2022-06-13: Absence of Light

• Log: Absence of Light
• Cast: Ethius Hesiod, Eleanor Klein, Magilou, Jacqueline Barber, Ida Everstead-Rey, Lan Lilac, Venetia Vuong, Avril Vent Fleur, Matilda Whitehead, Marivel Armitage
• Where: Celesti Wastelands
• Date: May 13, 2022
• Summary: The Veruni have taken Demetrioi from Alcidamas Village... albeit willingly, on the part of Demetrioi themselves. Thanks to the decisive action of the Drifters and associated individuals, the actual loss of life was effectively nil. With Demetrioi's removal, desolation looms on the horizon. The climate is no longer ideal for supporting the once-miraculous agriculture, and with it a seeming hope for the recovery of the Zoara region is lost.
  The mayor himself barely survived what appeared to be an unrelated and coincidentally timed assassination attempt... but now faces a battery of difficult questions by those who would like answers.

---

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    A day has passed since Demetrioi left in the care of Kaguya and the Veruni as a whole... and a dust storm much like what they used to hold at bay graced Alcidamas the next morning as a reminder of what the former Celesti territory is truly like. Concerns about the water supply getting fouled up the next time it rains are not unfounded, as this region - like Halim - saw widespread use of chemical and biological weapons during the Civil War. Their food stores remain healthy, but the outlook going forward is... bleak! (The less said about the patch of land where Kaguya unleashed a fell power, the better.)

     It's late afternoon after the passage of said dust storm. By and large, most of the people of Alcidamas are physically unharmed. Most. Fereydoon was good on his word about minimizing direct harm outside of the show of force, though at least one fire did get a bit out of control. (It has since been taken care of.)

     There's one particularly shaken individual among the militia - the one who first threw down weapons in surrender on Fereydoon's demand - who is intimately familiar with life in the Control Zones. What exposition he has about that is nothing new and largely echoes Rebecca's spoken sentiments during that battle.

     Homer Mecone, mayor of Alcidamas Village, has it the worst among the people there. The pig-like Beastfolk holds onto consciousness like a champ, but any who are with him may pick up it is less stubborn commitment to duty and more out-and-out fear, but he keeps that fear held down well enough when spoken to. He's just had some bandages changed out, the dried bloodstains the strangest shade of bright orange, and had the third round of discussions with other villagers in positions of authority. The conversations are emotionally intense and often go in circles around the track of 'well, now what?'

     He's taking a brief jaunt outside with the help of a cane just to take in the sight of future return to desolation with four members of the militia keeping watch for a specific individual (they know who they are), sitting down on the stage of the main square while awaiting the next battery of questions.

     With Demetrioi's leave, the place is no longer deeply offensive to the senses of spirits and intelligent constructs (...or intelligent spirits). The pervasive gloom of man-made natural ruin (...prase that phrase for a sec) more than fills up that Demetrioi-shaped void in existence, though.

<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.

When Eleanor Klein arrived, it was after the battle--but it also wasn't alone. Some medics and workers accompanied her, who were set to help address wounds and help put out fires on behalf of ARMS. (As it turns out a number of them actually work for Eleanor's family, but that's fine.)

Here and now, she is done supervising some of those and is looking to Homer Mecone as he steps out into the square, immediately starting to walk towards him. "Mister Mecone," Eleanor says. "It's good to see you up and walking around."

She is dressed in standard scholarly attire, her Crests at her side along with an ARM, just in case... more trouble comes. She heard the warnings of Rebecca and that man.

She is...

She is sad. It is hard for her to hide that, looking around at this village that was so recently so full of life. But she keeps it to herself as best she's able.

<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    After Magilou declined to stop Kaguya and Amaterasu, despite accessing her full power, she... left Alcidmas. She rolled a sleeping fox-girl onto a strange arcane board, floated her out, and left.

    Which is to say: she's been no help whatsoever getting people together and healing the wounded and encouraging the despondent. A certain fire-touched wind spirit has been very helpful on the matter of helping the NPCs, but Boudicca is currently occupied doing that very thing, helping Rebecca distribute food to make sure all the citizens eat. We'd focus on her, except...

    SOMEONE...

    Has returned to the scene of the crime!

    Magilou -- no last name listed -- leans against the side of a building, having appeared out of nowhere today just as abruptly as she disappeared yesterday. She looks... a little singed, but shockingly, she's mostly fine.

    She pushes off the wall, sauntering towards Homer. "Not dead!" Magilou remarks, chipper. "How about that. So, do you want to tell us what bone Scowly MacOminous had to pick with you, or shall we dance around the point for a few hours and then drop it at the last moment?" Magilou folds her arms, loosely, hip all cocked aside. "Really, I'm easy. I've got alllll day."

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline Barber wasn't there for the Veruni attack on Alcidamas, but she heard about what happened. Those witness to this were audience to a frustrated, 'by the Guardians, Ethius' from Jacqueline, which is the closest she ever gets to actually swearing. Upon hearing this, she immediately made her way to the village to check out the damage.

It's... not as bad as she thought it would be, considering the Veruni attack. But it's still pretty bad. Some of that can be attributed to the removal of Demetrioi's unusal presence, and still others to the fear and uncertainty left behind.

"I am... so sorry about Ethius." Jacqueline apologizes, approaching Homer. "It never occurred to me that he would come here and... attack you."

Did he learn ahead of time that the Veruni were going to attempt to steal Demetrioi...? They certainly seem like the sort of thing he would take issue with.

"What's the situation? Is there anything the Caravan Kinship can do to help?" Jacqueline asks.

Eleanor and Magilou are here, too! The latter... asks a good question. Jacqueline doesn't stop her, because if there's an answer to that she kind of wants to know, too. She hasn't had a chance to question Ethius himself yet - though that's certainly on her list of things to do.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Like the other surviving wasteland towns, Alcidamas hung by a handful of threads, and now the strongest of those threads has snapped. As soon as the Veruni withdrew, Ida retreated to tend to her wounds, and then reemerged to help assess the damage. Her engineering skill tends towards the mechanical, and not the civil--but she has a keen eye for that sort of thing. She has managed to acquire both food and sleep, and in that respect, she's doing well. Emotionally, she's handling things with remarkable resilience--the guilt weighs on her, but she takes deep breaths and stays active. She even spent some time crying behind a tree to release.

    The horrible, unnatural hatred is gone, and the emotional chunks Magilou took out around it are starting to mend themselves.

    As Homer emerges, he starts to gather a crowd, and Ida is among them. The heiress wears a tank top and slacks, and her bare arms are bandaged. There are undoubtedly more bandages beneath her shirt. "He looked about ready to kill you," Ida says, as the others press on the obvious topic at hand. "I've never seen him that angry. I didn't realize it was him, at first."

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    Some things can't be changed, and some things can't be undone, but sitting around to dwell on them hasn't ever really helped Lan. Without Demetrioi, this place will soon enough be back to a wasteland.

    Even as she's sad about it, there's a curious squiggle of... almost relief, deep down. That sense of wrong that had weighed heavy on her is gone now, taken along with Demetrioi.

    She hasn't told anybody about it, because seriously, how could she? Besides, if anybody else can sense it, maybe they're feeling the same way too.

    After the dust storm subsided Lan had spent the day working to purify the ground where Kaguya had done... whatever the hell that was. Just because the place isn't blessed anymore doesn't mean it has to be cursed too. Other than that, she's helped change bandages and treat the injured.

    With people starting to gather around, she dusts her hands off on the seat of her shorts and heads toward them. She has questions she wants to ask after chewing on them all night, but... is it mean to ask someone why their blood is orange?

    But then Magilou just cuts to the heart of it and Lan figures she probably can't do much worse. "And why is your blood orange? Sorry if that's mean," she adds quickly, because Lan is Lan.

<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.

VENETIA VUONG, who has given herself a job title, has remained in town in the aftermath of this.

Venetia Vuong doesn't *like* this place. It seems *run-down.* It's pretty *dingy*. People are *sad*. There was a lot of claptrap and betrayal and so on going on which Venetia did not fully encompass despite her brilliant mind and alien super-magic. She has a feeling that all these overdwellers have a terminal case of the *pouty puss*.

And yet: This is their home. Someone was taken from this place, whatever nebulous bad vibrations it may have created. Venetia could twig to those vibes, even if she is at the point, between the re-eruption of the Metal Demons and their revelation to actually mostly be just folks AND getting money from Marivel Armitage, noted local vampire and soul-eating darkness tragic crimson scarlet little big sister, of assuming anyone with strange, horrid vibes is probably an alright person based on their behavior, if it is not aggressive.

And so, social progress is made.

Venetia has been following around with Eleanor and periodically doing earth moving. In particular, she was able to fix some drainage ditches with a single spell, which made her feel good about herself. BUT NOW:

Venetia squints at Magilou from behind her lace mask. She seems to do math.

"I agree with the jester woman," Venetia continues. "I don't mean to press you in the aftermath of your loss, Mr. Mecone, but actually, I'm going to press you for, at the very least, more information. I'd like to think that as a dispassionate observer who has also materially assisted your town, I deserve an explanation if only for the records of history, which shall some day be written."

"Eh?" she says to Ida. "What? The nervous man? That one?" She looks back at Mecone with incredulity. "Did you owe him money?"

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    "I came as soon as I was able."

    So speaks Avril, freshly arrived into the aftermath that Alcidamas has become.

    The damage is not as severe as she had feared, surveying the village in the wake of the dust storm that had delayed her arrival on the newly-repaired Skadi, but what she had learned from her friends painted a bleak future for this little toehold in the Celesti wastes. They may be able to hold back the inevitable for a time, but...

