Patron Saints/Cho Namhwa Log05

From Greenthings

<Greenling> Namhwa drifts off...
<Greenling> What's true in the world...
<Greenling> Images flit past your mind in reverse, too quickly to see.
<Greenling> You find yourself as a young man in a sprawling city, in trees reaching towards the clouds.
* Cho keeps his lips pursed and looks about in awe. The trees are comforting, there's safety there.
<Greenling> There's carnage, and people fleeing... and a giant... person? made of darkness and thorns rampaging through on a dragon with the feet of a wolf.
<Greenling> Something returned for tribute it found lacking.
<Greenling> ...Also, Rei is with you, for some reason.
<Greenling> What do you do?
* Cho frowns at the being of darkness, then gestures to Rei. You with me?
* Rei stares at the immense thing of darkness and thorns and the wolf-footed dragon in awe, before looking to Cho and giving a nod.
* Cho turns back to face the creature, sure that he's in the right and it's in the wrong. He leaps from his perch in one tree to another, and tries to gain height about the being.
<Cho> (Tributes are given...) he thinks to himself.
* Cho clambors up the tree to a higher branch.
<Cho> (Not demanded. Not from us, and not from me).
<Greenling> It roars and starts heading towards you, having collapsed a building in its wrath.
<Greenling> It pulls back a javelin of solid darkness and tosses it at the tree.
* Rei makes her way after Cho, dressed in a finer dress of shimmering silk rather than her travelling clothes, effortlessly keeping pace with him as he ascends.
* Cho picks a few acorns and starts teasing it with them, tossing them at his head. "Come on, you tosser. You lackwit! You bulbous sac of... Oh!"
<Greenling> It cracks, as a soft voice sounds in your head: "Once was a maiden..."
* Cho reaches out to guide the javelin, tipping the point right into the tree next to him.
<Greenling> The tree begins to topple. "...who was always looking forward to the way things would be."
* Cho scrambles around to the high side of the tree, not planning on getting squashed.
* Cho looks over his shoulder at Rei.
<Cho> "You okay?!"
<Greenling> You land safely.
<Greenling> "She said: someday, I'm getting out of this place."
* Rei gives a poke to the javelin, before shifting to a better branch to fall with, looking to him and nodding softly.
<Greenling> The wolf-dragon thing rears up, and the beast riding it tries to attack you directly.
<Greenling> "Someday, I'm going to kill that boy that put me here." It reaches out and slashes at you with a pair of javelins. It doesn't seem to notice Rei.
* Cho hops above the javelins, the poetry guiding his actions as he plants a toe on each tip to backflip away from it onto the tip of a branch.
* Rei watches Cho's leap in awe.
<Greenling> "And while I wait, I don't much mind..."
<Greenling> You leap successfully. You seem to be glowing violet...
* Cho pushes down with all his weight, putting all his power into the tension of the branch (don't snap, don't snap, return me to him)...
<Greenling> It roars in anger, and... fear?
* Cho 's mind holds strong in the face of danger. He feels rage explode inside of him, and clenches a fist at the nadir of his planned leap.
* Cho releases the weight on the branch, letting it propel him back at the rider far quicker than he should move. Cho nearly leaves the bright light behind him as he speeds through the air, bringing his left palm around to lead into the rider's chest and shove him off his unsteady mount and the forest floor a hundred feet below them.
<Greenling> It drops and crunches.
<Greenling> "...You? Why? Why you?"
<Greenling> It looks at you with dissapointment, and feels disgustingly familiar somehow...
<Greenling> "Because it's better to dream tomorrow than to be there."
<Greenling> It dies slowly beneath you, and the scene begins to recede.
* Cho gives the thing a grim smile, then offers it a hand up before realizing that it's dead.
<Greenling> "Once there was a maiden..."
<Greenling> The scene fades back in.
<Greenling> You're walking with several people who you know now are your co-workers...
* Cho rubs his eyes.
<Greenling> An older fellow from the Lute who's your current Mentor, a young woman from your department, and a Western man about your age who's apparently a new Solar.
<Greenling> Oh. And Rei.
<Greenling> They're showing you around Yu-Shan. It's... glorious.
* Rei quietly walks along behind the various people, clothing different once more, more similar in style and coloration to the rest, looking around the sights in quiet awe
* Cho leaves his joy on his face, still new to all the sights.
