video | un: wisdom

[mashiara]

Right. Meet Kharil-asuk, ( she gestures to the side, where... it's incredibly difficult to tell there is a massive, unreasonably large snake god in the dappled shadows of the foliage. ) who assures he'll donate his venom if any of our number confess to him the darkest crime you've performed. He promises no retribution, only a start to redemption.

Which does not include devouring. Regardless. Please help. I can walk away and leave my pendant with him, or I can stay. As Wisdom, I've heard the best and worst of people many times before.

( She waits, expectant. Any who does confess a crime, betrayal, or sin can (on player choice) feel more at peace with it or relieved, for up to 24 hours. What brief kindness! )

Comments

[vestments]

Believe me, I hate cults as much as the next guy.
But some gods don't hate ( HMM, what's the best word for it— ) offerings. That's all I mean.

I know a god that lives off vengeance and everything that entails.
Or he would, if he still had a choice in the matter.

[mashiara]

Right. ( that. sounds far too probable. ) In which case the one we're dealing with here has varied tastes in what offerings he finds enjoyable. Marriages and the knowledge of crimes and the awareness of who has bloodshed on their hands.

[vestments]

( at that, marc finally switches audio. a huff of breath that's not a laugh, not by any stretch of the imagination, but manages to be humourless amusement all the same. )

They all do. Rarely is there a god that finds just one thing pleasing.

( a breath of a pause. contemplation. he's spoken of it previously, in roundabout ways that don't quite explain the ins and outs. the exact nature of what and why. )

You offered to walk away for our sakes, but what of yours? Confessions hold weight not just for the one sharing.

[mashiara]

Would that they could.

( thinking less on this, in all its tangle, than on what it might mean if the dark one back home were less greedy; if his want was not the kind of ending worlds, and what it has been, what it would be, to have the wheel stop spinning for their pattern threaded to a burned, consumed whole.

... these aren't the thoughts she wants, but they pair neatly with the idea of other people's confessions. something in all of them is a weaving, to a pattern not influenced by one pair of hands alone. )

I've been a Wisdom for long enough to know how some people need to be heard. Handling what that is for me after is accepting it's nothing to be fixed or changed. Which isn't easy, let alone for a healer, but we don't only look to heal bodies.

( whatever she can offer that does help with healing minds, then certainly. Even if she's not sure how much she can do, specifically, listening and biting down on her tongue is one way. facing down everything that comes at her is another, including whatever lurks in the hearts of those she travels with. not without weight, not without consequence. she breathes out, longer, slower, ignoring the whisper-calling of her name from the four youths who are not there. )

[vestments]

( marc doesn't think that quite answers his question. it's a nice answer, one that essentially amounts to 'it doesn't matter' (he thinks), one that says she's willing and prepared to listen to whatever comes her way regardless of whether it's something she deserves — in the sense of being subjected to — to hear.

he's never really discussed it with andrea, his therapist, the one that'd been mandated by the avengers, the consequence of his most recent fuck up. they'd spoken of marc most of all, of his thoughts and his feelings, of his avoidance. of whether he is or isn't a threat. he'd played at being insulted, like it came as a surprise after everything he'd done.

like steven hadn't said, like jake hadn't agreed, that everything wrong with marc's life is the result of marc's actions and choices and nothing else. )

The venom's needed?

( it's not about redemption, not really. redemption doesn't happen like this and marc isn't sure it ever really happens for men like him. what might happen is he does something good for a change, has a positive impact, and maybe he'll find a little peace. a little quiet. a respite between nightmares and voices.

darkest crime. )

[mashiara]

( whatever his considerations must be, whatever his knowledge of gods and the wants of beings posed as greater than those around them, or at least different, this is answered with the facts as she knows them: a hum of acknowledgement, a curt nod, and the words that follow. )

For the king of these people, to prevent the bloodshed that follows when would be rulers fight each other to declare which of them is most fit. When frankly the people who make the world work suffer the most from it.

I'd say yes. Before more nonsense visits them all, it's needed.

[vestments]

( she could've stopped at 'to prevent the bloodshed' and that would've been enough. he hums then, a curt noise punctuated by a momentary silence.

darkest crime. it should be easy but—. )

I'm not a nice man. ( uttered plainly, matter of factly. ) I used to fight wars without caring who I was fighting for, whether I was on the right side or the wrong side as long as I got paid. Some people like to call it private contracting, but that's a cute euphemism for the truth: bad men working for other bad men for money.

I worked under one man, Raoul, for a time. He enjoyed fear, the power it'd bring. I stood by as he ripped out throats with his teeth. ( a beat. ) He killed me and so I killed him. He left me to die in the desert and so I carved off his face as tribute to my god. Khonshu, the one who feasts on hearts. ( then at least, even if it's been a while, even if marc's never taken the time to really, truly consider how much of it was khonshu and how much of it was marc. ) Raoul Bushman was a murderer, but so am I. Two sides of the same coin.

Are war criminals dark enough for Kharil-asuk?

[mashiara]

( Hold quiet, out of respect. War is come again to the world as she knows it, but it wasn't so far out any which way - her own parents killed while she was young, and of lands she's only caught a glimpse of understanding in recent memory, very recent life. But these are indeed dark things, but not Dark things, though perhaps they are - if Dark Friends, if the Dark One, were manifestations in other turnings of the Wheel, in other weavings. Simple enough, and complicated enough, to keep her tongue still, and then:

The serpent, shifting closer, sussuration of scales and foliage and earth and sky, is sky not involved too at this size, looms until shadows deepened and swallow Nynaeve, a singular fang visible over her shoulder, the mouth canted sideways to make plain the lack of intention to swallow the woman whole. She turns her head toward Kharil-asuk sharply, and oh, she hears as is intended, and so does Marc, perhaps: )

It is your darkness, and that uniqueness is enough.

( as if tasting a particular vintage, as if dining from a singular dish found in the region of one man's physical framework. )

... So he speaks for himself, saying it is your darkness, and that uniqueness is enough.

( Unknowing and unaware that the snake god, the god snake, had been able to send thoughts out across that distance, upon his whim. If heard is something he does not care to anticipate. If it is, it is. If it's not, it's not. )