RP: OPEN POST

[archademode]

I: pick a character
II: write a prompt or pick some visuals

Comments

[archademode]

“Only that you do not turn trust to betrayal.” It isn’t a gift, he would argue that much without hesitation or subtlety on his part.

“Our genesis is far more alike in nature than its own difference."

Drace had been the one to tolerate him, the one to speak reason and see the simplicity of service, rather than the gilt glory imperial prosperity provides. In many ways, he follows in her footsteps— though with far less grace to spare.

[poleaxed]

"I will aid you," she says, and her words are robbed of their quiet tone by the echoes of her helm. It gives her boldness. More boldness. "If you prove wise. Thus far, you've proven yourself foolish in choice of partnership."

This, then, is what wry sounds like inside her armor. Her first awful joke. She doesn't expect it to be caught. The Imperial Judges, the senate, all are dour people and she has done her utmost to reset all the broken bones of her exit from Fedlhelm in that image. She will become a severe woman of perpetual mourning for a land she hated and a family she feared.

But it is pretty fucking funny anyone would look at her and see trustworthy. "If we've similar beginnings, you are as keen a betrayer as I."

[archademode]

"Mind yourself." Her words insult the Emperor's own judgment, and he's quick to clip the mildness of their conversation for it, lest he be seen as supportive in his role at her side.

Still, however, it bleeds away in the next breath.

"I am indeed. For there are dead who would demand I serve them, rather than the Empire that carried their lives to a short end."

That he makes no concessions for them goes unsaid. It need not be. He is here.

[poleaxed]

"That, I can trust." The strength of her words surprises her. Show her an honorable man, and she will only see his temptations. But faithless hounds are remarkably consistent. "I would not weigh anyone down with my alliance were their conscience clean."

[archademode]

“You speak as though you are burdensome in your presence.”

The idea tugs against the grain of his mouth where it’s set in a hard line, dragging it upwards by degrees. Here, at least, he feels a little more comfortable in his own bleak sense of humor— perhaps a byproduct of all his time spent tucked away in these empty corridors at Drace’s side.

A safe harbor, mostly.

“I am neither aristocrat nor senator. Nothing of you interests me beyond your loyalty, and the edge of your blades.”

[poleaxed]

"I do not know your burdens," Jone says, and with face hidden only her curved voice reveals the smile within, "I'd not dream of claiming enough burden for you to notice."

But, of course, she is uninteresting. A forgotten thing. And isn't that better? She joined this outfit to escape what she was, to hone the only parts of her that mattered. "My loyalty, you can judge for yourself. All else is impeccable."

Yet, that joking tone remains. They're talking about her, aren't they? What isn't there to laugh about?

[archademode]

“Impeccable.” He repeats with a voice set in stone, and there is something to be said for how something unmasked at the edge of his lip twitches. They are both cursed with it, after all. Dignity, in the eyes of an Empire that fully holds their strings.

But that is the path they’ve chosen for themselves, as much as it was chosen for them.

“We leave tonight, then. At sunset, to starve those who might offer aid to the insurgence— and excise their grip on our borders by force. Make yourself ready.”

[poleaxed]

"An honor I've been granted, to fight by your side," she says, and there isn't a joke, there. Who hasn't heard of him? But more likely, she is being tested; if she fails, he will more than make up the slack.

And she is ready, by the time they meet on the airship, looking no different. Though, truth be told, she's readied her weapons and herself. There is finer eating here than ever she's had before, and she has to be careful with her diet. Finer sleeping, so she must be careful with that as well.

In a way, it was easier before. Anything et was good enough; all rest was needed. Now, she sets timers with intricate mechanisms, studies menus, watches how long she bathes and how much time she has to reflect.

She must make sure there is never too much.

But she is there when the sun sets on Archades, perhaps not as lapidarian as her golem kin, but clearly learning. She greets Gabranth by touching fingers to the temple of her help, as though she is about to lift the visor, but she does not. Lifting the visor is a customary sign of respect among helmed allies; to fail to do so, so pointedly, is surely a sign of disrespect, except, surely among those who have sworn to keep their visors down.

She is careful about her gestures, what she says and does, but mischief has not left her yet.