<Greenling> Gods. Everywhere. Gleaming magic. Impossible constructions. The Jade Pleasure Dome.
<Greenling> "And in here, we have the Loom of Fate..." A huge building of dark stone.
<Cho> "What you were holding at bay?"
* Cho looks relieved and excited, in a quiet sort of way.
<Greenling> The voice: "...who was born, and told her mom; "I know how I'm gonna die."
<Greenling> (*,)
<Greenling> They show you in.
* Cho 's features settle into a neutral mask at the sensory input.
<Greenling> "It's a bit disturbing the first time around, but you'll get used to it eventually." The blue-eyed man ruffles your hair annoyingly.
<Greenling> It's... staggering.
<Greenling> Namhwa's mind blocks most of it out. You think you feel yourself becoming ill.
<Greenling> "It's gonna hurt bad, and I ain't coming back." You see your own thread, though.
* Cho starts from the end. It's always easier to comprehend things if you start from the end and work your way backwards.
<Greenling> The end is... far away. But very fragmented...
* Cho wonders if he should take hope in the possibilities over certainty.
* Cho wonders if it's a certainty and he doesn't have the comprehension to piece it together...
<Greenling> "...I could avoid it, but I won't." Lots of violet. Everyone you once knew was dead... guilt... time folds in on itself.
<Greenling> You have a flash of great emotion: despair and resignation, turning to... hope.
<Greenling> And you're back at the Loom.
* Cho feels his eyes burning with tears.
<Greenling> "Now now, it's all right, son. Don't worry about it." The Western kid beside you looks even more ill, and turns to you.
<Greenling> "Did you see what I see?" He whispers.
* Cho reaches his arm for the Western boy. "It's all for the best. There's a Plan."
<Greenling> "But..."
* Cho hugs the boy with one arm.
<Greenling> "I don't like this plan."
<Greenling> ("Because one day, death would come to me and say, "Baby, don't you know? There's always an ending."")
<Cho> "We have to trust in it. Everything dies, but it will be okay."
* Rei watches in dispassionate silence.
<Greenling> The man seems to be trying to usher you out as the scene ends. He seems to be more trying to make a good impression on the other boy than worrying about you much.
* Cho exchanges a cold glance with his Mentor.
<Greenling> The next one is fuzzy and short. Meetings. Fear. Arguing. Violence.
<Greenling> Prayer.
<Greenling> *fuzz*-but she stood between the world and anything worse. *fuzz*- to die tomorrow," she said. And no one heard.
<Greenling> Blood on your hands.
* Cho wipes it on his face.
<Greenling> Things collapsing.
<Greenling> Lots of...
<Greenling> *fuzz*
<Greenling> You're gravely injured, but the world in front of you is finaly coalescing into something a little more material.
* Cho punches out at the air, kicks rubble out at falling structures and strikes the ground with his fists in anguish.
* Cho opens his eyes!
<Greenling> You feel the soft, now-familiar tingle of walking back into Fate from the Wyld...
<Greenling> You remember this as being a little after that memory with the carriage. You saw your allies die...
<Cho> "Maidenfucker."
<Greenling> And Erika. Dear Erika. She was dying when you left... and now you can't feel her at all.
<Greenling> Only a sort of cold numbness. Some part of you is going over occult explanations of that to distract yourself from the pain.
* Cho looks at his hands for his ring.
<Greenling> Still there.
<Greenling> ...Kind of tarnished, now.
* Cho twists it around his finger, the only thing to do that doesn't seem to hurt physically...
<Greenling> ""And here I thought it'd last forever," she said, but-"
<Greenling> ""There's always an ending," said Time."
* Cho aches in his heart, though.
<Cho> "Always an ending... Must there be?"
<Greenling> ...You hear something strange laugh in your head.
<Greenling> The laugh seems to resonate and knock the scene away.
<Greenling> You are standing in front of a very large many-armed demon in the middle of what seems to be An-Teng.
* Cho sets his hands on his hips and looks the demon in the eye.
<Greenling> You're injured again. One of your legs is... just gone. And you're damn near out of motes. But if you can hold on for just a little while longer...
<Greenling> It's also gravely injured.
* Cho holds himself in a three-point push-up position and looks the demon in the eye.
* Rei watches from afar, hiding behind a street corner, eyes wide - though safely far enough out of the way, it seems.
<Greenling> This one's... famous. But you don't recall for some reason which one...
