EVENT #5: SOVEREIGN CITIZENS (VENERA)

[aionmods]

Sovereign Citizens

VENERA

In contrast the Aion's last visit, they now arrive in Venera on a completely average day... or so it seems. Unlike Godsblood, Venera has been given no warning as to what's about to befall it; the Kenoma are simply authorized to arrive and begin their bloody work without fanfare. Even their entourage of Achamite soldier don't stick out that much; in the time since the plague left, the city has refilled with occupying forces. Notably, the Hylician ones seem to be keeping out of the way, almost as if they've heard some things and would rather not be involved too closely in what's to come.

As opposed to the ghost town it was during the plague, Venera is now reasonably active, with most attending to their usual business. Shops are open, and its people are withdrawn but superficially friendly when meeting strangers. Initially, the targets of the Kenoma hit list will have no way of knowing what's coming for them, but after the first couple attacks word will begin to spread. Those that have recently been engaging in seditious behavior will become harder to find, leaving their usual homes and workplaces to stay elsewhere, and making other attempts to escape the Regent's attention.

Once those alerts have been raised, the Kenoma will have to engage in more detective work to find their targets, questioning other Venerans and seeking out fugitives in the homes of their family and friends. In the meantime, some of those who believe they are in danger may become desperately enough to seek out the Pleroma directly, imploring them for aid. Unfortunately, seeking out one sect may just as easily draw the attention of the other. Most uninvolved Venerans will be too terrified to intervene one way or another, reluctant to aid in the persecution of their neighbors but fearful of consequences. If your Aion travels openly, it will take some effort to pin them down long enough to hold a conversation.

SEEDS OF DESPAIR

Several days into the culling of Venera, the Aions will have witnessed the city gradually withdraw into itself. The streets become vacant as more and more people decide it isn't worth the risk to be seen outside, abandoning work and play alike to hide out in their homes, refusing to answer their doors to all except the most desperate pleading. Those that can't avoid their daily obligations are quiet and morose, trying their best to remain unseen and unremarked upon.

If your character has been observed as a Kenoma, either now or in their previous visits to the city, the citizens will look upon them as if they are the messengers of death. If you are seen as a Pleroma, they will resist your gaze, as if fearing your presence alone might leave them marked. In rarer cases, you will see those with stronger spirits, with glares of hatred or determination. They are powerless now, but seeds have been sewn, and whether they are the seeds of despair or of action are yet unclear.

By the time the Kenoma's hit list has been fully addressed, several have been killed and several more have been rushed from their homes to flee the city entirely. There have been holes left in the tapestry of the community they were once part of. One way or another, their absence will be felt keenly by those they left behind.

QUESTIONS

What is the best way for Aions to travel to Venera?
Estinien has plans to get an early start for the Pleroma by teleporting to the Lover's shrine and flying somewhere closer to set up a portal from the ocean caves near the Godsblood Lodestone to a spot of farmland closer to Venera. Paul will be setting up a portal directly from Achamoth to one of the Achamite outposts in Venera.

How much force can the Kenoma use while interrogating Venerans?
While they are generally not permitted to kill Venerans who haven't tried to physically fight them, they will be permitted to apply both physical and mental pressure upon those that refuse to provide them with information regarding the whereabouts of their targets. This duress should be proportional to the resistance the Veneran is offering. The Regent is not inviting them to terrorize Venera on a level to a level they cannot reasonably blaim themselves for.

Comments

FOR LIEM & MAKOTO (& LUO BINGHE) ↣ RESCUE INTERUPPTED ↣ 助け守れない物

[warmare]

[Nothing is going like it was supposed to. Hayame had come to this place to kill the Kenoma who served the Regent, to litter the place with as many headless corpses as she could…

And yet instead… she is walking beside one in the dusk now, swathed in cloaks and heads low, escorting a young Veneran woman who clutches a babe to her breast and shushes it softly, apologizing softly to the child for its mothers crimes as they make their way towards the district with the only safehouse that she knew was available to them. If she could just see them there, then someone else could take care of this woman, perhaps someone more magically inclined and of the Pleroma could take the pale man and pull the black sludge out of his body in a way that she had failed to do…

Hayame stops in her tracks, one hand raised to stop the others from passing her, asking for stillness as dark eyes scan the streets trapped between the light of day and dark of night, her entire body on edge reflected in the glamor spelled two-legged version of herself that she wore like a second cloak over her natural body.

But beneath the spell, beneath the thin wrap of garment… the hair of Hayame’s vestigial mane stands stiff, aroused by some sense of movement or presence that she can’t identity—

A black cat yowls in an alley, knocking over a decorative pot as it scrambles from its perch.]

