Scene #7560:

Owner	Pose
Lilian Rook	Until it's nice enough to be going out for classical summer activities (and the time can be found for some heavy duty shopping), Lilian has been weathering out the early heat during her free time indoors, for the most part. The far wings of the house never seem to climb about 'slightly chilly', but the central areas --the grandiose landings and stairs, dining halls and lounges, maintain something roughly seasonal. Given a block of time, after the latest business in Twin Peaks, where she has completed her current assignments ahead of schedule, but is feeling rather tapped of both magic and time itself, she has decided to finally take Tamamo up on what she'd mentioned some interest in during those rides in the back of Akihiro's plane. She's dug out an 'ancient' tabletop game (which would be conceived in thirty years in that other world), and set it all up on a rippled glass table out in the east lounge-- the one exposed open air when some doors are pulled, where thin curtains rustle from shaded arches and the sea can be seen over the tops of green trees. It is, appropriately, a game about settlers. The map is quite obviously the British Isles, along with a strip of the mainland spanning the modern French, German, Belgian, Netherland, and Denmark shore. It's the kind where turns are measured in decades, though apparently something less than dryly historical, containing a number of rather storied, even mythical, tribes and heroes of a very long time ago, with rules on which cards are available as time advances. Lilian insists it was an educational thing she played as a child. In a typical sense, the rules are far too dense for an ordinary child, but not hard to grasp for a canny adult. Incidentally, it'd probably be an easy way for Tamamo to memorize some terms that Lilian occasionally throws around without having to scour the library for them. With the faint remains of a sea breeze blowing in, the heavy shade keeping the hot sun comfortably over the boundary, the sounds of nature that would once have been driven off by traffic in another era, and abundant quantities of tea, it makes for a pleasant change of pace in ways to spend a free afternoon, rather than running all over a city.
Tamamo	Though she must have been somewhat prepared by having tried one of those other games, Tamamo still remarks, "These are rather more elaborate than those I recall. Or else, shall I say, it is quite specific? The coastlines are familiar, now, the board asymmetric, quite unlike xiangqi. I wonder if this as the shift in artistic sensibility, from the abstract to the realistic. You know of those old tapestries showing soldiers standing nearly as tall as the castles they defended, yes? How drab they would be had they appeared as ants in the landscape, though perhaps that would have been more impressive, if the thread used had been sufficiently fine to show each frown and finger." Tamamo constant stream of commentary is kept up with the greatest of ease, thanks to the thousand years of differences she has to make her comparisons, though she has to interrupt herself with questions mostly pertinent to the game. "And if the settler is near the grain sheafs... oh, these signify arable land? These are rather far from the mountains, but will their water still be clean?" She has to trace several river lines to find those likely starting positions. The names on the cards are mostly unfamiliar, considering how little familiarity she had with even King Arthur before arriving in this period. She is, at least, still clearly relaxed, despite having so much in the way of mechanics and strategy to absorb. In deference to the weather, she's hung up a wide, straw hat nearby as she sat, and has traded her regular, thick robes for something that manages to look lighter while covering more, a single-layer white blue-patterned Summer yukata. Nothing can quite stop her tails from looking overly warm, but they stay well behind her. Tamamo is not, for the moment, glowing.
