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Marigold THE TRADE-CITY BULGAR, SACAE
... Or rather, by a warpgate about to pass into it.

     Roy and the horseback archer Sue meet you a few gates back, hailing you with a boyishly enthusiastic and rather subdued wave respectively. They're both crammed onto the back of a compact, businesslike pony; a sort familiar perhaps to Nobunaga, but almost a different species from the grand 'warhorses' of Lycia and Etruria.

     Roy's wobbly, but he's doing his best. Poor guy was never trained as a knight.

     "You made it! I don't know whether we'll be coming back to Bulgar or not, but it's- woah! Ah, um, Sue-"
". . . Hold my shoulders."
"I'd rather not! And, it's just..."
". . ."
"I was never very good at riding, and certainly not with this kind of saddle, and it's a very small horse, and..."
"Do you need help getting down."
"Um. Yes, please."

     Once that situation's been resolved, Roy has to rub the embarrassment off his face, and Sue has to slow her horse's pace through the next couple warpgates to keep track with his walking.

     "... Anyway," he says, clearing his throat into his fist. "Just in case, please keep your eyes peeled for anything that could help us later. Any unusual movements of goods, or weaknesses in the city's defenses... this would all be a lot easier if our fliers could help look for another warpgate, but it's not a good time to ride a pegasus in front of Bernish soldiers, and I still couldn't ask that of Melady or Triffin."
"Triffin?"
"Oh, her wyvern."
". . . It has a name?"
"Is it that odd?"
Taciturn Sue looks down at her pony, but doesn't answer.
Marigold      By the last gate in a barely-trodden temperate forest, that peppy young swordswoman Fir, old reliable Rutger, and her contentious pal Dieck are waiting as the remainder of your escort. Dieck and Fir are both a little scuffed-up by the day-old evidence of some training bout, but it's Rutger who's the tense outsider to their conversation, fidgeting blank-faced with the belt of her tabard.

"--but you've got to have some stories, right?"
"No, really! Uncle never talked about it!"
"C'mon-- oh, hey, there they are."
"Oh, Lord Roy! And, uh, everybody!"
"... Don't tell me you don't know their names?"
"I--!! I haven't been getting to do the fun stuff! Don't give me a hard time!"
"It's really okay, Fir," Roy hastens to reassure her; then realizes he's apologizing on your behalf presumptively, looks back with a guilty smile, and adds "... Um, I assume."

     "So," Dieck says conversationally, sizing up the final green-purple spatial tear with a little wariness, "what's Bulgar like, anyway?"
". . . I've never been," Sue admits.
"Me either. I mostly grew up in the Isles with dad, so..."
"Rutger, you were born there, right?"
All eyes turn to her, which is exactly what she's been bracing for.

". . . Ugly."
"Huh?"
"It's going to be ugly. That's all." She turns her face away. Dieck grimaces, regretting asking.
"Look, you don't have to go if you--"
"I do."
"Okay."
Riku Asakura Riku was here in his usual get-up.  A jean jacket with a bright orange shirt underneath, featuring a space agency logo.  He's in a pair of jeans and sneakers as well, enough to deal with any environment that wasn't too hot or cold.  Thought he might be out of place in these lands.  Of course, as Ultraman Geed, he's very out of place, but right now, he's not.  

Meeting Roy and Sue while still on top of the cramped-looking pony, Riku realizes he's never ridden on a horse before.  Something to consider and ask about later when things are less serious, he guesses.  Though he doesn't laugh when Roy needs help off.  "I don't know how to ride a horse either, Lord Roy, don't think too much about it!" he says with a bright smile.  

Meeting up with the others isn't so bad.  Riku waves brightly at the group, saying hello to each one before brightly continuing the walk towards the city itself.  This is the first time Riku will be in enemy territory under the disguise of a group of mercenaries, so he doesn't want to blow it.  When things turn to Rutger, he winces when her response is 'ugly'.  

"Is... is there anything we should be aware of?" he almost regrets asking Rutger, but he needs to know how not to mess up introductions and generally be a mercenary in the city.  

For others from the Multiverse, he greets them warmly as always, but keeps an eye on Rutger.  Concerned about her answer about her hometown and how this might affect things going forward.  
Dysnomia     "Just in case, please keep your eyes peeled for anything that could help us later. Any unusual movements of goods, or weaknesses in the city's defenses..."

    She should be able to do this. Should be able to peel the maybes apart and parse truths out of possibilities. Why was she walking here? Why couldn't she just give Roy a firm answer, here and now? Why--Stop thinking. She cleared her throat, subduing the storm of inner turmoil. Her long sojourn had done nothing to assuage this nagging blight of a thought. "Copy that. I'll keep an eye out."

    It hadn't taken much preparation to get her ready--she already had her Elibe outfit, after all--she'd left it a little worn, and pulled a cloak over herself, hood pulled up. Her too-white hair and eyes remained in shadow, and Dysnomia did her very best to lay fallow anything that might stoke them brighter. Still--a gloomy woman in long robes with glowing eyes probably wouldn't be COMPLETELY out of place in a mercenary outfit.

    She keeps pace through the warpgates at an easy pace alongside the pony. "No offense taken, she says, both to the young swordswoman and to Roy." Dysnomia silently absolves herself for forgetting Fir's name in exchange. "Dysnomia." She introduces herself.
Flamel Parsons     Flamel Parsons has really taken to the guitar lately. With no wagon to strum in the back of, he's got one telekinetic hand carefully placed on the side of the pony and he's just sort of drifting psychokinetically alongside in levitation, nodding along to the beat of a folksy, upbeat tune. Something to put folks in the mood for an enjoyable outing to a big city in the lovely Eliberian countryside!


"The land's opening up like a blanket,"
"And the dandelions spread themselves thickly out,"
"Along the fields, which are, evidently, endless!"

"And we are hotly in love with one another."
"We've got an unquenchable thirst in our throats."
"We are, for some reason, all the time, bleeding!"
"And we are friendless!"

(Flamel? Where are you picking these songs up?)

"But we love these dogs that roll on the lawns here in Galesburg --"
"Because they seem to know something nobody else knows."
"It is written on the smiles on their faces,"
"And it rings in their high young voices,"
"And we are burning up all of our choices up here,"
"Where the tall grass grows, up here in Galesburg!"

    He takes a break from his just-short-of-good guitar-playing to aside to Sue, "Did you know horses aren't able to form the concept of a name?" He strums a sour chord and tunes the guitar idly. "There's something else where it ought to be, and they're afraid of it." He beams a smile out. "But I hear you can teach them to associate a name you give them with treats!"

    He sets the guitar aside and scratches his head as he regards Rutger's stress. "Not expecting a good homecoming?" He smiles wide. "I'm sure they've got other stuff to be stressed about!" He misses the issue entirely -- Rutger didn't have a surface thought to pick up there. "I'll go ahead and scout through it invisibly, see if I can find out what damage Bern has done and all. Maybe we can restock too, given it's a prestigious trade center!"

    He snaps once, loud and sharp, and completely vanishes from sight near-instantly. The warpgate will waver a little where his invisible body passes through.
Odette Raskins When Odette spots Roy and Sue, she greets them with an enthusiastic wave of her own, albeit with her arm only sort of raised since her shoulder's still sore from the other day. Seeing them on that pony, she takes a moment to confirm that they haven't somehow fused together, and also to try and remember Sue's name.

Luckily, she gets to cheat when she hears Roy say it out loud. "Hi, Roy! Hi, Miss Sue! Careful getting down from there. I wonder if it's easier to learn how to ride on a smaller horse or a big one... It's probably a shorter fall with a small one, right? But a big one might be more stable, unless it's wild...?"

"There's something else where it ought to be, and they're afraid of it."

"Really? Wait, so they're afraid of the thing that should be..." Odette furrows her brow in intense confusion at Flamel, trying to piece together what he's said again. "Are they afraid of the thing that's in their temporal lobe instead, or are they afraid of the brain...? D-do they really have a concept of what a brain is?"

After hurrying over to aid in Roy's dismount however little she can, Odette keeps moving along with a slight spring to her step. She's a little roughed up but little bandages here and there, but doesn't seem to be doing any worse in mood or movement. She's dressed in her usual blue, of course, but with an Elibe adventurer-y bent between the white cape and the blue tunic that only somewhat clashes with her more modern-looking EMT belt and carrying case slung arund her shoulder.

"Goods and holes in the defenses... That shouldn't be too hard, as long as they're not alert to us yet. Heck, even a stroll around the walls could be helpful if we get a chance once we're there, and then a little prying with a crowbar should do the trick."

Spotting more familiar faces in Fir, Rutger, and Dieck, Odette greets them with a similar wave to the one she gave Roy and Sue earlier. "Miss Fir! Miss Rutger! Mister Dieck! Hello! Yes, it's okay." She reassures quickly, both to Fir and Roy. "There's a whole bunch of us here, and it's been a bit."

She really has to thank Roy later for reminding her what Fir's name is, too.

