2022-03-08: A Prayer For The Abandoned
- Log: 2022-03-08: A Prayer For The Abandoned
- Cast: Ruth Pauling, Seraph Yvain
- Where: Ruins of Azado
- Date: March 08, 2022
- Summary: Azado, left to ruin following Sin's attack, is yet to be reclaimed by Althena's Chosen years after the fact. Where a Hellion from another world struggles emotionally with a place so abandoned when surrounded by plenty, a Seraph sees an unlikely ally with the potential to do something about it.
==============================<* Ruins of Azado *>============================== Azado, once, was a city on the southern edge of the Goddess Plains. Its proximity to Pentagulia meant that it saw rich trade. However, a terrible night years ago saw two calamities come. First, its great lighthouse burnt, and fire engulfed much of the city. Second, Sin came to Meribus's shores for the first time. The city was shattered, leaving a ruin. Now, some parts are terrifying Malevolent domains, haunted by ghostly and undead Hellions. Others have lingering amounts of pyreflies, with Spiran fiends in evidence. BGM: Silence.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
For the Drifters who go about Meribus, the way back to Filgaia involves the need to traverse through the very ruins of Azado in order to reach its Elw Teleporter. A place of incalculable tragedy and loss in today's Lunar, it remains seeming all but abandoned. Abandoned, but for two kinds: undead Hellions gripped with despair over how such a thing could have happened to them under the all-powerful protection of the Goddess... and ever stranger creatures made of clusters of tiny prismatic spirit-things who are uncompromising in their relentless aims to annihilate the living. It is a harrowing place to traverse, such that the decision to hop between worlds can never be done lightly.
It is an unsightly scar in a land surrounded by plenty - even excess - that may never heal. Numerous Malevolent Domains have built about the region, either as the result of Venomization... or individuals who may have individually already harbored so much at the time of crisis.
Four deafening shots of a distinctive ARM fill the air again today, filling the air with bright colors that flicker out of existence almost instantaneously. One of the Domains - once belonging to a powerful wind-aligned entity whose Malevolence manifests as stale, still air - gives way to the rainy, foggy miasma of someone certain parties upon Filgaia have become familiar with.
For those who come to investigate the sounds, alone is Ruth in her true Hellionized state, knelt before another figure that reaches up towards her with a hand whose strength fades with every passing moment. A large, bony-looking harpy has a limb wrapped gingerly by the tail of the creature that has helped usher them towards a more definitive end.
It's a quiet, introspective moment after a flurry of violence, as the lives (and unlives) of Hellions tend to be, and both of them seem to be of presence of mind enough to acknowledge their present situation on the same page.
This part of Azado grows physically quieter in the next few moments, underneath the mid-day sun. A source of light that doesn't always manage to assert itself, here.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Yvain has posed.
The Seraph Yvain occasionally goes into these ruins for varying purposes; to check on them, to ensure that the Malevolence growing does not spread... But he lacks the particular powers necessary to cleanse this land. Malevolence should keep him at bay, but he does not shy away from it; he has newfound purpose that shields him as surely as does the Vessels he inhabits.
Fiends, and Hellions... Different. Yet, not completely so.
But today he is not just here on a general purpose; he has specific reasons for coming, for searching out a particular Domain, the rainfall its surest sign. The physical quiet is another. The Seraph steps through the ruined land, avoiding most trouble and handling what he can't avoid. ...Or won't avoid.
"So you've seen them," Yvain notes, looking over Ruth in her Hellionized state. His weapons are stowed. He is not here to fight this particular Hellion.
But he is his own source of light.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Yvain's voice is familiar, and his timing... is, without irony, perfect. Whatever urges goad that particular Hellion on have been sated enough that the discordant pendulum swings back to relative approachability. The last moments of the Hellion near them pass, and Ruth's tail releases them as she opens her eyes to look upon the Granasian rosary. Prayer that they see their journey to the Garden of Toldoka runs into interesting challenges when the entirety of this land fully contradicts the teachings.
"I have." Ruth speaks, in that soft, mildly horrified voice. "I have never seen anything so... full of hatred." Something that shakes her, which at face value is strange given the bloodstained letters she helped pen into the history of Zoara.
