Jaheed felt like a liar.
Which, to be fair, he was - that was simply the nature of his profession. But what he felt now was something more closely akin to dysmorphophobia, a vague and nebulous sense of not only wrongness but sin as he stared down at legs forged from dark steel. Metal imitations of something that Jaheed had never known, of what-should-have-been.
There had been almost no warning and certainly no room for argument; Ket Sal appeared and then Jaheed was put under and when he awoke, his gnarled old stumps were gone and the prosthetics were fused into place. It had been the Emperor's personal request, the Scion had told him. The Grand Architect had a strong eye for aesthetic, and he had found Jaheed's disabled form wanting.
Jaheed had little time for consternation or regret. As with so many other things lately, he was forced to simply adapt - and accept - or die. But there were moments where he was just emerging from the shower, or midway through the process of getting dressed, where he caught a glimpse of his own reflection and an involuntary chill passed through him, followed invariably by a deep fog of guilt.
Stop it, Jaheed thought, so violently that he nearly said it out loud. Put your mask back on.
And so he got dressed, donning grey slacks and a glossy dark-blue vest, over which was layered a smoke-colored suit jacket. His hair was smoothed back. Makeup was applied to conceal any blemishes or imperfections. And so, staring back at him now was an attractive, sharp-eyed young man - a predator at the cunning edge, a man of great yet casual power.
He smiled, spread his hands in welcome. He frowned, his expression turning somber and heavy. He gave a low, sensible chuckle. He threw back his head and laughed uproariously. He leaned forward, hands folded, the picture of an intent listener. He cycled through a dozen expressions until he was confident he had mastered them all and only then did he depart, arriving at Kore's door in a matter of seconds. Kore, who was taking unusually long to get ready.
It occurred to Jaheed, as he knocked and waited, that pretty soon he would have to have his belongings moved from the Gorger to his new penthouse. Or, rather, he would need two different and identical wardrobes, for the life of a prospective Scion (was that what the Emperor saw in him? Jaheed could only wonder) likely necessitated more time 'on the road' than at home.
The door slid open, finally, and Jaheed was faced with a Kore now clad in a perfectly-fitted green-and-black uniform, sporting a pair of cloth-armored shoulderpads and topped by an onyx-colored cap. Holstered on her belt was no laser weapon but a top-of-the-line disruptor pistol, and on her thigh was a six-inch melt-knife.
If Jaheed looked every part a cunning, hungry young politician, Kore looked every part a stern and implacable Chief of Security.
"This is a bad idea," Kore said, before Jaheed could ask her if she was ready to go.
"You've made that clear," Jaheed replied dully. The two set off at once down the Gorger's tan-carpeted central hall.
"That man is not your uncle," Kore pressed, glancing over at her charge. "You saw his eyes."
"The Ascension process doesn't alter a Scion's mind," Jaheed retorted - then he frowned, because he really had no idea whether or not that was true. So much of the Scions and Se-dai both - the mouth and fist of the Emperor - was shrouded in hearsay and rumor.
"He made his feelings on you very clear," Kore continued.
"For Ket Sal's benefit," Jaheed countered. "Any display of weakness is a death sentence for a Scion, and their rivalries are fierce. Any one of them could use me as leverage against my uncle, if they knew."
"Knew what?"
"Knew that he still loves me," Jaheed exclaimed, exasperated now. In truth he was fighting a losing battle, pitting his feelings against Kore's facts. But, of course, he was the Highborn here and his word was absolute. This argument was little more than theater. "I told you, Kore, the man practically raised me. He taught me everything I know."
"What do you think he would advise you to do, in a situation like this?" Kore asked, turning to face him as the Gorger's ramp hissed open and down. "What would Sain Sahd say?"
"I don't know," Jaheed replied darkly, running a hand through his hair. The ramp impacted noisily against the hangar floor. "Let's go and ask him."
