"Tikki is on the move again," Plagg said, by way of greeting, perched atop a row of tapestry. "I can feel her presence." From the creaking doors came a hunched figure, a man wrapped in ropes of sage and earthy browns. The sun, caught in strips of light, cast highlights on the carved floors. Plagg saw his own face, among the other kwami, in the decorative floorboards.
"Plagg," The older man greeted, smile placid across aging features. "My old friend." Plagg rolled his eyes. Fu was a man of hundreds of years, and he somehow found way to scratch at Plagg's nerves whenever they spoke.
The monastery pulled with the breeze, carding through the hanging tapestries and shifting the bells that chimed with the wind's kiss. It was sat in a trepid state of stillness, silence that Plagg found deafening. He had never liked the damned abbey.
"You knew," Plagg called, "yet you chose to tell none. Why is this, Fu?" The cat deity was pulsing, energy beating across slicked skin and bright eyes blazing. It had been two years since the first bright pulse of power, Tikki making her presence known. And that morning prior again, an agitated and flaring push that rustled the kwami and their vessels out of any sense of tranquility.
Plagg had felt it, a sinewy sensation that made him uneasy, and restless. The fiery god of destruction found himself upon the monastery of Wayzz the next day; buzzing with an energy and a sense of hopelessness, one that was atypical of him. He needed to speak with Fu, to understand Wayzz's anxiety, or perhaps his own.
Fu stopped, turning to his wrist to unravel the bracelet of sparking emerald. It caught the sunlight slipping through the ceiling rafts and twinkled, Wayzz's power warping its surface.
He had known Tikki had picked a new vessel, of course. A girl of barely nine years, when she found her. But he had felt the power, raw and unrefined, that filled the sky the day that the baker's girl took Tikki's virus into her body. That sent a fear unlike any other through the temple of Wayzz, and Fu was sure it was a mirrored feeling amongst the other kwami hosts.
"My friend," Fu sighed, raising his bracelet so it caught the light. "You would have felt it, regardless. No matter how dormant your powers are, we kwami and hosts are all connected. We share our center, and our source. Tikki's power is, unavoidably, linked to yours."
"Tikki and I are opposing forces, old man." Plagg sneered, turning his face. "She creates, and I destroy. Our hosts have never co-existed, and our nations never had lived in harmony."
"But now neither of you have nations, yet Tikki's new host is powerful enough to incite an undeniable fear in you." Fu mused. "You are both raucous, and volatile. You both tug at the sanity of our realm, making change as your influence spreads. The only difference is that your powers reap calamity, while Tikki's powers offer construction and hope."
Plagg smarted at this, baring his pristine teeth. Tikki and him had always existed on opposite ends, creating spectrums with new waves of civilization that they could be against each other on. The vessels of Plagg and Tikki, destruction and creation, spent generations attempting tearing one another apart, and when that failed they turned to the bloodlines. How many massacres, of red and black blood, had there been since the start? How many miraculous wielders, slaughtering houses, burning nations down, wreaking mass havoc on the livelihoods of the twin gods?
Plagg was exhausted, millennia of fighting Tikki, his only equal, while the other kwami accepted ignorance and took to their own houses. They had taken enough human lives, eaten at too many vessels, burned through enough power.
"Tikki's prior vessel took her own life, for she feared Tikki's power." Plagg seethed. "Or did you forget?"
"Tikki's prior vessel took her own life, for she feared your power, and Nuruu's, and Trixx's. She was a woman overcome with responsibilities and a war that overshadowed her human capabilities and life." Fu spoke. "I am afraid that forgetfulness is not a trait of mine, Plagg." That was surely Wayzz speaking, the silent snark that he was.
Plagg snorted.
He had known Ladii. She was a goddess among humans, a fierce warrior without Tikki's powers and a gladiator with them. She was a woman of equanimity; the kind of fire that flowed through her was one that incited leadership and tipped the balance of nations enough for everyone to feel it. But if there was one thing Plagg took from their few interactions, it was that she was no martyr.
The Tikkian empire was a superpower nation of exponential growth and greatness. Each vessel was stronger than the last, with a heavily protected, expansive Tikkian bloodline. As Tikki's power was passed down amongst the generations, Tikki herself grew stronger. With Tikki's power heightened, the people prospered and expanded their borders. It was once believed that her empire grew so massive, that it would take the guardians of Heaven and Hell for it to face its feet.
When it fell– when the entire bloodline of Tikki was decimated within nay a decade, and the once supernation collapsed upon the heels of its neighbors– it was called a war of borders. The fall of Tikki existed in historical records as inexplicable world event.
