2018-09-01: The Worth of Meaning
- Log: The Worth of Meaning
- Cast: Talia, Kaguya, Seraph Amaranth
- Where: Azado
- Date: 9/1/2018
- Summary: In the wake of Sin's destruction of Azado, Kaguya finds Talia.
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
Azado is in ruins.
Talia arrived in the city with Katherine Weaver, when everything promptly went wrong. In the fires that swept through the town, the two were separated. Then, a tidal wave scoured it, and then -- from a distance -- she saw the monster called Sin. There was little she could do but stare at that huge, mottled grey whale-like creature in horror. She was on the other side of the city when its attack leveled so much of it. The collapse of much of the town into a gaping hole, however, was something that distance was necessary but not sufficient to escape.
And thus, now, she tumbles down into that hole. She crashes onto a level of severed catacombs below. The hole looks like it cut through a honeycomb: through levels of sewers, basements, and tunnels that lay below Azado. High above, and somewhat distant, the monster floats menacingly in the sky. Talia's neck feels tight; she has a trickle of blood running down from her cheek. This was supposed to be easy.
"Katherine!" she calls out, as she stumbles a little deeper into a tunnel. "...Lydia!"
She hasn't seen Lydia since she ended up on the deck of the Fereshte. Talia looks around, nervously. She also hasn't seen the person she came here for. His name isn't shouted. It is said as something more like an existential question.
"Vanya...?"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Is there enough of Azado to call it anything but a ruin now?
...So far as everyone knows, Kaguya did not come to Azado; Kaguya, when last anyone knew, was on her way to Ladylake at the head of an army, far from this devastation. ...But...
It's not the first human city Kaguya's seen destroys. She imagines it won't be the last. Nevertheless... As Talia stumbles through catacombs, Kaguya stares up at the creature that may be the true ruler of this strange moon. Her strange green eyes remain transfixed. ...She did not arrive in time to help. Would she have, regardless? But still, she can see it.
"...Is this what it means?" Kaguya murmurs, wondering. "Is this...?"
A shake of her head, as she puts off philosophy and keeps walking. It shouldn't be too hard. She is small, does not stand out amidst the wreckage, and soon she makes her way forward. Forward, forward--
She leaps down into the hole, landing in a half-crouch below. Her attire is fine; green fabrics over darker green metal in places, though not all. Her arms are largely bare. ...an ARM is holstered within her long coat, largely hidden. And here...
Maybe it's fate. Maybe not. But Kaguya hears Talia's voice, and glances up a level. She leaps--
Lands. Starts down the same tunnel.
And so--
"...Nope."
Kaguya's voice is casual, but not light.
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
Talia certainly did not think that Kaguya would be in Azado. She did a quick study of the rumors, before she left for Meribus. She learned that Kaguya was allegedly heading into the interior of Ladylake. The end result is that she hasn't thought much about her in a few days, ever since the encounter with Avril and Rebecca. Even that, in truth, was more of a hypothetical. She didn't expect to see Kaguya for awhile.
She hears Kaguya land before she hears her voice. The former assassin is perceptive; she knows to pay attention to moments like these. As a result, she turns on a foot, and her head tilts slightly to the side.
'...Nope.'
Her crimson eyes narrow, as she gets a look at the shorter, thinner girl. That Kaguya looks younger than her isn't lost upon her. Talia's mouth opens -- and then it closes, again. She reaches to her side. Mirage is sheathed there, and she lays a hand on the hilt.
"I honestly thought you were an ocean away," Talia says. Her voice stays on edge -- with a hardness there, because one truth overrides everything else: she never liked Lady Kaguya much. "I suppose Meribus couldn't be so lucky, no?"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya looks barely seventeen, really. Is that her age? Or does she just look younger because of her size?
Regardless, in the darkness her pallor stands out; the light from lamps and what filters in from outside hits her from behind, makes her expression difficult to read. ...But it's not surprising that an assassin would notice her.
"Going for your weapon already?" Kaguya asks, but she doesn't even pretend to be actually dismayed. She just looks Talia over again. Honestly...
"Yeah," Kaguya answers. "That's what you were supposed to think. That's what everybody's supposed to think. It's convenient, isn't it? Everything's all done, all wrapped up with a nice little bow..."
