[ the puff chirps happily, blinking its eyes at temenos and sniffing at his hand in greeting. nico, meanwhile, settles in and takes a sip. ]
Guess we can call that a part of the healing process? [ you did just go somewhere, sir. ] So far the most eventful part of my morning has been fighting the Cocoa Puff for one of my socks so Will can do the laundry. I'd say that's better than usual, which means it's probably gonna get worse when I least expect it.
You know what they say, Nico. If you speak such things aloud -
[ is what temenos starts to say, amusement playing on his face...
... which of course means that nico absolutely summons up a memshare. the comic book panels happen fast. ]
[ you and your party ascend the hill that leads to the chapel of flamechurch that you've attended all of your life, to the chapel where you once stared starry eyed and attentive up at the pontiff when he gave his sermons. it is the chapel where you gave sermons yourself, where you wrote and drew paper plays, where the people of flamechurch gave confessional to you, to roi, to the pontiff. where a fellow cleric sighed when you forgot your lines.
that fellow cleric stands before you now, but 'fellow' has lost all meaning of the word.
you grip your staff, when she starts to laugh, when she explains her identity to you. not mindt, the kind if naggy sister of the sacred flame. no - arcanette. founder of the moonshade order. bringer of the endless night that has gripped the entirety of solistia.
the one who orchestrated it all, right there, right under your nose. the one who -
"Since arriving here, I've felt forces mobilizing against the Church. I know your position as the inquisitor keeps you plenty busy. But, I beg you to aid me, Temenos. I know I can trust you. Just as I trusted Roi."
some of pontiff's last words to you were the kind that struck deep. he always knew how to get to you; the only authority figure in your life you ever knew was trustworthy. he was a bastion of goodness. a father, for a foundling.
and you found his corpse mauled on the floor of the cathedral, just minutes too late. ]
[ ... you speak, finally, voice even, as the realizations click into place. ] The Pontiff knew who you were. He was going to tell me, but his life was cut short.
[ mindt - arcanette - sighs. "I had hoped you would be more stricken. How dull. Such has ever been your nature. Your face always a placid mask."
she's right. your face doesn't change. you won't allow her the satisfaction, if you can help it, but by the gods, you can feel something churning like a shadow in and of itself, the tidal wave of emotions that you have gotten so, so good at hiding. anger. despair. guilt. how did you miss it? how didn't you see?
she pulls out a staff. black, with an ominous red crystal. your heart lurches. you've seen a weapon just like it before.
roi looks at you, with his expression haunted, clutching the black and red bow in his hands. you've never seen him look so despairing, so worried, so - determined, too.
"The Church has secrets. Terrible, evil secrets." he says, to you, your guiding light, your closest, dearest friend, the man who was raised beside you, your older brother. he departs to find a way to destroy the darkblood bow - because they tried. over and over, he tried to destroy this dark, evil object, and no matter what they did, it wouldn't break. but this bow had to be destroyed, and roi mistral was a hero. he walked out that day with the bow in his hands and the brilliance of his goodness his guide, and he never looked back.
arcanette tells of her plan. to bring darkness to the world eternally - one that has been in motion - and you feel the anger rising in you again. you think of the journals all of you read, huddled together in the darkness of the temples of the sacred flame, and say, slowly, white knuckling the staff of judgement, calm, so calm. ] You stole the futures of untold innocents.
[ arcanette smiles. "Did I? Then you should thank me. This world is cruel. Monstrous. With not a single mote of joy to be found amongst the misery. Don't you see?"
crick, beseeching, eyes bright blue and passionate, a man on the precipice of his beliefs and his doubts: "I want to extend a hand to the weak, and cleave the wickedness from the world."
arcanette continues, sounding out the syllables, slow and sumptuous, watching you like a hawk. "Roi."
roi. the most upstanding man you've ever known: honest, sincere, loving, the very embodiment of what the sacred flame asks. protecting you, when you were both grubby, miserable orphans on the street. camped together over books in the tiny guild library in montwise when you were twelve. scribbling notes in the scriptures at fifteen. roi, with the inquisitor's mantle, smiling at you and your doubt, a true believer to his core. roi, sick with the plague, and you, praying at his bedside from morning to night, hands clasped together and sobbing, begging the gods to save his life. your brother.
disappeared into the night. five years have passed. you know that he's dead.
"Pontiff Jorg."
the pontiff. a wise old man - you knew him when he still had color in his hair. when you were left behind, unwanted, uncared for, he took you under his wing. he raised you and roi in the heart of the church. he gave you a home. he gave you a family. he gave you his trust. he stroked your hair when you cried - you were such a crybaby, then - and taught you lessons, kept your bellies full and your minds sharp. the pontiff raised you so well. a man you could call your father.
a still-warm body on a cathedral floor, mauled by the claws of a felvarg.
