15[20:52] The path uniting five and one is paved with names that must once have meant something, etched on flat gray stones that run in parallel single files between her and them, the only feature of a landscape blankly white above, below, and beyond. Cethleann looks away from the circle, humming gently to herself. [20:52] 14...Charming. [20:53] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "The fuck?" 12He grinds a bootheel into the stone he stands on, then pokes sideways and down with the sword in his hands, testing to see if the tip encounters resistance from the whiteness at the edge of the path or simply plunges straight through. [20:54] 14Stranger shakes his head at that, and begins walking towards the gentry. [20:54] 5Xu Sim frowns as he walks towards Stranger-Visits-Heaven. He points accusingly at the man and, slowly, deliberately, stabs his friend in the chest with his pointer finger, as if unsure if it will pass clean through. 15[20:56] Xu Sim meets resistance; Keldar does not. Well, no; Keldar finds that he can rest the blade's weight on the blank space level with his feet, but if he pushes downward with cutting intent then it feels like nothing's there. [20:57] "Hullo, Xu Sim." [20:58] 10Jai takes a tentative step forward, then another, taking care to step only on the stones and not the cracks between them. Raksha operate on nursery-rhyme rules sometimes, after all. [20:58] 13Xia Lan does not gawk, but she does stare at the others, freshly arrived. "'The fuck' is right, I think." [20:59] "Curious," 5notes the sorcerer. [20:59] <@Ferrinus> 12More ground than it looked like. Keldar can work with this. He hefts the grand daiklave, holding it crossed over his body and angled down. "Alright. That's her, yeah? We finishing this?" [20:59] 10Jai: "I guess your part of the plan worked better than ours. We didn't even reach the grove before… this." [21:00] "We're finishing this. Maybe your way, maybe not. Either way please don't charge with your sword just yet." [21:00] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar rests the sword tip-down beside him, as though it were a walking stick. "Then what's the plan?" [21:01] "We go see what she wants, and we move from there." [21:01] 13Xia Lan shrugs. "It's been working so far." 15[21:02] Head still tilted away from them, Cethleann sings, "This is the end... hold your breath and count to ten..." [21:02] "I wouldn't worry you won't get your due," 14he says to Keldar. "This isn't the sort of mood that lasts." 14Stranger will keep walking. 15[21:02] Finally she sees them, seeming to settle another ilm or two into the ground rather than look down. 15[21:03] "Have you come to die too?" [21:03] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar walks forward, then, drawing his blade from the lack-of-earth in a smooth motion that splits it into a sword and shield. He'll stop as little as three or four steps forward, if he has to - once everyone's pulled up to something like a talking distance. [21:03] "Yes, I think so. But I speak for myself." [21:03] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Nope." [21:03] 13Xia Lan shakes her head. [21:04] 10Jai: "Not… not unless I have to." [21:04] 5Xu Sim claps Stranger on the back. "Not one of us." [21:04] "And if so...you're going to have to work for it." 15[21:06] Cethleann: "Then why have you followed me here?" 15[21:06] "This is not your place." [21:07] "I already told you. I want to change your story. Change is death." 15[21:08] "You were alone when you said that." [21:09] "And I just said it again." [21:09] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar glances sideways at Stranger. Does it look like the diplomat needs the Circle to take some specific line here, or is there no harm in speaking plainly? [21:12] 10Jai's approaching the point where the paths meet. "May I answer your question with a question? Why did you bring us from the waking world into this place?" 15[21:13] "Did I?" 15[21:13] She seems genuinely uncertain. [21:14] 5Xu Sim takes a moment to examine some of the pavers, to see if he recognizes any names from history or legend. [21:14] 13Xia Lan: "Some of us may have thrown ourselves in rather than being brought. Except for the part about being here." [21:15] <@Ferrinus> 12Assuming he isn't shot any meaningful looks, Keldar speaks his mind. "I followed you here to kill you. Cut you out of all our lives, very least." 15[21:17] "Good. Good. That's useful." 