A beat, "Well. Almost everything. There's a little obstacle still out there."
Kaguya grins. "Really, the whole continent's lucky 'cause I wouldn't be here? Not nice at all."
Kaguya's knives are at her sides, clearer as Kaguya shrugs widely enough to let the weapons at her belt show their hilts.
"Do you want to be an obstacle, Talia?"
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
Talia, conversely, is eighteen -- and she looks it, if not a little older. Some of it is how she grew up; some of it is her build and how she carries herself. She is also pale, but not as pale as Kaguya. And her red eyes stand out, in the darkness of the tunnel. It is a thing of contrasts and shadows; the light flooding in from the gaping hole cut into the city comes in rays and parts, only making segments of the catacombs lit up.
"As if I have any illusions," Talia says. "I remember what you said. That you were born better than me, that you grew up better than me."
She smiles a thin, tense smile. "I think I'll prove you wrong about that third point."
Her fingers rest just over Mirage. A part of her is aware that, maybe, if she was a faster talker, she could talk her way out of this. She is aware, too, that Kaguya isn't an easy person to handle in a fight. And, yet, deescalation isn't what she pursues.
"Why are you here?" she says, instead of answering her question. "I learned a little about you. A Veruni, wasn't it?" she says. "Someone not quite human. And you came here, presented yourself as a noble, and made a merry little band that would follow you to the depths of hell. But..."
Her eyes narrow. "...It is about having some people like us humans to use, isn't it? Not having something to call your own... but someone."
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
It's true that Kaguya grew up in what most humans would consider unimaginable luxury, even without being at the higher reaches of her own society. She does not stand out as much; her eyes are sunken. She does not gleam. ...She takes up light.
"Heh. Nice, sass. That makes this more fun, you know? It's more exciting that way." A beat, "It's nice to be listened to, isn't it?"
The smaller of the two has a different kind of tension about her; the tension of a coiled spring, of a cord pulled taut. She is not nervous. But neither is she... pleasant.
It's not a safe sort of look.
"You heard that much?" Kaguya asks, moderately impressed. "It's not 'not quite human', though. ...I'm not human. At all. See, my people used to live on your Blue Star, a long, long time ago. ...But you guys fucked it up, so we left to try to find somewhere that wasn't so damaged."
"...But you know, you always make it home eventually, right?"
A beat. "You're close. Real close. It's true; I presented myself as a noble because I could. ...Because really I may as well be. I'm stronger than humans; I'm smarter than humans. But mostly, if you say you're a noble, and you're strong enough to back it up... That's where nobles come from. Ages ago, somebody's ancestor was better than other people."
She grins. "...But where you're wrong is that the Oasis is my need to have people of my own. The truth is, it was Matilda's idea, and I have a lot of interest in you humans; I'm curious what you can do, with a little support. How far you can go. But--"
"...There is one someone. One someone who belongs to me. Who is mine." Kaguya's voice grows sharper, sharp like her teeth, sharp like her gaze all of a sudden.
"Matilda. ...And you? You put her at risk with your betrayal. ...Frankly I don't hold a little double-cross against you on principle. But endangering her...?"
"I take care of what belongs to me."
"...But you don't need me to make a big speech, do you? You say you do the work you do because of your sad story, but I see it. You like a little blood, right? You enjoy it. Like me."
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
"Used to live on the Blue Star?" Talia asks, her eyes widening slightly. The legends said that humans came from the Blue Star. She never put much stock in them. Legends always seemed so distant from the life she led. Now, she wonders if that was really so smart.
Then, she reminds herself, that wherever the Veruni came from, one of them is standing right here in front of her.
Talia's eyes narrow, and her lips curl back into a smile. "I suppose, then, that we agree on that. Nobility is nothing but being the sort of miserable excuse of a person to brutalize others for your own gains. So, yes, Kaguya." The curve of her lips are, in fact, nothing like a smile. "I think you're very noble, no?"
Her hand rests on the hilt. Her fingers tighten around Mirage.
And she hears the reason that Kaguya is really here. "For what it's worth, I am sorry that I put Matilda and all of the others in danger. I made the wrong choice." She has her doubts, still, that there was a right choice to make. But, she won't share that. Not here. Not to her.
