September & October Catch-All

[spiritwalks]

Who: Vyng spiritwalks and YOU
What: Catch-All for September + October. See comments for prompts!
When: Various
Where: Various

Note: Style veers wildly between prose and brackets. Just choose whatever style feels good when responding, and I'll match it ♥

Content Warnings: Listed in subject lines when applicable

Comments

[spiritwalks]

[Illarion's correction feels pedantic in the moment. Plenty of mortals would disagree with that distinction, he's pretty sure. To them, the act of thinking is evidence of true consciousness. "If I think, I must exist." But that's getting into the philosophical weeds, and Vyng doesn't have the appetite for it right now.

Strangely, the bearing of sharp teeth doesn't bother him. Animalistic traits like that serve to distance Illarion from the elves Vyng grew up around. He's willing to take the grin at face value.

The rest of his story — those faded, dingy parts that clash with the gilded narrative of heroes and noble sacrifice — gives Vyng pause, however. Now that Illarion isn't picking his body language apart anymore, the tension in his face smoothes over.]

Why would they hate you for giving up your immortality?

[unsheathedfromreality]

Oh, they do not hate us for that. [That shrikes were mortal was surely a comfort to many, back home on Nephele.] At first, they hated out of fear, because we are pillar-touched and bled strangeness into the world.

Now, they hate us because we did not let them hide from themselves what war is, or what it cost.

[Illarion's apparent humor vanishes like a popped soap bubble. He sits up a little straighter, his unfocused gaze trained somewhere over Vyng's right shoulder. There is something almost didactic (and detached) about his tone now.] We no longer came freely, to fight for anyone who begged us and whose cause seemed just. We contracted, and who could pay the prices we set for the injustice of what they wanted done, we served. Provided they agreed to our service, once they knew fully what we would do--with their enemies, and their treasure.

What we were pointed at, we destroyed, leaving nothing and no one for spoils or captives. [There's something ruinously masochistic about baring this to a stranger who wouldn't know him from Loneliness, in a world where his own continued existence might hinge on whether or not other Sleepers rejected him as a monster. It isn't even a fair telling; it compresses centuries of their lives into a single instant, and reduces the miring complexities of balancing contracts (and seeking juster resolutions short of warfare and backing those who served peace) into a brutal ultimatum.

But then, it is the unfair telling someone who hated them would give, and that is the grime beneath the gilding Vyng seems to wish to hear.

He can tally up the price and justice and diplomatic wisdom of all of that and still think: So be it.

(He deserves whatever's coming to him.)] What we were paid, we paid again to those whose lives were torn by the ruin we had made.

There is no weight of gold that will replace a mother or a father, a wife or a husband, sister or brother or child. But now any who paid us must consider that whatever orphans they make, these now have the means for vengeance.

It stopped many who would buy our services. It did not stop all.

[spiritwalks]

So, to avoid breaking your oaths, you kept your clients from raking in wartime profits? And then you passed any coin you made onto your victims?

[Vyng tries to imagine committing himself to a cause like that. Honestly, he's made some awfully dumb decisions without considering the broader consequences of his actions. Like when he gave blood samples to a client with a, uh...history of tracking down and killing people who cross her. In hindsight, that was probably a bad career move for a mercenary to make.]

Well, you sure didn't call yourselves "shrikes" for nothing. [As he speaks, the agitation from before has largely melted away.] Fast, precise, brutal, nothing personal. Name definitely checks out.

[The detached tone isn't lost on Vyng. Illarion clearly isn't somebody who relishes in killing, that much is clear. Maybe it speaks to his own loathing of anything even remotely elven, that the "ugly" version of the story would somehow end up less offensive than the pristine one (that, he realizes, might help those who tell it sleep better at night). Admitting to any ugliness at all is a huge improvement in Vyng's book.]

If you wanted to dissuade people from hiring you so badly, how come you didn't turn any jobs down? Was it pride? Or were your oaths, like...magically binding somehow?

[unsheathedfromreality]

[A flicker of surprise crosses Illarion's face as the questions--and more importantly, the tone, and what little of Vyng's body language he can sense--register. He wasn't expecting continued curiosity, clearly, in the face of that explanation. He nods mutely; the other man has the right of how they operated.

(This is something learned about himself, too, and his own motives and where they've gotten snarled up over the years. He can think about it, or he can shelve it with a promise to think about later and then never dig it up. Second one's far more appealing.)

