[ She considers it in silence for a few moments that’s uncharacteristically dour for her. It’s a quiet that’s almost heavy because she’s partially not sure what to say either. She can’t think of a way to explain it, or at least not well. Like Liem can’t fathom what it’s like to be divine and to still know tragedy, she has trouble imagining herself as a mortal and perceiving the fullness of the loss.
In a way, mortals aren’t meant to. They have small lives and small scopes compared to the divine, and it’s a good thing, in her opinion. It lets them live more freely. They don’t fully bear the burdens of what time alone will bring, the cycle of beginnings and ends that will never stop and cannot be stopped, no matter how much even a god wishes to do so.
She twirls a bracelet of gold and jade around her wrist idly, just to have something to do with her hands and for something for her gaze to focus on. ]
If there was one thing I wished that people better understood about gods, it’s that we aren’t all powerful. We can do big, amazing things! But a lot of our power and our work comes before people even exist. Once the world is made, we’re guardians, and it’s up to people to guide the world. We can provide help, but it’s for big things or to help people with knowledge of natural things. When it comes to conflicts between the people themselves… We don’t interfere. Even if I wanted to, more than anything else, I’m still a guardian. I can’t fight the battles between people for them.
[ And that’s part of the hard part to explain. Anyone would ask “why not”, and she can’t give an answer that’s satisfying. She simply can’t, because that’s what it meant to be a god. It was no more possible for her than it was for a human to fly. ]
But it’s… sad. I have all the power in the world, enough to make and unmake the world, but that doesn’t matter when it’s something slow and deliberate like a country over the sea coming to steal from our land and our people. Wiping away invaders means wiping away our people too. So… You just have to watch and hope that your people are strong enough to bear it.
[ She laughs a little, but it’s soft. ]
So, it’s ironic, yes? Even a god can feel powerless in the face of that.
[Perhaps Liem is better suited than most to understand Quetzalcoatl’s lament about not being all powerful, given his role as a priest in a world that also had many different gods. Certainly the gods were said to have achieved impossible wonders in the age before sapient beings inhabited Golarion, but in all Avistan’s recorded history, it was rare for the gods to act directly upon the world. There are limits to what even the gods can get away with, he knows. So they touch the world in innumerable small ways, in the hope that those small touches will be enough to work their will.
But of course, he cannot truly relate, no matter how much he might sympathize. The power and understanding of the divine will always ultimately be beyond him.]
I’d thought the powerlessness of being here might be difficult for you and Set, but I suppose that feeling is not unfamiliar to you.
[The feeling of not having all the answers, of being unable to save everyone you might wish to, of being a pawn in some grander game. Since meeting Kenos’s own resident divinities, he’s been surprised to learn that even gods can suffer these things.]
That is, I think, the sort of thing those committed to Zenith would struggle to understand. How you could have that knowledge of your people’s fate, and still fight to save the world just as it is.
[ At least as the topic shifts away from the specifics of how the Azteca fell, it’s enough for Quetzalcoatl’s smile to warm back up again. It’s clearly something that she’s deeply sad about, but it’s also an old pain at this point. She’d raged and mourned centuries ago, but she had come to love the culture that had been born after. She’d never forgive the Spanish or Cortez for what they did, but she did love México and its people. ]
Mm, I bet it’s probably harder for Set. For me it’s… [ She trails off as she considers explaining that she’s not really a god at the moment, she’s a Servant and that’s different, but with a little laugh, she waves her hand dismissively. She’s tried, but the explanation just seems to confuse people more, so she stays vague. ] Well, it’s like you said. It’s not unfamiliar.
[ She stops fidgeting with her bracelet at this point, though she sits back to lean against Set’s cocoon more with a sigh. ]
It’s why I don’t blame Zenith as much as I thought I might when I got here, though. After talking to some of them… I can see why they’d want to abandon their worlds, yes. It’s not something everyone can do, fighting for a place that you know is full of bad things. It’s why I’ll just fight harder on their behalf, I decided.
