The tour is, you desperately desperately hope, nearing its conclusion. You have learned more about Meru today than you've taught about Meru, and you are absolutely certain that you will not remember a single word of the tour.
Brilliant Azure Lily, the Chosen of Serenity who is guiding you on this tour, is entirely aware of your discomfort but is choosing, politely, to ignore it. You appreciate that. She's approaching what, she tells you, is the manse left to you by your previous incarnation, a Lunar Exalt of considerable note and influence. The estate is huge; you could have fit your entire village and all its farms inside it and it would have been a cramped lifestyle, but not unlivable.
As you approach, you become aware of two lines on either side of the gate - two equal, perfectly-spaced lines of Dragon-Blooded dressed in formal wear. They are dressed in black and silver, and you can tell just by looking that they're all Water Aspects of considerable breeding. You've never been this close to a child of the dragons before, and for a moment you are intimidated, and then they bow.
"Welcome, great Chosen of Luna!"
"How may we serve you, great Chosen of Luna?"
Now you are definitely intimidated. You stare helplessly at Azure Lily, who smiles at you and informs you that these are scions of the minor house that has served your incarnations since the Primordial War, and that they are ready to serve you even in peace-time. She says that they're part of your inheritance.
"I've inherited … people," you say, slightly concerned that you are about to have a panic attack. Azure Lily starts to explain the span of the house, and you respond with "aaaaa" because you are definitely, definitely having a panic attack. She's staring at you. Everyone is staring at you. They're not quite sure how to respond to 'aaaaa', and so have chosen to default to polite silence, waiting for you to speak. "I shouldn't be able to inherit people," you wheeze, frantic. "You're not-- things. You have thoughts and feelings. What if you hate me?"
"We won't… hate you," offers the closest water aspect, looking concerned. "In the Primordial War, your previous incarnations led us in battle against several of the enemy. Of course, if you would rather dismiss us, we… would have no choice to accept…?"
Oh no. This is worse.
"No, you, it's. You don't have to go. But you… should be able to go if you want? You should be able to hate me. I shouldn't just -- step into this role just because of what my previous incarnations have done. I don't deserve this. I didn't do any of this. You shouldn't have to do what I want."
Your response is a bunch of awkward looks, a sort of sympathetic condescending smile from Azure Lily, and a silence so complete you can hear your own heartbeat in your ears more loudly than anything. You wring your hands, and --
[ Shahi doesn't have the silver tattoos in this memory. ]
You are walking, in a good mood for once, beside ████, engaged in a conversation (or rather, you are engaged; he is confused but trying his best to understand what he's listening to). Two of your dragonblooded attendants, Kiri and Riki (although they joke that they're babysitters; it's been long enough living with you, and living with ████ to know that they won't get in trouble for behaving irreverently) are walking behind you - but only half a pace, much too close to be seen as Proper Behavior.
Both of them (they're twins, and almost identical), are contributing to the discussion, lively, enjoying confusing ████ and arguing with you. You're enjoying arguing back - they're both extremely clever and can often argue you to a standstill, although you're much more stubborn than either of them.
Your happy little group is making its way down the street when a man, regal and haughty, clad from head to toe in gold that shines like the evening sun on a calm lake, comes walking down the other direction. Your laughter dies down, as does the twins', and you all rearrange yourselves to be in the Proper Positions (you, a step and a half behind ████, the twins, a full two steps behind you in turn, silent and deferential), as he passes.
And as he passes, because he knows you, because you've earned a reputation, he walks into your path deliberately. You have time enough to react, to dodge around him and to avoid inconveniencing him.
You don't do that. You continue, undeterred, and collide directly with him. Some of his jewelry is sharp, but not sharp enough to pierce your own divine protection. And he's strong, walking quite fast, and would certainly have knocked a mortal down entirely. Not you, though, you stand your ground.
He stops, and stares at you.
You stare back. ████ and the twins tense up.
