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 Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 10:21 am
It had been Penny who had told him he'd been running away - had told him quite firmly, her hands on her hips and a stern look on her face. "You know I'm right," she'd said, refusing to let him avert his gaze from her own. "You know."
"I know," he had admitted, his ears slicking back; a faint smile had appeared on her face then, as a relatively small human managing to put that sort of expression on a large dragon's face had an element of humor to it.
"So what are you going to do about it? You know you can't let it go on like this, either." Her gaze softened, and she stepped forward and rested one hand on her Dragon King's great foreleg.
"I know, yes." His sigh was a blast of wind around her, tossing her hair wildly, but she did not move away. "I am... afraid, Penny."
"That's not an excuse," she said, quietly.
"I know." As he spoke, he shifted, and she stepped back as the great dragon folded down into a human shape, vanishing into the massive pile of cushions Tien Lung had been reclining on. A moment later Tian Yue rose in his human form, a loose robe wrapped around him. "Can she be found, here? I have... not looked."
"She can. Behind the doors marked both black and white." Penny reached for him as he waded free of the pillows, pulling the Dragon King into her embrace - not an embrace of lovers, but of dear friends, of most trusted priestess to honored deity. "You should go, before you talk yourself out of it."
Tian Yue laughed, then, though there wasn't much humor to the sound. "Why am I cursed with such prescient followers?"
"I wonder," she said, and smiled, squeezing him one more time before letting go. "Go to her. Tell her. I will... pray that you may reconcile. To Desiderio, perhaps?"
"All forms of Love are in his power," Tian Yue said, and sighed.
............
Shortly after, he was pushing open the indicated door - wary, for he sought Trickery and he knew better than to expect an easy road.
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Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 2:26 pm
Tien was indeed there, sitting a table in the front audience room with some of her followers looking over maps and charts of what they had explored of Eshurian. They had to plan this carefully otherwise or risk being overrun by demons the minute they opened the door. Feeling the enchantment trigger was what distracted her from the task at hand, making her look up toward the door. It was obviously no one she was expecting otherwise they would have made it right through.
"Leave me for now."
Everything in this meeting had been pretty speculative anyway, until Jesran approved any of it. After the Mir'eshu packed up their things and left she went to her throne up on the dais and sat down. Unexpected visitors were usually the most interesting. Who was it though?
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Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 5:50 pm
... He should not have worn fine robes. That was made clear to him in the first moment, when he stepped forward onto a floor that was there to his eyes, but not to his feet. Not that falling could affect Tien Lung for long, but as he swooped up he ran into something invisible to his eyes but rather unpleasantly poky to the rest of him. Particularly his delicately embroidered robes. It would have been easy enough to use his power to damp hers, but doing so would rightly be a violation, if a lesser one than what he had already committed. Best not to compound his sins. The trials were, in their way, deserved. By the time he reached what he thought was possibly the end (though that had happened twice prior, and he'd been wrong both times) his formerly elegant robes looked more like rags, albeit rags of splendid provenance. ... At least they remained modest enough. He raised one hand and knocked on the door, floating a bit over the floor and with his power gleaming around him in case something tried to strike another blow.
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Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 8:19 pm
She waved her hand and the door opened. Luckily for him his robes had actually been spared, her trials were more mental than physical. Immersive illusions created by the magic of her doors based on what it gleaned from from one's psyche. Had his been a physical manifestation of guilt? Well, that was truly for him to decide.
Needless to say he certainly wasn't the one she expected to see what that door opened. Luckily for her most of that shock was hidden behind a black and white mask that somewhat echoed her doors. She had much better control over her body language now, so there wouldn't be any revealing tells he could see from that distance. The goddess he would see there certainly would not be the one he remembered. There was no more mortal in her now and she would not shy away from what needed to be done.
"I can't say I expected to see you anytime soon." Or ever, realistically. The last time she had seen Tian Yue he had been too busy running in circles of guilt.Sosiqui FYI - She'd still only be youth right now since her evo won't happen til her next plot arc.