[Liem isn’t sorry to escape another explanation of Quetzalcoatl’s weird circumstances as a summoned aspect or servant or whatever else. Despite feeling reasonably confident that he understands the gist of what she’d previously told him on the subject, the specifics still make his head spin a little bit, and he’s content to leave his current level of understanding as is.
Like Quetz, he leans against the cocoon where Set’s reforming body sleeps. He wonders if any hint of their presence reaches him during his dreaming, and if the company is at all a balm to the loneliness that seems to plague the red-haired god.]
I understand it. When I was in Taldor, I spent much of my time looking for bad things — to correct, to contain, to scrub out. There’s no end to a job like that. That’s why I went to Zenith; I thought, maybe the world didn’t have to be that way.
[His expression is sober as he thinks about this — but then, he glances over at Quetz and smiles thoughtfully.]
But not everyone’s life is like that. My calling has always been something I pursued so that other people wouldn’t have to, so they can do honest work and come home to their families. It’s not really fair to give up on those people, is it?
ykw theyre both leaning on the Pod™ it's slimetime
[ As Liem presses up along the cocoon, it seems as though the combined weight of their bodies leaves a dent in the surface — only for a split to form right between them, where all the vines and substance within have pressed up along the interior of the pod. It ruptures like an overripe fruit, immediately sluicing down between the two of them as a pale arm shoves its way out through the gap. The dark lines of the Savant's spoke-wheel mark upon the back of the hand make it a little more obvious, that it belongs to Set.
( The fact that Quetzalcoatl's ehēcacōzcatl necklace is wound around the wrist too, might also help. ) ]
[ Quetzalcoatl’s smile is soft and fond as Liem explains. Of course it is. It’s a conviction she deeply admires, as surely almost any god would. In fact, she does think briefly that Abadar is very lucky to have Liem as a follower—She hopes that he really looks after Liem!
She opens her mouth to respond, but as there’s the soft sound of the rupture between them, it’s quickly gone. She breathes out the first noise of a surprised ¿qué?, but that’s also just as quick to turn into a squawked out noise of surprise. It’s just like Set to be violent about it!!
(…As if her own rebirth wasn’t also terrifyingly violent to Mordred and Gray, don’t worry about that.)
She would naturally help whoever was inside regardless, but the ehēcacōzcatl make this unmistakable. There’s not even time to process that into fondness, since even though half of her is gooped by sap as Set starts to emerge, she’s quick to stand and to dig her fingers underneath the rupture and start to pull it back to allow for more room. ]
[The nice, peaceful moment between them is interrupted abruptly when the cocoon surface right between them splits and spills a rush of sap-like fluid. Liem flinches back with a noise of startled disgust, but it’s too late to keep the half of him nearer the opening from getting thoroughly drenched. It isn’t until he’s already half-risen and kneeling at the edge of the soggy, mossy puddle that he registers the pale arm with it’s dark Savant marking.]
Ugh, [he mutters, straightening slightly so he can dig his fingers into the other side of the split and tear it wider. Why are these things so wet inside? He’s going to have to walk back home like this! It’s almost as bad as if he’d been the one soaking in the pod himself.
Still, his irritation at his sudden drenching is quickly overridden by relief that Set is emerging back into the world of the living. Even a very wet and sticky, trouble-making Set is a significant improvement from a silent green cocoon.]
[ — honestly, he doesn't know what he expects, as he comes to. But, to find anyone there waiting is not chief among them.
The vines that encircle him as he sags from the pod fray from far too many places upon him; each spot he had driven a weapon, they wither and fall from as he feels the cocoon give way under wrenching hands. Hears the muffled sound of familiar voices. A vine falls from his throat, and he can still feel the dull ache lingering. Whatever had been done to him to dissipate, it was numerous in nature and violent.
