holy place

[she_sells_seashells]

My alternates tend to take over the world. Advice available. Rates negotiable.

Shell Bell puts up her sign and nibbles her most recent charity meal. Not potatoes! It is not potatoes. Or fish or clams. It is rice and curry and a fruity yogurt drink. That nice person told Bar she could use his tab for four meals, and this is meal number two.

Comments

[no_return]

"Yes, I am the Career for this year," says Jewel. "And I didn't hear our new god-emperor saying 'I welcome you all as new citizens, except anybody from the Capitol, fuck those guys'. Way I heard it, seems like you're about to break the law." He picks a cloudberry off a newly sprouted bush and eats it. "Also about to kind of annoy me. Up to you which one scares you more."

[alicornucopia]

"He wasn't talking to her," says the first guy.

[no_return]

"Hey, Kirovalin," he says. "Are they allowed to beat up this lady?"

[seewhathappens]

"No."

[alicornucopia]

Well, that's sort of hard to creatively interpret.

"She's a fucking Capitol murderer," snarls one of the people carrying her.

[no_return]

"You really think she's personally murdered anybody? Look at her," says Jewel, gesturing illustratively. "She's not an organizer, she's not the President, she's just the girl who reads out the names. It's not her fault. She's just kind of clueless and pathetic. I'm not gonna hurt somebody for being clueless and pathetic, and I'm not gonna stand around and watch you do it either."

[alicornucopia]

The guys look at each other, and then at more or less the same time they drop her and stomp away.

She sniffles.

[no_return]

"You okay?" says Jewel.

[alicornucopia]

"Of course not!" she exclaims.

[no_return]

Jewel shrugs slightly. "Anything I can do?"

[alicornucopia]

Sniffle. "They might come back. ...Assuming you were telling the truth about not wanting to hurt me."

[no_return]

"Yeah, I was. There's people I'm pissed off at, but you're not one of 'em."

[alicornucopia]

She sits on the floor of the new forest and picks at a new imperfection in her outfit.

[no_return]

Jewel sits, too. He eats berries. They are tasty.

[alicornucopia]

She does not talk.

[seewhathappens]

The day wears on.

Kirovalin has to collapse several more buildings on various people who are attempting to harm their fellow citizens with advanced weaponry. He has to clarify the law to many other vengeful District residents. He assures many people that the berries are both real and edible. He distributes blessings of health and resistance to cold.

Some of the people in the Capitol who need to be dealt with are not neatly tucked away in entire buildings full of other people who also need to be dealt with. Kirovalin sends Sherlock to handle those. He blesses her with health, endurance, reflexes, and danger sense, and she kills troublemakers with stunning efficiency and precision. In her downtime between assassinations she introduces him to her twin brother, who is happy to be consulted about local technology.

More people than just Tony and Sherlock and Jewel distinguish themselves as helpful. Many of these people receive on-the-spot appointments to the priesthood. They go on to help organize things - distributing food, calming agitated people.

Kirovalin's new citizens learn that saying his name really does get you an immediate response. They learn that harming one another really is firmly discouraged. They learn to recognize the round wooden pendants that indicate a priest.

The edges of his domain spread out visibly across the last few corners of the continent. District Twelve is still mostly unclaimed, but according to his maps it's the only inhabited land he has yet to take. And he's working on it.

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell has one of those pendants. It's kind of aggressively handmade, but she does have a round wooden thing on a necklace.

Someone assumes she's a priestess, after an enthusiastic convert in the local Peacekeepers volunteers her comm for inter-district information-sharing.

"Um. I'm unclear. Kiro, am I a priestess?"

[seewhathappens]

"Not in the formal sense. But if you want to be appointed to the priesthood for now to help with organization and coordination, I'll get you a full priest's pendant. The one you have now formally means 'working with the priesthood in an unspecified capacity on a temporary basis', which is accurate as far as it goes but underrepresents your value somewhat."

[she_sells_seashells]

"I do want to help."

[seewhathappens]

A larger and more intricately carved pendant appears, on a proper metal chain, identical to those of all the other newly appointed priests.

[she_sells_seashells]

She swaps it in. "Cool. Anyplace in particular I should be right now?"

[seewhathappens]

"I believe the most helpful thing you can distribute right now is explanations," he says, and points her at the nearest group of bewildered citizens.

[she_sells_seashells]

She heads thataway. En route:

"Do you have somebody with a holy object on a train to District Twelve, or are you going to be faster than a train at this point? Also: is it in any way controlled information that you have another empire-section in another world?"

[seewhathappens]

"That is not controlled information. I'm putting together a train to District Twelve, but my strategy advisor and Sherlock agree that when I send one it should be prepared to meet violent resistance without my help, and those preparations will take time."

[she_sells_seashells]

"They might have hostages and that gets likelier as time goes on. You could send a train that doesn't stop to have an object chucked out of a window as a preliminary move."