Empires of Ashes Reboot

LI: are they...like you?

"In some ways aye, not the way you're thinkin of."

"Hm..."

"I'm a bastard, my father's... by some thrall girl."

LI:... *he sees a degree of understanding in her eyes* I have lived nearly half a millenia. I have never met a man capable of what you are, beyond my own kind.

"You have not fought the Hellir Folk."

LI: *lowers her brow* People aren't like us naturally.
She emphasises the 'us'

Hakon avoids eye contact for a second. "Aye... suppose they aren't. Well, was born this way, so i reckon. Guess that makes it a sort of natural."

LI's eyes are locked on him. Her face seems neutral, unreadable, but her eyes do not move from him.

He thumbs at the blade of his axe, polishing away some tiny stain. he clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "My mother... I had an idea, back then... stories i'd heard, but... i didn't quite think..." He pauses for a while "Till i met you... now... well, pretty sure now."

"She was like me"

"Aye, she was."

LI nods, her face softening a little. she doesn't say anything.

Hakon just thumbs the rim of his helmet

"She is dead?"

"I don't know. It's been a while."

she pauses.
".....Arenae protect her..." she mumbles a little

"Don't think she needs much protection."

LI pauses.
"My kind are not invincible." *she slowly rolls up her tunic to reveal the miriad of horrifying scars covering almost every inch of her flesh.*

"Aye... Aye... I know that well enough. We all die in the end... even..." He pauses. "Us."

LI: *lowers it again* I've been waiting for it. It is as if it avoids me.

"We're close to it. Perhaps you can ask."

she raises an eyebrow at that
"I do not understand"

"Death lives at the bottom of the river, in the sunken city." Hakon reaches under his helmet, fiddling with a strap "You can meet her, if you swim."

LI:... she?

Removing the strap, he lifts off his helmet, and sits it between his knees. "Aye. Akali."

she pauses
"Your goddess. I see."

He shrugs, and begins to unhook the veil, from where it is around his ears. Allowing her to see his face. His hair is blonde, almost platinum, beard and hair both. Braided tightly, to fit beneath his helm also. "Shes... not just a godess. She's real."

LI: Aren't they all?

"Not how i mean... I spoke to her." he gestures between the two of them "Like we are now."

LI:...go on.

Trajan and mordred continue through the camp for a while. Eventually they come across a group of legionaries, sat around a fire, talking nonchalantly. Trajan indicates for mordred to have a go talking to them.

"There is a place. Where a city once stood, and was thrown into the river... That city worshipped her, so she remained with the temple." He turns the helmet over in his hands "We... the immortals, that is... The first of us were the people of that city... and when someone joins... they walk into the river to take her blessing."

LI nods for him to continue

"She... I do not know how to... how to say... but she talks to you. Different people see different things but... she is always..." he trails off into silence

LI: she always.....

"She understands."

"Understands...what?"

"She just understands you. Why you're doing what you're doing."

LI:...that would be... something....

"She seems to just know."

LI:...I suppose she is a goddess. It would make sense.

"I've heard no words from the old gods. Just crows the wise women told us were omens." He turns his helmet over in his hands, looking into the face of it. The crest of sandy gold proud atop it. "Perhaps the eastern gods are simply silent, or we have not found their places... Do the Dracian gods speak?"

LI: I have not seen them do so... But the Consul tells me one once spoke to him. On Chronos, there is a lone peak. Mount Antiochus, the most northern mountain in the known world. At its peak there is a temple, home to the Oracle of Chronos. The Consul tells me when he visited her, Arenae herself came before him.

"I know little of the Dracian gods. Only what i heard from my elders, and from the kelthrovi"

LI: she is our divine mother. Her child lead our ancestors to slay the dragon, and found our city. She is goddess of war, strategy, love, beauty and power. I'm told she takes the form of either a dire wolf, or a woman of impossible beauty, clad in sparkling armour, with iridescent wings that glitter in the sunlight.

"Sounds about right."

LI nods, quietly.

"Dracian gods are gentle creatures by all sounds." he snorts "As convincing as lipstick on a hog."

While hakon and Li hide away in the corners of the city, Ket is marching upon the Satrap's courtyard, where he expects to find trajan. Six immortals march in his wake.

LI: Arenae can be violent, in our defence ordinarily. She is very unlike her brother. Artor; the Bear. The savagery and violence of war in the flesh.

He hears from the guards there that Trajan is in his tent with the Legionaries, preferring to sleep alongside his men rather than take in the luxury of the palace.

Hakon "More like an eastern god."

So there he goes. A scroll in his fist.