Seeker of Thrones 2-13
Chapter: 2
“The deeps are treacherous,” said Enyis. “It’s cold, and my ribs hurt. I fear my poor heart will give out before long. How on earth can I protect it, if not by steel?”
“You can’t,” said the Boar King, “A hero must always wear his heart on the outside.”
A new city lines the sky.
A new life silhouettes the same.
A shadow lacks detail.
Your’re not as weird as you used to be
I hope the change is not permanent. It isn’t melting is it?
My Shadow is small, but dark.
You must stand close, if you wish to peer in.
Choose now, Plato or Parmenides.
Familiarity breeds contempt. Contempt breeds complacency. Complacency breeds ~fantastic~ sales opportunities.
Oh no :c
This is going to make great fic material for Ceo.
A fic fit for a god.
https://rossocorsarecords.bandcamp.com/track/the-connection-2
True Kings don’t cry.
Or maybe they do.
And that’s why they’re True Kings.
True Royalty cries whenever it pleases. Such is their divine right.
When you are True Royalty, every party is in fact your party.
With the weight of such a crown, what else can one do but crack?
Cope. Whoever believes crying is breaking should probably cry more. They might find themselves more durable.
Wear it. Use it. Be it. This sorry brittle skull did not crack from their crown as well. We cracked from steel put in place of the crown, edge first.
That pretty much covers all the bases.
Blood loss always makes humans so sniffly.
You have nooooo idea!
Yet many still get back up and do it again.
SHE MADE ALICE-UN-CHAN CRY D;
Buddy, the day you refer to the Rising King by a diminutive honorific in public is the day I make a new friend, 37 Sermons Chopped Into Minuscule Pieces By King.
Ah, here we see a truth. Anyone given position of greatness must necessarily wear two faces; the face you wear before the many, and the face you wear in private.
When you step upon the grand stage, you must play the part you’re given. You are forced to act in fate’s great play. Away from that stage, many would agree, fate’s theater production is a tiresome, wearying thing.
I don’t fault the girl her tears, either for that or for recently recovering from being briskly perforated. I am familiar with the pain of one, and I am given to understand the pain of the other is analogous.
It is said one of the parts of Royalty is to change your Self /Form into a Self/Form you desire, or which fits the task at hand.
It is also said that True Royalty will change the world to suit the Self.
Perhaps it is a paradox, and both are true. And perhaps both are false as well.
If Goffman is to be believed, we all have our frontstages and our backstages.
Closer and closer do we spiral towards fate’s cold end. But what pains it brings only one can tell for themselves.
I WAS WRONG
THE YURI IS BACK ON
Allison and Cio were just indulging a bit of Tsundere in that previous scene. If anything, the Yuri never left. It just smoldered.
I’d have to say yuri-ght on target.
LOOKS LIKE YURI’S BACK ON THE MENU, BOYS
Frequently, I suspect that most of the beings here with names in the Angelic style are not actually Angels.
Increasingly frequently.
Their parents just love numbers. It is a fad to name ones children with them. Better then naming them after fruit I suppose.
57 Not an Angel
When you’ve lived for most of existence, you’ve got to find some sort of hobby.
Was there ever any doubt?
Shippers gonna ship.
I’m sure there’s an anime about this. Yuri on a ship?
Despair not, o AL-YS-UN. Even the highest of Kings does not need to stand alone amidst the storms of ages.
As one who has seen the treachery devils preform among the cosmically ignorant womenfolk of backwater places, I, regardless, ship this.
ahoy mateys
ship’s a’sailing
Allow me to share one of the Seven Truths of Commerce.
Ships will come, and ships will go. Unless you are at the tiller, there is nothing you can do to affect their passage.
@Bone Jelly Sandwiches
I think she choose both the spoon and the scissors as her totem.
I wonder what’s going on with Zain. How did Mammon get his claws on him, if it was Thorn Knights that took him away originally? Why were Thorn Knights accompanying Mr. King anyway?
Y’know what? This is probably the best question.
Aeon Royalists Anonymous claims they’re trying to put Zaid back into the line of succession where he belongs.
