[SE] on this harvest moon

SUNJATA

A nod is given back to Jigano at the mention of knowing Amalia when he saw her. It hadn’t happened yet, but the bard is probably right in assuming that he’ll cross her path eventually. Would he even know, in the end? Broad thoughts for other days as he runs a hand through his hair, focusing on the conversation shifts, shadowed steel eyes lightening slightly as he considers the crooked grin that Jigano gives him back, reflected on his own though he doesn’t entirely realize it.

The mention of Maea has him intrigued, however, and the mention of her missing causes the frown to grow in place of the crooked grin that had spread. “Seems like this place is good at losing people.” He agrees quietly, shaking his head. How many more had gone missing? Disappeared without a trace? It frustrated him, bothered him to no end that he didn’t know where Lusea had gone, how he couldn’t get there to find her, to snag onto a lead and follow it until the end.

“Ah, Edrei.” He rumbles in acknowledgement. “Spitfire, that one.” There’s a small smile that’s replaced, though his eyes remain on the empty glass before him. Another of the members of the Advocates, gone too soon. Her and Lucas, at least. But as Jigano’s tongue grows looser, his steel eyes lift slightly with a tilt to his head. Bloody-handed? He hasn’t heard much about the Ascended Queen, but when it came to blood on hands, Sunjata wasn’t one to judge in that regard.

He had too much on them himself.

The mention of the portals, however, intrigues him, and he bites down on his lower lip as he considers back to LongNight. “There’s another place. I didn’t get the name, but it’s got beaches and oceans, an underwater palace.” He recalls what James had told him, the strange accent from that, the brotherly comradery that came with the two of them, tall and both incredibly drunk. “I’m sick of snow, to be honest.” A shrug of his shoulders before a rogue grin crosses his face. “But I want to see that fucking ocean.”

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

"Far too good at it," Jigano agreed with a trace of bitterness he usually kept hidden. So many of his guildmates lost to the world. Those who were dead, who he knew were dead, at least brought closure. But the others? Killian and Maea and Seiji? Friendships he had barely begun to form before they vanished, like Melinoe and Nairi? Bridges he had only barely begun to build, tentative and fragile, as with Ashetta... washed away.

"Edrei was, at that," he said softly, affection and pain both in his voice as he considered one of his first friends, and the day she had died. Died angry at him, and then leaving him with no chance to make it up to her, because when had Caido ever been fair? Not since the day he arrived. And maybe she was no angel, but she was the best Queen they'd had so far, in Jigano's opinion. Both Zariah and Wessex were tyrants in different ways, and though he had no shortage of red on his own hands he also wasn't inclined to sit back while those who sought only to defend themselves or their homes were killed by what amounted to invaders.

It was a touchy subject with the bard.

"Beaches?" Jigano asked, intrigued. "Where did you hear of it?" And an underwater palace? He didn't remember a palace from his map, but it had been a while since he'd looked at it. He'd have to go back and study it again, try to figure out where the coast was gentle enough for such distant delights. It was a crude thing though, and unlikely to have such a level of detail. "I've never seen an ocean," he admitted after a moment lost in thought, crooked smile returning. "Numeria was landlocked. Closest I've come is some big lakes. It sounds interesting, though. And beaches sound... nice," he tested the word, hoping it was the right one, but not having enough experience to know for sure.

SUNJATA

Perhaps he shouldn’t try getting close to people, shouldn’t try to involve himself in a more permanent way, lest the same thing happen to him. If there’s something that Sunjata is good at, and still not used to, it’s losing everyone closest to him. So perhaps it’s better that he keeps his distance, his eyes averted from the rest of the populace, to keep them safe, to keep them here.

He can’t help but to reach for the bottle again, pouring a shot and knocking it back with the thought of that. The thought that he had when Jigano had found him on the Bone Bridge. When he had succumbed to the lowest point once again, deciding it was safer for people to have him gone. A black hole, destroying and taking everything in his path. That’s what he’s become.

