idolpro | TEMPTATION OF ANGELS, which is named KHRYSAOR: A Heart Game (I)

The pair don't answer you right away and instead wait for you to approach, a choice that could be considered either an indication of patience and discretion or else faintly bored indifference.

The woman speaks first, this time. Up close, you can see that her skin is olive-toned, but with a strange sort of sheen to it at certain angles, like starlight or like the way light refracts through morning new.

"Right, you must be one of Kiri's." She has an alto voice and with a tone set to "no-nonsense" as default. "I suppose she's taking after you, Harlowe, if she's bringing home Treasures."

You can definitely hear the capitalization, there.

[ it takes her a while to process the song, anyway. that's what Hellfire means by Hell—and, to an extent, she hates it. she has to hate things that love the monsters.

but there's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea, and it's not so different a feeling, is it?

but then, sharply, at the woman's words: ]

I don't belong to anyone.

"Right." The man sounds vaguely bored. "You're here, though, aren't you? And you've got her marks."

He nods his head, indicating those new scars that appeared on your body.

"That's Treasure."

That's not—

...they were just there. After I—

.........you were the one who broke her.

"I can only kill with an axe."

He says this like it's an explanation in and of itself—though in fact there's a subtle extra emphasis there: only kill.

"It's what Leli wanted."

...she's talked about Leli before. Like she loves her. Why did she...

"That's how it's done."

The woman has her chin angled as she considers you in a way that's very obviously an assessment. She seems like the sort who expects most things to disappoint her, but there's still an edge of sympathy in her voice as she cuts in—or maybe that's just the fact that she seems to have any investment at all in diplomacy that you're hearing.

She goes on, a touch more gently. "When an Imperator like Leli wants to make a new Noble, there are only two ways she can place a shard of reality inside whoever it is she's chosen: either they've got to eat a human heart, or they've got to die."

A beat. "And we couldn't exactly feed anything to a sword."

[ there's like

a really long pause while she processes that information and "eat a human heart." ]

On second thought I'm really quite glad I didn't have to re-live the experience of eating a human heart.

So it's a... re-forging, of sorts.

"Harlowe and I went through the same thing."

The man—Harlowe, evidently—grunts an acknowledgment, and continues to fix you with his stony gaze.

"But yes, I suppose you could call it that. Maybe it's no wonder, either, why Kiri stayed... cracked like that—" The woman's expression goes a little distant. "—considering the shard Leli gave her."

She shakes her head a moment, as if forcing herself to focus on the here and now.

"I'm Adalet, by the way."

[ contemplative, for a moment— ]

Well, I'm glad of someone available to answer my questions. I'm Hope, which everyone seems to take issue with, but—

A shard of reality, as you said before? What was it?

For the first time, Adalet seems to struggle with her words. "....Scars. Afer Leli... Fell... she made Kiri into Scars."

Harlowe is silent beside her, staring past you, thin lines showing on his face where he clenches his jaw.

Hellfire—Kiri said she was "of Hell," but—

You mean to say, Leli is a fallen angel.

Both their faces go hard and distant.

"...Why are you here."

Oh, don't look at me like that, I have the same question.

Kiri seems to be in some sort of trouble. Having... a bit of a crisis, perhaps? And, well—

We...

[ her phrasing hovers on the tip of a word, and then— ]

...care for her a great deal.

"...A crisis." Adalet echoes the word, voice softer than before.

There aren't just aconite and lotus growing here, actually. Here and there, you can see little clumps of white flowers: snowdrops—the upturned, six-petaled variety that some call Star of Bethlehem. Nearby, a wild rose briar has begun to grow up around a fallen log. (Were those roses there the last time you looked?)

"Yes. Yes, that's a word for it."

It's lonely to feel like there is no place in the world where you fit, even if the place you've landed is a friendly one. It's part of the makings of greatness, I suppose, but all the same.

...does she like flowers?

"She likes killing." This unapologetic bluntness is apparently typical for Harlowe.

"But we all know some Botany. That's what you're seeing, with all this." He jerks his chin in the direction of a clump of aconite and star of bethlehem.

[ squints ]

Like the science?

Harlowe looks at you like you've said something blatantly stupid.

"No. Flower magic. Use the meanings, you channel the flower like it exists in Heaven."

Oh—

"As above, so below."

A nod.

"Like that. And here's the situation: you can only stick so much Destiny in one soul. Two flowers." He holds up two fingers, for emphasis. "Not four."

Harlowe pauses, then meets your eyes very deliberately. "But there is always a choice."

Aconite, lotus, wild rose, star of Bethlehem—

There's too much. So she has to decide which ones she ought to be?

"Yes."

Adalet again. There's something in her—a kind of tiredness—which is far more ancient than an apparently living woman should be.

"She's been shattered twice now. So."

In that case, if it's hurting her—

Well, we could simply uproot some of the flowers, but firstly—it seems there's a great many of them, and secondly, it seems if they want to grow back, they surely will.

So she needs help reaching a decision. Where is she?

"At least you pick things up fast enough.

"The flowers are here because of her, not the other way around. Put your effort, and your choice, where they count."

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