2021-04-07: Juste Judex Ultionis
- Log: Juste Judex Ultionis
- Cast: Zera Innocentius, Neriah Parringer
- Where: Saint Heim Papal State - Grand Cathedral of Granas
- Date: April 07, 2021
- Summary: Neriah pays Pope Innocentius a visit in private. It does not quite go as she anticipated.
<Pose Tracker> Zera Innocentius has posed.
At an hour like this, almost no one is present within the nave of the Grand Cathedral of the Saint Heim Papal State. Moonlight pours in through the stained glass windows, sending some muted color across the interior; were it not for the candlelight that dresses the nave -- always lit, even at an hour such as this -- that would be all that illuminates this part of the cathedral.
All is still, quiet, pure. Only calm contemplation is invited by this most holy of holy places: an echo of the sort of world that, it is said, Granas himself once maintained. Even during the high holy days of the Granas calendar, there cannot be found an atmosphere like this one.
And only his Holiness, Pope Zera Innocentius, is present for this moment, his gaze turned up towards a particular window depicting Granas in the last moment of His fight with Valmar: the moment when Granas lay Valmar low.
He appears no less than contemplative: a moment like this for a leader like him would be rare, indeed. A leader must tend to their flock first and foremost. There cannot be time for oneself, even as a means of spiritual growth.
But every now and then, perhaps...
For now, Zera stands regarding the image in glass, his thoughts undoubtedly inward.
It would take someone with ill will indeed in their hearts to disrupt a moment as 'sacred' as this...
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
"I hope you're taking stock of your hat," comes a flippant female voice, echoing through the nave with far more drama than the content of the words warrant. "Tradition aside, it looks utterly ludicrous."
The echo in the words makes actually pinpointing a source hard - they seem to ring from everywhere at once. But soon enough, something begins to take shape. A spark of blue-black energy tracing out lines in the air in one of the arched windows - drawing out the shapes of lips curved into a sly smile, then sketching outwards from there to delineate a distinctly feminine form.
"You really do seem to be in quite a pickle, Mr. Pope," Neriah Parringer remarks with a flip of her wrist as she gradually phases into being. She's interposed herself between pontiff and moon, sitting in the frame of the stained glass window perpendicular, back to one side of it, near leg dangling, other side resting against the glass. "First your flock begins to stray, knowing the Day of Darkness comes. And now it's become more than evident that you and the Ethos have been dallying with the sky people. That's hardly going to instill much faith in Granas in the minds of the faithful, is it?"
A lazy finger drags over the stained glass, over the image of Granas inlaid there. Neriah's rather a contrast to the holy setting - she chose one of her slinkier dresses, red-violet and accented with ermine fur about the shoulders, and she's done her nails up in a deep burgundy colour. She drums one against the face of Granas with a moue of her lips, tilting her head to look down at the pontiff once more.
"But I guess Granas isn't exactly alive enough to give a shit, is he," she muses casually. "Oops."
<Pose Tracker> Zera Innocentius has posed.
He turns his head at the sound of a voice.
"Oh? Who is there?" he asks, as if the one speaking had not done so quite so rudely. "It is late, after all... Please, show yourself." Squinting, the Pope readjusts his glasses as he turns about and takes in the expanse of the nave, as if seeking the speaker.
He finds her soon enough. There, up in the window...
"Is that so..." murmurs Zera, as she speaks to the sins of the Ethos and the coming of the day of Valmar. "...I see. So it is becoming known." He begins to approach her where she stands, slowly as befitting his age, his gaze upon her still.
"Indeed. The lack of faith among the people will certainly become a problem for the church of Granas. Especially since, as you say... the Day of Darkness is approaching."
Had she expected him to deny it? To act shocked, or startled? Instead, the old man simply smiles up at her calmly, even admitting to the fact that she knows to be true.
Granas, she tells him, is dead.
That smile of his widens, just a fraction. Is it the light or is there something strange about the look in his eyes? "Indeed... to our world's sorrow." He pauses, regarding her carefully. "However... the day of Valmar's resurrection approaches."
And his lips split in a grin. That pressure emanating from Zera Innocentius now-- Yes, Neriah would know it well.
All at once, the candles in the nave are snuffed out. Can it be? The Pope is--
"Behold," says Zera, in the moonlit darkness, "the Mind of Valmar...!"
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
"You're more perceptive than you let on in public," Neriah starts, flicking back a few curls with a casual snap of her fingers. As Zera begins to move towards the window, she looks on with the indolent ease that only the nouveau riche can properly pull off, though what she's rich with is left to the imagination.
But he's less startled than she'd expected. She moues her lips a moment before clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth, finally squinting.
