zenderael_rl | Duncan + Ezra // Up To Speed

Entry tags:

Duncan + Ezra // Up To Speed

Who: Ezra and Duncan
When: Monday, 15/8
Where: The Likeness' room in the Temple
Before/After: n/a
Warnings: Duncan and Ezra. What do you think. Anything else, tba

It took only a quick phonecall to get Ezra moving from his chambers to the room of the Likeness in the Temple. And it was mostly a temple, some of the wall slowly being fitted back together and much of the inside cleared of the majority of the debris, swept and polished with loving hands of the poor clerics that had been devastated by the ruin of the building. Ezra'd been told one of them had actually begun to cry upon seeing the leaves and branches Aerveas' had cut off from the Tree on the ground.

Well, he supposed, they had the space to react like that now. No sense looking down on it.

Despite his attempts otherwise, he felt a little out of the loop. Nothing he could cure until he went out on his own instead of staying cooped up inside. Whitehall came with him to the entrance of the Room, and was summarily dismissed until his presence was required once more. Dressed officially, but in the most casual sense, Ezra stepped into the temple again alongside a cleric who still deemed it necessary to accompany him in until he was beside the Vahishta.

Right eye covered up with an eyepatch and a deep scar across his nose that lead up under it, his grin still managed to look a little sheepish as he lifted his hand up in greeting.

"First thing's first- should we make a motion to call this Neo Bastan?"

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Ezra would have laughed if it weren't something to be legitimately terrified of. "That's all I've been doing the past couple of days," he said, reaching up to stroke his hair back, rubbing at the back of his neck nervously, "and I'm still not caught up. I blame the merge on that. But as to what did it, honestly I completely forgot about it. We found a vial at the site, it looked almost like it had blood in it. Anything beyond that, I'd have to ask the alchemists."

He shrugged helplessly. Whatever it had been, it had given Acher and some of his fellows super strength. Not something he wanted as being something to deal with.

"I'm sure Doukas will help you catch up. Don't know him too well, but he and Cuthbert have known each other awhile." Seemed a pretty solid sort of guy. Of course, Ezra had spent most of his time in Zen surrounded by such people, so who was he to say who seemed solid and who didn't?

"Right, yeah, he's. Yeah." He glanced away, rubbing his neck in sort of an echo of Ezra's motion. He didn't look entirely pleased by the thought of Doukas helping him catch up. "Right now we're trying to focus on the immediate shit. And the war's over, so. That comes after, I guess."

He looked back to Ezra, leaving his hand where it was. "You think you could send me some copies? Lera already sent me a bunch of shit that I'm planning on going through once I get a spare minute, might as well collect everyone's shit to do it all at once."

Vials of something that looked like blood, the power to kill off an entire unit and split a guy in half... Duncan considered for a moment, but there was nothing in the lore that came anywhere close.

Except, maybe... "If Xumurdad's organs turn you into a demi-god," he mused, "what do you think Its blood could do?"

Ezra found himself grinning a little in sympathy. "Seems we all get our own ill-tempered assistant. They've been worth it, as far as I've seen. Give it some time. Cuthbert's pretty fucking awesome once you get to know him. Even got him to drink bersh'teh once." He pushed up his glasses on his nose. A little weird having them, plus an eyepatch. "And yeah, no problem. I'll get copies sent soon as I can. A lot of it is reports of what's gone on here since the invasion... a lot of statistics, a lot of numbers..."

He trailed off a little, considering. They were closer to him, those numbers. People he'd met and come to know. Places he'd visited. Some of it could be dealt with. The rest of it... too late. He folded his arms in front of him, slouching slightly as he did so.

The statement almost caught him off guard, and only because it might be plausible did it keep him from total surprise. "Eh?... well, that's... mm, not impossible, but where would you get it from? The Likeness doesn't bleed."

He didn't think.

"That's cool, I'm good with num--berssssnevermind." THOSE NUMBERS WERE PEOPLE, DUNCAN. YOU COULDN'T JUST FLIPPANTLY COMMENT ON THEM. He cleared his throat awkwardly, bringing a hand to his mouth and his eyes to the wall. "Anyway, yeah, send those over..."

Cuthbert. A familiar name and face, actually, and not just from Ezra's mention of him. The guy had always seemed like kind of a badass in canon. It struck Duncan suddenly that he'd probably get to meet him soon. The idea was intimidating. "Cuthbert and Doukas can bond over having to deal with us," he joked, shoving his hands into his pockets, but it came out a little stilted in light of his own awkwardness. (Why had he said that omg, and he got on Mal and Harriet for talking before thinking!)