Lilian Rook	Lilian is, of course, more than happy to expound on pretty much everything Tamamo asks; this slows down the game considerably, but finishing it isn't the primary purpose here, or even all that high up on the priority list. The exercise is therapeutic. So are the sights. "Well, think about it. In those tapestries, you see a row of maybe a dozen or so men up against the castle. Wouldn't it be a bit more impressive if you could see the size of the army the lord has rallied up against equally huge fortifications? The whole landscape of the battle would be more impressive, I think, if much less historically informative about what people would be wearing. Ah, but the thread count; I'm sure any woman would be sick to death of it halfway through. Save maybe the vikings and their obsessive need for sails." Finishing moving a few pieces and drawing a card, she adds "They'll be coming up in a while, and you'll hate them as much as everyone did at the time. Back when our ancestors were strictly Gaelic in location, they'd assisted in the retaking of Dublin several times. By that point though, the Christians had already successfully driven most of the other traditions underground or out of the country, right after the long war with the West Roman Empire, leaving it more vulnerable than the game really represents. That was about the time the Ring of Solstice itself was formed, you know. What they call a Militant Order now. Just thirty knights at the time. A century or so before Vortigern and the Arthur tales." She seems especially fond of describing that party. "Ah, you heard of 'greaty-grandma' before. That was about the time she rose to prominence. I've heard all kinds of stories from her. I think that kind of conviction about the Empire, about the conversions, the slavers and markets, the endless invasions --she spent a very long life fighting some kind of vast, evil 'thing' in the end, so I suppose the kind of will that takes must be why she hasn't faded even a little in all this time." Tapping her cards together, Lilian declares the end of her turn. "I'm glad I got to know her, sort of. The family just never really associated with her for a long time unless need be. The old things, about the knights of the time; I think people fell out of love with integrity once they started sailing all around the world for riches. But I think it's great. Not the idea itself, but-- the real thing. The raw, unadulterated content. Without all the superheroics and public relations and movies and gratification. Holding to that kind of thing so strongly is . . . a kind of 'inspiration'? Maybe it'd be more familiar if I said that, I suppose, it's something that makes me think 'I won't lose to that', when it feels easy to break the rules."
Tamamo	"Oh, perhaps, but is an army so impressive from afar? A few particularly fierce warriors stand more imposing in the mind than a thousand drab and distant figures. A fine compromise between the need to see both field a man, is it not, to draw them of similar size?" One might guess that Tamamo is more interested in those figures that stand taller than the rest, so to speak. Tamamo rearranges her pieces, pulling another settler from the box between ring and middle finger, and placing it near her expanding, central farmlands. "Ah, the Romans. There are many times when one does not know just how well a strike might land, were the recklessness to try it be at hand. Much of history would be changed with that 'what if,' I surmise, and so, change the nature of the story. But then, we would need a larger board." Examining her drawn card, Tamamo places it down in front of her, and returns to the tea. "To live a /long/ life of combat, one may say she was fortunate in this, though one may as easily call it otherwise. To judge a struggle unending is difficult, it is so. One may consider the conscript, who fights desperately in hopes of reaching its end, but as well consider the questing knight, whose strength is needed time and again, only for the sake of others. Which was she, I wonder? Did trouble seek her, and so, her own survival was at stake, or was it that she wagered her life for the sake of retaining her seat, there amongst the danger?" Pondering over that, she traces a line up through a forest and to an uncontrolled piece. "And how do these tribes make their moves, did you say?"
Lilian Rook	"I suppose it depends on what you're rendering." muses Lilian, token in hand. "Of course, if your piece is about King Richard the Lionheart himself, you'd want him front and center with the stitch count to match, but if you're just trying to depict the siege of Jerusalem as an event of scale, it'd make the most sense to 'zoom out' a bit. Of course, you can simply make several, if need be; lord knows the monasteries and royal halls loved them. And people loved stealing them." After double checking the rules about highlanders and which priority they want to be annoying and raid people over for the current in-game century for Tamamo, Lilian doesn't take very long to consider that question at all. "People who just want to see an end to fighting are a dime a dozen, and once they get tired, they pick one last conflict, draw a line, and say that's all they ever cared about." "To grow up trying to oust a degenerate empire that owned the world, then to preserve a way of life that nobody would accept, then to stem the endless flow of slaves at a time when where the trade was so common, then even to side with a foreign house to unify the country, to revenge upon the invaders, and then even to travel all the way to the middle east, not to fight in the name of God, but to punish those who profited from all the previous, all the while refusing to quit battle with the Folk and the Devil and the monstrous things; you have to be seeking wrongs to right. There's no other possibility. I think sometimes that it's fortunate that she finally died before the Black Plague appeared." Lilian frowns just a little during the shuffling of the deck. "Before her generation, there used to be rules against ever turning powers on other human beings. She abolished them for a long time, then swearing off the crusades and the Church for good, they came right back. Then the whole masquerade became both fashionable and mutually profitable, eventually. Of course the premise of such a limitation is ridiculous, but . . . I wonder, when she was so much stronger, so much greater, burned so much brighter than everyone around her, how did she never become what the elders who set those rules feared?" There's a period of remorseful silence. "I still think about it a lot. Even three years after I began all of this, I can't quite stop it. I know it's perhaps too much to expect such a shift in mindset so quickly. But . . . It always comes to mind first. Do you understand. That no matter what it is, I can just . . . turn it off. Make it all stop. And then whatever the thing is, I could just have it. Whoever the problem is, I could just get rid of them. And I know, objectively, there's no reason not to. Life doesn't come with a book of rules like this game after all. I might even be able to be a better Paladin --a better knight-- if I did. But . . . I don't think I would. You know?" "I don't get how she was so great for so long, all on her own. The best I'm able to do right now is to pick and choose the rules and limits and simply follow them as well as I can. I'm sure it gets easier with enough time. Most things become second nature eventually. Maybe then I'll be good at it to really interpret and think about the meaning of it all. But I worry a little that she was just . . . good in a way that I'm not. All she ever thought about was how she could use all that power to make things better. And most of the time, what I think about first is all of the unfair things I could --that I want to-- do. It doesn't feel like the rules should matter. Like, they're made for other people. But I think that I want to believe, that the things she believed in matter. That's really why I'm with the Paladins in the end." She follows it with nervous, insincere laughter. "Sorry. That's a bit of a tangent for a game."
