The First of Wrath was staring at the shadow of one of the nearby pillars. John narrowed his eyes, until he noticed that a person was kneeling in it, desperately trying to make themselves as small as possible. He was, in many ways, quite the stereotype. Slightly yellow-tinted skin, black hair pulled back into a long ponytail, slanted eyes, and an unimpressive, short build, complete with a yellow tabard over his robe that displayed a stylized Chinese character. ‘Shadow – Two,’ it read.
The fact that he was not Chinese at all made the stereotypical appearance simultaneously funny and mildly insulting. The character and tra’s confused rage were enough for John to know what he was looking at.
“P-paku is over there!” the tracana declared, pointing to the shadow of a table, before dashing away towards the nearby gardens.
“Traitor!” A second man, this one more of the ‘Chinese warlord from the Three Kingdoms legend’ aesthetic, hastened after Absalm.
tra made a decision in a split second, slamming her hands through the air in front of her, and Ripped Absalm back by his collar. He flew towards the First of Wrath – and the entirety of the Dangun Clan’s tables. John decided to get in between his politically insensitive blonde and the target of her mounting wrath. One Magus Step, and he prevented a localized catastrophe by catching Absalm before he slamd into the buffet.
“Stop,” he told tra, who was about to chase after Paku as well. As much as the second tracana’s chain vest rustled, it would have been the easiest task in the world for tra to track him. The wolf girl growled angrily, ears turned backwards, tail trembling, then turned her red face entirely to the one of her ‘siblings’ she did manage to nail down.
Just how diminutive the tracana was beca apparent when John put him down. He could not have been taller than 1,40 tres, and his shoulders were narrow even for that size. tra towered over him with exposed teeth and growing anger.
“H-h-h-h-how are you, dear sister? I s-see you found a sple-“
“Do you rember Gibraltar?”
Absalm gulped and took half a step backwards. Had it not been for the Gar’s arm, tra would have followed with a full one of her own. “Rember where you are,” John spoke coolly.
tra dismissively raised her gaze. The consideration to just take on everyone around in return for revenge was clear in her eyes. Sneering and growling with every breath, nails extending into Astrotium claws to rip and tear, she was every bit the embodint of an age where murder at diplomatic events had been heard of.
Letting her shoulders drop and her snarl turn into a scowl, tra was the focal point of dropping tensions. Absalm took another half step backwards. “I’m not ripping you apart, but you are not getting away,” tra growled.
John did not ask her to rescind that statent. Absalm and Paku had, around the turn of the first millennium, worked with Seminaris to see one of her king candidates murdered. It had been quite a long ti since, but tra wouldn’t have been herself if she hadn’t been capable of staying angry about sothing for a long, long ti.
“Wise of you to seek to work on the other side of the planet,” the First of Wrath continued, her voice afla.
“I do know how to survive.”
“I wouldn’t have killed you, unlike Seminaris, I have honour,” tra spat out. “I just want to rip you a new one, you slimy, oath breaking, disgusting little-”
tra jumped when a jade fan tapped her on the shoulder. “That would be quite enough,” Lu Zhi chid in, her voice more amused than angry. Hiding her mouth with her fan, she continued, “We acknowledge that there are so past grudges here, but we would greatly prefer if those would not lead to violence. Our advisors are most treasured, after all.”
In a hurry, Absalm circled around and hid behind the empress.
John noted that the majority of the room was behind the empress, physically and ntally. ‘Well, aren’t you profiting from Absalm being discovered?’ the Gar thought, sarcastically. A wave of sha simultaneously ran through the ntal connection to tra, who now realized that they had been played. A wave of fresh anger at Absalm followed. ‘All of this, to make the now revealed empress seem that bit more capable of handling international conflict.’ He had already stared at her for several minutes flat, so John did not care at all to prevent himself from bowing down to Lu Zhi’s ear and whispering, “I do so admire capable won with attitude.”
Staring at him out of the corner of her eye, the Heavenly Jade Empress showed the Gar that dragon-tooth grin again, this ti up close and personal. John let himself be pushed back by a green-clawed hand. This was still a part of the play.
If he was going to be turned into a political tool by an attractive, ambitious young woman, she was going to know that he went along with it willingly. “We should discuss the proper resolution of this matter during that eting tomorrow,” the Gar suggested. “Or perhaps you would like a second one later that day in a more official capacity? I’ll leave the choice to you.”
“Oh, how reasonable.” Both Lu Zhi and the dragon on her cape were observing John intensely. “We will decide tomorrow.” The fan once more folded with a satisfying ‘shhup’, and all of the draconic aspects to her were gone. Left behind was just the playful smile of the imperial tomboy. “That’s the royal ‘we’ not you and I.”
“I got that,” John joked. “Hear that, tra?”
“Yes, yes,” the First of Wrath sighed and waved off. “Get out of my sight, you worm.”
There was a glint of victory in Absalm’s eyes, as he turned around. For a mont, John and tra had the sa wish to break every protocol, just to see it wiped out. His face, so they both reckoned, would look quite good while it was being slamd through the stone floor.
They did hold back, though. Once Absalm and Lu Zhi were swallowed by the crowd, tra sent him a quiet, ‘Sorry,’ though their connection. John accepted the apology for what it was – an admission of fault and of such a thing happening again in the future. It was as much in tra’s nature to act like this as it was for John to have been enticed by the empress’ looks.
‘She’s been playing us quite well,’ the Gar thought. ‘I’m starting to wonder if she’s playing these gas with because she knows I’ll have a hard ti holding a grudge towards her… man, I’m weak to won.’
