I'll be a stone, I'll be the hunter,
The tower that casts a shade
***
The tower that casts a shade
***
Raymond listened patiently, his expression inscrutable. If anything had an effect on him - and, generally speaking, the thought of slavery usually would - it didn't show. Her jab at regime loyalty buried itself point-first in the straw backing of whatever target had been painted around his own ideology.
He'd never bent the knee to Florentine. He'd never put on any airs that he cared at all about the struggles she and Asterion faced as members of Terrastella's regime, except to think that they were perhaps venturing too far into the deep end of a pool given the fact they weren't the most proficient of swimmers. What loyalty the rest of those horses had to their leaders was neither Raymond's business nor his concern. All that mattered was that Tempus had spoken, and they - the mortals - should not suffer such violence in silence.
The red stallion's head tilted quizzically as Avdotya recounted her childhood as a slave, the acquisition of her power and her subsequent bid for freedom, and it was only respect for her plight that restrained him from scoffing at the idea that she actually waited for a leg up from a deity before managing to escape in the first place. It was not in Raymond's nature to punish a victim, however much he disagreed with their ideology, but it was in his nature to....
"So Solis gave you a gift, and you put it to good use. But if you ever did something he didn't like, or if he simply became bored of you, what would stop him from taking that gift away? From turning it against you for his own amusement? You didn't earn your freedom; you simply traded one master for another."
Raymond's voice came bright and conversational from his throat, but there was iron woven into those words. "The difference between your god - any god - and government are clear. Sovereigns take their right to rule from the people. A sovereign that ignores the welfare of its people will one day answer to its people, either through education, compulsion, or murder." He fixed her with a hard look.
Avdotya was not the only one of them who had ended the reign of a king. His eyes said as much, though he knew nothing of her history or that of Solterra.
"A god, on the other hand, maintains their power by fiat, because a god cannot be made to answer for the suffering of mere mortals. We are as dust on the wind to them, gone in the blink of an eye. Favor today may be loathing tomorrow, and you would be better served seeing to your own interests than hoping for clemency from a being that can't even understand how valuable you are."
He settled back on his haunches, the remnants of his smile painting his face with hard shadows. His was a life lived without mercy - from on high or anywhere else - and he was not standing here before Avdotya by the grace of her god or any other. If a god had blessed him with extraordinary luck, it had done so with as little care and attention as could possibly be managed, and Raymond had little patience for the notion.
"I don't need to look into the history of this land or any other to figure that out. Keep your beliefs if they comfort you, obey your god if your hearts beat as one, but do not stand aside and laugh at those that value their own morals above the fickle whims of an all-powerful deity. And do not think for a moment that silk chains are any softer than steel once they start strangling you."
He'd never bent the knee to Florentine. He'd never put on any airs that he cared at all about the struggles she and Asterion faced as members of Terrastella's regime, except to think that they were perhaps venturing too far into the deep end of a pool given the fact they weren't the most proficient of swimmers. What loyalty the rest of those horses had to their leaders was neither Raymond's business nor his concern. All that mattered was that Tempus had spoken, and they - the mortals - should not suffer such violence in silence.
The red stallion's head tilted quizzically as Avdotya recounted her childhood as a slave, the acquisition of her power and her subsequent bid for freedom, and it was only respect for her plight that restrained him from scoffing at the idea that she actually waited for a leg up from a deity before managing to escape in the first place. It was not in Raymond's nature to punish a victim, however much he disagreed with their ideology, but it was in his nature to....
"So Solis gave you a gift, and you put it to good use. But if you ever did something he didn't like, or if he simply became bored of you, what would stop him from taking that gift away? From turning it against you for his own amusement? You didn't earn your freedom; you simply traded one master for another."
Raymond's voice came bright and conversational from his throat, but there was iron woven into those words. "The difference between your god - any god - and government are clear. Sovereigns take their right to rule from the people. A sovereign that ignores the welfare of its people will one day answer to its people, either through education, compulsion, or murder." He fixed her with a hard look.
Avdotya was not the only one of them who had ended the reign of a king. His eyes said as much, though he knew nothing of her history or that of Solterra.
"A god, on the other hand, maintains their power by fiat, because a god cannot be made to answer for the suffering of mere mortals. We are as dust on the wind to them, gone in the blink of an eye. Favor today may be loathing tomorrow, and you would be better served seeing to your own interests than hoping for clemency from a being that can't even understand how valuable you are."
He settled back on his haunches, the remnants of his smile painting his face with hard shadows. His was a life lived without mercy - from on high or anywhere else - and he was not standing here before Avdotya by the grace of her god or any other. If a god had blessed him with extraordinary luck, it had done so with as little care and attention as could possibly be managed, and Raymond had little patience for the notion.
"I don't need to look into the history of this land or any other to figure that out. Keep your beliefs if they comfort you, obey your god if your hearts beat as one, but do not stand aside and laugh at those that value their own morals above the fickle whims of an all-powerful deity. And do not think for a moment that silk chains are any softer than steel once they start strangling you."
***
Raymond
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
When the man comes around.
Raymond
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
When the man comes around.
@Avdotya
aut viam inveniam aut faciam
