Who Did You Steal From?

A short but sweet log in which Lin questions Omei's relationship with the divine host of Albedos. I have edited the log to clearly reflect things expressed in thoughts or other modes of communication.

Certain bits of context - including a remark about Ethne, and Lin's own traumatized responses to Omei's behavior - may not be immediately clear, but the rest should be fairly digestible.

A note on thoughts: Lin tends to think non-verbally, her mind expressing itself in memories and feelings. These are wrapped in [brackets] to distinguish from those thoughts that are pure internal narrative.

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Upon a platform suspended above the clouds. (Seer's Wood) [temple] (v62149)
Rain pours down from dark thunderclouds, only the merest hints of sunset breaking through. A glowing iridescence sparkles within the air. The Imago's many-hued throne stands here, replete with sundry colors, shapes, and symbols. A brass telescope is here, angled towards the sky. A violet water lily candleholder of glass is here on the ground. Hanging here is an artfully depicted painting of Omei and Taiyang. Lunar brilliance and chaotic light blaze about the form of Omei, the Imago. She wields a lit chaotic rainbow cigarette of vivid archers in Her left hand and a battered iron cup in Her right. Candles that flicker and glow with ethereal purple-tinged flames have been placed sporadically across the spanning platform before you. You see a single exit leading down.
[S]: Omei.

You have emoted: As a mortal worshipper somewhat more familiar with Omei, it is not Lin's way to prostrate herself, or make overt shows of fealty. She greets the Goddess with nothing more or less than a thrilled gaze, perhaps trusting her heart to say the hellos for her.

Like a waterfall, rain pours down around you, soaking you thoroughly.

Omei has been standing - waiting, watching at the stair, for your approach. Her empty gaze spirals in many-faceted motes across Her dark mask. She turns, strides to Her throne, and lounges upon it.

Omei lies down on the Imago's many-hued throne.

The platform's candles flare in brilliant, manifold hues as the Imago eases Herself into Her throne, soon becalming themselves and their light once more.

Omei takes a long drag from a lit chaotic rainbow cigarette of vivid archers.

Omei exhales a white cloud of smoke, redolent with pungent scents.

A lightning bolt streaks down from the skies, full of fury and anger.

Her eyes focusing to twin violet points amid the rising smoke, Omei bids - in silence, to the pillows set before Her throne.

Lin thinks:
[Say 'hello' it does. Always a flurried gallimaufry of old sensory memories, past joys and heartbreaks. The Dreamer is a complex symbol in her heart.]

You have emoted: Lin takes the invitation at once, seating herself on her knees before Omei in the manner of a courtesan, her hands on the lowermost region of her thighs. "I think that we are wrong to fight the Albedi gods," she says at once, skipping past the preamble, the establishing statements, and any sense of politesse entirely.

A long moment of hesitance. Even masked, Omei's breath can be heard to rush from her like a bellows' breeze, whispering through the smoke in low, indigo motes. It is clear, from Her lasting silence, that whatever She expected from you, it was not this. "Can... you explain why," She manages at long last, bitter yellow-green absinthe dancing sickly from Her veiled lips.

Your pose is now set as:
Lin kneels amidst the pillows at the foot of the Imago's throne.

A lightning bolt streaks down from the skies, full of fury and anger.

The loud sound of thunder rolls through the skies, shaking the air around you.

You have emoted: A snarl of lightning tears through the air, causing Lin to flinch, her shoulders hiking up around her head. Unshakeable though she is in many ways, the storm touches something more primal. "I have much I've held in my heart - the wrongness of our methods, the inherent evils of the Warlord and the folly of His goals. But that is all secondary," she says, peering up at Omei.

You have emoted: "I feel like we have robbed them," Lin says.

Omei's masked gaze retains something of the lightning - a cyanic shock glimmering a diagonal across Her dark expression. Vague, warrish recollection spills in red, far-off screams and terrors from epochs ago. She averts Her chin, unable to face your examination.

You have emoted: Lin seems to find every answer she needs in Omei's carefully tilted composure, curious lights bubbling forth from the depths of her dark left eye. She hides her mouth behind her lifted hand, just in time for it to go ajar.

Lin thinks:
"I knew it. I knew that if I could look one of You in the eye..."

At length, Omei reaches up - disgusted, tears Her mask from Her features. Beneath, Her tears burn like fire in the sunset light, and She sags wretchedly to Her throne, inky blackness billowing through it from Her outline.

Omei removes a twisted, eldritch mask.

You have emoted: "Please, say something," Lin pleads. She pitches forward on her pillow, as if to make for the throne, reaching up but not quite touching Omei, her claws dripping rainwater, hovering over the hem of Her loincloth. "Have I hurt You? Have I angered You? It was not my intention!"

Omei's maw parts. The beginning of speech emerges, but just as soon tapers away - instead, the tears continue, a salty, bitter wash of sensation.

Wretchedly, Omei, the Imago says, "I cannot remember. I try and it is all so dark, so drowned, so-."