    She can't see any future for Alcidamas, not without Demetrioi to withstand the ruin of the wastes. This is, truly...

    "...How awful," she murmurs, joining the others here in the middle of the village. "I am very sorry."

    She bows her head, as if this is her fault. In a way, it technically is.

    Her gaze glides towards Homer, tilting towards Magilou, then at Lan. "...?" Avril more or less vocalizes, cocking her head slightly to her left. "Is there something amiss?"

<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

... it feels a lot more like home now that they're worried about dust storms and the long-term viability of the soil, and that's kind of depressing for Matilda to think about for too long at a stretch. She's been working with the medics, primarily, though; soil health is kind of a distant concern at this point.

Matilda blinks at Magilou as she asks what might be the best and most useful question -- and one she was honestly too engaged with helping with the base level to even think about. She might have gotten there eventually, granted, but...

Venetia's question gets a slightly strained laugh. "... I somehow doubt it's that simple," she says, with a shake of her head. "But I *am* very interested in the answer."

<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

Lydia Seren heard that cool robot buddy got kidnapped! That sucks! And okay, it felt weird but it wasn't hurting nothing and it's not like Rigdobrite called her up to say AHHH THIS IS BAD' so what was she gonna do with that weird thing anyway.

But she also is curious about this Homer guy because she's pretty squinty because Homer Mecone is a fake name Ethius gave in a game of fake names and perhaps things in fake name space should be kept in fake name space but it's still PRETTY WEIRD isn't it?

She says, "Hi Lan!" when she arrives. "Hey Ida!" because that's probably whom she knows the most. "Hi I'm here I'm queer and I'm guessing Ethius fucked something up didn't he?"

She doesn't really know the full story but she thinks it's a safe bet.

She looks to Jay for confirmation.

I am so sorry about Ethius. It never occured to me that he would come here and attack you.

"I guess I kinda figured he probably would do that." Lydia admits. "Because he stole your name once and he's got problems. So sorry about that."

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    What guard post Homer could muster on such short notice, he waves (most) of the collective through to come see him. Even then, every so often he looks over his shoulder as if to be extra sure he's not about to be jumped by... someone, or anyone.

     "They your people?" Homer points a thumb at where one of Eleanor's workers are going about being good people. The words are curt, in a near one-eighty of his manner when everyone was discovering Alcidamas... at which point he humbly lowers his head. "Sorry, sorry, miss, uh... just hafta be on top of who's who. Moreso 'n I had. They're... you're doin' us a real solid. Hnnnn." He exhales and sorts. "Not a whole lotta people before'd say that ta me." He wants to laugh at that, but can't.

     Magilou happens. All of the posted guard look shocked about how she gets this close unnoticed when she made no real attempt to hide herself approaching. Even Homer gets a bit jumpy, giving her the side-eye as she cuts to the chase of the most interesting question to be had here.

     "Scowly Mac What?" Homer makes a face as he fails to acknowledge that's a silly nickname taped over a serious question, as Jay approaches to apologize. From what she can tell, Fereydoon outright destroyed two proper barracks for the militia and an armory - purely military targets. The fires did spread to some other holdings but the worst of that was averted.

     "Ethius, as innn," Homer remembers that chatty tall girl talking about how he 'collects trash to save us all,' and Jay jogs his stress memory even though the whole event has been blatantly on his mind. That's what mortal fear does in the wake of catastrophic upheavel, as he sits up and has his eyes widen. "That guy. That guy. That-" He gives Jay a look. "Not expectin' someone like that to kill someone...?" He might be on the verge of laughter. "L-Listen, uh, I'll need ta get back to you on how your people can help, I got... it's a mess 'n I'm a quarter-dead."

     Ida cuts to the chase - he looked about ready to kill him and that Ida had never, ever seen the man that angry to the point she didn't recognize him. (One of the militia types posted with Homer, as an aside, asks if Ida is all right - they did accidentally eavesdrop on Ida sobbing behind a tree.)

     "Uh." Homer seems kind of frightened at the implications. "You... knew that guy? For, uh, how long?"

     Lan does excellent work in purifying the ground best she can, but the reprieve she can give from the encroaching ruin of Celesti is fleeting at best. Still, when she approaches...

     "Hey, uh, thanks fer... showin' up when ya did," he says to Lan just as she asks about his blood color. It's blatantly strange! "I, uhhhh... uhh. Could ask why anyone's is red, y'know?" Nervous, as he covers up an arm where the scabbing is especially odd to look at, pulling up a sleeve and revealing a handful of Symbological tattoos.

     Venetia makes it clear she should be entitled to information for her aid, which seems to be something the Drifter social contract oft lacks as part of the clause for compensation for services rendered, and then some! He blinks a few times at the idea about owing money, and Homer is now scratching the end of his snout in thought. "Y'know, that... that might make some sense, uhh." He catches himself from saying anything more on that out loud. Venetia may have found a lead...?!

     Avril asks if there's something amiss. She can see Homer has a weird blood color, is 'a quarter dead' by his admission though has been able to get up and walk around with a cane, and the place looks kind of blasted where two barracks and an armory once stood. (She can overhear someone yelling to another about 'where the hell was Guild Galad?')

     To Matilda's estimates and trained eye, the soil viability has become 'lol' in somewhat short order, but the collected seeds and other foodstuffs harvested are at least some key to the future... but not here, any more. She might laugh further at the accidental admission out loud that Venetia might be correct on some front.

     If Lydia catches sight of Homer's Symbological tattoos from when he hiked up a sleeve, she'll notice it's a virtually identical pattern she's seen on Ethius. Homer makes a face at mention that this Ethius fellow used his name.

     "Hey, you were talkin' that man up," he gives Lydia a Look(tm). He relents, and considers his surroundings - seeing the shaken villagers over there, two aggravated people from Magilou's intrusion, and... he holds his hands up. "L-Look, miss... I gotta put it straight. I dunno what he said, but a Hesiod?"

     "They're bad news. 'n... I wasn't good tidings most my life neither," Homer admits, takes in a breath. "But ya all deserve to know this much: everyone's lives are in danger if at least one has been skulkin' about."

     

     MEANWHILE

     Boudicca can see flecks of blackish-purple rising from a few villagers, namely some of the militia who might have had to deal with the occasional Hellionized wildlife in Zoara's slow march towards becoming Filgaia's Glenwood. (Thanks, you-know-who!) They won't be hard to attend to once Dean can be called over from his current work with Rebecca about a stuck barn door. (Doors are the nemesis of Bystanders too. Why do doors even exist? They're more trouble than they're worth.)

<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.

"They are," Eleanor says. "We're here on behalf of ARMS." Eleanor gives Homer a faint smile when he can't quite laugh; she can't at the moment, either. "We're here to help, that's all."

Magilou asks a good question, and Eleanor is too disheartened over what happened and how she was unable to avert it to actually muster the irritation with Magilou's manner. Like Jay, she's admittedly interested in the answer. She does however frown at Magilou, before looking over Jay and shaking her head. "..."

Venetia brings up 'the nervous man', and Eleanor looks especially downcast for a moment, looking to the ground before she shakes her head. "...He claimed to have no relationship with Mister Mecone," Eleanor supplies, though why she would've talked about it with him is something of a mystery. She doesn't go into detail. She might, but she stops short when Lan asks why is blood is orange, and she blinks a bit, her Decorum Senses briefly rendering alarm.

You can't just ask someone why their blood is orange, Lan. So Eleanor says, "That's fine."

Ethius... hesiod...

"...Hesiod?" Eleanor says. "You know him from before? But he claimed to have know knowledge of you..." Eleanor frowns sharply. "...How long has he been lying to us...?"

<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure I said he was also kinda a nut. I was pretty clear on that. He got hit on the head and has brain problems, pretty sure I mentioned that." Lydia says, though now she's second guessing it. Maybe she told other people that about Ethius.

"Like there was this one time he collected a whole bunch of trash, and whenever he tries to cook something it becomes charcoal, but--he totally did save me so I mean I have to give him the benefit of the doubt even if he's real bad about communicating things but is great about being weird about stuff." She brightens. "He tried to teach me about relationships it was pretty cute heh heh..."

She remembers Ethius tried to murder someone here.

Yeah he's...uh... Ethius Hesiod. That's what he called himself. I don't know why he used your name that one time. Maybe you're the one with the secret spooky past, bud!"

She pauses. "I mean maybe? I dunno. Like, how would he even know about you?"

She quirks her head, frowning. "...And whadaya mean a Hesiod?"

Her eyes widen. "You ARE the one who was hiding junk! Yuo should tell us everything you know about him!!"

She points with both arms.

"....And you have the same tattoos!! Maybe you sohuld've been up front about junk! Are you brothers? Jilted lovers? I'm sorry but Heshiod isn't into---relationships and junk so you better give up on him now and not give him a hard time about it." Pause. "And I mean I guess my blood is silver but..."

She gasps. "Are you an alien?!?!?! Are you here to...are you here to probe people?"

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline offers Matilda a smile, and then glances in Lydia's direction. She hesitates for a moment.

"...He was... involved, and I'm to understand he's responsible for Homer's current condition, but the Veruni were the ones who showed up and took Demetrioi, a sort of... plant-machine who was maintaining this place." She explains for her benefit. ...Even if Jacqueline isn't entirely sure how they did it - she just knows from her shaman friends and Mariel that the Guardians and the planet did not appreciate their presence.

"...No, I know what he's capable of. I've had to stop him myself before. I just didn't expect him to target you and this village. I'm just curious why." Jacqueline replies to Homer with a shake of her head. "I should be upfront - he's in my employ, which is why I feel... personally responsible for not keeping a closer eye on him."

