2021-06-20: A Little Gesture (Prelude)
- Log: A Little Gesture (Prelude)
- Cast: Seraph Boudicca, Kaguya
- Where: Mount Gagazet
- Date: 2021-06-20
- Summary: Kaguya and Boudicca stand amidst the dead, and speak of themselves and those no longer living. Kaguya has a plan, and Boudicca will keep her secret.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
The spirits of the dead are Sent, but the bodies remain. Blue arrows, red blood. Someone must see to the empty temples.
Boudicca hasn't left the mortals to deal with it alone; still to lay them down she sees sickening despair. That desperation which pushed them to the edges of the world...
... all to escape someone else closing their eyes.
It was over, and it is come again.
Boudicca isn't amongst the corpses, right now. If only for a moment, she needed to be anywhere else. At the edge of this precipice, the snow tumbles from a shift in greaves, and sprinkles down the holy mountain Gagazet.
She lays her hand on the bare trunk of a tree which has managed to grow here, and looks down to its edge.
Wedding shoes.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya has made a point of not shirking her part of sorting out the dead. She recognizes many of them; a number of them, she'll be expected to write letters about, to their loved ones at home. It's one of the 'perks' of rank. But she was careful and deft with bodies, and made a point of sticking around... until after a while, when she didn't need to. Her superior strength made some of the work faster, but strength can only account for so much.
"...You didn't have to get involved," Kaguya says, stepping along the snow out from where she ends up standing next to Boudicca, glancing up at the Seraph for a moment and shaking her head. "You're not with Hyland, or the Guard, and a lot of these people might not have been able to see you under other circusmtances."
"...But you did, I guess."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
The breeze stirs. It stirs at the snow, because the tree has no leaves. Life lives in the dead and we wait for warmer times.
"I... was friends with them, once," Boudicca says, fingers curling in old bark. "Althena's Guard. I believed in the works of our Goddess, and I saw them help the world. They did good works, at Mount Zulan. This remains true."
Her head turns aside, "... despite what followed."
And so MUCH has followed.
"My people are not required to involve themselves in these matters," she supposes, looking over to Kaguya, finally. "But you will find there are few of us not entangled with humanity, one way or the other... even... him."
A weight to the words, and somehow, it's clear she's not talking about Lanval.
Boudicca shakes her head, and smiles, as if deliberately dismissing the stormcloud. "But... I was glad to see your aid, Kaguya. I am pleased you decided to help, just the same."
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Yeah, I thought so," Kaguya answers Boudicca. "I keep track of people who might be old allies or enemies or whatever. At least a bit." Althena's Guard... and the works of the Goddess. "They've done good stuff and bad stuff," Kaguya allows. What followed... at Zulan.
"Yeah, I'm not sure which thing you mean. There's a lot of good and bad that has followed in a lot of places, and I'm not originally from Lunar."
Not required... Well. Kaguya looks out into nothing; she's a bit bloody and burned, some of her strange green metal armor visible. The unfamiliar insignia of a noble house younger than Boudicca herself is at her lapel all the same.
"Yeah," she says. "That guy's wrapped up in a lot of stuff I didn't realize he was into... He seemed like a pretty good ally before he turned out to be totally crazy."
Kaguya can figure who Boudicca is talking about. The small blonde looks out into the distance, looks up at her again.
"...I've got a responsibility," she says. "My people would probably tell me I don't, that they're just a bunch of primitives who've clearly outlived their usefulness." Pause. "Or... not, outlived it, as the case may be."
"But I know the score. I was here looking for some of those soldiers in the first place. ...I was thinking they were here overlong, but..."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"They saw to the people in that town, who were struggling," Boudicca explains. She doesn't mention the yeti, because that, apparently, isn't as important as caring for NPCs.
Though, there's something which makes Boudicca glance to her, at that. "Then, you are Filgaian..?" Somehow, Boudicca sounds surprised. Maybe she hasn't seen all of Filgaia, yet.
