Typing a reply made me re-check Big B's paralogue
And I remembered this post where I ranted about some stuff
Big B goes :
It's not exactly a real Relic, per se.
Nope. It's a replica. Crafted after the War of Heroes.
It's a secret family heirloom of sorts from my mom's village.
Now, we know the weapons "similar" to Relics were used during the War of the Eagle and the Lion by Loog's side, so yes, Relics (even if they don't belong to the Elites, they are still powered by Crest Stones and made of Umbral Steel unlike Aymr!) were still being made post WoH.
And that makes me think...
In the earlier post, I was kind of trying to make sense of Willy's conquest and came up with the idea of him brutally putting to the sword/axe/whatever he used the clans and people who knew how to "craft" relics, aka "seeking more power", but also, just people who know because this secret must be hidden at all costs.
Willy's callous actions might have been done with the best intentions (protect Nabateans) but it still led him to slaughter people whose only "sin" was... knowledge.
Fodlan games being what they are, we will not know if Vajra Mushti was made of "material" that was "already harvested" in Zanado, or if a Nabatean - post Zanado - was trounced to craft it, like a random one who was not present during the initial genocide and ultimately was killed for the same reasons. We know Pan was most likely an Agarthan person, was he the one who gifted "new golden weapons" to Loog's side? Were those weapons from "freshly harvested" Nabateans, or made from the "previously harvested" ones whose bones were in the barracks?
Now, concerning Balthus' in particular...
This relic is, per his words, something crafted after the WoH and it was treated as a heirloom in Kupala. Mmkay.
But we also have this :
There's a story they tell where my mom grew up. Long ago, the village got in a squabble with some folks looking to conquer the place.
A village elder gave some holy red stuff to their wounded soldiers. Some kind of liquid, who knows...
After she did that, some of them made a complete recovery, against all odds.
The rest of them were changed, but not for the better. They up and vanished before long.
Crests suddenly manifested for the ones who survived.
The Apostle Chevalier left Garreg Mach after the Rite of Rising and went in the mountains, most likely Kupala.
Then, he gave his blood because some people tried to conquer the village (tfw Kupala is located near the Almyran border?), some people got crests and the others, well, didn't (Balthus wonders what "vanished" means, but maybe it means they were turned in demonic beasts?).
And then... Balthus says the gauntlets were "crafted" (so he calls them replicas) so it's knowledge they were "made" and we know what kind of "material" was used.
Assuming Chevalier was a Nabatean (since the only occurences of people healing and getting a crest thanks to magic blood come from people who got their transfusion from a nabatean, Nopes!Seteth mentions how an Elite was supposedly "cured" after getting a crest...) - this would mean he fails the rite of rising and retires in the mountains, live in a village with humans, humans are threatened so he saves them -
and then he is fucking harvested and crafted in a weapon
(Vajra-Mushti has two crest stones (tfw gauntlet) so maybe some random Agarthan gave them the second "crest stone" if Chevalier only had one)
Nabatean Chevalier helps humans and is harvested as a result by the same humans he saved and who knew they could "craft" weapons from him.
(in the best course of action, just like Aubin, Chevalier died "from natural causes" and humans later used his bones to craft the relic, instead of killing him)
Wouldn't this mean, at the end of the day though, that Willy would be, in this theory, right?
If humans know how to craft "golden weapons", they will craft them, regardless of the nature of the "material" used - the people of Kupala were saved by Chevalier the Nabatean... and they show their gratitude by desacrating his remains to build a weapon and treat "it" as a "family heirloom"
(if not straight up killing him to craft said weapon!)
Given how fond Yuri was of old man Aubin, I picture him having the same reaction as Edward from FMA who found out the "being" he transmuted wasn't his mother, when he will find out "what" is the nifty relic he uses.
(granted, given the age of all parties and how the Fetters of Dromi were previously in Dagda, I wonder if Aubin was the one who was turned in an accessory, or if it wasn't another snow dragon...)
In the end - current Fodlan (or post WoH fodlan) - isn't safe for Nabateans because humans will always seek new "weapons" so what was is the solution to adopt, now that this "knowledge" is out in the wild?
If Willy picked the "erase those who know" option, he slaughters innocent people and doesn't even manage to bury the secret, since Chevalier (and maybe the ones from the Loog War?) was harvested, so he just killed a bunch of people for no results.