Tamamo	Tamamo examines the board a bit more, before taking a roundabout route to avoid dealing with the highlanders long enough to exploit a coastal route to further-off forests. How much time the space buys her still isn't quite clear. "To limit how one deals with 'one's own kind,' this is expected. The choice of recognition, of what to treat as a kind, is an important one. But this is only an explanation, a description of the basis of a society, that drawing of a line around that which is 'us,' that rules are created to serve, to preserve, that 'us,' though some within those lines may disagree upon where they be drawn." Tamamo shifts in her seat, returning to her tea a moment, crossing her legs and looking out toward the sunlit sea. "And among those 'others' are spirits, gods and fey. Few gods take such consideration, but their offenses are, at times, no less foolish for all their power, and their punishment no less severe. I need not speak of the attitudes of the fair folk. Of course, you know all of this, and I speak only for the pleasantness of exercising my voice." It is a pleasant voice, if you like that kind of smoky timbre and old, old world aristocratic strength, that brings to mind raised daises and suggestive shadows through paper screens. "To follow the rules set to oneself... ah, is that not what all do? Some say, 'I wish not to meet this same failure,' and so they resolve to never again make that same mistake. The difference lies in whether it is for a misstep made in one's own past, or else for that feared in the future. Or else, perhaps, it is another's lesson from which you learn, and their laws guide your path. Can you know whether it is for a true lesson learnt, or only one feared, if it has never been your own? Can a lesson by mistaken? Perhaps, and perhaps not. But of these things, too, you have heard, no? That rules be followed, that no exception of convenience be made," Tamamo takes the English phrase, "'just in case.'" Tamamo discards her cards for gathered resources, redraws, makes another careful arrangement of her little wooden men and buildings and roads, and then ends another turn. "But if one wished to hear my own opinion, rather than those thoughts I found of others, I might say this. To be handed down a set of laws is known to me, for I had lived in courts of others, and been courted by those men who did both proclaim and make decree of their wishes, among others. One may ask, 'had they right to do so?' Perhaps not, for they were but men, but I did respect the wishes of those in whose homes I dwelt. Only once have I met one who claimed humanity, but also to be above gods, to have claimed and built upon her sun and demand my fealty, even knowing who I am. A most... strange and unpleasant thing, that was, as well her touch."
Tamamo	Tamamo pauses, then shakes her head, returning to the main topic. "Apart from this, to live by a code is a mystery I have seen from afar. I do as I do for I am who I am, Tamamo no Mae, she who seeks an answer to that single question, and if I were any else, I would not be myself. Only from this outside perspective can I speak of codes." The sleeve draws up Tamamo's arm as she reaches across the table to stroke her fingers up Lilian's wrist, then take her fingers in her own. "Would you defeat some great villain, or pass some trial, if you let go all that restricts you, and thought only of what your power may grant? Perhaps. Would you be 'better,' and stronger? Perhaps not. You would be yourself, but you would not be the one you have chosen to be, all this time I have known you. You would be, by your choice, another, of the same name and face. I think, for my own, humble part, that your desire to live by that inspiration, and by a code of your choosing, is no less important to your 'knightliness,'" she winks, for some mysterious purpose, "than the desire to do good and right wrongs, on its own." Her hand draws slowly back. "These are merely my feelings upon the matter. Ah, it is still your turn."
