Daggkho BoudiccaXverse

[Verse]

A foreign sapling sprung out of the Sinkhu ground outside of a bustling town.

Its seed had been filled with stories of not only Daggkho, but universal significance, one day. But growing things, green and kuro alike, may wilt. Wilt and still live, like this sapling from Sabutoro, who'd been a heir of royal blood back in his home, but an heir of things that weren't Sabu itself. Which, to him, meant he was wayward until he could find his strength, or his claim on it.

Marred by his homeland's strife for a ballistic balance, there was metal in its best interpretation of bone underneath the sleeves of his haori. A special strand, delivered onto him as his mother birthed him out of her romantic places. Her strand onto him. The Yanaku Clan's kuro had black depths and crimson shadows, with icy blue diodes. Most of his shield arm was affected, but the hand itself stayed romantic. Would you believe the traveling garb of Yanaku were longer than most traditional garments of the same name? Under Krissu, the Daggkho suns, kuro was always present, it was laced with the earth and the rock underneath the earth even deeper than Sinkho's steepest sinkholes. But that didn't mean the technological ailments celebrated in Sabu were revered elsewhere. The bitter prince would describe this place as Podunk in company he could be honest with. There were places here where they'd gawk at his birthright. The blights of machines walking around here, the Kurobutsu to him, would know the influence of his power before these yokels.

It was one such he waited for now, in the Krissu setting, where things turned from daily yellow to a deeper shade of gases here, which were closer to Daggkho's original blue than the pink hues of his homeland. Getting her location and haunts had been painstaking, but his net was still worth a damn out here, after his family had reached in and clawed out a piece for themselves during the promise time when the sinkholes were made. And thought poorly maintained, Yanaku didn't let any riches go, especially ones they'd spilled blood over, even if it was mostly Sinkho blood.

During the day, what later part of it he spent here between a forest and the town, on a field of grass that was blessedly free of kuro save for some clusters in the earth around a few puddles of water, he'd seen many go in and out. Perhaps they'd mistaken the Sabutoro royal for a guard, with a wire-straw hat on and hand resting on his sword. Yes. Though he had no destined weapon yet, he was still armed. The blade had close to none of the crimson shade of his body-bound kuro, but it was still well connected to his abilities. His father, long may he live inside the machine upon his passing, had told the boy the family couldn't win wars off his skill without a holy weapon, but he still needed to be formidable in battle. Like any confidence-poisoned youthful kingblood, Ruuhei still thought he could best any of the army-killers with his wit. Of course, duels with warriors like that, were as rare in war-less places as peace in war torn ones.

Behind him roamed a beast almost entirely eaten by kuro. Once it had been a great cat from this prefecture, delivered to the Sabu court as a gift, but the kuro Ruuhei had grown and whispered to it meant it was mostly mad now, save for when he took control. It could run like a demon and still have a level spine on the legs he'd stretched and enhanced, but it had no real tactical mind without him. Perversely, he'd kept its digestive system mostly, so it still needed helpings of meat from time to time. Truly the pet of an affluent owner.

Youth stretched the features of his face, which his mother forbade him from corrupting. The red light in the black of his eyes were inevitable, given to him by her own blood. Angles to his facial bones, which made the serious and irritated set of his face more severe. This was hunting, this was fishing, and still he thought the prey should be more timely, and not let him wait. Kuu sat down, and crossed his legs with their hakama, and locked his feet with their boots on, and their square heels. He inhaled the air and looked around this close to quaint part of Sinkho. These kinds of places belied the vastness of Daggkho, and its brutal and eventually fruitless tries for power. He wondered if there was wisdom here, in this thought, that he could bring back along with the object he sought. Father had warned him of missing lessons on the way to knowledge.

Kuuhei would rather just be done with being here, in limbo between him and the next step toward greatness.

 

[Boudicca]

In his tracking of her, Ruuhei would have had to make his way towards a humble village nestled between dense, dark, yet bright green vegetation, the air covered by a thick, yet largely transparent mucus-colored fog. This was a place where buildings were fashioned with a type of dirty, lime-green, dense straw. A place which the locals nearby it referred to as "Suytoue", quite literally meaning "Lacking Water".

It seemed to be a name rather strangely placed as far as conventions would have it. A river ran through the centre of where the village square was located, where some of the longer, larger buildings fashioned with even larger, thicker versions of the same straws were present. Though to drink from this river after countless millennia of environmental contamination not only in Daggkho but specifically in the Sinkhu Prefecture would almost certainly result in immediate cardiovascular collapse. Yet the former natives of this village he had encountered nearby had told him that they had purification machinery and other methods alongside them there for as long as they have known, technology considered almost unthinkably ancient by most, yet ones which were more than enough for settlements as humble as this. They could certainly produce more than enough liquid water to sustain themselves, which he would be able to confirm as he begun engaging with the locals. And still, they too called their village "Suytoue".

