[attr="class","tag"]KINGS MEET

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notes

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Cillian arrives shortly behind Freya and Eva, with Tempest. CIRCHESTER GANG GANG[break]
Introduces himself and also Lugia.

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“C’mon, kiddo,” Cyg said, laying out the gleaming sapphire breastplate and matching silk undershirt-- far too small for her. “Let’s get geared up.”
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Sabrina hurried over, the excitement palpable in the wide grin on her face, and began to wiggle into the long-sleeved top; Cyg pitched in, helping wherever her almost 9-year-old dexterity needed it.
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Kanaya, meanwhile, assisted in tightening the back straps of Cyg’s cuirass, smoothing the undermail. The Gardevoir pinged Cygne with an inquisitive question.
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“Why am I bringing the girls to a kingsmoot?” Cyg laughed, helping Sabrina into her own cuirass. “Because I know my children and they’re going to try and sneak out and come anyway. Save us all a bunch of trouble, and keep them safer. Besides, we’re hosting. It would be rude to not bring the whole family.”
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Aurelie Lefevre’s teaching and Cyg’s flair for the dramatic made for a beautiful combination of sapphire metal wrought with raised dahlias, filigree vines, and swallows in flight. It wasn’t the heavy plate that Cyg was wearing, of course, but it still had pauldrons and vambraces, and silk pants tucked into armored boots. Sabrina’s blonde hair was braided and pinned up with sapphire beads.
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Cyg’s armor was heavier-- gleaming white and burnished gold. Her chest piece was done in relief of swans, their curling necks arching around an impression of the Matrix of Leadership; under it, she had silver mail. Her own pauldrons also had dahlias, golden ones, with vines that streamed down her vambraces; the steel of her plackart that covered her ribs was spreading wings, making it look like they were sprouting from her back and about to take flight. Her blonde hair cascaded in waves to just below her shoulders.
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Iris would be there, as well, though she was presently taking a nap.
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“Now, remember what I told you when I said you could come?” Cyg asked her daughter, who was shifting from one foot to the other excitedly.
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“Yeah: behave, don’t get involved, and if shit goes pear-shaped, take Iris and run.”
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“Exactly. That’s my girl.”
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Cyg took up her hammer, the heft and weight of it fitting naturally in her palm like an extension of her arm.
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“Isn’t this a bit much?” Sabrina asked as Kanaya added yet another sapphire pin to her hair.
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“No such thing, baby girl,” Cyg said, grinning, “no such thing.”
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Cygne, Sabrina, and Iris have a place of honor behind Isaac and Caleb, the latter two nestled safely between their mother and Rose, the Iron Valiant. The youngest Merlo was wearing a motley collection of orange dress over purple pants because she couldn’t decide what she’d wanted to wear.
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“They’ll come,” Cyg said soothingly when Isaac Merlo voiced his concerns. She believed in him, wholeheartedly, which had never changed. If they didn’t come? Good fucking luck to them.
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freya morningstar is announced and as Cyg looks up to watch her enter she makes a small, strangled noise; the grip on her hammer shifts instinctively and she accidentally begins to activate the transformation sequence, gears, and springs humming as it begins to fill with hyper energy and shift from hammer to blasting ray.
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“You OK, mom?” Sabrina whispered. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
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Cyg shakes herself, slightly, and relaxes her grip. The hammer powers down. She exhales a shaky breath.
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Somehow, after all these years, all these timelines, she’s found her.
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They’ve found each other.
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That’s the bitch that killed her dragon.
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"Mom?"
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“What? Oh, yeah. Fine. Great. Peachy.”
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She wrestles herself under control. It’s not nerves that strike through her, but lingering anger, the image of broken ribs and hot blood. Cyg is no longer the soft, manic girl that drove Sima into Lyune’s jaws, oh so long ago. Years of working the forge and swinging her hammer have strengthened her, hardened her. She’s broad, muscular to the point of being yoked, and the years have filled her face out, some, squared her jaw.
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Eventually, her hackles go down. Cillian Quinn is next, and Cyg is glad to see him. Zev Harcourt, not so much.
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“Why do they have such dramatic names?” Sabrina whispers.
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“Well, honey, they’re dramatic people.” She smiles at them. “Good to see you, Gav-- er, Cillian. Zev.” She affords Freya not much more than a polite nod-- not because she’s scared but because she doesn’t trust herself to not say something stupid or try to take her head off at the shoulders with her hammer first and ask questions later.
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It says something that Cyg’s belief in Isaac, in his hopes and dreams and plans and ideals, matters more to her than the revenge that still, to this day, burns hot in her stomach and once shaped her entire world.

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[attr="class","skullcredits"]TAIKO!

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Squeezing Isaac’s hand back, she gave polite nods to the latest of the leadership that trickled in-- kyle lopez and Eva Morales, both of whom she’d known, previously, by reputation alone.
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She suppressed a roll of her eyes as more than one glance turned towards her children. As protective as she was, she was not the kind to live in delusions. The girls were well aware that life, as they knew it, could end-- and they faced it with the same open-ended sort of disconnect that Cyg had, back in Hoenn. Roll with the punches, make the most of what you’re given, and strive to be better.
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Cyg firmly believed, in order to beat the doom and gloom, you had to face it. Neither she nor her children were the type to hide away and wait for things to improve. The girls beamed at their introductions-- their heritage was a pride to them. Cyg just let them have the moment, and let Isaac Merlo talk.
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When Zev Harcourt mentioned setting up a train between their cities, she subsequently went through the rise and fall of the little spark of excitement she got whenever her seemingly niche hobby turned out to be of great consequence.“If we didn’t have a war on the horizon, I’d say we could do it. To quote the old prophets: if you got the money, honey, I got the time. But we’re going to need every able-bodied person fighting, without a doubt.”
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She pointedly ignores taking a shot at Zev-- or Isaac, honestly, because what the fuck-- about the whole 'old friend' bit because now is not the time. There will be plenty of time for old hates once they're not relying on each other to not die.
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Kyle stepped up and said, shouldn’t they talk about the here and the now? And here there was the greatest dissonance between Cyg and Isaac-- the narrow, but steep, divide between king, and person in charge of keeping the king safe.
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“Lopez is right--,” but she cut herself off with a slight shake of her head-- “sorry, King Kyle.” It sounded weird. Cyg thought he should add at least a -eth on the end of it, to make it sound less Chad. She gives the (ex?) champion a pointed look. “If I thought it’d make discussions difficult, I wouldn’t have included them. They deserve to know what’s happening to their kingdom, too, and you don’t have to mince words. They're aware we might all die.” To their credit, the girls didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable-- if anything, their faces hardened into something like determination.
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“How are we on firepower? Our heaviest hitters barely stood up to Necrozma. Did you guys fare any better? Take any big losses?”
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