video — un: starburst.
( Wei Wuxian and Emilia are perched up on a tall building.
Two dragons act as their wind buffers — recent arrivals from Serthica, for those who remember the fissured citadel. The narration feels compelled to stress that despite the buffering in question, the hair of these characters billows fabulously behind them, even as they look a bit rundown.
Emilia's anger has smoldered away somewhat, a low murmur in the background. )
Yesterday, a soldier of the Hand requested Wei Wuxian and I demonstrate hand-to-hand combat for the new recruits of the army. These recruits were ferocious, unpredictable, and ... eerily good at mimicry.
Their handlers were frightened of them.
After this session concluded, we were offered a 'booster' to replenish our strength. We refused, as we learned it was essentially diluted black water. The same black waters that resurrected the dead in the arena today.
Two dragons act as their wind buffers — recent arrivals from Serthica, for those who remember the fissured citadel. The narration feels compelled to stress that despite the buffering in question, the hair of these characters billows fabulously behind them, even as they look a bit rundown.
Emilia's anger has smoldered away somewhat, a low murmur in the background. )
Yesterday, a soldier of the Hand requested Wei Wuxian and I demonstrate hand-to-hand combat for the new recruits of the army. These recruits were ferocious, unpredictable, and ... eerily good at mimicry.
Their handlers were frightened of them.
After this session concluded, we were offered a 'booster' to replenish our strength. We refused, as we learned it was essentially diluted black water. The same black waters that resurrected the dead in the arena today.

un: absterge | audio
un: yiling laozu
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[Video, un: howl in one]
I believe, then, we can conclude that the Hand is most likely behind the attacks on the banquet and at the arena.
[ Which he very much doesn't like. It seems no one in this mess of a city has morals. ]
un: yiling laozu
Quite possibly, and furthermore, very little about the hand is living. It is, I'd say, built upon the dead.
Now if it's the Hand or those who stirred the hand may be worth questioning, because those creatures we saw, they weren't making decisions. Neither were the soldiers of more usual means. And they've been supplying black water to everyone within the revived army under this Caybus fellow ( Caius, but he doesn't particularly care ) since they discovered its bounty under their land.
( He taps his temple, head canted to the side. )
Those memories I saw before, the guilt? From the dead man when he still lived. What they pulled out of those farming fields, what must have happened in those granaries, the Brotherhood's tendrils have been here for a lot longer than we may have thought.
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In that case, Ephes may not have much choice but to join forces with Messalina.
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un: absterge
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One of the things first apparent to me was the jittery state of these recruits: how they struggled to contain themselves, as if fighting some terrible instinct. It would be difficult for the Hand to consistently manage.
( Impossible, in the long-term.
And now they know how to mimic her combat maneuvers. Wei Wuxian's. )
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Perhaps they have not consistently managed it.
[ Though he doesn't sound certain about it. ]
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un: ut malum pluvia
He's got a lot of very specific questions, but he starts with the most pressing: ]
Are you still with them?
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They made no move to keep us with them, but Laetio did seem nervous at the thought of our refusing to go. He said it 'goes quicker if we cooperate.'
( That is not why they went, of course. They wanted to learn more, but it sticks out to her. )
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un: a civil serpent | video | private
He is relieved to see Opal again at his wife's side as she should be. Wrath had quite the fight in the coliseum which was largely enjoyable even if he is still has his own golden ichor to wipe from him. Before he addresses the rest, he says with the smallest of fond smiles: )
I see Opal has returned.
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Her eyes settle on Wrath, and she seems to loom a bit closer. )
She has. She must have heard my call when disaster struck.
( It required aerial support, to say the least. )
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Only in hearing Opal's name, Lethe's head descends before him, and so the impossible largeness is next to Emilia in frame, breathing out in a pointed huff.
Say hello to Lethe too, don't just speak of Lethe's beautiful other half! )
I think Lethe's jealous, ah?
( He says, from where he can't really be seen but a smidgen of dark behind Lethe's neck and jaw. )
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video; un: owllady
[ She says this while grinning and swinging her first, clearly sarcastic. ]
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We aren't entirely without fortune.
( Thank the goddess. )
un: headless ragdoll | audio
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