[video, 15th June, Nesir Aeser] Job seeking?

[disregardeddagger]

[Nesir's still not really sure how these phones work but she's got the basics down. Not that she's tried talking on the message boards yet. It felt strange when she could just speak to them face to face without the trouble of pressing buttons and not accidentally pressing the wrong thing on the glass.

But she did admit it seemed a good way to reach multiple people at once and she can do it whilst being physically out of the way.

On a rooftop actually. It had seemed the safest place to spend the night, after waking up in a heap of rubble.]

My name is Nesir Aeser. I have been here about three weeks and was serving Noctis, the god Nox. He is gone now. [She sounds pretty matter of fact about that. She had been aware such things would happen, though it had not prepared her for the suddenness when it actually happened.]

Are there any gods in need of a shinki? I can fight with a variety of weapons, I turned into a dagger for Noctis though that might not mean anything going forwards. I'm decent at climbing. I probably have other skills I haven't figured out yet.

[That might be a lie, she's figured bits and pieces but she isn't about to announce them over this phone. She can explain further is she actually gets any gods interested in naming her.]

Please tell me if I should actually be letting the heavens know and being officially reassigned or something.

Comments

[disregardeddagger]

She follows, eyes taking in the surroundings. Scenes on the wall show this god, soon to be her god, through the ages even if the details are hard to pick out, the art style is strange. But the place is heavy with ceremony and it's something Nesir appreciates. Not that she particularly likes fuss but... It seemed fitting that something like a naming would be done in a place such as this. It might be just a transaction between them, but she is still to serve him for as long as they both wish it. It's a solemn thing.

She glances into the fire and then back at him, meeting his eyes and nodding once.

He speaks the same words she had heard before, same words, different name. Kageki.

She disappears.

“Do no be going down a path I can no be following!” Nesir’s voice cracked with emotion; anger, pain, fear. She was facing another woman, whose face darkened in anger, she stepped forwards, eyes blazing.

“You are my warrior Culbu. You swore an oath. There should be no road that you cannot follow me down.”

Nesir shook her head, “What about our holy oaths? You swore an oath too, Inde. You can no just be...” The woman stepped forwards, hands coming up, beginning to glow slightly with magic.

A heavy knocking was heard, thumping on the outer door. Nesir span around, fear in her eyes before she closed them.

“Go.” Almost a whisper. She did not take her eyes off the door.

“Culbu...” A warning, Inde’s hands were still glowing, she was still frowning and yet Nesir did not turn.

Instead she spoke. “Every breath in my lungs is yours to take and may the gods will it that my last be in defence of you.” Her voice was resolute, her decision made.

“Nesir...” The voice was gentle now, her hands had stopped glowing. She reached out towards Nesir who turned and fell to one knee.

“Lotte...” Nesir took her hand, raised it to her lips. “I’ll hold them off.” Lotte nodded, looking completely shaken for a moment, frozen, eyes filled with pain as Nesir stood and turned back to the door, speaking over her shoulder. “Be going, before it do be being too late.”

Nesir faced down an older man, he was in chainmail and held a sword in his hand. Words are exchanged before his face twisted in anger.

“Move Culbu, I don’t want to fight you.”

“Yet you do be the one at my door with your sword drawn.” She drew her daggers, her balance shifted. The fight that followed was terrible in the way that fights between two people who clearly know each other and their fighting style very well will always be.

“Nesir, stop this. If you know. You know she’s a traitor.”

“I will no be letting you get to her.” Nesir spat, the fight intensified. Nesir twisted out of the way of the sword blows, darting in and out.

“Don’t stand with her Culbu, you will be held accountable.” His words were met with a bitter laugh as Nesir dived towards him once more. The fight raged on.

They skittered away from each other, both taking a moment to breathe. “Nesir. She betrayed us. She betrayed you.”

Nesir looked up at him, eyes sad as she shook her head. “If you were me Kant, wouldn’t you do the same.” A moment and Kant's face went blank, devoid of all emotion. Nesir's did the same and the fight continued.

Eventually Kant got the upper hand, dropping his sword and grappling her, taking her by surprise, throwing her. Nesir cursed as she crumpled into the wall. Kant was there in moments, his fist hit her face, snapping her head back and his knee was planted into her stomach.

“Give in, Nesir.” The emptiness faded from his face replaced from the sadness from earlier. “I don’t want to have to kill you, Little One.” His voice was almost a whisper.

As was Nesir’s as her arm moved, quickly, finding a way through his armour. “I do be having no such qualms.”

She wriggled out from under him, keeping the emptiness up for now. The outer door burst open and a wave of magic hit her, a woman baring down on her in rage.

“Halt!” A man’s voice, heavy with power. The attack stopped as both Nesir and the other woman seemed to freeze in place.

“That will be enough Priestess Elena. There will be time for vengeance later.” More words between the two as Nesir remained frozen in place. Elena rushed to Kant's side.