Lilian Rook	Lilian smiles a little at Tamamo talking about the sound of her own voice. "I don't mind at all." she says, truthfully. "Even if I didn't understand a word, I'd still enjoy listening to it~" Indeed, she does seem to be rather caught up in the hearing and absorbing rather than in keeping track of the turn. Of course, this does eventually require thinking. Or rather, Lilian couldn't stop herself from thinking even if her sole intent was to brainlessly bask in the fox woman's company. "I think that's . . . There are a lot of rules you can look to for meaning. I think most people turn to religion for that. There are the professional kinds of codes too. Or some philosopher or famous figure someone might have been inspired by. But I don't think I could really put my whole heart behind any of those. After all, they're ultimately just what some person said, and you decided to trust arbitrarily, right?" "The Thirteen is something . . . It's something I can think of as real. It's something people came up with because they needed to. Real people who survived. It's something that doesn't aspire to be some kind of ideal, but something that had to exist, and because it still exists, it proves it should. Those ideas aren't mine; I'd never come up with most of them. But if I have to pick something that isn't my own to trust in, it'd naturally be something that brought us all something important, right? Tangibly. Obviously. Right there in front of my face. Even when it doesn't seem like I should, even when I don't really want to, I can believe in it, because many more people than me, who saw a lot more things than I have, who were in greater need than I am, believed in its integrity. And it worked. That's what . . . That's how I was convinced, I suppose, to give it a chance." Lilian makes a sour face at being told of Tamamo's unlikely encounter. "They sound like a real creep. But that kind of nihilistic entitlement-- I'd be lying to say if I didn't sort of know the feeling. How easy it'd be to tell it like it is and demand people just take the knee already. Though, I'd like to believe that how much restraint I showed in first touching you made it all the sweeter." A wry, slightly troubled grin. A quiet 'ah' as she gets back to her turn. A long pause. Then there is a moment with all of the unmistakable, tense solidarity of 'coming out'. The subtle cue of a deep breath, the groping for rehearsed lines and immediate mental discarding of them, the initial, wordless plunge, and automatic flow thereon. "When I was thirteen, and really getting used to who I was, there was a moment I had, that I still think about all the time. I barely remember anything before and after it. I don't recall why, but there was a girl at school that I really hated. I mean, really . . . really hated. Whenever we crossed by in the corridors, I'd lose my cool, and have to take a break-- make everything stop, so I could scream at her where she couldn't hear me, and do something petty and mean to make myself feel better. It was over something stupid, but that's when I was starting to feel the most . . . invincible, I suppose." "And then, one time, we were both at the top of the stairs together, and I thought 'I could stop everything right now, and I could push her, and I could break her neck, and she would be gone forever. She wouldn't be able to stop me. Nobody would. In fact, everyone would see that I didn't do anything. I could really just do it, and it would be easy. I could do this to anyone who ever made me feel bad ever again.' And that thought was very, very appealing, but it also felt wrong. And I couldn't quite describe why it was wrong. I couldn't think of a single good answer for why I shouldn't, but I really felt, on some instinctive level, that there was a reason I shouldn't. And from then on I thought about it a lot."