"Bulgar... The name kind of reminds me of something." She's totally thinking about food, but would anyone from Elibe know about burgers? They've got to know about burgers by now, after passing through all those warpgates and hubs. "Like bur-"

"Ugly."
"Huh?"

"-uh?" Oh. That's a little awkward, and Odette swallows her attempt at playful commentary right then and there. After being briefly stunned into silence, she tries to help make things a little less awkward by speaking up again. "Um. Bulgar. It's-er. How many ways are there into the place? Knowing that ahead of time might help with scouting it out...?"
Angela "Well well well, what a quaint and cute world." Binah is saying to Roland. "Do you smell that air, Roland? It's like we're on holiday."

"Ahahah..." Roland says. He doesn't laugh it. He says it. "Why'd you bring those creepy dolls?"

Binah holds out a pair of them. Button-eyed dolls of Lilian Rook and Flamel Parsons, though the latter has a plastic pair of sunglasses over them. The Flamel Parsons doll has a little felt suit and the Lilian has yarn hair but Binah hadn't bothered to arm her. "Oh, you know, it gets so positively dull in the Library sometimes without anything to do--why I scarcely even have a job anymore, just sorting books and my new hobbies." She waves Doll-Flamel's hand at Roland. "You seem like someone who has quite a bit on his mind. Would you let this Psychodoll in?" Binah smushes Flamel against an unamused Roland's forehead and then whispers into his ear. "I'm not nearly as naive as our dear Lady Angela..."

Roland quietly pushes the Flamel Doll away from his forehead. "Maybe you should give him to Flamel, doesn't he work at a summer camp sometimes? Maybe the kids will like it."

"A wonderful idea...!" Binah leaves Roland be and rushes ahead towards Flamel. "Oh Flaaaamellll~, have I got a gift for you...!" She wiggles over the Flamel doll in his direction as she approaches. She seems like she's having the best day of her life. "I hope there's going to be so much walking today. It's been so long since I've gotten to have such a long pleasant walk!"

She lowers her voice to add to Flamel, "There's stuffing in the head here not a rock but I hope you don't mind the sacrifice of reality for squishability here..."

Roland sighs and makes his way over to Rutger, hand resting on (his) Durandal. "Fight ugly or uncomfortable ugly?" He asks her.
Petra Soroka     Trade cities, tribal conflicts, and Divine Weapons aside, the trait of Sacae's that most sticks out in Petra's mind is 'being adjacent to Bern'. Petra never stepped foot in Lycia, so this is actually the closest she's ever been to Bern at all, and even though it feels like having a finish line in sight, the presence of the two whose ideological shadow has been looming over the entire campaign feels much more quickly-approaching than the finish line is. Only some hundred miles away from Zephiel, and nearly every discussion about the war effort inevitably drifts to Zephiel's own character. Does he think about the army's ideals as much? Definitely not, right? No one needs to argue their motivation for keeping things the same.

    Lucius had mentioned subtlety, and Petra is comfortable with making an increasing percentage of her wardrobe suitable for Elibe and Elibe alone. A white linen shirt with a leather corset-like bit over her chest and straps over her shoulders, with high waisted pants and belts with a pouch for her mirror on one side and a scabbard full of pooled Silver on the other. There's really not much reason to try and appear like a world local, given the known presence of offworlders and the fact that her allies are notably incompetent at that, but it's good for Petra's mental state to be tromping around with big old boots like an actual mercenary, which she sort of it.

"Um. Yes, please."

    "Oh, cute! It's so little!! That's so cute."

    Roy's relative lack of worry in his greeting, embarrassed or otherwise, means that Petra's emotional cue for today is immediately positive. Once he's off the horse, Petra scurries over to admire it, cooing over the squat little pony. "Oh, the ratbots aren't fast, but they are small. I could toss a few up to look around, if you think that's safe?"

". . . It has a name?"

    Petra also looks at the pony, and then up at Sue. There's theoretically questions to ask there, but, Petra doesn't really want to, so that's the end of her fussing over the cute pony.

"It's really okay, Fir,"

    Petra, who was in fact there when the ship was attacked by Fir on the coast of the Isles, freezes up. She absolutely doesn't remember Fir's name, gathers it from context, and still struggles to place any relevant information about her due to a lack of Lilian-associated interactions and ten thousand years of time loop in between. "Ah-- aha, yeah, it's totally fine. Of course I don't care."

"It's going to be ugly. That's all."

    Roy's words are automatically sorted to high priority as an extension of Lilian's approval of her, despite the fact that Petra rarely understands what Rutger's deal is. Petra goes silent, walking along with the group towards the final warpgate, absorbing Flamel's guitar playing with oddly little complaint in the quiet.

    Eventually she decides on just, "Okay," And then hesitates, considering asking for clarification. Rutger doesn't want to talk about it, though, and even if it's tactically relevant information, Petra can't press her on it and ruin her mood just for the sake of safety. "We'll deal with whatever happens, then."
Nobunaga     What arrives is the same Huge Dude Nobunaga had employed during that market stint in Edessa, but his clothing is different. Instead of the familiar, worn merchant's yukata, he's clad in a warrior's hakama and haori, sporting bits of Japanese lacquered armor on his chest, shins, forearms, and shoulders. Over one shoulder, Mori carries an appropriately sized spear held in one hand and balanced comfortably against the shape of his spaulder. On the other shoulder, with its flatter shield-like pauldron, sits a normal-sized woman who looks absolutely tiny compared to him.

    Well, that would be ODA NOBUNAGA, but one might be forgiven for not identifying her; she's in those merchant's clothes, deeply dyed silken yukata and work pants and tall two-toothed geta sandals. A wide Japanese straw hat sits on her head and her long black hair is bundled up into a bun held in place with chopsticks.

    Mori carries a large trunk under the same arm. Given the 'Bodyguard and merchant' look they have going on, it's clearly at least meant to represent trade goods, but knowing this is Nobunaga, it probably is some war crime or another waiting to be used.

    Both parties listen as Sue and Roy explain the situation. She ushers him onward without a word.

> "Ugly."

    Mori Nagayoshi grins when Rutger warns of what to expect. Seasoned warriors can easily discern he's the sort who's always ready to throw down. Whether it's stupidity, confidence, recklessness, or some mixture of all three-- it isn't due to lack of talent as a fighter, at least.

    Oda Nobunaga, meanwhile, mulls over Flamel's song for a few moments. After some thought, she replies; "Meadow Blossoms Fade; The Onset Of Cold Winter; Spring Sings Distant Songs"

> "Fight ugly or uncomfortable ugly?"

    "A good question," Nobunaga shifts out of Haiku, "The latter could easily become the former, too. We should be careful until we know where the 'powder kegs' are."

    "Could figure that out by lightin' them on purpose," Mori offers. Nobunaga gives his head a solid whack, "--What?!"

    "Try to use that brain cell you have left."
Lilian Rook     <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "I'll be refreshed for the lack of castles for a change."

    She'd meant it as a joke, or at least as a moment of levity meaning nothing, but as the Warpgates come and go in sequence, Lilian finds herself strangely relishing the idea. Though her love of Elibe, in the general sense, is hardly a secret, and Etruria in its brighter moments had especially agreed with her, the idea of putting castles and nobility behind her, and with them, a certain degree of the sprawling web of pride and loyalty that'd dogged her steps all the way from Laus to Edessa, lightens those very steps along the way.

    She has no idea what to expect of Sacae, despite the temptation to try and extrapolate everything about a country from Rutger and Sue. Even if it's certainly nothing easy, that much is a pleasant surprise at this point.

    Surely none of her clothes are especially appropriate, though. She'll simply have to deal with looking Etrurian (certainly not the Ilian winterwear) until she can scope it out. There's no need to insist on looking like an alien; even if she can't remember what nationality she was compared to back when she was semi-convinced that half the Lycian League could tell your birthplace by looking into your eyes.

    'I was never very good at riding, and certainly not with this kind of saddle, and it's a very small horse, and...'

    "Stick to one excuse at a time. The more you add, the more obvious it is that you got flustered after you already began." Lilian says, smilingly offering casual advice on how to make your flaws seem like someone else's fault.

    '. . . It has a name?'

    Lilian also looks at the pony. Then she looks at her sword, and then thinks about Rutger. "Hm." Maybe she should ask about that? But then would she come off as touristy and annoying?

    '... Um, I assume.'

    Waving down the group, Lilian is quick to add "I'd prefer if she remembered mine at least." without much weight behind it. "And frankly, Dieck, if you want stories, you should be asking me and not a little girl." says Lilian, completely ignorant of the topic.

    'what's Bulgar like, anyway?'
    '. . . I've never been,'
    'Me either. I mostly grew up in the Isles with dad, so...'

    Lilian's eyes turn to Rutger in unison with the others. Her expression is slightly different. It draws tight when Rutger pronounces her judgement, in a way others dont.

    'It's going to be ugly. That's all.'

    "We'll manage." she says, reflexive at first, and then, "We'll have to manage for all the ones who won't, too." She reaches out as if to pat Rutger on the shoulder or back, but settles for tapping her on the upper arm instead, for some reason. "You've come a really long way. It'll be shocking how different things are and exactly the same as it always was, at the same time."