He clearly expects an apology, and you of course don't even try to offer one.
He's the one who blinks first.
"You ran into me."
You smile at him as sweetly as you can manage, which is not very sweet because you hate him based on the four words exchanged between you already. He seems to harbor similar feelings about you.
"Yes, you're welcome," you say, cheerfully. "I saw, my divine lord, that you had angled your path to meet mine; knowing how I do that you, a Chosen of the Unconquered Sun, would never mistakenly take an action such as this, I believed that you had therefore deliberately made the choice to run into me. Knowing this, how could I then deny you the right by moving out of your way?"
He scowls at you, openly. He's not above the pettiness required to walk into you on the street, but believes himself above admitting to it, somehow. That's just as well. You smile back at him. He looks away from you, towards ████, as though you are now beneath his notice.
"If you cannot control your Lunar, child, you'll find that someone else does it for you. And if that proves ineffective, I'd gladly provide you with guidance for training your next one."
Now you stiffen, your stomach clenching like you've just swallowed acid, a sour taste rising in the back of your mouth. Your face doesn't go red, but you feel your expression twist for just a minute before you school it again. Control your lunar. Training your next one. You hate him. You hate this man and everything he represents. You're fast enough to tear his throat out with your teeth, how dare he assume he can talk about you like you're a pet--
Gentle hands wrap around your arm.
"Ah- um- I don't know what you're talking about! I'm late for an appointment! I don't have time to talk to you and please don't talk to me or Shahi anymore please thank you. Uh, sir. My lord? You know what I don't care which it is. Bye!"
████ looks at you, apologetically, and bodily drags you away from the confrontation. You had your feet planted, your weight braced, but to take an impact from the other direction - in this situation, you skid easily along with his pull.
"You're way too smart to be acting that stupid," he mutters through grit teeth as you attempt with limited success to get your feet back under you (You're graceful, but he's so fast. He's so strong). You're not sure what part you should be arguing with, but you are consumed with the powerful need to argue.
"Don't argue," says Kiri, jogging along after to keep up with the two of you. Riki pipes up from your other side, "He's right for once. What good are all your revolutionary thoughts if they're in a head that's rolling across the ground?"
"But," you start, not really sure where this conversational path will lead, and the two of them punch both of your arms at the same time, which seems especially unfair when ████ has one of them in a soft but inescapable vicegrip anyway.
"No," all three of them chorus, and you grumble and relent. Fine.
You open the door to the palace and sitting inside is a very bemused looking young man in the middle of wrapping his hand. He's dressed for working out, in loose simple clothing, and looks entirely too comfortable considering he's in what's supposed to be your new horrible gaudy mansion.
He looks at you, raises an eyebrow, and then his eyes go wide. It takes you a moment to realize why, because he looks different when he's not covered in golden artifacts with the sun rising all around him, and when your vision isn't blurry from pain and blood.
It's him.
He opens his mouth to say something, but you don't hear whatever it is because you slam the door shut and hold it shut as you turn to Azure Lily. You're trying to think of a way to phrase this that isn't accusatory, and it is very hard, so you just kind of stare accusingly at her. She smiles at you.
The door wiggles and you hear a muffled hey!! on the other side of it, which you of course disregard because this isn't about him right now, this is about how Azure Lily has played a cruel trick on you on your first day in Meru.
"There's a Solar in my home," you say, slowly. The door wiggles more, and you invest your second arm in keeping it closed. The voice on the other side wails heeeeey!!!! again, because apparently he doesn't know when a conversation doesn't involve him. Solars are like that.
"Well, it's also his home," she tells you happily. "Your previous incarnations left a great deal of extremely specific legal paperwork that made it impossible to reassign this home to a senior member of the Deliberative. It was your marital home, and it, like all other properties you've inherited, is a fifty-fifty share with the reincarnation of your previous wife. That's, ah, the young man you've temporarily captured, that is."
