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The Enlightened Temple of the Juniper Bough (9/8)
🕑 Added 2021-09-02 03:17:13 +0000 UTCAs she stepped up to the casino, the bouncer stepped aside, letting her in without a word, just a nod of respect. She walked past the crowded tables where she could see it was a profitable night for their enterprise—their dealers had certainly taken her lessons to heart, letting the gamblers win just enough to lose big, but still leave them thinking that it was just a hit of bad luck. Plenty of people believed The Snowflake had the best odds in town, but their balance sheets suggested otherwise. And that artful balance was a testimony to her skill.
Neptune Vasilias, behind the bar, caught her eye. He knew not to interrupt her when it was business, but he still sent her an expression to ask if she’d like a drink. With a shake of her head, she silently declined, and he signaled back that the people she was looking for were already upstairs. Another bouncer parted, letting her take the stairs to the back room of the casino.
Blake could have easily slipped past security and entered her destination unsighted if she wanted to, but she liked being treated with respect. For a Faunus girl, particularly one who still spoke with a trace of her Menagerie accent, it was rare to get any respect in a city like Beacon. But here, on their turf… people knew not to cause trouble with her.
Going up the backstairs, she took a moment to revel in the sense of power this place gave her. It was unbecoming for her to be seen smiling in public, but it was hard not to feel accomplished after the four of them turned a small property stake bought with off-the-table money into a successful den of vice. Ah, but it was time to put her face back together as she opened the door—even if she wasn’t about to go into the general public, she still had an image to maintain.
A dark-haired girl in a red cloak looked up as she heard the door, her face shifting from piercing focus (she had been fiddling with the rifle on the table) to a wide, youthful grin. “Hey Blake!” Ruby called, “I just finished revising the spring mechanism for your grappling hook, it’s practically silent now, check it out!”
She reached down to grab the device, only to be interrupted by a blond woman with a powerful build, her burly arms, which Blake had seen once take down half a dozen men at once in a street fight, now equally in the service of catching Ruby’s hand and eating a greasy meal of battered cod and limp chips rather than beating enforcers to a pulp. Oh, Yang could certainly afford better food, but she was always one with the common folk, and that’s where her tastes trended. “Let’s not fire a grappling hook indoors. Or at least, give her a moment to settle in Rubes,” she told her half-sister with a laugh, then turned to Blake, “She’s been talking our ears off about how she revised the noise dampeners and all, so get ready for that.”
Blake chuckled. Yang and Ruby had been the ones to originally recruit her into this life, a low-level thug and a gunslinger who had the smarts to realize that strength and skill would only take them so far in the business—they’d started hiring her to give them intelligence on who to expect when carrying out a shakedown, or the hidden weaknesses of the pitfighters Yang would be going up against. Pretty soon, they’d offered her a partnership, and Blake, who’d come to find that she actually enjoyed their company, not to mention the protection they offered, was actually happy to accept. And things were good for a while.
But then, of course, they hit the big leagues when they were hired by the fourth member of their little operation.
She looked out of place in the room, though her outfit was practical: a shirt, jacket, and pants instead of a ballroom dress, but with its obvious expense and impeccable taste and tailoring, she still looked like a princess. She had set down her book and was smiling at Blake, a smile that made her heart beat a little faster than Blake liked, the kind of smile she never expected from the daughter of the President of the Schnee Development Concern.
“Please, do hurry up and talk to Ruby about it, though,” she cut in, her voice melodious even as her rapier wit was about to strike, “so that I never have to hear the words, ‘doubleback counter springs’ again.”
Ruby pouted and they all laughed. But Blake gazed at Weiss for a half second longer than she probably ought to before quickly braking away and casting her glance to the floor.
They’d first met Weiss when the three of them had been hired by her as a contingency plan to ensure that Weiss’s inheritance wouldn’t be in question. Being the heiress to the SDC was a dangerous position, with an ambitious younger brother and a few scheming cousins—not to mention non family members who’d want her sidelined. She wanted to gain a backup base of power outside her home in Mantle, and Beacon was far enough away that she had much more flexibility in her operations. Nominally in Vale to oversee a minor overseas operation, Weiss had devoted her time and resources to shift their work in intelligence towards blackmail, both for the underworld and the upper class. It was a reluctant partnership at first, particularly from Blake’s end, but she begrudgingly had to admit that the rich girl did have a knack for the cut-throat, and she made a damn good strategist on top of having the resources to equip them.
