[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

[fightforthejoyofit]

Himeka had asked, when they'd spoken in Achamoth, what proof there was the Regent could remake the world. Zenos had had no answer for her then - then, it had not mattered to him, because the Cause was not the important thing, only that heroes of her ilk opposed it enough to offer him sport - but in the time since it, as her comments were frustratingly wont to do, had niggled. He wonders, in the time where he is still capable of wondering - as his shard vibrates at his throat and the world begins to fall away - if this would be proof enough.

He's died before, of course. This is different. There is nowhere for his soul to retreat to - no thundering urge to do so - no light to turn away from, back towards flesh and fire and fury - because there is nothing.

This is exactly what he wants, isn't it? An End. The rest he's been denied time and time again; no more tepid beige slurry to crawl through, searching for that one bright spark of transcendent joy. That Resentment - that desire to Unmake - is his own self writ larger and brighter and Magnificent and Terrible, and it is tearing into the thing the Hates. This should be Beautiful. It is, in its way.

... so why, then, when the pop of Silco's champagne cork shatters the silence-beyond-silence, is the taste that clings to his teeth one of Fear, and not Relief?

He realises he's been holding his wineglass tight enough the stem has shattered in his grasp, and stalks towards one of the remaining servants to deposit the shards unceremoniously with them and source another drink.

[semicharmed]

Matt's first thought, upon seeing Zenos, is something akin to: Whoa! That's a tall drink of shadow.

(Not verbatim.)

The sense of shared nature is one he's always had for fellow Visionaries, but it feels stronger now, spun from something sturdier than the spiritual threads he's felt between them since arriving in Horos. Before he died--dissipated. Briefly blinked out of existence, as he did just now in the blast radius of the Regent's power. When Zenos' glass-stem snaps, Matt looks down to his own hand to make sure his fingers haven't clenched.

And, hell, he needs a new drink after this. He heads over, moving with surprisingly soft footfalls.

"Could I get another too?" he asks the servant. The man nods his head decorously, offering Matt a glass from his tray. To Zenos, Matt says dryly, "You have the right idea."

He can't get the image of Estinien's shard out of his head. Nor the moving picture of how he'd looked pierced through with dark spears, still shuddering to breathe and be no matter the cost.

[fightforthejoyofit]

Zenos is still not used to people willingly approaching him, much less doing so this casually, and so he bristles instinctually, though the prickle of familiarity (not the kinship and common purpose he feels with the other killers, but a strange sort of comfort, like the way broken-in boots shape to accommodate a foot; he'd felt the same with Silco, at that first terrible party) means it's limited to a slight raising of the hackles and stops shy of outright glacial hostility. He does not immediately recognise Matt, and so gives him a cursory look over (his focus, predictably, on taking the man's measure; does he carry a weapon? How does he stand? Where does his attention seem to be, on the person he's talking to or the room at large? The scar is interesting; how did he earn it?) before replying.

"Quite the show, was it not?" he smiles, thinly, raising the glass in a small salute to the shorter man before draining it and taking another.

[semicharmed]

"A real barn-burner," Matt murmurs.

What is Matt's measure? Well, 5'10", but past that, only Zenos can say. He has no weapons on him at all, unless they're hidden in the blousy sleeves of his bluish-gray, bead-speckled shirt. His posture is quite good, which could speak to some level of martial training, but his twiggish frame and big doe eyes don't seem to fit. And then there are the more interesting markers: the scar arcing across his left cheek, the dark band encircling his right wrist like a tattoo. His left hand, which is entirely missing, terminating at the wrist in a smooth stump.

At the moment, he seems to be paying attention to no one and nothing but Zenos.

"Were you here when she first showed up?" He takes a sip from his glass, nose wrinkling. "'First' relative to this round of Aions, I mean."

The last round, if the Regent's intuition is correct. It's the kind of thought that makes you shiver.

