2020-09-08: The Seraph and the Maester
- Log: The Seraph and the Maester
- Cast: Seraph Harmaus, Seymour Guado
- Where: Kasutho Island
- Date: September 08, 2020
- Summary: As Kaguya suggested, Harmaus seeks out Seymour Guado to make his case... and perhaps takes another step nearer to his goals.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Locating a particular person, especially when they have well-hidden themself from the world at large takes time, in the end. Seymour Guado had long since parted from the Baskar Village -- this, he had confirmed, and not just with Kaguya. That said, it also had seemed like the man had not yet left the island.
If there is one thing that Harmaus has on his side it is an overabundance of time. This body will eventually perish, but he will endure.
So it takes time, but the Seraph has centuries of experience hunting that which would be hidden.
It takes, in fact, about a couple of weeks.
More than likely, whatever people from Spira the Maester has with him are not particularly willing to grant the Seraph an audience. There are unfortunate downsides to a fleshy body, the foremost being that he can no longer come and go as he pleases. But he didn't get to where he was -- in the form he is -- by being easily deterred.
What does he have to offer the Maester? Nothing, save information.
What does he want from the Maester? Nothing, but the same.
The strange man -- looking enough like any Drifter of Filgaia to nearly fade into the background -- stands outside the encampment yet and waits.
"We waits until we has admittance. We have searched for 'Seymour' long enough!"
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
The encampment is a small thing. Seymour Guado only has less than a dozen Guado Guardians with him on Filgaia. Led by Biggs and Wedge, they have constructed a trio of tents, in the Kasutho countryside.
When the strange man appears, a trio of Guado look up. They stand out; like no Beastman from Filgaia, Glenwood, or Meribus, though many would call them that. Their fingers twitch, reaching for weapons. But then, a bigger and broader one than most steps forward.
Biggs still has the shell-styled armor on, and a sword and shield. Neither is drawn, as he steps forward.
"Who are you?" he demands. "And what do you want?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Harmaus' reaction is to exhale out a long breath, as if he were weary of it. "We are Harmaus," the Seraph says, gesturing towards his own chest. "We travels a long way to speak with Seymour. We understands it... knows things we seek. But, ah... information for free is all, yes? So we come with our own offer."
He gestures towards the both of them. "We knows Lunar, the world outside Spira. We knows it quite well!" The man grins, baring his teeth. "Perhaps we know what it does not?"
Almost as an afterthought he regards those weapons on their hip, that armor.
"Ahh," rumbles the Seraph, then undoes his weapon belt, allowing it to fall to the ground at his feet, heavy with knives and ARMs. "It reminds us. Yes, yes, we intend no ill. Only to speak! Our death is a hindrance, yes?"
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
Biggs Guado is not a complicated man. He is a trained soldier; a veteran of the Guado's campaigns, more dedicated to his people and their leader than to his faith. He sees the world in a fairly black and white, simple way. He sees not a Seraph -- not even an opportunity -- but a madman, to be waved away. "Look, I think you have some funny ideas," he says. "It's time for you--"
"That's enough, Biggs."
The voice is softspoken as ever. Eloquent, even with three words. But raspy, now, in a way that it wasn't before. The flap to a tent moves aside, and then he steps out.
Seymour Guado is a ghastly sight. He looks like the robed half-Guado he was in life. However, half of his face -- and pieces of his body, all over -- are gaping holes, that fuzz at the edges with the prismatic light of pyreflies. His clothing has the same holes; they reveal themselves as nothing more than an illusion he projects. The same is true of his body.
He looks Harmaus over, for a moment. Then, Seymour inclines his head. "You come offering information, is it?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Many people have that sort of reaction to Harmaus. Perhaps this is just what happens when someone who never had to learn any sort of human social graces then has to play the part of normal human. The body is more trouble than it's worth sometimes, but--
Harmaus purses his lips. "Tcha. It thinks our ideas funny? Perhaps it cleans out its ears and listens harder next--"
The tentflap opens.
Kaguya had mentioned one important thing about the Maester.
The fact that he was already dead.
"Aha..."
He doesn't turn away in horror.
The Seraph has raised an eyebrow, appraising Seymour and his absolute wreck of a body. "It lies to us not. It is truly..." the Seraph murmurs, unable to immediately look away from Seymour. For a Seraph, 'form' is malleable to a degree. But he knows well the failings of mortal bodies. And mortal spirits.