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Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2014 6:10 pm
Tian Yue looked startled when he realized he really had reached the end - and there Tien was, right there, masked. "I... I suppose not," he said, quietly, lowering his gaze. He reached into one tattered sleeve and pulled out a bit of paper, folded and unfolded many times; Trickery's gauntlet had torn the edges a bit more. "I am remiss - no, well beyond it. I come to tender my apologies, Tien. I was - have been a coward in this, and I greatly fear I have caused you unearned pain through my actions. My inactions." He paused there, forced the words to stop tumbling out all rough and raw. Otherwise, he would keep babbling until he drowned them both.
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Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 12:56 am
She had to contain the snide remarks rolling around in her head, not least least of which was 'Why now?'. Though she couldn't help the sound that escaped her lips. The only blessing was he would find it hard to tell if it was from confusion, amusement or anger since he couldn't see her face. In reality though it was some measure of all three. Tien had had to grow up, put it behind her and move on to do what needed to be done. She had long since made peace with this, at least she figured she had but seeing him stand there, made all sorts of feelings bubble to the surface.
And was that a script...or was that her letter? That had been a last ditch effort what seemed like forever ago now. And then she had run off to another world to help Glyph, though it had been more meant to be a distraction than anything else. Her mask shifted so the bottom disappeared exposing everything below the bridge of her nose, now he might be able to gauge her reactions a little easier. Trickery wasn't about to remove it completely, he had lost the right to that kind of truthfulness from her because of what he had done. It would take a long time to earn it back if he were able to at all.
"I always expected a dragon to have more of a spine. I watched you gain back bearing and confidence. You won back the love of your lord and your brothers. Those who serve you do so proudly. Yet I wonder if they saw you now, would they think you the same person?" Toki would know better but he might be the only one- he knew their history back to their mortal selves. "Yes, you hurt me. I had hoped you would grow a pair and be a man so we could have had this discussion a long time ago." There was the human in her, it still slipped out from time to time particularly when she was upset. "I could have lived with a no." In her mind at least that would have been the kinder thing to do. It was closure.
"I was just a silly girl that hoped those promises you made mortal me actually meant something." They had certainly meant something to her, leaving false hope in her heart. Did he remember those things too? Did they mean anything to him? Had they ever meant anything to him? Or had they just been pretty words to soothe a dying lover. Long fingers curled around the end of the arm of her throne, nails digging into the material. Part of her wanted to go slap him. Another wanted to just keep railing on him. And another still wanted to cry until she couldn't anymore.
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Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 4:45 pm
He bowed his head before the onslaught, feeling each word as the barb it was intended to be - the barbs he'd earned. "You speak truly," he said, low, when it seemed her words had run their course, for the moment at least. "I did not wish to hurt you. Truth be told, I had no answer for you then... and yet as time grew longer I knew with certainty that no answer had become an answer in itself, one far more painful than anything I might have spoken to you. A coward's response, not worthy of a Dragon King or indeed any being that walks Creation's back. I... I did not come here to seek forgiveness or absolution from you. Only to break the wall of silence I had erected, and let all fall as it may because of my actions - as I should have done to begin with."
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Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 5:37 pm
At least he had the brains not to come expecting forgiveness. If he had then she probably would have screamed and run him out by now. Realistically she still could and he probably would not think less of her to do so. But did she want to? Yes...no....she didn't even know.
"Mortal me even sought out Lucius before she died." Why she was telling him this now Tien had no idea. "I - she -..." Another little crack in her calm demeanor. Was it better to speak of herself as two separate people, even if it was just for his sake? She had no idea anymore. Better just to let words flow as they wished. "I asked him to look after you, in case I..." In case I was not what you wanted. She shook her head a little, trying to get past the thought. "Foolish he called me. Because how dare I, a mortal of all things, ask something of him." She had meant well by it, hoping that at least he could have the companionship of Lucius and be comforted by it. But Universe had nothing but a bitter, angry, pompous a*****e.
