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Rising in the East

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I do gotta wonder if Thay is regretting her decision to take us on. Like we blew our cover on the very first thing she sent us to do.
 
[x] Stop Winter Jasmine at all costs

Not completely sold on this vs Prince Thay, but it seems like a more immediate concern either way, but each option seems to ring completely true to me.
 
[x] Stop Winter Jasmine at all costs

The unhinged Lunar Elder is the biggest problem facing Greyfalls right now... or at least I hope she is. It's all very nice proclaiming our loyalty, but not much use proclaiming it to a smouldering wreck. Far as I can see, the point of all this is to protect the damn place - if it means we burn all bridges and cut all ties to do it, well, so be it.
 
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[x] Stop Winter Jasmine at all costs

Might as well have a rival, and the other options are going to someone who would probably sell Aster out to save her own skin, or pursuing someone that I think is probably a lost cause at this point. We can find our friendly neighborhood Dawn Caste a new girlfriend someday.
 
Okay, calling the vote here.

This vote says a lot about Aster's priorities and approach, in addition to doing what she can to keep her Valley safe, but it should not be read as like... certain relationships not being something that can be potentially revisited again in the future, at some point. (Although, if "stop Jasmine at all costs" had won, that definitely would have cemented things there pretty permanently, even beyond where they are now).

cB557 said:
You've gotta take these things gracefully.
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Aster literally has the most romantic experience out of the group she's currently with, so she's kind of on her own in figuring this out, sadly.
Adhoc vote count started by Gazetteer on Aug 16, 2020 at 6:12 AM, finished with 60 posts and 46 votes.
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XIII - Broken Bonds
  • Threadmarks
    • Let Prince Thay know you're still her woman: 24

    Fateful Jewel: 16

    Stop Winter Jasmine at all costs: 6

    You take a deep breath, squaring your shoulders and looking Whisper straight in the eye. You're not trying to loom over her or anything, but you have nearly a head on her, which makes it hard not to. "Whatever Jasmine is doing is going to be really bad. You said it yourself— she's going to 'weave a web that covers this whole valley'."

    "I did," Whisper says, taking a step back, uncomfortable with your proximity.

    Silent Pause regards Whisper with a yellow-rimmed eye, ruffling his bright feathers thoughtfully. "Jasmine is a Lunar of the Silver pact. She's a sworn enemy of the Realm. However, infiltration and subversion are one thing, but openly threatening a satrapy as major as Greyfalls would be... bold, compared to the Pact's usual tactics. Particularly here in the East — the Queen of Fangs will not like this."

    You stare for a few startled moments at this casual evocation of the most infamous Anathema alive. Your parents used to frighten you with horror stories about Raksi's cruelty and wanton appetites as a child. But... there's no time to get side-lined by that. "Right. She's already hurting people, though. Those ghosts are still terrorising the countryside!"

    Pause looks as grave as a fanged parrot can. "When an Exalt has lived for enough centuries, it becomes easy for them to lose perspective, when it comes to the wellbeing of individual mortals. Cal and I used to help ground her in such matters. Argent, though, is ferociously loyal to a fault, and is unlikely to argue against any of her decisions. She will be thinking of this as liberating this valley, with the danger to the populace incidental, perhaps not even deliberate on her part. It's easy for her to think that it will be forgotten in a generation or two, and better for everyone in the long run."

    "Whatever the reason," you say, "she's hurting people. No one here asked to be 'liberated.'"

    "What of the slaves House Cynis ships downriver?" Whisper asks, seemingly a bizarre and unhelpful swerve from her earlier stance toward Jasmine.

    "Well... um..." Few people are pleased with it, of course. The Lower Market is an unpleasant addition that didn't exist under the watch of House Nellens short years ago. "Still! No one's asked to be 'saved' by Anathema."

    "Then why are you staying here?" Whisper asks, and the words cut you more than you'd like to admit. "Oh monster of sunlight and slaughter. Do you think they will look upon your intervention more kindly than hers?"

