2023-04-05: The Chapel of Lights
- Log: The Chapel of Lights
- Cast: Seraph Harmaus, Talia
- Where: Pentagulia - White Tower
- Date: April 05, 2023
- Summary: Within the White Tower, Harmaus has one last meeting with Talia.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
He sits alone deep within the confines of the White Tower and gazes at a stone-wrought mural.
To the eye of any true believer, it is a tale of the power and glory of the Goddess Althena. This is the story of how she created the Boundary that kept at bay all the monsters and demons of the world that was.
This is the story, to Harmaus' eyes, of how the Goddess carved an idelible mark onto the truth of this world. What was told is not what was truly so. But this is what he has known to be true for some time.
The corruption in him roils, but only for the moment: there is much left to be done. And this is hardly the hour in which he will permit it to happen.
The mural is offensive, but its shattering will avail him not.
No, there is something he seeks further within -- he, the beddraggled and Malevolence-ridden Seraph he has become. This is but a moment's pause as he heads towards the end of his journey, a reflection on that what motivates him.
But he is not alone here long, is he?
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
Talia effected her escape with the others. The catacombs under the towers are something of a maze; she went into them in search of a weapon, while they gathered before making their move for Lucia.
Which leads her to this room.
It has a mural. Talia pauses as she enters -- it catches her eye -- but what demands her attention is Harmaus. A Hellion, now; transformed as he was, and she was there to see it.
She isn't sure that she should stay. She takes a step back.
But she gasps, too, to see Harmaus -- and that gives away that she is here.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Had he known she was there ere she even made a sound? He stills for but a moment, the swishing of his tail -- periodic until then -- pausing for a tell-tale pair of seconds.
Then Talia gasps and Harmaus turns his head.
"Ah... its cells hold it not," he remarks, rising up onto all fours. "Has Amaranth freed its pet? Or...?" he muses, ears swiveling as if he could hear the chaos the escapees may well have sown from here.
"The exit this is not. If seeks it fleeing, it goes wrong way!" he continues, regarding her still. "But... ah. Perhaps it flees... not?"
He settles down onto his haunches and lifts a paw to begin carefully cleaning his face.
"Perhaps it... seeks truth, now," Harmaus concludes, attending to his washing.
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
"Did you expect the cells to keep us imprisoned?" Talia asks, a little flatly. "We're good at handling things like that, no?"
Her gaze hardens a little at the mention of Amaranth. She was still below Vane -- as far as Talia knew -- and they hadn't been able to check in for a time. "I'm not fleeing, no? Nor are any of us."
She frowns for a moment longer.
"...I suppose I'd like to know the truth," she says. "Of what Lucia said. If the Goddess isn't real..."
Her fingers curl at her side. "...Is that what you're after too, now?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Ah... found it easy escaping? It wonders me how came it by such easy escapes... but, ja, well. It matters me not," Harmaus settles upon, his tail swishing once, twice as if to underscore his feelings on the revelation. "Knows I but how many over centuries these cells held... many dangerous people. But all died -- all rotted away or met executioner's axe. Even before Goddess awakes... she tolerated not discord!"
He has always been an astute historian. Only the most esoteric has escaped his grasp--
Which is why he is here.
"Ah... seeks it and others the truth. The Goddess... the world...! At last, it and rest comes in agreement with me. Such is always, always way of the world," Harmaus sighs, still washing his face. It doesn't help him any -- the rot within him makes his once pristine appearance look dull and faded.
He looks, in a word, ill.
"Lucia... I has no love for it. It could and would not! Yet... knows it better than most. Than any. That... is not 'the Goddess'. I slays it as I slays real Goddess... should She live, yet."
He looks at her, finally setting his washing aside.
"Yes. Seeks I answer... and here, I finds it. It calls to me, now. The truth."
If he bends an ear, he can hear it, close at hand.
"I finds it. Then... all is as it will, and little else."
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
"I don't know about easy... but we managed," Talia says. She looks down at him -- and she frowns as he speaks. Many people met their end down here? She shouldn't be so surprised.
Her nose wrinkles. There isn't any missing that the Malevolence is taking a toll. He looks ill -- a little hard for her to spot, clearly, in a cat, but inescapable now.
"You're still convnced the Goddess herself is a problem?" she asks. "But... if this is an imposter, then--then the real Goddess isn't like this one."
She glances down. "And this Malevolence," she says. "Can't you see what it's done? It isn't good for you, no? I don't know that I'd say we agree with you."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
It's possible that past enemies of the church deserved it. It's also possible that they did not. History often keeps the answers to the questions it poses close to its chest.
And those who may have some inkling of the truth, like Harmaus, have their own interpretations -- their own biases. How then to ascertain what had truly been?
"Jaeja," Harmaus rumbles, when she counters his obsession with logic. "Sees it so little, little yet! It matters not if Althena false from the start or usurped... what was, we told but lies! It cleans out ears and listens, second time..."
He is riddled with it -- with Malevolence.
"This is truth! It looks upon me and knows truth! Closer comes I to true nature, shape of the world," he insists, rising to all fours, his tail held high like a dingy banner. "And I needs not 'Lord of Calamity' to reveal it! Even should none else accept it... I will know. That is all I needs."
