- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
[X] Plan Bad Dragon
Exalted: Out Of The Eater
- Thread starter TenfoldShields
- Start date
- Location
- madison
so the fallout is going to be wide and far-reaching, but on the whole, I think we came out of that less battered than most, so relative gain?
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
[X] Plan "No Man, No Monster So Mighty"
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Vote Closed
Bad Dragon takes it. Sheet updates plus an interlude and, hey, maybe even a no-shit update this weekend.
Eyyy, neat little ghost story and solid commentary on the hazards inherent in dehumanization and the almost, like, self-crippling nature of Lookshy in a sense. Have 50xp.
@Maugan Ra you still have 50xp to spend.
@Omicron you have 150xp.
Bad Dragon takes it. Sheet updates plus an interlude and, hey, maybe even a no-shit update this weekend.
Eyyy, neat little ghost story and solid commentary on the hazards inherent in dehumanization and the almost, like, self-crippling nature of Lookshy in a sense. Have 50xp.
@Maugan Ra you still have 50xp to spend.
@Omicron you have 150xp.
- Location
- London, England
Pop it in Dark Messiah Style, for gruesome murder-related goodness.
High praise! Higher than I expected, actually.
Anyway, I'm kinda tempted to use this for a new charm. (Infinite energy reserves are well and good, but they get even better with something expensive to spend on.) Do I have enough for that? Only the charms that were offered a couple updates ago and not taken are valid, aren't they?
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Charms will (most likely) be available for purchase later. They're not available right now.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I am belatedly cool with this vote winning, and I wish to suscribe to the Awesome Fire Pet newsletter because I love familiars. @TenfoldShields Put my XP into the Lesser Flame Elemental, please.
Interlude One: Intercalate
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
He was falling.
Blood rushing behind closed lids, the thin darkness pulsing red-black. Stomach rising into his chest and gorge surging up his throat. Kneeling on the little rug and trying to meditate, to center himself as he'd been taught and all he could feel was the whirlwind, the tempest on every side and the void yawning so very wide, so very far below. It was too late to stop it. It was too late to take it back, to undo what he did. He was falling and the sole mercy was that he did so alone, with none to see the glossy, glassy sheen in his eyes. None to hear the soft retch, watch his shoulders hitch and shudder as his breath came in shuddering gasps; something sour and acid-hot on his tongue.
They'd given him one of the few tents they had salvaged from Ivory Bones, some small scrap of privacy for their would-be general. Or maybe it was a veil instead. A curtain to conceal the awful and awe-inspiring thing within, a canvas cloth barrier so that they could pretend he wasn't here and see to the necessary and the mundane work before them. Attend to the bevy of tasks without their personal miracle, profane thing that it was, sitting there and watching them as they dug latrines and tallied the supplies left in what survived of their logistics train. As they posted watch from the few whole and the fewer hale and found places for the exhausted and the walking wounded (and if he kept his eyes shut and focused he could hear their whimpering, their sobbing carried on the wind). Sidonia had liquidated the work crews and the helots attached to the army were scattered in the chaos. Fled or-
...Consumed.
And without helots they had to do most of the labor themselves, with whatever working bodies they had left.
The night's casualties had been ruinous.
Of the army massed at that mining town, of the thousands of citizens sent under the Aikaterine's care to the Triadic River Ministry, perhaps a third were here, in this camp. With another...quarter? Another sixth? Less, he supposed, scattered still across the midnight hills, the countryside dark and quiet beneath the Calibration sky. They had been steadily filtering in in scale-sized bands all throughout the early hours of the "morning": a drip, a drop, a dozen or two at a time; carrying word of others met on the road, an even stream of the defeated. The broken.
Of the rest there was nothing to be said really; no words to adequately capture the sheer enormity of the catastrophe (but oh his brain worked and his mind turned and pieced the picture together unbidden, unasked for and unwanted in its intrusion). They had been caught by the Wolf-King's army within their own walls, hemmed in by their fortifications. The ramparts useless, worse than useless, against the argent-masked spirits who formed the backbone of the assault. In the end good only for keeping the men from withdrawing, good only for trapping them in a smoke-choked trench with no way out. If he opened his eyes and peered from his tent he could see it still, an ember, a cinder, on the distant horizon; the butt of a hand-rolled cigarette. That one orange spark that was a little sharper, a little harsher, than the sunset glow that softened the unending night. A column of pitch black smoke mingling with the clouds above.
