2018-07-19: Not Like Us
- Log: Not Like Us
- Cast: Seraph Beast, K.K.
- Where: Zulan Massif
- Date: 7/19/2018
- Summary: Confronted by the Trial Knight in the depths of the Zulan Massif, the Beast of Lohgrin makes a desperate plea.
===============================<* Zulan Massif *>=============================== The Zulan Massif is the name given to a large area of tundra bordering the northern edge of the Meribus continent. Extending from the northern edge of the Goddess Plains to the mountain ranges, the Massif is a mix of pine forest, permafrost and finally snowfields populated by an assortment of hunters, trappers, and loggers who sell their goods to the rest of the continent. According to local legend, the Massif owes its name to the leader of the region's first colonists, Irritable Stephen, whose description of the region as 'massive' was misspelled as a result of a bout with frostbite. The spelling was formally recognized by the Chief Cartographer of the Magic Guild of Vane; the decade-and-a-half of increasingly acrimonious correspondence between the two remains on display in the Guild library. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi_p5wdBrXw
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
There are so many humans to keep an eye on, around here. To think that the Beast of Lohgrin has forgotten the village of Zulan would be foolishness; she forgets few of those people she has reached out to defend.
(A thousand arms for those in need, and is there fain enough?)
Snow glitters down in thin flakes, a gentle fall which promises a coming storm. The pine trees collect, here; they are not thick enough to forbid movement, but there is no hope for an unwinding path. The snow banks on their branches, collected in the needles, and occasionally little piles fall to the ground as squirrels leap from branch to branch.
One unsettles above the Beast, falls onto headplates as if it were a jaunty little hat.
It bothers her little, and she doesn't bother to unseat it as she floats above the snow, claws so barely clipping the drifts. She does not have skin to feel the bitter bite of cold as inhospitable or unkind. In places her plates are still blackened by a blast of fire; it is a patchwork of dark amongst the grey.
She will have to bring them more firewood, she thinks. They will need it in the coming storm. They are thoughts of the people she means to check on - always of those humans around her.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
The Zulan Massif is, if nothing else, a testament to the fact that human beings can eke out life for themselves in even the most inhospitable and unforgiving of environments.
Tundra stretches across this portion of the Goddess' Plains as if to remind that even the Goddess can be cruel at times; at best, permafrost is a constant companion here. At worst, surviving the white outs of raging blizzards are all man has to look forward to. And yet still, they survive. Finding work selling wood, selling meat -- selling anything they can get their hands on.
And they manage. Persevere, even. Bit by bit. Day by day.
Some days, however--
"You dote upon them, child."
-- some days are worse than others.
And not simply for the humans who dwell here.
The voice comes, in that distinctive, tinny warp, from directly behind the Beast of Lohgrin. There is no real indication of anyone else's arrival, no sign of approach -- just that voice, before the crunch of snow and frost beneath heavy heels. And there, practically blending in to the white of that snow, they stand -- armor shining freshly polished as if it had not even been touched on that day in the very heart of Rolance, the Trial Knight's faceless stare is focused upon the Beast and the shell of her statue, horned helm cant at a curious angle, hands held harmlessly at their sides. Making no move towards violence.
"And yet you live an existence much colder and distant than theirs."
Which makes it, potentially, no less tense.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
There are so many sounds in the wilderness, carried upon the wind. There is the rustling of a breeze against snowdrift, in vain attempt to separate icy flake from icy flake. The sound of a fox moving through low cover, paws dipping into the snow in practiced movements. There is the sound of rustling pine-needles, as a bird alights.
The Beast of Lohgrin has spent long years alone, with these noises. Perhaps the snowy vista is unknown to her - but the sounds of nature themselves are familiar.
Why, then, do heels crunch against the snow, does a tinny voice ring out, without a single note of announcement?
Plates pause, as those words cut through the gentle snowfall. There are no lungs to take breath. The hollow sockets which turn to face the Trial Knight - first headplates, tilting at an ill angle, then the rest of her - do not widen in surprise. They cannot.
The Trial Knight shines, where the Beast of Lohgrin stands blasted.
The Trial Knight stands and makes no move to violence, and perhaps it is possible to speak now the situation is so much less heated.
Certainly, the Trial Knight takes that opportunity. Is it accusation? It is only the truth. "I am not like them," replies the Beast, and her tones are even, perhaps with the slightest hint of regret. They are mortal, she is a spirit. That she is distant - it cannot be helped.
"But I will defend them nonetheless." An answer, perhaps, to how she dotes.
There is a moment's pause, snow fluttering down. Flakes join the snow upon her headplates; her movements are careful enough that they have not yet been disturbed. "Trial Knight," begins the Beast, her thoughts gathered, "I must beseech you to no longer darken Ida's steps. I know not why you trouble her, but you take her down an awful path." She entreats with earnest words, and she makes no move to violence, either.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
I am not like them.
"Such sentiment 'tis but a barrier of your own making."
Certainly, the words that come from that inscrutable helm could be considered accusations. Taunts. Mockery. But like most of what the Trial Knight says, it lacks a certain bite harder to discern in the heat of the moment. As if they were just speaking. Observing.
