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You're at the reintro. You're at the heartgame. You're at the combination reintro/heartgame.
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.
- Pablo Neruda
✦
bought a bubblegum scented sword so the last thing
my enemies realise is how fun and cute i am
- wolfpupy
Re: CHANCEL LELI
[ she picks herself up out of the pond, and takes her jacket off to wring it out, at least. ]
She's still at a crossroads, then.
Re: CHANCEL LELI
Adalet glances at Harlowe; he answers her with a noncommittal shrug.
"So: yes. The roots of the thing... always go deeper than you think they do."
Re: CHANCEL LELI
Then, where to go next... I recall your colleague suggested heaven's garden or the vengeance room.
Or is it "roomm"?
1/2
"–But if that's what Quentin said, those are your options. There are some things he doesn't ever fuck up."
Re: CHANCEL LELI
Quentin looks exactly as travel-worn as he did when you saw him last.
"You're remembering correctly though, yes. I can show you how to use the bridges, if you're ready. Leli's, ah..."
He looks out across the clearing, and then at Adalet, and trails off.
"Ah. You can leave whenever you're ready, I mean."
Re: CHANCEL LELI
Re: CHANCEL LELI
"Or would be, if you were one of us."
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1/2
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"So what do you think."
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...and don't worry, I didn't bring any pamphlets.
1/2
("Oh, yeah, he'd definitely have killed you." "He'd have killed you." Quentin and Adalet apparently agree on this one.)
"...But you didn't. Tried to die to get in, the whole bit. Even if you're no good at the 'dying' part. That kind of commitment to Familia—" A nod. "—It's worth something.
Re: CHANCEL LELI
Adalet smiles thinly—a strangely forlorn expression on her.
"When Leli ennobled the three of us, she was still Leliel, after all."
Re: CHANCEL LELI
Choice is the most important thing one has, after all.
Kiri's sort of... new to choices, though, isn't she. And she only ever knew Leli?
1/2
"...She only ever knew this Leli, at least."
("We had some...ah, misadventures with alternate universes, let's call them," Quentin offers by way of explanation—but neither of the others seems eager to go into detail.)
"But we would never have denied her the ability to make choices—certainly not with Harlowe around." (He grunts affirmatively.) "The entire time we knew Kiri, though... I don't think she ever wanted anything else. Just Leli. The way she cared about her..."
Adalet trails off, uncomfortable in a way you can already recognize as uncharacteristic of her.
Re: CHANCEL LELI
"Not that any of us really care to be law-abiding." For a moment, Harlowe might have even smirked.
And around you, delicate white heads of Star of Bethlehem snowdrops begin to lift from the soil.
Re: CHANCEL LELI
[ her eyes linger on the flowers unfurling from the soil; it's a pretty straightforward visual metaphor, huh. ]
...well, I suppose—love is something that's very important to her, so I shouldn't be surprised.
[ she glances toward where Leli was, last time. ]
Re: CHANCEL LELI
"Thou Shalt Not Love Another
Thou Shall Harm None Who Has Done No Harm
Treat No Beast as Your Lord
Protect No Power From the Justice of the Code
Serve Thy Imperator Before the War, and the War Before Thyself."
Harlowe has clearly recited these same words dozens—perhaps hundreds—of times.
Leli is where you remember her, sitting on a smooth stone in the center of the clearing. When you look at her, you accidentally meet her eyes—she's been watching this.
Re: CHANCEL LELI
"Thou shalt not love another"?
That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. That's the whole point of anything.
And... I suppose, speaking of which—I should get going, to do right by Kiri Hellfire, shouldn't I?
Re: CHANCEL LELI
Both Harlowe and Quentin stay silent, then. In the quiet, you can hear the wind rustling the branches of tall pines (in the distance, some are burning); in the breeze, the purple aconite sways.
"....We'll never forgive the Locust Court for what they did to us. So. Good luck."
Re: CHANCEL LELI
I appreciate it. You, then—Quentin, wasn't it? If you would show me the way.
Re: CHANCEL LELI
Quentin shoulders his pack. The course of the conversation has brought out an uncharacteristic steadiness in him—he is a man often lost, but in this, he knows exactly what to do.
"Here—" He gestures you over as he begins to walk towards the edge of one of the ponds, to the base of one of the crumbling bridges.
Re: CHANCEL LELI
...well, I suppose it doesn't have to make logical sense in a place like this.
Re: CHANCEL LELI
"Does it feel illogical to you...?"
Quentin's voice is kindly, but both the question and the quizzical head-tilt seem genuine.
"The Fourth Age To Come isn't here yet, either, after all, and still it is part of our journey....." And for a slightly too-long moment, he seems to look past you. Not towards the horizon (for there is none here), but at something perhaps only he can see.
( . . . )
"Anyway! Off you go: Fix the destination in your mind, and you'll find the other side of the bridge is exactly where you need it to be."
Re: CHANCEL LELI
[ that seems
maybe not good? this is how Kiri remembers him, rather than how he is, but... ]
...well. Thank you for the advice. If I think of it as a metaphor...
[ she looks at him for a long moment, and then proceeds across the bridge. heaven's garden heaven's garden heaven's gardenheaven'sgarden how hard can she think about it— ]
Re: CHANCEL LELI