#cirros

[crimsonfluidessence]

Prompt 25: Perpetuity

Content Warning: Child abuse, psychological horror, dehumanization, torture

As a being of order, Esredes detested the chaos that swirled within him, and the world around him. The world, above all else, needed to make sense. There had to be reasons for why things happened, rules to follow, there had to be order. Chaos was bad. It consumed everything around it and left nothing in its wake. Chaos was the enemy, and it always would be. This had been taught to him as a teenager, and it had been his philosophy since. Adhere to and create order where there was none. But sometimes, this presented a problem. The Star operated on absolute laws. One of those was that evil existed, couldn't be reasoned with, and had no recourse but to eliminate it. Esredes had no need to question this, of course, not for a very long time. A knight did his duty, and a harrier defended himself. But then came inklings, clues, hints, teases of the absolute laws of the universe being broken. And they came in the form of the dark rooms.

Whether at the camp, or now at the Tribunal, or when talking to an Inquisitor or similar nonhuman entity, Esredes couldn't help but observe patterns of behavior, as he always did. And in doing so, questions came to mind. Pure evil existed. He knew this for a fact from his work. There were many entities- those that pretended to be human- which were plain and indisputably malicious. He tried, time and time again, to understand if there was a deeper motivation. Why did you abuse your son for years on end because you didn't want him? The little shit owed him. Why did you betray my people? How did that stop corruption? The answers were contradictory and nonsensical, until they finally landed on 'I have a compulsion to hurt people'. And of course, one of his favorites: Your people are dirt compared to my family. The Church told me to do it.

Absolute evil could not be negotiated with. Absolute evil had no true thoughts, feelings, or motives. It simply manifested in and took hold of a shell of an organic body through which it could do it work. Esredes wondered, sometimes, if evil was not an individual phenomenon, and instead these creatures all were part of a collective, a collective and parasitic force that manifested in the consciousness of human bodies at random. If he tried to start talking directly to it, and not the shell it was inhabiting, would it finally drop the game and laugh at him, realizing he figured out something no one else had?

The more Esredes observed the same rules happening over and over again, the more he spotted the little cracks. And in there, as he always did, he tried to burrow. There was a phenomenon that every manifestation of evil, no matter how vile, shared. If you applied pressure long enough to their lack of morality, there would be a moment where they snapped, and began to claim to feel remorse. But the moment you left them alone, this moment of clarity vanished forever, and they reverted back to normal. An Inquisitor told him the moment of clarity was fake, plain and simple. It was a defense mechanism to get the pain to stop. And of course, that would be the simple explanation, but it left something to ponder.

These creatures were not intelligent. They were barely sentient above an animal at times. They did not have the sense of mind to cower and avoid pain, no, they egged him on to cut into them, whether with words or a knife, over and over again. Why, then, did they suddenly have the presence of mind to try? It didn't feel natural, or organic. It felt like something else beyond them was taking over, and in that laid his fascination. The Azure Dragoon had been the most interesting failure so far- Alvere, of course, remained his only success, but Alvere was still human to a degree, more around his level. It was easier to extract evil when there was a person inside, even an incomplete one like himself. But the Azure Dragoon to take up the mantle after Estinien retired had nothing inside him. Once his mask broke, he was a dull, grey nothing that stared back at you. Esredes had kidnapped him and contained him in the camp's basement room for answers from the abomination that had killed fifty of his people with no remorse. What made him interesting is he was not alone. A voidsent had fused with him back during the Final Days, but this voidsent had a conscience while he did not. The voidsent was reasonable, and polite- naive, even, and offered his assistance in the current conundrum. It said it could try to reawaken old memories, and force the Dragoon to have a conscience. And indeed, what Esredes witnessed was a forced, extended moment of clarity. For a while the Dragoon began to emote like an actual person who can feel guilt. He screamed, he cried, he told Esredes to keep hurting him, to which he didn't need to tell him twice. But while it was forcefully prolonged, even this didn't last. Eventually, he settled back into apathy, and nothing spurred him any more. The most progress Esredes made was getting him to agree to not kill them again. It was a dead end, but one with promise. The memories made him begin to mimic human behavior again. Did that mean that even in a host where evil was completely taken over, in a defective being born only for malevolence, there was some kind of left in good instinct that didn't work properly? And if so, did that mean memory magic was the key? The key to breaking an absolute law of the universe. The key to changing the way human nature worked. The mere tease of it was too much for Esredes to resist. He was no Sharlayan Academic, he was the wrong kind of person to do something as big as figure out a way to cure or combat evil itself- but what if he had simply stumbled across something no one else had tried before, with this unnatural circumstance of a voidsent fused to a host?

Maybe there was another way. Maybe there was a true way to combat evil besides simply disposing of it, and leaving it to reform in another host like a voidsent. Maybe evil was his new nemesis, and he would find a way to strike back at it for all it did to take everything from him.

Evil was a permanent presence, and he was sick of it. If there was even a chance of shifting the balance, he would take it. For the good of the Star. For her. For himself.

[cirr0stratus]

why is god so quiet? because it’s your turn to talk.