Conversing.
It's a fact borne out in the simple way they do not couple those words with insults nor dive for violence, despite their very first encounter being in the throes of it. No -- they barely even move, at least at first. Snow falls, gathering in soft little piles of twinkling frost at their shoulders and helm as their hands clasp at the small of their armored back.
"'We are not like them. We must stay apart. They are flawed. They wallow in the ignorance of mortality and will surely drag you down with them to drown.'" A single step crunches snow beneath its wake as K.K. advances upon the Wind Seraph in light of her plea, her request. A moment that could surely signal combat in any other situation merely ends with the knight trudging through snow-coated plains to stand beside the vessel-clad Seraph, faceless gaze focused off on some far off point in the distance -- the village of Zulan, still far enough away as to be insignificant.
"You know Ida Everstead-Rey? Then you ought well know you ask of me something that is not mine to give," they finally say, when they can see that whitened horizon in the distance, the merciless stretch of frost-caked tundra stretched out for miles all around them. "But were I to answer your request, I would first bid ask of you one thing."
That horned helm tilts towards the statue beside them. Fingers spasm faintly at their back.
"When you look upon Ida Everstead-Rey, what, exactly, do you see?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
The Trial Knight advances, and there is no shock evidenced in the mien of the Beast of Lohgrin at all. Her design cannot allow it.
They are conversing, and there is truth to those words. A truth so agonisingly familiar - as if it could have come from her very lips. "Yes," agrees the Beast, so lightly. It's almost a familiar kind of tone - but for the faint trace of suspicion around it.
Words so familiar - where did they get them?
The Trial Knight comes to stand beside her, and the Beast of Lohgrin tilts her headplates to regard them. A little patch of snow crumbles from its perch, falls down past lower plate to the ground. She is hollow beneath it; there is no resistance at all.
It is not theirs to give, they say, and the Beast wonders in despair just how tightly Ida has wound herself about this figure.
A question resolves itself on the wind, and she is quiet, for long moments. It is the first time anyone has asked this of her so directly. Certainly there are mortals who have been confused, by her descriptions - the way she fails to name the things they would see as important.
And what does it reflect? Long years pass, and mortals die. They pass through the hourglass like grains of sand, immaterial. Their forms mean nothing. It is their associations -
Distantly: "I see the plague."
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
"Then you do not see her."
A simple, damning observation that is issued without hint of hesitation; K.K. does not try to mask the sentiment in niceties, nor skirt around the issue. But the Beast knows well enough already: it is not just the Trial Knight's weapons that cut. But if nothing else? They do not try to belittle the Beast of Lohgrin with deception.
Whether for good, or for ill.
"You see that poison in the soul, but you see not the inspiration," says K.K., and that tone remains as unfaltering as the nobility of their bearing as they turn upon the hollowed vessel, coated with snow. "That she is so afflicted means naught more than she is that human. Would you know what I see?"
Their head cants towards the left. A hand stretches outward, catching flakes of snow upon the cold white steel of their palm as they speak, watching them as if they could see all the little imperfections that make each unique. "I see a woman who cares, powerfully, about the people she surrounds herself with -- and yet chains herself with insecurities that would cast her as the burden, as the blight she has created of herself. She falls so deeply because her passions shine so brilliantly, if she would but see them for what they were instead of turning them into the lash upon her soul. She sees in the success of others her own failings and sets upon herself a measure that she will never be able to reach because it is not hers to be measured against. 'Tis no plague you see, girl." Clawed gauntlet sweeps the whitened landscape as if to indicate everything around it -- the village beyond. The snow clinging to scarce trees. The scurry of hidden animals, hoping to survive another day.
The trace Malevolence, unseen in the air.
"'Tis life. Beautiful and ugly. And you cannot embrace one without acknowledging and understanding the other."
They turn, then, towards Beast. That hand falls once more. And once more, there is nothing but the silence, and them. A Seraphim who would live inside iron, and a knight who would embody it.
"She needs not relief from my hand, Beast of Lohgrin. Seraph. She needs those who can see what you call a plague for what it is, and show her the true measure of her heart. She requires the support of those who truly know her. Perchance it is you wish to help her, truly. Perchance it is you wish to be her friend.
"But as you are now, you will do naught more than fail her. And she will fall to a place none may save her from."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
The Trial Knight speaks true to Ida's nature, and perhaps it is a relief that they do not seem to measure the context behind the Beast of Lohgrin's words. They are not the words of a malingering presence - they could have so easily been said by anyone.
Because it is the truth.
Would it be easier, if the Trial Knight lied...?
"Life," echoes the Beast in that silence, and there is still a measure of skepticism to those words, because she catches their implication. Malevolence is a sickness upon life - it forbids existence. There cannot be good about such a terrible thing.
They speak again - and she listens.
Is it the truth?
Certainly they have spoken nothing but. Certainly it would imply these words which carve so deeply past those armor plates are true, as well.
Wingplates flatten against her chassis; a claw curls uncertainly in the air. Her words halt, though there is no breath in her lungs to shudder. "I-I..." And yet her voice still wavers, though there is no throat to shudder, and what implications it might spread.
