PFSB

[riddleofthebelow]

The next time Tom enters the bar, he turns round to the portal painting first thing. When he steps away, the rabbits playing poker look much more like proper rabbits instead of rabbit-shaped former canines. He steps back, regarding it, and nods his head. Much better.

Then he takes his stack of research with him to a table and orders a scotch. While Wei Wuxian indeed broke the ward on the mysterious scroll, and Tom was able to translate it, it still makes no sense. He has old maps of London Above to scour for clues today, because the existence of scroll is still bothering him. He doesn't think it's malevolent, but he's even more convinced that there is no logical reason to have found it in the Underside.

Not that the Underside is very logical. You know what he means.

Comments

[we_bring_hell]

She bristles at even the appearance of pity. "It's fine. I'm just not accustomed to discussing it. It was never necessary before."

(Also, she's been puppeting the corpses of her parents since then, so no one knows.)

"It is refreshing to come to a place where I have neither obligations or rivalries to consider, that much is true. It is impossible to have an apolitical relationship with the other heirs."

[riddleofthebelow]

“I can only imagine,” he says, carrying on as if she’d never laid that burden of truth before him.

(The bristling only endears her to him more, but he’ll keep that quiet.)

“Complex political navigation makes for difficulties even when one is well supported.”

[we_bring_hell]

"Mm," she says. "Moiraine Sedai has been invaluable in considering such questions."

"Does your magical tradition include something like the role of the cavalier? Or what Moiraine Sedai refers to as a Warder?"

[riddleofthebelow]

“No, not really. We’re often left to our own devices, for better or for worse.”

[we_bring_hell]

She nods. "I have met magicians here who did not see the difference between cultivating supernatural skill with the sword and other kinds of magic," she says. "Very strange to me."

"Necromancy seems to be correlated with a lack of muscle tone. Except for Coronabeth Tridentarius, anyway." The note of bitterness is very, very small.

[riddleofthebelow]

“How so? I’m not aware of such correlations.”

[we_bring_hell]

"Ahh--well, every necromancer I have ever known has been on the spindly side, at least, and thus we are accompanied by our cavaliers to provide martial support when needed."

"Have you not found that channeling the energies of death can have a detrimental effect on physical development?"

[riddleofthebelow]

“Necromancy is a rare thing, and the damages tend to be more mental than physical. So I’ve not observed that, no.”

[we_bring_hell]

"Hm," she says. "You are not the first person to share a belief that necromancy is damaging to the temperament. I have not found it to be uniquely so, but perhaps my perspective is skewed."

"I am used to judging sanity relative to other necromancers, after all," she says calmly.

[riddleofthebelow]

“Your use of necromancy differs” at a basic level. I’m afraid that in the Wizarding world, bodies are reanimated for much less noble reasons than what you do.”

[we_bring_hell]

She cocks her head. "There is no innate nobility to our necromancy," she says, almost gently. "It can be used for the horrible as well as the necessary."

And sometimes, the horribly necessary.

"Indeed, it is used for everything. That, if anything, is the difference."

[riddleofthebelow]

"Yes, I'd agree. That's the main difference."

He furrows his brow in thought.

"In your world it seems to be part of how everything naturally works."

Instead of an aberration.

[we_bring_hell]

She hesitates. "Not quite naturally," she says.

"If you come from the world that contains London, I believe you are in the distant past of our system. If you wish, we can discuss how the planets of our system became primed for necromancy, but you may find it uncomfortable."

[riddleofthebelow]

"I know part of the future of my world," he says, thinking back to the trip to Santo and Lemon Alley and the Auror they met called Bird and Viv gets verklempt because that is one of her favorite threads ever.

"But I'd still be interested in hearing your history, whether we share worlds or not."

[we_bring_hell]

She clears her throat. "Ten thousand years ago, a disaster struck our system. The sun, which we call Dominicus, was destroyed, and so was the life on our home planet, the First House, and all of the colony worlds within the system."

"The man who is now the Emperor discovered necromancy in the moment of that cataclysm. He used his unparalleled power to Resurrect the entire system, from the sun to the Ninth House, and brought back the billions lost. We were plunged into war by the reaction of the colony worlds outside of our system, and that war has dragged on for ten thousand years."

"The Dominicus and the Nine Houses are what we call thanergetic. Their fundamental lifeforce is thanergy, the energy of death, rather than the thalergy that animates life naturally. Necromancy is far, far easier there than on foreign planets."

[riddleofthebelow]

He blinks, digesting this. What he sticks on is not the resurrection of billions, astounding as that is.

"Ten thousand years of war is a very long time," he says, stating the obvious. It's hard for his mind to wrap around the idea.

[we_bring_hell]

"It is," she says. "And not every minute of it has been all-out war. But they consider necromancy an abomination."


"They consider Dominicus..." She stops to recall a piece of propaganda. "The desecrated grave of humanity's mother. They despise the Emperor, who to us is a man who became a God and a God who stooped to lead us."

"Peace seems impossible. I wish I knew more. I never thought to be involved with the Cohort."

[riddleofthebelow]

"Temple and Arch. That's a lot."

He's not able to make the leap between someone resurrecting billions of lives that would have been lost with 'abomination'. Drastic measures, unusual, perhaps ones with specific consequences, but abominable?

No.

[we_bring_hell]

"It is. But to me it has always been ancient history, news from a distant warfront, or theology. My nearest interest in it has been the history of the Locked Tomb, and that is a divine mystery."

"Suddenly it has all become very close at hand. God has called us to serve."

[riddleofthebelow]

Tom has never been religious. He was forced to attend church with the rest of the children in the orphanage, but aside from that, and his encounters with the different odd religious orders in the Underside, his life has been a secular one. He's met religious devotees here, though, so he tries to find the best words to respond.

"I hope you're able to do what you feel is best and right when the time comes."

[we_bring_hell]

"At any rate," she says, smiling slightly at his religious discomfort. "That is the history of our world, and why necromancy is so prevalent in the system of Dominicus."

"I am not certain, but based on my discussions here, I have come to believe that the First House was once known as Earth, and the other Houses correspond to colonies on the other planets."

[riddleofthebelow]

“That definitely doesn’t match the future I know about. When my earth has to abandoned, the diaspora goes beyond our solar system.”

[we_bring_hell]

"In ours, too," she says. "That is who we are at war with, the external colonies."

[riddleofthebelow]

“I misunderstood. I thought you meant the other planets near ours. Despite my time here speaking with those who travel the galaxy, I’ve never quite been able to wrap my head round the concept.”

[we_bring_hell]

"It is of no concern," she says. "I speak of such things, but I have only ever left the Ninth House the once."

"If I am chosen as Lyctor, however, my duties will include opening ways to other stars. I shall have to brush up," she says, with a half-serious smirk in her voice.