He sags out of the cocoon, hips still stuck inside, and weakly lifts his head to look up through soggy, red hair at the pair helping him out. There is — abject disorientation, almost disbelief, to find Liem and Quetzalcoatl there, and then there is a flicker of satisfaction. Hehehe, get gooped on, you two. He rasps, hoarse and thin: ] — oh. Boo?
[ As soon as Set looks up towards them, Quetzalcoatl’s eyes are already filling up with tears. It’s probably not much of a surprise with just how earnest and open she is with everything, but it’s also the only warning that Set gets before she throws her arms around his shoulders tightly to hug him. Sticky and all. She makes one loud sound of crying out that’s a mixture of deep relief and just a little bit of upset annoyance, but it’s mostly the first. ]
Eres un idiota, but I’m so glad to see you!! Set!!
[ It’s a true “WAAA” kind of cry too as she holds him and just openly, unashamedly wails. ]
[Had Liem expected to find Set’s cocoon so close to the time of his emergence, he would have brought a towel or something, to address the sticky sap that is now slopped all over all three of them (but still mostly Set). All they have on-hand is the handkerchief that he already gave Quetz, which is nowhere near big enough to deal with an entire person’s worth of gooey mess. He was… not thinking ahead, clearly.
As the sun god throws her arms around Set’s emerging torso, Liem remains kneeling where he is, letting Quetz deliver hugs and tears and insults for the both of them. It’s for the best, considering he is not an especially demonstrative man. He doesn’t feel the need to turn this into a wet group hug, even if he is glad to again see Set living and whole.]
You gave us a little scare, [he says, an afterthought to Quetz’s wailed admonishment-slash-welcome.] We didn’t know where you’d gone.
[ Everything hurts, courtesy of his own choices that lead him to dissipate in the first place. Wielding an arsenal against oneself left its mark, the bone-deep exhaustion within him that has him unable to fight back when Quetzalcoatl throws her arms around him and begins to wail. Sap and all, she "WAA'S" her heart out and he seems — well, too tired to resist being snatched into her arms.
The position does let him peer over her bicep towards Liem, looking wrung out and slightly disoriented by the whole thing. His brow knits, eyes narrowing. ]
So, what? You both sat around and... waited? For me?
[ Honestly, that CANNOT be what happened. They probably just happened upon a pod and decided to hedge their bets. ]
[ As Set settles against her, there is a moment when she gives his cheek a quick, fond little kiss. It’s exactly the sort that could be expected from a big sister being reunited with a younger sibling after a long absence, even though it really hadn’t been long at all. But she’d worried, of course. She’d worried in a way that she wouldn’t mention in front of Liem, because it was Set’s dark, tragic story, and she wouldn’t breathe a word of it. But of course when she’d found him at the Last Dance so recently, so raw and open, she couldn’t help but be deeply concerned about him.
Maybe she’d tell him the honest answer another time. Or, more likely, she’d forget about it now that he’s back. At least what she says is also true, though it’s not the main reason at all. ]
Of course—!! Voryn disappeared so recently, I was worried you might have gone missing too! So… Coming to sit here was all I could think of!!
[ Because unlike Liem, she hadn’t actually known that Set was here, but… That little hope had been better than the idea of mourning someone dear to her come and gone. So, she’s relieved! Relieved enough to not fully process what he adds on at the end as she hiccup-cries into his shoulder… He gets to live a little longer before being killed again ]
[While Quetz might be too distraught to pick up on what Set had said right away, Liem blinks, and then frowns at the incredulous-sounding pronouncement. All went as planned, says the man currently leaning half out of his rebirth pod, still wet with its sap. There is no one else here save for the three of them, and neither Liem nor Quetz had known what had happened to Set to begin with. He had spoken with others who also had no idea where the god had disappeared off to. Who planted his shard here, supposedly at his behest?]
I knew of no such plan, [he says, his voice as dry as the desert itself.] Hayame simply contacted me, saying you had disappeared, and when my search spread to the Tree, my magic brought me here.
