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THE REGENT'S ADDRESS [OPEN TO ALL]
[It comes on fast, once the Regent has your spirit in their hold. Around you, you may see other Aions stumble in the same moment, as if shaken by the same tectonic motion. An inexorable darkness claws at your senses, and you have only a few moments, hard fought, to reposition yourself so that you don't simply drop to the ground when it overtakes you. It has similarities to Communion, to the way another entity's thoughts and words reach out to your mind, but by the same token it's entirely foreign.
This presence is not like another person, it is like a raging, screaming cacophony that drowns out everything else in its path. Whether you be Kenoma or Pleroma, the Regent's presence in this metaphysical realm is staggering. To the Pleroma, though, it also feels caustic, as if the movement of their aura is enough to erode your own, with time.
Gradually, a new world forms. Unlike other Communions, where you are ultimately grounded in reality, here you can been dragged to what seems to be its own distinct psychic realm. A vast, void-filled courtroom, where only the throne at its front has a defined form. Around you, you see shadows of other people, other Aions, that have summoned along with you... but for the moment they seem spectral and unclear, their identities obscured by the realm's aggressive focus on its master.
The Regent sits at their throne, their body swathed in dark fabrics that drift and flutter like smoke. They have no face to be seen, only a faceted silver mask, without any markings or the barest indication of what might be beneath it. Their size is indistinct, maybe a bit taller than you are. They at first sit reclined, but straight up as their 'guests' arrive.]
It's been a long time coming, my subjects.
[At first, they are the only one that can be heard. Though you feel as if you have some physical presence here, a shadowy body of your own, if you attempt to speak no sound emerges.]
To the Pleroma: well done surviving thus far. Granted, I feel as if my Kenoma have made things easy for you. How strange, that most of you were allowed to wander a city within my empire without recourse. Able to summon that wretched creature to your side, even.
I hope you've enjoyed yourself, in the time you've had, because this will be no more. You've spread your infection in Venera, in Godsblood, and it is only necessary that these wounds be cleansed by the touch of the Kenoma. Your presence gives the people ideas... ideas that would disrupt the fragile peace they've come to enjoy, after so many years of suffering. As a kindness, I will only trim the vine, rather than burn the vineyard. What Venerans have taken up your cause, I will see shorn from my empire. And in Godsblood... an example will be made, as of the Sovereign's moon.
My Kenoma will do this for me. Fight them, if you want. But know that I am no longer asking for your fealty. I am demanding it.
[As if opening their court for questions, you will find yourself more able to act. Those that speak or take action will find their physical forms taking shape, standing in the court as people rather than shadows. If you want to question the Regent, now is the time to do so.
OOC: This post is a free for all! We will try to response as the Regent to people who directly engage with them, but you are also allowed to threadjack and interact with each other if you like. Please note that we will not be responding to tag ins done later than the 12th.]
This presence is not like another person, it is like a raging, screaming cacophony that drowns out everything else in its path. Whether you be Kenoma or Pleroma, the Regent's presence in this metaphysical realm is staggering. To the Pleroma, though, it also feels caustic, as if the movement of their aura is enough to erode your own, with time.
Gradually, a new world forms. Unlike other Communions, where you are ultimately grounded in reality, here you can been dragged to what seems to be its own distinct psychic realm. A vast, void-filled courtroom, where only the throne at its front has a defined form. Around you, you see shadows of other people, other Aions, that have summoned along with you... but for the moment they seem spectral and unclear, their identities obscured by the realm's aggressive focus on its master.
The Regent sits at their throne, their body swathed in dark fabrics that drift and flutter like smoke. They have no face to be seen, only a faceted silver mask, without any markings or the barest indication of what might be beneath it. Their size is indistinct, maybe a bit taller than you are. They at first sit reclined, but straight up as their 'guests' arrive.]
It's been a long time coming, my subjects.
[At first, they are the only one that can be heard. Though you feel as if you have some physical presence here, a shadowy body of your own, if you attempt to speak no sound emerges.]
To the Pleroma: well done surviving thus far. Granted, I feel as if my Kenoma have made things easy for you. How strange, that most of you were allowed to wander a city within my empire without recourse. Able to summon that wretched creature to your side, even.
I hope you've enjoyed yourself, in the time you've had, because this will be no more. You've spread your infection in Venera, in Godsblood, and it is only necessary that these wounds be cleansed by the touch of the Kenoma. Your presence gives the people ideas... ideas that would disrupt the fragile peace they've come to enjoy, after so many years of suffering. As a kindness, I will only trim the vine, rather than burn the vineyard. What Venerans have taken up your cause, I will see shorn from my empire. And in Godsblood... an example will be made, as of the Sovereign's moon.
My Kenoma will do this for me. Fight them, if you want. But know that I am no longer asking for your fealty. I am demanding it.
[As if opening their court for questions, you will find yourself more able to act. Those that speak or take action will find their physical forms taking shape, standing in the court as people rather than shadows. If you want to question the Regent, now is the time to do so.
OOC: This post is a free for all! We will try to response as the Regent to people who directly engage with them, but you are also allowed to threadjack and interact with each other if you like. Please note that we will not be responding to tag ins done later than the 12th.]
no subject
I believe that the Regent has a different understanding of peace than you do.