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The hovercar - piloted by a faceless Centurion who mutely accepted the given address - took Jaheed far deeper into the Panopticon than Ket Sal's tour had touched. It was dawning on Jaheed that this place was so massive, so intricate, so labyrinthine that there were whole sections simply lost to time. Areas that must very well have appeared to Director Vesos as blank spots in his neural map. And, as they disembarked before plain steel doors marked HANGAR 10-7J-621, Jaheed was all but certain that this was indeed one of those long-forgotten empty spaces on the Director's map.
"Thank you," he said, offering the driver a polite bow, but the Centurion merely sped away without comment. And thus they were alone.
The politician and his bodyguard shared a look.
"It's Sain Sahd," was all Jaheed could offer, in that moment. Plaintive. Almost childlike. "I don't have any other choice."
Kore, who clearly felt that Jaheed had a great number of other choices, merely grunted her assent and set at once upon the duty she had been given. With gloved fingers she keyed the door open, and she was the first one to enter - one hand hovering close to her weapon - as Jaheed followed, back straight and chin tilted up. The picture of aristocratic arrogance, of a man far too important for all this shit. A useful mask indeed.
Into the den they descended.
This was a far cry from the gargantuan hangar in which the Cloud Gorger resided; it was a poorly-lit space only the size of an extended stadium. Five boxy freighters slumbered within, all in various states of disrepair and all attended to by perhaps a dozen blue-suited engineers in total.
The place was a damn mess. Already Jaheed was nearly tripping over a length of discarded tubing, then a spanner wrench that had seemingly just been tossed aside. Above, halogen lights flickered pathetically, serving only to deepen the shadowy contrast of every angle.
Sain Sahd was nowhere in sight.
"Something's wrong," Kore said quietly - just as, behind them, the doors she had very carefully left open were suddenly and violently slammed shut. And, as if to accentuate that stark reality, the light above flicked at once from green to red. Locked.
The Chief of Security was a blur, grabbing Jaheed by the arm and yanking him back as her hand darted to her pistol and thumbed back the strap.
"Stay behind me," she ordered - but Jaheed was looking in quite the opposite direction, watching with mounting dread as the head of every mechanic turned in near-perfect unison. And now, slowly, all were rising to their feet, and in their hands - having been concealed by the shadows - were an arsenal of las-rifles and melt-blades.
"Behind me," Kore growled again, more urgent this time. Jaheed moved quickly to comply, putting the stocky bodyguard between him and them as she unholstered her pistol and leveled it squarely at the nearest mechanic.
"Gentlemen," Jaheed called from behind her, keeping his voice relaxed and calm. "I think there's been some sort of misunderstanding. We'll be right on our way, if one of you would be so kind as to unlock the door."
The mechanics were moving, slowly but surely enclosing the two intruders in a tightening semi-circle. Boxing them in like rats in a trap. Above, other mechanics were emerging and taking up positions atop the freighters, their rifles no doubt sighting in on Jaheed's sweat-beaded forehead.
"Go in three," Kore whispered, out the corner of her mouth. Jaheed tapped twice against her forearm, giving her the agreed-upon signal for I understand. Now it was time to be loud and obnoxious.
"I am Marquess Jaheed Vell," the nobleman declared, imbuing his words with all the blustery command he could muster. "A highborn of Callisto Prime. And this inconvenience-" he jabbed a finger at the door, "-enrages me."
"Two."
"I consider myself a patient man," Jaheed continued, feeling sweat running in fat rivers down the sides of his face. "But this I will tolerate no further. So get that door open now-"
"One."
"-or I promise," Jaheed snarled, his entire body tensing up, "you will live to regret it."
"Go!" Kore shouted - and then the entire room erupted into crimson laser-fire as Kore wrapped herself around Jaheed and leapt, the two of them landing squarely behind some form of tube-festooned machinery. Kore hissed in pain - a laser had singed a chunk of skin from her ear - and then, just like that, the two of them were trapped.
The sounds of laser-fire did not diminish, for heat cartridges were cheap and abundant, and so Jaheed and Kore were forced to simply hunker down as a torrent of laser fire slowly but surely melted their cover into little more than glowing molten slag.
