The Keep, Ebon Askavi, Kaeleer, Monday Evening (Fandom Time)

[glacial_queen]

The last time Karla had been here, she'd been incredibly nervous about how that evening would turn out and affect her future. Standing in the Keep tonight with a crowd of people around her--some of them almost complete strangers--made her almost laugh at how naive her fear had been the last time.

Her Offering was nothing. This was the completely terrifying night.

A small gong echoed through the room. Once. Twice. Thrice. Then, after a pause, a fourth time. Four times for the four sides of a Blood triangle, the fourth side being what was held within the other three. Like the three males--Steward, Master of the Guard, and Consort--who formed a strong, intimate triangle around a Queen.

Lord Mallory shuffled around, making certain that everyone was lined up according to Protocol, light Jewels to dark, first all the males and then the females. A pair of double doors opened in the rear of the room and Karla glided forward to take her place on a small dias, then turned to watch her friends--her Court--file in behind her.

She took a deep breath and completely ignored all of her future Steward's hard work and Protocol and called out, "Prince Regan, will you serve in the First Circle?"

And so it began.

[NFB for distance, some text taken from Heir to the Shadows, Chapt. 16]

Comments

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[furnaceface]

"If they'll withstand a simple blast of Craft, that's good enough for me," Jonothon agreed. "More focused attacks will take a man's head off and there's not much to be done about that, but if this can keep them from having their chests blown in, all the better."

A beat.

"Shattered chests aren't much fun, after all."

He spoke from experience.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah shuddered. "Gah. No." She poked at his arm. "And what's this about you having sound-control powers? Momoko said you can do things again now?"

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[furnaceface]

"Fly. Scream very loudly. Create hard-light objects with more or less a thought," Jono confirmed, lifting a hand and idly rubbing at his arm where she'd poked it. "It's... it's not me. It's all tech-based. But it's something. I've been able to do those things for a while, now. Kind of... came with the team."

The one he'd lost last week. That team.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Oh, Jono. Dinah's expression softened again, but she simply said, "Momoko suggested we could check that stuff with my sonic scream. Maybe see if there was a way to focus it, or do something else with it." She rubbed the poked-place and said a little more lightly, "I want to hear about your team. When you're up to it."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[furnaceface]

"When I'm up to it," Jono agreed with a tired smile. "And any training you'd like to do, between your scream and mine... I'd be happy to give it a go. I didn't choose those powers just to neglect to use them, after all."

That would be silly.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Cool. Any advantage or surprise we can give Karla's side..."

Yeah, she kind of thought there would be a lot more surprises than advantages, at least at first glance.

"I need a sparring partner anyway. I'll either scare or scar the landens, and maybe that'll make the Glacians take me seriously enough to spar with me too."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[furnaceface]

"Sparring them can't hurt too much," Jono noted, shrugging his shoulders a bit. "They're about to step into some of the worst nightmares they've not yet had the joy of having. A few spars to knock the fear of God into them is just going to ground them some more. A physical spar compared to a psychic attack they have no hope of avoiding... seems like a good start to something I'm going to hate putting them through later."

Weed them out before getting them killed.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"What kind of psychic attacks?" Dinah asked, frowning. "Maybe I can help a little with that too. Mental shielding lessons, at least? Even though they won't have the strength of someone with meta abilities."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[furnaceface]

Jono raised an eyebrow.

"The sort of psychic attacks that can make a man's head very literally explode. I don't think the kind of shielding that even experienced telepaths can teach them."

Having been a telepath himself, he could say that much with some authority, at least.

"I'm hoping it never has to come to that. There will be clashes, of course. This is war, after all. But if I have to put my landens up directly against any number of the Blood, odds are good that I'll have a slaughter on my hands that I'd really rather avoid."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Ohhhhhhkay. I thought you meant telepathic attacks.... Helmets. I bet they can make helmets. Although if they explode all over the inside of the helmet, that's not going to help much." Dinah grimaced. "So, are they mostly for defense? Sneak attacks? Buying time?"

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[furnaceface]

"Anything we can do to hit Hobart wherever it counts," Jonothon replied. "Information diggers, perhaps. More... more guerrilla warfare than anything else. Pitfalls. Ambushes. It isn't as though Hobart has an army for us to march against. The rules are completely different, here. If we went with conventional warfare, we'd be marching a bunch of flatscans with pointy sticks against an army of metahumans."

And that would be dumb.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"That could work. The guerilla warfare, I mean. Not the Redcoat style marching into the valley of death." And meant the armor might come in useful; make sure no one got a direct shot, and they'd outlast by distance and difficult aim. "I get why Karla doesn't want to bring in guns or bombs, and I mostly agree, but man, do I wish we had something else to give them."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[furnaceface]

"I'm... still at something of a loss," Jono admitted, nodding a little. "Dinah, I... I have been telling myself over and over again that I can make this work. For months now, I've been trying to come up with ways to fight Hobart's Blood. But every example I have of humans doing any amount of damage to a superhuman that hopelessly outpowers them involves weapons. Guns. Bombs. Bloody... Sentinels."

Not that he wanted Sentinels here. Or bombs. Or guns.

"I'm going to do this, and I'm going to bring as many of those landens home in one piece again when we're done as I possibly can. But the best chance we have of surviving the Blood is never getting near the Blood, and that isn't an option." There he went, sounding tired again. "Without bringing earth's weapons to Kaeleer, I need to figure out a way to be a better weapon than they are. And... strictly between you and me... right now I'm finding it difficult to imagine how I'm supposed to do that."

He'd get his head around it. He'd deliver, of course. He had no choice, and he'd kept his own alive when hopelessly outpowered before. But right now, he was tired, and he was at a low, and that was just something he'd needed to get off his chest.

He wasn't sure he felt better for having said it.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Hey." Dinah sounded determined, and looked it, jaw set, eyebrows down. "There are plenty of options. New Gotham has got a long history of non-powered people fighting metas. And yeah, a lot of that was weaponry-- but some of it was armor, and some of it was knowing the terrain better, and a lot of it was having public support. From the police *and* the citizens. I'm not saying it'll be easy. It's probably going to be," she took a breath, swallowed hard. "Pretty horrible, sometimes. But we've got innovation on our side. The Blood, Hobart's type of Blood-- they don't think smart. Just strong." She squeezed Jono's arm, and pointed at Joni. "Pet the kitten. We don't have to figure it all out tonight. And you're not alone."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[furnaceface]

Dinah had some very good advice, there. Jono nodded a little, exhaled in a ragged sort of sigh, and then reached into his pocket to pull Joni out, so that he could cradle her to his chest.

Kitten therapy. It was a powerful thing.

"We'll make it work because we have to make it work," Jonothon allowed. "But I'd be mad to go into this without second-guessing myself at least a little."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"I know. It's a huge deal. I'm so impressed you're taking that on, Jono. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't feel up to it." She smiled at him. "One step at a time. One day at a time. It isn't all on you."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[furnaceface]

"Somebody needs to take it on," Jono replied simply. "And I am a soldier. Possibly one of the only ones Karla knows. For her... I would take it all on my shoulders."

He smiled faintly.

"It's good to know that the burden isn't completely mine to carry."

Just... most of it, if he had any say in the matter.