“Culbu Tiri speak words that only hold truth.” Nesir could move again, she pushed herself off the floor, into a crouch.

“Which god do you serve?”

“The lord of shadows.” It was clear Nesir had no control of the words.

“So you remain loyal. Who is it that Inde serves?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is she loyal to us?”

“No.” Nesir's eyes blaze anger as she glares at the priest.

“Then why do you protect her Culbu? You know where your duty lies.”

“I do. She is my priestess. I serve my god.” Pain that is not physical runs over her features, she glances to where Elena is knelt over Kant, she clenches her jaw.

The man strides over to her and she pushes her way to her feet, to stand facing him. Her jaw set. “Thank you for your loyalty Culbu..”

Elena had stood and strode towards them, eyes blazing. Azari looked at her, a look that seemed to hold meaning Nesir did not understand.

“Nesir Aeser dies this day.”

Pain hits her, from both of them. Something seems to be reaching into her, tearing at her very soul and she screams as pain and loss fill her, blazing white.

And reappears a second later as a sword, her consciousness above him surveying the room. "A sword this time. It suits you."

Better than a dagger would have, honestly. She wondered how much a vessel form was based on the shinki and how much on the god.

[towards_okeanos]

[Pain. Sacrifice. Conflicting loyalties. One life is thrown away so that another life can be spared.

There is infinite sadness in her story. A tragic end, beautiful in its melancholy. Iskandar can see all that. What he sees, he understands. The choices one makes are never entirely one's own. Yet it falls to us to decide what action to take. Which side to choose. Because, ultimately, you must make that choice. In the end, all will be judged on the virtue of their character and the strength of their conviction.
The one that became a sword for him has both. That makes him glad.

He would remember all this for her now that she, herself, can't. His offer, though given out of nothing else than principle, feels preordained. As if Fate has guided his hand. They might be a better fit than either of them suspected.]

Return, Nesir.

[He waits for her to reappear fully in her human form.]

Welcome to my Temple. If you have anything to bring here from your previous home, we can go now to fetch it. You're free to take any room that's not already occupied.

[Four already look like somebody lives there but the Temple is big so there's plenty of others to chose from.]

I believe we should have a meal waiting for us when we come back.

[And a chance for Nesir to meet Iskandar's other shinki. She's the one spoiling her god with good food. Just like the woman she got named after.]

[disregardeddagger]

[A moment later she was herself again, at her side. She doesn't feel any different but now there is a name and she had a god once more. She smiled at his welcome, offering a nod in return.]

Everything disappeared when the temple did. [Was that normal? She hadn't seen anything left at the site, nothing but rubble.]

I believe it did anyways, though I didn't do a thorough search.

[A meal sounded good though, she's hungry, a constant state it seemed.]

[towards_okeanos]

[Actually... not so unusual. Sometimes personal possessions of shinki stayed on the empty lot even if the Temple vanished. Sometimes there was nothing left. The empty space where Zelda's Temple once was is still vivid in his memory. He has never tried looking for traces of others. It would be a folly. Hardly probable he would find anything.]

Alright. Then we stay here. We can go back to the living room and wait there. Ada should be back soon.

[He looks at Nesir. It's easier to concentrate on practicalities now. Whatever Noctis provided her vanished with his Temple and now she has nothing.]

We can go tomorrow to buy you some clothes for change and anything else that you may need.

[disregardeddagger]

Thank you, that is appreciated. [Part of her dislikes the idea of being in debt to any other person, for any reason. But on the other hand this isn't quite like that. This is part of their agreement, that he will provide for her and she will work for him. He is not just giving her things, he is providing for her so that she can fight for him.

And it really is appreciated.]

[towards_okeanos]

Ada is even sooner than Iskandar expected. Sometimes he wonders if bending spacetime is not actually her skill. The Temple looks cleaner than it ever did when it was just him and Waver here. Not the everything-aligned-in-perfect-harmony style that was prevalent when Symmetra was living with them. More...homely.
He introduces ladies to each other. He can only hope they'll get along.

Ada may look like she's just an old lady with a sweet if a little vacant smile and grey hair in a tight bun. The kind that looks completely innocent and harmless. but give the impression she will kill you in your sleep if you cross her. Ada harbours no murderous tendencies of her own. Unless she perceives someone a threat to her god. She's completely devoted to her god. One of the myriad ways she shows it is cooking. The other would be assassinating his enemies should she met any. She can be surprisingly agile for an old lady.

She bows to Iskandar than smiles to Nesir.

"Sit, dear, the dinner would be in a minute."

She would kindly refuse any offer of help. Kitchen is her territory.

[disregardeddagger]

She is very similar to Noctis' souless shinki. Not in look or age but in mannerisms. The very idea of a person with no soul strikes a deep unease in Nesir but Ada seems friendly enough, if a little vacant.

