Canvas Town, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fifthmonth, 1634 PTS
When she first heard the news, Sirena hadn’t believed it. It had come out of nowhere, shortly after she had received word of the incredibly foolish massacre Juen had attempted to commit. Between the two events, Sirena felt that she could kill someone right now. She wished to, in fact. If she did not know that it would be incredibly self destructive in the long term, she would have long begun to topple stacks within Celan territory. She cared little about the lives of alien civilians, and it might make her feel better.
But it was not what Wei would want her to do. So instead, she would use this opportunity to strengthen her influence over the clan. Clearly, she had allowed the factions to have too much liberty over their actions. The situation had gone too far, and it was her turn to take a pull at the rope.
Sirena walked confidently through the clan’s most private areas, and the guards which flanked many of the doors bowed in polite deference, greeting their matriarch. She silently glanced at each of them, accepting their greetings without wasting too much of her own time. Had there been less of them, she would have nodded to each, or even greeted them back. But she would end up bobbing her head far too often, and Sirena had no desire to look like some foolish bird pecking at the ground.
Even if she did not need to uphold a matriarch’s dignity, Sirena had always been too vain for such uncouth appearances.
She marched towards the end of the hall, where a hatch sealed off a room. A core formation practitioner tapped in the entrance code upon her entrance, and the hatch slid open. Sirena stepped inside without needing to pause for even a moment. Even had her presence not been expected, all of the clan’s guards knew that the matriarch could go wherever she wished.
As she entered, Sirena glanced around the table. The Supreme Elder wasn’t present, a fact which did not surprise Sirena at all. Despite being the singular clan member who did not need to submit to her authority or personal power, he still would choose to avoid her when he knew she wouldn’t be in a good mood. He had done so many times before.
This was simply his personality. In times such as this when he had made moves behind her back that significantly damaged the clan’s interests, he was nowhere to be seen. Sirena sneered at the thought. The man had none of the presence of the older generation.
There was a reason why despite his capability, the man had not managed to become the patriarch of his own generation. He was living proof that even an earthly immortal could be a coward. In Sirena’s opinion, such talent was wasted upon him. She would go as far as to claim that if life were fair, he never would have progressed past core formation.
While the table had eight seats, four were currently empty. Other than the man who had willfully not shown his face, Juen remained captive by the Riverfiend, and Karie had yet to have her suspension released. The final seat was Sirena’s own, an ornate chair at the head of the table which clearly stood out from the rest. She sat down, quietly inspecting the faces of the previous generation’s spirit refiners. They had been partaking in a conversation prior to arrival, but the moment the hatch slid open to allow her entry, the words had all cut out, as if trapped inside of their speaker’s throats.
The four present individuals were Sulno, Laoin, Keitel, and Heina Hadal. In theory, the four would be split into two groups, depending on their faction within the clan. After all, Laoin and Keitel represented the Ceirran faction, while both Heina and Sulno were from the merchants. However, the merchant faction was not very uniform. While the majority of its members had shared their interests and supported Lorelei’s candidacy, Sulno had made the opposite choice. To Heina, he represented something of a traitor, causing him to act much closer to the Ceirrans in this domain.
Sirena focused her attention on the Elders of the Ceirran faction, glaring intensely at the duo. Keitel shrank back, clearly intimidated, but Laoin met her gaze with a firm look. Sirena narrowed her eyes at him. He seemed confident. That was unusual, given the circumstances. Still, he would soon regret it, when she had her way.
“It seems,” she said, starting up the conversation, “that some of you decided to take action behind my back and talk my impressionable nephew into doing something rather foolish,” she said.
Neither of the Ceirran Elders responded, though Keitel had an awkward expression on his face, seemingly embarrassed about the matter. Though, Sirena expected he was more concerned with the operation’s failure than the fact it had existed in the first place.
“It seems to me that he was simply looking out for the image of the sect, and attempting to clear out an eyesore for you. I find it quite a proactive and admirable task, had he succeeded. I do admit though, his current status is suboptimal.” Laoin shrugged. “An unfortunate outcome.”
Stolen novel; please report.
Sirena snorted.
“Such decisions and actions are not yours to make, nor are they my nephew’s, or the Supreme Elder’s. And suboptimal? We are not in a position to attack again, and even if we were, it would be a poor call. What’s more, if they desire to ransom him back, the money will be coming from your pocket, Laoin.”