Most of their cataphracts and the light cavalry were gone, their heavy infantry decimated. The fangs of thaumaturges largely intact but bereft their tools and reagents. Footsoldiers, with swords and shields and spears and crossbows, ripped all to shreds and the Encrypted-
-their scouts butchered. Of the five Dragonblooded who accompanied the army East two were here; one unscathed and another who might not live to see another false-dawn much less the City's walls.
The rest were dead.
He saw it, that thing that fell from the sky like a silver meteor. The shockwave that rippled through the ground, soil and wilted yellow grass cresting like breakers in the bay. He had glimpsed the insanity of it, the madness cloaked in flesh. The wolf-eyed, wolf-toothed beast of black fur, black feathers, black scales, black branches. Silver eyes (too many eyes) gleaming, white fangs (so many fangs) shining; the Anathema growing even as it paced and snarled, a chimera the size of a yeddim calf and swelling larger every passing second. He saw it as it hurled Aikaterine Sergia through the curtain wall. As it plowed through her cousin Corippus's honor guard, full grown men and women of the theme floating in the air, hanging weightless like so many specks of dust as those jaws parted. As they closed around the courtier's antlered head in a spray of scarlet. Red dappling that mercury-bright brand and wetting the fur.
He saw, from that hill, the beast that it called: the Dead Sun, the corpse-amalgam. He saw it from afar, as it wrapped itself around that last emerald spark. He watched as that spark went out.
A cool, wet wind moaned through the slumped, ragged camp. This remnant, this wreckage washed up on the banks of the Shogunate highway. Nestled in the crook of a sloping, grassy hill. Thunder rumbled above, clouds billowing, the faintest suggestion of something swirling in the sky; the outlines of the coming storms. It was just after dawn- would have been just after dawn, he amended mentally. Small mercies wasn't it? The Wolf-King hadn't pursued them through the night. They had been spared.
"Spared".
Hah.
The man who had been Jason shivered and shook himself. Slowly scrubbing his eyes as he knelt, hunched in upon himself. Straw-gold hair hanging low over honed, handsome features, sunny yellow on tanned skin. His muscular build half-starved for the sake of the role, he really could have been a fisherman's son. The lie wasn't so far from the truth or, at least, hadn't been.
Maheka Leander's fingers lingered on his forehead, nails digging into the flesh as if he could gouge out that itch, claw out that fever-ache buried bone deep in his head. A long, shuddering exhale and his hand fell to his thigh.
That was the thing wasn't it?
Failure was not forever, every fuckup had a kind of floor to it. A certain, terminal point past which everything else mercifully ceased to matter. A man leaping from the sculpted white spire of a cathedral, light as a feather, light as air; free of every sin, forgiven for every shortcoming as the ground rushed up to meet him. To kiss the pain away with lips of polished stone. It was alluring in it's own way, seductive: the thought of losing everything, everyone, the sheer imagined relief of feeling those chains finally snap, those hooks shattering the links lashing about as years of tension were released in a single instant. Salvation through self destruction. Freedom as an ending.
How often had he thought about that? How often had he dreamed about that? It felt like every waking moment sometimes, every day in that deathmarch he had in place of a childhood. One foot methodically placed in front of the other, one more step and if he could manage one he could manage two and if he could manage two he could manage more. No matter how much it hurt, how much he bled. No matter how raw he was inside, how torn and tattered. Giving up was a betrayal, giving in was unthinkable, but if he could just...fail. If he could just give it all, give it everything he had honestly and truly and it just wasn't enough then he could stop couldn't he?
He could rest. He could end.
Falling down down down from the threshold of School of the Imperial Raptor, which is also called the Unmerciful Academy, thrice-holy with its somber, severe shrines to Mars of the Seven Steel Coils, the Mother Relentless who keeps all lands shackled to Empire. To Jupiter Emerald Glaive, the Sentinel-Maiden who stands on the wall and peers, unflinching, into the dark. To Saturn Marble Mantled, the Archoness Eternal who kills with the hand of the state. Down past the pretty girls from powerful families, free to indulge recklessly for the first time in their lives and better, he thought, to feign passion for a night than to injure a heart, make an enemy. Down past the pretty boys in the prime of their youth, their smiles sharper in his mind, his touch more honest; scraps fed to something starving-desperate. Down back to that small apartment at the edge of the Gens Maheka compound. That small suite of rooms a narrow alleyway across from the servant's quarters and the guard barracks, where the wind blew between the timbers and the roof just barely kept out the rain.
