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The streets of Sulburi bustled with life — the clucking, bleating, and honking of beasts meshing in over the bark and call of Oban merchants, traders, and townsfolk, and the clatter of wagons — all weaving into the grander tapestry of the capitol’s daily activity. Despite having been raised in Sulburi and living all of his life within it, Damissan rarely spent time in the center of the city, and when he had, it was usually from the perspective of a safe seat within a carriage for transport, not enveloped in the clamor.

Such was not the case today.

After having sunk himself in the doctrine of the gods and goddesses not only of Oba, but also the rest of Tendaji, and having taken notes as he went, Damis had finally begun to craft a narrative. The narrative of his god, and the god—though no one knew it yet—of all the people. He knew that eventually, Sulburi would not be enough, and he would need to spread his message far beyond the borders of Oba entirely. Before that point, however, he had to acclimate himself to the task and process itself: preaching to the public—and for that, there was no better place to begin, he reasoned, than the streets of his home city. So, there he started.

He wore the simplest clothes he owned — though unfortunately that said little, given the makeup of his wardrobe — and armed himself with nothing. His prior habit, of course, would have been to never leave the protective walls of the southern noble quarter without at the very least a knife, and generally a guard. A narrative of the untrustworthiness and violence of the lower class — the desperate destitute, beggars, killers, and thieves — had been driven into him from a young age, whether it was his mother’s, “All servants steal, dear…” or his father’s cautions that, “Those with the least to lose are the most dangerous.”

Yet, what he intended to preach included non-violence, and before he could convince anyone to follow such a mandate, he would need to make an example of himself. He drew a breath, feeling oddly naked without a blade as he moved through the packed streets and searched for an ideal place to make a stand. All would be well, though, he insisted to himself. God was on his side.

In the market square, well down the long streets and still in the shadows of the surrounding architecture, he stepped up, climbing atop the bricked-in base at the foot of a statue as a makeshift pedestal. There were so many people. But never had Damissan been shy.

“People of Oba!” No one looked immediately other than to spare a fleeting glance if they noticed and then move on, but Damissan expected as much and opened his palms, raising his voice to be heard over the turmoil. “Brothers and sisters of our proud nation—I come before you today bearing a message for all ears, young and old, men and women, noble and peasant: we have all been lead astray by the writings of false gods!”

This earned a few more turned heads. Damissan felt his pulse beat against his chest, a quiet rush of thrill coming with the attention. He drove on.

“I come to you having experienced an awakening, and as a messenger of our one true God…” He drew a breath. “Nerad, Essd, Drach, On’os—Lenoxe, Kiyom, Hatald, Jonal, Ubeli and Atun—these are the names of lies!”

“God,” Damissan said. “The God of this people and all people and all things has revealed himself from the beginning: in this world’s creation and its continuation. But the years have made us blind…petty squabbles amongst our peoples, the separation of our paths and ideologies by nations, and the debilitating vices of sin and temptation have splintered and obscured the truth—”

“Oooiiii, boy!” A shout came up from the crowd, and Damissan glanced down. “What are you on, aye? You trippin’ red powder real hard?”

“Whatever it is,” a second piped in, “I’d like a wiff of it, eh?”

Damissan redirected his attention, ignoring them. “To all people, I come before you today not as a precious chosen—”

“Not a one of us worry you are, boy!”

“—but one saved by the truth of His word, as you can be!” Damis persisted over the noise. “The prophets and missionaries of this world, the priests and clergymen—all of them answer a call to an Almighty, but their perception of what they answer to has been distorted. These so-called ‘gods’ you know and worship have fragments of truth to them but are still just that: fragments. Fractions, diluted down from the single reality—”

“Aye, kid, you serious?”

“Goin’ to get yourself killed—”

“Get down.”

Damissan meant to pay the naysayers no heed. He had expected a certain number of them, after all. The goal was not to convince everyone in a single afternoon, but to be heard and at least plant the seed of a thought, from which later conclusions could bloom. ‘Planting’ anything, however, was made necessarily more difficult when there were solid projectiles headed his way.

The first was a pebble. Small. Barely notable. Poorly thrown. It did not even hit him—but it was enough, just the same, to give him pause. As it skittered across the stone base beneath his feet, Damis trapped it under his boot and frowned out over the crowd.

“Who threw—?”

“‘Saved’, were you, boy? You wanna go up there speakin’ all about our ‘false’ gods, how about you give us a little demonstration of your Almighty’s power’s o’ protection…like how he deals with those unconvinced!”

