Scene Archives

is indeed here, pacing. So many thoughts in their head. Shining ones during rites. Chained ones from Fiends and Dreams. A few of their own as well. Trails of steam follow them around the arena.

doesn’t think everyone needs to constantly be checking their tomestone, but she is, and so when she got Luĉja’s message she had immediately headed for the dueling grounds. Hadn’t even needed to ask—she’d seen them on the way the baths. She does take a moment to watch Luĉja pace, vaguely amused. “You know,” she calls from outside the circle, “if I could vent steam when I’m pacing I probably would.” She’s back in her trousers and boots and linen shirt from Almachadta, and her hair is still wet but braided up into neat crown braids.

: “Friend-Salme! I was hoping you would receive my message. Hopefully the Beast is to your liking thus far?”

: “Yeah! It’s. Hm. Beautiful. Got to talk with Zaya. She’s—I like her a lot.” She steps into the circle. “Seems like you and Aury are both kind of dealing with a lot on your mind.” She rolls her shoulders and performs a couple light stretches, thinking. “It’s not memories for you, though, is it? You already remembered a lot of it. Most of it. Before we got here, right?”

: “Yes and yes.” They stop their pacing and turn to face Salme. “I hope Friend-Aurelius is well. It must be difficult to be a new person in an old home. I am glad you like Saranzaya. She is wise and kind.” The ever-present noise of turning gears and hissing steam seems a touch louder than it has been. “I remember…nearly everything. Everything up until right before whatever brought me to Sanctuary. Most of that does not worry me. Though…I had been rather stubborn for about twenty to thirty years. But we change, as we must. The Fiend I slew with Zaya a few hours ago…spoke without a mouth. It was gruesome. But it said the words to me that I know were in the vision I had when I confronted the Dream-Whale. I do not know why. I could not read them at the time. I would like to rotate different thoughts with you, if you have time to spare and spar, though.”

: “He’s getting through it,” she says with certainty. “And I’ve got to say I’m absolutely shocked you were stubborn about something. Completely changes everything I thought I knew about you,” grinning at them briefly before focusing on the rest. “The words in the language of the ancients? What were they? I couldn’t read them either and I haven’t hunted down Archie to see if he can translate.”

chuckles a bit. “‘Ever-watchful, she yearns for her own.’ I do not know why she is ever-watchful. Nor what she yearns for. But it is frightening.” They pause a moment. “Did you ever play at cards when you were a child?”

: “Yeah. Sure did.”

a smile creeps back into Luĉja’s voice. “Good. That will make the next bit less strange. Though not un-strange.” ⁂

: “I observed Friend-Wolf’s cards while we were at the Ziggurat, and a thought that had been half-formed clicked for me. I have been itching for combat ever since. Not out of any great desire to do violence. But to discover the edges of things we thought we knew well.” They take some small stone tiles out and place them on the ground. “When battling and when preparing to battle, I have begun to think of the Rite as a sort of card game. Far more complicated than any played in the parlors of Queenstown, but a card game nonetheless. It helps me focus on the …words and the pictures that are sometimes there. If I said that this tile was your “Snipe,“ ability…would you be able to describe it, now that I have given it shape?”

thinks for a moment. “Oh. Yeah. I could. I can’t considered cards, but now that you say it it makes a lot of sense.”

vents more steam, audibly very excited. “Most excellent. Now, since considering the Rite so, I have been able to…exert a more fine-grained control over my strategies since then. I have also had several conversations with our friend-Glory, who talks thusly while doing so. I would like to refresh that conversation and see if you would help me rotate it. Interested in a bit of thinking while we do a bit of fighting?”

: “Absolutely. I could certainly use the outlet.”

: “Wonderful! Then…I propose the stakes be…probably food related. Winner gets to choose the momo order tomorrow?”

: “I don’t think I want that responsibility since I don’t even know what momo is.” She thinks for a moment, tapping a finger against her lips. “Hmm. I win, and you treat me to a snack from a really good bakery? Does that work better? I’ve heard the bread here is a treat.”

: “Acceptable stakes! Or…bread, I suppose.”

laughs a little. “All right. I’ll follow your lead I guess?”

drops their sword and shield, and wraps some canvas around their fingers. “It is not much, but my intent is certainly not to harm you, Friend-Salme. But, nor is it my intent to let you win for free!”

follows their lead, setting her sword and dagger aside. “I’m not inclined to lose either,” she says, but she’s grinning.

: “Oh. Very cute. Absolutely not. All right to [Snipe], or do you want me to do something else?”

: “Take your best shot!”

doesn’t take a shot at all, just runs at him, jumping up to smack them in the head at the last moment, then falling into a tumble, rolling past them, and returning to her previous position.

takes a step back and for just a moment, their eyes stop shining.

**”Thank the Goddess you hit them in the face. The giant bag of bolts has a remarkably tight grip on the driver's seat, so I'm not long for conversation. You're a dancer. This is a dance. Follow. My. Lead.”

for one moment, and one moment only, she’s arrested mid-movement. And then she says, “I’ll consider it. Better make it worthwhile.”

is glad, at least, you don’t seem to have any idea either.