A solemn nod is given to him at the mention of Edrei, but his mind can’t help but to revert back to those same thoughts once more, broken only by the mention of beaches as he offers the information. “Someone during LongNight was from there.” He shrugs, casually, glancing out one of the windows at the fading light outside. “Said there was a special plant that you had to… Eat? To get there? To breathe under water?” At the mention of lakes and oceans, Sunjata’s head turns back to Jigano with interest.

“We had to learn to swim in Korofi because of the flooding. And if you went far enough away from the capital, you’d reach the ocean. It was… Better than swimming in the rivers, lakes, floodwaters. The sand in your toes, the sunsets.” There’s a slight nostalgic smile that crosses his face. “I feel asleep on the beach one time, woke up to the tide rushing in and thought I was getting swept away to the sea.”

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

Jigano watched as Sunjata took another shot, but didn't join him this time. His tongue was loose enough as it was, and he had never been the type to drink himself senseless. He had too many secrets to keep to allow for that kind of vulnerability with anyone but Rory, and certainly not with someone he knew as little as he did the Korofi man.

"How did they get here," he asked of the mysterious beach bum, intrigued in spite of himself. Once before he'd met someone from beyond the storms - Virion, a man who had disappeared almost as soon as he'd arrived - and though the Greatwood portal had been opened before LongNight, the control 'room' led only to the mountains so far. "Mmm. We've a few special plants here, too, so that's not too strange... I think," he murmured at the mention of a plant that would let someone breathe underwater. They had snowmoss that stayed cold year-round, gilded lilies that killed with a touch, and efas herb that served as a panacea for all sorts of minor ills. Why not another plant with magical properties?

Tales of Korofi were still interesting to the bard, and he made mental notes to add to the journal entry he'd started for it, as part of the collection of various worlds that Outlanders came from. "What's the tide like?" he asked curiously, an almost innocent gleam of fascination in weary blue eyes. He'd read about it, but to hear from someone who'd experienced it made it seem far more real. "Is the ocean as salty as they say?" 'They' being adventurers on his world, but still... were oceans the same from world to world? And inquiring mind wanted to know!

SUNJATA

A question of how James had gotten here, and Sunjata finds himself quietly chuckling at that before he shakes his head. “No clue.” His tattooed shoulders rise and fall in a shrug before he focuses on the bard again. “I was a bit too drunk to ask how he got here when he was telling me of oceans.” A wink, his honesty shining through. The moment he’d heard beaches and oceans, he had forgotten anything that would have made sense.

A bob of his head is given to Jigano when he mentions there’s likely plants here that do a similar thing, and he agrees. After arriving here there had been a variety of things he hadn’t realized could exist – but again, he’d also come from a place with no magic, no nothing. And when magic is involved, he supposes that anything is possible at the end of the day.

The question of the tide takes him a bit by surprise however, and that same nostalgic smile crosses his face as he contemplates it. “The tide.” He begins, rumbling as he figures out where to start. “It’s strange in a sense. It depends on the moon, the bigger the moon the further the pull.” He begins, tilting his head lightly. “So it’ll be the highest, flood things when it starts to get dark, and during the day around midday it’ll go back out to the rest of the sea.” It’s strange to explain how that works, but he does his best.

“As for salt? It is.” A quiet chuckle. “Spend too long in it and you’ll get very dehydrated.” Steel eyes lift up to look at Jigano with a dark raised brow, the alcohol sweeping through him in force now and he’ll probably answer whatever questions the bard may have about Korofi.

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

"Fair enough," Jigano agreed easily, grinning back as he ran his finger around the lip of his own glass idly. Everyone dealt with LongNight in their own ways, and hiding in a bottle was a popular retreat from the fear and darkness. It was strange seeing this more relaxed and more playful side of the man he'd met under the most trying of circumstances; first the blight, and now the loss of his lover. It was a surprise to realize that Sunjata knew how to smile, but a pleasant one. It made a nice change from all the nastier surprises Caido had been pulling lately.

