2017-12-12: Where We Belong

• Log: Where We Belong
• Cast: Riesenlied, Neriah Parringer
• Where: Wayside
• Date: 12th December 2017
• Summary: In the wake of her proclamation, Riesenlied speaks to Neriah to urge her that she does belong.

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<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

The declaration of what effectively was independence from the ways of the rest of the Metal Demons did not go without a stir in Wayside, and the effects can already be seen amongst the more restless of the Tainted soldiers. The soldiers they've sheltered from Adlehyde, from Arctica.

Riesenlied is stepping towards the tavern when a soldier hobbles to her, with a hiss on her face. "Traitor! I believed you words-- believed that you were loyal to Mother! You'll drag us all into the same pit of hell!"

Riesenlied's lips thin as she lowers her head slightly. "I am sorry I could not express my thoughts earlier to you..."

"You were just luring us wounded in to advance your own cause, weren't you?!"

"... I mean what I say. I am loyal to all Hyadeans, and it is us, as a whole, that I wish to see flourish--"

The wounded soldier rears back and attempts to swing at her, prompting Riesenlied to step aside. "Liar!"

"Please, be careful...!"

"I don't want to be thrown into any incinerator... I don't want to be quickened once more...!"

"I won't let that happen..." Riesenlied speaks, but she yelps as she gets some dirt on her dress.

"Just stop talking! Stop talking..."

These scenes are not too uncommon in the evening preceeding the speech. It looks like Riesenlied has been ready for it, but...

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

"Hey."

The voice is a quiet, somewhat bleak one, and it comes from behind the wounded soldier swinging at Riesenlied. A second later, a hand comes to rest on the soldier's shoulder.

It is a black-gloved hand. The glove goes up to the wearer's elbow. Following it leads to a pair of darkened blue eyes, the dark circles beneath them visible beneath the brim of her newsboy hat.

Neriah is not bothering to suppress certain things; the soldier will get to feel the unpleasant tingle of whatever the hell lives in her hand before the girl pulls it slowly away. "Riese is doing what she believes is right," she says simply. "Maybe you don't believe in it. But she's been good to you and you have no right to try and hurt her."

The honest truth is that Neriah doesn't want to walk away from Wayside - the only place that's accepted her in a long time.

The question in her mind is more one of whether /Riese/ has walked away from /her./

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

There's a whimpering sob from the soldier, as she tries to stress her anxiety out-- and the unpleasant tingle causes her to jitter as she walks back. "I'll have Val make some soup for you..." Riesenlied suggests, before she flails and limps away.

Riesenlied bites her lip as she sighs, and says, "... they need time. But-- thank you, Neriah..."

She hesitates for a moment, thinking back to what had happened in the Wayspring. "Neriah... I am glad I was-- even wounded as I was... I am glad I could help pull you back."

She doesn't look like she knows if she has the correct words to understand what she's going through.

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

Neriah doesn't immediately look at Riesenlied. She diverts her eyes off to one side, listening to the clack of heels as the soldier walks back. She does, at least, move after the One Good Metal Demon in the world.

The one who welcomed her home, and then cut the ground out from under the thing she wishes she could do. Especially when she's mad.

Riesenlied ever so nicely reminds her of her own failure. Neriah closes her eyes, curling her right hand into a tight little fist.

"I shouldn't have been in the cave. Being around an immense evil power like what was under that seal... I shouldn't. Whatever's inside me just... feeds on powers like that. I thought I could control it."

She sets her jaw and looks away. "Instead I almost ruined everything for you," she reproved herself. "I'm sorry for being so horrible."

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Riesenlied steps closer towards the younger girl, lowering her head. "... Jacqueline and I... made a promise a while back." She has a kind of bashful, odd smile as she patiently holds her hand out. "We discovered we're both the kind of people who are really hard on ourselves."

"... I'm trying to not be too harsh on myself."

She closes her eyes. "... it's true, that the power within you is unlike anything I know... but you just said you were trying to fight it."

A pause. "These kinds of trials... are exceedingly harder when we berate ourselves constantly, undermine our own confidence... are they not?"

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

"I didn't realize you were that kind of person," Neriah says with a hint of bitterness creeping into her tone - a bitterness she's immediately ashamed to hear. She blushes and lowers her head, closing her eyes and breathes out through her nose. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be bitter. I'm just...."

Neriah trails off again. She still can't bring herself to look at Riese.

"I was... I was fighting it for you. And Mikaia," she admits, her voice a little smaller now. "I don't... have many good feelings about the Guardians.

