2017-08-14: Sentimentality
- Log: Sentimentality
- Cast: Riesenlied, Vorthuzahl
- Where: Photosphere
- Date: 14th August 2017
- Summary: Riesenlied heads to Vorthuzahl's domain to speak of Dragonhood, and their views of conquest...
<Pose Tracker> Vorthuzahl has posed.
The request for a meeting was an odd thing - Commander Vorthuzahl was not a social creature by nature, and though their paths had crossed before in the School of the Burning Blade, the Master of the Form spent most of his time training by way of expedition. Real world experience was best, or so he thought. Here, in a place behind the school proper, deep beneath it, was a dark place filled with vines made of metal. They wove along the floor and walls, thorny things that approximated some long lost life from elsewhere in the galaxy.
The room itself was not spacious, and aside from the throne-like structure at one end, it was mostly covered in long slats that served as shelves, filled to the brim with books, stone tablets, wooden ancestry poles, and other bastions of humanity's knowledge. Other, small artifacts break the monotony, and near a table that is in fact a great anvil, is a rack of humanity's weapons. Small. Brittle. Not like the weapons they craft.
Vorthuzahl stands staring at them, a recently regenerated hand tracing over broken pommels and fractured blades, his head tilting and his burning gaze taking in every minute detail. Finally, he pulls what used to be a great sword from the rack, it's blade snapped in two, pommel worn down by the annuls of time.
"Yessss...."
Even when speaking quietly, there is a menace to the word, turning the ancient weapon over in one hand and testing it's weight. This is a ritual, and anyone who stops to watch long enough will recognize the reverence he casts this discarded thing, perhaps imagining all the battles fought and won, until the last, where it's owner lost //everything//.
A worthy history, the Demon decides, and lays the blade down on top of his anvil.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied had last met Vorthuzahl perhaps... quite a time ago -- she was more of a fledgling then, and to her dismay, she was unable to manifest the inner sanctum of power that one needed to manifest the Burning Blade... though she learnt a measure of sword techniques from the master himself. Much like him, she also thinks of real world experience as best, though as of late, her reputation had shifted.
In the wake of Old Petra -- their forward base in Ignas -- and its decimation at the hands of Id, and the subsequent destruction of the Tainted village, Riesenlied has mustered more efforts towards... peaceful means, believing that as they go even further from the Photosphere, they need an even lighter touch as they go closer to their enemies' territories. Either that, or she's gone even softer than she already has been.
"Vorthuzahl," she speaks gently, as she steps towards the entrance. There is calm in her voice, though there is reservation in turn. "You wished to see me...?"
It is a meeting of two minds that are likely on opposite ends of the spectrum, really. One of mercy and forgiveness, the other... conquest and battle.
<Pose Tracker> Vorthuzahl has posed.
As a creature of tradition and respect, most would be expected to his his title. Save for those he had trained, and those who had earned his respect. Despite Riesenlied's assumed weakness of form, Vorthuzahl never treated her differently, for she showed a desire to //learn//. More than anything else, more than creating a new world for his kin or driving his enemies before him, he enjoyed teaching above all. Here, far from the field of battle, his name alone was more than enough, and as his burning gaze turned to the smaller demon he evaluated every inch of her frame.
Such scrutiny was second nature, and it is a brief thing, but crawls across the skin like a palpable touch.
Finally, from behind his newly reformed faceguard, his voice echoes forth, gravel and sandstone tumbling behind tones laced in an ever present ire. "Riesenlied. //Yes//. Good. I require your expertise. Come, join me here, I was just about to construct a new blade for myself."
His gaze turns back to it, and he lays a hand flat on the anvil, his own silverblood seeping from the seams in his armor to coat the surface. It glows red-hot, drawn from that well of energy he uses to infuse his particular combat style. "Our enemies relieved me of my previous weapon. At first I was devastated by uncontrolled rage when I had realized it's loss. But perspective found me. Do you know the story of that blade? Why it had such hold over me?"