That sort of dress MIGHT be Filgaian? She doesn't recognise it, nor the insignia. To be fair, Boudicca... is not terribly good at recognising noble houses. She's always spent more time with simpler households.
"I met him, long ago," Boudicca says, on Harmaus. "I... was young enough to take his advice, then. 'Twas my own folly." Who would trust a talking cat? A talking statue, apparently.
But, Kaguya's people...
"Responsibility... is a fine thing to uphold, Kaguya. What you said is true. Their lives have meaning." There's a gap of input, here, breeze stilling around her, as Boudicca thinks of her tense. "I am... sorry you found them in such a state," she says, rather than correct herself.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Oh," Kaguya says. "Yeah. They're supposed to do things like that. Tend to the Goddess's people and all that." There was a yeti! Doesn't ring a bell for Kaguya, but then, she is willing to take Boudicca's word for it. The matter of being Filgaian gets an outright laugh from the small Veruni.
"No," she says. "I'm from a lot farther afield than that. But I got to Lunar by way of Filgaia, though. It's kind of a long story."
Met him...
"Oh, yeah?" Kaguya says. "Well, that sucks. Hope it wasn't too bad."
"Strength, power--that's what determines what happens in this world," Kaguya says. "That much? That much is true." Boudicca apologizes, and Kaguya shakes her head. "Sucks for them more than for me. I don't have the... 'power', yet, to change that about the world more than I already have, but a tleast we made it so that plan couldn't come true. A little something better than it could've been, even if it was still bad."
"Didn't know he'd be involved, though. The more I see of him the worse he is."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Boudicca blushes, when Kaguya laughs, momentarily embarrassed. "O--oh! I meant no offence." She doesn't LOOK like a Hyadean, which means she must be one of the other aliens.
why are there so many aliens from space
"He positioned himself as a friend," is Boudicca's assurance on the topic of Harmaus; it is not, quite, agreement.
Strength and power, Kaguya says, and Boudicca frowns, but she doesn't challenge her on it so immediately. Instead she listens, as Kaguya talks about not having that power. It sounds strikingly frustrating, doesn't it?
Boudicca reaches up, grasping one of those overlong braids which topple down her shoulders. "I promised to thwart him," she says, quieter, "and he assured me he would destroy whom I sought to protect. He is... capable, of this."
Her fingers smooth over her ribbon, as she admits, her voice too small for her hulking frame: "It frightens me... but... his are aims I cannot abide." There is a particular selection to her words, here; there are words which hold power, to the Seraphim.
She has his words of power, and she does not speak them now.
"At times it is all we may hope for, to step in the path of malediction and deny it," Boudicca sighs, after a moment. "You did well, Kaguya. It was... better, than it would have been." There could have been so many more bodies.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"None taken," Kaguya says. "It's cute that you're embarrassed about it though."
So many aliens. But Kaguya, unlike most of them, actually is from space!
"I guess from his perspective it was probably true, because he's so obsessive about lies." She shakes her head. Instead, she doesn't go on too much about power for now--she just does a little bit, instead, noticing Boudicca's promises, and his assurance....
"And you want to protect people," she points out. "Yeah. It's a lot easier to hurt people than to protect them. I could make it sound like it's some philosophical law, but it's just how it is."
...That is a small voice. Kaguya frowns, looking over Boudicca, and brings out a hand to pat her arm. "Well, you did pretty good against him despite being scared, you know."
Kaguya shakes her head. "I did okay," she says. "It could've been worse, that's true. I used to think... that if I could just figure out how, I could fix it all myself. That all it took was somebody with enough power and the right idea."
"...Well, whatever. I'm not usually one for all this mushy stuff, but... These people, they're a long way from home. They think they're doing something good, or they thought they were. It's a rough deal."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Oh no!! Boudicca is cute!!
Cute and broody, because Boudicca is apparently multitalented. She nods, to Kaguya's perception of his perspective; she can't argue with that.
So, too, does she silently agree with Kaguya's assessment of what is easy; what she does not say is how difficult it is, to make those assessments on HOW to protect people. She worries, about the retaliation.
