Ten-Thousand Cuts

[dearest-nehaa.livejournal.com]

Nehaalista was just where she'd promised she'd be. Most days she spent were on the Observation Deck, watching the Bleed go by much the same way she'd watched it pass on the Exodar before the crash. Back then, however, she'd also been occupied with proper duties, and proper training. And family.

She shook her head and looked at her wares. Necklaces, rings, small loose gems, large loose gems, settings, bracelets and cuffs. It shone and glinted in the light. She toyed idly with one of her curls, pulling it straight and letting it snap back.

Well, if they wanted them, they would come. In the meantime, Nehaalista picked up a book and read, The Light and How to Swing It

Comments

[maguspuparum.livejournal.com]

"Hmph." Evangeline was dubious towards the claim but dropped her spell. That was strange; there wasn't much she knew of that would just passively shut down mental communication like that. "Are you cursed, or what?"

Her original question was abandoned for the moment.

[dearest-nehaa.livejournal.com]

Nehaalista shook her head, adjusted a barbel and wrote, [Not cursed. Just mute.] She shrugged, as if that answered everything. [I've always been like this, since I was born, so it isn't that much of a bother to me now.]

At least, one would hope someone her age would have gotten used to it, anyway.

[maguspuparum.livejournal.com]

That would certainly prevent subvocalization or speaking in dreams, but being incapable of any sort of telepathy at all seemed like more than just muteness. If that was all she knew to call it, though, Evangeline couldn't exactly hope to get an answer she liked better.

"If you say so. Are any of these functional? Enchanted?" Whatever you wanted to call it, did they do more than make you look better?

Not that that was an unworthy goal.

[dearest-nehaa.livejournal.com]

[Some of them. Several of the loose gems.] For socketing in one's armor, ostensibly. [Three of the necklaces, two headpieces - which I have elsewhere - all of the rings. The rest is generally for show. The enchantments vary, so you'll have to be more specific.] Nehaalista was very proud of her work, pointing out each piece as she typed slowly with one hand.

[If there is something specific you desire, I'll do my best to help you find something suitable.]

[maguspuparum.livejournal.com]

Evangeline's eyes fell on one of the gems Nehaalista had indicated. It was a pearl, very lustrous for the size it had reached... in keeping, she supposed, with the abundantly aquatic nature of its world of origin. Indeed, if she focused there was some sort of spiritual disruption around it, though from her perspective it lacked the clean delineations of a proper enchantment.

She picked it up. "Do you think you could work this into a necklace? Something like a medall-"

Around the middle of the word she noticed the smoke coming off her hand. She was burning. It was not a new experience, but-

Well. First thing was first. Drop the gem.

[dearest-nehaa.livejournal.com]

Nehaalista felt her hackles immediately rise. That pearl had been purified, so for it to react in such a manner... She caught the gem in her hand as it fell, and narrowed her eyes at Evangeline suspiciously.

She glanced momentarily at the dawnstone hammer leaning against her case. She really hoped that she wouldn't need to use it right now.

[maguspuparum.livejournal.com]

"What's that? Some kind of holy magic? Or are you just taking after Nessus?" Evangeline tacked on a baseless accusation for good measure. She was genuinely curious but definitely annoyed regardless; she was pretty sure it was the former, and she'd outgrown the usual weakness to objects of devotion a long time ago. Getting stung by some little bauble like she was some decades-old whelp again hurt her pride much more than burning flesh actually pained her.

[dearest-nehaa.livejournal.com]

Nehaalista looked down at her keyboard and started typing. [I do not know what your "nessus" is. I follow the precepts of the Light. The pearl was purified, however. It is what I do, after all.] Nehaalista tapped her forehead where the little, nearly invisible sigil rested.

[maguspuparum.livejournal.com]

"He was into corrosive clothing." Evangeline gave the short version; there were more interesting points of disputation available to her now.

"Follower of the light and bringer of purity, then. How much of that," she smiled knowingly, "Just works out to leaving a lot of bodies wherever you go?"

[dearest-nehaa.livejournal.com]

Nehaalista raised her eyebrows at that accusation. [Very little, actually.] She spent much of her time in prayer, after all, with the Aldor. [And any body I, as you so charmingly put it, leave behind are eredar or Scourge.] She spat on the floor when she mentioned the Eredar.

She had never been much for the endless slaughter of the Holy Battlefields, and even the the defense of her homeland against the fel-addled Horde of old, Nehaa had been relegated to the evacuation effort. [So, I have nothing to hide, and my conscience is clear.] Nehaalista was fairly sure that the creature before her could not say the same.

[maguspuparum.livejournal.com]

"No one ever got around to causing really impressive amounts of misery and death without a clear conscience." Evangeline said. "It must be nice to have an impure foe you need never hesitate to strike down. Dogma is so much easier than morality."

Yes, the little vampire lacked a clear conscience, but she considered properly managed doubt to be a far more useful state for anyone who intended to amount to anything than blind self-righteous belief.

[dearest-nehaa.livejournal.com]

[It would be more immoral to stand idly by and let others suffer. What I do is for the good of all, and if it were not, I would not have any abilities at all.] So there. Nehaalista seemed thoroughly unimpressed with Evangeline's posturing.

[Is there a point to you attempting to pick apart my standings, or are you quite finished?]

[maguspuparum.livejournal.com]

"To know if you're worthy of them." Well, mostly just for the fun of it; Nehaa didn't really interest her the way Setsuna or the boy did, but dissection notions of heroism was an old hobby of hers. And so was getting preachy about it.

"If you're all you claim to be it makes you something of my opposite. A warrior-monk of the Light and the undying mage who bears the gospel of the Dark. And not just word-bearers, but those who can claim to draw power from their philosophy."