[Locked] We can form a single united body

[telaari]

Who: Alexstrasza & the Red Dragonsworn
What: The Red Dragonsworn need to figure out a chain of command that works for them. Vas has gathered everyone together to do just that.
When: July 30th
Where: The Ruby Sanctum
Warnings: Politics, personal and not.

"I have no doubt that you are wondering why I called you here."

Vastania stands at the edge of a circle of boulders twenty feet across. To her side is the Dragonqueen herself, and they both look outward at the gathered Redsworn. "It has become clear to me that we are without direction. We all do as we will, and not what is best for the whole. This must stop here and now. To continue to wander aimlessly, to pick off only a few demons at a time at our leisure, to fail to work as one - these are the things that will kill us. These are the things that will leave us divided and weak, and easy prey for the Legion."

The Vindicator takes a breath to calm her nerves, and continues. "This circle behind me is our meeting hall. It is here that we must decide how we will conduct ourselves. Those who enter the circle will be bound to certain rules: one may not sit, sleep, eat, or drink upon entering the circle. Should you enter and then leave, you will not be allowed in again. Should you grow weary, you must leave. Should you become violent, you will thrown out.

"These rules are harsh, but if you follow them, you will be allowed to speak your piece. Your opinions will be considered and weighed, as an equal. If you do not, you will have no say in any matter we discuss. Those who will not comment on policy do not deserve to set it." She stomps a steel-shod hoof against the ground, tail held high and proud.

"Come, let us all speak. Let us all decide, together, how the Red Dragonsworn will be led."

Comments

[stormcalling]

If there's one thing Valamia hates, besides the Legion and getting dragged into another war, it's politics. While in part she agrees with the need for some organization the method the idea of a leader makes her want to laugh. She flicks her tail a few times as she considers even getting involved with the situation. She could walk off. Let the youngsters fight it out among themselves and decide what they want to do. A bit of consideration makes her realize that would end poorly in the long run. When she approached it's not with a strong presence. No desire to make herself look bigger or more important. She's casual, treating it like any other conversation. In fact, she doesn't even wait to someone to come talk with her. The point she felt she needed to make didn't require someone starting ahead of her. It required honesty. So she makes her statement openly, a little loudly.

"I do hope whatever is decided it comes with the realization of what the role of leadership requires. Leadership does require more then someone who is capable of leading. It requires followers. It requires the ability to communicate with each other and the ability to be able to trust those you work with. Two things I doubt anyone can argue we're lacking."

She folds her arms over her chest while she tries to pick apart her own thoughts. "Because if neither issue is addressed the position of leader becomes pointless. At best it becomes a title to use around other flights and races but to the people you work with, it would be meaningless. We would be faced with the same problem. Which once the real might of the Legion arrives, will surely bring more causalities then anyone desires."

[seesbosscrotch]

Mar straightened, speaking up from his lonely section of the circle. "Then let me put an issue of trust out to all the potential leaders out there -- one I think is very important to those of the Red flight."

Turning his head, he swept his glowing eyes over each of them in the circle. "If a warlock was summoned to serve alongside us in the Red Dragonflight, one who offered the mastery of demons and manipulation of fel magics to use against the Legion... would you accept him as an equal? Would you extend your trust to him? Would you put your faith in his abilities, and rely on them to accomplish what he vows they can do?"

[telaari]

Vas clenches her jaw, and only relaxes it when she realizes that she's chewing on her cheek. "And how is this relevant, Gladespring? Warlocks have no place among those who value life. A Redsworn Warlock is a contradiction."

[seesbosscrotch]

Oh, Vas. He wanted to tell her everything, everything that Alexstraza and her brood had been through... and everything that she had forgiven, because she was Dragon Queen and Life Binder.

But Vas believed nothing he said, Kaneis chose not to listen, and Valamia didn't care. He'd be wasting his breath.

So he simply nodded, because the answer was no surprise. "Next question. If the undead were summoned to serve alongside us in the Red Dragonflight... one of the Forsaken, created by the undead plague or risen from the Banshee Queen's meddling with the Valk'yr, or a Death Knight, ripped from the ground by the Lich King and constantly struggling with the desire to cause pain and suffering to others to sustain their own lives... Would you accept them as equals? Would you extend your trust, would you put your faith in them?"

[stormcalling]

She hated that he had a point. She knew what he was doing and did it ever frustrate her. It was a good point. One that held a lot more importance then just effecting their own flight. "You have an interesting idea. You aren't wrong for questioning the ability to work alongside characters of questionable background or self-control."

She flicks her tail in thought. "Ultimately, we not in a situation to refuse such help unless they turn into traitors. As it stands no one flight is capable of victory. We are all required to at least put the differences of beliefs and races aside for the greater good. Which is far harder then some might be willing to acknowledge." Herself included. That probably went without saying.

