Board Thread:Roleplay/@comment-25808351-20191020115318/@comment-27666783-20191103003325

The sea of nobles, left joyously daunted at the displays of battle, continued their emotional rabble-rousing in praise. Displays of animalistic fervor toward the fighting betrayed their reputed and noble mannerisms, undoubtedly with the help of alchohol and liquids produced from the Overlord's realms. Chenguang could not help but grimace, all of it tasted so different now? A bile rising at the back of the throat. Was the greetings, the honor, the restraint, all of it a pretense? The Jinko shifted in her thick black Pien Fu, heavy for the winter ceremonies. She was unaccustomed to the way it pulled on her, the tunic was some sort of amalgamation between a familiar Officer's dress and its traditional flourishing mystical weaves and ornaments in her black hair. It held some sort of irony, the Four Armies of Shén-de demanded such merciless progress for the sake of the realm that even clothing tradition must be modified for the sake of its wake. She once questioned none of it, so absolute was her conviction did she see the old ways as savage and primitive. The 'New Mist Continent Millienium' that the Four Gods would provide had no room for it. Such virtues torn from her, twisted and mangled beyond recognition. Her teachers, tutors, superior officers… every word from their tongue brought to question by her very soul. Was it a lie? All of it? Was she not a coward for being here?

"'And the Emperor's spirit, ranging for revenge, with Ate by his side come hot from hell, shall in these confines with a monarch's voice. Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war'." A voice recited, a male one emanating behind her. Her head peeks to discover the culprit, a young man in formal attire looking onto the battle arena and its combatants, not of noble backround but of an authority that took attention to its hygiene. He was notably shorter than her towering stature, coming up to her chin. They shared brown eyes, they met with unabated familiarity. "If I don't say so myself, my dear sister, you look positively, unbeleivably hilarious right now. Look at this outfit!" His voice does not leave its exaggerated formal control, a lighthearted mock.

"Bertram." The word crawls out of her mouth like hot smoke. The man arrives to her flank, platonically appraising her attire once more.

"By the gods, and they call us Ordermen unfashionable. A tunic with epaulletes on a robe-like dress, are the Four Gods crazy?" Of all the times she had come to loathe his shorthanded verbal jabs, she had never felt so relieved to hear them now. Every ounce of her race's renowned martial control was brought forward to stop herself from clinging to the man, from unraveling her disgustingly tight composure and weeping into his neck. Her stoic countenance prevailed, if by only so much. "Things are going swimmingly, I have multiple influencers that are willing to broker out diplomatic talks between us, the Xian, and your faction. A new day is upon us, Chen. A day where a Paladin and a Foo Dog can fight side by side, an alliance. Can you believe it? Once people will know the truth, they will come to. We may see peace in our time. Isn't it glorious Chen? …Chen?"

How could she tell him? How could she even begin to contemplate the sights seared into her mind. Their mother, their own mother, the one who raised and loved and fed and taught and protected them, how she surrendered herself to the Èmó zhī dì. The Devils. The Fiends. A traitor, who sought the debaucheries of the flesh over her own tribe. Who brought upon the fiends to their home village and showered her own people in filth. "Mom is dead, Bertram."

Her brother is left silent, no quips or overused remarks. His step-mother, but his only mother, no longer with him on this earth. After numerous moments. She hears him let out a shaky breath. "When?"

"Two weeks ago, Èmó raided home. Many did not make it, village is Fiend's now." She gulped, "She died honorably." A lie, a terrible and grotesque lie. There was no honor in her mother's blood, unworthy of being called a 'Jinko', unworthy of the dirt below their feet. She chose everything her race stood against, a hedonist and a turncoat, who invaded her very own village and laid rape and pillaging upon her very neighbours.

Bertram laid a hand on one of the stone pillars, breath deepening, "We'll make for a ship to head back at once, we'll find her body, we'll give her a buria-"

"No!" The Tiger-woman bellow, snapping to a jumping Bertram. "There is nothing there for us, we cannot get her body."

"Oh for all the Gods' eyes Chen we have to bury her! We can't leave her on a field somewhere to rot!" Bertram retorted.

"Her body belongs to Fiend's now." Chenguang stumbled over her slightly limited vocabulary of Bertram's tongue. "We cannot go there, town is gone." She could see her brother's head crook, a slight raising of an eyebrow. Suspicion.

"Did you see it?" He asked. She saw it alright, the crazed stare, the triumphant roar over their tribal Khan she brought low and defiled. She had no reason to do it to a fellow Jinko, but she did anyway, for the sake of it. Chen shook her head, it was best she kept quiet for now. How stupid was she to spin this story? Bertram was an Apprentice Inquisitor, his job consisted entirely of the operation of lies. How did she think he wouldn't detect one?

"I didn't…" He began. "I didn't… I had an argument the last time I spoke with her. I said things I shouldn't have. I…" At last, the composure began to reveal its point of failiure. Chen couldn't help but reach for Bertram's shoulders for an embrace. He halts his speaking to return it, solidarity in kinship, he was all she had left in this world. Her cause tainted in her mind, her pride tainted in her blood. A lie to save them, so she hoped. The very worst part, as it dawned on her, the thought of her mother's blood running through her veins. Traitor blood. Sinful blood that would seek to defile everything close to it.

The roars and cheers erupt around them again.