[Again, he seems surprisingly even-tempered in saying it; nothing is explicitly superior or inferior in those beliefs, it's just...different.]
I don't believe that they offer me peace any more than they offer it to anyone else. I believe they've offered me an understanding of the peace the Kenoma offers, and I've chosen to follow that understanding and pursue that peace due to the way I've found it to resonate.
no subject
[ There's a sense of fatigue with this--she's definitely heard it before. ]
But what is yours?
no subject
[It isn't a wavering in his conviction; that remains firm. Rather, it's a genuine question.]
You know that I follow the Regent, and I'm willing to do so until I die. Why ask me what my beliefs are?
no subject
[ Those are separate things, aren't they? Even if there seems to be some overlap. ]
If nothing is making you believe what you do...then you came to those decisions yourself, right? Then they're yours, not theirs. So what are they?
no subject
Nothing we do in this life is going to be free from suffering. There will always be others that suffer so that you can live - it's just the way that things work, it's the way that things have always worked. And perhaps you can say "things shouldn't work that way", and I'll agree with you - they shouldn't. But the fact of the matter is that they do.
Billions of people - thousands of billions, maybe. An uncountable amount, throughout all the worlds that exist. All existing in the same way, all living on the backs of others, causing thousands of billions of pounds of pain, an infinite amount of daily tiny deaths. When you hear the universe screaming like that, you become truly aware of how much the agony of living drowns out all other things. It isn't a balance, it's a deluge.
The only way to attain peace is to make the deluge stop.
no subject
He may come of as overzealous in his devotion, but she's seen these sorts of people change. And everyone has reasons for being the way they are, doing what they do. Paul may be on the other side of his conflict, but he deserves to be heard out. As long as he's willing to speak, she will listen. ]
...
[ And what he says strikes true on several fronts. Himeka needs a moment of quiet before she responds, eyes closed as she considers. ]
You're right.
[ Himeka shakes her head. ]
There is...countless amounts of pain, of suffering. The undeserved forced to struggle. Terrible things happen all too often.
[ She raises her head then, opening her eyes. ]
But there is also goodness. And life, and love, and hope. People can come back from the despair and the pain, they can overcome it. I've seen it time and time again--when all the odds are stacked in opposition, there are people who rise up and help make the world a better place. You just need to believe in them and they will surprise you. People do amazing things every day.
no subject
[There's no anger in it; there rarely is.]
If the goodness of people alone were enough to purge the world of sin and suffering, it would have already. And yet here we are.
The deluge will continue - there won't be peace - until the universe is acted on by a force greater than the sum of its suffering and its pain.
[Whether that force is grace, or God, or...something else entirely is hard to say.]
That's what the Kenoma offers.
no subject
Nothingness isn't peace. Peace comes with a feeling, with gratitude. You can't feel that when there's nothing.
[ She's earnest in her conviction, but not preaching. ]
I know it can feel like it's never ending--but it isn't. If you'd asked me this several months ago I would have to agree that there seems to be a futility to it all, a cycle that we can't escape. But I have been to the ends of the universe, Father Paul. I've seen worlds ended because they gave up. What they achieved wasn't peace.
And even within those worlds...there are still people who hope. Would you deny them that?
no subject
[...]
Tell me. Have you ever loved someone you had to hurt them? For their own good, perhaps. For their own sake. Because if they continued on their own path, they would harm themselves far worse than anything you did ever could.
Have you ever felt that?
no subject
Yes. I have.
[ What she doesn't say is that she's afraid she may have to do it again. Here. ]
I wouldn't wish it on my enemies.
jesus let us pretend that I know how grammar works
Unconditional love is a selfishness. It just encourages you to hold on to that which should have been released long ago. Smothering. Impeding us, and impeding others. Our love and our desire for peace - our desire for all beings and all worlds to know freedom from suffering - just happens to look like this. Different from yours, but it's as I've been saying. I don't hate you.
Nothing about this is about despair, or hating life, or hating you.
no jesus here only regent
Then if I can ask, what does peace look like to you?
no subject
Silence is a blessing, as much as anything else that exists. Unless you believe I'm lying to you, or trying to mislead you somehow... I'm willing to follow the Kenoma to its end, because that's more than enough for me.
no subject
[ That much is clear. ]
I suppose a part of me does understand. There are times I've wished for an...absolute silence of sorts. But there is another part of me that wonders if you always felt this way? Or if something happened to change your mind?
no subject
If things can happen to a person that are so bad they can change their minds toward believing that oblivion is preferable to nothing at all, I'd think that's more of an argument for how intolerable the suffering of the world is than anything.
I'm aware that my stance isn't the one that most would take. But it is what it is, in the end, however I came to that conclusion.
no subject
[ Maybe that's just because she's used to conveniently getting visions of people's pasts, but, eh. ]
If you don't want to tell a stranger, though, that's okay. Something like that would be hard to talk about even with your closest friend.
no subject
[There are kind of a lot of people here, and he isn't interested in giving all of them his Tragic Backstory, whatever it may happen to be.]
Perhaps someday. But not here. Not now.
no subject
Well, when the time comes...I would be glad to listen.