Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[Hopeflower]

"Another of life's little twists." Viho maintained his coldly indifferent stare. "So, did you bond after Snake found the two of you? Or are you trying to carry out the dying wishes of a woman who wouldn't have done the same for you, even given the chance?" After all, nobody had come for Natalie when she was caught. Only now, when Charles thought her dead, did he act. That was a thread Viho chased - loyalty or lack thereof, confirmation of names and aliases - and most importantly, faces. With two members of the group showing him the same faces, there was little to no chance of him picking the wrong person out of a crowd.

[C S]

"It's a selfish thing wrapped in a selfless package," said Charles. "I see in your death, the means to hurt so many people. Not just the cat, and not just for Snicker. You must be of some kind of importance to be standing here today. Now, imagine you gone. How would this city get along without you, now?"

His chuckling began anew, his stare an unreadable one, and discomforting in how knowing it seemed to be. "I am an agent of ruin, living to speed up the demise of this domain. You made the mistake of being something else. A teacher. A pillar. A figurehead. Symbols can be tarnished. Statues can be toppled. Flags can be burned. And everyone who holds them dear will weep."

[The Kingpin]

Beshayir was silent for several minutes as she ate, eventually swallowing the last bite of her rolls and lingering where she sat, seemingly focused on the crumbs and flour that remained on her plate. She considered where to start. Where to start? It was such a massive story. She could feel her guts tangling themselves in knots even as she thought back to those dark days.

But finally, she sighed. "It started after the Qa'id came back. The soldiers disbanded as they entered the gates, and I had run out to meet them, hoping to see mama and baba returning home," she started, looking down at her fingers. She heard, rather than saw, the shift in Ameen's attentions, the merchant turning in his seat so that he was facing the young girl, an arm against the table and another against the back of his chair. Taking a breath, she continued. "I didn't see them with the soldiers. I saw the men and women going to their homes, so I went home to see if they showed up. But they didn't. Then I went back to auntie-...Nadra's house. I found it empty. I thought she'd be with Sufyan. So I went there. His answer was that his brother was dead and so was his family, and that there was nothing for me there. He closed the door. And left me outside."

[Hopeflower]

For a second, Viho could actually picture it. What good he'd managed to do evaporating, simply because he made a critical mistake. All of it ending as his heart's blood spilled out to soak into the ground. A stab of panic threatened to take root...

...and he let out the breath he'd been holding, and he tucked aside that scenario to examine later. Whatever his fears, his doubts, Charles' convictions, the fact was he could set things in motion to prevent that ruin. And he would.

He said quietly, "Perhaps. But what is lost can be rebuilt. Fortified. People do not learn what they're made of without going through such things, after all." He paused. Most people came out of loss having changed minutely - not displaying the personality shifts Natalie and Charles did. "What led you to build this persona?" he wondered aloud.

And he pressed, looking for what Snake had said in the wake of these tragedies.

[C S]

"So a band of little ***** done went ahead and killed your boss," the voice of Xilo echoed in Viho's head, the image to go along with it being the reptile putting on a face that could be the embodiment of a crocodile's smirk, if it weren't an insult to crocodile kind wherever they may roam. He swayed from side to side as he spoke, one arm around Charles' shoulder in a show of comradery and care. "Killed your boss, killed his kid too! What the hell did they have to fear from a kid whose most threatening move was probably waving a stick, who the hell knows! I knows. Oh, I knows well. It's not about fear, though that's all kinds of fun when you get the hang of it. It's about pain, my friend. That's why they let the missus live. A widow without her bab, thrown out to the world. Who knows what kinds of abuse she found herself in after you got out of there."


"I should have done something." Images of the farmer and his son taken out to pasture, quite literally, and then made to kneel for an execution-style beheading.

"And you would have gotten your *** beaten. You would be dead. But you live to carry on that hurt and that's all that matters. They probably got hurt real bad, too, and they carried that hurt and gave it to the farmer's wife, and gave it to you. That's how the world works, sonny. That's how **** gets done. I can help you get some **** done, just follow my lead. I can't promise life will be nice from now on, but it sure as hell feels great to make someone else feel like a piece of ****, let me tell you!"


