15[20:32] So it is that the Four Fangs came to the furthest edges of Creation, to the deepest pits of an ancient ruin, to the very precipice of Hell... and now, one dark enterprise thwarted and one infernal collaborator slain, they're left to consider the fate of the woman who appears to be the endeavor's mistressmind. [20:33] 14Piu is of half a mind to just kill her right here. Especially if she keeps opening that mouth. [20:35] 14Mainly she's concerned that Dryas has offered Suris a bad deal in order to get any deal at all out of the toxically and perhaps lethally self-absorbed lying schemer. [20:36] 10No quarrel here. If Dryas still insists on a deal, though, she's going to have to work extra hard for it.  15[20:36] Nellens Suris looks uneasily from each member of the huddle to the next, with only a dim understanding of the peril she's in and no understanding of the perilous implications of action. She has, for good or ill, managed to stop running her mouth. For the moment. She's promising to speak on whatever the hearth desires if they spare her, but who knows what value there is in that? And 15[20:36] then there's the question of the Vermillion Legion contingent, its disciplined and rule-abiding leader, and the delicate outer reaches of a web of influence that reaches back to one of the Realm's great heroes while the nation is at the precipice of chaos. 15[20:37] The Four Fangs are in complete control here. Nothing stands between them and action. Nothing stands between them and action's consequences. [20:38] 14There is also, separately, the issue of To's involvement to be considered here...but while Piu isn't about to give her up directly to Realm authorities, she has no sympathy for the Maudlin Tutor's position or Iselsi's House business in whatever was happening here, and the word of one meager Legionnary detachment from the edge of Creation isn't going to get To ousted from V'neef's [20:38] 14good graces. [20:38] 14When she gets back, however, the two women are going to have a talk. [20:41] 07Dryas: "If we destroy her, are we punishing her for a crime?" [20:42] 14Piu: "Is this a philosophical question?" [20:44] 10Daizo: "It's not a particularly novel puzzle, if so." [20:44] 07Dryas: "...Or are we avenging ourselves?" [20:46] 14Piu just looks at Daizo and half-lifts her arms in exasperation. [20:46] 6Zhangyu: "I fail to see the relevance." [20:48] 07Dryas: "In the next few months, we'll have no shortage of people trying to kill us. Perhaps we can reduce that number if we cultivate a reputation for mercy. If, on the other hand, this is really about enforcing the order of heaven and earth, that also poses questions about the future, which grow a little more urgent every day." [20:50] 07Dryas: "Whatever crime she's committed, we've forgiven worse in others. And she has something valuable to give us. For all his virtues, are we really going to resolve this as confidently and quickly as Peleps Deled would?" [20:50] 14Piu: "And you think this one's going to be running around the archipelago talking up our mercy, instead of how she cleverly fooled us and escaped with her life?" [20:51] 14Piu: "We stopped Garnet from gutting her like a pig in the mud, like she deserved, with the promise that justice would be done instead of vengeance. Is this coziness justice?" [20:51] 10Daizo: "Deled wouldn't have bothered arguing about this for even ten heartbeats." [20:52] 14Piu: "Because me, personally, I'm not the justice bitch. Justice isn't my thing. But if that's what we're going for, this isn't it." [20:52] 07Dryas: "If it's purely a matter of own security, then surely we can properly chastise her. Once bitten, twice shy." [20:53] 10Daizo: "...you've got to be kidding is with this crap." [20:53] 6Zhangyu: "A very good security measure against potential threats is killing them." [20:54] "It's not quite perfect, but it's good enough." [20:55] 14Piu: "Look. Change the deal to a guilty plea, all the shit she mentioned, and the Legion drags her away to the Blessed Isle in chains, and I think we can all live with that. I'm sure she'll find some way to slip their noose eventually anyway." [20:57] 10Daizo: "Do you know what I told Garnet to keep her from marching out there and declaring her identity and blowing everything we've worked for so far out of the water? It was very simple: Suris isn't worth it. Not to her. Not to us." [20:57] 07Dryas: "I have to believe, by virtue of our position, that people who have done very bad things, maybe who are very bad things, can change and become, if