Lilian Rook	She moves her pieces again, plays her Coroniaid card, and continues speaking almost autonomously, without raising her eyes. She barely even seems to register Tamamo's fingers. "I'd read the teacher's notes during tests. I'd look up the answers before anyone could raise their hands. I'd bring whatever I liked through the gates. I'd get what I wanted from some students with things they couldn't have, and I'd scare and bully the ones who preferred not to fall in line, in such ways nobody could prove, but they'd know. I'd take things from the faculty, I'd hand-pick the lotteries, I'd harass the classmates I fancied, and I didn't feel anything about it. After all, you're told all your life that you have to respect and make the most of the gifts you're born with. That you need to be proud of how special you are, and wring every edge from it you can. I still can't really force myself to feel bad about it. Even if I don't need to so much, anymore, the way it works is natural, but it was only after I thought about actually snuffing someone out that I started to wonder if there was anything bad about it. If I should care even if I couldn't get caught." "The thing is, I'm not absolutely sure that what I do care about is 'doing good'. I'm not even certain I really know what that means. But I think that wordless voice back then was trying to tell me that if I started doing that, I'd never stop, and there'd be something terrible at the end of it. And I think that deciding, wanting, to be something else, like 'her', like a knight, even like a Paladin, must be the road that leads away from that, so when all the ways to break the rules just come flooding into my head, I can look at that list of tenets and dispel those doubts. So I believe they're good. And so, as long as I can say I've done everything by that book, I can say everything I did was good." "It's too late for that school, though it's not much left to wrap up, but the Academy is . . . Well, it's like New Year's resolutions. When you start fresh, there's that inertia not to sully it. It's harder to put the first footprints into that pristine snow than it is to put the rest in. And it's hard, but I feel like it should be. You know, like if I have to work for it a bit, and I'm still better than all of them, it just proves I really am, and there's nothing bad about it." Finally finishing up with her moves, Lilian lets herself breathe in and out, and then briefly squeezes Tamamo's fingers, looking up again. "I know there's probably going to be a day where I do have to kill someone, doing this kind of thing. A person, I mean. One day it'll be the only option I have, somehow. So I'm hoping by then, I can see other lines, and they're all very clear and make sense." Her eyes tilt sideways to remember her something, and her lips twitch with the momentary ghost of a sneer. "Until then, I can certainly be glad for that boundary 'us' versus 'them'. It makes it suitably effortless to put that purple maggot out of her misery for daring interfere with even such a pale imitation of a power like this, without understanding anything. I won't accept shitty imitations."
Tamamo	Tamamo remains where she is through Lilian's story, listening, watching even as her head tilts, tall ears oriented on her words. "I wonder," she says, "if this is true, that you do not seek 'good.' To not know what this means is one matter, that lack of surety when one lacks trust in a direction. And yet, you believe your greaty-grandma was such a person, no? How you speak of her leads me to think this. In comparing yourself to one you regard so highly, is it not that you seek to compare favorably? You told me this upon our first meeting, as I recall, that you wish to become the greatest of knights. Could you become such a one, if you were less than she?" Though now using only the one hand, Tamamo still spares enough attention to examine the discarded card. "A Welsh name, I believe this is...?" Again the pieces are artfully rearranged, if perhaps less than optimally by the rules, though well enough for her settlement to be expanding to a sister site further along the coast, while a nick-of-time fort repels the first northern raid of her forest holdings. The numbers of the little game-people grow with the passage of time. "That is to say, I judged you did wish to be a hero, one who seeks that 'good,' whether or not it is known what it may be. Few, perhaps," Tamamo teases, "would accuse you of selling yourself short, so well do you advertise your strengths. But in this, have I judged wrongly? It seems not so, to my own senses." Another card drawn and set aside, another turn ends. "This is not to say that to merely seek heroism can so create one. It is not so simple, especially so for those with reason to mistrust their path. All, for gods or otherwise, seek some wisdom of those who came before, and choose which of experience to trust, or else stumble upon their own feet. So it must be. You heard, not too long past, of one constructed man, who spoke of those other dolls to whom he would grant life. He was made to be a hero, and so, he seeks a path that will lead him to the fulfillment of this purpose. And yet, he may be a fool, besides." Though her turn is done, there's still more to say. "Hmm, that one, that one... I wonder, what it is about this particular case. I had thought to ask you, then, what it was of that purple one's power that made her special in your eyes. Are there powers one may have, together with powers one may not, or is it the method by which she gained power that stole your attention?" She doesn't directly address the story of Lilian's childhood. She was definitely listening. There's probably a reason why.