Rhea's lie about "gifts from the goddess don't think about it"... was sooner or later not going to work anymore, one of her scholars nearly managed to pierce this secret but desisted, and the few relics that "appear" spontanously, called "replicas" or what not throw a wrench in this narrative (just like crests gifted via transfusion!).
No wonder why Rhea thought only Sothis could find a solution - but anyways, what is the solution in this situation???
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She broke off the kiss when she felt the top button of her shirt be undone.
Panting, Jillian took a step back, eyeing Suzanne’s black veil, her vows. A pair of concerned eyes stared back at her while a pair of hands still at Jillian’s shirt trembled slightly. She caught them with her own and kept them in place.
“Are you sure?” Jillian breathed out, before raising one and then the other of Suzanne’s hands to her lips, bestowing delicate blessings upon hardened knuckles.
A tender smile lit up the face a scar had once darkened. Suzanne leaned into her again and pressed a soft promise upon Jillian’s mouth.
“Are you?”
The candlelight flickered. Silence reigned gracefully over the convent and the city below it while their breath mingled hot and nervous, alive amid stillness.
This was nothing new; they were both aware of what lovers did, of course — only the memory was so distant, the idea so foreign… Suzanne had married heaven, Jillian knowledge; fleshless spouses such as these could never adore them back. Years, lifetimes of neglect suddenly made new what was old as time as they stood together at the precipice of this unfamiliar intimacy.
Love had simply happened; circumstance allowed a word, a gesture, a touch — this rarest of benedictions, this uncanny discovery science would never fully explain, faith never fully accept. Touches were made bolder, hands dared to clasp one another, pull, hold tight, invite the inevitable kiss to seal the contract and tear down the veil…
The veil.
Jillian touched it solemnly, waiting. With tremulous fingers, she began to undo it as soon as another button on her shirt was tentatively pushed out of its place; they spoke in their own mute language, echoing the question and the questioning answer with every timid move: “Are you sure? Are you?”
In this languid ritual, no inch of skin was taken for granted. Every revelation was adored, slowly, slowly, ever searching for certainty — a kiss at the base of the neck, another at a shoulder, hair coming lose, are you sure, are you sure, are you sure...? There was something blasphemous, there was something sacred in each curve, each joint, each scar; Jillian needed not envy Suzanne’s repertoire of hymns, for they would both compose their own with every kiss. Divine rhymes in the tongue of quietness littered the warmth they so carefully exposed.
Hesitation darkened the shadows around them — how pathetic, how ridiculous, how adulterous, for who would now worship god or numbers, the invisible deities who had hitherto kept their beds so cold and spacious? How audacious to display a birthmark, a crease, a patch of unkempt hair, mortality itself, when the holiness of prayer or genius had so long carried the privilege of guarding them…
A total embrace, two hearts reaching out to one another madly, terrified of beating so near, so alike — but more frightened still to avoid this, to part.
Night time is god’s asylum for sin, for shame; so they remained where the orange flame could yet paint them out from shadow, where they could quickly notice whether the answer had or had not changed — are you sure?
A gasp, a moan — quiet, slow, pure, unlike any of the songs of devotion or the groans of dying enemies Suzanne was so used to, unlike the inhuman humming of machines Jillian herself had hallucinated into being.
Fumbling thumbs, accompanied by giggles only the girls they had once been had any right to utter, travelled uncertain, insecure, knowing their desired destination but losing themselves in the infinite invisible roads that led everywhere. An awkward angle elicited embarrassment, but what was there to be embarrassed of? Theirs were other sorts of experience. Killing, healing, creating, inspiring… The nun and the immaculate mother would have time to learn together what worship was, with less questions at every touch, less fear at every breath…
But never without wonder.
And as Suzanne sighed and Jillian heaved and neither deigned to contemplate the cross on the wall when religion lay down right beside them, entangled with their very limbs, they kissed once more.
The first few rays of daylight lazily coloured the trail of smoke which the melted candle had left in the room.
“We’ll have to get up soon enough… Morning service.”
An incredulous guffaw of laughter shook bare, radiant skin, catching in the folds of discarded clothes mixed in a heap of black and white upon the stone floor.
“Are you very sure...?”
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