not 'good', then 'useful' for us, who will do good with them." [20:57] 14Piu is aware enough to avoid actually giving Daizo a death glare. [20:58] 14Maybe Suris won't pick up on that. [21:00] 6Zhangyu: "I am willing to keep that in mind broadly, but narrowly? You're going to have to sell me on that one." [21:03] 07Dryas: "We take her hostage, in the Garden. House arrest. A modicum of comfort in return for information. If she is useful, she continues. If she betrays us, she'll have nowhere else to turn." [21:03] 14Is that a thinly-veiled reference to her being a terrorist assassin? Because that's still three or four tiers higher than 'demon collaborator trying to let Ligier in the back door.' [21:03] 07Dryas: "If she is pliant but useless, we send her to the Nail." 15[21:04] That gets a reaction. Not a verbal one; Suris's eyes widen in terror. [21:06] 07Dryas: "Yes, they'll get those secrets out of you, too. Less gently than we can, I am given to understand." [21:08] 14Piu: "Well, we can't send her directly to the Garden. Which will have baths. Annoyingly. I am with Daizo that, at the very least, we need to appear to punish her and then have our people secret her away later." [21:10] 07Dryas: "Ah, to undermine Ejava with the right hand, while frightening her with the left? To make ourselves indispensible? That's a tricky plan, even for me." [21:10] 14Piu: "I don't hear you saying you can't do it, so I presume you're just saying you can do it, but with style." [21:10] 10Daizo: "And here I would have thought you'd welcome the challenge." [21:11] 07Dryas: "A false flag jailbreak, a true recapture, all to relocate her into our custody?" [21:11] 07Dryas: "The only problem is it risks more blood spilled on her behalf. A more straightforward approach earns us more... right-thinking political accolades." [21:12] 07Dryas: "A sentence suspended? COnsignment to the Nail, but of course, interned in the interim at Abalone, under our watchful gaze. Until the situation stabilizes." [21:13] 14Piu: "Why are you so intent on pissing Garnet off over this?" [21:14] 07Dryas smiles beatifically. [21:14] 6Zhangyu: "Bad answer." 15[21:14] The reaction of Garnet to infernalists is surely at the forefront of every Fang's mind right now... though they may not all be thinking of the same one. [21:20] 10Daizo: "Sister. If you have a stipulation, or a goal of your own in mind here, kindly share it." [21:20] 14Piu: "Do we need to step out so she can't hear it?" [21:20] "Please." [21:21] 07Dryas shrugs and acquiesces. [21:21] 6I don't know, I kind of liked the intimidation factor of three people advocating her death literally right in front of her with one in defense. 15[21:21] Poking your head outside the tent reveals that a lot of legionnaires and laborers are massed up outside. The guards at the tent seem to be enough to keep them from rubbernecking, but there are a lot of eyes on them right when they step outside. [21:23] 14Piu, once outside: "Look, sister, I know you pretty well by now. If you're doing that thing where you just magnanimously humor us until we get tired, throw up our hands, and let you do what you want to do anyway, I'll go do the thing I do, which is walk back in there and garrote her right now." [21:23] 10Daizo sighs. "Cousin, have you been practicing your piercing glares?" [21:24] 6Zhangyu: "It's all natural talent, I don't need to practice. But I have been anyway." [21:25] 07Dryas: "Fundamentally: we are in charge." 07Not her. [21:27] 07Dryas: "That is not a rejection of her as a moral authority or a source of honor and inspiration. But she cannot stain her hands with the realities of the world." [21:27] 07Dryas: "We must act to protect her. That is my motivation, as concerns that subject." [21:28] 14Piu: "Fundamentally I care less about her feelings than I do about the fact that you're undermining Daizo and what he said to her." [21:29] 07Dryas grimaces. "Fair." [21:30] 14Piu: "If there is a way to get the outcome we desire without doing that, we should pursue that outcome. Even if it's a tricky thing." [21:30] 07Dryas: "And if people come to harm?" [21:31] 10Daizo: "Then that's on my conscience. I placed this particular barrier in the road." [21:32] 07Dryas: "It's for us all together. A plan it is, then." 07Not the first time smuggling, stealing, hijacking a live cargo. [21:33] 14Piu: "We're going to drop her on an island with a sword for her gut, a bottle of clear liquor, and sail off to the horizon. Who's going to get hurt between then and when our ship picks her up besides maybe her?" [21:33] 14That's in a whisper. [21:34] 14Presumably the Fangs have wandered over to the side of the tent and glared any stray laborers out of the area. [21:34] 07Dryas: "Alright. Let's make it happen." [21:36] 6Zhangyu: "That is about the highest level of acceptable I can think of." [21:36] 6Any better treatment is just -- hrn. [21:36] 10Daizo: "Then we're settled." 