[Illarion had been doing so well at opsec through the Tower's illness--except he'd made the occasional mistake of replying to those who hadn't been so cautious. Like so:
(It opens on him laughing.)]
I am thinking not, princeling. I am long out of that game. [The briefest pause.] The last woman for me had me killed on her orders and left my corpse for necromancers.
And your father, being one such necromancer, seems more interested in me for a project than how pretty I display my feathers.
consensus realities mean that all misfires go where they're supposed to, right...?
He isn't expecting his Omni to choose to alter its display, out of the blue, from the most recent Evdokim journal he's been reading to ... this? A view of Cassowary, laughing, speaking into his own Omni.
The image flickers, and the 'camera' moves, and he realizes this must be what Iskierka is seeing.
The image freezes; he thinks about what he heard, even as he ends up with a stupidly fond smile on his face — not that he notices — but it's nice to be able to just look at his bird-brother, without worrying about any form of corruption resulting.
"To be fair, of course, you display your feathers very prettily," he says, and before he thinks better he adds, "and it seems Eska always thought so, too, so I can't help but think there's more of a story than I've heard, before, about the rest of it."
Then, of course, his mind catches up to his tongue, and he winces.
Time, like space, has been strangely bent in places with the Tower's advancing illness. It's thus that an offhand comment Illarion made, oh, a while ago to Kiriona comes back round to bite him.
The message Iskierka faithfully relays from Ava is an odd one without context, enough to make him believe briefly his sworn-brother's victim of another mis-delivered message. Except--
Eska. And--his feathers. Why would--
He fumbles the stick of incense--unlit, still--he's holding; swears, and retrieves it. (Bitter startlement bleeds into the bond, and a contracting raw-edged sorrow like a salted wound.) He shouldn't have been flip about that; he shouldn't have even answered Kiriona, let alone tried to draw her out with false parallels--
"It's not a story I usually tell," he retorts, to Iskierka. "So just my bad luck you got that piece of it.
"Where are you?" He knows Ava, and knows what Ava's asking, and knows moreover he doesn't want this going anywhere else over the network.
He looks up again, and squints a little as he looks around, and then stands up and approaches the edge of the roof he's been sitting on, until he can spy a familiar-enough landmark.
(His regular route around Trench has been messed up, this month, with all the architectural foibles of the Tower's "little difficulties"; taking to the roofs has at least slightly minimized the likelihood he'll end up where he has no interest in going.)
"About a half-block west of Earworm, looks like," he answers. "Am I interrupting your conversation with our darling Tower Prince, or was that some time ago?"
Time, of course, is also a problem for Illarion more generally-- Whether he's corrupted, or he's simply lost track of any kind of circadian pattern owing to winter's week sunlight.
So there's a little roiling sort of pause before he answers that question: "A few days. Enough I'd forgotten mentioning her."
Esfir, not Kiriona.
"It was a stupid thing to do on a compromised channel. I'll be there shortly, if you want to hear more of it."
"I think I'm glad it wasn't live, at least," he answers after a moment's reflection, and settles back down on a nice chunk of rooftop masonry. "I'll wait for you."
It's peaceful, up here. He waits, and he thinks about the past spring, and how it had been on a rooftop very like this one where he'd made the acquaintance of the Pthumerian who — shortly thereafter — decided that he ought to be turned invisible; the same Pthumerian who had gifted him a tremendously useful blanket that had been able to withstand even wasp stingers, during John's corruption incidents in July, all the way back in the beginning of May.
Bausphomette. What a strange name; what a strange creature — and yet, profoundly comforting to have around, too. Would that they would go give the Tower a hug, instead. Maybe it would help alleviate whatever affliction was fucking up architecture all over town.
He does muster a laugh at that--a hollow, etiolated laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. Wonder of wonders there's even a feeling through the bond corresponding to it--a sick amusement, an imagine how badly that could have gone.
It's not so long after that inadequate sign-off that there's a fluttering of feather-and-mothscale very near Augustine's position, and Iskierka plumps herself down comfortably at his side. Someone much larger lands on the rooftop a few minutes later, and makes his way to where the Lyctor's sitting.
He's, oddly, still carrying incense. Odder still, he passed Ava and stoops at the roof's edge to set down a tiny burner, place the stick in it, and light it to perfume the air. It's not one of the anti-corruption or Beast-warding blends, simply something sweet and subtle with a redolence of rose and lumenflower. (Something about this particular roof pulls reverence out of the shrike, and he's always one to act on that.)
Ritual complete, Illarion stalks back to his brother-bondmate, out-feathers ruffling. He doesn't sit down--not yet--but leans himself against an upthrust projection of the roof instead.