"But you are wrong." Her expression flattens out. "The rest of them... they talk about wanting to save me. It isn't that I enjoy spilling a little blood."
Mirage comes out, the blade flashing. "I hated every time that I drove a knife in between the ribs of someone who deserved better. I hated watching them die. What I liked..."
She points the length of the short sword at Kaguya. The limited light in the catacombs glints along its strange, whorled blue-grey steel. "...Is spilling the right blood. The blood of the people who could look at someone, and think that a person could ever be claimed."
DC: You switch forms to The Charming Sellsword! DC: Talia switches forms to The Charming Sellsword! DC: Kaguya switches forms to Lady Kaguya!
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Mm-hm. Long time ago." It's a pretty basic history lesson for her, though she would freely admit that she enjoys the surprise in Talia's expression. ...While it lasts, anyway. That smile--
"Hey, hey," Kaguya answers. "Miserable nothing. It's been working out pretty well for me."
A beat, "But I'll take noble." She grins back. It shows teeth.
For what it's worth...
"Hmm, OK," Kaguya says to the apology--but she has no illusions that this is de-escalating. ...No real wish for it to, really. Instead, when Talia looks flatly at her, she talks of being 'saved'... and the blade flashes. Kaguya glances at it, glances back up to Talia--and then she laughs. It is a deeply, deeply unpleasant sound.
"...It's nice that you believe that just because you've grown a set of morals, there's suddenly going to be any justice in your life. Justice doesn't exist, Talia. Things just happen. The only defense..."
Kaguya reaches to her side and pulls what turns out to be a pair of thick-bladed silver-edged butterfly swords; the grips have handguards, the blades about as long as her forearms... but wide. She hefts them, spins them--adopts a ready stance.
"And I can claim her all I want. You could ask her, if she were here. She likes being mine. So--"
Abrubtly Kaguya lifts one foot and slams it into the ground--the entire floor close to them rattles before the already-weakened wood splinters, sending the both of them tumbling towards another floor--
As Kaguya approaches without even starting to strike until she's too close to telegraph it, one-two stabs to Talia's center.
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
"That sounds like your own twisted sense of morality that you're pushing on others," Talia spits back at Kaguya. Her head tilts to the side; her eyes narrow a little more at the claim that Matilda is hers. However, she does not present an answer or disapproval -- because the stonework of the tunnel underneath her cracks when Kaguya strikes it with such force. Talia leaps as the floor gives out, along with wooden pillars.
And she falls, with Kaguya, to the floor below. Her hair and clothing is coated in a white dust from the impact. Her lips curl back, into a glower, and then she sees the two butterfly swords coming for her.
Her parrying dagger swings up. Kaguya's left blade is caught on the parrying dagger; her right is slammed to the side by Mirage. Sparks fly in the room, and Talia rushes up. She jumps when she does -- and executes a quick, brutal snap-kick for Kaguya's head. "Demonic Swallow Kick!"
When her foot flies, there is a flash of white light along her boot. It snaps and crackles, like lightning, before releasing off her still-moving foot.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"No, it's just how things are," Kaguya answers tonelessly, as if she's bored with the entire conversation--and maybe she is. She's much more interested in Talia at the moment, in the crash of the floor--
Kaguya too is dusty from impact, and one-two--the parrying dagger catches the blunted lower end of the blade and drives into the corner of blade and crossguard, while Mirage's force makes Kaguya's hand go wide--
Talia kicks Kaguya in the head, outright, snap and strike. The light crackles--and hits straight on, illuminating Kaguya's hair, shifting about her body--
"Heh," Kaguya answers, eyes half-manic, hands briefly shaking with the shock--The pain of the powerful strike is clear, but instead of shifting back--
Kaguya surges forward, bringing her knee up in what would be a kick--turns out to be a feint, as Kaguya twists mid-air and switches legs for a brutal kick of her own, seeking to slam Talia all the way out into the greater fallen chamber--
"I'm used to pain."
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
"I don't much care about your opinion on pain!" Talia answers, voice harsh and short by virtue of tension from movement.
This time, Kaguya connects. The kick slams Talia backward, and has such power that it picks the sellsword up and tosses her down the length of the hallway bodily. She slams into a wall of rock at the end; the stones crack, a few loose bricks falling down. Talia shakes her head, long black tresses having some dust and sweat shaken out of them, and then she looks back up ather.