"Oh, I'll donate it all. I'll go live in the woods."
"You did inherit several acres of woodlands in the East, although it is also co-owned by…"
And then the door gets yanked off its hinges inward and you go flying along with it, balance instantly and irrevocably lost, and that idiot is the one who catches you almost by accident, like it was just a reflex. You're not surprised that he doesn't have to put any effort into holding you, but you absolutely resent it.
"Um, hi," he says. "Please don't slap me again."
You punch him. Well, you punch at him. He dodges and drops you, and you spring to your feet. Azure Lily clears her throat delicately to interrupt your counterattack.
"I'll leave you two to get settled," she says, smiling.
You are expected not to look directly at them, the powerful and revered Chosen of the Sun. There are some, the younger ones, the weaker ones, who will speak with you like an equal. And you are grateful for it, even though common gossip suggests that you aren't. You do love it. You're passionate about it, and you love the moment when you can watch understanding, or at least a new perspective, appear behind the eyes of someone who will -- someday -- have the power to do something about it directly.
Many of them are reasonable, and sympathetic, and willing to lend their voice behind your cause, but all of them let you know that you should temper your expectations. They don't have much say in this either. But they'll work with you. They'll support you, if they can.
But you're still expected not to look directly at them.
Of course, you've never once not made eye contact with one of the Solar Exalted when speaking to them. It occupies an interesting place in the social expectations of Meru, you've discovered. It's fascinating how they take it. It makes them uncomfortable, the younger ones, the sympathetic ones. But they don't bring it up. They dodge the subject. They know how it sounds to say it out loud.
The older ones are less polite about it. Efvi cannot be around to drag you away from every conflict, but you're beginning to realize he doesn't have to.
You're known, now. You've got a reputation. It's not a good reputation, it doesn't win you anything, but it puts you in the position of being hard to discreetly remove. If someone kills you for looking them in the eye, it would resonate, now. It would carry. So they can't. You can stare them down to your heart's content.
. . .
Which is to say, you are staring down a Solar Exalt who is very senior in the Deliberative and she is very, very angry about it. You're actively (but secretly) channelling essence into maintaining eye contact, because she is actively (but secretly) trying to force you to stop with her own. It makes it hard to concentrate on what she's saying. You zone back in midsentence.
"--Absolute filth that you're pouring into the ears of the good citizens of Meru. Everything now is as it must be, and everyone is in their proper places. How do you justify trying to poison everything from the inside? To drag down the divine rulers of Creation from their rightful position above all others?"
"With all due respect, my esteemed lady--" (she opens her mouth to correct you on how you're addressing her and you just barrel through to the point--) "--I imagine Malfeas thought the same way."
She puts a hand on her sword. You stare her down and keep your hands firmly at your sides, pointedly nonviolent.
"More to the point, Red Iron Lotus," you say, raising your voice louder with every word (because she is now also raising HER voice, and the two of you are rapidly careening headlong towards a shouting match), "I will not stop holding the opinions and views I do. I will not stop expressing them. And though of course I cannot stop you from trying--"
"I'll make you be silent if I have to. Stronger Lunars than you have been forced into their place before. You can be taught to respect your betters."
You bite your lip. You clench your fists until your claws dig into your palms. You know if you lunge at her, she'll be perfectly justified in ending you, so you swallow down the urge and really hold that eye contact for a moment longer.
"No," you say, slowly, "You are not my better. You are not better than me, Red Iron Lotus. You are not better than any other being living and breathing in all of Creation. And perhaps you will never learn this lesson in this lifetime. But I am patient. I will wait."
And then you stand and leave, because if you stay a moment longer you will start a fight, and she would absolutely turn you into a smear on the ground in seconds if you started a fight.
---
Shahi has amber eyes and the silver tattoos in this memory.
Neither of them are glowing during the argument but the Solar is completely covered in gold all the heck over. She looks like a #Tyrant. #YesAllTyrants.
