2019-03-31: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
- Log: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
- Cast: Leon Albus, Zed, Ida Everstead-Rey, Malfi, Kalve
- Where: Arctica region, Elru
- Date: March 31, 2019 (takes place before Everybody Get Up)
- Summary: With Mother's death, has the Guardians' attitude towards the Metal Demons changed?
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
In the hollowed out remains of an ampitheater in the Arctican wastelands, before the Sorcery Globe's activation...
A few souls have found themselves crossing the snowy wastes, until they enter the remains of the theater. The walls of the ancient coliseum have shattered; steps covered in snow and ice are treacherous, and the columns that once held it are icy spires against a cold grey sky.
The Metal Demons -- for that is what they are to the Guardians -- have come seeking parley. It is not a Guardian in the flesh that meets them, but the spectral image of one. A translucent phantasm of Lucadia, Guardian of the Sea, waits at the bottom of the ampitheater's basin.
Watching. Considering.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
A thousand years.
A thousand years of hatred, of unceasing war, of kill or be-killed. Could anyone really think that one meeting was going to finally put an end to all of it?
Impossible. Inconceivable.
But someone's got to make the first step, or they're never going to get anywhere. They can't keep doing this. Not without the Mother.
Or rather, they didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of making it out in one piece, even with the Mother.
Because of the Mother.
A familiar figure appears at the corner of the ampitheater. Where normally his scarf would be fluttering in the breeze, now it's... wrapped around the lower half of his face... and covered in a thin layer of frost and snow, from where the wind apparently tried to cut right through and lop his head from his shoulders.
Which, you know, given the circumstances might actually have been the case.
Regardless, Zed, the one Metal Demon crazy enough to think parleying with their ancestral foes was at all a good idea, is... Here. Here and looking somewhere between confused, concerned and hopeful, and also completely like he was some kind of college student walking into his first real job interview.
"Uh--" Zed says to the phantasm of Lucadia as he approaches. "I uh. Don't really know how this is supposed to work but... I'm Zed! Zed of Lost Hyades. And I'm here to parley!"
There's a beat, as if Zed is waiting for... something to happen, and then when it doesn't, he goes to start reaching into the folds of his half-frozen scarf, "Uh. It's just that... We've been at this whole thing for... A long time now, right? A thousand years ago. Wow, I was born a long time ago. Um." Finally, he finds what he's looking for and unfurls a piece of thoroughly soaked-through paper. "Okay. So..."
Zed... clears his throat.
"With the revelation of the Mother's treachery and her subsequent defeat and destruction at the hands of Hyadean and Filgaian alike," Zed reads, "We survivors of the Photosphere would like to request a mutual cessation of hostilities and asylum on Filgaia-- uh, sorry. The rest is..." Zed... squints. "Kind of... smudged."
Another beat. Zed looks up at the ghostly form of the Guardian and frowns. "Uh. Okay. I'm not good at this kind of thing. Look, we... We know we screwed up. Most of us do, anyway. And we did... Awful things," his fingers close around the note, crumpling it within a balled-up fist. Memories flash across the surface of his brain-- of Arctica, Adlehyde, of St. Centour. "...Things I don't think anyone could forgive us for, no matter how much we begged. But now we... I just want to make it right and have someplace to call home."
"So--" Zed... bows deeply at the hip, his head almost touching the ground, "I know it's not much, but I'm sorry. For... For going after the statues, and following the orders of that monster that led us around by the nose for centuries. For all the atrocities and the unending war. I know it's hard to expect anyone to forgive after all that we've done, but-- but I want to try and make it right, somehow. The Mother is dead, so I was thinking maybe... Maybe I could come ask to try and make peace."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The desperate fight at Love's Cradle drained Ida of nearly everything she had. She's exhausted. Her muscles ache. She still has to look into the matter of the soldiers sighted north of here, and she should be resting up for it. She isn't. This is... important to her.
Ida looks, at first glance, like another Hyadean. She's wearing a standard-issue armored bodysuit, the sort of thing they give to neonates before they gain enough experience to customize something of their own. Overtop, she wears an armored duster, and on top of that, a woolen cloak in the Arctican style. She's bandaged in several places. Crimson and quicksilver spot her clothing.