[telaari]

She had been clenching her jaw earlier. Now, it hangs open, dumbfounded.

She blinks, unable to form a coherent comment. Just what is Vala playing at, defending them like this?

[wilder]

He notices Vas's dumbfounded expression. He remembers Vala's warnings. Luckily, in a circle of no violence, that warning of getting hit with a weapon was pretty much gone.

And so he gives a little shrug. "I'm not sure I can say I'd trust someone actively making contracts with demons. Especially when I haven't seen what one's like for myself." He just can't. Maybe if he met someone and got to know them.....okay that was unlikely. "But I guess I can't really say no to having formally-dead people around. I mean if I did, I'd have to leave. And that'd kinda suck you know?"

[stormcalling]

Her eyes go wide and she stares at Zelos, shocked. She thought she warned him not to do that. Even if there's no violence in this area it doesn't mean it won't have lasting effects. Great. "Ahem. Questionable deaths and resurrection of people aside. We have to acknowledge that even if we may not have all of these in our flight, they will exist in others. We'll need their help either way."

[chosenfake]

Wow, this was serious question hour. There were a lot of things here that perhaps didn't quite hit home like they did to Azerothian natives, but Mar was addressing all of them-- wasn't he? And as far as death went...

"Someone being raised from death before might be unnatural, but... sometimes it's a second chance. Sometimes it's not something they can control, like what Exsilium did to me and my friends." He clenched his fists at his sides, trying to hide the trembling. "I might be wrong, but this-- this isn't entirely the same world you guys grew up in, right? If you're taking ideas from the world you lived in, and forcing them on a world that's different, with different people, I don't think that's fair to anyone." He looked to Vas. "You trust me even though I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of. Whether I'm deserving of that or not, I don't know, but my friends have taught me a lot just by showing me." He looked to Mar now. "I think we should decide to trust people not by what they might have done in the past, or what they are, but by their actions in the present."

[seesbosscrotch]

"I like these points. Judge by actions in the present." Which was what he had been saying since day one, but who was counting? "Put aside differences of beliefs and problems between races. Including races who made bad decisions out of survival, anger, and desperation, but now have repented of those ways and seek to undo their mistakes?"

He tapped the outside corner of one green-glowing eye as he spoke, his question mostly meant for the two draenei.

[stormcalling]

She bit back a bitter, snide remark. Vala wanted to retort about there being more issue with the person themselves then the race. Thankfully she knows to stay level-headed. "Repentance is a tricky subject as everyone has a different idea of what it means to repent. Some people would say there are those in the world who cannot be redeemed. Some mistakes that cannot be undone. However, the threat of the Legion is greater then personal beliefs regarding either of those things. If the Legion grows too strong any effort made towards either of those is rendered useless and any feelings towards them pointless."

[seesbosscrotch]

Mar shook his head at that temporizing. "Either we trust each other or we fall apart, Valamia. There's no two ways about it. When the time comes when a Pit Lord charges at us and sweeps his sword our way, you need to trust that I will take the blow on my shield, and I need to trust that you will heal the wounds I suffer from it. Everything else will only get in the way. That's why I'm asking these questions -- here in the presence of the Life Binder, the Dragon Queen, who loves all life."

At this he sketched a slight bow to Alexstraza.

"We are Redsworn, and that means we are each individuals united in our fight. It isn't a matter of setting aside our differences as people, it is a matter of transcending them."

[stormcalling]

"You forget not all things can be transcended. There are some obstacles that are not easily overcome, united in a force or no. That doesn't mean that a person cannot perform their duty. I do know that trust is important in battles and among those you fight with." Vala sighs. She wants to be able to place trust in others without reservation but age among other factors made that difficult.

"I don't imagine there's many who can disagree trust is not something anyone can easily give. Under the pressure we have now it is not easier."

[seesbosscrotch]

"I... don't agree," he said, for the first time hesitant. He sometimes suspected what she said was true, but he never allowed himself to believe it -- because if she was right, then she was right about everything, most saliently about how nothing had any point because it would never improve.

"On the battlefields of Azeroth, we extended trust instantly and wholeheartedly. That may sound insane, but we had no choice -- if we didn't, if we held back or played it safe, the onslaught would overwhelm us. Our foes are always unified, it seems. The Legion. The Scourge. The mogu. The damn murlocs, even. They all united without reservation to stand against us."

He lifted a fist, clenched it tight as he looked down on it. "And we paid for it. Kael'thas Sunstrider. Garrosh Hellscream. Other figures here and there that took advantage of our trust and abused it. But we survived every challenge they threw at us because we HAD that trust, and we united.