"I know there is still humanity about her - truly, I do." And there is a more unseated quality to those words, now, than the evenness she started with. "And this humanity would be enough for me to save her. But it is not only this which makes me worry so!" And there is a fierce quality to the declaration. "For Ida's struggles, though she cannot be like me... are so like what I have struggled with. And not only my own. They are -"
She catches herself, shakes out her plates; snow, disturbed, shakes to the ground. Her voice quiets. "This time, perhaps I might save her. This time, I must. She does not deserve this torment. So please... do not cause her any more pain." It is an open plea.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Skepticism. Doubt. The droplet of uncertainty that hints at a deeper wellspring of insecurity beneath. All these things and more might be lost to most, in the strange absurdity of talking to a living statue. The lack of conventional expressiveness, only a voice, in theory, to provide cues.
And so, too, might be the way the Trial Knight observes the Beast of Lohgrin, every action and every word, choked and all.
Perhaps they are lying. But that would be too convenient, wouldn't it? Too easy. So they see. They see the skepticism. The doubt. The worry. The fierceness. Insecurities and fears, layered in the inflection of a wind-borne voice and the subtle shifting of iron plates. Their horned helm tilts.
For Ida's struggles, though she cannot be like me... are so like what I have struggled with. And not only my own. They are -
"'They are not like us.'"
The words come, an echo of what came before, as if perfectly positioned to dredge those fresh memories back to the surface. And as they repeat their former thoughts, the Trial Knight steps forward, towards the Beast of Lohgrin, frost crackling and crumbling beneath their every fresh step as they advance.
"Malevolence springs forth from the most human qualities. 'Tis blight to Seraphim, and so it is called poison and cast aside as a problem not their own. The sin of man. But it is not the purity of evil from whence such pollution pours. 'Tis their happiness. 'Tis their sorrow. 'Tis their love. 'Tis their hate. 'Tis their honest grief they cannot reconcile. 'Tis their powerlessness when they yearn to be anything but." Step. Step. Step.
"'Tis their fear in the face of things they do not wish to know."
And a hand reaches outward, until a single, white claw can reach out and press.
Press into the surface of the Beast's chassis. Her shell.
Her ward, against the world.
"'They are not like us'? 'Tis naught but the barrier you make from the truth, child. In their briefest flickers of an existence, they are more like you than you could ever possibly know.
"Your failings are no different than Ida Everstead-Rey's. You but have iron to hide yourself away from your fears, where she had naught but poison to bog her down to hers."
The gauntlet lifts away. "You ask me to back away from my course. I cannot back away from what must be. I set myself upon this path ages past and I will walk no other but this until the day the last vestiges of life flee from mine own chest. That is my resolve, and it is one whose consequences I live with unflinching every waking moment. No. I will continue to pursue her and all her get with the ferocity they must know. It shall not abate until the end comes. And when it does, she will be saved, or she will truly fall." And slowly, the Trial Knight turns. Intent to turn their back from the Wind Seraph.
"And if you wish the former, 'tis not to me you must look for change from."
To begin to wade their way back into the blistering white.
"'Tis yourself."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
A different track, an older track. Calling back to the beginning, to the way the Beast of Lohgrin stands apart from the world of Men. And perhaps it is not so different after all. This, too, is like her.
The Trial Knight advances - the Beast stands sentinel. Frozen in her constituent pieces, as if so many snowflakes have made her like them. There is desperation in her voice as she denies their truths of Malevolence: "But ought this be true - there is no hope for them at all!"
If it is happiness, if it is grief, it is the human condition, and there is no saving them. Their emotions are such an integral part of their mortality and they cannot be saved from their own natures.
(Mama, did you know? Did you know they were hopeless? Is that why -)
It is their fear, says the Trial Knight, and what horror lies in those words.
They are plates in loose concordance, held together with the wind's magic. Chest plates are broad, as if armor suited to a horse, or perhaps modelled from one. Air has no form, and yet it collects here, green-tinged with magic as it drifts from the plates it inhabits. It tints the white of that claw with its proximity.
Air cannot be grasped, and yet it is vulnerable to every change around it. It moves around intruders; it cannot repel a thing. It is an eminently vulnerable existence. Perhaps it is only natural to clothe it in iron.
Hollow sockets tilt down to stare at the intrusion into her space, and they betray no hint of reaction but for the way their attention doesn't seem to shift from it at all. "I -" And the word on the breeze is choked, though there are no lungs to grasp. "Even were it so - I-I must not..."
The Trial Knight lifts their hand; the Beast of Lohgrin steps away, once, again. Claws sink into the snowdrifts.
They are resolute; they will not turn from Ida. The thought crosses her mind: can she allow them to walk away, knowing such a thing?
But try as she might - she cannot will herself to approach as they turn.
"Know that she is not alone," she calls, behind them, a shade of desperation to the words. "None of them are alone!"
On the breeze, the words shake.
To change - to release those fears - to relinquish that iron grip of control -
- certainly, the Trial Knight has not said a single lie.