[08:50] <VoxPVoxD>
[08:50] <VoxPVoxD>
[08:50] <VoxPVoxD>
[08:50] <VoxPVoxD>
[08:50] <VoxPVoxD>
[08:55] <VoxPVoxD> So it is that one of Creation's greatest beauties and most accomplished killers is slightly awkwardly stuck in a luxurious bath with the earnest, weirdly stubborn girl who managed to wind her way towards the Fangs' inner circle just by... being around, basically. She begins, "When Master Daizo brought me up the mountain, I was so excited. I had good work, the orphanage was behind me,
[08:55] <VoxPVoxD> I was making friends. I was on top of the Imperial Mountain."
[08:57] <Crion> There has always been something to be said, in legend, parable, and moral fable, for the power of perserverance.
[08:57] <Crion> Piu nods.
[08:59] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri: "Then the Witch invites you all to partake of her sacred brews, and you all invite Sadako and I to partake as well. 'Meditate on a question', she said. An invitation to think about something personal, something troubling, something momentous... but I didn't want any of that. I just wanted to keep riding that feeling I rode up the mountain."
[09:00] <VoxPVoxD> "So we all sat down to drink that bitter, bitter tea, I aimed real low: 'where will I be three months from now?'"
[09:00] <Crion> That's...well, that's very much not the point of the exercise, dear.
[09:00] <VoxPVoxD> "And I saw... nothing."
[09:01] <Crion> But she doesn't let it show on her face.
[09:01] <VoxPVoxD> "Nothing at all. Not even darkness."
[09:03] <Crion> Piu, carefully: "I'm not...an expert on these things. When I asked my question, I saw something from my House's past. Something deeply concerning, which, maybe, would explain some of how I've behaved about the Realm recently. I don't really want to go into the specifics there, they're quite...political."
[09:03] <Crion> The carefulness isn't about that, it's so she doesn't come off as dismissive or insulting. "Have you considered maybe the Witch simply...can't tell the future?"
[09:04] <Crion> "That, after all, is the purview of Heaven, we're taught."
[09:04] <Crion> "I imagine they wouldn't look kindly on her freelancing like that."
[09:05] <Crion> How long ago was that, anyway? Has the three-month deadline hit?
[09:05] <VoxPVoxD> You've got about a month left.
[09:05] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri: "That's what Sadako and Lady Caxi said. But Master Daizo, Lady Dryas, even Sadako herself... they all saw the future. Or something like it. They looked forward, and saw something. They didn't... it wasn't like they were staring at the back cover of a book that already closed."
[09:07] <Crion> Piu: "It could be a matter of phrasing. I'm sure they all asked directly about one of the personal matters they're very anxious about -- you know the ones, you can sort of feel them. Perhaps just asking for a general check-up confused the Witch's method."
[09:08] <Crion> Piu: "What I can say is that I don't plan on permitting you to die in the next month, or the month after that, or the month after that. We couldn't look after every crew member on the boat, when Furia destroyed it. Sadly, it was a numbers game. We have made a commitment to looking after you."
[09:08] <Crion> "That might not be fair to the men belowdecks, but..."
[09:08] <Crion> Piu shrugs. "The first lesson from the nanny revolves around how fair life is."
[09:09] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri: "I guess I don't know for sure... but that feels wrong to me. Not that I doubt your skill or your commitment, but like you said yourself. Nobody goes through life without losing anyone. And ever since I've been trying to... I've been convinced I'm going to die. I still am. So what else can I do but try to find a way to go that earns a gentler road for the next turn at the wheel?"
[09:09] <VoxPVoxD> "And I've felt so terribly angry."
[09:12] <Crion> Piu: "Again, I'm not very good at talking about things. Not in this way; not honestly. But there seems to be a level of conviction here in what's going to happen that makes me think of the Witch's vision as a trigger, rather than a cause."
[09:16] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri: "A trigger of what?"
[09:18] <Crion> Piu: "An underlying fatalism. A belief from somewhere that maybe you don't have a right to exist. That you shouldn't exist. Or that not existing -- or existing the bosom of...whatever's after death...might be better. There have been times I've felt that way. Occasions when I still do."
[09:19] <VoxPVoxD> "Really?"
[09:19] <Crion> Seiri doesn't and probably can't understand how tightly duty binds Iselsi Piu to this world, at least not without learning some things it's quite lethal to learn.
[09:21] <Crion> Piu: "Yeah, really. I found reasons to live in my House. And in V'Neef herself. And now in the Hearth and in all of you." She grins. "And in Chief Petty Officer Samperson, and our resident Silver Anathema."
[09:21] <Crion> "But it was...touch and go there. For awhile."
[09:21] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri looks at Piu for a while in silence, her brow rippling with the heat rising from heartache. "But you're so strong."
[09:22] <Crion> Piu closes her eyes and sinks into the water. "The better to beat yourself up with, my dear."
[09:24] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri: "Where do *you* think we'll be in a month? In six months?"
