Onto a Brighter Future

[Daeut]

Upon receiving word of the declaration of hostilities by the Ten's Citadel, the Oracle of Athelios addressed an open letter to its incumbent Exarch, Sabathiel Caewynn.

...

Your eyes do not see that which they wish to ignore. Your ears do not hear that which they have decided is not worth it. If they burn, they were guilty; if they do not, they are martyred, and you were still right to prove their virtue.

I made it clear during the Moot that everything I have done, everything I have achieved, is under my control. You bemoan that those I have sworn to redeem and protect aid your enemies, when I have made assurances they will not. They have not, since enrolling under my custody. Rather than side with the enemy, I have divested them of a most valuable asset to guide as one of mine, while you needlessly make a new enemy of me and my people.

The Servant is the only on this continent who knows to seal the fallen angel at large, as they have done so in the past. You sidestep this crucial utility.

For what?

Retribution? Revenge?

My highest aspirations are those of a world brighter, and more colorful, than you could ever conceive. Your highest aspirations thus far, and as you act, seem to prove no higher than driving your sword through the heart of anything your purview cannot fathom, so that you can feel like the hero you always pictured yourself becoming.

You cry and as you strike at us to desperately frame this as me selling out my own people, when it is anything but. As a child might. This is about you raging to exact your retribution against those who have personally wronged you, and sweeping anyone that stands in your way throughout the process. This is about your quest for revenge. Tantrums are unbecoming of grown men like yourself--especially when they implicate thousands.

I chose that their lives were sacrifices I was willing to make for my own goals? I don't remember making that choice. It certainly isn't I who is taking any lives to achieve their aspirations, nor do my aspirations aim to do anything more than save them. That would be you, Sabathiel. You made that choice. I asked for us to be left alone. We either bow to your demands and whims, or you visit ruination. Because you cannot brook a worldview that cannot conform to your black and white morality.

My nation's sovereignty and right to pursue its own path towards the betterment of the world is not, and should not ever be, contingent on appeasing petulant, coddled brats like yourself to sate his pathetic Mortylian bloodlust.

Your people do not want this. My people do not want this. I do not want this.

You paint yourselves as liberators, overestimating just how much this continent actually respects you. Least of all my own people, who know what they're fighting for. You can spew whatever filth you please about mind enslavement to an imperfect, necromancer, Talguth, or otherwise. Everyone has heard the same tale of me time and time again. We look at your accusations, and can do naught but roll our eyes. Malign me however it suits your agenda; the difference between you and Jokul is that no one cares for your see-through lies.

I work in a realm of dreams from which they are spun and made real. I have seen yours among an endless sea of repetition. They're boring.

You're boring.

Perhaps we can come to an agreement: We can exchange Arlyss if you're willing to give away your witch mother whom you love so much, and a vial of the tears you shed at your father's unsealing.

But I don't think you are.