    'Fight ugly or uncomfortable ugly?'

    "People ugly." Lilian says, firmly, and elaborates no further. Binah's voice makes her frown much more than that.

    'Do you smell that air, Roland? It's like we're on holiday.'

    "Do you mean the lack of blood and bleach? Or the fact that there's growing grass instead of tar-stained asphalt? You must've gone noseblind a long time ago."

    'why I scarcely even have a job anymore, just sorting books and my new hobbies.'

    "Oh but you've acted so joblessly all this time before?" she says, miming a politehands gasp.

    'Ah-- aha, yeah, it's totally fine. Of course I don't care.'

    "That's Pettie, by the way."
Flamel Parsons     BEFORE LEAVING...

    "D-do they really have a concept of what a brain is?"
    "The psychic ones do!" Flamel explains, deeply unclearly. "It's how they know where to aim, I think."

    A thumbs-up is given to Oda's haiku. "I never could get the hang of poetry! Is that original? I'm just hijacking songs from old Psychonauts."

    Flamel also hoists Binah's doll in one hand, admiring it. "Ominous, just the way I like it!" He says, gleefully. "Thanks for the gift, and early-happy-holidays I suppose?" He telekinetically operates it a little, causing it to clamber onto onto his shoulder. "Don't worry, I think the kids will prefer it rockless." His psychokinetics animate it with all the motion of someone moving their stuffed animal around with their hands, but it climbs onto his head and then just sort of turns to stare at Roland for a minute.

    It was still on top of his head when he stepped through the warpgate.
Petra Soroka "Did you know horses aren't able to form the concept of a name?"

    "Huh?" Petra narrows her eyes at Flamel. "Of course horses know their names. Your bullshit Psychonauts diagnosis can't change literal obvious reality. Horses are some of the smartest animals in the world. There was a horse I rode a bunch of times when I was six years old and her name was Daisy."

"You seem like someone who has quite a bit on his mind. Would you let this Psychodoll in?"

    "Oh my god, Binah. You can't just keep doing this. People are going to think you're some kind of serial killer." Inadvertently, Petra saves Roland by groaning in exasperation at Binah and pointing emphatically at the Lilian doll in her hands. "Seriously. Sitting at your table in the dark and sipping tea and knitting dolls of people that we know in real life is *pervert* shit. We've gotta get you watching cartoons or something so you can knit about those. Do you remember any of the ones Tennant had being interesting at all?"

    "And give me that," She says, about the Lilian doll, as if that's just the natural conclusion to her argument.

"That's Pettie, by the way."

    "Er--" Petra pauses, wheeling back around to look at Fir and Lilian. She's, for a moment, stunned by being transported back to when that nickname got unbearably under her nerves and made her prickly and aggressive in defense. Not much about her opinions on that has actually changed-- she still doesn't like her name being contorted weirdly, but she's not just fine with it because it's Lilian; she just can't bring herself to get very upset about it. Of all things, Petra has become *relaxed*.

    So relaxed, even, that before she thinks twice about it, her mouth is opening to make a joking retort about Lilian in kind. There's a momentary lag, programmed into her brainstem, when all the options that she would theoretically have to say in place of Lilian's name load up, and this gives her the time to realize what she's doing and go pale. Clamping her lips back together, Petra's immediate pressing need to get past this topic results in her just nodding and going, "Yup, that's, fine, alright."
Nobunaga > "I never could get the hang of poetry! Is that original?"

    Nobunaga closes her eyes, scratching at her cheek with a laugh, "Came up with it on the spot. Poetry is something I studied a lot of. It's a common element in Samurai education, you know. Poetry, painting. Art is just as valuable to any warrior as the ability to kill the enemy." Eyes opening, she shoots a look at Flamel, "It's what keeps a samurai from becoming just a weapon; it preserves the humanity."

    Odd, coming from a proud and self-proclaimed Demon King.

> "People are going to think you're some kind of serial killer."

    Truly and honestly surprised, Nobunaga shoots a look at Petra, "She *isn't*?" The warlord takes another moment to carefully study Binah, her expression incredulous.
Angela ''People ugly.''

"Oh my favorite kind." Roland says tonelessly. He stares at the Flamel doll while it's staring at him. Can ... Can the doll read his mind too? No, shut up, that's stupid Roland. Dear god stop thinking about things like that. Unnerved, he turns his gaze away from the Flamel Doll at least until Flamel's nice and gone and he breathes a sigh of relief. He's safe now. Flamel-Doll can no longer hurt him. Binah, of course, is all smiles as Flamel takes the doll and says, "Oh wonderful," predictably when he says the kids will like it. Even she's a bit charmed by animated dolls.

''Oh my god, Binah. You can't just keep doing this. People are going to think you're some kind of serial killer.''
''She *isn't*?''

"Oh no no, serial killing isn 't just any form of mass murder." Binah says. "And besides, I worked for the ''State''. When I killed people, it was part of my duty as unpleasant as some might have found upholding the City's order might be! As much everyone boohoohoos over the Head, there are Wings much more shameless. At least that I remember, hohh hohh...!" She laughs into her hand. "But that only makes sense, no? The Head is already the defacto power, the Wings are the ones scrambling for power. The depths they'll go to for their ambitions can only be matched by other, mm, losers."

''pervert shit''

"Well I'm happy to try other hobbies, so long as I can make use of my hands? I've never been that fond of television. So much dull propaganda--they could get so much more imaginative with it. Still... I suppose the ones from outside this world might be of interest? After all, I don't know so much about how the meat is made there."

''And give me that.''

"Oh alright, I was going to give it to Lilian but if it makes you happy." Binah smiles and just offers her the doll. "How have your misadventures been?"

''You must've gone noseblind a long time ago.''

"Well, the Library doesn't have quite the smell of blood anymore, as you know, and there were some truly impressive parks near where I lived, of course. The City isn't all ''city'' as you might expect, but it is true I hardly had the opportunity to walk them. I was always so much busy making sure all the precious little Wings didn't get too big for their britches."

''Oh but you've acted so joblessly all this time before?''

"It is so tragic when a member of the secret police's career comes to an end, but I've actually been thinking of signing on to Trídéag. Do you have a signup sheet? Maybe I can find some time to file an application during ... whatever we are here for."

"Saving the world from a guy who wants to wipe out humanity and replace 'em with dragons." Roland summarizes gloomily.
Marigold      "I wonder if it's easier to learn how to ride on a smaller horse or a big one..."
"Big," Roy insists, entangled in a stirrup.
"Small," says Sue, watching him pitilessly.
"And I'm not flustered. I'm just...!"

     Roy is saved from incriminating himself further by falling backwards onto the ground. Oof.

     "Oh, cute! It's so little!! That's so cute."
     The pony flicks its tail in response to Petra's praise. "Yes," Sue says, which seems like it's going to be the end of the topic for five or six seconds.

     ". . . I don't like the way it canters, but it is hardy," she says approvingly. Now that's the end of the topic.

     "Did you know horses aren't able to form the concept of a name?"
     "Yes." Oh. She did know. Okay. Sue isn't fazed by psychonauts nonsense; or if she is fazed, she's just bad at showing it. "If they wanted names they would speak."

"You take real good care of that pony for something you won't give a name," Dieck says, a little bemused.
"Yes," Sue says, exactly the same as the last three times she said it.
"How come?"
"Horses are gifts."
"Oh. This is that whole thing with Mother Earth and Father Sky?"
"It's how things are."
"... Are you mad at me?"
"No?"
"Oh."

     "Right! Dysnomia, and, uh... Pettie! Thanks," Fir sighs, relieved. She's got two whole names down now! "Those'll be pretty easy to remember." "And Lilian," Dieck adds. "And Lilian..." Fir starts to sag under the weight of three (3!!) whole names.

     "if you want stories, you should be asking me and not a little girl."
Dieck winks and stretches, trying to defray his own Rutger-aimed worries. "You weren't here. But now that you are..."
"Hey! ... He was asking me about my mom and uncle. They were both kind of famous, a long time ago. But she never taught me any cool moves, or anything...!"
"The, uh, fundamentals are more important anyway, y'know."
"I know, I knowww..."

     "Fight ugly or uncomfortable ugly?"
     "People ugly."
     Rutger doesn't clarify, but she also doesn't correct Lilian. "There won't be fighting," she says, but oddly it sounds like a promise she expects to be held to, and not a prediction. She gives Mori a sharp look, but is mollified by Nobunaga bonking him.

     "We'll manage."
     "We'll deal with whatever happens, then."
     She manages a little slight-wavery smile for Petra and Lilian, and Dieck relaxes behind her. "... Thank you." Rutger's just turning to go, when--

     ...settles for tapping her on the upper arm
     "You've come a really long way. It'll be shocking how different things are and exactly the same as it always was, at the same time."
     Lilian freezes Rutger mid-step. She tenses up a little, then relaxes a little more, and finally lets out a small breath that rattles more than her prior tone sounded like it should. Rutger's right hand opens, then shuts, without the comfort of a hilt to grip.