But what was remarkable about Weiss, more than her intellect, her beauty, or her money, was that she was capable of change. Something Blake hadn’t thought possible, but over the years, she had shown Weiss the Faunus experience in Beacon, and Weiss, once a wealthy, condescending bigot, looking to inherit a company that had been the cause of so much misery for the Faunus, had realized what her cushy life had hidden from her. That all her wealth and privilege had been achieved at the expense of the suffering of innocents had first sparked defensiveness, but then she’d realized that her life was part of a great and tragic mistake, and she’d resolved to do what she could to make things better.
And Blake believed her.
Weiss was… everything her previous leader wasn’t. And in doing that, she filled a hole Blake hadn’t even realized was in her, a need to have someone she could believe in. And while Weiss gave no illusions of being a moral champion, she was someone who could… inspire Blake. And that’s what she needed.
Their organization had taken a turn as well. Less concerned with the industrial espionage and politicking of the SDC, and taking on a greater humanitarian character towards the downtrodden of Beacon. But, of course, doing the right thing required leverage, and that took money and power. That’s what brought them all here, to the secret headquarters of the Ruby Masque, spies-for-hire that ran the information trade across Beacon. For the right price, any secret could be dug up, and, for a better price, any other secret could be placed. And for certain prices, like the one Blake had just been offered, they could be saboteurs... or even assassins.
“What’s the word?” Yang asked casually before popping the last bite of cod in her mouth and licking the grease off her fingers.
Blake pulled out her notebook as she took a seat at the table, in her spot, the one that could always be identified by the notch marks she’d left with her knife, each one marking a successful mission. They were starting to creep onto Weiss’s usual spot, to her great annoyance, but Blake wasn’t going to stop recording her successes.
“We’ve got a job, and one you might be interested in...” she said, turning to Weiss.
“Oh?” she asked, trying not to show how intrigued she was. Weiss was a master manipulator who could morph between airheaded socialite to cold strategist and everything in between as the situation demanded, but here in their back room, she was always just “Weiss,” their prim-and-proper friend/pseudo-employer. “I take it it’s about the Juniper Bough, then?”
“Got it in one,” Blake smirked, “Turns out, word on the street is that they’re building towards something big, and my contact in the Constabulary,” good ol’ Roman, crooked as a dog’s hind leg, but a damn useful line straight to Mayor Ozpin, who didn’t always mind a little crookedness, “has let me know they’d be interested in disrupting whatever they have planned before it becomes an ‘official’ problem.”
“So I get to smash up a church?” Yang asked, a hopeful gleam in her eye.
“That’s not how we do things, Yang,” Weiss chided, “But… if it comes to that, yes, we may have to… disrupt a ceremony.”
“Smashing up a church!” Yang cheered, pumping her fist.
“Hold on,” Ruby said, marking some quick notes of her own, “I thought we were cool with the Bough? They drove the Malachite Gang back to Hill Street, and I thought… thought we liked people who stuck up for the refugees?”
“A cult is a cult, Rubes,” Yang shrugged, “They drive out the worst of the drug pushers who preyed on those Mistralian refugees, but then they start making them attend services, make services conditional on loyalty to the cult, and then… you’ve got a bunch of religious weirdos with an army.”
“All religions are cults,” Blake started, causing the room to groan and Yang to throw her fish and chips wrapper at her. Not that Blake stopped talking, of course, now with a teasing grin on her face. “It’s the opium of the masses! It’s how patriarchal capitalism keeps us-”
“But what about Pyrrha?” Ruby interrupted, “She’s like...” she stalled as she searched for a word, “all super cool?”
It was such a Ruby way to describe The Invincible Girl that Blake had to smile. Anyone else would have described that masked terror as “intensely unsettling” or “terrifying” or just plain “creepy.” Blake had never seen her firsthand, but you couldn’t escape the stories. She was an emotionless nightmare, some rumors said she literally worse an eyeless stone mask, who supposedly moved with a grace that gave credence to the claims of the faith, and strong enough to make Yang interested. She was, as the rumors went, an unstoppable juggernaut that the cult referred to as “The Vessel,” a suitably creepy name for what they believed to be a woman empowered by their strange gods. But to Ruby, only just out of her teenage years, she was “super cool.”
