aionlogs | EVENT #5: SOVEREIGN CITIZENS (VENERA)

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EVENT #5: SOVEREIGN CITIZENS (VENERA)

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 Shops are open, and its people are withdrawn but superficially friendly when meeting strangers.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.

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[Estinien isn't the best at spotting the differences in local fashion anyway, so a cloak really does seem like a cloak to him. The movements of a humanoid body, though, are something he is far more attuned to. It's a large portion of reading people in battle, after all, and while the auditory sensations of her movements are strange, the walking itself...

He is trying to put together how to semi-politely express his thoughts when he realizes that he's accidentally illusioned himself into being a ginger. A moment later, the guards arrive.

Estinien's shard is back in his chest nigh instantly, his other hand unsheathing his lance with a flourish.]

Looks like we'll have to test your bow arm instead.

[Are those Achamites? Well, they won't be for long. Estinien disappears upward.]

[She’s convinced that the hip movement looks wrong. From human hands on a bottle of her dam’s milk to human hands that slid along her withers and down her croup to inspect each year before auction, Hayame had spent her entire life around the other race, so surely she could mimic their movements? She knew how they moved, she’d been trained to kill them (but only once she was sold, so that the warlord with enough money to purchase a grown, armed jinba could tell her which humans), but…

There are two guards at the mouth of the narrow street.

Hayame’s glamor breaks, her will to maintain the illusion shattered in a hateful instant as rage boils up in her hearts the instant she sees a representative of the Regent that had made shadow puppets of their number in that spirit realm. She curses herself first, because what warrior lets themselves be caught by surprise this way, but there’s no time for more self-hatred.

She has targets now.

They’re saved by the fact that the guards were just as shocked as they were. By the time one has drawn his weapon and another opened his mouth to shout, Estinien is in the air-

And Hayame’s arrow punches through the throat of the one about to raise the alarm.]

[Only a moment later, Estinien returns from above, dropping upon the armed soldier with such force that Hayame will hear bones snapping - and that's besides the spearpoint he brought down along with him. He dismounts just as quickly, flipping back to Hayame's side, looking around for his next target and finding...

The other one is already struck, he sees. Good. Well, except for the part where there is going to be a huge mess left behind. The ginger hue Estinien had applied to his hair is already gone, having been broken by the violence of his dive.]

...Hmph. I question how long any pretense of subterfuge will last, in this place.

[Hayame didn't have time to examine the exact make of the Achamite guards' armor, but thankfully for them... at this distance, an arrow fired from a centaur strength longbow wasn't easily stopped by something like that. It turns the guards' soon-to-be shout into a shocked gurgle, he clutches at his throat-

And by the time Estinien returns to earth in a bone shattering thud, her target is down on his knees, another arrow quivering with the force of impact, more of it protruding from his back than his front. He wavers, struggles to move... and then slumps to the ground, leaving Hayame frozen in the old street with her lungs expanding quick and shallow, on alert.

But no boots pound on pavement, no alarm is yet raised... It seemed they were lucky, this time, to have been discovered by two alone... and eventually, Hayame sets her bow against the wall. In it's place, she draws the knife from its sheath on her harness.]

... not very long, if we can not master that accursed spell.

[Estinien's face was well-known to the Kenoma, far more than her own was... something she had to aspire to. But it reminds her, as she steps towards the corpses-]

- You should try a bay shade. The chestnut looked odd.

[... on his hair.]

[After a few moments of listening and allowing the heat of the moment to pass, he resheathes his lance. He can see her drawing her knife and heading toward their fallen foes. He can only assume to apply finishing blows, to make sure they are dead and remain so?

Like her, he is fairly adept at moving on from these things, though. He watches whatever she is doing with passive interest, wondering about where to put the bodies, if anywhere at all. Maybe it would do the Achamite soldiers some good to see what lay in wait for them. Though, it could also unduly frighten these already troubled civilians...

Her comment interrupts that train of thought. It's honestly the closest thing to casual, comradely repartee he's ever heard from her.]

Is that so?

[He's never been one to think much about appearances, and so what does and doesn't look appropriate is beyond him. He mostly ended up with red because he was thinking of his friends, and Himeka was the one that didn't already share his hair colour.]