He nods the once, bowing forward as he does so. "Yes. We perhaps looks it not now, but we descends to the Blue Star. Like it does! Only from another land. We traveled a long way here to learn its secrets and someday, we return. But we know," he says, gesturing towards Seymour with an empty hand, "that it fights Althena's faithful." He scowls, as if he has tasted of a bitter fruit. "We has not love for Althena. A false goddess she!"
And yet, there remains some reverence for the goddess, for Harmaus still refers to her as 'she'.
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
Because Seymour is Seymour, he is disappointed at the lack of a horrified reaction.
He deals with that nonetheless. He stands up straighter, back more rigid, and then he looks at Harmaus for a moment. He pinned him, at first, as something from Filgaia. One of their foolish humans; but, he recognizes the term 'Blue Star.' The term preferred by those from beyond Spira. Seymour's head tilts, and part of the inside of mouth is visible.
"You are correct," he says. "I fight the false goddess. And she is false." He smiles, and it is only half a smile. Then he lifts a hand, missing a few fingers still.
"And this would not be in her plan," he says. "Then... what is it that you wish to know? And what is your name, my friend?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
It is certainly a grotesque shape. Harmaus, however, is a Seraph who counts over seven centuries in his life's span, and has fought many a Hellion and human alike. He has seen flesh in its many contortions over that span.
There is, nearly, a certain loveliness in the body Seymour wears now. As if what was hidden from sight was made visible, its truths exposed to all.
Yes, perhaps it is a form that the Seraph finds strangely pleasing, in his own twisted way.
It would be a fair assessment of Harmaus that he descends from the stock of Filgaia -- after all, that is the flesh he has here captured. But the animate force within...
...Twists Harmaus' mouth into a faint smile. "Yes... she hides much and deceives her faithful," he explains. "By her will, they come to Spira for war! Her purpose and goal... we knows it not. Not yet. Save that she tells us lies for too long!" He seems animate by wrath, nearly, teeth bared. But even that brief burst of fury dies down.
"We are Harmaus. A wanderer, we," he says, gesturing towards himself. "We seeks understanding of 'Malevolence'. We learns it from another: that it uses a 'seed' and births it here. Wonders it not? Why Malevolence not roots easily... ahh," he rumbles, shaking his head. "It not roots easily in Spira, yes... this, too, we seeks understanding!"
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
"Harmaus, is it?"
Seymour says the name thoughtfully. His eyes turn, meeting a wiry Guado. Wedge shakes his head; it isn't a name that he knows, for better or worse. Then, he looks back at Harmaus, and he considers for a moment. The fury, he thinks, could be useful.
"I've heard of this Malevolence... yes, and seen it now. My compatriot--perhaps you know them--assisted me in the use of it. After all..." He holds a hand up. It undoes itself; it unravels into a burst of Pyreflies, and then merges back together. "...Pyreflies are anathema to the stuff. Wherever I stand, Malevolence is far away. I have waded into a den of the stuff, and it backs away from me."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
His name is by no means a well-known one, here on the surface of the Blue Star. This may be how he prefers it, at least for now.
"Its compatriot? Ah, the one that provides the seed!" His gaze rests on the man, who yet manages some control over the stuff that makes his 'flesh'.
He watches the demonstration with no small amount of interest.
"Anathema..."
One might assume this to be antithetical to Harmaus, obsessed with the nature of Malevolence and constantly seeking it here on Filgaia. But--
"Hmm, hmm... it wonders us," the Seraph-in-flesh muses, rubbing at his beard. "Where Althena's faithful dwell, it is everywhere," he explains, gesturing now with both hands. "Worse in cities, yes. But everywhere. Yet not in Spira. Curious, curious..."
He cocks his head. "Then that is what we seek. The seed. In exchange... we tells it what we knows of Althena, her faithful, her lands. Much we knows that faithful know not." He pauses a moment, then eyes Seymour. "...For I lives long, and this flesh be but a vessel."
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
"I may be able to help with the seed," Seymour promises. It is not one that he can keep; K.K. is the one who had created the Malevolent field there.
"Hmm. Perhaps they are... accursed?" Seymour volunteers. "Pyreflies are what we are. They guide us--when we are ready--to the afterlife. To the Farplane."
