[Ronove.]

#b7410e

Cold had made its nest within the hallow ground of the valley, silent and patiently awaiting for winter to claim all rights to this land of gods and ghosts.

It clung to his bones, made his flesh prickle and his nose leak, the first tastes of winter and the little male curled his lip defiantly. It would not have him, like it would so many others this time around. His stock was strong, he was made of resilience incarnate.

However, with the leaving of Tatari, which Ronove didn't think he'd feel so undeniably bitter about. He hadn't seen the other since puppyhood, but still felt the need to scream traitor at him for turning tail. There were others that followed after, leaving this place more bare with each passing day, he chased and gnashed his teeth, fighting them only if they stopped and gave him the chance.

But today as the cold wind swept down from the mountains, he sat in his little rocky alcove, wind pushing through his fur as it did against the dulled golden plain. Simmering golden gaze would look up to behold another pale sky, overcast once more, a threat of early snow fall. He liked his teeth and expelled a harsh breath, standing quickly and turning on a pivot. There was one that still had to be here, right? One from the order, this one was just as dedicated as him if not more, but in a completely different way. "High Priest."  The judge spoke against the howl of the wind.

"TIBET!" A roar of a noise from such a small body, the beady eyed demon waited as if he had some power to issue commands. Judge, Jitte, those positions meant something still, but they were no greater than High Priest, it wasn't Red, White, or Yellow Rose.

But if the other did appear before him, he'd regard that dragonlike face with a wrinkle of his muzzle. "Where are our gods? Why aren't they here?" Came thoughtful questions with malicious intentions. "What's your faith say about this?" That bible you cling to, he'd lift his head and show a fang.

Faith will be mine.

[Tibet]

“High priest! ... TIBET!”

The hellion stirred upon his makeshift bed, a long flat boulder propped against the clouded sun. He blinked sleepily, then did so again while he waited for his fuzzy vision to clear, spreading toes as he stretched tingling front limbs. Wind disturbed his intricate pelt and kicked him that much more awake.

“Hmm...?” murmured Tibet, glancing down at the short, compact wolf addressing him so bossily. Definitely not a slave, with that demeanor. What was he again? Something important? It was becoming uncomfortably easy for the new rank heads to slip his mind with the valley so... inert, now. As asleep as he’d just been.

“Jitte,” he named Ronove, almost as a note to himself, as he recognized the beast before him. Yes, that was right. Controlled the hawks. Got it. His ears flicked back at the demands; he licked his chops with a dry red tongue.

“They lay dormant,” said Tibet of his gods. His tail waved and settled at the rock like a big orange snake. “I have not seen my Saga for some time. White has not reappeared since I first christened her. And Yellow...” Even Nhu, the constant. “I wish they would return. But I am only their messenger and cannot make demands of them.”

His voice as always was sweet, but deep beneath lay the unspoken words: neither can you.

[Ronove.]

@"Kotake"

#b7410e

The dragonlike hellion addressed him finally, and Ronove did everything in his power to to snort derisively at the other. "Pathos, as well." He said with an earned air of superiority that wasn't going to do him any favors in a matter like this, but Ronove had never been one to not boast about what he had. His accomplishments were his own, and so he'd flaunt them.

Though that secular gaze of his would look at this creature so bound to the religion that was choking them all. The fools. His ear would flick at the Priest's answer, clearly not pleased with it as his mouth unfurled into a grimacing frown. "They lay....dormant?" He repeated as if not originally hearing what the other had said.

"Perhaps, they've lost faith in us." Brow would raise, voice attempting to be as mellow as ever, but the gears turning behind golden eyes said otherwise. He'd play at the boy's devotion to his little gods. Clowns were a dime a dozen in a place like this. "High Priest, I hope you've taken notice of our predicament?" The darkling male would press further, shuddering as a gust of wind whipped against his back.

"We're dwindling in numbers, there's nearly nothing left of this place, and our gods, slumber." There was unabashed bitterness in his voice, marked with a wrinkle of his muzzle. "They might be gone, but we aren't." They can make no more demands of me, he though so triumphantly. An number of his dangerously, experimental thoughts could run rampant now without fear of the ramifications of thereafter. He'd look squarely to Tibet then, a telling look of what would come next as he awaited the High Priest's thoughts.

We're the last ones that count, I'm all that who matters now.

[Tibet]

Pathos? Ah, this busy little man was important indeed.

“Beg pardon,” said the hellion with an automatic smile; he would never quite unlearn these small fawning civilities that had kept him from being mauled back in Eschaton. “You can see I only just woke up.”

Ronove had ideas, that much was obvious. Ideas that could get him into trouble, had the valley any real watchers, any punishers, any... consequence left. Tibet was older now, not a boy anymore but a young man, and with age came the loss of some measure of naïveté. Nothing this wolf was telling him had failed to occur to the priest after all this time. His sermons were sparsely attended. There were no requests for his limited medicinal abilities, for no one was fighting. The pits were sun-baked and barren. The tar was left to go hungry.

“I try,” he admitted quietly, with something in his face that indicated a hidden well of shame. “I recite my prayers. I preach to those who will listen. I don’t know...” A glance, enigmatic, to the horizon. He looked spectacularly dragonlike, braced there against the sun. “... what happened.”

Had there come some sort of damage to the cycle of these deities? How was that possible? All empires fell, and without exception, but somehow... Tibet had thought...

These weren’t mere kings or queens. They weren’t dogs playing a role. They were GODS. The Rosa was ETERNAL. They had created the skies, the seas, the mountains. They drew paths around their subjects, giving direction to their aimless wandering. They had saved him from himself, taught him to be good...