...And that is...?

[He squints. Is it tan like her body? Is it blue? As someone who is very unfamiliar with anything to do with horses (or jinba) he doesn't actually know what 'bay' is.]

[Perhaps it only looks odd because she is so used to his appearance as it was, his hair white like cold snow, and red was the color of fire and warmth. Perhaps there is something that remains of woman in her no matter how desperately she'd tried to beat it out of herself that had a sense for color or appearance. Either way...]

... A sort of brown. A darker brown.

[She doesn't have the poetry in her hearts to describe it better than that, if she cannot just use the colors she is used to, the words for horses that the stable master applied to her kind in subtle reminder of their inhumanity.

And now she stands in front of the guard her arrows had felled.

For a moment, she doesn't know what to do. This is something she'd always dreamed of for herself... that she would become a warlord's horse, that she would be given missions, she would fell the enemies of her lord and bring their heads back to present at his feet as proof of her skills. In her fantasies, she would be praised, she would eventually pile so many heads at his feet that he had no choice but to recognize her, she might even be treated as a respected warrior rather than a woman or a jinba...

Automatically, as if in a trace, Hayame leans down to grab the corpse and haul it back up to its knees. Despite it's weight, she manhandles the ragdoll body with little issue, seeking out the straps of the helmet and ripping them free to expose the man's face, twisted in agony then slack in death. From there, she can fist her fingers in his hair, twist his head back...

And sink her blade (once his blade) harshly into neck to sever the spine and begin to cut, blood still hot gushing from the widening cut and ripping flesh.]

['Dark brown' is about as specific as Estinien could have gotten also, so it works out in the end. He muses over that for a moment, finding nothing wrong about the suggestion, and is considering taking his shard in another attempt to change his colouring...

Only for the killing blow he was expecting to get far more excessive than he initially imagined. Estinien is no stranger to gore, to horrible things happening to mortal bodies, but the ostensible lack of purpose is what baffled him.

He watches in silence for a few moments before eventually saying:]

They seem dead enough, Hayame.

[In all honesty, it hasn’t even occurred to her that other warriors might find this behavior strange. She had been raised on an island of (largely) one unifying culture, with only the barest concept of other countries across the seas… let alone enough knowledge to know that those nations had different ways of living and weren’t just in different geographical places. The idea of other worlds having different customs is just… not something she thinks on much.

So surely a warrior such as Estinien would know why she is doing this. It’s what is done.]

Of course they’re dead.

[And any possible doubts about that are set to rest when the blade cuts through the last of the neck and the head separates, the body slumping back down in an undignified heap, blood pooling beneath it as she stands there, another puddle forming beneath the head still held by the hair in her hand.

Her other… holds out the bloody blade to her comrade.]

Here.

[She had no right to take from the one he had felled.]

[He watches, only somewhat disgusted. It's the lack of utility that gets to him more than anything else. As she finishes her work, he pieces it together - she isn't finishing the job, she's decapitating them.

He already knows that she comes from a brutal culture, and this sort of thing isn't entirely unheard of to him, even if it wasn't a practice in the places he calls home. He takes the knife from her, but makes no move to collect from his kill.]

You mean to take trophies?

[Harvesting trophies from dragons was not uncommon during the war, he has to admit, but it does hit a bit differently when it's a body so different from your own, so similar to things you would call beasts and monsters. He was never very interested in trophies himself. It seemed like a vain gesture, somehow... all he needed from his enemies was for them to be dead.

He's willing to hear out her explanation before making a judgment, though. He already gathers there are many things he doesn't understand about her life.]

[It isn't until he actually asks her that she realizes... she cannot do with this head what she had always been raised to do. It was supposed to be something like a trophy. A warrior should put the heads of their lords enemies at their feet, presented on stained, white cloth, placed in a proper vessel or at least laid out upon a table...

Her eyes move downwards, to the drip, drip, drip of blood wetting the ground beneath the severed neck. Ah. That Tehri woman didn't even properly call herself a leader of the Pleroma, so-]

... There is no lord to present them to.

[So what point are they as proof of her capabilities and the strength of her loyalty? She'd just moved because... that's what you did with an enemy, but...