     "... You're right. I'm a different person now. Thank you," and not just for the reminder. "It'll... be easier."
Marigold      . . . Flamel is the first one through. Rutger is a moment or three behind, and then the rest, following her lead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umLp7tBQFr0

     In Bulgar it is a bright sunny day, and the winters in Sacae are windy but mild, and one notices that there is not really a city anymore.

Staring straight ahead out of the warpgate, which formed in what was once an alley, one can see the grassy-waving plains of Sacae.
As the eyes focus nearer, one realizes that one is seeing the grass through the smashed-in masonry-gory hole in the city's wall;
and one is seeing the wall down a long skeletal main road lined with the butchered remains of houses;
and one is seeing the main road through the caved-in masonry skeleton of a home;
and in the punched-in-like-teeth doorway of that home, there are a few bones that might have once been someone's hand.

     Roy breathes sharply when he sees them, and he steps forward as if the bones might need his help, but they are not attached to a body. Where the owner went, who knows? His hands slowly come up to cover his mouth, and his gaze drifts back up to that long street with its hundreds of buildings, and he must be imagining the bones that might be in each of them, and--

     Rutger brushes past him.

     "There were nine bridges over the two rivers. Don't know how many stand now. We'll walk west. See which ones are up," she says. Her voice is level. After all, she alone was braced.

     Sue's face stays even, but even she needs several seconds to make her pony move again. Dieck is a man of war; he looks around, unable to make sense of it. Fir covers her mouth. "Wh... what did they...?"

     If you look, the signs of violence here are personal. In places the city burned, but it wasn't dragonfire. Nothing that looks valuable, plates or mantelpieces or tools, remains. There are no bodies unburied, thank the Saint, but that's the only mercy.

     It was all done by human hands, but in aggregate, Bulgar looks bombed out.

     Scraggly grasses grow up between under-trodden cobblestones. The masonry moonscape that used to be a city howls as the wind blows through it. In the far distance there are people; farmers still tend their fields outside the walls perhaps, and maybe in a few places there are roofs intact enough for Bernish soldiers to sleep under them. But here you can look a long way without being able to make any sense of what the buildings looked like, or how its people lived.

     "Are you coming, or not?" Rutger calls back to Roy without looking. Her voice is level. Her hand grips her sheathed sword so hard that, under the noise of the wind, its leather creaks.

     Even now she needs no directions for what's left of the streets.
Nobunaga     Rutger's glower at Mori is missed only by virtue of Nobunaga already chastising him for such a careless comment. It is Nobunaga who flashes the swordswoman an apologetic look that sort of conveys 'he's just like this'. A moment later, she's rolling her eyes at Binah. Evidently, the great warlord of the Warring States period isn't terribly impressed by the feats of a state-sanctioned hitwoman. She doesn't say as much, at least.

    On the other end of the warpgate, though, Nobunaga immediately shifts to a tense and ready posture. Beneath her, Mori has already shifted his stance subtly, but clearly, like a coiled snake preparing to strike. The grin he had while bickering with his boss is gone; just a terse, shark-toothed frown, crimson eyes shooting from side to side. It took less than a second for both samurai to recognize they'd set foot on a battlefield.

    It takes a few seconds before they conclude that this battle is long over. Mori stands down; Nobunaga lets out a muscle-relaxing sigh.

    "A dragon didn't do this," Nobunaga concludes with her exhale, "But the soldiers who did are long gone. Well. Rutger was right, I think." There will be no fighting; it's already finished.

    Nagayoshi Mori takes a few strides and reaches out with his free hand, clapping it firmly on Roy's shoulder when he recoils from the remains. He can see the unease or even panic starting to settle in when the young general takes in the ruined buildings around them and uses that meaty hand of his to draw Roy's attention. Once he has it, Mori only shakes his head, then jerks slightly to gesture after Rutger.

    "The only question now is who," Nobunaga, free to voice her thoughts, does so, "If it were Bern, there would be signs of dragonfire, but this looks like regular run-of-the-mill arson to me. The usual pillaging one might expect from typical soldiers." Her eyes shift after Rutger, then towards Sue, "Djute, perhaps?"

    She doesn't expect a clear answer or even for anyone to agree with her; bringing it up at all is certain to at least convince a few others in the party to contribute their own observations. Pooling the knowledge is the goal. With long strides, Mori keeps up with Rutger's pace; and sitting on Mori's shoulder, Nobunaga is free to her speculations.
Dysnomia     The tide of shock and misery flowing over the group strangles 'I've found a hole in the defenses' before it can get out of Dysnomia's mouth. She surveys the devastation, with a sense of...disconnect, staring straight ahead, her mouth forming a thin line. Her thoughts are quiet.

    It's Fir that gets her to respond. Her voice is clinical--easy to describe as calm--unless one noticed the distant, fuzzy look in her eyes. "When an army is not equipped or not willing to occupy a town, often they resort to pillaging. It demoralizes the population, to break their will to resist."

    She steps over the ground, moving forward. "Soldiers can enrich themselves with what they have looted. Providing a boost to morale. Lessening the need to pay their own soldiers for longer hours."

    Dysnomia stopped, looking over the ravaged city. "And. It is a useful mental tool for building consensus in wartime in the midst of the army. It forces the attacking armies to consider their enemies subhuman. Else. They must confront what was done to them. Agent Parsons would term it a psychohazard. But it is cultivated deliberately. To harden the hearts of an army."

    "If it were Bern, there would be signs of dragonfire,"

    "Not necessarily." Dysnomia did not look at Nobunaga. Her eyes didn't turn away from the devastation. "You said yourself. This conflict zone is old. Bern did not rally dragons publicly alongside their forces until their assault of Lycia. And even then. They did so discretely."

    She doesn't realize that Rutger has left them behind until she calls back to Roy to join them. Even then, it takes a moment for her to follow.
Flamel Parsons     Flamel's guitar-strumming stops abruptly, with a *TWANG* -- it's the only sign of his presence. His breath catches in his throat. He's as frozen as Roy is, and begins moving when Roy is prompted. Any bits he had lined up with the doll sort of suddenly dry up, and he just puts it away in his jacket.

    He follows Rutger in some solemn silence, looking around in subtle distress. Rarely, one can catch stray thoughts through his telepathy: <...This is horrible...> <...Like the Deluge...> <...So much cruelty just for...>

    Gritting his teeth, he closes his eyes, adjusts his sunglasses, and mutters, once Nobunaga speaks. "They didn't need dragons. This... There were warpgates here. Rivers. I think it was slaughtered with overwhelming force using its nature as a natural travel center." He's rubbing his forehead in the invisibility, now staring at the ground like he's averting his eyes from the light of the sun. "Wish I didn't know why they..." There's a noise he makes, one of the few audible signs of his presence, a nauseous and sick and pained sound. He can do so much in so many ways, but no matter what he does with the minds, he can't do all that much with the material. And especially here.

    He looks up, to Rutger. "We'll walk west." He agrees. For someone like her, in a place like this and a time like this, he expects she doesn't want to hear much besides, "I'll try to help however I can."

    He taps one temple. "I'll run some clairvoyance." A short pulse of purple gleaming in the approximate space he's in, and hopefully, he can avoid getting mentally incinerated by the deep soaking of anguish enough to gather useful data. What is useful data? Where people have gone? We know they're dead. Where stolen materials were taken? What good would that do?? What's there even to do here?

    Well, there was. Save the city, and the chance was missed. Now there's just the chance to understand more about the failure.
Odette Raskins "Big,"
"Small,"

"I see... Okay. U-understood." Odette replies with a solemn nod and quiet giggle at Roy's mishap, moving over to help him up with a sympathetic pat on the arm. That certainly settles that question for her, then.

"It's how they know where to aim"
"Of course horses know their names."
"If they wanted names they would speak."

Odette's expression does not show any signs of clarity whatsoever after Flamel says that. Petra introduces some opposition that would lend some clarity to the matter, but Sue throws a wrench right back into that when she speaks so authoritatively about that. Odette opens her mouth, shuts it, rubs her head in utter confusion, then finally tries to say something. "But if they're psychic horses, then... Wait, do horses usually talk? Do the psychic ones lose track of the anterior... What?"

Odette looks at that pony again, and she stares at it intensely while thinking 'Do you have a name?' really hard at it without physically saying anything. She needs to test this horse, even if she's not a psychic herself.

She's finally settled down somewhat by the time the group reaches Bulgar, although that's not going to last long when she sees the holes, the destruction, and the bones. Stopping besides Roy, Odette peeks inside t see if there is, in fact, a body or skeleton nearby that might be related to that hand, or even the reason for those bones being there. She doesn't have much time to look, though, before Rutger provides new marching orders, and the EMT swallows lightly before stepping away from that wall.

"W... Were. Uh. Okay. We'll get a better lay of the land that way, and then we can look for survivors." Odette suggests, already sounding uncertain by the end of that sentence as she forces herself to move. "But this looks... This doesn't look like what we've seen from the dragons, does it? It's too-ugh. It doesn't look like dragons were involved, no." She nods at Nobunaga, then grimaces slightly at the conclusion that follows.