But the kwamis knew better. There was something eerie about the fall of a kwami and their nation, especially Tikki. Plagg knew her well enough to understand she would never willingly relinquish her power, or what she gained from their generations of service.
"Tikki's prior ves– Ladii was smothered in the depth of Tikki's power. How is an inpubescent girl going to be any different?" Plagg said, dipping off the tapestry and ebbing towards Fu.
"Why have you traveled to our monastery, Plagg, if you had not felt the quake in balance that Tikki's girl has recently brought, both now and in these past two years?" Fu countered, taking one step closer. "Why are you here, if you content with the way things are? Why is this eleven-year-old girl inciting a shake in your bones?"
"I don't have bones," Plagg snapped.
"And my point stands, regardless." Fu smiled. "You are a not a kwami of patience, or of wellbeing. Plagg, you are the god of destruction. What is here that you seek to destroy?"
Plagg blinked, once. Anger warped his face, twisting his glowing eyes.
"I seek to destroy nothing, Wayzz. I seek to restore!" Fu laughed at this, green bracelet twinkling.
"You wish to purify the wrongs? I am afraid to inform you that you possess the wrong power to do so, my dear friend." Fu smiled, mutinous and calloused "You disintegrate all that you can claw onto. You reap havoc on the vessels who call to your power, faster than they can learn how to use it.
"How phased are you, attempting to warn me of Tikki's newest vessel while you shake in fear? This bloodless eleven-year-old threatens your fickle lifestyle and your ego." Fu's voice grew a note louder, the only indication of his emotions changing. "Is it not hypocritical for the god of destruction to solve upon a problem that has yet to be created?"
"The only thing hypocritical here is your host, Wayzz!" Plagg spun around Fu, gesturing wildly to the building they stood in. "These walls are lined with Nuurian spies, Trixxian money and Hive slaves. You have been bought into secrecy, neutrality, and silence. There exists no monk who is penniless, does there?"
Fu sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Plagg—"
"No! You preach self-actualization, and new-age discovery, but you merely are a coward who enjoys to sit and watch while war rages, and the world collapses." The deity seethed, fur ruffling in anger. "Why else would you have picked a vessel so estranged from his humanity that he refuses to keel and die, Wayzz?"
Plagg had known Wayzz for millennia. For the kwami of tranquility and truth, he and his vessels spun lies that were the thickest. A monastery of corruption that worshipped a placant, bemused god.
"Why are you here, Plagg?" Fu's voice is quiet, now, drawing more from the eerie silence of the room. "Why have you come here?"
Plagg huffed.
"Plagg," The serene tone of Fu's voice made it clear that Wayzz's influence was present in his next words. "My old friend. You know I care for you; like the brothers we are." Plagg shifted his bright gaze away from Fu, away from his bracelet and the shine of its power. "I know you, and how you have always held a heart too big for your empirical form. And I know you come with the purest of intentions."
Fu stopped himself, and turned towards the door. Plagg sighed, discontent.
"Looks like the queen of tricks is here for a visit." Even Fu could not stop the smile that made its way to his face. "We are not done here, Fu."
With that Plagg's body plumed into smoke, leaving Fu alone in the temple room, tapestries humming with the trumpet call to announce the queen.
"My, he was always one for dramatics," Fu mused. "No wonder he and Tikki never got along."
"You look as lovely as ever, Empress." Fu called from behind the raucous state of his desk, papers spilling atop his work and onto the floor.
"Please, Fu." She started, hanging her fur along the wall. "Your men took my weapons and crown when I crossed the border, along with my warriors. I am no Empress, on this land."
"You are an Empress wherever there is land, Marlena." Fu sighed, hand working away at his journal absentmindedly. "Your aura speaks volumes to your leadership. Even without your crown and jewels, clad with nothing, you command an undeniable, solitary authority."
"Flattery is not a trait suitable for a monk. Do not think I am here to blush under your pretty words," Marlena said. "I am well aware of your mendacious ways and misdirection."
"You've come to speak to me about the girl, no?" Fu dipped his quill into the ink, puffing on it lightly before returning to his notes. His tone was carefully light and his words were soft, but his eyes never strayed his page.
Marlena, unaccustomed to being ignored, felt her temper flare at his indignation and causal dismissal of her presence. She was familiar with Fu, and the games he played. And she knew that he was not to be dealt with like any other man.
To her knowledge, Fu was the oldest mortal wielder of the miraculi's virus. To call him mortal might have been seen a stretch, with a lifespan that far surpassed any of their own. There was little about him or his life that was known, about both him as a monk or Wayzz, his deity. Marlena had yet to find a vessel who matched their god as well as Fu did with Wayzz. Fu was made to be the one to accept Wayzz's power in his own.