But if they’re right, then it was their own Thorn Knights who fucked up his coronation.
So…?
http://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/ksbd-4-75/
The boy was removed, ah, forcefully, from the Thorn Knights, as explained here.
Mm, that doesn’t cut it. Even before Jagganoth got involved, those Thorns beheaded Zoss and nabbed Zaid before the boy got passed the Key. If they really wanted him crowned, why didn’t they wait for the coronation to be over before whisking him away? Why did they risk the Key being lost?
From my understanding, after the meeting of the Seven l, Zaid was given to Mammom for safekeeping until they knew what to do. For the infinite vaults of the Dragon God are equal parts prison as well a repository.
The Thorns are (ostensibly*) helping the Seven Demiurges hunt Zoss and capture his Heir, to prevent the situation from further destabilizing.
*(Actually, they work for 2 Michael and Metatron 1, but that is a secret.)
Do you not recall Jagganoth throwing the emptied shell of my wayward brother to the ground before the council before demanding why Thorns were in his territory? The Thorns in no way serve the 7, even superficially. Jagganoth intercepted them and took Zaid.
YES, RESTORE MY SHIP
I’m still amazed at how quickly those impaling wounds healed. Was there some Art involved?
Maybe it’s the key?
Maybe it’s Maybelline.
We need a Thorn Knight called ‘6 Jesus Resurrects in Jerusalem’
Just a random thought but Holly Molly would it be good
Indeed it would be.
Wouldn’t tbat be 2 Jesus ot is this fool missing the joke?
True. I presume the number would be much higher, though. Altruists and rebels tend to live short lives.
((Are things going to get gay))
((Yes))
Does it matter?
All things matter somewhere to some degree to someone. This is what defines a thing in the first place.
All valid. But does it matter more than to exist in the first place?
I don’t see no tampons nor pills. It will be hard once she starts bleeding the other way.
And hey, how come demons have genders or something like that when angels are just angels?
Well, demon gender seems to be relatively fluid. Vladok changed from a elderly male ebon to a tiny female blue. Perhaps it was because name Al-Yis-Un gave was female? Still unclear on that.
Devil genders are various. Most Blue and Gold are female, most Red and Verdant male. Not all, but most. Ebon seem to be without bias, and I suspect that the gender of an Ebon Devil has to do with its True nature, in the sense of its True Name.
But I digress. They change, typically.
Angels are forged from the Cold White Flame of Un, Lord of all that is Not, and as such they tend to assume that they are all masculine, like their father.
Femininity is seen as a symptom of absorbing too much influence from the warmer Orders of Inheritors.
Demons are born from the Hot Black Flame of Yis, Lady of all that Is, however they are given identities by the names and masks that human magisters bind them with, so Human cultural influence is not just assumed, but necessary for them to even exist.
Certain colors of mask even tend to enforce certain genders, for the convenience of the old magisters. So a demon expects to have to change gender a couple of times, if they want to climb the spectrum to Ebon.
Devils and humans are derived from the same black flame, while angels are the cold white flame of all that isn’t. They disdain form, while devils embrace it.
You seem to have a skewed interpretation of theogony, possibly because you’ve apparently never left the void.
There were two black flames, just as there were two white flames. But where the Weak White Flame was made into the races of Servants, so did great Aesma make the Weak Black Flame into all the sorts of Perceiivers, including humans.
Yes. But the flame, hot or warm, had the same black origins. My phrasing was perhaps skewed. When I say the same black flame, I mean the same point of origin, the same essence. Mother Yis.
Technically, Humans were forged from the Warm Black Flame by YIS-Shema, goddess of hasty craftsmanship, while demons were forged from the Hot Black Flame by Humans.
Devils are bound by humans, given a face and a name. But that hungry black flame yearns from the start; the devils are there, always, waiting for consciousness. You saw Vladok unchained; not formless ether, a mindless, ravenous beast.
Simple, they’re not. 82 White Chain has a female gender even if the rest of the angels disagree with that notion. Some angels are also quite masculine, but some are in fact a genderless, often due to being floating orbs or cubes or some shit. I’ve also seen many a placid devil who seem not have any features to distinguish them one way or another.
