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 Shops are open, and its people are withdrawn but superficially friendly when meeting strangers.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

[sterngaze]

[Hayame's demand does give Liem pause, though by the slightly bemused look on his face, this time it's simply one born of surprise. The only purposes he could imagine for such a thing would be for tracking or for some arcane magical use, but although he wouldn't have assumed either would be within her capabilities, the former seems somewhat more likely. After an uncertain moment, he sheds the cloak from his shoulders, laying it down and placing his crossbow atop it, and he begins undoing his coat.

The Veneran clothes he's adopted during his time here are new purchases, but the undershirt he wears beneath them is the same one he brought with him from Achamoth. Once he's stripped off his coat as well, he untucks his shirt and rucks it up to expose the simple grey fabric beneath. Liem frees the hem and uses the short knife from his belt to cut off a strip of it.

He looks considerably smaller without the drapes of cloak and jacket disguising him, covering up a lean torso tapering to narrow hips. Even in the shade of the little park, the uncovered skin at his waist shows starkly white. He lets his overshirt fall back over it as he holds his torn offering out to Hayame.]

Will this suffice?

1/2

[warmare]

[Even though she is the one who asked for it... Hayame has to wonder why some of these Achamite servants are so eager to strip themselves. At least that golden man had questioned why she was doing it... well, actually, perhaps that meant this Liem character was smarter, and doesn't need to ask. Very well. She hopes it is that one.

He's also more dignified, thankfully. Interacting with Barnaby had prepared her (well, only somewhat) for a more shameless display, and there's a moment when he pulls up his shirt that she anticipates something more lurid and instinctively starts to avert her eyes just enough to keep an eye on potential attacks but hopefully spare her dignity, ruddy color just barely noticable high on her cheeks, but-]

[warmare]

[... Good. Someone here had manners. (And... rather disgustingly pale skin. Strange, that the color could look perfectly beautiful on a white jinba but so unnatural on a man.)

To cover her brush with embarrassment over thinking he'd be doing far more disrobing, Hayame snatches the fabric from his hand and, careful to maintain a rather intimidating degree of baleful eye contact.... brings it to her nose to inhale slow and purposefuly, filling her senses with his scent.

Something tangy like a citrus fruit... The overarching fragrance of Venera... A hint of spice that pricked in the back of her nose... Man... and then something wrong, and strange, like meat from a hunt left to cure when it was still mostly fresh... but not fully. One of her brows raises, looking for some explanation in his appearance. His ears were misshapen slightly... he was pale... but that means nothing definitive for her beyond "perhaps not human", something that happens in this place.

Or perhaps he prefers not to cook his meals. For now, she doesn't ask.]

I will teach you the glamor... But know this. My nose is keen. If you do try to betray me... if you try to trick me with that cowardly magic... I will know you still.

[She just warns, one last step before she's willing to share what she had been taught herself.]

[sterngaze]

[Liem is too busy slicing off a piece of his clothing to notice the scandalized blush that threatens to bloom over Hayame’s cheeks, but he does watch with a slight raise of his eyebrows as she brings the cloth to her nose and very deliberately draws in its scent. The purpose behind her gesture is clear enough, but despite the implicit threat, he can’t help but find the gesture at least a little bit, well, intimate. His mouth firms to a thin line as he forcibly ejects the thought from his brain.]

I will remain on my best behaviour, [he tells her soberly. Although he had no intention of deceiving her, the precaution it still a wise one. Sliding his knife back into its sheath, he sets about straightening his shirt back into its proper place.]

Is it simple to perform?

[warmare]

[Her point made... Hayame moves to open her saddle bag and take out the text that he had handed her earlier, intending to preserve the scent as long as possible by keeping it in something that should smell vaguely of him already rather than mixing with other possessions. Allowing the book to fall open to a random page, she almost inserts it... but she does give a cursory look his way. Was such a thing sacrilegious to his damaged faith?

He is.. frowning, slightly. Considerate, not because she is religious or respectful to others but because she has sworn to keep the book safe until she returns it to him when he honors his side of the agreement to turn himself over as a traitor to the Kenoma... Hayame gently (reluctantly) closes it and places it back, moving contents around to place the cloth beneath the book instead.

She would give it a few more whiffs later to make sure she memorized it before the hints that would identify him faded, and also prepared herself for the possibility of needing to pick his muddled scent out of the crowd.

