[ She asked. She does not sound angry, but she is -- sad. Pained. Years of guilt have eaten away at her. Years of knowing what she could never have. Of finding Catherine weedling her way into her heart, and finding the weak spots that she should not have, and Catherine excised them, and brought them into the light. She had spent months -- nearly a year -- in the empty dark that was the mantle of woe, only brought out when she was useful, and even then, she somehow held onto her sanity.
Barely, but she had. Her fist does not tighten, but it reaches up to touch her shard, obvious from her low-cut dress. ]
My father was killed for my hubris that day. They cut off his ears, and murdered him.
[ That gets a rise out of her, a quavering of tone. Her father had loved her, despite everything. He cared for her when he should not have, and taught her everything she knew about magic. Dumisai had been not a kind man, but a brilliant mind, and he had always been kinder to her, than anyone else had been. ]
In the aftermath, my mother poisoned herself, and died.
A woman I grew to love stabbed me, and killed me. She trapped me for years for my crime. It is a crime I am still paying for today. It is what keeps me here in Meridian, despite everything.
Despite the fact that Zenith would resonate with a villain like me, I am here, because I am still paying for my crime. I found life again in a new body, and I gave it up, to become what I am meant to be -- to keep other villains from murdering the Hundreds of Thousands of souls that I once did.
That is my price. To watch over others who would take the same path, and make the same mistakes. I would not wish that penance on you, Hayame. Defeating him should be in battle, not like squashing a flea.
[What Akua says is something that she should see as sad. She is not a monster, she had said so recently to someone on the chaotic communion Set had initiated in the aftermath of the Oracle, so of course she sees those things as tragedies. As things that for Akua must hurt for and regret.
… But they were also things that a cold and bitter part of her feels should have been expected. The family members of those who involved themselves in war and violence were always at risk by consequence. That is why lords took such lengths to build grand castles, to secure their wives and hide their heirs. To commit suicide to pay for the crimes of kin was commonplace in her world, whether it was fathers, mothers, daughters, or brothers. To be betrayed by someone you loved…]
What penance can be inflicted upon me in this place?
[Akua had earlier tried to warn her of the consequences of shattering Sebastian's shard by appealing to the idea that Zenith might then feel free to shatter members of Meridian, but it had not truly swayed her. Not when she felt so alienated from so many in the faction. She has tried so hard to be steel, to be cold, to be better, and more powerful-]
My dam died overfoaled years ago.
[Bred and bred and bred for the valuable children she could provide until one of them eventually killed her. Not that she'd mourned her. She hadn't known her- She had been ripped from the Armless woman at birth and only knew her by her pedigree.]
My sire was just my stable master’s favorite, most obedient Armless that year. We are nothing to each other.
[He had sired every yearling born that season, and then been rotated out for another to take his place so that their offspring might be compared.]
No one-
[Loves me.
Her expression twists and her fingers dig in tighter, hesitating just a moment too long after what she had heard beneath the earth in the roots of the tree. No, that couldn’t be true, so-]
No one loves me. Not in the way you describe.
[(Hadn't she meant to say "I do not love anyone"? She doesn't even notice.) Her brother was not here in this place with her- she doubted she would ever see him again. Those children from that village were not here. Matsukaze would never… So why-]
[ Akua does not roll her eyes, not quite. She did not bring these up to speak of her misfortune, but Hayame had asked if she had not paid a price for the Doom of Liesse, and oh, had she. Over, and over, and over. And she would again. Again. Again. There was no end. No conclusion. She would never be Dread Empress. She would never walk Calernia as a living woman again. Eternal, perhaps, as Calamity, but bound to the power of Named, even as the world slowly shifted away from them.
Would she ever see Catherine again? Certainly not with the end of the world, but -- Even if? Catherine had kissed her in that last moment, and it had been so --
She looked at Hayame with sad, golden eyes. Heavy, with the weight of it. ] You say that with such certainty.
Yet, how many of us reach out to you, Hayame? Not just I, but Set? Liem? [ He may not have returned with them, but... Akua has been there. Shifted by the power of Zenith and the sway of a lack of knowledge. She knew th at it was always, always seductive. ] Amos?
Are none of us good enough to be worthy of concern? Do you think none of us care?
[Hayame says everything with certainty. She had learned early that there was no room for uncertainty in the breeding stable, because not being sure invited only accusations of weakness. She'd had the keen foresight and awareness to rarely be wrong. Here, though... She doesn't know anything. She doesn't understand the nature of this place. Everyone came from different worlds, different cultures. Yet despite knowing that for truth, she cannot so easily let go of the instinct to just be certain-]
Set smears himself over every man who insults my honor or earns my enmity.
[And she hated it. She'd told him she hated it, and still it wouldn't change. He'd insisted they were friends despite that, but it was not enough to turn her anger to acceptance. It didn't make it easier for her to swallow her pride and simply forgive seeing him cavorting with her enemies just because he didn't interfere when she lashed out at them.]
Liem betrayed me- [No-] - ridian.
[He was supposed to be free of the hold the black sludge of Kenoma had once had on him, he was supposed to be stronger, he was supposed to be the man she had met in the space between their rebirth on Horos, who had known her and not turned away... and he turned away now not just from her but from the entire faction, all because he was tired?]
Amos would try to kill me if that witch Yima even hinted that she might want to see it done.
[- Had she betrayed her affection for the man on their quest to rescue Vander, when she was known for her hardline stance against the members of Zenith? She had tried to keep their understanding a secret, she had sworn that she would keep the nature of that understanding a secret, for both of their dignities, but-
That leaves Akua, standing here in front of her now. The woman who had helped her murder her doppelganger under the ice, who kept arguing against her shattering the man in this world she hated the most-
So she throws out all of the reasons that she shouldn't care at all what happens to these people. She thinks she could go on even further, she could claim Set was a god, that Akua wielded magic beyond what reality should warrant, that Liem had magic, too, that Amos was stronger than most humans, so they could defend themselves even if her "mistakes" brought threats to their doorsteps, but... She pulls her arms from their tight, defensive posture to spread them wide, almost inviting the disdain... even as her expression twists with pain she doesn't even notice is fairly leaking out of her. Disdain she knows how to handle, being looked down upon and hated, that she understands, so why is she being tormented with offers of affection, of care that take forms she struggles to accept- ?]