For once, Augustine doesn't have a cigarette in hand, in the moment when Cassowary appears. He watches, instead, chin in hand, Omni cupped absently in the other, observing the solemnity with the incense, and then he answers:
"I don't recognize that blend."
There's a sort of question, in his voice, or perhaps in the wary curiosity underpinning it; either way, he continues.
"Is it connected, in some way, to the story of how the two of you separated? Or is there some other reason for it?"
(He can't imagine, between knowing Cas as well as he does — as well as he remembers, at least — and the stories of a young Hydraheart found in Preservation's diaries, that Esfir could have turned on him like that while they were together, side by side, united in Evdokim's vision.)
"No." No. Anything he burned for what had happened between him and Esfir would be funerary--bitter with myrrh and crocus and sweet with the stench of lilies.
"A minor Pthumerian haunts this district. I disturbed her once and haven't seen her again. Leaving a peace-offering seems only right."
If only other broken relationships could be as easily mended with patience and gifts (if only the other party were in Trench, to afford that avenue for closure). He folds his arms across his narrow chest, unseeing eyes turned outward toward the horizon beyond the enthusiastic hodgepodge of roofs before them.
"We never separated. Not--formally. Not in truth." The words are halting, uneven, like he's got to put fangs in each of them before sharing them. "Or I didn't think we had, whatever the distance and difficulty between us.
A logical explanation, then, for the incense; it isn't as if he's going to complain about someone putting smoke in the air in his vicinity, regardless, but it does seem to conclude the topic rather thoroughly, doesn't it – either way, he doesn't say anything else about the incense, or the aforementioned minor Pthumerian, because the rest of what's being said matters a great deal more.
"I thought," he says, choosing his words with profound care, "there was a war going on, when you were killed...? Also that she didn't stab you personally, through the heart, at the time."
A breath more of consideration, and really there's only one thing left to add, with an equally-solemn selection of his words:
"You know what they say about 'assuming', don't you?"
That last gets a bark of a laugh out of the shrike--a hard, forced thing with uncomfortable echoes to it.
"There's only one tongue that works in, Ava, and it's not our first." But it's a roundabout way of saying he takes the point, and less indirect is how he relents enough to come sit by his sworn-brother. Albeit with his spine still rigid and arms (and arms, and arms) still tucked against himself--but, he sits.
"She ordered my execution." Toneless, as words uttered from a dead heart ought to be. (Except the roil of pain and betrayal beneath their bond's surface puts the lie to that.) "Our execution. Every traitor in Sacrifices' colors to be put to the sword, even if they pled truce and asked for clemency."
Frustration, shame, fury undergird that. The last's so strong he actually grinds his teeth before continuing: "I gathered, from context, her forces had picked up others who'd lied about that. Who tried assassinating her and Al--my Warlord-second under a truce flag. Not on my orders."
Never on his orders. Thus the fury, crimson-red and roiling.
"But the soldiers who caught me--" No, galling as his own fatal mistakes were, he's got to admit them. He hadn't been caught. "--who took my surrender made it very clear there was no way in Hell she'd want to see me alive."
Made it clear with more than words alone. While his injuries since his death had been roughly mended by the cruel magic that brought him back, the death-wound itself hadn't. The boot-shaped contusions and cracks in his ribs that proceeded it hadn't.
'Al' — not his Warlord-second, not the target of the assassination attempt floating refreshed in his thoughts and memories, no, but the Al who is present, here and now on this enTrenched rooftop — is present, suddenly and viciously, mouth open and venomous fangs bared mere inches from the shrike's own.
(Augustine's breath catches, beside them, for the slightest moment of surprise/resignation, before he lets it out in a sigh that chooses not to insert a joke about kissing.)
«You think her soldiers were less selfish than yours, is that it? Nothing but the tools she used to reach forth to exterminate you like an unwanted insect, squished under their boots?»
(Another silent twitch from Augustine, whose awareness of those subdermal hematomas had evidently been borrowed at some point without asking; still, he lets his brother's scolding continue, as the one of them who better understood how to talk to the troops, to lead them, to forge them into a unit with a single goal of fulfilling a holy mandate — rather than merely seducing them, in small numbers that nevertheless progressed through the crowd. Perhaps Cassowary needs to be scolded soldier-to-soldier, rather than comforted by a lover-priest sort; perhaps he needs more of a one-two punch. They'll see.)
