#varis 'i'd sell you to satan for one corn chip' zos galvus

[starcunning]

This Beast That Rends Me: 19 Apr

This might be the segment where my influences are most clearly on display. I can see the fingerprints of Pat Cadigan, VNV Nation, and one of Kurze’s own damn OCs on this bit. So, that’s kind of neat.

Previously: Week One, Week Two Previously: 15 Apr, 16 Apr, 17 Apr, 18 Apr

She did not speak as they wound through the back passages of the palace, their unornamented walls clearly meant for screening servants from view. Emerging onto the terraces of the menagerie, Zenos slowed, his steps growing ponderous. He lifted his face toward the sun, and she remembered, without really meaning to, how long it had been since their final confrontation. He might have lived under sunlight in the months since, but never the open air. She felt a pang of sympathy, but closed the door on it in much the same way that she closed the door of the conservatory upon them both.

“And so the natural order of things is restored,” Zenos drawled. “Shut up,” Shasi huffed. Her tail twitched restlessly behind her, stalking her way toward the exedra. “I beg your pardon?” he said, taken aback. The wounded note in his voice stopped her dead.

She had assumed responsibility for him in more ways than one, Shasi reminded herself. And the first week of lockup was a delicate time. Any pretense of positive influence upon him required more fortitude of character from her.

“That’s … not what I meant,” she said after a moment. “Alright, it is, but saying it that way doesn’t help. I don’t want you to be glib about serious matters.” “Forgive me,” he said. “I suppose I find it easier to deal with my circumstances this way. I don’t expect that you’ll let me out of here again while I’m alive.” “We could ransom you,” Shasi said. “Your return in exchange for recognition of Ala Mhigan sovereignty.” “You could ransom me for four sestertii and my father would not pay it,” Zenos spat. “You may tell your commanders that, if you like.” Shasi sank to sit upon the recamier, and Zenos sat beside her, stiff with anger. “Perhaps not for his son,” she said. “But his heir, surely? A Legatus?” Zenos shook his head. “If one may rise by their own merit, then it stands to reason they should fall by it. No, I am to him some failed experiment; his unworthy get. It is not too late, of course, for him to produce another.” Shasi pursed her lips. “Then if your fate rests with the Eorzean Alliance, perhaps you should not antagonize its champions.” “I answered the questions you put to me. Do not blame me for your distaste.” “It is distasteful,” Shasi said. “Betimes we take distasteful measures to achieve our ends,” Zenos replied, “when success is all that matters, and success is not enough.” Shasi closed her eyes. “I understand what it is for your victories to be insufficient,” she said. “But success is not all that matters.” “Perhaps not in Eorzea, but the Empire—” “The Empire will have you no longer,” Shasi interrupted. “You just told me that. The strictures of that life cannot bind you now, or I cannot help you. One need not go to such extremes for the sake of feeling something.” “And what is it you feel now?” Zenos wondered. “If you wanted to know, you could look,” Shasi said.

He took her hand, and fixed her with his Resonant gaze, just for a moment. “Such uncertainty,” he said. “Such fear. I had not thought this was in you.” “I have had long practice at burying such things,” Shasi said, pursing her lips, looking into his eyes. They were blue again. “When we met in battle, you were dauntless. Doubtless, as I. I supposed then that you were empty, as I, too. That you cared for nothing but the fight, and this was how you could match me.” Shasi sighed. “I am … best in battle, I will allow that. When it has come to the point where I must fight, then I allow myself to be lost in it. Thancred made mention of it to me once, though he has no room to talk. The world beyond the reach of my sword falls away, and all becomes that moment of strife, of striving. But ever have I held at my heart the reasons I took up the blade in the first place. I am, at my heart, my mother’s child, and like her, a Crimson Duelist. We protect the weak, and we work for the common good. In battle, when that purpose sings in me clear and pure as starlight, I become what you have seen: unbreakable of spirit, luminous and limitless. It is hard to care for them, and easier to fight for them.”

She took a deep, steadying breath, shrinking back from his hand, suddenly shy of all she had revealed. “There was more. Beyond the doubt, beyond the frustration.” “Camaraderie,” he murmured. “Love, if you would have it so,” she agreed. “Lyse may be acting like a hypocrite and a fool, spending her time with Fordola, but she is as family to me, and I will forgive her, as she will forgive me for making a decision she did not wish to countenance.” “Family,” he scoffed. “Family is not blood,” Shasi said. “I was a girl of five summers when I left my father’s clowder, and a woman grown when I saw him again. X’khilo Nunh is no family to me, and I have no sisters in the Lynx tribe as I have found in Alisaie, for instance.” “And do they love you?” Zenos asked, voice grown quiet. “I … like to believe they do,” Shasi said. “It is not a thing much spoken of when action is required. I am … indispensable to them. It is enough.” Shasi clasped her hands before her, twisting a ring about her finger. She pressed her thumb to the signet’s unicorn device, and sighed.

“We had promised not to lie to one another,” Zenos replied, gently. “This is the uncertainty that one lives with, unless they are Echo-touched,” Shasi said. “And the one I lived with most of my life. The Mothercrystal tells me not what lies in their hearts. But I choose to believe it.” “Better to wonder about them than to look,” he said, “and know about yourself.” “Were it given to me to look, rather than be shown,” Shasi agreed. “In any case, it is the best I can manage, and so if they give no more thought to me than to the mug they take their morning coffee from each day, I would rather not know it.” “Is that how you see yourself?” Zenos wondered. “As fragile, as unremarkable and as easily replaceable as an old mug?” “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Shasi said. “Then hear me instead: I know what it is to be a collection of useful traits, and you are more than that to me. Strangle in the crib any uncertainties about that.” “If you care for me,” Shasi told him, “you can learn to care for others. To feel for them as you feel for me. If it is your goal to feel something, then that is the path.” “And if we are to remain equals—outside the praxis we have established,” he murmured, glancing down at his lap, “then I must have something to teach you, as well. You do not think much of your own benefit, do you?” “I am Ul’dahn,” she said with a small smile. “I don’t believe that you are. You yourself seem to waver on the subject. Here is the acid test, then: what was the last thing you did out of self-interest?” “Stood against the Bull of Ala Mhigo to spare your life,” Shasi said. “No, you’ve told too many others that was for my sake, or for the sake of the Alliance.” “I might have been lying,” she protested. “You might have been, but you were not. I have heard the whispers of your soul, as your comrades put it, and you have served those agendas alongside your own. So, before that, then what?”

Shasi frowned. “It must be Haurchefant, mustn’t it?” she mused. “When I had nowhere else to run and I was facing charges of regicide, I turned up on his doorstep, begging shelter of the only friend I had who had never asked a thing of me.” “Ah, that,” Zenos murmured. “We did wonder where you went, for a time. Well. That was for self-preservation, and how long ago now?” “Years,” Shasi said. “And was it merely you he protected?” “No,” she admitted; “what Scions there were, I sued for. It wasn’t hard. He would have done anything for me, until at last he did.” “So even then ’twas altruism that moved you. Perhaps you begin to see my point.” “Selfishness is a virtue?” Shasi asked, skeptical. “Think of it instead as a necessary indulgence,” he said, leaning in. She looked up at him, at once haughty and hopeful, and decided to take what he offered, her teeth grazing the swell of his lower lip. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.