[OPEN TO KENOMA] EXECUTION OF THE INNOCENT

[aionpcs]

WHO: The Regent and Interested Kenoma
WHAT: As promised, the Regent is carrying out the Innocence Entity's invite-only execution.
WHERE: The Regent's Throne Room.
WHEN: Firaseri 22nd, after dissipated Kenoma have emerged.
WARNINGS: Disturbing imagery, gore, limb loss, general unpleasantness.

It's the evening of the 22nd when the call goes out: it is time for the execution. This is purely an event for the willing and or eager, and besides being informed of it, no Kenoma will be pressured into attending. Those that are interested, however, will be led to the Regent's throne room for what promises to be a very special occasion.

Upon entry, the set up of the throne room will seem quite familiar to those that have been there before. A cavernous room filled with nothing but the throne itself, its emptiness seems an intentional call to the void. Several stairs lead to the dais where the throne sits, currently occupied by a the Regent. As usual, any details about the Regent are obscured behind flowing robes and a faceted mask. Presently, they are swirling around a glass of what is presumably wine, but drinking absolutely none of it. Any Kenoma that seem interested will be offered a drink by one of the Citadel servants on duty.

It's not just the Regent present, however. Off to the right side of the room, an arrangement of familiar void-dark spears have been fused into the wall and floor, with their prisoner still held at their center, pierced from all sides. Estinien Wyrmblood appears as little more than a shadow of his former self at this stage, every ounce of color stripped from him, in sharp contrast to the black ichor that bubbles and drips from a cruel assortment of wounds. One eye is swollen with infection, oozing void, while the other is completely blank with whiteness. Each limb has been shorn down to a stub, as if burned by a dark fire from the outside in; all except a set of ragged, broken wings strung up being him. His torso, pierced as it is, seems to be barely holding onto form.

If he reacts to the arrival of 'guests', it isn't apparent. Instead, he seems practically comatose, all except for that open eye and the shallow movements of his breath. His shard is exposed, resting beneath his collar bones, an eye-like shape that has become similarly colorless. The usual sheen of color that all shards hold has faded away, now showing nothing but the gray of the stone beneath it. Those with True Sight will see that he has fallen to the first tier of Pleroma, and even that he is only tenuously hanging on to.

At their throne, the Regent lifts their glass.

"Welcome, kindred."

Comments

[tohell]

Makoto isn't here anymore. Not in the sense of being wiped from the face of this new world, but absconded by opposing forces that give no promises that they won't inflict vengeance upon him for all their side has endured. From Abel and Himeka's torture, humiliation and the narrowly avoided destruction of their souls to Einstein's capture and what the Pleroma must know spells the destruction of the Innocent entity.

They could easily shatter Makoto's shard in revenge. Or slowly carve it up in a manner of torture that is far worse than any bodily abuse. As a demon, a creature that has been shaped in his most formative years by misuse, rejection and then a loss beyond compare, J knows the mind suffers worse than anything else.

If he is returned, on the slim chance Abel and Himeka will release back into the wild a monster that rumor has told him visited them for an extended time, would he be the same? Would they crack and chip away at his shard until he's forgotten himself, his memories, and lost any recognition of his own master? Perhaps he'll have gone mad, like every one of the other mortals J had tried to usher into a second life at his side. In some twisted act of cosmic retribution against the demon, the Universe may finally succeed in exposing the sheer hopelessness of his desires after nearly a thousand years of trying to drive that point home.

Or so the nightmares say, as they creep upon him in the dead of night while he holds vigil over a body that may, one day, simply dissipate under J's unwavering gaze. Without giving him any indication if that end is from the destruction of the piece of him the Pleroma hold- or the erasure of his shard-bound soul.

J is not some ignorant child, nor obtuse enough to miss the cyclical nature of this moment, and it's imitation to an age-old loss. And while his ward isn't yet dead, not knowing what tomorrow brings, living on an endless drawn-out stream of uncertainty that sinks tooth and nail into him deeper every day, feels like grief.

Just has J has done every day since Wald has died, he searches for an outlet, a distraction for the emotions that doggedly chase at his heels. Seeing Barnaby make an attempt to separate himself from the spectacle gives J the answer as to what that will be.

J steps over to the exit and feels himself relive that moment from the Regent's courtroom, when Barnaby had made up his mind about defecting. But this time, when Barnaby approaches where he's come to lean against the exit, J simply tilts his head and offers the both of them an excuse to leave, dropped almost conversationally, "I've had enough of rubbing elbows this evening, how about you?"

