it's much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of -
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Wessex Theskyra
the Wraith
General of the Hollowed Grounds

Age: 47 | Height: 5'8'' | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 12 - Strg: 61 - Dext: 60 - Endr: 61 - Luck: 58 - Int: 2
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#15
Laser beams we're about to awesome all your dreams
“What I’m hearing - and correct me if I’m wrong - is that we should let this attack slide without retaliation because of the… potential repercussions?” The world is different now, there are pieces moving, so much has changed since the last ‘big’ move by either side. Torchline is focused inward, or so it seems. Halo has gone through two Wardens and has a lot of work to do. Now the Ground has a new Queen. No one is aligned. Things will take time to get into place and the Wraith need not wait.

“Nothing I do can bring them back. And we have no central place to call our own and banish them from. So how do we tell them that this kind of thing will not be tolerated? What is just enough to be appropriate?” Even the fact that what she does - if she does anything - won’t have lasting damage means that it’s weak, in her book. Regardless of what she truly thinks and wants, the Wraith lays the questions out, plain and simple, trying to guide and coax the girl’s mind into making connections and saying exactly what she means. If Mabel must work it out mid-speech, then so be it, but none of these half-formed, subtle questions.

“The thing is that they aren’t ready for a war either. No one is.” But if they begin to think a certain way, perhaps they can get the advantage. Perhaps.

As for the children, well - Wessex’s mouth presses into a thin line. “Only the Ascended are my responsibility and my concern. I can tell you that The Voice wants to help people and improve their lives, so doing anything to hurt the general public would be counter-productive.” The Blight still doesn’t make sense to her, but perhaps that was three hundred years of pent up rage getting released. She shakes her head. “But Clem was innocent, too, just a little older than you.” His only fault was wanting to impress Wessex and be an important part of the family.

“And so were our people, when they put us in this barrier. So I can promise that I will fight for their right to choose to live wherever and do whatever they want, so long as they don’t harm us. Truly, she doesn’t care if the Fae want to hide away in their woods, if Amalia wants to hate Ascended, or if Morgan wants to keep an eye on them for whatever paranoid reason. But the moment they begin to hunt and restrict and try to hurt them - that’s when they have a big problem. She would rather keep peace in the world through mutual respect and admiration, but if fear is what ultimately does it, then so be it.
WESSEX
Mabel Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'7" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 3 - Strg: 16 - Dext: 16 - Endr: 16 - Luck: 16 - Int:
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#16
MABEL

There was something else swarming through ber brain – a warning, a keening dirge, a siren wailing – because opinions differed, and the girl wasn’t sure they were all going to be able to withstand the oncoming storm. She grabbed hold of her needle, tight and grasping, until her knuckles flanked white and ivory, pale outsets in the darkened chambers, in the frustration she could no longer hide away. “No. That’s not what I said.” Perhaps Wessex, strong, enduring, a Wraith of ample prowess and prestige, would be able to handle any onslaught thrown their way, but if she was so worried about her people, then why enact a course of action they couldn’t persevere through? “I mentioned starting small, but hitting them where it hurt. Or maybe where they couldn’t pinpoint us as the culprits. Weakening them, and strengthening ourselves.”

Mabel was inexperienced, young, ignorant, to be sure, but she knew that she wanted to live. That she wanted her sister to live. That she wanted the Ascendeds to rise to the occasion, to become potent and powerful, to show the world the Brightened ones were the true emblems of the world now –

But not at the cost of her kin.

And maybe this was where she and the Wraith would differ, wander, diverge, seek alternate paths. There were bound to be other measures, other means, than simply striving to bludgeon. Her mind conjured a multitude of ideas, and she figured she’d seek out Evelyn, perhaps Bastien, when LongNight’s spurning had ceased.

Even if the Old God worshippers weren’t ready, didn’t they already vastly outnumber the Ascended? Her brain attempted to calculate how many of them were still left, but had no way of knowing, unaware of who clawed outside the barrier and portal walls. “But it seems you intend to do this no matter what I say.” Her words weren’t soft, deliberately poignant. You can survive a war, but can the rest of us?” Wessex's own brethren? This so-called family?

