warforged | [OPEN] The Redsworn Reception

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[OPEN] The Redsworn Reception

Who: The Redsworn of Ruby Sanctum + Guests [OPEN TO ALL FLIGHTS]
What: ~~Carolina~~ The Redsworn have invited everyone to dinner! Let's see how well diplomatic relations between the flights can be improved, eh?
Where: The Ruby Sanctum
When: Forward dated to 6th June.
Warnings: Fires, ~~food poisoning~~ cooking for all, shenanigans, possible bad language.
OOC: Come gets some cross-flight CR! c: Some setting options below the cut, or go ahead and make your own.

A: COOKING FIRE SHENANIGANS

Feeling peckish? Have a delivery to make? Or just want to try your own hand at serving up some grub? The Redsworn's usual cooking area has been expanded for the evening, with two extra firepits dug out to cater for additional mouths. Over one fire burns the now "traditional" starter meat of bear flank, something any newly sworn (red or otherwise) will have the pleasure of sampling first. There's also several baskets of berries, fruit and vegetables, while a pot obtained in trade from Silverglen bubbles merrily.

B: FIRESIDE MINGLE

The redsworn of the Ruby Sanctum have claimed a corner of their own beneath one of the larger trees. There's a smaller fire here set for warmth and ambience, and have logs set about for seating for those who don't like perching on rocks or roots, or don't find the comfy grass comfy - park yourself and have a chat!

C: OPEN/MISC.

Choose Your Own Adventure! Just remember: wander alone at your own risk, non-redsworn, for the Red Dragonflight will have their eye on you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Really?" She can't help but perk up even knowing that Azeroth probably isn't the nicest place. It's not like it can be any worse than what she's had to deal with already.

"... What's your Azeroth like? Tell me about it."

"Hooo, boy." Mar folded his arms over his chest, glancing over to Nepeta from where he lay. "Wartorn, is the first word that comes to mind. The Alliance and the Horde have been going at each other's throats for years now. The Horde leader is essentially shooting for genocide of every non-orc, to the point that pretty much the entire Horde is in rebellion now. We've wrecked the hell out of the beautiful land of Pandaria, after our own lands got trashed by Deathw-- errr, by a powerful evil." Don't break the timeline and prejudice everyone against the Aspect here and now, Mar...

"But it's also a land of immense hope and potential. Azeroth is the biggest and most significant world in the entire universe, you have to understand. The Titans bound the Old Gods into its very existence," he said, unfolding an arm to pat the ground beneath them. "They left the Well of Eternity behind, and thus drew the Burning Legion here, to the one world in all of existence that has ever managed to resist them. Most likely, Azeroth is the source of the greatest hope in all creation, which is the Legion's total defeat. And there are still moments of beauty on Azeroth, despite all its horrors and misery. Simple ones, like a parent's love for their child, and epic ones, like willing sacrifices to save the whole world, born out of love and honor and duty."

He had lifted one hand to the sky, spreading his fingers wide.

"One day, when I was in Dalaran, the skies went dark and the voice of Rhonin, leader of the Kirin Tor, echoed across the city and brought everyone to a halt. 'Raise your eyes to the skies and observe,' he said. 'Today our world's destruction has been averted in defiance of our very makers. Algalon the Observer was sent to judge the fate of the world. He found a world that had deviated from the Titans' blueprints, where not everything had gone according to plan. Cold logic decided our world was worth saving. Cold logic did not account for the tenacity of free will. Algalon the Observer was defeated.'"

Abruptly, Mar sat up, looking over at her properly. "I was lucky enough to talk to one of my order who had helped defeat the Observer, and I got some insight into more of what had happened. Algalon had come to check Azeroth for exactly the problems it has, and if he found them, he would 'reoriginate' the planet. Tear it down and rebuild it from scratch, in other words. Destroy everything. An emissary of the Titans, with unimaginable power when they faced him, and they kicked." He dropped one mailed fist into his palm to punctuate each word. "His. Ass.

"And at the end of it, with his last energies, he said..." Mar cleared his throat, doing his best to imitate the Blood Knight who had imitated Algalon. The tone might be wrong, but Mar remembered the words as keenly as the moment he had first heard them. "'I have seen worlds bathed in the Makers' flames, their denizens fading without so much as a whimper. Entire planetary systems born and razed in the time that it takes your mortal hearts to beat once. Yet all throughout, my own heart devoid of emotion... of empathy. I. Have. Felt. Nothing. A million-million lives wasted. Had they all held within them your tenacity? Had they all loved life as you do? Perhaps it is your imperfections... that which grants you free will... that allows you to persevere against all cosmically calculated odds. You prevail where the Titan's own perfect creations have failed.'"