Who would think that we were friends, Akua?
[And yet, even though that would be the simplest way to refute the other woman and "win" this argument... Why does she fail to say in simple words that none of them were worthy of her concern? Why does she simply say "no, none of you care"?]
Is that what friendship is?
[She doesn't know. Will someone who makes sense just tell her- ?]
[ Perhaps it was meant to be, that she would meet someone like Hayame here, who had never experienced friendship before. Not really, and not in a meaningful way. She knows what it is, to struggle with this question, what is a friend, what it meant? Oh, she had been given "friends" so many times over the years. Hells, her mother had made her make a friend only to murder her. But it wasn't until...
Until she'd been given the opportunity, even as a ghost, to know what Friendhsip was. To have someone accept, to have people who would sit, and eat, to enjoy space next to, but friendship was not --
It was not what Hayame said. It was not simply turning away others, or making decisions for them. That was what she had been given, time and time again. ]
Friends are not sycophants, Hayame. People will make their own decisions, based on their own values, or what they desire. If you wish them to not tell you the truths we believe, or tell you what we feel, it is not friendship.
[ She offered her a soft, sad smile. ]
I would know. Do you know how long it took me, to understand what Friendship was.
Have they told you that they do not value you? Have they forsaken you? They may have made mistakes, or made choices that they need to decide that they must do.
If you had killed Sebastian, I would be angry, but I would not... seek to turn you away. [ She would be...disappointed. ]
You must decide for yourself, who your friends are. Would I not reach out to you this way, if we were not? Would I not try to still your hand, because of what I think would be self destructive, if I did not Care? Friends tell you thinks you may not see, they give you their perspective, and yes, sometimes they still make mistakes, or do things that one could not imagine them doing. Commit crimes, even.
[ She had turned away herself, once, from Catherine's friendship. She had left, after that night, when they'd made dinner together as a group, and she'd been treated like a Friend, and spoke to Catherine's friends like people... She had left, and joined their enemy.
And then she had felt it, that guilt. She'd gained the will of the people, she'd pulled them away from Dread Empress Malicia, and...
She never heard the song. She'd been the people's choice, and she'd never even heard it. The song that meant that she could have been Dread Empress. She knew it wasn't to be, and she knew it had been a Mistake. ]
Only you can decide who is your friend, Hayame, but I think of you as one of mine.
[ She was hard, and angry, and oh so spiteful, but she was proud, and strong, and stalwart, and Akua admired her for it, even when she lashed out. She could handle a little spite, despite that. She was a villain, after all. ]
[The answer isn't what she wants to hear. She wants it to be easier, to be something that she can easily understand... because isn't it supposed to be that way? In the breeding stables, there had been no friendships to form her opinion of such relationships. The Armless were broken in spirit and in body, and became almost like dumb beasts themselves, horses that had once been people who bent to the will of human masters and then stood in the corners of their stalls alone. The armed yearlings were played against one another as soon as they were old enough to understand what failure meant, striving to be recognized as the strongest, the fastest, the most loyal and worth purchase by the most noble lord...
All she'd had, if she cared to acknowledge that it had influenced her, were the ballads and epics her master had liked to hear over his banquets and dinners. The vibrato-laced sing-song voice of lute players extolling the unbreakable bonds of the Soga brothers, the unquestionable obedience and strength of Minamoto no Yoritomo's four bosom lieutenants, the unassailable camaraderie of Prince Genji and To no Chujo, who remained friends despite everything in their lives that sought to pit them against each other-
It's not real. It's not anything like the friendships she is being offered in this place, with imperfect people who vex her and befriend her enemies and betray her trust and admit that they would kill her and don't support her in her revenge.]
I do not ask for lies or for obedience-
[Did she not? It wasn't that she did not wish to hear their truths, she did not think she closed her ears to their voices.]
I ask for-
[Her arms had spread as if to invite derision or disdain, but now she feels so exposed, as if she is inviting the other woman to just stab at her heart or take her accursed shard. How many times has she fantasized about that- ?]
I ask for loyalty. Why is that so difficult- ?
[If she was worth caring about, if she could believe that she really was cared for... how did one believe such a thing without loyalty? Was it not just words, with no action, no weight? Was it not the same as forsaking her, even if they stayed physically close and claimed to still care? Her expression twists with the mix of confusion and anger, despair and genuine lack of understanding, struggling to... she just- She just wants it to make sense.]
What are we to do with care, Akua?
["We". Were they not cut from a similar cloth? Did Akua have the answers? Even though she hated so much how the other woman tried to dissuade her from revenge, she was the one who had... had betrayed her least. She was saying so many things now, and they sound all well and good, but when it wasn't just "mistakes"...]
Are we to go to the tailors and... and purchase clothing? Are we to... to dine together? To... to talk and walk in the streets?
[Things she saw people in Springstar do... ? Outside of standing together in battle, she...
Her arms fall back to her side in something like defeat.]
That is what some friends do, yes. Some also fornicate, or cook a roast pig on a spit, tell jokes, and prepare to kill the next day. Some support each other though they make decisions that they do not agree with, and some split over that.
[ Friendship was...complicated, but Akua had felt the stirrings of it, at first even in Keter, and then to the Empire Ever Dark. She was a ghost, and the woman who killed her made overtures of friendship -- she knew now, it was forcing her to pay that ever long price that Callowans had always promised of anyone who wronged them. The long price, it seems, cut both ways, for had Catherine not also been injured by it?