"Because I've been haunted in my dreams by one of them," she explains after a pause, as if she were debating whether or not to even say it. "The Death Guardian... he shows up in my dreams, and always wants to take me with him."

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

"... I try to not show it," Riesenlied admits to Neriah, catching the shift in her tone. "It is unfair to those that look up to me... but in a way, they understand as well. No one is an island... especially not me."

She listens further... and then quietly nods. "... there are others here, amongst the Wings, that don't agree with me. ... and in a way-- it is not as if the Guardians are my allies."

She holds her hands out and emits some of those emanating photons around her.

"... I still don't know what this is. Is this a poison? Some kind of anathema caused by my contact with Equites? They have bid me to listen to them, but it is not as if they would fight for my cause."

She bobs her head.

"But... the possibility of coexistence... to be able to communicate with that which I have not been able to even chance to speak to for centuries -- is one I cannot overlook."

"I am sorry... about your dreams," she whispers gently. "But also remember... the Guardians are not a unified whole, either. One Guardian's opinion is not shared by the others. Please, remember that."

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

Only now does Neriah dare to look towards Riesenlied - now that the woman has chosen not to immediately set her on fire.

Those photons dance around Riese's palms. Neriah bites gently down to her lower lip, her cheeks taking on a hint of colour as she wraps her arms loosely around her midsection. "...I was surprised when none of them did anything to me at the Temple," she murmurs. "I heard people here talking about the Guardians hurting them... they just ignored me. Maybe I just didn't want to hear them. But... I still don't know why death wants to kill me."

She presses her lips together and clears her throat softly. "...All I know is that I didn't want to do anything to hurt the statue down there," she says in a softer voice. "The White Knight... I know they would want me to act. But I tried as hard as I could not to do anything to this one."

Fussing with her glove, Neriah hesitates for a moment. Then she looks up to Riese. There's a rawness in her expression, a pain she can't really hide. "You saw what I can do. That's why people are so scared of me. And maybe I do have to fight the Guardians."

"But I d-don't want to fight you...."

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

"'You are born in the service of Mother'... 'The Guardians, and humanity, are all of Mother's enemies'..."

Riesenlied quites, as she steps just a little closer. "I can't possibly blame someone who doesn't understand what's happening to them. Not when it's happening to me too, to so many people."

She looks towards Neriah and says, "I have the full belief you have the strength to not be bound to any fate you don't desire. That we all do. That is what seeking the new world means to me."

She places her hands to her gem, the Dragon's Tear.

"Do you know why... the Death Guardian, Ge Ramtos, wants to kill you?"

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

"No. I wish I did."

Neriah opens her right hand and begins to roll her glove down her harm. She peels it off. The hand beneath is a normal hand right now.

"But he's been part of my dreams all my life. There are things I always see. Screaming faces in the sky - like monsters. People with numbers on their bodies, always chained or dead. One time, a friend guided me through a lucid dream... we passed seven numbered people, including my mom, and then I was number eight for some reason."

Left-hand fingers trace across her palm, as if she could draw out the jagged shape that manifested itself last time. "When I try to use my magic," she murmurs, "I always felt like I was dying. Like I was gonna have a heart attack. But the White Knight showed me that... the more I used it, the more the pain stops coming. I've tried to ask a lot of people over the years... my mom even took me to experts."

She shakes her head. "I don't know why I'm like this. It's... it's really strong. It makes me want to get back at people who hurt me. But it's scary, too."

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

"... for centuries," Riesenlied starts, "I don't know why we had to fight the Guardians. Why we had to fight the humans. Our iron doctrine was not so interested in explaining. They did not want us to think."

She gestures very gently... looking towards the hand for a moment.

"It's frightening. But I truly believe that we are empowered when we learn, Neriah."

She smiles weakly and says, "Isn't it better if we both knew why we had to face the things we did? Even if it's scary. Even if it's difficult."

She lowers her head. "... in my case, at least, it made me feel a lot better, even knowing I would be closing doors behind me, that hurt so much."

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

"It's just a scary thing when I use it," Neriah murmurs. "Because it starts to make me think awful things."

Neriah closes her hand tightly. Her nails bite into her palm hard enough to dig little half-crescent marks into the skin. Lifting her gaze to the errant Metal Demon again, she swallows a lump in her throat. "...I'm glad you're doing what you feel is right. You have to follow what's in your heart."

The wan smile she's wearing melts away a little, revealing the uncertainty it had coated over. Neriah glances to one side, shifting her footing subtly. "...But there's something horrible in my heart," she murmurs. "Maybe I've just been rejected by too many people. I know I've gotta do things... things people will think are bad. But...."