Not everything has been fully removed from her bag, and I see multiple pockets upon it. One may indeed contain the items you mention, if forward planning was applied during the packing stage.
In the last panel AL-YIS-UN is curled up in much the same way I prefer to sleep.
Aw Geez…
Now they must kiss.
Now kiss
oh just kiss already
Whilst Cutting one’s Self into a superior Form, take care that you do not Cut away anything that you will need later.
Resources, allies, body parts, etc.
And especially not that lust for life. A form that takes no joy in living is half dead already, and cannot properly be called Superior.
Hmm, but if you were placed to choose between Cutting away something dear to yourself, something that defines you, perhaps even that lust for life, or Cutting apart your path to that superior form, which loss would you choose to lament?
Perhaps that is why she cries. Perhaps she knows that one or the other must go. Perhaps I missed it, and the moment has come and gone and she’s already lamenting her choice. I am rather scatterbrained at times.
True Royalty would Cut away the very dichotomy.
Eat your cake and then Cut away the non-existence of he cake, so you can still have it for later.
Or you can, as Meti suggests, never start down the Way of Cutting at all, and take up carpentry.
If you must take up Cutting, you cannot do it by halves. Well you can, but the moment you release your cutting motion, it begins it’s karmic orbit back to you.
It’s like hunting lions. Once the pointy end of the spear goes into the lion, do not let go of the handle end.
And so Allison, having cast her friends away, found herself in desperate need of one.
What a dick thing to say, Cio
Well, now she just needs to indulge in some of her own shipping I guess, grab her about the waist, etc…
Looks like Cio’s heart-spilling is about to be reciprocated. Hopefully.
I just now realized that Allison’s hair color changed; I had to go back a whole bunch of chapters to find the moment that her blondeness somehow vanished. Wasn’t it the part where she ate the Fruit of Hastet and her age was rewound?
It was. That was actually a major plot point.
That conversation must have really confused you the first time.
Being the regional manager of a large Grand Dragon Bank branch, keeping track of the finances of a thousand planets, and having blood made of 24 carat gold can make it easy to forget little details, and even major plot points. ENT for my golden nosebleeds.
An offering of comfort. A song of sorrow.
Both of their hearts are on the outside. O the yearning!!!
A king, however, must always hide his heart beneath the most rigid of stone, lest the weight of the crown crush it to paste.
In the end, no hero is a king, and no king a hero.
‘For this is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there’s hunger in the land (as must be now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land’
What is a hero, but king of his own mind and body? And what is a King, if not the Heart and Hero of his people? Naught but tyrants and sycophants.
Ah Cio comfort her and mayhap reap the benefits of close confidence and maybe more?
Cio’s written and redrafted the “Weeping winsomely into the mysterious stranger’s arms” scene a dozen times but when it happens she still isn’t ready.
Also, more boogers in real life.
In Cio’s head:
“Silently, the beautiful stranger tried to remember her line, which she had written at five in the morning, in the expectation that she would not forget it like a chump at her time of greatest need.”
Royalty must not crack.
But True Royalty must crack. It must crack because it is the only way it can break the circle and come closer to its Subjects, closer to Truth and the nature of I, the true name of God.
But TRUE Royalty must do crack. If Ambrosia be the nectar of the gods, then crack is the cocaine of the titans. It certainly helps to partake in its besnortment when looking upon the Red City, for only then do the intricacies of its urban planning scheme make sense.
VM ITTR A VSK PRET
Royalty “Must” do nothing. Royalty does as it pleases. To command a King not to feel is to forget one’s place first and foremost, and to demand the impossible.
Moreover, if every King were perfect in their ruling, how boring would that be to YISUN’s eyes. To Want – even in one’s heart of hearts – is the essence of creation.
Royalty, like Life, is a continuous cutting motion.
If you stop-
If you cease to move-
If you cease t feed-
If you cease to kill-
–you end, and another takes your place.
The harvest is patient, and ever waiting, but when the time comes, it will not miss its moment.
Be broken, and be made whole.
Angelic flame. Please.