15[21:17] "Perhaps it doesn't matter why." [21:17] 10Jai: "Keldar, Xu Sim, and I were in battle with your forces, and then suddenly… they all became butterflies. Then we were here." 15[21:18] "How delightful." [21:19] 5Xu SIm: "Whose names are these?" [21:24] 10Jai: "It was… breathtaking? Unexpected?" 10As soon as he's said it, he regrets it. 10Why are you trying to compliment the enemy, fool! [21:25] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "So you surrender or what?" 15[21:28] Cethleann is kneeling down beside Xu Sim, touching the stones. There is no impression of movement; she simply was there and now is here. "I remember these. Whispered and blessed. Grieved, gloried and damned. I knew, once. Just once." 15[21:28] She looks up at Keldar. "Surrender what?" [21:29] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Your claim on my city. This war." 15[21:30] Her face grows bitter. "I so tire of fighting." [21:30] 14A shared sympathy. [21:30] 13Don't we all. [21:31] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Well, the bad news is I'm in it for the long haul. The good news is if anyone can stop it it's you." [21:32] 5War is a force that gives us meaning - the ten thousand correct actions of the upright soldier [21:32] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Take your curse back, take your armies back, and just go wherever the hell you came from." [21:32] 14Stranger's certain it doesn't really work like that, but there's no harm in trying. [21:33] 10To Stranger: "Is it that she can't stop unless she changes? Dies?" 15[21:33] "This is where I came from." She looks to the other woman. "You remember, don't you? Xia Lan?" [21:33] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar frowns. "This? Where are we right now?" [21:34] 14Murmuring to Jai: "She is her story. Changing that story would fundamentally change who she is, and who she is now would cease to exist. That is the closest to death the Incarnae can experience, I think." 15[21:34] "We aren't anywhere right now. This is the place. The place we are both from. They began at the rivers when they set the fires." [21:35] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Yeah, technicalities, great. You understand me or not?" 15[21:36] Cethleann's expression is blank. [21:36] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Like talkin' to a music box. Ideas?" 12This to the Circle. [21:38] 14Stranger: "It's up to her, really. She doesn't even seem to know that she brought us here, not really. We're very, very deep inside now." [21:39] 13Xia Lan: "I do," 13she nods to Cethleann. "I remember." 13She's only half paying attention to the rest of them. [21:39] 5Xu Sim looks to Xia Lan with a quizzical expression. [21:39] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Inside what?" [21:40] 13Her face is carefully blank. [21:41] 14Stranger: "Her." [21:41] "If I'm right." [21:41] "Xia Lan?" 5asks Xu Sim. [21:42] 13She looks over to him. "Hm?" [21:42] 10Jai hunkers down on one of the stones. "There's not a lot to go on, the way she is now. But it looks like she might open up to Xia Lan, a little? Let them talk…" [21:43] "What do you remember?" 5he asks. [21:44] 10Jai: "And if that doesn't work, we let Keldar do his Keldar thing and see what happens." [21:45] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar frowns and keeps an eye out for any giant, beating hearts. [21:48] 13Xia Lan: "As she said," 13quietly. [21:49] "We had been speaking about it before -- well, before the rest of you got here." [21:49] 5Xu Sim: "You learned something about her origin?" [21:54] 13Xia Lan: "And how she sees me. Saw? The wielder of the Sword of Creation herself." 13She rubs her arm nervously. [21:55] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar looks skeptical. "Ain't exactly her spitting image." [21:56] 13She shrugs. "Dreams." [21:56] "And memories." [21:56] 10Jai: "Maybe that thing you did with the Sol Ring left an impression on her." [21:58] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "But she called you by your name." [21:59] 13Xia Lan: "She asked." [21:59] 10Jai has a sudden thought. "Did that come in with you, Stranger?" [22:00] 14Stranger: "No. This is not the physical world. My body still respires with its boon, but I cannot smite spirits or the like." [22:00] "Aw." [22:00] "I don't think those aspects of it would be particularly useful anyhow." [22:01] "Then again, I haven't particularly tried to use them." [22:03] 13Xia Lan: "Careful when you do. That first step's a doozy." [22:03] 5Xu Sim: "For once, I agree with you. I do not believe it is relevant. In your presence, Cethleann of the Crooked Lance, if you were to warp us, we would already have felt it. But I believe her when she says she is weary. She has called us here to change her, instead. All the more pity I haven't yet learned the Wyld-Shaping Technique..." [22:05] 10Jai puffs out a breath. "Probably not the best idea unless things go really wrong." 