Lilian Rook	Lilian twitches a little, in a good-humoured but slightly embarrassed way, at hearing Tamamo get through 'greaty-great', evidently being something of a childish mnemonic invented upon realizing that normal family trees aren't supposed to need to refer to ten generations ago. "No, that's right. I concluded that, obviously, I couldn't be the best if I couldn't exceed her. Considering how long she was around, I assumed I wouldn't get there for a long time, so she was sort of the figure at the end of the road I suppose. Over time I've mostly come to appreciate how much shorter, yet how much more convoluted, that road is than I thought." She nods at Tamamo's surmisal of awful naming schemes. 'The little bastards were supposed to have come from 'Asia', but now everyone believes that to mean the eastern mainland understood at the time, probably no further than Alexandria', otherwise doing an impressive job of letting the conversation meander around the heavy subjects as it will. "I'd not been used to things that you don't just . . . get, over time. Paths that you walk in stops and spurts. Where you get stuck and find the way again. 'Inexorable momentum', they call it, was more my speed. Since then I've also seen a number of people trying to get somewhere similar. Most of them not very good at it. It's validating, in a way, to not feel some new, burning desire to surpass someone even greater, but maybe you're supposed to. Or maybe it's just natural to look up to someone closer. Or perhaps someone whose flaws aren't plainly apparent." There's a dry, shallow grin. It's when Tamamo brings up Diomedes that Lilian seems to really key into what's being said. She remains thoughtfully silent for the length of time it takes to shuffle for the new century, place pieces on the shore to begin the Gaul and Saxon additions, and begin expanding southeastwards by some old strategic memory. Spreading a line of what must be the beginnings of sea forts along the edge, and moving a king piece to the channel short of the eye, she eventually just smiles out of nowhere. Usually there's a lot more mood signalling than that with regular people, but Tamamo is probably used to it by now. "I suppose you're right. A little tin man literally designed to be 'good', programmed into his brain, failing at it so spectacularly. So the reverse must clearly be possible. I get it. By choosing to follow a ridiculous path set out by the insane, he strays from heroism and becomes as nutty as they are. By cleaving to the right one, someone should obtain what's at the end of that too. Even hard-coded, purpose-designed intentions don't matter; just the result. Now I'm glad the clanky brat spoke up."
Lilian Rook	She makes a little noise at drawing a specific card, mumbling something about 'portentous', then as she answers the subject of Cantio, she slaps down a red card. One whereupon the thrall Patrick escapes back to Britain, and places a turn count on the missionaries appearing at a specific river. An event of which Lilian speaks with much paternally absorbed vitriol. "There's nothing special about her. If anything, she's as painfully ordinary as they come. A sad, gross little shadow of someone better than her. Craven little goblin wishing anyone cared about anything she is, but unwilling to make herself better in any way. Running to the Concord for handouts and protection. Pandering to her cameras for anonymous praise. Hoarding her sister's table scraps as a ruler to pretend as hers. And now chasing after an actual devil, after deals for power. I've spoken at length before on the subject of obtaining a new station from power gained by bartering for it." "The issue I take is the nasty little Extra begged for a power like mine. I know it must have been on purpose. The way she'd flinch and shrink and skulk around me. That grubby little envious bug-eye. The similarities are incidental, no doubt; completely lacking in any elegance or sophistication, crude and obvious, an immense use of energy for mediocre results, that devil assigned her something that'd fit the part at a whim. But the idea itself is unacceptable. That she'd scrape and beg for something so enormously heavy to show off. That she thinks she can carry something like that while making flirty little poses for a camera. That she'd try to have something--" Lilian draws a deep breath. "Mine." "Even if it's something fake and fragile and vulgar, I can't let someone-- I can't stand the idea that she might have even a few moments to look at me like I look at her. I refuse to stand still while she flaunts her greedy little Extra ignorance. Does that make sense? I beat it out of her once. I'm going to figure out how to kill that devil. If she doesn't learn her lesson, I'll erase her too. Some junk computer program that acts like a pathetic teenager; not even the Concord would miss her."