They’d been keeping an eye open for her for a bit now. Weiss had taken an interest in them after they drove out the Malachite Gang. Or, more accurately, they’d beaten the Ruby Masque to the punch. Weiss had been interested in getting a better sense of what was going on in the Mistralian Quarter, thinking that former White Fang revolutionaries were likely operating in there—a topic that Blake also particularly cared about—but before they could start undermining the Malachites, the Juniper Bough had swept in like a hurricane, leading to an out-and-out street war that ended with the Malachites fleeing back to their home territory, prepping for their last stand, only the cult just… stopped.
Weiss had assessed it as a way to keep things from going too far—right now, they were just another gang, even if a creepy religious one, and the Mistralian Quarter had changed hands enough times that nobody particularly cared if the lowlifes were killing each other. Crossing Hill Street, though, and now the pot had boiled over. Once it got out of the Quarter, it became a bigger issue, and as capable as this Pyrrha supposedly was, one woman couldn’t fight the whole city if they saw an upstart coming after their more entrenched interests.
But Blake wasn’t sure she bought it. Her thinking was that the cult didn’t want anything past Hill Street. The authorities had been thinking of them as a gang, interested in money and recruits, but they, like the Ruby Masque, weren’t that simple. They had weird, arcane interests that nobody outside the cult really knew, and the fact that one of those interests was the Mistralian Quarter, and all the various refugees crowding the place, didn’t sit right with Blake.
“I don’t want to encourage Ruby’s interest in weird cults, but...” Yang added, dryly, “I’m wary about teaming up with the authorities when we both know we’re not too far down the chopping block. Why not scout out the cult, find out if they’re a better partner than the Constabulary, and, hey, we’ve been looking to make inroads in the Quarter, I bet we could cut a deal.”
“Do you expect a cult will give us a better deal?” Weiss asked, a note of incredulity in her voice, “Even if they don’t throw us under the bus because we’re not believers, who knows what their plans are! Even Blake hasn’t been able to find a damn thing out about their core beliefs.”
That… that had been… frustrating, and something about Weiss citing her failure, even with no trace of judgment in her voice, made Blake’s face feel hot. But she’d done her damnedest and turned up nothing. She’d been unable to get a good sense of their membership and leadership, their recruitment methods, their openly-stated beliefs… but when it came to the upper echelons, their believers were true believers and they didn’t talk.
But she still felt the need to defend her reputation.
“We know a few things. Obviously,” she began, “Pyrrha is more than just a protector of the faithful. They refer to her as ‘The Vessel,’ and from the way they treat her, she’s either going to be their god or birth their god. Her appearances are… impressive, but to be honest, I don’t buy that she’s anything more than human, so-”
“You think she’s a Faunus!” Ruby deduced.
Blake stared at her until she cringed, and Weiss stepped in to get things back on track.
“You’re thinking she’s staged these fights?”
“Precisely,” Blake nodded, “Something’s up with her, and I think tailing her is our best chance at finding the weak point to the cult.”
Yang nodded. “Yeah, rumors blow up fast in the Quarter, but…” she leaned forward, eyes narrowing critically, “Not like this. I think there’s something to her, something I’d like to get a chance to ‘feel out,’ if you get my-”
“You want to fight her,” Weiss drolly cut in, “Noted.”
“You don’t think I’d win?” Yang replied with a challenging grin.
But of course, before Weiss could say anything, they were both cut off by the gasp of Ruby having to decide between her big sister and the “all super cool” Pyrrha Nikos. “Well, we don’t- we don’t have to fight them...” she lamely suggested.
“Anyways,” Blake cut in, trying to keep the meeting on track, “Following Pyrrha, and figuring out what her deal is, gives us our best sense of how things move at the top level, which gives Roman his opening to make a move and gain a promotion. And a Lieutenant Constable who’s taking bribes is a lot better for us than how much he’s offering to pay.”
“He is paying, though, right?” Yang asked with a smirk, “But give me a chance to meet this Pyrrha head on, and I think I could be swayed to do it pro bono...”
“We will be getting paid,” Weiss definitively cut in, “And yes, I know we don’t need the money, but it’s the principle of the matter—we’re not stooges, and we do not want that reputation.”
Blake had to smile a bit at that. Weiss’s defiant manner towards the Law was something a younger Blake would have chalked up to her pride and unwillingness to be anyone’s pawn, but she knew Weiss now, well enough that she knew that she was speaking with a real anger that she’d learned from Blake. The anger at the injustices that the whole system, whether in Beacon or Mantle or anywhere else in the world, that gave some lives of pampered ease and others had to struggle to survive on the scraps.
They were in the back room of their den of vice, the room where they plotted their crimes and blackmail, and yet, it was the one place in Beacon where Blake was confident she was surrounded by actually good people.
