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[sterngaze]

Liem Talbott

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Liem's mindscape is dark; quiet; contemplative. Any feelings or sensations that Liem doesn't intentionally project himself seem distant, as though echoing from a far-off room. Following any given sense to its source is bafflingly difficult.

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[sterngaze]

[Liem is distracted from his own musings by the question Hayame raises. It's not one he's ever considered, and he blinks in faint bemusement at what she seems to be implying. Though almost more strange is the fact that she seems to expect an answer, like this is something Liem might have any knowledge about. He has no idea why that might be the case.]

I don't know. [He answers slowly, unsure. After another moment, he tips his head slightly to one side, thoughtful.] I knew that some of the shard-bearers here are native to Kenos, but I've always assumed they must simply have been born that way.

[He eventually came to think of their arrivals in Horos as a sort of birth, and certainly what he saw in his sun-bead implied that he'd left his old, shardless body behind with his world. Surely such births happened the usual way as well?]

Is that… not the case? I confess, I've never heard anyone speak of such a thing.

[warmare]

[She really does seem to just expect that he will know- or rather, that it is very likely he will know more than her. Ever since she emerged from the crystalline cocoons of Horos, doubly so after clawing her way out of the sap and dirt in Kenos… Hayame has always been the one who knew nothing, and it has always prevented her from feeling… capable, strong, sure… from feeling like herself. Like how she used to be. Was supposed to be.

She’d known how the world worked, once, what her place in it was and the most that she could do in it, but then… and then there, now here… She has never understood. It’s always been other people who knew magic or world travel or cosmic consequences but. Liem looks at her just as confused as she was, and that means…

She has to be the one who knows something, even if she doesn’t understand it, possessing only a vague idea that it might be relevant.]

There are… others here, who seem as jinba do, but are not.

[Others who had made her hearts clench with hope only for it to wither and die each time she’d realized… no, not this one either. They looked like her, but they didn’t know her world or understand her story. And yet still, pathetic enough to cling to anything even only the most shallow of connections… she had taken their invitation to frolic in the day of Alenroux. She had… hung back, but she had been there. And she had heard things.]

I heard them talking… saying that- that Yima is the one who is supposed to make shards, but they’d heard of a temple service that could supply them to those born without.

[The image of the shards in the night creature’s skull is swimming in her head, alongside the chaotic sense of fleeing, the pain of some sort of tampering with her (no, Manon’s) shard.]

So someone else… has to be making shards.

[Right? She didn’t understand the significance or difference between those born with or without beyond perhaps… that “magic” nonsense they were said to be able to access, but… apparently it was more desirable to have one? And if so-]

If only Yima makes them, what if- What if that means they must first be stolen from another?

[sterngaze]

[Liem listens soberly to Hayame's explanation, absorbing it with a quieting of his hands and a faint thinning of his mouth. Given the disquieting flashes of communion they'd gleaned from Manon, and how intrinsic shards clearly are to the being of any shard-bearer, he immediately distrusts the idea of any illicit service that might claim to provide such a thing.]

I was not aware that Lady Yima could make shards either. I thought those she produced were all pulled from other worlds, like we were.

[He's not certain that he's understanding Hayame correctly in this instance. Perhaps that is what she'd meant regardless. But whether Yima has such a power or not is ultimately immaterial to the matter of this temple service. He frowns, thinking hard.]

I don't… see how a shard could be stolen. They are supposed to be our souls, the cores of our beings, so to be repurposed for another would be… unconscionable, certainly. I can't imagine someone could survive having theirs taken, if it was even possible.

[Is that more likely or less than shards being created wholesale? He'd like to think that there's no way a soul could be stolen in that way, but that interpretation of what shards are might not be completely correct.]

Do you remember how fragile the other shards around Manon's were? I wonder if they might have been counterfeits, somehow. It must be incredibly difficult to make anything even approaching what our shards are capable of. That might explain why they were like that.

[warmare]

[Hayame shakes her head, slow and heavy.]

That is what they said... that she "makes" them.

[But whether they believe it is then predicated on believing the gossip of, essentially... centaur housewives? Hayame doesn't know if they are more trustworthy than anyone else, she had never formulated her own theory on how it was that they even had shards in the first place. She'd never thought on the nature of a soul, when she'd been forced to spend so much of her life focused on preventing a shameful end for her body.

Liem, for his part, seems to at least have a better idea on what he thinks the property of a soul is.]

Maybe they... can have the soul taken out, somehow... and made into empty vessels...

[Would that work? Could some ritual or magic then allow a person without a shard to use that hunk of stone to become one? She doesn't know- But what he mentions about the condition of the other shards makes her think, her brows furrowing (at least, one is- the other is hidden beneath her makeshift bandages).

Who's voice had that been? Still too fragile.]

Counterfeits...

[It was just as likely or unlikely as anything else, but-]

Why, then, put in just one real one... ?