Tamamo	"Whether one has chosen rightly in one's path can only be told with ease by its end, and few have the gift of future sight," Tamamo says, knowing full well how overrepresented powers of prophecy are in immediate company. Thoughtfully, "It is true, too, that one may look upon another from afar, and so, fail to see what mars them, or have not heard tell of the... youthful indiscretions, perhaps, of one's respected elders. And yet, if one strives to reach the same heights as another, there may be little harm in looking only upon their greatest works. So long as one is not discouraged by that distance, of course." Tamamo spends awhile fretting over how to secure both her northern and southern borders, before deciding to simply avoid the problem by halting her expansion where it is, replacing village pieces with the slightly more ornate wooden blocks for cities. She'll probably pay for that, within a couple turns, even if the position looked safe at the time. "There are many troublesome neighbors in these isles, are there not? Ah, but if it were otherwise, the players would instead focus only upon one another, I suppose." While trying to understand what her cards are without having to reveal them, Tamamo's eyes, if not her facing, are drawn back by mention of that 'Extra.' "Did she know of your particular ability, to ask for one like it? I would not have expected this. You have been most careful, from my hearing." Putting the cards down again, Tamamo leans back, and closes her eyes. "Mm, the tea is hardly warm, but even in the shade, I do not mind it. Perhaps overbrewed, by now, but such are lazy afternoons." She sips. 'Does that make sense?' "I should like to understand. What power is permitted one, and what is not? Why is it so? 'Pride' is something I do understand. Need. Possessiveness. Jealousy. Envy... perhaps not, for I shall enjoy my journey to its end, and all I lack shall be found along it. Perhaps I do understand." Tamamo twirls her hair around a finger, looking to the side. "Mm, should I be expected to scold one in this situation? And yet, scolding is for children, your mother is someone else, and I did not incarnate into these lands to..." Still looking at the candy-pink hair around her finger, she trails off with a smile, before adding in a lower tone, "No, raising a child would be taking things quite out of order."
Lilian Rook	Lilian nods at several points in Tamamo's assessment of role models and aspirational landmarks, only non-vocally indicating comprehension and, at least, lack of disagreement on the subject. "Certainly, the idea that you have to approve of every single thing about someone, or be nothing like them, is a modern sort of sensationalist absolutism." she concludes, that not so much seeming to be in question. At that next question though, Lilian is very quick to answer. "Of course not. The purple-haired idiot thought she was keeping it secret from me. Like she could hide it. Like I couldn't read everything she was thinking." A less aggressive pause. "Asides, she got it from that ridiculous devil, who knows nothing about me. As far as I can tell, all of her powers are complete nonsense and whimsy, and the rough similarity comes from simply trying to achieve the same visual result. Ironically, I suspect it's because she judged that idiot's brain unsuitable for any kind of sophisticated or complex 'teleportation' power, and set it up that way instead." And yet, Lilian draws into herself a little, defensively, at the remaining part. "It's not just pride, or being possessive, or whatever you think. It's not a matter of specific abilities, but whether or not someone has the character to deserve or handle them. As much as I dearly appreciate Strawberry Princess, I wouldn't put her in charge of anything involving people and money. As much as I respect and halfway admire Mister Stark, I don't think his mindset could be trusted with the Sight. Doctor Strange is no stranger to all kinds of sorcery, but with his rather absurd and esoteric ideas, I should hope he never gains the power to meddle with minds directly." Then, with some considerable difficulty, Lilian manages to add, with an air of greater honesty, "But I especially can't stand this one. It's . . . 'That world' is mine. My quiet place. My sanctuary. A place where I can see things meant only for me. A home away. It's . . . a lot of different, very important things to me. And that felt like . . . an intrusion. An invasion. No, it feels like being kicked out. The idea that someone else would be walking around and even just thinking that they can look at 'a frozen me'-- I hate it. I won't allow it. Nobody can push me out of my home like that."
Tamamo	"Oh, yes, of course. It could not be 'just' pride. You would never be so simple, no? And yet, ah, to speak of an invader, of another taking away what is one's by right, a sanctuary is a possession, it is so. A quiet world, to be jealously guarded. But now, do not mistake me." It would be hard to mistake Tamamo, in fact. The words are one thing, their meaning possible to syntactically divorce from all else, but hearing the warmth suffusing her voice, the tone that skirts from fond pride to gentle affection, is another matter entirely. "I do mean that I wish to understand, that, how does one say it...? That of which some matter is 'about,' in truth." And then there's her immediate presence. There's the purely physical, as her chair has been subtly moved closer, the game* partly forgotten in the moment despite still being in her sight. "To better understand you, and in answering, one understands oneself." And then there's that larger, only mostly figurative presence, that escapes whenever she slips a bit in hiding it. The attractive gravity that pulls attention to even an outstretched finger. Lilian's been warned about creatures with that kind of pull, but there's a great deal of difference between her and Icarus. "Any answer," any honest answer, "would satisfy this curiosity of mine, should it be one of thought, however decided by my knight. Oh, my Lilian, have you thought of what it means, that I should be here, with you?" The subtle scents of cherry blossoms in Spring and fields in Summer. The chiming of bells in the wind. No, that was just a tilt of her head, wasn't it? "Such a choice as I have made shall not be easily renounced, its preceding trial having long since passed. Thus shall I remain with you. I may have forgotten my earlier point," while it might be polite to pretend, she almost definitely hasn't, "but I wish you to to keep this in mind, with pride and comfort." *A mistake, turns ago, will cause her losses, in another two.
