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

♠

Comments

[zauneyete]

[ Silco's eyes were affixed. Not to Set, but to his everything in Set's palm. One could perhaps guess that when a family member, or treasured soul was gone, that one would venerate it, but Silco's focus is singular, and it always has been. There was a reality in which he attuned to Meridian -- or had the potential to -- but not when Jinx was dying. Not when this was their only chance at survival. Not when this was the only avenue.

And even then. He'd messed up. He was losing her, and the contract would cement it, just as surely as it had been before. Just as certainly. In his pursuit of revenge, in his pursuit of making it so, or perhaps even in his pursuit of keeping her close...

He'd lost her. He'd lost his daughter, he'd lost all the objects he'd sought out originally, and it was only through his own dogged inability to let things go, that Sebastian remained in his employ -- and perhaps his soul spoken for. He could see that now. He could understand that perhaps even that had been an attempt to keep his... dinner (?) warm and ready for him.

Set presents an avenue, that he might look toward the wording. Perhaps there was a way. Silco wondered, but did not dare hope for emancipation from this danger. No, he knew. He knew what the value of his soul was worth, after all. To anyone other than Sebastian? Maybe Set? Nothing. ]

Nobody has ever chosen me, Set. Yima is just another in a long, long line of them. It was never about her world, but in destroying everything. [ A twitch of his lips, tightening. ] There's little in what is left that has value, after all. [ There is no Jinx. ]

It was always about making sure she was alive. In that new world? That's all it ever was.

[ His hands twitch, as if to reach out, to take her. His hand under Set's, not moving away, even though Set could see the impulse, to pull her back into his hands, to protect her. The fact that he doesn't keep her on his person is only a testament to the dangers in Kenos itself, and how he desperately tries to protect her, even now. ]

Yima is not who I am loyal to. I never have been. [ He placed his hand over Jinx's shard, in Set's hand. ] This is everything that matters to me. I will do anything to make sure she's alive, Set. I will find a way out of my contract if I can, but --

[ But he's human. He's, just like his daughter, made one too many mistakes. The spoiler, and always has been. Like father, like daughter, really. He'd cared so much about getting there, that he'd not seen the forest from the trees. ]

I needed you to know. To save her, before... [ A swallow. ] Before she's lost again. She's already dead, Set. There is no saving her, if she is not here. Even if it is all saved, she is still gone, unless she is taken away from there.

[redsoil]

[ Is that not the thing that binds the two of them, then? That their loyalty was ultimately tethered to their absent children, their suffering children, their dying children. Like Set, Silco saw the pain of others and found it no greater than his own — no more important, no more indicative of some greater good or evil. All they saw was their own. All that mattered was their own. Anubis could arrive in Kenos right this moment, and ask him to throw it all away — and, with guilt and shame, he would. It would hurt, but he would.

Perhaps it is a mercy, then, that Anubis has never come to Kenos. Not like Jinx, whom had flitted into and out of Silco's life in a way that had cornered him, driven him deeper into the claws of his contract. Until there was no way out, until all he had left was to ensure something survived beyond him to care for her. ]

My sister is a goddess of miracles, Silco. A woman who loves women and children and would drown the world for her own. I come from an era when gods still walk among men, and do deeds on their behalf. I would lower myself before a woman who I loved and betrayed me, and ask her for one more intercession. For Jinx. When Meridian wins, I readily see a way for her to live — safe and free.

[ And it goes without saying, that he would never allow Piltover to continue, even if Meridian were to win. ]

If Lady Yima could not save Jinx now, she will not be able to save her in the future. Only I can, and I am not walking in a direction that does not contain countless possibilities for her survival. I will not take that risk, because — I care for you. And your wishes. I really do.

[zauneyete]

Miracles.

[ He says it with disbelief. What were miracles, to people like he, and Jinx? They had been denied so much, for so long. They lived in squalor and poverty — though they were perfectly comfortable in the Last Drop, and Jinx had never known a day of hunger after Silco had hugged her that first night in the rain — underneath the noses of those that looked down on them. ]

Set, I cannot bank on a miracle. Twice I have.

[ His fingers curl around her shard, and it's so gentle, despite the way he trembled. Twice, she had been here, violent and grand. He knew. ] Whatever your quarrel with Yima, I do not look to her to bring Jinx here. She has tried, twice and both times the tree called her back.

[ Well, that answers why Silco hates the tree so much, doesn't it? ] I...don't even know if your world will allow her, or accept her.

[ The skin around his blinking eye tightened, and he closed it. ]

Think about it. Were I to leave Zenith, what would happen to her shard?