His amber eyes narrow. "Ask its Amaranth of Malevolence, wherever now it hides. Ah... Amaranth. It tells me sooner, then I seeks it sooner! Long, long time takes it to arrive here. But, I finds it at last," he concludes, whiskers flaring. "Matters me not length of journey."
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
"When we were told the lies matters," Talia says, with a frown.
She does listen, though. Even if she tenses at the mention of Amaranth -- but no. She isn't here. She is, at least for the moment, safe from him. She would reach for a sword... but she still doesn't have one.
"Closer to the truth?" she asks. "What... did you find something else? Besides what Lucia said?"
Her head tilts. "And what you learn--it doesn't matter if it destroys you, no? You have to understand what Malevolence will do to you! We've seen a Fell Dragon."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Does it? Thinks I different. The fact of a lie all that matters! All else, meaningless!" he tells her, and in this moment his old fury burns bright.
Only to return again to smoldering embers -- a threat that might again become an inferno, given the right fuel.
"Ah... it hears it not. Only I hears it, thinks I -- I, who is closest to the truth of this world! It bids me go hence." His tail twitches, the once. "It bids me SEEK."
And as he told Kaguya, he tells also Talia:
"None but they that seeks knows shape of what they finds. Becomes I Fell Dragon? Yes, perhaps, perhaps so! But what lies beyond that, ah... none yet can tell me. And minds I not such a price!"
If he becomes a Fell Dragon, in other words, with everything that brings with it... then that is acceptable, it would seem.
But he eyes her, critically. "...Seeks it stopping me here? Thinks I it has others yet worth minding. But should it wish it, I shall not deny it!" Light glimmers about him fleetingly, terrible and pale, and even this is only a shadow of what he might bring to bear if so pressed.
It is but a warning of a sort -- a suggestion of what he may yet attempt.
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
Talia frowns when she hears his anger -- but it seems gone after a moment.
Something spoke to him. Perhaps a product of his own madness; she certainly hasn't heard any voices telling her to seek. She frowns, her fingers curling into a fist.
"That's... I'd be sure you can trust that voice, no?" she says. "Because you don't know what you're seeking."
She shakes her head once -- but tenses as light glimmers about him. Talia doesn't make a move on him, though; she hesitates, but without a sword, she can't do anything about it. "...You should be careful. All that's on the other side of being a Fell Dragon is oblivion," she says. "The legends all agree about that."
She frowns. "I don't much like you, but it's not a fate I would wish on anyone."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Knows I well what I seeks," Harmaus replies, gazing up at her. His eyes narrow. "I seeks knowing. I seeks the answer -- the truth!" The same thing that he has ever been on about, from the very first day their paths had crossed.
And she still bids him be careful, even if they have ever been at odds with one another. Would Harmaus have returned the favor?
"The legends say," he quotes, his tail twitching once, twice. "The legends! Lies, one and all! Yet hears us not single word from those that become. Perhaps they cannot. Or perhaps... they becomes more. Seeks I this answer, too. What I will become."
"What lies on other side. Oblivion? Or... more? But, ah..."
His tail twitches. "...Seeks I first truth of Goddess. Of this world. All else... incidental. Additional," Harmaus finishes.
"When sees it Amaranth again, it tells it what I learns. Tell Amaranth... it showed me the way."
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
Talia frowns sharply. He means to become a Fell Dragon. She realizes, then, that there's no stopping him -- not without a weapon, and she isn't at all sure she could convince him to stop otherwise.
It's not quite hopelessness she feels, then.
"I don't know... if you'll like what you find, no?" she says, finally. She looks at him for a moment more. She thinks about Ammy -- and then she shakes her head.
"When I see her again, I'll tell her about you," Talia says. She takes a step back.
"But I don't think she's the one behind this," she says. "Deciding to do this... it was your decision. And you've done it despite knowing how it must end, no?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Ah? Thinks it not?" Harmaus responds, a fell glint in his eyes. "It knows little and less of what I desires -- no, none of you yet understands!" He might belt that out, but there's no vitriol in those words: he shouts this truth of his at her as if to declare the fact of the matter.
As if, even now, he seeks to deny the world around him -- the consensus reality that he has decided is a lie.
None of them understand. None of them want his truth. He understands this, now. There is no saving the world. And so, Harmaus will save himself alone and carve a path, perhaps, for those who come after.
"Yes. It does this. Perhaps, I sees Amaranth again, one day. Or perhaps not. Walks I on now ahead!"
He turns, even as she tells him that he can't seriously pin this on Amaranth.
"It is wrong... and it is right. I makes this decision alone. But Amaranth... Amaranth awakens me to possibilities." Perhaps he would have come to the same end on his own -- certainly he would have reached some sort of end on his own. His route was set centuries ago, ere he chanced down this path.
"Now, it witnesses me," he tells Talia, heading on towards the pulse of a truth that only he can sense. "Now, it witnesses me and accepts reality."
This is the end he embraces.
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.
Talia frowns sharply again. She supposes she can't argue -- in that she doesn't understand and she doesn't want his truth.
So she watches him, as he goes. Her eyes narrow, though.
"Amaranth didn't awaken you to anything," she says. "And I'm not--I'm not accepting this reality of yours, no? This isn't... this isn't the path you had to take."
She says it as he makes his way from her.
And Talia stares after a moment longer. For all the answers he found, she finds few.