[fightforthejoyofit]

It's likely only that prickle of familiarity that keeps him from dismissing Matt out of hand; it's true. silk can conceal surprisingly sharp daggers (see: Yotsuyu), and the marks are curious, but everything else about the shorter man's bearing suggests they're very different creatures. Zenos, for his part, stands near enough eight foot tall, holds himself like a large cat, his attention intermittently flicking to the Regent, his great-grandfather, and the nearest exit as they converse. He's in his armour (it still bears the scars of the recent conflict, of Syrlya's blade and Wrathion's spellwork, more because he's not had opportunity to fix them than out of a desire to flaunt his meagre participation, such as it was), his blade at his hip (the scythe is more habitual, but... somewhat impractical, for occasions such as this).

"She being the Innocence?" He inclines his head in a curt nod; his features are generally impassive, his default expression one of tedium, but there's no disguising the curl of distaste that thinking about that 'first' manifestation brings to his lip. "I was in Venera, yes. Her death is long overdue."

That much, at least, is genuine, so if the "This is a victory" he tags on afterwards sounds a little like he's trying to convince someone (maybe himself?) that's probably coincidence.

He takes another mouthful of the wine (a more normal one, this time, rather than emptying the glass in a single swallow), gestures to the stump with the half-full glass. Tact has never been his forte, and will inevitably lose to curiosity. "What happened to your hand?"

[semicharmed]

Matt, too, is struggling with how victorious a victory this really is. After what he's seen of the Innocence, what Xishen had told him about how she's less a being and more an amalgamation of traits and energies, it seems impossible that she should really be gone. But if there's a time and place to say that, the Regent's throne room at this exact juncture is ... decidedly not that time or place.

Still, he murmurs agreement over the rim of his glass. At Zenos' question, he stiffens.

Matt should probably start expecting this. In a way, when he's around other people, he always is--buzzing with awareness of what he's lost, shame and awkwardness hanging around him like a miasma. None of it prepares him to answer the question, though.

Part of him thinks, fuck it. He's closer to the Kenoma now than he's ever been, and that's the only force he really needs to impress.

"I cut it off," he answers. (Technically Xishen cut it off, but that wasn't really her decision. She sure as hell didn't suggest it.) "Scrying for the Innocence. I don't know how much it helped or not in the end, but I figured--she hurt so many people, I had to try."

[fightforthejoyofit]

That the Innocence will eventually return Zenos, for his part, considers inevitable (or did, before they felt the full force of the Regent's destructive power, which complicates matters more than a little); it is, to all in intents and purposes, a more powerful Eikon, and all those have ever required to reform is a devout believer and a font of aether. But for the time being it is gone, and that at least is uncomplicatedly to his benefit, given the changes it forced upon him before. Glory Be Kenoma, etcetera.

(It's everything else that he's still figuring out)

And apparently Matt contributed, or tried to contribute, to that uncomplicated good. Presumably it did something, if the limb is still missing; those digits he'd lost himself, shattered into chalky powder resisting the Innocent's attempted transformation, have long since grown back (not an experience he particularly wishes to repeat, but useful information to have given how often he intends to cross blades with the Pleroma). The conviction is impressive, as is the directness of Matt's answer; the both combined earn a slight eyebrow raise of something-like-admiration.

"Is that why you're here?" he asks. Matt does not seem the sort to revel in suffering, especially if what the Innocent did moved him to such measures.

[semicharmed]

Matt feels slightly lightheaded in the wake of this personal revelation (though the wine might help). But fortunately, his fellow Visionary doesn't seem inclined to make a big deal of it. He can't detect any mockery in the other man's expression. No disdain.

After a moment's consideration, he nods.

"I thought I should see it through to the end," he says. "Or the next phase, however you want to think of it."

He pauses a moment, sipping his wine, before venturing: "And, you know ... I don't like the guy at all. He tried to kill me even before he tried to kill like, all of us. But I don't want to see anybody get eaten up by something like that."

[fightforthejoyofit]

He laughs (or, well, not quite laughs; it's a single huff of air, and a flash of teeth, as he glances away to the space Estinien once occupied). "Having sampled that thing's 'Gifts' in Venera I'm inclined to agree. Better for us all, to see it brought low."