"Son of a bitch!" Kore swore, leaning out to snap off a pair of bright-blue disruptor shots before a volley of lasers sent her right back where she started.
Jaheed, meanwhile, was like a frenzied animal caught in a trap - taking in and registering each and every single variable laid out before him. Every tool, every obstacle, anything that could help him survive. There had to be something. There had to be.
"Any chance we can shoot our way out of this?" he shouted, struggling to be heard over the din of it all, to which Kore gave him a truly baffled look.
"Not a fucking chance!" she shouted back, stating the obvious, and so Jaheed returned to his hunt and Kore returned to her futile, impossible task.
There had to be something, right? This was not happening. This was not where Jaheed would die, because Jaheed could not die, because he had never achieved anything of importance in his entire damn life! He had not yet proven himself to Ket Sal, to the Jade Emperor - to his dead father, who no doubt laughed at him even now!
And then, of course, the solution came - just as Jaheed was certain it would.
"Hey!" Kore called, grabbing his arm and yanking him back to reality. She knelt beside him, fixing the Marquess with a hard stare. Above, red-hot lasers screeched and whined. "Question for you!"
"You have a way out of here?" Jaheed asked, and relief was already beginning to set in.
"Not exactly!" Kore yelled back. And then, there crept into her expression something rarely seen - uncertainty. Doubt. Perhaps even fear? "But I have a friend who I think could lend us a hand!"
"Uh...good!" Jaheed exclaimed, not sure exactly where this was going. "Hurry up and call him already!"
"Well...her existence is...complicated," Kore said slowly, and now Jaheed was at once intrigued and suspicious because that was outright guilt in her voice. "For you, specifically."
"Can she save our lives?" Jaheed demanded, cutting right through all the bullshit prefacing and light-footing. There really, really was not time for all this.
"I guarantee it" Kore nodded enthusiastically. "But after-"
"Fuck after," Jaheed cut in, folding his arms. "All that matters is now. Call her."
Another shadow of uncertainty passed over her face - and then the bodyguard just nodded, stepped back, and looked directly up.
"Hey, Sekhmet," she said, the words entirely casual and conversational. "Little help here?"
There was a sharp clang, a wrenching of metal - and then a grate clattered to the floor, followed at once by a dark shape that landed without sound. And all gunfire abruptly ceased as that shape rose, coalescing into what was clearly a humanoid figure. One of the lights flickered, and for a moment Jaheed caught a clear glimpse of an unremarkable-looking woman with shaggy blonde hair, dressed in little more than jeans and a denim jacket. An ordinary lowborn who had somehow been birthed from a ceiling.
Then, the woman turned her head to look back at the two of them - and two pieces of information leapt out at once to the former Marquess. The first was what appeared to be an old, antique katana sheathed on her hip.
The second was the way her eyes were quite literally glowing in the dark.
"Hey, Kore," the woman called, her voice coarse and scratchy. She tilted her head to the side. "Wanna see something cool?"
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"What...?" Jaheed muttered, glancing back. But Kore was already rising to her feet, suddenly fearless in the face of two dozen las-rifles.
"Sure," Kore replied, in a voice Jaheed had never heard before, and to his shock he saw that she was actually smirking. "Impress me."
Jaheed could only stare in utter bafflement as the next several events unfolded before him.
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So, what exactly is a Se-dai?
The proper, orthodox answer is that they are the Blessed Executioners, divinely chosen by the Deiform Emperor to serve as his fingers and fists, using their trademark molecular blades to translate his will to reality. Both they and the Scions spoke for the Emperor, in a certain sense.
The more technical answer is that they are human beings loaded with cybernetics at the absolute cutting edge of modern technology. Their bodies stand as pinnacles of human scientific achievement, so terrifyingly advanced from their original forms as to be all but inhuman. A Se-dai is more expensive and time-consuming to produce than a pharaoh-class warship, more dangerous and lethal than an entire battalion of the Emperor's Liquidators.