Crack, and break, and shed the old! Emerge anew, thirty percent off, for a limited time only!
it is always traumatic to abandon your shell
=//=
A NEW SELF IS LESS OF A NECESSITY AND MORE AN INEVITABILITY.
Everything I once was,
Everything I once valued,
All so meaningless now,
I grieve for what once was and is lost,
Lost but not forgotten,
I could go back!
But to what end,
Change is hard.
Homesick.
Ship’s back on course. Yay.
You’ve started moderating the comments? Eww.
…were the comments ever not moderated?
At least since I joined back in book 1. It would be all spam all the time, otherwise.
Lock S-foils In Attack Position!
Poor baby.
Become or be cast out.
You can do this, Alli, else you would have not been chosen.
What happened to 2-13?
Truth be told, not only heroes should carry their hearts on the outside.
Scarred skin makes for a thick hide.
MAKE HER SOME HOT CHOCOLATE, DAMMIT!
Where are all those ships coming from? Just curious…
They naturally congregate around the most awesome potential ship in the universe.
They follow the Rod of the Conquering King, to the Red City,where men seek their Fortune and find their Doom.
That Ciollison ship might have hope after all, for those who are into that
Ciollison… Collision. Obviously. But can a ship that has collided float?
I mean, if she didn’t break down by this point then she’d probably be on her way to being on of the Seven rather than a hero.
Maybe we will see that they can still be friends after all.
CIO STOP MAKING ME FEEL EMOTIONS
She is a writer of fanfiction. Inspiring The Feels is all that she is.
Aye… tis tough to change, truly.
That moment when you don’t know what to say your crying crush.
Some are born great. Some become great through much effort. And some are made great against their will.
Ebb and flow of our heroines…
Our soon to be all power Queen needs a hug.
And maybe some chocolate ice cream…
Hah, name me one person in this cursed creation who doesn’t need either or both.
Graclax, He Who Crumbles Like Dust At The Merest Touch is allergic to chocolate.
Well that’s why they have vanilla.
She who named him is kind of a huge jerk, tibkwah.
And YISUN thought theirs was a sad, stagnant existence…
Oi.
Who left this bowl of onions here?
That last panel. The ship still sails!
Cio’s concerned face is adorable.
“Tough girl, short haircut” describes a startlingly large number of woman warriors across the universe. I remember I once encountered a raider tribe comprised entirely of shaven-scalped women that rode enormous wolves and wore the tanned hides of their enemies.
Well, by ‘encountered’ I mean ‘was hunted for several days and nights across frozen tundra’ because I had stolen a treasure from their most sacred shrine. I only lost them by covering myself in mammoth dung, which made their mounts completely loose the scent. The riders didn’t seem to want to approach me after that either…
(scruffs her hair, suddenly self-conscious)
Mine used to reach my waist if I let it grow enough. But in this line of work, anything past my chin either gets grabbed by someone fighting dirty or hacked off by close calls. Still, I get jealous of my wife’s pale locks sometimes.
And that’s not a bad idea for evasion, except you might drive away anyone wanting to help you, too…
Ship has docked for repairs, I see. Good.
Such burdens we shoulder, little King.
So that’s what She brought with Her… Clothes and shoes and cosmetics. Always handy when a disguise is needed.
Even a an old butcher grows tired of handling a knife, it’s no wonder a new Royal needs time to come to terms with cutting.
One cannot take back a swung sword or a thrown punch. It is the same with words and promises.
Even kings have hearts.
Indeed, a Heartless King is a contradiction in terms. When a King loses their heart, they cease to be True Royalty. They become nothing more than a Tyrant, and Tyrants are weak, pathetic creatures. Insecure in their own power, they lash out against anything and everything around them, fearful of losing their crowns. Fear they ought, for a Tyrant is not respected. Feared yes, but never respected, by any subjects they claim dominion over.
Tyrants are weak, twisted things, who invite their own deaths. In such cases, a new True King always rises to take their rightful place, and disabuse the Tyrant of their old notions, crown, and head.
Excepting our favorite Tyrant, Lord Vetinari, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork.