In a sense, she was almost jealous. She knew, at an unspeakably deep level, that she was not a wielder made to fit into Trixx's fickle puzzle.
But now was no time to mourn her lack of compatibility, with a man who could bend her mind's colours at will. She knew that her anger would not go unnoticed. Few were the times that she let Fu pull his spell on her, and play with her emotions. Wayzz's power, the quaint ability to stabilize the emotions of others, was one that worked almost too easily with Fu's placid personality.
"I have brought her earrings, to prove their legitimacy." Marlena stepped from his desk and turned to her fur, reaching into its folds and withdrawing a pouch of sewn gold.
"Marlena, you have wasted a beautiful morning," Fu sighed. "I hope your carriages are drawn, and ready to go."
Marlena's brow drew, hands curling around the pouch with an undeniable tremble.
"You should have known that girl was Tikki's wielder, from the moment you laid eyes upon her," Fu murmured, almost to himself.
With angered vigor, Marlena tore apart the ribbon holding the pouch sealed, and watched with sharp eyes as minute shards of rusted copper fell into her waiting palm. When she ran a gloved thumb over the remains, they reduced to fine dust, billowing out of her hand with the breeze.
"The earrings…" She breathed.
"Were destroyed, the moment you made it down the hallway." Fu finished. "A kwami cannot be removed from their vessel's person, not in the physical manner that you attempted. The stone they arrived in is not the one they depart with, unfortunately."
Fu put his quill down tepidly, finally meeting Marlena's even gaze. "But we are both aware that this is not what has brought you over to our humble monastery, your Empress." At this, Marlena snarled, hands held clenched at her side and ruby dust forgotten. "You are here to justify your actions, to ease the mental guilt of locking a child away. If I know you as well as I do, you have sent soldiers to ransack her home and stake her parents as treasonous, no?"
"You know as well as I do that…" She stopped, feeling oddly level headed. "–Cease your meddling with my emotions, monk!"
Fu laughed, but motioned for her to continue.
"You know the Tikkian bloodline is not one to be taken lightly. These are mere precautions to protect my people, as their Empress. It is my sole responsibility to keep the peace."
Now it was Fu whose face contorted in confusion.
"This is your attempt at peace? You sound as if you are more concerned at protecting your fragile stalemate, with Gabriel. However, you merely jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of a Tikkian blood vessel, so you could have another kwami under your control. Are you attempting to catch up to Agreste?
"You care nothing for peace, Marlena. You only wish for power. Do not make a mockery of this peace; using the life of a child as a scapegoat to destroy the security of these times."
"Fu, we are constantly counting down the days until our hard-earned peace is lost. Gabriel has his eyes on Plagg, for his youngest boy. He has the peacock locked away, somewhere deep within his castle. He even has the Hive in his metropolis, helping him to build an elite guard that grows by the minute." Marlena exhaled, heavily. "Are you not worried, Fu? My days are numbered with illness, and my bloodline is small. I must protect what is most precious to me."
Fu smiles, but it does not crinkle at his eyes or radiate happiness. It is a deceitful look, even for the queen of trickery. "You must not understand, Marlena, that the kwami at our root are a virus." His bracelet grows with its miraculous' presence. "Your kwami is never at the will of your power, or your desire. You are always a host to the undeniably vicious, life-sucking will of your God. It is the sacrifice you continuously make, for the powers you acquire."
Wayzz's voice was different from Fu's, unalike in depth with a timber that was peculiarly non-human. It was a trait of all the kwami, it seemed.
Marlena was not ill to their concerns. She knew, of course, that Fu held an undeniable truth to his words. And that the things he said were not new, about their tepid relationship, and about the kwami themselves. But to hear it again, without the grainy rasp of Fu's voice but instead the downy silk of his gods, chased an unequivocal fear down her spine. Marlena knew that if interfering with the balance of the gods was a mistake, she would pay a price steeper than she could imagine in her wrongdoings. Her grapple for power would topple the Trixxian empire, and leave her with a bigger wager to pay. This gamble would have a price higher than her life, than her bloodline, than her legacy.
But who was she to refuse it?
A challenge? She was the queen of Trixx, was she not?
"Do not let your pride get in the way, Marlena." Fu called from his desk, returning to his quill.
"Do not take me as a mere fool, Fu." She replied, easy as breathing. "I will be taking my leave now. It seems clear that I have overstayed my welcome."
Before he could interject, she had turned for her exit, leaving him to watch her gait; slow, but not without grace. Her shoulders moved with purpose, and strength.
She was a formidable ruler, but an Empire built around a God could never be held upright by a single queen.