"But-right. It really does look like people did it, and Bern's soldiers could've done this." She nods in agreement with Dysnomia, still frowning slightly while slipping on her AR glasses to join Flamel in looking for any readings of people while passing through the area. "But then... Is Bern's army really that strapped for supplies?" She asks next, feeling a twinge of guilt for being involved with messing with said supplies and the treasury in recent weeks.
Petra Soroka "She *isn't*?"

    "No, she's a rehabilitated cop. And by rehabilitated, I mean, like, murdered."

"The Head is already the defacto power, the Wings are the ones scrambling for power."

    The Head's been on Petra's mind a lot lately, and at some point, she's going to actually have to confront Binah about that. For now, she's still just mulling over the scraps of the personal perspective of the Head that Binah brings. "It's just clipping branches at that point, yeah. Though it's hard to tell really what shape they're trying to mold the City into."

"Well I'm happy to try other hobbies, so long as I can make use of my hands?"

    "No, the knitting's good," Petra says while surreptitiously taking the Lilian doll from Binah's offering hands. "I get why you'd want something, like, tactile and lasting. Just, you've gotta see more things than Elites. *Elites* have the problem of never seeing or interacting with anything outside of other Elites; can't have that be infecting the Sephirah-- the Patron Librarians too. Like, cartoons, or community knitting patterns, or anything but this. I bet White'd have opinions."

"How have your misadventures been?"

    Petra shrugs. The first words bubble up to her lips are 'Well, Cinder's still dead,' but she clamps them back before saying them. "I've been spending more time on homework than I have on getting sucked into portals and tortured for eternity, so pretty good, I guess."

"It's how things are."
... Are you mad at me?"
"No?"

    Petra gets a dread premonition that she will never be able to talk to Sue properly, and if she tries then she's going to end up hurt and confused. Being blunt yet unreadable is the worst possible combination, in her opinion, even if she'd like to continue the conversation about horse names. Goodbye, Sue!

"But she never taught me any cool moves, or anything...!"

    In contrast, Fir seems very easy to talk to, in that Petra doesn't even have to consider her next sentences when doing so. "I mean, you're her daughter. Doesn't that mean it's your responsibility to come up with your own cool moves now? This war's kind of your only shot."
Petra Soroka "... You're right. I'm a different person now."

    That clarifies things. Elegantly, in a way that only Lilian could elicit, and all Petra has to do is listen and adjust. Her hand falls to the hilt of her 'sword' before stepping through the warpgate, not to draw it, but in silent emotional communication with the warm thrum of the Silver.

    And then,

    Lucius's question comes back to mind: 'Do the dragon shades have souls?' Petra's thought, once her eyes focus, is 'Do humans?'

    It's really no wonder why they'd side with Zephiel even once the dragons were revealed, isn't it? It's not really possible to distinguish between the dragons being used as weapons and the soldiers being used as the same, but to say 'dragon' and then 'soldier' is implying that soldiers are selecting from a special subset of humanity, right? If the Bernish army does this, is there anything that separates them from what the Bernish citizenry would do besides having the opportunity? Is the only reason that Cecilia's army doesn't do the same because of Cecilia herself, or because they're united by a 'cause'?

    Roy's army, despite how much coincidence goes into every new recruit, is made up of people who chose to be here in some way or another. That's why it feels like they're uniquely virtuous or whatever, as an oasis of people who make sense that justifies the world's existence despite the ocean of faceless backstabbers and psychopaths. Guinivere walked across the mountains to escape. These people all had the option.

    Petra shakes her head. "Yeah. Coming. It seems safe to let off some ratbots, right?" If she's given the say-so, she'll pull Twopence out of her compact mirror and send him floating upwards, camera angled down to give her a live stream of the landscape.
Angela ''It's just clipping branches at that point, yeah. Though it's hard to tell really waht shape they're trying to mold the City into.''

"Does it matter?" Binah turns her head to look at Petra, her gaze sympathetic and softer than normal. "It ''is'' hard to tell, isn't it? But that's the natural symptom of a labor that has lost its way far too long ago. You know better than most that no matter how noble the crusade, sometimes a fruitless labor must just end. No matter who it buries." And maybe she has changed a little because she then adds, "But there's still time for a gentler landing for that particular leap of faith."

''Just, you've gotta see more things than Elites. *Elites* have the problem...''

"That..." Binah admits. "Is quite insightful. Alright, Petra, I will watch the cartoons until I find something better. Perhaps I will find inspiration on ''this'' adventure." She looks towards Rutger like she's trying to recall something but it escapes her before she can comment on it and shakes her head, clearing her mind of cobwebs. "Study is good." She says eventually. "Homework isn't particularly lasting, but it is still constructed by hands."

Binah lingers near Petra but slides a hand into her robes. Her hands are pretty free now that she's given away both of her dolls.

Meanwhile...

Roland stares forward, and then a sinking feeling hits his throat. Flashes of bodies twisted into notes hit the forefront of his memory and he places his hand to his forehead, pushing them back down. He tries to think of something nicer. Like the Smoke War. But that just leads him to thinking about how hard he finds it to disagree with King Zephiel at all. Humans are bastards in bastard coating. He knows he's no better than anyone else either. But why does he still feel like living anyway? He doesn't feel it that strongly at all. No, he's pretty much ready to die. Just not completely. He has no idea what's holding him back anymore. Well. For however small years he's got left before he self destructs, he reasons he can at least help these peopole who aren't bastards at all.

"...Fuck." He says. What else is there to say?
Lilian Rook     'Oh my god, Binah. You can't just keep doing this. People are going to think you're some kind of serial killer.'

    "Perhaps she's trying to reinvent herself. 'Serial killer' is still a step more admirable than her previous profession, after all." Lilian scoffs, still being defensive and weird and not noticing the obvious thing Petra has locked on to. "If she tried to jump too many steps at once, nobody wold believe it, after all."

    'Er-- Yup, that's, fine, alright.'

    Lilian frowns. It's unclear whether it's because she caught the same thought process that Petra did or not. Even when she says, "No it's not. Your name's Petra." she can't really seem to figure out how to approach from there. Or what. "Do you think I'd get cross with you or something? It's your name."

    'Oh my favorite kind.'

    "You're sick in the head." Lilian says, probably matching his tonelessness on purpose.

    'Well I'm happy to try other hobbies, so long as I can make use of my hands?'

    t"Grow flowers." Lilian says, so very unbiased. Her eyes light up a little a second later. "Or tea, if you're such a fanatic surely you'd appreciate being able to control every factor of your own stock. And it's not as if you don't have the time to cultivate quite a lot."

    'Oh alright, I was going to give it to Lilian but if it makes you happy.'

    "Hm? What?" Lilian finally seems to notice the doll of herself, approaching Petra's gribbly hands. A rapidfire series of emotions wash over her, culminating in a violent battle between 'not really hating Binah like she pretends to but also not wanting to keep a doll made by a CIA murderspook on her mantlepiece at home' and 'Petra should get to have nice things but also somehow Petra having this doll in particular somehow exudes danger.' Her compromise is to: Take the doll out of Binah's hands first, then deposit it into Petra's. This allows her to say "There." to Binah's single interjection, and also, now that it's been conferred, surely Petra will be at least like 75% less weird about it, right?

    'It is so tragic when a member of the secret police's career comes to an end, but I've actually been thinking of signing on to Trídéag.'

    "Ash seems to be doing fine." Lilian says, just to throw a name and be stuffy and combative. It's really not the same thing. Then she double takes. "Surely you can't be serious. There's no chance you'd get away with that."

    'If they wanted names they would speak.'

    Okay now it's just getting too hard to ignore. Lilian absentmindedly rests her elbow on Night Mist at her hip, and says "I've heard a thing or two that sounded similar from Rutger. Is that the prevailing wisdom here? Or, no, perhaps I should say that it made me think of when you described to me the earth and sky in place of 'god'." She still hasn't resolved that 'and a woman says she is confident' part, either way. "Though I don't think you'd chew through horses the way that Rutger goes through swords."

    'And Lilian...'

    Frown! Why was her name last! Why did Dieck have to point it out! Minus one point! Now she's going to be catty!
Lilian Rook     'Hey! ... He was asking me about my mom and uncle. They were both kind of famous, a long time ago. But she never taught me any cool moves, or anything...!'

    "What a shame. Half of what I know was passed down to me by Aoibheil and another third by Scáthach. Not having that sort of martial connection to your ancestors must feel alienating." Hmph. Never mind that she isn't related to one of those.

    '... You're right. I'm a different person now. Thank you,'

    And yet, at Rutger's freeze, Lilian holds her smile just as easily. For some reason, the swordswoman's tension-- this particular kind-- softens her by equal measure, in posture and gaze; not in the form of a reaction, but as a kind of natural compensation, as two parts of a mechanism would pull and give. The little sigh she lets out is 'satisfied' rather than 'relaxed' when Rutger thanks her. "It will. And it'll be bizarre, too."