He refused to give up on them so easily. He’d taken an oath. He’d given them blood right from his own flesh. That meant something.

“What do you feel we might do while they sleep, my brother?” The question was curious and seemingly light, but Tibet was not so sure he wanted to hear the answer.

[Ronove.]

@"Kotake"

#b7410e

A brow would raise, yes, Ronove could forgive the High Priest's slippery mind, just this once. Glancing away clearly irritated by the answer, but he wouldn't say anything more on that matter. He was important enough to remember, if it had been anyone else in his place, they wouldn't have been so merciful. How positively benevolent of you, Ron.

He'd rock back against the howling of the wind gaze flickering to the bright form of the hellion, expression for the most part seemed unreadable, but certainly Tibet would be able to tell that Ronove wasn't exactly pitying him or his words. "Loss of faith, loss of life. They're all the same really." Especially when religion was the backbone of this place. "In the end those heathens will have destroyed us."

"Gods need people who believe in them to exist." They were only as eternal as the beliefs and stories that kept them alive, cut off that head and the snake was dead. He'd breathe in the cool air and roll his shoulders, ear flicking slightly to the sound of a far off hawk. Greed crept with quiet little feet and devil horns, it was never far away.

Ronove craned his neck slightly, brow arching upward as if questioning why Tibet had even asked in the first place, like the whole question itself was tedious. "I propose new leader, even temporary... In their stead. They were plucked from us, there's no sense to let our kingdom rot." There was something there a spark in his eyes, but for all the wrong reasons. "You agree, High Priest? That while we still walk these grounds, there's a chance to rebuild what we once had." Could Tibet sense it? The hidden question Ronove was just dancing around.

[Tibet]

Sometimes he missed fine details; he saw Ronove’s movements but failed to notice the hostile quirk of his brow. Either way, the priest went on smiling, like the good boy he was, like a proper follower of the Red ought to do. Poise. Grace. Dignity. Control.

And yet — Tibet hardly felt in control. He was in fact feeling more and more in over his head by the second. Were they really in so feeble a state that Ronove thought coming to him with his iconoclastic ideas was his best bet? Surely the high priest was a powerful figure in their dying society, but were there not those higher up on the rungs that he should run this all by first...?

It really was worse than he thought.

“Gods are gods with or without us,” murmured Tibet softly, his disagreement quiet but thorough. “The cycle is — well, you know it’s eternal, can’t be stopped... they’ll punish us, give us to the tar if we—”

He trailed off, his own practiced words suddenly feeling foreign and clumsy in his mouth. He tongued a gap between his teeth, betraying some inner conflict and nervousness.

“... We might simply tend to their flock while they rest.”

Oh, but Tibet was ever such a good boy, of course he couldn’t just go back to sleep and let it be someone else’s problem, now could he?

“Nobody will take their names. We are not Roses.”

He wasn’t in the business of full-fledged blasphemy.

“Who might we appoint, brother...?” As if the answer was not obvious as the sun in the sky. He had Ronove’s number. Knew his type. Watch your back, dragon boy, lest you find it stabbed later on.

[Ronove.]

@"Kotake"

#b7410e

The wind nipped at his neck, and all he could do was flex his brow and glare down at the world above. Jaws wishing to snap at the disillusioned priest, would his little 'gods' save him then? Gods, don't bleed. Crow had proved that once, as he vaguely remembered a mob descending upon a Rosa once before.

But calm settled within him for the moment, especially when fear overshadowed desire in that split second, ah yes, tar. How could he have forgotten? "But they aren't here to even do that." Ronove simply said, inky face tensing and then relaxing. Absence of leadership making his claim all the more braver, or perhaps impatient.

Ears pulled back, that wasn't what he wanted to hear, black lips curling into a glowering frown, like a spoiled child not getting his way, golden eyes settled to glare mutely at Tibet and linger there for minutes on end. No one will take their names? There was a fire burning in his chest and he could hear the sirens ringing in his ears, taking all of his being to feign calmness, even though his expression was dead set on anything, but that.

However, brows arched at the prospect of his next question, reaction mechanical if anything, all too quick to snap back like a pendulum swinging much too fast. The smile was a double edged sword, one that mocked, but also wished to trick the other into a false sense of security. This was not the time to beat around the bush anymore, he had come for his crown. "Me, of course. Unless you believe to be better at the job." He eyed the hellion curiously.

After all, we both have what's best in mind for our people.

[Tibet]

"Don't mistake me, brother. I too am lost."

Tibet was looking off into the horizon. His reptilian face was wan and confused; it was the look of a pet dog abandoned at the roadside. Like that same pet dog, maybe he was prone to taking certain optimistic liberties. Surely my masters just made a mistake. Surely Ronove has a higher good in mind rather than, you know, vanity and adulation that was not fated to end very well for him.

"They work in mysterious ways. That much I think bears repeating. We've seen them come and go before... their bodies, the avatars they picked... I've known each of their mortal names. I always taught my disciples that it was only ever a shell that died. Goodbye is not goodbye to a Rose."

He gazed back down at the black wolf and tilted his head as if in vague mock-consideration. Or is it?

"Nowhere in my teachings did it tell us what to do if they didn't come back. That was unthinkable. Is. Was...?"

Poor thing. Pity the sacrificial lamb upon the altar. Pity that starving roadside dog left to chase the ribboning tail of his troubled thoughts.

"You'll need a priest, won't you?" A gentle denial of Ronove's curiosity. Even now, in his deepest moment of doubt, he refused to join the ambitious beast in this... play-acting. This desperate attempt of his to be a tiger by painting crooked stripes upon his back.

If this was a test, Tibet would pass it. He would remain steel all the way down to his core. His stripes would not run.