15[22:15] Settled on... what? [22:24] 10Justice. Or something that looks like it. [22:25] 14It goes to tribunal. Piu will have a talk with Garnet about what The Nail is, which should fit her definition of suitable punishment. It certainly fits Piu's. And if Dryas wants to sideboard the action and spring Suris en route...well, that's between her and Suris and whoever she can find that's plausibly deniable. Piu wants to stay all the way out of that. [22:28] 10If Sho's come around, it won't be too difficult to get him to recount the story of what happened down in the pit. Probably makes a good show. 15[22:29] It does! He's got quite a flair for storytelling. [22:31] 07Dryas will return to confer with Suris again. [22:31] 14Well, Piu hardly has grounds to stand on in criticizing schemes. 15[22:33] The main thoroughfare in the camp is being set up for an ersatz tribunal. Not quite a court martial. Not quite magistracy. Real frontier justice. 15[22:36] Suris is speaking as soon as Dryas enters. "What are the terms? Like I'm not going to lie, you have all the leverage here. But you four put your heads together and you've got something. What's the deal?" 15[22:36] She sounds agitated. 15[22:36] Garnet's changed out of jer armor and into some of the clothes from the Saucer. "I liked that outfit," she laments to Piu. "Maybe Daizo can figure out how to get it back out of the jar." [22:37] 14Piu grins. "Possibly so. Or we can just get you a new one." [22:38] "So. Tribunal's going up in a few hours. Maybe sooner. I figured that you should know what'll happen on a guilty verdict." 15[22:38] Garnet: "...is it not the obvious thing?" [22:38] 14Piu: "Execution? No. Nellens Suris instead will be slapped in chains and sent to The Nail." [22:39] "Now, the reason we're having this conversation privately is if you asked what The Nail is in public, you'd get all kinds of looks." [22:39] 07Dryas: "You're not going to die today. But I don't think we have the leverage to keep the Legion from dragging you to the Nail." 07She'll let that sink in for a moment. [22:39] "The Nail, you see, is the prison that the Realm sends certain kinds of offenders. Not necessarily the worst, either. Just certain kinds." [22:40] "And it is famous across Creation for the extent, creativity, and duration of its utter brutality." [22:40] 6Zhangyu: "You've read the phrase 'a fate worse than death.'" [22:41] 07Dryas: "That's different from saying that the Legion is going to deliver you to the Nail." 15[22:41] Suris goes ashen. [22:41] "I haven't seen it myself, nor will I ever. But. That is what they say." 15[22:41] Garnet: "Torture? Why?" [22:41] "We were in the tent with Suris earlier. Mention of The Nail was the only thing that disrupted her facade." [22:42] 14Piu shrugs. "The guards there have many excuses. The order of 'monks' that administrate it, the sick freaks, have even more. I suspect on a fundamental level many of them have sublimated their enjoyment of the act into a moral zeal for the deliverance of justice." [22:43] 14Piu: "Part of it comes from there being some prisoners they CAN'T kill. Not that they're unable to kill them, but, it's said that the Golden and Silver Anathema resurrect themselves in some way after death." [22:43] "So how do you prevent that? Keep them technically alive, as long as possible." 15[22:43] Suris: "...what does that mean?" 15[22:45] Garnet: "But she's Blooded, not Anathema. She just dies if she dies. An empire doesn't fill a prison because they get off on it. They start to get off on it because necessity and invention made it their entire world. So what are they doing in there?" 15[22:46] "What sick hell is this?" 15[22:46] Garnet's jaw works. She blinks rapidly. [22:48] 14Piu: "As said, monks. It is...heavily involved with the Immaculate religion." [22:48] 07Dryas: "You will plead guilty and ask for the mercy of the tribunal. You will testify as to the conspiracy you told us about. Then, one day soon, when you meet someone bearing a white flower, go with them. And you may not see the inside of the Nail." [22:48] "Which from what we've come to understand during our trip out here means heavily involved with the agents of Heaven." [22:49] 6Zhangyu: "Them. Ugh." [22:49] "So who really knows what goes on in there or why." [22:49] "But no one comes out." [22:49] "Sometimes not even the guards." [22:50] 14That last bit is editorialization from some spooky stories told over drinks by a couple Pneumans at school, but it's certainly in line with everything else she's heard. 