2024-03-21: From Places of Purity and Peace
- Log: 2024-03-21: From Places of Purity and Peace
- Cast: Ruth Pauling, Lily Keil
- Where: Ruins of Azado
- Date: March 21, 2024
- Summary: After plunging the depths of the poison-filled Myrkyllinen Depths, Lily and Ruth start to head back to Filgaia through Azado. They discuss recent events between one another.
==============================<* Ruins of Azado *>============================== Azado, once, was a city on the southern edge of the Goddess Plains. Its proximity to Pentagulia meant that it saw rich trade. However, a terrible night years ago saw two calamities come. First, its great lighthouse burnt, and fire engulfed much of the city. Second, Sin came to Meribus's shores for the first time. The city was shattered, leaving a ruin. Now, some parts are terrifying Malevolent domains, haunted by ghostly and undead Hellions. Others have lingering amounts of pyreflies, with Spiran fiends in evidence. BGM: Silence.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Azado, forgotten and left to rot, still sees regular foot traffic of those strong and capable enough to make the journey between worlds. While the number of Fiends have abated in the days that followed Sin's final destruction, there've been very few able to take the time to see to the numerous undead Hellions that have made this abandoned ruin home.
The fury and sorrow of abandonment, of weakness before an omnipotent Goddess who will and must save them, but did not, the accumulated Malevolence keeping those suffering in a perpetual cycle of inflicting it around them. Even with the numerous routes that have been established as reliable enough (though at least two have been lost to the ocean's erosion), they're always a factor.
It would take Shepherd Rose and the Seers of Filgaia a long time to cleanse together - more time than the worlds together have.
Ruth Pauling, a Hellion herself, does her part in flurries of violence and quiet understandings of one's ultimate tragic passing. Her true self having long since emerged to announce and wield her presence against weaker Hellions to keep them at bay, she roosts over a vantage point of a collapsed bell tower while her rain settles around the area. A minute passes where she sits still while nearby fires subside, the last vestiges of another Hellion's Domain disappearing.
And then.
"It's clear, Lily," she says, as she comes down from the latest combat high with a bowed head.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The Malevolence is powerful here; Lily is still wary of it, since the time that she very nearly succumbed to it, helped by the Guardians back at that temple so long ago now.
She has no particular immunity to it; she is a woman of many contradictions. But she has not since taken Malevolence in like that, has resisted it since.
Lily approaches, when Ruth gives the all clear. "...Good," Lily says, and steps forward. She has no means of cleansing Malevolence either. But what she can do is...
"Are you injured?" She lifts a hand, prepared to infuse Ruth with healing energy. If she keeps her power in reserve for this, then together they can fight their way through indefinitely.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Luckily, there's enough passages with functional(-ish) roofs that the rain can be eluded, if it proves a concern. Her wing flexes and stretches outward the once when she has it in herself to move again, glowing eyes closing as the ambient Malevolence incrementally joins with her own morass.
Is she injured? Sometimes she has difficulty answering that question even when she can see her own blood. She opens her eyes again to look. Once again, the sight of dark purple on her hand. The same color of blood as--
"Yes," she says, succinctly, as she hops down from her vantage point which... probably shouldn't be something one does when injured, but if she didn't, it'd have been another hour before she had it in herself to keep going. This is so Lily doesn't have to step too far out into the open to 'reach' her with her power.
Ruth answers the question truthfully - those are lacerations, and those are burns.
The gargoyle-like Hellion rises from her landing crouch, looking up and tasting the air anew while awaiting the Ether-based treatment.
"I never got to ask," she says, looking ahead. "What was it like, at that place? Where you pulled that sword."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily doesn't have a big problem with rain; she's stoic over it, unconcerned about the potential for illness that will never reach her in any case. Her nanomachine systems prevent such things, she's learned over time.
She waits for Ruth's answer, knowing it's a difficult question--and then Ruth hops down. Lacerations and burns...
"Here," she says, extending her hand; rather than the red heat of her usual healing, Lily brings forth the blue ice that reinforces and protects, that rebuilds rather than only reforges. Not that Ruth will necessarily feel its coolness... though she might; it is magic.
Lily looks her over, then. "That should keep you going for now, and dull the pain."
Pause.
"It was..." She has to think for a moment, how to say it--how to phrase it. "Serene," she says. "Peaceful. ...Pure. The kind of place that I'd usually feel like I had no right to be."
She has the sword with her, of course.
"It feels like... I can carry some of that peace with me, for a while. My mind is quieter than it has been in a while."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Under Lily's power and kindness, the wounds knit. The sense of chill is largely lost on the Hellion, as it would be for many. She breathes, as lingering sensations trying to fight themselves past the battle high that Malevolence can overwhelm everything else go quieter.
"Thank you," she says, as she brings her tail up to wrap around her left arm as much as it can to steady her balance. Her rifle is lifted as such the bayonet blade doesn't drag against the stone, part of it in consideration of wanting to actually hear what Lily has to say.
"That's what it felt like, from... the side," she says, shaking her head about the place that one wouldn't have a right to be. She didn't approach the center. She probably couldn't have, as she is.
"That'd... explain why it felt like you weren't there, sometimes, after we left," she says. No other Hellions are encroaching upon them in the moment.
"That kind of place isn't for me, any more," she says, "but... it... feels," not nice, not awful, it just feels, "that it's good some place like that still exists."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily might balk at anyone considering it kindness except someone like Ruth--with whom arguing the point would be a starker thing. It is what it is. Her magic is empowered by her emotions, for better and for worse.
