended up on the ceiling relative to where you came in - it'd probably be a lot more impressive if you didn't skullfuck gravity as a matter of course now. Instead you shrug and keep walking.
The inside is another story. You know you've seen it before but getting slapped in the face with the full enormity of Malfeas' interior again is enough to take your breath away. Before you know it you're craning your neck all the way up, your eyes scanning the endless city blocks and boulevards stretching out and up and around you in all directions along the inner walls of the gargantuan sphere that is Hell. The green sun blazes in the core, bright enough to make you squint irritably but not enough to look away, only enough to obscure the far side of the layer with the help of some lingering clouds. You think Sidir told you something about how every layer looks like this, not just the literal innermost one, something something Yozi world bodies don't gotta make sense. It's the noise that hits you next. The trek here was so quiet that the crowded-market-on-festival-day cacophany is like an assault in its own right, and it only gets louder once the demons milling about the massive, ornate exit notice that an Infernal just showed up. You're mobbed by demons of every shape and size in an instant, excitedly showing you their wares and asking you what you've been up to, begging you to swear them into your service, so on and so on until you can't help but recoil and shield your stomach. You firmly push your adoring fans out of the way with your free hand, mouth set in a grim slash as you pick a direction and start walking, determined to find somewhere remotely quiet to think and-
"Well well well. Look who we have here."
There's a pregnant pause, like the entire crowd is holding its breath and turning around to see who spoke. Not a one of them like what they see. They scatter as quick as they arrived, leaving you standing alone in an empty and suddenly far quieter plaza. The speaker stands a few strides from you, talons click-click-clicking on the rough-hewn street of black stone below.
It's a gang of demons, at least a dozen, maybe more. Primarily kevastis like Sidir but you see some others - a pair of blood apes, a couple of wolfman-looking ones with feathers instead of fur, even some neomah. But for all the variety in their hiring practices, you know a gang when you see one. Even if Sidir hadn't let it slip you'd recognise those piercings, those tattoos, a couple of the kevastis even have cracks full of molten brass like him. Every one of them is unique, but every one of them's marked up their bodies down to the last speck of space. Most of them are scarred-up, too. All of them shuffling around, slowly moving to encircle you. The kevastis that spoke, a big bastard with a giant jagged gash down his face that took out one of his eyes and a mandible, looks right at home.
"(Sidir, who are these guys?)"
The silence that follows is so yawning and cavernous that you could slip and fall into it. You barely suppress the urge to whip your head around like your coadjutor is just standing an arm's length behind you ready to be shaken conscious again. Instead you keep your eyes fixed on the gang. Instead you straighten up, square your shoulders, and hiss "(Sidir)" out the corner of your mouth one more time.
<I don't know what's wrong with him, he's just freezing up!> Daji exclaims from somewhere in the depths of your soul, grunting and straining as they presumably try to shove the statue-demon out of the rut he's fallen in.
"Coadjutor trouble?" the scar-faced demon asks with what you assume is the kevastis equivalento of a shit-eating grin. "Let's see... that gaudy arm, that borderline heretical cloak, and that ridiculous excuse for armour? I know Sidir's work when I see it."
"Yeah and who asked you, fuckpipe?" you retort.
"You mean he hasn't told you yet?" He puts his lower hands on his hips, folding his upper arms confidently. "Either that or you got a shitload of nerve to come walking in here with that coward in your head. Y'see the thing you don't seem to grasp, Sidir-" he raises his voice to be heard by a demon that only exists in the depths of your fractured soul "-is that serving the Unquestionable's will only gets you so far. It won't protect you forever."
"(any luck?)" you mutter through gritted teeth, barely moving your lips.
<Oh fuck it, I'm taking over!> There's the briefest of pauses as Daji takes whatever command position that Sidir usually occupies, and you can almost sense them peering through your eyes at the gang arrayed before you. <I know what it looks like but I think they're just trying to scare us.>
"(you think?)"
<It's been twelve seconds, Dad, give me a break here. They can tell you're still injured, how well I don't know. But they absolutely, definitely won't throw the first punch. Maybe.>
"(thanks.)"
The scar-faced kevastis spreads all four arms in an impatient gesture, awaiting your retort. You ball your hands into fists. This is exactly what you didn't need right now - the only way your day could get any worse is if Ligier or fucking Iudicavisse jumped out of a hole in the ground for good measure. But like it or not you're suddenly hip-deep in Sidir's mess and Sidir's left the building, so it falls to you to figure this out.
[ ] Ignore them. Shoulder through the crowd and walk to the Conventicle. You don't have time for these assholes and they're too chickenshit to do anything about it.
[ ] Confront them. The scar-face guy thinks he can talk shit to you like that and walk away? Nah, you'll get up in his face and give as good as you get. Either he backs down, or he makes things real simple.
[ ] Punch him. See how smart that mouth is when you snap off the other mandible with your fucking fist.
EternalObserver
eYe Gaze baCk
- Location
- The Void
[X] Confront them. The scar-face guy thinks he can talk shit to you like that and walk away? Nah, you'll get up in his face and give as good as you get. Either he backs down, or he makes things real simple.
[X] Confront them. The scar-face guy thinks he can talk shit to you like that and walk away? Nah, you'll get up in his face and give as good as you get. Either he backs down, or he makes things real simple.
This is hell. First circle demons do not get to talk to genuine People like that. It's against the Law.
This is hell. First circle demons do not get to talk to genuine People like that. It's against the Law.
- Location
- Fairfax, VA
[X] Confront them. The scar-face guy thinks he can talk shit to you like that and walk away? Nah, you'll get up in his face and give as good as you get. Either he backs down, or he makes things real simple.
I'm persuadable otherwise, especially because I'm not sure Jiro has the trash talk game to make this work (though hey, Daji probably does), but yeah, screw letting them talk about our boy Sidir like that.
I'm persuadable otherwise, especially because I'm not sure Jiro has the trash talk game to make this work (though hey, Daji probably does), but yeah, screw letting them talk about our boy Sidir like that.
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Confront them. The scar-face guy thinks he can talk shit to you like that and walk away? Nah, you'll get up in his face and give as good as you get. Either he backs down, or he makes things real simple.
Yeah no. It would be social suicide to shrug this off. These idiots know we're worlds above them. They think they can spit in the eye of a Prince of Hell and get away with it just cause he's tired. They're wrong.
Yeah no. It would be social suicide to shrug this off. These idiots know we're worlds above them. They think they can spit in the eye of a Prince of Hell and get away with it just cause he's tired. They're wrong.
- Location
- florida
Oh Sidir. It's alright to get attached to people you are literally sharing a body with o.k?
@ZerbanDaGreat so if we go in swinging are we going to pop them like grapes? These people might have been important to Sidir at some point and it feels... like it would be an uncool move.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
ACK, a social vote! My one weakness!
... This does count as a social vote, right?
... This does count as a social vote, right?
- Location
- florida
It does in Malfeas.