The second projectile was decidedly less small, but no less hard.

Admittedly, despite anticipating some contention, being attacked was not within Damissan’s range of predicted outcomes. As such, by the time the second rock came and the turmoil below him increased — both in movement and volume — he was openly shocked at their audacity, followed immediately by angry indignation—and a subtle, back-whisper of fearful anticipation in the pit of his throat, drowned out by his other more aggressive emotions.

“How dare—” he began, though the rising noise of the crowds already almost smothered him out. Then, someone was trying to—scratch that, succeeding at climbing onto the base of the statue with him, and Damis took a half step back, a base fragment of rational instinct telling him that after rocks, he probably ought to expect the worst of anyone climbing physically towards him themself. “Don’t come any—get down or-”

Except attacking him didn’t seem to be the man’s aim after all, if brave and stupid were any indication. Damissan shot the random, unasked for, invasive, short stranger a convoluted look, stuck halfway between, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ and ‘Who do you think you are?’ Under the pressing circumstances, the question came out less elegantly. “Who are you doing here?” Damissan frowned. “I mean what—I don’t need-”

Unfortunately, like a series of waves, catching up with one another and only building upon themselves with each swell as they gained momentum, the gathered crowd below seemed far from sated—quite the opposite—and the building roar of collected noise was just enough to still Damis’ tongue and instill a moment’s worth of very real concern. He was in over his head. He had no intention of admitting it, and the thought frustrated him endlessly, but in equal part he did not want his name to go down as, ‘The Mataou family’s only son: died by a rock thrown at him by a screaming peasant in town square.’

That in mind, as the hand of one angry, and regrettably close, bystander swiped for him, he staggered back, frowned, glanced to his company, and then the crowd.

“Little screaming liars! That’s what the palace gives us these days—”

“Oi, let the boy talk himself out and test his ‘god’s’ truth against us ‘false’ believers!”

“The gods will see him to his own fate regardless!”

“Let him keep speakin’ and see his words to their finish while our gods listen—”

Damissan gave the smallest hybrid between a simultaneous swallow and a strangled cough. “I don’t know who you think we are—who you think you are, but trust me when I say this was not the plan and if I am going to go anywhere, you should also get—” At the third—well, it wasn’t a rock, but some variety of flying object, Damissan gripped and yanked at the stranger’s shirt, dragging, or attempting to drag, him with him around the far side of the monument and towards an opening where they could get down without suffering immediate bodily injury. Given the circumstances, it probably wasn’t as important as it felt to say, but the words left him anyway: “And I am not stupid, or not ‘all’ there, but I’m willing to forgive your mistake…”

‘Failed’ unfortunately seemed an all but generous choice of words in terms of assessing how far from succeeding in his aims Damissan had fallen. Because of this, and because of the overall urgency that the surrounding circumstances lent to the situation, Damissan — despite temptation to do otherwise — opted not only not to argue, but to hold his tongue and let the assessment go entirely unaddressed. For the moment.

Instead, he focused on moving, first in front of and then behind his spontaneous company. He took the offered hand without question, though something about the raw violent energy in the crowd suggested to him that they — particularly he — would not be ‘permitted’ to leave with quite that much ease. He was not disappointed. But in the half-moment before that became physically apparent, he shot the stranger a disbelieving look.

“Why would it be my aim to be—?”

A hand caught at his shirt, yanking and dragging him in decidedly closer than he wanted to be to any stranger, but particularly one whose breath smelled of rotting wheat. “You, boy, ready to spit your lies to my face, yea? Down off your pedestal?”

Damissan’s nose wrinkled. “You know, I’ve only ever had one person ask me to spit in their face, and I had to inform them it wasn’t a personal kink of mi—” The man shoved, battering Damis back up against the stone pedestal, and reaching for the hilt at his waistbelt. In the moment it took him to glance down and grip the weapon, Damis swung, burying a fist hard in the side of his jaw with at least the minimum amount of momentum it took to send him temporarily reeling back, and in that second, he darted forward and around, evacuating the space as quickly as possible.

“If you’d like a personal and proper ‘thank you’ for ‘single handedly’ keeping me from being ‘stoned to death’,” he quipped to apparently the only sane individual in the crowd, “and in equal part not get mauled by all my new…” He spared a frown to the surrounding crowd and in particular the nearest individual fervently insisting that Nerad’s judgement would fall hard upon him in time—but was at least, blessedly, not attacking him, “…friends…you should get out of here with me.”