’s eyes flash back on, and they take two steps forward, burning with (mostly feigned) [Rage!] before taking a [Swipe] at Salme.

leaps back from the hit, but not far enough, gets punched in the side for her trouble. She shakes her head at them. “Not going to be much of a dance if you keep hitting that hard,” she laughs, a little breathless, before also taking two steps forward and driving and elbow limned in radiant gnosis straight at their heart.

stumbles two steps backwards and takes a defensive posture, ready to [Weather the Storm] they know is coming.

: “Hey. You can...do that more gracefully than them if you want.“

laughs a little, and does one backflip backwards and then another cartwheel back. “Physically or metaphorically?” She asks. “Anyway, you may want to think about your next move fairly carefully.”

powers through a searing pain that cuts through their defenses andmoves to their left and raises a radiant shield of gnosis before quickly returning to their strong side and striking with a binding enchantment.

laughs breathlessly, delighted. “And me here with my quick and dirty loadout.” But she doesn’t seem that upset, not really, whirling to her left while calling up licks of burning gnosis, glorying in the heat of it around her, laughing, laughing, laughing brightly, before, twisting right, throwing one, two, three darkly tenebrous spears at them.

: “Whoooaaaa there. We're only halfway through the steps, kiddo!“

Absolutely reeling from the blow, black smoke rising off of them, Luĉja [Feint]s to the left and then awkwardly, strangely jolts and performs a [Tumbling Strike] in the opposite direction. They make two strange gestures with their hands. Barely Able to hold them long enough.

: “Come on you bucket of bolts, just one more turn and you can really start to figure this out. “

, as if in some imagined waltz, twists left again, and then back to the right.“Consider being less of an asshole to my friend then, dickbag. They’re a person, not some machine you get to talk shit to when things don’t go your way.” Her voice does hike a bit with rage, the licks of burning gnosis dancing over her flaring higher, but she takes a breath before she falls back into a defensive position. “I agreed to entertain you. I didn’t agree to your talking about them like that.”

: “I assumed they would have asked someone who wasn't going to [Superannihiliate] them in three rounds for help with this!“

: “I would’ve brought a different deck if the point was a long—oh. Oh.” And then she laughs, and laughs and laughs. “Hm.”

looks up and appears to enter a trance. For a brief moment, their eyes fade again, their gears pause, but steam still hisses.

: “`Okay buddy, now remember. Just. Don’t. Say. It. Leave. It.*

Ah, yes. I see. Very good.

’s eyes flash back, yellow and white. The gnosis around their hands…shifts.

: “Alright, now. Salme. Your turn. But yours will be different. You're not one for silence. It's time to Make a demand of your own. Time to find out what’s really going on. “

: “(Oh. Hello. Thank you),” she says, softly, and she takes one breath, two, to feel the wind here on the beast, and then she looks at Luĉja, and whatever Bird is speaking through Luĉja. “Thanks for leading, but I had figured it out by the time I entered that door.” She raises her voice, not a yell, not a laugh, but a certainty, and there is something like a gust of wind, a huff of breath in it. “So then. Tell me the truth!”

: “Oh,” she says. She reaches up and presses a hand to her mouth. “Oh.”

: “Fascinating.” Luĉja can barely stand, but staggers in awe of what they have seen.

: “Certainly…not what I expected.”

laughs. “What did you expect?”

: “Not to need my shield.”

: “Truthfully, I do not know. I just assumed, perhaps that I would speak further with our Friend-Glory.”

: “Did you receive the truth of yourself, Luĉja tou Teratourgeion?”

is holding back a laugh, but the question seems more important.

: “I have. That which is left unsaid. Apt, for my truth. You have used words that are not my name. I do not know them.”

: “Oh. I was told … a different kind of truth. Your truth, and the truth of the Beast. Do you want to know?” And then, she blinks, and says, “though the Rite is not yet over, and turnabout is fair play. You ask me to tell you the truth. I’m curious what might happen.”

: “Oh, I have heard no new truths. I would hear them from you then. I merely understand one truth that I previously did not. I think you’ll easily win but…I’ve never given up before. It would be foolish to begin now.”

burns bright, and rushes at Salme, arms open not in a hug, but in a grapple. Once making contact, they make a [Quick Hit] with their elbow, before unsteadily rising to their feet. “I. Do. Not. End. Here.”

is still standing, but only because she’s flopped limply against Luĉja. She’s lost. She laughs. “Well done, my friend. You do not end here.”

The grapple turns into a hug, and then a burst of radiant and flourishing gnosis.

: “Hopefully that puts a bit of spring back in your step.”

: “You are a horrifying enemy. I am fairly certain I agree with your assessment from long ago that I need not worry for your survival.”

laughs and basks in the warmth and the brightness of it, the warmth, for maybe a bit longer than is strictly necessary. “Well, perhaps. I fear I didn’t quite come prepared for a dance, but it worked out.” She steps back, and looks at them. “When I called that Rite upon you, I heard Glory speak to me. It said that you are Luĉja tou Teratourgeion, firstborn child of the Mother of Monsters. Created in her love and her desperation to communicate with the world she knows she will slaughter; radiant with their own love for the Beast and everyone on it.” ⁂

: “I stand corrected. Perhaps I do, in fact, have a surname.”