[affal]

( for a short time, the would-be rescue party has had an unaccounted-for shadow.

not everyone comes to the Kenoma well or naturally. in all honesty, makoto himself had fought against its insidious influence tooth and nail for several long, dreadful days before it had finally opened up enough cracks in his soul to sink in through, filling in those new fault-lines and smoothing them over with newfound purpose. much of this is because, at the end of the day, he has little to lose by doing so. he might spare some passing regret for the dissolution of one or two individuals he left behind, but so long as J is here in horos, he has no need to fight against the inexorable tide; no, he might as well do all he can to usher forth universal oblivion. it's what he had once sought for himself, after all — why should one stop there?

makoto had made a short mental list of individuals of the Kenoma dispatching to venera that he believed might waver in their convictions to carry out the Regent's orders. liem had been one of those, less from what he had observed from the man in their leader's address, but more from what he recalled in their meeting in the cold, quiet catacombs beneath the Citadel.

it didn't seem that he took to it very well. so he would keep a closer eye on him, and this evening, that closer eye had netted him just what he had been wary of: the act of rebellion, active and in progress.

what kept him at bay from intervening earlier was the woman at his side. liem may hide beneath hood and cloak, and hayame might hide beneath an illusion, but makoto could see the essences of their souls plainly enough with True Sight. the jinba... concerned him. he is not so perfectly toothless as he had been a few months ago, but that doesn't necessarily mean he relishes tangling with a creature he could easily see stomping him into the ground. that having been said — he's getting the sense that he's running out of time. late afternoon pushes into dusk, and then pushes on towards evening. if the venerans they are accompanying are on the list as he suspects they might be, it will be on his head if he allowed them to escape based on cowardice alone. so he steels himself and presses forward, weaving from the side-street he had been traveling parallel to them on and into a dark adjoining alleyway. the air seems to seethe with violent intent. a cat yowls in surprise, upsetting a piece of pottery that falls to the cobblestones with a loud clatter in his wake. )

Ah, Liem. ( two disproving clucks of the tongue. ) This is quite disappointing.

( just as the words sound from the figure emerging from the darkness, a short, violent gust buffets the small group in the street. it doesn't last long, and it's not particularly powerful, but it might blow back one's hood unless they reached up to pull it back down to its rightful place. )

I'd hoped you might prove smarter than this.

( as he says it, his head cants toward hayame and he sets her in a baleful gaze — eerily pale, with his eyes reflecting the light of the moon like a wild animal's. it's a clear and present insult. throughout this day and all the others, he's been wearing a variety of different glamors as disguise, but now what they see is representative for how he stands: clad in a long coat and clothing more suited to work than his more standard fare, a long and straight steel dagger catching moonlight in his right hand.

there's no point in pontificating — even if liem might find excuses, he's certain the jinba woman wouldn't. so he doesn't waste any more time. makoto's right arm draws back in a fast, fluid arc, the pommel of the blade catching between his fore and middle finger before he lashes out to fling it at hayame, a target painted on the broad equine side that was plain to his eyes, cast as a double-image over her illusion. he didn't necessarily have to be perfectly accurate; he just wanted to find the space between two ribs. )

[sterngaze]

[It’s a tense procession that makes its way along the twilit Veneran street, led by the fierce jinba in the guise of an astonishingly tall woman, followed by a mother and her whimpering babe, with liem’s narrow, alert shape bringing up the rear. The crossbow that has spent most of the past week on his back is currently carried in his hands, ready to be loaded at the slightest hint of trouble, and inside the shadow of his hood, dark eyes unobstructed by his habitual lenses flick over the facades of the street’s deserted buildings. If they’re discovered, he intends to be prepared.

He runs a clear risk by accompanying Hayame on this journey; any Kenoma who see him will be immediately suspicious, and if they recognize her then his treachery will be blindingly obvious. But there have been too many executions already. If the party is seen and accosted, he’d rather ensure that the Veneran woman doesn’t end up in Kenoma hands than worry about maintaining his deception. As things are, his time under the Regent’s command is already almost at its end.

When Hayame bids them pause, Liem steps closer to the local woman, shifting his grip on the crossbow as he cocks his head beneath the shelter of his hood. He hears… something. Someone.

Then he spies movement in the depths of a nearby alley. The deep shadows inside the alley’s mouth may as well not exist as far as he’s concerned, so he’s identified the figure even before he’s stepped out onto the street. Liem takes one more glance at their immediate surroundings, then snaps his attention back to Makoto as a sudden gust of wind knocks the hood back from his face, revealing wary eyes every bit as inhuman as the demon’s own.

He doesn’t bother defending himself against Makoto’s barb; nor does he act with the deliberate care that he always adopts when practising his archery at the Citadel. This is no training yard with its assortment of curious onlookers, and the youth before him is not his ally. When the demon draws back his arm, Liem loads his weapon in a motion so fluid he may as well be drawing an ordinary bow, aims it directly at his heart, and pulls the trigger without a single moment’s hesitation.]

[warmare]

[So it wasn’t a cat.

Hayame’s senses were well-honed on the frontiers of human civilization, raised as a tool of a weaker race since the moment she was taken bloody and bawling from a mother with no arms to hold her. She has been trained to hunt, to find, to capture or to kill-

And this one. This one she wants to kill.

Her senses hone on him the second she can detect him, her dark eyes blown out with a rush of hatred. The man who had first held a hand out to her when she’d been rebirthed naked and afraid in a cavern of crystal, who had appealed to her pride as if he knew what her’s was. The man who Estinien had named, who she’d seen act against him when he was near frozen with Innocence in an accidental melding of Firebranded minds.