"Pushing and pulling... like the ocean is breathing," Jigano murmured, delighted by the image even if the process sounded incredibly slow at only one full breath a day. "I'm amazed that fish can actually live in it if it's that salty, though. Wouldn't they just shrivel up as well?" He tilted his head thoughtfully, waiting for the room to catch up a moment later before he continued. "And you mentioned swimming in floodwaters! Did they came every year? How did you get that nickname?" Eager questions, enthusiastic and interested as he leaned forward to let the table help hold him up while they talked.

SUNJATA

A slight nod, most of his memories of LongNight were hazy, but still there. He just hadn’t quite been there in the moment to peel information out of anyone. And when he’d tried to ask James what the name of it was, the other man couldn’t remember either. Which, fair enough, he supposes. The two made a rather unique pair as they headed toward the makeshift bar. But that was weeks ago now, and he hadn’t seen the man since, wondering where he’d squirreled himself off to.

Jigano’s question brings his thoughts back, and his steel eyes scan over Jigano’s face as he speaks, that same nostalgic smile crossing his face, light and soft in comparison to his hardened exterior. “Mhm, essentially the same.” He confirms, until Jigano mentions the fish. He shakes his head to that. “Nope, different kinds of fish. The ocean fish can’t really live in the fresh water, likewise most freshwater fish do exactly that.” Evolution, or something like that. “So you’d find sharks and whales can handle the ocean really well, but you stick them in freshwater, they’ll have a hard time.”

The mention of the floods grant his gaze to return to the bard. “Yeah they came every year. During what I guess is called Leafchange here? It’s when I was born.” A slight shrug. As to how he got the nickname? Well, that’s a whole story in and of itself. “Uh, well, the resistance Lusea and I were a part of needed a face for it, nicknames to kind of prove ourselves. Lusea was called the flame because she was fierce, handled a gun the best I’ve ever seen. Left smoke and fire wherever she went.” As he thinks back to it, he smirks lightly at it. “As for me, well, I’d learned to swim really young, and sometimes my father had thought to flood us out. All of the guards were trained to withstand and swim in the hardest of currents, and since I was one of them for awhile before I defected, I’d learned all the little tricks they had.” He pauses as he thinks to when the name had come about.

“So, the resistance soldiers had holed up in this museum of sorts, and my father had directed the dams to flood into the museum… And most of these kids couldn’t swim very well. So I helped to get them out. But they were hoping to capture me, right? They wanted me back to continue the line despite what shit I did, so I tricked the soldiers. We were trained how to hold our breath for a fairly long time, and I had baited them essentially.” A slight shrug before a chuckle leaves him, the smile returning. “Lusea went down below and opened a few of the grates underground to a sewer system that had been blocked from releasing the water, and when she did, the pull from the water finding a different way out mostly sucked them all out and made it easy for us all to get away.” He shrugs again. His father hadn’t brought backup, hadn’t thought to need it.

“I guess they called me that because it could be a blessing or a curse. You could drown, or you could learn to adapt with the currents.” And he’d done both, time and time again. "And besides, being with Lusea then? What's more poetic than water and fire?" A smirk toward the end.

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

Jigano nodded thoughtfully, having heard of sharks and whales, though the books had never really explained how the fish and other creatures were different enough to live in what sounded like an extremely hostile environment. Still, life always seemed to find a way.

The tale of Sunjata's past distracted him from asking more about the ocean, blue eyes mostly-focused as he listened raptly. "But how did you and Lusea avoid getting pulled down into the sewer system with them?" he asked eagerly. Lusea, at least, if she was closest to the suction should have been the first to drown... though Sunjata hadn't said anyone had died. Perhaps they'd just ended up in the sewers with a good fright? Everything he'd heard before, however, made it sound like a harder world than that.