With Charles' chuckling, it was almost enough to make Viho regret delving as deep as he did. An inadvertent shield of a memory, that one was.

[Hopeflower]

Viho recoiled a little from it all, though the only outward sign was a twitch in his jaw muscle. What made him feel a little sick, brought the taste of bile to the back of his throat, was he recognized that tone.

"Honesty is a joke, isn't it? 'Hey, I hate your guts, but admire me for being truthful!' The world chooses its heroes and villains. If you're chosen, you might as well play the part, hmm?"

"Whether singled out as 'hero' or 'villain', it's not a matter of taking the title and playing the part. It is a matter of the actions one takes before and after being labeled."

"The world will choose to hate you just as quickly as it will endear you. It will endear you one day and hate you the next. What you do to prompt such things is meaningless. If you are the most upstanding of a bunch, the jealous will bring you down. There is nothing you can do about it, but play your role.

"And boy, do I play!"

Only now did Viho realize just what kind of poison he'd avoided swallowing; how deep this particular slime-coated well went. No doubt if he'd thought to ask this question with Natalie, he'd have seen something similar. Though their personas had heavily implied it, now he had solid evidence that Snake - Xilo - had been an opportunist of the worst kind. A man who would take people kicked by a cruel turn of fate and twist them to suit his goals.

"I see," he said quietly, with far too much weight to those simple words. He almost wished he didn't.

[C S]

"There is no rebuilding," Charles rebutted, steadily rising to face Viho on his own level, then grasping the bars of the cell and pressing his face against them. "People see what they are made of when the vice clamps down on them, when the rack is turned one more excruciating time. Fodder amble on through trying to put things long gone, long dead back together. Predators know the truth. There are more than just Snakes out in this food chain, mind-reader. But don't be too worked up over it; Snake's death made us. Can you imagine what kind of predators your death would create? We already know about the cat."

Charles started cackling, the madness slipping through the cracks in his sanity, reason drowning in grief and anger. Johnathon turned his head.

"If it is at all possible to fix this one... to break him in a good way, now would be the time," said the detective with a cold resignation.

[Hopeflower]

"Yes," Viho agreed. He stepped forward until he was almost within Charles' reach, if the man had cared to lunge for him. He spoke now to the broken man, putting power behind his words. "Remember these words: You will build a new life for yourself."

Instead of tearing his barbs out of Charles' mind, Viho applied pressure just so. A little more, a little more, until something gave and the lost soul's sense of self fractured.

It would not necessarily be any more comfortable than what Natalie had gone through.

[C S]

Alas, it was too much, and too sudden.

Charles heard the voice in his head, and it multiplied. It echoed in his mind. A ray of light shining overbearingly behind his eyes, and he could not be rid of it amidst the thousands of other voices -- his voice, the Snake's -- saying no.

In an instant, the grief exploded and showered each thought with the gore that spilled out from the farmer's rended neck. Every fiber of his being rejecting this new compulsion injected into his understanding of the world. Build, but the pieces did not fit together. Make a mosaic, then. One with bleached bone shards as tiles, reddened with a drizzling of blood.

His blood.

His bone.

Johnathon's eyes went wide when he saw Charles reel himself back, spine arced painfully. With a fighter's instinct and reflex, he rushed to the table where the jester's hat was. He grabbed ahold of it right as the first thrash brought Charles' forehead crashing painfully against the bars. The man wound himself up for another suicidal blow. Johnathon sped back to the cage, shoving Viho aside as he turned his own face away from it.

He swung the hat into the bars just as Charles bashed his skull against them again, the bottles in the bells shattering with a high pitched cry and the contents inside them releasing with a puff and a hiss.

The madman recoiled, grasped at his face, and then fell onto his back, unconscious.

[Hopeflower]

He was dead - dying - witnessing murder - broken - breaking - pain and pain and pain and pain -

Shaking - in mental shock from the violence of the rebound, from the stab of physical agony as the shove jarred his wounded shoulder - and breathing too fast and too raggedly, it took everything Viho had not to empty his stomach onto the floor, and a few minutes to reclaim his own sense of self. He groaned between his teeth.

