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! ))

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[selfimage]

Poisons.

[ and a pause. ]

For gods.

[ as if he needs clarification. there's no fear in his voice, no, just curiosity, thoughtfulness. ]

[grunehexe]

... Perhaps.

[Her world does not have such things- gods within reach of man. But it had humans... and her work could kill them faster and in more number than anything ever invented before.

Maybe that would work on a goddess.]

[selfimage]

It would make a simple solution, but gods don't work in the same way mortals do: not in physical form, and not in death.

[grunehexe]

I know that.

[but what were they supposed to do then?]

Last I checked no one was advertising they owned a blade forged to kill a God for good.

[selfimage]

[ it can be done, depending on the god. ]

Unfortunately the nature of the divinity here is ... nebulous, at best.

[grunehexe]

Aren't such things usually... Specific?

[A blade to kill a certain God, a poison for another, something to exploit this ones weakness... The legends didn't tend to have heroes swinging around things that could just kill ANY God...]

[selfimage]

Divinity? No. There's ...

[ a pause, and then his voice turns curious: ]

Have you met Ahad?

[grunehexe]

I have had the [divinely confusing at times] pleasure, yes.

[selfimage]

Him and I share the same nature, but not the same details. Some gods are shaped by perception, others by stories, and yet others by specifics in nature ...

Some are less corporeal than others, living and perceiving other planes of reality. Our senses aren't the same, nor are our physical bodies. Sometimes mortal weapons don't, sometimes they do.

[grunehexe]

[Why can't things ever be easier, ever be "like they are in my world"?]

And we know next to nothing of Nalanni and Ryba's nature when it comes to such weaknesses.

[selfimage]

No.

[ it comes with a sigh. ]

Nor do we know the affect that they may have on this world, or if their stories—have they a relationship with destiny—are entwine in a circular fashion.

Who knows? They may just be reborn.

[ like he was. like he is now. ]

[grunehexe]

[One echoed. Sieglinde knew many things- arguably far more than someone her age ought... but she didn't know the answer to this. Hated not knowing the answer to this.

Even admitting that, putting her head in her hands, pressing the heel of her palms into her eyes... it did nothing.]

Who knows.

[selfimage]

[ there's a pause.

a silence.

a sigh that comes through Loki's nose, and a tone that he hardly uses. ]

Chin up.

Listen, we may not know how to change something, but there is something we do know: something has to change.

[ where there's usual an arrogant cadence, it's replaced with something softer. his voice can be more than manipulative and convincing, when he wants it to be. ]

[grunehexe]

[She doesn't like to be weak. To admit to not knowing. To be seen when she wasn't in control. To look like an upset little girl. But the veneer cracks sometimes.]

And if it changes for the worse?

[It will be their fault. Their hands that did it- even if they can say things like "ALASTAIR commanded it", and "something has to change".]

[selfimage]

[ well, Loki's used to being blamed for all of the bad things that come about. he's a god of chaos, of mischief and whims; he's an incarnate of passion and will, and he's had his share of fingers pointed in his direction. ]

It still changes.

[grunehexe]

[Sieglinde didn't want any blame. Not any more- she didn't even want the one on her shoulders already, even if she deserved it.]

Is change really better than the constant, no matter the consequence?

[selfimage]

Is the constant here now truly preferable?

[grunehexe]

I do not know.

[Part of the problem. If the Nalawi were simply without their gifts, if Nalawnni was without voice... that constant could continue, but if Pomarr revived the Dakal...]

- why do I get to choose? Why do you, or anyone?

[selfimage]

That's a question for ALASTAIR, isn't it? Why do we get to chose, and they don't?

[grunehexe]

ALASTAIR never answers my questions.

[Funny, that Loki, the trickster god, answered more questions for her than her "employer".]

[selfimage]

Somehow, I don't think they have a lot of them.

[ he's getting that idea, from the way that they're dispatched and approached. ]

[grunehexe]

How fortunate for all of us waiting to hear from them.

[To even hear of their mission and what it was truly to be- what they needed to do, to leave this world. To make the timeline 'right'.]

[selfimage]

[ the notion that he's doing this in public, for the moment, has swept away. ]

Sieglinde—ah—you don't always have to fix everything.

[ he had run into Heven, sought Odin on a whim, knowing not what it would bring, but knowing that something had to change. he pauses, and his voice gets softer. ]

Maybe things will be for the better, maybe for the worse, but change comes. When it's withheld, it comes violently if it must. Your value, your self-worth, is not based in answers that you have.

[grunehexe]

[It's always been about the answers. She'd been chasing the answer since she was- how old? Three? Four? Old enough to formulate the symbols and concepts. If she could find the answer everything would be as it should.

But there's no answer, and no guarantee it would get better at all.]

But is that not what we are supposed to do? Fix things- ? That is what we were told... to make it "right"-

[selfimage]

On their terms? Yes, I suppose that's what we were sent here for. Whatever those expectations are doesn't make you're more or less because of them, even if there are those that may fault you.

You told me you no longer wanted to be lied to. Fuck ALASTAIR, seek your truths.

[ this is her story, not ALASTAIR's, and not Nalawi's. he's gotten sick of everyone telling him what he should and shouldn't be—what kind of Loki he was. he was the only one who decided that. ]

You may not find them all, but you will be the one defining yourself.