The clearest answer, however, is that every Se-dai is a weapon of mass destruction that just so happens to walk and talk like a human being.
This particular Se-dai stood now at the center of the hangar and yawned, rolling her shoulders and feeling the crack and pop of joints both organic and mechanical. With perfect nightvision she sighted in on her prey - the closest mechanic - and dropped low to a sprinter's crouch as ten-billion-dollar muscles contracted in her legs. She was a coiled spring in the most literal sense possible.
Now then, how best to describe the speed at which a Se-dai can move? The phrase in the blink of an eye comes to mind because in the time it took Jaheed to blink his eyes, those billion-dollar muscles fired and Sekhmet cleared six hundred feet in the span of a half-second, skidding to a halt and burying her fist in the stomach of the nearest victim.
To the Marquess' eyes, she might very well have simply teleported forwards.
The unfortunate mechanic hunched, buckled - and then blood, organs, and pieces of bone blew explosively from his back, painting the frigate behind him in a vivid panapoly of pink-and-crimson gore.
Instantly, the barrel of a gun was against her head. The wielder's brain gave the command to pull the trigger, her fingers moved to obey - and in the time between, Sekhmet whirled around and severed the wielder's head from her body with a spinning roundhouse kick. Another came from behind, melt-blade angled for her side, and Sekhmet let the momentum carry her all the way back around before halting herself on one heel. Those billion-dollar muscles tensed again, then fired, and Sekhmet leapt up with a snap-kick to the chin that blew the assailant's brain right out the top of his skull.
All had transpired in roughly of six seconds.
"Where in the void did you meet her?" Jaheed whispered - just as the room erupted into energy-fire once more.
Sekhmet laughed, loving this because every part of her was wired to love this, and so she shot forward like a human bullet, darting and dodging and weaving and leaping through an seemingly-impossible grid of laserfire. The assassins, to their credit, were making a game try of it - spreading out even farther, overlapping their lines of fire so as to box her in and cut off her options. They were crack shots, after all, and many were assisted by aim-guidance programs and prosthetics.
Alas, it was all for naught - for Sekhmet could process and react to visual stimuli far faster than any man or run-of-the-mill program and thus she darted nimbly through that narrow path available to her, and thus she was upon the assassins in a matter of moments.
The first she grabbed by the skull, lifting him up with one hand and slamming him down so hard that the entire floor buckled beneath the impact. The second she snapped in half with a spinning roundhouse kick, the sound of his broken spine ringing out like a gunshot, while the third she merely grabbed by the lapel and flung to the side.
"Down!" Kore shouted, yanking Jaheed to the floor as the unfortunate assassin shot by, hitting the far wall and simply exploding into gory paste.
Sekhmet, meanwhile, was still having the time of her life - by the void it had been a long time since she could flex her muscles like this - as she grabbed a melt-knife barehanded, ignoring the sizzling of her flesh as she twisted the attacking arm three-hundred-and-sixty degrees around, then liquefied the owner's ribs and lungs with a palm-strike to the chest.
A shrill whistle split the air, and from between the freighters there came an SR-7 JAGGANOTH guided warhead, one racing hungrily forwards to meet her. But Sekhmet just chuckled, calm as could be, and at the very last moment simply slapped the missile aside.
It was, of course, only a Se-dai that could not only move fast enough to perform such a feat - but that could also hit the missile gently enough so as not to set it off. The body of a Se-dai knew both overwhelming strength and perfect, unerring precision.
And thus the missile, redirected, slammed straight into a neighboring freighter, and thus the ship swelled momentarily as though bloated from a five-course meal before erupting into a great fireball of iridescent green flame, the hull flash-boiling to molten slag as chunks of superheated metal split one mechanic in half and nearly separated Jaheed's head from his body.