Especially kings must have hearts.
Kings without hearts are merely Tyrants.
So what is the name of the star that illuminates the Red City and is it a “normal” star?
It has been mentioned that the sun orbiting the Red City was forged by Koss during the City’s creation, to illuminate the wonders of Throne.
That would be the sun. It is a huge (but not immensely huge) sphere, several days sailing from Throne. It is broken- originally it circled around Throne, but it now hangs motionless in the sky.
The shade side of the disc is, of course, where the criminal density is highest.
I imagine it is something like “Aesma’s Folly” and is really just a bit of smoldering ash she knocked off the side when trying to forge her creations.
Not sure if it has a name, but here is some info.
“The sun of Throne was forged by the god Koss, but was broken in some untold catastrophe of the past, and no longer moves. It is a dim sun that sits in the air remarkably close to the city proper. Historians theorize that Throne had a 28 hour day evenly split between day and night as the sun rotated over and under the disc. The disc itself does not rotate, but has a very slight oscillation over a century-long period. This means that one side of Throne is perpetually in sun, and the other is perpetually, in shadow. These sides are referred to as sunside and shadeside respectively.”
Excellent. Where did you get that from?
This one did not expect such a sudden turn of emotions from AL-YISUN so soon! But than again, these are tumultuous time that we live in and all beings, even kings, need to let out their emotions every now and than. This one is personally glad that it is Cio that she appears to be about to open up to, they have potential for a great (and interesting) relationship.
This is an interesting implication of the operating instructions for a Key of Kings, that I hadn’t connected the dots about until now.
To use it, you have to use it. You have to just *decide*, no THIS is the way it’s gonna be, and SLICE
and in that moment the world hears you speak with authority, and complies.
That takes a certain mindset. It takes being able to feel, in that moment, no fuck you THIS is the way it’s gonna be.
Which moment?
“Man always strives to cut man. Therefore he who draws his sword the fastest is the survivor. To pre-empt this, you must live, eat, and shit as a person who has their sword drawn.” – Meti
So this means, if you need to have your weapon mentally at hand at all moments, that means being mentally in that headspace all the time, categorically.
“Royalty[…] is a continuous cutting motion.” – Lord Intra
People can do that. You can live a certain way, and grow into it, until that way becomes the new normal for you.
“A true ruler is the wielder of names[…] and she cuts herself into greater forms still. She is not shaped by the world, but instead becomes the shaper.” – King Zoss
But what does it mean to have perpetual resoluteness as your normal? I think it also, necessarily, means a certain hard-headedness, a certain hard-heartedness. To be perpetually resolute means to perpetually bar the door against doubt.
And there’s a cost to that, I think.
If “Hard Soul Making Hard Decisions” is your normal, doesn’t that make it difficult to be soft sometimes? To be emotional sometimes? Doesn’t that cut away one’s readiness to engage with the emotional landscape, both within and without, as someone down in the ground facts rather than pretending to float above the fray?
And so, in my uneasy dreams, my mind gets drawn back to Meti.
“The only true path to kingship lies through regicide.
Moreover, only the worst kind of idiot strives to be king.”
Then again, maybe I’m overstating my case.
Maybe you can have it both ways. The easiest way may also be the most treacherous. But at the same time, being eternally resolute is, at least in theory, compatible with any given resolution. If you resolve, among other things, to understand, and to connect, well, that’s still resolve.
It’s just, I guess, it’s just something you actually have to decide to do, rather than simply resolving to be resolute.
They do say none of the Seven were ever truly happy — it’s what qualifies them for Royalty.
Thank your for sharing your musings. They have directed my mind to the allegory of Set and the Demon Tree. I fear that assuming emotions to be soft or hard or any-which-way leads one on the paths of Set’s unfortunate associates. Emotions are the heart, the center. They are the fire that drive want and desire. Hardness is not required, though many flee to it for safety. that which they truly flee is a relationship with the hidden name of god.
Pleasant dreams.
Huh is observant.
The aftermath.
Who in the damned wheel are you?! Ive done and seen a lot of horrific things in my life and no one has ever had the audacity to claim the number 0 among my kin!