«If you never ordered an assassination attempt, why would you expect her — a priest who loved her people! — to order extrajudicial murders? Here I thought your people practically fetishized explicit-contract-adherence! Did your world just not have any universal conventions regarding the treatment of prisoners of war? Executing a surrendered soldier is dicey enough — doing so without getting all your paperwork in order first, though — without them making certain you've made peace with your gods, without letting you speak to any priests, even if it isn't the one they're worried about you trying to assassinate yourself — ARE you fucking kidding me, here, or are you just too busy being certain that she has to have betrayed you to consider how incredibly fucked-up the entire situation is, for her to discover that her long-term lover, the father of her children, has been murdered by her soldiers after his surrender?!»
"I would like to add something," Augustine murmurs delicately, even as he forces down the chills along his own spine caused merely by being adjacent to his brother's tirade — and then scrambling to have his thoughts in an understandable order quickly enough to avoid a lengthy pause.
... Oh, right.
"How the fuck did the two of you end up on opposite sides of a war in the first place?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
time is an illusion, have a misfire
(It opens on him laughing.)]
I am thinking not, princeling. I am long out of that game. [The briefest pause.] The last woman for me had me killed on her orders and left my corpse for necromancers.
And your father, being one such necromancer, seems more interested in me for a project than how pretty I display my feathers.
consensus realities mean that all misfires go where they're supposed to, right...?
The image flickers, and the 'camera' moves, and he realizes this must be what Iskierka is seeing.
The image freezes; he thinks about what he heard, even as he ends up with a stupidly fond smile on his face — not that he notices — but it's nice to be able to just look at his bird-brother, without worrying about any form of corruption resulting.
"To be fair, of course, you display your feathers very prettily," he says, and before he thinks better he adds, "and it seems Eska always thought so, too, so I can't help but think there's more of a story than I've heard, before, about the rest of it."
Then, of course, his mind catches up to his tongue, and he winces.
(And bites it.)
no subject
The message Iskierka faithfully relays from Ava is an odd one without context, enough to make him believe briefly his sworn-brother's victim of another mis-delivered message. Except--
Eska. And--his feathers. Why would--
He fumbles the stick of incense--unlit, still--he's holding; swears, and retrieves it. (Bitter startlement bleeds into the bond, and a contracting raw-edged sorrow like a salted wound.) He shouldn't have been flip about that; he shouldn't have even answered Kiriona, let alone tried to draw her out with false parallels--
"It's not a story I usually tell," he retorts, to Iskierka. "So just my bad luck you got that piece of it.
"Where are you?" He knows Ava, and knows what Ava's asking, and knows moreover he doesn't want this going anywhere else over the network.
no subject
(His regular route around Trench has been messed up, this month, with all the architectural foibles of the Tower's "little difficulties"; taking to the roofs has at least slightly minimized the likelihood he'll end up where he has no interest in going.)
"About a half-block west of Earworm, looks like," he answers. "Am I interrupting your conversation with our darling Tower Prince, or was that some time ago?"
no subject
So there's a little roiling sort of pause before he answers that question: "A few days. Enough I'd forgotten mentioning her."
Esfir, not Kiriona.
"It was a stupid thing to do on a compromised channel. I'll be there shortly, if you want to hear more of it."
no subject
It's peaceful, up here. He waits, and he thinks about the past spring, and how it had been on a rooftop very like this one where he'd made the acquaintance of the Pthumerian who — shortly thereafter — decided that he ought to be turned invisible; the same Pthumerian who had gifted him a tremendously useful blanket that had been able to withstand even wasp stingers, during John's corruption incidents in July, all the way back in the beginning of May.
Bausphomette. What a strange name; what a strange creature — and yet, profoundly comforting to have around, too. Would that they would go give the Tower a hug, instead. Maybe it would help alleviate whatever affliction was fucking up architecture all over town.
no subject
It's not so long after that inadequate sign-off that there's a fluttering of feather-and-mothscale very near Augustine's position, and Iskierka plumps herself down comfortably at his side. Someone much larger lands on the rooftop a few minutes later, and makes his way to where the Lyctor's sitting.
He's, oddly, still carrying incense. Odder still, he passed Ava and stoops at the roof's edge to set down a tiny burner, place the stick in it, and light it to perfume the air. It's not one of the anti-corruption or Beast-warding blends, simply something sweet and subtle with a redolence of rose and lumenflower. (Something about this particular roof pulls reverence out of the shrike, and he's always one to act on that.)
Ritual complete, Illarion stalks back to his brother-bondmate, out-feathers ruffling. He doesn't sit down--not yet--but leans himself against an upthrust projection of the roof instead.
"Where should I start?"
no subject
"I don't recognize that blend."
There's a sort of question, in his voice, or perhaps in the wary curiosity underpinning it; either way, he continues.
