open audience

[ironwood]

Characters: The Ironwood Emperor and anyone who came to speak with her!
Date: July 29th.
Location: The Palace of Landed Sky
Situation: The expected holding of an audience for any that care to speak with the Ironwood Emperor.
Warnings/Rating: N/A; to be updated if necessary

The hall is still and white, strung with softly glowing lanterns that are strung up high beyond reach. Outside, the sun is at its zenith, and it filters down through the cloudy glass roof to create a brilliant, nearly blinding ambiance.

The floor is marble, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ruby quartz. It catches the light, and casts strange patterns on the walls.

The room itself is generally still and silent, but that is not the case today. Today, there are tribbles in virtually every nook and cranny, across the floor like a furry carpet gone horribly, horribly wrong. The Emperor is seated on her throne as is normal, her sword sheathed and leaning against the side of it, and every once in a while she clears a tribble away from her skirts. Oddly, today, her mood seems rather more congenial than usual. The calming effects of the tribles, perhaps?

[Actionspam or prose are both acceptable!

Characters will only be admitted into the hall one by one, so there won't be anyone present for anyone else's conversations, and there won't be any 'mingling' in the chamber itself.

By popular demand, we will continue to allow mingling for those waiting for an audience in an antechamber. There is a thread header below to allow for that!]

Comments

Toph

[dustonmyfeet]

[Tribbles. Waaaaaaay too many tribbles. Toph doesn't really like them all over the floor; they might be soft, but it's like a small army meeting her seismic sense, and definitely a little dizzying. Never mind the purring part. Her nose wrinkles slightly as she wades through.]

Did you want these here? Or not?

[That's not her primary question, but considering she's wading through tribbles, it's the most pressing at the moment.]

[ironwood]

They would not be here if I did not allow it.

[There's your answer, Toph. The Emperor is a tribbleadict.]

[dustonmyfeet]

[O-kay, then. To each their own and whatever, but it wouldn't be Toph's choice. She's rather neutral in regard to the tribbles, but so many of them does make her want to rebel against their calming influence and catapult a few out the window. Toph doesn't like to be made to feel anything she didn't intend.]

[But if it keeps the Emperor -- a woman she's heard to be abnormally grouchy in the first place -- a little calmer, then she can deal with that. Dealing with officials and their political-ness is always a pain in the first place; if they can be calmer, then all the better.]

[So she gives a shrug and a nod and asks,] So yeah, I've been going through the Network, and people say the kedan change shape. But then this Malicant guy does too. So I want to know -- is there some kind of connection?

[Did the kedan always change shape? Or was that added later?]

[ironwood]

The kedan change shape because it is the nature of their race. Malicant [And she is irritated at how easily this child says that name, and it shows briefly on her face.] -- is a transcendental being. Shape and form as we know it do not apply to it.

[dustonmyfeet]

[Toph can't see the expression -- and even if she could, she would likely not be daunted by it. People tend to get treated predominantly the same in Toph's world -- including emperors, Fire Lords, and weird beings named Malicant.]

You're not a kedan, then.

[She did say "their race," not "our race."]

[ironwood]

No.

[But she does consider them to be her people, in a way.]

[dustonmyfeet]

[Another nod at this, thoughtful.]

How did you get to be Emperor, then?

[Traditionally, one becomes emperor by being born into it -- unless there's a military coup or someone is voted in (and then the latter begs the question of why it's not a kedan). Toph had to pay enough attention to her history lessons to know this. Who knew the stupid things would be useful?]

[ironwood]

[Are you seriously asking that question. Eshai's tone is very, very dry when she replies,]

Some people would call it a divine right.

[Toph you can't just ask people why they're an Emperor!!!]

[dustonmyfeet]

[Hey, you're telling this to a highly blunt girl who picks her nose in public. Besides, she's not asking why; she's asking how . . . which makes it perfectly legal. Yes.]

[Toph's eyebrows rise at the response. She's not offended by the tone or the answer, but she recognizes the dodge.]

Okay -- I can deal with that. [She doesn't necessarily believe it; gods tend not to have a lot to do with her, and therefore they don't hold much sway with her. Given the Emperor's wording, too, she's not even definite Eshai believes it. But that's not as important at the moment.] But it still leaves a lot of open questions.

I didn't like my history lessons much. But I know people don't get rulers out of nowhere, especially rulers who aren't their nationality -- or their species. Someone decides, whether that's the people, the military, a god, spirits, whatever. Someone who's physically present in the world.

I'm not questioning your right to rule. I'm just wondering how someone who isn't a kedan came to lead a whole nation of them.

[Because it's kind of questionable that Eshai was born here . . . there are few like her except for Evandau, at least that Toph knows of. Unless Evandau is actually Eshai's father.]

[We won't think about that last one too hard.]

[ironwood]

[She sighs. It's long-suffering, because boy is she ever. She hates these sorts of questions, but not quite enough to simply put an end to the conversation and turn the child away.]

I am of this world. The kedan are not.

[dustonmyfeet]

[Okay, that was an answer that Toph hadn't been expecting, and it shows. Her eyes widen to epic proportions.]

What? Where did they come from?

[ironwood]

A dying world. One destroyed by Malicant.

[Hoo boy is the hatred she feels for that creature evident in the way she says its name.]

[dustonmyfeet]

[Likely Toph can even feel it if there is an increase of heartbeat. But she's busy processing all this, too.]

So you brought them here to save them?

[This revelation is really explaining a lot.]

[ironwood]

Mm. Why do you think there's only a city's worth?

[They populated a planet once.]

[dustonmyfeet]

[That "mm" is debatable as confirmation, potentially, and Toph recognizes that, but given the rest of the statement, she's going to have to take that as a yes.]

[The way it's put also prompts another question, though, as Toph frowns slightly.]

Did this city exist before you brought the kedan here? . . . And if so, what happened to the people who were here before?

[It seems logical that there were people like the Emperor here once.]

[ironwood]

No. Only the palace existed then. The city was built.

[To the second half, she merely shrugs.]

They died. There is more that has gone on in the world than you can comprehend, girl.

[dustonmyfeet]

Probably why I'm trying to comprehend it. [There's a faint wryness to her tone. Toph doesn't really care to be underestimated, and how fair is it, really, to have been tossed into this world and not to have learned all this in the first place? (And then to be looked down on for trying, no less?)]

Two last questions: Were you there then -- when they died? And how did they die?

[ironwood]

[Dryly,]

Give it a few centuries.

[The questions are beginning to grate on her. She has little desire to assuage the curiosities of some girl.]

War. They died in war. Now, I believe you know where the door is.

[dustonmyfeet]

[Ah, there's that famed grouchiness. But Toph doesn't move quite yet, taking in the last bit of information with a slightly tilted head. For a long moment, she looks pensive.]

For what it's worth, I'm sorry.

[For the war? For asking too many questions? She doesn't say. She turns, wading her way back through the tribbles.]