She doesn't have much more to suspect. The candles go out with a sudden wave of pressure that sends a sympathetic vibration racing through Neriah's right arm and straight up to her heart. For just a moment, the pontiff is awarded the satisfaction of a look of complete surprise blossoming across Neriah's face like a flower sprouting in darkness in the face of a ray of the most dire spring light ever known to man.
The surprise gives way to something, perhaps, less expected.
A distinct pout. "You know, it's hard to lord over you when you're working towards the same end as me," she chides, mostly trying to cover the fact that she's been put completely off balance.
Swinging her legs over the edge of the window, Neriah draws a slow breath, centering herself as best she can. Her hand still hurts, and something in her mind is screaming at her insistently. An old urge - a foundational one. One coming less from the Claw and more from the Impetus, the will of the man who passed his essence down to her to bring the Day of Darkness to a head.
Her eyes narrow. "You've been setting it all in motion yourself, haven't you? Then why involve Solaris?"
<Pose Tracker> Zera Innocentius has posed.
Slowly Zera stretches out his arms to either side of himself, as if inviting the heavens themselves to descend. "Indeed, daughter of Valmar," he says, eyes glittering even in the darkness of the nave.
Bathed only in moonlight such as this, even the stained glass images of the deeds of Granas seem somewhat more sinister. The silence -- absent their voices now -- less holy. If this is a calm, it is a calm before the storm.
"Once, a long time ago now, when I was but a man, I had the good fortune to make contact with the still-lingering 'will' of our Lord. That," Zera tells Neriah, "was the beginning. I knew then as I now know that the Day of Darkness was nigh. As the bearer of His 'Mind', it falls to me to bring union to the fragmented parts of Valmar... such as those you yourself possess, daughter of Valmar."
She asks of Solaris, of its purpose in this plot. "A... legacy, you might say. Their tendrils within the church stretch deep. They have their uses, but their affairs are of no concern to me. Once the Day of Darkness arrives, after all..."
He smiles. It is not the smile that most would know from the kindly Pope.
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
The atmosphere has changed in a way Neriah hadn't expected when she materialized through the window, and she's not entirely sure how to feel about it. There has always been a part of her mind that has lightened the impact of her actions with a touch of unseriousness and flippancy - as if she could finesse her way through her own moral failings by being cute about them. But mustering that aura feels useless, surrounded by the stained glass image of a dead god as she speaks to the blasphemous head of his faith, complete with the mind of that faith's very nemesis.
In the back of her mind, a small impetus nags at her.
YOU KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO DO, DON'T YOU?
The silence is broken by the sharp click of Neriah's heels striking the floor as she eases down from the windowsill. Her hand finds the arch of her lip as she listens to Zera explain what happened to him. Her lips draw together in a line, then relax slightly, though her tongue continues to work nervously against the backs of her teeth as she tries to process all of this on the fly. "You found the Part like the others found theirs," she murmurs. "And His Mind is better positioned than anyone's to know what really happened. Knowing that Granas is long gone and the Day of Darkness is inevitable."
The promise in Zera's tone sends a cold stab racing up her spine. She hadn't entirely understood Millenia's hungry remarks when they'd met in the past - hadn't understood them until she'd met the Fangs while in possession of the Claw herself. To be on the receiving end of that hunger--
Her tongue chases over her lover lip. "Then you know that I've acted in the stead of Arius," she says, her tone quieter and more serious. "His intention was always to return to this world to help our Lord bring the Day to reality. I'm sure Arius would've loved to be here in person for it, but so be it."
She meets the smile with a slight dip of her lashes. "You know better than anyone that I was born for the Day. I assume you have a plan to gather the rest. I've encountered a few already."
<Pose Tracker> Zera Innocentius has posed.
"Indeed," says the pontiff, in the darkness. "Where better to see to it that the day of His rebirth proceeds as planned as within the very seat of Granas' faithful? Ever has the church well-marked His remains. ...Though there are some that elude me still."
He nearly beckons her to join him on the floor, to be closer at hand to the whereabouts of his will -- but ah, she would know better than most the hunger. Even the Mind hungers after all -- the desire to become again 'one' cannot be long thwarted.
But with 'will' one can hold it at bay.
For a time.
"Yes... I know well the 'will' of Arius. His get will serve. We are grateful indeed for his zeal... for his dedication." He smiles still, but at least this is a smile less hungry, more... satisfied.
"Indeed," says Zera, when she asks after his plan. "You are not the only one so blessed, dear daughter. I have tasked others to seek and retrieve the fragments... and have another at my side." He turns, then, and calls out into the darkness,
"...Selene, if you would?"
Another calls out from the shadows, "Of course, your Holiness."
...She must have been standing at the ready the entire time.