Of course. There was always-]

So they will be a warning of what happens to those who serve the Regent.

[And she will swallow the sudden surge of nausea that roils in her gut, tamping it down until it's nearly invisible. What warrior would be upset by such a simple task? If she lets it be known this is the first time she has been allowed to take a head...]

[Estinien watches her carefully. She went about it so automatically it seemed like a well-ingrained habit, but there is a trace of unease there too. He supposes he can understand how taking heads would function as a way to prove a kill to your lord. Proof was proof, after all, as gruesome as this is.

Part of him does feel a flutter of discontent with all of this, though. For one, he's not certain that displaying heads will have the intended effect, and for another... this all seems to tie back into the very system that had oppressed her. He doesn't see why she should have to be concerned with lords or their opinions, now.]

...I see.

[He often finds himself saying this with her, seeing no value in commenting besides a neutral acceptance of what she's told him. He can only imagine what the other Pleroma would say if this idea was posed to them. Thankfully, she is telling this to him and not them. (lol)]

A word of caution... too bold of a display may only exacerbate the aggression posed to the civilians here. I would rather the Achamite's focus remain on those prepared to receive it.

[Namely, them.]

[She had been raised in the ritual of such things, even though she had no opportunity to do such things herself when she yet remained unsold. In preparation for being sold to a warlord rich enough to afford an armed and well-trained adult jinba, she had been taught the proper way to remove a head, how to dress and wash it for presentation, what words to say when it might be her turn to offer them up... Even if she hadn't been taught that, the people of her world were more than familiar with the sight of the heads of executed criminals displayed with signs detailing their crimes at prison gates and town crossroads.]

Why would I let someone else take credit... ?

[Hayame cannot claim to be a hero, to be acting out of concern for the Venerans. She had come here to hunt the servants of the Regent, and for very little other reason but rage and revenge. If Venerans suffered... it was barely her business. But in this particular instant...]

I want those Achamite dogs to know exactly what I will do to them.

[Helpfully... she moves to the corpse of Estinien's kill, hauling it up with one hand.]

[He sees her raise the corpse, as if offering it to him for cutting, and he shakes his head. He holds the knife out to her. He may not be condemning her actions, but he isn't about to be peer pressured into following her example, either.]

No need.

[He suspects that if it's a status thing she won't be interested in claiming his kill, but he wouldn't care much if she did. He raises a hand as if turning down a drink.]

'Tis not the way of my people, though I can see its purpose among yours.

[… Huh.

There’s a moment when Hayame just stares at him. He didn’t look particularly disgusted, it wasn’t the look she herself had worn when she’d walked into that shed and seen the half-butchered corpses on the table and suspended from the ceiling, the blood fresh on Mikuni’s lips, the fresh liver jiggling in his fingers when he’d held it out to her.

It had been easy to reject that as foul because… that was eating. This is just proof of her skills, trophies, warnings… it’s different. The head heavy in her other hand is different. She’s supposed to feel proud-]

… Suit yourself.

[She sets the head on an old crate (facing away) and pulls a cloth from the saddlebag on her harness to begin cleaning the blade.]

I suppose you do not need to establish your reputation. You are already well enough known, are you not?

[She finds a way to understand it.]

[For a moment, he doesn't really know what to say. It's true that in his homeland he was famous, and here he is notorious. It's never been something he strove for, though, just a byproduct of his actions. He had once boldly declared that it was not for praise that he fought, and that much was true. He can't claim that he never benefited from the status he achieved, though.

He had been fortunate that his skills were recognized for their own sake. What would he have done, he wonders, if the prowess he had put his entire life into cultivating went unrecognized, depriving him of the chance to accomplish his ends?]

...When I was a fledgling knight, there was naught on my mind but the death of a sworn enemy. All I did was towards that end. Towards vengeance. In that sense, proof of my work was irrelevant. I needed only for my enemies to suffer and to die.

[He feels much the same here, though now even suffering he could do without. He doesn't need the Achamites to do anything but perish, for the harm they cause to be eliminated as a factor.]

Is it validation that you seek, Hayame?

[... Is it?