He glanced back at the Likeness. It was easy to want to agree and brush it off, but he found himself suddenly curious. He went still, his brows drawing inward, a thought occurring to him.

People who went to the trouble of hiding dark secrets under a 2000-year conspiracy usually had more than one thing to hide.

He looked back at Ezra, suddenly very intense and not very awkward at all. "How do you know?"

Ezra did give Duncan a bit of a sharp look, one he curbed as quickly as he could. He'd been having to try and brush it off as best he could, being surrounded by others who'd become guild leaders who couldn't quite understand what he or Rhys had gone through already. He hoped they never would, in all honesty. The bragging rights weren't worth it. "Will do," he said, scuffing his heel on the marble floor.

There were a lot of scuffs and some gouges in it. He watched them while Duncan made his joke, taking another moment to pull himself out of a pit of self-loathing. "Yeah, I'm sure they'll have a lot to talk about. Doukas can tell you about all the times Cuthbert thrashed me. Nothing like a little good ol' public humiliation."

It hadn't been that bad, really, but Cuthbert was going to have a competent Spenta, Xumurdad willing, whether that Spenta wanted it or not. Would Cuthbert have been next in line, he'd wondered. He hadn't really delved into paladin succession. Perhaps he ought to consider that sooner rather than later.

Duncan would have to think something up himself, come to think of it...

"What?" he asked, caught off guard by the question. "What do you mean, how do I know?" he continued, as though that were a stupid question.

Except he didn't really think it was that stupid of a question, given the nervous look he gave the Likeness. "It's a tree is why."

Duncan would never have to think about cleric succession, he hoped.

He watched the tree over his shoulder, eyes narrowed suspiciously. Any joking around faded into background noise, quickly forgotten.

'It's a tree' was a simple enough answer, but Duncan wasn't so sure it was a sufficient one.

He glanced up, scanning the room for any clerics or other possible observers in the vicinity. The bottom floor was empty, the top seemed to be from here. "How much trouble do you think we'd get in for checking?"

Duncan the last thing Ezra wants to do is fuck around with the Tree. It's creepy as fuck, man.

"How much...? Whoa, whoa. You're not thinking-"

He pressed his lips together. Well, Duncan was the Vahishta. There were probably a lot of things he could get away with that Ezra couldn't. Not that Ezra wanted to go poking at the Tree.

"A lot, probably," he said finally, taking a brief glance around, shifting slightly but remaining with his arms crossed in front of him, though it looked more uncomfortable than casual now.

"I'm just thinking, if the Vahishta was hiding his age behind a massive churchwide conspiracy, what else was he hiding?"

He took a step toward the tree, with his eyes still on the upper levels, and placed a hand against the wood. He held the other out toward Ezra, gaze shifting to follow. "You got a knife?"

Ezra didn't look very pleased about that idea. He was still immensely unsettled by that particular secret of the Vahishta's. And the fact he had some ideas about others.

He looked back at the Likeness, clearly hesitant. The glowing bothered him. Why did it do that? What would happen when the Armaiti changed and the Vohu was retaken? And what would happen if Duncan poked it with a knife?

He let out his breath in frustration, but ducked down and took the knife out of his boot. It had become a habit to carry it around, even if it was only for stuff like cutting bread or gathering plants.

He flipped it around and held the handle out to Duncan.

Duncan took the knife, careful not to slice Ezra in the process, and turned to the tree.

He was more nervous about getting caught than he was about what they might find. He held the knife poised, looking for a good spot to try, then hesitated to scan the room again. Still no one.

He took a breath. His eyes settled on the Likeness's lower abdomen, the empty space where small intestines should be. Yeah, perfect.

He hesitated again and realized it was probably a better idea to do this with his dominant hand. He shifted so his left was the one against the tree, wielding the knife in his right. He re-evaluated the angle of the strike, and then went for it.

The knife sank into the Likeness, half the blade buried in the wood. Nothing seemed to happen. Duncan paused, watching it for the span of a slow breath, and then another nervous glance at the room before he pulled the knife out.

The tree didn't bleed. The organ that performed the required functions for that did so in Duncan's chest. But the knife did not come away clean, and something dark glistened at the edge of the puncture in the bark.

Who might find them worried him, too, but the clerics were always jumpy about him in the room with the Likeness, just by virtue of it being the Likeness.

Settling his arms over his chest again, Ezra watched, a titch unhappily, as Duncan lined himself up. Thinking he was just going to scrape it, he jumped when he actually stabbed it. "Hey!" he hissed as quietly as he could while still being startled, moving forward so that he stood by Duncan's elbow.