[He punctuates this last word by patting the verdant pod still in the process of disgorging Set like a ripe pea. Though his delivery is patient, frustration lurks behind his rather-too-composed expression. Set had worried them for days about this, and for what?]
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no subject
In a way, mortals aren’t meant to. They have small lives and small scopes compared to the divine, and it’s a good thing, in her opinion. It lets them live more freely. They don’t fully bear the burdens of what time alone will bring, the cycle of beginnings and ends that will never stop and cannot be stopped, no matter how much even a god wishes to do so.
She twirls a bracelet of gold and jade around her wrist idly, just to have something to do with her hands and for something for her gaze to focus on. ]
If there was one thing I wished that people better understood about gods, it’s that we aren’t all powerful. We can do big, amazing things! But a lot of our power and our work comes before people even exist. Once the world is made, we’re guardians, and it’s up to people to guide the world. We can provide help, but it’s for big things or to help people with knowledge of natural things. When it comes to conflicts between the people themselves… We don’t interfere. Even if I wanted to, more than anything else, I’m still a guardian. I can’t fight the battles between people for them.
[ And that’s part of the hard part to explain. Anyone would ask “why not”, and she can’t give an answer that’s satisfying. She simply can’t, because that’s what it meant to be a god. It was no more possible for her than it was for a human to fly. ]
But it’s… sad. I have all the power in the world, enough to make and unmake the world, but that doesn’t matter when it’s something slow and deliberate like a country over the sea coming to steal from our land and our people. Wiping away invaders means wiping away our people too. So… You just have to watch and hope that your people are strong enough to bear it.
[ She laughs a little, but it’s soft. ]
So, it’s ironic, yes? Even a god can feel powerless in the face of that.
no subject
But of course, he cannot truly relate, no matter how much he might sympathize. The power and understanding of the divine will always ultimately be beyond him.]
I’d thought the powerlessness of being here might be difficult for you and Set, but I suppose that feeling is not unfamiliar to you.
[The feeling of not having all the answers, of being unable to save everyone you might wish to, of being a pawn in some grander game. Since meeting Kenos’s own resident divinities, he’s been surprised to learn that even gods can suffer these things.]
That is, I think, the sort of thing those committed to Zenith would struggle to understand. How you could have that knowledge of your people’s fate, and still fight to save the world just as it is.
no subject
Mm, I bet it’s probably harder for Set. For me it’s… [ She trails off as she considers explaining that she’s not really a god at the moment, she’s a Servant and that’s different, but with a little laugh, she waves her hand dismissively. She’s tried, but the explanation just seems to confuse people more, so she stays vague. ] Well, it’s like you said. It’s not unfamiliar.
[ She stops fidgeting with her bracelet at this point, though she sits back to lean against Set’s cocoon more with a sigh. ]
It’s why I don’t blame Zenith as much as I thought I might when I got here, though. After talking to some of them… I can see why they’d want to abandon their worlds, yes. It’s not something everyone can do, fighting for a place that you know is full of bad things. It’s why I’ll just fight harder on their behalf, I decided.
no subject
Like Quetz, he leans against the cocoon where Set’s reforming body sleeps. He wonders if any hint of their presence reaches him during his dreaming, and if the company is at all a balm to the loneliness that seems to plague the red-haired god.]
I understand it. When I was in Taldor, I spent much of my time looking for bad things — to correct, to contain, to scrub out. There’s no end to a job like that. That’s why I went to Zenith; I thought, maybe the world didn’t have to be that way.
[His expression is sober as he thinks about this — but then, he glances over at Quetz and smiles thoughtfully.]