"I think," she spits back, "that you lied. You aren't just here because I put her in danger, are you? Because you were pissed off the moment I showed up--"
She holds a hand up. A magical circle spins up under her feet, briefly, and then the air before her chills. Frost gathers on the wall. "--Freeze Lancer--"
A javelin of ice forms and then shoots straight down the length of the hallway, flying at Kaguya like a rocket. "--and I doubt you wanted to leave the job unfinished!"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"But you're gonna hear about it anyway."
Kaguya doesn't seem to be very hurried; when Talia hits the wall, the smaller combatant just starts walking towards her. Simple, ordinary steps, one at a time. The last of the electricity crackles about her mouth and fades, and so step, step, step--
"Oh, I didn't lie," Kaguya answers simply. She feels the pulse of magic, sees the circle--
Ice. A poor element for Kaguya; the javelin rockets towards her, and Kaguya stops where she is. She stops just long enough that the javelin comes at her--
Just as it passes within her reach, into her space, Kaguya swings up her arm, counterclockwise circling to slam it off-course. It breaks apart mid-swing, and the blunt long side of the projectile impacts along Kaguya's chest, breaking on her armor, assuredly bruising her beneath...
"But it's also true that I like a good beating. The way human flesh and bone just... breaks, under such a tiny little bit of pressure." A beat, "I came 'cause I wanna see what happens when I break you. Two things can be true, right?"
She brings up her hand like a conductor telling her orchestra to play louder--and there's a faint, sharp scent, strange flowers--before vines erupt from the ground in a green-lit wind, wicked thorns along each as they coil up to grip at Talia's legs, chest, arms. They're not strong enough to restrain her--
But they're only meant to cut, to introduce a subtle toxin that burns in the blood.
"But hey, fair, right? I like to tell humans I don't remember their names. But the truth is? I've been watching you since we met."
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
The ice javelin does not have such a strong composition. It shatters easier than stone -- and it quickly melts away, as the magical energies that made it make it vanish. Talia swears, softly, under her breath. The impact that she scored is not the one that she liked. Her eyes lift, red eyes meeting Kagya's. "Break? I shouldn't be surprised, no? Given everything you--"
The vines rise up about her. She smells that sweet, flowery scent. She yelps and leaps back, and the vines only coil around her left leg and arm for a moment. The thorns still cut into her flesh, especially about her arm, above her vambrace. She yanks it back--
--and feels the subtle, burning toxin that starts inflaming the skin there. "Watching me?" she snaps. "What for? Because I was working for you? Because you wanted talent?"
She throws Mirage. Kaguya knows to expect this. The weapon embeds itself into the wall. Chips of stone fly out -- and whisk through strands of shadowstuff. Shadowy mist billows out and snaps together, to reform Talia. She lets out a loud, bellowing, and wordless battle cry -- and then slashes her knife across Kaguya's face brutally.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"You really shouldn't," Kaguya agrees, heedless of her own magic once she's cast it and let it go. Her eyes meet Talia's blue a moment after. "You're lucky you know--the smell of that flower? It hasn't been smelled on this moon ever before. I developed it myself."
Talia's snapped question gets a look from Kaguya--but she doesn't answer immediately. Instead, she looks to see where the weapon is going to land, remembering the extraordinary ability that it affords its wielder--
When the mist starts to form, Kaguya turns towards it immediately, waiting--and ignores her defense for a counterattack. So it happens quickly:
Blood sprays the wall as Talia's weapon hacks across Kaguya's face, prompting a hissed reaction of exhalation as Kaguya stays committed to her own strike--
She tilts her blade away; this isn't a cut. Instead, Kaguya slams the guard of one sword straight for Talia's solar plexus.
"Because you were INTERESTING!" Kaguya punctuates, one hand coming up for an instant to touch at her face, to apply pressure, as she hisses again. "Because I wanted to see what you'd do!"
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
"I'll bother with being impressed later," Talia snaps back.
She managed to slash her parrying dagger across Kaguya's face. There isn't any joy in the victory; Talia has always been a technical sort of fighter, without much enjoyment of the bloodshed. It is business -- or at least, well-honed art -- to her. Still, even the quiet satisfaction of a connected strike is dispelled when the hilt of the sword slams into her solar plexus.
