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Illuva suggested something over in Sequel that disturbs me. I'm quite attached to the gods, even though they are manipulative bastards.

For the cleverly vielled insults, Paw gets points. For not once suggesting the deeper meaning, Delwar gets points. For seeing the offhand turn of the wrist (which I suspect De tossed into the mix just to screw with things) Mik gets double points.

When someone with power gets mad... stuff goes wrong. If they are a healer, well... ouch. That hurts. But if they deal with the mental stability, the thoughts and being and possession of self of an individual person? The stuff hits the fan. Mik, oddly, was safe from it, perhaps because Paw has either taught him to keep his mind completely closed off, so Mik doesn't go travelling with Paw, or Paw has sealed Mik off. Either way, go Mik go.

I doubt that anyone in the audience or crew will ever be the same again. And poor Rel... well. I don't know how he'll turn out, not entirely. But we'll figure it out in the next couple of days.

Read, Review and Enjoy.




It was like watching a train wreck. Something swept through the crowd, they cringed at un unfelt wind, shifted away from an invisible fiend. When it hit the camera men, they all looked at each other as if wondering, did someone know what was going on? Delwar felt it a moment later, her eyes going wide for only a moment as the production crew gave the signal for the showing going live once more. She settled back into her throne like seat and took a quick breath.

“Welcome back to my show, and thank you for tuning in, we were just discussing-”

“The intelligence of the Sidhe.”

Auhi. But no. There was Paw and still a flicker of Whisper behind those merciless green eyes. This was Paw un-fractured, his mind focusing solely on one thing.

Kicking her ass.

Which amused and yet scared Mik at the same time. The few times Paw had given him a look that was even remotely similar to the one Paw was giving Delwar were all those times when Paw got scary. Like. Rip out his guts and strangle him with them scary.

Sidhe had almost no concept of hiding emotion. What they felt was present in every motion of their being and yet there Paw was, sitting beside Mik, back straight and a blank look on his face. Paw spoke the truth but Delwar seemed to ignore him while she sipped from her cup.

“Actually we were-”

“We were talking about Sidhe intelligence, during the break. If you do not recall, I am certain that any of the audience members could tell us exactly what you said,” a subtle warning.

“Well, yes, during the break we were speaking about Sidhe intelligence, however, I think my viewers would greatly like to know about the war the Sidhe are having with the Valeasans.”

“You are completely correct, but how can they judge a subject such as that without knowing the intelligence of the two parties involved?” Mik asked Delwar, drawing an acidic look from the woman.

Acidic because she was stumbling into unprepared territory and it was well known that Delwar did not like being in territory that she had not prepared for. She had, however, made her bed and she would have to sleep in it. Mik was not about to back down, most especially on live television.

“Yes, but the intelligence of one race is not the intelligence of another. The Toppahn, for example, will no longer speak to the rest of the world because we hold onto, what they call, pagan beliefs and therefore are of lesser intelligence,” Delwar responded calmly, “therefore none of us have a right to say anything about intelligence. What the Sidhe have learned, they have mimicked from people and are doing nothing more than parrots or monkeys have ever done.”

“Our own children learn exactly that way, watching and doing, watching and learning. Would you say that our children are monkeys and parrots?” Mik asked.

“Where are our children… walk, talk, think, before the first six months of their lives, they will be more fluent in your language before your own children are. If it imitation, then so be it, but that is all learning is, the imitation of what has come before,” Paw responded, “intelligence is in the shine of an eye,” and with Sidhe, it could literally mean the odd glitter in their eyes, “the ability to use abstract thought, to think outside the box, so to speak. An ability to prepare for the un-preparable, to face that which has not been planned for unerringly and with grace.”

Which was a blatant insult to Delwar, not that the woman could show it on her face, considering the camera’s focus on her. She held the position of an attentive listener. Not a twitch of insult showed on her.

“Abstract thinking such as?”

“Oh, I haven’t an abstract thought in my head.”

Mik frowned and turned to Paw, “what the hell are you talking about? All of your ideas are abstract. We see a book, we read it, you eat it and read it. We see a plant and you see… life…”

“Difference in culture, that one,” Paw muttered in response.