    That's how it is when you return home long after it's lost its hold on you. Everything is strange and familiar at the same time. Things you never noticed jump out at you. Things that used to consume your attention seem so small and mundane. You glide across the surface as if you weigh nothing, repelled, an alien, unable to find the way back into the place within that place that you used to live. It all feels as if it could fit in the palm of your hand, and when you're done looking at it, you can put it away in your pocket and forget. It's melancholy and freeing. Disquieting and nervous and strangely fulfilling. Lilian wants to tell Rutger all of that, and more.

    But she won't ever get the chance.

    . . . . . . . .

    Lilian stands in the ruins, staring off as far as she can into the horizon through the place the carnage aligns just right. She breathes deeply of the desolate air, and resents the absence of ash on her tongue. For once, the clear wind and the growing grass bring something other than peace of mind; something that bubbles up into her chest until she tries to imagine salt and bile in place of the taste of smoke. Suddenly, she cocks back her foot to kick something; an insignificant brick, as hard as she can, in frustration, and then slowly sets it back down again.

    'There were nine bridges over the two rivers. Don't know how many stand now. We'll walk west. See which ones are up'

    "Okay." Lilian says, and starts to walk.

    'Are you coming, or not?'

    "Roy. Please." Lilian says, looking back over her shoulder as patiently as she can. "I don't want to go all this way in silence." She doesn't want to think about what happened here. Conversation won't help that part, though. It still might keep her mind off what it's reminding her of.

    'Wish I didn't know why they...'

    "It doesn't make a difference." Lilian says, starting to walk about. "I don't know why the Antegent did anything and it's the same on field recon too. Every year, at London, is the worst. Reason or not, you can't look at so many places people used to be and avoid thinking about what it was like just before they weren't. Not for long, anyways. If you can keep it off your mind until you go to sleep, that's when you'll realize you were secretly thinking it the entire time."

    'Yeah. Coming. It seems safe to let off some ratbots, right?'

    "May as well." Lilian says. Trudging along sets her attitude into a specific orientation, now. She sticks to the road. "What's the worst that could happen? Bandits?" She tries to scoff, and sounds as if that'd be some sort of relief instead. And yet, it inexorably comes back to,

    "Rutger . . . Since how long ago did you suspect?"
Marigold      "Djute, perhaps?"
     But Sue is already shaking her head, slightly pale. "The Djute wouldn't do this." Not didn't, or couldn't, but wouldn't. They might be a rival tribe, but they're still Sacaeans; an evil twin is still your twin. This is beyond her cultural imagining.

     "When an army is not equipped or not willing to occupy a town, often they resort to pillaging."
     "Soldiers can enrich themselves with what they have looted. Providing a boost to morale."
     "Roy. Please."
     "S-sorry." Roy nods hurriedly at Lilian, then slowly at Mia, rousing from his dazed state and following after Rutger. It only feels polite for him to lower his voice, apologetically, as if he were having to murmur at a funeral service. "I... had heard, a year or two ago, that Bulgar was sacked. It was early on, before you ever came here."

     "I guess Bern didn't see much use in a 'trade city', and wanted their morale high for everything that'd follow." His face works, swallowing unease and settling into a nauseated grimace. "But even having heard all that, I thought... I thought there was still a 'Bulgar'. Maybe that was childish of me."

"... No. I thought so too," Sue says, and even her pony knows to walk slowly.
"The Kutolah didn't know...?" Fir murmurs aside.
"I left early. Grandfather had me take the elderly and children. I only heard the words. Seeing is different."
"... Yeah. I guess it is," Fir mumbles, for once the less wordy one.

     "Please. As long as they're hard to see from the ground," Roy says about the ratbots. Petra can get some sense of a city divided into quarters; the wall shattered open in two places; a couple pockets in the northeast where the fire didn't reach and the buildings still have roofs. Red uniforms are more concentrated, there.

     Aside from occasional distant Bernish soldiers on lazy patrol or daily errands, Odette's AR glasses find nobody.

     People mostly left, and partly died. That's what Flamel finds. 'Sacking' means that soldiers kill who they please and take what they want, but even Bernish soldiers prefer taking to killing. This was a short few hours of slaughter, purposeful fires, accidental fires, catapults and ballistae and siege magic, and then two days of burglary while farmers and cityfolk huddled.

     There wasn't a grand massacre; not really. Some Sacaeans were killed holding the wall. Some were killed in their homes, when they drew swords to protect this heirloom, or that family member. Some burned. Some starved, afterwards. Most just left; for Bern if they could stand it, or if they couldn't then for villages where they had family, or for the coast.

     But enough did die. A city's life was taken. Among the living, surely everyone knows the name of someone dead.
Marigold      Plodding footsteps take you towards the slowly-setting sun. Lilian asks not to walk in silence, and her wish is slowly granted; this kind of quiet is too much to hold for five or ten or fifteen minutes. Awkwardly, people pick up the little abandoned threads, now with a different mood.

     "... It'd be nice if I could live up to Mom. Yeah," Fir says, in Petra and Lilian's direction. "It's not like her parents taught her anything, either. But, I mean... she had to. It was do-or-die, for her. And I just want to be like her. Can 'wanting' ever live up to 'needing'? Wanting to be like her... already makes me unlike her, right? Mmmh. Sorry. I'm getting in my own head, I guess."

     Sue's pony meets Odette's gaze without acknowledgement, and then a few seconds later, inconveniently glances away. It's a horse! They do horse things. "They talk in stories," she answers, slowly regaining her measured demeanor. "Things talk if you listen. If they needed voice, Father Sky would give it. Instead he gave us eyes."

     And to Lilian, a moment later: "There's no love in an unwanted gift. Is that not wisdom everywhere?"

     Rutger is tense about the shoulder as she climbs the shallow hill of rubble that makes the gap in the city's wall. Evidently that's closer than any proper gate. Beyond is farmland by the fertile rivers, where some Sacaeans are still able to support themselves, and then the untended grassland beyond it...

"Rutger . . . Since how long ago did you suspect?"
"I was here," she says. "Working the fields."
Crunch. Clatter.
"Army passed me by."
The wind whistles through the gap in the wall.
"Came back for my sword."
Like a breath through missing teeth.
"Wasn't in time."

     Her hand still grips its handle. She's got her sword now. She's reminding herself of that.

     Just outside the knocked-in wall, there's a small farm; a loose gaggle of Bernish soldiers in relaxed uniform and relaxed posture are haggling with a Sacaean farmer for something or other, and the farmer looks only middlingly tense. One of the soldiers, though, is sitting on a bit of rubble much closer. He waves down your group.

     Roy tenses. Rutger was already tense. Dieck waves his arm backwards towards them, 'stay back', and approaches down the rubble-hill while clearing his throat.

"Can I help you?"
"Oh, no, just a strange bunch you got there." The helmetless soldier, red-haired and freckled and twentyish, might be a little drunk; he leans on his spear for steadiness.
"Guess so. Can't help being strange."
"What's your business?"
"You could call us mercenaries--"
"No, I mean her business. Aren't you Bernish?"

Rutger stiffens up as the soldier points past Dieck at her. Her eyes widen.
"I'm-- I was born here." The truth slips out.
"You, redhead girl? Ahaha! No, you're dodging the levies, ain't you? Or are you a deserter or somethin'?"
"No, I-- had a Bernish grandfather..."
"Uh-huh. Well, I get nothin' for tattlin'. Get along before Kel sees ya."

     ... So that's why the army didn't accost her, back then.

     Rutger is holding her breath. Her face is burning, and her grip adjusts on her sword. The soldier looks away from her nonchalantly to stare off over the fields. Dieck hesitates to touch her shoulder.
Petra Soroka "You know better than most that no matter how noble the crusade, sometimes a fruitless labor must just end."

    "Yeah, I'm not asking because I think they've secretly got some grand noble goal that I'm too blind to see. I'm wondering because it's kind of impossible to tell what they actually care about, which could mean that they're incompetent enough to be practically random, or because they've got some set of rules and goals that don't make any sense from the perspective of a District."

"Perhaps I will find inspiration on ''this'' adventure."

    Petra nods, already thinking about the opportunities. "A little Fae stuffy is the only exception. But it'd be better to make a dragon that isn't Fae, because that'd make her happy. And, I mean, there's an entire world of art and architectural styles out here for inspiration."

    At Lilian's suggestion, Petra claps her hands together delightedly, excited more for Lilian's sake than Binah's, but generously transferring some of it over to Binah as well. "Oh my god, that'd be *perfect*, actually. I *did* do a study on the lights of General Works and found that they weren't 'sunlight' or 'florescent light' for the purposes of affecting the books, so you'll need, um, grow lights, but a bunch of flowers and stuff in Philosophy would be *so* pretty actually? And that goes so well with your whole, you know, vibe. Control-wise."

"Do you think I'd get cross with you or something? It's your name."

    Going from that odd moment of tension through a discussion of flowers and into this surprise gentleness from Lilian fills Petra with a sudden flood of warm feeling, lurching and dizzying. The urge to babble at length about how much of a saint Lilian is rises up and spills out, cooled slightly for the sake of not embarrassing Lilian in front of people. "O-oh. You're so nice. I don't think anyone really appreciates how nice you really are."