“M”.

One of the Kenoma she’d sworn she would bring back to Greentruth—- both his shard and his head, whether the latter rotted away in her hands before she could display it or not. There is his throat. There is a perfectly sized blade at her waist.

But first she has to avoid his. He gives her time with his announcements, the insult jabs but she will take it for what it grants her- the chance to dodge. She cannot avoid it completely, the downside of a larger body is a larger target, but he throws for her ribs and she throws her body back in a clatter of hooves that doesn’t match the glamor of human feet scrambling, biting into her lip with sharp canines to muffle any sound of pain he might delight in.

The knife penetrates flesh and muscle… and then clatters to the cobblestone street, unable to sink far enough into her body to stick when she has sacrificed a bony lower shoulder instead. The Veneran woman screams. Hayame draws her own bow, six feet of perfectly calibrated curve and sinew draw, an arrow notched and fired in the space it takes to blink twice.

Her and Liem’s target is the same.]

[affal]

( "you are a damned fool."

hindsight will probably provide him plenty of self-commentary and self-critique on how he'd gone about all of this. given the salient facts available to him, his approach is foolish at best and disastrous at worst. regardless of what he might say he is, what he wants to believe he is, makoto is a young man scarcely out of high school age who has spent the last few years plying politics and pleasure, not familiarizing himself with weaponry and the lethal cadence of battle. even if he had dedicated himself well to training, a few months' application was not suddenly going to make him a worthy adversary to those who have spent years of their lives training and fighting, living in worlds where pain and violence could actually mete out a brutal end.

but as much as makoto is foolish, he is prideful, and he wants to believe all of that hard work could amount to something when combined with new abilities he's recently become aware of. and so he will do his utmost until his common sense gets the better of his ego.

he is likely aware of liem's weapon of choice from any opportunity of observation in the Citadel's training grounds, and it's hard to miss the bow that the jinba draws, an artful recurve that stood over half a foot taller than makoto himself. he plays a dangerous game, then — a bolt from a crossbow or an arrow from that monstrosity would be enough to severely cripple his chances to do anything here (besides be dissipated, or worse). focusing on his enemies, he less sees and more hears the clatter of the dagger as it falls bloodied to the cobblestones. he has a plan in mind, but it's something he hasn't tried yet. not in combat, at least. but with two projectiles loosed at him in rough tandem, he has no more time to consider alternatives.

as the crossbow and bow train on him, his left hand makes a gesture, sketching out a rectangle in four quick slashes and then activating it with a point. he blinks out of existence a split-second after the bolts are loosed; they pierce deep into the mortar at the corner of the building where he'd been standing. he reappears a heartbeat later, alongside liem and in a position where he carefully kept the man in-between himself and hayame. a keen ear might hear the ragged sound of breath — it seems the spell takes its toll — but it's soon followed by the sibilant hiss of steel sounds as he draws his offhand from a sheath at the small of his back, a main-gauche with a heavy crossguard. he slashes with it laterally, less to attack the traitor and more to attempt to lock the hook of that crossguard into the crossbow and force it askew, opening up liem's guard.

not to say he wasn't going to also try to attack him. he does, drawing his last blade (I promise...) in a reverse grip from a sheath on his thigh and attempting to slash out at the man. )

[sterngaze]

[Liem has never seen Makoto make that particular gesture before, but its meaning becomes obvious once he points—and vanishes from the path of the oncoming projectiles. Whirling as the demon reappears at his side, he raises his weapon instinctively at the flash of steel in the low light, but awareness of the woman behind him keeps him from stepping away to escape the other’s reach. His left arm is pulled wide, and he jerks away with a hiss as Makoto opens a slash across the front of his coat.

Belatedly, the woman behind him cries out, darkness and confusion conspiring against her as she tries to keep track of the sudden danger. As Liem arrests his backward momentum and begins to bring his crossbow to bear again, she clutches her child closer and scrambles for the relative shelter of the Pleroma ahead of her, leaving him to his own devices.

He keeps moving. Grimacing as the sting across his chest informs him that his coat wasn’t the only casualty of Makoto’s attack, he transitions from a backwards dodge into a sidestep following the movement of his deflected crossbow. And he steps through a doorway of moonlight and shadow, one that swallows him from nose to heel and spits him out on the demon’s other side—so he can aim the butt of his weapon in a sharp crack at the back of Makoto’s skull.]

[warmare]

["M" vanishes. All he does is move his accursed fingers, and he just vanishes... and then reappears, all in barely an instant. Hayame's gaze whips around, her long mane carving an elegant ebony arc through the air as she seeks his new location... and finds it, hidden from an easy shot from her bow by the other Kenoma now between them.

Just as she's about to forgo ranged weaponry and charge, bowl the both of them over if she has to if it meant getting her hands on that slippery dark-haired boy... the Veneran woman scrambles out of the way towards her, clutching her child tight to her breast and seeking refuge from the grappling Kenoma.]