But Kaguya seems to hear it, regardless; there's a hand on her arm, again, and Boudicca blinks, looking to her again. She smiles, through her fear. "Thank you."
Her core shifts, far hand dropping from the tree-trunk so she can face Kaguya properly. Mushy stuff... "It is difficult," she agrees, dipping her head. "All that hope... now sundered. They did their best."
They're still dead.
Boudicca glances away, a tug at her lip, before she returns her attention to the shorter girl. (She's trying not to call attention to that, but Boudicca is quite tall.) "... I am struck by how similar our trajectories are, Kaguya. There is a time I thought to protect them regardless of their own strengths... from themselves, I thought. I did not see how similar we were. Nor the limits of myself."
The world exhales, "... but, I realised I had allies who would gladly aid me. Ah, that is... thank you," she adds, a touch awkwardly, a shuffle of her feet, "for calling me back."
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya is... much shorter than Boudicca, actually. And she slouches a little on top of that. She's a very small woman generally, rail-thin on top of that much, and she is being nicer to Boudicca than she might be to some other people mostly because Boudicca hasn't made her stop and think too hard about it... and maybe because she has some sympathy for her. She does hear it. And here...
"The people they left behind will want to know about it," Kaguya says. "...And they all left somebody behind. People always do."
Kaguya looks up her way--she notices her glancing away, but doesn't make a Thing of her height immediately. Instead she looks quizically the Seraph's way about similarity, and then 'ahs' after a moment, glancing out over the valley again. "Yeah. I used to think of myself as pretty different from these people, too. And I mean, I am, in some ways, don't get me wrong. But I realized over time that that doesn't make them mean less."
A look back to Boudicca and a little shrug. "It's cool. You just needed somebody to get your attention. It's not like I did anything somebody else couldn't have done." A look out. "I dunno about similar, though. Though I guess there is something to be said for having a few friends."
"But I'm not sure how similar we are. You're a big fluffy bunny, all full of caring and everything. I just happen to think that real lives matter more than some abstract truth. It's not a big deal or anything."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Boudicca is used to being the taller one. She's quite close to Marivel, after all.
"Everyone does," she muses, on the topic of leaving someone behind. There's something sad to the thought, but it's a distant sort of sadness.
She listens, as Kaguya talks about what she's learned. They don't mean less, even if they're different. Her actions mean less because anyone could have done them. An interesting contrast.
And then -- Boudicca laughs, giggling behind a hand, as Kaguya calls her a big fluffy bunny. She shakes her head, lowering her hand down, still smiling. "Goodness," she remarks. "I have come an awfully long way, if this is the impression I now give. You know, it was not so long ago I was positively frightful!"
Some people still thought she was harmless even as a scary statue, but never mind that.
"It does not have to be a big deal," she assures her, after a moment. "There are things, I think, best done quietly, and without prying eyes. This is what Harmaus fails to appreciate, in his attempts to unveil all secrets. There is no one who does not appreciate a shaded grove on a hot day."
.... Boudicca was raised by a Shadow Seraph, after all, so maybe it's no wonder she has arguments with the Light.
"I will be pleased," she suggests, raising a finger, "quietly."
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
There is a certain set of perspectives that comes of being the Superior Being. That's obviously all it is.
Boudicca laughs, and Kaguya is not opposed to being able to make big statue girls laugh, as a general rule. She grins a little. "Yeah?" Kaguya wonders. "Well, it's okay. I am pretty scary myself."
But... it doesn't have to be. "..."
"...Yeah," Kaguya agrees after a moment, the small Veruni leaning back on a tree as she looks to the sky. "Some things need to be done quietly. It's sorta like how... he was always all about doing things right then, making a big say of something or not at all, but..."
"Like. There's something to be said for knowing how to keep quiet--knowing when to say something, and when not. There's a lot of stuff I know that's true that I can't say, because it's dangerous to just know and have out there, and there's things more important than that."
"..Hmm. Ok. Well, I guess it's fine if you're happy about it, as long as we don't... get the wrong idea." What's the wrong idea?