Talia's ribs crack, and she lets out a sharp gasp. Her parrying dagger, still slick with Kaguya's blood, clatters uselessly to the floor. The hallway has a slight tilt -- it is not, after all, very stable -- and it slides down it.
"Interesting!? I'll grant you that is better than hoping to use someone for gain, but--"
She whips out Mirage. Talia jumps; she spins as she leaps, and the sword in her hand spins with her. Energy focused into the blade erupts as that white-tinted light again, when her ki is released, and leaves a spiral afterimage in the air, before Talia thrusts the blade down for Kaguya at the apex of her jump. "Light Spear Cannon!"
She lands, then, and the blade is already coming up to guard. "--wanting to use us and hurt us to see our reaction is hardly BETTER!"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Bold of you to assume there's a later for you."
Kaguya puts down her hand again, seeing blood smeared across her glove. Maybe this will scar. ...It's hard to say. Regardless--
Well, regardless, now she's watching Talia slide away, sidelong until she starts to turn again towards her. 'Interesting', she'd said.
"heh. Well--"
Talia jumps again, spinning, and this time Kaguya watches her again. She feels the energy, the same light of ki--she remembers it from last time, knows that relying on her sight isn't going to be good enough with that speed.
She slips to the side first, ducking down and snapping up the dagger, shoving it into her belt where it stains her tunic. Her other hand comes up to start the guard, and the blade of ki scythes straight down at her--
The guard is barely a guard at all--just a turn, just a shift, so the blade, spectral, ignores her armor and blazes through her left shoulder. She inhales again sharply--
And lets the inhalation work with her body to tilt herself backwards. Talia's sword is moving up to guard, so she may not be prepared when Kaguya falls backwards--
And a terrible gust of wind rushes through the chamber, its only warning the gleam of green at Kaguya's hands. "Better, worse--"
It is scented, strange, but it brings with it a torrent of razor petals, beautifully pink except for those that become red with blood. A different, worse poison comes with them, another contributor to a death by inches.
"You still don't get it. It doesn't matter whether it's good, or bad. It only matters that you can't stop me from doing it."
Kaguya grins--and bashes the wall beside herself with the butt of her knife's grip, rolling into the rubble that turns out to be a wide open chamber with ruined balconies ahead.
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
Talia lands, her boots colliding with the floor of the catacomb and crunching down into the dust. She feels the whole floor and hallway groan; there is a slight, centimeter lurch as part of the whole chamber shudders. It matches the occasional groan of the structure, created by the presence of Sin up above. Her head lifts, and she expected one thing. Instead, Kaguya falls backward.
"Hrk!"
The wind blasts out of Kaguya's hands, with that eerie gleam of light. Razor petals slash; a few cuts through Talia's shirt and her arms, while others slash off her breastplate with sprays of sparks. She flies backward, and slams down into the floor. Talia rolls a couple of times.
She coughs, hacking. The poison settled in there, too.
"Don't get it?" she says, turning to look at her. "I get it perfectly well, no? But if you think good and bad are irrelevant to why we do things--then it says more about you!"
She throws Mirage again. The blade flies over Kaguya's shoulder. It does not, this time, slam into the rock behind her. It sails, instead, out of the gaping exit where Sin carved a hole into the town, and slams into a catacomb tunnel about a hundred feet away. Talia turns into those wisps of shadow -- and the strands reconnect, as she reforms her body at the mouth of the cave. Talia's hand clutches the sword, as she swings a hand down, and aims for one of the beams of wood holding up the tunnel that her and Kaguya both stood in.
Now, it is only Kaguya.
A javelin of ice forms and releases. It rockets down through the air, then slams into the piece of wood. Ice chips and wood chips spray outward, before there is a shuddering lurch -- and the whole tunnel begins to collapse apart under Kaguya's feet.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Keep your opponent off-balance; rely on the unexpected.
The structure is in terrible shape. That's fine; Kaguya doesn't really care whether this place survives. But she takes satisfcation in her spell working, watching Talia slide back, rising to her feet again. The cough--Ah, there it goes. Kaguya rolls her shoulders once she kips up, and openly scoffs at Talia's retort about morality.