They're in what looks like some kind of public place, because if Shahi had mouthed off to this Solar behind closed doors she'd have fucking killed him.
Mortals have a hard time looking at the City-Eating Demon Beast directly. It's a hideous thing, they've heard, a creature of incomprehensible shapes, of rending claws, of dripping, oozing acid and of too many sharp teeth. It shifts forms with every step, undulates across the landscape in a way that defies rational thought.
They say this.
Those who aren't mortal have an easier time, or so they hope. One full year after this city was warned by a desperate refugee about the coming of the Beast, they hired two Anathema - strictly forbidden, of course, and so done in absolute secrecy - to stand against it and hopefully fell the creature.
The city's Lord was sure that the peasants who warned of its coming were exaggerating the size. After all, the Beast was a myth. Demons were real, of course, everyone knew that, but something that devoured whole cities could not possibly have escaped the notice of the Realm for as long as the superstitious claimed it had been around. And therefore, it was a minor demon, or Wyld-corrupted beast, or some other nonsense.
They were waiting, these two Anathema, two young and determined chosen of the Unconquered Sun, already by definition heroes with the possibility of becoming legendary. One was a Zenith, a warrior-priest, standing in a ready stance in front of the gate. The other a Night, a speedy, stealthy thing who had already concealed herself in the darkness cast by the guardhouse.
When the City-Eating Demon Beast arrived, it didn't arrive as an undulating, oozing mass of teeth and claw. It arrived in a human shape, an old man with bright green eyes and thin grey hair, winded, clutching a bleeding wound, grasping desperately for them. "Please," it said, voice weak and reedy, "please, my people need help, the Beast is here. Please, surely you can do something. We need help."
And the legendary heroes stared down at it with scorn in their eyes and told it they weren't hired to help his people. They were hired to defend this city, and they had a beast to kill. And this creature was in the way.
But still it reached for them, fingers thin and trembling. Please, it said, please.
The warrior priest finally could take no more and slapped the creature's hand away. He rolled his eyes, puffed up his chest, and pulled out his staff to give the pitiful thing a solid whack to teach it not to speak to him any more.
"We've got better things to do than deal with you, old man. Better people to help, even."
When he swung the staff into what he assumed was the helpless body of an old man, however, the weapon stopped as solidly as though he had swung it into solid stone. The City-Eating Demon Beast began to slowly seep out around the edges of the form it had assumed, becoming stronger, larger.
"No," said Shahi Azih, starting to laugh. He laughed and laughed, without a shred of mirth, until his laugh split his mouth open so far that it continued all the way down past the edges of his face. By this time the Beast had poured out of him enough that the acid inside of him was dripping from the corners of his lips, forming burning puddles in the ground beneath him. "You do not have something better to do, someone better to help! How many times do I have to tell you? You're not better! No one is better! You're not better than me!"
The Night caste solar, an assassin by trade, made her attempt at taking the Beast out before it could assume its full monstrous form, blades landing in where the neck should be, and it didn't even notice, didn't even shake her off like a cow might shake at a fly, so intent it was on the Zenith whose resolve to slay a Beast was quickly waning in the face of the creature.
"Maybe next time, it will stick," it hissed, and bit down.
---
* Shahi has green eyes in this memory. Like, really green. They have a weird shine to them that's almost a glow. (His eyes in Imeeji are dark amber.)
* The City-Eating Demon Beast is sort of a quadruped but has way too many limbs. It's a shifting amount of limbs. Its entire head is mostly mouth, and that mouth is mostly teeth. It drools, spits, and bleeds a powerful superacid. It is 400 feet tall when its mass is concentrated 'upright'. Sometimes it like, spits up Shahi's humanoid form and then all the extra bulk melts into a horrible acid explosion.