LINE BREAK JAUNE
Lighting a cigar, letting the complex flavor of fine, Vacuan tobacco—or, at least, the surge nicotine—attempt to distract him from his thoughts, the young man looked around the temple with eyes wearier than his years should allow.
He was supposed to have a meeting with his associate, but he’d arrived too early, and so he was stuck in a place he had come to hate, to feel the embers of his dying faith spark and fizzle as he looked up at a fresco of a red-haired goddess, striking down the evils of the world. It was a magnificent work of a Believer’s faith, every brushstroke containing that zeal he once knew, depicting the fulfillment of what had once been his dearest dream. A dream now turned to his cruel reality.
He looked away. That wasn’t Pyrrha, not in the painting. Her emerald eyes had none of her joy, her face had none of her sweetness. All that was there was an avenging angel, no life, no happiness, no humanity within her, all sacrificed for the good of the whole world. But, he reminded himself, that wasn’t Pyrrha in real life anymore either, was it?
When was the last time he’d even seen her face outside of this painting? Did he even trust his memories, or were they just a delusion? For years, Pyrrha had been training to become The Vessel, the body of the incarnate deity, and she had become physical perfection at the cost of a total erasure of her own personality. Anything human in his childhood friend would be an impediment for divinity, after all. The Temple needed purity. Needed perfection. And so she had become their automaton, less a woman than the point at which all their machinations, the Fathers, the congregation of Believers, and… his own, converged.
He learned far too late that he was in love with her.
“You know you’re not supposed to smoke in here.”
He turned to look at his associates as they entered into the sanctum. Mistralians, refugees of the first wave, their parents lost in the violence when their village was torched by marauders. They’d been taken in by the Temple and now they had been raised to the most critical office, his fellow Sacristans of the Vessel. But more so, they were his friends.
Cracking a wry grin, he extinguished his cigar. “Technically, I had the Lead Sacristan’s permission.” One chuckled at that, but was silenced by the other’s stony disapproval. “Ah, can you blame me? This is stressful work, and if I don’t have my vices, I don’t perform as well as I ought to.”
More disapproval. “I find my faith to be sufficient stress relief, Jaune. Perhaps you should consider-”
“Oh, come on, Ren!” his companion cut in, “Have a little compassion for Jaune-Jaune! I think he’s earned a cigar or two, considering the work you two have put in!”
“Nora,” Jaune deadpanned, “are you trying to earn my goodwill so I’ll take you to get pancakes?”
Nora gave him a shy smile. “Is it working?”
“I can make you crepes.”
She threw up her hands. “Worse than nothing! I’m on Ren’s side now, sinner!”
It was hard for Jaune not to feel his mood, dour as it was, improve when talking to Nora. Even Ren couldn’t hold back a smile. For a long time, Jaune couldn’t understand why the two of them stuck together. Yes, they’d gone through trauma together, but they were just so different that he couldn’t figure it out. Ren was quiet and reserved, the most upright man Jaune had ever met, while Nora was boisterous and unserious. But, he learned, that was what brought them together. Ren kept Nora out of trouble and Nora kept Ren from spiraling into a pit of devotional madness that would only end in self-flagellation and ascetic starvation. They supported each other, two sides of an arch.
And for Jaune, an Arc without a keystone...
Changing the subject, Jaune turned serious and got to business. “The Church Fathers are pleased with our work supporting The Vessel. They recognize our efforts, and wanted me to convey to the both of you their fond appreciation.”
Ren grunted something about how the work was reward enough, Nora seemed pleased to be recognized by the big men. It started a discussion about what setups had worked, which ones could have gone better, and the one or two screwups where they’d really just succeeded due to luck, but Jaune wasn’t really listening to the discussion, even as he dutifully gave his analysis. Because he was thinking about their work, and that made him constantly look back to the painting.
Pyrrha—The Girl on the Pedestal, he reminded himself, though his mind never allowed him to think of her as any of her holy titles as he ought to—was a remarkable woman, trained since birth to be an avatar of the Temple’s message and The Vessel of the True God. It made her a nigh-invincible fighter, but the “nigh” was a problem. It wouldn’t do for The Invincible Girl to ever do anything so human as to lose, or to be injured or to struggle or any other human concerns, so it was the Sacristans’ duty to ensure that any public engagement played out to their foregone conclusion of what happened when divinity incarnate came to the rescue of her people.