"I propose we position ourselves at the Gates of Videreyn," she murmurs, "a solid choke-point."

lapidarian damn, matching my own ye olde game here

[archademode]

She sees it clearly: Emperor Gramis' eyes are Judge Magister Gabranth's eyes— what he witnesses, he reports, though that is a secret shared between them, not even for his own children to know. He backs Jone's efforts, as a forgotten son of Landis he can offer no more and no less, but what is done here will be recounted in full truth.

Distinction demands it.

He only nods in turn when faced with her show of respect, moving past her in order to press on atop the boarding plank of their waiting transit: they'll have freedom enough to speak during the flight itself.

"You hold familiarity with it?"

i try, i try.

[poleaxed]

Jone nods, realizes a nod can't actually be seen, and explains: "Yes. Videreyn has stone walls meant to bastion their crooked city, but the wood doors were rotten even last year. If better minds-- the sort I have never seen housed in that city-- have seen them replaced, a backup plan will be required."

She muses on that, on the Videreyn of old, on what it used to mean.

"The sewers can be traversed, but not in all this metal. Mark me: I do not complain, only speak of practicality."

[archademode]

“You would have us sneak in like rats.” He hardly balks at the suggestion, stern as his voice remains, but there is a weighty quality to his response that demands she rise to defend her own strategy, else it be cast aside.

“It is undignified.”

Unfitting. Yet...practical.

[poleaxed]

"Shame is a very fine thing," Jone says, voice even. "With all my life to work for it, I'll have earned a handful when I'm dead."

Moving right along, there's a map of Videreyn on the interior walls of the cruiser. "We ought to be able to spot if the doors have been fixed from here." She taps the map.

[archademode]

“I will notify the captain, so that he may adequately adjust our course.”

Said even as he strides away, trusting his own helmet-snared voice to carry over the sound of humming engines. It takes but a moment, plenty of time for her to further study the map— or to mull over her own thoughts, however relevant they may or may not be.

When he returns, it is though he'd never left.

“What we need concern ourselves with is forestalling any lingering defenses. Our secondary forces already gather to cut supply lines, this will be no true difficulty— for us, however, we need strike quickly and with force, and leave lasting damage as a stain on their edifices.

Fire. Structural weakness. Any opportunity to sound the image of security, you and I will take. They must know fear. That a glancing blow struck across their bow from Archades is enough to sink their fleet, should we choose a fully backed engagement in days to come.”

[poleaxed]

"Then we destroy the doors, even if they're new." She says, a voice of new inspiration echoing from her helm. "They love their walls. We'll destroy its weakness for the farce it is."

Does she sound a little bitter? Whatever, it's not important.

[archademode]

A little yes, but bitterness suits a Judge Magister. As does anger, vengeance, wrath, contempt: Gabranth affords her what she is owed, and with a turn of his helm towards the map, decides at last that he is in full agreement. No further tests, no further trials.

“We will take our entrance through the sewers, a preliminary mission. In disguise, we shall not sully the name of Archades or her agents— and thus slipped past their defenses, weaken supports as necessary.”

To that end, he pulls his own helm away with little ceremony or hesitation, letting its weight sit heavy against gloved palms.

“If this is done in advance, if we make them vulnerable before our full assault, it would do much to sicken their resolve, do you not agree?”

[poleaxed]

She stares at his face for a moment, before remembering herself. Her helm comes off as well. "We'll both look close enough to natives to count, but I cannot go by Jone, who is dead. Agnes, then."

She could have chosen to go by a different name, as a Judge, but she wanted the horror of it. Jone ael Derne had died rather publicly in the fall of Fedlhelm; she wanted her name to be a warning, a ghost risen from Archadian magics.

In reality, it was medicine, better medicine than Fedlhelm could ever afford, and a promise of undying loyalty.

"Though I doubt we'll meet many in the sewers, it's a fair possibility to plan for."

[archademode]

“Noted. I’ve no foresight enough to predict what may be found once we traverse far enough in to begin scouring for key supports.”

He fixes his stare on her unmasked expression, rare a thing as it is to witness beyond meetings spent rigid in the shadow of Emperor Gramis’ lofty desk. A temporary indulgence.

“You’ve done well to consider such subtleties.”

Is that genuine praise? It certainly does indeed sound of it.

[poleaxed]

"This... pit," she says, marks herself, and begins again. Her voice is not calmer, just more contained. "Videreyn was a sister city to where I was crafted."

