2020-03-23: A Fateful Meeting
- Log: A Fateful Meeting
- Cast: Kaguya, Seraph Harmaus
- Where: Kattelox City - Downtown
- Date: March 23, 2020
- Summary: Early on a fine nightin Kattlelox, two relative strangers meet and agree to talk to discuss certain matters in private.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Night in Kattlelox, even early in the night, is still bustling in a lot of places--downtown in particular. Living standards are good! Dense roads, big townhouses, and, in a quieter patch... a park.
Through that park under electric light is walking a girl in fairly standard clothes for the most part--brown pants, white dress shirt, a green overlayer. But what's unusual is two things, if one has the eyes to see: the pin has heraldry that outright screams a noble house of Hyland, though it's a new House from the last year or two. And...
She has a very large box on her shoulder that is about as big as she is, and she's carrying it with ease. It's paper-wrapped all nice. ...Also she has pointed ears, and looks more than half-dead.
But Kaguya is just walking along, though she looks to and fro now and then; this is a person who considers ambush possible, but not guaranteed.
It's a nice park, though, wooded with clearings.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
It's a quiet place, for such a well-populated city.
A city that, despite its size and population density, doesn't have so much as a single speck of Malevolence.
A certain Seraph is lounging on a park bench, gaze tilted towards the electric lights, to the stars beyond them, and, ah...
The moon, turning a silvery face towards Filgaia.
He smiles back at it.
It's an unpleasant sort of smile, here semi-shrouded in the shadows.
Into whatever private reverie the Seraph may be experiencing, a girl intrudes.
That's what she looks like at least--
Even if, for all her sickly-looking appearance, she carries with decided ease a box that would give a common laborer some effort to heft.
He regards her.
He regards, too, with perhaps interest the emblem -- see, the light catches it now -- on her chest.
A second passes, as she continues on.
And the Seraph that walks in a suit of flesh then pushes off the bench and strolls towards her.
"How cames it," he says, as if introductions are for other people, "by that pin? We are curious. Yes, quite curious about it!"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya glances Harmaus's way when he rises, because she notices that. Then she lifts an eyebrow and grins, in that order. "Straight to the point. I like it. You must have an interest in heraldry or something."
"Well, doesn't hurt me any to tell you about it. I got it from an artisan in my castle--she made it special since it's a new crest. I'm Kaguya, Duchess Alathfar of Hyland."
"...Not sure if that means anything to you here on Filgaia or anything, but it means I hang out with Althena's Guard, if that's what you need to know."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
He is not a man, it seems, for beating around the bush.
"It could say that. Yes, indeed it does," he replies, flashing a brief grin that does not quite match the intensity in his dark-eyed gaze.
"Ah. The dutchess itself! And here down on Filgaia, now," the strange man replies, all sense of any mirth vanished from his expression.
Particularly as she goes on.
His gaze narrows.
"The Guard. Tcha."
"So very very far away from home it is," he says, a strange note strung through his tone, taut and alien. "Cannot it fly back? Or is door closed yet? Such a sad sad thing for it."
He shakes his head, and one might suspect he is being mocking.
"So far far away from its duties."
His mouth twists in a mockery of a smile. "So far far away from its 'goddess'."
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Works for me. Most people don't notice." And, it would seem, Kaguya is willing to kill a little time talking to a strange man in the park, alone. She hasn't yet put down her box yet. No, instead, she tilts her head in fascination, not dismay, at his reply and his sudden seriousness.
"Heh. You have no idea how far from home I am, guy," Kaguya says with a laugh. "...But it's true. I made one there. It's kinda new, though."
"I did fine before I even heard of Althena, and I'll do fine here, too. But you wouldn't be the first to hold a grudge against her that I've heard."
She shrugs, at that. "Besides. There's plenty of local gods who don't like me, if the Guardians count." A beat, "But now you've got me curious what happened. Did her forces conquer your home? Take away your dance hall?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Most people might -- possibly -- be unsettled by a strange man addressing them in the park, particularly when the strange man in question acts and speaks more strangely yet. But Kaguya is, of course, Kaguya.
"Yes," the odd man replies. "We heards about it, before we left."
Left the moon? What else could he mean, given the rest of what he says to her?
"No, no, not at all. This, we knows! Long have some had grudges. Since the beginning, yes."
He smiles at her, crookedly. "But our own is different." He barks a laugh then, when she remarks on the matter of a closed down dance hall. "Ha! No hard-line believer, this one! No, no, we not much for the dance or song, until lately," he says, perhaps cryptically. He shakes his head. "No. No. We are an agent of truth. So what lies we cannot tolerates!" He regards her critically.
"Does it understand? If it does not, then we cannot helps it. It goes on its way, it buries itself in falsehood." He waves a hand, dismissively. "Is not our concern."
He eyes her, though, as if evaluating her mettle.
"But if it understands... if it wants knows more of truth... we speak to it more."
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
A sensible person would be warier of this strange man. Even Kaguya is watching him, as arrogant as she is, and as unafraid as she is of... most anything.
Left the moon... Kaguya shows some interest in that--and then at the note that his own is different. "Truth, huh?" Kaguya asks, and there's a new light for her to see Harmaus by. "Not something a lot of humans take especial interest in."
"So you say she's lying about something, right?" she asks. "Here I thought I figured out local language fine. Well, guess it's Lunar language. Whatever."
