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Mutually Assured Destruction
Damn, if this wasn't an ominous title.
The first time I read it, I was afraid we majorly fucked up somehow, which we admittedly might have with how much sesnitive stuff wewere discussing in an unsecure environment, but I was thinking about something much more immediately catastrophic, maybe Polemgaos related or something.
Ulyssian had settled in, had mentally reviewed the day's events, had briefly entered his battle-trance, had finished his exercise set. The latter was almost unnecessary; his Exalted body didn't seem to require near the level of maintenance that his mortal form had. His form was stronger, his mind sharper, his instincts whisper-keen: and all that before he began to expend effort and push himself to superhuman levels. It was both disturbingly familiar and shockingly wonderful - an artifact of his past lives' memories being overlaid into his mind, he supposed.
Ulyssian and his battle trance, the ultimate OTP of this quest? Seriously though, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd prefer to spend all his time in it with how often he uses it for things other than battle. Is it perhaps misnamed?
In any case, it's it's rather interesting to be reminded of how much of Uly's time was previously spent not so much on improving himself but on eternally combating the mortal tendency to lose the conditioning he worked so hard for witohut constant maintenance. Having reached more or less the limit of mortal potential and then having to constantly work on just maintaining that ultimately kind of inconsequential amount of strength before old age or even just a single wound takes it away again seems even more depressing in hindsight and in contrast with his Exalted advantages.
It's also always nice to see these little tidbits about how Uly's previous life also provides a constant stream of minor effects and not just the big stuff. Helps to support the whole Uly and Ody are the same person thing as opposed to Uly just being influenced by the echoes of Ody's actions.
He could have retired early, but his head was clear, and he was no longer weary from the day's many social interactions. He looked around his room, took in the quality of the furnishings, the understated opulence. He might as well enjoy it while he still could; come tomorrow night, he didn't intend to sleep here anyway. Fifteen opponents of unknown skill and provenance were simply too many to effectively sabotage, given their defenses. That was likely true for the other players as well. But once the bracket was defined tomorrow, everyone would know their targets. He fully intended to be gone from the apartments everyone knew they'd been given, once that occurred.
Uly is actually capable of enjoying the quality of the funrishings? Colour me surprised. I'd assumed he would grumble about how soft beds tempt you to sleep longer and hide in a closet.
Speaking of closets, I can barely wait to find out what lurking places he has decided on for this Tournament. It'll be hard to beat Saery's closet in terms of hilarity, especially since Saery's closet is sadly not an option until her whatshisname is no longer in the running, but I can't wait to see what Rihaku comes up with.
He walked briefly around the suite, examining the accoutrements there. They reminded him of his childhood, the luxury (though he hadn't understood it then) that he'd been accorded as a likely Prince of the Earth.
Uly reminiscing about his childhood is always at least vaguely depressing. Doubly so, since it's almost always triggers an intense and unanswered curiosity about what his immediate family is exactly like.
Their apartments had a balcony, which looked out over a portion of the gardens. The evening was subdued, the night sky like soft velvet. Likely the competitors had quelled any excessive partying.
It's honestly somewhat hilarious to be reminded of how Uly left early because all that socializing literally gave him a headache and the proper DB is only now reluctantly reducing the partying to non-excessive levels, because the previous level of partying is no longer tenable.
Nilul was sitting on the banister, slender legs waving idly in the wind, staring up at the stars. Absent the earthly light, those stars formed a glittering stream across the sky, the embodied forms of Creation's celestial gods.
I wonder whether Uly stumbled on Nilul intentionally here.
The vote preceeding this update obviously suggest that and his super hearing does so as well, but notinhg in the scene itself indicates he was planning on talking with Nilul here and I'd probably like it more if this confrontation developed somewhat organically, though I'm not sure how realistic that is with these two.
He came up to rest his arms against the banister, exhaling quietly, looking out into the world. Of late he'd come to rely on his hearing more than his sight, but his eyes were still keen, capable of picking out the patterns on individual leaves in the garden below. Many of them, he noted, had calligraphic inscriptions on their surface, blended to resemble the leaf's natural design. Prayers to Sextes Jyles, the Immaculate Dragon of Wood. Let me be fertile. Let my children grow strong. Let me find a truly potent substance for tonight's celebrations.
Don't worry Uly, once all important stuff happens at supersonic speeds, your eyes will get their time to shine again!
Well, unless you've developed a sixth sense by then or physics around here is wonky enough for that not to matter. Which it probably is.
