the hearse (open)

SUNJATA

Jigano asks him what they were trying to heal it with, and for a moment he tries to think back on it. But he’s not a healer, he doesn’t look like a healer, and any time he ever needed healing he had Lusea nearby to stitch and solve his wounds with a heavy dose of whiskey. His steel eyes slide back to Jigano with a small shake of his head. “I don’t remember.” He offers. “Phoebe would know, though. I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time.” A small amount of honesty – too focused on making sure Phoebe was okay rather than the cure for the blight.

But he mentions the cells again, and Jigano mentions the term nanites which makes absolutely zero sense to him, and his brow lifts again in a silent question. What were those? Thankfully, the bard explains enough that Sunjata’s mind can keep up, and he grits his teeth slightly with a small shrug. “Yeah, I’m not sure. I stayed away from all official healing things back home, so… I’m not the best person to ask.” He admits, lightening the air with a small huff.

Then, Jigano gives him a term for the horned horse of Remi’s, and a name that rings a bell as he nods quietly. At least, until he asks if the cure swallowed Rexanna’s blood, and silently the man curses his inability to fully explain his thoughts in this language when he could be far more precise in his own. So he shakes his head, almost a bit sadly. “No, Rexanna’s blood swallowed the blight. It swallowed the cure. There was nothing left other than… That fluid.” He offers, giving him a small shrug and awkward smile. “Sorry.” He adds. Sorry for his accent being thicker with this mental state, sorry for not being able to actually articulate the thoughts in his head.

come home. don't die so far from the sea—

Jigano felt the blight try to twist him towards frustration with Sunjata's vague answers, and wrestled with it as he tried not to let it show on his face. Had the cure been sensible? Or was it simply something so volatile that it had caused a reaction in the blight - not unlike oil or kerosene might ignite at the application of the right substance or spark? Questions he couldn't answer without Phoebe, it would seem, and that thought caused another surge of the blight within him.

Perhaps Sunjata was as frustrated with the questioning as the bard was with the answers - and for the same blight-borne reasons. He took a deep breath, wincing a little at the bite of Deepfrost cold hitting his lungs, and tried to nod in understanding rather than exasperation as the other man slipped away from some of his questioning. "Of course," he made himself say. "Thank you for answering so much already."

Rexanna's Ascended blood absorbed things, was it? It made a certain amount of sense from what he'd learned from Sam about absorbing abilities from those he fed on. Of course the human blood was absorbed into the Ascended fluid, that made a certain amount of sense, but that the fluid had also absorbed whatever cure they were trying to find? That was far more unusual, and Jigano hummed thoughtfully as he began to sweep an area of the ground clear of snow, looking for something as he went and unsure what else to ask that wouldn't annoy the poor man further and push the blight towards something they'd both regret.

SUNJATA

The blight has been causing a small back and forth within him, to surge and grow, to fall back into line, and it’s perhaps the most frustrating part of trying to explain this. That, and his sudden language blockage. Instead, he exhales a small plume into the night with his small sigh, nodding to the bard slightly. “Sorry I don’t have better answers.” He offers off-handedly, before he focuses on the path ahead again, as his words hit and he thinks on them a bit more, wondering if there’s a better way to explain them.

He contemplates for another moment, reaching with a trembling hand into a pocket to pull out a cigarette and a match, and as he lights the smoke he glances back over to Jigano as the silence drags on. “Frey had Phoebe look into it.” He adds, as though it might help in some way. “Frey told me there was nothing that could be done aside from her continuing her work to research it for them.” There’s a light shrug as he goes to drag from the cigarette again and looks ahead once more, nerves calming and frustration subsiding.

“And then there were the roses.” Roses he had planted. Roses he had crushed.

come home. don't die so far from the sea—

Sunjata didn't need to explain the obstacles the blight created to Jigano; the bard was well aware of how difficult the sickness could make things, amplifying and feeding on dark emotions and twisting them into vicious attacks and wicked taunts that he didn't mean. It was why he stopped pressuring Sunjata, recognizing how frustrated the other man was probably becoming with his inability to provide answers and the added difficulty of some sort of language barrier. "You've given me more than I had before," Jigano said simply, with a nod of gratitude. "That's all I can hope for."

He had found the place he sought: a flat area where the rock gave way to bare earth, and he began to measure out a square with his knotted string and pegs that he knocked into the frozen ground with the aid of a small hammer - and many misses thanks to his shaking hands. He paused to glance up as Sunjata unexpectedly spoke again. "Frey..." he repeated thoughtfully, though a faint frown marred his brow. He had never met the god personally (and it was still a little strange to think that he had met any true god personally) but what he had heard of them inspired a healthy wariness and desire for distance. 'Consent' seemed like a guideline that one followed only loosely, and Jigano was devoted to his mate and desired no outside interference in his love life.