Hayame wishes that she were sure. As pathetic as it was to yearn for a time when she had been property, just a chance for human masters to make money on the years invested in raising her and the chance for a new master to buy a soldier, mount, or broodmare... She had been sure, then. She had known exactly what she needed to do in order to strive for the best possible fate for herself within that system, but then... and now...

Her gaze hyperfocuses on the blade in her hand, the slow movement of her hand wiping the blood from the metal.

Did she want that? She wanted revenge on the Regent for claiming to have destroyed their world (for maybe succeeding, her will to believe they still existed is caving, eroding day by day-), for what they had done in that spirit world. She wanted revenge on Someone for her being here. She'd always wanted-]

... You are a man.

[Perhaps an obvious statement, but it means-]

You would not understand.

[He watches her quietly. He doesn't disagree with what she says. Even though Ishgard was fairly equal in opportunity with its military, it did slant towards men. Gender and sex has never made any practical difference in Estinien's experiences with other warriors, but it's obvious that was not the case in Hayame's home.

There are many ways that his life has been horrible, and many others in which he has been incredibly fortunate. He realizes this. He doesn't know how it feels to be a woman, or a slave.]

Truly, I do not.

[He may understand on an intellectual level, but on a visceral emotional level it would be impossible.]

But if you deign to tell me, I would be glad to learn.

[Perhaps later she will blame this openness on... something. Surely there is something. Was it because they were branded by the same Legacy? Was there something in the water in Venera? Strangely (or perhaps not so strangely)... It doesn't occur to her that it might be because there was trust between them. That perhaps people who had forged certain bonds might... share things. About themselves.]

... There's no learning it.

[Even if she explained it in intimate detail... How could he actually know it? Without realizing it, her movements have become stiff, her muscles taut with something that wasn't alert for the possible presence of more guards.]

Women are useful for kitchen work, warming beds, and birthing.

[Her voice is not quite there either, because... they aren't lines from her own mouth. It's what she's heard all her life, what makes her movements slow, now, as she wipes the blade.]

Every mare at my stable was sold for riding or breeding.

[She's rubbing at a spot that has already been cleaned.]

Every exhibition day I had to listen to the buyers talk about how I was a perfect shot, how strong I was, how swift... but I was a woman.

[She didn't intend to say this much. Perhaps it is the head, she had accidentally let it affect her more than she ought to, than a warrior ought to-]

If I want to be sold as a warlord's horse, then I must have them recognize my skills, no matter the cost-

[- She forgets, for half a moment, that isn't her life anymore. Couldn't be, even if she wanted it to. She'd spent every year of her existence since she'd been old enough to realize the dead-eyed armless being led to the breeding post each season was her mother fighting so hard to be sold as a soldier that now, with a head finally in her hands-

She forgets.]

Edited 2022-07-22 06:19 (UTC)

[This isn't all new information to him - some of it had come through when they communed, in bits and pieces. He thinks there is value in hearing it from her lips, though, rather than in implication and assumption. To have her say anything about herself and what she wants.

It all makes sense, and it's hard to argue with, knowing her point of view. She's right. It's hard to understand on a gut level when things were just... different.]

You have my thanks, Hayame. For indulging me.

[It's not pleasant, but he has never been one to shy away from the truth, no matter its form.]

'Twas not so, in my realm. Though there have ever been distinctions between man and woman, they have never been doubted on the battlefield. Many heads of state, fierce combatants in their own right, are women. My comrade Himeka is the most renowned warrior of our star, equaled by none. Hydaelyn, the woman for who are star was named, served as my people's steadfast defender since the dawn of its creation.

[He shakes his head. It's yet another thing Hayame wasn't privileged enough to have experienced. Yet, he wants her to know that these things are not written into the fabric of reality itself. It's possible for it to be different.]

You would be celebrated for your strength and skill without concession.

[It is strange to her, that he thanks her.

People didn't generally thank her at all, let alone for something like sharing information about themselves, something that was theoretically 'normal", that people likely did... all the time, without struggling like this. So she doesn't know what she's supposed to say in return. "You're welcome"? "Thank you for listening?" Neither of those sounds right...