Jaune had been the first to uphold this duty. As Pyrrha’s childhood friend, she had, as her first act, appointed him to be her first Sacristan in the Office of The Vessel, and he strategized her appearances to ensure that she always won, and, more importantly, always dominated whoever she went up against. It was never enough to simply win, she had to proclaim her status as an embryonic divinity, so it had to be stylish. Which Jaune and Pyrrha had delivered, time and time again. Pleased with their success, the Church Fathers authorized Pyrrha to appoint two new Sacristans, and so she’d selected Ren, to assist Jaune, and Nora, as her handmaid. And having raised the grateful pair up to her inner circle, she’d permanently secured their total devotion by giving them their first task—to take the Mistralian Quarter as Temple ground.
They’d done their duty with a maddening zeal. As disenchanted as Jaune was, he was, in his heart, still a true believer. In the Temple and in Pyrrha, and when she tasked him with a Holy Charge, he was as devoted as Ren.
The four of them were a tidal wave. Jaune planned the strategy. Ren set up the encounters. Nora supported Pyrrha. And Pyrrha… ripped through the Quarter like the avenging angel in the painting. They had carried out the task flawlessly, not only driving out the drug pushers and extortionists for a grateful population, they’d burnished Pyrrha’s legend even further.
She seemed to have a secret sense for where foes would be coming from, because Jaune had told her where to expect them. Pyrrha could supposedly sense apostasy in a man’s heart because Jaune rigorously investigated and suspected their own. A trap had been set against them—Jaune, of course, knew about it in advance—and the sniper converted on the spot when his pristine rifle jammed rather than fire on Pyrrha—unaware that Ren had secretly sabotaged the firing mechanism. But now the legend was that guns wouldn’t even fire on her, and convert after convert spread the word, giving her a new title: The Lady of Mistral.
That joined the rest of the pile, along with The Invincible Girl, The Vessel, The Girl on the Pedestal, The Holy Avenger, everything starting with a “The.” Jaune hated it, hated all of it, seeing Pyrrha, who so dearly wished to be anything other than a living goddess, becoming more and more trapped in this life. But he knew that she had made up her mind. Her sacrifice, as painful as it was, was worth it to achieve apotheosis and become the Goddess of this world and usher in paradise.
He hated that it was his duty to be the architect of his misery, but Jaune couldn’t abandon her, and leaving her service felt like a worse betrayal than what he was doing now. And worse… he really believed it. He really believed that she was the finest woman in the world and that she could actually create a true utopia, just as described in the Scriptures.
He believed, even as hard as he tried not to.
“We can’t rest on our laurels, though,” Ren interrupted his musings, an analytical spark in his eyes, “Taking the Quarter put a target on our heads, and I don’t want the Fathers to think they made a mistake backing us on this, so...”
“Recruitment’s up like crazy, though!” Nora protested, “We’ll be way more entrenched here than any-”
Jaune interrupted her. “Recruitment’s up because we won, Nora. People want to get in good with the winning side, and that devotion won’t count for much if we’re kicked out.”
“Oh ye of little faith,” she teased, her joking words cutting deeper than anyone knew, “but we’re still in a strong position.”
“Constabulary’s starting to take notice of us,” Ren said, and Jaune felt the room get cold. “Heard from my informant that we can expect the Mayor’s office to start looking around at us, and from what I can tell, they’re expecting it to be ‘shoot first, ask questions later.’”
“Questions they’ll ask themselves,” Jaune said, grimly, “Cause once they’re done, we’ll all be dead.”
A heavy gloom settled over them all. The Enlightened Temple of the Juniper Bough was more powerful than imagined by most outside observers, who easily dismissed it as the latest religious mania of the lower classes. But they were organized and, well, not to brag, but Jaune had seen to it that their elite were trained, more disciplined than the ordinary thugs, and more so, they had Pyrrha. Behind her, they punched well above their weight class.
But Beacon knew how to handle underground cults and religious manias. They’d certainly put down enough, and Jaune had no illusions that if the hammer got dropped and the Army was called in to suppress the faith, a core of Believers would certainly survive (a core that did not include any of them), but the vast majority, the uninitiated, would move on to the next source of spiritual enlightenment. It had happened before. It would likely happen again.
“Well… what’s the word with the Key of Virtue?” Nora asked, hoping to lighten the mood with some gossip. “Really feels like we should have heard a decision by now.”
Jaune shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Last I heard, the Fathers are still discussing the candidates.”