"Yes," he said, a hint of gratitude chasing away the shadows of Frey's name. "Vi's Roses. Amalia said we had them to thank for the recovery. Vi... and Arduinna," he added softly, remembering the dark statue that the regal Fae woman had become within the garden of Roses.

SUNJATA

Jigano thanks him for the information, and Sunjata nods his head in agreement — pausing when the bard does as he finds… a square? To put pegs, using knotted string for measuring. He says nothing on it, wondering if the man has lost his mind, but he manages to capture the pale haired fox’s attention when he mentions Frey. “Yeah, Frey.” He reiterates, though he’s certain Jigano has heard of the particular god based off his profession. He lifts the hand with the cigarette to his lips again, watching Jigano curiously as he pulls from it with a quietly intrigued look.

But at the mention of the flowers, Sunjata exhales his plume of smoke with a nod of his own. “I’ve only heard of Vi.” He admits, having no idea who Amalia was either. But the other? Arduinna? Not a clue. He lets the cigarette hang in his lips as he moves a bit closer to inspect what he’s doing. “What are you making?” He asks, accented voice adrift with smoke as his head tilts and steel eyes focus on it.

come home. don't die so far from the sea—

"Mm. I admit, I've kept my distance from that one," he said dryly, revealing something of his thoughts. "Most of the stories I've heard have been... cautionary." He chose the final word with delicacy.

"Not many have met that one," he agreed of Vi, grunting softly as he knelt and measured with unsteady hands. "The Old Gods answer rarely, if at all." The bard grimaced, nose wrinkling as Sunjata came closer and a trickle of smoke wafted down to tickle the bard's throat with grasping, tearing tendrils. He coughed and waved the stench away until the Deepfrost breeze shifted again and cleared the air once more.

"Ah. Funny you should ask, given our conversation," he attempted to joke, but his throat was still irritated and he had to sit back on his heels, coughing again as he eyed the cigarette with distaste. "I'm not making it yet, but eventually..." he looked back down at the cold earth and the snow that was already settling back atop it, despite his attempts to clear it. "Eventually, I was thinking of trying to build a shrine here. A place within the Hollowed Grounds dedicated to Ludo and Mort, for people to pray for their lost without traipsing through the Fae's Woods."

SUNJATA

There’s a low hum of a chuckle that manages to leave Sunjata as he focuses on Jigano’s words. “I have heard that too.” He notes, accented deeply with a rumble of amusement. No, he’d managed to make it out unscathed with a pretty great experience all things considered. But he’d also never met any of the other gods, and he finds he really doesn’t have much else to offer the bard other than a small nod and a slight notice of the bards discomfort.

So Sunjata, without much of a comment, angles himself downwind enough to keep the smoke from blowing back at the bard, giving him enough space while remaining close enough to look at what he’s doing and question about it. And when Jigano answers, Sunjata’s head tilts slightly. “I haven’t met Ludo.” He admits, a roll of his shoulders at that. “Will it work?” He asks in reference to the other shrines around the area. Would Ludo come to a new shrine, man made and shiny and new in comparison to those that had remained and been revealed?

Korofi had no gods, and Sunjata finds himself thoroughly unaware of how any of this works.

come home. don't die so far from the sea—

The chuckle was unexpected, and surprisingly welcome given the weight of the blight that still bowed them both down. They were bent by it, but not broken. Or at least, not broken anymore. Jigano still struggled to find his memories from when it had devoured him completely, hating that he didn't know what he had done under the influence of the corruption, but he couldn't afford to let those doubts drag him down again. There was too much at stake, and he had too many people who he cared too deeply for to give up again so soon.

As the winter wind pulled the smoke away from Sunjata's shifted position, Jigano breathed more deeply and offered the other man a nod of thanks. His work looked strange, he knew, and Sunjata's question was only to be expected. He almost quirked a smile at the other man's admission, tilting his head to the side in acknowledgment. "Ludo is... unpredictable," he conceded. "Though not, I think, more so than Frey or Safrin. It depends on what sort of mood they're in when you meet any of them, and if they take a shine to you." He gave a wry shrug before going back to his measuring. He wanted to use stone, but he lacked a stoneworker's skills. There had been one among the townsfolk who had helped rebuild the Atheneum though, perhaps Andira could help...

