#s4ints . cora

[vullcanica]

@s4ints , ❛ decay will feed the bloom. ❜ - Cora

Constance peers at her from beneath his glasses with the closest approximation to bewilderment he can manage without shattering the geometry of his face. "Whose bloom? Yours?"

Still, after millenia on earth, some phrasing always ends up lost on them. It's inevitable with how little effort they put into narrowing the language barrier humanity keeps building with odd new words. Surely she can't mean nature. They're not of it, either of them. Then again.. If this is about their earlier argument...

Connie's face arranges into something with softer edges, eyes a touch more liquid. His head tilts curiously. He can indulge her this time... "I suppose you have grown taller since I saw you last,"

After all, a land grows fastest after war. It has little choice in that, does it? A civilization far away is about to pick up what pieces it can and build atop the rest. Decay feeds the bloom. And she herself has certainly had her fill lately too.

"How was your trip?"

He's seen the paperwork. 12,900 dead, twice as many injured, cities burned to the ground. They still ask, with the hope she's at least enjoyed herself.

[vullcanica]

@s4ints : ❛ some relationships, like warts, can be handled with the tactful application of liquid nitrogen. ❜ / & some cora for nik to mix them up

There's nothing eerier in this world than the untimely wisdom of children, an old, croaky elder had once told him. He'd bitten his tongue then - little, orphaned, far too mouthy for his own good - so as not to ask her if it was the children or merely the wisdom that were eerie. Nikodemus studies the pint-size little spitfire at his side now with gentle amusement, recognizing in her the makings of an adult savvy she's far too young to have. He'd been equally unnerving at that age. An entire town had thought it apt to exile him for it.

"Wise solution. Hopefully not too hard-earned." Nikodemus wonders, brow raised, good-natured, at Cora - equal parts curiosity and commiseration. When faced with the weight of a soul so grand and old, so horribly ambiguous - on a child no less - one can only speculate how badly she'd suffered, not if she had. "Although. A touch too slow and kind at times. Some inevitably earn the scalpel. Others..."

He inclines his head in lieu of a shrug and a guileful shroud passes his features.

"Sulfuric acid and water, one to one. Two days minimum if you want the bones gone too." The grin turns sly and conspiratorial, the eyes softly imploring. Well, she ought to know. Constance oughtn't. "In case you meet worse than warts."

[vullcanica]

@s4ints , x

he prudently counts her 'tact' as achievement. it's all he can do not to mourn a time before it. for all their attempts, Cora is definitively unsuited for diplomacy and they're very much immune to illusions of consideration, so none of this is working. still, shrewd of her to turn it on them. there's rueful, parental sort of misplaced pride about Constance as he speaks.

❞ ...it's more a fact, than an opinion. ❝ they correct impassively, leaning back in their office chair, hands joined upon a crossed knee. the desk sinks down once she vacates its surface, shifting and turning like a rubick's cube collapsing into itself, taking the documentation down with it. it leaves them undivided, face-to-face, overcome with air of severity unbefitting to the situation at hand. trust the Tower to be dramatic about this. Constance knows a deadlock when they see it and Cora's hardly in trouble. it's been cut and dried between them for centuries now. she has to start a war. he has to finish it.

❞ and going is definitely ill-advised at best. all data points to high likelihood of this turning apocalyptic. ❝

the Tower says so. and the Tower is never wrong. never, not once, not since the very dawn of the universe. once upon a time it said vesuvius will rain death and fire and so vesuvius did. it said a plague will reap millions and so a plague did. if it says the unrest in the one part of the world Cora has her eye set on is so vicious and so contingent to a tender thread of temporary impasse that one tip of the scale would trigger a war so brutal it would lead to great destruction, then.. well, Connie's willing to bet money on it. and peace is a fragile thing not meant for a child's hand. or war's. unfortunately for Constance, Cora happens to be both. and that puts a spanner in the works for their supernatural brand of HR equivalent duties.

the best he can do is go and estimate the collateral.

first, they venture to tell her as much in a way that doesn't further ignite the ever-present spark of defiance they don't know which part of her to attribute to - child, or war.

❞ promise me at least a few days' leeway to get documentation in order. so that I can make sure it's.. controlled. ❝ the irony of asking War Itself to wait out the implementation of some safety measures isn't lost on them. Constance clarifies: ❝ i would hate for us to catch each other on the battlefield. ❝ what they both do isn't pretty. and while they've both beared witness before, there's a thin veneer separating the civilian disguises as it is. reuniting in the aftermath makes pretences easier, a very human concept Connie's found himself growing fond of.

they are Balance and War, until they're not, arranged in his office, speaking of apocalypses like some poor school mark or petty trouble - a concerned parent and a willful daughter. Consance inclines their head and gives Cora a pointed look.

❞ please. ❝

[vullcanica]

'do you even care? / from cora for connie & summoned by your latest post <3' : @s4ints

It isn't a question of the curious, he knows. Most rarely put morals under a magnifying glass without necessity and never before good reason for doubt. Cora may understand deference to one's function more than most, but it is, still, as it always is, a question of the incensed.

"I don't do this out of indifference, Cora."

The Catacombs stretch on forever. Grey and unremarkable and endless on either side. They've been walking along the aisle between two rows of plastic shelving for half an hour. Stacks of boxes line each shelf. The one in his arms is labelled 3075. There is a ways yet to go. He has not looked at her once and he does not wish to either. Does a lack of indifference equate to care?

"It's a necessity." It is. An obligation, logical conclusion and routine, and he says it as such, though he suspects it's no consolation. "That, decidedly, does not make it any easier."

Does not make it any less a prison either. He walks the cellblock carrying a cage, that's the cut and dried truth of it. She isn't the first to have this realization. To look upon the archives with the horrified knowledge that it is a collection of prisoners in great stone monoliths, simply scaled to size. Organized, for the nefarious-looking purposes of convenience. Duty. Truly, it screams the work of an uncaring jailer. Though each cell adapts to that which it contains and The Tower is far kinder to the innocent, there is still an inherent cruelty to containment. Constance knows if he were to look inside the square he holds now he would find a bright, colorful room. Or perhaps something new, depending on its inhabitant's whims. The younger ones always settle slowly and tend to be the most difficult. Closest to home.

"He will be safe here." It's the least he can do. It means so little suddenly. By measure of the hardship that awaits, it seems like nothing. A heavy sigh rips itself from Constance's misshapen, decorative lungs. "However... It's far from a kindness, by comparison to the life he may have lived. That is inevitable. And cruel. He will be left unharmed, as will the rest of the world in his absence, but this place is all he can aspire to. It's the fate of many. How it pains me doesn't matter. It has to be done."