* When Shahi fights the two Solars, he spends most of the time trying to eat the Zenith, and the Zenith keeps using Perfect Defenses, so it takes a while. The Night spends that entire time trying to murder him and he just like, lets it happen. He regenerates all the damage as soon as it happens.
* After he kills the two Solars Shahi straight up kills everyone in the town. It's not a small town. This is thousands of people AND all their infrastructure AND all the buildings. He destroys and eats all of it including the buildings.
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branchandroot
1. Welcome Home
Date: 2020-11-23 05:45 am (UTC)Brilliant Azure Lily, the Chosen of Serenity who is guiding you on this tour, is entirely aware of your discomfort but is choosing, politely, to ignore it. You appreciate that. She's approaching what, she tells you, is the manse left to you by your previous incarnation, a Lunar Exalt of considerable note and influence. The estate is huge; you could have fit your entire village and all its farms inside it and it would have been a cramped lifestyle, but not unlivable.
As you approach, you become aware of two lines on either side of the gate - two equal, perfectly-spaced lines of Dragon-Blooded dressed in formal wear. They are dressed in black and silver, and you can tell just by looking that they're all Water Aspects of considerable breeding. You've never been this close to a child of the dragons before, and for a moment you are intimidated, and then they bow.
"Welcome, great Chosen of Luna!"
"How may we serve you, great Chosen of Luna?"
Now you are definitely intimidated. You stare helplessly at Azure Lily, who smiles at you and informs you that these are scions of the minor house that has served your incarnations since the Primordial War, and that they are ready to serve you even in peace-time. She says that they're part of your inheritance.
"I've inherited … people," you say, slightly concerned that you are about to have a panic attack. Azure Lily starts to explain the span of the house, and you respond with "aaaaa" because you are definitely, definitely having a panic attack. She's staring at you. Everyone is staring at you. They're not quite sure how to respond to 'aaaaa', and so have chosen to default to polite silence, waiting for you to speak. "I shouldn't be able to inherit people," you wheeze, frantic. "You're not-- things. You have thoughts and feelings. What if you hate me?"
"We won't… hate you," offers the closest water aspect, looking concerned. "In the Primordial War, your previous incarnations led us in battle against several of the enemy. Of course, if you would rather dismiss us, we… would have no choice to accept…?"
Oh no. This is worse.
"No, you, it's. You don't have to go. But you… should be able to go if you want? You should be able to hate me. I shouldn't just -- step into this role just because of what my previous incarnations have done. I don't deserve this. I didn't do any of this. You shouldn't have to do what I want."
Your response is a bunch of awkward looks, a sort of sympathetic condescending smile from Azure Lily, and a silence so complete you can hear your own heartbeat in your ears more loudly than anything. You wring your hands, and --
[ Shahi doesn't have the silver tattoos in this memory. ]
2. Diplomacy
Date: 2021-01-13 03:14 am (UTC)You are walking, in a good mood for once, beside ████, engaged in a conversation (or rather, you are engaged; he is confused but trying his best to understand what he's listening to). Two of your dragonblooded attendants, Kiri and Riki (although they joke that they're babysitters; it's been long enough living with you, and living with ████ to know that they won't get in trouble for behaving irreverently) are walking behind you - but only half a pace, much too close to be seen as Proper Behavior.
Both of them (they're twins, and almost identical), are contributing to the discussion, lively, enjoying confusing ████ and arguing with you. You're enjoying arguing back - they're both extremely clever and can often argue you to a standstill, although you're much more stubborn than either of them.
Your happy little group is making its way down the street when a man, regal and haughty, clad from head to toe in gold that shines like the evening sun on a calm lake, comes walking down the other direction. Your laughter dies down, as does the twins', and you all rearrange yourselves to be in the Proper Positions (you, a step and a half behind ████, the twins, a full two steps behind you in turn, silent and deferential), as he passes.
And as he passes, because he knows you, because you've earned a reputation, he walks into your path deliberately. You have time enough to react, to dodge around him and to avoid inconveniencing him.