Then, laced with venomous self-disgust - "****."

[C S]

"Agreed," Johnathon stated with a learned detached demeanor, bordering on clinical. He was quiet then, deducing what they were supposed to do with Charles. What was Charles. He wasn't Natalie. He'd witnessed death and gave himself to the cause of spreading it, a reaper in mortal flesh. Learned to use a sword to defend himself and lost the way. Strong enough to carry the weight but not enough to make it across the hurdle...

"It is no fault of yours. I should not have made that suggestion; he was not ready for it. A mistake that has led to needless suffering. But he was completely unrepentant, you must realize as well. He faced execution for such blatant intent to inflict harm, and now he faces execution to spare himself and others a life of insanity."

[Hopeflower]

Once he was sure his stomach wasn't about to rebel against him, Viho picked himself up and carefully steadied himself. "Can't save them all," he said hoarsely, scrubbing a hand over his face. Nobody would ever argue against execution being far kinder than what he'd just done, least of all him.

[C S]

"The precedent has been set. Natalie has been... fortunate to have come out on the other side of this treatment in a salvageable state, but it is clear now that these personalities are too varied to depend on it. The extent of their traumas are a more overt and cruel death sentence than the actual death sentence."

There was a strong argument that what Natalie had right now wasn't much of a life at all. She was a specimen as much as she was a recovering victim, in limbo with the law and more often than not, under someone's watchful eye. There was still hope for her despite her circumstance being the product of a combination of factors ill-understood, but that hope could not extend to the others who called themselves Stalkers.

"The next one we catch will be interrogated and sentenced as they are. I will submit my report on the matter so that all else who preside over the laws will know better than to attempt this again."

Johnathon set the ruined hat down on the table, careful as to not disturb any traces of the knockout powder.

"I will inform Jesse of what needs to be done. Let's get out of here."


As Johnathon walked to the door, he thought of the widow and the ones who had done such heinous wrong. That was months ago; had the law found the murderers and brought them their righteous punishment? Had the woman robbed of everything found steady ground to rise again? Or had things gone according to Xilo's vision of the world, and madness had taken its inevitable hold over the lives of the victimized?

[Hopeflower]

Viho's steps were uncertain, his poise frayed and confidence in himself deeply shaken. It was to be expected, some coldly analytical part of his brain was saying, taking over until he'd collected his wits. One debatably successful treatment did not a cure for insanity make, and Viho could not be expected to set all of Brodudika's worst criminals right with such a traumatic experience.

Viho took a deep breath. Let it out. Took another. Let the rhythm of his breathing fall into the pattern usually reserved for meditation - now repurposed for centering himself in the here and now.He was a psychomancer, not a miracle worker. Even if for one crucial second, a serious lapse in judgement...he'd thought he could learn to be both.

He would not make that mistake again.

Nor would he let Charles' vision of the future come to pass. Viho's thoughts turned inward, contemplating the various ways in which he might meet his end. Much as he doubted any of them would actually bring the ruin the man claimed to foresee, he thought it might be worth making some arrangements on the off chance that something did happen to him.

Just in case.

[C S]

They left the door open behind them in leaving. Johnathon did not put the lantern back into the compartment in the wall. They exited through the steel door and went their separate ways. The Green-Coat approached the officer waiting out in the lobby. Jesse would have made a quip about having another one to look out for if she hadn't caught on to the way Johnathon walked, the way his jaw was clenched. Something was awry.

She promptly found out what.

Like Johnathon, she absorbed what she was told with a buffer of cold reason. X happened, leading to Y, resulting in Z. Officers and investigator had to keep their hearts out of these kinds of things, if they wanted to remain officers and investigators. Jesse said something very much in line with what Viho concluded on the way up.

"The laws are the way they are because they are the fairest and most general rubric for societal order. Granted, when they are being used the way they were meant to be used and not forwarding some jackass' agendas," she told Johnathon. "Always remember that when civilizations first started forming on Aster, magic was the law. Wise wizards and wizardesses were sought out to mediate disputes and bring about miracles. Not every problem can be magicked away, though. That's why laws were put in stone, then written on paper, and the mages were relegated to being advisors in the first royal courts."

