Chevaleresse

"I've lived for well over a thousand years. If I want a nighttime companion, I can get one."

Ayaka nearly fell over again when the music stopped; she'd been following the beat for the timing on her final pose despite the fact that this live seemed to be more or less doomed from the start. After reasserting her balance and finally getting to rub that spot on her head a bit, she looked around, consternation growing on her face. "W-what's going on? It's like time stopped or something. . ."

Masaru stayed quiet as the man told his story. He started to ask a question, though his gaze was drawn to the side halfway through. "So, what does she mean when she asks about looking for angels? That's one of those Southerner things, right? Divine messengers or something. . . ?" It wasn't exactly difficult to figure out what was drawing his attention; Masaru seemed to be rather interested in the practice going on across the room.

"That . . . actually may work. I still do not believe that I need to 'get laid'" - not that she would admit out loud, anyway - "as you say, but defending humans and informing them of just who is doing so should work." She wondered if it were possible for her to incarnate across worlds. She had always been able to appear where her worshipers called, but this business of traveling between universes was new to her.

Empi received a looooong shocked stare, along with Mitsurugi turning quite red again. After a few moments of this, Mitsurugi still wondering if she'd gone mad at some point and hadn't noticed, she finally spoke. "Have you no shame whatsoever? I hold domain over natural disasters; I can cause, or ward them off, at will. Though there must always be a balance; I am a part of nature, not its emperor." At this point, she was largely trying to ignore Empi's explicit statements, in the interest of letting the conversation continue. The woman also had a point. . .

"I suppose making myself known is a good idea." The goddess seemed to be calming down a bit, though each mention of sex caused a fresh blush. "I had trouble garnering worshippers through most of my life, despite doing my best to help humans. I'm not sure if it's even possible for me to build up another base of worshippers. Especially without changing who and what I am."

A foul stench and a noise containing a mixture of scraping and clattering presages the arrival of a malformed creature looking somewhat like what would happen if a child's drawing of a spider came to life and was made of stone. It rides in a glass vehicle that allows the spider's misshapen limbs to pull it along with articulated glass "gloves" for them, and contains the rest of the spider's body - which is constantly leaking some sort of noxious fluid - like a large beaker. Additionally, the contraption has wheels on the bottom. The bizarre creature doesn't seem hostile, mostly just scraping past the group as it excitedly(?) skitters about in its own haphazard manner.

Mitsurugi simply stared down at her lap. Rather ironic, really, for a god to be struck with disbelief. Is this really happening right now? Is this just some sort of dream? I have some sort of busty fairy insisting that I need to find myself a nighttime companion. It has been a rather long time. . . After a long, awkward while of this, Mitsurugi spoke without moving her head. "I still don't see how this will fix my lack of worshippers. I am not a god of courtship or fertility."

Realization dawns on Mitsurugi's face. Quickly followed up by irritation. "What does the death of an entire world and the corruption of my very being have to do with my shagging somebody!?" The goddess looked almost as shocked at the suggestion as at the fact that she'd spoken the phrase "shagging somebody" out loud, as evidenced by her skin rapidly approaching a shade best described as "tomato-like."

". . . Gone without what? I do not understand your meaning."

"You lost me."

Mitsurugi sits down next to Empi somewhat hesitantly, her sullen expression remaining until Empi makes her final statement. "I need to. . . what?"

"A god is bound to what others believe them to be. I came into being because enough humans believed that there was a god controlling the storms and quakes that shook their homes. They put their faith into me, and by doing so made me able to fulfill that. If they had come to believe that I was something else - not that there was a different god responsible for something, but that I was an entity governing something such as raw destruction, I would have become that." She sighed. "But none of that matters. Every person who would have had any faith in my existence is dead." Her tone actually started to waver at this last.

Mitsurugi stepped into the room. A cursory inspection didn't indicate anywhere that she could politely sit and carry out the remainder of the conversation, so instead she just took an additional couple of steps inward and to the side, avoiding the variety of stuffed animals scattered about the dwelling. "To answer your previous question, I am indeed Japanese. I am not, however, involved in anything related more than passingly to courtship. I am a god of natural disaster. . ." Her face took on the burdened look it had held previously, visibly drooping slightly, ". . . or, at least, I was. I know not what has happened, or will happen, to my nature."

Marisa looks back down, and scribbles a last set of notes down into her book. Somewhat abruptly, it snaps closed, and quickly vanishes into a pocket. "Good to know. Sounds like an interesting place, to say the least - imps subjugating other demons? Mortals being the strongest things around? Those are both new to me. . . And then there's the really juicy stuff, the, uh, what'd you call them, Mundanus Extremus? Going to have to get me some of that. . ." At this point, it wasn't certain whether Marisa was actually talking to Mar or simply thinking out loud.

"I can support that. My home is relatively peaceful; they'll get on just fine without me and mine. That offer stands until you choose to accept it. And, well, if I can convince the Kings to come along - but they're up for making a real change as much as I am. Except maybe that damn paladin; not sure if the pointy-eared bastard is interested in anything but the next woman he can convince to try out his 'magic hands'. . ." The quarter-dragon shakes his head.

"I see. . ." Mitsurugi didn't have time to come up with a reply before Laver decided that his response to Empi's room was vomit. She deftly dodged to the side as she saw him start to heave out of the corner of her eye, evading any potential splatter. Really, even if he was young, that was a bit of an overreaction. . . for that matter, why did he know what anything in the room was? Mitsurugi had seen most of it before, yes, but that was what happened when one was a millenia-old goddess who spent several centuries in a relatively small geographic area with all manner of supernatural creatures with their own sets of . . . tastes. "Do you mind if I come in? It would keep out the smell." She had her own doubts about going into the room, but really, it wasn't any worse than the aftermath of an oni party. Or a lull in one, since they could potentially go for days at a time.