She said nothing of the Blight – had only witnessed it from afar. There were contradictions and hypocrisies to linger in there, but Mabel thought she’d likely said enough. Her points had been made, so she loosened the grip on her sewing needle, and stared down at the floor, jaw clenched.
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out
Wessex Theskyra
the Wraith
General of the Hollowed Grounds

Age: 47 | Height: 5'8'' | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 12 - Strg: 61 - Dext: 60 - Endr: 61 - Luck: 58 - Int: 2
LOKI - Mythical - Dragon (Energy Blast)
Played by: Astor Offline
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Posts: 3,156 | Total: 4,350
MP: 0
#17
Laser beams we're about to awesome all your dreams
“Mabel,” she begins with an exasperated sigh, “What do you think I’m going to do? Exactly.” She’d mentioned two things, neither of which had garnered approval or disapproval, not that she’d ever been asking for it. The way the girl’s hands clench her knitting needles don’t go unnoticed, and the Wraith puts her own out, palms up, offering them to the teenager in a sort of comfort-slash-peace offering kind of way. She must remember that they’re still teenagers, not adults. Old enough to decide, but not old enough to think as rationally.

“Look,” she begins. “You have to be direct with me. I don’t understand subtle very well, I never have. If you’re afraid or worried, tell me that and why. If you don’t like an idea, tell me that and why. Offer an alternative if you can. I think there’s been a miscommunication somewhere, and I think I know where. Your idea of starting small is a good one, and in my mind, hitting Safrin’s shrine is small. It’s an emotional strike. It can be disguised as a monster’s attack and the thing itself can be rebuilt.”

Giving the girl a good look, she asks quietly, “I know you don’t know me very well, but do you really think I’d be that callous about my family? What you see is just the tip of what goes on inside my head, my heart, and in conversation with the Voice.” And maybe that was part of the problem, that she keeps so much inside herself, that she takes on whole burdens by herself. She’s begun to delegate with Amun, but perhaps she needs to employ the others more. Try to… let go of some of her control issues.
WESSEX
Mabel Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'7" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#18
MABEL

Placated briefly, the youth loosened a sigh, a breath she didn’t need to hold; the needle not so tethered to her hand, gliding down to her fingertips. Her head hung down still, and layers, lacquer, of frustration slid in amongst her ichor, uncertain what she was supposed to be feeling, and expecting a lecture. “Bring us to war.” Hadn’t the Wraith said so? To prepare, to be ready, when the tension was drawn high, when the sovereignty seemed to turn over.

Her eyes eventually glanced back up to Wessex, listening, taking everything in, trying hard not to immerse herself back into the flare of her temper, the rise of her ire. “I want to live. I want my sister to live. I’m not ready for any battle.” No matter how much she’d wanted to be those wolves creeping through the darkness, illustrious and deadly in the forest, she couldn’t possibly reign supreme now, not when they were so new, barely Bright at all. Evelyn was all she had left of a sanctity they’d willingly left behind, of a void that hadn’t listened to them, of a world full of false spirits and love for deities and heralds who’d never heard them at all. She didn’t want to lose her.

Then she shrugged at the Wraith’s implications. “I don’t know you at all. I hardly know anyone in this family.” Save for her own twin, who she’d understand and comprehend for eternity. “I don’t know what you want for us.” A tide of ignorance, swelling over her sanctity, looking straight into the older woman’s gaze.
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out
Wessex Theskyra
the Wraith
General of the Hollowed Grounds

Age: 47 | Height: 5'8'' | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 12 - Strg: 61 - Dext: 60 - Endr: 61 - Luck: 58 - Int: 2
LOKI - Mythical - Dragon (Energy Blast)
Played by: Astor Offline
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#19
Laser beams we're about to awesome all your dreams
Bring them to war? Oh - Oh no, - she shakes her head again. “No, I meant -”

Seeing as Mabel hadn’t taken her hand, she brings them both up to her head, really quite tired of fighting with girls all the time. What is about her that spurns such animosity? A purposeful misunderstanding on their part, a misguided attempt at treating them adults and trying to find a maternal balance on her part? There’ll be time for that kind of contemplation later, for now, she must try to right this. “I meant that the door attack, I see it signaling a change in the heralds’ tactics. A shift from just hating us to actually doing something to kill us.”

Ludo’s orders last year had felt like a way for them to feel the situation out, see if there were people willing to do the dirty work. Now she sees the same thing, a trickery, playing on people’s sense of trust. “And when people look back, they might see that door as the beginning of it. If it comes to war.” Pausing, the Wraith is quite solemn, for she can imagine the many ways a true war will go. “I don’t want it to come to that, but I -we - can’t be in denial.” It’s dangerous for them to stick their heads in the sand and pretend shit isn’t happening.  