"Ah, poetry I can appreciate," he agreed with a chuckle. The bard tilted his head to the side, fingers idly tapping out a brief melody on the table as he hummed for a moment and then launched into an impromptu little song:

"When hearts burn afire and blood runs like water
When tyranny’s son meets liberty’s daughter
Some drown in the flood as they run from the slaughter
Or dance to their graves as the fire grows hotter."

SUNJATA

And what a question that was. “We modified some of the tools my father had with a bit more advanced technology. She didn’t get pulled out because she was connected to a few members of our team that was on the roof. They pulled her up through it.” He offers with a slight shrug. He had swam through it, but he had also positioned himself in a way that made it so he could escape.

As for what happened to the soldiers when they’d been sucked through to the sewers? Well, there had been a few drownings. None that he cared about. War was war, after all, and so long as those nearest to him remained okay, he honestly cared less about the rest of it. “When we got back to headquarters, it was all anyone would call us.” He snorted. “Beers to the flame and flood of Korofi.” He picks up his empty glass in a small makeshift toast before setting it back again on the countertop, that same nostalgic smile on his lips as before.

Poetry, however, seemed like something Jigano might have appreciated. And he listens while Jigano hums a melody before applying improvised words, and for a moment he’s stunned by the words – by the meaning, by the true poetry of it. And it takes him a bit to respond, but when he does, his voice is quiet, rough, somewhat gravely as a softer smile crosses his face. “Thank you.” Wondering if he should write it down and hang it in the bar that would’ve been theirs one day.

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

"Ahhh clever," he grinned, approving very much of the Korofi rebels who reminded him of the rebellion he had been a part of, briefly, before the Black Sovereign had been dethroned and they had gone on to dismantle the shadows that had been poisoning the throne. "Shame about the museum, though. Still, I can see why you were toasted, after pulling off a victory like that!" He toasted Sunjata back with his empty glass before his minstrel's mind was distracted by what he could do with the Flame and Flood monikers. Something fierce and bloody, fitting the smoke and shadows in which they had lived in Korofi...

A single verse, but not a bad one for being alcohol-fueled, he thought to himself as he trailed off into comfortable silence. Sunjata's voice pulled his attention back to the moment, and the bard found a gentler smile on his face at the genuine gratitude on the tall man's mien. Bowing would mean moving too much now that he was comfortable, so he settled for a deep nod. "You're welcome," he murmured. "Perhaps I should stick to music and poetry more but... I'm a meddlesome beast, at heart," he admitted with a wry shrug. "And to set in my ways to change now. I got so used to moving on from a place within a week of arriving that I forgot how to keep the friends I start to make. Caido takes as much as it gives, in the long run, and changes us all whether we ill it or nay. So when I can come up with a bit of song it's... it eases the strain of things, a bit. Thank you for the inspiration, sir Flood." He toasted Sunjata again with his crooked smile, letting the alcohol work its magic on his tension, at least for a little while.

SUNJATA

“We were crafty rebels.” He responds easily, a slight crooked smile crossing his face as the alcohol numbs most of the worries, the fears he’s holding close to his heart. The mention of the museum though has him snorting, giving Jigano a roguish look. “Oh, my father despite his shortfalls wasn’t stupid. All the museums held realistic copies. The real ones were held where we lived and the surrounding areas in bunkers.” A shrug. His father was certainly one to bring up learning from past mistakes, it’s what’s made the reign such a sharp hand. It’s why traditions had been so important.

It’s why they’d kept it up for years, replacing and replicating, pushing the strongest lines and not necessarily the smartest ones. It’s also why Sunjata specifically wanted nothing to do with it in the slightest.

The verse however makes his smile softer, a boyish, childish kind of calm coming over him that has only happened a couple of times in Caido. Still, he nods and snorts slightly when Jigano mentions he’s meddlesome. “You and me both.” A roll of his shoulders at that. “As for that, I can understand.” A recollection of Lusea calling him soft because he had been with Phoebe, had chosen the midwife to settle with when he’d inevitably drown her. A force to be reckoned with.