Letting that sink in, he lowered his back to the ground again, and again folded his hands behind his head. "That is my Azeroth."

...today's lesson, Mar liked to burst into dramatic speeches for the most tangential and feeblest of reasons.

The start of the explanation had Nepeta looking pretty down. More war, huh. How awful. She'd never been involved in one before this Azeroth, technically, but her own experiences in SGRUB and the stories of the troll empire's conquests had told her plenty. It wasn't killing with a purpose, like she did, but a giant mob of people trying to murder each other over some faraway goal. Often it wasn't even a good goal.

So she wasn't particularly eager to jump on board with the idea at first.

But he kept going, talking about hope and courage and the ability to fight back against unimaginable odds, and she remembered... It wasn't so long ago, really. She and the other trolls, standing against the towering form of their black king. A vicious monster embowered by the strength of all of their dead Lusii. The biggest adversary standing between them and their victory.

And by working together, as one, they'd managed to bring him down. They'd overcome the biggest challenge the game could throw at them, and their reward had been...

Well, thanks to circumstances beyond their control, their reward had been snatched away from them. But still.

"You broke the rules." She mused. "The rules said your planet had failed and it needed to be destroyed. But you broke them."

She turned to him with a warm smile. "That's really impurressive, I think."

"Well, I didn't do it," Mar demurred. Something about that smile seemed to put him on the spot. "But Azerothians did it. And we've done other things, too. We've cast down two of the Old Gods themselves, for that matter. I may have stood toe-to-toe with the Lich King himself," he added with a wink.

"Azeroth is a good place, if you understand and accept that you will be hurt living there." He paused a moment to let that linger in the air, then propped himself up on an elbow to point at her with a grin. "See how I brought that all full circle?"

She couldn't help but laugh. "Right back to our furst topic of confursation. But you can't live without at least some pain. I think I could handle it. I mean... at least there'd be a chance at making things better."

Making things better... that was usually Feferi's goal more than hers, but if she looked at it from a smaller perspective, what else could she want? What made Nepeta happy, what she'd always wanted more than anything, was simple. She wanted her friends happy. And if that meant the eleven trolls she'd been with, or some new friends she met here... as long as they were close to her, that was fine.

"A chance to win. Together."

"I really hope that you and I aren't alternate versions of each other in different timelines, or one of us becomes the other after some sort of weird reincarnation thing." Mar chuckled, because he didn't actually believe that, but still. He liked the way she thought. "Of course, I can't guarantee anything, but if it's what you want and I'm still alive when all this ends, I will fight with everything I have to see that you get it."

"Given that we're not the same species or gender, I don't think that's pawsible." She giggles, though, actually kind of surprised herself by how similar their outlooks on life are.

"I'm not quite certain, yet, but... I'll definitely think about it. Thanks, Mar."

"I think it would be a sad world where if you came back in a new life, you'd perpetually be stuck as the same gender and species." Oh, hey, now they'd stumbled across a topic he'd long been curious about, but had never really been able to raise tactfully. (Yes, Mar did have some measures of tact.) "Although, out of curiosity, what is your species, anyway?"

"Oh, I nefur mentioned? I'm a troll."

She had absolutely no idea, of course, that Azeroth contained a species that called itself the exact same thing... but was very, very different.

She's about to find out. Surprised, Mar sat up straight again.

"A troll, really?" he said, surprised but amused. He glanced over her form, with an eye towards assessing species rather than comeliness for a change, then smiled and shook his head. "Well, I'm tempted to say you have nothing in common with Azerothian trolls, but I honestly can't say that for sure. After all, the kaldorei and the Sin'dorei were once the same people to begin with, and who'd know to look at them now? But you do look quite different."

"There are trolls on Azeroth?" Well, that came as a surprise. She was inclined to agree with him, though, that they probably weren't anything like Alternian trolls.

"What do they look like?"

"There are. They're one of the oldest races on Azeroth, one of the few that were here even before the Titans came and caused so much else to happen. In fact, elves were trolls initially, but changed thanks to exposure to the Well of Eternity. So you see, we might be the same species after all," he said with a wink.

He held a hand flat over his own head, for perspective's sake. "Azerothian trolls are generally fairly tall, they're muscular, and they have long legs and arms and fewer fingers and toes. Also tusks. Much bigger on the males than on the females. They all tend to look more powerful than your average elf, say, though less so than your average orc. No horns, either," he added, considering that particular physical trait of Nepeta's was the one that would have kept him from ever guessing 'troll' from a list. "Oh, and you're cuter, but that might just be a personal thing."

"Wow."

That was about the only thing she could think to say for a few moments as she put together a mental image based on that description. She'd never seen anything that looked like what she was picturing now, but one thing was for sure...