She sighed. ]
Loyalty is complicated, Hayame. What do you mean by Loyalty? Did some of those that sided with Zenith betray you, or Meridian? They may have chosen differently, but I do not think all of those who side with the Zenites are evil, or wrong. After all, I'm here, and I am Evil. Therefore, there must be some who see the value in their ways.
If some of your friends chose otherwise, is it possible it was not you who they sought to betray? Is it possible that you were only one person in the entire tapestry? I would consider you in my decision, but if Meridian asked me to kill another hundred thousand souls to make our goals manifest, I do not think I could do so.
[ It's a sad smile, there. Hayame is... not a simple woman, but she sees some things simply. Akua understands this, oh gods below, did she. ]
It took me... longer than I would care to admit, to have a friend, Hayame. Long ago, I had sycophants and hangers on, and they would break their fingers for me, if I asked. Those were not my friends, and they betrayed me when it became difficult.
Do you know who was my friend? A woman who killed me. Twice. Who had her father kill my father. Who trapped me for years in her cloak, just so she could use me.
She forced me to see things differently. Friends are not those who will only choose you every time. They are people who challenge you. Whom you like to be challenged by.
[Loyalty is complicated, Akua says, but it makes Hayame want to scream, to rail against the idea that this had to be true. Why could it not be simple, as she had always been taught that it was? But the loyalty she had been bred and raised for had been the loyalty of a slave and a master, a warrior and a lord, not the bond between equals that Akua talks about now, the one that is complicated and gray and far more overwhelming than she wishes it to be.
She had condemned those who had left Meridian for doing that- for betraying Meridian, because that is the way of the warrior she had always known. Because she valued duty, and honor, and vows. Because, "Evil" or not, anyone fighting for Zenith was essentially fighting to destroy or abandon her world. But in her hearts she knew that she was far more angry that Liem had betrayed her. That he had left her. That she and her strength and her companionship had not been enough to keep him beside her. Just like her words weren't enough to sway Amos, like her offerings and his blessing weren't enough to keep Set from gallivanting with all of her enemies, like their pact wasn't enough to stop Akua from trying to convince her not to take her revenge when she could.
None of it was enough.
She would deny that she was so self-important as to think she should be the most important person in every life, but she wanted... she wanted to be chosen. Was that wrong to want? Was that so against the idea of loyalty or friends? She wanted them to choose her when it came down to one or the other, as pathetic as that desire was, and these last weeks... Set had chosen Silco. Amos had chosen Yima. Liem had chosen Zenith. Akua had chosen Sebastian. At least, that is how it had felt to her in the moment, hot with the fury that always flickered inside of her, ready to roar to life all too easily.
(One person had offered to choose her. To be her ally no matter what. To care for her, to love her... but she had run from them into the dark of the roots, because as much as she craved it... How could she trust in it? How could she accept it?)
Hayame thinks of so many things to say to keep arguing with Akua. There are so many protests that come to mind as the other woman speaks, lines she almost throws out to justify her position, to defend her thinking. "They betrayed me", "I never said everyone in Zenith was evil"... How was she supposed to believe that a friend could be someone who killed you, not once, but twice? Akua says the other woman trapped her, and used her, and yet-]
And what if I do not like it, Akua?
[Being challenged... Seeing things differently...]
Am I to take every attempt to murder me as an overture of friendship? Every betrayal as an offer to grow?
[She knows she is being obtuse. Contrary. She does. But she's just so... so upset. She has tried to mask it with only fury, to disguise it beneath anger so no one will see, but she is upset, she is tired, and-
Akua is here. Akua had come to check on her. To call her a friend, even though she had vexed her so, and she...
Something seems to deflate in her, then. Despite her towering height, a half ton of muscle, and power enough to crush a man's skull in one hand... Hayame feels small and ignorant, stunted by her upbringing's lack of anything to do with caring. She is tired, too, exhausted by the rage and the loss of the Oracle, and...
Her hand slaps against the wall of her stall. Her forehead follows, rubbing into the line of her knuckles. Her eye closes, her lips twist... but she won't do it. She won't. She has cried more in the last month than she has in a lifetime.]
That is your choice to make. As much as it is theirs to make their offers.
[ She doesn't near Hayame, not yet. She allows her the space, to feel deflated, to push her forehead to the side, and Akua feels... pain. Sadness. How many times had she railed, and screamed in the dark, the loneliness? How many times had she considered betraying cat, even before she had, in that pivotal moment? Could she ever have persevered in that, and said no? Praesi friendships were different to what people had here. She had seen so many, where respect did not come coupled with a hidden knife, where the promise of loyalty did not come with a caveat.
Even Akua, who was Praesi to her core, felt... a touch lost. She took a step forward, then a second. She reached out, to touch Hayame's hand, reached up to touch it. ]
You do not have to accept it as your standard. If you do not, I will...understand. [ Just like Hayame, few had chosen Akua. She was beautiful, the ideal of Praesi fashion, but there was no blind loyalty, or family, like there had been for Catherine Foundling. She had found her Woe, and Akua was... always would be... separate from that.
The only eternal family she had, was a woman who had tried to kill them all -- and likely had, given where she was, and the likely destruction of her world.
She sighed, and shook her head. ]
I do not wish for you to be alone, in this, Hayame. I want to see you as strong and as proud, to make the lot of them quake before you, with the might of allies behind you. I want you to know who will stand with you, and stand strong in that knowledge.
[ But Hayame was...complex. She was angry, and stern. It was not easy for her, she knew. This world was not the same, and Hayame was... a woman who had seen great tragedy, and cruelty. Mind, Akua had as well, but... ]
More than that, I wish for you to not guess who you can turn to, when you are in need.
[Choice has always been a stranger to Hayame. Even a full year apart from the only world she had ever known, it was so difficult for her to remember that she had choices in this place, let alone knowing which ones to take.
Just like she had the choice, then, to slap Akua's hand away or not.