Get out of the way, woman- !

[She runs into Hayame's ire, along the way, becoming just another interference in her shot, and by the time the woman has made it behind her and the path is (somewhat) clear again... Liem vanishes, too. The both of them, winking in and out of existence like it's nothing, and she doesn't even have the time to be angry. (At least, not angrier than she already was.)]

M- !

[It's a bid for his distraction, snarled with a crack of sharp teeth as Hayame throws herself into a half rear, forelegs kicking out before she leaps just enough to the side in an arc around the two that Liem isn't directly behind from her angle... because at this range her arrows are fit to punch straight through a person.

Like the one she fires off immediately after, bowstring twanging and arrowhead cleaving through the air once more on path to a heart.]

[affal]

( there's a sickening sort of satisfaction at the blade parting through layers of cloth to reach the flesh beneath. makoto had first felt this when he'd pressed the flat of a dagger to J's neck, slowly turning it inwards so that the edge began to bite through the thin layer of skin — it had been the most persuasive option he'd had to him at the time to stop the man from tearing the sewn-in demon's tongue out of his mouth. it's different from how it had felt to take apart estinien's lithified form, different from how far removed he felt to all the deaths caused by the contracts he had formed with mortals. there's just something so sweet and intimate about being so close to the damage that you cause — the only way to be closer would be to do it with your own hands and teeth.

there are many moving parts to this scene of violence. makoto and liem clash directly; behind them, the Veneran woman cries out and tries to scramble out of the way, clutching her baby close to herself. hayame is momentarily stymied by makoto's positioning, putting all of these targets between himself and her immense bow. the civilian honestly had little to fear from makoto — the Kenoma were meant to deliver the seditionists to their fate, not take their fates into their own hands, so as far as he's concerned, she's a distant third to confronting the traitor and dealing with the centaur. he keeps his attention split between them both.

liem's quick maneuver backwards and to the side freed up his crossbow; it falls easily out of the crossguard of the parrying dagger, and for the moment the only action he commits to is trying to follow his movements in order to maintain him as a shield between himself and hayame's thundering approach. this works until the moment he disappears right in front of his eyes in such a similar way as makoto's own spell that there's a childish impulse of "he's copying me," (no, you're copying him) that flits through his mind before he tries to ascertain where he'd gone.

all too late. makoto had turned his head to try to look for him in one direction, and liem steps through a rift in space on the other, bringing the butt of the crossbow down on the back of the demon's skull with a dull crack. the pain is an immense wedge driven into his mind; his thoughts rattle, and he's shaken additionally by how close the blow had been to the shard embedded in the base of his skull. he allows the pangs of alarm emanating from his heart thudding against his ribcage to jar him out of his stunned reverie; he turns with strange eyes going wide at the jinba's approach, an animal and instinctual fear arising at the equine forelegs rising from the ground before she jumps to a position where she can fire unencumbered toward him. he knows that on the other side of him, surely liem must be doing something similar or worse. he doesn't have the time to think — instead, he casts his gaze suddenly skyward and draws another Doorway. he disappears, allowing a second of the jinba's bolts to scatter off of the cobblestones.

it might be challenging to see where he immediately reappears, but the leathery sound of draconic wings unfolding and flapping to keep him aloft in the dark sky would be a telltale sign for an answer. he knows he can't stay up here long — they'll shoot him out of the sky. so instead he starts to wheel in the air, building up speed for a few heartbeats before dropping into a plummeting dive straight at liem, shining steel and the talons on his wings bared — he's willing to risk an attack from the man on the approach if he might be able to do some real damage, and he hopes once again tangling his proximity with him will at least give hayame some reason to pause. )

[sterngaze]

[Despite the short length of time that Liem has spent in Hayame’s company, years of training have drilled into him the importance of adapting his tactics to fit his current situation, including his current partnership with her. When a single hunter isn’t sufficient to conduct the work that needs to be done, he’s turned to fellow inquisitors, city guards, mercenary groups, even hired labour to tighten the noose around a target. He’s quick to note her snarling leap, and even as he shifts to continue his pursuit of Makoto, he takes care not to wander back into the path of her bow. Instead he snatches a quarrel from the quiver at his hip, intending to drive it into the young man’s back before he can recover from his blow.

But his position at Makoto’s rear makes him ill-suited to interrupt the rapid strokes of his hastily performed ritual. Liem notes the slashing rectangle in almost the same moment that he completes it, and when he plunges the quarrel toward his ribs, the point finds purchase in only empty air.

He doesn’t lose sight of him for long. Following his gaze up to the bruise-dark sky, he spies the demon’s wheeling silhouette—and smiles grimly as it plummets back down towards him. His eyes flick back to Hayame to note her position before he loads the quarrel into his weapon and swings the tip up to aim at Makoto. This time he doesn’t aim directly for the heart, but rather for one side, so that if he twists to avoid the shot to his wing, his line of sight will swerve away from Hayame—and from the trajectory of her own arrow.]

[warmare]

[There's blood in the air, sharp in her senses, too many sounds, one opponent and one ally moving too fast- but Hayame can not let any of it distract her.