Would it work? The bard hesitated as he repositioned the stakes into a slightly smaller square, trying not to wince as Sunjata accidentally touched on a sore point. "That... is a good question," he conceded. "There is reason to hope it might. A new Shrine was built for Safrin in the fields and she has come to it. Ludo and Mort might do the same here... if they like what we build. Whether it will be worthy of them is something we won't know until it's finished." He looked up, shaking the snow from his hair and cocking a brow at his fellow Blighted. "What were the gods of your world like?" Not knowing that there had been none he simply pursued the question out of curiosity, wondering if it would be closer to the gods that he had known, or perhaps to Caiside's pantheon, or, like the Northhaveners, if gods were a new and puzzling phenomenon.

SUNJATA

Sunjata offers Jigano a slight nod back, at his nod of thanks of moving further downwind, before he inspects further. The question that lifts from the man’s lips isn’t meant to be harsh or blunt, but he absolutely has no idea how any of it works. “I see.” He admits, at first toward the comment of Frey, Safrin, and Ludo, uncertain how they would respond to him. Frey had been kind enough, likely because of Phoebe. The others? He didn’t know what he would hold with them (yet), and instead he steps back to give Jigano space as he drags from the cigarette again and listens.

“I suppose that makes sense.” He says. If they truly are keeping tabs on them, then likely they’d know about a new shrine. But he’s almost taken by surprise at the comment, not sure why it surprises him as much as it does, he offers an accented rumble of a chuckle. “Uh, well… We didn’t have gods.” He admits, head tilting as he regards Jigano. “My country was godless, split by counties. Mine focused on law and order, we wrote the rules and laws and enforced them.” He explains easily, inhaling deep before exhaling a plume of white in the chilled air. “And well, everyone kind of looked to us as those gods, in a way… We had plenty of a hand in life and death.” His lips form a small line as he looks away from Jigano.

Oh, he had taken lives. But he had also given life to those beneath the boot of the oppression his father had given. And he’s not sure why he explains it to Jigano so much, but something about him being a Loreseeker, makes him wonder if his story will make it somewhere one day. “I was the Arbiter’s son, the leader of our county. So out and about in the cities and towns, people looked at us – looked at me like you look to your Ludo.” Steel eyes flit back toward Jigano with a light shrug as though it didn’t matter, when in fact, it mattered a lot.

come home. don't die so far from the sea—

A year ago that answer would have had Jigano arching a brow, partly in bafflement and partly in doubt. A world without gods? It hardly seemed possible! But Since arriving on Caido he had spoken to many from Northwind and Northhaven, and had been forced to revise his expectations and understanding of worlds beyond those that he knew. So while Sunjata's admission surprised him, he was not shocked to speechlessness. Instead he listened, fascinated and curious while he took his measurements.

"Did you enforce the laws for all the counties in the country, or just your own?" Again the language barrier left him feeling frustrated, but he was too interested not to ask, to try and understand where the other man had come from. His lips did twitch as Sunjata compared himself to a god, or at least compared his reputation to one, but the bard bit back his dry commentary on soldiers, assassins, and others who had their hands in the business of 'life and death.'

"Is it an inherited position, this Arbiter? Or is there some sort of election or test to become it?" Constitutional or inherited was always a good question to ask, though corruption was possible in both, and he had only heard of the former from books and travelers from beyond Numeria's borders. Still, if Sunjata had been in line to some sort of throne it might have made his transition to Caido even more difficult than most. "Was there a king that ruled over all the counties?" he added, trying to build a picture from what he was being told.

SUNJATA

At his question, Sunjata’s head tilts slightly as he regards the bard planning out the shrine location. “All counties, but we had enough going on in our own that I remained close to home for a time.” He hums thoughtfully, pausing as Jigano asks how you became the Arbiter, and he steps back from Jigano a brief moment to drag from his cigarette, pausing just enough to decide what to tell him and what not to.

And after a moment, he realizes he doesn’t care if Jigano knows. Still, he sighs heavily as he shrugs his shoulders. “Well, a trial I guess.” He admits, eyes focusing on the shrine location rather than the bard himself, steel eyes shadowed and slightly haunted. “The noble boys when they reached seventeen would have to endure the trial, and whoever lived was the winner. Then, when the current Arbiter got older and knew they would need a successor, the past years winners would fight again to see who got to rule.” He explains, eyes finally lifting toward Jigano, something within the look seemed to say he’d won his, and never made it to the second — probably because his home was burning when they murdered Lusea.