<Greenling> It swings its sledge at you.
<Greenling> "You're out of chances, Chosen!"
<Cho> "Prisoner of cowardice! Pustule of laziness! Harlot of despair!" Cho shouts, then pushes his momentum into action, catching the sledge at the same speed then using the energy to catapult himself onto the demon's back.
<Greenling> It darts faster than anything that big should dart, twisting the sledge around back towards your head in the meanwhile, but it merely succeeds in whizzing through your hair.
* Cho crouches low onto the demon's back, shoving his remaining leg into one armpit and wrapping his right arm around another.
<Greenling> "Arrgh!" Its clammy hands attempt to grab you, and one succeeds.
<Cho> "Look at you, you festering sore of an ape's cunt. You couldn't hit the Pole of Earth if your miserable weaving depended on it." Cho raises a fist to hammer on its head.
* Cho kicks away, desperate to hang on.
<Greenling> You manage to hit it, though you are losing your own grip.
<Greenling> You see a red and violet blur coming towards you.
* Cho , desperate for time, sinks his teeth into a loose fold of flesh between the demon's first shoulder and his neck.
<Cho> (Hang on, hang on!)
<Greenling> "Ugly, doomed little pest! Kill me if you manage it, we've already succeeded here!"
<Greenling> "Once there was a maiden... who found herself climbing up an earthen path."
<Greenling> The blood is pounding in your ears. You're holding on, but he's doing damage to you trying to pull you off.
<Greenling> "Her footsteps made no sound. There was a silence in the air."
* Cho shoves the limb out of its socket, letting the demon tear it off if he can and holding on with his remaining two limbs.
<Greenling> You feel the End coming... and the blur screams your name.
<Greenling> What...?
<Greenling> The blur hits the demon right in the jaw at massive speed, and you drop off softly (you think?) into the grass.
<Greenling> "She walked for years, and then, came to a cliff." This is followed by a flurry of attacks, only about half of which the demon manages to block.
<Greenling> It's nearly gone. Then again, so are you.
* Cho looks up at the sky for what seems like forever, then rouses himself to face the melee. Cho reaches punches out at the demon's knee, counting on it's construction to weaken if he knocks the joint out of place.
<Greenling> The knee goes *pop* and the demon goes "AAARRGH!"
<Greenling> "The road gave way to clouds, and she could go no farther."
<Greenling> It's a small, Realmish looking man. He has a strange gaze and quite a number of piercings. He chops the thing into pieces, making sure that it's dead, before kneeling beside you.
* Cho scrambles across the grass to weigh down half the demon's limbs. He tries to hold exhaustion at bay.
<Greenling> "Hishael. You'll be okay."
* Cho looks at the man in confusion. "What?"
<Greenling> "Well. I found you?"
<Greenling> He also looks confused.
<Cho> "Right. You found me. Thank you."
* Cho breathes out.
<Greenling> "I... I'm bad at... things. Helping. But I can get you back..."
<Cho> "We're in An-Teng? Did we stop it?"
<Greenling> "Yes. Yes we did."
<Cho> "The Accuser (Demonic pejorative) said that we failed. Are you sure?"
<Greenling> "I..."
<Greenling> He looks around, worried.
<Cho> "ARE YOU SURE?"
<Cho> "Go, go check!"
<Greenling> He looks you over, between you and it...
<Greenling> "...Please don't die."
<Greenling> Then stands up and runs back off.
* Cho tries to focus, what were they fighting for?
<Greenling> Something about a Yozi cult, a sword, and... destruction of the south. The demons following some strange prophecy... not a prophecy of the Loom... you hadn't even known there was such a thing, though you could intuit it now from what Lute had said.
<Greenling> ...Lute. That was very long ago.
<Greenling> Maybe he's back now. And Erika. And everyone else...
<Greenling> ""There's always an ending," she said."
<Greenling> It hurts... you can't seem to move.
<Greenling> And something stirs inside you.
* Cho lays back in the grass.
<Greenling> You feel yourself dying...
<Greenling> It's not actually so bad, once the pain stops.
* Cho pushes back into himself. "Not yet!" he tries to say.
<Cho> "This wasn't how it was supposed to happen!"
<Greenling> You feel a little like a blip on a radar screen when the little hand passes over it.
<Greenling> ...They haven't had any of those in many years. Except in the Panoply.
<Greenling> Strange things you think of when your brain's running out of juice.