"You're welcome," Lily says.
Then, she listens to Ruth's piece on the matter. She shakes her head, but... As it was, Lily did have the right to go, whether she felt like it or not. Ruth didn't, likely couldn't.
"I see... That's not a kind of peace I get often," she admits. "Not after the war. Not after everythiing that followed."
No more Hellions; that's best.
"...Yes," the witch agrees with Ruth. "It's good, that such places exist. I believe.. we were meant to go there. Even you, though you couldn't go all the way. I went looking for poison, but I found an antidote."
"I'm not sure I can properly appreciate the poetry in that."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"Some days... I wonder, if there's an 'after' even when there was an 'end.'" Ruth mentions, as Lily speaks of her own struggles with finding peace after 'the war' and everything that follow. The one Hellion among those who dwell here that can be considered a friend tightens her grip on the rifle.
All the more reason not to subject Lily to the violent anguish of those who fallen and linger.
"Hm." She 'hmphs,' as Lily sounds sure they were all meant to be there. The acquisition of an antidote, even in search of poison. A poison that wouldn't even suffer Malevolence around it. She paces ahead as she stares out to a large drop into a crater. They're going to turn right here to continue along the path towards the teleporter, though the sight of devastation is almost impossible to look away from.
"...What do you make of that world we found through the New Moon? Nede." Ruth asks, staring out into the ruin and watching several Hellions scurry at great distance. (One turns to look back at her and - even far out of the way of each other - skedaddles.)
Her tail still has the ribbon that the specialty tailor gave her. (It's very frilly.)
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"..." Lily looks down thoughtfully at Ruth's opinion. "Maybe not," she admits. "Maybe not."
Lily still doesn't entirely understand the poison that wouldn't allow Malevolence, but it might be the key, later. The key to something important. She, though, comes to a stop near Ruth as she also looks out over the crater. She remembers htis place; the time she thought to spite Sin with only a spell, and managed to break off one of its titanic scales... only for the other scales to take her eye.
That she grew it back made her feel that much more disconnected, in the end. But she doesn't well on that, because Ruth asks her a question.
"I'm not sure," Lily admits. "A peaceful world like that... But what prices were paid, to make it so peaceful? And now with the Ten Wise Men returned, is it something we can protect?"
"But less philosophically," she says, "I like it well enough. It's pleasant." She gestures to her bag, "The creatures there are strong, and may help me devise new spells, if I help them achieve their potential."
"It's convenient."
"...It's almost a vacation," she says. "And that's why it's dangerous. It would be easy to lose sight of what we have to do, there."
She can appreciate a good frilly ribbon, too.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"I don't belong there," Ruth says of it, and yet, she wears some of its boons and conveniences. She turns to the way ahead and continues, talons digging into the ground along the way from watching her footing carefully. One of the route collapses was not far from here, and the failure often cascades to nearby structures.
"There's just... so many animals, who look at you with nothing but love." Ruth's tongue flicks towards a Domain that's only just a ways off. Will they be in the way? If so, well, it would be very good timing. Very good timing, indeed.
"There's one that keeps following me, every time I'm there. That... little cricket." Even now, he seems intent on following her, but he hasn't gotten this far out yet.
The smile on her face doesn't match the words, though.
"...and yet... Nede needs someone like... us," she amends that. She's not the only one there wrestling with dangerous forces and weapons goading them onward along their paths as Drifters.
While musing about that, she looks back over her right shoulder to see to the bag where Lily's Pokemon friends travel alongside her.
"What will they do when their threat is gone, I wonder."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily can see it. The way Ruth does partake of those things--but should Malevolece spread to yet another world? Maybe not. Lily has no argument for her, this time.
Instead, she watches her step too.
"True," Lily says. "Even the ones that are dangerous to people can be tamed--'befriended', maybe is the word they'd use."
Lily shakes her head.
"...Yes, I remember. The cricket. It's interesting, how they imprint--usually you have to catch them first, but..." Not so that one.
But Nede... "It does," Lily says. "It needs people who are hardened to war. Who can do what needs doing."
Lily continues to walk. Dog is with her too, of course.
"That I don't know, either. Will they be content to go back to their old peaceful lives? ...Or will they decide, now that their isolation is over, to go out into the galaxy again? If they do, as friends, or something else?"
"...It's hard to say."
"Maybe their knowledge can help us save our own planet, too."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"...What does a saved planet look like?" Ruth asks, facing forward, once again taking in the catastrophe of a handful of years ago they navigate.
There's a few small jumps to make down here. The Hellion taking the lead among them takes a few leaps forward, each one landing in a looming crouch like she's about ready to pounce and tear the face off of some sort of unaware prey. Her wing flares out as she nearly loses balance in one, a hiss escaping her from being startled.
"...It's clear," she says to Lily and Dog a ways behind her. She rights herself, and her wing relaxes.
She's not sure what to say of the speculation as to what they might do, once they no longer have need of those like themselves. Those who might understand the consequences of strength.
"There's not any going back for anyone, I'd... feel," she says.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"It might still have war," Lily admits. "Probably it will. But the planet itself--the existence of a society--that'll be less precarious. The deserts will stop claiming the world. That's what it looks like, I think."
Ruth reaches out forward--she's startled, but--ah. It's clear.
"Thanks," Lily says. "I'll take a shift when we get to the Lost Woods. ...I appreciate you handling the Hellions, though. Brute force isn't quite enough for them..."
A pause. "But I think you're right. There's no going back for any of us."
"We'll just have to go forward."