<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.
Lmao, Daji's a goddamn twerp.
But it makes sense honestly like- Elloge is characterized by an aversion to direct confrontation and raw "just-fuck-your-face" power and a frustration with that limitation. Elloge (and to a varying extent her constituent souls)
wants to rush out from the wings,
wants to seize the spotlight. It's just her own ragged, torn open vulnerabilities that impede her, the reflexive bone-deep fear of being exposed and known. So no wonder Daji likes having a chance to flex and shit, being the star of the show usually isn't where Sphere of Speech gets to sit. And with Jiro in particular getting to punch through the scars and dead nerves to actually enjoy what he/they are doing, kinda revel in how unambiguously Good At It They Are instead of being sorta flatly workmanlike about it- yeah no wonder that's some big emotional catharsis.
There is a shadow to that though, a dark side imo. Elloge is also
self-obsessive, narcissistic and borderline delusional in how she reframes things to suit the roles she has in her head (with her, in particular, as the one to be adored and admired and fawned over and pitied and loved for her sickness and vulnerability). That's a potentially pretty explosive mixture with Jiro's standard strategy of But What If I Repress
Even Harder. It's not a hard line, a Therefore We Should Never so much as it's something to be conscious of. Sometimes seizing the microphone and grandstanding and giving everyone at the wedding reception a piece of your mind isn't what's, uh, best for everyone. Yourself included.
"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.
<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.
Nnoooooooo sweet prince nooooooo ;~;
God, poor guy. The IC justification for the armor upgrade was 100% that he was trying to touch it up to show off to Jiro and impress the guy and it doesn't make the impact he hoped 'cause his Infernal completely misses the subtext and Sidir doesn't have the spine to just slap it on the table. And then he kind of accidentally fucks it up anyway by letting his internal shitty thoughts a little too much lead, getting Daji mad at him, Jiro doesn't stick up for him or help him out, and then just goes "c'mon" when he's upset. Shit's rough. Like for reference I don't at all think that Sidir meant that he wants Daji gone or that he lowkey hates the fox kid. But I do think there's this steadily growing spike of resentment and bitterness growing in him because like-
It was supposed to be Him and Jiro. They were supposed to be each other's lifeline and go off into Creation together, in this new life for both of them. He's his coadjutor! His guide, he's supposed to be important to him. And I think Sidir really wanted a partner and I think he's genuinely afraid of what's going to happen/what is currently happening with Jiro's spiritual mutations and I think that somewhere between the two is this feeling that he's been replaced.
That before he even really got a chance he got replaced by someone who Jiro has a much stronger bond with, he's been relegated consistently to a secondary priority (remember that "I'm, uh, here to see Daji-" "Right yeah no of course yeah" after the fight with the fox-kid), talked over and kinda walked over and no wonder he's feeling like he's a third wheel. I don't think he's going to flip out or anything, or turn against Jiro to be clear. But I do think it's a case of deeply wounded feelings with no real outlet or easy articulation while one half of the equation trundles on pretty blithely oblivious to how it's hurting the other one. And I think to varying degrees it's going to bite us in the ass this arc since we're dealing with the old crew that Sidir used to run with (and considering that he's working for Ligier now there's a
story here) at the same time that Sidir -already with the self-esteem of a broken teacup- is feeling like the soulscape fuckup and dead weight and all those other wonderful things.
[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 think I'm not 100% ready to eat the risks of escalating to straight up violence given that these people used to be pretty close to Sidir before they clearly had some big-ass blowout. It's a murky situation where the one point of insight isn't on easy speaking terms with us and is also probably having a panic attack. But at the same time just blowing it off, no matter how tired we are, isn't a good idea. If we don't project strength we're gonna get eaten alive politically and with maybe a few solid attempts literally. So we square up, we try not to push it to a fight since we're already fucked and getting decked in the big aching wound in front of the audience is going to be a sour note (and how this comes off to the population of Hell is gonna be a lowkey but meaningful thing too, like going max brutal is going to get some "ah yeah, definitely one of the Reclamation's legbreaker's"), and then the demon gangsters (ideally) slink off.
They know who we are, I think Daji's right in that they don't want to fight. But that they're mouthing off at all is ballsy bordering on insanely aggressive in terms of posturing. So I want to echo some of the other comments that they think Someone has their back, or at least that enough people don't have Jiro's that there's room for them to make this play.
Which is concerning.
I've always wondered if it always takes 5 days to fravel through Cecelyne anyways, why not simply take 10 steps per day and make camp to sleep/meditate for most of the 4 days?
It's worth remembering that Cecelyne isn't, like, some even handed enforcer of protocol: she's
The bad faith jurist. The reason it's five days in the first place is because that's the maximum amount of time she could impose on everyone trying to cross, it's the absolute limit of how difficult and unpleasant she could make it for demon princes and wandering mortals alike. So I feel like it'd be one of those things where you're not guaranteed to get smited if you play cute games like that, but you definitely spike up your risk of having a 2CD or 3CD swing by to get cute with you right back. On top of the natural hazards of the landscape.