The High Priestess is a lovely creature, even wreathed in the shadows of the darkened nave. "My... I see," she remarks, and one might have mistaken her reaction for mild surprise, so little is she moved.
But within her chest, something monstrous and hungry beats.
"Selene has been leading one of the retrieval efforts for me." Zera pauses, just for the moment. "...My insurance, should the others fail."
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
The light's low, but Neriah can see clearly through to the current vessel of the Mind. Even if she couldn't, her own mind is racing - saying nothing of the steady pulse through her right hand. There's a not-insignificant part of her - or is it a part of her? - that wants to do a little beckoning of her own.
The thought slides into the background as Zera calls out to another, and the ache in her hand only amplifies. To move against one of them might be possible. Two would be something else entirely. Neriah's eyes drift through the dark towards Selene, taking stock of her.
He's even got his own raven-haired priestess with a Part beating in her chest. Irrationally, it rankles her.
The irritation doesn't come from the spiritual remnants of Arius. It comes distinctly from Neriah. After all the pieces she's been putting into place - all the effort she went through to undermine faith in the Church - there's something that bothers her more than it ought to about knowing she's been unwittingly playing into someone else's grand plan.
YOU KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO DO, DON'T YOU?
The thought is hers alone. She flicks her head to toss her curls back over her shoulders. "So you have a few pieces on the board, then," she surmises, her voice low but serious in the dark as she takes a couple of slow steps to one side. She's not quite circling, but there's something intent and incisive behind Neriah's eyes.
"I'm going to take a few guesses. First, that Millenia getting ahold of the Wings was your idea. Second, that the other one moving around out there is in some way moving with your awareness. I haven't caught up with the Horns yet, mind you. But don't think I haven't seen Melfice's fingerprints."
She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "And I'm sure you were more than a little happy that I dug the Claw out from under Cyrum, weren't you? I have to give you credit. You've played your cards well."
Neriah slows, canting her head with a sharp movement. "But Solaris is still the wild card. They go back, don't they? I'd guess they go as far back as our Lord does, if you'd... entertain my hunch for a moment. The machinery under Cyrum didn't come from nowhere, after all."
<Pose Tracker> Zera Innocentius has posed.
If Selene is privy to in any way Neriah's thoughts on the matter, she doesn't show it. She simply stands there, her gaze lingering on Neriah for the moment before settling on the Pope as if he were the only one in the room.
"Yes. Valmar has little need for half-measures," says Zera, his lips again splitting in a too-bright smile. "That girl proved more useful than I had thought possible. Even if there were... complications." He waves a hand, though. "But I see that you have done your research, daughter of Valmar. ...Would that I have made contact with you earlier," Zera sighs, only to shake his head. "No, all is proceeding well apace," he continues, correcting his earlier lament. "What is that saying... 'many hands make short work'. With the four of you now, attending to the search..."
Zera Innocentius smiles.
"Perhaps the Day of which we dream shall arrive sooner than we had thought possible."
To Solaris her words return, though. Zera waves a hand, dismissively. "Yes. I do not intend to underestimate them, you understand. So long as our arrangement persists, however... they have no true interest in these matters. Attend to the faith and their needs and they will not even suspect a thing until the Day is upon them."
He turns then, pulling away from the stained glass window and Neriah both.
"Come, then. There is much to discuss. Selene, I suspect we will be in meeting for some time. Ensure that we are not disturbed..."
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
One thing, at least, works to Neriah's favour here: There is a distinct part of her that is not of Valmar. For all that Neriah inherited the powers of Arius, she did so through generations that were never intended to pass - and the Impetus of Valmar, while loyal to the God of Evil in his time, was not a Part. What drive remains exists within a little silo of another will.
Neriah's. A will she keeps carefully in check for the time being. Now is not the time to sass or laugh or bat her lashes.
Now is the time to see the pieces of the puzzle that have been laid out by the Mind.
"Would that you had," she murmurs. "I'd say you might have saved me some effort, but the effort was the point, wasn't it? We work towards the same end because that's the nature of it. You know that as well as I do."
In her mind, Neriah's fitting things together. She glances speculatively at Selene - takes note of how centred she is on Zera. The Heart beats to the will of the Mind. Interesting.
Back to Zera Neriah's eyes flick, steady and pensive. "Who knows how long that arrangement will stand. But that's another discussion. We agree, at least, that the Day's approaching faster than any of us could've expected. Good."
Zera beckons, and Neriah is tempted, for a moment, to jump back out the window. But with Selene staying behind, it's less dangerous. Alone with Zera, she could withstand an effort to take her, just as he could undoubtedly withstand her.
She begins to move along, uncharacteristically sober about it all, but that private part of her mind whirls - that little part separate from the pieces of the God of Evil. The little part left only for her.
This bastard will learn I don't dance to others' tune.