I am… creations shadow. Un of what is not is merely the opposite side of the wheel of all worlds. I am… absence. I am 0, for I do not exist and never will.
The vatra who summoned it from the black flame must have had a strange sense of humor.
Ah, here betide the first casualty of Royalty, namely, your old Self.
Mourn your lost life Al-Yis-Un, Oh Rising Star, Godking Resplendent. Mourn now, for soon you will have no time for such things of childhood.
I wonder if the little Blue, so obviously smitten by the Godking Ascendant, will be wise enough to serve as comforting presence and no more.
Enthrallment to a good and wise King is a fate much to be envied, and the praise, “Well done, my good and faithful servant”, is sweeter far than any fleeting kiss.
Choose wisely, little flame. The tornado is a perilous lover.
Yay, she’s still a person.
“Thinking of chucking it, eh? Perfect waste o’ good hair dye, that is.”
“Give it to me instead. We can use it on Princess Mamoru!”
Well. I sort of take back what I said in the last panel. I thought we’d be expected to just accept Allison being forced into a ‘badass’ identity. But now we see that although she acts tough at times, it’s still sort of an act, and she’s still vulnerable. This makes her development feel much more genuine.
How did she get all that stuff? Did she go back to Earth again, or did she carry it with her when she returned from Earth the first time?
When she decided to come back and find Zaid just before Wielder of Names started, she had a backpack with her. I’m assuming Cio has kept it safe while Allison was gallivanting about showing abysmally poor judgement.
No matter how strong your wrath and defiance,
No matter the force you bring down on your doubt
To a human, it takes but a moment of quiet
And your fears, like a flood, will come pouring out
~Abrae Deas, Verse 32, on the Dangers of Actually Stopping to Think About What The Hell You Just Did And What You Intend to Do Now
Hey! Can anyone help me!? This is my first comment and I was wondering if anyone knew what kind of accent or vocal patterns Cio uses?
I’ll be cosplaying her this April and I figured this is the best place to ask next to contacting the author themselves thanks in advanced to any that respond!
I would guess that she would have a bit of the fluidity of Irish, mixed with the passionately swearing nature of Eastern European languages (Hungarian comes to mind) with her own twist of early Modern English (“Tha”) in all of it. I probably don’t know enough languages and accents to truly make a list.
She’s a devil. They are supposed to be have charm. I think Cio deliberately does not have the full charm she should have even as an blue.
Cio speaks using “Black Speech”. There’s a wiki page on it that includes a rudimentary implementation guide. Seems tailor made for your purposes.
http://killsixbilliondemons.wikia.com/wiki/Black_Speech
I think it’s an English Yorkshire accent, particularly from the use of “tha” instead of “you”.
According to the TV Tropes character entry, she speaks with “what appears to be a devilish version of Cockney rhyming slang”. So imagine if Cio was in a Guy Ritchie film (‘Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels’, ‘Snatch’, ‘Rock ‘N’ Rolla’), which, considering her criminal past and present, is actually appropriate for her character.
Excellent, she is using her emotion to secure her place as a main character. If on purpose or by accident, she’s playing the law of cosmic narrative like a fiddle.
I see she brought her cellphone with her. It’s rather useless with cell phone towers and, you know, electricity. I doubt she has the time to play Angry Birds lately.
It’s an awesome touch that when packing for an Epic Quest to rescue her Lost Boyfriend from the Dread City of Dead Gods… she made sure to pack her makeup and hair dye.
Fear of change.
Words are difficult to observe. Thus have they always been the most dangerous weapon, by intent or by accident. One should always choose them carefully.
AND THEN THEY KISSED!
It never ceases to amaze how much detail is put into these comics. Looking at it again after a few days, and I find myself drawn to all the smaller details that didn’t need to be included, but were anyway. The fact that the artist puts so much effort into things that could be so easily missed is admirable.
I’m recalling that oh yeah, Cio did do a lot of yelling at Allison before when she may have been crying and in the middle of some near-breakdowns.
And then Allison hardens when it’s Cio who’s forced to open up.
Mixed feelings, huh.