You have emoted: Lin tries setting her hand upon Omei's knee. Moreso than the lightning, which evokes an animalistic jerk of her head with each flare, she seems afraid of the emotional energy pouring from the Goddess of Dreams, as though she may burn her hand on godflesh. "Was it you who speared the Leviathan?" she asks, keeping her tone low and steady. It is difficult not to sound accusatory.

Omei's knee is strange, amorphous, to the touch - as though indecisive about being, or remaining, Her knee. "Yes," She manages, finding sanctuary in a clear detail. "It was Me." She swallows, clearing Her throat roughly. "It was Me," She repeats, lowly and thick. "I speared the Leviathan. I laid it low. I bound it beneath the ice in an eternal prison of nightmare."

Lin thinks:
"Did Mebrene take from Dejaani or Seelis? Was it from Jox that Slyphe took His seas? Who is the Albedi dreamgod? Who there inspires passion and unwaking?"

A heated, angry, prideful rush coils around you, a venomous hiss prefacing the Goddess' speech.

Omei, the Imago exclaims to you, "I made or earned all I lay claim to. I stole it not!"

You have emoted: Lin recoils from Omei, toppling from the pillows and nearly spilling off off of the dais. A quick and panicked flurrying of her legs pushes her loincloth back where it's supposed to be. "But how can You be sure? Ethne couldn't lay claim to the things that lived in Her realm! They weren't Hers!" she cries back her pleas for answers, visibly afraid of Omei, a hand raised as if she expects to be struck across the face.

Omei dons a twisted, eldritch mask with a vicious flit of Her claws, rising amidst a resplendent red-gold glimmer.

Omei stands up and stretches Her arms out wide.

Omei hurls a battered iron cup downwards.

You hear a distant, cyanic smash, a crystalline shimmer rising up from below.

You have emoted: Lin cringes away, her arm held briefly across her eyes, shielding herself from the mere notion of violence.

Afterward, silence - the silvery smear of the Goddess' heated breaths in the air; the lingering lightning stain of bloody red painting Her dark visage.

Swallowing hard, Omei, the Imago says to you, "...I don't. I don't know. I can't know."

You have emoted: "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry," Lin breathes, retaining her cowering, defensive posture for several moments more. Omei's admission invites her, eventually, to drop her guard, seated sloppily on the floor with her legs drawn up tightly. "It was not my place to ask You. I- I won't speak of it again."

Lin thinks:
"Idiot. Fool. This was a mistake. She is not so different from the old Omei that you can talk about just anything."

[Fearfully she bids herself to close her heart.]

"No..." Omei whispers, a soft, anxious note in Her tone now. A dwindling violet, spilling from angry red. "I shouldn't have- have gotten so angry." She sinks into Her throne, burying Her mask in Her hand. A loud sniff; She fumbles for Her handkerchief.

Omei, the Imago says, "It- it wasn't right of Me. I'm sorry, Rojalli."

"...the further back I go, the more moth-eaten My memories," Omei candidly confesses, after a moment. "I did not even know I had imprisoned the Leviathan; not until I saw its prison firsthand, not until I saw the marks of My craft."

You have emoted: If it were any other God, perhaps Lin could be convinced to crawl back, but the way she gazes at Omei, it is all too clear she's had a forcible reminder of Whom she is dealing with, and this reminder comes with consequences, rooted in those moth-eaten parts of -her- memories. "I believe You," she says in a diminished voice.

After a moment, following on the Goddess' words: disgust, in bitter tones of absinthe. Coiling from beneath Her mask, a rush of moths. The same glimmers in Her empty eyes as She turns to regard you, and only then does its true nature belie itself.

Guilt. Guilt, at those few crimes known and those many unknown. Guilt, ocean enough to drown Her. Guilt enough to make a monstrous terror of Her. Guilt.

You have emoted: Lin tries to ask more, but much like how Omei could not quite speak before, her voice is arrested in her throat. Her hands curl and unfurl in endless repetition, as if she were trying to burrow through the platform with her claws - an unimpeachable symbol of considerable trepidation. She stares chiefly at the base of the throne. "I will take my leave. I-- I didn't mean to hurt You," she whispers.

"N..." Omei clears Her throat awkwardly, folding Her arms across Her narrow chest. "Nor I you." Her eyelids blink, a quick open-and-shut flurry, indigo and blue and soft, low pink intermingling across Her visage.

No more rises from Omei's throat, for all Her best efforts.

You have emoted: Lin picks herself up from the floor, skulking away from Omei, far more shaken by the simple display of outrage than anyone ought to be. Her claws continue to expand and contract, excess stress sluiced through the motion of her fingers. Inwardly she feels a frustration she cannot hide from Divine senses, the notion of so many questions left unanswered; so many left unasked. There is concern, too: a most inappropriate worry for the Goddess whose eyes she cannot meet, as if fretting over a child.

Her tail curled beneath her, you say, "Thank You for Your audience."