text 💎 un: Tohsaka Rin

[defenceless]

[shortly after the storm clears on may 11th and the network connection between both sides of the group is reestablished, the following post appears:]

We're fine, as far as I know. I don't think anyone's dead, at least.

The storm that separated us was brought about by a Dakal named Pomarr. Some of you may remember her as our feline friend who sold her soul to Ryba—or whatever it is she did—to continue to live on after death.

She swept us to an island that looked like it was raised from the seafloor. It wasn't a vacation, but there were definitely remnants of what those big cats must have called home.

Her plan is to revive her entire race, in the same way Ryba "revived" her. As if life-or-death deals with shady goddesses aren't concerning enough, she wants to grant Ryba the power to carry out this mass revival by having her suck Nalanni dry. Pomarr understandably doesn't care much for Nalanni after she drowned everyone she loved; in fact, she showed us this in morbid detail. She's taken Nalanni. Hence, all the Nalawi losing their Gifts and all of this inconvenience we have to deal with.

Pomarr knows where Nalanni is, but she's asking us not to interfere, and she wouldn't give us the opportunity to speak with Nalanni when I requested it. For some reason, she didn't expect that we would be suffering like the Nalawi are. She's promised to try to fix that.

What do we do now, ALASTAIR? I can share anything else you want to know about our meeting with Pomarr, or Yukimura Sanada-san or Mr. Keats can, but this is most of it. We have a situation where the balance of this whole world might be upended if we sit and twiddle our thumbs.

I don't think I need to remind anyone of the potential consequences of messing with either goddess. Or a litter of zombie cats roaming free.

(( ooc: infodump for rin, yukimura, and keats' conversation with a dakal npc, for one of the plot slots! feel free to handwave your character (in either the marooned group or the left behind group) learned this info by reading the post or talking with rin/yukimura/keats/another recruit. yukimura and keats may also be replying to tags! ))

Comments

[selfimage]

Did I say anything about forgiveness?

[ luckily he's used to people not being happy to see him. ]

I said killing is debatable because they both may just come back. Speaking as someone who has, and someone who's done terrible things in a past life ...

Certain aspects of divinity may prove your efforts moot. I doubt you want that.

[adlantisag]

We are no speaking of you and your kin, Loki! What proof do you have that any of these 'aspects' apply to Ryba and Nalanni?

[selfimage]

Nor are we speaking of yours—what makes your rules of death and life less irrelevant than others of divine nature?

I'm not adding my voice to the choir of dissent. I've done my share of deicide, but if you want something to be worth something other than momentary satisfaction then there are rules that need to be sought and bent. Death may not offer finality, nor may it carry the same weight for you as it does for them. There's the Dead Walk to consider, and there's Pamorr's miraculous zombie adventure.

If you want to punish them? Allow Ryba to consume Nalanni and reign forever over nothing in the land of the dead. Nalanni withers and suffers then, doesn't she? Who wins if you kill them? The Nalawi? Well, their gifts will be drained forever. The Dakal will remain dead and—ah, who knows what will happen to Pamorr.

No one's really around to enjoy the godless world that you want to offer.

[defenceless]

Loki...

[so he really isn't too far from the figure of "loki" she knows. perhaps.]

It must feel like you're being attacked, too. I didn't even think of that.

[selfimage]

[ there's a pause. ]

I doesn't matter now.

[ drained and mortal, he's never been more vulnerable. the gods in his world had done terrible things—he had done terrible things—worse, maybe.

it was easy to burn them. ]

[defenceless]

[how to say it? it may be true nothing much matters to their current situation aside from the cold, hard facts and whatever decision they're going to commit to (or a very small fraction of them are going to commit to) in their pursuit of fixing this world, but—]

Your insight matters. That's not something any of us can deny.

[selfimage]

[ it's a very odd feeling. he's not entirely against killing them, but there are a thousand other factors that flood his mind, everything from horrors that he's committed to the possibility that killing them may not simply be enough. ]

The nature of their divinity is nebulous, at best. There may be other ways, but gods are different depending on the universe inwhich they hail.

[ he pauses, and sighs; he sounds less dramatic, and more tired. ]

Implying mortal constructs on the divine can bring possible conflict.

[ don't miss the point, Loki. someone's worried about you. ]

[defenceless]

[he's giving her valuable information, but for the most part, these are things she already knows.

whatever they want to speculate about, it still leaves them in the position of having to find more answers.]

I know... Loki, I know. I wasn't literally asking for your insight. [she won't let him just skip over it.]

I was trying to reassure you. Even if they don't understand all of what they're meddling with when they just choose to slay gods— You do. We do.

[selfimage]

[ find a solution. he always has a solution, doesn't he?

for a long moment, he goes silent. ]

Yes, but something needs to give.

[ and as a god of chaos, he understands that all too painfully. ]

[defenceless]

[that sounds ominous.]

Just what do you mean by that? That they'll charge on ahead, anyway?

[selfimage]

These missions that we're assigned to—these places that we go—they all need to change. There's no bending here, and what happens to thinks that don't bend?

[defenceless]

... They break.

[selfimage]

Aye, they break.

SHE'S NOT ACTUALLY CRYING but

[defenceless]

[perhaps entirely unprompted:]

—I'm sorry.

[he doesn't have to reply to her, and even if he doesn't, the sentiment will stay. loki's a god. decisions to murder goddesses are being thrown around, and he's having to accept that.

it isn't especially fair, not even when she considers that existences like gods and goddesses are typically far above mere mortals—or a group of magi could easily send another world to its own destruction, and someday she might be forced to commit to killing her kind.]

RIN

[selfimage]

Ah—

[ stop that. stop that at once.

he leaves it at that. no one's apologized to him for something of that severity before, or even asked him how he felt about it. everyone's fighting over what to do, and he finds himself on the fringes, wallowing in his own divinity. ]

;u;

[defenceless]

[she's stuck at a relative loss for words. it's not exactly her place or her responsibility to comfort him. so, why does she keep talking?

maybe it's to fill the silence.]

I'm beginning to think nothing is sacred, here. And that's just the way it has to be, but what a joke, huh?

I'll fight to my dying breath no matter what happens.

[selfimage]

[ Loki lets out the thin breath that he was holding, and there's a little heh in reply. it's a laugh that comes as a result of tension, coiled somewhere in mirthless anxiety. ]

I could buy joke, a poor one at that.

[ he had told her once that change happens; good or bad, it has to happen. ]

Don't go out and get yourself killed over a bad punchline.

[defenceless]

[very well. that's good enough, she supposes, and a faint, wry smile stretches over her lips.]

You, either. Just because it's god-hunting season.