Homer mentions that a 'Hesiod' is bad news. A frown crosses Jacqueline's face. ...Didn't Grace react quite negatively to hearing his name, too?

"'Everyone's' lives? Can you elaborate on that? What makes a 'Hesiod' so specifically dangerous? He can be... a handful, certainly, but I don't know if I'd go that far."

Ethius is one of her own. Whatever he's done, she does feel a bit required to come to his defense.

She looks, briefly, to Lydia. ...She's not really sure she can add anything to that.

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    If all it took to fix a blighted land was a shaman, western Ignas would be doing a lot better. Lan can at least remedy what Kaguya did to a small patch of ground, and maybe help the town of Alcidamas that way. What if someone who wasn't here for the siege stepped in it or something?!

    Lydia gets a wave, as does anybody else she recognizes (except for Magilou, whose attention Lan isn't keen on right now. Sorry Homer, you get to tank that aggro). "You're welcome. Sorry I wasn't here early enough to keep him from beating you up at all, but..." Homer attempts to dodge her (rude, rude, rude) question and Lan... kind of misses his intention. "Oh, that's a good point. It's because blood has a lot of iron in it." That is... an incredibly truncated version of the explanation Loren had given her, but it's what stuck. After all, rust is made of iron and it's red(dish) also. It had made sense.

    As everyone else talks, Lan also notices the Symbology writ on Homer's skin. Something nudges the back of her mind. A memory; something important about tattoos like those.

<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    Magilou is frighteningly good at getting into places despite not having a scrap of permission. And skulking about, despite being dressed like this. She approaches without care for the people she's aggravating, though she isn't, at least, making any outwardly threatening movements. Though she does aside, to Venetia: "I'm not a jester, I'm a witch!"

    This is apparently a very important distinction, despite the fact she's clearly dressed like a clown.

    But Homer asks how long they knew Ethius...

    Lydia gasps, and asks the obvious question: is he an alien?!

    "You could ask why anyone's blood is red, I suppose," Magilou goes on, tossing her hair over her shoulder. (Her bangs fall right back into her face.) "And you'd be marked immediately as a visitor for it, because having red blood is the first thing you learn at Lunar school. Filgaia school too, presumably. Unless you want to tell us something?" She asides, to Matilda, lightly.

    "Oh, it's certainly true that Ethius has 'mysterious checkered past' simply plastered over his face," Magilou, no last name given, rambles on. "It wouldn't at all surprise me to hear he's done a spot of war crimes, before he drifted up here. When was that, again?" She directs this question to Jacqueline, who seems to know him the best of anyone here, as far as Magilou is concerned.

    "... but I think you'd better be a little more direct in your exposition," she tacks on, eyelids lowering over her gaze like half-drawn blinds, fingers drumming against her arms. It's not, exactly, a threat. It's not NOT a threat, either. "Because it would be terribly easy for someone from his graduating class to show up and start sowing discord, given that man's reticence. For all his antics, Hesiod has been an active force in history here -- and what have you done, Homebody? You showed up one day with a plant which broke a few too many rules... why, it's all very interesting."

<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.

Venetia nods along to various people coming in as her arms fold in front of herself. She looks briefly consternated at the news of Ethius stealing someone's... name? The prospect of identity theft is one that Venetia Vuong rarely considers. Can you just do that? she thinks. This may become a Crest later.

("Well, you dress like a jester," Venetia asides to Magilou after her protestations of witchdom.)

She puts a hand on her hip then as she purses her lips and frowns. "If you're in hock to him and he's coming to collect, you might as well say it all out. We don't need to know every sordid detail about your economic or other relationships, just the stakes and the scope."

Venetia gestures vaguely at other people. "I'm quite sure they'll be glad to assist you, they seem familiar with him."

Lydia speaks up again, having spotted evidence. Venetia frowns even more than usual, if such a thing were possible, and glances towards Eleanor and Ida before asking Homer, "If you are an alien, do you know the true name of god?" She says it like it's some kind of secret-society thing, and tilts her head. This may be Homer's out, if he does!

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    "I needed some time to cry," says Ida, sotto voce, to the concerned militiaperson. This was not her home, but it was hope, despite its flaws. Now it's crumbling.

    "He first showed up, for lack of a better term, about five years ago. Miss Barber would know more, of course--" A glance sidelong at Jay. "--But my first interaction was when he stole preserved Hyadean blood less than a week before Adlehyde. He has been nothing but suspicious, and possesses a great deal of knowledge of ARMs, and how to break them."

    Ida reaches into a case at her side. She's tipping her hand here, but... sometimes the risk is worth the payoff.

    "You know his family," Ida says. "I, however, do not. My family is... not well-acquainted with criminal elements, but in all the years I've been a Drifter, I've never heard of them. Which makes it odd, to me, that you know them. Maybe we've just run in different circles." As she speaks, Ida's nimble fingers undo the catch on a sealed shockproof case. They reach inside. They undo the latch of the second, smaller shockproof case, and pull something out of the foam lining.

    "I think that you really did want to make a difference, here," Ida says, pulling out a small, stoppered vial with a second small, stoppered vial inside. Inside that:

    Powder. It shimmers with an odd, iridescent sheen when the light hits it. To most, it's simply pretty dust.

    To the right eye: Powdered Meta-Thallium, an element that by some cosmic vagary is not found--at least in significant quantities--in Filgaia's crust.

    Ida has a vial of it in her hand.

    "But as Venetia said, we need to know the truth. If Demetrioi is a danger--if Ethius is a danger--we need to know."

<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Matilda makes a note of the seeds; she considers, for a moment, taking them without even asking... but try as she might, she can't really convince herself to do that anymore. She'll... bring it up later, she decides, after a little deliberation.

"... I can't say I'm surprised," Matilda says, orienting instead on the topic of Ethius -- and the Hesiods? -- being dangerous. "Ethius has always had a curious and somewhat inscrutable line of reasoning regarding technologies and artifacts he views as 'out of place.' I've tried to narrow it down myself, but I think I may be missing key information."

Tapping her chin for a moment, she goes for the direct, obvious request. "I would very much like to know as much as you can say."

She gives a very brief glance to Eleanor. "It's not uncommon for one person to be more familiar with another than the other way around, honestly. I suspect there are a lot of people who know me who I don't know in turn." Her tone carries more than a little regret, in that.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    A filter, a part of her mind supplies. Something to keep out the dust and the particles. Oh, but then there would need to be accounting for the contaminants in the soil. A more elaborate system utilizing a sunken container, along with some sort of recycling...

    ...Filgaia, very likely, does not have the infrastructure or the means to produce what she would need for such a thing, Avril realizes, gazing still into the middle distance.

    With a near-imperceptible turn of her head, she returns to the here and now, stunned by the fact, too, that she knows how to create a system that might... that might save Alcidamas.
    If it had been over five thousand years prior, that is.

    "If there is anything that I might do, please, simply say the word," she says, as if she had not just now tripped backwards in time.

    But there is the matter of the Mayor, who, as Avril has already cottoned to, does not bleed like those of this world. As a matter of fact...
    Across two worlds, those of this world bleed red. Even Veruni bleed red.

    A single word, consisting of just one letter, gets her attention above all else. "'A Hesiod'?" she echoes, blinking. "Do you mean, his family?"

    'Everyone's lives are in danger if at least one has been skulkin' about,' says Homer Mecone.

    Something clicks in the recesses of her mind. Demetrioi. Homer. Ethius--

    "...And whatever do you mean by that?" Avril asks, drawing herself up to her full five-foot-four height. "Speak plainly," she says, shifting into a mode more forboding than prior.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    "Whoa, whoa." Homer holds up a hand as Eleanor seems to be on the verge of a breakdown over lies upon lies. "'m sorry, I... I know what a Hesiod is. They ain't, uh... rare." Except Ethius is the only one anyone's encountered, no one else has ever approached knowing about him except for Grace's fearful outburst during a robbery. That does make for two people who are frightened at the name.

     Lydia mentions that Ethius hit his head a bunch, and the face Homer makes is very... :|, as she describes how he at least was the sort of individual to go out of his way to do them any good. "Th-that was gonna be my next question--"

     Lydia calls out the similar tattoos. Homer looks nonplussed at what is the truth, her recollection is entirely correct. "Uhh. These two techniques," he decides to show the tattoos in brief, "they're just... um. One of 'em I use for breakin' past tricky electrical locks for... emergencies," that's Ethius' Surge Bolt, "the other... that's for when I gotta work with stuff that's gotta be powered but got some voltage requirements that ain't, uh, easy ta come by, to keep 'em powered." That's Ethius' Recurrent Current. "They ain't rare for technician or engineerin' work." By general measures of lie-telling, Homer seems to be speaking true on that front.

     Jay talks about her own history, and he seems shocked at the idea. "You stopped him, 'n... he didn't kill ya? He--" Has been working for Jay. He thinks back to how he must have hit his head a bunch, and seems as confused as anyone else about this. "So, uh, this 'Veruni,' they're... they're locals here? I ain't never seen anything like what they got outside of the... Zeboim stuff." Jay wants more clarification about the threat, but more on that soon.

     "M-Maybe for... you, eheh, umm," he will aside to Lan. "I won't hold it against ya, yer young, probably not so... worldly--"

     Somewhere in this mumbling there's Lydia's shouting about his origin point, and Magilou hammers on the point Lan is trying to get to. While there are occasional strange blood colors among Beastfolk (especially those of altered origins, see: Lydia and other assorted Solaris tragedy-atrocities), she lays out the strange amount of history Ethius has had a hand in. He might not need to even speak a word for Magilou to know - in the way witches of her caliber know - that she might be closer to the truth than anyone on that front.