He accompanied the words with a meaningful tug toward the man’s sleeve. Short as he was, he at least looked old enough and fit enough to be experienced at defending himself. Add that to the fact that he had had the gall and initiative to join Damissan on the pedestal, and Damis thought it would be fairly unfair if the man ended up hurt because of him.

“And I am not a ‘chosen’ prophet,” he threw in as an afterthought. “I merely happened to hear my God’s message. It could have been anyone.”

“People don’t always agree with me,” Damissan said, just loud enough to be heard over the crowd as the stranger’s hand fitted to his back and pushed—more or less simply serving to help along the direction he was already going with as much vigor as he could, given the circumstances. Whether or not the statement was even remotely necessary to voice in light of current events was another matter entirely. “But I’ve never had so many react so poorly at once. It seemed like an alright idea…”

Though maneuvering a sea of people was never easy and doing so when most all of them were angry and confused was even worse, many of them seemed to have become distracted by each other — by stray hits or angry outbursts, or by others who had not even seen the original catalyst setting things into motion and were now out of the loop and irritated to have a road block to begin with. Thus, other than several other vigorous verbal assaults quickly drowned in the crowd and a few snags or brief accosts on his person — dissuaded by avoiding or responding with shoves in kind — they made it through relatively well off.

As they pulled towards the outer edges of the fray and then further still, to places with enough space to allow full breaths and a few steps taken without direct physical contact, Damissan noted a persistent throbbing in his lip—the result of a sharp, intentional-or-not jab of an elbow there earlier if he had to guess—and reached up, thumbing over it. Blood. Magnificent. He glanced to his company.

“I haven’t made a habit of this, no,” he admitted. “I can’t say I’ve ever done anything quite like that. I think this is the first time I’ve attempted to communicate anything directly to—” The half-second before ‘peasants’ left his mouth, he assessed the man before him. Was he a peasant? He wasn’t dressed in any finery, but nor did he look especially ragged, and he certainly spoke intelligently enough and held himself well. Damissan compromised. “—masses of anyone outside the palace walls. But yes, I can defend myself. I didn’t think I’d need to. It used to always be my habit to carry a blade of some sort on me, but that seemed counter-productive to giving a peaceful speech…”

The effect of the words seemed painfully close to laughable at best and ludicrous at worst with the backdrop of a miniature mob-riot providing context behind him. Damissan cleared his throat, and wiped the heel of his palm again over his lip to dissuade dropping blood on anything that would fight its removal on cleaning.

“In any case…” His attention flicked back to the man before him, and after a moment he dropped both hands, and then held out the one not dotted with blood. “Damissan Mataou. And you are…?”

Damissan felt—invigorated. Odd as it always seemed on closer inspection in the aftermath, rushes of strife, and the adrenaline that came with them regardless of the weight or nastiness of the actual situation, always seemed to leave him feeling especially alive in the early minutes after the event passed. Alert. Energetic. And strangely eager to bound neatly on along to the next thing worth his full attention as opposed to letting the moment drift back towards the mundane and—

Negativity.

Damissan huffed, shifting his weight primarily to one heel, and then the other in a subtly restless see-saw. “I expected—” He pursed his lips, reached, and rubbed his ear, shaking his head. “I am not a ‘child.’ I have a noble title to my name. My family has power here, and I came to them speaking on fairly simple terms. I expected some would disagree, but that others would be curious enough to listen and inquire further. They’re peasants. They…” He gestured vaguely, “…don’t have a great many better things to be doing, except apparently assaulting lecturers. I assumed at least a healthy number of them would take heed and the rest would ignore me and go on about their business. Why wouldn’t they like me? We protect them, keep their lands safe, feed and arm the soldiers that see to their livelihoods, and keep their country functioning. They at least owe me a listening ear.”

Damissan reached back, letting his hand drop to knead his shoulder and frowning at the man. Xilarn. Surely he could remember that.

“It was an unsavory situation and my journey to the other side of it that inspired the speech, in any case. This was my good idea. I get the sense you wouldn’t appreciate the ones I consider bad ideas…regardless, I don’t see a need for you to be so cross. It worked out well enough. I’m unhurt, as are you…”

He paused, and took another second to inspect Xilarn.

“You are unhurt, aren’t you? If you need the attention of a healer, I am sure my parents can refund you the cost. But besides all that…” He stretched back, folding and lacing his hands behind his head as a loose, tilted smile pulled up at one side of his mouth. “I thought it was rather exciting, if more than I bargained for. So, thank you for your noble aid, and may God be with you in your future endeavors. It was a pleasure making your acquaintance.”