[Was it a sick experiment? And even if it was... What would even be the point?]

[sterngaze]

[Liem has nothing to offer to Hayame’s musings about how a shard might be emptied of the soul within, made into an empty vessel to receive something else. Is that any more or less possible than a soul being crystallized from nothing by some unscrupulous sorcerer? He’s nowhere near knowledgeable enough of such things to even begin to say. Though, at least if that were true…]

In that case, there would be other missing shard-bearers who have had theirs taken. Even if the process wasn’t fatal, the victims couldn’t be allowed their freedom without drawing unwanted attention.

[That, at least, is something they could try to discern for themselves. Do other people from the two cities ever go missing? It might be worth looking into, since Liem doesn’t feel easy about the prospect of leaving that possibility unexplored.]

But as to why Manon’s shard would end up the way it was… I couldn’t begin to guess. Why combine multiple shards in that way to begin with, counterfeit or not? Especially when the end product was simply left to wander the forest.

[It doesn’t make any kind of sense to him. Such a bizarre and unheard of experiment seems like it would have been difficult to pull off, and possibly quite costly as well. What could possibly make it worth it?]

[warmare]

[It doesn’t make sense… and no matter what they say here, there is nothing they can confirm in the grave dirt between the roots of the Tree of Life that would make it so.

Counterfeit… wiped clean… mixed together…

Her hand hovers over her sash, and the shard contained within the pelt. The one that was supposedly Manon’s. But unlike Liem’s, who she’d cradled close to her body in some misguided (or maybe not?) attempt to keep him himself, to keep him “warm”… she hasn’t let this one touch her flesh directly, nor attempted to feel what lurked within it. Not when it may yet be corrupted.

Supposedly, both factions wished to see it cleansed. Only Zenith’s people had spoken of a “mercy killing” if the shard could not be purified. He had “run to Meridian”…

Finally, she murmurs,]

Something must be done with the shard.

[She has an idea… but he had lost his life valiantly against the monster in the wood. He deserved input as well… or she would have simply done it already as he slumbered in the earth.]

[sterngaze]

[It’s clear to Liem that Hayame is just as mystified as he is by the prospect of strange shard experiments, so rather than attempt to mull things over further at the moment, when neither of them have anything concrete to provide about the matter, he instead spends the moment gnawing another few small mouthfuls from his piece of bread. His appetite probably seems pathetic to a jinba who has been struggling to satiate cravings for large quantities of flesh for the past few weeks, but to be fair, he did just wake up from being dead. He’s still working on feeling back to normal.

Hayame is the one to break the silence. He looks up from the last of his slice, and after a moment he nods slightly in agreement.]

I don’t know what would happen if it were planted here, but… I don’t think it would be wise to find out.

[No one’s ever told Liem what happens to shard-bearers who suffer too greatly from discord, so it’s not clear to him if separating Manon’s shard from its bed of lesser shards might allow him to be reborn as a person instead of as a monster, but it seems likely that even if he were to be revived as a man, he would still be suffering from whatever symptoms had driven him to Alenroux in the first place.

But Hayame must have been considering this in the time he’d been here regenerating. He assumes she has some thoughts about it already.]

What would you like to do?

[warmare]

[Hayame has indeed been considering.

It does not suit her. As pathetic as she found it now that she is in position to have to do so… Hayame was not accustomed to making decisions for herself, not outside of how to respond to enemies or prey on a hunt or the battlefield. That, she knew how to do. (Didn’t she?)

But, this? Weighing consequences that might affect other people, that relied on knowledge of magic and the mechanics of a world she had yet to duo out grasp… ? Trying to make the right decision without knowing or being told what it was? She didn’t even know why she was bothering, it wasn’t as if she knew this Manon person- in fact, if she were going based on actions, she would be perfectly justified having crushed it as a defeated enemy, yet-

She tells herself it is because the shard has value, that both factions wanted it and so for their own purposes it is best to keep it secret and safe until they could decide what to do with it… they had suffered for it, perhaps it could be leveraged for something…

But the debilitating pain and fear of the chaotic communion that had been forced into their minds during the struggle have stuck somewhere hard to reach and rip out.]

No.

[It would not be wise to place that shard in the soil like she had Liem’s and gamble on what might happen. That much she is sure of. But as for the rest…

After another long minute of pensive silence…]

He ran to Meridian.

[Didn't he?]

[sterngaze]

[Liem had gone to search for Manon’s shard at Yima’s behest, and he hadn’t thought anything of bringing it back to her at the time, even though her warning about its possible corruption had seemed odd. Why would he hesitate to bring back a Zenith shard to its faction of origin? Surely that was the safest place for it.

But now, he isn’t so sure. Manon had been a Zenith shard-bearer, and yet he had run to Meridian. Why? And what had happened between then and when they’d encountered him in Alenroux to make him end up there, in the state they’d found him? There might be a good reason why he hadn’t stayed in Meridian after all. Or he might simply have left to avoid harming anyone else because of his Discord.