[09:26] <Crion> Piu: "In a month? We'll be ruining everyone's day under the hospitality of old Cathak Budokan at Putu-on-Neck. Trust me -- things are going to get wild there. In six? I suspect the Garden will be humming, we'll be warring with Nn Tloc's replacement, and our fortress redoubt in Old Mionzi will be casting a long shadow of power as we pull together a pirate alliance -- along with
[09:26] <Crion> what's left of the Realm fleet, as the Realm heads for civil war -- to oppose the expansion of the undead of Soulstone."
[09:27] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri's eyes widen.
[09:27] <VoxPVoxD> "Wow... so Lady Dryas is right, you think?"
[09:28] <Crion> Piu: "She and I don't see eye-to-eye on a lot, but she's rarely if ever wrong about Realm politics. And we're headed to war with her aunt Falen at least, which is bound to cause waves of consequences. The ripple effect on the ocean is more accurately called the tide."
[09:30] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri: "Do you think that's a good thing?"
[09:31] <Crion> Piu: "No, I don't think war is a good thing. I also don't think that's a very useful way to think about it. Advantage and disadvantage -- colder measurements, but much more real."
[09:31] <Crion> She sounds somewhat tired and sad as she says this.
[09:32] <Crion> Seiri is probably, by now, used to the various personality shifts V'neef Piu goes through depending on who is in the room and how they're feeling.
[09:33] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri: "That's very wise..."
[09:35] <VoxPVoxD> Her shoulders sag beneath the water. "Part of me was hoping you would just say 'yes'. But obviously that's wrong, and childish of me."
[09:37] <Crion> Piu sighs. "I think the war, whatever form it takes, will provide advantage for us. It's not that we're smart or tough or virtuous, though you could say we're all those things to some degree. It's that we're powerful, and we're positioned at points of leverage, and we're really, really good at making friends. For various reasons."
[09:38] <Crion> Piu: "Our mothers made a mistake when they put us together. At least from the perspective of their own power, and their ability to control us."
[09:38] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri: "What's she like? If that's not an impertinent question."
[09:41] <Crion> Piu: "She took an interest in my upbringing. That's more than most girls can say. She is the reason I'm the person I am today."
[09:41] <Crion> "Given what I said earlier...well."
[09:41] <Crion> "Family is complicated."
[09:41] <Crion> "Oh, you probably meant V'neef."
[09:41] <Crion> "I was adopted, you see."
[09:42] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri: "Oh. I'm sorry, I had no idea."
[09:42] <Crion> "Lots of House V'neef's daughters are. It's a very young House."
[09:42] <Crion> "It's quite alright. My feelings on V'neef are much less complicated! She's a brilliant, kind, resourceful woman who deserved to earn her Household in more peaceful times."
[09:43] <Crion> "Sixty years or so isn't enough to build a bulwark with the strength to survive what's coming. Not unless the Empress returns, anyway."
[09:45] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri: "I guess this is what the nannies mean."
[09:50] <Crion> One of the training horror stories that circulated among the tween and teen Iselsis at the Inverse Mountain -- before they were sent off to the House of Bells or Pasaip's Stair or wherever with manufactured identities, the place where they learned to be House Iselsi first and last -- was the kids being forced to kill their own nannies as their first kill. Piu found out that was
[09:50] <Crion> true, after a fashion (it was occasionally doled out as a form of spirit-breaking or punishment), much later. Such a thing was never an issue for her.
[09:51] <Crion> "Yes," she says, "I suppose so."
[09:52] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri: "And most of us don't get to see the people who raised us face the fate they earned."
[09:53] <VoxPVoxD> "...thank you for that."
[09:53] <Crion> Piu nods. "You're welcome. Though again. I'd council not to think of it as virtue. Just a power relationship."
[09:54] <Crion> She closes her eyes again. "Would that I could claim it as virtue by doing it to every slaver I've come across."
[09:54] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri: "If that's not virtue... what is?"
[09:55] <Crion> Piu: "Well, the monks have their answer. Daizo, the best among them, has found it inadequate. But the killers have their answer too...and I might not be the best, or, well, worst, among them, but killing people doesn't bring anyone back to life. Physically or spiritually."
[09:56] <Crion> Piu: "Is doing the right thing for its own sake virtuous, if it doesn't uphold a virtuous project or end? And where does assassination fit into that?"
[09:57] <Crion> "Before this extended assignment, I honestly didn't have time to ask such questions. My masters have kept me busy."
[09:57] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri: "Or is any act that brings about a more virtuous end itself moral as a result?"
[09:57] <Crion> "I doubt they're happy about my newfound free time."
[09:58] <VoxPVoxD> "These are impossible questions. I feel very lucky I don't have the power that requires you to come up with an answer."
[09:58] <Crion> Piu: "Well, that's a much more popular definition in my line of work, I'll permit."
[10:03] <Crion> She stands, gloriously naked, and plucks up a towel. "We're shipping out in a few hours, you know."
[10:03] <Crion> "Onto the next phase. You'll live to see it, or I won't."
[10:03] <VoxPVoxD> Seiri smiles, casting her eyes bashfully downward. "Together, then."
[10:04] <Crion> Piu: "Together. Like we said at the dinner." As she leaves, over her shoulder: "That's another thing about power advantage. It's so much easier when you have the benefit of the truth."
[10:05] <VoxPVoxD> "Yes, ma'am, it truly is."