IC INBOX ( KENOS ).

[redsoil]

█ To Commune with Set is to stand barefoot in an endless, scorching desert. The sun illuminates all, scalding the shadows themselves out from underneath whomever enters his dominion; the arch of gentle, distant, waves of sand mask the precarious chasms, towering dunes akin to mountains. The sense of vastness, timelessness, is of particular notice, lending itself to the alien, eldritch quality of his mind. There is a dark storm in the distance, and you know intimately that this divine being is far from benign. You cannot bargain with a force of nature. You can only survive it. COMPATIBLE WITH: Exalt, Iconoclast REPELLED BY: Advocate

♠

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[redsoil]

Do you really think, that just because I do not bare naked fang and blade immediately, that I am not filled with rage in your favor?

[ A god cannot simply become wrath, become grudge and fury. Set's true rage is biblical, and he has none of the power at his fingertips; he can only build foundations upon which future strikes can be carried out. One such foundation has been laid, and now the weapon begins to take form. The white-hot fixation of a god of war, being prepared against Highstorm and Zenith.

He strokes her hair, and his voice is quiet. Patient, in a way that seems to be evoked by her extreme vulnerability and pain. As long as she does not rise in animosity and demand against him, he does not have to dig his heels in — for he has his pride and methods, even if they do not align with the shape and mode of her own. Gently, he presses her down, to lay her temple against the warmth of his lap and cradle her in his arms. To nose into her dark hair and stroke a broad palm over the length of her body. ]

When I strike, I will make but a single demand for submission. Should our rivals fail to accept my gift to them, the subsequent blow will shatter more than just the demon who hurt you. I terrorize Highstorm and Zenith and leave a deep scar. The act will scream your name. It will burn with your pain and power.

[ For a tempestuous man, he also knows patience. ]

You will be with me, and see the way I break those who thought they could break you.

[warmare]

[Did she think that? It is so tempting, because of course that sort of rage was far easier to understand, and far easier to accept. It was more and more the sort that she had fallen into after her unwanted arrival in Horos, unable to contain herself in a world so unlike the one she had known, where she lacked all of the societal conventions and shackles that had never allowed her to openly show her emotions. But... once, she had. Once, her rage had been ice and not flame, tightly controlled and hidden beneath a carefully crafted mask of servility because that had been what she'd had to do if she had any hope of surviving the fate she had been dealt with any hope of something that could pass as dignity.

There was a certain freedom in being allowed to rage that she relished in, simply because she had never been allowed to have it. But there were times, since those chains had been released... that she felt as if it were consuming her, rotting away her hearts and leaving only the burning anger behind. Yet, how is she supposed to rechain herself, when she had not been the one to understand the method to unlock them in the first place? It was the happenstance that had done it, her chaotic fate, not anything she had achieved herself, so-

Set presses, and Hayame flinches and half thrashes on instinct, because not hours before she had been held down, strapped down, straddled, and cut into, unable to free herself no matter how much she struggled. She cannot help but instinctively recall it, feel the fear again, the fury, the nausea, the shame. But even though those hands of his feel tainted by the very thing that had inflicted that pain on her... the touch is gentle and firm, not mocking as even the demon's "soft" touches had been. Those hands had fought with her... but they had also held her as she'd held him in the despair of curse and hauntings, they had taken her hand in whatever their friendship was, they had taught a woman who feared intimacy what pleasure was, and-

Hayame's arms wrap around Set and tighten, accidentally almost crushing if he were not a god, back legs kicking slightly along the stone floor to remind herself she was free to move, she wasn't helpless, she wasn't... and it would be a lie to pretend that it was not partly to keep him there, as if, should she let go for even an instant, he would return to her enemy's side or abandon her like those hellish whispers had made so easy to believe. Over his shoulder... her now "healed" (maimed) and mismatched eyes blaze with hatred, half blinded by tears. Set promises that he will take her cause into his attack, that she will see it, but... Her fingers tighten until her knuckles blanche, her jaw tightens until her back teeth threaten to crack, and her voice is dark and furious when it reverberates in the dark cave her humiliated soul had hidden in.]

I cannot let that be enough-

[Not if she wanted to rip back the pride the demon had stolen. She had practically begged Set to prove his "friendship" by feeling anger on her behalf, but she had not, could not, plead with someone to take revenge on her behalf. Even if it would be better for Meridian, even if she would be happy to see him gone... She did not relish the thing calling itself "Sebastian Michaelis" dying because of something else, at the hands of someone else. Even though Set will feel sick gratitude twisting in her guts over his offer, mollified in one way to imagine a strike at Zenith that would catch the demon up in the sweep of it...]

I want him to know it was me, Set.

[She doesn't want to just watch, with the sickly green eye that had been forced into her skull by taunting shadows. She wants to leave her mark, to do the work, to act, to strike.

... To have something to do, so that she does not collapse in on herself like a dying star, dimming the furiously bright glow of the asset named Hayame hanging in Set's war room.]