“For what it is worth, I fully understand your reaction.” A new man approached them. He was tall, bald, and of that rare complexion that ca about when African and East Asian people had children with each other. His face leaned more towards the forr side, with the flat, broad nose and thicker lips. The clothes he wore, however, were entirely and firmly Korean in aesthetics. The interplay of red and yellow made him part of the noble faction.
tra tilted her head, ears perking up, clearly trying to place the man. “Telal?” she asked.
“In the tallic flesh,” he responded with a slight smile.
Absalm, the Second of Darkness, Paku, the Fourth of Power, and now Telal, the Third of Order, three tracanas were present at this eting – four counting tra herself. It was quite unsurprising, all things considered; still, there was a question on John’s lips that tra herself was swift to ask.
“How co I have not heard about all of you running around?”
“We usually go by different nas these days, or we don’t bother showing up during these events. Most people don’t even know what we are.” Telal shook his head, between disapproval and amusent. “You were never that subtle.”
“You best get that green off behind your ears, before you criticize ,” tra responded, entirely joking.
Telal rolled his eyes. “Please, we are all several millennia old at this point. Is it really necessary to continue rubbing my relative youth in my face?”
“It is, for as long as it bothers you.” tra’s smirk slowly died. “I’ve t many of our siblings – your two aspect kin among them. They’re all in the hands of the Lorylim and Mother Chaos.”
Telal pressed his lips together, forcing much of their colour out of them. A solemn nod. “When I heard about the true nature of the first foe, I was in disbelief, but… it tracks, in many parts.”
“It’s severely more complicated than the public story,” John admitted. Everyone knew that he had been omitting things, at least in this hall. The Divided Gates would have done their own research into the matter over the centuries.
“Is it not always?” the youngest tracana responded with a shake of his head. “From the oath of the king candidate, to the current day, no decision is ever easy.” He tensed up for a split second, then changed the topic. “Od is here too. He serves the Great Sultanate.”
“Really? 5 out of 21… pretty fucking good, especially since everyone here is still of sound mind,” tra humd, going through her siblings through her head. “Any word on Rillesrea and Rollesrea?” she asked.
“The Two of Love remain missing. None of us have seen them since they left Babylon,” Telal answered readily. “I take it you haven’t either?”
“Not once,” tra mumbled and gazed out to the gardens – and far beyond them. “I often wonder what happened to them. They were the only ones smart enough to leave Mother Chaos before even the first stone of Babel could be laid.”
“They weren’t smart – they were blinded by a love for sothing fleeting,” Telal responded. He looked over to John. “You were smart, you tied your loyalty to soone that has the potential to outdo Sargon.”
“He did earn it,” tra responded, making John smile the smile of the lovestruck fool. It doubled in intensity when she placed a peck on his cheek. “Serestra? Peranthis? What beca of those two, do you know?”
“We served together in the Mandate of Heaven for a long ti, but they were banished from the court for their attempt to splinter the kingdom into warring halves,” Telal reported, rubbing his forehead. “It was a… terrible affair. They reckoned, in twisted adoration for each other, that they would find the true king candidate if they made two incredible contestants clash. They wanted to present you with the victor.”
“Honestly, not the worst strategy by the twilight twins,” tra responded.
John had to keep ntal track of all the nas. Serestra was the First of Darkness, Peranthis the First of Light. Although these two were not kin in aspect, their similarities had apparently gotten them dubbed as twins. It would have been similar to how Aclysia and Beatrice were ‘twin sisters’ to each other, compared to their relationship with Momo.
“Before you ask, I do not know where Balasi is,” Telal pre-empted the final question.
“5 of us are here, 5 of us are unaccounted for, 9 are in the grasp of the Lorylim, Urghan is guarding the Oath Chamber, I… know the location of Ehtra,” tra counted it altogether, then shook her head. “The best picture I have of our kin in ages, and it’s a grim one.”
“Do you believe we can save them from their fate?” Telal asked.
“With luck, perhaps, although I do not know what scars it will leave. Have you replaced the part of Tiamat inside you yet?”
“Removed. Not yet replaced.” Telal’s answer was sharp, displeased. His lack of strength must have weighed painfully on his mind. “I removed the chaos that created my order out of and it bears heavily upon .” He turned to the table, from where Eui had been staring at them the entire ti they held their conversation. “But the Lady of Joseon demanded it, for the safety of the realm, and so it was given.”
“Is she your king candidate?” tra asked, interested.
“In… a sense. It is complicated. As all things are.” The Third of Order took a big step back at that point. “I believe we best catch up with everyone else present. If you would be available tomorrow, after your chat with the Heavenly Jade Empress?” He tried his best at a smile. “Unless you would prefer to spend the ti caving Absalm’s head in.”
“I would – but I won’t, easy as it fucking would be.”
“…You have outgrown all of us,” Telal noted, not even bothering to hide the annoyance he felt at that. “I would love to know how you perford that miracle, from growing from the strongest, to being unparalleled among us.”
“As you said already, I chose wisely.” That was John’s signal to put an arm around the First of Wrath. They separated from her fellow tracana, despite walking in the sa direction. One ended up behind Eui, the other two at the chairs where Aclysia and Claire had been patiently waiting, the latter even chatting a bit with King Dangun.
“May I sit?” the Gar asked, effortlessly switching back to Korean.
“You may,” Dangun responded.
It was evident in his tone that he thought the stressful part had only just begun.
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