This could be considered her suppressing the faction due not simply to their military action without her knowledge, but also for risking the life of an heir candidate and finally failing at the operation regardless. If they had successfully wiped out the Redwater Sect, Sirena would indeed have not paid much attention to the matter, simply chalking it up to a missed opportunity. She planned to leave the financial suppression here, at least for this meeting alone. Further strengthening her control was best done through other means.
“I would be happy to pay the price to return our clan’s future heir to his home. But is it not our duty as members of Sunlit Hall to root out any unorthodox forces we come across?” asked Laoin, despite knowing the logic would have no influence on the others in the room. “He was simply following the charter our force signed centuries ago.”
“What would Elder Wei have to say about such blatantly self-serving actions?” demanded Heina, almost as incensed by his words as Sirena herself was. She knew as well as anyone that only the Ceirran faction cared about such archaic terms. So far out from Canvas, here in Tseludia, money and might were the true creed of the clan. “Besides,” she continued. “Juen is not the only heir candidate. Lorelei is still competing, and unlike Juen, she hasn’t been injured twice during ill-fated missions in the territory of our enemies.”
“The words of a dead man hold no meaning,” sneered Laion in response. “Unless he returns to scold us, what does it matter what he might have to say on the subject?”
So this was the source of his baseless confidence, thought Sirena. The Supreme Elder’s protective umbrella, coupled with the loss of Sirena’s most fervent supporter, was enough to drive the worms to the surface, it seemed. They had begun to forget how she had acquired her title, thinking only of how she had been acting for these past years. One day soon, Sirena suspected she would need to perform a display of force. And this time, nobody would be able to stop her.
A thin green mist began to slightly emanate from Sirena’s skin, and the Elders all shrunk back in their seats. Sirena smiled cruelly, and stretched her fingers out to raise Laion’s chin. Wisely, he made no move to dodge.
“You’re right,” she said, her smile at odds with the icy glare in her eyes, “Wei is dead. But doesn't that also mean that there’s no longer anyone who can persuade me to hold back, if I find myself in a poor mood. What position does this put you in, do you think?”
He was silent, now, as if he were frozen. It seemed he had remembered who he was speaking with. She liked him much better this way. Sirena dropped his face, wiping her hand off on a handkerchief she had produced from within her robe.
“If I hear that anyone has taken action without my knowledge again,” she said, “it’s possible I find that the clan does not need quite so many Elders.”
This time, she found that her intimidation seemed to have worked. She found this to likely be a good thing, given that due to the extreme nature of her current mood, she very much felt the temptation to kill him where he sat.
She gave a bright smile that was clearly but a mask, and cocked her head, before steeling her expression and rising to her feet to leave. Midway to the exit, however, Sirena remembered an important matter that she needed to mention.
“There remains one last matter to attend to, " she said, turning back for a moment as she exited. “Wei’s funeral shall be held in two days. I expect all of you to find time to show your face, at minimum.”
The Elders nodded at this, likely having intended to do just that. It was their responsibility as Elders to show up to such important events. Wei was the first death of a high-level combatant during the gang war, and Sirena knew that the internal conflicts would more than intensity as a result.
Having said her piece, Sirena rapidly moved away, and the hatch once more slid shut behind her.
After leaving the meeting, Sirena quickly made her way back through the halls to her office and shut herself inside, sealing the door tightly. She then sat down at her desk as she had for what must have been tens of thousands of times over the decades.
Wei truly was the only person who could make her realize that she wasn’t as mature as she liked to think she was. She slowly leaned forward, resting the side of her head on the desk, unable to concentrate any longer.
“Older brother…” she murmured into the wooden surface, her voice trailing off.
Alone in the lavish, empty room, she received no response.
Funereal Practices of Sunlit Hall: [Due to the extremely close ties between Sunlit Hall and the Ceirran religion, the two groups share practices. In essence, for the members of Sunlit Hall, the purpose of a funeral or memorial service was to honor the life of a great warrior, and light up the deeds they had committed from the darkness of history, before cremating their remains and tossing them out into nature. On Tseludia Station, this means the ashes are discarded into space like most corpses. Some particularly devoute Ceirrans claim that if the deceased individual’s life burned sufficiently bright, Ceirra herself would descend to take the individual’s soul to her kingdom in order to reside forever in comfort. Most modern scientists believe that this is not in fact the case, and the claim’s origin is dubious in general.]