[redsoil]

All right.

[ Her drive is delicious, splendid in its fire. That Hayame will not be satisfied with wanton destruction and desires something direct, something tangible that will be as much a confrontation between the two as her explicit vengeance. Set will still involve her in his plans, for Meridian, but on a personal level, he can offer her nearly whatever she desires to ensure her mark is laid upon the existence of the demon who had so thoroughly debased her.

He cannot swear off of Sebastian, not without collapsing his own extension into Zenith. Not without costing Meridian more than a single individual is intrinsically worth in the grand scheme of war, but he can offer her information and assist her in other ways. ]

You may have it, still. And the ruination you will directly bring upon him.

[ He strokes through her hair, down the line of her spine to the hook of her equine half, smoothing a massive palm over her dun pelt and leaving warmth where he trails. She cannot be defeated, if Sebastian's words are forced to become lies. While the truth of them is that Hayame is exceptionally good at isolating herself, it need not be the truth forever; by holding onto her, by accepting her as she is — aggressive and difficult, honor-bound and trying, she can never be taken far. ]

I will share what I have learned about him, his abilities, his connections, his words — I cannot strike with you so directly, but my weapon will be a blow against all Zenites and those who adhere to their beliefs. Shard-bearers and citizens alike, as I carve through the heart of their Lady's throne and aim for her heart. And Sebastian, as always, is yours. Yours to do with as you desire. Should you claim his life, it will be a testament to your power. And I support your goal.

🎀

[warmare]

[She should be ashamed to let the god of war she had sworn her service to see her like this. Had she not promised him that she would bring glory to his name, that she would never know defeat while she bore his blessing into battle? ... But it had not been a battle, had it? It had been walking home, then poison, then writhing in pain unable to rip her rope hobbles from the iron fasteners upon the wall or break the leather strap bindings along her arms and head. That is part of the fire in her rage, that the demon would not even fight her head on, not intending to defeat her in battle as a warrior but simply to humiliate her. Of course, she is still ashamed despite. Ashamed that she had been caught off guard, that tears even existed on her face, that she now had to bear the humiliating mark of that demon in a new and creative way.

But the war within her, always within her when dealing with Set, who had first been the deity she swore to but now was some confusing mix of bonds... is that she is not supposed to be ashamed of being seen like this by a friend. She tries to tell herself that she needn't, on top of all the rest. He had come when she was injured in the Hall of Mirrors, she had come when he was raging and haunted by that shade in the fields of Alenroux. She had come when he was bloody and exhausted in the roots of the tree during the Iconoclast Oracle, now he comes to her here in this dark, deep cavern, in the secret place deep inside her communion-mind few have ever attempted to find.

They were... even. They always balanced back out. (Hah... She remembers now, as her fingers cling to Set beneath the fall of his crimson hair. Beneath those roots, when she had brushed Sebastian Michaelis's eye as offering into his mane... She had thought to herself now we are even. Apparently the demon had not agreed.)

Set's touch is warm, where she had been cold in the aftermath, gentle without the mockery that had been in the demon's hands. Here, the wounds inflicted on her body in her desperate struggles to fight back are still present on her soul's vision of her body. Ankles bloody and hairless from rope burn twitch and quiver as his palm travels over bruises, over the thick, spasming knots where her thrashing in the twisted position on the surgery table had ripped the muscles where human-like back moved into equine withers. But under his touch, with the promise of ruination, of knowledge, of support... even if it was not the type she truly longed for, or felt she deserved...

In the physical world, she is curled weak in Claude's lap and her unmade bed, pretending to try and sleep but only just coming down from the hysteria of having to explain to a hidden lover why she had missed their rendezvous and appeared back with two eyes. In communion, she is curled weak in Set's arms, on cold stone, hurt but latching in anguish at anything she can grab. Between their efforts... The injuries are easing from her soul, the pain now only mental, remembered, chased away by warmth. Her tears are hot on Claude's thigh, on Set's shoulder. She can't stop yet, but-

He wanted her to ask him directly for what she needed from him? He wanted people to ask him for the knowledge he stored in his vast, secret war room festooned with stars?]

Give it to me, Set. All of it...

[The burn of tears has made the sickly green of her implanted eye glow with an almost unnatural brightness, the rage crackling in the stormy grey of her natural iris almost eerily absent from the Hag's Eye that did not belong to her body, no matter how it had been forcibly connected to the optic nerve. But she cannot stomach it any longer, she cannot... she does not want to...

Hayame's grip on Set tightens, as if by strength alone she could somehow make him choose her fully, even though she knows she cannot. The eye she despises and is far too tempted to just rip out of her skull herself is hidden when she buries her face in his chest. And the shame... the immediate shame, she has to let drain out of her in his (their) arms, until she is emptied. Only then... then, she can fill it with attacks on Highstorm and her personal revenge.]