Back to the cold, sucking hole in the world where father should have been- but he would not shame his sacrifice with grief, would not dishonor the Gunzosha oaths with something so unmanful as tears. To the small mirror where mother sat for hours and hours in the pre-dawn hush, burdened by heavy cloth and elaborate designs, painting her face, her lips, her lids with a steady hand so that she could do the same, sweltering in the sun, for her greater cousin. To self-serious Macarius, just a boy when he left but nearly sixteen now; showing every signs of strong blood and holy potential and he couldn't, wouldn't let that be smothered in its cradle. To Catella, fourteen now, and still dreaming of the elementalist's craft and the halls of Valkhawsen and Lambent Spider; of studying among the great sorcerers of Lookshy and Port Calin.
But that was the joke wasn't it? Everyone had sacrificed so much, bled for every breath. Everyone shackled to tarnished ideals, doing their best to find freedom in the guts of the monster, to find the way forward. And how could he do anything less? How could he stain and soil everything they'd done by being content with mere...mediocrity?
He did it for them. He did it for himself. His father's life bought the privilege of opportunity and then further refinement in the ranks of the Encrypted Ones and then it was- it was easy, wasn't it?
Because if he could take one step more he could take two, if he could take two he could take three. Pouring himself into the tasks, the tests, walking until his footprints filled with blood. Learning to hunt, learning to kill, learning to walk like them, talk like them, and it was only a few years and it was the only path forward and he was good at it and-
And it was easier when it was only watch and report. And it was easier when it was just the blade in his hand or the spear in his palm. When it was just farming villages and cargo docks and lumber camps and missions that were over in a week. When it was brutal but mechanical, a kind of reaping, absent true grandiose displays.
It was easier when he didn't know their names.
It was easier when he didn't know his name.
Alexius, scarred and thin and shy and scared. Alexius wearing that tentative smile as he looked at Leander, seemingly unaware of it. Alexius, his lean body warm against younger man's, unconsciously leaning against his chest. Alexius who held him and didn't- didn't see a base opportunist, a thin-blooded thing from a branch of a branch of a truly noble family, who didn't see that constant, gnawing hunger and hate him for it, scorn him for it, hold him in that aristocratic contempt. Who was clever and funny and kind and who tore open old scars, infected scabs, without even realizing it. Letting long festering wounds breathe in the open air.
His-
His friend. The first real friend, true friend, he'd made since he was a boy. Made without careful consideration of appearances or advantage or political gain. Who cared about him simply because he was...himself. Because he was "Jason".
And he'd ruined that too. Torn out Alexius's heart and dropped it in the dust and he hadn't even been able to save the hollowed out thing that was left. Really, between family, friends, sworn oaths, his own comrades: in the end what had he saved?
Maybe that's why he had been punished, maybe that's why he had been marked with the golden brand. Rewarded for his treachery, the sheer depths of his failure recognized, canonized by sunlit demons. Long-dead Anathema looking upon something so utterly degenerate, so depraved and disgusting and destructive and saying "yes, yes this is clearly one of ours." Even if he saved the people here it didn't matter. Even if banished the dead before him, rallied the lines to him, even if he all but physically pulled the Alexandros twins free as the walls began to fall and Sidonia refused to sound the retreat, it didn't matter.
He was trash. Less than trash really, trash was implicitly useful once upon a time.
The wind rose for a second, surging into a howling gale, the canvas cloth rippling, pulling against the taut ropes. Leander didn't so much as look up. Alexandros Viator had sent the message with the last of his power as they withdrew; the reply had been concise, clear. This delegation was expected. He wouldn't run, he wouldn't compound the sheer magnitude of his fuckups with further cowardice. And, besides, he couldn't deny that there was something of a relief in this. It's what he had, deep down, always wanted wasn't it?
Freedom was an ending.
He waited on his knees, hands on his thigh and head bowed; he didn't have to wait long.