That done... she turns her body slightly away from him (but not her head, she's not letting him out of her sight) so that she can loosen her shirt and dig under her bindings to take out the obsidian, arrowhead-shaped gem out from the center of her diaphragm. She could just phase it through her clothing like others did, but... she refuses to believe she is magical, or capable of magic, even though it was... obvious. Once it's in her hand she fixes her clothing and turns back holding it up to her forehead and banishing the glamor over her body, reverting momentarily back to her proper form... visually. It had never changed, that was why she had chosen Venera over Godsblood, where the odds of people bumping into her invisible flanks or rump were higher).]

It is so simple you will doubt how it could possibly work.

[Frowning herself, now, she shifts her weight between one foreleg and another, wishing to stay like she was... but she can't. Anyone who saw her as she was supposed to be seen... would know her as an aion from a different world at a single glance. She didn't have the luxury it seemed almost every other aion did. But that is just a single bitterness on a mountain of others. So she shoves it down.]

You must envision the appearance you wish to take on and make some special sign.

[She leads by example, touching the shard to her forehead and drawing a simple sigil with it... before her own glamor flickers, splutters with how instinctively she attempts to reject it, then finally settles and she appears again as she had, like a human version of herself.]

... Like so.

[Hopefully for this plan he would turn out a better hand at the art than she was. But everyone else she's met has, so she isn't too doubtful.]

[sterngaze]

[Liem can't help the small frown that creases his brow when he sees Hayame move to place the scrap of his body-damp undershirt inside the pages of Abadar's book. His mouth remains closed as he silently watches her do it, but disapproval is visible in his gaze—and he's relieved when she changes her mind after glancing his way. That book has been through enough already, and its trials aren't over yet. It doesn't need a scrap of his underclothes stuck into it as well.

He uses the time it takes her to put away his belongings and dig out her shard to straighten his clothes and put his jacket back on. Even in the midst of summer, it isn't seemly in his estimation to be outside in just his shirt sleeves. Once that's done, he retrieves his own shard from the centre of his chest, simply cupping his hand over the spot and calling the crystal out through his clothing.

Liem is a quiet and attentive student. He watches her demonstration and accompanying explanation without comment, noting her extremely minimalistic description of the process. It certainly seems simple enough—a simple gesture combined with a bit of focus. Illusion was a school of magic that he never spent much time learning about back home, but he shouldn't need to change his appearance too drastically in order to be unrecognizable to a stranger.

When she is done, he lifts the eight-pointed crystal that forms his own shard and draws the same symbol on his forehead, his breath falling into the same steady cadence it used to whenever he worked magic back in Taldor. He envisions the changes he wants to make to his appearance: dark hair, dark, human-looking eyes, round ears, olive skin. All exceedingly normal features by the standards of his home city—and normal is what he's striving for. He exhales as the glamour settles over him, and lifts his eyes back up to Hayame.]

How is this?

[warmare]

[At least this traitor is not a shameless playboy content to fully strip himself outside, nowhere near a bathhouse or a hot spring. She's vaguely relieved to see him pull his layers back on.

... She is not relieved to see how well the glamor settles on his frame. How vexing, that she wishes to have nothing to do with these magics, and yet must rely on them to operate within this city with any modicum of stealth. How frustrating, that she resents the struggle she goes through trying to cast a spell to look like the race that had dominated her own, and yet she can still feel some sort of sick jealousy to see how easily he (and every single other aion, it seemed) managed it. Shoving it down, deep where such things belonged, she simply answers his question curt and business-like.]

It is without flaw.

[Before her stands a human without any freakish features to speak of.]

Just do not let your mind forget it's appearance, and it should stay. Certainly enough to talk to some woman.

[Fighting... no, it would not hold through violence or anything else that demanded the full of a body's attention, but. Talking, surely, it could do. Even if the woman needed convincing that hopefully he could provide.]

[sterngaze]

I will do so.

[Hayame's grudgingly positive assessment satisfies Liem, earning a small nod in reply before he bends to gather up the rest of his belongings. There's little chance of him forgetting to hold the illusion in his mind while they make their way across town to where their target waits; he seems fascinated by the healthy tan his hands have acquired, coloured as they are with an undertone of red instead of his usual paper white veined with faintly visible black. They're simultaneously much handsomer than his own hands, and also alien enough to seem like they couldn't possibly belong to him. He has to turn his right hand over to glance at the brand still stamped into it to reassure himself that some trace of his own real self still remains.