     Venetia presses on the whole debt thing, and Homer throws his hands up. "A-All right, look - Demetrioi is... well, somethin' like that, able ta bring a miracle like fixin' an environment? There's, uh, things that go beyond a simple buyer-seller deal, 'n... I," Homer stammers. One of his detail walks up, and Homer has to hold up a hand asVenetia asks the question about the 'true name of god'. "There's a buncha them, ain't there? A trick question, right? Come on--"

     Ida points out the oddity. No one really knows the Hesiods beyond Homer and Grace. Ethius has always been cagey about his name to strangers to the point of farce... and then she points out a vial, and immediately catches Homer's eye. "That's... whoa."

     He knows what that is, and no amount of knowing Venetia's question and answer could avail him of it, as Ida demands the truth - and Matilda points out some of his behaviors. Avril's simple question about what he means by all that is...

     "All right. All right. Lemme break it down, from the... top."

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    At last! There are answers!!

     "I used ta deal with movin'... things." Homer gesticulates absently. "Ya could call it... smugglin'. Did it my whole life. Born into it, raised in it, lived in it. Family thing. Grandpa's grandpa's grandpa, that's how far back. Didn't have a head fer the managin', or whatnot. Mostly was the muscle when it came ta gettin' stuff, holdin' it for... tradin'. Sometimes called ta, y'know, deal with stuff."

     Homer shakes his head. "That's all behind me now. Managed ta get schoolin' a few years back off my savings and reasonin' in my advancin' age I oughtta pick up a trade, picked up some Symbology ta help with engineerin' stuff. For salvagin', or breakin' electronic locks like I said. So, uh. Demetrioi."

     Homer looks over in the distance where Demetrioi once was. "My boys went 'n found, uh, quotation marks, 'found' a thing - Demetrioi. Now, that sorta thing, ain't no one heard of 'em, but the documents we got with 'em didn't lie. Terraformin' device, long term, all sorta crazy claims 'n stuff. My last job, we were gonna sell it."

     "Well... that meetin' place, that was real far from here. Somehow it leaked, went bad. I took Demetrioi - they weren't turned on yet - 'n ran like hell. Never got a clear ID on the attackers, damn near got killed by one... but I got away with 'em. Might've been the only one who lived."

     "I don't reckon the Hesiods did it." Homer says. "My family ran afoul of 'em a bunch... ain't no surprise, same fields. Hesiods ain't afraid to flex their muscle. Fought 'em a lot in my time... I'd know if it were them." He speaks as if extremely sure of this statement. "But y'see, uh, that's still a deal that didn't get through. That woulda been on the family, moment the buyers knew the people they sent were dead."

     "...Makes sense they'd hire the Hesiods to get what they paid for." Homer supposes aloud. "'fore that, though, wasn't really a saint comin' here. Kinda lived life 'bout the same way any other bandit would've, 'till... y'see, turned out there was nothin'."

     "...But I still had Demetrioi." Beat. "'n... a technical manual that I had a hell of a time makin' sense of. Had to, uhh. Improvise." He smiles a bit. "Lucked out a bit, buncha spare components about that worked close enough?" Must be Zeboim salvage. Marivel may have shared that she didn't scan any when she applied her top-end scanning equipment to it, so... that means Demetrioi has the capacity to subsume, which may or may not alarm! "Had to, 'cause I was able to turn 'em on, and..."

     The posted detail is curiously unanimated in terms of hearing all of this world-shattering exposition.

     "I know at least one of ya were really upset by 'em, but Demetrioi has done nothin' but good." Homer looks down towards the ground. "Real friendly. Real curious. All they wanted ta do was make everyone happy, 'n... they did. Fixed the land, gave everyone 'bout them hope, 'n I thought, hey. Better life than what I had goin'. Gettin' too old to keep up with any of that... Demetrioi wouldn't hurt a fly. Ain't even gonna entertain the idea they're a threat. Even if I ain't completely sure 'bout how it all works, it does."

     "...'m guessin' this Ethius guy wants ta take 'em away and deliver them behalf of the original buyer, if he's been fussin' about things that don't belong here instead of... killin' everyone with all the other Hesiod thugs about."

     "...Wouldn't be able ta say why he's here alone because that ain't how they do stuff..."

<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.

"She's a witch all right," Eleanor agrees with Magilou to Venetia darkly. There might be a history there!

But she looks at Venetia again, when she mentions the name of god. And the matter of aliens... And Magilou--

Eleanor frowns at her again. She doesn't pull out a vial of her own; she doesn't keep it on her. But...

No, there are too many unanswered questions here. Matilda at least does give her one potential answer; Eleanor's expression softens slightly at her counsel. "...That's fair," she admits. Famous names, for instance. Like 'Hesiod' apparently is in some circles. Eleanor is not at all foreboding; she is perhaps more sympathetic-seeming than many, for that reason.

But Homer holds up a hand, and Eleanor does calm a little. But... Hm. The matter of Symbology is interesting, especially since they are not at all the familiar patterns she knows from her schooling--logical patterns, to be sure, but not done quite the same way.

The answers come. And Eleanor... is quiet. Very quiet, for the moment.

"...You recognize the material," she says thoughtfully, and looks to Venetia. "What do you think?"

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    "They are exactly the same as Ethius'," Avril notes, somehow able to tell this, herself. "Then that means that you both hail from the same place or have studied under the same tutors. I have not seen any tattoos of that exact sort on Filgaia or Lunar." ...Perhaps being an amnesiac means that she consequently has photo-perfect memory, somehow, to make up for the gaps?
    (This is not how any of that works.)

    Avril barely moves a muscle as she makes a barely-concealed threat, simply fixing Homer with a look that might just cut steel.

    And with that -- and the pressure applied from various ends -- Homer caves and starts over from the top.

    He's adept at moving things. A smuggler, as a matter of fact.

    "You are a criminal," Avril rather bluntly states, her expression little more than a porcelain mask for all the insight it might convey to him. "...Continue."

    He does.

    And speaks thus of what Demetrioi is.

    Terraforming device.

    "Terra... forming," Avril echoes, once again seeming to have transported to some position a million miles away, for all that she is able to maintain her focus on the here and now. "..."

    There is an ache, in her heart of hearts. Slowly, she raises one hand before her chest, and even more slowly yet, blinks.
    Just like that, she returns to the here and now. "...Demetrioi said he had never met me," Avril says, consernation now taking over for that previously glacial pose she had maintained before. Lifting one hand to hover before her, she gazes nowhere else but the ground, seemingly trying to connect two points within herself. "Yet, 'terraforming'--"

    Now is not the time.

    "...Ethius is...? Are you certain?" she asks Homer, trying to absorb what she's just been told. "Might he then work with the Veruni, if that is his aim?" Surely he wouldn't... try to take it from the Veruni.
    Right?

<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    ("These are a witch's highest raiments," Magilou shoots back, parenthetically, to Venetia. See? Even Eleanor agrees!)

    Homer's reaction to Jay tells Magilou something important -- something she was halfway towards, before he stammered that out -- which is that the orange-blooded man knows Ethius by reputation alone. After all, Magilou's met the man. She found him to be remarkably tolerant of her overtures!

    (Which is to say, he did not kill her. Unless she's a ghost, right now?! Whoa!)

    ... Magilou smiles to Venetia, when Homer decides that the true name of God is a trick question. It's amusement which fades, as she fixes her attention back on Homer. What he knows... well, Eleanor points out part of it, so she doesn't mention that interesting little vial at all.

    "Smuggling?" She asks, finally, hands unfolding to lift in a broad-shouldered shrug. "How mundane! I'm disappointed..! Though," she adds, tapping a finger to her temple with a sly grin, "it's funny how the engineering Symbology you picked up would be eminently useful for base thievery, isn't it? By sheer coincidence, I'm sure." Particularly given the way those tattoos are just like Ethius's, as Avril helpfully points out.

    She streetches her arms up, and laces them, casually, behind her head. "So," she says, a foot tapping loosely behind her, "let me get this straight. You had your one last job selling this terraforming device, and when you met your buyers, something went wrong and you fled with your life. But you don't think the Hesiods were involved." Magilou lets that hang, for a moment, precisely like the gallows. "Rather, you think the Hesiods got involved when your buyers got antsy about being ambushed."

    Her head cants, to the side. Her eyelids lower; so does her tone.

    "Interesting that you think they'd be going after you... and not the people who interrupted your little party. Are you telling me they left no scrap nor whit of a clue whomst they were? Or... are you just weak enough to be the easier target for the buyer's frustrations..?"

    She shrugs, elbows wagging up into the air. "Oh, well," Magilou sighs, entirely unbothered. "This wouldn't be the first time God woke up innocent and half-formed, on account of not having all the parts of himself in place." Himself..?

<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

Lydia listens carefully to this story.

"Um but the way you describe Ethius doesn't really make sense." She says. "Ethius is too weird to just be a smuggler guy! Why would a smuggler guy collect trash?? That doesn't make any sense! And why would he rescue me from an evil big guy who ripped my hand off??"

She crosses her arms. "Maybe... Ethius Hesiod is also not a real name. Maybe he just took it and then did his usual 'break all technology' routine again even though we told him not to like a million times."

She looks down. The idea that Hesiod is actually some kind of bandit is almost completely unbelievable to her. "Why would he be friends with me if he just wanted to get this dumb weird robot thing."

(Marivel totally shared this information and was probably real haughty about it and probably threw in extra technobabble words to make it extra incomprehensible).

"Maybe...he's ...a former member maybe...? Or they took him in after one of his blows to the head... or..."

She sniffs once.