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied pauses for a moment, before she walks just a little bit closer to peer towards the anvil, then back towards his masked form. It is perhaps a funny jest that she brings on her form a human weapon -- just a relatively simple side-sword with a wire guard and a narrow ricasso suggested by the shape of its sheath. A very brittle weapon by demon standards, the kind Vorthuzahl can easily snap in twain. Yet the weapons of the demons were... beyond her. She can't wield them, due to her weakness.
It does not stop her from accomplishing what she needs to.
"I do not," she speaks gently. "Would you tell me its story?"
<Pose Tracker> Vorthuzahl has posed.
"It is not a long or complicated story, but it is not one many of our kind can stand to hear. Defeat, at the hands of the lesser. Kulazahd, the previous Master of the Burning Blade, perished at the hands of a human who called him to single combat. He had every advantage. He crushed the man. Made him bleed from his fleshling pores. Broke his spirit, along with his blade.. or so he thought. Looming over him, Kulazahd raised his weapon for a death blow, and the human struck out with his last. Strained what little life he had left with him to leap and plunge his broken blade into my Master's chest."
He lifts the glowing weapon before him, an approximation of that which was lost, and turns it inward. Stabbing deep, near his heart, his voice echoes a grunt, and one hand braces to the anvil.
It is not until he withdraws the blade that it carries with it a part of Vorthuzahl himself, a mass of pulsing metal that forms into hard sheets of movable metal. The wound begins to close, and the Commander raises his new weapon high, the blade extending to it's full and locking into place as it's transformation into something worthy of the Burning Blade completes.
"The lesson I learned that day was that victory is not simply crushing your foe, that all the technology and power in the world is no match for the will to survive. We must constantly earn the right to return to the field of battle. But in taking that blade that killed Kulazahd as a reminder of this lesson, I failed at another."
His gaze turns back to her, and he straightens, letting pain fuel the vitriol that sticks to his next word.
"Sentiment."
There is something approximating a breath, and he straightens as he body becomes whole, and his new blade cools from the power he had infused it with. "I was defeated. And yet, sentiment was the worst of my wounds. I realize now, it extends to far more than my weapon. It extends to my skill, my form, my very life. I failed in my most recent encounter with these pitiful humans because I had not yet learned to let go of these things. But perhaps with your help, I can. Tell me, have you known many who have ascended to the Dragon form who have retained all that they were before?"
His question's purpose is clear. Commander Vorthuzahl is ready for the next stage of destructive power.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied drapes her arms closer around herself as she listens. It is not a story that she had heard before, but she had heard many tales of battle and the inspirational prowess of those that would snatch victory from the jaws of defeat...
"It is a good lesson," she expresses. "The spirit of survival must be constantly stoked, lest we be complacent in this harsh world that pushes against our very existence..." she glances towards the decorum in the workshop for a moment, and then expresses, "This is something many of our neonates underestimate. Though they are brittle, humans are no strangers to fighting tooth and nail for their survival."
The wings around her drape a little bit closer, snugly against her shoulders, wincing reflexively as Vorthuzahl stabs himself with his blade-- and there is a certain awe in her as she watches the transformation of that blade. It is, in turn, very close to the one weapon she can manifest for herself -- the Fallen Sword, made of her own being...
"... sentiment is... something that can strengthen you as well. Without sentiment for my Tainted peers, we could not muster that sense of camaraderie that allows us to march towards our next settlement," she murmurs quietly, as if to just point out.
But that wasn't his question.
"There are those that have ascended such, yes. I can refer you to these people -- the Ebon Roost's Dragons would not interest you, for..." She glances aside. "They are those who have failed, like me, in the process of transforming into a Dragon."
She closes her eyes for a moment longer.
"Dragonhood's tenets are not dissimilar to that of the Burning Blade's methods. It is a journey of being, a conceptualisation of oneself. The transformation of metallic flesh to scale, the blossoming of bone to wings... it is a process that was far too stressful and painful for the form I was granted. But you would be different, Commander Vorthuzahl."
<Pose Tracker> Vorthuzahl has posed.