"That --" Mar swept his hand out, over the circle and those inside it and out. "--is my vision for the Redsworn. That we trust each other implicitly. That we believe in ourselves above everything."

[telaari]

"People make these desperate decisions, Gladespring," Vas responds, taking his bait. "People. The undead are not people, regardless of whether the Horde treats them as such. Your Forsaken and all Death Knights are nothing more than constructs to expand the Legion's armies."

[seesbosscrotch]

"And humans, gnomes and dwarves have been corrupted by the Old Gods themselves so they can conquer Azeroth more easily, Vindicator," Mar fired back, not sharp but with definite steel in his voice. "Do you dismiss them for that? Or are they somehow different, because instead of the Legion, they were corrupted by creatures whose reign was worse than the legion can even conceive of, but don't happen to have affected you personally?"

[telaari]

"I do not understand what you are talking about. Old gods?"

She waves a hand to dismiss it. "These are people, elf. Flesh and blood, mortals all. People free to make decisions, and descended from other living beings. The Undead are not."

[seesbosscrotch]

Mar let one of many bitter chuckles escape. "The only difference between an undead and me or apparently a startling number of our comrades here is that they came out of the grave through magic that didn't restore their bodies along with their minds. And while I concede that both Forsaken and Death Knights were created as tools of the Lich King..."

He lifted one finger to point at her in challenge.

"Do you then claim that the Light itself could not free their shackled minds?"

[telaari]

"Well, yes, but-"

Vas slowly recovers her ability to form full sentences, still reeling that Vala would defend the undead abominations. Luke, on the other hand, isn't of this world. He has no idea what the undead are, so he might be forgiven. "The undead are ultimately the constructs of the Legion. They are tools of destruction, not people."

[chosenfake]

They are tools of destruction, not people.

Yes, he was ignorant. But this flight wasn't only full of Azeroth people, it also had others from different worlds, with different experiences and different values. That was a good thing. It meant they all had perspectives that could shed some light on an otherwise sticky situation.

They are tools of destruction.

His mouth set into a line. He wasn't one to air out his laundry so publicly, but something had to be said.

Not people.

"Not people?" His hands bunched up at his sides. "I-- I'm sorry. No one gets to decide what makes a person, Vastania. No one but themselves. If they can question it... if they can question what their worth is, then they can-- they should be called a person."

His jaw set. "On my world, replicas were created to throw the world into chaos, to kill or be killed. They had no choice. That includes me! I was born only so I could destroy. By your definition, I'm not a person, either." He paused. "I've dealt with that on my world, and this place is different. Everyone accepts that as a member of the flight, you're a person. That's why I can say this now: someone's worth shouldn't be judged by anyone else."

[stormcalling]

Valamia, respectfully, doesn't remark on him. She does give him a look, an attempt to rely a sort of understanding. While she hadn't considered it or the option of something like that in other worlds...wow. Luke might not be one she has much of an opinion of but that, that right there, was a good way to make a impression. A very positive impression. She's going to hope he keeps that spark and argument up.

[chosenfake]

Luke was surprised to see Valamia looking at him so. He felt the seriousness of the secrets he'd spilled in this line of conversation and glanced away, feeling a bit self-conscious. His fingers drew through the spiky hair at the base of his neck, freeing it from his collar, a sort of nervous habit.

[telaari]

Hearing a defense for the Undead from Vala was shocking. Hearing it from Luke is a blow that knocks her feet out from under her, metaphorically speaking. Her head reels again, and she shakes it as if that might clear it.

"I- no, of course, not- you're human, Luke. Just as much as any human. What I am speaking of are things created by the Deceiver and his spawn."

[chosenfake]

Luke shook his head. "If I was created by someone evil, does that make me evil, too? I didn't ask to be born. I didn't ask for the powers I was given. The undead you're talking about-- did they? I admit I don't know anything about this world, and I only know a little bit about what you and your people have gone through, but I really don't like the sound of dismissing someone from the flight just because they're different or scary somehow.

"We're all from different places. We have to get along, even if we don't like each other all the time. It's the only choice we have."

[wilder]

Luke was braver than Zelos, speaking up about being a replica. Sure, he could mention casually that he was dead. But...about being a Chosen? About how he used to not be seen as a person either, just as a puppet for the Church and Cruxis to do what they will to? Yeah, he didn't have that guts.

But he sure could narrow his eyes at Vastania and speak up.

"Hey, Luke's right. You don't get to pick and choose whose human and whose not, it's not your place." His words had a slight underlying of annoyance to them. "If they can think for themselves, then they're people. Which means they should be judged by their actions and character, that's it."

"And lemme tell ya right now, I'm not gonna follow someone who feels they get to choose whose a person. I know you've probably been raised this way, but I suggest you re-evaluate your attitude if you wanna succeed here."