She rises. In this land where Malevolence is native, and there are yet Domains and Hellions that dwarf her own influence... her form hasn't undergone any outwardly noticeable change. She turns about face, and Yvain can see the faintly glowing purple reflecting off of tears that are still being shed.
"There's fresh lumber everywhere. Quarries, filled with people. The water is clean. The food... no one starves." Her rifle returns to both her hands, but it is not pointed towards Yvain. Its blade touches the ground, as her tail coils around it and her wing folds closed.
"...Why? Why is this place left to suffer without?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Yvain has posed.
Did he intend to find her this way? Or is it happenstance? Fate?
Hard to say. But he knows the prayers of the Granasian rosary now, and he recognizes them as she tells them That soft voice of hers relates what she has seen...
"Hatred. Fear. Despair. They overflow with them all. Hellions..."
He shakes his head. He looks at Ruth's tears, instead. In some ways she should be anathema--she is in many ways what he has hunted for long years. And yet... There is potential here.
And he has some answers, though not satisfactory ones.
"That's a good question," he says. "Lunar is a land of plenty. The Goddess brought her people here, to live after the destruction of the Blue Star. This is what we are taught." And more, but that is relevant. "And now, the Goddess has returned... but She turns Her back on the land that needs Her. Those with the power to cleanse this land do not. They leave it to rot. Maybe it's just too big a job. Maybe it should be left as a warning of Sin's power."
"...But I don't think so. And I think you don't, either. So that's the right question to ask."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
'...after the destruction of the Blue Star,' there's a 'heh' that Ruth fails to choke down as she feeds those words into the deeds of Death's Door. It is not loud enough to interrupt, though she fails to meet Yvain's gaze head-on - as tends to be one of her habits.
"This world looks like it should be... happy." Ruth puts aside some of the gnawing buzzing in her head - doubtless influence of what ambient Malevolence here she has taken into herself, as all Hellions do. "The people here are not allowed to sing their praises. I haven't seen one dance... those who drink, they drink with fear." She finds it in herself to raise her gaze again, and she's about partially succeeding in making eye contact.
It's been food for thought about Elise's own dreams of a beautiful world for all, and yet it has not freed Elise of her loneliness, Ruth herself of her guilt, or any number of negative emotions that have driven the transformed to come to her side - but that is a conversation for another time.
"The cries here... abandonment. Betrayal." It weighs in her chest. A reminder of her heart, even when but not long before she just put down a fellow Hellion in an effective three-way fight.
"For one who gave so much, She sounds cruel."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Yvain has posed.
He looks wry as Ruth doesn't quite laugh--he has seen for himself that the Blue Star is at least slightly less destroyed than was stated. Did Althena know, back then?
"It comes and goes," Yvain says of happiness. "But this is a darker time in Lunar's history than most. Maybe the darkest I've yet seen. That remains to be found. Dancing, singing, drinking... all outlawed by the Chosen of Althena."
Yvain does not shy away from eye contact, but neither does he demand it. In his white and red garb, he stands there still, serious, calm... intent. A torch more than a free flame, but lighting the way to what?
"Indeed. There must be an answer, but what? There are people who are seeking that answer. Who intend to quest to find it, and learn the truth. And maybe they will succeed, and we will see why this cruelty has come to pass."
"...Maybe. I think they could use your help, Ruth. But if you decide to help them, I shoud warn you--it will be the most dangerous thing you have yet done. It will be a risk to body and soul."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
There are others asking why, and in absentia of an answer, seeking it for themselves. Ruth, starting to emotionally draw further into herself in processing a lot of this, finds herself drawn out by unexpected words from Yvain.
'I think they could use your help, Ruth.' She looks up with a start, and there's a flash of an image in her eyes of that green-and-white clad Seraph all but banishing her from Lastonbell under the designation of being a monster. Flashes yet of being there in the Celesti Civil War, watching entire meadows and forests burn away into barren ruin, at least once by her own hand when she shot an insecure Gear fuel repository.
Yvain can see the tension - no, feel it. An uptick in her ambient Malvolence as conflict stirs. The call she felt to take arms... the series of events that saw her decide to be 'a curse' rather than 'a blessing' and the resultant horrifying success in accomplishing this... and everything that looks to come to pass if she turn away, and continue along her whims of circular logic and destructive tendencies.