Either way, it’s one of the only leads they currently have.]

He did, [Liem agrees.]

The Tribune might know more. If we brought the shard to him, perhaps he could be convinced to tell us.

[Liem lets his hands rest in his lap, leaning back against the Tree’s roots as he ponders.]

Lady Yima won’t be pleased when she finds out. But… I don’t think I was going to offer her my service again, in any case.

[warmare]

[So Liem heard it, too.

There were still too many things left unknown. No matter how much she turns them over in her head, even if she were a smarter, more educated woman familiar with this place… surely it still wouldn’t be enough? Perhaps she can cease blaming herself.

For a moment… she lets her fingers quest into the folds of the pelt fastened around her “waist”, cautiously pressing her fingertips to the shard there… but it is cold and dormant to her touch, and it does not speak to her. Does not tel her the right answer.

So between the two… with what limited information they had “from” the man himself…]

Then let us see what he has to say.

[This Tribune, Cyrus, who had placed in her hand a bead that seemed to show a glimpse of her world. She cannot say that she trusts him, because she doesn’t trust any of the people in this place, but between the two…]

I cannot trust that woman, Yima.

[And she has struggled to articulate why, to those who asked, because she is loathe to admit things about herself and her past to people she considers strangers. But this man… they had spoken in Venera of things she hadn’t been so forthcoming with others about. Of faith. Of brothers and sisters. Perhaps, if he recalled some of the chaotic memories she’d unintentionally made him privy to, in those stars so long ago-]

When she touched me it felt… familiar, somehow. Her embrace like… like a mother’s.

[Most people would likely take comfort in that. She hadn’t been able to do anything but, in the actual moment, sinking into that woman’s arms. But now, when she thinks of it… there is only mistrust and a strange sort of horror in her eye. Because-]

But my dam was Armless.

[So where had those emotions come from? Where could that familiarity and feeling of comfort come from… If not placed in her hearts by someone else?]

[sterngaze]

[Liem isn’t surprised to hear Hayame voice distrust of Yima, but the reason she raises is different from anything he would have guessed. His own interactions with Zenith’s leader had been pleasant enough, but she hadn’t ever tried to touch him the way Hayame describes. Perhaps he hadn’t been as badly affected by his arrival to Kenos as some, though; by the time he’d first spoken with her, although he’d still been shaky, he’d been composed enough that an embrace would have seemed a little unwarranted, even from one such as her.

He is silent for a moment, absorbing the implications of Hayame’s admission. It is strange that she would find the embrace motherly, without a reference of her own to base such a feeling off of. He also finds it hard to imagine the Hayame he’s known finding comfort in anyone’s arms, motherly or not. He can’t remember her ever letting anyone touch her without some dire reason, at least not in his presence.]

That is unusual, [he says finally. It might not be anything supernatural, but he has to admit it does seem strange.] She was a mother, I think. She communed with me when I first arrived, and it seemed that she’d been longing for a child she lost. Perhaps that longing turned to magic, after enough time.

[Such things could happen in Horos, he’d heard, at least to shard-bearers. Perhaps it is the same here as well.]

She said she wanted me to make my own choice; well, I don’t know what kind of world she intends to create, but I know I already promised myself to the one I left behind.

[warmare]

[Admittedly, they would find many differences in the ways in which they’d spoken to the woman who called herself Yima. Hayame had confronted her the very first thing she did after awaking from the pods, rejecting a Kenoma’s (now Zenith’s) offer of help and medical treatment to instead push towards the one in the room who seemed to be in charge, demanding the release of death over another foreign world and bewildering “mission”-

And that woman had embraced her when she stumbled and collapsed with weakness, held her close like a mother would… and most unforgivably… made her feel for a brief moment as if she was the sort of woman who was familiar with a mother’s love. Liem says it’s unusual, but-]

It’s impossible.

[On this, she seems adamantly sure. There is no way she could have felt that emotion by herself. Even if she were so weak as to crave a maternal warmth in her weakness, to seek what she could only assume that was supposed to feel like… there was know way she would know. She’d been taken from her Armless dam the moment she’d tumbled into the hay. They’d put her on the woman’s chest for feedings, at first, but then it was the bottle, and since then she was raised amongst other armed jinba and their grooms. The only time she’d seen the woman was from a distance, and then… she had only felt disgust.

She would never be so weak, so swaybacked, so filthy, so pitiful. She would be a warrior-

One who couldn’t ever feel a sense of familiarity when embraced by a mother. Yet that is what she’d had experienced in Yima’s arms, and that same emotion which had brought many to Zenith’s side… drove Hayame away, instead. And even if that alone did not… Hayame and Liem are united by one more thread.]

I do not want her new world. I have duties I must see through in my own.

[Even if that duty is to die.]