You don't do that. You continue, undeterred, and collide directly with him. Some of his jewelry is sharp, but not sharp enough to pierce your own divine protection. And he's strong, walking quite fast, and would certainly have knocked a mortal down entirely. Not you, though, you stand your ground.
He stops, and stares at you.
You stare back. ████ and the twins tense up.
He clearly expects an apology, and you of course don't even try to offer one.
He's the one who blinks first.
"You ran into me."
You smile at him as sweetly as you can manage, which is not very sweet because you hate him based on the four words exchanged between you already. He seems to harbor similar feelings about you.
"Yes, you're welcome," you say, cheerfully. "I saw, my divine lord, that you had angled your path to meet mine; knowing how I do that you, a Chosen of the Unconquered Sun, would never mistakenly take an action such as this, I believed that you had therefore deliberately made the choice to run into me. Knowing this, how could I then deny you the right by moving out of your way?"
He scowls at you, openly. He's not above the pettiness required to walk into you on the street, but believes himself above admitting to it, somehow. That's just as well. You smile back at him. He looks away from you, towards ████, as though you are now beneath his notice.
"If you cannot control your Lunar, child, you'll find that someone else does it for you. And if that proves ineffective, I'd gladly provide you with guidance for training your next one."
Now you stiffen, your stomach clenching like you've just swallowed acid, a sour taste rising in the back of your mouth. Your face doesn't go red, but you feel your expression twist for just a minute before you school it again. Control your lunar. Training your next one. You hate him. You hate this man and everything he represents. You're fast enough to tear his throat out with your teeth, how dare he assume he can talk about you like you're a pet--
Gentle hands wrap around your arm.
"Ah- um- I don't know what you're talking about! I'm late for an appointment! I don't have time to talk to you and please don't talk to me or Shahi anymore please thank you. Uh, sir. My lord? You know what I don't care which it is. Bye!"
████ looks at you, apologetically, and bodily drags you away from the confrontation. You had your feet planted, your weight braced, but to take an impact from the other direction - in this situation, you skid easily along with his pull.
"You're way too smart to be acting that stupid," he mutters through grit teeth as you attempt with limited success to get your feet back under you (You're graceful, but he's so fast. He's so strong). You're not sure what part you should be arguing with, but you are consumed with the powerful need to argue.
"Don't argue," says Kiri, jogging along after to keep up with the two of you. Riki pipes up from your other side, "He's right for once. What good are all your revolutionary thoughts if they're in a head that's rolling across the ground?"
"But," you start, not really sure where this conversational path will lead, and the two of them punch both of your arms at the same time, which seems especially unfair when ████ has one of them in a soft but inescapable vicegrip anyway.
"No," all three of them chorus, and you grumble and relent. Fine.
3. Oh My God They Were Roommates
Date: 2021-01-13 03:25 am (UTC)He looks at you, raises an eyebrow, and then his eyes go wide. It takes you a moment to realize why, because he looks different when he's not covered in golden artifacts with the sun rising all around him, and when your vision isn't blurry from pain and blood.
It's him.
He opens his mouth to say something, but you don't hear whatever it is because you slam the door shut and hold it shut as you turn to Azure Lily. You're trying to think of a way to phrase this that isn't accusatory, and it is very hard, so you just kind of stare accusingly at her. She smiles at you.
The door wiggles and you hear a muffled hey!! on the other side of it, which you of course disregard because this isn't about him right now, this is about how Azure Lily has played a cruel trick on you on your first day in Meru.
"There's a Solar in my home," you say, slowly. The door wiggles more, and you invest your second arm in keeping it closed. The voice on the other side wails heeeeey!!!! again, because apparently he doesn't know when a conversation doesn't involve him. Solars are like that.