[princesssamoyed]

Sleepy

[theenglishgent]

Hallow-doodle: Cirro Witch

"Swiggity swooce, eat a candy gob, Watch this shebby turn into a sheblob! ...I wonder if it worked on this witchy sheep... (Spoilers: it did!)" A Cirro for @/cirronaja.bsky.social

Posted using PostyBirb

[safrina-shards]

Nothing to do all day .. made a new banner for the blog

[msb-lair]

Clutch #3699 - Cumo/Cirro

Mated On: 2024-09-09 # of eggs: 2 Hatched On: 2024-09-14

Progeny:

Hatchling 9831 (ShiftingMist) - Auraboa Male, Periwinkle Piebald/Cobalt Paint/White Smoke, Uncommon - 15,000 on 2024-09-20

Hatchling 9832 - Auraboa Male, Periwinkle Piebald/Navy Paint/White Smoke, Common - 15 gems on 2024-10-15

Comments: 

[cannedchipps]

This discord server is so funny when it's out of context /pos

[kc-rising]

I'd love to hear about Cirro and Mercer! Do they work together? If so, what's their relationship like? With Cirro I'm kind of amused picturing this loan shark who's just so tiny omg, what does he do to ensure those loans get paid. And what does being the middleman entail for Mercer?

Cirro and Mercer work very closely together actually! When Cirro approves a loan for someone, there is one initial meeting at his office between him and the loanee. After that, Mercer handles all interactions; whether that's meeting with their customer, sending deadline warnings, or instructing Kald and Kaize (the Neon Fang's debt collectors) to go get their money. He's the reason Cirro can get away with being kind of an asshole despite his small size. It's hard not to take him seriously when there's a giant Ridgeback standing behind him giving you a death glare.

Mercer wouldn't classify himself as 'muscle' (again that's Kald and Kaize's job) but he's plenty intimidating when he wants to be.

Cirro is also a powerful magic user in his own right, he could handle himself just fine if he needed to, but things are "easier with a guard dog" as he would say.

[waldires]

Faun reclining by Ciro Ferri (Roma 1633-1689), National Gallery of Art, Washington

[crimsonfluidessence]

Prompt 16: Third-rate

It was another day at work in Dravania. Or at least, Esredes thought it was going to be, until he soon realized they had a guest. Normally the diplomats for the Dravanian Alliance simply went over to Anyx Trine in an airship when there was business to conduct with Hraesvelgrs' brood, and that is what happened today as well.

But the Azure Dragoon was here with them today. Not the last one, who Esredes at least had some respect for after how much Ysayle advocated for him, but his replacement, who Esredes didn't really know anything about. Everyone else at work loved him, of course. Esredes was working to maintain the balance between man and dragon, and all around him was nothing but Dragoons. Not a single person like him, not a single Disciple of Shiva- only those who were all too eager to kill him and any dragon before the war ended, yet had decided to follow the original Azure's footsteps and become Dragonriders.

Esredes never understood it. He had spent eight years and counting trying to get the dragons to trust him, as someone who fought for them. And while it worked for some, others never budged. They called him a foolish mortal, they called him eager to violence and warmonger, and he took their words. But they sometimes looked the other way when the Dragoons talked to them, as if they weren't approaching them in that spiked armor, unlike Esredes. Esredes liked his diplomatic coworkers. They accepted his position as a harrier, they were not hypocrites by any means. But it never left him to wonder, if the war were to restart, where they would point their lances. And something told him it wouldn't be at Ishgard, but him and them. Now with the Azure here for a day, all of his former coworkers were quick to chat him up along the way- conversations to which Esredes was torn between tuning out or listening intently. He could get information about what happened to his people in the war if he did, but something told him they wouldn't talk about it.

When their little league of diplomats had to present ideas and proposals to the Houses, Esredes didn't get to stand with them and speak despite his position. It would cause too much unrest, he was told time and time again. So he sat from the stands and took notes, always hoping they didn't get anything he said wrong, and sometimes they did. How could they fully understand from their position, after all? They turned when it was simple. Easy. Convenient. They never had to suffer like him. They had the best of both worlds, as no one ever admonished them for 'working with the enemy' like they did Esredes. They didn't turn up their eyes in suspicion if he even mentioned it. They did what was easy, and the world showered them in praise. All the while, Esredes remained the foolish mortal who was in the stands, or watching them chat amongst each other about their glory days as they praised the Azure Dragoon for his heroism.

Perhaps it wasn't their fault that the world gave them everything Esredes wished he had, and he knew this. He liked his coworkers, and they accepted him. But it was moments like when they all turned away and talked to the Azure that he wondered, as he often did, just how long it would be until he was finally fired from the position.

And if they truly wanted him in it at all, or if he was just a means to an end.

[sunnydayaoe]

Some quick refs of the my two most flushed out guys :)

[CB!sans is from Foretale, Cirro!asriel is from Overcloud, They both belong to me :)]

[carriecorzetti]

cloud himbo named Cirro

info info yada yada

[chokopoppo]

Thank you local flea markets for having three of these. Now we’re cooking with cadmium

[safrina-shards]

//New banner :D

[thedorfmirrin]

Sketchy Watercolour doodle of yet another of my precious dragons, this one is Cirro 💙

[msb-lair]

Possible hatchlings from Cumu and Cirro. All piebald-paint, and almost all smoke with a little polkadot. Primary and secondary in matched ranges of bright blues, and tertiary of white.