okumura rin (♀) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hellpyre) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thebastion2014-01-21 05:36 pm
hellpyre) wrote in thebastion2014-01-21 05:36 pm
Entry tags:
[Backdate: 147 | CLOSED] Do you listen to yourself?
Who: Rin + Nathaniel // Those two + the Uras and a Cael
Open: CLOSED
When: Day 147
Where: Nathaniel's room -> Zulf's tent
What: Zulf asked a favor of Rin that she's reluctantly agreed to. It won't end well.
Format: Action
Warnings: Swearing, fighting, yelling, DRAMAAAAA
[She didn't want to do this.
But Zulf had asked, and knowing that the other option was sending Colin in... well, for all her uncertainty, she had known Nathaniel a lot longer than the engineer did.
It... just didn't seem like a subject he would be comfortable discussing that much with Colin.
Not that Rin was sure he'd be comfortable discussing it at all but...
The half demon stood at the door, staring at it with her shoulders hunched and lips pressed tightly together. Slowly her hand raised, knocking gently on the wood.]
... Nathaniel... ?
Open: CLOSED
When: Day 147
Where: Nathaniel's room -> Zulf's tent
What: Zulf asked a favor of Rin that she's reluctantly agreed to. It won't end well.
Format: Action
Warnings: Swearing, fighting, yelling, DRAMAAAAA
[She didn't want to do this.
But Zulf had asked, and knowing that the other option was sending Colin in... well, for all her uncertainty, she had known Nathaniel a lot longer than the engineer did.
It... just didn't seem like a subject he would be comfortable discussing that much with Colin.
Not that Rin was sure he'd be comfortable discussing it at all but...
The half demon stood at the door, staring at it with her shoulders hunched and lips pressed tightly together. Slowly her hand raised, knocking gently on the wood.]
... Nathaniel... ?
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She stumbled a few steps to the side, watching the two of them and listening intently, but with her mouth open all the while. Whoa that was some serious hostility right off the bat.
Which was exactly what she had been afraid of. Nathaniel's reaction, Zulf's words during the festival--
Pieces were starting to come together, especially as the bitter, harsh words continued to flow out of the two men.
Nathaniel had known more than he had originally let on, and Zulf knew even more than that. About the Calamity. About what had happened to this world, to their worlds--]
What the fuck are you two talking about?!
[Oops you two probably forgot she was there until that, didn't you]
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All I know is that suddenly we were getting notices about two Ura, and then the next thing I know the world ended. And since you're pretty much admitting to being involved, it's kinda hard not to be suspicious of you.
[He's crossing one of his arms in front of himself, too, and it just happens to be covering up the journal in his shirt pocket.]
And if you think I'm going to just hand this over to someone who might've had a hand in the Calamity, then you're sorely mistaken.
[Sorry Rin, at this point he really has forgotten you are there. He is more focused on being angry and having an easy outlet for that anger right in front of him.]
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[For a brief moment, all he see is red. His hands fly apart from one another, losing all semblance of the fake civility he had and it really does seem as though for a moment he may very well make a go at Nathaniel. There's a look of such intense and bitter loathing on his face that he could choke on it. That's certainly what it feels like, bubbling in his chest and filling his throat.]
[Every bit of him is trembling, nails biting into his palms. When he speaks, it's next directed to Rin although his gaze is still focused right on Nathaniel.]
Has your friend told you about the Point Lemaign War, Rin?
Has he told you about the kind of atrocities the Mancers, the group he so proudly places himself in, were capable of?
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Mainly because she had come to trust Nathaniel. A lot. And she saw him as a leader, which was something she needed in her life. She played the hero, she didn't give directions and guide people. That just wasn't her thing, and she had put a lot of faith in some one that she frankly... didn't know that well, because she had felt at the start there was no one else to turn to after the other Mancer had died.
All she has to hear is 'war', and 'atrocities' for her to feel her heart sink. Her gaze turned to Nathaniel, hand pulling back from any attempt she had started to touch him and get his attention.]
... what is he talking about, Nathaniel? What did the Mancers do?
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Point Lemaign was disputed territory between the Ura and the Caels. An agreement couldn't be reached, so the two people went to war over it. And since Mancers design the weapons, some people-
[Hint Zulf Hint Hint]
blame them for how the war turned out. It's not even comparable in this situation here, he's getting mad about something that happened before I was even born, whereas I'm asking him about something he most likely actually did himself.
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[Zulf listens in taut silence as Nathaniel explains. The answer... isn't surprising. After he had stopped being so damn optimistic, Zulf had quickly become aware of just how much Caelondia wanted to hide the dirty parts of its history. The parts that would make them come off as cruel, or pathetic. No, no, Caelondia simply had to be that all powerful city so many knew it as.]
Before you were born, certainly. But not myself. It's so easy for the winner of a war to say that it meant nothing, isn't it? Caelondia wasn't forced to make its military smaller. Caelondia didn't have to give up so much. Caelondia didn't have to deal with a plague given by the other side while having fewer resources!