    You close your eyes, taking a deep breath. Why does no one understand that that isn't the point. "My family lives in this valley. My whole clan lives here. I'm sworn to Prince Thay, Anathema or not."

    "Do you think House Cynis will accept your service now?" Pause asks.

    "I don't care!" you don't mean to shout, but it comes out that way, and you feel your Caste Mark flaring hot on your forehead for just a moment, before disappearing again. You don't know quite how you look to the other two, but Whisper visibly flinches. Pause merely goes perfectly still on your shoulder. "Does the Immaculate Order want yours?" you ask, making your voice calmer. You're already feeling guilty for snapping.

    "No, of course not," Pause admits. "I was excommunicated the moment I Exalted. Any Immaculate in the valley would call for my death, if they knew what I was. But the Philosophy is more than the Order — that is why I keep my vows. That is why I am still a monk."

    "And I serve the Prince of Greyfalls," you say, "not House Cynis."

    "Your bargain with the puppet prince is such that, were you to be discovered, she would cast you out," Whisper says.

    You stare for a shocked second, before demanding: "How do you know that?" Has she been following you this whole time? Spying on you even in the prince's palace, unseen?

    "It's a secret," Whisper says. "Whispered at night, never spoken of in the light of day until now. I search through shadows for such things."

    That's not much better, frankly. "Fine," you say. "She can't acknowledge me publicly. Or help me if I'm caught. But I can still be useful! I owe her and Captain Wandering Heart that, and it's the best way to protect everyone. That's why I'm staying."

    Whisper frowns. "Fighting the spider is a mistake," she says. "She killed Cal. There's no one she won't kill." She shakes her head more forcefully. "I won't be party to this." You don't know why that makes you feel crestfallen, but it does. You don't know this woman. She's strange and confusing to you, still. But she had seemed like an ally, for those few moments. She was offering to help you. Maybe if you knew a little more about her, had gotten a chance to speak to her more before this, you'd have something to say here. Right now, you have nothing.

    "You helped me once," Pause tells her. "You didn't know me at all, but you helped me, even though you knew they would declare you Anathema for it."

    Whisper shakes her head again in quiet frustration. "Would always have happened. I find secrets. I know what the Manse of Ivy doesn't like. The Bronze Stars pulled the Order's strings, looking for an excuse." She has an amazing talent for only ever raising further questions whenever she opens her mouth. "I helped you because it was right. But to hide from the Dragons, to live, to have time to grow. Not to go to your death. The same now as then." She shakes her head one last time, looking at you with that oddly frustrated frown. Like if she could communicate better, you'd understand why she's right. Then, without another word, dark lines crawl over face, like an invisible brush is inking in pictograms in a strange language. Whisper vanishes, fading back into the shadows she's standing in. You have to blink a few times, assuring yourself that she's really gone.

    On your shoulder, the parrot also watches the place Whisper was, sighing heavily. Which is still very surreal to see from a parrot. "You're right that Jasmine and Argent are being reckless, endangering the populace. I told you I would be your friend as long as you need one. I won't go back on that now."

    You can't suppress a grin of relief. "Thank you," you say, quietly.

    A moment later, you cross back out of the shadowland, the icy chill replaced by the merciful warmth of a Fire afternoon. You sag in place for a moment, leaning on your staff again, just soaking it in. Soon, you'll check to make sure the others made it out. For now, you're just glad to have escaped the Frozen Wood alive.

    You almost surprise yourself by asking: "Who was Cal?"

    Pause cocks his parrot head to the side, considering how to start. "Cal was the previous bearer of your Exaltation. When a Solar or Lunar dies, our power leaves us, and Luna or the Unconquered Sun chooses another worthy mortal — sometimes years later. Yours was one of a handful of Exalations still bestowed by the Unconquered Sun, unbroken this past millennia or more."