Once he slings the crossbow back across his shoulder and swirls his cloak back over his shoulders, he aims a steady, appraising look up at Hayame. His disguise likely won't be enough to fool anyone from his sect who looks at him for more than a few moments, but its presence still makes him feel a little better about walking an hour across the city with a seven-foot woman by his side.]

Would you like to lead for now? I can take us to her hiding place once we're in the area, but if you know the way to the district, there's no need for me to choose the route.

[warmare]

[The wonder is not something she can judge. The first time she had looked at her own reflection in the canal her glamor had simply shattered, unable to handle the horror she felt at seeing herself in the shape of the race that had ruined her entire life... even if she'd spent most of it pretending that it wasn't so. She can stomach it now, but-

... Good. He doesn't seem to be insistent on a particular route, which would only make her suspicious. After a moment, shifting her innocent looking bundle of sticks on her back to disguise her large bow... She accepts the lead.

And at first, she leads in silence. It is across town, and she doesn't take the usual pathways. She doubles back, goes the wrong direction, all tricks to throw off any potential followers, not knowing if there might be other aions in glamor she cannot identify... but once she's sure...]

... What kind of god is this Abadar of yours, anyway?

[It comes out of nowhere.]

[sterngaze]

[Liem follows without comment or complaint as Hayame leads them on a rambling tour of the city, taking diversions down side-streets, doubling back around in unexpected directions. As far as he knows, there’s no hurry for them to rush in retrieving the rebel target, so avoiding pursuit is more important than haste. Hayame’s caution only lends him more confidence in his decision to trust her.

Eventually, however, they’re some good distance from their meeting place, and she finally speaks up again. Liem is still considering the best ways to approach the Veneran when he glances up at her, plucked from his own thoughts.]

He was the god of cities, law, and commerce where I came from.

[Although she asks what kind of god Abadar is, he still says was. Even if Abadar somehow still exists beyond the reach of mortal senses, the world he presided over is certainly gone.]

His concern was with the spread of order across the world—bringing the light of civilization to the wilderness. He was known as the Judge of the Gods, and the Master of the First Vault, among other things.

[warmare]

[Hayame is familiar with a variety of deities. The goddess of compassion, Kannon. The god of rice and farming, Inari. The Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Life. The God of the Great Maw. Her belief in them was another story, her prayers and offerings of sutra largely performative motions meant only to make her seem more... human. More like the warriors she emulated in the hopes of becoming.

What use was there in a jinba believing in the deities who never answered their prayers?]

Cities, law, and commerce? Is that not quite a lot for one god?

[She continues to ignore his use of past tense. Admittedly, she is used to deities having dominion over but a few fields, it does seem... busy. Does that warrant saying something aloud about it? Is there any reason at all to bring this up now, as they trek across the city and she tries to step deliberately, carefully, so as not to let the sound of hooves betray the nature of her glamored appearance?

... Maybe there isn't. (Maybe... she just wanted to talk to someone. Maybe she hadn't tried in weeks.)]

Spreading order... He may have been popular enough in Echigo.

[... The edge of what humans in her world and time considered to be civilized. Somewhere close enough to the wilds to capture jinba, but not so far that lords could not send their representatives to sales. The frontier.]

[sterngaze]

It was fairly typical for Golarion’s major deities.

[Liem hadn’t even mentioned wealth outright in his list of areas of concern; prosperity was a part of Abadar’s portfolio that was rather implied by the others. But he wonders now if three or four fields is a lot by the standards of other worlds’ gods.]

There were many gods presiding over the world I lived in, but in Taldor, only about half a dozen were widely worshipped. Shelyn, the Eternal Rose. The Drunken Hero, Cayden Cailean. The elven goddess Calistria was popular as well. But the Vudran pantheon is said to have over a thousand gods, so perhaps their areas of focus are more narrow.

[Discussing Golarion’s different gods seems to relax Liem slightly, a certain quiet familiarity entering his voice as he talks. Abadar may have been his chosen patron, but Liem’s religious education was quite extensive; he’s extremely comfortable talking about the Inner Sea’s various religions.]