"Yeah, I don't think we're the same sort of trolls at all."

"Who's to say? Heck, here on Azeroth we have a thing called the Curse of Flesh that's transformed numerous races into the ones we know today, like dwarves and humans and gnomes. There's a great deal more to who people are and where they came from than anyone would ever know just to look."

Wryly, he makes a round gesture in the air to indicate he's bring it all full-circle again. "Which is why I wouldn't think souls are limited by species. If I was going to guess anything, it's that we mortal races are all the same on the inside where it counts."

"I guess that makes sense... Though I don't know what gnomes and dwarves are. But how can flesh be a curse? Or is it that your flesh is cursed?"

Given that flesh makes up most of a body (she'd know, having disassembled many) she shudders a bit at the thought of it being cursed. What would the curse even do?

"Well, suppose one day trolls suddenly turned from flesh into linen. You'd probably be justified in calling that the Curse of Linen."

Mar, who had 'disassembled' any number of pre-Curse or unaffected creatures, understood perfectly. The trick was communicating it.

"The races left on Azeroth by the Titans -- the Earthen, the Vrykul, the mechagnomes, the giants, the mogu, the tol'vir, all of them were made of stone and metal, like great statues or constructs. The Old Gods who infected Azeroth deliberately destabilized their very existence... and whether gradually or immediately, they changed. The Earthen became troggs and dwarves, the mogu and tol'vir became weaker living versions of themselves, the vrykul gave literal birth to humanity. All part of the Old Gods' plan to gain complete control over the world they ruled."

"Wait, so you all used to be moving statues? That's... actually that's kind of really cool."

She took a moment to ponder what being made of rock or metal would actually be like.

"You'd be really strong and tough, but... purrty heavy and slow, I bet. Could they even jump back then? I suppawse if their legs were strong enough maybe." Being a speed-based fighter this was rather important to her. "But I guess you weren't part of that anyway. Elves came furrom Azeroth trolls, right? That's what you said?"

Mar nodded. "You see why it's called a curse. It definitely was a vulnerability, considering the ease with which Old Gods can corrupt flesh compared to stone or metal. And yes, I believe the histories and researches I've read that indicate elves descended from trolls after exposure to the Well of Eternity, although some if not most of both races would refuse to accept that."

"Why's that? Do they not like each other?" Interspecies conflict was still a pretty new concept for Nepeta. Mostly because trolls had already systematically destroyed any other species they might have encountered until they met humans back home, and by that point "interspecies conflict" translated to "Karkat is yelling at everyone".

"There are many, many different kinds of trolls, in fact. Zandalari, Amani, Gurubashi, the Drakkari... the majority of which are fairly hostile to everybody. But the Kaldorei did, in fact, smash two of their greatest empires, so it's somewhat understandable."

Hoo boy, Nepeta, Azeroth had SO MUCH to teach you about interspecies conflict.

"That is a lot! But what makes them so diffurent aside from the names? And who are the Kaldorei? Oh wait, is that the elves?"

She's not certain why there would be two different names for the same group of people, but context makes it pretty clear who he means.

"Most Alternian trolls are hostile to efurrybody else too... at least the adults are."

"Mostly minor physical differences, like skin and hair color, though of course the actual regions they controlled mattered.

"I think we're all glad you're not hostile, though. Would have made things particularly awkward." Especially in their first meeting, with all the chaos and fire and demons...

"Heh, you should see some of my furriends. They'd be really strong allies but a lot of them are... tough to deal with. Most of them would come around as long as I'm here to explain things though."

She could think of a few exceptions, but frankly she didn't ever want to see the clown again.

"Hmmm, there's not much diffurence between my kind of trolls except fur blood color."

Ah, the hemospectrum. Source of so much utter and complete bullshit in her life and the lives of her friends.

"Tougher than anyone else in the flight?" said the elf who pretty much everyone disliked or thought was crazy, present company excepted.

"From MY perspective, blood color is an odd thing to be different. That isn't something particularly typical. The Kaldorei tend to bleed purple, but both trolls and the Sin'dorei bleed red, so that's attributable to Well of Eternity exposure,. Draenei bleed blue and orcs are so dark red it might as well be black, but neither of those races are Azerothian natives. And there's no difference within the races."

"Well... some of them, yes. But you raise a good point." There was a reason she didn't have as many friends in the flight as she had hoped.

"Well, trolls, my kind of trolls, have twelve diffurent blood colors. It goes furrom red to purple, and there's this sort of system which ranks us based on them. But purrsonally I don't really go by that. It is kind of interesting that the species have both the highest and the lowest though."

She pulls on her coat. "I'm an oliveblood. Suppawsedly that makes me about in the middle."

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