"Heh--"
Talia throws her weapon, and Kaguya starts to dodge--...But it wasn't even aimed for her. When she realizes that after her slight movement, Kaguya frowns, turns towards where it's going... and then Talia is gone, a hundred feet off in another tunnel. Still in view.
"Oh, no you don't," Kaguya starts, but Talia forms a javelin of ice again--and this time, doesn't throw it at her. That would be much simpler to deal with. Instead, the ground below Kaguya's feet begins to collapse outright, wood splintering, cold air rushing towards her, stone shifting--
"Gh--" She begins to fall, and the chain reaction starts; the roof of the tunnel isn't much more stable, and a support pillar immediately starts to land before her--until Kaguya catches it on the way down. "Rrrrrraaaaah--"
The whole thing is coming down around her, so in an instant she hurls the pillar to the side, bends at the knee, and leaps.
Dust crashes where she was, the entire section around where they'd been fighting falling into a pile of ruin, while Kaguya lands with wood-shattering force at a catacomb a bit down from Talia's--and looks up immediately. She bends at the knee, and leaps one more time--
Which is what sees her erupting through the floor before Talia again, showering the tunnel with the pieces of three tunnels pierced through along the way.
"Nice trick," Kaguya answers, and in lieu of anything fancy, she just lunges to drive her skull straight up towards Talia's chin.
"I didn't say it doesn't affect motivations--"
Once she connects, "I said it doesn't matter! Be moral all you want! It doesn't change ANYTHING!"
...If this was a game before, it isn't now. The rage in Kaguya's aura is palpable now, practically a force of ki all its own.
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
Talia did not expect, suffice to say, to see Kaguya catch the falling pillar. She draws in a sharp gasp and quickly starts to back up. Kaguya's movements, however, are too fast for her to fully follow. She sees the cloud of dirt and debris shoot up from her impact below her. And then the floor explodes apart, stone and wood raining out as the shorter Veruni bursts from the floor.
Her head slams into Talia's chin with a sickening crack. Talia stumbles back, and her lip is cut open; blood is spilling down her chin, dripping down the front of her shirt and onto the floor. When Talia spits on the floor, most of it is red.
"D-Damn," she manages. Maybe Kaguya was not exaggerating about not being human.
"It isn't about changing ANYTHING!" she snarls back at her. Talia shouts, and then runs into a charge. She lunges forward -- and tries to stab Mirage at Kaguya. The single-handed, single-edged short sword isn't made for such a blow, though. It ends up more like a long slash. "It makes what we do MATTER!" she screams in Kaguya's face.
The thrust abrupts, as Talia tries to direct her shoulder into Kaguya's chest.
And then throw them both off the edge, and screaming down into the hole below.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
There is little human at all in Kaguya's look at the moment. Talia's blood is met with a savage look in return, the easy, casual friendliness the alien was showing gone now. Talia replies, but Kaguya simply starts forward again, her movements inexorable. One, two--
Talia shouts at her, and then they are moving at each other. This time, Mirage clatters against armor beneath Kaguya's tunic, a raking blow that only serves to ruin clothing and scrape against unearthly metal. Talia screams in her face--
Her shoulder impacts. Kaguya's boots find no purchase on the debris-scattered floor; they both sail off, tumbling into the darkness, the catacombs flying away from them. Descent equalizes them quickly--
"Heheheheheh," Kaguya answers back, an unsettling note in her voice, a manic gleam to her eye. "That's just it. ...What you do doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. You can try, you can struggle..."
Kaguya's knives are both in one hand, all of a sudden; it's hard to say when it happened.
"But you can't escape the truth any more than I can."
Kaguya's knives flash, catching a glimpse of light as they fall--but she has not used them to strike a blow. Instead, there is a sting, a pain suddenly from lower, unconnected to the mercenary warlord's weapons.
If Talia looks down she can see the explanation; she can see Kaguya's hand leaving Talia's own parrying dagger, the hilt sticking out where she's slid straight past flesh all the way to the crossguard.
"It doesn't mean anything."
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
The two fall, tumbling.