"I see. . ." Marisa continues to scribble down notes. "Um, anything I should look for that distinguishes this world? What do the things with the largest amounts of magical power look like?" She thinks for a moment, involuntarily leaning quite far forward in interest. "Any celestial bureaucracies to worry about? I swear, if I run into anything like those angels on Ravnica again, I'm just blowing things up this time. Six weeks? And that was short? Really?" She shakes her head. "I'd love to go visit it sometime."

The audience didn't seem to be having it. Which was exactly what made her nervous about this performance; if they hated it, or just didn't care, her career could end before it even started. Still, as an idol, even a newly-minted one, it was her job to get people excited! Enthralled by the performance! She mentally tried to pump herself up despite the lukewarm performance; after all, you couldn't get anywhere as an idol if you let half of a mediocre performance get to you - especially if you let that happen in the rest of it. She took one, two bouncing steps forward, daintily skipping side-to-side ever so slightly as she did so. She kept a broad, bright smile as she did so, moving to the beat. Instead of a third step, she launched herself into a ballet-inspired spin, arms arched over her head. Her skirt flies up as she does so, but this is by design; instead of exposing anything untoward (which would only happen if she made a concentrated effort to make it so), it simply creates a fluttering effect with the, er, plentiful layers of lace present beneath the skirt. She spun about one, two, three, four, five, oh no. Six, seven, this was too many, was the stage supposed to be tilting like that? Her arms came down, but not as planned; instead, they flailed around a bit in an attempt to regain her balance. An attempt which failed. Failed rather dramatically, in fact, as she tumbled over while pointed away from the audience, landing facefirst into her own special effects, as if the impact had launched the burst of holographic pink flowers. Embarrassed, with this fact plainly visible on her face, she drug herself back onto her feet and tried to just go back to matching her movements to the rest of the group, resisting the urge to rub at the spot on her head that had contacted the stage.

"I . . . suppose conversation could not hurt." She looked down for a moment, trying to think of an appropriate topic of conversation. "So, your profession is giving others advice on courtship? If you will pardon my curiosity, how does one get into this profession in the first place?" Mitsurugi had heard of courtesans before, of course, as well as some echoes of something people referred to as hostesses? But instead of meaning a woman hosting an event, they meant women who were, in essence, professional conversationalists.

Masaru nods. "Sounds like it'd be best if you just burned the entire damn system down. No more emperor, no more empire. Break the entire thing to pieces, and let the pieces decide what they want to do with themselves. Of course, I'm not so stupid as to believe you could do it as easy as saying it. There would be sacrifices to make, and a lot of people would die. A lot of good people, in all likelihood." He placed his sword on the ground, standing up on the end, one hand balancing it. "I guess it's a question of what you value. I know, for one, that I'd rather die fighting for my freedom and the freedom of the others around me than live on, simply letting a man who views people as tools continue about his business."

Ayaka was nervous, to say the least. Not that this was a particularly unusual event, but she could usually conquer her stage nerves fairly easily. Just think of all of her favorite idols, and how nothing ever bothered them. They just stayed calm, cool, and controlled the entire time, even if it was in the midst of a super intense performance and they were exhausted because the last three songs had elaborate dance numbers to them and there were still more left. She could handle one song that she'd performed before, right? Right? Just relax, think cool, think thoughts of lace; even if people saw she was nervous, they'd just think she was cute. Right? She did her best to look cool as she started into the performance, trying to ignore that random urge to cry you get when you're stressed - it's not like she was sad or angry, it was almost tears of joy actually - as she danced along to the beat. Her voice wavered just a bit more than it was supposed to as she sung along with the lyrics, her high voice distinct from the group but (hopefully) not piercing or overtaking them. Her dance more accurately represented what she was supposed to be feeling; energetic, excited about her new journey. There was a distinct bounce in her step as she went through the motions once again, coordinating herself with the rest of the group. She focused most closely on what the two apparent sisters seemed to be doing; they already knew each other, so they should be more coordinated, right?

"I see." Masaru's expression faded to a scowl as Ghost spun her story. "Well, I'll tell you this: if there comes a day down the line when you want to, you can call me and the Four Heavenly Kings, and we'll help you topple those slaving bastards." The quarter-dragon looked and sounded deadly serious; slavery was a grievous insult to him and his beliefs. "We're not normally in the business of messing with the rule of a place, but for a crime like this, I'm pretty sure I can convince them to make an exception."

Marisa, throughout Mar's storytelling, had drawn a pen and a small journal from somewhere within her dress and begun furiously taking notes. "So, wait, you do this without any magic whatsoever? Just. . . pure skill? That shouldn't be possible, there's no way that you could tell without some sort of observing enchantment. . ." The witch trailed off into what can only be described as magibabble, intermixed with a few mentions of biology.

"More or less. Depends on where you go, really, and which races you mean. The last time anything like that happened was probably a thousand years ago, with the Empire conquering half of Sararhiod before it stalled and broke apart." Ghost was probably one of the more pessimistic people he'd met. Did she really believe two species would just automatically try to subjugate one another? He supposed she probably didn't realize she was talking to a hybrid. . . "I used to live in a village. Not huge, but not tiny either. That was before I took up adventuring; nowadays I don't really live anywhere in particular."