"He can't be...a bad guy." She sniffs again. "He's just messed up... He probably needs help or like another moral lesson abuot how you don't try to kill people just because they are messing with dangerous technology instead you just buy it with capitalism..."

Sniff Sniff. Oh no she's crying now.

<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.

Homer, surrounded by drifters, begins to give up the goods. Venetia glances at Eleanor as she verifies that Magilou is a witch - her status on other topics (mother, something-or-other, lover, sinner, saint, etc.) are left alone for now. Back to Homer as he gets things out.

Mostly.

She leans in at the true name of god comment. She takes a sharp breath as Ida produces a vial of the material. (She's just been holding onto it??? Venetia thinks to herself.)

AND THEN
REVELATION.

Homer outlines that he is some sort of a smuggler - a smuggler who recognizes the meta-thallium! The mineral that does not exist on Filgaia! At least in any quantity people can get at, who knows what's deep in the core of the planet.

Venetia feels a brief and atavistic urge. An urge to pull out her gun and inform Homer that he is now taking her to the stars, whether he likes it enough. The image comes to her with a vivid fantasy; the world that Venetia glimpsed in recorded memory in the tomb of a dead man from another star, and which has become, somehow, a lodestone of hope for her. A vision that there is hope, out there, and help, and that perhaps they do not truly face the end of all days.

In reality... she breathes out with force... and says, "Earth shaping, eh? I suppose this is not in the same sense I'd use it for. From what it does it sounds more like garden improvement, if I had to put a name into it."

Another pause.

Venetia frowns. "Are you saying the Hesiods are some sort of GANG? Is this mild-mannered neurotic actually some sort of inter-planetary gangster, out to confiscate a valuable ARM on behalf of his syndicate?"

"Dinoginos wept," Venetia says to Ida, "I didn't see that one coming, I can tell you. My god. Were those handbills from Adelhyde right...?"

"Let's leave god out of this conversation," Venetia says to Magilou. "I don't think he has anything to contribute."

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    The vial Ida holds up is... full of dust. (Lan assumes it is very special, perhaps technical dust.)

    Lan frowns a bit at the non-answer Homer gives her, but then he starts from the top. A smuggler, from a family of smugglers. Who had decided to go legit, and had gone to school.

    'Terra'. Lan knows that means land, so when you add 'forming'... yes, that's exactly what Demetrioi would be called, isn't it? And he'd only wanted to do good, but it hadn't fit somehow. "It's not that Demetrioi ever tried to do any harm," Lan says slowly, working the problem through. "It's that his presence really really distressed the spirits of the land. He was... unnatural. Which doesn't mean he was hurtful on purpose," she hastens to add, as if Demetrioi could hear her somehow, "But he didn't belong. ...Maybe he was made in Solaris," she muses more quietly. But even Etrenank hadn't had technology quite like that.

    You might not know, she reminds herself. You spent most of those weeks locked in the same yard.

    White walls and metal everything, Lan remembers, and that's when the missing puzzle piece falls into place. There in the Dreaming, Ethius had gotten a tattoo. And it wasn't one he was 'supposed' to have. "...When you go to Symbology school do they make you get certain spells tattooed on you?" Lan asks suddenly, looking directly at Homer. "Like you didn't have a say in which ones you learned?"

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Magilou asks when Ethius drifted up here.

"If you mean when I first met him, it was... yes, about five years ago." Jacqueline explains with a nod toward Ida, and pauses, as that hits her. ...Wow. It's been five years already, huh? It's a strange thought. "I'm not sure what he was doing before that time, but I'm given to understand his memory only goes back to about a year or two before then."

She pauses.

"...He has amnesia." She explains. "That's part of why I welcomed him into my group, to help him rediscover himself."

Matilda points out Ethius's approach toward technologies that are out of place, and Jacqueline nods.

"Yes, that's true... It's caused some problems." Jacqueline admits.

Homer shows off his tattoos, and...

"I recognize those. Ethius uses the same sort of Symbology." Jacqueline notes, and then looks up at Homer himself.

"Yes, that's correct. I can't recall that he has ever attempted to actually harm me, in fact." Jacqueline explains. "...Others, yes, but never me, or any other member of my team."

...That she knows of.

Ida produces a vial of a curious substance.

"What's that?" Jacqueline asks, curious. It catches Homer's eye, too... which leads to an explanation, then. Jacqueline frowns, listening intently. She doesn't speak until he's finished.

"...I'm certain Demetrioi has only good intentions, but the fact remains that their presence makes those with a strong connection to the Guardians, the spirits that maintain this world, quite uncomfortable. Do you know why that may be?" Jacqueline asks. Lan points out the same thing. And then, there's another thing to address.

"You think he... wants to deliver them to the original buyer." Jacqueline repeats. "But... his tendency has always been to attempt to destroy things that don't seem to belong. Perhaps it's the amnesia, but... wouldn't that risk destroying the very thing he came to retrieve?"

She looks toward Avril, then, as she puts forth a theory. Jacqueline shakes her head.

"...I don't know. He's always been quite hostile to the Veruni in the past. I can't see them working together, in any capacity. ...If anything, I'm more worried that he may attempt to retrieve Demetrioi from them on his own." Jacqueline replies. He looks toward Homer, then, in case he might have some more information.

She then looks toward Lydia, offering her a smile.

"...I'd like to think there's more to him than just that. I'm not quite ready to believe he was just here to retrieve Demetrioi after a point, even if that may have been his original goal." She says trying to reassure her.

Maybe she's wrong. But... she doesn't want to discount him just yet.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida sees the sudden change in Homer's eyes as he spots the nested vials. She taps a finger against the shatterproof plastic, makes a little tick-tick-tick sound. Ida had the vial on her because she was running some very simple Ley-health experiments with it on the lines leading to Alcidamas--or at least she was until this happened.

    "We're all ears," Ida says, and she closes her hand around the priceless vial, holding it close.

    Ida can tell when someone's talking to buy time, or to soften a blow. Homer seems to be doing that, even though the jig is up and Venetia's eyes are gleaming like she's just seen Dinoginos appear before her, bearing all the world's riches, intellectual or otherwise.

    'What's that?' Jay asks.

    "A substance not of this world," Ida says, and she tucks the vial back into its foam-padded case. Her fingers repeat the sealing process in reverse. She glances at the guards, but they seem oddly... subdued. Ida's thoughts flicker back to her outpatient nanosurgery in Shevat, and the Limiter. Suddenly that makes a lot more sense.

    "It's possible," Ida says, to Venetia. "But... if he is a criminal, he's a deeply professional one, with very specific tics. As Matilda said, he has a bizarre fascination with cleaning up, and removing things he doesn't feel belong."

    Ida knows damn well who destroyed the deactivated Mannikins, and stole gunsmithing tools from Castle Rabenstein whenever he got the chance.

    And now Lydia is crying. Ida reaches out to settle a hand on the Beastwoman's shoulder, and gives it a gentle squeeze.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    "Yeah, I know the stuff, that's... from my neck of the... woods," Homer catches himself from increasing the scope as Eleanor points it out, "somethin' really useful when dealin' with Symbology in machines. Somethin' I, uh, took fer granted and really coulda used here early on." Ida points out it's not of this world, and he kind of just tries to grin it off.

     "Uhh," Homer is put on the spot - again - with the Symbology likeness. "Sure didn't study it with that guy... that I know of." Somewhere in Avril's curt, precise description of his criminal-hood, Homer nods his head the once. When asked if he's certain, he nods again. "When that young lady there saved my life, he took two of 'em on... don't seem like he's friends with your Veruni." It might have been more expedient if he was.

     Magilou points out how it'd be interesting to go after him specifically and not the people who busted up the deal, as she points out how he's absolutely certain the attack wasn't by the Hesiods (he is). "I-I wouldn't know fer sure their fate... but yeah, ya could say, I'm a hell of a soft target here. Gave up almost all the stuff I had ta get Demetrioi workin'..."

     Lydia disbelieves it, goes through all sorts of reasoning as to why this can't be, and finds herself breaking down crying. "I-I'm sorry, look, I... I really am, but some people just ain't what they appear to be." It's a bad job at consoling, but it's a point of stress for him too. If one Hesiod is here, others /have to be/ by his reckoning, and that's scary. "I've known the Hesiods to be the kinda people who... drag everyone else into their business wherever they go." It's not helping, but Ida's there to console - all he can give the truth, that he knows (and is willing to share and/or not bend, so maybe it's not an absolute).

     Venetia sums it up. "Y-Yep. Uh, if you wanna get technical... so are the Mecones, heh, uh." Criminal, as Avril pointed out, as he responds to Venetia. "As I said, ain't been a saint! Buuuut, best I can figure the Hesiods ain't got... more, than him." Why just him, is the question.

     Lan helps clarify some of the conflict in play. He remembers how weird it looked when someone looked like they were holding back an invisible beast about ready to pounce, or some such. There's a gaze nonetheless that shows Homer having problems following the weight Lan is giving the argument.

     "Ain't never heard of a Solaris... but I couldn't tell ya who made 'em. Though the manual... really did feel like it was translated from somethin' else." Homer muses, which probably explains why there was some Zeboim kitbashing that somehow worked. That's like three natural 20s in a row on disadvantage on all of them. He shakes his head at the mention of Symbology school. "The one I went to, uh, no. Pretty much blew almost all my savings for some tutorin' on an effective layout that'd keep me valuable, but I wasn't... forced."

     That differs from the Dreaming's showing of what was thought to be Ethius' memories. The circumstances for their schooling must have been dramatically different.

     Jay speaks of a timeline, and Homer looks her way with a start. That many years, amnesia - and how he didn't directly move to harm Jay or anyone else of her team (that she knows of), and further corroborates the spiritual world's fury and fear over Demetrioi being there.