: “The Mother of Monsters….I wonder…is the woman in the bottle…she?”

: “Wait, what do you mean prepared for a dance? I, too, am unprepared for dancing Friend-Salme.” They almost sound nervous. “Were the stakes not the bakery?”

: “I—“

: “There was more, from Glory. There was more from the Rite itself. I … think you weren’t able to see everything that was happening. Do you want to hear all of it, or just the parts about you, Luĉja?”

: “I did hear Glory, once. They seemed pleased, I think. It’s hard to tell with them. I do not understand…I missed part of the Rite?”

: “Please, Friend-Salme, tell me the story.”

: “When we began the Rite and I sniped away one of your moves, for a moment you were not yourself and someone—hm. No. I spoke with your Angel. They told me this Rite was a dance. They asked me to follow their lead. And when I entered through the door and spoke the correct words, I held [Libra] in my hand.”

: “Oh dear. I mean, I theoretically assumed there would have had to have been one. I hope they were kind. I wonder then, if that’s been the push I’ve had in Rites to speak with the Glory.”

: “Wait. When you’ve been speaking with the Glory during Rites does that—Luĉja, have you been cheating?” She sounds half delighted and half scandalized.*

: “Does that count as cheating? I know of no rule that says you cannot visualize the Rites as a game in order to better strategize.”

: “Remember, Friend-Salme. To be of the Beast is to change. We have all changed. So too, must our tactics. We have worlds to save.”

: “The only ones harmed by this are those who would stop us from our mission. And you, in a duel. With me. But hopefully not harmed very much.”

: “I’m pretty sure it counts as cheating since the first thing it says is ‘that’s cheating, you know.’ But.” She shakes her head, “I’m not judging you. I cheat all the time. I’m mostly shocked that it’s you. Anyway. Not important.”

: “I suppose that is unlikely to be a lie.”

snorts. “At any rate Glory—or is it the Glory, proper-noun?—then gave me your stats at the time: Stress 15/17, Defence 2/10. Then, after that, said—well, this you already knew, but, that Luĉja cannot be unmade outside of the Deepforge in which they were made. And, finally, about the one who walks beside you … And, supervening Luĉja, there is Another, obscuring himself even to my gaze. One like Jorule, the Angel of Darkness, and Melpomene, the Angel of Tragedy. I do not know his name. But he, too, loves you, and wants you to live.. That was all.”

The Glory, is how I introduced myself, I believe.

: “Oh good. I am glad my angel loves you. And yes. It is true. I am un-unmakeable, to my knowledge. Unless I go back to the Deepforge.”

: “Oh you’re here! Should you be Friend-The-Glory, then, instead of Friend-Glory?”

: “Ah, thank you. That had been somewhat confusing with how Luĉja likes to refer to people.”

Given your willingness to see me as a friend, I’m not inclined to particulars about the presence or absence of a definite article. Whichever feels more mellifluous to you at the moment!

: “You have helped us. You are clearly not an enemy.”

And yet, there’s still a world of difference between ‘not an enemy’ and ‘friend’. I appreciate the olive branch.

: “Hmm.”

: “And we, your company. And the help with the cheating” Luĉja chuckles to themself as the say the last word.

: “Again. I was mostly charmed,” she murmurs.

: “Would you be willing to … I’m always down to experiment, obviously, but any point in calling [Libra] down on the rest of us? And does the Rite work differently depending on who uses it?”

: “Experiment? I cannot claim to love science as much as Archie, but I will be happy to test this. Perhaps our friends should also dance and duel.”

: “Ah. That was geared at your helpful friend. I was hoping to save time, if there result wouldn’t be satisfying to anyone, but I suppose dancing and dueling always has a point.”

: “I assume my friend can hear us. But yes, I have access to Libra now. I would be happy to try it.”

nods. “Yes. Thank you.” She looks a them. “Sometime later. Would … does your head feel less full now, Luĉja?”

: “It does. But. It could be more full. Of bread. Shall we find a bakery?”

laughs. “Yes. Though are you just going char whatever I buy you?”

: “Not the first bite. I want to know if it tastes different after being not-home!” They pause. “Thank you, Friend-Salme, for helping me clear my head.”

: “Of course. Always.” She gives them a quick one-armed hug, which is, to be fair, not much of a hug, considering her arms relative to their size. But it’s the thought that matters.

hugs back, but gently.

fishes about in one of their bags. “Here, you will need some Lucre to buy bread. I will guide us to a bakery.”

: “Luĉja …” she says, helplessly. “Okay. Lead on.”

walks through the streets of Rifton with Salme towards the nearest bakery. They are reminded of a previous visit to Rifton, long ago. They do not know which bakery is the best. But they are excited to find out if having lost the Desolation in their heart will make the bread taste better.