But the other woman's words lance in to her sharp and accurate in their aim. As shameful as it was... She did not want to be alone. She wanted to know who to trust, who she could rely on...]
I am not supposed to need allies.
[And yet in this place, where there was magic and non-humans and demons and Oracles, it had been proven more than once that she was more weak than she had ever been on her own.]
I am not supposed to turn to anyone.
[Her voice nearly snaps mid-sentence, strained and stressed and stalwartly unwilling to break even if she might need to. But she hates how perfunctory and forced the arguments sound, some last line of defense thrown out angrily in the hopes that it might somehow work-
But.
She hasn't swatted away Akua's hand. And perhaps, that ruins anything that she might be trying to say.]
I am Praesi, dear, and of the High Blood at that. We know nothing of closeness, allies, or friends. My mother would not even marry my father and used him as a tool to have me, but little more than that. I am bred to be superior to everyone who passes beneath me. I was made to be the best. To never want or need to have allies. To be able to throw away someone, simply because they were no longer convenient.
[ The girl that Akua had befriended, as a girl, had been chosen specifically that she would be killed by her eventually. There had been no room for such things for a Sahelian. ]
I do not say this to make you feel inferior, or to speak of my misfortune.
[ Her hand does not move. ]
I say this, because I know what it is, to have to learn that it is not the way. That there is a different way. That wanting friends does not make you weak. To lean on them does not make you lesser. That to stand apart is a path of ruin, that it will wound you and hurt you so deeply, that you would become a shell of who you wanted to be.
[ Her smile is sad, as she tipped her head up, to look her in the eye. ]
Don't wait until it's too late, like I did, Hayame.
[Akua is Praesi, and Hayame is a breeding stable jinba. Yet the similarities compound. She knows nothing of the same things. She was bred to be a superior specimen, to be the best. To live by the way of the warrior and nothing else, unattached cold iron that could be directed at whatever her master required. But ever since Horos... her worldview has been ripped apart and left like an open sore, torn even further apart every time she tried to close it. It wasn't until Kenos that anyone bothered trying to help her bandage or salve it, even jut a little, and still-
It ached.
And she is too weak now to pretend that a part of her didn't crave that ruin. Didn't sometimes dream of death even as she longed to survive. She is already wounded, she is already hurting, and friends are supposed to just- just fix it? Her lips curl back and sharp canines grind into her flatter teeth, readying herself to push the other woman away, to demand... just be loyal, then! Was it that goddamn hard? Actually be my friend!
But how pathetic that would be, when Akua has already made it clear what she feels friendship is. She releases a frustrated, impotent snarl, finally finds the fire to fling the other woman's hand away from her with a burst of,]
Stop preaching, Akua!
[Except instead of leaving it there, just letting that be a dismissal and the end of it-]
I heard you, didn't I?
[But did she believe her? Was she willing to let her so-called "friends" be the way they were with her? She didn't even know yet. And how was she supposed to know? Would she know today? Tomorrow? A week from now, a month? Her hooves churn in the woodshaving bedding of a stall meant for a fucking horse, she wants to just lash out-]
Just-
[Just what? The rage burns, but it's always been burning, and there's so little embers left. She doesn't know how to offer peace, how to acquiescence or to surrender, so how... ?
- In the frustrated silence, Hayame's gut suddenly lets out an obscenely loud rumble of hunger.]
[ She does not wish to drop it, but she understands that Hayame is a stubborn woman, one who does not so easily give in, and she can only allow her to slap her hand away, violently and with a burst of energy that belies her despair. Akua wants to reach out, and soothe it from her, because she is so angry, and she knows what that path looks like. Gods Below, did she know. She knows what it is to be alone, to look upon others with disdain for what they cannot offer. She knows what it is to be so lonely, and what it looks like to be faced with friendship, once one has denied it for so long.
Oh, she had hated Catherine, for making her experience it. For seeing what she could have had, and what she had been denied. For exposing it to her.
She had left, afterward. She had stepped away, and betrayed Catherine soon after. She had loathed her, felt it deep in her soul, how much she hated and loved her for that. How much it had changed her. How much stepping into Praes and seeing how Dread Empress Malicia had warped the people had changed. How walking among them had felt so close to doing the right thing, and yet --
And yet she had never heard --
Hayame's stomach, the loud rumble broke her hesitation, and her lips quirked, slightly. ]
Hayame, how long has it been, since you have eaten?
[How pathetic it is, to be glad to be interrupted by her gut.
But she is, and she will have to live with knowing that. The embarrassment of how loud the rumble was is easier to swallow than her frustration over attempting to understand the word "friendship", over her inability to finish trying to banish Akua from her stall. She should do it... But if she did, then she will be alone again, with just herself and the crushing sense of defeat that came from having killed and hunted for an Oracle that still fell to the hands of the enemy despite her efforts.
Was it more pathetic to take that way out, or... ?]
... Some time.
[Despite the fact that their shard-based bodies didn't require food in the same way that a mortal body was supposed to, she still tended to eat normally, steadfastly refusing to accept their circumstances. She just...
She presses her forehead harder into the knuckles serving as a buffer between her face and the harsh wood of the stall walls, unable to believe that she was even about to suggest it, that it could fix anything, or at least serve as some way to end it...]
[ Akua, by contrast, only eats when she feels like it. As a shard-bearer, she knows she can eschew more sleep and more food, than she could before, and she had never been the type to over-indulge. Plus, she'd been a shade for years, and could not eat at all during that time. It was easier, a habit that she did not break, when she had been revived, simply eating only when necessary.
It had not helped, the guilt she felt then.
Even now, she does not heavily indulge. ]
Moderately so. Would you like to find something? I know of a stand that has fine fruits nearby. they even have oranges.