And yet, she is not Hyadean. Human blood flows through her, alongside a parallel Hyadean circulatory system. Her esoteric makeup speaks of a birth on Filgaia, and human ancestry. Perhaps, most tellingly, is the faint spark of power within her. It isn't much, but it feels, unquestionably, like a fragment of power, granted by Moor Gault, Guardian of Fire, Keeper of the Hearth, and Purifier.
Step by careful step, the woman makes her way to the foot of the coliseum. She remembers Lucadia from the Guardian Temple--how she granted some degree of mercy to Ida and her allies, despite the presence of two of their hated enemies. Ida doesn't know what Lucadia will say, or do. She stands between Zed and Kalve, focusing on the apparition of the Guardian before her. She breathes, slow and even, to try and still the frantic pounding of her heart. She lets Zed make his case. It isn't her place to do that for him.
<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.
Malfi watches silently as Zed says his piece; there's not anything she could add. She glances at the Guardian nervously, afraid it will strike her down ... or that she'll reboot again. She's started doing that every time she's under too much stress, and this situation is...extremely stressful. This is not a Guardian she knows. She's felt the Turtle's hate before, and doesn't particularly want to do so again. She's dressed for peace, armor retracted, clad practically yet elegantly, and bundled against the cold, for she feels it keenly as any human. Her scanner lies against her side, on its strap. She'd consider scanning the Guardian if she thought she could get away with it, and IF it didn't look so insubstantial. It feels so strange, being near a Guardian and not attacking or defending. Will it talk peacefully or be hostile? And if the latter, can the several of them beat it?
<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.
Kalve has mixed feelings about this whole affair. Zed is right: they need to stop this fighting, if for no other reason than to ensure the presently uncertain future of their people. Mother's presence was the problem, not the kidnapped children turned into a fighting force that the creature left behind. However...
Part of him thinks maybe they should finish the job.
Kalve doesn't really give that part of him a say.
He's present, cloaked in the rugged and well-worn clothes of human manufacture he uses for travel, with the cloak that is an ARM draped over the top with the colorful side out. It's less threatening, and draws attention away from the extra arms underneath to boot.
For once, he lets Zed do the talking. What a day.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
There are ironies in Zed's belief; ironies that he likely cannot grasp, that come from the nature of the Guardians, rather than from a misunderstanding. Lucadia's eyes are on him, clear yet translucent, as they loom down at him.
"You were the children of Mother. Of the hated enemy, which we stand in eternal opposition to," Lucadia says, as she looks down at Zed. "You served that which meant death to us and Filgaia. You profess that you have wronged."
Lucadia glances, briefly, at Malfi and Kalve too. "And yet you think our war was with you. You were but the instruments of our hated foe. Her creation, to the last," Lucadia says. "With Mother defeated and gone... then we shall not wage war with you, children of a lost star, unless you seek to continue your matron's foul work."
She glances at Ida, but her serpentine face reveals nothing.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
There are ironies in a lot of things Zed believes. Ironies, inconsistencies and sometimes just straight up backwards logic that somehow tends to make at least some amount of coherent sense once in a blue moon. It's part and parcel with Being Zed, just as the nature of the Guardians colors their own view of the world.
Zed remains bent at the waist as Lucadia considers her judgment. He feels others' eyes at his back. There's so much riding on this, on what the Guardians have to say after... everything. So much that it's almost suffocating. So much that... That when Lucadia answers, Zed almost falls right onto his face there and then. "Y-you..." He asks, picking himself back up with stars in his eyes, "You really mean that? We're... We're good...?"
For a moment, it looks almost as though Zed's about to explode with pure jubilation, but somehow he manages to contain himself (that Zed is able to exist at all without evaporating into a cloud of excited gas is already a miracle). "Um, so... So that means we can live here? We lost Hyades, but... I promise that I at least will do whatever it takes to protect this planet instead. I'm sure a lot of us feel the same way." Riese and Noeline, at least.