“Let us say, for a moment, that Sidhe are intelligent, what does that mean for the Valeasans?”

Paw blinked at the woman, “I beg your pardon?”

“What would the Valeasans expect? A marching army?”

“Only an idiot lines men up on a field and then hands them weapons. It is a good way to lose lives. Gorilla warfare, except we have no weapons that you make, therefore there are no sources you can cut off.”

You, not them, not the Valeasans, you.

“We fight with our teeth and our claws, the very tools Harella-shay herself gave us, we fight with what the gods have gifted us and still we will win. Against your metal. Against your. Technology.” Anger. Very pissed off Sidhe… Mik edged away from Paw on the couch, “you can try and deafen us with the constant hum of your existence but in the end you are nothing more than a parasite on Mother’s side, to be squashed and removed. Burned out of existence.”

“Paw…” Mik murmured, setting his hand atop the Sidhe’s, “Delwar is not the one you are at war with.”

And… Mik had to be stupid like that.

“You?” Delwar’s eyebrow arched upward, the woman set her hands in her lap.

The way Illuva’s followers did when they were considering the information before them.

“As in. Paw is Whisper?”

Mik and Paw looked startled as one, both saying, “what makes you think that?”

“Mik just said that you are at war the Valeasans. Where as you have stated that Whisper has declared war on the Valeasans. They aren’t fighting the Sidhe, are they? They’re fighting Whisper. You.”

“Completely-”

“True,” Paw cut Mik off and met Delwar’s eyes, “I am Whisper. I am the speaker of the gods and the gods have told me of their plans for you and your kind. And any who create blasphemy in their names.”

“Fire will reign down from the heavens, the earth shall shake and all that?” Delwar asked calmly, her lips curling in what might have been a smile. She thought this was a joke.

“Have you met our gods?” Paw asked in the same tone, “ They are all the grand-children and great-grandchildren of Mother, that which we live upon. Never would they throw fire against their maker, never would they shake her foundations to send fear through the people. No. You will make your own undoing and when you lay dying in your streets, begging us to save you, we will let you die. As you have slaughtered so many of my people, so you shall be slaughtered.”

“Not all of us are going to be left in the street, right?” Mik asked Paw, smiling his best, most innocent smile.

“The group I speak to are sinners, Mik, not you,” Paw gave Mik’s head a pat and stood from the love seat, “welp. I have to go and discuss the basis of philosophical understanding as is stated in the bibles of the gods. So. I hate to cut this short but … as I’ve been called an imbecile and insulted a multitude of times I’m going to leave.”

Paw left, leaving Mik staring after him, mouth hanging open. Could they not get through a single interview without Paw getting up and leaving? Mik turned back to Delwar.

The woman scratched at her wrist, turning her hand just so.

Revealing a blacker than black, stylized butterfly along the spot on her wrist that would have her pulse. A moment later it was gone.

Stylized butterflies were popular.

Except that was the same style as the one on Lillow’s side. Mik would bet a good deal that that same style would be found in the Aniege history books somewhere. Son of a bitch.

She had done it on purpose.

“Not the first time someone has walked off, though I must admit, rarely can I say that I truly insulted a person enough to make them walk off. However, in this case… I must say that it must have been my own fault, for I have heard great tales of the pomp and ceremony surrounding a Whisper and I ignored it all,” Delwar stood, “luckily we have a secondary guest who will be joining us right after the commercial break. Thank you for your time, Mik, we appreciate it.”

Why did he get the feeling that Delwar wasn’t talking about her audience or production crew? Why did he get the feeling that he was grasping at the end of a massive, cosmic rug that was coming undone as he was trying to catch a hold of it?

And how could the gods treat Paw like that if…

To get the reaction they needed.

Mik stood and shook Delwar’s hand as he was supposed to, thanking her for her time as he turned to leave. The gods would do whatever they had to, to whomever they had to, to get the reaction they needed to start a chain of events that would end in a favourable way for them. Because if the peoples’ and Sidhe’s religions were true, then there was a great well of souls in the underworld, where they all went when they died. So the gods would have no problem sacrificing one life, one moment or a hundred lives or moments. To save what?

Themselves?


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