The Regent is surely watching everyone's reaction, including Barnaby's. He's obviously discomforted, to say the least. Should he rush out in a hurry, that may reflect poorly upon him. But if he leaves with someone else, leisured and wrapped up in J's overly familiar way of interacting with him, well. People can assume what they want, but it won't be that Barnaby is showing hints of rebellion again.

[hundredpower]

"Yes. We saw what we came to see," he says. As far as he's concerned, Barnaby is happy to let them speculate. Though the experience in the throne room shook him, his conviction itself is unshaken, and the Regent will surely be able to confirm that when they talk later, should they harbour any doubts on that front. No-- he simply isn't interested in putting on airs of false happiness where he has none.

But as they leave the throne room together and exit into one of the many dark halls of the Citadel, it's J who has his attention instead, a frown marring his brow as they walk. He knows what must pressing on his mind, much worse than what concerns Barnaby currently feels for Howl, who is at least safe in the Citadel's underbelly while he recovers.

"Are you all right?" It almost seems like a pointless question when he already knows the answer, but at least J will be offered room to give voice to what plagues him.

[tohell]

There's some noncommittal noise that hums out into the air at Barnaby's confirmation, when J's interest in tonight's festivities had narrowed itself towards a single direction. Getting the chance to bend the Regent's ear and gain permission for a search party is one of the few concrete goals he could aim for. It was necessary, when disappearing off into the outer reaches of Horos in a blind search could spell disaster in so many ways. The least of all would be to cause a misunderstanding and brand himself a traitor to join those who have sampled the numerous accommodations housed within the Citadel's prison.

Still missing his right horn from when it had snapped off in the aftermath of his ward's battle with the Sanctifier, when J had thought not a moment before cushioning Makoto's plummet to earth with his body, the loss gives an all together different air to him than before. Oddly enough, without the obstruction of that horn and anything to pull his hair back, loose strands fall over that shoulder and around his face, leaving J looking younger than before. Or perhaps less held together, like a picture frame slid out of place, or left hanging precariously off a single loose nail.

There's still enough pluck in him to pin Barnaby with an abrupt hike of his brows and a brief glance down, their heights mismatched enough to require it, "What's this about, now?"

"After all those times I looked after you, what I was hoping for you to learn wasn't how to hen-peck me in return," is all he says to the question. J's world may have shifted, with an uncertain future casting its shadow over his mind. But that doesn't mean the cryptic slant to his words suddenly lifts, exposing an open door for easy passage into his innermost thoughts.

[hundredpower]

"I'm not hen-pecking," Barnaby retorts, annoyed, but even that doesn't have much heat to it. It's hard to be especially irritated with J in the state that he's in; not even the demon is immune to the ravages of Horos's war as it has escalated now, even as untouchable as he might have seemed before.

"... But there's nothing wrong with being looked after in return. If you don't want that, forget I said anything."

He's entitled to his privacy, and for his personal worries to remain personal. Whether he decides otherwise is entirely his choice.

[tohell]

The rise he gets in return all at once puts wind in J's flagging sails, lending him to stray from the circular thoughts that have been set to a constant tail-chasing spin since a body had been abandoned like just another piece of refuge in the aftermath of battle. Shoulders hitch themselves up as they're wracked with a slight tremor before the laugh he'd been suppressing in the dead quiet of these dark halls breaks the gloomy mood.

A laugh doesn't unwind all that's been sewn into the fabric of reality in the days that followed an ugly fight, but it does offer a temporary distraction. Obscuring from his immediate view the conundrum that J needs more than a red-hot thirst for restitution to muster any success in his efforts. At the very minimum, he requires a team of Kenoma volunteers to even any odds he's working against that might be aiding Makoto's kidnapper.

One hand reaches to swipe at his own cheek with a grin pulled wide under mischievous eyes, to evict any trace of a tangled mix of amusement and less exuberant emotions pricking at the corners of his vision. "Mother-henning, then."

"You've very good at it, what with all the time you've spent with the tiny-tots around here." He lures the subject away from matters close to heart, and in a direction that keeps J's impish grin from so much as budging. Until Barnaby suddenly offers, in a sense, for J to make use of his shoulder to lean on, should he need it. What a strange notion. An Archduke set among the most powerful and high-ranked creatures in all of Hell, ushered into being tenderly coddled by a mortal. A man who had started out as merely a useful pawn, turned into someone that now pulls him from the well of darkness the last few days have been.

"Is that so? And for how long do you plan to look after me?" As they walk, J's form dips nearer to gently bump against Barnaby's side, nudging him affectionately as they wind their way farther from the memory of the Innocent's demise. Up towards a portion of the Citadel that boasts a little fresh air with a wide balcony and a bar meant for socializing, which he feels isn't just desired but warranted under the recent circumstances.