Ichthyomachy: Ilë Sornë vs Nobuseri

[Arizona Nova]

-=Two Days After the Demand -The Black Ring, Raayven

The Praetor waited, expectantly. It wasn't as if the coming event was one to get particularly excited about, but it did open many new... oppurtunities. Anikar was coming to observe the terms - and if the local space control was any indicator, she had just arrived.

He went down to the bay to greet her, and escorted her along the seemingly infinite corridors of the great ring.

"I hope you know just what you're asking me to do, Praetor," she said darkly. "I've done this before. It didn't end well."

"This will hardly be as... invasive," reassured the Praetor demurely. "Our representative will not be able to peer into the... peerless depths of your mind. Unless you let him."

She glanced darkly askance at the Praetor as they walked along. "I don't imagine you can insure against all accidents, though."

The Praetor said nothing, weighing his response, but Anikar spoke back up again before he could reply: "Because if you don't, I do. There are manifold methods to skinning cats but you do not deal with felines here."

"I'll keep that in mind," said the Praetor delicately. They came to a doorway marked, in Aerenal, "Medical."

"After you."

-=One Week After the Demand – Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, New Constantinople

Twilight, and the Blessed stood at the end of the Annex and sighed deeply as he watched the setting sun from the balcony. A servant bowed in through the doorway behind and said,

“Your Blessedness, Anikar is here.�

“Show her to me,� he said.

Moments later she emerged through the doorway, looking at the Blessed suspiciously, and he could feel the intensity of her stare on his back.

“You’re lucky you’re a man of God,� she intoned, “Otherwise I might not have been so amiable to a twilight summons.�

The Blessed chuckled, turning to face her. “You’re probably busy these days, I take it – what with this re-coronation and all that.�

“Mhm – so it’s about that then?� she asked matter-of-factly.

“Come in, let us sit,� said the Blessed, “and discuss this further.�

They paced into the gleaming marble confines of the church and sat across from one another at the end of the long tables, typically occupied by Cardinals in congress.

“An interesting progression of events leads to today,� began the Blessed. “Verily, it seems an event almost pre-ordained.�

“How so?� asked Anikar suspiciously. “I get an idea of what you imply.�

“Simply, that our good Assemblyman Kennedy may not have not come to where he is now completely unaided.�

She sat back, her eyes narrowed to slits. “A brave accusation. So you think I manipulated everything, that we came to today all as a result of my machinations?�

The Blessed met her stare square, looking her right back in the eyes. “It seems a plausible possibility.�

She got up, and began to pace. “You humans, you never cease to amaze me. What is it that I did? I return to the Republic, and stand aside, when any other keen realpolitik-nik would have told me to fight, to crush the egg before the dragon, and simply ask for a title, and what happens? I am drove by accusations and paranoia into a secluded castle for centuries, my actions scrutinized continuously. I make a proposal for the defense of said Republic, and my proposal is mercilessly torn to shreds. I go forward with this proposal using my own resources, succeed, and then use it to defend this Republic against its enemies, and what happens? I am kidnapped with every intention of having experiments being done upon me. If you can see how I’ve wronged anyone in all that, please, do tell.�

“There is such a thing,� said the Blessed patiently, “as entrapment, or manipulation.�

“You’re beginning to sound like that witch-hunter Kennedy,� she said disparingly. “God knows that is a legacy you’d like to distance yourself from, hm?�

“Mhm,� said the Blessed a little uncomfortably.

“You see, that is just the thing – everything Kennedy did, he did on his own. He chose to fear, and ultimately in the end tried to eliminate me by force. That he is now only a political casualty rather than the plain old kind – especially after attacking an armed guard, an armed soldier – is a miracle even you should be able to appreciate.�

She sat back down, now peering intently into the Blessed’s eyes, and lowered her voice to a whisper.

“Kennedy did not need to get in my way – I could have accomplished this with or without his paranoid interventions. I could have waited centuries more, or I could have brought down the Assembly in a firey ruin the day I arrived here and then crowned myself in blood. If he threw himself under me and became a springboard, it was his own doing.�

“So you’ve always intended on getting the crown,� quietly crowed the Blessed.

“Hardly for its own sake,� she said. “I have my own vendettas to resolve.�

“That doesn’t make it that much better,� grumbled the Blessed, “it only makes it seem like we’re nothing but pieces to be gambled in your own games.�

Anikar’s eyes narrowed again, and she hissed at him angrily, “Now listen to me, mortal. As a theologian you should know there are matters of the divine you cannot understand as a consequence of your mind only working in three dimensions. I tell you now, don’t try to understand this. If anyone has been manipulated or entrapped – and hardly – it should not matter. To be servants under me would be something you would clamor for considering the alternative – the alternative I must prepare to fight. You will live as servants or die as slaves. One thing I will not allow is for your precious Republic to continue blundering blindly about, squandering time and resources on keeping its precious Assembly occupied. If she had returned any sooner this nation would already be gone, if not others besides.�

She broke his gaze, looking up at the paintings on the ceiling. “Humans – such a race of prodigal sons, such a race of Josephs – the fatted calf really has been lavished overmuch on you. You’re given free will, and all the sudden you think of it as a right, something that can never be robbed from you, when it is but a gift. In a microcosmic sense, I gave you the same – I gifted you your democracy. You used it to argue over aesthetics in capital ships and naming policy, and with your final act had the gall to imprison me baselessly. Unlike the Almighty, my patience in this is not limitless. I can and will rescind those gifts I feel abused. Understand that, and you will feel much better.�

The Blessed gazed warily out the window at the setting sun. “Then what, pray tell,� he said ashenly, “could we do that will make you rescind our ‘servanthood’ for slavery?� He fixed her with a hard stare.

She turned and met it, the expression in her eyes softened. “You should know this. There are some things I cannot do – things I simply can not do – and even if I could do, I would not. I do share with our Creator one thing – I prefer thinking beings to automatons and slaves. As long as there is but one person who considers himself Anikari…�

She sighed. “You will never be slaves, unless a loss of a certain fallible representative government means that to you, and I assuredly hope that it does not. It is late, however, and I should be getting back.�

“Indeed,� said the Blessed. “Go in peace.�

“Thank you,� she said, pulling herself out of the chair, her footsteps echoing on the marble floor as she exited.

[center]***[/center]

A low-frequency hum, sounding in her ear as she walked to the parked transport, alerted her to her new companion.

What news from the Elfmark? She thought, jocularly.

Very funny, Empress. Not good news, came the eerie reply. The protests in the Heaven's Belt Sector are getting worse.

I thought I had your people's support. I thought they would take care of this, she replied impatiently.

Ideally, was the alien reply.

Anikar sighed, turning inwardly from this voice. This had not taken long. Mortals, even the long-lived ones, were so very impatient. She wondered, as she walked aboard, saluted by her bodyguards, if she had made the right, or more importantly, the sane choice.

It mattered not, she had not but to do.

[Arizona Nova]

. : ooc : . I would say this is finished. What say Nobuseri and Aren?

[Arenumberg]

Got beef?