[ He knew. People left Zenith all the time. Yima would yank it back. She had a persona of softness about her, but Silco knew. He'd seen it, beneath the comforting smiles, the things that Silco found lurking in her deception. She'd asked him to make monsters, she had told him that Aetós's attention was not unwelcome. He knew that she would take Jinx back.

She had once told him, all those months ago, that to her, there was nothing more important than reuniting family.

He did not believe that she would reunite him with his daughter, unless he paid for it.

But it was transactional, and that he understood, more than anything. Transactional was how they had lived their lives. That was how he could function. ]

I have to proceed this way. It's our only hope.

[ He picked her up, held her in his hand, cupped like she was the most precious thing in the world. ]

If it is not enough. If I can't —

[ Silco was one man, is what he didn't say. He could fight and fight, and fight, but he could not be anywhere. Could not do as much as was needed. He believed in fighting for it, but he understood. He was not a fool, after all. He knew that Meridian promised hope, and hope was infectious. ]

It's why I ask you to watch over her. Yima can't take her, if I don't betray her. She can't wipe her from reality, if I die enacting her will. It's not my life I'm fighting for.

It's hers.

[ He'd promised her that he would never leave her. He knows he will. He doesn't have a choice, now. ]

[redsoil]

You only know a miracle as something that happens because a divine agent happens to interact with you — Silco, I am that divine agent. My sister is. We are not separate from you, in our time.

[ In that, miracles are entirely possible. They are not wishes or hopes, but real things that happen; the same as apocalypses, mass slaughter, magic and cosmos. For Silco to say he cannot bank on a miracle, to Set, is the same as saying he cannot bank on his own power changing something. It is foreign to a god, whom makes such things happen. And then he tips his head, as if judging Silco for — ]

You fear Yima more than anything, and that is what she's counting on. To rule you with fear and control you, the way Piltover looked down upon you and Jinx — pitiable, and easy to manipulate. Cassian and Jyn left Zenith with the Shards of their loved ones. And do not dare voice your doubt that my world would accept her, when I exist there, despite all my slaughter and misdeed.

[ THough his words are harsh, he parries each of Silco's beliefs with an assertion of his own. Because he believes in more than Zenith's silly little promises, empty and whispered into desperate, foolish ears. A leash to control them, which he manifests in the palm of one hand: a long string of sand, morphed into the shape of a collar and leash that loosely entwines itself around Silco's throat before being jerked into the sand-facsimile hand of Yima herself. ]

Silco, I will not let Yima touch her. If Zenith is to win, I will never allow a woman like Yima to have any hand in the world to come. I hope you would find it in yourself to stop being so afraid of her, and take of her what is yours.

[ With that, he tucks Jinx's shard gently back into the man's palm. ]

Do not accept anything less than everything.

[zauneyete]

[ There's a slight moment of befuddlement.

Silco's fingers instinctively curl over his daughter's shard, as if he had done it countless times, the small, faint comfort that it was. Some doubted the shards, but Silco knew. Perhaps it was foolish, perhaps he believed too much, but he knew she was there, because the shard was not cold or chill, but vaguely inert, mild to the touch. That was perhaps not a guarantee, but he could imagine a sense of Jinx's wild and carefree attitude, the spark of chaos still residing within.

His eyebrow drew down (the other still and unwavering as always, drawn in as it was) because Set spoke of fear, as if Silco feared Yima.

He opened his mouth, but closed it, and his only moving eye narrowed slightly. ]

For all that they were present after they shifted, yes? [ He asked, with a slight scoff. ] I do not doubt that they would have been taken away. It's what I would do.

[ The shards were a gift for loyalty to Zenith, after all. ]

Regardless, I am not with Zenith out of fear, Set. I exist beyond it. [ Foolish words, perhaps, given what will transpire soon. ] I am with Zenith because I do not want our worlds returned.

Jinx's body is gone. [ His fingers tighten. ] Do you think we will be shard-bearers when our worlds are returned? We were not before. Why would they not return to how we were before?

[ But more than that, Silco felt it was right to destroy them. To rend and tear and destroy them because he wanted nothing more than to exact his final revenge on these worlds. For the crime of existing, because he'd lasted now for two years (or nearly) without his daughter. Had her taken more than once, and for all of Set's (supposedly) irrational hate for Yima, he did not think this was her. Not when his loyalty was so easily bought by her mere existence. No. No he did not think it was Yima. ]

I intend to have what is mine, you do not have to fear that, Set. Never fear that. I am taking what is my right. Nobody will stand in my way. Not even Yima.