The man that stepped into the makeshift pavilion was beautiful in the way that a sculpture was beautiful: perfect in his dimensions, remote and distant without a touch of softness, without a single blurred line in his flawless design. Something that seemed more made, formed by a master's hand, than casually, sloppily grown. His hair was a sandy brown, slitted eyes the color of iron and cold concrete; the scales that wound in bands across his half bared chest were slate-grey. His skin pale as marble. He carried no sword, only a stave of pure white jade. He came with no guards although Nichomachus knew they must be nearby, ready to strike at a moment's notice.
The man's robes were a pure, rich purple and as unarmored and unguarded as he seemed Nichomachus knew that to strike them would be like hitting the walls of the City itself. He would smash his hand into so many slivers of bone before he so much as grazed the near-divinity of this man, Kosmas Isaakios, Blessed-in-Purple-Eternal.
"Archon," he whispered as he prostrated himself at the Dragonblooded's feet, forehead touched to the ground, and palms flat on the worn rug, "Forgive me, I am not worthy. I should have fallen upon my sword but I was weak. I will not shirk your judgement. Please, purify me."
And for a long, long moment there was silence in that tent. Broken, in the end, only by the soft thump of the stave on the ground. The sway of those heavy robes as he took a step nearer. The leader of the Archontic Conclave, the most powerful man in the City studied Leander for a time.
"No," he said at last, in a voice so soft the newborn Solar almost had to strain his ears to hear it, contemplative and thoughtful and more for himself than anyone else, "No. I think not."
Blood rushing behind closed lids, the thin darkness pulsing red-black. Stomach rising into his chest and gorge surging up his throat. Kneeling on the little rug and trying to meditate, to center himself as he'd been taught and all he could feel was the whirlwind, the tempest on every side and the void yawning so very wide, so very far below. It was too late to stop it. It was too late to take it back, to undo what he did. He was falling and the sole mercy was that he did so alone, with none to see the glossy, glassy sheen in his eyes. None to hear the soft retch, watch his shoulders hitch and shudder as his breath came in shuddering gasps; something sour and acid-hot on his tongue.
They'd given him one of the few tents they had salvaged from Ivory Bones, some small scrap of privacy for their would-be general. Or maybe it was a veil instead. A curtain to conceal the awful and awe-inspiring thing within, a canvas cloth barrier so that they could pretend he wasn't here and see to the necessary and the mundane work before them. Attend to the bevy of tasks without their personal miracle, profane thing that it was, sitting there and watching them as they dug latrines and tallied the supplies left in what survived of their logistics train. As they posted watch from the few whole and the fewer hale and found places for the exhausted and the walking wounded (and if he kept his eyes shut and focused he could hear their whimpering, their sobbing carried on the wind). Sidonia had liquidated the work crews and the helots attached to the army were scattered in the chaos. Fled or-
the sweet scent of roasting meat. the bitter, choking smell of burning hair
blackened bones and heat-cracked teeth worked into empty smiles
the fire roaring, surging, hot air washing over his face.
hell has a smell. hell has a taste. hell has a feeling, a flavor all its own.
its name is mining Outpost One Five Two: Ivory Bones of Immaculate Earth.
blackened bones and heat-cracked teeth worked into empty smiles
the fire roaring, surging, hot air washing over his face.
hell has a smell. hell has a taste. hell has a feeling, a flavor all its own.
its name is mining Outpost One Five Two: Ivory Bones of Immaculate Earth.
...Consumed.
And without helots they had to do most of the labor themselves, with whatever working bodies they had left.
The night's casualties had been ruinous.
Of the army massed at that mining town, of the thousands of citizens sent under the Aikaterine's care to the Triadic River Ministry, perhaps a third were here, in this camp. With another...quarter? Another sixth? Less, he supposed, scattered still across the midnight hills, the countryside dark and quiet beneath the Calibration sky. They had been steadily filtering in in scale-sized bands all throughout the early hours of the "morning": a drip, a drop, a dozen or two at a time; carrying word of others met on the road, an even stream of the defeated. The broken.
Of the rest there was nothing to be said really; no words to adequately capture the sheer enormity of the catastrophe (but oh his brain worked and his mind turned and pieced the picture together unbidden, unasked for and unwanted in its intrusion). They had been caught by the Wolf-King's army within their own walls, hemmed in by their fortifications. The ramparts useless, worse than useless, against the argent-masked spirits who formed the backbone of the assault. In the end good only for keeping the men from withdrawing, good only for trapping them in a smoke-choked trench with no way out. If he opened his eyes and peered from his tent he could see it still, an ember, a cinder, on the distant horizon; the butt of a hand-rolled cigarette. That one orange spark that was a little sharper, a little harsher, than the sunset glow that softened the unending night. A column of pitch black smoke mingling with the clouds above.