“Most people seem to think it’ll be Winchester,” Ren added, making Jaune flinch, “Largely, people think it’s because he’s the highest ranking member of Valean Nobility who’s also an Initiate, and naming him would do a lot to establish the Temple’s legitimacy throughout Valean society. And he seems to think he’s entitled to something for his promotion of the Temple.”
“The Key,” Jaune replied, tersely, “is a Holy Office. It won’t be handed out as a reward.”
Ren, though, gave a small grin, about as much humor as Jaune had ever seen him show. “Are you really trying to correct me on doctrine? My, maybe that’s a sign you’ll be the Key!” Ah, there it was: the one option worse than Cardin in Jaune’s mind. “But I’m just reporting the rumors I’ve been hearing. We need to be prepared to start selling whoever they choose to the masses, so he’s accepted as an option before they announce it.”
Jaune’s ears still felt hot from thinking of the Key, though he did his best, as he always did, to hide it. The Vessel was to birth the new world; the Key was to father it. The thought of anyone with Pyrrha was intolerable to Jaune. The thought of being the harbinger of her oblivion himself...
“So: what’s the plan, Fearless Leader?” Nora asked, shooting him a dazzling smile.
Even in his current mood, Jaune couldn’t help but be touched by the faith Nora and Ren had in him. They were people of unshakeable faith (of course, Jaune once thought that of his own belief), but that was a faith in the Temple, a “Faith.” The faith they had in him, his flawed, deeply human self, a man struggling to be as zealous as them… it meant a lot to him.
And it made him not want to disappoint them. “Alright,” he said, clasping his hands together as he readied to reveal the plan, “Whatever we’re working with is going to determine a lot of what we’re doing, plus, I expect the Fathers are going to have a lot of ideas on what they want.”
Jaune didn’t miss the way even Ren sighed a little at that reminder. The Fathers were the foremost authorities on matters of faith, who discerned the Holy Truth of the Scriptures… but they were as human as Jaune was, something they revealed when they decided to micromanage their operations. They were holy men, not con artists, and the world of grimy deception that the Sacristans embedded themselves in was not a place for them.
“But whoever’s selected, I anticipate we’ll have to emphasize three distinct-”
He heard the doors open and turned in annoyance. As Sacristans, their nominal duty was the stewardship and custody of the temples, even if their practical, real duty was handling covert and criminal operations, as well as arranging and promoting miracles. So when Jaune had the doors locked, nobody was supposed to be able to enter.
Except, of course, there were those who could go anywhere they wanted. Those who obeyed no law and respected no lock, because they were of a higher being. Those who passed through the doors of the temple, throughout the city of Beacon, between the realms material and spiritual.
Pyrrha Nikos.
The Vessel herself.
She strode with a singular confidence, no, not confidence. A will. Her body language, her bearing, her whole person was singular. There was nothing out of place. Her face was inexpressive: she wore a mask of stone that bore an express of pure, serene detachment. Though Jaune had no doubt she was making the same expression beneath the mask.
Jaune knelt by reflex. He heard Nora and Ren do the same only half a second after him. This was a highly unusual moment with a woman who never did anything unscripted or unusual and Jaune didn’t know what to make of it, but his body had been trained to show deference without requiring his mind to comprehend it.
“My Esteemed Lady,” he said softly, hating the weakness within him that made his soul quail to say those words.
“Sacristan Jaune Arc,” she said. It hardly sounded like his name in her voice, so… drained of emotion. When they were children, he always loved the way she pronounced his name. “Ahrk,” her Mistralian accent struggling to give the “r” it’s proper, Valean bite. No, not her accent. She had a gentleness that… that Jaune could no longer hear in her voice. Not any longer.
But her address had command in it, and Jaune raised his eyes to her mask, awaiting her instruction.
“You have served the Enlightened Temple of the Juniper Bough faithfully.”
No.
“You have been true to me, The Vessel, as my Sacristan.”
No.
“You have been chosen for a higher duty.”
No, she- she couldn’t- no, not him, anyone but-
“You have been chosen to be the Branch of the Bough. You have been chosen as the Key of Virtue.”
No words. No words left. No higher cruelty. It would all be done… by his hand.
Gazing back to Pyrrha—no. It wasn’t- she was the Vessel. He was looking upon the mask that concealed her face. The appearance of his sworn duty. And there was only one answer to it, as inflexible as the stone the mask was hewn from. Beyond choice, beyond will, a destiny that had been chosen for him.
“It is my honor to serve, my Lady.”
