Divine Drifter

Ground Rules :

Do not repost any of my artworks without my permission onto separate platforms, alongside posting without proper credit, such as removing my watermarks and not putting down my username.

Be kind here. This is a respectful/safe place. Treat it as such and treat others with respect.

DNI if you affiliate with : Proshipping, Incest, Homophobia, etc. (In case I gotta add on- I am sure you all get the idea pretty clear.)

Frustration. For the memories that have been torn from his mind, by the snake that offered an alluring apple. Despite the Upsurper’s restless work in the Dark Refractory, the memories shoved into the darkness have barely begun to resurface into the light. All this toying about with mutational strains was nothing new in the works of biological evolution.

Though to think it would try to wipe clean the slate that has already been stained with life’s touch? An overlooked chemical reaction, a consequence not yet seen by those unaffected.

The boredom and need for answers itches at the back of Roathe’s mind like a nagging mosquito. A quieted snarl accompanied the sound of Roathe shutting his book and tossing it carelessly onto the old wooden mantle. He slouches in the fancied old creaking chair with this disgruntled scowl with his hand now rubbing his own temple.

“Troubled, Devil?” Lyon raised the question, seemingly with little real care for an answer.

Roathe rolled his eyes with a short-tempered sigh, “Keep your sniffing nose elsewhere, “Father”. I don’t seek your guidance, nor your repetitive talk of repent.”

“Unless you have something genuinely entertaining to speak of, I would rather not hear anything else.”

“Lua, give me strength-“ Lyon prayed beneath his breathe as his patience waivers, “Must you take offense to every question spoken to you?”

Roathe huffed, “Is there a reason not clear enough, to observe, as to why I might be the slightest bit irritated in the predicament I am stuck in?”

The Devil scoffed, his tails and scraps the floors near by the legs of his chair, “First, I have a lunatic priest to my left that shuffles about muttering and an airheaded nun to my right that praises the very man who put US all here.”

“Now, I am stuck with a wounded butler, his runted litter, and a near man-made god who has near lost their mind.”

Roathe rose from his seat as he continued, “Who can TIME TRAVEL might I add- But refuses to just simply go far back enough to actually make a difference for all of our situations.”

Lyon stayed quiet, seemingly thinking to himself as he glares at the devil in-front of him. Lyon murmured, “Despite being stained with sin, you must not be blind by your arrogance.. or frustrations. We all are suffering, together. Whether we find good company or non.”

“And while I.. agree to the strangeness of the Drifter’s contradicting methods, what more else can we really.. do?”

Roathe took a few steps forwards, “Well, for one- we need to leave this blasted basement of dripping stone before I lose the last of my mind.“ He scoffed a laugh, “But that blasted butler can’t seem to find any crumb of courage in himself to face the family he abandoned above.”

“I don’t know how that Usurper walks by that family like there isn’t a rat’s nest right below all their noses.”

Roathe keenly eyes Lyon, “In simpler vocabulary- we must find a way upstairs, get some fresh air in these enclosed quarters before we become more accustomed to being mad dogs in this circus.”

A low hum comes from Lyon, “I’ve.. yet to have any luck nor trust to communicate with the Drifter myself. And I take it that you have not either, mm?”

Roathe huffed, “Merely business in regards to the refractory. Anything past it, I see nothing fit to talk of unless they’ve got entertaining enough inquiries.”

“And yet, you come looking for answers that could’ve been given long before I,” Lyon muttered, sighing, turning himself to face in the direction of where he once came, “I do not care much, but if I were like Marie, maybe you should follow in her footing.”

“Please, save me the lectures-“ Roathe interrupts in annoyance. But, Lyon continued, “She has been the only one between you and I that has conversed to that Usurper one on one. Conversation beyond what we are here to do.”

“Perhaps, you could learn something from us “zealots” but.. I fear you may be too blinded by your cunning nature to find such common knowledge.”

A rumbling snarl follows suit with Roathe’s demand, “And what would that be? Oh, “Father” Lyon?”

Lyon, while taking his leave, spoke unphased, “Patience, Devil.”

.

The Drifter sat at the edge of the Sanctuary’s desert. The stone ledge was all he had at his sides as he looked down into the vast darkness that spiraled below. Winds breezes on by in waves, while the Drifter blankly stared through their visor.

All they hear is the quiet marching of their heartbeat in their ears, their mind is in a different place and time. In their imagination and thoughts, is a spiral what may to come from all of this. The voice of Sythel whispers in quiet frantics, about the future, the Lotus, and his younger brother, the Operator. The one from this time.

The Dark Refractory and the hellish storm it has brought to the Drifter’s mind– In their findings with Roathe’s memories, so did it bring the quiet, hidden memories of the Drifter’s past right below the surface. Trying, Clawing to reach for some kind of reconciliation, but none come to full realization.

In such deep thought, the Drifter hadn’t even realized the presence of another nearby. Not until the person spoke. Roathe’s voice cuts through the occasional winds, as clear as glass, “I don’t believe the view is that spectacular enough to doze off to, Upsurper.”