"Is it connected, in some way, to the story of how the two of you separated? Or is there some other reason for it?"
(He can't imagine, between knowing Cas as well as he does — as well as he remembers, at least — and the stories of a young Hydraheart found in Preservation's diaries, that Esfir could have turned on him like that while they were together, side by side, united in Evdokim's vision.)
no subject
"A minor Pthumerian haunts this district. I disturbed her once and haven't seen her again. Leaving a peace-offering seems only right."
If only other broken relationships could be as easily mended with patience and gifts (if only the other party were in Trench, to afford that avenue for closure). He folds his arms across his narrow chest, unseeing eyes turned outward toward the horizon beyond the enthusiastic hodgepodge of roofs before them.
"We never separated. Not--formally. Not in truth." The words are halting, uneven, like he's got to put fangs in each of them before sharing them. "Or I didn't think we had, whatever the distance and difficulty between us.
"She thought otherwise. I assume."
no subject
"I thought," he says, choosing his words with profound care, "there was a war going on, when you were killed...? Also that she didn't stab you personally, through the heart, at the time."
A breath more of consideration, and really there's only one thing left to add, with an equally-solemn selection of his words:
"You know what they say about 'assuming', don't you?"
no subject
"There's only one tongue that works in, Ava, and it's not our first." But it's a roundabout way of saying he takes the point, and less indirect is how he relents enough to come sit by his sworn-brother. Albeit with his spine still rigid and arms (and arms, and arms) still tucked against himself--but, he sits.
"She ordered my execution." Toneless, as words uttered from
a dead heart ought to be. (Except the roil of pain and betrayal beneath their bond's surface puts the lie to that.) "Our execution. Every traitor in Sacrifices' colors to be put to the sword, even if they pled truce and asked for clemency."
Frustration, shame, fury undergird that. The last's so strong he actually grinds his teeth before continuing: "I gathered, from context, her forces had picked up others who'd lied about that. Who tried assassinating her and Al--my Warlord-second under a truce flag. Not on my orders."
Never on his orders. Thus the fury, crimson-red and roiling.
"But the soldiers who caught me--" No, galling as his own fatal mistakes were, he's got to admit them. He hadn't been caught. "--who took my surrender made it very clear there was no way in Hell she'd want to see me alive."
Made it clear with more than words alone. While his injuries since his death had been roughly mended by the cruel magic that brought him back, the death-wound itself hadn't. The boot-shaped contusions and cracks in his ribs that proceeded it hadn't.
no subject
'Al' — not his Warlord-second, not the target of the assassination attempt floating refreshed in his thoughts and memories, no, but the Al who is present, here and now on this enTrenched rooftop — is present, suddenly and viciously, mouth open and venomous fangs bared mere inches from the shrike's own.
(Augustine's breath catches, beside them, for the slightest moment of surprise/resignation, before he lets it out in a sigh that chooses not to insert a joke about kissing.)
«You think her soldiers were less selfish than yours, is that it? Nothing but the tools she used to reach forth to exterminate you like an unwanted insect, squished under their boots?»
(Another silent twitch from Augustine, whose awareness of those subdermal hematomas had evidently been borrowed at some point without asking; still, he lets his brother's scolding continue, as the one of them who better understood how to talk to the troops, to lead them, to forge them into a unit with a single goal of fulfilling a holy mandate — rather than merely seducing them, in small numbers that nevertheless progressed through the crowd. Perhaps Cassowary needs to be scolded soldier-to-soldier, rather than comforted by a lover-priest sort; perhaps he needs more of a one-two punch. They'll see.)
«If you never ordered an assassination attempt, why would you expect her — a priest who loved her people! — to order extrajudicial murders? Here I thought your people practically fetishized explicit-contract-adherence! Did your world just not have any universal conventions regarding the treatment of prisoners of war? Executing a surrendered soldier is dicey enough — doing so without getting all your paperwork in order first, though — without them making certain you've made peace with your gods, without letting you speak to any priests, even if it isn't the one they're worried about you trying to assassinate yourself — ARE you fucking kidding me, here, or are you just too busy being certain that she has to have betrayed you to consider how incredibly fucked-up the entire situation is, for her to discover that her long-term lover, the father of her children, has been murdered by her soldiers after his surrender?!»
"I would like to add something," Augustine murmurs delicately, even as he forces down the chills along his own spine caused merely by being adjacent to his brother's tirade — and then scrambling to have his thoughts in an understandable order quickly enough to avoid a lengthy pause.
... Oh, right.
"How the fuck did the two of you end up on opposite sides of a war in the first place?"