Is Echigo where you lived?

[warmare]

Hmmm.

[It is a bit trying, walking on these cobblestone streets in a way that minimizes the sound of hoofbeats. But if she minces... at least with the glamor on, her companion cannot see how utterly ridiculous she must look.]

And you chose Abadar for your patron because... You are what? A merchant? A city administrator?

[She doubts "merchant", but had had said commerce. Only six major gods... ? Well, she supposes she cannot find that strange. Though human often spoke of the "eight million myriad", it wasn't as if they wee all worshiped so popularly as that... "Taldor" must be his nation. And hers-]

... That is where I was bred, yes. My master's stables were at the very edge of the province and the wilderness.

[Her past tense... is not about whether she had managed to desperately believe her world still existed or not. But it didn't matter, either way. There could be no hope for her born from it anyway.]

[sterngaze]

[Liem’s lips thin slightly as she corrects him: That is where I was bred, yes. Everything he has heard about Hayame’s life leads him to believe that her master was a terrible man—and yet, he can’t deny that his stables produced a strong and trustworthy woman, who was no doubt a credit to those she served for many years. He probably did good business, and as a businessman, probably would have venerated Abadar as well, had he lived in Liem’s world.

But Liem still doesn’t think he would have liked him.]

No, not exactly… Although people in those positions certainly did tend to number among Abader’s faithful.

[He can’t exactly say that he wasn’t an administrator of any kind, given his stewardship of the estate lands that he ended up accepting toward the end of his time on Golarion. And his knowledge of the laws and regulations involved in such a position was already extensive because of his own work… but she has the order rather mixed up.]

I was sent to the church to be an acolyte when I was a boy. My uncle paid for me to be there.

[So he hadn’t chosen Abadar as his patron, really. Not until he’d already spent years of his life under Abadar’s roof, and couldn’t imagine venerating anyone else.]

Abadar’s church provides money-lending and law services, so I learned there, before I started travelling.

[warmare]

[The names are all foreign, but the concepts... are not. It's weirdly comforting, in a way, to hear something, almost anything that made sense in this chaotic and unfamiliar land. Even something as simple as-]

I see.

[... No, she was supposed to say more than that. If it were that chatterbox Kohibari... if it were Koume, who spoke so warmly and easily... if she were literally any other jinba... Awkward, as if she wasn't even sure how to properly have a "casual" conversation-]

... They do the same in my lands. Send boys to the temples to be educated, or become monks. Human ones, anyway.

[Her hooves clop softly on the cobblestones, disguised just slightly by the bundle of sticks she carries to create a muffling sound as she walks. As she realizes- perhaps she should not have opened her mouth. Because now that she has...]

[sterngaze]

[Despite the obvious differences between their two homes, Liem has found Hayame’s sensibilities in many ways more familiar than those of most of the other people he’s spent any significant amount of time speaking with in Horos. Her desire to live a life that is not just good, but honourable; her ruthless pragmatism; even her desire to keep to the familiar in this strange and alien land all strike a chord in him. Even though he can’t bring himself to have the same stubborn belief in the continued existence of their worlds, in some ways she still seems more grounded than the other aions he’d worked alongside in the Kenoma.]

Most of the people where I lived were human, [he says.] Maybe one in a hundred wasn’t. For a long time, I was the only non-human in my church.

[Unsurprisingly, most of the other people in Liem’s church were well-off Taldan humans, especially Taldan human men. That wasn’t the case for his entire long life, of course, but it was the case when he was growing up, and that certainly made an impression on him.

He starts to speak again, to ask a question, and pauses for the space of a blink to change what he was going to say. Because despite his own grief at the destruction of his world, his god, and his country, he has no wish to insist upon the destruction of Hayame’s home when they still walk through a world filled with people who stand on two legs.]

D— Do jinba have gods of their own?

[warmare]

[So he isn't human, for all his shape is theirs but for his strangely pointed ears and sickly pale skin. Before she had come to this place... Hayame was unable to identify with the idea of being quite so rare an existence as that. Jinba were by far outnumbered by the human population, but having grown up in a stable she had never felt cause to feel as if she were that rare of an existence, even while knowing that she was-- for who would pay the price of a small fief to own something that was common?