     "I really don't, heck, I, um, from where I come from we don't... worship anything like that." Homer admits, sheepishly, as if trying to sidestep a cultural landmine. "But, come to think... it did get kinda windy after hearin' about someone invisible bein' really angry. Felt nice, but... didn't really stop, come to think."

     Ida further explores how if Ethius is a criminal (...if?!), he's a deeply professional one. "I dunno, never encountered a professional cleaner from the Hesiods." Still, there's disbelief from everyone here, across multiple points of trauma, shock, and surprise--

     There's a thunk of a staff that echoes across the gathered, and... it's Ethius, who similarly is quarter-dead after Kaguya went and Kaguya'd him, but yet draws from that grit of an inscrutible available quantity.

     "Enough." Ethius speaks as if he might have authority on this subject, when he is outmanned, outgunned, and all but putting himself at risk of being executed on the spot. Some of the militia are already pointing weapons.

     "I will head off your threats and questions as such - I will cooperate to the extent the Demetrioi can be taken from the Veruni's hands."

     Homer's about to raise a voice, but there's something in Ethius' glare that shakes the much larger Beastfolk man even if Homer, by rights, could crush Ethius' skull in his hand if he had the opportunity. (That is not how it played out a day ago.)

     Ethius pre-empts him again, as if conscious of bedtimes. "Homer will not come to further harm. He activated the Demetrioi, and by rights would be instrumental in retrieving them."

     "The hell makes ya think I'd go along with that?!" Homer shouts, stops, and coughs. Exposition took a lot out of him.

     "Do you have an alternative?" Ethius asks, finding it in him to fold his arms behind his back like he were standing at attention. "There is an ample support network set up by the Wayside Outreach for the people of Alcidamas. It would behoove you to make use of that in seeing your people and their stores to safety. Scavengers will soon follow once word gets out."

     Homer grunts, sighs, looks to the others who are just waiting for the signal to put 'the Hesiod' down. Homer has done these people a great turn. Ethius is a well-spoken thug of a man.

     "You're not gonna harm the people of Al--"

     "I have assured another that harm would not come to the people of Alcidamas." That person might know who he's talking about. "It is for the best they can be kept together in a safer environment better equipped for handling and helping refugees."

     Homer gives a look over to Jay in specific, like he knows even if Ethius is outnumbered and able to be shot on the spot, there's too many variables in the direction of 'worse could follow.'

     "All right, all right." Homer throws his hand up, stands up with the help of his support. "'ll... play ball. Too old for this."

     "Never too old to take responsibility for what transpired." Ethius remarks, cryptically.

     "Hnnn. You're one to talk."

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    Not of this world. What, like from the moon? Lan doesn't really get why it's such a big deal to have a jar of moon dust, but then the Elw network wasn't keyed to Lunar for a long long while. Maybe Homer is from the moon. There are plenty of Beastfolk there.

    Ethius must have gone to a different kind of school, then, Lan decides. Or maybe it wasn't a 'school' at all.

    The 'thunk' of a staff dislosges that train of thought, and Lan finds herself halfway to standing up before registering that Ethius doesn't seem to be here to finish Homer off. Which is good, because despite her relative unbeatupness Lan has also spent much of today channeling some fairly major energy flows and could really use a snack and maybe a nap if she's going to be fighting anybody.

    "But even if you can get Demetrioi back, what're you going to do with him?" Lan asks. They can't stay here, even if it would save this town. The planet cries out against it.

<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    "No," Magilou agrees, easily, to Venetia, "I don't suppose they do." Gods? Multiple???

    Never mind that, Magilou isn't the shifty character on the cross-examination stand today. She listens, quietly, as Homer continues to explain, and then...

    Speaking of shifty characters!

    "So!" Magilou says, cheerfully, looking from Ethius to Homer. "Homer here isn't one of the people of Alcidmas, from where you're standing?" She gestures, loosely, to Homer's wounds, as if that says more than enough.

    After a moment of silence, Magilou smiles, tapping a finger to her chin. "You know... I let Kaguya take Demetrioi for a reason." She -- LET her--?! "For all you people complain about the Veruni... your planet is still dying. Are none of you interested to see what that girl might be able to achieve? Her concern doesn't seem to be some base fabrication."

    Her hand drops, to rest on her hip, arm draping out beside her. "Go ahead, Ethius -- convince me to help you, instead. I don't much care either way, but surely you have a more convincing argument than gracing us with your cooperation."

<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.

"You kept your word," Eleanor answers Ethius. "Technically. But if you knew this all along, and you didn't choose to allow us to help you..."

The young elf shakes her head. "Mr. Mecone frankly has a good question. Why should we trust you? You've withheld vital information. I came to you, knowing that this could happen, and you didn't accept my help. Under the most charitable interpretation of your actions you might not have lied directly to my face."

She can't even be mad at Magilou right now; she's not being unreasonable. She seems to know something about this, but not in the sense that Ethius clearly does--just a similar experience.

This prompts her to stand and approach. "You will 'cooperate'. You'll cooperate exactly as much as it suits you, I'm sure. You still act like you have the power in this situation, Mr. Hesiod. And I suppose you do, because you have information that you won't share with the rest of us."

"You don't dare get to talk of 'responsibility' when you act the way you have. And you damned well don't get to talk of what's 'for the best.'"

"Share what you're going to share or leave. It's only because of my respect for Miss Barber that I don't have you imprisoned on the spot. And I make no promises for the future."

She pauses, and looks at Magilou for a moment. She doesn't make a counterargument for right now. Instead she looks back to Ethius again.

<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

Lydia is given some reassurance from Ida. SHe looks up at her for a long moment.

Then she takes a deep breath and maybe this would have actually helped more if not for--

A staff goes thunk. Lydia turns to look at him.

She starts walking towards Ethius, pulling away from Ida though she tries to be gentle about it rather htan just shake it off like a big dumb jerk.

Eleanor has a good question for Ethius but Lydis just keeps approaching him, getting closer and closer until she is all up in her personal business.

She glances to Eleanor for a moment and then says, "Yeah." to her. "You know what?"

Lydia then turns back to Ethius, rears back with her head--

--and aimes to give Ethius a big ol' headbutt! She's taller than she acts! There's not much warning on this though this is Lydia.

"Fuck you!" She shouts, tears still in her eyes. "Fuck you double and triple! After everything, you still go off on your own again and again and do this crazy shit because you think you know us, but you never explain anything do you! And maybe you don't know, maybe you're just acting off some kind of instinctual programming or broke ass memories, but this is enough! I try to stand up for you again and again and again because you SAVED me but every time I relax and think 'okay, Ethius is actually working with us and communiceating with us and it's not perfect but we're still a TEAM' you go off and try to MURDER someone or whatever! And maybe he's a guy who needs to be murdered, NO OFFENSE HOMER, but you're not giving us the deets that you have that we need. Or do you actually have this information you're acting off of? And if you DON'T, then why are you doing this shit, huh?? Do you have any kind of self control? Can you hear the planet screaming, Ethius??"

Magilou says something about Kaguya. She glances to the elf for a moment and then back to Ethius. "Kaguya doesn't need false hope. She's SICK okay, don't you get it? She needs real solutions or she'll DIE and if she DIES I'm going to be SO MAD because this is me just being sad, Ethius, but I can get mad, I can get real mad, and I don't want to be mad, because I'm trying to be cool like Lan but this is ridiculous!"

She takes in a deep breath, wiping at her eyes.

"Do you think... I enjoy... having to defend you against everhybody because you do this shit? You KNOW BETTER than to listen to the technical agreement over the spirit of it. You're not that dumb, Ethius, and I'm tired of you pretending you are. You're a smart guy. You know stuff about relationships. You can tell when I'm sufferin' and you reach out to help, and you try to, so I know--"

She growls. "I know you can bloody well tell when you're hurting people, Ethius! And when people are hurting. And when they don't understand. Is this guy lying? Is he really a bad guy? How do you know he's a bad guy if he's such a bad guy. Do you actually have amnesia or are you pretending? Is..."

She takes another deep breath. "Is Ethius Hesiod even your real fuckin' name?? Are you really just some kind of gang guy that does crimes?? That doesn't make any sense, so how about you trust the people who have been covering your ass since you showed up at the Caravan and actually give it to us straight."

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline listens quietly as more explanations follow.

"It's alright, not everyone does. But it doesn't matter if you worship them or not - they exist, and their influence can be felt whether you do or not." Jacqueline explains. She's about to speak further... when suddenly, Ethius arrives with a thunk of his staff to announce his presence.

"Ethius! You really shouldn't be up and moving around just yet..." Jacqueline says with a frown. She notes the militia readying weapons. ...She can't blame them, after what he did to Homer. She lets him speak, and looks toward Magilou when she does.

She let Kaguya take Demetrioi, she says. Jacqueline wasn't there, but from what she knows of her that...

...isn't very surprising, actually.

"...If it were just Kaguya, I might be fine with that. But she doesn't exist in a vacuum. I've met the leader of the Veruni, and I don't believe there's much room in his world for anyone besides the Veruni. Many of the people beneath him feel the same way." Jacqueline explains. "Whatever solution she finds, the spectre of Volsung will be looming over it."

And then back to Ethius... Jacqueline doesn't interrupt Eleanor because, frankly, she's upset with him too. It's a lot more lenience than he probably deserves. And Lydia... well. Jacqueline offers her a sympathetic look and makes a mental note to ask if she needs a hug later before looking toward Ethius.

