who we are and all that we're trying to be
Juniper’s sigh told more; the acceptance in the inevitable, the push and sway that mortals had, but only to a certain fixture and point. He could rampage after Halo time and time again, others could defend and claim themselves to be impartial and unbiased, hordes of impersonal and equitable means – but the deities had the final say. Frustrating, vexing, and exasperating on its own credentials; to be shoved either way. Hadn’t they’d been doing it all along though, pulled and entangled, ensnared and tethered, even if they couldn’t see it, couldn’t view it, until it was too late? The Sword had long since understood the assured ramparts; experienced as he’d been in times of war, battle, skirmishes, and crusades. Why his head remained out of dirt and sand and soot, but his shoulders drawn and heavy. “Were you there to hear the announcement?” He couldn’t recall, couldn’t remember – too many faces and fixtures in a crowd where a voice loomed from everywhere and nowhere, pressing time down their spines.
His own sigh filtered into the wake, and he walked over to the boulder Belial rested upon, leaning against it while he gained bearings and memories. “Yes.” Details began to pull, to press, behind his eyes, in the shades and shadows of a night that shouldn’t have happened. “Morgan and Nate came in riding a dragon.” Uncertain of who maintained the shift that had borne Sunjata’s image – he couldn’t offer a name in those regards. “Neron was also there. And I suspect Wessex,” with her swinging chakram, with teleporting abilities. “The dragon destroyed a tower of the Palace, while Morgan gave a hypocritical speech about how she did not intend to harm anyone. Noah and Hotaru surrendered in order to save the citizens from any further plight.” And that should’ve been the end of it.
Certain he wasn’t doing the tale any justice, the beast grabbed hold of some of the water, dragging it over in a graceful arc of power, conforming, twisting, and turning it into images of the evening – flying serpents, figures toppling, wakes that could’ve instilled a momentous fear in a community that knew exactly what dragons were capable of. “Then the Ascended tried to capture us.” Which would’ve been an entirely different story if they’d been successful – the Sword would’ve probably been tormented and tortured somewhere within a prison cell, alongside Noah, Ru, and Korbin. “Noah was supposedly hunted down by Nate, who also shifted into a dragon, and likely Wessex. He was injured, but still managed to evade them through the Climb. Hotaru and Korbin got away.” There, his eyes narrowed, a tilt of his head bringing him out of the next cycle of images. “I went to the Fangs portal, where Neron tried to stop me.” Which obviously hadn’t happened.
And then the water ceased its coil, returning to the ramparts of the river; uncertain of what else the Fae would like to hear.
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
