(no subject)

[searingedgelord]

Who: Velvet Crowe and You!
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: aboard the SS Red Fish
When: right after the Shuffle

[Velvet had woken up in one strange tin can and had only just started to get her bearings when she was suddenly transported to another strange tin can. This isn't how she was expecting today to go.

She stumbles a little but manages to catch herself, oblivious to the fanfare that signals her arrival.]

Where--?

[She takes a moment to steady herself, shaking her head to clear it. She blinks, focusing on her surroundings, trying to make sense of things.]

...Is that pudding?

[Where does pudding fit into all this? And that's not even mentioning the confetti. Actually she hasn't even noticed that yet, or the fact that a lot of it has fluttered into her hair. She looks pretty festive for someone so cranky.]

Comments

action;

[monolike]

I'm okay with whatever you're willing to share. [He's not going to ask her to vomit her entire past onto him, since this deal with Artorius seems intensely personal, but if she's the type who isn't concerned over that sort of thing then all the better. He won't understand where she's coming from if he doesn't listen to what she has to say, after all.

...plus he's already heard a ton of disturbing news today and honestly he's feeling a little numb. Now might actually be a good time.]

action;

[searingedgelord]

[She crosses her arms, idly tapping the index finger of her left hand against her right arm as she considers.]

All right. He used my little brother as a sacrifice to awaken Innominat. [Anger creeps back into her voice here. Even now that she knows Laphi was a willing sacrifice, it still makes her angry. Angry at both of them.] It allowed everyone to see Malakhim, which meant anyone could become an Exorcist.

I was in jail for most of his rise to power. But he was head of the abbey. He led the exorcists that helped bring order to the chaos caused by daemons. He made people feel safe. He was good at that, I guess. [She sounds bitter. There was a time she felt safe with him. It didn't last.]

Only a few people knew his ultimate goal was to rid the world of it's pain by suppressing human's ability to feel anything. The abbey was good at keeping its secrets and spreading propaganda. Most people saw him as a hero and a savior.

[She mostly just focuses on Arotirus as the Shepherd, because that's what he asked about.]

action;

[monolike]

[Innominat? That old seraph that was supposedly worshiped back in the day? So the crest they'd seen and confused for Maotelus's belonged to someone the first Shepherd had tried to revive to, to suppress people.

Velvet's voice gets sharper, brusquer as she recounts what she knows. The malevolence coming off of her gets a little thicker and stinks like vengeance, like heartache and fury. Artorius had sacrificed her family for this Innominat, and brought resonance to the entire world. And they'd used it to- to enslave seraphim.]

That's...that's all so terrible... [No wonder she's furious and bitter.] Wanting to rid the world of malevolence is a fair goal, but to go to those lengths...

action;

[searingedgelord]

[She looks down at her left hand, clenching it slowly into a fist. Her anger is palpable again. She just couldn't stay completely calm when it came to Artorius.]

He didn't care. He'd do anything...anything...to make it happen. People as individuals didn't matter. Even family...

[She drops her hand and looks away.]

He was only concerned with the bigger picture. Details like people's lives and free will weren't important.

action;

[monolike]

Someone like that would definitely change things, [Sorey agrees, not happily. People willing to abandon their morals and the lives of others always leave a big impact. They wage wars and wipe villages off the map.] It's so hard to believe the origin of the Shepherd legend is so callous; all the stories I've heard paint Shepherds as bringers of peace and harmony, but...I suppose history always is somewhat biased.

action;

[searingedgelord]

Oh, he wanted peace and harmony, all right.

[It just happened to be the worst kind of peace and harmony imaginable. She doesn't know much about history, she was never that interested in study, but she knows the abbey knew how to spin information. It wouldn't be hard for historians to do the same.]

action;

[monolike]

Peace and harmony without freedom isn't real. That's just ruling without objection. [Peace and harmony is a really tall order for a free society though, and while it's not one Sorey is willing to abandon entirely, he can at least admit that the road to achieve it is terribly steep.]

Re: action;

[searingedgelord]

Yeah, well, I won't argue with that.

[She agrees, honestly. And it's probably good he realizes that if he's in a position of power. But talking about Artorius has emotionally exhausted her and left her a little grumpy. Though it says something good about Sorey that she's only a little grumpy and not a lot crankier. Or enraged.]