Damissan frowned.

Agreement, perhaps; a mild objection, maybe. These things, he might have expected. He hadn’t, however, anticipated a spontaneous lecture on the attitudes of peasants and—well, frankly, it likely would have been less irritating if it had been completely nonsensical. Easier to ignore, then. What Xilarn said, though, unfortunately struck an odd chord, making a sneaking, chilly sensation frustratingly akin to guilt needle at the back of his throat. He rolled his shoulders in an unsuccessful attempt to shake it immediately.

It didn’t matter that he hadn’t done anything personally for the common people yet. His family had. Nobility had. They were almost an entity, and with the title came respect. That was how it worked. Or how it ought to work. There was a reason the class system was in place and functioned, and it couldn’t if it was disrespected repeatedly.

He diverted his gaze sidelong, towards the street, and then back to the man in front of him. “It doesn’t matter that I’ve done nothing myself,” he said. “I inherited a title because my family was great before me, and I followed in their footsteps…but I wasn’t coming before them as a noble. I was coming before them as a man. Just a man, with a message for them…” Unfortunately the more he thought on it, the less the words sounded believable to his own ears. He had come dressed in clothing payed for by his parents’ gold, and an expectation that they would see him as an authority figure by virtue of it. “And it wasn’t…I wasn’t trying to say that I had anything they didn’t, just that I—” All of it seemed to merit more thinking, and he breathed out, sharply and frustrated, but when he spoke again, it was less argumentative. “Perhaps I went about it in the wrong manner…it certainly didn’t accomplish what I aimed for. I’ll have to modify my approach in the future.”

A pause.

He bristled.

“Is it truly so difficult to imagine I am old enough to go about anywhere unsupervised? No, there is no one about. No, I did not come with company. And—” Perhaps the man had not necessarily meant a parental figure or watchful guardian. Damissan tamed his tone, edging it back to something, again, slightly less spirited. “I walked here. I thought it would be good to…” In light of the full experience, it did sound a touch ridiculous, given his overall level of ‘success’, “…mingle with the people on their level and experience the city on my feet.”

Damissan frowned. Unfortunately, the expression only worsened over time as his company’s disagreement—and then outright, laughing amusement at him, progressed through its phases. His shoulders edged back on instinct, a natural, trained squaring off of his posture as his chin notched up and his eyes narrowed, lips pursed.

Schoolchildren. While the suggestion itself could have had merit, the manner it was presented prevented him from even beginning to take the man seriously — or certainly, at least, from mistaking Xilarn for taking him seriously and trying to give valid advice. By the time he moved on to suggesting that he speak with the elderly, however, Damissan’s tongue was pressed hard to the back of his teeth that he not quip out every statement that occurred to him in the in between.

‘Don’t mock me,’ was high on his list, lingering heavy at the back of his tongue. But, through some power of self-restraint that he wasn’t yet accustomed to exercising rigorously, he managed to swallow it down. It wouldn’t do him any good to say as much. He was trying to humble himself and present a point, and obviously he wasn’t succeeding. If he couldn’t handle the unthreatening amusement, or even mockery, of one well-meaning, middle aged merchant class man, how could he expect himself to handle the masses again, ever?

Damissan released a stiff exhale.

“It is not ‘common’,” he admitted at length. “I’ve never…” But by God, it sounded even more miserable to admit aloud. “I’ve never been beyond the walls of the palace sector on my own or on foot, before. But I thought…if I was going to be taken seriously…” His brow pinched, because had anything gone according to plan? He certainly hadn’t been taken seriously. Or if he had it wasn’t serious in the manner he wanted. “I thought it would help, to not ride in in a guarded carriage. A handful of armored bodyguards or even visible weapons on my person would seem to give the wrong impression, and I…didn’t expect to be attacked, regardless.”

But he had. And his approach would evidently have to change.

‘Brave’ he said, and yet, before Damis could manage to hold his tongue—

“Bravery is too often a cousin of stupidity. Or lack of foresight…but whether or not you believe it, I had thought it through, and I wanted—” Well, perhaps that didn’t matter too greatly, either. Nothing he’d aimed for had come to pass. He tucked his hands behind himself. “If you like, I can inform my parents who to ‘thank’ if they feel a need. Even if you weren’t damaged in the process, you meant well, and that could be rewarded…”