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 Shops are open, and its people are withdrawn but superficially friendly when meeting strangers.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

[coerthantorment]

[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?

[warmare]

[... 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.

[coerthantorment]

[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.

[warmare]

[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.]

[coerthantorment]

[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.

cw: sa

[warmare]

[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...]

[coerthantorment]

[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.

[warmare]

[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".]

[coerthantorment]

[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.

[warmare]

[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?]