Above them, Talia can see a few pieces of the catacombs tearing away at the uppermost parts. Chunks of the tunnel rip free -- and swirl off, until they meet the stream of material that tears off towards Sin. She can't look for long. She has to look back up at Kaguya, closer; her face close enough that she is treated to that manic look in her eyes, and that grin.
"You... you talk... a lot of shit! You--"
She feels the dagger drive into her stomach, all the way to the hilt. It presses against the skin; it leaves a quickly darkening bloody stain on her shirt. "Grrk--" She gasps, sharply.
And the two come down to a lower tunnel. They hit the ground and roll; the chunk of stone jutting out from that tunnel breaks away after they hit, and falls. It splashes down into water below. Talia and Kaguya roll, but they come free of each other. Talia rolls over onto this newest tunnel's flattened floor. THe area here is soaked and wet -- and more with her blood, which leaves a bloody streak in her wake. Talia starts to force herself up. "That isn't..."
What did Katherine tell her?
'I'll save one of our souls.'
A slight smile crosses Talia's face. She puts a hand over her waist; over where the dagger is buried in, and blood leaves an ugly streak down the whole front of her torso and her left leg. "I should give them the chance," she manages, weakly. "You are wrong, no? It all means something."
She tries to force herself to her feet.
But then there is a spike of pain, as the dagger moves -- and she crumples down to her knees.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Falling, falling.
"Yeah," Kaguya agrees when Talia gasps, as they approach the ground, that same look in her eyes. "I talk a lot of shit."
Crack. Kaguya impacts hard, though it's hard to say in the moment whether she broke... or whether the ground broke beneath her. For a few instants, after the roll, there is silence. Just a moment. ...Talia speaks.
Kaguya slips her knives back into their single sheath, and pushes up with one too-thin arm, dragging herself up--turning, first to sit, then to stand. She stretches lightly, one arm passing in front of her, another across her body; she reverses th gesture, then steps forward. She glances to the blood, back to Talia again, and this time she does not smile.
There is something much older than her years in Kaguya's green eyes as she looks down at Talia.
"No," the small Veruni answers. "I'm not. Whatever comforts you..." She shrugs, as she walks. Closer, closer, until she's looking straight down at Talia where she's on the rocky, dirty floor.
"...I thought like that, once. For a while. Even after I was sick. See..."
"...A century ago, on a great ship travelling the stars... There was a little girl. A little girl who loved a world. She'd never seen it before except in pictures, but she dreamed of it every night. She thought for so long what it would be like, to see it; to see what was there. She spent her days studying flowers. ...That was her dream. To fill a world with beautiful flowers."
Kaguya looks into nothing for a long few moments, over Talia's shoulder, before her gaze focuses on her again, dull.
"...There was once a brilliant girl who could make things grow, even in a dying wasteland. She had a family who loved her, a cute dog. A life ahead of her." Kaguya pauses. "...And then men who thought they could make money off of her talent came, and stole her away. No one came to save her. No one helped her. No one. ...Not until she rose up herself and slaughtered every single one of them in their sleep."
Kaguya's eyes focus, she stares down at Talia, and the edge in her voice that has been hardening hardens even further. "...There was a woman who was thrown away by her own people, who even now just wants peace."
"There was a girl hated by her parents for her differences, who was taken up by mysterious people who tormented her until her body changed forever."
"...There was a Queen who was meant to come make it all better again."
"...And there was a mercenary who was tormented over her life, betrayed by her own father."
Kaguya kneels down beside Talia. "There's no one out there keeping score, Talia. Guilty, or innocent--kind, or cruel. The world doesn't care. The only law is that people who are strong can do what they like until they find someone stronger, and people who are weak are ground into the dust again, and again, and again."
"...See? I'll show you." She reaches out, and takes a fistful of Talia's shirt, lifting her bodily off the ground with one-hand, and starting to walk to the edge again, to the hole in everything. She doesn't even seem to strain.
"I really am going to make a lot of things better for a lot of people, Talia. ...But not you. Because I'm not fair, either."
Kaguya holds Talia out over the abyss, over the pit that drops into the water. "That's all. Because I'm strong, and I decided it that way."
She lets go.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
Falling. Falling. Falling.
Such has been the lot of Amaranth's life in the last fifteen minutes or so; things went shockingly wrong incredibly fast the moment they hit Azado. First there was the firestorm, then the tidal wave, then the battering of gale-force winds and dangerous debris that literally could take her head off...