In other news, that's a kind of hilarious non sequitur, unless you've internalized enough Exalted lore.
Which is honestly all that really needs to be said to explain that bit of oddnessm provided one has enough background knowledge.
The Realm is kind of a machine focused on litte else but pumping out more supersoldiers, making sure they are strong enough to take on all the nasty stuff out there and making sure they have enough drugs and other luxuries to make them comlacent enough not to become a threat to the world on their own.
"Have you ever really looked at them?" Nilul spoke up, voice gentle. "The stars."
I'm actually kind of leaning towards no on this one.
I mean, we do know that Odyssial did that stuff with the Sun at least once, but neither him nor Ulyssian really seem like they do that kind of thing easily and the stars don't have nearly the sae signficance for them.
"Seacrown is always so bright," she continued, "you can't really seem them, not even from the towers. Not like this. All the stars are my enemies, all the stars in the sky. But you'd probably already figured that out."
It's surprisingly easy to forget how cities in the realm at least do create the kind of effects usually associated with our modern world. Probably makes sense to subtly remind people of that on occasions like these.
And, yeah, she was rather blatant about it.
"I had," Ulyssian acknowledged. It was not difficult to discern that she was somehow connected with demonkind, with the Dragon's Shadow.
Interesting that he still thnks of him as the Dragon's Shadow and not the Ebon Dragon.
I mean, yeah, he was changed the least of the Yozi, but I'd have thought the difference would have still been pronounced enough for Odyssial to make a point of differentiating after living thousands of years with the Ebon Dragon no longer being the Dragon's Shadow.
Does he do the same with the others or is this something he only does for the Dragon's Shadow for some reason?
"Do you think," he continued, "that we might ever be enemies?"
Not the most delicate way to breach that topic, but I suppose that's not really an approach Uly can hope for much success with even if he bullshits fate outrageously.
She turned to look at him, smirking. "Uly, why would you ever think that?"
Then again, Nilul was pretty much inviting that question anyways.
He shrugged. "I was just considering that we would be able to do quite a lot of damage to each other, in that case. You could out me as Anathema, and perform various horribly incomprehensible social things. You could betray me at a critical moment, having called down an insurmountable tide of enemies. I could decide beforehand to simply turn you in to said enemies, or overcome them and hunt you down. No disguise would save you."
"Various incomprehensable social things" he calls it. Gotta love that Uly accepts his incompetence in that field so much he doesn't even bother trying to uphold a polite fiction about his incomprehension of what the hell Nilul is up to.
Of course, given that Nilul wouldn't let him get away with that anyways, using this as an opportunity to make a slightly passive agressive comment over the needless complexity of her field of expertise is probably the better option.
"You could probably kill me right now," she mused, "even through my protections."
"There's that too," he acknowledged.
Always nice to see that Saery isn't even remotely the only one in Uly's immediate surroundings to be utterly aware of how much of a "tiger" he now is.
"So," she asked, "since we'd make such good enemies, should we instead just stay mediocre friends?"
"I dislike mediocrity," he said. "If we are to be friends, what would it take for me to trust you, and for you to trust me, fully? The only thing I've thought of was to ensure we could destroy each other utterly, and mutually."
It's also good to see the disfunctionality of their relationship to be spelled out so clearly in the story itself. Really cleans up any illusions about Uly not being kind of a shit friend.
I also can't express how much this passage eased by growing fears about the chapter title.
Obviously, we're still not completely "safe" from alternative interpretations and stuff, but at least having a plausible explanation that isn't horrific helps a lot.
Nilul laughed. "That... that's actually not such a terrible plan. You know me better than I thought, Ulyssian."
Hmm, thinking about it, this might actually be because they are a lot more similar to each other then one would think.
Outside of situations where Ulyssian gets caught up in moral or emotional conflicts or we make him do something incredibly risky for fishy reasons (though the two tend to overlap quite a bit), he's very ruthlessly pragmatic.
I suppose the largest difference is that Uly's ultimate goal is somewhat more altruistic, but given how his survival and well-being is often a critical component of achieving it, that difference is a lot more academic than one would think.
"You shouldn't underestimate me," he joked. "I am Zao's secret apprentice, after all. While undercover, I discovered that you were Anathema."
The consistency with which their conversation returns to sniping at each other is very much appreciated.
"The only thing I consistently underestimate," she retorted, "is your colossal denseness."
Man, for a moment there I was afraid Nilul was being way too blatant and Uly would finally catch on to his absolute incompetence regarding this, but then I remembered this was Uly.
He wasn't particularly heavy. "What?"