She isn't think about helping the Veneran woman who is running down the street behind her looking for a place to hide, desperately holding her infant tight to her breast. She isn't thinking about protecting the man she has learned today is named Liem, even if he has become an ally. All she's thinking about is killing "M", whose head she had sworn to bring the first person she'd acknowledged as a comrade in this place... but now, more importantly... who served the Regent. The same Regent that had disgraced her in the shadow courtroom, who had claimed responsibility for the death of hr world.

Her entire self is dedicated only to that now. Kill him. Take his shard.

It's Liem's efforts and more teamwork-oriented mindset that allows it. She catches him check her position as she's aiming her bow upwards towards the wheeling demon, her lips twisting into a sick, elated smile as she pulls her bowstring to the limits of her six foot long bow's capabilities. In the air, she imagines he will be but a pheasant whose feathered breast awaits her arrow-

But she has just enough sense to wait. For this she can wait, the muscles of her arm taut and quivering until she sees Liem fire at the plummeting enemy, knowing M will need to pull to the side to avoid the crossbow bolt ripping straight through the comparatively delicate wing... only then, at the perfect moment does she release her bowstring, so that when he does so-

Her arrow will be there to greet him.]

[affal]

( it's about at the time that he's diving back down towards the street with the sharpened diamond tips of two bolts training in on him as he does so that he realizes that he's made a few fundamental strategic errors. one was in number: perhaps over-emboldened by recent strives he's made recently, he had neglected to realize that one against two were not good mathematical odds. the other was range: both liem and hayame utilized long-range weapons, though with liem's training and hayame's... well, being a jinba warrior, it's not like either were vulnerable at short-range either. surprise might have been the only tool he might have used here to his lethal advantage, and he had spoiled that rather superbly.

as they say: the pride come before the fall.

his attention is split more towards hayame, wary of the monstrous size of the weapon that she wields, but it's the bowstring of the drawn crossbow that twangs first. his gaze shifts back towards liem, and he lifts his wings up and twists out of the way of the bolt — exactly as hayame had been waiting for him to do. mid-way through the maneuver, he can't change trajectory again in the time and space left between himself and the other two on the street as the arrow looses from her bow. despite that, he tries, and perhaps it's that dogged tenacity to grit his teeth and endeavor even in hopeless odds that keep him from receiving an instantly mortal shot through the chest, destroying his heart.

instead, it finds him just over it, punching through the flesh of his shoulder with violent ease. and it really does feel like that: the physical impact of a punch landing. the arrow threads the needle between his top rib and his clavicle, piercing through his back just over his shoulder-blade and going so far as to puncture the leathery membrane of one of his wings that had been drawn back at that same moment. the pain is a sudden shock to his system that he is getting disturbingly familiar with, though the arrow in his shoulder is not nearly so overwhelmingly crippling as estinien's lance through his chest had been. what was far worse in this immediate moment was that when he tries to straighten out his wing, the membrane begins to tear around the arrow stuck in it, informing him of both a brand new type of pain but also a brand new type of panic as the ground rushes up to reach him. a few desperate beats from his unencumbered wing prevent him from a far more gruesome impact, but he hits the ground hard, all the wind forced out of his lungs in a rush. the projectile stuck in his shoulder radiates waves of pain fierce enough to make it hard to draw air back in, and he struggles against bruised and battered limbs to at the very least heave himself off of the ground and onto his hands and knees. he reaches a right hand shaking with hurt and adrenaline and encloses it around the feathered end of the arrow, knuckles biting white as he clutches it and twists to snap it off — something that would have been impossible for him to do otherwise, but within his grasp with his power of enmity transforming injury and agony into strength.

the arrow needs to come out. he can cope with the wound and the bleeding that it would cause far better than he can cope with how debilitating it is interfering with the movement of his arm and his wing. it's not like he can try to pull it out here, not with liem nearby to further turn him into a pincushion and hayame likely to stomp him into a fine paste.

he looks down into a darkened alley nearby, careful that it was only the movement of his downturned eyes and not his head that betrayed the direction. then he takes a breath, draws one more Doorway onto the cobblestones of the street, and disappears.

for now. )

[sterngaze]

[Given the young man’s previously demonstrated tenacity, Liem is neither dismayed nor particularly surprised when Makoto succeeds at twisting out of the way of his shot. It’s Hayame’s shot that he’d been banking on regardless, and when he sees her arrow impale his shoulder a split second later, satisfaction surges inside him, singing fiercely through his veins. He can’t deny the thrill that grips him at the sight of the struggling demon crashing onto the cobbles, pinioned and bleeding despite his earlier confidence. He may have once been a ward of Hell, but his blood still smells vital enough for any living man.

As always, hunting instinct urges Liem closer to make the kill at a more intimate distance—to lean a knee onto that slender back and open Makoto’s throat with his teeth. But both wisdom and civility bid otherwise. He loads another bolt into his weapon, aiming it at the vulnerable stretch of his battered ribs to finally pierce his heart.