[ She would give Hayame the space, to think on what she said. She only hoped that it would lead to her learning to... bend more. When the situation required. ]
[Despite how much she ate... Hayame never did quite overindulge- though it likely looked that way to others. She had a half ton body to fuel after all, and it took a lot of food to do that. At least, it was supposed to. And she hated to be reminded that their existences had somehow been reduced to just gems embedded in their bodies...
So she ate. And she slept. And she...]
... You will have to educate me on these... "oranges".
[- Takes the escape from more talk on the nature of friendship. Later, alone in the dark, she will think more on what Akua has said.
But she doesn't want to be alone in the dark yet. Not again.]
[Hayame did not like when her ignorance was pointed out, even in passing or jest. Her first instinct is to frown and say something cutting or dismissive, anything to obfuscate that she might be looking stupid... But she swallows it. She doesn't..
She's tired. She doesn't want to argue anymore. Not with one of the few people who professed to accept her, to care for her, even if she was still wrestling with the definition of friendship she had always understood being... so far from what she had. After a moment of hesitation...
Hayame takes Akua's hand, a hint of something awkward and ruddy on her cheeks.]
... I know the color.
[But the food? She doesn't have the slightest idea what to imagine. Except maybe what shade it is.]
[ Akua does not want to shame Hayame, but instead, she wants to share this with her. She does not know which worlds had them, and which did not. They are here, so surely they must be rather common. Though... she knows they require particular environments. Heat, and lots of water. Something not common in Praes, but something that Wolof had in droves. They used it for export and for food for their own people, but it would never be enough for the rest of Praes. It is why the country resorts to... other measures. Like Human Sacrifice. To affect the weather. ]
They are a fruit, and they burst when you eat them. They are both a sweet and sour citrus. You will find them pleasing, I hope.
[Hayame does not know it, but the land she hails from does have citrus fruits. Small things, a bit more bitter than these oranges, sometimes unpalatable unless reduced in cooking or used sparingly for juice, in the southern islands... But she has never been there, and the closest she has come to going there was the year the Shimazu clan sent a buyer to Exhibition Day. The Shimazu were known for sacrificing jinba by the droves to win battles... and so she had never wanted to go south.
She will never taste a fruit like that in her own world.
So here... While she is here and Akua is saying they are good...]
I like fruit as much as the next person...
[She concedes. And she follows to where the oranges are.]
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[ She asked. She does not sound angry, but she is -- sad. Pained. Years of guilt have eaten away at her. Years of knowing what she could never have. Of finding Catherine weedling her way into her heart, and finding the weak spots that she should not have, and Catherine excised them, and brought them into the light. She had spent months -- nearly a year -- in the empty dark that was the mantle of woe, only brought out when she was useful, and even then, she somehow held onto her sanity.
Barely, but she had. Her fist does not tighten, but it reaches up to touch her shard, obvious from her low-cut dress. ]
My father was killed for my hubris that day. They cut off his ears, and murdered him.
[ That gets a rise out of her, a quavering of tone. Her father had loved her, despite everything. He cared for her when he should not have, and taught her everything she knew about magic. Dumisai had been not a kind man, but a brilliant mind, and he had always been kinder to her, than anyone else had been. ]
In the aftermath, my mother poisoned herself, and died.
A woman I grew to love stabbed me, and killed me. She trapped me for years for my crime. It is a crime I am still paying for today. It is what keeps me here in Meridian, despite everything.
Despite the fact that Zenith would resonate with a villain like me, I am here, because I am still paying for my crime. I found life again in a new body, and I gave it up, to become what I am meant to be -- to keep other villains from murdering the Hundreds of Thousands of souls that I once did.
That is my price. To watch over others who would take the same path, and make the same mistakes. I would not wish that penance on you, Hayame. Defeating him should be in battle, not like squashing a flea.
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… But they were also things that a cold and bitter part of her feels should have been expected. The family members of those who involved themselves in war and violence were always at risk by consequence. That is why lords took such lengths to build grand castles, to secure their wives and hide their heirs. To commit suicide to pay for the crimes of kin was commonplace in her world, whether it was fathers, mothers, daughters, or brothers. To be betrayed by someone you loved…]
What penance can be inflicted upon me in this place?
[Akua had earlier tried to warn her of the consequences of shattering Sebastian's shard by appealing to the idea that Zenith might then feel free to shatter members of Meridian, but it had not truly swayed her. Not when she felt so alienated from so many in the faction. She has tried so hard to be steel, to be cold, to be better, and more powerful-]
My dam died overfoaled years ago.
[Bred and bred and bred for the valuable children she could provide until one of them eventually killed her. Not that she'd mourned her. She hadn't known her- She had been ripped from the Armless woman at birth and only knew her by her pedigree.]
My sire was just my stable master’s favorite, most obedient Armless that year. We are nothing to each other.
[He had sired every yearling born that season, and then been rotated out for another to take his place so that their offspring might be compared.]
No one-
[Loves me.
Her expression twists and her fingers dig in tighter, hesitating just a moment too long after what she had heard beneath the earth in the roots of the tree. No, that couldn’t be true, so-]
No one loves me. Not in the way you describe.
[(Hadn't she meant to say "I do not love anyone"? She doesn't even notice.) Her brother was not here in this place with her- she doubted she would ever see him again. Those children from that village were not here. Matsukaze would never… So why-]
Who will be punished for my “mistakes”, Akua?
[And why does she almost sound jealous?]
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Would she ever see Catherine again? Certainly not with the end of the world, but -- Even if? Catherine had kissed her in that last moment, and it had been so --
She looked at Hayame with sad, golden eyes. Heavy, with the weight of it. ] You say that with such certainty.
Yet, how many of us reach out to you, Hayame? Not just I, but Set? Liem? [ He may not have returned with them, but... Akua has been there. Shifted by the power of Zenith and the sway of a lack of knowledge. She knew th at it was always, always seductive. ] Amos?
Are none of us good enough to be worthy of concern? Do you think none of us care?
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Set smears himself over every man who insults my honor or earns my enmity.