Seriously, I didn't actually expect Uly to never have read a dictionary explaining the alternative uses of the word dense.
At the very least I'd have thought he'd realize Nilul was making a comment about his social incompetence, which he'd brush off and not take too seriously, though admittedly it'd have been a lot less funny.
"Never mind," she shook her head, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Can I ask you something?"
"I'm certain you have that ability," he demurred semantically.
I actually find myself wondering if this demurring is at least somewhat here to prevent giving her promises to sanctify.
Probably not out of mistrust, given what comes later, but making sure her first opportunity to sactify something here is made absolutely clear to be given willingly is probably important.
"You're obnoxious," she said. Her face turned serious. "Hero."
"Hero?"
"He pledged himself to your family. He basically swore away his life to protect you, without a second thought. There was no downside for you in that arrangement. But you turned him down."
Maybe we were feeling a bit suicidal that day?
Honestly, I think people got so caught up in retconning Beman to be complete crap and the hype of defeating him as a mortal, that they forgot having Hero fight wasn't
that bad an option especially not after making sure he'd stomp Beman.
He began to respond, but she raised a hand. "I know why humans do that sort of thing. I've taken advantage of it, more than once. But you... I really didn't expect that of you. I thought you were more practical than that."
Seriously, those people in his head growing overconfident and wanting to pull off insane shit all the time is a lot less satisfying an explanation when being asked that question in character.
It is rather interesting to see what kind of influence this had on Nilul then. For someone who until then may have considered us just as sociopathic as she likes to think herself of, that must have been just baffling.
I mean, Uly otherwise seemed way too pragmatic and went through more than enough suffering to not just do this kind of thing out of some blind white knight impulse.
"I could swear to unconditionally protect you from all who desire to take you, no matter how outrageous their forces are," he said. "Go ahead, sanctify it."
It's really nice to see that Uly blowing his hypercompetence on this social interaction isn't fluffed as him suddenly becoming super persuasive.
He just remains himself, but his incredible bluntness and trademark recklessness is placed at just the right moments to succeed. It just gets even better when considering that this is a great way to fluff these successes being achieved by messing with Fate a bit.
For a split second, the tiniest sliver of a heartbeat, Nilul's composure faltered. Her breathing changed, just slightly.
I seriously can not overstate how incredibly relieved I was to find out that Nilul is apparently genuine after all.
The recovery was, of course, almost instant. "You know I wouldn't," she said hastily. "But... you weren't lying, either."
It's just lovely how she immediately switches back to rationalize things.
By rationalizing what Uly did with him knowing she wouldn't sanctify things, she can kind of, sort of rationalize her own failure to do so by more or less claiming to herself it would have "given the game away" or something, but it's cler how flimsy that sort of thing is and this doesn't prevent his honesty from catching her off guard.
"You were in my position, just now. There would have been no disadvantages for you to accept. I imagine it would actually have advantaged you a great deal. And yet you didn't."
And Uly continuing to hammer the point home past her denial and flimsy rationalization is just as hilariously blunt and unsutle as the oath itself. Gotta love the consistent lack of discretion even when Uly presumably rolls very high on social stuff.
"I could have," she hissed. "You've no idea- That was stupid, Uly! You've spent too much time around Moon. Friends can't always be faithful and true, there are other pressures, other factors. The real world doesn't work like that."
The way he broke her composure through a combination of guilt tripping, forcing her to confront that she's almost as bad a romantic as the rest of them and pissing her off enough that she's willing to show her cocnern for his stupidity is just great.
Seeing Nilul infuriated enough to lecture Uly on how he needs to be more of a bastard is too precious for word.
"It works like that in stories," he replied easily, looking out at the gardens. "The world should work that way, don't you think?"
And his complete disregard for her anger and concern in favour of idle musings makes things even better.
Not even giving her a proper counter argument to focus on dismatling is both a pretty great move and still as everything before perfectly in line with Uly being his blunt, inconsiderate and kind of dickish self.
"Yes," she said exasperatedly, "but that doesn't matter. Stories are just stories. Do you know another word for a story? A-"
Honestl, seeing Nilul's composure broken enough that Uly gets to direct the conversation is seriously not something I expected to see, even if he ultiamtely succeeded with his roll.
"A lie," he said. He turned to look at her. "But a story can be more beautiful than reality. A lie can be more beautiful than the truth. Just because reality is stronger, doesn't mean that it is right."
I'm also really liking how his core argument ultimately comes down to Uly's and Ody's central cinflict with the world itself and their ultiamte resolution to fix this fault with it.