Instead, his shot ricochets hard off the bare cobbles just past where Makoto had been kneeling a moment before. Liem swears under his breath, lifting his head to glance around in search of his vanished quarry, his ears straining for the scuff of movement on stone. Long seconds pass as he waits for Makoto to betray his presence.

But his retreat seems total. Liem stalks over to the blood-spattered street where he’d last been and looks about. Only empty side-streets and alleys greet him.

His dark eyes narrow.]

We’d best move quickly. I don’t want to be caught in the street when someone else comes for us.

[warmare]

[It's too early to feel victorious, but Hayame still feels a surge of thrill when she sees her arrow hit, watches the vainproud boy plummet back to earth with the rest of them where he belonged. Seeing his wing struggle to extend, she's already readying another arrow for when he hits the ground, whether he managed to break his fall or not wouldn't matter--

But her arrow, just like Liem's quarrel a second before, hits only stone.

He's gone, teleported again, and this time... Her dark eyes do not find him anywhere. Not back in the sky above them, not lurking in the shadow of an alley, not in a rooftop to monitor them from above-]

Damn it-

[A back leg accidentally kicks out, colliding with a barrel lined up against a shop far since closed for the night, but her frustration is going to have to wait to find a proper outlet that isn't the person she currently had allied herself with. She almost accuses him of carelessness, sure that she hadn't been followed, so it had to have been him, but there's no time to sort out how this had happened, they had to-

Her eyes find the Veneran woman, huddled behind a stack of crates and trying to shush her child that had begun to hiccup and cry over the sudden panic and violence, rocking it as gently as she could when she seemed terrified herself. For a moment, she stares at them... strangely. Moe accurately, she stares at the woman's arms wrapped around the baby strangely, as if it was something she didn't understand or had rarely seen.

But the moment passes.]

Get the woman, then.

[... Harshly. Despite agreeing to help, from the moment she'd begun this endeavor it had been obvious she was not... "good with people", and had needed to leave handling the Veneran to Liem, who seemed far better at it than she. (Like most people.)]

We are still more than ten blocks from the safehouse.

[And they could not move as fast as she could.]

[sterngaze]

[Liem doesn't waste any time in arguing when Hayame gives him the job of retrieving their charge, knowing better than to expect her to have any patience for a frightened mother and her baby. He nods, turns back in the direction she'd fled in and hastens over to the stack of crates she's made her temporary shelter, leaving his hood down now that their last hope of secrecy has been dashed. He wants his eyes and ears to remain clear more than he wants the added anonymity.]

Come on. We need to hurry.

[He places a light hand on the woman's shoulder as he stops at her side, his voice kept to a murmur.]

We can't stay here.

[Reluctantly, the Veneran allows herself to be coaxed out from her meagre shelter so they can continue their journey. Liem keeps a hand on her back, hurrying her along as much as he can, but the woman is undoubtedly the slowest of the three of them, and they're forced to match her pace. The road to the safe house seems to stretch endlessly.]

[warmare]

[... Perhaps this is the man that she had met in that space between worlds. The one she watches now (in between watching the rooftops and alleyways for sign of any other prying eyes or Kenoma stalkers) reassure the woman enough to coax her from fearful hiding, get her back to her feet and reminded that they have a ways to go yet, that she must be strong.

Mothers were supposed to be strong for their children. (Weren't they? She certainly didn't know. Her mother hadn't had the arms to hold her even if she'd felt an ounce of love for the daughter forced upon her at the breeding post.)

Readjusting her grip on her bow, she takes a moment to inhale. The lower shoulder that had been dislocated by a Kenoma's earth powers turning the soil against her comparatively delicate legs throbs. The upper shoulder cracked by a mace burns, any rest she had given it ruined by the encounter with M. But there is no time to let it stop her. She falls back in to step with the others, her hooves clacking on the cobblestones, on high alert for any threats. But even despite the risks, this pace-]

- How fast can you run?

[She directs her question under her breath to Liem, voice taut and low, skin crawling with the fact that she's even about to offer the thing she is... But if he cannot do much beyond what an average human could, then there would be little point to her humiliation.]

I can bear the woman.

[She says it like it physically pains her to... but she still says it.]

[sterngaze]

[Liem has no experience with infants or their mothers, and no notion of what they in particular might need to stay strong during a life-or-death trek out of danger. He never got to experience a mother’s care during his own childhood, nor witness it directed towards a new sibling, a niece or nephew.

But he knows what it is to be frightened for your life, and to need to keep moving forward regardless. He shepherds the woman along gently but firmly, keeping their pace as swift as she can manage, murmuring to her when she slows inadvertently in the course of tending to her fussing child. He does everything he can to keep them moving swiftly towards safety, knowing that the hourglass is running against all of them.

And still, his gut tells him it won’t be enough.

He glances alertly up at Hayame when she drops back to join them, understanding the salience of her question as soon as she offers to bear the Veneran on her back.]

Not as swiftly as you, I’m sure.

[He’s never seen her run, but with her legs, he’d be surprised if she was any slower than the horse she so resembles. Even burdened with a rider, she’ll almost certainly outpace him. Nonetheless, it would be considerably faster than their current speed.]