15[22:52] Garnet: "I don't like this. It feels like playing into somebody's hands. It always fucking does." 15[22:53] "How long do we let schemers and torturers push us around?" 15[22:53] Suris: "...and then what?" [22:53] 14Piu: "It was...inconvenient...for Daizo to stop you from gutting her where she stood. I won't say it was the wrong decision, but I also won't say you were wrong to want to do that to her. Lord knows I threatened to kill her multiple times when I was in that tent." [22:54] *Mother [22:54] *Mother knows [22:54] 6Zhangyu: "Seemingly endlessly. Death's still an option, if you ask me." 15[22:55] Garnet: "Fine. We'll do it your way. As long as I never have to see that smug, stupid bitch's face again." [22:57] 14Piu: "That, at least, can be arranged." [22:59] 07Dryas: "Something like house arrest, in a civilized place." 15[23:00] Garnet: "I need to be in a room with someone who knows why these decision were made, at some point. I need to look them in the eye." [23:00] 07Dryas looks down. 15[23:00] Suris: "What is it?" [23:00] 14Piu: "That I'm not so sure I can arrange. But if we run across anymore of those Heavenly Chosen, the odds spike quite a bit." [23:02] 07Dryas: "Nothing at all. We never had this conversation. Do you understand?" 15[23:02] Now it's Suris's turn to slump. Glumly: "What conversation?" [23:05] 14Piu: "Also, who knows? They'll be sailing back into a brewing civil war. Maybe her ship gets sunk and it's just a really complex, delayed execution." 15[23:06] Garnet, coldly: "If Fate wills it." [23:07] 07Dryas: "What passage were you reading in the Dutiful Actions?" 15[23:11] Suris looks a bit surprised. "It was... it was nothing in particular. I was so nervous I couldn't see straight." 15[23:11] From there it's all formality. [23:12] 14If Piu isn't directly called to testify, she'll opt out of watching. The trial is, possibly in multiple ways, a sham. Maybe moreso given its full and proper legality. 15[23:12] Sho speaks. Suris confesses and throws herself on the mercy of those presiding. The three judges need confer only briefly. The sentence is clear: transportation to Pneuma, and the hands of the feared, mysterious Heavenswatch. 15[23:13] Then it's just cleanup. The Prolix & Terse is gone by sundown, and the rest of them will be headed east in the coming days. 15[23:14] "What a shitshow," says the Commodore to her senior staff. It sounds more agreeable than the senitment it conveys. "You handled it spectacularly, but fuck." [23:15] 14Piu: "Killing Takoye was somehow the easy part." [23:15] "Well. Takoye's demon. Demon Takoye?" 15[23:15] Ratel: "Caxi would know." Caxi's not present to clarify. Neither is Daizo. 15[23:16] "But that's not why I've called you here. This was a solid gamble, but it didn't pay out. We've got nothing to help us deal with Furia, Skullstone, or the Guild." 15[23:16] *We got 15[23:16] "We need to figure out our next steps." [23:17] 14Piu sighs. "Abalone to reprovision and get our heads right, and then to that pleasant jade plantation on the coast, I guess." 15[23:21] Ratel: "Abalone's still hot right now, isn't it? With Dryas's Guild situation? It won't exactly be shore leave." 15[23:21] "Then again, the Neck definitely won't." [23:21] 14Piu: "We've got a smaller crew and a differrent ship. If our men are smart about it, surely we can work in a day or two." [23:21] *different 15[23:22] Ratel: "A different, much more distinctive ship." [23:23] 07Dryas: "A hold full of jade makes everything in Abalone go down much more smoothly." [23:25] 14Piu: "We could also stop back at the Golden Saucer I guess but I've had enough of that place for, well. Quite a bit longer." [23:26] 07Dryas: "You know what they say about all play and no work." [23:27] 6Zhangyu actually doesn't. "All work and no play makes a perfect warrior today" didn't seem to percolate out either. 15[23:27] A perfect warrior... or a lonely warrior...? 15[23:30] Ratel: "You're thinking we go straight for the Neck, Dryas?" [23:32] 07Dryas: "Yes. And also, the place." [23:34] 07Dryas: "If we think about what it takes to consummate the final part of the plan, we'll need the resources we can get there, and to sort out some kind of a distraction to Skullstone." 