Lilian Rook	Lilian relents from her fey mood with the slack posture of someone 'glad it's over'. Like breathing in after being stuck with a needle to draw blood, though no doubt she is hardly so squeamish about mere physical matters. "Well, it'd hardly be wrong to call me proud." she half-grins, about as dry as it gets. "But it's . . . It's something I never once questioned. So I don't like having to think about it. It's not just that it's her. It's that it's fundamentally . . ." She struggles for words for an uncharacteristic amount of time, and then, finally, settles on a very odd one. "Profane." Lilian leans almost halfway sideways from her chair as Tamamo slides closer. "And, you know, that's all I really had before you. I mean it." she says, warmly. "You know, I've said you're too good for me about a million times, but maybe I'm finally starting to believe you." A pause. "I really hope I can show you, one dare. Share it with you, in some way. Even just a little. I think that'd help . . . It'd make it more like . . ." She trails off, then responds only with a lost giggle. "I don't know how to end that thought. I'm just . . . It's sinking in that I really can count on you, can't I? That no matter what, this won't go badly. And that's something very precious to me. So I'll try not to get wrapped up in things --people-- that don't matter. Okay?"
Tamamo	Having successfully pushed through that moody moment and into one a bit more intimate, if not wholly conducive to the more academic pursuit of learning through board games, Tamamo smiles. "Oh, yes, I do not think many would say, 'ah, that Lilian Rook, she is far too humble in her many gifts,' and yet here I am. It is no true contradiction at all, though it may seem as such to some, that one may be too certain in some matters, yet too doubtful in others. To take one's correct measure in all things, one might as soon measure the sand while the tides rise to one's feet." She's shifted close enough now that a noticeably theatrical sigh leaves Tamamo supporting herself on Lilian's shoulder. "Ah, what am I to do? If I wish to support the strength of the mightiest knight the world shall know, will I still see the moments in which she questions herself? You are quite cute, like so. And yet, at least, I think you not one who would grow complacent, merely knowing that I shall be by your side for as long as my own quest requires of me. 'A human lifetime shall do,' I think, though I have not read my own Fate, to be sure." The exact extent of to which she is being playful would be difficult for most to follow. "For some, to think oneself unworthy is the reason with which one walks forward. But for you, is such a thing needed, I wonder?" And then, languidly switching topics, "To share that world with you, a place you call home, I should like to see it. I do wish for many things, both great and small, though as of this moment, I think, I wish for some sweet and mild cookies. It has been some time, and I should let no skill fall to sloth. Shall we away to the kitchen, soon? The board shall keep, perhaps."
Lilian Rook	Without hesitation, or really even any thought, Lilian slides her arm around Tamamo whilst she leans on her shoulder. A half-giggle, impossible to help, resounds in her chest, borne out of the awkward, and yet not quite inaccurate, description. "Now, that makes it sound like I can't be cute unless I don't know what to do!" she faux-huffs. "I can be cute whenever I want!" And yet, she squeezes Tamamo tighter against her, leaning head to head. "Mmm, I'm not sure just one lifetime is enough. I can be very selfish, you know~? I think I can earn at least a few." The half-bubbled laughter slowly leaves her, though not in a bad mood. "I think I'd be a completely different person if I felt motivated by not being good enough. When deemed worthy of such gifts, it's hard to imagine 'not being good enough' in an abstract sense; merely a sense of not having tried enough yet. Rather, it might be that I'm 'here' because I think I should be too good for it? Even if I am too good for those people, their needs, their problems, it'd be nice to pretend. The ordinary has some good things going for it, hidden in amongst all the rest, don't you think?" Finally, she allows herself a quiet, unstifled laugh. "Until nightfall, when wandering hands might feel the need to clean it up; or play with it, perhaps. Of course I'd never say no to that~"