"I know," Johnathon replied. He did not show it, but his spirits were deflated considerably. A combination of accidental torture and the insane pessimistic dogma of a dead lizard weighing heavily on his shoulders. "I know that. It was my poor decision. I should have -- I should have looked for patterns in Natalie, and determined if Charles displayed any similar trends. That was the only way I could have known if it would have worked again."

Jesse shifted her weight to one side, eying Johnathon critically. "You're the most brilliant idiot on this side of Aster. You know damn well it isn't so simple. A couple of weeks ago, you didn't know it was possible for someone like Natalie to exist." She shook her head and held her hands out, letting out a steadying breath. "Look, I've got rites to carry out and some misery to end. Go spend some time sorting out your head in your office, and come back to me if you end up considerably unsorted after a while."

The detective said nothing more. He handed Jesse the lantern, and heeding her suggestion, started to rework the way he was thinking. The first batch of arrests as part of 'Avenging Blitz' were underway. They wouldn't be brought into custody at the precinct, not enough room to hold the financiers and grunts of the wyvern scheme. Johnathon would have to present his informed opinion on the matter at city hall, the evidence gathered against each defendant damning beyond a doubt. He had to be at his best so that every other branch connected to the operation would be most effective in crippling the movement entangled around the core of the city.

He couldn't lose sight of that goal. He couldn't let Xilo live on past the grave in him. He had to keep believing that tragedy was something that could be bested, and not the womb in which criminality gestated. If it couldn't be, then Aster would have surely devolved into a wasteland of demons in ordinary guises long before he was born... right?

Johnathon turned around to head back to his office, and was given a moment's pause when he saw Natalie peeking out from the doorframe.



Meanwhile, waiting outside of the building for Viho was his shapeshifting student, sat on one of the steps. The cold wasn't so bad in her new coat, along with her mittens and hat. An unseen layer of fur underneath her clothes helped her stay warm as well.

[The Kingpin]

The retelling of the story made Ameen's blood boil, and he found himself wanting to personally end Sufyan's life then and there. But he remained calm. He took a deep breath, slowly easing himself out of that mindset. He needed to be calm and listen to what his granddaughter had to say. He was here for her, now. Not for himself.

"I wandered, for a while. I looked for friends of the family. Mama's friends, mostly. They took care of me for a while. Let me stay with them. But when I heard one of them talking with a relative behind my back...talking about how irresponsible mama was for leaving when she had me to take care of...I left. I didn't want anyone speaking of our family that way," explained Beshayir, her voice hurt, but wistful. As if contemplating her own thought process. "And from there I started living in the streets. Under boxes, in doorways, by wells. I started off asking for food from shop owners we knew. The shop owners we didn't know. For a time, I was able to make a living running errands for different traders. Messages, small packages, that sort of thing. But eventually the small traders that would employ me went out of business as the large trade groups took all the business from the East. They had many workers, and didn't need me." She wrung her hands uncomfortably as she went quiet. "So I had to start stealing."

[Hopeflower]

Viho hesitated by the door, but came up with nothing more to say. Jesse was as right as one could be in a situation as muddy as this one. It had been a series of bad calls. Perhaps it would be best if he tried to do as they did and distance himself as much as possible. The guilt would eat away at him, otherwise.

Outside, he paused again, this time in surprise. "Morning, Dahnae. I thought you'd be with Firel." Wherever he was.

[C S]

The girl shook her head. "Desk-message man said that you said that you needed to make sure the class stuff was safe. Last time class stuff got cut down, it was because I cut cut-ed," Dahnae replied. Being certain that she hadn't been in any overwhelmingly life-threatening situations lately, the only other alternatives were that someone else had been attacked, or that Viho himself had found some trouble. Instincts and intuition were very powerful things.

"So I used me nose."

Dahnae tucked it underneath her collar then, for safekeeping.

[Hopeflower]

"Ah." Viho slipped his hands into his pockets and let that hang between them for a moment before he cleared his throat. "I wish I could tell you that there wasn't anything to worry about."

[C S]

"What happened?" was Dahnae's muffled response as she spoke through her coat.