“It was more of a round table kind of discussion between the counties. Votes put out on what to do. There was no king, no single person who decided.”

come home. don't die so far from the sea—

Jigano grunted acknowledgment of the answer to his first question as he stood to look back at the distance from the bridge, then sighed to himself as he knelt to move the assay spikes again, shifting it a bit more to the side of the path - or where the path would be come spring and the melting of all the snow. The Shrine wasn't meant to be in the way of things, or to force people to stop at it, after all, but he still wanted it near enough to the bridge to draw upon the ambience of the skull-like stones.

He was content to let Sunjata smoke downwind and think about how much - or little - to tell him, seeing no point in pressing matters. Not when they were both blighted, and not when it was a potentially painful part of the other man's past. When Sunjata spoke again, however, the tone of his voice drew Jigano's attention back to him and the bard paused to regard the other man solemnly.

"Whoever lived," he repeated softly, the faintest frown furrowing his brow. "What form did this trial take, that it was so deadly? What did it have to do with preparing young men to make laws to govern a country with?" Not, he noted, young women.

For a place supposedly built on law it all sounded very... barbaric. And that, to a man whose country had been ruled by actual barbarians. Still, as the Arbiter's son Sunjata had clearly survived the first trial. And he seemed young enough that it was unlikely the second would have been needed before Caido had changed the path of his life.

"That, at least, sounds more civilized... if a bit of a bureaucratic nightmare," the bard murmured, lips quirking towards the shadow of a smile at the description of the parliamentary set up.

SUNJATA

“Whoever lived,” the soon to be Attuned hears Jigano repeat, and he nods quietly, dark hair adjusting with the movement through the wind that’s picked up, drifting bits of white snow into it until he runs his hand through it. “Well, in Korofi there were mostly deserts, but it flooded a lot in my area. So there were pits of sorts around the area, and they’d just… Stick us into one with daggers and the clothes on our backs.” His eyes almost glaze over in a sense, as if he can remember the terror he had – the worry as he managed to find a hiding spot, before someone had managed to smuggle a gun into the ring. Against the rules, but since it was there… Well, it added to the need of surviving.

He inhales deeply at the question, trying to figure out where to even start, before his lips part slightly. “We wrote and enforced the laws… And the laws weren’t great. We had to be ruthless, heartless, brutal to survive. And with the flooding? It only added to the absolute need to survive.” Despite the many times and urges he’d had to give it all up, give in. “Noble families had one daughter and one son. One to carry the line, the other to carry the name. And if they died, they had another. But if you ended up having two sons, when you tried for a daughter, families would orphan them to the other countries.” Oh, it was barbaric and backwards.

“They were focused on making sure the strongest of us were what were left.” He hums as the memories flood him like the rivers of Korofi. “But anyway, they made us into warriors of a sort. And the whole countries knew who we were. Would film us after we won, would post our portraits in the squares, to ensure everyone knew who we were.” And gods it had made it difficult when he joined the resistance.

At the comment, however, Sunjata manages to pull himself out of the well he’d fallen into, and he nods with a slight quirk to his lips. “I never got involved. I did my training, listened to the Arbiter drone on and on day after day, until eventually I abandoned it all.” A light roll of his shoulders. He had never looked forward to it, never wanted to be a part of it. He had been soft, gentle, once. But that was long ago.

come home. don't die so far from the sea—

Jigano had enough control to keep the dismay from his face as Sunjata explained the trial, but not from his voice, though he waited until the other man finished speaking before he gave his tongue free rein. ”So every year, only one seventeen year old boy was allowed to live? How many noble families were there in Korofi?” That seemed like it could be a hell of a way to constrict the noble population to extinction awfully fast, though if the families were smart they’d time their births so only one boy turned seventeen each year, and therefore wouldn’t have to fight anyone. With the limits placed for only one son per family that didn’t seem like it would be too difficult to manage…

The alternative, of course, being to poison the sons of your rivals who might challenge your own offspring if they shared a birth-year.


It might have been a system designed to promote the strongest, but it certainly weeded out those that were mentally smart but not as physically blessed as other boys, not when the options were ‘knife’ and ‘shirt’ in a pit. Not exactly the ones who would be inclined towards writing clever laws, or even good ones. Not when it promoted brawn over brains. Jigano grimaced at his thoughts, sitting back on his heels as some of Sunjata’s strange words flowed over him, untranslatable he assumed. ‘Film’ was probably some sort of painting or art, for instance, but it was of negligible importance compared to everything else he had been told.

”So. You abandoned it… just like that?” Jigano asked softly, blue eyes sharp as he looked up at the other man. ”The Son of the Arbiter, winner of his trial, a man famous across his entire country… just walked away from being a noble? An heir? Your father’s only allowed son?”