She won't call it a city, a town, or an independent state. It's nothing anymore. "I'd be a fool not to know its whims."

Yes, she heard praise. She won't consider it hers until this job is done.

Her eyes are only on the map, and she reaches up to change the display, plotting a course through the sewers. "If we emerge here, there will be time to arm ourselves and arrive behind the doors, seemingly of nowhere. A shock and a wound, all at once."

[archademode]

He measures her expression for a silent moment, tugging at the ties to his cloak.

“I intend for more.” Whether that spares her anguish or declares potential for further still, is something he cannot conceivably predict— and does not desire to.

“When we've seen to the door's structural supports, we shall venture shallowly into the city itself, in order to evaluate where we might cause the most amount of collateral, preliminary damage. Pain is necessary, Agnes.”

[poleaxed]

Jone nods, her lip curling in a crooked smile when he calls her Agnes. A promise of her mother. She will never be that holy.

"Then we ought to go north-west, toward the merchant quarter. It will buckle their industry, what little they have, and focus our energies on those who have called for this insurrection, desiring for ever more profits. They sleep above their shops, though the things are more mansion than stall."

[archademode]

“Shed what remains of your armor. We travel light.”

An order, this time. Impatient, already chomping at the bit to begin their work: he’s only ever been as resolute as he needs to be at any given moment.

And they do travel light:

The sewers run deep, their network complex— They wear simple traveling leathers, a pair of linen cloaks rucked up beneath Gabranth's arm for the inevitability of their own city arrival, neither of Archadian make, kept spare within transport for such need. By the time they wade through clearer waters run by aqueductine systems, night has already fallen, the city quiet with sleep.

"We ought seek rest. Night watch in finer merchant quarters would make a farce of our own efforts." He holds out a cloak to her, shaking it loose in offering.

[poleaxed]

Jone has lost the teeth needed for bitter words in the meanwhile. She savors the future, cutting down fat merchants who wasted the potential of states that wished to be free. The image succors her while she bides her time, making her way through clammy dungeons. There people were sold out not by Archadia, as they so feared, but by their own. Archadia's revenge-- and it is that-- on their behalf will almost be sweet.

But mostly, it will be painful.

The proffered cloak breaks Jone from her reverence. It takes her a moment longer than it ought, considering it, before she takes the thing to wrap about herself.

"Thank you," she says out of habit, though she's sure he'll answer with it is duty or some other nonsense. Maybe one day, Jone will become as she dreams, an automaton who functions only on protocol, sickened memories forgotten, disappointment displaced, until she is content only with necessity. Until then, it's all rather silly, isn't it? "I am sorry for whatever hit this causes your dignity to suffer. You will regain it; I am sure."

[archademode]

He has been endured to this for so much longer. Perhaps those dreams of hers are not impossible to grasp, but the toll of them—

"It is nothing to be worried over." He counters, dusting out his own cloak before fitting it high across his shoulders. Something similar to the drape he'd worn as a boy, though that knowledge does nothing to elicit a response in him now as he strides forward in search of lamplight so late in the evening.

Instead it is his own glance towards her that seems to be searching for something. The faintest flicker of uncertainty— or sorrow.

"How fare you?"

Here, now, in the deep shadow of their ruinous work.

[poleaxed]

Jone does her best not to sneer. Cold anger always suited her better. "I hunger for its conclusion. Not from weariness," she says quickly, sharply, turning to face him. "I want to see their faces, when their petty fears are confirmed."

Will he think that too personal? He seems a creature of detachment. Should she care at all? Probably. But her soul is a pyre, and she wishes it to burn high, so it may for once be marked and respected.

She will never be the docile child they wanted.

[archademode]

“You shall have it. Let that still your rage for now.”

It doesn’t offend him, doesn’t inspire a lack of faith or confidence in her ability to perform: whatever enmity lives white-hot within her bones is her right to possess, he of all people would argue no less.

But it must have its place.

He finds a dismal, abandoned little building at the edge of a narrow side street, rotted door falling off its hinges, open and useless. He pushes it aside, making one preliminary course through its empty expanse before deciding it’ll suit until morning.

“There is no bed nor mattress to spare.” Not even a meager frame, but disciplined as they are, he imagines they will persist the night with little trouble.