The others, uhhh.
Well, Zed likes to have hope. He's a hopeful guy.
<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.
Well that was unexpected.
"I assume that means pursuing the destruction of the planet and your persons, or... vessels," Kalve remarks. He's tense. Why? Maybe because last time he was anywhere near these things, he was driven to his knees in agony. "We have no interest in pursuing such an agenda if we are permitted to persist and survive on the surface of Filgaia."
He does not look at anyone. His expression is stony, like he's anticipating an enormous 'but' dropped in at the last second. He wants to ask why, but that seems somehow unwise. Still, his hands itch uncomfortably the whole time.
He has a lot of hands.
<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.
Malfi sags in relief, not even caring if the Guardian sees her. The war was truly over. The humans and their supernatural allies had won. Her kind would have a chance to make Filgaia their home, and she might even be able to adapt a tiny piece of it to create a homeland for them.
"Filgaia is my home," Malfi murmurs in the Guardian's general direction, "the only home I've ever known." Hyades she'd heard about all her life, stories, the stuff of legends -- no more real than a dream. "And we can't leave -- we have no place to go, and even if we did, no way to get there." A harsh truth, succinctly stated. Even if the Photosphere could've been restored to spaceworthiness, it was lost at sea. And even then they'd have to locate a planet that could sustain Hyadean life -- not the easiest task in the first place. "Thank you," she utters to the Guardian sincerely. "Thank you for listening."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida blinks. Some of the weight simply falls off her shoulders, and for a moment, it looks as though she's about to physically faint. Lucadia looks at her, then--their eyes meet, and a jolt of surprise runs down her spine. She studies the Guardian's expression, but she can't make anything out. Ida shakes her head, and then raises a hand, as if to reassure the others--including Lucadia--that she's good. It's the hybrid hand, the same one she used to accept a Guardian's power.
Something Zed says lodges in her brain. She finds herself thinking of Claude, and the outlandish claims he made. The question dies in her mind before it ever reaches her lips.
"Thank you, Lady of the Seas," Ida says. She turns to Kalve, smiles a gentle smile, and reaches out to take one of his hands in hers. He's tense. She'd be surprised if he wasn't.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"We will not seek to destroy your kind further. Without Mother, you are no danger to us." Lucadia rumbles it and they, perhaps, should be grateful that they did not bring Ratatoskr or Harken.
"You may reside on Filgaia, but know this: we will protect Filgaia and its children from any outsider that would taint this star," Lucadia says, attention turned to Kalve, then. Then, towards Malfi: "Perhaps in time, we will come to see you as part of it... rather than outsiders to be tolerated, until you demonstrate unworthiness again. You have served a thing most foul."
Lucadia's eyes narrow. "Do not serve such again."
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
For a brief moment, it sounds almost like there's a bomb dropping out of the sky. There's a noise, an awful, shrill, ear-grating noise that could only be a portent of doom-- but it's not. It's just the sound Zed is making because oh my gosh this is the bestest news ever. He looks like he's about to pounce and hug Lucadia's great big phantasmal body no matter how badly the terrible planet-essence might burn. Instead, he just does as Malfi does.
"Thank you," Zed says, bowing his head again. "Thank you so much, this means everything to so many of us. Oh! But uh--"
"I just... wanted to check," Zed asks, clearing his throat. "Couple... couple of things. Uh. First is... If there is anything like those... Primarch things. Monsters that are hooked up into the planet's life-force like that. You guys don't mind if we go after those, right? I've found that uh. Our... unique blend of spiritual whatever-it-is works really well on those, and it'd be a shame if we couldn't like... Help deal with that, if it gets to be a problem."
"Second is uh," Zed scratches awkwardly at the back of his head. "...Speaking realistically, I don't know for sure if... If everyone will get over the whole war so quick." After all, not all of them had the luxury of sleeping through basically the entire war. "I know a lot of us are feeling lost and confused, and that's a really easy place for some charismatic type to turn people to their own ends. I'll do my best to keep them from that, but... We're pretty human-like in that respect, I guess. So if that happens, please know that there will be those amongst us who'll do everything we can to keep the peace."