The noise alone jolts the Drifter out of his thoughtless spiral, coming back to the present and where he sat. His head to a glance in Roathe’s direction, who merely stood close enough to the ledge to be seen.

“You are right, it shouldn’t be,” the Drifter replied. He turned his head away, towards the distant stone mouths that glow and cough up the sand of time.

The Drifter continued to look outwards to the vast distance, asking out into the open air, “Was there something you needed from me, Roathe?”

“Can’t a Devil be allowed to find some palatable company?” The Devil sat at the edge with the Drifter, some distance between the two.

A shrug is all the Drifter gave, with an unsure chuckle to follow, “Just warning you, you may not stay long. That seems to be a common pattern I have with new folks it seems.”

Unimpressed, Roathe remarked, “Oh please- It can’t be any worse than my own record I’ve got piling up here with this lot of zealots,” Roathe stretched out his arms, “Besides, you’ve acquired yourself quite the title similar to my own.”

The Drifter took a glance towards Roathe’s direction, one that hung with a question and sense of dread, “Let me guess, Void Demon?”

“Precisely.” Roathe answered, a smirk spreading across his lips, “While I am not surprised, as to why you are called such a title, it is amusing to think it stuck for so long like sugary resin embedded in fabric.”

The Drifter sighs, “You’d be surprised, apparently having something you can’t control earns you more grotesque names than doing something morally honorable.”

“But, I’ve.. adapted,” the Drifter’s head looks back out to the glowing distance, “I can’t afford to waste my time or energy on something near meaningless now.”

Roathe’s brow rose as he intrigued, “Meaningless? Ha! I’d beg to differ, but alas.. Find what you may in it, Usurper.”

The Drifter thought for a moment, “On the topic, I suppose, of names and titles.. Usurper is a new one for me.”

“Tell me, Roathe, if not a draft question.. Why do you keep calling me “Usurper”?” The Drifter turns to face the Orokin protoframe, “I do have a name, you know. And yet, you’ve yet to ask me what it is.”

The question asked from the Drifter alone, made Roathe give a dry laugh, “Well, that is what you are, yes? The Tenno usurped the Origin System from the Orokin. And you, like a little imposter in the nest, have stolen that title from this world, unlike from your own.”

“And that makes you, on at least two counts, a Usurper by my measure.” Roathe murmured on, “And perhaps a third, if we count what the butler has told me of Duviri, but that is a debate for another time.”

The Drifter sat with that answer for a second before answering unamused, “So... you're insulting me.” It was nothing new to the Drifter, simply it was a new name to add to the list of insults they’ve received in the last few spirals that they’ve received unprovoked.

“HA!” Roathe remarks with amusement, “An insult? You are extremely patient if you think I have been so casually deriding you to your face for days, now.”

“Particularly when it is so painfully clear you have so much power in this situation that is hardly unilateral, hm?”

Roathe clarifies while his tail shifts in the sand, “I am not in the mood to make an enemy of you, Usurper. No. If anything, it is an honorific. You have done that which I aspired to. Nothing more.”

“The title is merely an expression of my mild admiration. Even if it is one that is suitably sarcastic to suit my needs, yes, I will give you that.” Roathe goes on to comment, “You should know, the Orokin give titles to other to which they see fits one’s character and ability.”

The Drifter sat and listened on, replying soon after, “Mmm.. Curious- If I asked you nicely to call me something else, would you?”

A good earned laugh was all the Drifter got in return from Roathe before the devil states once more with a cheeky smile, “Hm... no. But I do appreciate the show of proper etiquette. You must earn your titles from me, Usurper. You know that.”

“Hm.. So, you’d never have the curiosity to one day learn my name? Shall I never tell you?” The Drifter countered. Curiosity all the more on the rise as to what the Devil may have as an answer.

And there was a quiet point in the conversation before Roathe took in the consideration of one day learning the Drifter’s name, like as if it were a game the two were playing, “The day I ask, then you shall tell me full front. For the time being and on, it shall be “Usurper”.”

For a moment, the two devils sat in silence, on their own little corner of the deserted edge. Between the Drifter’s subconscious leg bouncing and Roathe’s tail whipping, it was only a matter of time til one of them cracked from the awkward shell of conversation.

“Which is your favorite way to kill, Usurper?” Roathe simply asked.

The Drifter’s leg stopped twitching at that question, ataken back. His attention suddenly captured in mere bewilderment, “Pardon?”

Roathe chuckles lowly at the Drifter’s stop of motion, “Between your mopping silence and my waxing philosophical thoughts, I am simply curious. Seeing as you drift between time and space, you must have some form of favoritism to one weapon art at most.”

“When coming down to numbers, I figured you and I are likely matched. Lethality, mm.. I would rather not find out in a proverbial sword measuring contest between each other’s throats.”

The Drifter looked fully towards the Orokim Portoframe, in a state of complication before bending and complying to the topic. From the edge, the Drifter scooted more inwards and now at equal view with Roathe, visor and all.

“..And I thought I was started conversations too abruptly-“ The Drifter mumbled.