... nothing. That didn't make him feel as good as he'd have liked. He let his breath out slowly and glanced around, watching Duncan wiggle the knife out of the trunk. He looked at the face of the Likeness, expecting something there, before back to the cut.

No blood. Something, all the same, maybe? He had to squint, even this close. "...sap?"

Duncan squinted at it as well, bending down to get a closer look. It seemed too dark to be sap, but who knew with Zenderael's trees?

He glanced at the knife and noticed the smear of something along the blade. He brought it up to examine it. There was not a lot of it, whatever it was; knives did have a tendency to wipe themselves mostly clean when you pulled them out of whatever they were thrust into.

He slid his thumb along the blade, wiping one side of it clean, and squinted at the dark brownish smear against his skin. He rubbed it between his thumb and finger; it was wet, but not sticky like sap should have been. He wiped it off against the cuff of his sleeve, to see what colour it looked against white.

There was a very definite red tint to it.

"I don't think so, man," he said, turning his wrist to show Ezra the smudge on his sleeve, pointing to it. If Ezra had ever seen old, deoxygenated blood, that was what this looked like.

He'd seen it enough times with all the injuries he'd gotten growing up and getting older. His brow drew in again as he stared at it, trying to piece it together.

"... fuck," he said, unable to keep back a shudder, stepping back from the tree. He didn't like that at all.

He turned and paced off a moment before he came back, arms folded again tightly. He took in a breath and let it out harshly. Well, fuck. What now?

"I wonder what about it he knew that he took with him," Ezra muttered at the Likeness.

Duncan looked relatively calm, considering, which was a stark contrast to Ezra's sudden antsiness. He watched the tree, bringing his hand to the knife again, holding the blade with his thumb pressed against the flat.

Despite the bland neutrality on his face, his mind was racing, and he felt uneasy. The tree was more than just a tree. Or maybe not actually a tree at all. Had the tree grown out of Xumurdad's body? Grown around it? Or maybe it was Xumurdad's body--transmogrification was possible in this universe, as seen in frog spells.

Whatever the case, there was blood inside the Likeness. It didn't bleed because there was no heart to pump it, but it was there.

Ezra's remark drove a stab of guilt through him. That was what brought discomfort into his expression.

He pictured himself saying, Ha ha yeah, maybe I should've asked before I FUCKING MURDERED HIM.

He swallowed and turned to hand the knife back to Ezra, held by the blade. "Maybe he's got notes. I'll look."

He took it as Duncan's not having been around that kept him calm, outwardly at least. Ezra had too much that he couldn't separate from conspiracy to let him keep calm.

The Likeness was more than a Likeness, whatever happened.

"Do you remember anything about the event X-Dav had on? I didn't get to play much of it because of work. Is there anything there or just all the same stuff we always knew?"

Ugh, ugh, ugh. He didn't want to be in here anymore.

"Look, can we just- the room's down the hall, can we go talk some more there?"

"Yeah." No argument there. He gave the tree--and the gouge in it--one last look before turning to lead Ezra down the hall to the Vahishta's chambers.

He didn't know the hallways that well yet, but he at least had the path to his own space memorized. It was a whole wing all to himself, basically, with the entry opening into the same sitting room where Ezra had met with the old Vahishta. Beyond that was a bedroom, study, personal library, and bath, neatly arranged in something akin to an apartment layout. There were guards posted outside the front door, but once they moved past that into the sitting room, they were alone.

Much of the decor had been pilfered by rogues, but the furniture wasn't so easy to make off with. Duncan's rifle lay across the seat of one armchair, but that left several other seats available. He didn't take any of them. He leaned over the back of that same armchair, his arms loosely folded over it.

"The event," he started, "was running through the original battleground with all the original heroes. At the end we fought Xumurdad, only It was like half-stuck in a tree. I think I have screencaps lying around somewhere."

"Thanks," he muttered, and trailed along.

When they got in, Ezra took only a moment to choose a chair and sit. He sighed as he did so, leaning forward and resting his arms across his knees, hands folded between them.

"Half-stuck already, huh?" He hadn't known that. There was a pause and he said, "so... the Vahishta, then... same dude?"

That, that he didn't like thinking on. Someone that had been able to shape the entirety of the clerics' faith over the course of two thousand years... someone who had maybe been obsessed with Xumurdad from the very start.

"Yeah. I even double-checked it with the wiki." Of course someone had grabbed caps of all the 10 heroes and stuck them up on the Zenderael wiki. Like that was even a question.