For a second, Zed looks like he's about to ask a third question, but--
Then he figures 'also where's boomerang and his guardian girlfriend' is probably a bridge too far.
<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.
Probation is not a particularly Hyadean concept, but Malfi understands the gist. "We...respect strength. You and your allies have proven strong," she admits, not without some internal wincing. No one will respect her now, she reflects, not if they find out about the rebooting... She casts a shy glance in Kalve's direction. His disdain for the Tainted is well known. He might be able to help her, if she dares to ask. But will she work up the nerve?
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida recognizes that whining noise. "Zed," she says, her voice calm and gentle, "I know." She may be keeping him from actually trying to hug Lucadia, which might be terrible for other reasons. She falls silent, then, letting Zed speak. She does not let go of Kalve's hand.
<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.
Kalve does not look directly at Malfi, nor express any sort of disdain for weakness, perceived or not. That doesn't mean he doesn't think it, though, does it? His hand closes around Ida's. The tension is present and unmistakeable.
"Please define 'taint,'" Kalve asks, voice even and expression as blank as ever. "My work involves turning uninhabitable locations into places that our people may thrive. In fact, perhaps we may come to some manner of accord that will prevent your followers from unnecessarily inciting further violence," he suggests. "Protection for the vulnerable places humans and others are unable to easily tread, where your enemies may seek to do harm to the already-injured world, in exchange for tolerance for our presence. It would be a shame to waste centuries of preparing for war by leaving us without an enemy." He rolls a shoulder. "Dangerous, in fact." It isn't meant as a threat.
Something else strikes him. "On the subject of taint, I find myself unable to interact with the world on a spiritual level already. Is this a result of Guardian intervention, or a fundamental incompatiblity? I would very much like to fill my time with mystical and ecological studies if opportunity permits, rather than continuing to develop weaponry that will see no use."
Unless, say, they don't get given an enemy. Weird how that works.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"The Primarchs... yes. You may turn your weapons upon them," the Guardian says. "You may act to defend Filgaia. And we are aware that you, much like humans, are... individuals. We have difficulty seeing you. We do not understand you. But we shall not judge your kind for the one, but for the many."
Some convincing may be necessary. Then, Lucadia turns her head -- looking at Malfi, before she bobs her head. "Yes. We are strong."
After that, though, Lucadia's full attention is upon Kalve. She stares at him, for a long moment. "If you would poison our land... or turn it into something unnatural, that it is not, then we shall object. You speak of our followers. I speak of the life of this world as part of the whole of Filgaia. Elw, humans, the trees, the plankton, all of them--they are part of Filgaia's harmonious whole. And yet... fractured. We seek to mend it. Do not call anything of Filgaia your enemy, for we are Filgaia. If you would change Filgaia's nature, rather than change your own..."
Lucadia shakes her head. "I make no promises should your changes threaten the land. You know not what you might kill through such rash action. Yet, should they bolster and restore it, you would do our work. I know not why you cannot form a connection. I fear it may be Mother's lasting taint... and yet without her, perhaps it shall pass, in time."
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
It's okay, Ida. Zed's not gonna hug Lucadia. Not going to hug her. Nope. Definitely not.
Zed looks vaguely like he is using every single ounce of willpower to... not... hug... Lucadia.
It's hard, okay. Really hard. There is much good news here to bring home. Much good news. And some... Not so good news.
Zed pauses and gives Kalve a long, sympathetic look. "...Even if we can't change entire places over. I think... I dunno, maybe just like us, if we take it slow, then we can maybe figure out a way to get things to... coexist? I mean, look at Ida, or Gwen."
Zed is... Helping? Trying to? Maybe?
"...The fact is, though. We're a lot hardier than most humans. So it's not a bad idea to settle out in the badlands somewhere... maybe. I think it'll take some time for most humans to come around to not seeing us as monsters."
Zed turns to Lucadia again then-- and nods. "...Thanks. Really. This was a lot more than we had before. Maybe someday we can... Like... Get to be better friends? That'd be the best." Zed...