But not everyone’s life is like that. My calling has always been something I pursued so that other people wouldn’t have to, so they can do honest work and come home to their families. It’s not really fair to give up on those people, is it?
ykw theyre both leaning on the Pod™ it's slimetime
( The fact that Quetzalcoatl's ehēcacōzcatl necklace is wound around the wrist too, might also help. ) ]
no subject
She opens her mouth to respond, but as there’s the soft sound of the rupture between them, it’s quickly gone. She breathes out the first noise of a surprised ¿qué?, but that’s also just as quick to turn into a squawked out noise of surprise. It’s just like Set to be violent about it!!
(…As if her own rebirth wasn’t also terrifyingly violent to Mordred and Gray, don’t worry about that.)
She would naturally help whoever was inside regardless, but the ehēcacōzcatl make this unmistakable. There’s not even time to process that into fondness, since even though half of her is gooped by sap as Set starts to emerge, she’s quick to stand and to dig her fingers underneath the rupture and start to pull it back to allow for more room. ]
Ay, un problemático always, huh!
no subject
Ugh, [he mutters, straightening slightly so he can dig his fingers into the other side of the split and tear it wider. Why are these things so wet inside? He’s going to have to walk back home like this! It’s almost as bad as if he’d been the one soaking in the pod himself.
Still, his irritation at his sudden drenching is quickly overridden by relief that Set is emerging back into the world of the living. Even a very wet and sticky, trouble-making Set is a significant improvement from a silent green cocoon.]
no subject
The vines that encircle him as he sags from the pod fray from far too many places upon him; each spot he had driven a weapon, they wither and fall from as he feels the cocoon give way under wrenching hands. Hears the muffled sound of familiar voices. A vine falls from his throat, and he can still feel the dull ache lingering. Whatever had been done to him to dissipate, it was numerous in nature and violent.
He sags out of the cocoon, hips still stuck inside, and weakly lifts his head to look up through soggy, red hair at the pair helping him out. There is — abject disorientation, almost disbelief, to find Liem and Quetzalcoatl there, and then there is a flicker of satisfaction. Hehehe, get gooped on, you two. He rasps, hoarse and thin: ] — oh. Boo?
no subject
Eres un idiota, but I’m so glad to see you!! Set!!
[ It’s a true “WAAA” kind of cry too as she holds him and just openly, unashamedly wails. ]
no subject
As the sun god throws her arms around Set’s emerging torso, Liem remains kneeling where he is, letting Quetz deliver hugs and tears and insults for the both of them. It’s for the best, considering he is not an especially demonstrative man. He doesn’t feel the need to turn this into a wet group hug, even if he is glad to again see Set living and whole.]
You gave us a little scare, [he says, an afterthought to Quetz’s wailed admonishment-slash-welcome.] We didn’t know where you’d gone.
no subject
The position does let him peer over her bicep towards Liem, looking wrung out and slightly disoriented by the whole thing. His brow knits, eyes narrowing. ]
So, what? You both sat around and... waited? For me?
[ Honestly, that CANNOT be what happened. They probably just happened upon a pod and decided to hedge their bets. ]
I knew what I was doing, all went as planned.
no subject
Maybe she’d tell him the honest answer another time. Or, more likely, she’d forget about it now that he’s back. At least what she says is also true, though it’s not the main reason at all. ]
Of course—!! Voryn disappeared so recently, I was worried you might have gone missing too! So… Coming to sit here was all I could think of!!
[ Because unlike Liem, she hadn’t actually known that Set was here, but… That little hope had been better than the idea of mourning someone dear to her come and gone. So, she’s relieved! Relieved enough to not fully process what he adds on at the end as she hiccup-cries into his shoulder…
He gets to live a little longer before being killed again]no subject
I knew of no such plan, [he says, his voice as dry as the desert itself.] Hayame simply contacted me, saying you had disappeared, and when my search spread to the Tree, my magic brought me here.
[He punctuates this last word by patting the verdant pod still in the process of disgorging Set like a ripe pea. Though his delivery is patient, frustration lurks behind his rather-too-composed expression. Set had worried them for days about this, and for what?]