Yvain's warnings are heard, in his sincerity and clarity of such even with only the one good ear. A risk to her body and soul. Subconsciously, her right hand parts to grasp her left shoulder, and it's good her tail's already helping hold the rifle. To her soul, her eyes fall upon the rosary on that same right hand.
Another's words - K.K.'s - rings within her mind. "...A savior may become a tyrant within the perspective of a single generation," she murmurs, because giving it actual voice helps those words stand out above the morass of poisonous ideas.
"...Another like you in Lastonbell called me a monster. Cast me out, as her duty for her protection." The smile is dissonant, like the self-deprecation is junk food she wants to stuff in her maw. Her gaze wavers anew, looking off into the distance to see another small cloud of colorful lights form and disappear into nothing in an instant.
Her tongue flicks, inquisitively, to stray emotions that speak to her. "I see so many others... like me, living away from those not. So many acted as though they were." She is still haunted by that encounter with the fellow gargoyle. She insisted she wasn't a monster on Filgaia, a land that wasn't yet overtaken by Malevolence - though Zoara is gradually getting to be Filgaia's Glenwood.
Is she a monster in Yvain's eyes, she might wonder. She remembers how Yvain mentioned how her very nature, in a roundabout way, was something he needed to be protected against when speaking with others about what lie below the Zeboim Ruins.
"...Someone told me that at Emrys Mire. ...They," as if struggling to describe them and settling for what is the actual correct pronoun, "said what our natures are matter little, in the face of actions taken... and choices made."
The gargoyle Hellion's right hand moves from their shoulder, tips touching over her heart as her thumb rubs at the ring finger inquisitively. For all her assertions of what she is or isn't, she has to declare them in the face of having helped turn Summer into a destructive force of nature far less restrained than herself or Elise. For continuing to carry the rifle that has taken so many lives, wielding it with the same skill and ferocity of the 'heartless monster' if not even moreso. It's atonement by continuing to commit the same crimes, over and over.
"If... the Goddess has chosen for this, and acted to bring such pain and misery..."
Ruth's smile grows almost mischievous, like she might be catching wise to how nonsensical this is and yet somehow... right? "I can't look away from that... no one with a heart would."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Yvain has posed.
It is a risky idea. Ruth could be dangerous to the others; the others could be dangerous to her. The very nature of the trials could break her. But if it doesn't... it could forge her, Hellion or not, into someone who can face the future as well as the past. It is for Ruth herself as much as for the others that he makes this request.
Because it will require more than violence to solve this. ...But it may well require violence. And Ruth's power may make the difference.
So Yvain stands, straight-backed, waiting. He hears that murmur, and considers it. He finds it true.
He listens, to what she says of the other Seraph. Of the other Hellions. And someone said...
He only speaks up with Ruth finishes, and then he nods.
"I say this not to set you against the Goddess if indeed Her actions have a good explanation--but... it may yet come to that, and they will need your power."
"To most of my kind," he admits, "You are a monster as you are now. It does not surprise me that a Seraph would cast you out. But I think that, whether you choose to shed your Malevolence or not, you can yet help this world--and the people in it. Whoever told you that, about nature..."
"I agee with that statement. Is it the same as the one who spoke of tyrants and saviors? Both are true."
"Regardless of your 'nature'... you have the capacity to choose your actions. And I believe that given that chance, you will help others. I am betting on it. On you."
"...But I've never sent a Hellion through these trials before. It may well destroy you. But as long as you are willing to face those risks... Then you can do something about that pain and misery."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
'...they will need your power.' It should be encouraging words, and a part of her might accept that. The other part of her dreads it, as the tail squeezes about the length of the rifle. Yvain reiterates what is fact - she is a monster to the majority of Seraphim. Were Yvain not protected, and she were of the mind to do so, she could start him on the beginnings of another two hundred year jaunt into dragon-hood.
But his faith in her doesn't waver, going by his words - so much so that he was willing to delve into this place of immense danger to everyone just to seek her out and ask of her aid.
She nods at confirmation that both statements were spoken by the same individual. A tension runs through her about how much he is betting on her to help others when...
