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whispertrolls-archive · 2 years

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Conflict of Interest, Part 1

Characters: Silene Khorin, Novalx Astera (mentioned), Omnius Dioxal (mentioned, @memurfevur), Rutaci Faurux (mentioned, @/memurfevur), Masuni Astera (mentioned, @/memurfevur)

Synopsis: As an employee in handling imperial intelligence, it’s important to have knowledge on standby. In light of current events, Silene must make a choice.

Word Count: 1,128

I always had my suspicions about the truth.

I’ve known for sweeps that something was amiss, long since before Stygia’s execution. I still think often of how they came to me in the quiet moments, seeking my guidance. They cared so much for Rutaci, and I believe that the same sentiments could have been said in their feelings for Omnius.

She had so much to say, but it seemed that she never could answer her own questions. She was a smart troll, but she seemed as if she would rather try to understand others than to understand herself.

I suppose the events of the recent days have left me reminiscing. Maybe I’m... a little nostalgic. I haven’t been able to stop thinking of any of them- all four of them- ever since the

Silene lifted her quill from the page. Her ears twitched as she glanced upwards towards the hatch. Her heart raced as she listened to the creaking, waiting with bated breath. She wasn’t afraid, not in the slightest, but there was yet more to listen for.

At last, there came the sound of scratching, and Silene stood to answer. A winged, white beast decorated with faint marks of indigo-purple and no smaller than a horse, descended through the hatch and landed before her with a chirp. Its beak clacked together as it rolled its tongue, and tufted ears flicked as it regarded her. The beast stretched as talons and claws tapped against the floor, and feathers and fur fluffed up before Silene brushed them down while she reached with her other arm to close and secure the hatch.

“You’re back,” she breathed in relief as she sat back down. The nights were always dangerous, and every night that her lusus came scratching was never taken for granted. Silene paused again as she reached for her quill. Unease settled in her stomach as she glanced towards her lusus, then she reached out to stroke her feathers again. It was more to self-soothe than to groom, then she watched the lusus turn to walk behind her before she felt a slight tug at her hair. She sighed softly as the beast began to preen her, and she took the opportunity to pick up her quill and gaze over the paper before her.

great fallout came to pass. There was a wild, untamed spark like a wildfire that seemed to blaze through all of them in the ways that they gazed upon one another. They were a fervent group with ideals that swatted through the dark as if they were reaching for the stars themselves. Their ideals were all similar, but their methodology was their downfall. Their modus operandi were what brought them into conflict. Manipulation and betrayal was what came to rule them. Their own paranoia consumed them, and if the recent talk of bounties and murders are any indication, then it may come to be worse yet.

I’ve been sitting on a new set of suspicions for sweeps, now. It was the lack of a corpse of a sought-after war criminal and the sudden uptick in a certain mutant’s bounty that told me everything that I needed to know: Rutaci is alive, implicated in the murders of several government officials and official-adjacents. He must be back in the area, no doubt in search of something that he’s clearly desperate or foolhardy enough to seek so openly.

I would’ve questioned the idea of revenge, had it not been so long ago. Instead, my theory is that it’s something else. I discovered in the registry an employee who caught my eye. A hemoanonymous young man, Masuni Astera, holds office in a nearby mental health facility. I paid a visit to said facility to see for myself, and indeed, he looks strikingly like Stygia. Her descendant, I’m sure, as meek and disarming as his hidden blood would surely allow. The boy seemed baffled, understandably disinterested in his heritage. It would concern me less had I not heard tell of how he held quadratic ties with Dioxal.

And yet, there was another during one of my visits. Dioxal was in the building, and I felt his gaze steeled upon me. I was in the office to seek records for another patient, as is customary to my position, when I chanced upon seeing the boy in question guiding out another troll. Their horns were the same, and I could see in the other that, while they wore a mask across the lower half of their face, their eyes bore an unveiled, vibrant green with rays of gold. Another Astera, I was sure- anonymous in symbol, but their eyes told their story. Omnius stayed close to them as they left in haste.

The Duellist paused in her writing. The gentle tugging ceased as her lusus retreated to lie in her nest, and it was during that silent respite that Silene turned her gaze to the computer on her desk, watching as it extracted lines of data and displayed them before her. That had surely been the young troll she had seen. It had been difficult to find any information on them, but there was no such thing as a nonexistent trail. She sat back, rubbing her eyes in protest of the brightness of her screen as she regarded the information before her: Novalx Astera, aged 13, caste redacted. Hemoanonymity could only get a troll so far in life, but it seemed in the case of Masuni and Novalx that they had managed to somehow survive.

Silene’s bloodpusher ached as if it had been gripped by an icy fist. Even with their face hidden, she could see the similarities. She had with both of them, even in ways that she would’ve never imagined. She remembered how she had threatened to soften when she had seen Masuni meekly hide himself behind his scarf. Ah, so much they had inherited from someone that they never knew. This couldn’t be a coincidence. It may have been far beyond her reach and even farther beyond any right of hers to involve herself in such affairs, but she wasn’t perfect. Until there was news of a body, she knew what needed to be done, if not for Rutaci’s peace, then her own.

It is as I feared. Rutaci is alive, rampaging, and Dioxal clearly has reasons for keeping close to Stygia’s spawn. I must find Rutaci first. I must speak with him before it’s too late. If he falls, then the fours’ collective ambitions will be lost with him. I wish I could say that Omnius himself could be a bearer of those same dreams, but it’s clear to anyone who knew him once that he had lost his way and himself so long ago.

Sempirus vivere tuum veri.

#mun writes #Ouroboros Unbound #Silene #Silene Khorin #The Duellist

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