Nesir got the feeling that help wouldn't be allowed, Ada seemed to rule the kitchen and any ways all the equipment confused Nesir. She had a feeling cooking wasn't an unknown skill of hers. So she sat, with a grateful smile.

"Thank you. I look forward to it."

It's been a while since she ate. She sat quietly, it's hard to know what to say to someone you have just agreed to serve. She wants to know more about him but isn't sure on how forward she should be.

In the end she decides to speak, "How long have you been a god for?"

[towards_okeanos]

If she ever shared her opinion on the soulless with him she will find that Iskandar has a very similar one. He definitely hasn't thought it through before but not only Ada's presence causes him almost constant distress.
He did the most stupid thing he could giving her name after his adopted mother. Queen of Caria. A woman who was as much a strategist and a military commanded as she was a lady of noble birth.

He thought it would ease things. Instead, it just made everything worse. Somehow, he knew not how, Ada, or rather the soulless namesake of her, picked up little details about her original counterpart. Iskandar has no idea how because they never spoke about his mother. Ever. Yet, somehow his soulless knew for example that one thing that his Carian mother loved to do was to shower him with gifts, exquisite food especially. Her cooks could put the ones in Babylon to shame so the food was truly superb.
At one point he had to directly reprimand her for the excess because she was really going overboard.

To have a soulless do the same now...

It's difficult.

The question comes as a relief because for that too, there is no simple answer.

"Hm. Depending on how do you count." Iskandar takes a deep breath. "If you take into account the fact that I'm a son of Zeus, that makes me half-divine from the start. Then there's Egypt where I was officially recognized as pharaoh and thus a living god. On that count, that would be a little over two thousand years."

He pauses. How long is he here? Not even a full year yet. It certainly feels longer.

"But if you count only my time here than I'd say closer to eight months."

[disregardeddagger]

Two thousand years. That was pretty impressive. Eight months was impressive enough when she considered she had no knowledge of anything past a couple of weeks ago.

But more importantly he had spoken of before he was in the heavens and yet. "You were a god before you came here?"

From what she had understood many of the new gods were just ordinary people before they were brought to this place and made to take the place of gods.

[towards_okeanos]

“Yes” Iskandar smiles. That requires explanation because none of it was as straightforward as it is on The Far Shore.

“Though that was different than here. Not so clearly defined. I wasn’t hearing prayers and I couldn’t teleport to places. I was a mortal man with divine parentage. Some believed in my divinity, some didn’t.”

Those who were able to understand what he did and why what would have been impossible to any other man was a child’s play for him. Those had no doubts.

“But I had temples and people made offerings in my name.”

[disregardeddagger]

He was a child of gods? Born as a mortal? That was almost even more impressive than being brought to this shore as a god. After all this was some... strange happening. Being born to gods was a different thing. It's hard for her to even get her head around that, difficult to even understand the concept.

"People worshipped you even as you walked among them?"

Gods walking the earth at all strike her as strange, though the ones here can do so perfectly well. Nothing comes to mind about any gods of her own world, missing memories are difficult.

[towards_okeanos]

"Some did. Some were very opposed to the very idea and even questioned my lineage. I never met my godly father but there were many signs to those that chose to believe them. Those that didn't I would not try to convince. I had no need for people that can be swayed by skilled orators. If it is not their own decision to heed my words than I would not be able to count on their loyalty later."

He's been almost too late for the age of the gods. Sometimes he thought they really left. Zeus had many children. Their stories passed into legend either heroic or tragic or both. But none in his time. Sometimes he thought he's the last one.

It was so different then than here.

[disregardeddagger]

"That's true enough, forced loyalty is very rarely true." She says, as if she has any experience or knowledge. At least the remembrance of any. But she still feels he was right, if people could not be convinced then they would be no use to him.

"I guess there is no doubt now, no one will deny that you are indeed a god."

As he was here in heaven. A god with a temple, prayers to hear and shinki to serve him. He must have followers who prayed, people who believed in him and trusted him to help them.

[towards_okeanos]

[Iskandar laughs.]

Yes, they rather won't.

[Even if being acknowledged as divine was never his top priority. He knew who he was. It didn't matter if others chose to believe it or not. He loves his followers as much as he always loved his people and yet ... There's something he will not tell her. Something he would never utter in presence of any shinki. Ever. That he would much prefer to be human, mortal and alive, than a god whom people don't see unless he makes a great effort for them to notice him. It is this disconnect that causes him the most pain.

Fortunately, it is time for Ada to emerge from the kitchen carrying a tray full of food.]

[disregardeddagger]

[She nods and falls silent, she senses he is thinking though she couldn't even begin to think about what. She has no idea of the thoughts of god even if her short time with Noctis had taught her that gods were not that much different than humans.

Ada emerges with food and Nesir stands to help her. It all smelled pretty delicious.]