"Yes..." arcanette sighs, trailing off, "And even Crick."
crick wellsley. a knight, newly anointed, of the sacred guard. a lost little lamb who you took under your wing entirely by accident, who you came to enjoy bantering with, who looked to you for guidance even though you know you irritated him so. (you did it on purpose.) he flustered and sulked and still fought for you with all of the same sincerity that roi had. he swore to be your godsblade, though you needed no protecting. and when you called him naive, he scoffed, but he listened. a bastion of goodness, a heart as pure and noble as roi had seen in him all those years ago. a thread between you you hadn't even known. a man who sought the truth the way you did, because you taught him to doubt.
a mangled body outside of the headquarters of the sacred guard, clutching a bloody sheet of paper in his hands.
"They knew. They knew the beauty of a dawn that would never come." arcanette says, light, intoned with the continuation of her speech, and you
have had enough. ]
Quiet.
[ it's the fiercest word that's come out of your mouth in as long as you've lived. cold fury bursts free from your chest, and this time, you let it loose, each word heavy as a stone. ] I won't allow you to sully their names with such blasphemy.
[ every manner of cynicism and darkness you've held onto is gone. because she's wrong. the insinuation of the pontiff, of roi, of crick, of any of them fading from the light that they've brought is so violently wrong it cracks the porcelain of your perfectly maintained composure in half. the staff of judgement is in your hands - you grip it with white knuckles, with holy fury, and despite the evenness of your voice, you swing it into a ready position and step forward. ]
You will answer for your sins, Arcanette. [ for the deaths of the untold innocents. for the very names she dared to speak, dared to sully, dared to try and use as a weight to taunt you, to throw away. for you, this is a snarl, you are so angry. you have never been so angry in your entire life.
you have always been the doubter. you looked at roi and crick's rose colored world and scoffed at it, but today? today you face down the endless night, and you know you owe it to them.
you were the one who survived. ]
And I'll ensure that the world they hoped for comes to pass.
[ whether you deserve it or not, you were the one who survived.
arcanette starts to laugh. it's unhinged, delighted, and she nearly cooes - "At last, Temenos's mask falls off."
you no longer care what she sees. what she thinks. the holy magic under your fingers surges.
you are not roi mistral, or crick wellsley, or pontiff jorg.but you are the chosen cleric of aelfric. you are the last survivor of the cold cruelty of the reality you touted as truth.
you are temenos mistral, and today, you will smite down the wrath of the gods on arcanette, for all those you've loved and all those that you've lost. ]
[ okay. okay. the thing about it is that the comic panels popping up startles the fuck out of him and he actually spills some of his coffee on his sweater with a surprised yelp. granted he's not focused on that. he's focused on what he's seeing and...
...the thing about it is that a lot of this feels familiar in a lot of ways. like. he can feel temenos' feelings in this and he can understand the rage that brews beneath the surface, because the people who deserved so much better, the people you came to love, those people had their lives snuffed out shortly by a monster of a person who cares not for the lives they toy with. he can understand becoming the monster yourself, someone who takes on the dirty jobs in order to avenge those you've lost far too soon.
so when the comic ends, he's quietly staring at temenos. the demon is on his shoulder, and there's quickly cooling coffee on his hoodie and he's not speaking for a few long, painful moments as if he's trying to put together a puzzle.
in the end, he says: ]
Did you defeat her? [ zero judgment in why temenos did this. but a simple question to gauge what he's thinking. ]
well. temenos doesn't really want to watch this memory, to be perfectly honest. arcanette is still so raw - this was just hours before his arrival here, and he's been reliving it for weeks in his dreams. just the sight of her makes him - bitter. angry.
he's reaching for a napkin for poor nico and his sweater when he finally speaks - he offers it out to him a bit slowly, watching himself as he loses his temper for maybe only the second time in his entire life. ]
...yes. [ comes the answer, a little slow, belated. ] Yes, we did.
Her plan was already in motion - the dark god's summoning was what we were on our way to stop.
[ but it feels almost like an afterthought, when put in this context. arcanette's betrayal rocked temenos's entire world, just one more loss in a series of non-stop grief. what was one more? ]
[ IT'S FINE. it's fine. he takes the napkin and he's kind of swiping off the coffee, but he's more invested in the conversation actually. ]
Good. [ like. good, first and foremost, fuck those kind of people. ] ...who exactly...I mean. What actually was happening back there for you that you had to stop a summoning to begin with...? What were they really hoping to accomplish?
[ yeah! the good gets a quirk of a smile, actually, but... ]
... The idea of someone attempting to 'bring down the moon', so to speak, is not that unfamiliar to me. The Moonshade Order's attempt to bring Vide back into this world will unleash darkness and chaos through Solistia - drawing on the very worst instincts of man and monster alike, ending the dawn. Vide would have the world cannibalize itself.
In short: they long for the destruction of our world entirely. Themselves included.