Most of their cataphracts and the light cavalry were gone, their heavy infantry decimated. The fangs of thaumaturges largely intact but bereft their tools and reagents. Footsoldiers, with swords and shields and spears and crossbows, ripped all to shreds and the Encrypted-
the blazing sword, the sun in his hand carving her in half
the woman he had spent years beside faltering, folding, smoke curling from between her lips
not a trace of anger on her face, not a trace of fury
just a kind of faint surprise
the woman he had spent years beside faltering, folding, smoke curling from between her lips
not a trace of anger on her face, not a trace of fury
just a kind of faint surprise
-their scouts butchered. Of the five Dragonblooded who accompanied the army East two were here; one unscathed and another who might not live to see another false-dawn much less the City's walls.
The rest were dead.
He saw it, that thing that fell from the sky like a silver meteor. The shockwave that rippled through the ground, soil and wilted yellow grass cresting like breakers in the bay. He had glimpsed the insanity of it, the madness cloaked in flesh. The wolf-eyed, wolf-toothed beast of black fur, black feathers, black scales, black branches. Silver eyes (too many eyes) gleaming, white fangs (so many fangs) shining; the Anathema growing even as it paced and snarled, a chimera the size of a yeddim calf and swelling larger every passing second. He saw it as it hurled Aikaterine Sergia through the curtain wall. As it plowed through her cousin Corippus's honor guard, full grown men and women of the theme floating in the air, hanging weightless like so many specks of dust as those jaws parted. As they closed around the courtier's antlered head in a spray of scarlet. Red dappling that mercury-bright brand and wetting the fur.
He saw, from that hill, the beast that it called: the Dead Sun, the corpse-amalgam. He saw it from afar, as it wrapped itself around that last emerald spark. He watched as that spark went out.
A cool, wet wind moaned through the slumped, ragged camp. This remnant, this wreckage washed up on the banks of the Shogunate highway. Nestled in the crook of a sloping, grassy hill. Thunder rumbled above, clouds billowing, the faintest suggestion of something swirling in the sky; the outlines of the coming storms. It was just after dawn- would have been just after dawn, he amended mentally. Small mercies wasn't it? The Wolf-King hadn't pursued them through the night. They had been spared.
"Spared".
Hah.
The man who had been Jason shivered and shook himself. Slowly scrubbing his eyes as he knelt, hunched in upon himself. Straw-gold hair hanging low over honed, handsome features, sunny yellow on tanned skin. His muscular build half-starved for the sake of the role, he really could have been a fisherman's son. The lie wasn't so far from the truth or, at least, hadn't been.
Maheka Leander's fingers lingered on his forehead, nails digging into the flesh as if he could gouge out that itch, claw out that fever-ache buried bone deep in his head. A long, shuddering exhale and his hand fell to his thigh.
That was the thing wasn't it?
Failure was not forever, every fuckup had a kind of floor to it. A certain, terminal point past which everything else mercifully ceased to matter. A man leaping from the sculpted white spire of a cathedral, light as a feather, light as air; free of every sin, forgiven for every shortcoming as the ground rushed up to meet him. To kiss the pain away with lips of polished stone. It was alluring in it's own way, seductive: the thought of losing everything, everyone, the sheer imagined relief of feeling those chains finally snap, those hooks shattering the links lashing about as years of tension were released in a single instant. Salvation through self destruction. Freedom as an ending.
How often had he thought about that? How often had he dreamed about that? It felt like every waking moment sometimes, every day in that deathmarch he had in place of a childhood. One foot methodically placed in front of the other, one more step and if he could manage one he could manage two and if he could manage two he could manage more. No matter how much it hurt, how much he bled. No matter how raw he was inside, how torn and tattered. Giving up was a betrayal, giving in was unthinkable, but if he could just...fail. If he could just give it all, give it everything he had honestly and truly and it just wasn't enough then he could stop couldn't he?
He could rest. He could end.