...Might really just want a giant water dragon, literal space godzilla and a frickin' firebird as pals.
He's... he's got simple needs, when you come down to brass tacks.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"Oh uh, actually since you're... here," Zed asks sheepishly of the giant sea snake, "The Primarch of Water mentioned something about my sword. I'm... not sure what he was talking about, but I figure maybe it'd be good to ask if you knew anything. It seemed pretty... concerned about me having it?"
Doom Bringer... Is it actually a terrifying artifact weapon of incredible power!?!?
Or maybe the Primarch was just worried that Zed would get his zeddiness all over him.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida gives Kalve's hand a gentle squeeze. She's here for him, no matter what. "Lady of the Oceans," she says, "if--if I may." She steps forwards, looking at the massive, spectral serpent before her. "There are... places, in this world, that have been deeply scarred, and one of them is my home. The soil is poisoned. Everything that grows in it is stunted, withered--and it would surely poison anyone who dared eat it. We've... we've tried so many things to heal it, but nothing worked. Nothing until I sent my younger sister one of Kalve's creations. It not only grew, it left the soil clean, pure. Without all the toxic metals that seeped into it over the centuries. If one plant could do that, then thousands of them could restore what was lost to us. For the very first time, we could sow the land."
Ida lets out a breath. She can't touch Lucadia, but she finds herself humoring the same irrational impuse that struck Zed--the urge to just touch an elemental force of nature, and to empathize with her. "I know you're frightened. I know. I cannot comprehend how it feels to be the world, but I've felt that fear that only comes when you're sure you'll lose everything."
"Thank you for trusting in me," Ida says. Her voice is tiny, but sincere. "In all of us."
<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.
Malfi is relieved that the audience is over. She hadn't expected it to go so quickly. She'd anticipated more resistance from the Guardian, maybe even to have to fight her. She's disappointed that she can't stake out and transform an entire island or two, but, as Zed points out, there are ...other options, potentially, other paths worth the exploring. She listens as the others prepare to take their leave. Evidently this is the Guardian of the Oceans. Malfi bows to Lucadia, courteous to the end. This has gone better than she ever would've dreamed! She agrees with Zed's idea of settling the harsher, more out-of-the way areas. There are too many humans who hold grudges.
<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.
Kalve's stony expression cracks momentarily. He dips his head for a second, then raises it. "Understood." He doesn't make any indication that he intends to stop, but he doesn't add in any further fuel to this particular fire, either. Some of them will want this all to just go away. If the Guardians will allow them to leave the past in the past, fine.
But you don't spend hundreds of years preparing to fight something like the spirits of a world and then give up on it that easily, either.
"We'll keep our distance until the humans lose some of their fire when they hear of us," Kalve murmurs. "Perhaps it's best to just outlive the bitterness."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Your blade? I know not," Lucadia admits to Zed. Then, she looks at Ida. She stares at her for a long moment. "Perhaps. But what has seemed hopeful, before, has turned to ash and desolation. Machinery has often done far more damage than good. You speak, human, as if we are the same. As if you could know what I feel--as if you and I can feel the same thing."
She is quiet, for a moment. "We cannot. I do not trust in you. I judge it best, for now, to place a measure of hope in you. Trust is not something for eternities, human. Know that."
Her eyes turn briefly at Kalve and Malfi. There is a long, considering look... and then the image of the Guardian fades away.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"Ah, well that's fine, it was kind of a long shot," Zed says with a helpless little shrug. "Well, still. Thanks for telling us about... All this. It means a lot. I think it'll be strange for many of us to adapt to peace, but... It's not like we could really keep up an eternal war."
Zed offers a quick salute as Lucadia's image returns to the ley, before he... just sort of flops backwards into the snow-covered arena. "Ohhhhhhh wow I didn't think that'd go that well. That was stressful. Way too stressful. Next time we're bringin' Riese to do the pointman talking, ho wow."
At least... At least they know, now. They know that, if they can let go, the Guardians will too.