I can keep pace with hounds, when needed.

[warmare]

[It's that disquieted, uncomfortable feeling in her own guts that has motivated Hayame to offer something she would never do unless a life literally depended on it. Ever since she had been old enough to understand that she was a single failure away from the taste of the bit and the chafe of the saddle, perhaps three away from being taken to the flensing post, she had feared being sold as a mount. Of feeling the weight of a human rider heavy and demanding on her back, their thighs around her flanks, their hands jerking at reins-]

Put-

[Just once, with the other yearlings, she had felt it, on Breaking Day. What it would feel like to be treated as an Armless. And just as the stable master had intended... it had been enough to ensure obedience and fervid loyalty. (Until she'd tasted freedom, that was- Until she'd ruined that.)

She swallows, attempting to hide the fear that had driven her desperate quest towards the path of the warrior. Hopes that it is only disgust that shows through when she forces herself to stop, to take a knee and lower herself down far enough that an inexperienced or clumsy rider might still be able to clamber up.]

Help her mount, then.

[If he were as fast as a hound, and she as fast as a horse... Perhaps they could reach the safehouse before another Kenoma found them. They would have secured the safety of one of the people marked for disappearing by the Regent, she would have succeeded in bringing back a traitor, hopefully his body could be cleansed of the black sludge she had once tried to force out of him herself, and if that happened, then maybe, just maybe-

Hayame swallows, unable to fully disguise how taut her entire body was, how badly she wanted to reject the idea she herself had just proposed. But now she has to. She has to succeed, even if it means debasing herself like a common mare.

Otherwise... This wouldn't be worth the blow to her pride.]

[devilmancrybaby]

[ As Hayame kneels to let the woman mount her back, a black shape descends from one of the nearby rooftops, robes fluttering in the wind as it lands in front of her.

Luo Binghe's sword gleams as he straightens up, looking between Hayame, Liem and the civilians with narrowed eyes. His blade tastes fear in the air, and it hums inaudibly with its thoughtless yearning to justify that fear. Binghe shivers. ]

I hope you're not going to run this time, too.

[ He lunges forward, sword at the ready for a fierce diagonal slash aimed at Hayame's front—or her legs, depending on how fast she gets back up. ]

[warmare]

[It is humiliating, to feel the Veneran woman's shaky hand splay against her dun withers. Hayame locks her knees when Liem cups his hands to help the woman mount, when she feels fingers curl in the inky remnants of mane down her back... and pupils dilate, a surge of nausea boils in her lower stomach when she feels weight press onto her flank, moving up-

It dulls her senses. It narrows her vision.

It means that she's shocked when Luo Binghe suddenly appears before them. Her movement is hampered by the tense lock of her joints, her hearts freeze in her chests with shock, with condemnation for not having heard it coming, with shame for being seen letting a woman mount her for riding like a common horse-

But all of it vanishes when the sword swings.

Hayame doesn't think of the woman and her baby who are half on her back. She doesn't think of Liem, who will have to catch them or avoid her lurch of movement. All she thinks in that moment is that if she doesn't move, Luo Binghe's sword will slice her foreleg clean off.

So she rears, high and sudden and accompanied by a curse, her hooves lashing out in powerful kicks that serve as a desperate, chaotic attempt to keep the swordsman at bay.]

[sterngaze]

[The unwillingness written into every rigid muscle of Hayame’s body makes Liem frown at her brusque instruction, but even if she can barely stand the idea of bearing a rider, they lack the time to pursue other options. He nods reluctantly, turning back to the Veneran to ensure that she heard Hayame’s words.]

I’ll help you up, [he assures her as the centaur stoops down to make her climb easier. Even if she has no familiarity with riding, they’ll still make much better time with her on Hayame’s back than they have been. He forms a makeshift step with his hands, nodding encouragingly to coax her into motion, and she begins to heave herself awkwardly up.

That’s when Luo Binghe flutters down from a nearby rooftop with that awful, malevolent sword. Liem can’t move without dumping his charges straight onto the street, so for a split second he can do nothing except continue to support the woman’s weight as she attempts to climb to the relative safety of Hayame’s back.

But the sword swings. Hayame scrambles into a rear, legs flailing, and the woman yelps as she’s thrown back, clutching instinctively at her baby even as she tumbles backwards toward the cobbled stone. Liem springs back to catch her before she cracks her skull on the pavement, circling her in his arms and letting out a small oof as her back impacts his chest. Although neither of them go down onto the road, they do stagger back a couple steps from the momentum. And the baby’s thin wail rises to fill the empty street.]

[devilmancrybaby]

[ Hayame's hooves clash against the flat of the blade. Luo Binghe feels the impact all the way up his arm, but holds fast for a second before he leaps back and swings it sharply down to his side.

His eyes, shining crimson in the low light, flicker to Liem and the civilians, but only for a second. Makoto can take care of him, whenever he arrives. His opponent is the centaur. ]

Our last bout ended inconclusively, I think. [ He sneers. ] And, if I recall, you called me a coward as you fled. Shall we find out if that's really true?