Even then, there was no reprieve, for Sekhmet emerged like a terrible spectre, entirely untouched by the green fire that trailed from her skin, her eyes glowing brilliant silver amidst the choking black smog. One mechanic raised his rifle to fire and thus his jaw was shoved up into his brain; another drew a melt-knife and was rewarded with a plain, simple, throat-crumpling punch.
She killed and killed and killed and killed and at the end, the last survivor threw his weapon down and said "I surrender" and so, Sekhmet hesitated for just a moment before grabbing him by the sides of his skull and loudly snapping his neck.
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The hangar was deathly silent, save for the crackling and burning of emerald flame. The room was quite literally drenched and gore and reeked of rotting death, the lights above flickering intermittently to reveal pieces of a grisly and chaotic scene. From behind their half-melted cover, Jaheed and Kore peered out, the former's eyes wide as saucers as he regarded the woman who was now striding confidently towards them - a woman who, defying all possibility, had not a drop of blood on her. A woman who was looking not at him but at Kore, his bodyguard. Kore, who had summoned her with but a word. Kore, who had called her a friend.
Kore, who had described her existence as 'problematic'.
"Uh..." Jaheed trailed off, his eyes not leaving the cyborg for even a second. "Hey, Kore, who is that?"
"Can I explain back at the Gorger?" came the reply.
"I'd much rather you explain it now," Jaheed said, just as the woman came to a halt just a few feet away. Jaheed did not flinch - he understood well that this woman was Kore's ally, and Kore his own - but nevertheless he stared at her with hooded, wary eyes. He had, after all, just been witness to a terrifyingly one-sided slaughter.
"Impressed?" the woman asked, tapping at the hilt of her sword. Still perfectly relaxed, still grinning happily. Perfectly at home amidst a scene straight out of the deepest hell.
"More or less," Kore replied. Though Jaheed couldn't see her face, he could hear her trepidation clear as day. "Jaheed, this is...uh..."
"Sekhmet," the woman interjected, extending a hand for the Marquess to shake. The burn-mark on her palm was already stitching itself together, already vanishing from view. "You're welcome, by the way."
And it was only when Jaheed stepped forward and shook her hand - a hand that was not just clammy but cold, devoid of any and all warmth - that he remembered where he had last seen the name SEKHMET.
"You're supposed to be dead," he blurted out, his mind instantly flashing back to that malevolent black-and-gold figure. These words came straight from the heart, faster than he could think not to say them - and then it was too late. The rogue Se-dai's smug expression snapped to one of scowling irritation and then Jaheed did flinch, because the last thing he wanted was to see this thing unhappy.
"So are you," she shot back, glaring now. "Which, again - you're welcome for that."
At that moment, another epiphany hit.
"You-you're the rogue Se-dai!" Jaheed stammered. He whirled around. "Kore, what in the fuck-"
"Maybe we should discuss this back at the Gorger?" Kore offered, again. Helpfully.
"I'm a free thinker," Sekhmet shrugged, utterly unbothered by the Marquess' reasonable state of panic.
"You are an apostate," Jaheed accused, partly by rote and partly out of well-justified fear. "The fact I'm even seeing your face is akin to high treason!"
"Should I just kill you, then?" Sekhmet asked, and any trace of flippancy or humor vanished from her expression, leaving only something dull and cold and hard. The voice of a Se-dai, a creature that protected and executed highborn in equal measure. "Seriously. I mean, I know I can trust Kore. But you..." She trailed off. "You keep fucking whining at me. Setting me on edge."
"Sekhmet..." Kore cautioned, voice low. "We talked about this."
"You talked about this?" Jaheed asked, incredulous.
"I am never, ever going back," Sekhmet growled, taking one single portentous step closer. He attention was still glued up on Jaheed. "Never. I am free now and there is nothing I will not do to stay free. Taking your life is-"
"For fuck's sake, Sekkie, shut up!" Kore snapped, knocking hard against the Se-dai's shoulder. And, improbably, the eight-hundred-pound woman actually staggered, albeit likely more from surprise than application of force.
Just like that, the bubble burst. The moment was broken, and the tension released.
