Board Thread:Roleplay/@comment-25808351-20191120203148/@comment-27666783-20191223220904

The chilled air put a slight tinge of needle-like bristles on Chenguang's face, a particular evidence of the changing temperature she hadn't predicted. Bertram protested her tagging along but their little confrontation with the Youko essentially barred any excuse for the sake of 'privacy', much to his seeming discontent. She looked outward toward the entranceway of the castles first fortifications.

"We could have used that information." Bertram mused, rolling the unlit cigarette in his hand. "An incomprehensible wealth of knowledge and I think I just squandered it. You think he'd say yes if I asked again?"

"Would your decision change?" Chenguang spoke low. Before following it with hushed words. "Swearing an oath to another god?"

"He's no god, Chen."

"He might as well be if you offer fealty and your very blood, for eternity, to him." Chenguang turned to face her brother, eyes bore toward his hair. "Are you even realizing what he said? And yet you hesitate?"

Bertram returned with a sigh, reaching a hand into his pocket of trinkets and revealing a match. "Were so close Chen, were on the verge of something. I can't let it go now, not for my kind, or Raxni or Calvin, we came to here and we cannot stop."

The Jinko's memory flits back to familiar faces long since she seen them, a mechanical minded man, a sex minded Gremlin. That wretched wretched Gremlin. "Even Raxni?" She scowled, earning a laugh from him.

"Even Raxni, frankly I can't still tell if she's helping us out just because Calvin offer his hand in marriage or if she really gives a toss about the egalitarianism of it, but what can you say? What Gremlin would turn down working on something like the forge? At least we can trust her."

"No we can't." Chenguang was quick to reply.

"Alright fine, but we can trust Calvin, and thus we can trust he keeps Raxni in line." The match ignited, and Bertram produced a cherry on the front of the cigarette, puffing it once. Bitter. Pungent. The deep rancid odor began arising to the Jinko's senses. It wasn't just smoke, she knew this smell. "Maybe if Renwick got to see the Forge he'd be interested in sharing some of his archives with Cal-" Jinko lurched a mighty paw forward, grasping Bertram's wrist and halting movement of his second toke.

"Wuxiang!?" Chenguang blurted out, confusion erupting from her composure. Was it that Youko again?

Bertram would attempt to wrench his arm away, but Chenguang persisted in preventing him from doing so. "What of it?"

Anger. "What do you mean 'what of it'?" Chenguang demanded, "When did you start this? How long?" Bertram was caught off guard from the sudden change from her. His mouth opens to begin finding words, but Chenguang would have none of it. "How long!?" Her voice raises.

Defensively, Bertram tries to return his arm again to no avail. Chenguang was latched firmly and refused to let go. "What are you now? Mom? I can partake in whatever I fe-" The Jinko shoves, outright plows him into the wall. The little cigarette flies away. Any retort Bertram had caught in his chest, eyes glued to the enraged blaze in Chenguangs. "How long!?"

"Get your- Get off me! Have you lost your mind?!" His struggles beared no fruit, the mighty power of the tiger woman firmly entrapped him. "What is wrong with you?!"

"What is wrong with you!" Chenguang growled, "Do you know what Wuxiang does to you? Does to your brain? Were you dropped on your head by Mom or were you born this moronic?"

He knew what she was talking about, he'd grown a habit of weening himself off of tobacco, onto a more potent, 'medicinal' substance. 'The black spice', the poppy seed that knew no pain. It was his moment to let anger boil, "My ways to get through the day is of no bloody, piss-ridden concern of yours you shitstain flee-ridden cat!" He snarled, "We live in a world that is among other worlds, that is subservient to higher worlds, and in these worlds when we aren't at the cusp of mind-warping incomprehensible skullfuckery, were literally getting fucked into slavery! Were treated by our very gods as prey!"

"Your dependence on it is weakness. You are mentally weak, Bertram." Chenguang hissed.

"Eat shit!" Bertram spat, breath becoming faster. "I have stood knee deep in mud and bone, and filled my lungs with blood vapors. I have seen brothers and sisters fall. I have lain with holy wars and copulated with the defiled infidels. I have dug trenches for refugees; I have damned dissidents where the courts never exist, and starved the masses into faith. The innocent, the innocent ones, trod and bled and raped and starved and beaten and murdered and enslaved. This is our world! I deserve a little escape every now and then!"

Chenguang did not respond. What had happened to her brother since last they met? Alas her grip relinquished, "I won't let you destroy yourself with these substances. If you need an escape…"

"Don't even bloody suggest it." Bertram's eyes squinted, before turning away almost offended. "Don't even dare." He returns into the castle, unable to look her in the eye.