"I'm... hurt and disappointed too, Ethius. It never should have come to this." Jacqueline replies, shaking her head. "I'd like to hear your side of things, too. Please, Ethius."

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Homer's still being vague, even after his cover has been thoroughly blown--and meanwhile, the militia might as well be statues, with regard to most of these revelations. Ida's lips twist into a deep little line. "So you had a device of unknown origin and terrifying power, and a manual that may have been incorrectly translated. And yet, you were able to install them, and awaken them to full functionality." Ida lets out a breath. "Chapapanga has strange plans for you, Mr. Mecone."

    "If he's a cleaner," Ida begins, and the rest never makes it out. The thunk triggers a startle response, and she whirls to face it, her face twisting in a snarl as she recognizes the voice. Her hand pulls away from Lydia's shoulder. "Look who deigns to grace us with his presence," Ida says. Her voice trembles with banked rage. Her eyes gleam with fury. "I am sick--" A step towards Ethius, Ida's foot on the boards echoing like the first beat of a war drum. "--and tired of people dying because someone knew and didn't--" She takes another step. Her voice hitches. Ethius suspected. Ida knew. She knew about Adlehyde, because Cecilia told her and--

    Magilou speaks up. Ida stops in her tracks, and her hands clench into fists. She looks back over her shoulder, at Magilou. "Oh, I don't doubt her concern, or her conviction," Ida says. "I just don't think it's wise to leave that device in the hands of someone driven by that hatred."

    "But that doesn't mean he has to be the one to just storm in and expect us to kiss his boots, like good little primitives--"

    Lydia goes off, and Ida's anger becomes a tiny candle in the face of Lydia's righteous rage. Ida has never cared much about, or for, Ethius Hesiod. Lydia has, and does.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    Avril shakes her head. "I know," she replies to Jay. "But, surely, he would not attempt to take it from them himself...?" Whatever Ethius is hiding -- however much he is hiding -- he couldn't possibly prise it from the grasp of the Veruni alone.
    Possibly not, she thinks, reflecting on Volsung, even if they should all ally with him for this task.

    He'd blown all his savings on simply some tutoring in Symbology...? "Then... does that not mean that such magics are not unique?" Or at least, they reflect a very basic, core sort of technique in that Symbology tradition. "It would mean that any from where you both hail could learn such an art." And therefore, it tells her nothing more about Homer and Ethius' shared background.

    'Enough'.

    Avril realizes, too late, she's already turned towards him before he had even spoken. Perhaps, she had heard him approach and her body reacted? "Ethius--"

    She pauses for but a moment as he begins to say what will and will not happen before she shakes her head. "...Enough," she says in turn, staring at him with a gaze that could pin a fly to paperboard. "You will cease and desist this at once," she tells him. "As they have all said, there is much and more you have concealed from all of us. You will not hurt this man or co-opt him for your own ends. You may not go and do as you please, not without first giving us answers, Ethius. I will not hear any argument."

    She doesn't so much as look away, not even when Lydia has a go at him directly.

    "...Now, speak."

<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.

Venetia takes this in. It's a lot. She glances with some sympathy towards Jay, Matilda-- other people who knew Ethius Hesiod better. Know him? He's not dead, after all. He could be anywhere. He could be right there--

And indeed, Venetia thinks. Her lips thin.

Venetia struggles on what to say. She considers calling for peace, for parley. She considers just straight up asking what the price per gram is for more of that precious metal. Ah, she thinks: is that the way of thinking that gets so many of my countrymen in trouble? To think I have this, and therefore if I only had a LITTLE more, I could--

In sensing the grasping of the mind, and the poison of greed, perhaps there are shoots of wisdom.

By the time Venetia finishes woolgathering, however, Eleanor seems to be making a call on how they're playing this particular live ball. Venetia sucks in a deep breath -- and other people address Ethius as well. Magilou with her dudgeon and demand (not wrong, Venetia thinks, with grudging admiration), Eleanor with her own passion, and Lydia -- she almost thinks Lydia's about to start it but instead she goes off on a tear.

Which gives Venetia more time to think.

And she reaches a conclusion. The question of Kaguya brings up another question - but there's a more pressing reason right in front of them now.

"Hesiod!" Venetia calls.

"If you're doing this to hide the secret of other worlds - then stop! It's dead - throw it on the heap! I've seen the color zoetropes of Minora; I know the secret name! You might silence some of us but you'd never get all of ARMS. You're best off if you drop this and put out your hand. And if you don't believe me," Venetia turns her head to spit in the sadly-unblessed dirt of Filgaia, "then fill your hand and I'll show you what happens when you get in a sorcerer's way."

"But for myself," Venetia says, "I'd rather talk." During all of this she has adopted a more ready stance - slightly lower, hands held loose, near her hips. Near a gun and the Crest Pouch.

(Her voice goes back to normal as she says to those nearer to her, albeit without looking away from Ethius, "There's one thing that's bothering me about all of this. If this Demetrioi machine is just regenerating the land, why are the Guardians so damned upset by it? Some kind of a catch?" She says it kind of fast, possibly in case she's about to get her head disintegrated.)

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    "That conjecture can wait until the Demetrioi has been safely recovered, Miss Lan." Ethius seems intent to just brush off the future beyond 'get the weird child-like plant-shrub thing that breaks nature in half to save it from people who by all rights really need its help too.'

     "You let Kaguya take the Demetrioi." Ethius turns sharply to Magilou. This is a man who can boast almost unnatural suppression of his own bodily nervous tics and come off as a statue better than an acquaintance who kind of is one. His voice maintains that usual curiously controlled cadence that, in this tense time, may be more annoying and aggravating than even the most shrill, shrieky voice just by its nature.

     That's how you tell a nerve has been poked, as Eleanor sharply interrupts what he might have had to say - and gets her anger and ire at his words and choices. Her influence carries weight well outside of Klein - and if it doesn't, she has friends who do here. For all the trust he has broken, he (infuriatingly!) withholds what would be an obvious but deeply revealing and inconvenient answer for Eleanor.

     "I would ask--" Ethius is about to start, but Lydia interrupts and Ida's approaching (both have the highest threat levels for 'amount of space and harm they can cover and inflict in a second's time'), and there isn't really stopping the headbutt when Lydia's the one on the offensive to cut off Ida. They're the same height, and there's only one place that headbutt can go. He slides back a full yalm as heels and the tip of his staff drag against the ground, staggering to keep up as Lydia screams out her feelings. He dabs at his forehead for a reopened wound, for that classic 'hand on forehead' thing as he attempts to speak up over the deep breath (and fails).

     "My name is Ethius Hesiod." Spoken succinctly as only one morsel of the questions asked, and something that would parse true across whatever lie-detecting skills the others may possess. "Furthermore--"

     Jay speaks her feelings, as she may have accidentally given him a lay-up for a convincing reason to do what he says and/or not shoot him (like twenty times) on the spot.

     "You are correct it never should have come to this." He's still dabbing newly-obtained headbutt blood from his face, but at least he seems to have survived it without jumbling his head into soup (again, how can this man even remember what words are after all he's been through). "I believe you and Miss Ida have outlined the issue at hand as regards ownership," he gives Ida a look as she refers to 'good little primitives,' as if the use of the phrasing might tease out something more severe.

     Avril goes 'enough.' There is an authority in that voice. Answers are demanded in no uncertain terms, and Avril will not compromise about letting him do as he pleases without first giving answers. He considers this while getting blood out of his eye, because when you are still standing and even breathing after a Lydia headbutt, you got off light.

     Venetia reasons there's no reason to conceal anything. The concept of other worlds is known, and at latest the idea there aren't other inhabited worlds out there somewhere died when discourse about the fallen world of Hyades started to circle the world.

     "You are aware that any information I give here will disperse across channels they need not be heard." There's an aside looking to Lydia from the eye not underneath a hand. "Each adding an additional layer of complication as regards retrieving the Demetrioi. Regardless of the series of events that have led the present," and there sure were (poor Diablo!), "I do not believe a singular 'yes' or 'no' answer will... satisfy all grievances." Or any, with how Lydia is overflowing with the feeling of betrayal. Can he really say with a cold, callous look on his face that things will be as they are after he's jerked her around so much? The way he hides half of his face...

     "But I will cooperate to the fullest extent necessary." Does he have a choice? "As I have prior in more severe matters." Like the Photosphere, and the matter of sabotaging a Star Drive before Mother revealed its presence to anyone else... despite being human and never stepping there prior.

     He gives a look to Eleanor, as if a knowing one, for what she might estimate if they intend to do away with him on the spot. He might even be banking on that without speaking of it outright, as once again he considers the raw outpouring of emotion to Lydia. She knows he's capable of better, and is, but it's like he's always at work with a work face and is never off work and this business seems to be about hurting people.

     "You're not gonna call your Hesiod friends on 'em," Homer says.

     "I am in no such contact." Ethius delivers frankly. "I am to presume you are not."

     "...Nnnno." If Homer were, would he have done the blatantly crazy thing Ida highlighted? Chapapanga, sometimes!!

     "Then there will be no fear of reprisal." He looks back to Lydia after this, as if he might be formulating some thing to say, something from the wellspring of scripted, practiced responses to give her to assuge her complaints and fears... but none formulates.

     One may not even exist, in this tense moment of tenuous cooperation where the response may not even be fully agreeable, and this man is (probably) a horrible gangster-cleaner or something... but the Demetrioi can't remain in Veruni grasp.

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

"I meant... you should have told us, told me first, before running off and acting on your own. By the Guardians, Ethius." Jacqueline replies, shaking her head, when he agrees that it never should have come to this.

Ethius speaks... and Jacqueline sighs, massaging her forehead. It doesn't seem like they'll be able to do any better a job of getting through to him.