15[23:34] Ratel smiles appreciatively. "I agree. We need real support, and there are a lot of Blooded up there between the mine, the monastery, and the colonial government. It's set up to anticipate an attack from Skullstone. Budokan is the one who most needs to know what we know and the best-equipped to help us." 15[23:34] "Also, he's a shitty old crank, so we don't need to worry about him talking out of turn." [23:34] 14Yeah, that's gonna be an issue. [23:39] 07Once underway, Dryas makes her way to Garnet's quarters. 15[23:39] Garnet's there alone. 15[23:39] "Dryas. Hello." [23:40] 07Dryas: "Xia Lan. If it is not too presumptuous of me." 15[23:41] Xia Lan: "Oh right, that is my name, isn't it. I keep forgetting who I am." 15[23:41] "Come on in." 15[23:42] Looks like she was reading. 15[23:42] The Thousand Correct Actions, in fact. [23:43] 07Dryas: "I know the feeling." 07She eyes the book. "Reading a particular passage?" 15[23:45] Garnet picks it up. "'Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate." [23:47] 07Dryas ponders this for a moment. [23:49] 07Dryas: "Do you really feel like you forget who you are? I feel like things have changed so much since I came out here. But of course, that's nothing, compared to how you must feel." 15[23:52] Xia Lan puts the book back down. "I remember exactly who I was. But there's someone out there with my name, my face, my voice. Someone else who remembers exactly who I was. And the things she does... the things she's done... they describe someone totally foreign to me." 15[23:53] "So I sit here and I think: how well do I know myself after all?" 15[23:54] "I read about subtlety. I hear stories of inescapable prisons. Of women in chains. Of throats opened in the dark." 15[23:55] "Everything that I hate. And someone with my name and my face built the whole world out of them." 15[23:55] "What do you make of that?" [23:57] 07Dryas: "Women make their own history. But they do not make it as they please." 15[23:59] "So this is the best we could do?" [00:01] 07Dryas: "Maybe. Even those who share a goal, who love each other, can have such different perspectives, such disparate information, about a problem, that it's all they can do not to come to blows about it. So it's deferred." 15[00:05] Xia Lan: "Only deferred. Everything comes back eventually." 15[00:06] "What would you have done, if it was up to you?" [00:06] 07Dryas: "Done? About what?" 15[00:07] "The demon. The perverts. The soldiers. Everything we just deferred." [00:10] 07Dryas: "If I had but been stronger. Strong enough to exorcise the demon, strong enough to compel the freaks to turn on each other. Strong enough to inspire the soldiery and the workers to carve a bastion out of those rocks to stand sentinel at the edge of Creation. Strong enough to learn something." 15[00:13] Garnet: "Who is strong enough?" 15[00:13] "I clearly wasn't." [00:15] 07Dryas: "You saved the world from double catastrophe. You had to prioritize." 15[00:17] Garnet's expression darkens, her eyes drift down to the floor. 15[00:17] "May I be presumptuous now?" [00:17] 07Dryas: "That is your right, so to speak." 15[00:18] She doesn't look up. "What's your mother like?" [00:22] 07Dryas: "Tough. Much tougher than anyone. When she took her Second Breath, she knew the Dragons had given her an incredible chance to flourish. But the only way it could succeed is if she was... better. Better than anyone else. Even among the Blooded. So good that nobody, even the isle-born Dynasts, could ever gainsay her. And that's what she did." 15[00:25] Garnet: "You sound proud." [00:35] 07Dryas: "Who wouldn't be? She..." 07Dryas trails off. "She did all of that, for me, and my brothers and sisters. Forced her way up, and in; but with her mind, and a healer's touch." 15[00:35] Garnet: "Is she proud of you?" [00:43] 07Dryas: "Well, there's what people say and what people feel. She was starting to lay in about my courtship. But then older Dryas came back... And now... I guess we haven't had much real correspondence since I came out here. The letters go through too many hands to have much to say. It will be less, now, with Falen and the rest." 15[00:44] Garnet: "I guess being the undisputed best must get pretty lonely." 15[00:44] "I really want to meet some of your mothers." 15[00:45] "But then we don't make history as we please, do we?" [00:46] 07Dryas: "Indeed. Alright, I'll leave you to your reading." 15[00:47] "Yeah." 15[00:48] NEXT TIME: Fire at will