“Tch,” Roathe rolled his eyes, “You are providing anything else that may be of interesting to speak on.”

“So, Killer to Killer. Which would you prefer? Up close and personal? Do you prefer stealth or the chaos of a battlefield?”

With a stretch to the skies and sigh to follow afterwards, the Drifter thought for a little while, seated more comfortably; with one knee bent upwards and the other laying more lazily to the side.

They rest an arm on the propped up knee before answering, “Honestly speaking? Stealth. Much more cleaner and.. quieter than having to get through a mob fest first.”

“Ah, an assassin among us!” Roathe clasped his hands together with excitement, “So very useful yet so very unappreciated. I’ve fancied the art of assassins, much more than talented butlers.”

“So, with that then, tell me. Dagger? Toxin? Bow? Perhaps something else entirely.?”

The Drifter answered more thoughtfully, “Bow. I used to hunt quite a bit for sport on the lands of Duviri.. I find its grace and strength quite admirable. Easy enough to handle.”

Roathe’s head tilts, “A natural hunter, I see.. Mm, unadvanced but elegant in its own form of simplicity. One of the easiest and oldest methods to date back, most effective at its heart.”

“The performance of its strength and silence is all the more reason to find appreciation.” Roathe went on with his own imaginational descriptions, “The nocking of an arrow, drawing in taut, the anticipation of release.. then sweet, swift death when it finds its mark?” Roathe uttered with a satisfied smile, “Beautiful..”

The Drifter, for some reason or another, felt the rise of bashful laughter and gave a hearty chuckle, “You’re making this sound like it’s some kind of.. artform.”

“Because it is! And you know it,” Roathe splurged on, “In fact, half of your rooted existence is quite literally based on the concept of killing as an artform!”

“I see these “schools” the Tenno wield, and that you borrow by proxy. Let alone the teachings of the Dax,” Roathe sighed, “How they would drone on and on endlessly on restricted interfaces, no matter how many times we told them it was strictly for communication.” “I’d die happy, if I never get to hear the repeated lines of “I am a blade” and “I exist to strike” ever again.”

The Drifter shrugged his shoulders, murmuring, “It’s about the honor they carry, you orokin should’ve taken that more carefully into account beforehand.”

Roathe muttered, “Honor or not, once you’ve heard that being said on loop every few minutes, it gets to your head more ways than one. I can assure, that is the last line you’d ever want to hear while being shot down in combat.”

“Speaking of honor, humanity has always looked at “murder” as a sin, but “killing” as an art. Have you ever thought that as odd?”

Roathe went on, not giving much room for the Drifter to speak, “To kill a man in an alley with a piece of metal would be seen as cowardly and a degenerate. But to wield with a blade and fell an enemy in combat?”

“Seen as a nigh transcendent being.” The protoframe devil narrowed his eyes in keen interest, “And you speak as if “honor” makes any of difference in this manner.”

“Who decides what is honorable and what is not? The loser? The winner? Or simply the existence of tradition that’s been blindly followed by centuries worth of legacy?”

The Drifter sat quietly for a moment, something deep down in his mind wants to defend the act of honor and its weight. But even if honor were a mere part of what makes someone transcend within the respect of their peers, it does not change the fact that there was an art to it all.

The Drifter replied as he shifted where he sat, “Mmm.. I’d argue that one takes more dedication and practice while the other is a form of.. a desperate, brutal measure.”

“And even in that.. may be an art form of its own. In some twisted manner of speaking.” The Drifter continued, “Like one in a written tale of time, where the protagonist has to choose between what is morally right or wrong despite the circumstances of which they stood within.”

“Would it be morally right to end the villain’s life, despite all the suffering they’ve been through? Or would the hero be no better than the killer for committing the same act of brutality they once stride to put end to.?”

Roathe exclaimed, as if he had been waiting for so long for this kind of debate all his life, “See?! Is there not an art form to both?”

“Heh.. I suppose so.” The Drifter stayed quiet for a moment before he hummed more quietly, “However, as someone who had been both the blade of field and the brutal killer in alleys, I’d say there is no art in it once you are the one to commit such an act. Or feel it..”

“..Fascinating, mm..” Roathe soon asked the Drifter, curiously, “And why do you say so? Do you not find the thriller in the fight you produce? The feeling of the bow’s tension leaving the moment it hits its target?”

The Drifter brought a hand gently up to their neck, tracing their covered scars lightly with their finger tips, “There is no beauty or honor.. in the acts of death.”

“Receiving or giving.. No matter how much I try to give a swift, painless death, I feel no sense of honor in myself. Nor the relief of ending another’s life.”

Roathe’s eyes flicker towards the Drifter’s neck and followed where the Drifter put his hand. Some dreadful feeling crept quickly along the orokin’s spine.

“What ever do you mean, Usurper?” Roathe inquired, more carefully now, “..Did you ever commit the acts of Continuity.?”

“Not.. quite,” the Drifter swallowed, “It’s.. more complicated than simply committing the acts of what Kuva could provide.”