    "Um, no, though," She shakes her head, partly to refocus on Lilian's actual question rather than continuing to fawn at her. "I just figured that, like, if that's how it is today, and that's the joke you wanted to run with, then I was, like, chill with it. Just doesn't seem worth pouting about anymore, when you obviously already know who I am."

    She'd like to hold onto that warm feeling for longer, but of course, she can't.
Petra Soroka     Petra trudges through the city, using Twopence's eyes from above to navigate more than her own. It still registers as dully incoherent, to imagine the scale of the sacking around her, and the experience of the civilians living here instead of the soldiers, and she's not sure whether that's because it seems like too much for any one person, or too little compared to L-Corp and the City. She informs people of the positioning of the Bernish soldiers as a formality, watching Twopence's camera through the Silver with her phone in her pocket.

"Can 'wanting' ever live up to 'needing'? Wanting to be like her... already makes me unlike her, right?"

    Petra quietly groans, and Fir's name is indelibly inscribed into her brain while hers is still 'Pettie' in return. "Yeah. When the generation before you's already blazed one trail, it's kind of performative to insist on making your own just to do the same. And now, even if you do become skilled and famous in your own right, it's impossible to untangle your motivations and your origin from *wanting* it."

    With an unreadable expression, Petra holds her hand out to the side, palm up. "That's why, this is your only chance. When this war's over, if there's a generation after you, they'll be born not understanding why you or your mom had to fight at all. So your only choice is to fight as hard as you can for now, both for the sake of the world, and for yourself, right? If you end up 'needing' it, then all the 'wanting' gets retroactively turned into 'preparing'."
Nobunaga > "No, she's a rehabilitated cop. And by rehabilitated, I mean, like, murdered."

    Nobunaga shrugs, eyes closed, "It seems as though she has relapsed."

> "Not necessarily..."
> "The Djute wouldn't do this."

    "Alright," the warlord concedes to both Dysnomia's historical precedent and Sue's experience. The eventual discovery of tattered red uniforms and-- actual Bernish soldiers, slacking and lazy, further proves her initial suspicions entirely wrong. So this was Bern after all, and there's no use speculating further. Nagayoshi Mori leans noticeably forward, the grip on his spear tightening. He only stops when Dieck's hand raises.

    In a matter of recovery, Mori straightens his posture and forces a big jagged-toothed smile on his face. With his eyes still wide from his hunger for combat, though-- it's probably a little offputting; like a wolf staring down a slab of beef.

    Contrasting the eager menace radiating off her 'bodyguard', the merchant Nobunaga claps her hands lightly together, "Ah, this is fortunate," She speaks up to distract from how the Menacing kanji around Rutger are starting to rival those around Nagayoshi, "Have you any news before we move on? Closed roads or bridges or the like?"

    The clear implication is 'I am a merchant an these are my bodyguards and/or guides'. She doesn't feel a need to elaborate; the difference in how she is dressed compared to a motley crew of obvious adventurers and soldiers and sellswords says it all for her.
Lilian Rook     'S-sorry.'

    "It's fine." Lilian says, before quickly correcting to, "Don't apologize." She shoots Dysnomia a scornful look for waxing on like an encyclopedia about the bloody particulars that they all know, but she doesn't have the energy to sustain it.

    'I thought there was still a 'Bulgar'. Maybe that was childish of me.'


"You can't keep calling it childish every time that you're let down." Lilian sighs. "Disappointments aren't adult. The world making sense isn't for children. And besides." She pauses, holding a thought for as long as it takes Sue to second Roy; to little surprise from Lilian, and that amount only because of how often she guesses wrongly on her reactions. "Anyone would think the same. Razing a city to the ground is thrice the effort of ransacking it for food and coin, and can't be done by men in a sane and sober state of mind. The sort of . . . nationalistic illness it would take to rile up a herd of soldiers to something like this isn't . . ." Lilian decides to end the thought before she can get any more specific; for her own sake. "It isn't normal. It happens, but it's not normal."

    'But, I mean... she had to. It was do-or-die, for her. And I just want to be like her. Can 'wanting' ever live up to 'needing'?'

    "You don't." Lilian says. Something catches in her throat, and the words come out rough, let down at the end by an unsteady fall. She quietly clears her throat without moving her hands. "Those aren't two things on a spectrum. People will do things they don't want because they need to. People will do things they don't need to because they want to. You're asking if anger can ever live up to sorrow." She takes a deep breath, and fixes her gaze dead ahead, resisting the urge to look at Fir and Petra. "But you should never wish to be more like what someone needed to be. Never, ever confuse 'wanting to do what they could' with that. It's the only thing you can do wrong."

    'There's no love in an unwanted gift. Is that not wisdom everywhere?'

    "Many places have forgotten a great deal of old wisdom." Lilian says, with a soundless, joyless shake of her shoulders. "They throw them aside so that they can become stupid and poor."

    'Army passed me by.'

    "Oh." The fact is so simple that it hits Lilian in the chest like an amateur punch and bounces away with the next breath. She can't think of anything less blunt to say.

    "Oh." The rest hits seconds later. Her breath stops. She winces, wide-eyed and dazed, as if struck by surprise. "I'm . . ." Lilian breathes. "I don't know what I can say to that. Nothing, probably."

    'Uh-huh. Well, I get nothin' for tattlin'. Get along before Kel sees ya.'

    Lilian isn't in a good enough mood, much less a good enough state of mind, to wear her emotions as she likes to. Beneath the sunny upper reaches of her top form lies a very long string of places already too dark to distinguish by sight, and so the formless apathy she wears as her expression, like she forgot to make one, is just where it should be. She leans closer to Rutger, lowers her voice by half, and speaks in not-quite conspiratorial monotone while keeping her eyes on the soldier.

    "It'd only be pointless. More trouble than it's worth, honestly. But, if you want to, then we can. I won't say no."
Flamel Parsons     "It doesn't make a difference."
    "It's not the same. Not to belittle your experience, I mean," Flamel rumbles under his breath. "But it's really not the same. Things like this-- I could tell you what any individual soldier was thinking when he set a fire, or stole an heirloom, or..." He unclenches a fist he had clenched. "Killed someone. I could tell you where it started. The exact number of times it took for a parent to hit them, the exact number of decibels for a leader to yell at them."

    He flickers out of invisibility, examining a shattered window. "He saw something inside." He says. "He saw something that reminded him of something his father had kept over a fireplace on the mantle. His father was in a feud with a neighbor, and he 'vented' to his son about how it was impossible to keep a decent lifestyle, with how everyone else in the world are trying to take from him. It took four-- no, three of those to shape the worldview. Maybe five years of exposure to the mantlepiece."

    He nudges the windowframe, and it falls in past shattered masonry. He looks back at Lilian. "And now someone will never have a home again. That's what I mean. It's supposed to be my job to hunt down the memory of that mantlepiece or the thoughts about the father, before they *kill someone*." Then he flickers into invisibility again.

    "We haven't had a major war in our world since the Deluge that founded the Psychonauts. Maybe it's really that I'm just not used to it, sorry."



    He slips over to Rutger. Rutger, poor Rutger, who's giving off... a kind of psychic static that Flamel hasn't seen since a few years back. <Do you want the static-- er-- the mental wind, to stop? I know you probably don't want *me* in there, but--> He telepathically mutters softly. <--Sorry-- just-- Just think about the texture of the hilt of your sword. The surface texture on each part. The grip force you're using. The finger position. List them out. Do it for five different grips you can have on the blade. And then -- I promise, then things will feel different. I'm having to do an equivalent right now.>

    Mind-tech. Something to take the edge off. Nothing to dull or blunt it truly, but something to force-reboot the brain into processing the storm of feelings in a certain way.
Angela ''You're sick in the head.''

"Yeah but--" He pauses. "I mean, I was, uh, being sarcastic there though." Roland says. He's a little uneasy, worried Lilian saw something inside of him.

''Serial killer is still a step more admirable than her previous affiliation.''

"I wouldn't call serial killer a profession." Binah says. "That's more of a hobbyist behavior isn't it? But you are right if I started being such a sweetheart, I'd probably do more harm that way than if I trie. People do prefer the comfortable familiar understandings."

She cups her chin. Grow flowers. Maybe it's because seeing this sacked city is making her feel nostalgic for the good old days when she'd purge the foolish and greedy--ahh, she actually should check in on her old friends at H Corp sometime--but not until this business with Angela is over. Of course, it is tricky to imagine how to do this without immediately drawing some other Arbiter out to drag her back for--to use doublespeak fondly--decomissioning. But there are options.

''It seems as though she has relapsed.''

"If I had relapsed I'd be obliged to kill you again as you violate the taboo against true ressurection, do you not?" Binah answers absentmindedly, her thoughts are elsewhere but as Petra said, it's sort of in her nature to claw and bite. "For a Demon King you are quite gentle. You make the effort to be frightful instead. Perhaps you have moved on from your past ... state sponsored slaughter? Or perhaps you're just a hobbyist yourself. Sougo on the other hand, I feel he is more of a demon. You see, he makes the effort to be gentle instead. He has to make the effort to resist his nature."