He isn't left speechless for long, though, and gives a huffing little laugh at the appraisal of their name.]

We did not wish to lie to anyone, after all. It is much better if they cannot say we tricked them.

As for that... [As for the matter of turning jobs down... He tips his head down, as if he could stare at the sand beneath his toes, and rakes a hand through his braids in a universal gesture of discomfort.] There are many reasons. Pride is one, yes; a twisted kind, I think, to know we could do whatever we were called on to do.

Another is reputation--not so much that we cherished how we were thought of, [obviously not, given they'd taken on a role that basically guaranteed them animosity from every direction, however well they managed it,] as if we were seen as trustworthy in doing the worst jobs, then those wishing to commit greater horrors and thinking they could pay our prices, they would come to us. Sometimes, this meant we could avert a disaster, or blunt it. We were known best for war, but we had other methods. Often even the hateful were glad to be told they could have us for cheaper, if they followed our guidance to ending their wars.

[They had inserted themselves neatly into the entire engine of conflict for many nations under their jurisdiction, and they did have their triumphs. Sometimes.] Another is--we did want them to stop their wars, and find another way to live; we thought, if the consequences of war hit them all at once, and there were no spoils in it, they might be shocked to peace.

[Needless to say it hadn't worked.]

Even when it was clear that was not working, we could not change our course. It is not our oaths binding us by magic--it had been long and long since the Queen of Oaths yielded the Throne--as we became fixated. Somehow. I have not come up with an answer for how, only something trapped us. Something we had done to ourselves, that we could not even speak of.

[spiritwalks]

["Something we had done to ourselves, that we could not even speak of." Ah. Those words resonate with Vyng on a deep level. He thinks he understands, even if their circumstances were vastly different.]

Sometimes you break yourself because you think it's for the greater good. But then it turns out you fucked everything else along the way. [Siiiiigh.] ...Man. I hate it when that happens.

[Said in a tone that's probably more suitable for talking about locking your keys inside the house, or having your power shut off because you forgot to pay your bills. But hey. Sometimes that heavy shit is just your life.]

Thanks for sharing. [Vyng tries to meet Illarion's gaze.] You didn't have to. I mean, I did lash out because I was projecting my own baggage onto you, so...

[unsheathedfromreality]

[Sometimes that heavy shit is just your life.

The casual tone's a better cure for Illarion's momentary funk than anything else could be, old soldier that he is. No one could ever wax too serious for too long in a barracks without being brought back down to earth. The shrike snorts in a sound that's not-quite-a-laugh but damned close.]

You have been through that one a time or two yourself, hm? The worst is that it is a mistake so easy to repeat.

[It took a certain personality to sacrifice itself on the altar of the world's benefit, and what do you know, they were also great at convincing themselves this time would be different.]

So, I could have walked, rather than try to turn the blow. [He lifts his head, smiling brief and sharp. And...not quite able to meet Vyng's gaze, though he's got the direction nearly correct.

He is definitely blind.] But it is better to come to an understanding, in so small a world, where we are like to run into each other again.

Perhaps sometime you will even tell me about how fucking awful your elves are. Or, we go back to talking about my favorite mammalian features.

[spiritwalks]

[Vyng tilts his own head upward, and he gazes out into the gloomy sky above. You have been through that one a time or two yourself...]

Something like that, yeah.

[It's difficult enough unpacking that stuff alone. He's not going into details. Just like he doubts his companion wants to relive his own trauma. The lack of direct eye-contact isn't lost on Vyng. They both have their own battle scars, it seems.

Still, that last comment brings a sly smile to Vyng's lips. He shifts in the sand, so he can turn his full attention back to the other man.]

Mmm, I think you can guess which I'd prefer.

[A pause.]

...Would you like some tea, by the way?

[This guy seems dehydrated.]

[unsheathedfromreality]

[They did have far better things to talk about than old and ugly pasts.

Illarion echoes the other man's smile; he can't see it, but hearing it-- Ah, it's a heady thing to be desired. (As he remembers, anyway. The actual feeling is transient; slips through his grasp like fog. But maybe--)]

Yes, I think I can. Where did I leave off?

[Then he blinks, as in pleasant surprise.]

If you are offering, I would take a cup. It has been too long since last I had one.

[No one else in the Knights Pariah would bother and tea wasn't a solo drink.]