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You don’t have to fight the way I do.” That is the damned truth; if she wants to, all the better, but the Wraith will never though the admins might that she has to do something that she doesn’t feel ready for. “And even if you wanted to fight, I would try to discourage you if I thought you weren’t ready.” Because the girl is right, they aren’t, not right now. So she shrugs right back, “And I don’t know you, either. But I’m trying to, so do me a favor and remember that I’m not perfect.” She can be impetuous and ignorant and sanctimonious all she wants, but at the end of the day, the Wraith is in her corner.

“But I care, and I want us to do more than live. I want us to thrive.
WESSEX
Mabel Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'7" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#20
MABEL

Mabel was tired; she shouldn’t have been, given her Ascended state, but the conversation unwound in so many different, distracting, deterring alterations that her head spun. Her head hung low and she swallowed down a barrage of selected curses, knotting together in the pit of her stomach, gnawed along the clenching of her jaw. Changes in tactics, not war for them but something else altogether, uncertain if she’s being purposefully misled or her reactions had spurred, instigated, agitated something else. Her hair fell over her face, wild and savage now, a culmination of uncertain waves, not even knowing where to go or what to say any longer.

No denial that it was coming, that something had collapsed and overrun, that the girls had seemingly chosen the wrong time to become Brightened, weak, and fragile, that choices eventually might not be left up to them – no matter what the Wraith conjured. The explanations ran over her flesh and bone, and she had nothing to fight against anymore, exhausted, fatigued, by the weight pressing down on them. “Okay,” unfurled and nothing more, nothing else, accepting the inevitable as it curled and fanned through her skull.

The youth already knew what she wanted to do, how she wanted to act, how she and Evelyn were going to move forward.

But her eyes swung back up, empty and lifeless and cold. “And how are we going to thrive?” While the world bit at them, while the Old Gods smirked and simmered, while the demons rose and they were cut down, one by one?
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out
Wessex Theskyra
the Wraith
General of the Hollowed Grounds

Age: 47 | Height: 5'8'' | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 12 - Strg: 61 - Dext: 60 - Endr: 61 - Luck: 58 - Int: 2
LOKI - Mythical - Dragon (Energy Blast)
Played by: Astor Offline
Change author:
Posts: 3,156 | Total: 4,350
MP: 0
#21
Laser beams we're about to awesome all your dreams
No matter what she says, it seems to be wrong. She answers the questions posed and they seem to make the girl more upset. Wessex doesn’t understand. Perhaps she’s forgotten what it’s like to be a child, she should have kept her mouth shut instead of trying to include Mabel in her thoughts, or perhaps she’d just pegged the girl as something she isn’t. It happens. The Wraith has been a poor judge of character before.

After all that, the attempted explanations and the promise that they wouldn’t be forced to fight before they’re ready, there’s still more. The older woman can only shrug, because she can’t figure out how to answer in a way that won’t evoke either sinking into a hole or hiding behind teenage-built walls. She shrugs, tucking some short hair behind her ear and standing.

“I don’t know. That part is - whatever it means to you.” Wessex knows she’s not a good judge of subjective terms. She’s the kind that will rarely be satisfied, and the plain truth is that not everyone is like that. Maybe one day she’ll learn her limits, but the next six days aren’t one of them. Sighing, Wessex looks around for a way out of the conversation and spots a few people queuing up outside a room - perhaps that’s where Rex is. “I have to go. Check on Bastien and… Rex. Clem.” Experience some feelings and then shove them all back down again.

“Be safe, please.” A grim, flat look crosses her face, but she tries to nod and smile in farewell all the same before heading to find Rexanna’s body.
WESSEX
Mabel Occidendum


Age: 23 | Height: 5'7" | Race: Ascended | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#22
MABEL

The Wraith was clearly done with her, and for the moment, perhaps Mabel was finished with the older woman as well. She’d hasten to the directions given, but otherwise, had been left with no greater benefits – narrowing her eyes in speculation as they dropped to the floor again. The twins would develop and implement their own plans then, their own means, measures, and ways of thriving, of punishing, of finding methods of satisfaction. The youth shrugged, lifting her head to watch Wessex go, gaze still pinpointed. Once they were released from LongNight’s shroud and veil, they’d have the opportunity to do exactly as they wished, with no one but themselves holding them back. Not eager or ready for war, but for something else all the same. With those thoughts nestled, she hastened a meager wave, before returning to her knitting, listening to the sounds of other conversations as plots began to unfurl.

{FIN}
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out


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