[PRP] Pride & Prejudice (Preacher & Pride)

[shibrogane]

"There's three of us," said Pride. "Me, Pax, and the Hermione Granger girl. Minerva Mercer. Adoelle called her something else, though... Chenoeh. Noeh for short."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"The spice must flow." She waggled her fingers at Pride. "Is tha Mercer related to chief Mercer? Oh and ain't Adoelle deads like..." Preacher dragged a finger across her throat.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Pride laughed. "Yes, exactly. Sorry, the world gets recreated by a bunch of geeks and this is what happens, our insults come from Dune." She nodded at Preacher's gesture, though she didn't seem that put out. "I'm not sure about Noeh," she said, thoughtfully. "Minerva Mercer, the one I knew anyway, she was his..."

Pride paused, counted out something on her fingers.

"Paternal... half-sister?" She rubbed her hand over her chin. "Used the Mercer name with his permission when they met. But she's weird, you know. Always has been."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"So, if sheall is Chenoeh, who's th'God Emperor?" It had been a very, very long time since Preacher had read the Dune book and, quite frankly, they got really ********' weird. But Sister Chenoeh had been a scribe, but had kept things told to her from the sisterhood, or something.

She took a moment to digest who Minerva was. "Like... weird how? Like prob'bly best avoided weird or lil' eccentric weird?"

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"Melany," said Pride immediately. "I mean, maybe Adoelle originally. But Adoelle's dead, wiped from the whole thing. So it's Melany now."

She shrugged. "I don't know. I don't think she was ever malicious about it, but she was very... grasping. She had a way of knowing who would be useful to know in the future, and sort of calibrating herself to appeal to them. I think it might have been magic, actually. But she's good at setting those kinds of emotional traps. If she's supportive of you, and kind to you, like... that's probably real and true. She probably does like you. She just also would probably also straight-up sell you to your worst nightmare if it secured a benefit for her. A real grasping type. I don't think she would have done what she did for Adoelle if Doe had told her what was really happening..."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"The witchbitch o' the east? Someone said she ain't rememberin' s**t right now, though." Everything was even weirder and more magically bullshit than it had been before the reset.

"Those're tha most dangerous types, though. They hurt 'cause it's good for 'em and they've gone n' weighed that sellin' you ta Satan for a corn chip is the best outcome, ******** anythin' ya want." The idea of someone being emotionally manipulative was horrifying to Preacher; she hated those kinds of people. Was she allowed to kick Mercer's half-sib? Family meant ********, anyway...

"What'd she do to Adoelle, then that was so ******** awful that even ms. sell ya for a pack of gum would find it reprehensible?"

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"Well, it was what Adoelle wanted Minerva to do," said Pride. She tapped her chin. "Basically, they needed to bring structure to the world. Something about the spirit-walkers abusing their powers. To do that, they wanted to create a higher strata of the visitors, people who could tune into the world more keenly. The nobles. Minerva was down for it, because she loved showing off, but they didn't tell her she'd be the conduit for the nobles' powers the same way I'm a conduit for the wargs and the moonwalkers. Ya'll need us to maintain your powers, but it's not something Minerva would have ever volunteered to do. Too selfless."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"So people had a hard-on fer bein' bigger than ya'll's spirit peoples." It sounded unnecessarily complicated. "Wait someone tol' me Melany leads tha court - whyso if Minerva is the conduit?"

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Pride sniffed, disdainful. "They needed someone to break up the magic before it hit us, basically. We're not Sunny, we can't process that much magic at once. So they made Melany the living embodiment of the Court itself. She breaks the force of the magic, then the three of us dilute it further." Her tone showed what she thought about that. "That should've clued us all in that this was a stupid idea. Any plan that requires a sacrifice is one we shouldn't be committed to."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"That's damn dumb," she agreed. "Why ain't Sonny tha conduit, then, like iffin ya need someone with magic filterin'. Sound dumb ta make a plan what requires that kinda sacrifice, yeah. Gotta be 'nother way." Magic was bullshit, so logic said they could all bullshit their way through it.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"You think you could make that one submit to anything like this," asked Pride. "She already is a conduit. If you put the filter on her, it'd back up and you'd end up with something like what made you all reset the universe before. Like trying to strain a waterfall, or an entire river."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Yeah, ya right." Preacher sighed heavily. Nothing seemed to have solutions. "Why'd ya agree ta do it, then?"

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Pride said, "Adoelle was... very charismatic. When she said things, you tended to just believe her..." She shook her head. "And I was afraid the problems that we were having would get worse. I couldn't be everywhere at once and restrain my gift from certain people. I thought it'd be better this way. It wasn't."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"All this magic s**t needs some serious fact checkin;. But I guess it ain't a thing for magic." How could you fact check something when really, no one had done it before? "I guess I jus' don't like the idea of all this magic filterin;. It seems like a dam with too many leaks." She shrugged.

"Dunno what ta do 'bout it, though."

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"Yeah, not really a wikipedia for this kind of thing," said Pride. "Is Wikipedia still a thing, in your timeline?"

She rubbed a hand along her jaw. "The ideal would be to nix the need for a filter. I don't have the slightest idea how to do it, though. My job was kind of more the art side of things."

The Semblance of Unity