    This much makes some sense. When the Solar Anathema were cast down, Hesiesh burned their bodies, and Daana'd had sealed them away in the Underworld for all time. Only a few had escaped this fate, cropping up now and then to menace the world until the Dragon-Blooded could destroy them again. "What was he to Jasmine, though?" you ask. You have larger theological questions, but one thing at a time.

    "Most Lunar Exaltations are bonded to a Solar counterpart," Pause says. "The bondmates always know one another, across all generations. Jasmine has lived through countless incarnations of her Solar Mate, and has known several. Cal was her lover for decades and her greatest champion. I knew them for many years -- they and Argent were all great friends and allies despite our... religious differences."

    Even you can tell, from your brief meeting with Argent and Jasmine, that 'religious differences' is putting things mildly. "What happened then?" you ask, an odd sense of foreboding filling you.

    "I don't know," Pause admits. "Our Circle parted ways for a time. She and Cal settled in a valley to the Far East, one that we'd liberated from the rule of a tyrannical forest god. She set herself up as queen, with Cal as her consort. The people seemed content enough with the change in rulership. I thought they'd do well there, under her guidance."

    "Until she murdered him and..." you frown. "What's a Sacred Hunt, exactly?"

    "Ah. Well. You see. That's..." For the first time, Pause sounds genuinely self-conscious, shuffling back and forth awkwardly along the length of your shoulder. It's with a slight hesitation that he explains: "You have heard stories, I imagine, of Lunars eating the hearts of our enemies to claim their shapes?"

    "... Yes!" you say, openly horrified. You recall Whisper's words from your first meeting: "The spider who loved you and killed you. She who wept as she drank of your still warm heart's blood. She who will know you the instant she sees you."

    "The Sacred Hunt is an ancient ritual in Luna's name. It's central to what we are, and how our shapeshifting works," Pause has the air of trying to explain an embarrassing family eccentricity to an outsider without casting it in too bad a light. "The Hunt in of itself isn't what I objected to. It was that she carried it out not on an enemy, but on an ally. A loved one."

    You fall silent, this topic making you a little queasy, and you begin walking through the much more mundane stretch of forest ahead of you. Birds flit overhead — a squirrel scolds you as you walk by. Insects buzz through the air, although they seem to be leaving you alone, which you half suspect is from your staff. All these signs of life, large and small, manage to raise your mood fractionally.

    Still, after a time, you can't help but ask: "So, have you...?"

    This doesn't make Pause's mannerisms less awkward. "Yes. Not often on humans. There are other ways to claim a face, although they're less reliable." Which is a very slight relief until he adds: "I normally eat no meat or fowl — breaking this restriction requires pennance each time."

    "I guess you are a Face-Stealer," you say, recalling the crescent moon Cast Mark he'd displayed earlier.

    "Changing Moon Caste," he gently corrects. "And I'm not, I'm Casteless. Moonsilver tattoos would violate my vows of humility as much as mundane ones would — they're required to set a Lunar Caste."

    Despite everything else, it fascinates you that Pause is as concerned as he is about these vows. They're essential for the spiritual purity achieved by Immaculate monks, of course, but breaking either of them a thousand times over would pale in comparison with the spiritual crime of simply existing as a Lunar Anathema. Somehow, he seems to have reconciled the two identities — the monk and the monster. It's a clarity you wish you had yourself, at the moment.

    Pause returns to the earlier topic. "Whatever Jasmine and Cal were to each other, he wasn't you, even if she seems to have lost sight of that, for the moment. What she is to you is for you to decide. The bond only makes you feel something for each other, it doesn't have to be love."

    "That's... good to know?" You still barely know how to feel about anything in this conversation, let alone this strange connection to an Anathema necromancer.

    You fall silent again, lost in unhappy thoughts about Jasmine, about Jewel, about the many ways in which your life is over. You finally break the treeline on a hill overlooking the Pebble river. Down below, a bit of a distance off, you see the boats you came in on, and the bedraggled ranks of your fellow soldiers, having retreated from the wood as you have.