"Same model, completely different hair and facial hair. With the cover story he used, he probably just changed his hairstyles every time a 'new' Vahishta took over."

He rubbed his chin while he sat, unable to keep from looking disturbed.

"Ever wonder what kind of power a guy could build up in that amount of time? I mean, besides near-immortality."

He looked like he had an answer, and he shifted uncomfortably.

"He told me early on... back when we were starting to look into this stuff, the greycloaks, the merging... I don't remember if the Asha was crazy then, but the Vahishta said that he could connect to Earth, too. Only for short periods, though." He looked up to Duncan, uncertain. "I don't doubt that he could, I just wonder if the length of time was a lie or not."

He hesitated. "The Mazda was almost killed by a cleric. Er- Morvarid, not Lera. That was what prompted the succession. Look, I know this is really roundabout, but what I'm saying is that I think the Vahishta was pretty in with the greycloaks, and I think you need to be careful of your own guild. Like, obviously, not all of them, but there'll be some still involved. And I don't think they'll be just some random new recruits, either."

Duncan's eyebrows rose. Initially he thought Ezra meant raw magical power, like a tree that just kept getting bigger and bigger the older it grew, but with the ex-Vahishta being--well--ex, that wouldn't have been a concern anymore.

Power over people, he realized. His eyebrows lowered, knitting together, as he listened to the rest of what Ezra had to say.

At least one cleric in the greycloaks. The Vahishta could connect to Earth. He'd been hiding his immortality behind a conspiracy of scouting and killing children over the centuries. He was as old as the defeat of Xumurdad Itself. The Likeness was full of stale, stagnant blood.

Duncan let out a long, slow breath, a tension in his shoulders as he lifted a hand and lowered his head to meet it, fingers pushing through his hair, palm settling above his right temple. "When I talked to him..." He paused, getting his thoughts together, figuring out where he was going with this. "He told me that Xumurdad had brought him there for a purpose, but it wasn't his place to guess at it. It was like..."

He looked up, dropping his hand to gesture with it. "I mean I'm from fucking Texas, okay? You can't throw a rock without hitting a Bible-thumper. And you know the ones who are like 'God has a plan for us, it's not our place to question it' but they say it like they know God's will?

"That's what this was like. He kept saying Xumurdad's purpose was unknowable and not for him to guess at, but I got the feeling that he thought he knew exactly what Xumurdad's plan was, and that it was for me to take his place."

Edited 2013-06-04 14:57 (UTC)

"I've met a few in my time like that, yeah." Growing up christian, being, in some distant fashion, still christian, he'd met a person or two with that mentality. His mother said it sometimes, but she never seemed to have an idea. It just seemed to be a consolation, not permission.

"So," he said, drawing the syllable out, "did you get the memo?..."

Not that he was sure he wanted resurrect Xumurdad to be the header.

"Uhhh..." What memo? was the first response to come to mind, but he knew how dense he could be, so he stopped to think about it before speaking.

"Xumurdad hasn't said a word to me, if that's what you mean."

"Nothing like, 'Heimdall, bring me back to life' or anything like that?"

Because that part was actually kinda fucking important.

"Whatever the lighting up on the Likeness is doing, he may have been helping to facilitate it. However he was able to open up a path between Zen and Earth... that might have been how greycloaks traveled. How... how the Ahura and Spenta traveled."

Ugh. He didn't like to think about it.

"What kind of guy was he to fight Xumurdad, defeat It and break It apart, only to want to seem to try and bring it all together again...?"

"Nnnope. The Denizen had some words for me, but, ha ha fuck that guy, right?" It came out a lot more nervous and a lot less casual than he meant it to.

The Denizen was fucking scary. Joking about it was a coping mechanism, but that only carried so far.

The forced smile fell quickly; he turned somber and thoughtful, considering Ezra's next words. "Yeah... I guess that'd make sense." Clerics weren't supposed to be able to do shit like that, but 2050 years old... He had to have known some secrets no one else knew.

He buried a hand in his hair again, looking down at the chair in front of him. A thought hit him. He paused and looked up again. "What if he didn't, though? What if that story's bullshit, too?"

"Eheheh..." An awkward chuckle to match Duncan's nervous kidding around. He'd heard a lot about the Denizen. He wasn't so keen on the idea. Less so knowing it was real.

He rubbed his hands together, looking at first thoughtful, then more disturbed as the thought played out. "Well... he'd have been in prime position to change the story to how he saw fit..."

He rubbed at his mouth again, clearly disliking the new information and the dark path it was leading them down. "So what do we do, then? What'll happen with all the organs lit up? What if that brings It back?"

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