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I should be all right. [It would be more obvious if he was generating malevolence. So while he's...susceptible, he should be okay so long as he keeps himself isolated from any outward influences and fixes this himself.

He has to fix this himself.]

Anyway, thank you for coming all the way over here just to help me out. I'm sorry if I was being cagey before; this is...kind of a touchy issue.

No, don't thank me yet. All I have for helping are ideas, nothing concrete. I still don't know enough about the way your stuff works, after all.

Do you mind if I ask you some questions? The more I can fill in the holes on what I know, the better picture I can have for fixing things.

[That's...awfully careful of her. she usually just bulldozes ahead.

Is he scaring her too?] No, go on. I-I might not know the answers, but I'll do my best.

[If only you knew, Sorey.]

This problem... If I understand it right, your magical contract with Mikleo, and your abilities, are tied to your heart, right? Your feelings, your state of mind.

Erm. Not exactly. Um... [He casts around for something to use as an example and plucks up some twigs, flowers and leaves.] The oath I have isn't directly with Mikleo.

How it works is seraphim, if they want to cast their blessing over a place, need a pure vessel to dwell in and a worshiper to offer tribute. [he connects a leaf and flower with a twig line] A Shepard is just someone who forms a very specific bond with a seraph and offers up their body as a holy vessel; in exchange they get a lot of powers, and a purifying domain. That's the kind of contract I have with Lailah, a very powerful fire seraph.

I can't make contracts with other seraphim but she can, and I can use their powers because of my contract with her. [scatters more flowers and connects them to the main flower with more twigs.] And I'm a vessel for all of them too and we all interact the same way, but technically I don't have contracts with them. Lailah's in charge of that.

I can form contracts with other humans and they can use my powers the same way I do, but their contracts are through just me. [connects another leaf to the main leaf.] So while it looks like I have a specific contract with Mikleo, I technically have it through Lailah.

It's possible for her to quell or release a sublord from service, and supposedly I can exercise some control over the sublords too, but I don't know how. I never wanted to know. I didn't want to force anyone to help me.

[drums his fingers on his knees.] ...sorry. I know that's a lot at once.

[You can just see her eyes light up around the point he mentions contracts with other humans.]

And you can make those other contracts? You don't need that 'Lailah' here?

[oh dear.] ...yes, I guess I could. I haven't tried it here yet.

Edited 2016-08-29 16:35 (UTC)

I see.

And, let me guess... You missed the obvious solution because you're too busy wrapped up in your own bullshit about not wanting to make things harder on Mikleo, right?

There's certain requirements for a Squire. If you're thinking what I'm thinking, it's not going to work.

Okay, I'll bite. What do you think I'm thinking, and why won't it work?

[folds his arms] Are you thinking I should take someone in the Fleet on as a Squire and somehow use them to help keep myself and everyone purified?

I'm impressed.

You simultaneously managed to be close, and way off.

Let's hear it then.

Step one: You do your fusion with Mikleo, use your purification on me like before, to completely eliminate any risks of contamination.

Step two: You form a contract with me as a Squire.

Step three: I do the fusion with Mikleo, and I shoot you with all of the purification shit I can muster.

Step four: We break the contract right away, since it sounds like we don't need Lailah for that, so we don't risk my malevolence getting through the contract link.

[That said, ever since her update, she's generating a lot less malevolence than she used to.]

Step five: Mikleo and I beat you over the head for your stupid macho going it alone bullshit.

[Sorey rests his chin in his hand, staring at her. It's not a bad plan; it's those short windows of opportunity he's worried about.]

...it's too risky. I'm not generating malevolence right now; if I was, something would already have happened. The way Lailah phrased it, it sounded like the second I slip, it's all over. I don't think purifying me will do anything. On top of that, malevolence behaves strangely here. It seems like nothing can ever get purified for long.

And I don't know the consequences of making a Squire pact so haphazardly. There could be lasting effects on you, even if we broke it. Especially if this happened again; I don't know if it's possible to completely sever the contract, since I'll have to assign you a true name and that'll hold a lot of power over you.

[...

She's just got her staff back out. She's not swinging it yet, but she is glaring at Sorey.]

What did I literally just say about your stupid macho bullshit for trying to handle it all yourself?

[glares, fist clenching on his knee as something frustrated and dark claws at his heart.] I'm thinking very seriously about this. The risk of this situation getting even worse is too high.

[... that does it.

she's tossing her staff aside, stepping right up in Sorey's space, and grabbing him by the shoulders. The longer she talks, the more her voice steadily rises in pitch and volume, a crescendo of emotion all flooding out at once.]

You're not "thinking seriously", you're just moping and depressed! Don't you think I of all people can tell when someone just psyches themselves out of trying anything by believing any solution presented is hopeless?! I spent years like that, I understand!

If you think breaking it will cause problems, then we don't have to do that, I'll just spend time with Opal more, do whatever I can to keep my heart strong! I'll get Mikleo and shoot myself with as much water as it takes to keep me from getting malevolence! If things don't stay purified for long, well, no shit! This stuff comes from people, and people don't change easily! All it means is you have to keep trying, and trying, and eventually you'll get through! That's what happened to me!