[And she hated it. She'd told him she hated it, and still it wouldn't change. He'd insisted they were friends despite that, but it was not enough to turn her anger to acceptance. It didn't make it easier for her to swallow her pride and simply forgive seeing him cavorting with her enemies just because he didn't interfere when she lashed out at them.]
Liem betrayed me- [No-] - ridian.
[He was supposed to be free of the hold the black sludge of Kenoma had once had on him, he was supposed to be stronger, he was supposed to be the man she had met in the space between their rebirth on Horos, who had known her and not turned away... and he turned away now not just from her but from the entire faction, all because he was tired?]
Amos would try to kill me if that witch Yima even hinted that she might want to see it done.
[- Had she betrayed her affection for the man on their quest to rescue Vander, when she was known for her hardline stance against the members of Zenith? She had tried to keep their understanding a secret, she had sworn that she would keep the nature of that understanding a secret, for both of their dignities, but-
That leaves Akua, standing here in front of her now. The woman who had helped her murder her doppelganger under the ice, who kept arguing against her shattering the man in this world she hated the most-
So she throws out all of the reasons that she shouldn't care at all what happens to these people. She thinks she could go on even further, she could claim Set was a god, that Akua wielded magic beyond what reality should warrant, that Liem had magic, too, that Amos was stronger than most humans, so they could defend themselves even if her "mistakes" brought threats to their doorsteps, but... She pulls her arms from their tight, defensive posture to spread them wide, almost inviting the disdain... even as her expression twists with pain she doesn't even notice is fairly leaking out of her. Disdain she knows how to handle, being looked down upon and hated, that she understands, so why is she being tormented with offers of affection, of care that take forms she struggles to accept- ?]
Who would think that we were friends, Akua?
[And yet, even though that would be the simplest way to refute the other woman and "win" this argument... Why does she fail to say in simple words that none of them were worthy of her concern? Why does she simply say "no, none of you care"?]
Is that what friendship is?
[She doesn't know. Will someone who makes sense just tell her- ?]
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Until she'd been given the opportunity, even as a ghost, to know what Friendhsip was. To have someone accept, to have people who would sit, and eat, to enjoy space next to, but friendship was not --
It was not what Hayame said. It was not simply turning away others, or making decisions for them. That was what she had been given, time and time again. ]
Friends are not sycophants, Hayame. People will make their own decisions, based on their own values, or what they desire. If you wish them to not tell you the truths we believe, or tell you what we feel, it is not friendship.
[ She offered her a soft, sad smile. ]
I would know. Do you know how long it took me, to understand what Friendship was.
Have they told you that they do not value you? Have they forsaken you? They may have made mistakes, or made choices that they need to decide that they must do.
If you had killed Sebastian, I would be angry, but I would not... seek to turn you away. [ She would be...disappointed. ]
You must decide for yourself, who your friends are. Would I not reach out to you this way, if we were not? Would I not try to still your hand, because of what I think would be self destructive, if I did not Care? Friends tell you thinks you may not see, they give you their perspective, and yes, sometimes they still make mistakes, or do things that one could not imagine them doing. Commit crimes, even.
[ She had turned away herself, once, from Catherine's friendship. She had left, after that night, when they'd made dinner together as a group, and she'd been treated like a Friend, and spoke to Catherine's friends like people... She had left, and joined their enemy.
And then she had felt it, that guilt. She'd gained the will of the people, she'd pulled them away from Dread Empress Malicia, and...
She never heard the song. She'd been the people's choice, and she'd never even heard it. The song that meant that she could have been Dread Empress. She knew it wasn't to be, and she knew it had been a Mistake. ]
Only you can decide who is your friend, Hayame, but I think of you as one of mine.
[ She was hard, and angry, and oh so spiteful, but she was proud, and strong, and stalwart, and Akua admired her for it, even when she lashed out. She could handle a little spite, despite that. She was a villain, after all. ]
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All she'd had, if she cared to acknowledge that it had influenced her, were the ballads and epics her master had liked to hear over his banquets and dinners. The vibrato-laced sing-song voice of lute players extolling the unbreakable bonds of the Soga brothers, the unquestionable obedience and strength of Minamoto no Yoritomo's four bosom lieutenants, the unassailable camaraderie of Prince Genji and To no Chujo, who remained friends despite everything in their lives that sought to pit them against each other-
It's not real. It's not anything like the friendships she is being offered in this place, with imperfect people who vex her and befriend her enemies and betray her trust and admit that they would kill her and don't support her in her revenge.]
I do not ask for lies or for obedience-
[Did she not? It wasn't that she did not wish to hear their truths, she did not think she closed her ears to their voices.]
I ask for-
[Her arms had spread as if to invite derision or disdain, but now she feels so exposed, as if she is inviting the other woman to just stab at her heart or take her accursed shard. How many times has she fantasized about that- ?]
I ask for loyalty. Why is that so difficult- ?
[If she was worth caring about, if she could believe that she really was cared for... how did one believe such a thing without loyalty? Was it not just words, with no action, no weight? Was it not the same as forsaking her, even if they stayed physically close and claimed to still care? Her expression twists with the mix of confusion and anger, despair and genuine lack of understanding, struggling to... she just- She just wants it to make sense.]
What are we to do with care, Akua?
["We". Were they not cut from a similar cloth? Did Akua have the answers? Even though she hated so much how the other woman tried to dissuade her from revenge, she was the one who had... had betrayed her least. She was saying so many things now, and they sound all well and good, but when it wasn't just "mistakes"...]
Are we to go to the tailors and... and purchase clothing? Are we to... to dine together? To... to talk and walk in the streets?
[Things she saw people in Springstar do... ? Outside of standing together in battle, she...
Her arms fall back to her side in something like defeat.]