"There's just one last thing I want to know." Jacqueline says. "...Do you remember everything now? Or just about... all this?"

She frowns for a moment.

"And... for how long?" She asks. "Did it ever mean anything to you, traveling with us?"

<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    "Yuppy-doodle-yah-huh!" Magilou says, infuriatingly silly, as she meets Ethius's gaze. For once, authority is on her side, but don't expect her to thank Eleanor.

    "I'm sure there isn't," Magilou agrees with Jacqueline, easily. "But those are problems you could solve once the planet isn't crumbling under your feet, potion pusher. Or are you so uncertain you can defeat Volsung?" She shrugs, palms to the sky. "... Kaguya can see that same hesitation, you know. If she can't trust anyone, she won't trust anyone!" Magilou chirps her summation so chipperly, as if it has nothing to do with her, as if she's detached.

    Well, it's true Magilou isn't so tied up in the fate of Filgaia. This planet...

    "That hatred," Magilou points out, to Ida, smooth as butter, "belongs to your very own Guardians. The anger of an entire world, all coiled on her shoulders..." Her eyes narrow; her lips thin. "... enmity is a terrible thing to force into a person. Anyone who does such a thing earns no favour from me, be they God or wretched shade."

    Magilou knew a man who thrust conflict and hate into people's hearts, once. He was so sure he was right, too.

    "But it looks like you've made your mind up," she sighs, streeetching out onto her tippy-toes. "Perhaps once more I'll escort the heroes of the day to their doom. Ah, all is right with the world." Her hand drops back to her head, thumb and pinky dangling. "Hesiod, buddy, call me. We'll do lunch!" Or kill each other. One of the two.

    She ambles over to Lan, and claps a hand on her shoulder, in passing.

    "Nice work with the earth, kid."

    The great sorceress Magilou... noticed her sorcerous efforts..!

<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.

Eleanor is slightly mollified by Lydia's just up and headbutting Ethius. It doesn't really make her problems go away, but it does make her feel a little better. ...Not much better, because it's paired with witnessing Lydia's deep pain, but a little. It counts. Avril's sheer Authority seems to go well for her. And Venetia... Yes, Venetia has an appeal that Eleanor would not have thought to make. However...

That is a good question about why this place was so upsetting, and it's one that doesn't seem to have an answer to them.

"Right. Of course sharing information would complicate the retrieval of the device."

Eleanor shakes her head in clear disgust, but that knowing look Ethius gives her in turn--well. She doesn't appear to be indicating that they should finish him right off. Instead he says, "Fine. Then you will 'cooperate'."

She watches Jay, in her emotional questions, and her heart hurts for her as it did for Lydia. She watches Magilou... and she has no argument for the woman she dislikes so much. So eventually she looks back to Ethius.

"...Mr. Hesiod," Eleanor says. "It would appear that we have little choice but to work with you. But let me assure you..."

"...If your reticence and secrecy spell the ruin of this operation..."

"You won't have to travel to another world to find justice."

Eleanor shakes her head, and looks to Homer. "I'll leave instructions with my people. I don't want to be near this man anymore."

<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

Lydia is used to this too. Ethius struck silent. More or less. To be fair, Lydia's horns aren't just for show. A Lydia headbutt is about as powerful a headbutt as you can get. She takes in a deep breath, then another deep breath. And then a third.

"You don't get to be the judge of that." Lydia says. "I don't care what you believe can satisfy grievances."

A sword appears in her hands because out of all the quesitons asked, Ethius answered the one she cared about the least even if, naturally, this does confirm he was part of some space gangster family. Her hand shakes with the blade in her hand.

She rears back with it, and her hand is still shaking. She sees Riesenlied. She sees NOeline and Jay.

It would appear that we have little choice but to work with you

"Don't see why we have to work with him at all," Lydia says, shaking. "Kaguya can handle the Veruni."

Her fingers tighten against the grip as she forces her hand to steady herself. But she doesn't thrust it into Ethius's neck. The people she thinks she'd also be hurting with that blade if she slammed it in there keep her from striking. Strangely enough, one of the faces she does imagine is also Kaguya's.

Magilou says a lot of junk too. "She can trust me." Lydia tells Magilou with absolute confidence in this. "She's my sister. And I'm not gonna let the Guardians hurt her either."

Considering that Lydia is a Baskar Shaman that's quite the declaration.

"She could have just stayed on Lunar forever. She didn't have to come back down to this world that was killin' her. She's trying to save us from the Veruni, from Filgaia itself, and maybe she's not always doing it right but she's trying her best. She has been up front with us, Ethius. Random elf lady with a book skirt which honestly is kind of impressive but that's not going to distract me even though it's super hot." Pause. And then, "Stop acting so cool!! People have real feelings, by whatever God isn't crazy right now, jeeze! Do people just kind of endure it because you're pretty and clever? If you're clever do you get to just be so proud of it and not get punched when you trample around like woaaah-- I should try being clever it seems fun and people just seem to take it. Oh I'm Lydia I'm super smart and sharper than the sharpies--!"

She suddenly thrusts the blade, resting the tip against Ethius's throat though she doesn't quite plunge it in.

"Sword's real sharp too. Haven't met anybody more clever than bein' stabbed in the throat."

She pauses for a moment because she actually does know people who can probably handle being stabbed in the throat just fine but she presses on regardless.

"Answer Jay." She says. "I'll make it easy and not ask any other questions so you don't blow out a gasket trying to answer 'em all."

She takes in another ragged breath.

"I trusted you. I loved you. And I don't think you know me very well even now. recognize."

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida threatens, but Lydia actually follows through. A twinge of ugly satisfaction curls around Ida's heart as Ethius reels back, bleeding from the forehead--the need for power and control. The need she still struggles with. Ethius has been more than just an uncomfortable enigma. He's always had an aura of inscrutability, as if he knew things Ida didn't. Adlehyde taught her what happens when things remain secret and inscrutable. People die.

    Are you still flogging yourself over that? Idiot girl. It's not like you could've made a difference.

    But she isn't so deep in her thoughts that she doesn't see that look. Ida's lips tighten. Her eyes dart sideways, and narrow as Magilou talks. She's half-right. The Guardians' hatred is an indiscriminate curse, but why, specifically, Kagua? Why Volsung? She can feel a pounding headache starting behind her eyes--it's a measure of how far she's come that she doesn't snap back at Magilou.

    "Let me make one thing clear," Ida says. "This is our home, and it is dying. 'The' Demetrioi may hold the key to saving it--or, in the wrong hands, finish digging its grave." Her voice is ice-cold. "We may be but two worlds out of hundreds--thousands, even--but if your actions cost us what little we have left, well." She meets Ethius' eyes. "I'll be sure to find you in whatever hell awaits."

    Breathe. The anger's out, and focusing it is like wrestling with a raging river. "Don't worry," Ida says, to Eleanor. "I'll keep an eye on him."

    Then Lydia does something even Ida was not considering, and reminds her again just how bitter broken trust can be. She's holding him at knife-point. "Lydia," Ida breathes. Now she's caught between her own anger and anger for Lydia and the fear this will keep spiraling.

<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

Lydia is used to this too. Ethius struck silent. More or less. To be fair, Lydia's horns aren't just for show. A Lydia headbutt is about as powerful a headbutt as you can get. She takes in a deep breath, then another deep breath. And then a third.

"You don't get to be the judge of that." Lydia says. "I don't care what you believe can satisfy grievances."

A sword appears in her hands because out of all the quesitons asked, Ethius answered the one she cared about the least even if, naturally, this does confirm he was part of some space gangster family. Her hand shakes with the blade in her hand.

She rears back with it, and her hand is still shaking. She sees Riesenlied. She sees NOeline and Jay.

It would appear that we have little choice but to work with you

"Don't see why we have to work with him at all," Lydia says, shaking. "Kaguya can handle the Veruni."

Her fingers tighten against the grip as she forces her hand to steady herself. But she doesn't thrust it into Ethius's neck. The people she thinks she'd also be hurting with that blade if she slammed it in there keep her from striking. Strangely enough, one of the faces she does imagine is also Kaguya's.

Magilou says a lot of junk too. "She can trust me." Lydia tells Magilou with absolute confidence in this. "She's my sister. And I'm not gonna let the Guardians hurt her either."

Considering that Lydia is a Baskar Shaman that's quite the declaration.

"She could have just stayed on Lunar forever. She didn't have to come back down to this world that was killin' her. She's trying to save us from the Veruni, from Filgaia itself, and maybe she's not always doing it right but she's trying her best. She has been up front with us, Ethius. Random elf lady with a book skirt which honestly is kind of impressive but that's not going to distract me even though it's super hot." Pause. And then, "Stop acting so cool!! People have real feelings, by whatever God isn't crazy right now, jeeze! Do people just kind of endure it because you're pretty and clever? If you're clever do you get to just be so proud of it and not get punched when you trample around like woaaah-- I should try being clever it seems fun and people just seem to take it. Oh I'm Lydia I'm super smart and sharper than the sharpies--!"

She suddenly thrusts the blade, resting the tip against Ethius's throat though she doesn't quite plunge it in.

"Sword's real sharp too. Haven't met anybody more clever than bein' stabbed in the throat."

She pauses for a moment because she actually does know people who can probably handle being stabbed in the throat just fine but she presses on regardless.

"Thinkin' you always know better than us stupid surface folk," Lydia mutters. "You're just like a Solarian."

"Answer Jay." She says. "I'll make it easy and not ask any other questions so you don't blow out a gasket trying to answer 'em all."

She takes in another ragged breath.

"I trusted you. I loved you. And I don't think you know me very well even now. recognize."