"That's just words," she said, muscles tense. "Words and lies and stories. People talk. Anyone can talk. But in the end-"
It becomes very apparent how much Nilul is in fact in conflict with herself over this stuff here.
I wonder how much she managed to convince herself that all these romantic ideals she apparently kind of admires herself are utterly futile to pursue before she was exposed to the ridiculousness of both Moon, who naturally hangs on to them rather strongly in spite of at elast academically acknowledging how baseless they are, and Uly, who while not
as idealistic does have a rather streak of her Nilul's beliefs in ruthlessness and pragmatism that somehow manage to coexist with the ideals that drive him to do crazy shit.
It makes me question how much "prep-work" exposure to those two before this evening actually did in order to soften Nilul up for Uly throwing broken dicepools at her.
"I tried to unmake the world, once," he said.
I can't help but giggle whenever Uly just utterly robs Nilul of steam by nonchalantly bringing these ridiculous one-liners.
Nilul squinted at him. "All right," she declared, "I'm wondering if my lie-detecting skills are broken."
Nice to see Nilul hasn't completely lost it yet, though this does rather seem like she just looped far out into indignation that she hit calm again.
"It was my past life, in the First Age. The later parts I don't remember well, only generalities. I was called Odyssial, and all in stars in heaven were my enemies, as much as they are yours. I felt the world was too cruel, and sought to remake it. Heaven would probably protect even you, if you told them where and how to find the reincarnation of Odyssial, who shattered the Godspear. Especially if you told them that he still had his memories. Those who would dare try to kill me, would want to make the attempt before I grew strong."
Honestly this is a lot further than I thought Uly would really go here. I mean, he hasn't even told Moon about this stuff.
It is rather great to get a clearer picture of what Ody did to the Godspear and I can't even remotely claim this wasn't exactly the right thing to say at this point in the conversation.
"Wait," she said. Her face was scrunched up, and there was a look in her eyes that he'd never seen from her before. "You, you- You're so hopeless! You shouldn't talk any more. Look at what you've gotten yourself into. Telling that to me? To me!"
Man, this genuine anger and concern from Nilul is just so incredibly adorable that I can't get enough of it.
Kind of disappointed we're rather unlikely to get a repeat performance, but this was very much worth it.
She sniffed, then paused, and clenched her fist, trembling. "My... my mother is the Scarlet Empress. My father is the Ebon Dragon. She's been plotting something with him for at least two decades, since I was born. I think it involves me somehow. All the demons and Infernal Exalted under his sway, he's told to keep an eye out for me. If things turned out too bad, I was thinking of betraying you, maybe, or at least abandoning you so I could get away. But they probably won't care about you, as long as you give me over first. Oh, you should probably pay closer attention to Moon when you're alone together. Nothing dangerous, just something you've missed."
That sniffing! So adorable! Few things in the world come close to bullying Nilul into telling you her secrets with emotional blackmail.
I have to wonder if she's trying to get back at Uly just a little bit with the Moon line. I mean, we all know it will just lead to Uly staring at her intently the next time they see each other which will lead to another incredibly facepalm inducing display of denseness from Uly.
She shuddered, exhaling.
"There. That's not enough to make us even, but that's all I have. That's... the truth." She winced. "Mutual destruction, right?"
The fact that it's physically difficult for Nilul to do this much somehow makes bullying her into doing so even more appealing.
"I'm... sorry, that must have been hard for you. I was insensitive, like I often am. I can still swear that oath if it'll make you feel better," he offered.
Oh god, yes! I can't tell if Uly is being serious or if he's also gotten hooked on bullying Nilul by being trusting, but I want more of this!
"Oh, shut up!" she snapped. "When you were a mortal, how many times a day did you push through, even when it was unbearable? I'm not so spoiled that I can't, that, that I can't even do this," she swallowed. "Just sit up here and look at our enemies with me, okay? And don't talk."
I suppose this is an important reminder here.
As much as Nilul does have serious difficulties with telling the truth, it's not so much that it's unbearable, but more that she never had someone she felt it worth to make herself tell the truth to.
He did so, and she abruptly hugged him. For a long moment they sat silently, before Nilul spoke.
It's interesting how this single sentence describing a rather idyllic scene managed to calm me down from the emotional frenzy induced by caffeine and seeing Nilul so adorably upset.
"A friend I can trust," she murmured into his shoulder. "It's nothing but a lie. But, you're right. Just because it's a lie, doesn't mean that it's wrong. When you're stronger, I'll help you destroy the world. If you want."