"Well, it's also his home," she tells you happily. "Your previous incarnations left a great deal of extremely specific legal paperwork that made it impossible to reassign this home to a senior member of the Deliberative. It was your marital home, and it, like all other properties you've inherited, is a fifty-fifty share with the reincarnation of your previous wife. That's, ah, the young man you've temporarily captured, that is."
"Oh, I'll donate it all. I'll go live in the woods."
"You did inherit several acres of woodlands in the East, although it is also co-owned by…"
And then the door gets yanked off its hinges inward and you go flying along with it, balance instantly and irrevocably lost, and that idiot is the one who catches you almost by accident, like it was just a reflex. You're not surprised that he doesn't have to put any effort into holding you, but you absolutely resent it.
"Um, hi," he says. "Please don't slap me again."
You punch him. Well, you punch at him. He dodges and drops you, and you spring to your feet. Azure Lily clears her throat delicately to interrupt your counterattack.
"I'll leave you two to get settled," she says, smiling.
Your Betters
Date: 2021-03-17 06:49 am (UTC)Many of them are reasonable, and sympathetic, and willing to lend their voice behind your cause, but all of them let you know that you should temper your expectations. They don't have much say in this either. But they'll work with you. They'll support you, if they can.
But you're still expected not to look directly at them.
Of course, you've never once not made eye contact with one of the Solar Exalted when speaking to them. It occupies an interesting place in the social expectations of Meru, you've discovered. It's fascinating how they take it. It makes them uncomfortable, the younger ones, the sympathetic ones. But they don't bring it up. They dodge the subject. They know how it sounds to say it out loud.
The older ones are less polite about it. Efvi cannot be around to drag you away from every conflict, but you're beginning to realize he doesn't have to.
You're known, now. You've got a reputation. It's not a good reputation, it doesn't win you anything, but it puts you in the position of being hard to discreetly remove. If someone kills you for looking them in the eye, it would resonate, now. It would carry. So they can't. You can stare them down to your heart's content.
. . .
Which is to say, you are staring down a Solar Exalt who is very senior in the Deliberative and she is very, very angry about it. You're actively (but secretly) channelling essence into maintaining eye contact, because she is actively (but secretly) trying to force you to stop with her own. It makes it hard to concentrate on what she's saying. You zone back in midsentence.
"--Absolute filth that you're pouring into the ears of the good citizens of Meru. Everything now is as it must be, and everyone is in their proper places. How do you justify trying to poison everything from the inside? To drag down the divine rulers of Creation from their rightful position above all others?"
"With all due respect, my esteemed lady--" (she opens her mouth to correct you on how you're addressing her and you just barrel through to the point--) "--I imagine Malfeas thought the same way."
She puts a hand on her sword. You stare her down and keep your hands firmly at your sides, pointedly nonviolent.
"More to the point, Red Iron Lotus," you say, raising your voice louder with every word (because she is now also raising HER voice, and the two of you are rapidly careening headlong towards a shouting match), "I will not stop holding the opinions and views I do. I will not stop expressing them. And though of course I cannot stop you from trying--"
"I'll make you be silent if I have to. Stronger Lunars than you have been forced into their place before. You can be taught to respect your betters."
You bite your lip. You clench your fists until your claws dig into your palms. You know if you lunge at her, she'll be perfectly justified in ending you, so you swallow down the urge and really hold that eye contact for a moment longer.
"No," you say, slowly, "You are not my better. You are not better than me, Red Iron Lotus. You are not better than any other being living and breathing in all of Creation. And perhaps you will never learn this lesson in this lifetime. But I am patient. I will wait."
And then you stand and leave, because if you stay a moment longer you will start a fight, and she would absolutely turn you into a smear on the ground in seconds if you started a fight.
---
Shahi has amber eyes and the silver tattoos in this memory.
Neither of them are glowing during the argument but the Solar is completely covered in gold all the heck over. She looks like a #Tyrant. #YesAllTyrants.
They're in what looks like some kind of public place, because if Shahi had mouthed off to this Solar behind closed doors she'd have fucking killed him.