Sounds familiar. [ it's muttered under his breath rather irritably. ] ...right, makes sense. When you want to reset the world and bring about a new world. order, you eradicate everything that exists even at the cost of yourself, because at least the goal will be achieved. When will these guys ever learn that that isn't gonna work?
[ gods. ]
...was the Order successful? Or did you guys stop Vide from reviving?
[ gods is right. he sounds just as dry, propping his chin in his hand. if i had a nickel, etc. ]
...Unfortunately, we were on our way to Vidania - the site of the resurrection, when I woke up here. So, that is a question I will have to answer when this is all said and done. [ bad canon point timing. there's a wry little laugh, though. ] If this 'evil plot' comes to light, then it will just be par for the course in Solistia. Precisely what I was fighting just before I left.
Another case of very, very poor timing. Oceanside really seems to like screwing everybody over, considering how often they love to threaten us with destroying our worlds to begin with. [ destroying them. destroying the worlds. whatever. ]
Do you think this evil plot is actually real, Temenos? [ he's not discounting it. he's just exhausted thinking about it. ]
It would be so much easier if there was something in front of us that we could actually deal with. [ it would be so much easier if the moon was closer so he can stab it. ] I hate the idea that we just have to wait around and unravel this plot piece by piece and try to understand what's happening next.
[ not that he's not used to it, given prophecies, but that's also why he hates it. ]
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no subject
Guess we can call that a part of the healing process? [ you did just go somewhere, sir. ] So far the most eventful part of my morning has been fighting the Cocoa Puff for one of my socks so Will can do the laundry. I'd say that's better than usual, which means it's probably gonna get worse when I least expect it.
no subject
[ is what temenos starts to say, amusement playing on his face...
... which of course means that nico absolutely summons up a memshare. the comic book panels happen fast. ]
no subject
...the thing about it is that a lot of this feels familiar in a lot of ways. like. he can feel temenos' feelings in this and he can understand the rage that brews beneath the surface, because the people who deserved so much better, the people you came to love, those people had their lives snuffed out shortly by a monster of a person who cares not for the lives they toy with. he can understand becoming the monster yourself, someone who takes on the dirty jobs in order to avenge those you've lost far too soon.
so when the comic ends, he's quietly staring at temenos. the demon is on his shoulder, and there's quickly cooling coffee on his hoodie and he's not speaking for a few long, painful moments as if he's trying to put together a puzzle.
in the end, he says: ]
Did you defeat her? [ zero judgment in why temenos did this. but a simple question to gauge what he's thinking. ]
no subject
well. temenos doesn't really want to watch this memory, to be perfectly honest. arcanette is still so raw - this was just hours before his arrival here, and he's been reliving it for weeks in his dreams. just the sight of her makes him - bitter. angry.
he's reaching for a napkin for poor nico and his sweater when he finally speaks - he offers it out to him a bit slowly, watching himself as he loses his temper for maybe only the second time in his entire life. ]
...yes. [ comes the answer, a little slow, belated. ] Yes, we did.
Her plan was already in motion - the dark god's summoning was what we were on our way to stop.
[ but it feels almost like an afterthought, when put in this context. arcanette's betrayal rocked temenos's entire world, just one more loss in a series of non-stop grief. what was one more? ]
no subject
Good. [ like. good, first and foremost, fuck those kind of people. ] ...who exactly...I mean. What actually was happening back there for you that you had to stop a summoning to begin with...? What were they really hoping to accomplish?
no subject
... The idea of someone attempting to 'bring down the moon', so to speak, is not that unfamiliar to me. The Moonshade Order's attempt to bring Vide back into this world will unleash darkness and chaos through Solistia - drawing on the very worst instincts of man and monster alike, ending the dawn. Vide would have the world cannibalize itself.
In short: they long for the destruction of our world entirely. Themselves included.
no subject
[ gods. ]
...was the Order successful? Or did you guys stop Vide from reviving?
no subject
[ gods is right. he sounds just as dry, propping his chin in his hand. if i had a nickel, etc. ]
...Unfortunately, we were on our way to Vidania - the site of the resurrection, when I woke up here. So, that is a question I will have to answer when this is all said and done. [ bad canon point timing. there's a wry little laugh, though. ] If this 'evil plot' comes to light, then it will just be par for the course in Solistia. Precisely what I was fighting just before I left.
[ moon anti ]
no subject
Another case of very, very poor timing. Oceanside really seems to like screwing everybody over, considering how often they love to threaten us with destroying our worlds to begin with. [ destroying them. destroying the worlds. whatever. ]
Do you think this evil plot is actually real, Temenos? [ he's not discounting it. he's just exhausted thinking about it. ]
no subject
[ so, like, yeah, it probably exists, but also. he does not hide his own tired sardonic energy here, either. exhausting. ]
Whether there's any credence in the magnificence of their supposed plans is, perhaps, what we have to find out.
no subject
[ not that he's not used to it, given prophecies, but that's also why he hates it. ]