And if you think it's too dangerous for me, then I owe you a lot more smacks with that staff! I'm an adventurer at home, and I was at the worst interdimensional shithole I've ever heard of after that! I've been killed helplessly, forced to watch all sorts of horrible things, I am used to danger!

You are my friend, you fucking asshole, so stop worrying about the risks, or power or effects over me! You wanted my help, you trusted me enough to ask for my help, so trust me enough to at least try to help with this!

[Nightingale, she’s right. She’s right that Sorey is psyching himself out. His concerns might be real, but if he wasn’t so gutwrenchingly scared of the consequences, he’d have already jumped at the chance to try it. Then again, if he wasn’t so frightened all the time, he wouldn’t have to try it to begin with.

Sorey in his right mind would take all of this in, would’ve drunk in her concern and care like nectar. He thrives on this kind of companionship, and he’d have returned it tenfold. Even if Nightingale is coarser than he’s used to, even if she’s like a combination of Dezel’s temper and Edna’s brusqueness, even if the way she shows friendship is through knocks to the head and sharp reprimands- well, it’s not like Sorey doesn’t know what that means. He was raised by Gramps, after all.

It’s that fear that he can’t let go of holding him back.

Fear is dangerous. Fear is a toothed worm that burrows into your heart and twists your expectations and intentions into things entirely other. Fear turns your worry into anger, bubbles it up inside of you and makes you lash out at your friends. It makes you selfish. It makes you shortsighted and dumb. Nightingale’s determination to help contorts itself into a violent terror; worries trip over themselves in his mind, she’ll get hurt, it won’t be enough, it’ll make things worse, I’ll contaminate her, the seraphim will get hurt, Mikleo would have to give her his name, over and over until it nearly makes him sick. And the fear in his heart now isn’t entirely of his own design. Sure, he worries, of course he worries, but if he were to pinpoint the moment when his worries began to swallow his hope, he would chase it down to a single moment:

I’m cursed, Dezel had whispered to him.

And Sorey- stupid, brash Sorey, had whispered right back, So what?]

Get off of me, [Sorey mutters, his head down. A sudden gust of chilling wind ripples through the garden, rattling the leaves on the trees like bones.]

No. Not until you see sense.

[Nightingale's magic has her control the elements. And of all of them, the element she's put the most work into, the most training into to manipulate and control, is wind. Fire is her default in combat, but for anything else, wind is what she favors.

She's learned how to customize it, too. Some wind to hold items in place, or a hot wind to dry her hair. Wind is easy for her now.

So, Sorey's chilling wind is met with a warm wind of her own to try to blast that away, as she shifts- No longer holding his shoulders, but hugging him.]

I'm not moving.

[Sorey hadn't even meant to summon wind. It had just happened; like his descent is just happening, like everything is just happening wrong.

Nightingale wraps her arms around him; she feels frail and small encircling his broad shoulders, head against his, warm wind buffeting them both as it dispels the cold. Sorey closes his eyes and he thinks of the others; of Alisha, of Rose. He could make her his Squire. She's accepted the danger of it, and she wants to work so hard- She's even willing to subject herself to water purification again, despite being terrified of drowning. She wants to save him; she wants to protect him, like Rose had when she'd killed Cardinal Forton to save Sorey from having to make the decision. He should let her save him.

It's in that tenuous space, where he hangs between I should and I will that his heart suddenly trips, falls into a panic and whispers something dark:

it will fail.

They aren't his own words. It's not his own voice. If he were listening closely he'd hear the hiss of wind behind it but all he sees behind his eyes is the hellion summoned by Symonne stabbing into Rose, again and again, and the tiny sound of pain she and Dezel made together when it did.

His panic and fear conjures Nightingale in Rose's place and that's what does it, what has him shoving his arms between them to push her away hard, scrambling up onto his feet.]

No!

[-and then she's there, on the ground, and he just put her there. He's never treated someone like that in his life.]

I'm- I'm sorry, I-

[If the Shepherd falls to malevolence, it will mean the end of the world.

He stares down at her, voice choked in his throat before he turns and runs out of the garden, boots pounding hard against the ground as he flees as fast as he can. She's going to tell Mikleo. Mikleo will come looking for him, possibly with the others, and if he starts- he must be generating it now, he-

If they get inside of his domain- it might already be too late, but if he can get far enough, maybe they'll survive. Maybe they won't be twisted. Maybe he can at least save the three of them.]

[Nightingale is small, and frail, and weak. No amount of spirit can make up for some amounts of physical differences, and when Sorey pushes, she goes down easily and hard.

Even so, it's far from the worst hit she's taken. She's stunned for a moment, but once Sorey bolts, she's rolling upright in one fluid motion- all her practice adventuring has paid off- and shouting after him.]

Sorey, wait, please-!

[... But it's too late.

She gets her communicator out. That's all she can do now.]

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