"And you," Kore said, whirling on Jaheed - who was still processing the implications of the word 'Sekkie' in his head. "She's the only reason we're even having this conversation right now. I am asking, very politely, that we go back to the shuttle and hash this out like adults." She cast a stern eye upon the both of them. "Is that okay with you two? Does that meet with your fucking approval or whatever?"
Both were silent, for a moment, cowed by a woman who rarely if ever raised her voice. It was Jaheed who broke first - for already his mind was angling, tilting to see the potential advantage.
"By all means," he shrugged, the picture of congeniality. "We can have a discussion. But if I say I want her gone," he turned a pointed stare upon the Se-dai, "then she is gone. Understood?"
"If Kore tells me to go, I'll go," Sekhmet agreed. "But your word doesn't mean a thing to me, highborn."
And thus, the conversation was concluded - for little more reason than the fact that none of them could afford to linger. Jaheed and Kore made for the doors, while Sekhmet vanished within the shadows, and so HANGAR 10-7J-621 was left as little more than a devastated wasteland, devoid of any and all life.
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"I should report you to the nearest Praetorian," Jaheed said, jabbing a finger. "That is exactly what any intelligent, rational human being would do."
"And I, as an intelligent and rational human being, would be compelled to cut your throat," Sekhmet replied. "That's exactly where that sorta logic is gonna get you."
The three of them sat on the bridge of the Cloud Gorger, each all but drenched in uncertainty and danger. Jaheed was hunched forward, fingers enmeshed and eyes probing. Sekhmet was sprawled back, boots up on the center console, smoking and looking generally irritated. And Kore was watching the proceedings with her spine ramrod-straight, visibly held hostage by the argument unfolding before her.
Jaheed was, minute by minute, increasingly coming to believe that Kore actually had feelings for the damn monster! Clearly she had been secreting the traitor away for some time, right under his nose. But even beyond that there was the way she kept looking at her; the way the two of them occasionally fell into unconscious and casual rhythm. Her blatant concern for the cyborg's well-being, even above her own. The signs were there, yet ludicrous all the same.
"Threats of violence," Jaheed sighed, turning to Kore for sympathy. "This is the woman you so favor?"
"Oh, she favors me alright," Sekhmet quipped, at which Kore shot her a withering glare and the Se-dai immediately receded.
"We have an understanding," Kore growled, visibly exasperated by having to play the mediator. "She has been protecting us for some time."
"Someone tried to put a bomb in this ship, almost as soon as we landed," Sekhmet clarified smugly. "I snapped his neck, diced his body and flushed him down our toilet. Which, again, you're welcome for that."
"The toilet-" Jaheed sputtered, taken aback. "I-what in the fuck-"
"This is a good thing for us," Kore insisted, leaning forwards. "Jaheed, we are being offered protection by a Se-dai!"
"Which is all well and good," Jaheed said, quickly recovering both his composure and his sardonicism. "Until we get caught with her."
"You won't," Sekhmet declared proudly. "Stealth is child's play for a Se-dai."
"And what if another Se-dai comes looking?" Jaheed countered. "And they will come looking, because by the void do they want you dead."
"Let 'em try," Sekhmet scowled, evidently taking personal offense to such a baseless accusation. "I'll take on any one of my cousins."
"What a comfort," Jaheed said dryly. "Meanwhile, what, me and Kore just get hauled off and killed? Bad luck for us, I guess."
"I'll protect Kore with my life," Sekhmet snarled, jabbing a finger. "Nobody will lay a hand on her."
"And myself?" Jaheed asked, arching an eyebrow.
"I could not give less of a fuck."
"Eloquent," Jaheed deadpanned. "A convincing argument indeed."
"Jaheed, please," Kore cut in. Imploring, just as he had been with his uncle. "She doesn't-" Her eyes darted back, then forth. "She means a lot to me, okay? And...and, I mean, this is a Se-dai offering us protection. That's something very few people in the Domain can claim. Tell me that doesn't sound good to you, Jaheed."