They had been in this region, for as long as data could suggest too, always been capable of feeding themselves one way or the other, and never faced any serious droughts. Yet, their, village, they called "Suytoue". The same data Ruuhei would have available to him, consisting of unthinkable wealth hundreds over hundreds of trillion times greater than anybody in this place, identified a village around the area named "Zoroue", "Primate's Head", and absolutely none, named "Suytoue". None of the locals had even heard of a place called Zoroue, and never seemed to have referred to their village, or any place within thousands of kilometers near Suytoue, as such.

Perhaps being forgotten to civilization was the only means one had to defeat it.

It was so forgotten in fact, that the nearest real city to this village was almost eight thousands kilometers away, and was still a rather shabby one. "Zuatorhi City". "Tidal Bird". It housed only about four billion of the prefecture's population of around eleven trillion. It was also located near one of the most broken-down and dysfunctional Sinkholes within the province, around at the outer shell of the mechanical wastelands caused by the dozens of now completely non-functional Sinkholes which defined Sinkhu for most "Uwabanghi", "Non-Sinkhuites".

The young Yanaku could have had thoughts such as these and all the more to ponder while communicating with the simple-tongued natives, in a place which seemed barren to the point of allowing the feeling of intrigue and excitement never to fester for any regular city-dweller, let alone one who hails from an affluent family of an equally affluent Megacity.

The locals had immediately pinned his affluence as significantly greater than theirs as soon as he had entered their community. Just the endless waves of primal flesh crashing over their frames must have stood as proof of such. And after a series of ongoing back-and-forths they simply placed him within a building clearly well-lit and well-decorated by their standards, with various lightly colored ornaments tied to and hanging around the orifices of the building's interiors. Perhaps the Young Yanaku could take this time to observe more of the seemingly unique culture tied to this region of Sinkhu, but he was accompanied by an older man and his two sons, who seemed to question him excessively. Though they'd clarify consistently that they were asking simply in order to make certain of his needs and be able to help him wherever possible, their rough and bold demeanor might have made it come across as rather petulant to the more refined young man.

 

[Verse]

In the teachings of Ballistic Balance, often held in one of the many black stone idol halls where living statues of tribute to any which scholarly inclined idol the particular hall was erected to, they would not have approved of this place. Not of its fog staining the alloys of his kuro, and not of the starkly nature-inclined lands. A landscaper with his kuromantic disciples would have been through here to infuse it with humming machinations of different sheens. There was no mental that talked to him here. The spread of the shining Gods's touch here didn't have a voice he could translate, even if he thought he heard whispers, if whispers could be dreams, when he walked by the purification machines.

They treated him well, proportionally, when they gave his mount a cleaner shed than most of the ones he'd seen here. Well kept straw. That's all you could hope for. He entertained the company best he could. There is certain wisdom in savages, and he could not hope to learn good lessons if he wasn't open to them wherever they presented themselves. In the house, he'd traded the wire-braided hat for one of straw, and though it didn't weight down his black hair as much as the finer headwear, it made him blend in just a little more. He had a piece of cake before, it made his skin warmer without registering to his kuro ornamented flesh at all. It was bitter, but innately cold, so it refreshed him. The eldest son of the elder that had taken it upon themselves to be his guides, seemed proud with his yellowed and browned grin. There was a charm to enduring all this, of course, to make use of suffering like the women at the convent, made to make love to kuro-soaked pillars on the ground while saying prayer. But he found that he didn't hate it, this remote world, far enough removed from Sabutoro that it might as well have been one of the stars in the night, and not here on Daggkho at all.

"I will go to buy meat." he said in an accent he'd learned rather recently when his party penetrated Sinkho. Semantic learning was highly considered in the Sabutoro court. He had picked up on fluctuations in the common tongue version here as quickly as his station suggest he might. The meat was for his mount. And he needed to get more familiar. The men who'd been with him may accompany him, but it was of course not a request when the Yanaku royal stepped out of the house to follow the river and thereby its evening flood of people, too. It took them a little longer to stare at him with the new hat, but not that long. He was tall here. If he needed, he may buy a kimono of local make and follow the houses to make use of their shadows, to blend in a little better. But for now, if he had a reputation, the girl would find him faster.

Ruuhei was looking for a market place, and he distinctly remembered seeing something of the sort on his way here. His mount made fan-breath noises as he passed its make-shift stable, but he would go by foot. People in Suytoue had been friendly enough to earn his trust, and if he'd misplaced their intentions, he and his sword could correct this before it went too far. Yanaku sons did not die in the outback to lesser men.

He came across a bridge that had led him over the water once he crossed the gates to Suytoue. He felt a small desire to go out again, in the fields to wait, to perhaps see her a little sooner if she returned, but he turned instead, and let his nostrils lead the way. Suppose he was in no hurry. And the night was good, its noises weren't manicured into songs and low chants, like the Sabu city nights.