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[ Friendship was...complicated, but Akua had felt the stirrings of it, at first even in Keter, and then to the Empire Ever Dark. She was a ghost, and the woman who killed her made overtures of friendship -- she knew now, it was forcing her to pay that ever long price that Callowans had always promised of anyone who wronged them. The long price, it seems, cut both ways, for had Catherine not also been injured by it?
She sighed. ]
Loyalty is complicated, Hayame. What do you mean by Loyalty? Did some of those that sided with Zenith betray you, or Meridian? They may have chosen differently, but I do not think all of those who side with the Zenites are evil, or wrong. After all, I'm here, and I am Evil. Therefore, there must be some who see the value in their ways.
If some of your friends chose otherwise, is it possible it was not you who they sought to betray? Is it possible that you were only one person in the entire tapestry? I would consider you in my decision, but if Meridian asked me to kill another hundred thousand souls to make our goals manifest, I do not think I could do so.
[ It's a sad smile, there. Hayame is... not a simple woman, but she sees some things simply. Akua understands this, oh gods below, did she. ]
It took me... longer than I would care to admit, to have a friend, Hayame. Long ago, I had sycophants and hangers on, and they would break their fingers for me, if I asked. Those were not my friends, and they betrayed me when it became difficult.
Do you know who was my friend? A woman who killed me. Twice. Who had her father kill my father. Who trapped me for years in her cloak, just so she could use me.
She forced me to see things differently. Friends are not those who will only choose you every time. They are people who challenge you. Whom you like to be challenged by.
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She had condemned those who had left Meridian for doing that- for betraying Meridian, because that is the way of the warrior she had always known. Because she valued duty, and honor, and vows. Because, "Evil" or not, anyone fighting for Zenith was essentially fighting to destroy or abandon her world. But in her hearts she knew that she was far more angry that Liem had betrayed her. That he had left her. That she and her strength and her companionship had not been enough to keep him beside her. Just like her words weren't enough to sway Amos, like her offerings and his blessing weren't enough to keep Set from gallivanting with all of her enemies, like their pact wasn't enough to stop Akua from trying to convince her not to take her revenge when she could.
None of it was enough.
She would deny that she was so self-important as to think she should be the most important person in every life, but she wanted... she wanted to be chosen. Was that wrong to want? Was that so against the idea of loyalty or friends? She wanted them to choose her when it came down to one or the other, as pathetic as that desire was, and these last weeks... Set had chosen Silco. Amos had chosen Yima. Liem had chosen Zenith. Akua had chosen Sebastian. At least, that is how it had felt to her in the moment, hot with the fury that always flickered inside of her, ready to roar to life all too easily.
(One person had offered to choose her. To be her ally no matter what. To care for her, to love her... but she had run from them into the dark of the roots, because as much as she craved it... How could she trust in it? How could she accept it?)
Hayame thinks of so many things to say to keep arguing with Akua. There are so many protests that come to mind as the other woman speaks, lines she almost throws out to justify her position, to defend her thinking. "They betrayed me", "I never said everyone in Zenith was evil"... How was she supposed to believe that a friend could be someone who killed you, not once, but twice? Akua says the other woman trapped her, and used her, and yet-]
And what if I do not like it, Akua?
[Being challenged... Seeing things differently...]
Am I to take every attempt to murder me as an overture of friendship? Every betrayal as an offer to grow?
[She knows she is being obtuse. Contrary. She does. But she's just so... so upset. She has tried to mask it with only fury, to disguise it beneath anger so no one will see, but she is upset, she is tired, and-
Akua is here. Akua had come to check on her. To call her a friend, even though she had vexed her so, and she...
Something seems to deflate in her, then. Despite her towering height, a half ton of muscle, and power enough to crush a man's skull in one hand... Hayame feels small and ignorant, stunted by her upbringing's lack of anything to do with caring. She is tired, too, exhausted by the rage and the loss of the Oracle, and...
Her hand slaps against the wall of her stall. Her forehead follows, rubbing into the line of her knuckles. Her eye closes, her lips twist... but she won't do it. She won't. She has cried more in the last month than she has in a lifetime.]
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[ She doesn't near Hayame, not yet. She allows her the space, to feel deflated, to push her forehead to the side, and Akua feels... pain. Sadness. How many times had she railed, and screamed in the dark, the loneliness? How many times had she considered betraying cat, even before she had, in that pivotal moment? Could she ever have persevered in that, and said no? Praesi friendships were different to what people had here. She had seen so many, where respect did not come coupled with a hidden knife, where the promise of loyalty did not come with a caveat.
Even Akua, who was Praesi to her core, felt... a touch lost. She took a step forward, then a second. She reached out, to touch Hayame's hand, reached up to touch it. ]
You do not have to accept it as your standard. If you do not, I will...understand. [ Just like Hayame, few had chosen Akua. She was beautiful, the ideal of Praesi fashion, but there was no blind loyalty, or family, like there had been for Catherine Foundling. She had found her Woe, and Akua was... always would be... separate from that.
The only eternal family she had, was a woman who had tried to kill them all -- and likely had, given where she was, and the likely destruction of her world.
She sighed, and shook her head. ]
I do not wish for you to be alone, in this, Hayame. I want to see you as strong and as proud, to make the lot of them quake before you, with the might of allies behind you. I want you to know who will stand with you, and stand strong in that knowledge.
[ But Hayame was...complex. She was angry, and stern. It was not easy for her, she knew. This world was not the same, and Hayame was... a woman who had seen great tragedy, and cruelty. Mind, Akua had as well, but... ]
More than that, I wish for you to not guess who you can turn to, when you are in need.
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Just like she had the choice, then, to slap Akua's hand away or not.
But the other woman's words lance in to her sharp and accurate in their aim. As shameful as it was... She did not want to be alone. She wanted to know who to trust, who she could rely on...]
I am not supposed to need allies.
[And yet in this place, where there was magic and non-humans and demons and Oracles, it had been proven more than once that she was more weak than she had ever been on her own.]
I am not supposed to turn to anyone.