Better things to do
Date: 2021-03-17 06:51 am (UTC)They say this.
Those who aren't mortal have an easier time, or so they hope. One full year after this city was warned by a desperate refugee about the coming of the Beast, they hired two Anathema - strictly forbidden, of course, and so done in absolute secrecy - to stand against it and hopefully fell the creature.
The city's Lord was sure that the peasants who warned of its coming were exaggerating the size. After all, the Beast was a myth. Demons were real, of course, everyone knew that, but something that devoured whole cities could not possibly have escaped the notice of the Realm for as long as the superstitious claimed it had been around. And therefore, it was a minor demon, or Wyld-corrupted beast, or some other nonsense.
They were waiting, these two Anathema, two young and determined chosen of the Unconquered Sun, already by definition heroes with the possibility of becoming legendary. One was a Zenith, a warrior-priest, standing in a ready stance in front of the gate. The other a Night, a speedy, stealthy thing who had already concealed herself in the darkness cast by the guardhouse.
When the City-Eating Demon Beast arrived, it didn't arrive as an undulating, oozing mass of teeth and claw. It arrived in a human shape, an old man with bright green eyes and thin grey hair, winded, clutching a bleeding wound, grasping desperately for them. "Please," it said, voice weak and reedy, "please, my people need help, the Beast is here. Please, surely you can do something. We need help."
And the legendary heroes stared down at it with scorn in their eyes and told it they weren't hired to help his people. They were hired to defend this city, and they had a beast to kill. And this creature was in the way.
But still it reached for them, fingers thin and trembling. Please, it said, please.
The warrior priest finally could take no more and slapped the creature's hand away. He rolled his eyes, puffed up his chest, and pulled out his staff to give the pitiful thing a solid whack to teach it not to speak to him any more.
"We've got better things to do than deal with you, old man. Better people to help, even."
When he swung the staff into what he assumed was the helpless body of an old man, however, the weapon stopped as solidly as though he had swung it into solid stone. The City-Eating Demon Beast began to slowly seep out around the edges of the form it had assumed, becoming stronger, larger.
"No," said Shahi Azih, starting to laugh. He laughed and laughed, without a shred of mirth, until his laugh split his mouth open so far that it continued all the way down past the edges of his face. By this time the Beast had poured out of him enough that the acid inside of him was dripping from the corners of his lips, forming burning puddles in the ground beneath him. "You do not have something better to do, someone better to help! How many times do I have to tell you? You're not better! No one is better! You're not better than me!"
The Night caste solar, an assassin by trade, made her attempt at taking the Beast out before it could assume its full monstrous form, blades landing in where the neck should be, and it didn't even notice, didn't even shake her off like a cow might shake at a fly, so intent it was on the Zenith whose resolve to slay a Beast was quickly waning in the face of the creature.
"Maybe next time, it will stick," it hissed, and bit down.
---
* Shahi has green eyes in this memory. Like, really green. They have a weird shine to them that's almost a glow. (His eyes in Imeeji are dark amber.)
* The City-Eating Demon Beast is sort of a quadruped but has way too many limbs. It's a shifting amount of limbs. Its entire head is mostly mouth, and that mouth is mostly teeth. It drools, spits, and bleeds a powerful superacid. It is 400 feet tall when its mass is concentrated 'upright'. Sometimes it like, spits up Shahi's humanoid form and then all the extra bulk melts into a horrible acid explosion.
* When Shahi fights the two Solars, he spends most of the time trying to eat the Zenith, and the Zenith keeps using Perfect Defenses, so it takes a while. The Night spends that entire time trying to murder him and he just like, lets it happen. He regenerates all the damage as soon as it happens.
* After he kills the two Solars Shahi straight up kills everyone in the town. It's not a small town. This is thousands of people AND all their infrastructure AND all the buildings. He destroys and eats all of it including the buildings.