    There have obviously been injuries and losses — the Cynis troops have seemingly fared worse than the Tributary Guard did, although whether that's from lack of skill or lack of good fortune, you can't say. Everyone is bloodied and wide-eyed with terror and sleepless exhaustion. Many are still shivering, evidently not able to shrug off the deathly cold of the shadowland as quickly as an Exalt. Cynis Roho, a livid, red cut marring the dark blue of his face, appears to be in the process of ordering a departure. Fangs load themselves into the boats while a protective line of healthy soldiers stands guard.

    Maybe the Cynis troops are boarding first because of their larger numbers of injured... but you doubt it. Auxiliary troops like the Tributary Guard will always be the first in and the last out.

    You feel a pang as you spot Jewel standing beside Captain Wandering Heart, conferring closely with him. He nods once, and she leaves his side, setting her dragon sigh wand down in order to kneel next to the stretch of river bank where the worst-injured are laid out. You're too far away to make out the details, but she seems to be trying to stabilise them for the journey ahead. You have mixed feelings, looking at them — you weren't there to fight with your fellow Guard members, to protect them, but at least you kept Winter Jasmine and Maw Lurking Argent busy, or you imagine the casualties might have been greater, with the other Exalts spread out the way they had been.

    You're sure that you're out of sight. Your anima has gone down, and you're screened by the trees. So it gives you an undeniable start when Wandering Heart turns around, and stares directly at you, those cold, blue eyes pinning you to the spot. You tense to run, in case he's about to sound the alarm... but instead, he seems to sigh, shakes his head sadly, and turns away.

    "I'll need to get word to the Prince that I'm still alive," you tell Pause, stepping back from the crest of the hill.

    Evidently feeling a little better, the parrot hops off your shoulder and onto the nearest tree branch. "I can certainly play messenger, once I've worked through the poison," Pause says. And you can see how. It's one thing to hear about the great threat of Anathema infiltrators, but seeing the ease of their shapeshifting firsthand is quite another.

    Article:
    Who will you send Pause to?

    [ ] Contact Prince Thay directly

    [ ] Contact Wandering Heart first, and ask to meet...
    - [ ] ... outside the city, near the shrine Pause is staying at
    - [ ] ... at the riverfront on the outskirts of Greyfalls
    - [ ] ... in the crowded night market, where you can hopefully blend in
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Contact Wandering Heart first, and ask to meet...
    - [X] ... at the riverfront on the outskirts of Greyfalls

    I'm thinking this is the best option.Contacting Thay directly has too great a risk given the Tributary and it's institutions will be under suspicion
     
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    [x] Contact Wandering Heart first, and ask to meet...
    - [x] ... in the crowded night market, where you can hopefully blend in

    Let's meet out in public. This has no possible downsides.
     
    [x] Contact Wandering Heart first, and ask to meet...
    - [x] ... at the riverfront on the outskirts of Greyfalls
     
    [x] Contact Prince Thay directly
    Pause's cover is good, best if we don't meet Thay directly at all. Oh, wait, that would miss all the drama.
     
    Okay, let's sift through the implications.

    Contacting Prince Thay directly is almost certainly a no.

    She is gonna be very, very afraid her little indiscretion will come to light now, because Aster doesn't understand words "stealth" or "subtlety" or "Godsdamnit woman a giant radiant sun descending in the middle of a crowded street would be less noticeable than you"

    Wandering Heart probably needs something from us, something confirming that we can play the game, at least badly.

    Immaculate convent is out, since it might very well expose Pause, and he didn't ask for that.

    Night market is a maybe, because
    Look it all boils down to how much he still trusts us

    If not much at all, then market is certainly safer for him
    If he doesn't think we are gonna kill him, then outskirts are marginally better for a secret meeting, well, if he isn't followed.
    Gah
    Playing cat and mouse with the Wild Hunt in the middle of a city while being a Dawn Caste and not a Lunar
    Aster likes this shit, it looks like


    [x] Contact Wandering Heart first, and ask to meet...
    -[x] ... in the crowded night market, where you can hopefully blend in
     
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