Sir Flood though? That was a new one. And he gives a toothy smirk back to Jigano, revealing slightly sharp canines but nothing near the Ascended – just genetics at this point. “Vloed, if you want to be accurate.” A wink from his steel eyes is given before he hums a quiet laugh.

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

"Smart. A shitty thing to do, but smart," Jigano reluctantly admitted, admiring the cold-blooded calculation of Sunjata's father even as he abhorred the deception of it. He knew the importance of learning from the past, but also of having access to the ability to learn. Education, examples, ways to bring history and lessons to life... copies could suffice for the broadest strokes of that, creating a foundation, but eventually the real things were needed in order to move forward - or to inspire moving forward, at least.

But protecting the past and not letting it be damaged in war and strife was important too, lest irreplaceable historical treasures be lost for all time.

It was a damn complicated mess, was what it was. And he was far too tipsy to deal with it.

Poetry was far preferable to difficult moral and ethical conundrums, a song inspired by courageous deeds and legendary people. Legends on Korofi who would surely come to be legends on Caido, given time and opportunity. "I suppose you don't become guildmaster of something like the Advocates without a penchant for meddling," Jigano agreed with a crooked smile. "I guess the question will be what services you'll be willing to offer, and what code you'll end up following, at least within your own ranks." A thief could still have honor, and a spy could still be loyal, after all, but in a land without hard currency it was harder to say what constituted payment and a 'highest bidder.' "When you've gotten yourselves more settled I'll be curious what you're going rate is," he added, thoughts tumbling out with the ease of the whiskey behind them.

"Sir Vloed it is," he agreed with an answering grin, mimicking the accent with eerie perfection. "Knight of waves and shadows."

SUNJATA

At Jigano’s reluctant admittance, Sunjata nods in agreement. “He was a hard man, especially when it came to power, but he was smart about it.” He offers with another shrug. He had tried to make Sunjata into a soldier, obedient, promising, a carbon copy of his father – only Sunjata wasn’t like that. He didn’t enjoy it, in the end, the murder and brutality his father had always toted. But the mask he’d carved was similar in a sense, as much as he hated to admit it.

At least he didn’t abuse his children and murder his wife.

The poetics, however, draw his mind away from the darker places they head toward, and he focuses on Jigano once more. “Not entirely, no.” He agrees, a boyish smile crossing his face to meet Jigano’s crooked one. “Favor for favor. Like we’ve done.” His hands splay out in front of him as if to demonstrate it. ’I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.’

But as Jigano mimics the accent, Sunjata snorts lightly. “Ah. Well done.” Though he’d never considered himself a Knight. He had been a soldier, an officer of sorts, a rebel, a heartbreaker, a boxer, and yet none of those seemed to scream the thought he got when the term ‘knight’ was added beside his nickname.

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

"Favor for favor has worked well for me so far," Jigano agreed easily. It was the Loreseeker's primary method of payment when someone came seeking their information, after all. Gain knowledge, and in exchange come help out when a notice was posted to rebuild a damaged wall or clear mud from the area or construct new shelves. The Advocates, though, sounded like their favors might be a bit less... savory, from Adam's implied meaning and deliberate vagueness on the details. Slippery slopes... but if Sunjata was a good man at heart then perhaps there was less reason for concern.

Then again, the Flood of Korofi was a killer and his father's son, however much he didn't want to be. He could still be a likeable man and one to treat with wary respect when business was on the line.

The bard tipped his head at the compliment, as if to say 'it's nothing.' His training made it easier for him to pick up new languages and mimic accents, and he enjoyed the chance to put the old education to a more peaceful use. "I should probably make my way home soon," he admitted with a reluctant sigh. "Though I've never tried to fly after drinking this much before. It should make for an interesting trip," he decided with a chuckle.