"Anyway," Kaguya says, and moves to put the box down on its end with ease before turning back to him. "Not gonna say that's impossible. Religion is a little new to me; I came by the Guard because my adopted nation went to war for her. But you saying you know things about 'since the beginning' is interesting. You talking 'truth' is interesting."
She is studying him more closely now herself, the look in her eyes the one she gives to data as she examines it after experiments. ...A sensible person would be far more alarmed at now just the strange old man, but also what he says. But Kaguya has higher priorities than safety. "Because I'm looking for 'truths' too. A few in particular."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"No, no, that itself is truth!" he agrees, his eyes bright, on the matter of humans and their disinterest in the truth, as a rule. "But then, a human we are not," he offers, almost as an aside.
To look at his body now, he's a human through and through -- middle-aged, scruffy, careworn. But--?!
She asks if he means that the goddess is lying about something, then makes a remark on the way he speaks. Harmaus' reaction is to shake his head slowly and overdramatically sigh. "Jaeja. It cleans out its ears and listens more carefully next, yes?"
His gaze remains on her as she sets down the box -- the size of it and apparent weight of its contents noted again only in passing. "Ah, adopted, is it? Not born and bred of the Guard and goddess? Interesting, interesting, yes. Then the solution is simple: we speak with it more on truths..."
He pauses, as if to take her in, to fully regard the look in her eyes.
"...and it tells us what truths it seeking. But in another place than this!" he cautions, glancing at last over a shoulder.
"Some secrets is most dangerous... because some secrets is the most powerful. It understands what we say?"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Oh, hey. My mistake then," Kaguya answers, eyes flicking up and down the not-human again to find any obvious signs she might've missed. She doesn't spot any obvious things, but sounds not too terribly broken up about it anyway.
But she siiiiighs back about cleaning out her ears. It is about as dramatic. ...Admittedly she likes him more for that. "Sure, sure, not the first time I've heard that..."
"That's right," the blonde answers of adopted, though. She stands, pointed teeth and ears clear, fatigue more obvious in her face than her demeanor allows for. And defiant, as a rule.
"...Yeah, I get you," the Veruni answers. "Some secrets are like that, and I know the ones I'm looking for definitely are. ...Makes me more interested than less, though."
"...As you say, by the way--Adopted in. When it comes down to it, I'm a scientist; I believe what I can prove, what the evidence shows me. ...But, well..."
"If you wanna talk about it, I've got some warehouse space I'm taking this to. I can lead the way."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Body is human, yes," he answers, as if guessing at her silent question. "But I," and the emphasis there is jarring, like suddenly coming face-to-face with a garish piece of artwork after trudging through a hall of monochrome, "am not."
He does not elucidate -- not freely, at least.
His own response to her is to simply smile, crookedly, at her own overdramatic reaction.
"Good. If it understands the danger and is willing, then, we speaks. But, not here!" he emphasizes again.
"And not," he continues, gesturing towards her, "without a name. To name is to know -- and we must know! The way of a 'scientist', yes?" He begins, ducking into a shallow almost mock-bow. "We are... Harmaus. And it is?"
He watches her, first, before giving further assent -- whether it's to talk somewhere else, or...
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Hmmm. Cool."
Kaguya doesn't know what that makes the person before her, but instead of of blanching at the terrible emphasis, she just kinda tilts her head and gives that answer. She's willing to wait on it. She's spoken before with beings whose 'what' she couldn't identify, after all.
"Yeah, I--" She pauses, and he mentions names. "Oh, yeah. That's true, we name and categorize things."
"My real name is Kaguya. And I'm not human, either, body or otherwise."
She kinda likes the crooked smile. There's something dangerous about it, a sort of untapped energy. So she watches back. "Kaguya, of Locus Solus."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Perhaps that itself may have been part of the test, there -- he doesn't look put off in the slightest that she doesn't shirk away from him or look discomfited, or anything of the sort. In fact, if anything, he looks...
...intrigued?
"Scholar, scientist, whatever the name, the job changes not," Harmaus says, smiling broadly as he underlines his thoughts on the matter.
Which is when Kaguya says what she is and, more importantly, where she is from.
"Ah... we knows it. Star-borne child, yes? We learns of its people. Learns of life come from further than the sun or Blue Star!"
His voice drops to a lower volume. "A truth she speaks of not," he says, opting for that pronoun for whatever reason -- perhaps due to the magnitude of who he speaks of. "All life of the goddess -- another lie. We learns for fact on the Blue Star but knew it before."
He extends a hand to Kaguya.
"So we goes. To the warehouse, and we speaks further. Long has we seeks answers on the Blue Star Filgaia... answers poor, or answers none. Speak the secrets it seeks there, and we speaks same."
In other words, does he mean that he intends for them to scratch each other's back?
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya is used to tests; subjectively to her it hasn't been so long since she was taking them, though that time is quite literally worlds away. She nods her agreement as to the job; she could quibble about how it's used, but she thinks it's good enough.
"So you do know," Kaguya answers, curious. That lower volume, though...
"You already knew, huh? That is interesting. Though I can tell you a little about my people for that..."
Kaguya considers, and picks back up her box, putting it over her shoulder, before taking Harmaus's hand in her other. Her grip is strong, despite the fragile look of her hands, showing bone easily.
"Yes," she says. "That sounds perfect."