She is as ever strangely partial to Petra (or perhaps not so strangely, Binah has burned memories out of her own brain for Petra's sake). "Oh I just mean--perhaps they have forgotten what they wanted, and now--as they say--the cruelty is the point. But even if I had all my memories, it has been quite some time. I hesitate to speculate too much. And learning first hand is better besides."

But because she IS partial, Binah does consider LIlian's totally unbiased flower growing suggestion. "Mm... I do have some concerns it would give off that 'serial killer' vibe but since they'll be in the Library..." She nods to herself. "Alright, I'll look into it once we're back. It would be nice to liven up the Library a bit more. Angela's doing her best, such a dear, but she clearly needs help. I suppose since it's the Library, sunflowers would be best to start with?"

She also considers a dragon plush for Fae. "A dragon... But she's quite uniquely...fluffy, is she not? hm... Perhaps if I give the fluffiness of the dragon different coloration, she will understand it is meant to represent another dragon her age." She looks to Petra. "Should it be large enough for a dragon, though, or for her girl sized? What do you think she'd prefer? I suppose in the short term, sized for a girl is better, since we are traveling, but it is so sad to imagine a big fluffy dragon being unable to cuddle against a doll like this." She nods slowly. "You've given me quite the puzzle, Petra, once again."
rShe probably will also try the tea suggestion eventually but it's not like there isn't some overlap here. Naturally, she has no objection to Lilian snagging it out of her hand first, but she does grin a little--at least she doesn't say anything.
Angela ''Ash seems to be doing fine.''

"Well they weren't really one of them, were they? That was the impression I got, anyway. It is a little different that way, I feel. Of course, in an organization like that being 'one of them' is hardly protection."

''Surely you can't be serious.''

"Mm? My friend Xion's a member, of course I'm serious. I can't exactly act against the Library, of course, but--it is true I probably couldn't join in as Garion, but I already have a second name raring to go. But, yes, I'd need to obscure my identity. I could pretend to be an Outsider, that would be fun!"

That this sacking happened long ago does soothe Roland a little bit, but not really by much. He's quiet, though, he can't seem to form words.

''Wasn't in time.''

Roland wipes at his eyes with his hand, brushing away tears before they can spill out from his eyes. "Sucks when your timing is off." He manages, hoarsely. If he knew what to say to Rutger right now he'd be able to say it to himself and even if he did know the words, it'd feel fake as all hell.

'Wanna kill 'em all?' is his first thought. His second thought is what he goes with though. "You've more than your sword here right now." He tells Rutger instead. "A lot more."
Odette Raskins "I... had heard, a year or two ago, that Bulgar was sacked. It was early on, before you ever came here."

"Then it wasn't recent... And it's still like this." Odette bites her lip as she takes another look around, realizing that the distance in time is probably why she hasn't seen anyone in need of immediate assistance. It's not too relieving even knowing that, though, but she still gives Roy a gentle nudge on the shoulder in some vague semblance of reassurance.

"There's nothing childish about being optimistic, Roy... This kind of thing isn't supposed to happen to entire cities. Or anywhere, really, because... Because there's gotta be limits on what people do, right?" She ask-declares, pausing briefly to rationalize away the difference between Elibe and the many stations she's used to. "A-and how would this help anyone's morale? Even soldiers have to see something like this and realize it's messed up, right? Knowing that your own coworkers are destroying enough of a city that it's just... Dead like this?"

"It isn't normal. It happens, but it's not normal."

"Yeah... Th-there had to be something else going on. Even if it won't change anything here, knowing what it is might help us stop it from happening anywhere else."

"They talk in stories,"

"They talk more than they don't in stories." Odette replies to Sue with a strained, but genuinely grateful chuckle at having some kind of distraction from the horrors. "I guess that's true... I mean, we've met dragons that can talk, and I've seen birds and foxes and bugs that do, too. For horses not to talk the way we do here..."

She seems almost relieved that the pony is only capable of doing normal horse things, and she tries to match Sue's tone to keep the silence from being overwhelming. "Maybe they've got it easier than we do, not being expected to talk. If they could... I wonder what kind of sories they'd have to tell."

"I was here,"
"Working the fields."

"You were here when it..? Oh gosh. Um. Sorry, Miss Rutger. I mean, it's good that you weren't caught, but it still... It's awful what happened, even if you weren't here for long."

Odette's proven wrong about her assumptions shortly afterwards in the encounter with the guards, but she's not too worried about that compared to just getting out of that situation unscathed. Thankfully, it doesn't seem like any of the soldiers here actually recognize them, but merely thinking about what happend to Bulgar and seeing the soldiers standing there without a care in the world puts a knot in her stomach.

Swallowing down that bile, she only manages the barest of bows to the soldiers in passing before hurrying up to keep pace with her companions before she can let the gnawing feeling show on her face and blow her cover. Once they're out of earshot of the soldiers, she tries to say something to Rutger, but she keeps stopping and second-guessing herself. It takes a while for her to finally speak up again.

"S... Sorry, Miss Rutger. I.. Uh. I had no idea. Do you want to sit somewhere away from here?"
Nobunaga > "For a Demon King you are quite gentle."

    "I am many things," Nobunaga states, "Some of those things I keep a lid on in order to retain the company I choose to keep. I'm sure you can relate."

    Binah must not be aware of the various times Nobunaga has slipped up.

    Eyes closing, she comments behind her sleeve so the Bernish won't catch her words, "Also 'Stated-sponsored slaughter'? It was a civil war, there was no state. That's what I spent the majority of my first life resolving. If you're going to read into my history, don't skip chapters. As for my second life; your city's laws don't govern me."

    "Sougo..." The warlord bobs her head in thought, "Is a fledgling Demon King. Of course he will struggle as he grows into his station. I look forward to seeing him reach his goal, but he and I are not comparable; I am no fledgling."
Marigold      Fortunately- or unfortunately- the Bernish soldier is too tipsy, and too busy staring out at the pretty sunset-shaded steppe, to notice the prickling gazes of Mori and Rutger upon him.

     "Have you any news before we move on?
     "Ah... lemme think..." he murmurs to Nobunaga, slouching back against the wall.

     <--Sorry-- just-- Just think about the texture of the hilt of your sword...>
     Rutger doesn't outwardly acknowledge Flamel. But she does as he suggests. Her fingers adjust on the sword's handle. She'd hold it this way if she wanted to draw and take the man's head off smoothly. She'd hold it that way if she wanted to plunge it down through his spine...

     The static recedes. She grounds herself. Her face is less red now; she can't feel so much the pulse in her throat. Cool intentionality, slowly, takes the place of red-hot impulse.

     What is her intention, though?

     ". . . If I could cut all of Bern in half at one blow, then I'd be happy. And then I would throw the sword away." She'd said that, a year ago. It rattles in her skull now. Look at this drunk young man, sunning himself practically on the rubble of her childhood home. He doesn't even feel like he's in danger.

     'It'd only be pointless', Lilian says. Flamel can feel that buzz in Rutger's head next to the mental image of the soldier's head beautifully split in half. Her body still has all the tension of a taut bowstring. This one, and then the eight or nine eyewitnesses down the hill. It'd be the work of sixty seconds at most, if none of you helped her. Less if you did.

     "You've more than your sword here right now."
     "I.. Uh. I had no idea. Do you want to sit somewhere away from here?"
     ". . . You're all very kind to me," Rutger says, with a dry mouth and drier throat. "It's... strange, having... things to lose again. Let's go."

"Huh?" the Bernish soldier says.
"Don't worry about it."
"Mnyalright. ... Oh, uh, come t'think of it. Did hear about a Djute encampment down where the river joins, if y'all need feed or anything."
"Thanks."

     . . .

     Dieck, Fir, and Roy all have a collective breath to let out once they're a couple hundred feet further down the road. Rutger just seems distant and clammy, though not unhappy. The tension has bled out of her in an oddly tiring sort of way.

     "... You're right," Roy finally awkwardly says to Lilian and Odette, as he often does. "I guess I don't know how else to say... 'I don't understand the world. I wish it made more sense.' What's the point in being shocked, over and over? Something's... something isn't tuned right. Merlinus and Marcus are kind, but couldn't they take this in stride?"

     "I'm still not sure I get it," Fir shamefully admits, in Lilian's direction. "One second you're saying it sucks I couldn't learn from Mom, and then you're saying I shouldn't want to be like her...? ... Well, I guess it's kind of bad to envy someone for a harder life. I get that."

     Petra, she gets more easily. "... Yeah. Thanks, Petti- er, Petra. 'Wanting' and 'preparing'... well, I'll just push myself as much as I can, and then the only part out of my hands is whether I ever meet a worthy adversary!!"
"Easy, tiger. We'll let you loose on Iðunn when you can take a set off me," Dieck chips in amiably.
"Hey, come on! You're, like, twice my size!"
"And we're both prob'ly like dumplings to her."
"Grrrrh..."