"..But you know. Plants need light and all, but seeds need darkness sometimes, too. So you know, I think you're onto something there."
She moves away from the tree and moves to take a seat instead. "...I think people could do with more understanding that some things should be quiet."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Kaguya is scary! Boudicca doesn't look terribly scared, though, even though Boudicca is an expert in being scared. Still, she's picked up on the strain on her identity, so she nods to that, and doesn't argue the point.
(She does remember her getting up to trouble here and there, but, well, Boudicca is friends with Ragnell, there's a certain amount of trouble she's apparently willing to put up with these days. It's strange how people change, isn't it? Not ten years ago, she would have had a strict idea of how terrible that was.)
Boudicca goes on to listen, as Kaguya shares her own thoughts on the shadows. He was about action, and she...
"It is complicated," Boudicca agrees. "There are many things which must be balanced, for the scales to weigh evenly. This is no easy thing, nor simple." That black-and-white approach... it simply hasn't survived Boudicca's encounter with the world.
She smiles, though, as Kaguya guesses it's fine. "Perish the thought." Oh no, Boudicca definitely has the wrong idea, doesn't she.
The idea... that Kaguya... CARES.
She doesn't outright accuse her of that, though, because feelings are hard.
"Ah, yes -- a mixture of both is best," she agrees, instead, still smiling. "As much as I harangue that man, I am no opponent to truth, as such. The ability to speak one's own truth is a vital thing, particularly in the care and treatment of Malevolence." Boudicca... would know about that sort of thing, wouldn't she? She was there to purify Ruth's Domain, not so long ago.
"You sound as if you know quite a lot about them," Boudicca goes on, a little less metaphorical and directing a little further away from feelings, which, again, are hard. "Ah, that is -- plants. Are you a gardener, by chance?"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Ten years ago, Kaguya wouldn't have said anything, because she'd have been asleep! So time can really say something.
"Things with people are complicated usually," Kaguya agrees. No easy thing, no simple thing--Kaguya has found that while there are a lot of simple and easy things out there, they tend not to be the ones that trip people up. But...
Boudicca has the wrong idea, all right. But at least if she doesn't call Kaguya out directly she can let it go for the moment, instead.
"Right--and there's some dark secrets I was out looking for when I first met up with him, too. I even learned what some of them were. ...His obsession with the Goddess, though..." She shakes her head. "Well. I'm not the religious type, really? She's more like an employer than a deity to me. Not that I can tell people in the Guard that..." But Boudicca is a heretic so it's probably fine.
But feelings are hard--Malevolence, also hard. "Yeah, Malevolence... Oh, yeah, plants?"
Kaguya nods to that. "Yep. Or well--actually, I'm a botanist," she explains. "I cultivate all sorts of different plants, though not as much these days--the Guard and Althena have more use for my weapons knowledge than my botanical expertise. But my lands back in Glenwood... I'd rather they be known for the flowers than for the guns. You know?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Dark secrets...
"There are things we have long forgotten," Boudicca says, effortlessly sliding back to enigmatic, "which are best forgot. Works of man and Goddess we long laid to slumber."
There's that slight tension of her tone, the thin press of her lips, which makes her growing distance from Althena all the more present.
Boudicca doesn't stop to talk about Althena's crimes, though, not the least because Marivel could reconstitute and come take offence at any moment. Instead: plants! She's less tense to hear Kaguya's clarification of botany, smiling again.
"Flowers are worth much more, in my mind," she agrees. "I am glad to know you can grow such gentle things as these. I am quite predisposed to nature, myself... the world needs greenery, I think."
(Filgaia is really behind the curve on that, but, well, Boudicca IS a Lunar native.)
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"You're good at the enigmatic spirit thing," Kaguya reflects of Boudicca. "Long forgotten, best forgot. It just sounds cool when you say it. But some things, better forgot or not, somebody has to remember--if only because there's not some justice out there that's going to fix it for us."
Althena has many crimes! Kaguya is fine with those, in theory, at least some of them. She doesn't expect a Goddess to be blameless. But flowers...