And there it was - the real crux of the matter. Because that did sound very, very good to Jaheed. The privilege that only a Scion or the Emperor enjoyed, available to him now quite literally for free. An aura of invincibility, of certain knowledge that he could not and would not be harmed. Even Ket Sal would be unable to touch him.
This, of course, was far from a perfect arrangement. Of particular issue was the Se-dai's character, for she seemed a churlish and lackadaisical sort - one of those fools who simply glided through life, no doubt by virtue of her superhuman abilities. She was dangerous and unpredictable and crude and to be frank, Jaheed found her markedly unpleasant.
But there was that seed of jealousy, again - and so Jaheed declared that he was willing to accept her presence so long as she remained hidden from any prying eyes, and thus Sekhmet departed, with a wink to Kore that the Marquess refused to interpret, and thus the politician and the bodyguard were alone once more.
For a while, nobody spoke. And then:
"Shit," Jaheed said simply. A reasonable response.
"I'm sorry," Kore offered.
"Not that," Jaheed sighed, waving away her apology. "I mean-"
"Your uncle."
"Yeah."
More silence.
"There's no other way to interpret it, is there?" Jaheed asked, plaintively. "He tried to have me killed."
"Looks that way to me."
"Well...shit."
"Yeah."
More silence ensued.
"...am I a bad person?" Jaheed asked, finally.
"You are..." Kore trailed off. Thinking quite heavily before responding. "A victim of shit far, far beyond your control. And that is not your fault."
"Thanks," Jaheed said dryly.
"Seriously," Kore said, punching him lightly in the arm. "For a highborn, you got a pretty shit draw."
"No kidding," Jaheed sighed, leaning back and closing his eyes. "But now I have everything I ever wanted..."
"Except?"
"Except, you know," the Marquess gestured vaguely. "Void, I'm not gonna say it."
"I get it," Kore nodded. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Jaheed opened one eye. "I wanted this. One way or another."
"Just remember what it's all for," Kore said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "We're gonna fix this place."
"Damn right," Jaheed agreed, leaning back in his chair. And then, overloaded by a truly unbelievable day, the Marquess passed into slumber, and thus Kore retreated to her room before passing out in similar fashion with Sekhmet wrapped around her like a cold metal pillow.
And thus all slumbered, while others plotted.
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"It must be crazy," Ket Sal said, drinking a shot of liquor that he would not feel. "Seeing your nephew here."
He was sitting here, in one of countless 'meeting chambers', with Sain Sahd sitting in the chair beside him. In truth, the Scion would have much rather spent the night in Maít's company - for she was one of few individuals whose presence he actually enjoyed - but inviting the new Scion out for drinks was a politically intelligent sort of move, and so he had done just that. There was little probing for information; this was moreso diplomatic work than anything else.
"It is what it is," Sain Sahd said, taking a puff from a glittering cigar - the type of non-answer that was part and parcel among the Scions. "The fates fall where they may."
"The fates?" Ket Sal asked, arching an eyebrow - the picture of intrigued interest. Such false expressions came automatically to any Se-dai worth their salt. "You believe it was all happenstance, then?"
"What else could you call it?" Sain Sahd said, weary and irritated. "Just dumb, feckless luck that the Jade Emperor would actually favor him. The entire thing defies belief."
"I'll drink to that," Ket Sal agreed, which was a hollow statement unless he drank a lot more than this. "Annoying little bastard doesn't belong here - anyone can see that. That being said..." he trailed off. "You have to admit, it's quite a feat. Going from a doomed, powerless man to the Emperor's chosen. Quite the rags-to-riches story."
"If you find yourself enamored with such childish narratives, I suppose," Sain Sahd scoffed - which pissed Ket Sal right off, because it was Sain Sahd to whom he was pandering! Ket Sal held the Marquess in dim regard and would be happy to see him dead.
"What can I say," Ket Sal said, queuing up a noncommittal shrug. "I always root for the underdog."