It's honestly great how incredibly touching that phrase comes across in this particular situation.
It says both a lot about how close they've grown now and about how Nilul apparently decided pursuing a world like that isn't quite so futile, even if the means they fall back on may be rather extreme.
"That's not a phrase I ever thought I'd hear anyone say," he mused.
Hmm, didn't he ever get to hear something similar fomr Pearl?
I mean, Lea was probably simply on board because his ultimate waifu obviously would be, but Pearl seemed much more likely to be convinced that this was the right course of action through arguments. Or did Pearl never learn about this endgoal of Ody's?
"Hush," she said. "Don't ruin this with your talking. You're too frustrating... I never thought that I'd make a friend I could trust. Especially not you. Hero? He's unlikely to betray anyone. You? You're kind of an asshole."
Heh. Well, as I said earlier the two of them are actually a lot more similar than you'd think, especially now that Nilul is likely to not try quite as hard to be cynical anymore and, given that any interaction with someone naturally more trusting may have leaned harder on Nilul's instincts to take advantage of them, I'm not too surprised Uly ended up being her first true friend.
Also once again, seeing Uly called out as being a mediocre friend at best.
"Thanks, friend," he answered sarcastically.
I wonder if he's just playing along or if Uly really doesn't realize how questionable his qualities as a friend really are.
She looked up at him, the stars reflected in her eyes.
Do rather like the callback to all the earlier mentions of start, especially since they now that I think about it show up at the beginning climax and end of this confrontation. Gives the whole thing a very nice structure.
"I'm still going to be me," she said, "so don't expect every word from my mouth to be the Unconquered truth. But, if you ever want to know what I really think, just ask."
And I'm pretty sure noone would want something else.
Nilul is way too fun the way she is to get rid of the way she and Uly interact.
The next day, drawings for the tournament were held. It was an excellent opportunity to cheat, and they'd prepared themselves well. Ulyssian, clad in the Storm Armor, entered the Pavilion early in the morning, to birdsong and morning mist. Nilul wore a black silk qipao with her hair done up in chopsticks, darting about, a few paces ahead or behind. Above, the halcyon dawn burned violet and incarnadine, spreading livid streaks of red across the slowly lightening sky.
Still as great at setting up scenes as ever, I see.
Nilul's plan, to wear down Cathak Polemgaos by depleting his reserves of will, had two peaks of effectiveness: one, immediately, when he'd had minimal time to recover from her mental assault at the feast, or two, as late as possible, when she'd had more opportunities to strike.
As sensible as this plan really is, I'm slightly disappointed it wasn't anything more convoluted and hilarious.
Given the calibre of competition at this tournament, even Ulyssian didn't have favorable odds of winning. Thus, they decided to attempt to fix the drawing so that he could encounter Polemgaos early. If he won, he would gain significant prestige even if he didn't take the tournament, and if he lost, well - he would have wasted minimal time that could have been spent training.
It's always nice to see the major IC reasoning that ultimately won the decision summed up like this.
At least, that had been the plan, before Ulyssian found the Mnemon girl and her retainer with his hearing, and pointed them out to Nilul from a distance. Immediately she stepped into his shadow, keeping him entirely between her and them, and began to subvocalize, so quietly that even he had to actively strain to hear.
Honestly, I was really in the mood for some Tournament action and as good as getting IC knowledge of those two is, I can't help but be rather disappointed at the interruption that might even get us to miss most of the Tournament altogether.
"Those are Infernal Exalts," she said. "Equal to Solars. Uly, we should run. We should get out of this place as soon as possible."
As interesting as Nilul's ability to recognize them as what they are is and as objectively sensible her course of action may be, I can't help but be really frustrated by this happening now.
He retreated back into the complex, nonchalantly but at speed. Only when they were safely ensconced behind several layers of wall, would Nilul speak again, and only sub-vocally.
Them needing to be careful over the Infernals having just as good hearing as Uly honestly didn't occur to me until now. Makes me really regret the two of them having said that much, which makes me all kinds of conflicted given that I really, really loved that scene.
"We have to go soon," she said, voice urgent. "Please believe me. If you have any questions, write them. They might have hearing like yours."
And the fact that Nilul is so very worried is making me rather uncomfortable.
I really want to stick aorund and see the Tournament because I think it'll be very interesting, but for all that Nilul admits and accepts Uly is a dick ignoring her pleas and fears after a scene as powerful as that really doesn't sit right with me.
Seeing her this desperate is all kinds of unpleasant.