10He goes back to watching Cethleann. There was that jarring jump when Xu Sim asked her about the names in the stones. Is she constant, or does she flicker? Can body language betray her or is this just a fancy karakuri puppet? [22:08] 14Stranger approaches where Cethleann sits and indicates the space next to her. "May I sit?" 15[22:08] Cethleann: "If you like." [22:08] 14He will. "How do you want to change?" [22:08] "With all that implies." [22:09] "The man with the sword back there has his ideas of how, and we can try that if we are otherwise stymied." [22:09] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar remains standing, doing his best at an executioner's affect - and his best is pretty good, in this case. [22:09] "But I should think that, at this moment, in all of this confusion, the best thing to do would be to talk it out first." 15[22:12] Cethleann says, after a long thoughtful silence, "I don't know. I couldn't say." 15[22:13] "How do I find out?" [22:14] 13Traumatic events, possibly involving direct intervention of the Sun, visions, and a gift, Xia Lan does not say. [22:15] 14Stranger makes a contemplative noise in the back of his throat. "The nature of my people -- the Chosen of the Sun, not river peasants -- is the nature of constant reinvention and change, from lifetime to lifetime, built off the merging of two essential cores: who we were as mere mortals, and who we were in past Exalted lives. Each of us, therefore, has to choose some measure of a [22:15] balance, or none at all, as we take our first steps in world as the Solar Exalted. We are forced to ask ourselves, sometimes explicitly: 'who do you want to be?'" [22:15] "Does that question make sense to you?" 15[22:17] Simply and slowly: "I want to be... who I was before any of this ever happened." [22:18] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Didn't she decide to invade Creation?" [22:19] "And what's stopping you?" 14Gently: "I mean that quite literally and seriously. Can you feel what's holding you back?" [22:19] 5Xu Sim interjects - "I have considered recently, the many ways I have changed. Not just from the Second Breath, but from other things, besides," 5here he glances at Stranger. [22:20] 13Xia Lan: "Experiences shape us, good or ill," 13she cautions. "Going back to the way things were isn't always possible, and even if you can, you might find out it wasn't what you wanted after all." [22:20] 10Jai: "I've barely had a chance to be myself at all, these past handful of years." 10He sighs. "So I can relate." [22:22] 5Xu Sim: "My sifu, Selin, pointed out that 'sweetness can work wonders'. That set in motion many things - many things I learned, about love and wisdom. But the sweetness of the honey-maze is a false sweetness. So too, was yours a false love - a poisoned love. You must look underneath it, Cethleann." [22:23] 10Jai: "But even if you can't go back, the way Xia Lan says, you can still find out that your idea of who you are was just plain wrong, and come up with a better one." [22:27] "And I was really happy to get rid of being Jai the Anathema, Jai the Demon. The world might still call me that, but that isn't me. That me's buried." 15[22:30] Cethleann: "I... fought..." [22:32] "Do you remember why you fought? Do you think you still need to fight?" 15[22:33] She's standing behind them all now, clad in silver, spear in hand. "We... fought..." [22:33] 14We're getting to the heart of it. [22:34] "Do you think you still want to fight?" [22:34] 13Please say no, Xia Lan has nowhere to run to. [22:34] 13Her hands are pointedly staying away from her swords, though. 15[22:36] A shadow looms behind her, a tall and antlered, coal black against the blankness save for the high and burning red eye. "We fought..." [22:36] "...Who did you fight?" 15[22:36] The shadow of a sword rises high above her. It falls swiftly. She chokes. 15[22:37] "I cannot speak the name--" [22:37] "Was it a red star, rising?"