"I had half expected you to walk away from me sooner if Lucius had beckoned." She had been mortal then and she was dying. What was her short life against the love of the stars? That thought was a poison she had lived with for a long time. Her hands moved to her lap, to hide the fact that they were trembling.
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Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 8:37 pm
Tian Yue's tail lashed, once, as she spoke, telling her story - Morgan's story. He had never known. At Universe's recalled speech, he flinched visibly, shaken. Her own prediction lanced to the heart of things, and swiftly - but that was not what troubled him most about her words.
"What you said, what you expected... I do not know. The name Starscale, bequeathed to me by myself-Shaiming... the affection he felt was true, and yet even he felt the dissonance between that emotion, that memory, and the bitter deity before him when we met..." His voice trembled. A long ago day, that, recalled in twinned memory - himself-Shaiming and himself-Crispin, awe from one side and a terrified yearning from the other. A yearning that had been passed to him on their joining, on their becoming himself-Tian Yue. "...That was cruel, what he said, cruel and wrong." Grief welled, for Morgan and Lucius both, for memory and all that time and trial had warped into something unrecognizable.
He took a breath that hitched oddly in the middle, then swallowed and moved past it. He was not here to court pity. "Confusion is no justification for my actions. What I did, or did not do, is my fault entire. It was mine to do with myself-Shaiming's inheritance as I would, and in matters of the heart... I allowed the past to drown me. Universe and Tien Lung had... had nothing, in this life."
So bitter, those words, forced out like bile. Lucius had gone to Gehenna with Tien Lung's name upon his lips. That cry had shattered the Dragon King's heart even as the sky tore away - yet that word at the moment of death had been one of the only indications that Universe still had caring in him. And every moment of the few they'd shared had been entwined with that bitterness. To look at it so baldly bit deep, as he'd told Desiderio it would.
So little. Too late.
But he would not weep. Not here, in front of her. For that, Penny could dry his tears, or Love pull away the taint of his domain gone awry. "I regret it all," was all he managed. "That, and my apology, are what I have to bring to you. Do with it as you will, Lady."
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Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 12:55 pm
Too much, clearly. Was the answer she wanted to say but couldn't quite find the voice to do so.
Tien wanted to break down, to scream and cry but she would not do in front of him. She could not. He was a virtual stranger now and she did not loose her composure completely in front of strangers. It undermined her image too much to do so. His wording was careful and diplomatic as always. True concern or just worrying about not tripping her triggers lest she fly off the handle at him?
No matter how much she might want in this moment to hate him, deep down she could not. He was in pain as much as she was, though for different reasons. He did not like to think of what was once Universe in that light, which was much less than the idealized lover in his head. Still, she remembered Shaiming and how he had been...he would not have intended it with this bitter an end for anyone involved. He had cared for her like a daughter. But that didn't mean things would be easy by any means. Have faith...that was the one thing he ha asked of her.
She could try. For now though this was probably the best course. "Perhaps it is better that you go." Her tone had no malice in it, this was a meant as a mercy forth both of them.
Anything else she would have to think on.
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Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 5:36 pm
He felt relief at her words... as he suspected she might, in saying them. "As you say," he murmured, bowing his head to her, penitence and obeisance both. "Should you wish to meet again... I forfeited the choice, before, so I leave it in your hands. I wish you the best, Lady Tien."
With that, he turned and pushed at the door, hoping it would not run him through another gauntlet - though physical trials might be a release, after this.
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 5:47 pm
She didn't say anything else, just simply let him go. There would be no trap in his path when he opened the door to leave, so the way out would be far easier than the path getting here. Once he was gone she got up from her throne and headed further back in her quarters to find a way to deal with all the emotions that had welled up. Sure he had meant well but that was far rougher than she had ever imagined it might be.Sosiqui I'd say thats pretty well a wrap?
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