Should he take it personally, that he seems to be one of the few Kenomans Estinien hasn't tried to kill? He can only hope it's because his First Friend has staked that claim, though there's a lingering whisper that says no, it's that he's become a very small fish in a pond increasingly full of sharks.

A light shrug, and he glances back to Matt. "Now we wait to see what the Pleroma do next; his loss, and hers, must pain them."

[semicharmed]

"... That's a good point."

Is Matt really just realizing now that the Pleroma might feel a way about Estinien being captured? Yes and no. It's more like the brief hours between waking up below the Citadel and coming here, during which he's begun manifesting new abilities, have only had room for so many thoughts. And most of those have been related to relief that Abel and Himeka are alive.

A relief that mingles with guilt, now. That he tries to quash down around the Regent, worried they'll read his thoughts and find him wanting (again). In the moment, Matt's nose wrinkles in distaste.

"I can see how they'd miss him. Even beyond their personal reasons ... he's formidable." Matt was lucky to get out of his own conflict with Estinien relatively unharmed, but he saw what he did to Kaeya. "But I'd hope the Pleroma aren't mourning the Innocence. They've gotta know she's too dangerous. I mean, she was manifesting again and again, stronger every time. That's not stable."

[fightforthejoyofit]

Matt is not the only one relieved (at Himeka's survival, specifically; from the little they've spoken he still considers Abel to have all Fandaniel's madness and none of the jibbering clown's utility), and on this end at least there is no guilt to it. Perhaps that's foolishness - Meteion's warned him more than once about the perils of courting disfavour, but as he'd said to her then, he's disinclined to take advice on loyalty from a traitor (though the fact he's still talking to said traitor at all probably speaks volumes).

Of course, Matt likely doesn't know any of that.

"Given the stakes if they lose? I imagine they considered the danger an acceptable risk, to wield so potent a weapon against us."

[semicharmed]

Matt's expression sours further as he considers that Zenos' proposition is depressingly likely. Love or hate the Regent, at least they don't pretend to have the moral high ground.

"I would find that pretty disappointing," he murmurs. "I mean, to be fair, I guess I don't really know what they all stand for as a group, apart from 'preserve the status quo.' So it wouldn't really represent hypocrisy per se." Except from Himeka, who seemed to be pretty firmly in camp Helping People, Spreading Love, Saving the World. "I guess maybe anti-authority, which is fair enough. But the first batch of them didn't exactly get a primer on the political situation before they made their choice."

Ah, Matt, how quickly you forget that when you arrived in Horos, you were kidnapped and manhandled by emissaries of the Regent, then spent several weeks convinced they were going to sacrifice you in a blood ritual. Just saying, maybe the Pleroma read the tea leaves there.

[fightforthejoyofit]

"Do you think they'd have chosen differently, if they had?"

Zenos' tone is one of faint, amused scepticism, one eyebrow raising slightly as he regards Matt. His own experience was quite different, coming in the second wave, and from what he's heard from Meteion that first impression was particularly ungentle... but the unmaking of reality-entire is always going to be a hard sell. He remembers Himeka's demand for Proof, and her confusion that anyone would fight for the Regent's promise of a world reborn without it. All a more diplomatic opening salvo would have secured, he's pretty sure, is a higher number of defections the first time that conviction was tested.

[semicharmed]

"I don't know," Matt admits. "They are all pretty stubborn."

Despite himself, his voice is tinged with affection. He shakes his head.

"The only thing that's really come up when I've talked to them, though it's come up a lot, is that they don't want to believe their worlds are gone. They just can't let go of the possibility. And they want things to go back to the way they were, which ..."

A slight shrug.

"I don't know. Maybe it'd be normal if I wanted that too."

[fightforthejoyofit]

"Something about doomed causes and hopeless odds would-be Heroes find impossible to resist, it seems."

There's affection in his tone too, for all he's criticising said Heroes. The sort of gently bemused humour with which one might discuss something stupid-but-adorable their pet did, perhaps.

Matt's last words get a curious headtilt, however. "There's no shame in not missing the time before; some worlds deserve to burn."