He nods. "Then, I will listen, and I will share."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"It helps?" says the Seraph, unknowing of the potentially false promise. "Then it is agreed: we makes the exchange!"
He extends a hand. It may be a strange experience to shake on this one, all considering.
"The accursed? We -- I -- knows not of this. It tells us more," Harmaus says, probing the matter. "Maybe it illuminates much a mystery we has chased and begged after for centuries." He flashes, briefly, a toothy grin. "To this, connects too the 'goddess'. Malevolence and Malevolence-absence... there, we finds the answer. The truth. Ah... but first, we -- I -- has much to say."
He is, to start, not human. He's a Seraph -- a spirit descended from Lunar to ferret out the truth of Malevolence upon the fabled Blue Star. There may be a few fine important details omitted here, but they are not lies by the Seraph's reckoning as much as they are... unimportant things.
Because there are more important things to explain about the rest of Lunar.
Such as the Lord of Calamity, a being of which Malevolence churns in their footsteps, awoken several times upon non-Spiran Lunar.
"...If we believe the lies, the Lord of Calamity must be defeated. Destroyed. But, ah, this is so to conceal deeper truths. The things the 'Goddess' wants buried. I meets once a Lord of Calamity, long, long ago. There is one now, but it flees! Runs away to the Blue Star. Where it is now... ah, we knows it not. Perhaps it could assist in the truth. Perhaps not." Harmaus shrugs. "We seeks it yet, too, but it hides well from knights and us... and we has other means. Other thoughts."
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
Seymour shakes Harmaus's hand. His hand feels strange; his body is fuzzy, inconsistent. It is like a gas giant from the outer solar system, in a way: far more volume than mass, like he stretches out his Pyreflies to make himself have more of a body than he seems.
But he listens.
Seymour knows of Seraphim; he couldn't very well deal with those from Meribus and Glenwood without learning those truths. But he knew little; he had never spoken to one before.
"I see... and you want to know the truth of this Malevolence. You want to know the truth of this Lord of Calamity," Seymour says. "A noble goal, hm? I do not know of this Lord of Calamity. But the Trial Knight..."
He nods with understanding. "They may know much. Have you met them?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
It is a strange thing, to shake a hand that barely feels as if it is present. It almost gives him to wonder after whether there is a 'core' to the man as such... or if he is but a colony of these beings.
Pyreflies. Perhaps there is something to be learned in Spira, even if it has not what he seeks most of all.
Harmaus explains that he is borrowing the use of a body, as outside the rare few, most Seraphim cannot communicate with humans on Lunar -- and the same appears to be true on Filgaia. This is again true, just lacking some important specifics.
Such as the fact that he doesn't intend to give the body back.
"Much on Lunar hides yet. Is hidden," Harmaus corrects. "We seeks to unveil it. To show what is real. Then orrect and destroy what is false."
Is this noble?
But the Trial Knight...
"..."
Like all who have long dwelled on Lunar, Harmaus has heard of the Trial Knight.
"We knows of it. We meets it not," Harmaus avers, shaking his head. "Long it walks the land of Lunar, much storied is its deeds. But, ah... it is more old stories from home, yes? Maybe we meets it proper, now."
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
It may speak volumes about Seymour that the idea of stealing a body and keeping it does not greatly upset him. Or, perhaps, it does; it reminds him of certain tragedies on Spira. But Seymour being reminded of tragedies does not always earn his ire.
"I see... yes. There is much that is hidden." Seymour is complicit in hiding many of Yevon's secrets; he sees no reason to share them. "And things that are hidden must come to a reckoning."
He hesitates but a moment, then nods.
"I can arrange an introduction," the Maester offers.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"A reckoning, yes..." Harmaus murmurs, for the moment more akin to a lurking great cat than man. "Long postponed. Long overdue. But a reckoning comes."
What he wants and what the Maester wants are at once both two separate and two very similar things.
"Yes. It introduces us. And we tells it more. We keeps our bargain... Seymour of the Guado."
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
Seymour smiles. It isn't the reckoning that Harmaus expects...
...but Spira lives for reckonings, and Seymour has come to accept that the one he brings is not the one that most expect.
"Yes," he agrees. "We have an accord, Harmaus."