Women in Estinien's world did not suffer under that same yoke. Perhaps if Hayame hadn't spent her entire life attempting to divorce herself from her sex for fear that it would lead her to a life of being mounted and rounded with foal each year or one spent obediently opening her mouth for a human cock... she would feel glad for those women, for her "sisters" not having to struggle against such things. But she doesn't. She does not know them. Knowing that they had an easier life is no comfort. And she-]

How fortunate for the women of your world.

[... In all honesty, she struggles to even imagine it. Yet she can't feign cleaning the blade anymore, it is bloodless again, unlike the head she has placed on the crate, crimson slowly pooling beneath it.

Was it pointless? No, it couldn't be. She can't even think to say now... "Perhaps it doesn't matter". If it didn't...]

... I just forgot there was no one to give it to.

[She'd just moved, like she'd always thought she would. And now...]

[Well... he tried.

He kind of thought she might react like that, as someone who has never really been allowed the luxury of empathy for other people. What good was it if it hadn't saved her from her own plight? He knows the pull, the desire to not be alone in suffering.

He just hated the idea of her thinking that her worldview was one that he shared, in that regard. That thinking of women purely in terms of what they might sexually offer you was somehow natural. It's repulsive.

Inspiring people has never really been within his skillset. He only wants her to know the truth.]

Whether or not you take their heads, I can already tell the Regent's forces will come to fear you. I know I'd hate to be in their position, facing a shot like that.

[She hasn't said it... and maybe Hayame wouldn't ever think to be so open and vulnerable-sounding for no reason beyond verbalizing appreciation, but. Whether he knows it or not... She did not think that Estinien shared that worldview. At least, to the extend she believed a man was capable of.

After all... He had put a knife in her hand as if she were a man, his equal. And rather than demand something from her in exchange for it, as honestly would have been his right, he had offered his service to her instead. She wouldn't be here beside him right now if she considered him to be the sort of two-legged man she was familiar with.

She wishes she took more satisfaction from the idea of the Achamites fearing her. That the bloody head brought her pride. But at least if they did begin to know her, fear her-]

Do you think if we kill enough of them that the Regent himself will appear in person... ? Or at least one of his lieutenants...

[She gives him that, at least, even if she didn't realize. "We".]

[Estinien gives the question serious contemplation. They've still never seen the Regent in person, and with the way they are spoken of with such an air of mystery, he wonders if they ever leave Achamoth. There weren't even there to manage the ritual meant to enslave that first batch of them...

But there's someone who was.]

They do have lieutenants... two, at least. A woman named Xishen, who cast the spell meant to enslave us when we were first captured... and another named Dionys, who seems to... punish Kenoma who stray from the path.

[He only knows that much because of what Howl shared with him. It still makes him uncomfortable to think of it.]

With enough pushing, it would stand to reason that one would emerge. We have not yet been able to test our strength against them.

[Hayame has never seen Achamoth. The idea of her alone, of even everyone counted as a "Pleroma" being enough to invade a city or even make a targeted attack on such a powerful figure in a city they could not easily surveil or understand... It seems almost impossible to her, despite how much she wanted to put an arrow in the Regent's heart, to feel their dark armor crumple beneath her hooves. If she had to... She would even resort to the bestial actions of an Armless, and sink her teeth into their neck to rip out their throat.

But if they cannot easily enter that fortress...]

Perhaps that is what I will do...

[Her jaw tightens, her fingers quiver just slightly as she sheathes the blade on her harness, laying out the cloth from her saddle bag and moving the severed head onto it, beginning to tie it in a way that would enable her to carry the gruesome trophy with her from this place... until she could decide where it would end up.

She thinks of that dream she'd once had, before everything had gone wrong. Or rather, before she'd been forced to admit how wrong everything had always been. Thinks of the heads of criminal exposed along the riverbanks, the signs beside them laying out their crimes for anyone who might think to do the same.]

If I take enough to strike fear into the hearts of the Achamites... Perhaps we will have that chance.

[How many would that be? For the Regent, who treated the citizens of this world as disposable ways to send messages... how many heads would she have to take to make it worth their while?]

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EVENT #5: SOVEREIGN CITIZENS (VENERA)

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cw: beheading

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cw: sa

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