"I say. Your damnfool actions may have caught me in this abomination of a trap, but stick your hand into a cage with a trapped shark and see what happens." A sharp-toothed laugh... "By all means, wait for me to bow and scrape... It will give me more time to strike. Bowing is for prey and I am no creature's prey save on the day I die and only whoever or whatever takes me down will have earned that honor*. Fellows I might have, from time to time, but someone so puffed up they demand obedience..." He makes as if to spit, but apparently changes his mind. "Your petty labels - king... knight... - they are worthless to me. I am Krajk. What need have I for something which is as likely to use me as I it, especially one given in insult by someone too weak to survive on his own?" Krajk snarls as he pushes forward another step, anger driving him as much as survival instincts now. Both hands are clenched into fists; the siren is going to have one hell of a bruise on the arm the wereshark is still latched onto, if not outright pressure scarring...
(*In other words, Krajk won't bow to anyone but the creature/whatever that finally kills him, at which point Krajk will be dead so... I think you can put two and two together...)
07.07: Wheels Within Wheels
Re: 07.07: Wheels Within Wheels
The siren laughs. "You choose the apex then? The problem, my friend, is that you are part of the hierarchy. If you bow to no one, the city will look to you. If you defer to no leader, then they will bow to you. If you reject them, they will become desperate. If you allow another to rule, you must bow to them. Such is the way of a noble, and like it or not, if you survive, it is what you will be."
"Do you really believe you could eat all those who would seek to use you? Leaving Rebma a desolate place with just you as the king?"
"Do you really believe you could eat all those who would seek to use you? Leaving Rebma a desolate place with just you as the king?"
Re: 07.07: Wheels Within Wheels
"Far be it for me to shatter the poor hierarchy's illusions," Krajk says acidly. "I care not who looks to me; if they choose to follow then that is their problem and on their heads be their survival. As for those who look for me to bow... I may swim alongside for a time, I may even briefly follow another's lead if they prove worthy, but a shark will not... can not bow. It is not in their nature nor in their physical ability. As for your desolation..." Krajk laughs a hollow laugh. "We will only find out if your fellows are foolish enough to provoke me, won't we? Wouldn't be the first time..."
Re: 07.07: Wheels Within Wheels
An ascetic monk (you) walks up, bearing a staff and a scroll, the latter bearing reams of dense text, a contract of impossible complexity. He taps the contract, noting there has been no payment one way or the other. "Who are you, to choose who lives or dies?"
A monstrous shark (you) appears, swimming through a ruined palace rich with the treasures of countless worlds. "Payment in blood," he smirks, "Why take any lesser coin?"
Both loom up, "Who are you arguing with?"
And suddenly you're past the third veil. The siren is still over your shoulder and still unconscious, and only a single step is between you and the center of the pattern*.
___________
*: Not too late to toss the siren into the Abyss. Then I don't have to name him.
**: On some level, between the pattern and the events of the day, you are aware that if the siren reaches the center of the pattern and survives, you will be forbidden from killing him.
A monstrous shark (you) appears, swimming through a ruined palace rich with the treasures of countless worlds. "Payment in blood," he smirks, "Why take any lesser coin?"
Both loom up, "Who are you arguing with?"
And suddenly you're past the third veil. The siren is still over your shoulder and still unconscious, and only a single step is between you and the center of the pattern*.
___________
*: Not too late to toss the siren into the Abyss. Then I don't have to name him.
**: On some level, between the pattern and the events of the day, you are aware that if the siren reaches the center of the pattern and survives, you will be forbidden from killing him.
Re: 07.07: Wheels Within Wheels
((Krajk sneers at your puny pacifistic declarations! That being said, the siren is most likely going to either be 1) not worth his time anymore, 2) too much trouble to be worth it, or 3) all of the above...))
Krajk staggers forward, as if a strong wind he'd been bracing against was no longer there. He reaches the center of the Pattern just in time to see Harrune step onto the arcane nightmare, far behind him. "Madness..." Panting for breath slightly, he looks around in confusion. There's a definite sense of 'Now what?' about him, but it is very much of the impending doom/calamity sub-variety. The explosion as the unfamiliar robed figure does... something... catches his attention and thought inadvertently becomes deed as Krajk finds himself, still holding the unconscious siren, standing right beside the cluster of figures.
Only the fact that he is still holding the siren saves things from escalating into violence. Between that, his sheer confusion, and his exhaustion his reflexes are slowed just enough his wits can catch up before he does more than start to draw one of his weapons. Catching himself, he drops the axe back into its sheath, though Krajk doesn't particularly make any effort to hide the fact that he'd almost drawn. With a snarl of anger he shoves his unconscious assailant at Ossian, rasping, "And that for your bloody guest rights." The wereshark staggers slightly as his balance is thrown off, but that seems to be the only real sign of the strain he's so recently gone through. How much of that is sheer fortitude and how much is long experience from treating exhaustion as just another foe to be dealt with is unclear (possibly even to him, by now).
With that, he storms towards the room's doors, presumably intending to shift into shark once he hits the limits of Osmund's breathing spell*.
(*I figure someone or another will do something to try and intercept him, or make some sort of distracting noise, or something.)
Krajk staggers forward, as if a strong wind he'd been bracing against was no longer there. He reaches the center of the Pattern just in time to see Harrune step onto the arcane nightmare, far behind him. "Madness..." Panting for breath slightly, he looks around in confusion. There's a definite sense of 'Now what?' about him, but it is very much of the impending doom/calamity sub-variety. The explosion as the unfamiliar robed figure does... something... catches his attention and thought inadvertently becomes deed as Krajk finds himself, still holding the unconscious siren, standing right beside the cluster of figures.
Only the fact that he is still holding the siren saves things from escalating into violence. Between that, his sheer confusion, and his exhaustion his reflexes are slowed just enough his wits can catch up before he does more than start to draw one of his weapons. Catching himself, he drops the axe back into its sheath, though Krajk doesn't particularly make any effort to hide the fact that he'd almost drawn. With a snarl of anger he shoves his unconscious assailant at Ossian, rasping, "And that for your bloody guest rights." The wereshark staggers slightly as his balance is thrown off, but that seems to be the only real sign of the strain he's so recently gone through. How much of that is sheer fortitude and how much is long experience from treating exhaustion as just another foe to be dealt with is unclear (possibly even to him, by now).
With that, he storms towards the room's doors, presumably intending to shift into shark once he hits the limits of Osmund's breathing spell*.
(*I figure someone or another will do something to try and intercept him, or make some sort of distracting noise, or something.)
Re: 07.07: Wheels Within Wheels
Let's slide the solo thread into the group thread.