Here, though... now, in a world where not a single other living being looked like her, where the native population looked upon her with shock and confusion and the members of her own sect often made incorrect assumptions and reacted with surprise at her shape... ?]

I would not know what free jinba believe in.

[Without much thought, that is how she answers. How would she know such a thing, when she had been raised amongst humans, and the only sense she had of religion was what she could mimic from them in attempt to appear more civilized? The Armless resented their jinba overseers almost more than their human ones, so she had hardly had friendly conversations with them about their culture...

Because like her human masters had treated them, it had been easier to think of them as less.

But as her hooves clop softly on the stone streets, as she lets herself remember... more painful things, days of relative peace that she could have perhaps even kept if she'd just believed in them... she does recall enough to say,]

... "The Great God of the Mountain".

[Matsukaze had said that phrase before. She'd seen him lift his hands skyward as if cupped in supplication, brief and rustic, not like the formal, ritualized prayers of the stable master or the priests that blessed the exhibitions and auctions.]

I have heard they believe in such a thing.

[sterngaze]

[How sad, to have no faith in any god at all, to believe that there's no one watching who might take it upon themselves to smile upon you. To barely know the name of your people's own god, and to have no trust in the gods of those whom you must live among. Liem can imagine how hopeless and bitter he might have become if he'd lived his entire life that way—just from the taste of hopelessness he'd been given over the past few months, alone in this strange and dying world.

If he had no patron whose memory to honour, he doubts he would find the drive to take a single step in this place.]

And what about you? What do you believe in?

[He doesn't say who. If the Great God of the Mountain is the patron of free jinba, and the humans' gods care only for their own, then there might be no god she feels she can pray to. But everyone needs something to believe in, even if it's something as simple as loving a certain person or place. There must be something like that for her.]

[warmare]

[That question, Hayame knows... Is not supposed to be that difficult.

Perhaps that's why she had never felt at home among the Pleroma, even as she aligned herself against the Regent. They all believed in some sort of... some sort of goodness, that she could not see. Some sort of holy mission or beautiful future that awaited them if they could get back to their worlds...

And what did she have? It is tempting to dismiss it and say "nothing". Once, she had believed in herself and little else. She and her own hard-won efforts were the only thing she could control to affect her fate, to be sold as a warlord's horse... but she had failed in so many ways. She had almost brought herself to believe in Matsukaze, and the future he offered her... but she hadn't been able to, and when that failure to do so had led to so much wrongness... she couldn't dishonor him by claiming that she believed in him now...

So what did that leave her? What could she say she believed in... ?]

... I had a brother.

[She uses the past tense not because she's ready to admit that her world is gone, but because even if she can return... She will never see her brother again. She'd sent him to the rear of the formation in the hopes he would then avoid the blast that would kill her and the man she could have maybe loved, but...

That isn't enough to make up for the years when she should have let him call her "sister".]

Yubari was his name. He was a good man.

[Better than her.]

[sterngaze]

[Liem walks in patient silence, booted feet tapping softly on stone cobbles, as Hayame considers his question. He can't condemn her for having trouble coming up with an answer to something so broad and significant. Although he'd come to his church shortly before his ninth birthday, and begun his inquisitor training at the cusp of his manhood, at fifteen, he hadn't really found his conviction until years later. What he'd had as a young man had been hot and bright, but still as vulnerable as a candle flame. Like all things, it had needed time and room to grow.

He doesn't look up at her when she finally speaks, his gaze still focused watchfully on the buildings and people they pass by. But the answer does pique his interest; he recalls her brief mention of people back home whom she couldn't return to, who were either dead or simply better off without her in their lives. He wonders which of them describes Yubari.]

What was he like?

[warmare]

[... He is patient still. Even as a tainted Kenoma.

Hayame's own gaze does not linger on the man beside her. They have enemies to watch for, things about the city to observe, and yet... She does glance. Just quickly, just a small look to see what his face looked like. If, like in the dream of space and stars, it remained free of judgement for her weakness.

She almost can't bear the answer, though, and her stormy gray eyes flick back to the line of traditional Veneran homes that line the street. How did she describe Yubari, when she has never tried to describe him to anyone before? She'd barely acknowledged their familial relationship, even though anyone with eyes had known they were both born from the same broken dam, even if their sires differed.]

He was trustworthy. Stalwart.