[His voice rises towards the end. The plague had come out of nowhere, right on the heels of the war. Some had blamed it on simple bad luck, nature being its capricious self. Others blamed it on Caelondia. Before, even as a child living barefoot and starving in the Terminals, Zulf had always figured it was the former.]
[It's so much harder to be optimistic after the Calamity.]
[He takes in a deep breath, tries to still the violent shaking in his hands.]
But I wouldn't travel all the way to Caelondia over that. Yet the facts remain that the war has everything to do with the Calamity.
Because the Tazal Terminals nearly won it.
[It really is a good thing Rin is there. Seeing her brings some semblance of calm back into Zulf and he folds his hands back to their previous place- one still curled into a fist and covered. Hostility still fills the air about him like smoke, but he keeps his voice level. Bitter and full of hate, but level.]
That's something Caelondia can't stand to admit. They would never want to admit that some un-advanced cavepeople could ever stand up to them in a proper battle. It scared them to think they had wasted so much material and lives fighting against us. That it had been that dangerous.
[Another horrible laugh.]
It's very nearly ironic that a Mancer would try and place the blame of the Calamity on the shoulders of an Ura. Not after what your kind tried to do, Nathaniel.
For the Mancers, the idea of the solution was quite simple.
[And his voice gets colder than anything- colder than ice, colder than steel, colder than Acobi's chains binding about the wrists of oathbreakers and dragging them down.]
A war requires two. If you get rid of the other side completely... then war can't be had again, can it?
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She watched Zulf as he explained. The air was practically charged with the tense anger coming off of both of them, and she slowly turned to stare at Nathaniel, lips parted in shock and, honestly, a certain level of disgust.
She shook her head slowly, stepping back from both men.]
... all this time-- ... you had to know they had somethin' to do with it! My home-- everyone I knew... my sister--!
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[Nathaniel is very firm in his answer.]
You want to know the truth about what happened? I'll tell you the truth. What happened was someone was messing around the observatory. That someone was this guy right here, who clearly is not happy with Caelondia or the Mancers.
When the Calamity happened, it was right after everyone was warned about two Ura who were sticking their noses into places where they didn't belong. And that is the extent of what I know. Doesn't it look suspicious to you? The very moment someone starts poking around at something dangerous, the Calamity happens.
[Now he's pointing an accusatory finger at Zulf, though his eyes are still on Rin.]
And he's not even denying it! He's using double-speak to avoid even addressing the issue!
[Sort of like how Nathaniel is doing exactly the same thing, to avoid talking about the war at all.]
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[God she didn't want to be mad at him. She didn't want to hate him. They were friends, this wasn't supposed to happen!
But it was... and for all her wanting to preserve that friendship, she could only feel the pain in her heart at knowing that Nathaniel had been more aware of what had happened to her world and so many others than he'd let on.]
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And this is why I want Venn's journal. He wrote down everything about the Calamity- he was the one who knew how to make it work, something none of the other Mancers had been able to figure out. The 'why', the 'how', it's all in that journal.
If the other Ura here find out... Stuart or Zanya- I know they'd do something they'd regret.
[Because he regrets his own actions, even now.]
[He starts to move forward towards her, hands coming apart but loose now as he reaches towards her. This means shoving past Nathaniel, but he's not thinking of that right now.]
I came to Caelondia to do what my father had done in the Terminals. I don't want this to dissolve into another war, Rin!
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It's totally not his fault that there is a ledge right near Zulf's house. Or that Nathaniel is so angry that his punch is more of a tackle anyway.
But yeah, time to learn about some Bastion physics!]
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Because the sudden punch flying by her just as Zulf got to her side was startling enough, but watching them both go tumbling over the edge--
That actually gets Rin to scream like some one just got murdered.]
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[He's not expecting that at all, focused on Rin as he is, and he goes tumbling back easily enough. Not once has he ever been a proper fighter, not a soldier. That was his parents, the three of them, but not him. He goes tumbling back from both the force of it and Nathaniel's weight. It's only at the last second do old street habits kick in, earning a punch to Nathaniel's ear-]
[And then they tumble right over the edge before he has a moment to realize what's even happening.]
[Three seconds later, and the two of them go propelling right up again by an enormous push of air, somehow untangling in the panic. This, unfortunately, does not leave much room for grace or landing skills and has Zulf at least landing face first. He pushes himself up on one arm with a curse in his own tongue, blood dribbling down now to go well with the black eye he's no doubt gotten from Nathaniel.]
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Rin, if you're going to intervene, now is the time. These two idiots are momentarily stunned.]
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[They had gone over, and Rin had thought, had been so certain that they had just fallen to their deaths... she had even fallen to her knees with a sob after her scream and crawled to the edge expecting to see nothing but the abyss that stretched beneath the Bastion.
But all at once they were back, practically popping up like demented, flailing jack-in-the-boxes that launched over her just far enough to clear her head. She went jumping back with that vulgar shriek, wincing when they both landed behind her.
God--... at least they were alive but... No. No more of this. It needed to end before it got any worse.
She scrambled to her feet, grabbing Nathaniel by the arm and hauling him up before he could get a chance to break away from her strong grip.]
Zulf, don't follow! Nathaniel, we're leavin'!
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