"Heheheh," she says. "Gentle. Actually, my specialty is in thorns and other ways plants defend themselves, though a lot of the prettiest flowers are also the ones with the strongest defenses. It's just kinda funny how it works out that way."
"I've managed to transplant a number of the flowers from my peoples' travels to Lunarian soil, too. If we're ever in Glenwood, and you're not busy being a double heretic or whatever, I should show you a few of them."
"Weapons have their uses," she says, "But... I think flowers have an important lesson to offer when it comes to violence, too."
"It's not enough to protect something on its own--you've gotta have something worth protecting. Right?"
"Well, don't tell my sister I said that. She's a warrior. I'm with you, though. The world needs green... and brown, and yellow, and purple, and orange."
"...In fact, maybe you can help me with something. But you gotta promise not to tell anybody."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Boudicca blinks, as Kaguya spells it out, looking momentarily baffled. To her, she was just talking normally. "Ah... perhaps," she cedes that much, on the topic of justice.
Filgaia deserves an answer, doesn't it?
She doesn't dwell on it, though. Instead: thorns! Boudicca laces her hands behind her, toe tapping to the ground. "I do not know that I am even recognised as a heretic," Boudicca says, "so I would be pleased to see them, thorns and all."
Boudicca nods, as Kaguya seeks confirmation about protecting something important. Her head tilts, a little cant to the side, as she mentions her sister -- a warrior...
"Warriors can take many shapes and sizes," Boudicca muses, looking up to the clouds. "After all, that is my denomination... in the common tongue. Can you believe such a thing? Many would not, I feel."
The nature of Seraphic names isn't something she digs into, though, as she looks back down to Kaguya, smiling. "... I shall keep your silence. How may I assist you, Kaguya?"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya has... some ideas, about things. But she doesn't go on and start monologuing as to what those are--
It's just that she'd say the same, there. Deserving an answer.
"Oh, even better," Kaguya says. "I wasn't sure, I know some of you Seraphim who aren't with us are really not with us." 'Sides' remains somewhat casual for the small Veruni, as a subject.
"Huh, yeah?" Kaguya says, and looks over Boudicca in a new light. "...No, I buy it. I've seen you when you have something you feel like you need to fight for. Or someone, more like. But if I hadn't seen it I definitely wouldn't believe it."
Boudicca smiles, and Kaguya doesn't smile back--she looks very serious. "I want you to help me gather some flowers. The people who we're laying to rest... they don't get to have a lot of the comforts their people would like to give them. Their families won't be here, I don't even know the names of all the soldiers brought here to fall and take the blame."
"...But humans like to give flowers to their dead. So I figure, we can do that much for some of these people. The Ronso... their people already know how to handle them, what to do with their sacred mountain and all. But the dead from Hyland and Rolance--A little gesture like that might be the only thing they can get, this far from home. So..."
"...When I get back and tell their families, the ones who I'll be handling that for. I can say they got that much."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"I have travelled far from Her," Boudicca says, on the topic of hereticism, "but I have received no censure, of yet. Perhaps... it is a matter of time."
She's bound to keep getting in the way of atrocities, and if they're under Althena's hand...
Boudicca sounds a little sad about that, but she can't stop doing what she thinks is right, either.
She looks assured, though, when Kaguya buys what she's saying. "I am pleased to hear that." It was a promise she made long, long ago, after all; she can't very well break that confidence now.
Even now she's dead.
"Ah," Boudicca dips her head, in acknowledgement, as Kaguya reveals her plan. She's quiet, as Kaguya lays out her reasoning, her respect for their own habits. Her hands come to clasp in front of her, instead.
"A matter of great import," she concludes, once Kaguya has finshed explaining. "Yes -- I will help you in this. They will have their flowers... if nothing else."
Maybe it's a kindness to send her out onto the slopes, away from all these corpses, and the conflicts in the hearts of those who remain. Boudicca doesn't think of that, though, worried about the dead as she is.
But if there's one benefit to getting a Wind Seraph's assistance, it's that they are remarkably good at getting around steep areas.