[Her fingers twitch, wishing that she could run her fingers along the finely cut fletching of the arrows he'd pressed into her hand before everything had gone to shit.]

A fine archer, but his hands were far more suited to the life of a craftsman.

[... She wondered, now, when she had the luxury... What Yubari would have done, if they had not been born in the stables. If there had been any chance at all to be anything but a warhorse. For him, there had been no need to fight or claw desperately towards such a path, as she had. And yet still, he had not left her behind. He had waited, patient, assured her that he would see her reach those same height he reached just by being born a man. ... He had been softer than she was. Because he had the actual leeway to be without risking everything.]

... He cared far more for me than he should have.

[sterngaze]

[As Hayame speaks, Liem tries to imagine the man who would inspire those words from a woman so reluctant to ever speak of warmth and kindness. It's obvious that she has rarely experienced either in her life, but from the way she speaks of Yubari, he must have been one of the rare people who had been both willing and able to give them to her, in whatever small ways their lives permitted. He knows from experience how meaningful that can be.]

That's high praise. But why do you say he cared too much for you?

[Now he does look up at her, seeking her face as they pass by deserted intersections and abandoned storefronts. What had she done, he wonders, that might have been a burden on this brother whom she so cared for? Perhaps just existing had been enough, as it had been for him.]

Was he who you spoke of before, in the dream? The one who you said would be better off without you.

[warmare]

[... She has spoken too much. Hayame feels that clearly in this moment, when the man who she finally knows is named Liem asks her a question she wasn't prepared for.

Why. It was such a simple and dangerous question. Why. She had rarely tried to explain herself, never had to explain herself, because who wanted an explanation from a jinba meant to serve and who would risk speaking to someone as standoffish and difficult as she was? At a certain point, she stopped asking herself "why", too.

But even though she opens her mouth to refuse to answer... She remembers.

If she dies here, in this gods forsaken land of Horos... No one will ever remember Yubari. No one will remember Matsukaze. ... Very few people would remember her.]

... Do women become warriors, in your land?

[Perhaps. If she starts there.]

[sterngaze]

[It's not clear to Liem whether the question Hayame poses him in return is related to the one he asked, or whether she's simply changing the subject. If she doesn't wish to answer such a personal question, he has no desire to force the issue, but if she is willing to speak of her life back home then perhaps she should, as much as she can. There can be healing in the speaking aloud of old wounds.]

Some do.

[He thinks immediately of Drifa, who had been a fierce enough warrior that despite her dwarven stature, the humans she met didn't dare look down on her. He thinks of Baroness Voinum, who scowled more than she smiled and had no patience for fools. He thinks of the princess he swore to serve, her rapier drawn, fighting assassins alongside the Lion Guard during the Exaltation Day Massacre.

In the course of their conversation, he doesn't notice that he's given his answer to her present-tense question in kind.]

It's more common for those among the aristocracy, who can expect to attain rank and glory, to join Taldor's military. But common women are not barred from it—though they are unlikely to ever attain an officer position.

[warmare]

[... This isn't the first time she's heard something like this. Was she supposed to be happy, that these women in other worlds had such opportunities? Was it supposed to bring her some sense of relief? All she can feel is bitterness, to hear that women who were not her were treated better. If it were just her world, the only world that surely existed... Then she could simply be resigned, that it was just the way of life and the sexes. But if it were different elsewhere? If her life could have been that different were she just born under a different star?

Then it meant that the men of her world should be capable of being better. They just decided not to be.]

... My brother would be sold as a warrior with no issue, and yet still he risked his reputation and opportunities to attempt and ensure I was as well.

[... He'd been the only one. The only one in the stables she'd trusted, and in return for his loyalty... She had made of him a traitor's brother. If she failed in her last mission, his bloodline was tainted. If she succeeded, then... his future was in flux, without her, without a master... and she could only hope that he might join the village of jinba in her absence, but with no guarantee...]

Yet I barely rewarded him for his loyalty. To acknowledge our connection publicly would only make it seem as if I were incapable of proving myself on my own, it would just be another reason to doubt a mare--

[There is something about how Liem speaks in this moment that pleases her slightly, though, even though she is distracted enough by her own difficulties to notice it is because of his tense.]

... That is what I mean.

[He had cared beyond what she deserved. And look what it had gotten him. (Look where it had gotten her. And Liem, too.)]