...
She probably could subsist herself, emotionally, on just lurking here. Stop fighting the urges and thoughts, let herself be. Isolate herself, maim or kill anyone who strays too close, who lets their guard down. The Fiends here - not that she knows their 'name' or what they are beyond being related to the force that is Sin - make that 'easy' by making it nigh-on impossible to reason herself against just letting herself loose against them.
...and yet, something keeps her from falling into the same depths so many of her kind do, too deep into the muck to ever come up and breathe. The something that has consistently let her deny that indulgence so much more successfully than most of her peers in that corruption.
That same something that sees her want to do something about that pain and misery, when it is exactly pain and misery that soothes her urges.
...
She approaches something like an emotional equilibrium, outwardly, looking up again to try and meet Yvain's eyes. Hers have not fully dried from the melancholy, but there's still life in those eyes of hers. "I must."
She did not do this to the people of Lunar. Something she had to remind herself as to not be drawn too deeply into the Domain of Emrys Mire.
"I refuse to be numb to the suffering." Her right hand clenches. Every time, given how tightly it's wrapped around her true self's forearm, it seems it should be a the breaking point. It is not. "To one's feelings... I won't do that again."
"Whatever... these trials may be."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Yvain has posed.
Ruth's power is not a comforting, reassuring thing. Not to most. And denying that would only serve to exacerbate her condition, would encourage her deteriorate further. But that is not what she wants to do... and not what Yvain wants her to do, for that matter.
He is glad that they are in agreement on this. So of course he meets her eye when she makes the effort. His are serious, intent. Unflinching. And so he sees the life in hers.
"...That's a good answer," Yvain says. "To be the person you want to be... that is a goal that the mortal and immortal share. I hope that you can achieve it, Ruth."
"I'll be leading a group to the first of these trials in a few days. If you can come along, you'll be welcome--though a few people might look askance at you, I will tell them that I invited you if so. ...If you don't join us that day, then I'll send you a message. We're going to a place near Biroclef Ridge..."
For better or worse, it's done. And Ruth has not rejected the call.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Somewhere past Yvain, there's a lightly reflective surface that has yet to be tarnished by the elements of the last few years - and give Ruth another look at who she is. There is nothing reassuring about her presence, but as Malevolence is made of contradictions from conflicting emotions... it is by some nefarious greater 'design' that she is something that is difficult, even dangerous, to accept.
If no Hellion had ever been subject to these trials before, the very idea of one being brought in the direction of something that might be Lunar's salvation is something worth balking at.
...but so's the idea of a loving Goddess having acted so strangely to the point of oppression and abandonment of Her faithful!
"I'll convince Elise to stay longer." Ruth says. It's funny, isn't it, she acts so subservient to her despite having been demonstrably a 'larger' Hellion - under sway of her ideals, rather than her seeming ability to influence weaker Hellions.
In this respect, an act towards her own selfish purposes over Elise's own (no less) selfish desires. Lunar's inspiring beauty and especially large reservoirs of Malevolence - in all of its richer variance of emotional origins - may buy enough time there.
"If I must wear the face of a monster to bring them peace, so be it," she'll concede that much for their sake, as she takes in the enormity of Azado's ruin again - and all the Malevolence that entices her to not even bother with being anything other than what she is right now.
Her gaze falls some, looking to the side. "Until then... I'd like to pray." Her eyes close. Yvain might see that fallen form of a partially skeletonized harpy Hellion over there, where he can see in evidence that he did shoot them - along with three loose bullets from where Fiends disintegrated and left behind what otherwise would be embedded.
"If the Goddess won't give them peace... I would hope Granas will help usher them to their rest." If not their feelings, their Malevolence. That much has been released into the atmosphere, continuing to wish to give voice to those conflicting thoughts.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Yvain has posed.
"Good," Yvain says. ...He has less faith in Elise, frankly, but her staying here is better than some of her alternatives. There is a lot of Malevolence here already; it just is.
the face of a monster.. it may well.
"Then pray," Yvain agrees. "If the Goddess won't... then someone should. Maybe Granas, and maybe you."
"...I have others to gather, so I'll leave you to your prayers. Take care, Ruth. I'll see you soon.