Hesitating, Neriah says, "I... I don't want to... be alone again." Her voice is very small. "You and Mikaia... you're so... so nice to me. People aren't usually nice to me. I don't wanna... I don't wanna not be your friend."

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Riesenlied tilts her head to one side, the horns kind of wiggling a little as she shifts, her wings pulling back. "... we cope with the wounds in our hearts... and doing the right thing is not necessarily easy. I dallied for far too long... and hundreds, if not thousands, have suffered for it."

She thinks of Arctica, and of Adlehyde. She thinks of the way it has produced people like Jack...

...even if she knows that her rebellion would not have changed the course of these actions.

"You'll always be our friend. This will always be our home. Just because you don't share the same opinions, does not mean we can't be," Riesenlied urges. "People are complicated. They aren't just black or white."

She bobs her head. "... should we try making that a start? It must be so difficult for you, but... I know it to be ten times more difficult if you keep rejecting things for yourself."

Her hand is out again.

"I won't ever reject you here."

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

There was a time when Neriah can remember herself watching Ida Everstead-Rey rant about Riesenlied - about finding the woman saccharine and almost impossibly kind and loving. She can remember herself agreeing with it, cynically.

She finds herself revisiting the thought now. Yet it's not with cynicism, but with a profound awe. /Here I just about ruined everything for her, I'm a horrible person who wants to fight death itself... and she's still holding her hand out to me./

/How is it that a Metal Demon has more humanity than most actual humans?/

Neriah's eyes water a little as Riesenlied states that she'll always be their friend. She sniffles lightly, her head lowering for a moment, then coming up as she once more swallows to try and keep down that hard little lump of emotion. Taking a step forward, she seems about to take the proffered hand.

Instead, she loops her arms around Riesenlied and hugs the horned woman, lowering her face to her shoulder. The dampness of tears can be felt immediately. So can the way she shakes, noticeably.

"You're so damned nice," she murmurs, her voice heavy with pent-up emotion. "I don't deserve your forgiveness but you s-still give it to me. D-don't ever let anyone say you're not a good person. You are."

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Riesenlied has a little suckled breath as Neriah hugs her gently, lowering her head with a quiet smile.

"... maybe it's because I came from a culture with no such kindness. When the world abroad showed me just what was possible... I couldn't not leap to the chance," Riesenlied answers, as if she could read between the lines.

"... thank you, Neriah. Many would disagree. Others still do. But your sincerity means a lot to me..."

She squeezes her arms a bit tighter around her.

"Let's find out the truth about ourselves. About me... and about you, okay? We don't have to do that alone."

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

It has been a long time since Neriah has had a hug.

Closing her eyes tightly, the dark-haired girl tightens her arms a little, seeming to want to hold on to Riese like a life preserver in a typhoon of conflicting emotions, her abiding hate grappling with her desire to show kindness and befriend this woman who's reached out to her when no one else would. Softly, she sniffles again. "Okay," she murmurs, her voice a little shaky.

Looking up, she finally takes a step back. Finding Riese's hands, she gives them a light squeeze. Her chin comes up ever so slightly for the first time in about three days. Though her eyes are wet, there's a little spark of hope there now.

All isn't lost. Not everything is ruined.

It might be alright.

"We might not... always agree," she admits with a wan smile. "But you showed me kindness and I'll never forget it. We can find out the truth together... and I'll do my best to be your friend."

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Riesenlied squeezes Neriah's hands in turn, lightly. She looks towards her eyes, and hers are gently wet as well as she nods.

Just giving her that hope is the most important, because those out there oft desire to dash any kindle of resistance to their plans.

"You'll always be our friend. And--"

Just as if on cue, the littlest, kindest girl is running up to the hill they're on, waving as she exclaims, "Riesemama! Nericchi!"

She sucks in a breath, then exclaims louder:

"Welcome home!"

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

'Nericchi'

Neriah seems to want to say something, but that high, cheery voice cuts through it all. Riese gets the privilege of watching Neriah widen her eyes and blush, her vulnerability suddenly giving way to a flustered look and a charmed little smile, as though she honestly can't believe she's in this situation with someone who has given her a nickname.

She gulps down the surge of emotion. Smiling an honest smile, she steps forward and scoops Mikaia up into her arms, giving her a twirl and holding her up before pulling her in for a hug.

"Thank you," she says, and for just a moment, she can't even imagine the idea of hating anything.

Someone out there cares about her and trusts her. It's the nicest feeling in the world.