[Her voice nearly snaps mid-sentence, strained and stressed and stalwartly unwilling to break even if she might need to. But she hates how perfunctory and forced the arguments sound, some last line of defense thrown out angrily in the hopes that it might somehow work-
But.
She hasn't swatted away Akua's hand. And perhaps, that ruins anything that she might be trying to say.]
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[ She says it simply.
Oh, how she knows it. ]
I am Praesi, dear, and of the High Blood at that. We know nothing of closeness, allies, or friends. My mother would not even marry my father and used him as a tool to have me, but little more than that. I am bred to be superior to everyone who passes beneath me. I was made to be the best. To never want or need to have allies. To be able to throw away someone, simply because they were no longer convenient.
[ The girl that Akua had befriended, as a girl, had been chosen specifically that she would be killed by her eventually. There had been no room for such things for a Sahelian. ]
I do not say this to make you feel inferior, or to speak of my misfortune.
[ Her hand does not move. ]
I say this, because I know what it is, to have to learn that it is not the way. That there is a different way. That wanting friends does not make you weak. To lean on them does not make you lesser. That to stand apart is a path of ruin, that it will wound you and hurt you so deeply, that you would become a shell of who you wanted to be.
[ Her smile is sad, as she tipped her head up, to look her in the eye. ]
Don't wait until it's too late, like I did, Hayame.
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It ached.
And she is too weak now to pretend that a part of her didn't crave that ruin. Didn't sometimes dream of death even as she longed to survive. She is already wounded, she is already hurting, and friends are supposed to just- just fix it? Her lips curl back and sharp canines grind into her flatter teeth, readying herself to push the other woman away, to demand... just be loyal, then! Was it that goddamn hard? Actually be my friend!
But how pathetic that would be, when Akua has already made it clear what she feels friendship is. She releases a frustrated, impotent snarl, finally finds the fire to fling the other woman's hand away from her with a burst of,]
Stop preaching, Akua!
[Except instead of leaving it there, just letting that be a dismissal and the end of it-]
I heard you, didn't I?
[But did she believe her? Was she willing to let her so-called "friends" be the way they were with her? She didn't even know yet. And how was she supposed to know? Would she know today? Tomorrow? A week from now, a month? Her hooves churn in the woodshaving bedding of a stall meant for a fucking horse, she wants to just lash out-]
Just-
[Just what? The rage burns, but it's always been burning, and there's so little embers left. She doesn't know how to offer peace, how to acquiescence or to surrender, so how... ?
- In the frustrated silence, Hayame's gut suddenly lets out an obscenely loud rumble of hunger.]
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Oh, she had hated Catherine, for making her experience it. For seeing what she could have had, and what she had been denied. For exposing it to her.
She had left, afterward. She had stepped away, and betrayed Catherine soon after. She had loathed her, felt it deep in her soul, how much she hated and loved her for that. How much it had changed her. How much stepping into Praes and seeing how Dread Empress Malicia had warped the people had changed. How walking among them had felt so close to doing the right thing, and yet --
And yet she had never heard --
Hayame's stomach, the loud rumble broke her hesitation, and her lips quirked, slightly. ]
Hayame, how long has it been, since you have eaten?
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But she is, and she will have to live with knowing that. The embarrassment of how loud the rumble was is easier to swallow than her frustration over attempting to understand the word "friendship", over her inability to finish trying to banish Akua from her stall. She should do it... But if she did, then she will be alone again, with just herself and the crushing sense of defeat that came from having killed and hunted for an Oracle that still fell to the hands of the enemy despite her efforts.
Was it more pathetic to take that way out, or... ?]
... Some time.
[Despite the fact that their shard-based bodies didn't require food in the same way that a mortal body was supposed to, she still tended to eat normally, steadfastly refusing to accept their circumstances. She just...
She presses her forehead harder into the knuckles serving as a buffer between her face and the harsh wood of the stall walls, unable to believe that she was even about to suggest it, that it could fix anything, or at least serve as some way to end it...]
- Are you hungry?
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It had not helped, the guilt she felt then.
Even now, she does not heavily indulge. ]
Moderately so. Would you like to find something? I know of a stand that has fine fruits nearby. they even have oranges.
[ She would give Hayame the space, to think on what she said. She only hoped that it would lead to her learning to... bend more. When the situation required. ]
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So she ate. And she slept. And she...]
... You will have to educate me on these... "oranges".
[- Takes the escape from more talk on the nature of friendship. Later, alone in the dark, she will think more on what Akua has said.
But she doesn't want to be alone in the dark yet. Not again.]
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Oh Hayame.
You have never had one?
[ She held out her hand, an offer to take it, to lead her outward. ]
Well, now we must have one! We grew them where I am from, we are famous for them!
[ Along with betrayal. And beings some of the baddest bitches out there. ]
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She's tired. She doesn't want to argue anymore. Not with one of the few people who professed to accept her, to care for her, even if she was still wrestling with the definition of friendship she had always understood being... so far from what she had. After a moment of hesitation...
Hayame takes Akua's hand, a hint of something awkward and ruddy on her cheeks.]
... I know the color.
[But the food? She doesn't have the slightest idea what to imagine. Except maybe what shade it is.]
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[ Akua does not want to shame Hayame, but instead, she wants to share this with her. She does not know which worlds had them, and which did not. They are here, so surely they must be rather common. Though... she knows they require particular environments. Heat, and lots of water. Something not common in Praes, but something that Wolof had in droves. They used it for export and for food for their own people, but it would never be enough for the rest of Praes. It is why the country resorts to... other measures. Like Human Sacrifice. To affect the weather. ]
They are a fruit, and they burst when you eat them. They are both a sweet and sour citrus. You will find them pleasing, I hope.
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She will never taste a fruit like that in her own world.
So here... While she is here and Akua is saying they are good...]
I like fruit as much as the next person...
[She concedes. And she follows to where the oranges are.]