Falling down down down from the threshold of School of the Imperial Raptor, which is also called the Unmerciful Academy, thrice-holy with its somber, severe shrines to Mars of the Seven Steel Coils, the Mother Relentless who keeps all lands shackled to Empire. To Jupiter Emerald Glaive, the Sentinel-Maiden who stands on the wall and peers, unflinching, into the dark. To Saturn Marble Mantled, the Archoness Eternal who kills with the hand of the state. Down past the pretty girls from powerful families, free to indulge recklessly for the first time in their lives and better, he thought, to feign passion for a night than to injure a heart, make an enemy. Down past the pretty boys in the prime of their youth, their smiles sharper in his mind, his touch more honest; scraps fed to something starving-desperate. Down back to that small apartment at the edge of the Gens Maheka compound. That small suite of rooms a narrow alleyway across from the servant's quarters and the guard barracks, where the wind blew between the timbers and the roof just barely kept out the rain.
Back to the cold, sucking hole in the world where father should have been- but he would not shame his sacrifice with grief, would not dishonor the Gunzosha oaths with something so unmanful as tears. To the small mirror where mother sat for hours and hours in the pre-dawn hush, burdened by heavy cloth and elaborate designs, painting her face, her lips, her lids with a steady hand so that she could do the same, sweltering in the sun, for her greater cousin. To self-serious Macarius, just a boy when he left but nearly sixteen now; showing every signs of strong blood and holy potential and he couldn't, wouldn't let that be smothered in its cradle. To Catella, fourteen now, and still dreaming of the elementalist's craft and the halls of Valkhawsen and Lambent Spider; of studying among the great sorcerers of Lookshy and Port Calin.
But that was the joke wasn't it? Everyone had sacrificed so much, bled for every breath. Everyone shackled to tarnished ideals, doing their best to find freedom in the guts of the monster, to find the way forward. And how could he do anything less? How could he stain and soil everything they'd done by being content with mere...mediocrity?
He did it for them. He did it for himself. His father's life bought the privilege of opportunity and then further refinement in the ranks of the Encrypted Ones and then it was- it was easy, wasn't it?
Because if he could take one step more he could take two, if he could take two he could take three. Pouring himself into the tasks, the tests, walking until his footprints filled with blood. Learning to hunt, learning to kill, learning to walk like them, talk like them, and it was only a few years and it was the only path forward and he was good at it and-
And it was easier when it was only watch and report. And it was easier when it was just the blade in his hand or the spear in his palm. When it was just farming villages and cargo docks and lumber camps and missions that were over in a week. When it was brutal but mechanical, a kind of reaping, absent true grandiose displays.
It was easier when he didn't know their names.
It was easier when he didn't know his name.
Alexius, scarred and thin and shy and scared. Alexius wearing that tentative smile as he looked at Leander, seemingly unaware of it. Alexius, his lean body warm against younger man's, unconsciously leaning against his chest. Alexius who held him and didn't- didn't see a base opportunist, a thin-blooded thing from a branch of a branch of a truly noble family, who didn't see that constant, gnawing hunger and hate him for it, scorn him for it, hold him in that aristocratic contempt. Who was clever and funny and kind and who tore open old scars, infected scabs, without even realizing it. Letting long festering wounds breathe in the open air.
His-
His friend. The first real friend, true friend, he'd made since he was a boy. Made without careful consideration of appearances or advantage or political gain. Who cared about him simply because he was...himself. Because he was "Jason".
he knew he'd be there, in that storeroom, that church
he thought he could find something, save him
insubordinate, defiant, compromised, arguing the stupidity of their orders
they'd come to stop him, to drag him back if necessary, save themselves from his sickness, his infection
it didn't really matter, they shouldn't have bothered
in the end he couldn't even tell which body in the bonfire had been alexius.
he thought he could find something, save him
insubordinate, defiant, compromised, arguing the stupidity of their orders
they'd come to stop him, to drag him back if necessary, save themselves from his sickness, his infection
it didn't really matter, they shouldn't have bothered
in the end he couldn't even tell which body in the bonfire had been alexius.
And he'd ruined that too. Torn out Alexius's heart and dropped it in the dust and he hadn't even been able to save the hollowed out thing that was left. Really, between family, friends, sworn oaths, his own comrades: in the end what had he saved?
nothing. absolutely nothing.