[affal]

( though no longer burdened by the arrow that had pierced through his shoulder and into his wing, makoto has to pursue on foot, paradoxically bolstered by the pain that presently blossoms from the exit-wounds that now soak through all the layers of his clothing with blood. from a distance and upon approach, he can see liem trying to help the veneran woman onto the centaur's back — if they were able to take off at the speeds he's certain she can reach, there would be no way that he could pursue, not with one of his wings injured and unreliable. so it's a welcome relief when binghe leaps down from the rooftops, strange sword almost seeming to sing in anticipation for the violence it might be fed.

he still has a long way to go at navigating the chaos of combat. everything all seems to happen at once, forcing one to rely on impulse and instinct, two things which he neither comes by naturally nor has had the amount of time many others have had to develop. so he relies instead on what he had discussed with the other Kenoma Aion just a few moments before: he would lock down hayame so makoto could engage with liem. and as for the woman, well... he didn't really care what happened to her. if they could recapture her, it would be all the better, but he still thinks she might be a useful chip to convince the horse-woman to think better of her magnanimity for her fellow Aion and leave him behind to his fellows.

it's quite noble of liem to step quickly into a place where he can catch the woman as she falls; neither she nor her babe suffer the consequences of sliding off of hayame's equine back in her sudden rear from binghe's swing. unfortunately for him, however, with his arms preoccupied with his rescue and his back turned toward makoto's approach, he leaves the demon an opening that he would be foolish to ignore.

once within range, a Doorway carries him into the space right behind liem hopefully before the man has time to react to the sound of approaching footsteps; with the rasp of metal, sharpened steel glints in makoto's hand, and he attempts to find space in his back between two ribs to plunge it. not in a place that would prove immediately lethal, mind, but certainly with the intent to severely hamper his attempts at fighting back and escaping. )

[warmare]

[The hooves of a jinba (and a horse) are powerful weapons, able to crush a man’s skull or trample his body beneath a great weight… but though they are more nail than foot, hard and mostly unfeeling… this time the Kenoma’s blade leaves a deep notch into one of Hayame’s hooves, and when her balance forces her back to all fours a flash of pain shows briefly oh her face, a crescent-shaped imprint of crimson is left behind wherever the hoof lands and rests for longer than a single second.

To cover it… She goes what she always goes for. Anger.]

The man who comes crawling out on the orders of a pathetic shot pheasant who wants to kidnap a widow is a brave hero?

[She doesn’t actually care about the woman or the baby (she doesn’t think), even though a part of her at least registered— good, her traitor had caught them, and made up for her blunder. She surely doesn’t care. She’s certain M doesn’t either, he was after Liem more than the woman, but-]

If you don’t call your booted thugs this time maybe we’ll actually see who is the stronger!

[There’s movement, suddenly, to her right, behind Liem and the woman and child he has shielded, and though her instinct is to leap into action… this man’s sword can fly. She can’t take her eye off it, or immediately try to put distance between them and leave Liem in a potential 2 on 1, she can only shout-]

Behind you- !

[To Liem in the hopes that he’ll heed it, react in time…

Before she leaps forward with a snarl, her own shorter blade drawn to attempt and parry the inevitable stab or slash she will risk…

In her split second decision to try and rush him, try to tackle the two-legged man to the ground or against whatever nearest surface she could manage.]

[sterngaze]

[For a moment, as he steadies the Veneran woman and Hayame faces off against the newcomer, Liem wonders if he might have time to get off a shot at him before Makoto inevitably makes another appearance. It's too much to hope for that his arrow wound might have taken him out of commission entirely, but it must have slowed him down. And he doesn't like the thought of Hayame facing off against that sword by herself.

But there is a scuff of noise on the street behind him; Hayame shouts a warning. Liem starts to move, still gripping the Veneran woman, and feels steel bite between his ribs. He twists away to face his assailant, putting the woman at his back as white hot pain wracks his side. His next inhale makes it worse, causing him to stagger back another step as his breathing falters. He knows from unhappy experience that his lung has been punctured.

He draws the long dagger from his hip as a pained grimace turns into a shallow cough, flecking his lips with black blood—and the woman behind him first cowers back from the reappeared demon, then begins to flee from the chaos of the melee.]

[devilmancrybaby]

[ He's tempted to turn his head to look, when Hayame calls out to Liem, but he keeps his eyes fixed on his opponent. Presumably, Makoto has arrived; he doesn't need Luo Binghe's supervision.

He springs forward to meet her, but her weight is far greater than his, and he's slammed up against the fence that surrounds the building behind him with Xin Mo raised against her knife. He bares his teeth at her. He can feel the railing bruising his back. ]

No, I am no hero. But call me a coward again and I'll have your head.

[ He makes a seal with the hand that's not clutching his sword, channelling demonic qi into Xin Mo until it's engulfed by a shadowy miasma that burns and stings. The demon mark on his forehead glows a bright red, and the sword gives out a multidirectional pulse of dark energy that shakes the railing behind him out of its foundations. ]