... and then she was separated from Lydia and Talia too.
But Katherine did promise her one thing.
She's going to save one of their souls.
And in a pique of deep stubbornness to make it Talia's, there's a scowl as she feels the burn on her legs and ignores it and pushes herself to run faster. Faster, faster, until she's virtually running knife-hand and stopping to pretend to look like a seamstress and more like a terminator of life.
The shadow soars--
--and as Talia descends down onto the abyss, there's a flush, scything blur that darts over her form and grasps her from crashing hard into that water. A fall that she might not make given how grievously wounded she's become.
... it's evident to Kaguya too -- that some kind of shape has formed below, a shape that would normally be some kind of cute dove, but all Katherine can afford right now is something shaped like a shadowy weave that allows her to break her fall and grasp onto one side as she tucks Talia to her side.
A purple-haired Seraph, dressed in a tattered blue gown with a splotch of blood from one side and a significant burn wound across the opposite shoulder.
"... made it just in time," whispers Amaranth, as she looks up towards Kaguya.
... She's not looking, though. Her filmy eyes don't see, gray and matte as they are; there is no illusion here.
"Sorry. Weak one coming through," she expresses to the Veruni as she lets them descend gently, their fall broken by the weave of her magics.
"I still have need of this one..." She lowers her head to the sellsword's, and winks. "No?"
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
"Gh..." Talia listens to Kaguya, her eyes meeting the Veruni's. There is defiance in them, when they do -- despite the stories, with their terrible weight. It is the defiance of someone who knows that she has lost, and knows that she may well be facing the end. She resists the idea of it. She had a lot left to do. She still had to find out if Ivan was alive.
She still needed to...
Her eyes half-shut, as Kaguya kneels down. "Of course there isn't," she snaps back, her voice hoarse. "I figured that out. The Goddess? The Goddess doesn't see everything. She didn't stop this. But people still keep score."
She grunts, then, as her shirt is bunched up; the former assassin lifted, bodily. Her eyes widen, as she glances down at the yawning abyss that she is soon held over. She looks back at Kaguya, and grits her teeth. She doesn't beg. She doesn't cry.
She also doesn't manage to spit in her face, as much as she wants to.
There is a gasp, though, as she is thrown. Talia's eyes close, as she plummets down. She cannot see her savior -- she doesn't spot the blur that slashes across the air, until she suddenly feels something grabbing her. Then, her red eyes snap open, and she draws in a sharp gasp -- sharper still for the pain. She shakes her head, coming out of it.
Her head lifts. Her eyes look up, exhausted, until they meet those gray eyes. Her mouth opens.
"Katherine..." She blinks, a couple of times. She is surprised -- and embarrassed -- that a couple of tears of relief are in her eyes. (The rest are from pain.)
She feels the head lowered next to hers -- and then Talia leans her head against Amaranth's, arms weakly wrapping around her for security. "You have perfect timing."
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Defiance--Kaguya seems almost to approve of that somehow, though it could as easily be the projection of a woman surely about to die. Talia answers her, and the Veruni lets her say her peace. ...She notices the way Talia doesn't beg, or cry, and she watches her eyes for a few instants before she lets go. And then--
Kaguya feels it, first; a shadow in the air, a prickle on her senses. But she doesn't stop for it. She doesn't see it. She's let go, and...
There it is. Kaguya looks down curiously at the strange shadows that become a woman with purple hair. ...A blind woman in purple hair, by her estimation. 'Weak one', she says.
Kaguya watches the two, can guess at how they know each other just from the way they move so closely, the way they whisper even though Kaguya can't hear all of it. A hollow laugh sounds into the abyss, brief.
"Then she's yours," Kaguya calls down to Amaranth, grinning after a moment, though nothing pleasant reaches her eyes. "People do keep score," she says.
"...And at this rate, I might just win."
Kaguya pulls something from inside her coat, a strange, blinking device that fits in her palm, circular. She looks up, towards the great creature above. "...Later. I think I like you."
She taps away and speaks, not to the two falling, but to the device. "Coordinate set four. Activate."
There's a blur of green light, and Lady Kaguya is gone.