Maybe that's why he had been punished, maybe that's why he had been marked with the golden brand. Rewarded for his treachery, the sheer depths of his failure recognized, canonized by sunlit demons. Long-dead Anathema looking upon something so utterly degenerate, so depraved and disgusting and destructive and saying "yes, yes this is clearly one of ours." Even if he saved the people here it didn't matter. Even if banished the dead before him, rallied the lines to him, even if he all but physically pulled the Alexandros twins free as the walls began to fall and Sidonia refused to sound the retreat, it didn't matter.
He was trash. Less than trash really, trash was implicitly useful once upon a time.
The wind rose for a second, surging into a howling gale, the canvas cloth rippling, pulling against the taut ropes. Leander didn't so much as look up. Alexandros Viator had sent the message with the last of his power as they withdrew; the reply had been concise, clear. This delegation was expected. He wouldn't run, he wouldn't compound the sheer magnitude of his fuckups with further cowardice. And, besides, he couldn't deny that there was something of a relief in this. It's what he had, deep down, always wanted wasn't it?
Freedom was an ending.
He waited on his knees, hands on his thigh and head bowed; he didn't have to wait long.
The man that stepped into the makeshift pavilion was beautiful in the way that a sculpture was beautiful: perfect in his dimensions, remote and distant without a touch of softness, without a single blurred line in his flawless design. Something that seemed more made, formed by a master's hand, than casually, sloppily grown. His hair was a sandy brown, slitted eyes the color of iron and cold concrete; the scales that wound in bands across his half bared chest were slate-grey. His skin pale as marble. He carried no sword, only a stave of pure white jade. He came with no guards although Nichomachus knew they must be nearby, ready to strike at a moment's notice.
The man's robes were a pure, rich purple and as unarmored and unguarded as he seemed Nichomachus knew that to strike them would be like hitting the walls of the City itself. He would smash his hand into so many slivers of bone before he so much as grazed the near-divinity of this man, Kosmas Isaakios, Blessed-in-Purple-Eternal.
"Archon," he whispered as he prostrated himself at the Dragonblooded's feet, forehead touched to the ground, and palms flat on the worn rug, "Forgive me, I am not worthy. I should have fallen upon my sword but I was weak. I will not shirk your judgement. Please, purify me."
And for a long, long moment there was silence in that tent. Broken, in the end, only by the soft thump of the stave on the ground. The sway of those heavy robes as he took a step nearer. The leader of the Archontic Conclave, the most powerful man in the City studied Leander for a time.
"No," he said at last, in a voice so soft the newborn Solar almost had to strain his ears to hear it, contemplative and thoughtful and more for himself than anyone else, "No. I think not."
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TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
i want to awkwardly assure everyone that i do not make time estimates with the intention of being a lying liar who lies, it just kinda happens.
constantly.
also: Updated Character Sheet!
note there was afailure of basic math minor issue on my part but i spoke to @ZerbanDaGreat about it and with them being really graciously flexible (plus some pretty fortunate allocations of fanwork xp) everything that was going to be upgraded as per their plan has been. thank you, everyone, for your patience. with this in particular and the quest in general.
constantly.
also: Updated Character Sheet!
note there was a
- Location
- Classified
Oh dear, Jason's a Solar, and Gold Faction Sidereals have gotten to him. Welp, can't wait for this awkward/horrifying reunion to come up.
This looks like it's going to be a complete disaster.
I'm looking forward to it!
I'm looking forward to it!
BadAtScreenNames
Killed a man in Reno just to watch him die
- Location
- the (currently) United Kingdom
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh good, epic tragedy love story! All we could ask for!
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
Oh no this ain't good
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
Or how about no.
I'm just wondering what he did to score a Solar Exaltation.
On the contrary this is perfect.
Wade Garrett
Just trying to do the right thing
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Looks to me like it was rallying the survivors and breaking out of the death trap the Wolf King and Harrower turned the Lookshyan camp into.
- Location
- New Zealand
Oooh. I like this.
Does Harrower end up corrupting Nichomachus, or does Jason manage that near impossible task of purifying Harrower?
Does Harrower end up corrupting Nichomachus, or does Jason manage that near impossible task of purifying Harrower?
Origami Clock
Right twice a day
- Location
- Brighton, UK
Either way, there will be tears. Adrojan approves.
slybrarian
Creature of Fable
- Location
- A Far and Sunless Land
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is fine glorious.jpg