“I never believed that you would.” Perhaps, in another lifetime, Pythia should have liked to be more like Astaroth. Her anger and taste for vengeance had blossomed long before they fell, born for war it was truly a wonder that Ulthar could ever have predicted another outcome. Never would they all fall to decree when all so many of them had wanted, was simply what they were promised. Would a life among the mortals in hiding have offered Levithan a different outlook? Were she not cast into the inferno and forced to pry her way out, could she have been so quietly indifferent in this moment? “They have wished to kill me for millennia, Roth, and though they may be far closer in their efforts than they ever have been before, I am not what they once knew.” Proof was in each devised plan that swayed just as surely in her favor - in that of the Asphodel. Her death would cost them something that would break them, the same way she had once been broken. Their sacrifice would shatter, or those condemned would rise. “You always did fare better standing on your own,” it’s noted in the hitch of her mouth, the bittersweet smile almost one that could contend with nostalgia, “I won’t make you choose,” after all - choice was something she offered all those who had none. The choice to be more, the choice to stand against all that was deemed acceptable. “Just know that neither do I want to strike you down - but I will, if I must.” Venom didn’t curate her words into the fangs of a serpent as she cast dark hues to her brother. Heartless; she’d earnt the reputation that overwhelmed so many, and yet - “Unlike the others, however, I’d find a way to bring you back.”
“The truth is that I’ve cared for this world far longer than anyone else.” After all, she’d been one of the first to take up arms against those that would see the world they now occupied, as belongings to the weakness of human kind. She’d witnessed the destruction they’d wrought upon it as they plundered the precious realm and behaved as if it was there to serve them, and not the stark opposite. “What I don’t care for, is those that have done nothing but tarnish it in every possible way. Human kind, and all that followed, is a blight upon the earth.” It had been created as a paradise, a place that would mimic the divine realm in ways so few could see, and yet it had been left to squander. Their brethren condemned to an eternity of pain and suffering for wanting to protect something so precious. All that they’d been promised, rotting deep into the core of all that it was. “Michael and Uriel, they worship and admonish all others to follow the orders of our father as if that would convey whatever love they might have once felt for him, when in truth, allowing Titania and her barbaric creatures to inherit this earth, was the first act of defiance, not ours. And yet we are marked as the traitors.’
“I won’t kneel to their request,” Michael and the Conquest were not seraphim one wanted to be in conflict with but Roth had gone head to head with Uriel once before and was confident, even in eons of retirement that he could survive again against his Blessed brother. “They wish to kill you, not place you in a torturous prison to command over,” Roth was certain that Pythia, as they’d come to go by, was well aware of this determined quietus. Others of their brood, fallen seraphim, had been cut down for less, their cosmic essence pulled back to the cosmos for merely disagreeing with Ulthar’s demands. The Pythia had set the world ablaze, smiled as it bent and snapped beneath her will; hers would be a violent end, a barbaric rule over the Inferno no longer in her future. “I told them I’d not stand with them.” It holds influence, though Roth’s wording carefully proposes the reminder that while he won’t strike her down and join the slaughterous campaign, he’s not about to align himself with her creed either.
“The truth is that I’ve cared for this world far longer than anyone else.” After all, she’d been one of the first to take up arms against those that would see the world they now occupied, as belongings to the weakness of human kind. She’d witnessed the destruction they’d wrought upon it as they plundered the precious realm and behaved as if it was there to serve them, and not the stark opposite. “What I don’t care for, is those that have done nothing but tarnish it in every possible way. Human kind, and all that followed, is a blight upon the earth.” It had been created as a paradise, a place that would mimic the divine realm in ways so few could see, and yet it had been left to squander. Their brethren condemned to an eternity of pain and suffering for wanting to protect something so precious. All that they’d been promised, rotting deep into the core of all that it was. “Michael and Uriel, they worship and admonish all others to follow the orders of our father as if that would convey whatever love they might have once felt for him, when in truth, allowing Titania and her barbaric creatures to inherit this earth, was the first act of defiance, not ours. And yet we are marked as the traitors.’
“I have long since considered what I might do if I ever faced him again, Roth.” For what felt like eons, she’d likely have done anything to draw even a glimpse of Ulthar’s immediate sense of presence but something so personal had long since slipped through her fingers of desire. Instead, the only thing left was to destroy what he loved the most. The realm they currently occupied earning the majority of their fathers love and respect since the day he cast them all aside. Offering the perfect world to those who would do nothing more than pick it apart and taint it to ruin. So, ruin she would give him. “Now, he could stand before me and beg, and I’d want nothing more than to flay him along with the others. If the world we were promised cannot be ours - he can have it returned to him, in dust and ruin.”
Uriel had come forward to Roth, pleading of some alliance to defeat Leviathan, to ensure a world he suddenly found so precious could be preserved. The Conquest had always looked upon the mortals with disdain and the Ira’s curiosity had been whetted as to why the sudden change. It was inevitable to grasp upon humanity once immersed in this realm, Roth had done so himself, living a mundane life until the Blessed and Leviathan brought forth the fumes of a war once more, a vicious cycle, but one that was to be expected. “You care for nothing in this world?” It was void of contempt, only that same curiosity they had in lieu of Uriel and Michael, how brothers once carved to be purely a weapon were now brimming with compassion and mercy. Leviathan often seemed to drift mysteriously throughout her actions, allowed her little Coven to stir up most of her ruinous work and they wondered what Leviathan’s idle hands were truly preoccupied with.
“I have long since considered what I might do if I ever faced him again, Roth.” For what felt like eons, she’d likely have done anything to draw even a glimpse of Ulthar’s immediate sense of presence but something so personal had long since slipped through her fingers of desire. Instead, the only thing left was to destroy what he loved the most. The realm they currently occupied earning the majority of their fathers love and respect since the day he cast them all aside. Offering the perfect world to those who would do nothing more than pick it apart and taint it to ruin. So, ruin she would give him. “Now, he could stand before me and beg, and I’d want nothing more than to flay him along with the others. If the world we were promised cannot be ours - he can have it returned to him, in dust and ruin.”
a gift for @fxllenpythia,
“Even if you were to slaughter Uriel and Michael where they stand it wouldn’t pull Ulthar down to face you,” they’d sort of learned from mortals that a lot of problems arise in life from daddy issues and certainly the seraphim, who predated even gender, were proof of that. They have this half-smirk that hints at Roth’s lips, it’s this tiny lilt of humor but its fragmented by understanding; sometimes one just vied to see the world burn. He’d thought of it often, after the fall, but it was more channeled at the divine realm than it had ever been for this piteous mortal coil. Roth had felt the splintering quake that rattled the Otherworld, could only figure it was Leviathan’s doing supplemented by their cult following. He’d had this itch to face their Blessed siblings, it would always remain as a buzzing in the back of the skull, but their mind could not grasp this need to destroy Ulthar’s second creations. For Roth, they were measly and insignificant in comparison to the Old God’s faced eons prior, meaningless in lieu of their Blessed counterparts who attempted to control the world under their own puppeteered reign. Still, Roth’s words offer this teetering point, this subtle cue that they’d align again if need be; there was always a damned side to choose.