The blade resonates with it's new power, and turned over in his hand, it shows a perfect balance and symmetry of purpose with it's wielder. Arm outstretched, it seems every bit the extension of his will. Finally, it whirls through the air in a slow spin, humming along the wait as if it calls out for something to cut, finally coming to a stop against one shoulder as he offers the pommel towards his guest. An offer to sample it's weight. To comment on it's construction. To hold a weapon she cannot craft herself.
"I should have sought your council on this matter before embarking on my quest. I sought to do as I have always done - conquer that which was out of reach. For me, here at the pinnacle of my craft, I have found few obstacles that challenge me. And yet, my last encounter was a defeat. My enemies fled alive, and the Dragonstone, the item I sought, was not recovered. But then, my rage had blinded me. It could have been that it too is lost. A fitful legend perhaps, or an exaggeration. I should have known that any item so promised to complete the transformation to dragon without the dedication you speak of could not exist..."
The way he looks at her, scouring her expression for any change, says otherwise. An item that could allow dragonhood. For anyone. For the uninitiated. For the weak.
Perhaps, even, for The Broken.
There he stands, arm extended, the sword a placeholder for something else: The possibility of wholeness, a myth that could be real, that Vorthuzahl foolishly sought for himself when he could, it seems, gain his power another way.
But perhaps this legend was meant for another.
"...or perhaps, I was simply the wrong person to look for it."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied is not familiar with Vorthuzahl's conquests, separate as their journeys tend to take them. But it is hard to not at least hear of his wake when he proceeds out on expeditions, and the destruction that tends to be lined behind it. She peers towards the blade with a quiet arc of her eyebrows, before-- she reaches for the blade to hold it. She isn't strong -- she uses the rather thin, almost rapier-like sword for a reason -- but it's with effort that she pulls it by her side to inspect.
Immediately, her touch sparks a kind of incongruence -- the Taintedness of her metal seemingly rejecting its synchronicity with the blade, but there's still a keen eye for such weapons. "... is it heavier than your last blade? It is well-crafted and impeccable... I can see that the shifting of the weight provides a better counterweight for your style -- it better spreads the load across your body and eliminates more of that gap between strikes. Well done."
There is a faint hum of thought, at that next comment.
"I've... not heard of this 'Dragonstone', in frankness -- I myself was constructed with Dragonhood in mind, as is many of our brethren that are initiated into our assault corps. I would not say it is impossible for it to exist, but..."
She tilts her neck, craning it in one direction.
"My Roost, I suppose, stands as a cautionary tale to those who seek it. The intensity of the transformation may very well scatter your mind, as it has for them. If my creator had not intervened, I would probably not be standing here before you."
There's a sorrowful smile.
"But you are no stranger to hardship and intense dedication. I can pass your name onward to the Wyverns, and have them relay to you their experiences, point you on your own quest. Lord Siegfried would likely approve."
<Pose Tracker> Vorthuzahl has posed.
The temptation of wholeness, of power, does not pull at the one before him. It grows his respect for her, even if it does mean his path forward may well be different. His head tilts ever so slightly, watching as she handles the blade, it's function stifled in her hand, if only for how incompatible she really is with all that they are. And yet, she has achieved so much. Still, it begs other questions. The dip of his head is all he has by way of expressing his thanks that she will speak to the Wyverns. His hand extends, seeking to reclaim his blade. "It is in all ways like my other, save for the attachment I had to it. A mistake I will not make again." It seems that, despite her example of sentiment providing a boon, it is not something Vorthuzahl can stomach anymore.
"Tell me. You are an accomplished warrior, a strategist of high renown, and a commander of the sky. You see before us the setbacks, those places where we have been rebuked in our quest, our war... if the decision was yours to command all of our forces, if this world's fate was in //your// hands, what would it look like when you were done with it? How would you cut a path forward, for the good of our people?"
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied has a quiet noise at that, as she hands the blade back in turn. She knows that, if he so willed it, he would have a place amongst the Wyverns -- too often, she's felt the pain of growing those who've in turn not looked back towards the Roost. She hopes that Vorthuzahl will be different. The promise of being elite does sometimes come with a hubris that can be blinding -- and in the wake of Drifters discovering Gears, and in the wake of the threat of Golems...
"... we have long been told in iron doctrine that there are pure incompatibilities between us and humans," Riesenlied quietly speaks. "That Mother will awaken and be our saviour, and that means a reshaping of the world."
Her wings spread at this point, and... then, against all known thought and knowledge of Riesenlied -- the one who couldn't manifest energy -- ambient motes of light start to emanate around the area. They feel unusual, for a Demon. Gentle, warm, embracing. Empathic.
"But recently I have been wounded, and in turn... developed this power to sense others. To feel how they feel. And... it makes me wonder. Who is the true enemy?" There is a faint sigh. "The past is all but shrouded to us. Even Lord Siegfried has admitted such that he has befriended humans in the past. And there are shadowy figures that incriminate themselves with silence, the Guardians, for their hand in how our ancestors fell one thousand years ago. Figures I feel have more sin than the humans that they manipulated."
She holds onto a small silver brooch at her chest, as she wills for that light to gather around her.
"The world is more complicated than our elders would like us to see it, when we were all but infants out of our cradles, here in the Photosphere. ... I admit I perhaps think heretical thoughts, that I seek a new world where we all can flourish. I believe us better than marauders. We excel at martial pursuit, and I would not be one to see us shy away from discipline, but it sickens me to see our young used as fodder and butchers. There is no honour in murder, the way Adlehyde happened."
There's a rueful chuckle as she admits, "... it may just be a selfish fantasy. But that is what I truly believe. Forgive me, for these unusual thoughts."
<Pose Tracker> Vorthuzahl has posed.
There is a slow curl of his metal fingers around his weapon as that light - impossible and willful - springs into being around her. The glow of his eyes brightens, perhaps as if widening, but he stands his ground against this, such a blasphemous display. But something dawns on him in that moment, something that draws him back to that initial scrutiny he gave her. There is a slow nod then, and his sword, held in a precipice of resurgent power, begins to deconstruct. The blade slides backwards, layering over itself until it is mostly hilt, and he can store it on his opposite upper arm.
"I forgive you, these... broken thoughts. Perhaps on my journey of ascension, you can join me. Together, we might cure your mind, even if there is no cure for your body." It is, perhaps, past his comprehension to understand how any of their kind could hold such notions. In his eyes, is the uncompromising moral compass of a zealot, a servant of only their strict doctrine.
What is worse, is despite his disregard for such things as sentiment, he sees someone before him worthy of his respect as a combatant, and thus, worth saving, salvaging, from this errant dream of a utopia that is not fatal to all fleshling kind.
"In the meantime, I will redouble my efforts. Focus my destructive might so that this conflict will end as quickly as possible, so that these creatures you think worth saving are no longer a worry. This, I commit to you, Riesenlied. It is the only kindness I can do you."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"... I shall not remand you, nor discourage you so. I am still a Hyadean, a Metal Demon, in the end, and to discourage one from the journey of self-discovery and perfection is sin above all," Riesenlied expresses with a measure which is utterly earnest in its conviction, bowing her head. She draws that light back towards herself, where the strange feeling fades such.
There is another chuckle that is no less rueful as she turns halfway out towards the doorway of the workshop. "Perhaps my thoughts are indeed broken, yet in that fragility... I find that shards are able to reflect much more than one whole mirror can."
She bows her head and expresses, "Thank you, for all that you have taught me thus far. No matter where our paths may diverge, and even if it may lead us to become enemies in the future... I shall not forget what the path of the Burning Blade has taught me."
She opens her eyes fully, her irises shining with conviction and resolve. Where her body is tainted, where she is weak and flesh-like, where even her mind may be suspect to other demons...
...her determination is unshakeable. There is true passion for her purpose there.
"Be well, and may your blade and mind be ever sharp, Commander Vorthuzahl."
And with that, the winged woman has turned to step out towards the larger hallways, unless he has more to say.